MEANING OF GROOM.
(Vol. v., p. 57.)
Several of the recent articles of the "N. & Q." having had relation to the word groom, I may be allowed to submit to you a most ludicrous misconception of the duties attributed by our continental neighbours to our court-office of "Groom of the Stole," which struck me some years ago. One of the most laborious, and, from his extensive historical knowledge, one of the most competent editors of French memoirs, is M. F. Barrière, whose introductory discourses have been used so frequently by the writers on French subjects in the Quarterly Review, though not always with frank avowal of the obligation. In 1828 he published Les Mémoires du Comte de Brienne, a distinguished public man during the minority and early reign of Louis XIV., and there, at p. 372. of the second volume, referring to Brienne's father's Mémoires, tome i. p. 407. (Amsterdam, 1719, 8vo.), produces the following singular misapprehension of our habits and language. In 1624 the elder of these noblemen, it seems, was deputed by Louis XIII. to adjust the preparatory arrangements of our Charles I.'s marriage with Henrietta Maria, the French monarch's sister, who, it was stipulated, should be attended equally by French and English ladies. Among the former are named the Duchess of Chevreuse, the Maréchale de Thémines (wife of the Marshal), and Madame de Saint-Georges, who had been the princess's governess and lady of honour,—a title unknown, it is said, at the English court, but for which the Duke of Buckingham, the representative of Charles, proposed as an equivalent, that of Groom of the Stool (sic) "qui revient assez bien à ce qu'on appelerait dans notre langue, le gentilhomme, ou la dame de la chaise-percée. Cette charge est très considérable; elle fait jouir de très grands privilèges," &c. A natural expression of surprise follows this portraiture of a high and regular functionary, whose attributes not even majesty could ennoble or strip of indignity. The transposition of the name and duties of Groom of the Stole has caused this most ridiculous blunder—a double one, indeed, for the office does not belong to female majesty, though it may, as of course at present, form part of a royal consort's household. The living editor of De Brienne, who dwells on these "étranges usages de nos voisins d'outremer," tells us, and it is confirmed by De Brienne himself, that this nobleman felt proud and honoured at the familiarity and confidence of Louis XIV., who often conferred with him on state affairs, enthroned "sur sa chaise-percée." The Duchess of Burgundy, mother of Louis XV., it is known, never hesitated to administer to herself a relieving remedy, not to be pronounced by name in English society, in presence of Louis XIV. and his attendant courtiers; so that these violations of decorum, falsely imputed to our court, were of historical truth at Versailles.
J. R. (Cork).
May not groom be the literal English of the French écuyer, and have in the places quoted the same meaning as esquire, which is evidently the Anglicised French?
W. C. TREVELYAN.
Wallington.
BALLAD OF LORD DELAWARE.
(Vol. ii., pp. 104. 158.; Vol. v., p. 243.)
As I have reason to believe that several of your readers are interested in this old ballad, I send you an exact transcript of the oral version contained in Mr. Lyle's (not Lyte's, as incorrectly printed in my former communication) now rare little volume.
Your correspondent C. W. G. thinks that it relates to some transaction much later than 1622; and possibly he may be right. It may be as well, however, to mention that Mr. J. H. Dixon, who inserted the ballad in his Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of England (Percy Society, No. LXII.), thinks otherwise, and, indeed, claims for it an antiquity as high as the reign of Edward III., A.D. 1377. He suggests that for De la Ware we should read De la Mare, and believes Sir Thomas De la Mare, Speaker of the House of Commons, to have been the hero. Mr. Dixon says:
"All historians are agreed in representing him as a person using 'great freedom of speech,' and which, indeed, he carried to such an extent as to endanger his personal liberty. As bearing somewhat upon the subject of the ballad, it may be observed that De la Mare was a great advocate of popular rights, and particularly protested against the inhabitants of England being subject to 'purveyance;' asserting that 'if the royal revenue was faithfully administered, there could be no necessity for laying burdens on the people.'"