Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/390

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[9* S. III. MAY 20, '99.

answer is not given therein. This, need- less to say, is curious, inasmuch as the answer is very much on the surface, under, as it were, the eye of the compiler of such things. It appears to have been overlooked not only by the editor of the great work referred to, but by the authors of books on archery and military weapons, that there is an Order in Council, dated 26 October, 1595, in which the Government of the day that is of Queen Elizabeth directed that the bows of the trained bands be exchanged for calivers and muskets. This order substituting firearms for bows seems to mark the time at which the bow as a military weapon was superseded, consequently it may be assumed that military archery in this country ceased at that time. This Order in Council, it may be added, with other interesting matters, may be found in the history of the Honourable Artillery Company. It is believed that the last active service of the war bow was in the contest between King Charles and his Scottish subjects, bowmen forming part of the forces commanded by Montrose. It is significant of the decline in archery which had set in before 1595, that in 1627, or thirty- two years after the date of the Order in Council referred to, there were only four makers of the long bow in the City of London. A great effort had been made by Henry VIII., by re-enacting in 1511 the famous Statute of Winchester, to revive the

Eractice of archery, which, in the reaction allowing the Wars of the Roses, had fallen into decay. The new provisions directed every man under sixty, not infirm, or not a clergyman, justice of the peace, or judge, to have a bow and arrows ready continually in his house to use himself in shooting. It was further directed that every boy from seven to seventeen years of age be instructed in archery, and provided with a bow and arrows, to acquire practice in shooting. The same statute was re-enacted in 1541 at the crisis of the Reformation, and again in 1544 ; but though the practice was stringently enjoined, the decline in military archery could not be stayed, and to this conclusion the Government of Queen Elizabeth appear to have come, their Order in Council, to which reference has been made, officially ending it in England. RONALD SMITH.

JAMES II. AT ROCHESTER. The following is a cutting from " Peter Lombard's " notes in the Church Times for 14 April :

" There is just one more reminiscence of Rochester High Street. A white house, now occupied by a dentist, is the house from which James II. escaped, as told in Macaulay. He got out at the back and

went to the river, and so to France. The owner in those days was Sir Edmund Head. I am told that the old staircase and wainscoting are still to be seen within."

CELER ET AUDAX.

WAGE : WAGES. A writer in an influential contemporary says: "'Wage' for ivages is a solecism we suppose incorrigible at this day." This is a mistake; it is a good old form, which has survived in the Northern dialects to this day. The subject has been discussed in 'N. & Q.,' where many good examples are given, 6 th S. ii. 387 ; iii. 11, 235, 278.

ASTARTE.

THE BoTTLE-CoNJURER,&c. With reference to the Ireland forgeries, and to the story then told of Bos well and Dr. Parr having knelt before signing the statement of belief in their authenticity, a pamphleteer, John Williams ([Anthony] Pasquin), thus wrote towards the close of last century :

"An honest man is so affected by such gross instances of gullibility and scoundrelism, that he cannot avoid turning to the subscribers, and asking them, in a spirit of pity more than anger, if their love of life is not reduced by such a naked exposition of weakness. This century has been polluted by the Bottle-Conjurer, Elizabeth Canning, and the Cock Lane Ghost, and it was miserably doomed in its old age to perish by this literary fistula in ano. If I should survive its departure, I will chaunt an appropriate requiem to its memory." Barker's ' Parriana,' ii. 696 (1829).

I quote this because some readers may be inclined to draw a parallel between that century and the present, and it would be interesting to know what four great impos- tures we could cite to compare with those above mentioned. THOMAS AULD.

"HANGED, DRAWN, AND QUARTERED." (See 7 th S. x. 347.) We have had this subject discussed with special reference to the second item, "drawn"; as drawn asunder by wild horses, drawn in a hurdle or by chains, and disembowelled. I find by a recent publication that the once notorious Louis, Chevalier de Rohan, condemned for conspiracy temp. Louis XIV, had his sentence moderated from being " drawn asunder " to decapitation. This definition of " drawn asunder " presupposes something very different from exposure in a hurdle. This I have always understood was the mere substitute for a barbarous cruelty.

A. HALL.

" JANISSARY." I see that Prof. Skeat, refer- ring to the above word in 'A Student's Pastime' (Clarendon Press, 1896), states in 237 ('N. & Q.,' 6 th S. xi. 270) that "in old books the English word is common enough, but only (I think) in the plural'' In a book,