Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/181

 9*s.x.Ac G .3o,i902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

173

Stanley Gibbons & Co. claim to date from that year as a firm, which was originally, I believe, started at Plymouth. Your corre- spondent in his list of rarities does not mention the Paris envelopes of 1653, only two of which are known to exist. What does he mean by his 1 cent British Guiana of 185G, and what was its type 1 There are

1 cents of 1851 and 1853 (ship in shield and ship in oval respectively), but I have always understood that the rare British Guianas were " value in a circle " of 1^50. In Moens's ' Album,' ninth edition, no 1 cent is given in 1856, when the values issued were 4 cents magenta and 4 cents ultramarine (ship in oblong rectangle). He does not mention the 1856 Natal (embossed crown and inscrip- tions) on glazed paper. I saw a Id. yellow of this issue at Maritzburg in 1889, in the col- lection of a nephew of the Natal Postmaster- General of 1856, and was told it was supposed to be unique. The rarest set of stamps is the Afghanistan of 1878, a complete set of which has sold for 30Ctf. The United States local " Brattleboro " (Vermont) of 1845 was ad- vertised some years ago in London by Mr. Palmer as the rarest stamp in the world. One copy only was said to be known. There was also shown about 1894 in a stamp dealer's in Shaftesbury Avenue, W.C., an Argentine stamp of the face value of 31,400 (blue), issued for use on one day only as a memorial of the centenary of Columbus, 14 October, 1892. A London stamp dealer early in 1900 offered the Natal Govern- ment 150,000^. down if they would make a special issue of postage and revenue stamps under certain conditions in aid of their refugees, but the offer was declined. H.

FAMILY CRESTS (9 th S. x. 109). Consult ' Introduction to Heraldry,' by Hugh Clark, thirteenth edition, London, 1840 ; ' The Book of Family Crests, comprising nearly every Family properly blazoned and explained,'

2 vols., London, 1840 ; and Boutell's 'English Heraldry,' 1889.

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

THE DE LACI FAMILY TEMP. HENRY I. AND STEPHEN (9 th S. x. 21). In my article on the 'Domesday Tenants of Gloucestershire' I adopted the received pedigree of this family in Dugdale's 'Baronage' (vol. i. p. 96) on duly considering his authority for it namely, the " Fundatorum Progenies " in the chroni- cles of Llanthony Abbey ('Mon. Angl.,' vol. ii. p. 69). These memoranda distinctly assert that Hugh de Laci died without issue and his heritage descended to his two sisters,

Ermeline, who died s.p., and Emma, married

to (sic), and had Gilbert de Laci, &c.

What documents or writings the fourteenth- century chronicler of the abbey had before him we cannot tell now, nor why he should have stated that Hugh the founder died s.p., when we now learn there existed charters, or copies of them, of a daughter named Sibyl and her husband.

MR. BADDELEY has made an interesting dis- covery, which now explains how it was certain manors became detached from the De Laci barony. But why Pain fitz John did not get the whole with his wife has still to be round out. Perhaps Henry I. had some political reason for preferring a sister's son to the daughter. - It is no use speculating without any grounds. Gilbert might have been a brother of Sibyl, as MR. BADDELEY suggests, or he might have been a son of Hugh's elder and banished brother restored after his uncle's death. For the ancestry of Pain fitz John see 9 th S. vii. 124.

A. S ELLIS.

Westminster. e

" MALLET " OR " MULLET " (9 th S. ix. 486 ; x. 93). C. C. B., in his reply, quotes Falstaff s phrase, " thick as Tewkesbury mustard," and asks, " Why Tewkesbury ? " In Shakespeare's time and long after Tewkes- bury was famous for its mustard. Fuller says: ''Mustard, the best in England (to take no larger compasse), is made at Tewkes- bury. It is very wholesome for the clearing of the head, moderately taken ; and I believe very few have ever surfeited thereof," &c.

CHARLES HIATT.

CAPT. MORRIS'S WIFE (9 th S. x. 67, 117). In addition to the note you append to MR. J. L. BOLTON'S query about Capt. Morris's wife, it may be added that, according to the Gentleman's Magazine of 1812, the year of her death, " her ladyship was one of the finest women of the age, and of great under- standing and accomplishments. Her life was full of interest. Horace Walpole has a great deal to say about her ladyship, who was Anne Hussey Delaval, born 2 December, 1737. Sister of a family who were noted for their beauty, wit, and accomplishments, but who were also known as the gay Delavals, she was scarcely twenty-two when she married the Hon. Sir William Stanhope, K.B., who was aged fifty-seven. The month after the marriage Horace Walpole writes : " I have seen the new Lady Stanhope ; I assure you her face will introduce no plebeian charms into the faces of the Stanhopes." The Stan- hope family were, however, in dismay ; for