Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/317

 12 S. III. MAY, 1917.1

NOTES AND QUERIES.

311

useful to him. The arms of the See of Ripon are : " Argent, on a saltire gules, two keys in saltire, wards upwards, or ; on a chief of the second a Paschal Lamb proper." The Paschal Lamb on the chief is probably derived from a seal of the Abbey of St. Wilfrid at Ripon in the twelfth cen- tury. The keys are, probably, from the arms of the See of York, out of which the new see took its origin in 1836 ; it includes also the Yorkshire portion of the old diocese of Chester.

Ripon seems to have been a bishop's see for a few years in Anglo-Saxon times, but was merged in York on Wilfrid's restoration in 686 (Haddon and Stubbs, iii. 165).

J. S. UDAL, F.S.A.

THE KING'S GENTLEMEN VOLUNTEERS IN THE ROYAL NAVY IN 1692 (12 S. iii. 229). The following is extracted from Comr. C. N. Robinson's ' The British Fleet.' After quoting Pepys's 'Diary' for June 4, 1661, in which Pepys related how in Queen Elizabeth's time one young nobleman would wait with a trencher at the back of another, till he came of age himself, he goes on to say :

" That which was good enough for the nobility was in those days good enough for commoners, and thus it is easy to understand why it was not considered derogatory for well-born 'lads to act as cabin-boys or servants to their patrons. On the other hand, some men went afloat at an age when it was beneath their dignity to occupy these positions, and they were styled gentlemen- volunteers. Sometimes they learnt in time to be good seamen, but far oftener their only quali- fication was courage, which, without experience or discretion, led them into trouble."

After tracing further the officering of the Navy, he goes on to say :

" We come now to the interesting development by which the midshipman, from being a foremast hand, rose to the dignity of a quarter-deck officer, and thus solved the problem of how ' to breed up officers and gentlemen who should be also seamen.' A means already existed in the system which permitted every officer to take to sea with him a retinue or following. This system is said to have originated, but more probably it first received official sanction, in Elizabeth's reign, when each captain of a man-of-war was allowed two ' servants ' for every fifty of his crew, and if he was a knight, double that propor- tion. He could in this manner find employment for his relations, friends, or followers. ' Gentle- men-volunteers ' went to sea in this way : but a writer in the reign of James I. says they usually returned knowing as little as when they sailed", since the professional seamen hated them and would give them no instruction."

A. G. KEALY,

Chaplain, Royal Navy, Retired. [See also additional reply, p. 315.]

ADMIRALS HOOD (12 S. iii. 129, 199, 285), I am obliged to MR. WILLIS WATSON for correcting a very stupid inadvertence on my part. I believe I wrote " Mosterton " (my writing is difficult to read, I am told), and I knew it was in Dorset : indeed, I had Burke' s ' Peerage,' which on these points is correct, open before me when writing. I was mainly concerned with answering the query as to the relationship between the admirals,, and so overlooked the error in the subsidiary matter when I saw the proof. But this is no excuse. MR. WATSON, whose own au- thority in his own field is beyond criticism,. " habet confident em reum."

ALFRED B. BEAVEN. Leamington.

MADAME DE STAEL (12 S. ii. 310). Louis Alphonse Rocca, the son whom Mme. de Stael had by her subsequent marriage with Jean de Rocca, was born in 1812, and was apparently brought up, not at Coppet, but at Longirod, near Aubonne in the Canton de Vaud. On the death of Mme. de Stael her son-in-law, the Due de Broglie, at once hastened to reclaim the child, and to obtain his legit imizat ion. He was handed over to his father and Mme. de Broglie, who on, the death a few months later of the former undertook the whole guardianship of her half-brother. By her will Mme. de Stael had bequeathed to her husband 82,000 fr. (Swiss, the equivalent of 1 23,000 fr. French), 1000Z. English Consols, and her landed estate in Normandy. These passed to the son, Louis Alphonse, who also inherited from his mother 408,000 fr. Swiss, and the villa at Coppet on coming of age. In 1834 he married a daughter of Comte de Rambuteau, and died in 1842 without having given the slightest indication of abilitv of any kind.

L. G. R.

Bournemouth.

MEDIEVAL WORK ON THE MAKING OF ENAMEL (12 S. iii. 169, 253). Little is known about the persons called Hollandus. By most authorities Isaac is regarded as the father and John Isaac as the son. Boerhave says they were natives of Stolk. Schmieder gives reasons for believing that they lived early in the fifteenth century, and Van der Aa says that the younger Hollandus lived about 1440. Neri, when about to describe a paste to imitate gems, says he took it when he was in Flanders from Isaac Hollandus.. The works of Hollandus have been issued at Middelburgh in 1600 ; at Frankfurt in 1667 ; and at Vienna in 1746. One of them is entitled ' Opus Minerale,' and may contain.