Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 7.djvu/19

 12 s. vn. JULY s, i92o.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 11 Your correspondent asks if there are other instances of this charge. Dr. Wood- ward confines himself to the family of Botreaux, though he mentions several foreign coats containing frogs, with a canting allusion to the name of their bearers. Edmondson, however, ('Complete Body of Heraldry ' (1780), in his ' Glover's Ordinary,' vol. ii. p. 15), whilst also attributing this charge to the family of Botreaulx, mentions that of Repley as bearing : Ermine, a fess or between three toads erect sable. And in his 'Alphabet of Arms ' (in vol. i.) he gives several ' families of Botreux with various other charges quite distinct from the above ; but only to one, Botreaux of Gockermouth in Cumberland, does he assign Argent, three toads erect sable, two and one. J. S. UDAL, F.S.A. It is said that Clovis bore the device of three botes (the old French name for toads), but that he changed it to three lilies or on a banner, azure, in consequence of a vision which he had on his way to fight an enemy. Also Fabian's ' Chronicles ' says : "It is wytnessyd of Maister Robert Gagwyne that before thyse dayes all French Kynges used to bere in their armes iii. todys, but after this Clodoveus had recognised Cristes relygyon iii. Floure de lys were sent to hym by diuyne power, sette in a shylde of azure, the whiche syns that has been borne of all French kynges." In Blome's ' Heraldry ' we find the following: " Paulus Emilius, saith that anciently the French kings did bear three toads sable in a field vert alias sinople " ; but elsewhere in the same work Blome says : " I have omitted that escocheon [sic] because I find great variety of opinion concerning this matter, and in lieu thereof I do present the ancient coat-armour of the same charge borne by Botereux [sic] of Cornwall." Mecsenas bore for device a frog, either it is said to show the empire he possessed both by sea and land, or else as an emblem of his taciturnity. Pliny talks of "a little frog that is mute and never croaketh," and says " these frogs therefore are emblematic of silence and secrecy for which two qualities Mecsenas was held in such reverence by his master " [sic]. CONSTANCE RUSSELD. Swallowfield, Reading. ANCIENT DEEDS : GRANTS OF PROBATE AND ADMINISTRATION (12 S. vi. 310). The authority for the change in the form of grant was an Act of the House of Commons of Nov. 5, 1644, by which Sir Nathaniel Brent, doctor of laws, and his deputies, were appointed to the office of Master or Keeper of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury. No probates or letters of administration taken out since May 3, 1643, to be valid unless granted by one of them. On Oct. 9, 1646, the name, title, style and dignity of the archbishops and bishops were taken away. By another Act of Apr. 8, 1653, Sir Anthony Cooper, Bart., and deputies were appointed Judges for the Probate of Wills, &c., for all the counties of England and Wales, with all the powers that Brent had in the late province of Canterbury. This Act was continued for some years, and all wills had (in theory) to be proved in P.C.C., until after the restoration of Charles II. in 1660, when the powers of the Bishops' Courts were restored. See Introduction to ' Calendar of Wills at Chester, 1621-1650 ' (Rec. Soc. Lanes, and Chesh.'^vol. iv.). The form of probate grants could be studied by inspection of the probate Act Books and original documents in the Registries. Printed copies of wills sometimes give an abstract of the grant, but genealogists have not paid much attention to the subject as the form of grant is not often of any use to them except for its date and place. The matter is worth pursuing. R. S. B. THE CRUCIFIXION IN ART : THE SPEAR- WOUND (12 S. vi. 314). Tissot in his 'Life of our Lord Jesus Christ ' has the following with regard to the spear-wound : " The question has been raised which side of the divine Master was pierced by the spear ? It would at first sight appear natural that it should have been the left side, first because of the posi- tion of the heart or rather because the heart is inclined towards the left, and secondly, because the left side was more easily reached by a blow delivered from the right. We are in fact justified in supposing that the centurion held his spear in the right hand. In spite of all this, however, an opinion has long been pretty generally enter- tained that the wound was made on the right side. The Apocryphal Gospels of the infancy of Christ and of Nicodeinus, as well as the Ethiopian translation, also sanction this idea and their view is perhaps not altogether without foundation in fact. Certain early painters also adopted it and some authors find justification for it in the words of Ezekiel (chap, xlvii, verse 2) ' And, behold, there ran out waters on the right side ' ; but it is evident to every one who examines the quotation referred to that the prophet was speaking of something totally different. One fact which may have led those authors to adopt this opinion is the testimony of Saint Bonaventura that Saint Francis of Assisi, when he received the stigmata, was pierced in the hands and feet and in the right not the left side. With a view to reconciling these various conflicting accounts yet other authors assert, no one knows on what foundation,