Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/307

 O 15., APRIL 12. '56.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

299

Edmund Anderson, of Stretton Park in Biggies- wade, Bedfordshire. He died April 4, 1638.

The Bruce Cottons became extinct in the male line on the death of Sir John Bruce Cotton, March 27, 1752, set. 64.

Sir John Cotton, son of Sir Thomas, had by his first wife one son, John, who died in the lifetime of his father. This John had a son John, who died without issue, and one daughter, married to William Hanbury. They had four daughters, 1. Elizabeth, who married William Neale, and died without issue. 2. Frances, who married Francis Barrett, and died without issue. 3. Mary, who married Rev. Dr. Martin Annesley, whose lineal descendants now exist. 4. Catherine, who married Vellus Cornwall ; their only surviving child married Sir George Amyand. Mr. Annesley therefore is the lineal representative of the elder branch of the Cottons, and as such is the here- ditary Cottonian family trustee of the British Museum. EDW. HAWKINS.

The portrait of Margaret Howard, first wife of Sir Thomas Cotton, said to have been painted at the age of seventy-three, must, I think, have been misnamed in the catalogue at Castle Howard, or some mistake may have crept into CUTHBERT BEDE'S notes respecting it, the more likely as Cornelius Jansen died the year before the portrait is said to have been taken by him. He died at Amsterdam, in 1665*, and she, according to CUTHBERT BEDE'S date of her birth, would be seventy-three in 1666. There is only one way of accounting for her having survived to that age, and that is, by supposing that she was divorced by Sir Thomas Cotton, of which I find no evidence. Mrs. Margaret Cotton, who was buried at Con- ington, Feb. 12, 1688, was perhaps a grandchild to Sir Thomas, one of the seven unrecorded children of Sir John Cotton's family of ten, by his second wife, who all died young. PATONCE.

[We have omitted the first part of PATONCE'S com- munication, as it contained merely the information printed in the preceding articles. ED. "N. & Q."]

" SIR," AS A CLERICAL PREFIX.

(2 nd S. i. 234.)

On this subject we quote the following from Dr. Doran's recently published work, Knights and their Days :

" The Knightly title given to clergymen was not so much by way of courtesy as for the sake of distinction. It was worn by the Bachelors of Arts, otherwise ' Domini,' to distinguish them from the Masters of Arts, or ' Ma-

many years before his death? Did he ever come back to England ?
 * Did not Jansen return to Holland, his native country,

gistri.' Properly speaking the title was a local one, and ought not to have been used beyond the bounds of the University. . . . The practice was continued till the title itself was abandoned some time after the Reformation. The old custom was occasionally revived, by the elderly stagers, much to the astonishment of younger hearers. Thus, when Bishop Mawson, of Llandaff, was, on one oc- casion, at court, he encountered there a reverend Bachelor of Arts, who was, subsequently, Dean of Salisbury. His name was Greene. The bishop, as soon as he saw the ' bachelor ' enter the drawing-room, accosted him loudly IJn this manner : ' How do you do Sir Greene ? ' Mr. Greene, observing the astonishment of those around him, took upon himself to explain that the bishop Avas only using an obsolete formula of by-gone times."

The above is from the chapter on " Sham Knights." In another, on "Sir John Falstaff," the author says :

" John Kemhle occasionally took some unwarrantable liberties with Shakspeare. When he produced the Merry

Wives of Windsor, at Covent Garden, in April, 1804 (in which he played Ford, to Cooke's Falstaff}, he deprived

Sir Hugh Evans of his knightly title, out of sheer igno- rance or culpable carelessness. Blanchard was announced for ' Hugh Evans,' without the Sir."

To show that the prefix was common to cheva- liers and churchmen, Dr. Doran quotes from the New Trick to cheat the Devil; wherein Anne says to her sire, " Nay, Sir ! " to which the father re- plies, " Sir me no Sirs ! I am no knight nor churchman." ANON.

In the Buttery books of St. John's College, Oxford, whereas no title is prefixed to the names of Undergraduates, every Bachelor has the prefix " Sir " (Sir Nicholas, Sir Howell, &c.) ; every Master that of Mr. (Mr. Williams, &c.). When- ever it is proposed that a Bachelor should be al- lowed to take his Master's degree, the President sends the following notice to the Common Room :

" A Convention to-morrow, at o'Clock, for the Grace of the House, for Sir Harris's (or whatsoever the name may be) M.A. Degree.

" Signed, President."

When a Master proceeds to a higher degree, the title Mr. takes the place of Sir in this notice. Of course when an Undergraduate is about to proceed B.A., the notice ought to give no title at all ; but modern politeness is superior to that of the Buttery book ; and, in anticipation of a title belonging (more acadcmico) only to an M. A., Mr. Harris (by courtesy) is to be advanced to B.A. and become a Sir.

These customs, and the inconsistent manner in which they have been broken in upon, are curious. You will observe that in academic usage, Sir has nothing to do with Holy Orders.

A CONSTANT READER.

The prefix Dominus, " Sir," is the ancient, and still existing, title of a Bachelor of Arts. In the Buttery, or weekly account books of the present