Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/425

 10 s. XL MAY i, im] NOTES AND QUERIES.

349

table, book, and candlestick. The four- teenth abbot was Thomas Gresham, elected 1364, succeeded 1394.

JOHN B. WAINE WRIGHT.

HERALDIC : SHIELDS FRETTY AND ORDI- NARIES. In the case of a shield " fretty " such as that of Neville ancient. Or, fretty gules should the shading of the dexter diagonals be either under or over them all, and of one width throughout, or should it be under those below the line of lighting, and over those above, and varying in width according to its distance from the lighting- line ? A copy gives it as over them all, and of the same width throughout.

An ordinary is often placed over both a tincture and a metal, e.g., Or, two bars azure, over all a bend of the second. Is this consistent with the law against putting metal on metal and tincture on tincture ?

J. R.

OLIVER CROMWELL'S HEAD. By his will, which is mentioned in The Morning Post of 27 March, Mr. Horace Wilkinson, of Frankfield, Seal Chart, Sevenoaks, leaves to -his son the embalmed head of Oliver Cromwell. Can any reader of ' N. & Q.' say what is the history of this head ?

GEORGE H. COTJRTENAY.

Southtown House, Kenton, near Exeter.

TANKARD WITH COAT OF ARMS. Can any reader help me to identify the following coat of arms ? Vair, on a chief or three lions rampant (tincture unknown). The arms are engraved on a tankard of the first half of the eighteenth century, and are flanked by the intials E. S. Traditionally they are those of a family of the surname of Strickland, but I have been unable to verify this from ordinary books of reference.

J. BRTJNNER.

Radcliffe-on-Trent.

" GIPSY or THE SKY" COMET. Some time ago, in the course of a talk about a comet that was reported to be coming, one said that he had read in a sermon that a comet was " the gipsy of the sky." I should like to know where the expression is in use, though possibly it was but a chance expression of the preacher.

THOS. RATCLIFFE.

FRUZAN, FRTJSAN, FEMALE CHRISTIAN NAME. There are many examples of this as a female Christian name in the registers of this parish during the sixteenth and seven- teenth centuries. In the eighteenth century it appears occasionally as Frusannah ; and

in 1779 the following beautiful combination is found : " Susannah Frusannah, Daughter of William and Frusannah Dolly, was bap- tized July 25th." Is this name common in early registers, and what is its origin ?

FRANCIS R. RUSHTON. Betchworth.

REAR-ADMIRAL KEELER. Can any of your readers give me information respecting the career of Rear-Admiral Keeler ? On retiring from the naval service he lived at Faversham towards the end of the eighteenth century. C. S. F.

H.M.S. CALLIOPE. Can any one tell me in what newspaper to find an account of the escape of H.M.S. Calliope from the har- bour of Apia, Samoa, during the fearful hurricane of 16 March, 1889 ? A.

fUplus.

SIR REGINALD BRAY : HENRY VH.'s PARLIAMENTS.

(10 S. xi. 267.)

SIR REGINALD BRAY is invariably included among the Speakers in the reign of Henry VII. I believe that he was elected to that office, but have never come upon contemporary or reliable confirmation of the fact, or informa- tion as to the particular Parliament over which he presided. The succession of Speakers, like the list of the Parliaments under our first Tudor king, is most unsatis- factory. Or perhaps it will be more accurate to say that the list of Parliaments of Henry, alike as to their number and their dates, have heretofore been most unreliable. Now, thanks to the admirable and exhaustive list of London M.P.s given by the Rev. A. B. Beaven in his masterly work upon the ' Aldermen of London,' the entire succession of Parliaments from the earliest times has been virtually determined upon the basis of the City of London elections.

There yet, however, remains some little obscurity as to the Speakers between 1485 and 1509. The Parliamentary Rolls afford but little help, save in the first and last of the seven Parliaments of this reign ; nor does the name of Sir Reginald Bray any- where appear as Speaker. Manning in his ' Lives of the Speakers ' places him, though with some hesitancy, as Speaker over the Parliament of 1497. He is probably right. Of this Parliament little is known. No writs of summons calling it have been found, but from the various local records we learn that