Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 9.djvu/261

 us. ix. MAR. 28, 1911] NOTES AND QUERIES.

255

May not this phrase denote Long Meg of Westminster, who is often alluded to by old writers ? A " lusty, bouncing romp " .and procuress of the sixteenth century, her London " in 1582. A. R. BAYLEY.
 * Life and Pranks ' were " imprinted at

Many years ago a short drama called at the old Royalty Theatre, Dean Street, Soho. It was written by the actor who took the chief male part, H. T. Craven. The heroine was " Patty " Oliver. This may throw some light upon the query.
 * Meg's Diversion ' was played with success

CECIL CLARKE.

(Several other' correspondents thanked for the same suggestion.]

LESCELINE DE VERDON (11 S. viii. 371 ; ix. 130). I regret exceedingly that, owing to important work requiring my constant attention, I have been prevented until now from tendering to MR. GODDARD H. ORPEN the expression of my gratitude for the very interesting and most valuable contribution by him at the second reference.

Coming from so able and learned a writer, the evidence which your correspondent brings forward regarding the acquirement of the Earldom of Ulster by Walter de Burgh and the identity of his wife should put an end to the oft-repeated fable that Walter married Matilda de Laci, daughter of Hugh de Laci, Earl of Ulster, by his first wife, Lesceline de Verdon, and became on such marriage Earl of Ulster j.u.

But by far the most important feature of MR. ORPEN' s communication is the decisive evidence he has produced that Lesceline de Verdon was the sister, and not the daughter, of Thomas de Verdon, and that conse- quently she was the daughter of Bertram de Verdon and Rohese, his second wife. After the extract from the Gormanston Register which MR. ORPEN has been good enough to include, there can no longer be any possible room for the identity of Lesce- line de Verdon to be in doubt.

Your correspondent has given so much valuable inf or mation that I would venture to solicit his further assistance.

At 11 S. viii. 375, col. 1, I showed that Bertram de Verdon married Rohese "in or by 1179," and that as she was, according to MR. ST. CLAIR BADDELEY (ib., p. 254), "no older actually than c. 50 " at her decease in 1215, she must have been but 14 years of age at the time of her marriage.

According to Burke's ' Extinct Peerage,' the children of this marriage were William,

Thomas, Bertram, Robert, Nicholas, Walter, and Lesceline ; but when we find Lynam in his ' Sketches of the Earlier Verduns,' p. x (vide ' The Abbey of St. Mary, Croxden, Staffordshire'), stating that Thomas "was born about 1180, and in any case but very little before and very little after"; MR. ST. CLAIR BADDELEY speaking of Thomas as " son and heir " of Bertram (11 S. viii. 171); and Lynam ('Sketches,' &c., p. xvi) referring to Nicholas as presumably of age by 21 Aug., 1203, it is evident that the order of issue, as given by Burke, cannot altogether be relied upon for accuracy.

Lesceline is spoken of as the youngest child. If Thomas was born c. 1180, and Nicholas presumably the second son, as he was Thomas's heir at the latter's death in 1199 in 1182, it would appear that the other four sons, allowing the same interval of time, were born between, say, 1184 and 1190, and Lesceline probably c. 1192, the year of her father's death at Joppa.

But MR. ORPEN suggests that Lesceline's marriage to Hugh may have been about the time of the forfeiture of " Makergalin " by Gilbert de Nangle or de Angulo, which occurred, according to the Dublin copy of the Annals of Inisf alien, in 1196 (J. H. Round in Genealogist, New Series, vol. xv. p. 3).

But if this supposition is correct the question arises, What was the real date of Lesceline's birth ? If the marriage took place c. 1196, it must have been entered into by Hugh to secure Lesceline's inheritance, and consummated later, for she must have been still a child if the date suggested for her birth is correct, her parents, according to Lynam (' Sketches,' &c., p. x), having only been married c. 1179, and there being evidence that she was not the eldest of their children. May she, perhaps, have been their second child, and born c. 1181 ? In such case she might, as early marriages were in vogue, have been married to Hugh de Laci in 1196.

I should be extremely obliged for any evidence MR. ORPEN could furnish as to the date of Lesceline's birth ; also of her decease.

Permit me now to say a few words regard- ing your correspondent's startling announce- ment that Ratour and le Nober were never the property of a De Verdun (and therefore could not have formed a portion of Lesce- line's "maritagium"), a statement which he supports by alleging that Cal. Doc. Ire., i., Nbs. 1371 ' 3* 4, ' if correctly abstracted,