Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 6.djvu/166

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. vi. APRIL 17, 1020.

A most fitting memorial of Cambridge men. who gave their lives in the great war \vould be for past and present members of the University to replace the cross on the lines of Mr. Kett's restoration, and present it to the University Church.

A. G. KEALY, Chaplain, B.N. (retired). Anglesey Road, Gosport.

In C. H. Cooper's ' Annals of Cambridge ' the University cross is mentioned several times. It was carried in procession on important occasions, e.g., at the Visitation of 1557, on Jan. 11 :

"at vii the Vycechancellor with all the hole Universite in habitibus, met in St. Marys. . . .from -thence all went to trinitie College and the uni- versitie Crosse before them."

In 1522 a payment of IQd. is made to

"the Clarke of the Scollys for beryng of the Universyte Crosse twys at the Kyngs beyng heyr. & in advent <fe att the grett Cessacyon."

"In 1548 (op. cit., ii. 9)

"the University sold their great cross of silver, -weighing 336 ounces, after the rate of 5s. 6d. per

ounce."

On April 4, 1554, Bishop Gardiner, their Chancellor,

-" wrote to the Masters and Presidents of Colleges, stating that he had willed Master Yonge the Vice- . chancellor to provide a seemly cross of silver, to be used in their processions as had been used amongst them in times past."

This the University did at the cost of 30/. Os. 8d. Finally on Sept. 26, 1565,

" a grace was passed for selling the vestments,

cross, censers, cruet, and other monuments of rsuperstition in the University vestry."

After this, one may presume, there was no .further need of an official cross-bearer.

. ED \VARD BENSLY. Much Hadham, Herts.

FLETCHER OF MADELEY AND NORTH '"WALES (12 S. v. 320). According to the ' D.X.B.' this well-known person was a .Swiss by birth (de la Flechere), and came to England about 1752. He was ordained both deacon and priest in 1757 by the Bishop of Bangor, and in 1760 took the living of Madeley (Hertfordshire), where he remained till his death in 1785. No other ecclesias- tical appointment is mentioned. The Bishop of Bangor in 1757 was Robert Hay Drum- mond (so consecrated in 1748), who in 1761 was promoted first to Salisbury and then to York, and died in 1776. According to ' D.N.B.' this bishop was originally a Hay, .adding the name of Drummond in 1739. Possibly he was a Scotsman, and this may

have attracted Fletcher to him. He was a favourite of Queen Caroline, and educated at Westminster and Christ Church, Oxford.

W. A. B. C.

"As DEAD AS A DOOR-NAIL " (12 S.

v. 266, 303). In connexion with the possible origin of the expression, the following facts might seem worthy of consideration.

1. At the time, about 1350, noted by your correspondent, and before the use of nail- less panelled house doors, almost all common doors were "battened.'' i.e., con- structed of vertical boards nailed against cross strips (battens), with wrought iron nails.

2. As these constructive nails were very numerous and very conspicuous it might seem doubtful whether the name " door- nail " in common speech would have been applied, not to these nails, but to the rare alleged bossed nails driven under the com- paratively infrequent knockers used only upon the entrance doors of the better houses.

3. Other house-nails might work loose, and when wrought nails were dear, be pulled out and used again, but these nails which persisted on the common battened house- doors of England and the United States through the eighteenth century, and still survive on barn-doors, were immovable. They were clinched, double-hammered, or driven into the wood at both ends, and not to be pulled or pried out or easily straightened without breaking, therefore not re-usable and therefore, it might seem, reasonably describable in common parlance as " dead " nails.

By analogy with the cases cited the names "dead latch" and "dead lock" refer to things considered dead because immovable or useless : also the expression " dead man " used by workmen in Penn- sylvania in 1908 to describe a log buried horizontally as a check to a derrick rope. " Dead as a herring;" might be compared with " dead as a pelcher " (pilchard) as heard by the writer in use by fishermen at York Harbour, Maine, U.S.A.", in 1895.

H. C. MERCER.

Bucks Countv Historical Society, Doylestown, Pa.

THE PINNER OF WAKEFIELD AND BATTELL BRIDGE FIELD (12 S. vi. 65). For Battle BridgeField, vide Tomlin's ' Perambulation of Islington,' p. 188: "Geoffrey Cliffe died Mar. 30, 1570, seised of a closure of pasture vulgariter muncipat' Battle Bridge feilde." The name is derived from a traditional association with the battle between Suetonius