Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/103

 s. xii. AUG. i, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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about these marks of abatement or as to their significance. The bendlet or baton sinister could scarcely have been used to denote any- thing else. This was, indeed, " differencing " the paternal arms " in a striking manner."

Sometimes, indeed, instead of the paternal arms being thus debruised, an entirely new coat, the charges of which had plain reference to the bastard's parentage, was granted.

Later, however, the bordure gobone or compone', originally a mark of legitimate cadency, became a recognized mark of ille- gitimacy. During the last century the bor- dure wavy has been the ordinary difference or brisure employed by the officers of arms in England and Ireland in grants to persons of illegitimate descent. (See Woodward's 'Heraldry,' ibid.) It was Dr. Woodward's opinion that there may be cases where the " brisures of illegitimacy " might, upon a fit occasion, be removed by proper authority, as in a modern instance, which he gives, of a baronet who received a grant of the un- differenced arms of his family on the occasion of his being created a peer of the realm.

That applicants for relief did not always wait for such preferment may, be gathered from the fragment of a letter of about the middle of the seventeenth century taken from the Herald and Genealogist (ii. 151), and given by the same author as showing the laxity and venality which brought the old heralds into disrepute in connexion with this matter of marks of bastardy.

In the confident belief that the College of Arms has long been purged of any such charge of corruption, I cannot do better, in conclusion, than commend the following remarks of the learned doctor (p. 188) to your correspondents, as embodying what seems to me no less sound common sense than true heraldic feeling :

" The bordure wavy, now so often used, may be quite as fitting a mark of illegitimacy as the old baton, or sinister bendlet, if only its import be generally recognized ; but as the knowledge of heraldry becomes more diffused, and the meaning of the bordure wavy more generally understood, we may expect that the complaisance which caused its substitution for the older and better known brisures of illegitimacy will again devise some other less known mark, in disregard of the fact that armorial insignia were intended to be plain and clear evidence of descent, and to speak with no ambiguous voice as to the origin of their bearers. It seems to me that in the case of persons whose susceptibilities are too tender to permit them to bear plain and distinct evidence of their descent, the alternative and ancient plan should be adopted, and a new coat composed.* This is a course which does wrong to

" The writer here gives instances of several well- known names in which this has besri done.

no man, and which seems, to me at least, more honourable and straightforward than that of grant- ing the paternal arms with such obscure differences as (even if they continue to be carried) to confound their bearers with the legitimate cadets of an

ancient family The ambiguity may, I admit, be

satisfactory to those who have cause to desire it ; but it is not so, I think, to the legitimate cadets. A cadet of a great house, bearing his coat armour properly differenced, will hardly hear with satisfac- tion that his illegitimate kinsmen, after, perhaps, a brief use of the bordure wavy, have dropped it altogether, and in painted glass and sculptured stone set up for themselves the undifferenced arms of the family, and so claim a position superior even to that of the lawful cadets."

Of course the above remarks must be taken throughout as referring solely to British heraldry. J. S. UDAL, F.S.A.

Antigua, W.I.

11 SUFF " AND " STUFF " (9 th S. xi. 488). The use of suff is common in Warwickshire, as appears from Mr. Northall's ' Warwickshire Word -Book' and from Halliwell. Both glossaries enter it : " Sough, pronounced suff." The term is also in common use in northernmost England, where it is spoken with a fractured vowel, as see-uf, and is written seugh and sheugh. In Scotland it occurs as seuch, or, more commonly, as sheugh. When applied to a water-course it means one that has been cut with a spade or other implement, in contradistinction to a sike, or natural channel. Jamieson cites an early sixteenth-century example from the 'Bukes of the Eneados,' by Gavin Douglas :

Eneas with ane pleuch The ciete circulit, and markit be ane seuch. ' ^Eneid,' v. 755.

In ' Death and Dr. Hornbook ' Burns uses the expression " Trenched wi' mony a sheugh."

In verbal usage the word is always con- nected with the act of trenching. Thus, when temporary earthing is necessary, plants or young trees are said to be seughed or sheughed-in, that is, hastily delved in.

These Northern uses of the word with specialized meaning may help towards a solution of ME. DODGSON'S queries.

R. OLIVER HESLOP.

Newcas tle-upon-Ty ne.

Without further evidence, stuff, in the sense indicated, may be dismissed as altogether mythical. Sough, pronounced suff, being purely Teutonic, can have nothing to do with sewer, which is Fr.-Lat. The word con- notes a swampy place, and hunting men know that an osier bed is a favourite kennel for foxes. Sough, like sigh, is a word of imitative origin, and may be compared with swash, for which see Skeat's dictionary, 1901