PEDIGREE OF BRIGGS FAMILY.-All Norfolk of his father's brain power, and transmitted some Norwich. CARACCIOLI, 1799.-In Blackwood's Magazine for May, 1877, in an article on Naples, the sad story of the death of Prince François Caraccioli on June 29, 1799, is related, and the oft told tale of the rising again of his body, "though weighted with 250 lbs. of iron shot." I do not know on what it may be said to be most improbable, if not wholly authority this part of the story rests, but I think impossible. The quantity of gas necessary to give to a human body the required amount of buoyancy to cause it to float in the sea as described would be about 7,000 cubic inches, a volume more than any human body, however distended, could well contain. The real weight, always given on the authority of Captain Hardy, is variously stated in different accounts. Perhaps the version in Colletta's Storia del Reame di Napoli, Capolago, 1834, i. 418, is the correct one. He says, "dal peso di cinquanta due libbre inglesi, misurate dal Capitano Tommaso Hardy." To make the story appear miraculous have not successive writers gradually is, 52 lbs. into 250 lbs.? enlarged fifty-two pounds into two fifty, that Another doubtful point which should be set at rest is the age of the prince. In Clarke's Life of Nelson, 1809, i. p. 185, he is described as a tall man about seventy years of age; and when asking to be shot, and not hung, he said to Lieutenant Parkinson, " antiquaries owe so much to Blomefield that it sounds ungracious to say a word to his discredit. Nevertheless, it needs to be repeated again and again that the pedigrees in the History of Norfolk are quite untrustworthy. They are of the nature of those compilations which Mr. Freeman so vigorously assails, and which every real archeologist abominates because they put him upon a wrong scent. No better instance of this could be given than the Briggs pedigree which Mr. Beauland refers to (8vo. ed., iv. 221). In that single line of which Mr. Beauland quotes a portion there are statements which it would puzzle the whole College of Heralds to explain. But if any one can throw some light upon the Briggs family, I shall be very grateful. Perhaps the best way of setting to work in a question of this kind is to start from certainty. Richard Briggs was born at Warley Wood, in the parish of Halifax. He had a brother, Henry Briggs, who was one of the first mathematicians of his time, and was Savillian Professor of Geometry in the University of Oxford. If any one wants to know more about Henry, I refer him to Ward's Gresham Professors and the never failing Anthony à Wood. As to Richard, he entered at St. John's Coll., Cambridge, as a pensioner on March 18, 1577-8; was elected scholar of the college Dec. 5, 1579; B.A., 1581; M.A., 1585. Soon after taking his M.A. degree he appears to have been appointed to the sub-mastership of Norwich School. He certainly had six children born before his appointment to the head-mastership, to which he succeeded in October, 1598. He was a personal A GOVERNOR OF MALINES OR MECHLIN IN 1612. friend and correspondent of Ben Jonson's, and a-A lady friend of mine is in possession of a porletter from "glorious Ben" to him may be seen in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1786. p. 378). Two at least of his sons were Fellows of Corpus Christi Coll., Camb. One of them, Thomas, was bursar of the college, and had as his sureties his father and his uncle the Savillian Professor. As to Augustine Briggs, a person who occupies a certain position in the history of Norwich, I believe him to have been a son of my worthy predecessor, the above Richard Briggs, head master of this school. If this were so, he inherited a good deal in the Biographie Universelle, vol. lx. p. 152, it is Sir, I am an old man," &c. (ibid. p. 186). Yet stated that he was only fifty-two; and, according to the memorial tablet on the house where he was born, he was only forty-seven at the time of his execution (Blackwood, p. 580). A man of fortyseven would hardly speak of himself as an old man, who cared not for his life. EDWARD SOLLY. Sutton, Surrey. trait of a gentleman who was Governor of Malines and died in 1612. It is painted on panel, and is that of a person very richly dressed in the costume of the period, holding a key in his right hand, I suppose in right of his office of governor. I shall feel very greatly obliged if one of your learned readers will kindly help me to identify the portrait. At the top of the picture is the following inscription, or rather the latter part of an inscription, which would no doubt have given the information I require, but unfortunately the panel has been cut down and the upper part is missing. The lettering runs right across the picture, half being on one side of the head and half on the other, but as the panel is not square there is one more line of lettering on the left side than on the right. It is as follows: BOXTEL. ET. DE. LUCRE DOVERISQVE. DE. PLOMION ROY. DESPAGNE. ET. DEL'AR ET. L'INFANTE. ISABELLE. SA. DES. PAIS. BAS. ET. LEVR. ROY. DE. FRANCE. MORT. LE.7. FEVRIE. 