Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/313

 10 s. XIL SEPT. 25, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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recognizing his humour, may I enter a mild protest against the use he has made of my own surname, the origin of which is per- fectly well known from documentary evi- dence ?

Maccus the son of Undewyn (ob. c. 1153) received from David I. a grant of land adjoining Kelso. On this land was a good salmon pool or " wael " in the Tweed, still known as Maxwheel, immediately below Kelso Bridge. From this fishery the land got the name of Maccus' wel ; and the next stage was reached when the son of Maccus became known as Herbert de Maccuswel. He was Sheriff of Teviotdale, and his signa- ture is attached to many documents in the latter half of the twelfth century which are still extant.

DR. MILNE'S ingenious pleasantry reminds me of a canard that found its way into print when Garibaldi made himself famous. It was alleged that he was of Scottish parent- age, and that his real name was Archibald or Baldie Garry, which by easy transposition (a process favoured by Dr. MILNE) became Garibaldi. HERBERT MAXWELL.

ORIGINAL LETTERS OF SIR JOHN FASTOLF (10 S. xii. 201). The two valuable letters now in the possession of PREBENDARY DEEDES formed part, no doubt, of the "" Forty Autograph Letters of Sir John Fastolf, on various matters, 1449, &c.," that were offered for sale by Thomas Thorpe, 1834-5.

In his first catalogue of MSS. for 1834 he describes this " very extraordinary series of original documents, autograph letters," &c., " from the Paston family papers," at great length, and provides the following interesting note :

" The descent of these manuscripts, since the time of Blomefield, who appears to have been the first possessor after their estrangement from their original depository, was, secondly. Martin of Palgrave, who, by marrying Le Neve's widow, obtained what Norroy had collected. From Martin, Ives seems to have obtained them. From Ives they passed to the late eminent antiquary Richard Gough." When Gough' s library (other than his 'Topography) was sold, 5 April, 1810, they occurred as lot 4241 : " Papers, deeds, &c., relating to Fastolf e and Paston Families ; a, few in the handwriting of Mr. Gough." This description is so brief that I may be wrong in my identification, and I am unable to say who the purchaser of the lot was.

Clearly, between 1810 and 1834, when Thorpe first offered them, they were in some other library. That excellent bookseller did not have very great success with them ;

they were recatalogued in 1835- at a reduc- tion in price from 651. to 521., and ultimately, evidently, were sold piecemeal.

Dawson Turner secured the " original probate act of his will," and it occurred as lot 178 in the sale of his MS. library in June, 1859, Boone being the purchaser at II. 2s. This is described as having formed part of a volume of documents connected with the dispute between Sir John Paston, Yelverton, Dennys, and others, the exe- cutors and trustees under the will, that was offered by Thorpe in Part IV. of his 1834 catalogue.

These gleanings from catalogues may be of use to PREBENDARY DEEDES in tracing the pedigree of his letters.

ALECK ABRAHAMS.

FIRST ELEPHANT EXHIBITED (10 S. xi. 467 ; xii. 197). May I recall in this con- nexion " quidam elephas," which, under the date 1255, Matthew Paris, in his ' Historia Anglorum,' mentions as having arrived in that year in England, as a gift from St. Louis of France to Henry III., and which Matthew believed to have been the first specimen of its kind seen in England. This elephant was, I suppose, in a sense, exhibited.

F. S. EDEN.

TWELVE SURNAME (10 S. xii. 149, 196). There is a stone in St. Mary's Churchyard, Nottingham, to Mary Twelves, who died in 1765, in the seventy-third year of her age.

A. S. Nottingham.

COURT OF REQUESTS (10 S. xii. 208). This Court had a shadowy existence as early as the reign of Richard II., but does not seem to have had a definite position before the time of Henry VII., who regu- lated the procedure of this Court and that of the Court of Star Chamber ; and Cardinal Wolsey gave it a permanent position in Whitehall. Like the Star Chamber, the Requests appear to have started as a sort of committee of Privy Council, under the presidency of the Lord Privy Seal ; and although the character of both courts was much the same, the Requests heard the com- plaints of poor men or members of the king's household. As the connexion of the Court with its parent body the Council became weaker, through the withdrawal of councillors from its sittings, it seems to have lost authority, and its judgments were traversed by the Courts of Common Law. The Court was popular and useful, and was much resorted to by the poorer suitors. De3pite