Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/39

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s. m. JA*.

NOTES AND QUERIES.

33

Edward III., a gold coin of the value of forty pence sterling. EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

In Jamieson's 'Etymological Diet, of the Scottish Language' 'Burrow Mailles" (sic) are defined as "duties payable within a burgh. Acts James I., 1424, c. 8." A refer- ence to the Acts, if possible, will perhaps explain the nature and origin of the tribute. JEANNIE S. POPHAM.

Llanrwst, North Wales.

MARGARET PLANTAGENET, COUNTESS OF SALISBURY (9 th S. ii. 468, 516). The 'Anti- quarian Kepertory,' 1784, vol. iv. p. 169, con- tains an excellent portrait of the above-men- tioned countess, engraved from the original picture in the possession of the Earl of Huntingdon. JOHN RADCLIFFE.

Her portrait is in the collection of Lord Donington. It was engraved for the illus- trated edition of Green's ' History.'

W. TUCKWELL.

A CHURCH TRADITION (9 th S. i. 428 ; ii. 58, 150, 173, 256, 296, 393 474). It seems from plates in Planat's 'Encyclopedic' that the southern steeple is the taller in St. Remi at Rheims, a very early example, partly round- arched, and at St. Pol de Leon, in Brittany. These are plainly intentional differences, and not exceeding two feet, as at Seez. " Seventy feet high " must be a misprint, I think, for seventy metres. Like all non-Frenchmen, I fail to appreciate the beauty of this irregularity. At Canterbury the towers are only distin- guished by the new one having the putlog holes filled up, which in the old were left open. E. L. GARBETT.

BIGGLESWADE (9 th S. ii. 427). According to analogy, the s in Biggleswade is the sign of the genitive, belonging not to the second, but to the first element of the name. This also gives better sense, the wade being the Northern wath (A.-S. wat\ a " shallow wading place." At Biggleswade this was a ford over the Ivel, now replaced by a stone bridge. It is preceded by a proper name in the genitive, as in the case of Ravenswarth, anciently Ravenswath (9 th S. ii. 96). Northill and South- hill are villages north and south not of the river, but of each other. The Domesday forms Nortgiyele and Sudgivele prove that ill is a contraction of Ivel or Givele, just as the II in Ilchester is derived from the name of the Ivel in Somerset. ISAAC TAYLOR.

"To SAVE ONE'S BACON" (9 th S. ii. 407). I can remember, many years ago, seeing at Belvoir Castle a picture by Teniers called

' Dutch Proverbs,' the meaning of which the housekeeper used to explain. It represented " the pig running away from the nouse on fire, in order to save his bacon." Another picture represented a man with a glass globe on his forefinger, saying, " It 's an easy world for a rich man to carry before him," whilst the poor man, breaking the glass globe, says, " It 's a hard world to struggle through." I am rather inclined to think that this and many other fine pictures were either destroyed or much injured by a fire which took place at Belvoir Castle some years ago. Charles Lamb, it is well known, tells the story of the origin of roast pig from the house taking fire.

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A. Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

" THE SAIR SAUNT FOR THE CRUNE " (9 th S.

ii. 407). In his review of Tytler's ' History of Scotland '(' Miscellaneous Works,' v. p. 161,. ed. 1881), Sir Walter Scott writes :

" David founded many religious houses, the en- dowments of which were afterwards much grudged by his successors, one of whom termed nim, in allusion to his canonization, ' a sore saint to the crown.' "

Annotating the couplet in 'Lay of the Last Minstrel,' ii. 1,

Then go but go alone the while Then view St. David's ruin'd pile,

Scott speaks of the description as " the well- known observation of his successor." In 'Tales of a Grandfather,' chap, iv., he says that

" one of his successors, James I., who esteemed his liberality to the church rather excessive, said, ' St. David had proved a sore saint for the crown.' "

This is in keeping with the following state- ment in Hollinshead's ' Chronicle,' p. 366 :

" Therefore King James the 1st, when he came to King David his sepulture at Dunfirmling, he said that he was a sore Saint for the crown, meaning that he left the church over-rich, and the crown too poore. For he tooke from the crown (as John Major writeth in his ' Chronicles ') 60,000 pounds Scotish of yearlie revenues, wherewith he indowed those abbeies."

THOMAS BAYNE.

Helensburgh, N.B.

The first reference to this saying of King James I. of Scotland occurs in Major, 'De Gestis Scotorum,' 1. iii. c. 11 :

" Jacobus Primus, cum ad ejus sepulturam deve- nisset, dixisse fertur, maneas illic, Rex pientissime, sed reipublicse Scoticee et regibus inutilis : Volens dicere, quod nimus de proventibus regiis diminuebat pro opulentissimis coenobiis extruendis."

Bellenden in his translation of Hector Boethius, book xii. fo. 85, referring to King David, says :