All communications must be accompanied by the name and address of the sender, not necessarily for publication.
HERALDIC QUERY.
Sir,—Can any of your readers kindly inform me what family bears or bore the arms “Ermine, on a bend azure three lions rampant or”?
T. J. H.
ISLE D’ECOSSE.
Sir,—In Aytoun’s “Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers,” there is a ballad entitled the “Island of the Scots,” setting forth that in 1697, France and Germany being at war, an island in the Rhine, strongly garrisoned by German troops under General Stirke, was attacked and taken in a most gallant manner by a company of Scotsmen, exiles from their own country, and in the service of the King of France; and that this island has ever since been known by the name of Isle d’Ecosse. Can you inform me where this isle is situated, and where I can see a detailed account of the above passage of arms? The isle, I may add, is not mentioned by Murray.
R. M. B.
MINING IN THE HOME COUNTIES.
Sir,—In the Lansdowne MSS. (57, fol. 146) in the British Museum, may be seen a copy of a licence granted in December, 1588, by Queen Elizabeth, to one John Nicholls, for a term of six months, to dig for “mynes or myneralls of golde, silver, tynne, or leade, hidden within the earth, in the counties of Middlesex, Hertford, Buckingham, and Kent.” What success may have attended his searches in the other counties I know not; but as I searched in vain for any notice to the effect of a renewal of the grant so far as concerns Hertfordshire, it is more than probable that Master John Nicholls did not find “myning” a very profitable occupation in that county. Can any of your readers throw light upon the subject?
Fossor.