Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/319

 9* s. iv. Nov. 4, m] NOTES AND QUERIES. 377 Hailes" a fabrication of man's hands, and declared that ho had wasted his money, namely, eighteenpence, in having made a journey to visit it. It is therefore certain that some pilgrims at that time at least discussed the efficacy, if they did not call in question the actual genuineness, of the relic. A few years later, in 1521, an interesting pilgrim made his appearance at Hailes, on a visit to the then abbot, Thomas Stafford. Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, came from his castle, then unfinished, at Thornbury, having been summoned to London, but un- aware as yet that Henry VIII. had determined to condemn him to death. We may imagine the feelings of the abbot and the community at Hailes, who had seen him and his quasi- royal retinue depart from their abbey out a few days previously, when they learned of his arrest and execution at the Tower of London. It will be recalled that one of Henry VIII.'s charges of treason against him consisted in the fact of his having quartered some of the royal arms— at least the portcullis of the Beauforts, to which he had a natural right, being their heir. He stood dangerously near succession to the crown—too near it for the jealous susceptibilities of the then sonless Henry. And so we arrive at the fatal hour of the monastic establishments in England, and without condemning the Cistercians of Hailes for having made profit by their famous relic (in which it is quite probable most of them believed), we come to the remarkable letter written by Hugh Latimer to " Master Morice" from his living at West-Kineton in 1.032(?), in which lie says :— " I dwell within a mile of the Fossway, and you would wonder to see how they come by docks out of the West Country to many images, hut chiefly to the'Blood of Hailes."' He also preached against this relic at Bristol. Finally there follows the fateful visit of the Royal Commissioners and their "Re- port," which reads as follows. It is dated 28 October, 1539 :— " We have viewed a certain supposed relic called the ' Blood of Hailes,' which was inclosed within a round beryl, garnished and bound on every side with silver, which we caused to be opened in the presence of a great multitude of people, being within a little glass, and also tried the same, according to our powers, wits and discretions, by all means, and by force of the view, and other trials thereof, we think, deem and judge the substance and matter of the said supposed relic to be an unctuous gum, coloured, which, being in the glass, appeared to l«j a glistering red, resembling partly the colour of blood ; and after we did take our part of the said substance and matter out of the glass, then it was apparent glistering yellow colour, like amlier, or base gold, and doth cleave-to as gum, or birdlime." This was handed over to Mr. Richard Tracy and sealed. The certificate was signed by Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Worcester, Henry Hoi beach, Priorof Worcester, Stephen (Seagar) last Abbot of Hailes, and Richard Tracy, Esq., High Sheriff of Gloucestershire. To the descendants of the last named the site still may be said to belong, though it only came to them by reversion, and after the abbot's lodgings and the " Domus Conversorum," or apartments of the lay brothers, had been converted into the mansion of the families of Hodgkins and Hobby, in 1603. Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, later on destroyed the relic at Paul's Cross. The Commissioners elsewhere state " they have had from that House (Hailes) right honest sorts of jewels, plate, ornaments, and money, besides the garnishing of a small shrine, wherein was reposed the counterfeit relic of times past: which all we do reserve unto the King's Highness. —MS. C'ott. Cleop. E. iv. ff. 254-6. St. Claik Baddelev. (To be continued.) "Mole."—In some remarks upon the word vole, ante, p. 332, I find that I am asked to mouldwarp, which I must decline to do. I admit only that this is the old opinion, which I was so unlucky as to accede to in my own 'Etymological Dictionary ' because I did not then know better. But the question has been settled by Franck in his Dutch 'Ety mological Dictionary,' where it is pointed out that mole is certainly an independent word. It goes back to the same ultimate root as mouldwarp and mould, and that is all. For mole is not an isolated word in English only. It is the same as Du. mol, E. tries. mid or mulle, also meaning mole. Unluckily, it does not appear in A.-S., though we can tell that the A.-S. form would have been originally dissyllabic, as in M E. molle (see Stratraaun). This is why the E. Friesic plural form is mullen; and the M. Du. had not only the plural mollen, moles, but the compound mollen-hoop, as well as mol-lwop, to denote a mole-heap or mole-hill. Besides this, the M.H.G. molle was also used to denote a kind of lizard ; whence G. mol-ck in the same sense. This word is also, of course, a weak masculine. Neither need we be at a loss to make out the sense. The Indo-European root met, to grind or to crumble to bits, is perfectly preserved in the O. Irish mel-im, mod. Irish
 * admit that the modern E. mole is short for
 * molla, masc, gen. *mollan ; i.e., the word was