Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/122

 98 NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. vin. JAN. 29, 1921, This view is justified by the words of a much earlier authority, namely Caxton. In his 'Liber Festivalis,' 1483 oddly enough the date of the statute of Richard III. above mentioned wherein the festivals of the Church are explained in four sermons, it is said with reference to Palm Sunday : "We take ewe (-sic) instead of palm and olyve, and beren about in processyon, and soe is thys day called Palm Sunday." The last statute respecting the use of yew for bows is 13 Eliz. cap. 14 which directs that bow-staves shall be imported into England from the Continent, and fixes the price to be paid for them ; e.g., bows meet for men's shooting, being outlandish yew of the best sort not over the price of 6s. 8d. ; of the second sort 3s. 4d. : of a coarser sort called livery bows 2s. ; and bows being English yew, 2s. In 1595 an Order in Council dated Oct. 2, directed that the bows of the train bands be exchanged for calivers and muskets. It is believed that the last active service of the war-bow was in the conflict between Charles II. and his Scottish subjects, bow- men forming part of the forces commanded by Montrose. G. B. M. should refer to ' The Yew-trees of Great Britain,' by the late Dr. John Lowe (Macmillan, 1897) in which he will find much to his purpose. J. E. HARTING. G. B. M. should consult the elaborate chapter on all this in Johnson's 'Byways in British Archaeology.' Reference is made to an order of 1483 for the general planta- tion of yews and another in Elizabeth's reign for plantation in churchyards, but the author had found no such statutes or authority. He considers the yew an ancient sacred emblem which in later times helped to supply the village quota of bow-staves. R. S. B. Lowe in ' The Yew-trees of Great Britain and Ireland,' 1897, devotes a chapter to the why and vherefore of planting yew trees in churchyards, and quotes from Giraldus Cambrensis (1184) and dozens of other authorities. Various statutes are exhaus- tively given in Hazlitt's 'Dictionary of Faiths and Folklore,' vol. ii., which were enacted for various purposes incidental to the subject. The consensus of opinion seems to be that originally these trees were planted in churchyards as an emblem of the resur- rection owing to their perpetual verdure, but a glance at the books mentioned above r and to the Indexes of * N. & Q. ' will supply your correspondent with more than sufficient material to keep him guessing for some considerable time. ARCHIBALD SPARKE. There is a popular belief that such a statute as that mentioned was passed, but I have never heard where it may be found.. (1) It seems unlikely that bows should be in great request as late as 1474 when gun- powder was displacing the old artillery.. (2) Moreover, the yew tree seems a most unsuitable tree for the purpose of making bows. (3) And as G. B. M. hints in his query, it is strange that trees should be grown for that purpose in churchyards. In 1549 Tyndale's ' Prologues ' to the Pentateuch were inserted in Matthew's- Bible, and before Exodus notes were printed on certain terms found in the text. Among others is the definition of a " Boothe " " an house made of bowes " (Dore's ' Old Bibles,' p. 119). It is more likely that yew trees were grown in churchyards to provide the congregations with " bowes " to carry in the processions on Palm Sunday. W. F. JOHN TIMBRELL. . Coddington Rectory, Chester. STATUES AND MEMORIALS IN THE BRITISH ISLES (12 S. viii. 25). St. Paul's Cathedral in front of steps, inscription : Here Queen Victoria | returned thanks to | Al- mighty God for the | sixtieth anniversary j of her accession | June 22, A.D. 1897. When this was first cut on the stone pavement the inscription ran "sixtieth anniversary of her reign ! " I remember standing over it and reading with amaze- ment. The alteration was of course quickly made. TJ. L. LIGHT AND DARK " A " HEADPIECE (12 S. viii. 52). The light and dark "A " shewn in headpieces of books of the sixteenth and seventeenth century plainly refer to the cypher mentioned in ' Cryptographiae ' (Gustavus Selenus, 1624), p. 17. They ndicate a method of secret writing in which some letters of the secret message are jhanged, but not all, and in which each etter may be itself or its twin, i.e., may be ight (obvious) or dark (secret). This nethod is suggested also in Du Bartas' 'Divine Weekes and Workes,' 1613, where a double circle (double O or cypher) is shewn with letters round it, part light, part dark Shakespeare's Sonnets are dedicated to "M. B. W. H.," and that arrangement to