Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/101

 9'"s.x.AuG.2,i902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

93

had three sons Maurice, ancestor of the Earls of Kildare ; William, ancestor of the Carews ; and David, Bishop of St. David's. The Earl of Totnes, however (whose fore- fathers inherited Carew Castle), in an auto- graph pedigree, makes Maurice the third son. This earl was Sir Walter Raleigh's most valued friend and cousin.

In conclusion, a trace from the Geraldines may be of interest : Lucian Lopez ye Fair, first Lord of Biscay Manso Lopez Inigo the Left-handed Lopez, married Felicia dei Medici, a Florentine Gerald Dias Lopez, expelled Biscay by his bastard brother Inigo, dwelt in Florence Ostorio, born in Florence, married Sancia de la Cerda, of the blood royal of Castile Othero, went into Nor- mandy : arms, Ar., a saltire gules (as borne by the Earls of Kildare) Walter Fitz Otho, castellan of Windsor Gerald de Windsor = Nesta, da. of Rees ap Tewdor, King of South Wales, &c. (' Golden Grove Book ').

Henry, the poet Earl of Surrey, wrote of " the fair Gerafdine," daughter of the eleventh Earl of Kildare :

From Tuscane came my Lady's worthy race :

Fair Florence was sometime her ancient seat.

H. H. DRAKE.

The place where Carew Castle stands was called Caerau, "the fortified camps." It be- longed to Prince Rhys ap Tewdwr of Dine- fawr, who gave this demesne to his daughter Nest for her dowry. She was a concubine of Henry I., and married Gerald de Windsore. There might be a tower there at that period, but Gerald is thought to have built the castle, and his descendants assumed the sur- name of De Carew from this estate. They sold or mortgaged it in the fifteenth century, Sir Rhys ap Thomas, Knt., finding the money, and he is said to have improved and enlarged the building. It was eventually purchased by Sir John Carew (a remote descendant of Sir Edmond Carew, who parted with it), and remains still in the family.

JOHN RADCLIFFE.

It is a tradition of my family that not only the Carews, but the Webbers, also a West of England family (Devon and Cornwall), are descended from Nesta's son William. Is this a trustworthy tradition ? WEBBER J

A "WILD-CAT" COMPANY (9 th S. ix. 405). " Wild-cat " banks were those chartered by the new States in the West during the thirties. The abundance of paper money caused great speculation in land, with the result of the great panic of 1838. Some banks were so far in the backwoods that holders of notes could never find them. " Wild -cat " oil wells are

those drilled in territory where no oil has yet been found. O. H. DARLINGTON.

QUEEN CANDACE (9 th S. ix 321, 353). The baptismal name Candace occurs in the parish registers and tombstone inscriptions of St. Ives, Cornwall, for the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth century. It is there sometimes rendered Candice and Can- dis. I have never met with it elsewhere.

JOHN HOBSON MATTHEWS.

Town Hall, Cardiff.

" ENDORSEMENT " : " DORSO - VENTRALITY " (9 th S. ix. 64, 212 331, 415). All cheques issued by the Bankruptcy Department of the Board of Trade require the signature of the payee on their face, as in the case of Post Office orders, and no endorsement is neces- sary. A. J. DAVY.

Torquay.

KENNETT'S WHARF (5 th S. x. 228, 393). I have an extract from the will of the Rev. Basil Kennett, 1686 : " To eldest son White Kennett, Lands and tenements in Folke-" stone, and lands lying upon Green Bank and P- - Alley, Wapping." Would this be in the same locality as Kennett's Wharf, Upper Thames Street, at the above reference *?

R. J. FYNMORE.

Sandgate. 'jt

"MALLET " OR "MULLET " (9 th S. ix. 486).^ The context of the passage "There is no more conceit in him than is in a mallet " should, I think, be convincing enough that neither "mullet" nor, as Knight has it, " mallard " is meant. Falstaff has previously declared that Poins's wit is as thick as Tewksbury mustard in other words, that he was thickheaded and further on he says Poins " hath a weak mind and an able body." Now thickheadedness, woodenheadedness, and general fatuity could not well be likened to a more insensate article than a mallet or beetle. Hence we have the similes "as blind " or " as deaf as a beetle," " as helpless as a log of wood," " blockheaded," &c. The intention, then, was evidently to liken Poins's intellectual equipment to that of a mallet, " conceit " having, of course, the meaning that Schmidt assigns to it of " mental faculty, comprising the understanding as well as the imagination." J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.

Mallet undoubtedly is right. The phrase, or its equivalent, beetle-head= stupid, is still quite common in the Midland counties. Here we say besom- keead, but the idea is the same, viz., thickhead ; and Falstaff had just said that Poins's wit was as " thick as