Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/428

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. xn. OCT. 30, im

spirit ; fddw, a " low " or burial mound ; and hrdw, a corpse ; beside which occur the mutated forms gcest, hlcew, hrcew. As the A.-S. c& most often arises from mutation of a, it merely means that the a is (normally) the Bolder vowel. We know that the cc in hceth, " heath," is of this origin, because the Gothic form is haithi, which actually exhibits the final t that caused the mutation. Hence there is no great difficulty in postulating an A.-S. hd$, with the sense of " heath " ; it is only a question of evidence.

No doubt there was such a form ; for there are sufficient traces of it. The a became open 6, which in the sixteenth century was regularly written oa, as in Lambarde's hoath. Cf. A.-S. dth, " an oath." This is preserved, not only in the Kentish place-name Hoath, but in the Sussex West Hoathly, near the Kentish border, and in the Sussex East Hoathly, which (oddly enough) is not far from Heath- field.

I have little doubt that we have here the origin of the surname Hoadly. Bishop Hoadly (1676-1761) was born in Kent.

In the * Inquisitiones post Mortem,' i. 331, I find Hode described as belonging to the manor of Torrington, Devon. This may well be the same word. In the same i. 256, I find Hodlegh, Suffolk ; this, from its described position, is the same as the modern Hadleigh. Both would result from an A.-S. Hathleah, i.e., " Heath-lea."

It is only one more example of the helpful- ness of phonetics. It is usual to derive Hatfield from the A.-S. Hsethfeld, which is practically impossible ; for the latter became Hethfeld, as written in the Red Book, and this is why it is spelt Hetfelle in the Domes- day Book. To be particular, Hatfield is derived from the parallel form Hathfeld, with a shortening of the stressed a before a double consonant, precisely as Acton is derived from the A.-S. de-tun, " oak-town." WALTER W. SKEAT.

WELTJE'S CLUB (10 S. xii. 167, 239, 293). <)UT Hanoverian kings and their German wives and daughters-in-law were responsible for the long succession of natives of Germany who for two centuries filled many of the subordinate posts at Court, especially such as involved immediate attendance on the persons of their royal masters and mistresses. From George I. down to the last reign this was certainly the case, and the Weltje brothers were two of that long list of foreign retainers, which included the unpopular

Madame Schwellenberg, Madame Haggen- dorn, and Mr. Papendiek among Queen Charlotte's attendants, and Baroness Lehzen and Baron Stockmar at a later date.

I think that COL. PRIDE AUX'S interesting reply at the last reference requires some slight correction. George, Prince of Wales, and his brother Frederick can hardly have become so dissatisfied with the committee of Brooks's Club " at the end of 1779 or the beginning of 1780 " as to start a new club, under the auspices of the Weltjes ; for it was not till the end of December, 1780, that the Prince of Wales' s establishment was formed, whilst his brother Frederick, who was only seventeen years of age at that time, was still under his father's control, and was afterwards sent abroad by George III. for some years. Nor is it conceivable that the Prince of Wales would have patronized any club which favoured the " Ministerial or Tory " party until at least a quarter of a century later. The politics of the Prince, before he became Regent, were notoriously of a violent Whig character.

COL. PRIDEAUX has confused the two brothers Weltje, if the ' Royal Calendar * is to be trusted, for its volumes for 1785, 1786, 1787, 1788, and 1789jill give the name of Louis Weltjie as " Comptroller and Clerk of the Kitchen and Cellars " to the Prince of Wales. No Household for the Duke of York is mentioned in these Calendars before 1788, but in that year Mr. C. Weltjie is named as his " Comptroller of the Kitchen and Cellars."

The magnificent collections of French furniture and Sevres china now in the posses- sion of the Crown are traditionally held to have been bought for George IV. by one of the Weltje brothers. It would be inter- esting to know how these Brunswick cooks picked up any expert knowledge in regard to objets d'art. And a question to which I have never heard a satisfactory answer given is, How did these collections become Crown property ? Greville in his ' Journal ' describes how William IV. as heir at law inherited everything left by his predecessor, but omits any mention of King William's own testamentary dispositions. Had these great collections been bequeathed by the latter sovereign to his widow or to his illegitimate family, the British Crown would have suffered an irreparable loss. H.

" FOUR REGULAR ORDERS OF MONKS "

(10 S. xii. 167, 274). The second Council of Lyons (1274) by Canon 23 allowed only four orders of mendicants, i.e., Franciscans,