1612. PEACOCKS' FEATHERS.-I have heard one Cheshire farmer's wife assure another that children could never be well or healthy in any rooms in which peacocks' feathers were used as ornaments. This was in consequence of a gaudy fringe of this plumage, which decked out the looking-glass of the parlour in which the conversation took place. RELLAN. DE. PHILIPE. 2 The speaker continued that it was very "unlucky" ... CH.DVC.ALBERT.D. AVSTRICHE FEMME. PRINCE. ET. PRINCESS AMBASADEVR. VER. HANRY.4. GOVERNOVR. DE. MALINES. CRICKLADE CHURCH.-Some time ago I visited the fine church at Cricklade, and was struck by seeing, in the interior, on each column of support to the chancel and transept arches, which bear the tower and spire, a stone on which is carved one of the four suits of playing cards. The diamond, heart, and club are exactly like those at present in use; the spade is more like the "fleur de lys." The rector, Mr. Dyson, could give no explanation of so peculiar a church ornament, nor could Gough furnish any, nor any of those who are considered authorities on points of ecclesiastical architecture -all have said they " never heard of such a thing"; and some have begged me to write to "N. & Q." in hopes of some among your numerous readers being able to throw light on the matter. Mr. Dyson could not give me any date to the tower beyond that of 1569, inscribed on a buttress outside. In the early French cards the tréfle or trefoil took the place of clubs. But, as I read, in 1660 heraldic cards were first introduced into England, and the king of clubs was represented by the arms of the pope; of hearts by those of England; of diamonds by those of Spain; of spades by those of France; and thence may have come the "fleur de lys," in place of a spade. If this be so, the date of the tower and these decorations (which appeared to me to be of the same date as the remainder of the columns and arches) may be ninety or one hundred years later than the buttress inscribed 1569. To those who collect crosses it may be pleasing to know that there is a very fine one at Cricklade, or was, and four or five miles off, in the village of Ashton Keynes, there are the steps and broken shafts of no less than three large crosses, all within a few yards of one another, by the side of the road through the village. GIBBES RIGAUD. Magdalen College, Oxford, ever to give a child a peacock's feather as a plaything. Has this prejudice ever found previous comment in "N. & Q."? What is its origin? To this day in Cheshire some of the poor will not use elder wood as firing; but this is a well-known and old superstition. Since the traditional suspension of Judas on that tree, the elder has always been J. L. WARREN. considered ill-omened. J. CALLOT, ETCHER.-Are there any complete collections of the works of this artist in the portfolios of English collectors? I should feel grateful to the owners of any of his works for information, particularly as to prints in the early stages. G. Ross. 170, Cromwell Road, S.W, come across this prænomen. Is it a Gipsy name? "BORROW" AS A PRENOMEN.-I have lately G. S. NUNS OF SION.-Would some one point out any religious houses or churches of Sion, especially in the north of England? Who was St. Ewrsius? J. C. J. STYLE AND TITLE.-Whether in legal documents-e.g., a marriage settlement-it is correct to describe the daughter of a marquess or an earl as "The Right Honourable Mary, &c., commonly called the Lady Mary..." T. C. HENRY ELLISON.-Will any of your readers kindly furnish me with the following particulars respecting the eccentric but admirable poet of Mad Moments (2 vols., Malta, 1833), &c.? Any others would be welcome also; but these, which I hope to obtain by the courtesy of some of your Lincolnshire contributors (Ellison's native county, I understand), will suffice in the mean time:1. The dates of his birth (1809 ?) and death; 2. Where a copy may be seen of his little volume, Touches on the Harp of Nature, referred to in a foot-note on p. 184 of his Poetry of Real Life (1844). I need hardly add that any one possessing and willing to lend that or any other work of -Ellison's not named above would greatly oblige me, and I should carefully return it by post (re- gistered) within a day or two after receipt. W. BUCHANAN. 87, Union Street, Glasgow. E. D. COUNTESS OF DERWENTWATER. - On what ground did this lady, who claimed to be owner of the Radcliffe estates, call herself by the above title? [“ N. & Q.,” 2nd and 3rd S. passim ; 4th S. ii. 581; iii. 41.] THE DUKE OF SUFFOLK'S HEAD.