Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/279

 10 s. vin. SEPT. 21, 1907.J NOTES AND QUERIES.

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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 answers may be sent to them direct.

" MORAL COURAGE." The earliest ex- ample of this expression found in the material collected for the ' Dictionary ' is from a work by Prof. Blackie dated 1871. The phrase must be much older than this : I remember it as colloquially current before 1860. Can any reader supply an early instance ? HENRY BRADLEY.

Clarendon Press, Oxford.

" VITREMYTE." Will the mystery of the " vitremyte " which Queen Zenobia, in ' The Monk's Tale ' of Chaucer, was con- demned to wear in her captivity instead'of a crown or helmet, never be cleared up ? Prof. Skeat does not get beyond the vitreous root which the word has been supposed to have ; but a head-dress of any kind of glass or glazed earthenware does not commend itself to the imagination as proper to a lady who is engaged in spinning, after having been made to abandon the sceptre for the distaff. The " wynterinyte " of the Aldine edition does not help us much. A learned friend has suggested to me the propriety of an ordinary fillet (vitta) for tying the hair. That would certainly do quite well for the occupation of spinning ; but whence remyte ? Possible steps might be thus : vitta amicta, pronounced after a while mtta-r-amicta (as " Sararan " for " Sarah Ann "), and finally gallicized to vitremite = & tied fillet. It would be pleasant if philologers would authorize us to think of the warlike Queen Zenobia, not with a pudding basin or a glass bowl or other conceivable vessel on her head, but simply with her hair tied up to keep it out of the way of distaff and spindle.

H. B. F,

NONJURORS : REV. BENJAMIN WAY. A small minority of the beneficed clergy of the Church of England incurred the penal- ties of suspension and deprivation for re- fusing to swear allegiance to William and Mary in 1689. This minority, which was headed by Archbishop Sancroft and Bishop Ken, included many eminent divines. Can any one tell me whether there is any list of these " Nonjurors," as they were called, and if so, whether the Rev. Benjamin Way, vicar of Barking, Essex, was one of them ?

A. W. BIKGLEY, Lieut.- Col. Simla.

ANTELOPE AS CREST. Is anything known as to the origin of the popularity of the antelope/s head as a family crest ? Accord- ing to Fairbairn's ' Crests,' this has been or is borne as a crest by about forty different families. What particular species is likely to have been the original of the heraldic antelope ? The early heralds appear to have but indifferently appreciated the de- scriptive powers of travellers of those times, or it may be that the fault lies the other way. HENRY GEARING.

Cape Town.

GERARD LANGBAINE, PROVOST OF QUEEN'S COLLEGE, OXFORD, 1645-57. Is anything known of his ancestors or descendants other than disclosed by 'D.N.B.,' Barton and Hawkshead parish registers, and Foster's ' Alumni Oxonienses ' ? Information desired for a history of Barton Grammar School, which he founded. HENRY BRIERLEY.

Pooley Bridge, Westmorland.

LELAND STANFORD. Can any one throw light on the ancestry of Mr. Leland Stan- ford, founder of the Leland Stanford Junior University ? According to the ' American Dictionary of Biography,' his ancestors settled in New York State about 1720 ; but no authority is given for this assertion. The name Stanford occurs in various parts of England and in Ireland, but it is perhaps more widely distributed in Sussex than else- where. It is recorded that David de Stan- ford gave his land called Stanford, in West Grinstead, to Sele Priory in 1237. Some Sussex Stanfords to-day trace their descent fromWilliamStanfordewho died at Horsham in 1556. A younger branch of his descend- ants was a yeoman family long seated at Slinford, near Horsham. In the eighteenth century they held a lease for lives under the Prebendary of Ipthorne in the Cathedral Church of Chichester.

Strood Place in Slinfold, originally the seat of theStanbridge family, passed through the heiress Joan Stanbridge to the Cowpers. Edward Cowper died in 1725, leaving it to his niece Anne Upton. She married in 1763 General John Leland, and lived until 1801.

The occurrence in a Sussex rural parish at the same time of the names Leland and Stanford, neither very common, may be merely a coincidence ; but it seems to suggest a connexion. It is certainly possible that General Leland was godfather to one of the Stanford children who emigrated to America, taking the name with him.

I wrote two or three years ago to the late Mrs. Leland Stanford, asking for informa-