"Branks," (Vol. ix., p. 149.).—In Wodrow's Biographical Collections, vol. ii. p. 72., under the date June 15, 1596, will be found the following:
"The Session (of Glasgow) appoint jorgs and branks to be made for punishing flyters."
I cannot at this moment refer particularly, but I know that the word is to be found in Burns' Poems in the sense of a rustic bit or bridle. The term is still in use in the west of Scotland; and country horses, within the memory of many, were tormented with the clumsy contrivance across their noses. With all its clumsiness it was very powerful, as it pressed on the nostrils of the animal: its action was somewhat like that of a pair of scissors.
L. N. R.
Theobald le Botiller. (Vol. viii., p. 367.).—If Mr. Devereux refers to Lynch on Feudal Dignities, p. 81., he will find that Theobald le Botiller, called the second hereditary Butler of Ireland, was of age in 1220, and died, not in 1230, but in 1248; that he married Roesia de Verdon; that his eldest son and heir was Theobald, third Butler (grandfather of Edmund, sixth Butler, who was created Earl of Carrick), and that by the same marriage he was also the ancestor of the Verdons of England and of Ireland. Now, in Lodge's Peerage by Archdall, 1789, vol. iv. p. 5., it is said that the wife of Theobald, second Butler, was Joane, eldest sister and co-heir of John de Marisco, a great baron in Ireland; and thirdly, Sir Bernard Burke, in his Extinct Peerage, makes his wife to be Maud, sister of Thomas à Becket. Which of these three accounts am I to believe?
Y. S. M.
Lord Harington (not Harrington) (Vol. viii., p. 366.).—In Collins' Peerage, by Sir Egerton Brydges, ed. 1812, I find that Hugh Courtenay, second Earl of Devon, born in 1303, had a daughter Catherine who married first, Lord Harington, and secondly, Sir Thomas Engain. This evidently must have been John, second Lord Harington, who died in 1363, and not William, fifth lord, as given in Burke: the fifth lord was not born till after 1384, and died in 1457.
Y. S. M.
Amontillado (Vol. ix., p. 222.).—This wine was first imported into England about the year 1811, and the supply was so small, that the entire quantity was only sufficient for the table of three consumers, who speedily became attached to it, and thenceforward drank no other sherry. One of these was His Royal Highness the late Duke of Kent; and another, an old friend of one who now ventures from a distant recollection to give an account of its origin.
The winegrowers at Xeres de la Frontera had been obliged, in consequence of the increasing demand for sherry, to extend their vineyards up the sides of the mountains, beyond the natural soil of the sherry grape. The produce thus obtained was mixed with the fruit of the more genial soil below, and a very good sherry for common use was the result.