Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/201

 s. in. MAR. 11, mi NOTES AND QUERIES.

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lowing, among other instances : feild, neict, atcheivement, releif, releife, greife ; also, a proper names, Feild, Purfeild, Feilding, &c The causes which have led to the chang might furnish an interesting subject for dis cussion. deling is given as an alternativ spelling in various dictionaries to which have referred. In some eighteenth-century writings (the Burrell MSS. for instance) occur the word deled. E. G. CLAYTON.

Richmond, Surrey.

Surely the correctness of the latter spell ing is accounted for by the English trans lation of del. HAROLD MALET, Col.

UNWRITTEN HISTORY (9 th S. iii. 82, 154). MR. GEORGE MARSHALL'S paragraph on thi subject is, in the humble opinion of the pre sent writer, one of the most praiseworthy thai have appeared in ' NV & Q.' Few things are more amusing than to read first an English and then a French account of some period in history. English books tend to give the im- pression that our military history, glorious as it is, has been one record of unbroken successes since the Norman Conquest; this impression is produced by minimizing defeats, or omitting all mention of them. A French historian has another principle. We turn to an account of a battle that ended disastrously for him. At first the stars in their courses seem to have fought for France ; her soldiers performed prodigies of valour ; we are led on to wonder how anything on earth could have resisted such impetuous courage, when suddenly we come across a sentence that begins with " Malheureusement."

But it is not only in the drum-and-trumpet department of our history that things are at fault. Owing to the great cloud of Pro- testant tradition that has overhung our island for three hundred years, a score of things and characters in the Middle Ages are misrepresented or misunderstood. Becket's life is a case in point. A reader of English history in modern text-books may well be puzzled to understand the long and implac- able quarrel between the archbishop and the king. What was it all about ? Some pitiful and ludicrous story is what we are as a rule treated to ecclesiastical courts had usurped too wide a jurisdiction ; besides, they could only impose trifling penances, so that a con- victed murderer, perhaps, would get off by walking for a time with peas in his shoes. The king conscientious old soul wanted to see all this put right. Becket resisted. The modern student asks, rubbing his eyes, Was this really all? Was it for this that the martyr's shrine was ablaze with gold and

jewels? Was it for this that the knees of innumerable pilgrims wore away the flat surface of the stone steps leading to that shrine ? Was it for this that our forefathers invoked with such confidence the prayers of the saint in heaven That hem hath holpen, when that they were seeke ?

Yet Michelet alone, of all historians that I know, tells us the real secret of the matter. The ecclesiastical courts, with all their defects, were better than the lay, and Becket in fight- ing for them had the future of his country, of Western Europe shall I say of civiliza- tion ? in his hands.

It has been remarked that the world is new, untried that poetry has scarce chanted its first song. And it may be added that the history of England has yet to be written. " The semi-god whom we await " for the task must, among other things, be a leisured man, with a ready pen and a lifetime at his dis- posal. He must be chary about bowing to bhe popular idols, whether they be Henry YlII. or the Marian martyrs, or the elder Pitt or he Duke of Wellington. Well versed in the listory and sentiment of other European countries, he must know how to represent in
 * heir true proportions the events in our land.

Perhaps I should add that though he may lave sucked in Protestant opinions with his mother's milk, he must yet have a quick arid appreciative eye for the romantic poetry and saintly beauty of Catholicism. But ill nature has produced such a personage we may look in vain for our history.

T. P. ARMSTRONG.

Putney.

I alluded, of course, to the last of the three

3attles off Finisterre that fought by Calder.

[*he other two did not fall in with the

' placing " on the list. Finisterre is billed

ifter Quiberon Bay (printed " Quibera Bay "

m the flag), and as Quiberon Bay was some

ime later than either of the Finisterre

ictories, I took the latest Finisterre (1805)

o be the one alluded to. The list of omissions

was merely suggestive, but Anson's great

victory should have been included. I see no

eason for changing my remark about Calder's

ght. It was a failure in every sense of the

rord. GEORGE MARSHALL.

Sefton Park, Liverpool.

"COPPER-TAILED" (9 th S. iii. 8). Does not lis refer to the tarnished " gold " lace with ich the actress's train was trimmed ?

EDWARD H. MARSHALL, M.A.

RICHARD GRAHAM (9 th S. ii. 509). He was ppointed Rouge Croix Pursuivant on 4 Aug.,