Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 9.djvu/117

 ii s. ix. FEB. 7, i9i4.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

Ill

THE LORD MAYOR'S SWORD AND MACE. Can you inform me what is the origin and meaning of the sword and mace being held out of the Lord Mayor of London's carriage on State occasions ? A. GWYTHER.

THE COLONELS OF THE 24xn REGIMENT. -(See ante, p. 87.) William Tatton, Ensign in Cornwall's Regiment (9th Foot) 1 June, 1687, became Lieut. -Colonel 24th Regiment 1692. Was selected as A.Q.M.G. at the outset of the Blenheim campaign on account of his intimate knowledge of Germany. Present at Blenheim. Became Colonel 24th Hegiment 25 Aug., 1704. Present at Ramil- lies. Exchanged to Grenadier Guards with ol. Primrose, 1707 [sic]. Died a Lieut. - General, Governor of Tilbury Fort, and Colonel of 3rd Buffs, 1737.

Gilbert Primrose. Served in the Grena- diers from 1680 to 1708, in the Cadiz expe- dition, at Schellenberg (wounded), and at Blenheim, when he succeeded to the com- mand of his battalion. Exchanged to the colonelcy 24th Regiment with Brigadier Tatton in 1708 [sic]. Died a Major-General and Colonel 24th Regiment, 1717.

B. LEACH, Lieut. -Col., Commanding l/24th Regt.

South Wales Borderers. St. Lucia Barracks, Bordon, Hants.

(To be continued.

DAMANT.

(11 S. ix. 50.)

I CANNOT reply to your querist's inquiry " What is the derivation of this name ? " But as I have studied the history of the old family for over thirty years, I have learnt all that can now be derived from Court Rolls, parochial registers, wills, deeds, and the other usual sources of information. If F. H. R. cares to write to me, I will gladly tell him all I know, warning him, however, that the link with the Spanish Low Countries has yet to be found.

There is no connexion with the Dam ens, Dammans, Dammens, or Van Dammens, who bore different coat armour from the Damants of the^Spanish Netherlands and the Damants of EastjAnglia.

Where the name is spelt " Dammant," as in some registers notably the Fressingfield or Witherdale entry as to the marriage of Thomas Damant to the great-niece of Arch- bishop J Sancroft in 1709 it is merely a

clerical error, a mistake repeated in various heraldic works from Guillim down to recent days.

The pages of ' N. & Q.' contain informa- tion as to the quaint charge of a turnip proper borne by the Damants, and MR. CULLETON says that while there are some dozen families who bear the turnip, they are all of Low-Country origin, and that only the Damants amongst them bear also the chief guttee de larmes (or, as he believes, de poix) on sable.

These arms are quartered on the achieve- ment at the Dublin College of Arms of Sir William Betham, Ulster King-of-Arms, who was the son of a Mary Damant ; but even he failed to find the actual date of the coming of the Damants to England.

Later research proves that a Damant of Cavenham contributed to a subsidy temp. Edward III., and leads one to the conclusion that Damants formed part of the famous colony which Queen Philippa induced to come over from Hainault to teach the mys- teries of the woollen trade to her husband's East Anglian subjects. Some Damants were at Stonham Aspal in the reign of Philip and Mary, and one Damant came in Philip's train from the Netherlands to England.

Very many of the family were settled as well-to-do yeomen round the town of Eye, and a few were further afield in various Suffolk parishes, during the Georgian days.

But it appears evident that, from time to time, there had been later arrivals from Ghent, Brussels, and Antwerp after the first settlement, for the Robert Damant who died at Wilby Manor late in Queen Elizabeth's reign cannot be connected with any other Suffolk Damant, and his descend- ants for ten generations have faithfully handed on the story of how he fled from Alva's persecution, and the coat armour he brought with him from the disturbed Spanish Netherlands.

Walter Rye's ' Norfolk Antiquarian Mis- cellany,' Second Series, pt. ii., contains a paper on the Damants of Wilby and Lam- mas, and I believe I have full information on the various families of the earlier settle- ment, who, it may be noted, never seem to have used any arms. One, who was lord of many manors in the Stuart days, was con- tent in presenting plate to the church of which he was patron, at Crarisford (where his tomb adorns the chancel, and the Damant Dole is still distributed) to have only his wife's arms in a lozenge engraved on the paten, &c.