Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/300

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NOTES AND QUERIES. 112 s. i. APRIL s,

was not committed by the direct orders or under the personal supervision of James Graham, Viscount Dundee, but by sub- ordinate officers, imbued by his spirit of animosity and cruelty towards all who differed from the political and religious principles he professed, and anxious to stand well with him by out-Heroding Herod.

It would be interesting to learn whence the idea of Lord Dundee having been killed by a silver bullet at the battle of Killiecrankie originated.

The description of his death supplied by Lord Macaulay in chap. xiii. of his ' History,' which is based upon contemporary records, indicates his death to have been caused by quite a chance hit. The little band of cavalry which he was leading hesitated ;

and, waving his hat, invited them to come on. As lie lifted his arm his cuirass rose and exposed the lower part of his left side. A musket ball struck him,"
 * l Dundee turned round, stood up in his stirrups'

and he died in half-an-hour. It would be a marvel to discover that the bullet was not of lead. F. DE H. L.

FIRES AT ALRESFORD, HANTS (12 S. i. 209). The fires of 1440, 1644, 1689, and 1736 are mentioned in the ' Victoria History ofc Hampshire,' iii. 351, 352, and further information about them can probably be obtained by consulting the authorities which -are there referred to in the foot-notes to the text. Possibly the first of these fires really occurred a little earlier than 1440. At any rate, the Winchester College Account-roll of 1438-9 (Mich. 17 H. VI. Mich. 18 H. VI.) contains the following entry under ' Custus necessarii forinseci cum donis ' :

'-* Et in expensis Johannis Cafyn et Ricardi Bole transeuneium ad Alresforde ad vices ad super- yidendum et colligendum ferramenta et sklattis ibidem post combustionem Ville, vjd."

There had evidently been a fire which had burnt down buildings belonging to the College. John Cafyn was then our baker and brewer (" pistor et brasiator "), and Richard Bole our porter and barber ^"janitor et barbitonsor "). H. C.

Winchester College.

"Collected within the parish of Pannall from Tiouse to house upon the 19 th Aprill 1690 for the

J.TAWJ.O \_mii,c tx mu v^uuruii waruens xvoo. wmter- burne & Jo. Holme." MS. Parish Book of Pannall, Yorks.

J. T. F.

Durham.

ST. NICHOLAS (v. sub 'Father Christmas and Christmas Stockings,' 12 S. i. 69, 173). I should like to correct an error I made in my reply on Santa Claus and the story of St. Nicholas in old windows. As the Rev. W. A. Newman, Rector of Upper Hardres, kindly informs me, the painter of the thirteenth-century medallion in the latter church has correctly shown a building in the middle of the scene, representing the noble- man's house, the window of which the saint is opening, in order to put in the money.

By the way, I see in a new organ of mutual information, The Link, No. 2, February (edited by Max Bellows, Gloucester), an article on the same subject by Mr. A. J. de Havilland Bushnell, the author of ' Storied Windows.' It depicts a glass in the church of Triel on the River Seine (France). I quote the passage, leaving to the readers of ' N. & Q.' to help me in this matter :

" In one scene, St. Nicholas is casting the dowry through the door of the room in which the noble- man is lying. But in the scene below are three women, who are apparently the three daughters. They, however, are not asleep, and their position and occupation are very puzzling. They are around a golden vessel, shaped like a font, on which is the form of a seeming dead man, whose head lies in the lap of one of the women. Out of the vessel a living child is rising. Can any one explain this scene, or tell me t of another window in which it is to be found ? ' '

PIERRE TTJRPIN.

ARMS OF MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD (12 S. i. 249). The arms given by MR. H. I. HALL are those of the College, though Landon blazons them : Or, a chevronel per pale gules and azure between two others of the same counterchanged (' Archseologia Oxoniensis,' part iv. p. 195). He allows that the technical blazon of the coat is not free from difficulty. The shield with which MR. HALL has seen the College coat impaled is probably that of the see of Rochester : Argent, on a salt ire gules an escallop or. Walter de Mertonwas Bishop of Rochester, and impaling his anus with those of the see, he would give the dexter, as the place of honour, to the latter. The coat should be ensigned with a mitre, and the arms would then be those of the founder, not of the College.

JOHN R. MAGRATH.

Queen's College, Oxford.

The founder obtained licence to bestow the manors of Maiden and Farleigh on his House of Scholars from the feudal lord Richard de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, in 1262 confirmed by Gilbert de Clare in 1264.

The founder, according to a common custom, adopted as his arms those of Clare,