Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/204

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

[9 th S. II. SEPT. 3, '98.

the Lansdowne MS. 879. It appears that the bishop's father. Meredith ap John, was of Llanelian-yn-Rhos, co. Denbigh. He deduced his descent from Griffith, youngest son of the celebrated Ednyfed Vychan, by his second wife, Gwenllian, daughter to Rhys ap Griffith, Prince of Soutn Wales. She was widow to Conan ap Rodri ap Owen Gwynedd, and was reputed to be " the fairest woman in Wales." The bishop's wife Avas Anne, daughter to John Wilkinson, of Norwich.

F. SANDERS, M.A., F.S.A. Hoylake Vicarage, Cheshire.

"THE DRENCHING OF A SWAN" (9 th S. ii.

27). Has your correspondent MR. A. L. MAYHEW correctly read the quotation from Coles's 'Dictionary'? If so, it is curious that in the fifteenth edition of the book, 1749, the word "drenching" has dropped out altogether, and we have " Cignitus, the crying of a fawn."

W. K. TATE. Walpole Vicarage, Halesworth.

DEDICATION OF HOLLINGTON CHURCH (8 th S. xii. 246, 416, 490). No more replies on this subject appear to be forthcoming, and it is therefore necessary, without further delay, to acknowledge the communications of MR. MARSHALL and MR. ARNOTT.

The REV. ED. MARSHALL'S note only shows, so far as it goes, that the dedication was already lost by the date of the work he quotes. If he can refer to any records temp. Hen. VIII. that allege the parish church of Hollington to be dedicated to St. Leonard, that will be extremely interesting ; he does not, however, do so, and it is to be supposed that his authority is not sufficiently explicit to render this possible.

MR. ARNOTT has the curious phrase "the parish or, as it now is, the town of St. Leonards." This confusion must be due to mere haste in writing, but such a loose application of words is to be deprecated. The town of St. Leonards (granting it to be a town if it is not so in fact) is an aggrega- tion of divers ecclesiastical districts about half a dozen which are not properly to be called parishes, and if a "parish of St. Leonards " ever existed, it was very recently and not for any long time.

Since MR. ARNOTT says he has written a paper on the parish of Hollington he must certainly know that the chapelry of St. Leonard was part of Hollington. By the same confusion he speaks of this " parish of St. Leonard" as "adjoining Hollington." As St. Leonards was in Hollington, mani- festly it could not adjoin that parish. That St. Leonards was in fact in Hollington the

Hollington registers sufficiently demonstrate, the expression " St. Leonards-in-Hollington " being used with ample frequency. If the chapel was dedicated to St. Leonard, it is incontrovertible that the parish church was not. Otherwise one would be glad to know what a chapel means, and wherein arose the necessity for this one. This is the precise reason why the guess that Hollington Church may have been dedicated to St. Leonard is so exceedingly absurd. That is the one dedication which its own registers demon- strate to be impossible ; and it is most surprising that such a suggestion should ever have been made much less accepted.

To one possessing the slightest know- ledge of the subject this absurdity has, of course, always been obvious ; but it was hardly worth while to point it out until some less ridiculous supposition could be advanced. Evidence is now produced that in the middle of the sixteenth century it is in one case alleged that this church was dedicated to St. Rumbold. This is at any rate possible ; it is even plausible. There is another Sussex dedication to St. Rumbold, at Rumboldswyke, also near the sea, in Chichester harbour, and there may be .some reason for the coincidence. Presumably St. Rumbold, or Rumpld, bishop and martyr, patron of Mechlin, is the saint intended. Sir Harris Nicolas (' Chronology of History ') calls him Romuld, archbishop and martyr, and gives his day 1 July. A learned friend in the Roman Church very kindly sends references to patristic authors showing that he was assassinated 24 July, 775, and mentions that Pope Benedict XIV., writing to the Irish bishops 1 August, 1741, seems to think St. Rumbold was an Irishman. In this con- nexion it is interesting to see that Sir H. Nicolas gives "Rumold, Bishop of Dublin, formerly 24 June, now 1 July." These dates would suggest that these are the same bishop, but as the Bishop of Malines, whether of Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, or Gaelic origin, does not appear ever to have been Bishop of Dublin, it seems on the whole more probable that they are different men whose identity has become confused. This is, however, mere digression.

Original evidence in support or in disproof of this sixteenth-century statement that Hollington Church was dedicated to St. Rumbold, if of that date or earlier, will be useful. Nothing else is to the point.

HAMILTON HALL.

SOLEBY, co. LEICESTER (9 th S. ii. 89, 158). Can this be Sileby, a place near Mount Sorrel of which two variant spellings Silby and