-In Mr. Doyne Bell's interesting volume on The Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula in the Tower, he describes (p. 184) a head, said to be that of Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, which was discovered in the church of Holy Trinity, Minories, forty years since. References to any contemporary accounts of such discovery will oblige. AN OLD ANTIQUARY. "THE FAIRY QUEEN," BK. II. c. IX. ST. 22. -A correspondent of the late Canon Kingsley's requested an explanation of the following stanza, which the Canon was unable to furnish (see Me mories of Life, vol. ii. p. 332). The passage runs thus: "The frame thereof seemed partly circulare, And part triangulare; O work divine! Replies. SCOTT FAMILY: THE PARENTAGE OF ARCH- (5th S. vii. 89, 139, 158, 292, 330, 375, 416, The promptness and candour of MR. SCOTT's reply leave nothing to be desired. He in effect admits his inability to adduce a scrap of proof that Sir John Scotte was the father of Archbishop Rotherham, and places his chief reliance on the opinion of writers of the present time, who maintain that the prelate's name was Scott. Obviously no modern writer is, as to himself, of any authority in connexion with facts four centuries old. In the case of Mr. Foss and Lord Campbell, unless they had been content to undergo a labour quite impossible to be performed with any hope of writing the lives of several persons within any reasonable space of time, either could not do otherwise than resort for many biographical particulars to existing works of credit. In taking this course, each was, I think, justified in trusting to such an author as Bishop Godwin, for instance. That Rotherham was a cardinal, with title of St. Cecilia, may have been derived from Harl. MS. 6114, for there the statement is to be found. I protest most emphatically against the implication that there is anything abstruse or difficult to interpret in the archbishop's will. Every one need not rise to my degree of admiration, which I am not ashamed to repeat, of its style and matter; but few will, I believe, second the effort to elimi If any of your readers can explain or direct to nate from this discussion a solemn legal instruany commentary, it will much oblige AUTHORS OF BOOKS WANTED.— W. H. C. "Temporis Filia Veritas. A merry devise called the troubelsome travell of Tyme, and the daungerous delivery of her Daughter Trueth. Interlocutors-Bennion the Button-maker and Balthesar the Barber. Anno 1589." "Political Merriment; or, Truths told to some Tune. Faithfully from the original French of RH. SH. HS. FA. GG. AM. MP. and Messieurs Brinsden and Collier, the State Oculist and Crooked Attorney, Li Proveditori delli Curtisani. By a Lover of his Country. London: Printed for A. Boulter, without Temple Bar, in the Glorious Year of our Preservation, 1714." W. T. HYATT. Ernest; or, Political Regeneration. It was reviewed in the Quarterly for December, 1839. The reviewer gives a high impression of this writer's talent, and tells him that, if he abandons his wild doctrines, he can "go down to posterity as one who has enriched his country's treasures of noble thoughts, pure feelings, and imperish able verse. M. R. ment, properly executed and duly admitted to probate. Puzzling, indeed, it may well be to heads wise or unwise when an attempt is made to When the fit a Rotherham into a Scott pedigree! archbishop says that he was born in the town of Rotherham, we are desired to regard the birth in a spiritual sense. "Spiritually born," then, we are to understand. So says the venerable primateborn materially of the body of his mother, and born anew in the sacrament of Holy Baptism. He also tells us that he and many other boys in this town of Rotherham would have grown up untaught and unlettered, if there had not suddenly appeared on the scene-I know not by what chance (nescio quo fato) save that he was led thither by the good providence of God-a teacher of grammar, who took them and taught them, by which means the testator and more beside himself arrived (ad majora) at greatness. Dare we doubt the truth of the facts here sketched in outline? Having thus received in his native town an education which prepared him to fill the highest offices in the State, he resolved that his youthful fellow townsmen should have for ever an advantage to himself denied, in a foundation which should be to them free of cost. The key, the clue to the institution bishop. " Exemplar istud est membranaceum, pulchre quidem exaratum et illuminatum cum effigie fundatoris in fronte, atque insignibus ejus, tam archiepiscopalibus quam gentilitiis in margine, viz. tribus cervis.' The evidence in my former notice (p. 292) might have been piled much higher, but five indisputable instances of the use of the single name, Rotherham, seemed as good as five hundred. In Newcourt's Repertorium (i. 565) we find that the rectory of St. Vedast, in the city of London, was held by "Thomas Rotheram, S.T.B.," from Feb. 13, 1465, to Dec. 5, 1467, when he resigned (Reg. Bourchier, ff. 92, 97). Both universities, in commemorating their benefactors, were bidden to pray for Thomas Rotherham. Archdeacon Carnebull, the executor who proved the archbishop's