[If our correspondent had referred to Richardson's Dictionary, his difficulty would have been removed on reading this derivation and definition:
"Angl.-Saxon, Be-healdan, Be-haldan, Healdan. Dutch, Behouden, tenere, servare, observare. To keep or hold (sc. the eye fixed upon any object), to look at it, to observe, to consider.">[
Men of Kent and Kentish Men.
—The natives of Kent are often spoken of in these different terms. Will you be so good as to inform me what is the difference between these most undoubtedly distinctive people?
B. M.
[A very old man, in our younger days, whose informant lived temp. Jac. II., used to explain it thus:—When the Conqueror marched from Dover towards London, he was stopped at Swansconope, by Stigand, at the head of the "Men of Kent," with oak boughs "all on their brawny shoulders," as emblems of peace, on condition of his preserving inviolate the Saxon laws and customs of Kent; else they were ready to fight unto the death for them. The Conqueror chose the first alternative: hence we retain our Law of Gavelkind, &c., and hence the inhabitants of the part of Kent lying between Rochester and London, being "invicti," have ever since been designated as "Men of Kent," while those to the eastward, through whose district the Conqueror marched unopposed, are only "Kentish Men." This is hardly a satisfactory account; but we give it as we had it.
We suspect the real origin of the terms to have been, a mode of distinguishing any man whose family had been long settled in the county (from time immemorial, it may be), from new settlers; the former being genuine "Men of Kent," the latter only "Kentish." The monosyllabic name of the county probably led to this play upon the word, which could not have been achieved in the "shires.">[
Bee-Park.
—This term is used in Cornish title-deeds. What species of inclosure does it express? Do any such exist now?
C. W. G.