Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/425

 9» s. vi. NOV. 3,1900.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 351 and medecins delivered to M" Ellin Gwyn, de- " I sav received by me this 17 November, 1688. "CHRISTIANCS HUREL." In another instance I find her account headed "The Honw° Madam Ellen Gwynne The account of her executors in the same ledgers is headed Madam Eleanor Gwyn and Eleanor Gwynne. In copies of the royal grants and warrants published in Cunningham's 'The Story of Nell Gwyn ' she is usually styled Mrs. Ellen Gwyn, sometimes Mrs. Ellen Gwynne, and even G win.* Her son the Duke of St. Albaus acceded to the dying request of his mother by the following memorandum beneath the codicil : — " Dec. 5, 1687.— I doe consent that this paper of request be made a codicil to M™ Gwinn's will. o oT. ALBA"S. Pepys always speaks of her as Nell or Nelly. In her will she states, " I, Ellen Gwynne," &c., but that, of course, was not written by her- self, and was only the way the lawyer thought her name was spelt. In conclusion, I am of opinion that Gwyn was the correct and most usual form of spell- ing her name. F. G. HILTON PRICK. 1, Fleet Street, THE NATIONAL FLAG (9th S. v. 414, 440, 457, 478 ; Supplement, 30 June ; vi. 17,31).— In the article quoted by MR. ST. JOHN HOPE (Sup- plement to 'N. & Q.,' 30 June), Mr. Eraanuel Green writes (Archoeol. Journal, xlviii. 297, 1891) :— " The earliest example of the word Jack is found in some accounts of arms and streamers delivered to certain ships in 1375, 49 Edward III., wherein are mentioned twenty-six Jacks, and with them certain streamers of .St. George." Will Mr. Green be so good as to give a refer- ence to his authority ? Dr. Murray is anxious to find an early instance of jack, " a surcoat," as well as any instance of jack, "a flag," earlier th«n 1637. The proclamation of 12 April, 1605 (which Mr. Green describes as superseded by one dated exactly a year later), seems to be a myth. At any rate, it cannot be found in the British Museum, the Bodleian, or the exhaustive ' Hand-List of Proclamations ' of the Bibliotheca Lindesiana. Consequently the first united flaf? derived its authority from the proclamation of 12 April, 1606, which Mr. Green summarizes inartistically (instead of setting it out verbatim) at pp. 300, 301. I will not ask you to insert p. 201. a complete and correct copy of this docu- ment, though sorely tempted to do so in the interest of accuracy ; but I must ask the hos- pitality of your columns to two extracts from the royal proclamation of 28 July, 1707, which seem inconsistent :— " Whereas divers of Our Subjects have Worn Flags, Jacks, and Pendants, in Shape and Mixture of Colours so little Different from Ours, as not with- out Difficultyto be Distinguished therefrom We Command all Our Subjects whatsoever, That they do not Presume to Weare in any of their Ships or Vessels Our Jack, commonly called The Union Jack, nor any Pendants, nor any such Colours as are usually Born by Our Ships or any other Ensign than the Ensign Described on the Side or Marnent hereof [i.e., the Red Ensign]." " Such Ships as have Commissions of Letters of Mart or Reprizals, shall, besides the Colours or Ensign hereby Appointed to be Worn by Merchant Ships, Wear a Ked Jack with a Union-Jack De- scribed in the upper Corner thereof next the Staff." Does this mean that ships so commissioned are to wear the Red Ensign on both maintop and foretop? Theirflag (as described) seems to an outsider identical with the Red Ensign, but possibly one of your readers may distin- guish. ROBERT J. WHITWELL. VANISHING LONDON (9th S. vi. 221, 331).— I have been making some further inquiries from the secretary of the Moravian settle- ment, -who so courteously supplied me with materials for my note, and he informs me that the Moravians were certainly in posses- sion of their present premises in May, 1738, but that the date does not appear in the church report until 1742. They hold the house in Fetter Lane, including the chapel, on a lease of four hundred years. In refer- ence to MR. PHILIP NORMAN'S query as to Dr. Nicholas Barbon being a son, and not .a nephew, of "Praise God Barebones," I find the information to be uncertain. Mr. F. B. Macdonald, the secretary of the Phoenix Fire Office, informs me that in Relton's 'Fire Insurance Companies,'on p. 19, it is stated that "Dr. Nicholas Barbon, who died in 1698, is said to have been one of the sons of Praise God Barebones, of the Cromwellian Parliament." He appears to have been a very clever man, not only as a physician, but also in the building way, besides being the first projector of fire insurance in Eng- land who brought his scheme to maturity. It was the outcome of Barbon's beginning of fire insurance that a fire office, afterwards called the Phoenix, was established. This did not survive, Mr. Macdonald thinks, above twenty to thirty years. The present Phoenix did not begin till 1782, and, Mr. Macdonald informs me, was for some time known as
 * 'The Story of Nell Gwyn,' Wheatley's edition,