will, founded an obit in Rotherham Church for the soul of Thomas Rotherham. Then there are such entries as these in the college records : of Jesus College at Rotherham, as springing from gotten; in default, to the right heirs of the archthe grateful heart of its founder, is, forsooth, to be quietly ignored; and we are invited to set up in On the heraldic side the Rotherham case is actuits stead a mystic sense, and to adopt a non-ally impregnable; but I must not allow myself natural interpretation of words which are otherwise to be led on, even by so tempting an opening as a clear and intelligible enough. "bend sinister" over all. Still, I cannot refrain Leland's assertion as to the heir-general of John, from alluding to Hearne's book before quoted, Lord Wenlock, requires corroboration. His words where a description is given of an exemplar of the would fit John Rotherham of Luton, the arch-statutes of the college at Rotherham, then existing bishop's undoubted brother. Dugdale (Baronage) in Sidney College, Cambridge, and, though sadly in 1676 could give no information as to Lord mutilated as to some membranes, yet retaining a Wenlock's heir, and borrowed the fact and date of portrait of the founder and the arms of the see, his death from Polydore Vergil. This writer's impaling three stags. The description runs thus : name reminds me that, in his history of the reign of Edward IV., each time he mentions the Archbishop of York it is as "Thomas Rotheram" (Camden Society, edit. 1844, pp. 180, 182, 211). Very little is (as I have said) known of Lord Wenlock's end. By some he is asserted to have been the John Wenlock who outlived by some years the battle of Tewkesbury and left a son; but the usually accepted version is that his heir was a Lawley, ancestor of the present Lord Wenlock. MR. SCOTT may expect to be asked for some documentary proof that a partition of Wenlock's lands was made between Archbishop Rotherham and Margaret Scotte, and that the Bedingfields got Oxburgh through her. If Richard-a-Barne and Richard Scott, of Barnes Hall, were one and the same individual, then all I can say is that, the deed being dated 1473, this same Richard must have signed his name prophetically-Scott of Barnes that shall be. A foresight of a quarter of a century-by which he was enabled to predict the acquisition of the manor by the archbishop; the devise in augmentation of patrimony to his elder brother, John Scott, and heirs male of his body; the failure of such issue; and his own succession in remainder-exhibits an astounding power of divination, and points to the testifying Richard as one of the most remarkable men of his age. DR. GATTY is mistaken when he affirms (what appears in his edition of Hunter's Hallamshire) that the archbishop describes himself as one of the Scott family of Ecclesfield. I understand the words quite differently, and to imply nothing more than a gift to increase his cousin's slender patrimony in the parish of Ecclesfield. Here is the passage: "Item volo, quod Johannes Scott consanguineus meus, cui est hereditas, quanquam parva, in parochia de Ecclesfeld successive descendens in eodem nomine et sanguine, à tempore quo non est memoria hominum, ut ipsa augeatur, me per gratiam meliorato, habeat sibi et heredibus masculis de corpore suo legitime procreatis manerium meum de Bernes, situatum in parochia prædicta, quod emi de Roberto Shatton pro cxl.lib ac etiam manerium meum de Howssleys cum pertinen, quod emi de Thoma Worteley Milite pro cxx.b" In default of such issue to Richard Scott (brother of John) and heirs male of his body lawfully be "Thomas Rotheram et Walterus Field, per advocationem ipsis commissam à Collegio Regali Febr. 8, 1457, præsentant Drem Woodlarke Præpositum Febr. 27, ad Rectoriam de Kingston." "An. 1460. Rotheram incipiat in theologiâ, et non arctetur ad ulterius expectandum.” "An. 1467. Cautio M Thomæ Rotheram venditur pro 4lb 6s 8d quia non incepit in theologia" [Hearne]. Against such unanimous agreement in a variety of quarters we are asked to set the assertion of this man and the statement of that. At least the trick of calling the prelate Archbishop Scott should be abandoned. Everywhere and always, by himself, by his contemporaries, lay and cleric, Rotherham and nothing but Rotherham. Dead to the world! Why, this is no cloistered monk, but a man who lived in the forefront of political life, in the atmosphere of royalty; an ardent Yorkist, who shared the fortunes of that house. I find that Sir John Scott died Oct. 18, 1485 (Chan. Inq., 1 Hen. VII., No. 142), leaving William Scotte, his son and heir, then aged twentyfive years, so that he was (if the age stated is to be relied upon) born in 1460. Now, as the archbishop (born in 1423) was thirty-seven years older than William Scotte, why did he not inherit his alleged father's lands? Why did Margaret Scotte inherit the possessions of Lord Wenlock to the exclusion of her brother William? Other