Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/329

. N is* APRIL 19. '56.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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Eev. Robert Montgomery (2 nd S. i. 293.) The question respecting the late Mr. Montgomery's true patronymic was long ago set at rest by in- disputable evidence ; but as it has again been revived, I hope your pages will set at rest for ever a most foolish surmise.

The following is an extract from the Quarterly Review, vol. liii. p. 287. (No. 105., Feb. 1835) : Note on p. 492., No. 104.

" We are concerned to find that the newspapers had misled us on a point not indifferent to the personal feel- ings of Mr. Robert Montgomery, author of the Omnipre- sence of the Deity, -c. fyc. Mr. Montgomery has taken the most effectual means of satisfying us on this head : he has forwarded to us a copy of the baptismal register of Weston, Nov. 8, 1807 ; which proves that the story of his having assumed the name by which he has become known is utterly false and unfounded. How it originated, we need not inquire ; but we sincerely hope never to see it revived again."

Having enjoyed the personal friendship of Mr. Montgomery for many years, I hope I may be permitted to say that he was most undeserving of such attacks. It has become a fashion to con- sider Mr. Macaulay's satirical Essay as in some , degree descriptive of him, but the readers of his works have formed a very different estimate. The memory of his guileless simplicity and generosity of character, ready wit and deep religious feeling, will be long cherished by his friends.

JAMES DARLING. 81. Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields.

Judge Cresivell (2 nd S. i. 270.) By the kind- ness of the intelligent and obliging librarian of Lincoln's Inn, I am enabled in some degree to answer my own question. There is no doubt that the "Mr. Serjeant Creswell" of Clarendon, White- locke, and Sir W. Jones, is the "Richard Cresheld" of Rymer and Dugdale ; and that the latter is the correct designation, corrupted by abbreviated pro- nunciation to " Creswell." He was the represent- ative of the borough of Evesham in the parliaments of 1623-4, 1625, 1627-8, and 1640, and in the do- cuments referring to these elections he is named Richard Cresheld ; but in the list of the members of the latter (the Long) Parliament, given both in the Parliamentary History (1807), vol. ii. p. 624., and in Rushworth, vol. iv. p. 9., he is called, as member for Evesham, "Richard Creswell, Ser- jeant-at-Law." I do not know any authority for the Christian name " John," as Mr. Woolrych gives it.

He is described in the Lincoln's Inn admission as the son of Edward Cresheld of Mattishall- Burgh, in the county of Norfolk, and his son, who was admitted many years later, is described as " William Cresheld, son and heir of Richard Cres- held of Evesham." These facts may enable some

of your genealogical correspondents to favour me with some further account of him, the family he came from, the family he left behind him, and the date and place of his death. EDWARD Foss.

Helmet above Crest (2 nd S. i. 271.) If such a practice as that to which your correspondent re- fers is "gaining ground," it is a most. erroneous one. If the helmet and crest are both to be shown, the crest cannot be deprived of its place upon the helmet ; the crest was always worn on the top of the helmet within the wreath, or issuing from a coronet as the case might be, and placed upon the lambrequin which covered the upper part of the helmet. If it is intended to show the dignity of a baronet or knight, by placing the helmet above the crest, as peers place their coronets when the crest only (without the arms) is used, the principle is equally erroneous ; as custom only appears to have made helmets signi- ficant of dignity, the different forms of coronets being regulated by royal authority for the several degrees of peerage. The use of side-standing barred helmets to denote nobility, and of open full-faced helmets for baronets and knights, is of custom only ; and not much earlier than the time of Charles I. When the crest is used without the helmet, and when not issuing from a coronet, it is set upon so much of the circular wreath (which went round the upper part of the helmet), as in- dicates that ornament ; but whenever the helmet is used, the crest can be nowhere else than in its proper place upon the helmet. I have, perhaps, gone into a little extraneous matter in making these remarks ; but I have done so to show that originally the helmet, in its various forms and positions, was not indicative of any rank or dignity in persons using it heraldically ; and (not as in the case of peers' coronets), only so from custom. THOS. WM. KING, YORK HERALD.

Giving Quarter (1 st S. viii. 246. 353.)

" Giving Quarter. This phrase originates from an agreement between the Dutch and Spaniards, that the ransom of an officer or soldier should be a quarter of his pay. Hence to beg quarter, was to offer a quarter of their pay for their safety, and to refuse quarter was not to ac- cept that composition as a ransome." (No authority given.) From Notes to assist the Memory in Various Sciences. 8vo. Pp. 277. Murray, London, 1825., p. 112.

J. P.

Birmingham.

"Dies Dominicus" (2 nd S. i. 252.) When your correspondent SCRUTATOR supposes the first day of the week to have received the name of Dies Dominicus, as being " the day of Domimts Sol" he must certainly be stumbling over some imperfect reading of a definition given by Pro- copius (Comm. in Gen., c. i.) : " Dies Dominicus, tanquam soli Domino consecratus," &c.