Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/217

 s. v. MAP, 2, 1912 ] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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ROBERT BRUCE, EARL OF Ross (11 S. iv. 268). King Robert Bruce had an ille- gitimate son named Robert, whom he knighted, and upon whom he bestowed possessions in Liddesdale in the south of Scotland. The name of his mother is nowhere stated. There is no evidence to show that lie was created Earl of Ross. That title belonged to a family who had held it many generations before King Robert's day, and wljo retained it several years after his death. The fourth Earl of Ross fought on the Scottish side at Bannock- burn.

Sir Robert Bruce, the illegitimate son, was killed at the battle of Dupplin in 1332. Perhaps the idea that he was Earl of Ross may have arisen in this way. At the battle of Dupplin another Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, was also slain. He was one of the illegitimate sons of Edward Bruce, King Robert's brother. His mother's name is not known, but it is stated that he was raised to the Earldom of Carrick after his father's death in Ireland in 1318. It is also said that his father, Edward Bruce, had been married, or, as some say, only betrothed, to Isabella, the daughter of the fourth Earl of Ross. Xow probably some chronicler, knowing of the marriage or betrothal of Edward Bruce, hastily concluded that the two earldoms (Carrick and Ross) belonged to the Bruce family, while the similarity of name, no doubt, led him to confuse the identity of the two cousins (both of them illegitimate sons) who fell at Dupplin. At all events, it was nearly a hundred years after King Robert's death before the Earldom of Ross came into possession of the Scottish rown. W. SCOTT.

PANTHERA (US. v. 91). There is a note on this name in Adolf Deissmann's ' Light from the Ancient East,' London, 1911, pp. 68, 69. The same writer contributed a note on ' Der Xame Panthera ' to a volume of ' Orientalische Studien ' presented to Theodor Xoldeke on his seventieth birthday, Giessen, 1906, pp. 871-5. If J. H. R. wishes to see this, and will send me his address, I may be able to obtain an " off- print " for him from the author. Deiss- mann shows that Panthera is one of the many Greek personal names derived from the names of animals, and was not altogether rare in the Imperial period down to the third century. In its ultimate origin I suppose the word may very well be'Oriental. PROF. SKEAT has conjectured that it may be Indian, L. R. M. STRACHAN.

Heidelberg.

KEESTON CASTLE, PEMBROKESHIRE (11 S. v. 110). As I spent the greater part of my childhood within four miles of Keeston, I can assert with confidence that the place never had what is usually called a castle. It has what the Ordnance map calls a castle a pre- historic camp, which happens to be one of the finest in a county studded with earth- works. This, though only three hundred feet above the sea, commands a very ex- tensive view. About a mile further north, on the rocky crest of the same hill, are the ruins of Roch Castle, which are visible from great distances.

It is not uncommon for topographical writers to guess that " castle " on the Ordnance map indicates a feudal stronghold. A recent work on Glamorgan credits the western end of the Gower peninsula with two castles of whose existence the natives are ignorant.

From Keeston (Keetings-ton) came the Keetings or Keatings who followed Strong- bow to Ireland and settled there.

DAVID SALMON.

Swansea.

RICHARDS OF BRAMLEY HOUSE, SUFFOLK (US. v. 66). This should be Richards of Brambletye House, Sussex. The MS. note quoted was probably copied from an eigh- teenth-century Baronetage. Wotton (1741) and Kimber (1771) give similar accounts in almost identical language, but with a slight difference in the succession and arms.

R. FREEMAN BULLEN.

Bow Library, E.

Cansick in his collection of St. Pancras epitaphs gives the particulars missing at the end of MR. W. E. XANSON'S note. According to the inscription over his grave, Sir Joseph Richards, Bart., " departed this life June the 2nd, 1738, aged 53." The date of the death of his wife Dame Jane Richards does not appear. This may have been owing to its obliteration through the decay of the stone. JOHN T. PAGE.

Long Itchington, Warwickshire.


 * WOMEN AND TOBACCO (11 S. v. 89).

The lady would no doubt want tobacco for general use in the house, and she may have been a smoker herself (see 10 S. xi. 378). To the evidence there given that women in Stuart times did sometimes smoke might be added what King James said with regard to the " cleane complexioned wife " being driven to the extremity of corrupting