Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/418

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NOTES AND QUERIES. en s. iv. NOV. is, 1911.

quoted in Henry Saxe Wyndham's 'Annals of the Co vent Garden Theatre,' 2 vols., 1906, vol. ii. pp. 149-50, " it did little more than repay its outlay."

THOMAS WM. HUCK. Saffron Walden.

The occasion may have been that to which reference is made by Lord Broughton in ' Recollections of a Long Life,' vi. 59. After reporting a sitting of the House of Lords on the evening of 17 March, 1842, he proceeds as follows :

" After this I joined my children at Covent Garden Theatre, and saw ' Comus ' and ' The Mar- riage of Figaro.' The part of Susanna was per- formed by Miss Adelaide Kemble, an exceedingly plain person, but an admirable actress and singer, I thought. ' Comus ' was a gorgeous spectacle, and pleased me as much as it did my children."

In vol. v. p. 233, Lord Broughton states that he visited Covent Garden on 14 Nov., 1839, to see ' The School for Scandal,' and that he " did not like any of the actors except perhaps Madame Vestris." Thus the management is likely to have been the same on both dates. THOMAS BAYNE.

This masque was acted at Covent Garden in 1772, and in an edition published in 1790 there appear casts of the piece as produced at Covent Garden, Haymarket, and Drury Lane. WM. NORMAN.

Plumstead.

BARON DE WALLER : SIR ROBERT WALLER AT AGINCOURT (11 S. iv. 329). I cannot believe in the use of de before Waller ; it sounds like " de Baker " and " de Mercer," which are impossible forms. But ' ' de Waller ' ' may easily have been an ignorant substitu- tion for " le Waller," which is not only reasonable, but real. Bardsley says that " William le Waller," i.e., William the wall- builder, was bailiff of Norwich in 1232 (Blomefield's ' History of Norfolk,' iii. 58), more than two centuries before the word was explained in the ' Promptorium Parvu- lorum.' WALTER W. SKEAT.

Charles Knight's ' Old England ' contains a lengthy reference to the battle of Agincourt. Mention is made of the Duke of Orleans, but there is no indication that his life was saved on the battle-field owing to the timely intervention of another combatant. " Like the Black Prince," says Knight, " Henry V. brought back to England with him an illus- trious captive, the Duke of Orleans, who had been pulled out from under a heap of slain. As to John of France, so to this royal duke, the most marked courtesy was paid." ' Old

England ' contains an engraving showing the Duke writing poetry under the observa- tion of a well-armed guard while a prisoner in the Tower of London. T. H. BARROW.

JANE AUSTEN'S 'PERSUASION' (11 S. iv. 288, 339). 1. Cf. " Gladstone's house was painting " Lord Russell to Lord Gran- ville, 23 November, 1868 (Granville's ' Life,' vol. ii. p. 533). G. W. E. R.

3. The seven-shilling piece mentioned by MR. N. W. HILL was of gold and was a coin. The three-shilling piece was a silver token issued by the Bank of England to supply the dearth of small currency. Together with a smaller token of Is. 6d., it was first issued on 9 July, 1811, and Mr. B. B. Turner ('Chronicles of the Bank of England') informs us that between that date and 1815 the amount of these tokens put into circula- tion was four and a half millions sterling.

J. H. K.

[MR. K. H. HOPKINS also thanked for reply.]

" CH " : ITS PRONUNCIATION (11 S. iv. 285). PROF. SKEAT seems to bear me out (ante, p. 233) that ch was pronounced sometimes as k, and more often as ch, as, for instance, in child. We should remember that the Saxon Child, as in " Childe Harold," &c., meant something in the nature of prince, as does Infante in Spanish. Down to the time of Edward I. Norman-French was the tongue of our courts of law and of the higher classes, and the difficulty with Domesday Book is that the names eventually came to be written as pronounced. Thus, for instance, the Saxon Englishmen would pronounce the Norman Carteret as Cartwright, and the Norman Bourchier as Butcher. In the same way the Norman monk would alter Saxon and Danish place-names and surnames into accordance with Norman-French pro- nunciation and spelling. We were dis- cussing chetel as a suffix in such names as Ulfchetel or Ulfchil, and Turchetel or Tur- chil. I gave, as another instance, Raven- chetel or Ravenchil, which I said had been corrupted into Raunchell and Ravenshall, in Cheshire. Ulfchetel would be corrupted into Ushaw, w^hich as a place-name still exists in the north in Ulf chit's district, as does also Ulshaw. As a surname it would be Ussher, quite common in the same district. We have in Yorkshire Ramechil, sometimes, accord- ing to a Yorkshire archaeological publication, written Rameshil ; and the modern Ram- shaw occurs in Yorkshire and Durham, both as a place-name and a common surname.