Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 10.djvu/461

 12 s. x. MAY is, i922.i NOTES AND QUERIES. 379 issued sixty or seventy years ago by Nichol- son and Sons of Wakefield, the second chapter begins with these words : Every one, at least every Yorkshi reman, is familiar with the observation that Robin Hood could brave all weathers but a thaw wind. ARTHUR BOWES. Newton-le-Willows, Lanes. PEEL YATES (12 S. x. 310). The families of Peel and Yates were intimately connected with one another in, the eighteenth century. Robert Peel, one of the founders of the calico-printing trade in Lancashire, entered into partnership, about 1760, with William Yates. His son, the first Sir Robert Peel, married William Yates' s daughter Ellen in 1783, and their son, the second Sir Robert Peel, was the famous statesman. In the younger branch of their family the name Yates occurs several times as a second Christian name. Further particulars of both families and of the connexion between them will be found in Abram's ' History of Black- burn.' H. J. B. CLEMENTS. CAP or MAINTENANCE (12 S. x. 151, 195, 231, 258, 275). Since sending the illustra- tion of the cap. of maintenance in the St. William window, York Minster (ante, p. 275), my father, Mr. J. W. Knowles, has called my attention to the following passage in the late Sir W. St. John Hope's w Heraldry for Craftsmen,' p. 154 : The cap of estate first appears, surmounted by his leopard crest, on the head of King Edward III. in the great seal made for him in February, 1339- 40, on his assumption of the title of King of France. Whether the cap has any connexion with the as- sumption of the King's new title it is difficult to say, but its more common name of " cap of main- tenance " would acquire a significant meaning could such connexion be proved. According to the " Little Device " for the coronation of Henry VII. there were to ride before the King in the procession " ij Squiers for the Kinges bodie bearing in baudrick wise twoo mantells furred wt Ermyns wearing twoo hattes of Estate of Crymsen clothe of golde beked on, beks turnyd upp be- hinde, and furred also wt Ermyns." The above description tallies exactly with the representation of the cap in the window. JOHN A. KNOWLES. LANCE CALKIN (12 S. x. 290). This artist is still alive, and his nationality is British. ' The Sinking of the Birkenhead ' was painted by him for The Graphic, and was reproduced in colour in that paper in 1899, the same year that it was painted. ARCHIBALD SPARKE. NIGGER MINSTRELSY (12 S. x. 169, 217). According to R. P. Nevin in The Atlantic Monthly Magazine (Boston, Mass., U.S.A.) for November, 1867, Stephen Collins Foster (born Lawrenceville, Pittsburg, 1826 ; died New York City, 1864), wrote the words and music of ' Camptown Races ' in 1850, producing the words and music of ' My Old Kentucky Home ' in the same year. ' Camptown Races ' was preceded by 'The Louisiana Belle' (1845 or 1846), 'Uncle Ned' and 'Oh, Susanna' (1847), ' Old Folks at Home,' alias ' Suwanee River' (1851), 'Hard Times' (1854), &c., for all of which Foster wrote not only the music but the words. These songs were associated with the birth of negro minstrelsy, begun in the autumn of 1830 by W. D. Rice in the old Pittsburg Theatre (on Fifth Street), when Rice dressed himself in the clothes of a negro named Cuff, and sang, danced and played, on the fiddle, a tune called ' Jump Jim Crow,' learned by him from a negro stage-driver in Cincinnati in 1830. The first edition of this ancestral minstrel song, ' Jump Jim Crow,' was published by W. C. Peters, of Market Street, Pittsburg, about 1831 or 1832, with a lithographic title page, the first of its kind ever executed in Pittsburg. The words of ' Camptown Races' were published by O. Ditson of Boston, U.S.A., in 'Minstrel Songs Old and New' (1882). H. C. MERCER. SPRY FAMILY (12 S. x. 309). Sprai is a very unlikely origin for the name Spry. Old manors were sometimes mortgaged. More- over, there are other Bramshills in England. Mr. Hautenville Cope, who has studied the descents of Bramshill in Hants, finds no confirmation for this statement, and thinks that, as so often happens, the manor has been confused with some other place. It belonged to the De Ports at the period mentioned. The statement is in the * Vic- toria County History ' and was queried by Mr. Cope at the time it was published. CLARIORES E TENEBRIS. WILLIAM MILBURN (12 S. x. 189). The (1816) describes him as " of the (1816) Company's service, second edition of 1824). the East India Lowndes notices a Oriental Commerce ' W. B. H.
 * Biographical Dictionary of Living Authors '