Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/231

 ii. SKIT. 3, 1904.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

187

1872 ; but as I find, to my surprise, that Flavell Edmunds's book is seriously appealed to as AD "authority," ante, p. 113, it is proper to warn all whom it may concern that it con- tains a perfectly hopeless mixture of in- accurate statements. Any one who knows the elements of philology can form a judg- ment from the following examples :

1. " Conger-, from A.S. cyninga, belonging to the mg.^ Ex. Congers-ton (Leices.)."

2. " Eagle ; Eng. from -<jl, a young shoot, also adopted as the name of a man. Ex. Eagle's cliff."

3."Ender; Eng. perhaps from King Penda. Ex. Ender-by, Penda's abode."

4. ** Gill, a narrow glen ; perhaps from W. gijll, the hasel-tree, which grows in such places. Common in Lumb. and Westmoreland."

5. "Harrow; Eng. and Dan.; from heah, high, and hoe, a hill."

Ai^/'-"* co J En - from haran-ey, the pool of the hares."

It is difficult to realize the mental con- dition of those who can swallow such state- ments as these, WALTER W. SKEAT.

WE must request correspondents desiring in- formation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that the answers may be addressed to them direct.

GREAT BRITAIN'S TITHE OF FISH ix THE NORTH SEA.

1. " England had long claimed as her prerogative ft tenth part of the Ji*h caught in the North Sea, which proved most vexatious to Holland, whose commercial and military existence depended chiefly upon her North Sea fisheries, being also the national nurseries for her navy. Holland had commuted her tish tithes for an annual payment of 30,000'., '

Charles L, through his admiral the Earl of Northumberland, in 1630 compelled her to pay, as well as another 30,0001. a year, to fish off the western coast of Ireland. (According to other historians, Holland's North Sea payments were 20,000 "florins," or perhaps 150,000 dollars, a year to the British Government.)

"About 1651 the payment of these tithes by Jlland to the British Government had fallen into arrears, and as at that period Holland's maritime commerce largely exceeded that of England, the Dutch thought it a favourable moment for forcibly contesting the ' rights ' of the island power. How- ever, Crom well's great general - at - sea, Robert Blake, thoroughly defeated the Dutch Navy in Joo3.

m As regards England's tithe of fish caught in the North Sea by foreigners, my authority for this statement is taken from 'Twelve British Admirals,' in an able article on Blake's

life by Commander the Hon. Henry N. Shore, R.N., reprinted from the Navy League Journal, 1904.

Present circumstances preventing my con- sulting literary references in the British Museum and elsewhere, I should be appre- ciatively grateful for the full history, origin, and practice of England's former claim to a tithe of all fish caught in the North Sea by foreign fishermen, and all other matters in respect to the enforcement of this fish tithe from foreign vessels in the North and other Seas.

2. Were similar claims made for the other (now) extra-territorial waters surrounding the British Isles, as the Channel, and the seas around the Irish, Welsh, and Scotch coasts, so long known to historians and lawyers from Great Britain's claim to the "sovereignty of the Narrow Seas" or " Britain's four Narrow Seas "?

3. Did the Holy Roman Empire (which ended in 1806), the Hanseatic cities, or other portions of what is now the German Empire, at any period pay this fish tithe to the British Government ?

4. Is it true that James I. claimed the Arctic whaling seas off Spitzbergen as the " Dominium Maris " of Great Britain (whose monopoly to fish all over the sea was perhaps first claimed by Edward I. in 1295)? It appears that from 1612 to 1618 the English and Dutch whaling and military fleets had many conflicts at Spitzbergen, in which usually the English were victorious.

From 1615 to 1635 the Danes claimed the exclusive right to fish and whale off Green- land and Iceland, but they were too weak at sea to enforce their claims against the stronger maritime powers of England and Holland.

Where are the most reliable accounts of these fishery fights in Northern Europe to be found ? J. LAWRENCE HAMILTON, M.R.C.S.

30, Sussex Square, Brighton.

MARQUOIS SCALES. The apparatus for drawing equidistant parallel lines, variously known as marquois scales, marquois scale and triangle, and marquois rulers, is said in some English dictionaries to have been invented by "an artist named Marquoi." The spelling " Marquoi's ruler " is adopted in the 'Century Dictionary,' though in books where the instrument is mentioned the word commonly appears as marquois, with small initial and without the apostrophe. I should be glad to know whether there is any evidence that Marquoi was a real person. In the absence of any known facts as to the history of the