Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 9.djvu/19

 ii s. ix. JAN. 3, 1914.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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reference one of these examples is furnished by the proverb, which is there given in its entirety : "As thrang as Throp's wife, when she hanged hersel' wi' the dishcloot." The saying is also quoted, as No. 14 of ' Sundry Northern Proverbs,' in ' The Denhani Tracts,' vol. ii. p. 65 (Folk-Lore Society, xxxv., 1895). Dr. James Hardy, who edited these two folk-lore volumes, possessed a unique acquaintance with Northern traditions, and he passed this adage without annotation. We may thus conclude that its origin was unknown to him, and that the proverb continued current long after the incident giving rise to it had been forgotten.

R. OLIVER, HESLOP.

The ' English Dialect Dictionary ' shows that the phrase " as busy (or as throng) as Throp's wife " is, or was," in. use from North- umberland to Derby and Lincolnshire. " Whoever she may have been, she is reported to have hung herself in her dish- clout, care and anxiety having preyed too much on her mind," says the ' Cumberland Glossary,' by W. Dickinson and E. W. Prevost (1899). In Lincolnshire the expres- sion is " used to describe a woman who is for ever busying herself about domestic affairs, but whose house and surroundings are nevertheless always in a mess " (Edward Peacock, ' Glossary of Words used in the Wapentakes of Manley and Corringham, Lincolnshire,' 2nd ed.,' 1889). These and other quotations are given in the ' Dic- tionary.' "Throp " is a variant of Thorp: and in one quotation from West Yorkshire a garter takes the place of the dishclout.

L. R. M. STRACHAN. Heidelberg.

" As thrang as Throp's wife " is a saying regularly applied to a busy housewife. It is said of her : " Shoe's hes thrang as Throp's wife when shoo clouted Dick wi' a dishclout." Who Dick was, other than Throp's wife's husband, does not appear to be known, but Dick had a terrible time of it at the hands of Throp's wife. THOS. RATCLIFFE.

THE GUILD OF KNIGHTS (US. viii. 448). Dr. Round writes :

"That ancient and remarkable institution, the English Cnihtengild of London, remains shrouded in mystery. It is known to us only through the liifb of its soke to Holy Trinity Priory, and the consequent preservation, among that Priory's monuments [muniments?!, of charters confirming that soke, from Edward the Confessor downwards.' ' 'Commune of London,' pp. 102-3.

Dr. Round rejects Mr. Loftie's theory that the gild was the governing body of London,

arid thinks it not improbable that by 1125- it had become, " like a modern city com- pany, a mere propertied survival." He also shows that the statement that the members- of the gild themselves entered the priory is " absolutely erroneous " (ibid., pp. 103-4)-

G. H. WHITE.

SIR GEORGE W T RIGHT OF RICHMOND (11 S. viii. 348, 410, 452, 496. ) The will of Sir George's father, who is described as Thomas Wright, Gent., of St. Michael's,. Crooked Lane, London, Cobham, &c., was proved 1592 (Harrington, 57). He desires to be buried in Cobham Church " in or near the place where my father's body lieth," and mentions wife Esther; sons George, Thomas, Philip, Jacob, Edmund, John,. Peter, Abraham, Simon; daughters Esther and Rebecca ; brother George Wright ; " my mother " ; sisters Wright, Waynsoiv Browne, Smith, and Bridget Jackson.

The will of his brother George, which was proved 1596 (Drake, 2), describes him as George Wright, Gent., of Cobham, Shorne, and Chalk, Kent. He mentions therein "Margaret my wife"; nephew George- Wright; brother Thomas, deceased, and all his children, sons and daughters ; George the- eldest, "Symoii" the second, and Abraham the youngesfc. Their names correspond with those in the will of his brother Thomas- above.

The following references to wills show that the family were at Cobham for some* generations :

Thomas Wright, 1471, Consistory Court oif Rochester, iv. 88.

Nicholas, 1479, proved 1508, vi. 203.

William, 1508, P.C.C. (Bennett. 1)

George Wright the elder, 1555, xii. (1) 150. "To- be buried in the church before the font."

They are all described as of Cobham. I imagine the description in Foster, " Thomas of Debham, Kent," should be Thomas of Cobham. I. fail to find any place named; Debham in Kent or elsewhere.

The will of Sir George Wright's brother Peter is dated 24 June, 1636. He describes himself as being of the parish of St. Katharine Coleman, and mentions his wife Avis, sons Peter and John under 21, and daughter Avis, also .a minor ; and his nephew r Nicholas,. " son of my brother Thomas, deceased," as being both fatherless and motherless. Elizabeth, his niece and Sir George's daughter, evidently lived to the time of her "death (April, 1634) with this Peter Wright. Her sister Mary, of the parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, spinster, mentions, in her will, 16 June, 1654, Charles, the son.