objec MR. SCOTT has made an elaborate effort to sustain the position taken up by him as to the birthplace of Archbishop Rotherham, the material part of which may be easily disposed of. It is not questioned that it was the custom of Church dignitaries to relinquish their family name. It is said Archbishop Rotherham (if he did so) was the last to do so. Passing over for the present the cloud of witnesses called up by MR. SCOTT, who, like a multitude of counsellors, only seem to darken knowledge, we may at once turn to Cole's MSS. (county of Cambridgeshire, vol. xix. p. 175, &c.), which state, "This great man was the son of Sir John Scot, alias Rotheram, in the co. of York, by Alice his wife. He was born at Rotherham on Bartholomew's day, Aug. 24, 1423, and took his name, &c., from the place of his birth, as was usual," &c. But in this instance the observation does not hold good, as both his father and brother were called so also, Sir John Rotherham, his brother, in the reign of Edward V. being lord of the manor of Somereys, co. Bedford, and high sheriff of the county. This I collect from an ancient pedigree which is copied from one in Caius College Library : Sir Thomas Rotherham, of=...... Alice. Sir John Rotherham, Alice, da. the Lo. of Somereys of Becket. Place, in y parish of Luton, co. Bedford, &c. 66 So much for the name. Then as to the place. It looks somewhat strange and hard on the archbishop that his own knowledge of where he was born, as very clearly stated in his will, should be called in question, and it would be interesting to know something more of the "wiser heads" the will has puzzled." Canon Raine says of it, "It is probably the most noble and striking will of a mediæval English bishop in existence." But not a word of its being a puzzling problem. In such will, "Thirdly," he says (referring to the foundation of the College of Jesus), "because I was born in the same town, and baptized in the parish church of the same town, and so at that same place was born into the world, and also born again by the holy bath flowing from the side of Jesus, whose name, oh, if I loved as I ought and would!" Surely if ever words clearly expressed the sense 66 intended, as to both the "literal" and "spiritual " birth, these do so as to admit of neither question nor cavil. If these words are to be construed in a spiritual sense," then, maybe, the noble College of Jesus, which he wills shall "be raised in the aforesaid town, in the same place in which the foundation was laid at the Feast of St. Gregory, in the twenty-second year of King Edward IV., and in which also I was born," and the youths "whereof others with me reached higher stations,"-and Hunter pretty well makes out who they were, are to be taken in a spiritual sense"; and the streets of houses in the town, and scores of acres of land in the neighbouring villages, as well as large properties in distant places, with which he endowed his college at Rotherham, are to be placed in the mythical and unsubstantial category. But enough of this. It would be very easy to set aside all the other special pleading and airy speculations advanced, but for the present it must suffice to add, as to the arms" erroneously attributed to that prelate, viz., Vert, three bucks trippant or, a bend sinister argent," that the oldest engraved portraits of him so give them; and Cole says, speaking of King's College in 1746, "His arms are on the said portal in stone and in the old library... built by him, and in the windows his devise in almost every pane of glass, having a buck trippant together with the white York rose," &c. same Rotherham has to be thankful Archbishop Rotherham was born there. Its Grammar School is yet a reminder of the noble Grammar School of his College of Jesus, and in her grand old church, the finest of the district, the greater portion of which is attributed to his munificent liberality and fine taste, she is yet greatly enriched, but still cannot afford to be dispossessed of the honour of being the place of his birth. Perhaps it may be worth MR. SCOTT's inquiry as to how Luton passed to Rotherham, not from Lord Wenlock, but from forfeiture to Edward IV., and from him by grant or purchase to the archbishop, irrespective of relationship. Mr. Brown's having found the bones of the archbishop entire so very recently disposes of the burning of the body, and also of the carved oak figure, which is but a carved head; there is a similar one to be seen at Southwell, which Canon Dymock says was used for the same purpose at a funeral service in effigy performed shortly after the archbishop's death. There are traditions of his being buried in four places, and why not born in as many? G., F.S.A. THE TITLE OF "ESQUIRE" (5th S. vii. 348.)— See a communication of my own, 5th S. iv. 519. Why does H. say that barristers are Esquires "in consequence of being in the sovereign commission" (whatever that may mean)? Barristers, as such, |