Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/183

 9" S. VII. MAECH 2, 1901.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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mother was Idonia, the daughter and heires of Giles de Audley, the executor of the WL and supposed brother of Nicholas, third Lon Audley. So it was that Richard de Snede instead of bearing a fret in his arms, bor the fleur-de-lis on the fesse point by the sid of the handle or "sned <" of the scythe. Th Sneyds held all their lands under thi Audleys, and when they made grants t( Hulton Abbey they al ways did so with the "assent" of the "chief lord" Audley o Alditheley. Even to this day Ralph Sneyc of Keele is, I believe, Lord Audley by tenure

I ought to have mentioned that th Chanus or Cheyneys of Wighterston, in Cheshire, bore the Audley fret in a bend Sir Alan Cheyney being one of the heroes o: Poitiers. G. SNEYD.

Chastleton, Oxon.

I do not think the exploits of Lore Audley and his four esquires at the battle o; Poictiers should be considered a legend, in asmuch as they are most circumstantially related by Froissart and other historians The fact that the names of the esquires are not given by Froissart does not make the story less authentic. Dr. Gower gives their names as Button of Button, Delves, Foul- hurst, and Hawkestone, and states that Lord Audley requested them to bear on some part of their coat of arms his own proper achieve- ment, Gules, a fret or. It seems to me that there ought to be no great difficulty in proving whether they complied with his request ; and if it can be shown that the families named did not use the fret until after the battle of Poictiers, the coincidence would be so remarkable as to prove con- clusively that the fret was used in com- memoration of the battle. I have seen the following description of the Button coat of arms : Quarterly, gules and azure ; in the first and fourth quarters two lions passant or (by right of descent from Rollo, Duke of Normandy) ; in the second and third quarters a fret or. Crest, Out of a ducal coronet or a plume of five ostrich feathers, argent, azure, or, vert, and gules. Over the crest "Poictiers." Motto, "Servabo fidem." This surely points to a Dutton having been at Poictiers. Sir Thomas Dutton was forty-one years old at the time of the battle (1356), but does not appear to have been knighted until 1362. It is possible that he may have been the esquire referred to by Dr. Gower. In a deed dated 1341 he is described as " equitator," whatever that may mean. He was Sheriff of Cheshire 30 and 33 Edward III., the first of which dates I take it would be after Poictiers. I should be glad to hear from any of your

readers as to the esquires Delves, Foulhurst, and Hawkestone, who served under Lord Audley in the battle. CHARLES STEWART. 22, Gloucester Road, Stoke Newington, N.

VISITATION OF SUFFOLK (9 th S. vi. 509). The Visitation of Suffolk, 1664, was finished in 1668. According to Gatfield's 'Guide to Heraldic Works,' the MS. of Bysshe's Visi- tation, 1672, is in the British Museum (Harl. MS. 1103), which, if complete and as exten- sive as that of 1664, would be the better one to publish. According to Gutch's ' Collectanea Curiosa,' vol. ii. p. 245, Mr. Fenn had another valuable MS. Under ' Account of Visitation Books ' it says :

"An Alphabetical list of the Arms and Crests of the Gentry of the County of Suffolk, as well ancient as modern, collected from the best authors and most authentic manuscripts by the Rev. Joseph Bokenham, rector of Stoke Ash and Little Thorn- ham in Suffolk, 1713, 4to, the largest collections for this county perhaps extant. It contains a list of 730 coats of arms. A true copy, 1765, with addenda by Mr. Fenn. The original was in Mr. Martin's library, but disposed of in his lifetime."

If this could be found and published, it would be of use to the inquiring public.

JOHN RADCLIFFE.

NOTE ON A PASSAGE IN CHAUCER'S ( PRO- LOGUE ' (9 th S. vi. 365, 434, 463 ; vii. 30). PROF. SKEAT'S contention that there is no proof
 * hat the g in ege, &c., had a pronunciation ap-

proaching that of g in go may be correct, but or the sound of the Dutch g. In 'H.E.D.,' with regard to the origin of drag, the follow- ng occurs : " Perhaps a special Northern lialect form in which the g has been pre- served instead of forming a diphthong with he preceding a, as in English generally." Dighel (' H.E.D.') is given in several forms, /he g and h being interchangeable : d
 * here is some evidence that it had that sound

/? n 10 ri/)nl0 einri a o IQ^O a o 1 O 1 "/^ rlossible negative that there were no dialects iut what are now accurately known. There re three possible sources from which Chaucer ould obtain the word hrcegel : A.-S. manu- sripts, Latin and A.-S. vocabularies, peculiar ialects of which there are no written records,

n which the word remained dissyllabic, ince recchelees is the only word unknown in passage, and there is a parallel passage lat indicates its meaning, it should not be