Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 10.djvu/179

12 S.X. FEB. 25, 1922.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 141

NOTES: Commonwealth Registers, 141 Commonwealth Marriages and Burials in the Aldeburgh Register Book 142 Sir Richard Willys, Traitor, 145 John Charles Williams, a Buckinghamshire Parson. 146 "Earthland" Cumulative Stories Privileges of the Dean and Canons of Windsor Portraits of Coleridge and Dickens, 148 " Scooter," 149. QUERIES :" Mayor " as a Woman's Title Aucher: Depedene Sir Ralph and Sir Edward Bashe : Anne Scot (nte Bashe), 149 Latin Proverb : Origin sought Thomas Lovall Jellyman Family : Register of All Saints' Church, Oxford Pilate's Wife Unidentified Portrait on Wood Panel Portraits by Vandyck " Once aboard the lugger " Catherine, Duchess of Gordon Granger's ' Biographical History,' 150 The Cap of Maintenance John Filmer Emmett Lazenki Palace, Warsaw : Latin Inscriptions ' The Tale of Two Cities ' : the Drugging of Darnay Chalk in Kent and its Owners : Rye, Cornhill. Vilers, St. Clair, 151 Poem wanted Reference wanted Authors wanted, 152. REPLIES : White of Selborne : Portrait wanted, 152 Colonel Charles Whitefoord. 153 Arab (or Eastern) Horses Pallone, an Italian Game American Humorists : Capt. G. H. Derby, 154 Prime Minister De Kemplen's Automaton Chess-player, 155 The Arms of Leeds Land Measurement Terms The " Chevalier Schaub " Kangaroo Cooke Heraldic Mottoes, 156 ' La Santa Parantela ' Derivation of Chinkwell Samuel Hartlib, 157 Mrs. Gordon, Novelist General Nicholson's Birthplace Ewen: Coat of Arms Quotations in The Tatter Thomas Edwards, LL.D., 158 Mangles Authors wanted, 159. NOTES ON BOOKS: 'The Grey Friars of Chester' 'A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles,' X ZYXT ' A Manual of French.' Notices to Correspondents. COMMONWEALTH REGISTERS. MR. ARTHUR T. WINN'S contribution in the ' Commonwealth Marriages and Burials in the Aldeburgh Register Book ' (ante, pp. 81, 104, 124) suggests a wider field of historical inquiry. That would be as to how far Parish Registers in Civil War and Commonwealth times contain any special reference to the period, or show signs of being affected by it. I am induced to make this suggestion by the results of a thorough search I made close upon forty years ago of the registers of my native parish, St. Mary Magdalene, Launceston. The volume covering the period under examination is described on the title page as 'A true Register of all Marriages Baptisms and Burialls within ye parish of Mary Magdalen in Launceston, from ye yeere of our Lord god 1559 Truely copyed out accordinge to the old Register this it yeere 1601. Written by John Harbert, 1601.' This applies only to the entries from 1559 to 1601 posted up from earlier notes ; but the contents of the volume cover the years from 1559 to 1671. Up to May, i610, when some of the records were lost, each child was stated to be " christened " ; but after the regular re- sumption of registration in 1620, though the heading of each page continued to be " Christenings " the word used in all the entries was " baptised." This was invariable until 1651-52, in the entries of which years there were instances of the use of " borne," though these were evidently written in later. But after July, 1653, the heading was " Birthes," and " borne " was used in each entry except three, two in a later hand, this practice continuing until March, 1657, when the heading became " Birthes and Baptismes," the date of christening as well as of birth being affixed in many cases after August of that year. The more strictly Puritan rule was thus breaking down ; and in July, 1660, and only a few weeks after the Restoration, the heading was changed once more to the single word " Baptismes," and so remained to the end of the volume. It is concerning the marriages of the Commonwealth period that the St. Maiy Magdalene Register affords the most striking indications of ecclesiastical dispute. In August, 1653, Parliament adopted an Act for solemnizing marriages by justices of the peace ; and two months afterwards, according to the Register, Thomas Reese being before this tyme duly chosen to bee Parish Register within this borrough in obedience and according to the late act of this present Parliament in yt behalf e made & pro- vided was this present day [October 11] approved allowed of and also sworne before mee Richard Grills gentn. maior of this Borrough and one of ye Justices assigned. Yet it was apparently not for two years after that statute was in operation that justices of the peace actually solemnized marriages at Launceston. The wedding entries from 1653 to the closing days of 1655 appear in their customary form ; but, after one of November 27, 1655, and in a blank space at the bottom of a page, there is written in a bold hand " Hereafter follow marriages by Laymen, according to ye prophanes and giddynes of ye times, without precedent or example in any Christian Kingdom or Comonwealth from the Birth of Christ unto this very year 1655." The first of these lay-made marriages,