Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/351

 12 S. 1. APRIL 29, 1916.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

345

How would he hang his slender gilded wings And buzz lamenting doings in the air ! Poor, harmless fly ....
 * Titus Andronicus,' III. ii. 62 :

It is easy to see that " doings " cannot be the right expression. Why not " dronings " ? But this is not a Shakespearian word.

C. R. HAINES. Petersfield.

(To bf, concluded.)

WATER TOURNAMENTS AT ESTAVAYER. In a little volume of eighty odd pages, entitled * Us et Coutumes d'Estavayer,' by Jos. Volniar, Estavayer, imp. Butty, 1905, there is an account of " Les Joutes," the water tournament, which formerly took place at Estavayer on the " dimanche des Brandons," the first Sunday in Lent. The account gives a passage from the fourth MS. volume (year 1728) of the ' Annales pour servir a 1'histoire d'Estavayer et des lieux circonvoisins,' by Dom Jacques Philippe Grangier (1743-1817), partly published (1 vol. 8vo) in 1905, and in the possession of the Grangier family. I have abridged Dom Grangier' s luxuriant prose. Up to less than a century before the time when lie was writing there were tournaments held at Estavayer in the bay of the lake from La Rochette to the rock where the shooting butts are set. (Since the lowering of the water-level this bay has become dry land ; the rifle range is still there.) Every man married in the past year had either to joust himself or find a substitute for 10 florins (40 batz). There were generally eight fishing boats, decorated with bunting, and manned by young men of the town, each commanded by a j ouster who stood in the prow, armed with a buckler and lance. To the accompaniment of drums and fifes, the flotilla rowed to the bay, where songs were sung and the boats made various evolutions, after which the actual jousting began. Whoever was pushed into the lake had to swim ashore (the water cannot have been more than 4 or 5 ft. deep at the most) and his boat had to leave the fight, while the victorious crew turned to seek another enemy. The last j ouster remaining was proclaimed victor and made a jubilant entry into the town. The origin of the jousts is unknown. They are mentioned in the ' Manuel du Conseil ' in 1682, and were abolished in 1731, after a serious fire had broken out in the house of Jean Maret, one of the j ousters, said Jean Maret having come home very drunk from the dinner which ended the day. So the 10 florins due from

the newly married men (substitution seems to have become the rule, as the water is cold on the first Sunday in Lent) were reduced to 5 which went to buy leather fire-buckets (anguettes).

There are or were similar jousts held en the Marne and on the Garonne. The latter, I think, were described some years ago in an illustrated article in one of the American magazines. D. L. GALBREATH.

Montreux.

SIR WILLIAM DRURY, LORD JUSTICE OF IRELAND. When one meets with an error in such a valuable work as the ' N.D.B.,' it is as well to make a note of it, and there is no better medium for recording it than in the pages of ' N. & Q.' In the article on Sir William Drury, Lord Justice of Ireland, it is stated that " on the death of Edward VL he was one of the first to declare for Queen Mary" This conclusion is probably arrived at from the fact that, along with others, a Sir William Drury was " with Mary at Kenninghall " in 1553 when word was brought to the Council with Lady Jane Grey at the Tower of London to this effect ('The Chronicle of Queen Jane and Two Years of Queen Mary,' p. 5); but this Sir William would be the knight of Hawstead, who received his knighthood in 1533, and who became a member of the Privy Council of Queen Mary. He was uncle to the other Sir William, who was only 26 years of age at the accession of Mary, and was not knighted till 1570. Besides, in 1553 he was probably on the Continent, as we are told that in that year he did good service in France.

In addition to this he was apparently unknown to the Queen, for in the year 1557 he was the bearer of a letter of recommenda- tion from the Duke of Savoy to Mary,, wherein he is described as " the bearer William Drury, whose service to their Majesties in the war is deserving of employment and remembrance."

Thus the facts of his youth, of his being on the Continent at the time, his not having : then been knighted, and being unknown to the Queen, point to the improbability of his having been " one of the first to declare for" Queen Mary." On the other hand, his uncle,, Sir William of Hawstead, was with Mary, received an annuity as a reward for his services, and was made a Privy Councillor.

Sir William, the Lord Justice, was wont to say that " the soldiers of England had always one of these three ends to look for : to be slain, to beg, or to be hanged." It is more than likely he said this from bitter