Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 6.djvu/17

 ii8.vLJn.Ye.i9i2.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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and York, and others ; and also, in addition to Sifferd, by six of the tributary kings who a few years later did homage to Edgar, viz.. Kinath, King of Scotland, Maccus. King of the Isles, Malcolm, King of Cumberland. Jacob subregulus, Inkil sub- regulus, Dufnal, &c. (Cf. No. 519, ' Codex Diplomat icus JEvi Saxonici,' J. M. Kemble, London. 1848.)

In Freeman's ' Old English History ' (Rhys's edition, p. 175) is the following passage :

" We hear of no invasion of the Danes .... There was a little fighting with the SVelsh and a little with the Scots just at the beginning of Edgar's reign .... To preserve his kingdom from foreign invaders, Edgar, like Alfred, kept up a great fleet, which was always sailing about the coasts, so that the Danes could never land. But there may now and then, very likely, have been some fighting by sea ; for instance, in 962 we read how a certain king Sigferth killed himself and was buried at Wimborne. Now it is hard to see what any King Sigferth could have been doing anywhere near Wimborne unless he was a Danish prisoner."

Freeman assumes from his name that the King Sigferth, or Sifferth, who was buried at Wimborne must have been a Dane. But the old monkish historians are very clear in describing the Sifferth who was one of the tributary kings to King Edgar as a King of Wales. Neither Bath, where Edgar was consecrated, nor Chester, where homage was done to him, is very far from Wales. Wimborne could be reached by road from Bath, and would not be more than seventy miles distant. Or Bristol, which is twelve miles from Bath (and that journey might be made by river), would be accessible by sea from Poole, which is but six miles from Wimborne, or from Wareham, which is but ten miles away, and in those days was an important seaport.

Xow the ' Anglo-Saxon Chronicle ' was the work of various writers. Is it possible that its chronology is, so far as Sifferth is concerned, somewhat confused ; that the above-mentioned passages all relate to the same man, Sifferth, a King of Wales; that the date of his death is incorrectly given in the ' Chronicle * ; and that it should be more than ten years later ?

It is worthy of mention that Wimborne had previously been the burial-place of another monarch, Ethelred, the elder brother of Alfred the Great, in the year 871, and that the Purbeck marble slab which covered his remains is shown in the Minster at the present day. JAS. M. J. FLETCHER.

The Vicarage, Wimborne Minster.

THE DEATH OF SHELLEY. I should be grateful for information relative to the reception, by London newspapers, of the news of Shelley's death. Were any details of that catastrophe given by correspondents abroad ? and did any obituary notice of the young poet appear in the leading journals of those days ? RICHARD EDGCUMBE.

Edgbarrow, Crowthorne, Berks.

" MOOLVEE." I am studying the history of the Arabic word tnaulawiyy (a learned man), which is generally anglicized moolvee. I want to know to what triliteral root this word may be traced. Are native Arabic scholars agreed upon an etymology ? I suppose that in form it might be derived from the root wala" (to be near) a root identified by Western scholars with the Hebrew Idwah (to be joined together). So the ' Oxford Hebrew Lexicon.' If this etymology be correct, how can the seman- tology be explained ? how can we arrive at the meaning of " a learned man " ? Is the sense -development as follows : " to be near," " to be a friend," helper, protector, lord, saint, learned man ? It should De- noted that all these senses and many more are found in the word and its co-radicates. A. L. MAYHEW. 21, Norham Road, Oxford.

ESTATES OF NONJURORS. On p. 603 of vol. xcv. (part i.) of The Gentleman's Maga- zine there is a list of persons " taken from a scarce book intituled ' Names of the Roman Catholics, Xori jurors, who refused to take the oath to his late Majesty King George the First. Taken from an original MS. of a Gentleman who was principal Clerk to the Accomptant General's Office belonging to the Commissioners for the for- feited Estates of England and Wales, after the Rebelliou in the year 1715. Staffordshire, published 1745.' "

The first entry in the list is as follows : "William Stafford, Esq., estate at Bradley, in possession of Peter Hatton and others, 399J. 10s. T ' ; and similar entries follow. What is the meaning of the amount placed against the name and description of each person ? Is it that the estates of those mentioned were forfeited to the Crown and released on payment of a fine ? In several cases the estates referred to remained the property of the Nonjurors subsequent to 1715. Where can I obtain any information, upon the matter ? R. VAUGHAN GOWER.

EVANGEL INKPOT. There has recently

come into my possession a quaint metal

I inkpot, truncated-cone shape. Round it the

{ following figures appear in relief : a man

I in a full robe, holding an open book ; an