Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/480

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io<- B. v. MAY 19, im

verb loun. But surely in the 'Alliterative Poems ' the preterite of boun could not be bounde. We should not expect the syncope between nasal and dental. However, the fatal objection to this explanation is that we have no sure instance of the employment of the prefix re- with words of Germanic origin as early as the fourteenth century. 4 KE.D.' says :

" Towards the end of the sixteenth century re- begins to rank as an ordinary English prefix, chiefly employed with words of Latin origin, but also freely prefixed to native verbs, a practice rare before this period, though Wyclif and Trevisa have renew, sug- gested by Lat. renovare?-

Shakespeare has recall, but it is interesting to note that a word so familiar to us as remind is not found anywhere in Shakespeare nor in any of the poetical works of Milton.

A. L. MAYHEW.

"DIAMOND STATE" (10 th S. v. 189). This name is variously supposed to have been applied to the territory of Delaware on account of its imagined resemblance on the map to the shape of a diamond, or from its extreme smallness, or (Harper's 'Encycl.,' ' U.S. Hist.') because of its comparative wealth and importance. The appellation probably dates from about 1835, though even the librarian of the Historical Society of Delaware cannot be precise regarding this. Previously after the Revolutionary War- Delaware got the cant name of " Blue Hen State," from a certain Capt Caldwell, who raised the 1st Delaware Regiment, whose sobriquet, again, was "Blue Hen's Chickens" a body of troops that was as noted for its fighting qualities as was the commander in cockpit circles for his valuable strain of blue game-fowl. K W. HILL.

Philadelphia.

THOMAS BETTESWORTH (10 th S. v. 308). Probably Thomas Bettesworth, of Win- chester, and of Chidden, in Hambledon, Hants, eldest son of Thomas Bettesworth, of Petersfield, by Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Lucas, of Suffolk, and afterwards of Froyle, Hants. In 1644 he was serving in the Parliamentary army under Col. Richard Norton. On 18 October, 1645, as Thomas Bettesworth, jun., he was appointed by the House of Commons High Sheriff of Hants, and to command the horse raised in that county. (See Godwin's * Civil War in Hamp- shire,' p. 249; 'Vis. Sussex,' Harl. Soc., p. 196; and Berry's k Hampshire Pedigrees,' P 208 ) ALFRED T. EVERITT.

PARTY COLOURS (10 th S. v. 65, 194, 271). I beg to differ from Messrs. HERBERT SOUTHAM

and J. T. PAGE as to blue being the most suitable colour for general adoption by the Conservative and Unionist party. Although blue sashes were worn by the Royalists during the Great Rebellion, we cannot forget the blue and buff of the Whig party a century ago (which survives to the present in the cover of The Edinburgh Review), when a blue coat was the mark of every Whig. Surely, no Tory could wish to sport a colour adopted by Charles James Fox to show his sympathy with the rebellious American colonists (blue coats and buff waistcoats being the uniforms of Washington and his troops), and worn, nearly half a century later, by some Whig peers. As for the ballad * True Blue,' the Ettrick Shepherd, Tory and Jacobite as he was, could not make out which side it was intended to favour. R, L. MORETON.

Was not local party colour determined originally by the " heraldic colour " of the family of the candidate, or of the leading family of the party in the neighbourhood concerned? ROBERT PIERPOINT.

STEWARD or THE HOUSEHOLD (10 th S. v. 348). Robert Huish, in his * Memoirs of George IV.,' published in 1831, the year after the King's death, gives a long account of Lady Conyngham and her position at the Court. He makes no mention of any special posthaving been created for her, but say s, how- ever, that "even the commonest domestics in the Castle were constrained to submit to the control of the Marchioness." Mr. Gre- ville, in his * Memoirs ' (quoted by G. E. C. in his * Peerage '), states that " she comports herself entirely as Mistress of the House- hold." It seems probable, therefore, that she merely took advantage of her husband's position as Lord Steward, and of her own influence with George IV., to rule the King's household, just as she would have done if the post had been created for her.

H. J. B. CLEMENTS.

BURY FAMILY (10 th S. v. 349). The body of " Mrs. Bury was carried away " from Bath on 6 (sic) April, 1787 (' Bath Abbey Registers/ Harl. Soc. Publ., 1901, ii. 472). In spite of the slight discrepancy as regards date, she was, no doubt, the " Mrs. Berry " whose body is stated to have been brought from Bath for interment in Winchester Cathedral on 5 April, 1787. Florence Bury, who was interred in the Cathedral on 2 (sic) Nov., 1801, was probably sister of Thomas Bury, who was interred there on 27 Feb., 1802. For, according to The Gentleman s Magazine, "Thomas Bury, Esq., of Colleton, Devon," died in Grosvenor Place (London) on 25 Feb.,