W. FRASER.
Unlucky for Pregnant Women to take an Oath (Vol. iv., p. 151.).
—I beg to inform COWGILL that Irishwomen of the lower order almost invariably refuse to be sworn while pregnant. Having frequently had to administer oaths to heads of families applying for relief during the famine in Ireland in 1847-8-9, I can speak with certainty as to the fact, though I am unable to account for the origin of the superstition.
BARTANUS.
Dublin.
Borough-English (Vol. iv., p. 133.).
—Burgh or Borough-English is a custom appendant to ancient boroughs, such as existed in the days of Edward the Confessor and William the Conqueror, and are contained in the Book of Domesday. Taylor, in his History of Gavelkind, p. 102., states, that in the villages round the city of Hereford, the lands are all held in the tenure of Borough-English. There appears also to be a customary descent of lands and tenements in some places called Borow-English, as in Edmunton: vid. Kitchin of Courts, fol. 102. The custom of Borough-English, like that of gavelkind, and those of London and York, is still extant; and although it may have been in a great measure superseded by deed or will, yet, doubtless, instances occur in the present day of its vitality and consequent operation.
FRANCISCUS.
Date of a Charter (Vol. iv., p. 152.).
—I suspect that the charter to which MR. HAND refers, is one of the time of Henry II., and not of Henry III. The latter sent no daughter to Sicily; but Joan, the daughter of the former, was married to William, king of Sicily, in the year 1176, 22 Henry II. In the Great Roll of that year (Rot. 13 b.) are entries of payments for hangings in the king's chamber on that occasion, and of fifty marks given to Walter de Constantiis, Archdeacon of Oxford, for entertaining the Sicilian ambassadors. See Madox's Exchequer, i. 367., who also in p. 18. refers to Hoveden, P. 2. p. 548. This may perhaps assist in the discovery of the precise date, which I cannot at present fix.