Shirley Hibberd.
Impe (Vol. viii., pp. 443. 623.).—This epithet has been much discussed, but I think that no reference has been made to the following remarkable instances of its application.
In the Beauchamp Chapel at St. Mary's Warwick is the altar-tomb and effigy of the infant son of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, with a long inscription, which begins:
"Heere resteth the body of the noble impe Robert of Dudley, Baronet of Denbigh, sonne of Robert, Erle of Leycester, nephew and heire unto Ambrose, Erle of Warwike."
In a letter from Edinburgh, dated 5th November, 1578, John Aleyn to the Bishop of Carlisle, writes of "the goodly young Imp their King," who was afterwards our James I.; and the Earl of Shrewsbury in 1585 writes of "my wife and her imps," the lady being his energetic Countess Elizabeth Hardwick, widow of Sir William Cavendish. (See Lodge's Illustrations of British History, vol. ii. pp. 135. 275.)
R. A.
Melford.
"Bothy" (Vol. ix., p. 305.).—For a very complete account of "the Bothy system" in Scotland, see the able and interesting pamphlet of the Rev. Harry Stuart: Agricultural Labourers as they were, are, and should be (Blackwood).
W. C. Trevelyan.