Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/371

10 S. XI. APRIL 17, 1909.] dinium. But there is absolutely no historical confirmation of Mr. Loftie's theory. We do not even know that the Welsh lynn, pronounced lunn, was a part of the current speech of the Londoner. I was under the impression that this theory had been refuted by Mr. Bradley in a letter that appeared in The Athenaeum last year. I cannot give the exact reference, as I am abroad; but unless my memory betrays me, Mr. Bradley said, not that Lynn in London might be a personal name, but that Londinium originated from Londinos, a personal name meaning. I think, fierce or cruel. If Mr. Bradley, in the midst of his other important duties, could spare the time to place on record in these cokimns his views on this interesting point, it would, I think, be a great advantage to the readers and correspondents of ' N. & Q.'

W. F. PBIDEAUX. Grand Hotel, Locarno.

[Mr. Bradley's letter appeared in The Athenaeum of 7 March, 1908, in a communication from Mr. T. Rice Holmes, who had touched on the derivation of London in a foot-note in his ' Ancient Britain and the Invasions of Julius Caesar.' Two letters from Sir George Birdwood on the same subject were printed in The Athenaeum of 14 March and 11 April 1908.]

Without wishing to claim any authority as to the etymological questions involved or to propound a rival theory, I think it worth while to point out that the passage as to the name London quoted in your review of ' Memorials of Old London ' is in one or two respects not quite exact. Mr. Loftie takes the word as Lynn-dun ==" Lake Hill," and says of Lynn, " The Welsh Lynn is pronounced lunn" Llyn, as the word should be written, is pronounced, when it stands alone, not lunn, but, as nearly as the sound can be represented, hlin. In composition it might perhaps acquire the u sound which Mr. Loftie gives to it. Nor does dun mean quite " hill." The Celtic root which in Irish appears as dun, in Welsh as din, means not a hill, but a (hill-) fort; cf. Welsh dinas, " city." Supposing London were really Llyndin, the meaning would not be " Lake Hill," but " Fortress Lake."

In Welsh the adjective (and here llyn is, ex hypothesi, used adjectively) must either follow the noun, or, if it precedes, cause mutation of the initial consonant. Thus " Lake Hill " should be either Dinlyn or Llynddin (dd = th in this); cf. Creuddin (" bloody fortress ") = crau-\-din.

Personally I very much doubt the derivation Llyndin. The Welsh name of London

is Llundain, pronounced approximately (the approximation is not very close), " Hlindine." I do not, however, know the relation of this to the English form. H. I. B.

HANGING ALIVE IN CHAINS.

(See ante, p. 221.)

ONE might be content to leave the matter here, letting the records of the character of these two serious writers stand against the denunciation of them as "hare-brained, irresponsible chatterers." But let us turn to the records to see whether we can discover any cases of the infliction of the punishment of hanging in chains. As I shall show later, there are many such cases recorded in connexion with political offences, for hanging in chains seems to have been regarded as a meet punishment for rebellion. The record of cases of non-political crime and its punishment is extremely scanty. There is, however, one great murder case, the stories of which throw light on what hanging in chains meant. This is one of the most remarkable of all stories of murder committed in England.

Master Thomas Arden of Feversham was the Chief Comptroller of Customs there. He had once been Mayor of the town. He was married to a near relative of Sir Edward North, and, through his family influence and official connexions, procured grants from the Crown of a considerable part of the lands of the dissolved abbey of Feversham. His wife had a lover, Thomas Mosbie, a tailor, and resolved to get rid of her husband. She first got poison from a painter of the town, and administered it to Arden. This attempt failing, she hired a ruffian, robber and murderer, Black Will, an ex-soldier, to assassinate Arden. Ambushes having failed, Arden was at last murdered in his own house in the presence of his wife, who is said to have herself stabbed him with a knife. The body of the murdered man was conveyed out of the house and laid in a meadow. It was averred that for long after the grass would not grow where the body had lain, a barren spot showing exactly the form of the body. The murder was at once discovered, and the murderers were brought to justice. The murder excited enormous interest how great may be measured by the fact that, of nine and a half columns given by Holinshed to the events of the year 1551, seven and a half are devoted to the story of this crime. The playwrights seized on the story: 'The Tragedy of Master Arden