Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 3.djvu/332

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [iis.m. APRIL 29, 1911.

foundation in 1786 to 1794 under the charge of its founder Francis Light. He was suc- ceeded as Superintendent by Philip Maning- ton, and he by Major Forbes Ross Mac- Donald, who left for Madras in 1799, and Sir George Leith was appointed the first Lieutenant-Go vernor in 1800. To him in 1804 succeeded R. T. Farquhar, and to him Philip Dundas when Penang was made a Presidency in 1805.

Governor Herbert must have been the liead of some other colony.

A. FRANCIS STEUART.

Edinburgh.

LUNATICS : THEIR TREATMENT IN ELIZA- BETH'S REIGN. The following uncalendared document of the Court of Requests, Bundle 377, illustrates the \*fty in which lunatics were treated soon after Elizabeth came to the throne :

" At Tervyn, 24 Jan., 8 Eliz. John Egerton, .Esq., son and heir of Sir Philip Egerton, Knight, 33 years of age, examined before a Royal Commission as touching the state and lack of memory of John Egerton, saith that when he was 17 or 18 years of age, he being then married to his wife that now is, daughter of Peter Moston of Wales, by reason not only of unkyndness which chanced between his wife and him, but also by occasion of his father's grievous dis- pleasure, he fell into extreme sickness, being five weeks together in great peril of death, and never slept by all the same time ; by extremitye thereof his memory was perished and he became straught of his witts, and in the same case continued ever ince. He hath had no comfort of his father, his mother, his wife, nor anye friend of his, ,nd sayth that at sundry tymes since, by reason of his wyldness, by space of 7 years he hath been imprisoned in Chester, in the Holt Castle, in the Court House of Duckington, in Bonkin's House, and other places, having bolts upon his legs, and manacles upon his hands, and bound at certain times with a collar of iron about his neck, when he would offer to beat his Iteeper. And also hath been kept at Olton, being his father's house, in a close chamber tyed with a clewe of yron to a block, from which he hath often escaped.

" And one other principal cause of the losse of his memorye was that he was in love with a gentlewoman, and for that he could not obtain her with the assent of his father, he lost his memory, and became sick of the infirmity.

" And since his father fell si eke, he hath been Allowed to go about in the country at his liberty, where he wandreth and travayleth in the companie of nowghtie persons and dronkards, without relief either of his father's lands, or of his wife, mother, or frendes, except twenty marks, which he doth spend among unthrifty company and disordered persons. And his wife and Peter Moston take the profittes of his lands ^,nd keep courts in their own names, and have no regard of him. And they have the custody of his son and heir apparent, and intend to have the marriage of him to their own uses. And last

Hallowtide Sir Rowland Stanley sent to him to meet with him at Dunham 'upon the hyll, and requested him that he might have the pre- ferment of his son, and he would give him so much for him, as any other would do, and sayde that Edward Conway should convey him from Peter Moston, whereunto the said John Egerton assented, and Sir Rowland gave him 30s. in money and promised him three hundred marks more, and caused him to seal writings, what they were he knoweth not. And after the said Egerton demanded of the said Sir Rowland the rest of the money, and he said he would pay none, unless he might recover the boy by law. And further sayth that his father in his lifetime assured his lands from him to his sonne and heir apparent, and to this examinates wife and his mother, and he was left without livinge, and that he hath no place of habitation or dwelling."

The document is signed by Sir John Savage and three other commissioners.

C. C. STOPES.

BOOLE-LEAD : BOLE : BULL. In a lately published work, ' Chantrey Land,' by Harold Armitage, being " an account of the North Derbyshire village of Norton," an old docu- ment is quoted (on p. 362) thus :

" to deliver ten foothers [fodders] of good pure . . . .Boole lead of the weight commonly called the boole weight, that is after the rate and weight of 30 foot to the foother, every foot to contain six stone, and every stone to contain fourteen pounds at his Boole Hill at Hardwicke in co. Derby, where commonly he used to burn his lead."

There is a reference to " old bole-\vorks upon the Commons," and a definition of 1670 tells us " that Boles or Bolestids are places where in ancient times (before smelting mills were invented) the miners did fine their lead."

My curiosity as to the derivation or original meaning of the term bole evoked the recollection that I had recently noticed the same word in another new book on ' Old Country Inns ' (by Henry P. Maskell and Edward W. Gregory). Here we are advised that " whenever we come upon the sign of ' The Bull ' it is worth while to inquire if there was formerly a religious house in the neighbourhood." After men- tioning among several other cases " The Bull " at Barking which in deeds of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was referred to as " tectum vel hospitum vocat' ' le Bole ' " the writer goes on to explain that " Bole is the old Norman French equivalent of Latin bulla, a seal, from which it .... is clear .... that the inn was licensed under the seal of the Abbey." " Some antiquaries," it is added, ' ; consider that such inns were close houses, where ale of monastic brewing was sold."