Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/214

 174

NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. v. MAR. 2. 1912.

and Lord Harlech. There is little doubt that the Gowers and the Gores have a common origin. The names are pronounced the same, and the earlier registers in which there are entries relating to members of the Gower family give the name as Gower, Gowre, Goore, Gore, and Gouer.

According to works on the peerage and baronetage, the family which now spells its name Gore traces descent from Gerard Gore, an Alderman of the City of London, who died 11 December, 1607. Is anything known of Gerard Gore's ancestry ? If Burke (' General Armory ") is correct in stating that the arms now used by the Gores were also those of the Gowers of Worcestershire and Warwickshire, it is possible that Gerard Gore was a member of the Worcestershire family. Moreover, the using of such arms by one (Thomas Gower) who was undoubtedly a member of the Yorkshire family shows a probability that the two families were connected. Is it known when the arms now used by the Leveson-Gowers were first borne by them ?

In the ' Visitation of Cheshire ' I find that in the fourteenth or fifteenth century Rundall Bostocke of Churton married worth in Wariksh." Was he any con- nexion of Sir Nicholas Gower of co. York (temp. Edward III.), an ancestor of the Leveson-Gowers ?
 * ' Anne, da. to Nicholas Gower of Killing-

Nash, in his ' History of Worcestershire,' states that the Gowers of Worcestershire originally came from co. Warwick. I shall be greatly obliged for any references to the Gowers in Warwickshire, and for any infor- mation on the matters mentioned above. Whereabouts in Warwickshire is Killing- worth ? R. VAUGHAN GOWEB.

" CHRISTIANA REGINA BOHEMIA NATA HEBEVIA " (11 S. v. 68). NEL MEZZO'S note of interrogation seems to imply that there is some doubt as to one or more words of this inscription. In default of more definite information it may be dangerous to offer a conjecture, but it is tempting to suggest that " Bohemia " should be Bohemise, and that instead of " Nata Here via " we should read Maria Theresia. We are told that the queen who forms the subject of the engraving died in 1780. That year was the date of the death of a crowned queen of Bohemia, the famous Maria Theresa. She was born, how- ever, in 1717, not in 1724, and I do not know whether she was ever styled, informally or otherwise, " Christian " or " most Christian." {Is ' Christiana" certain, or is there a sign of

contraction over the n ?) It was in 1724, I think, that the Pragmatic Sanction was first made public. However, without any knowledge of the character of the lettering and whether the dates are in Reman or Arabic numerals, one feels on uncertain ground. I trust that if a further examina- tion of the print shows that there is no justification for my conjecture NEL MEZZO will knock it on the head.

EDWARD BENSLY.

FAMILIES : DURATION IN MALE LINE (11 S. v. 27, 92, 132). In reply to SIR WILLIAM BULL, I may say that the dura- tion of a family in the male line is a very complicated question for various reasons. A family is said to become extinct when its estate passes away by an heiress. Yet the heiress herself may have had half- brothers who carried on the male line and surname of their own father, she having come into the estate on the death of her whole-blood brother who had succeeded his father. There are several examples of this. It is very rare to find son succeeding father for more than five or six generations. The Wodehouse baronetcy, created in 1611. has descended to the Earl of Kimberley, who is the ninth baronet, without one reversion to a collateral, though two grandsons suc- ceeded, making eleven generations. This is unusual, perhaps unique.

SIR WILLIAM BULL'S second query can be answered without any misgivings : " the family that has undoubted proofs of the longest descent in the male line " is certainly the Fitzharding Berkeleys. Robert fitz Harding was the great progenitor of this house, and founder of Bristol Abbey in the time of Henry II. John Trevisa, Vicar of Berkeley (d. 1411), compiled a history of the family ; and another most elaborate account was the work of John Smyth of Nibley. So perfect and complete is the genealogy that when I went carefully over it some years ago, I could make only a few corrections. One was that Nicholas de Meriet, a Somersetshire tenant in capite, was the son and heir of Harding, and not Robert, which was naturally never suspected, seeing the great influence and position to which the latter attained (see 5 S. xii. 362 and 6 S. i. 239). Another interesting fact I discovered was that Harding had acted as a Justice-Itinerant in 1096 (6 S. ii. 10).

There is no account of any baronial house to be compared with this for its trustworthi- ness, the fullness of its records, and the many dates. The family is remarkable for