—In reply to the second query of Βορέας, I send the following extract from Sir James Ware's Writers of Ireland:—
"John Maxwell was at first promoted to the Sees of Killala and Achonry, and afterwards translated to the archbishopric of Tuam. He writ a Treatise intitled, Sacro-Sancta Regum Majestas; Printed London, 1643 or 1644, 4to., which he published under the name of J.A. In answer to which came out a Tract intitled, Lex, Rex; The Law and the Prince, a dispute for the just Prerogative of King and People. Containing the Reasons and Causes of the most necessary defensive Wars of the Kingdom of Scotland, and of their expedition for the aid and help of their dear brethren in England. In which their Innocency is asserted, and a full Answer is given to a seditious Pamphlet, intitled, Sacro-Sancta Regum Majestas, or the Sacred and Royal Prerogative of Christian Kings under the name of J. A. but penned by John Maxwell, the excommunicate Prelate. London, 1644, 4to."
TYRO.
Dublin.
Your correspondent Βορέας asks who was the author of the Sancta Regum Majestas, or the Sacred and Royal Prerogative of Christian Kings: Oxford, 1644.
This work has been by some erroneously attributed to Archbishop Ussher, from the supposition that the letters J.A., subscribed to the dedication, denoted Jacobus Armachanus; they signify, however, Johannes Alladensis, and the real author was John Maxwell, Bishop of Killala. See Ware's Writers of Ireland (Harris's edit.), p. 357.
J. H. T.
Grimsditch (Vol. iii., pp. 192. 330.).
—There is a wood so called in the parish of Saffron Walden, which has long formed a part of the Audley End estates. It is about a mile from the town, situated on the crest of a steep hill, on the south side of the road leading to Linton, and from its commanding position may have been at some time a military station. Some portions of a fosse may still be traced on the lower edge of the wood; but no tradition connected with its history has descended to us. Warton, in his Account of Kiddington, Oxon, p. 62., edition 1815, observes that Stukeley describes a fosse called Grimsditch, near Ditchley House, between Stunsfield and Chipping Norton, the vallum of which was eastward. He also says that the word means "the ditch made by magic," and was indiscriminately applied to ancient trenches, roads, and boundaries, whether British, Roman, Saxon, or Danish.
We learn from the same work, that there exists a vallum, or ridged bank, within two miles of Ewelme, and near to Nuffield, called Grimsditch; and the lands adjoining to it are described in a charter in or before the reign of Richard I. as "extra fossatum de Grimisdic."