Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/181

 9* s. vin. AUG. 24, i9oi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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been identified with the people of Woking. Considering the corrupt form in which the document known as 'The Tribal Hidage' has come down to us, a likelier supposition is that Wocen is a mistake for Wrocen. The question has been care- fully worked out by Mr. W. H. Duignan in the Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeo- logical Society, Second Series, vi. 16-18. Mr. Duignan shows that a charter of Burgred, King of the Mercians (855), is tested " in loco qui vocatur Oswaldesdun,* quando fuerunt pagani in Wreocensetun " ; and in a charter of Edgar (963) the king grants lands at Plash, near Cardington, and Aston, near Lilleshall, " in provincia Wrocensetna" As Cardington and Lilleshall are twenty miles apart, the province of the Wrocensetna must have covered a large district. In another charter of Edgar (975) the king grants lands at Aston, the bounds of which travel along "Wrocene" to Watling Street. From the Wrocen we get the modern Wrekin, Wroxeter, and Wrockwardine. The Wrocensetna pro- bably occupied the greater part of the county of Salop, or at all events that portion of the county which lies 'to the eastward of the Severn. I think on the whole that this identification would fit in better with J. B.'s general theory than the very dubious attri- bution to Woking. W. F. PKIDEAUX.

Under heading "18. Hicca" J. B. writes, "Wickham on the river Titchfield." Is this not a slight mistake on his part? I never heard of a river in Hampshire called the "Titchfield." I was born at Wickham, Hants, and the river that runs through it, and also through Titchfield, emptying itself into Southampton Water at Hillhead, I have always heard called the river Meon, which rises close to East and West Meons, running through Warnford Park (in which are several additional springs), and thence through Exton and Meon-Stoke on to Wick- ham arid Titchfield. There is a small stream or river (of the name of which I am ignorant) rising on or near Titchfield Common and running near to Titchfield House, Post- brook, falling into Southampton Water higher up than the Meon does. Perhaps J. B. has confused this stream Titch or Ditch with the river Meon. Residing at the present time in what I have come to consider about the heart of the ancient Mercian terri- tory (i.e., near Grantham), I follow J. B.'s

Oswaldesdun does not seem to have been dentified. Mr. Duignan says "probably Oswes- try. and it may have been the down or hill on which Oswald's tree was situated.

deductions, which appear to me satisfactory and clear as well as highly interesting.

WILLIAM OF WYKEHAM.

THE NATIONAL FLAG (9 th S. v. 414, 440, 457, 478 ; Supplement, 30 June, 1900 ; vi. 17, 31, 351, 451, 519; vii. 193; viii. 67, 112). MR. ST. JOHN HOPE cannot see that any contra- diction is involved in the expression " dimidiated per sal tire." Does not the very etymology of the word "dimidiate" show to him that the objects to be dimidiated, before being brought together in the process known as dimidiation, must first be halved ? This halving can only be done by a single bisecting line drawn per pale, per bend, &c., whereas two lines drawn per sal tire must necessarily divide the objects to be dimidiated into four parts ; and to call such a process " dimidia- tion " is, I submit, etymologically and heraldically incorrect. In order to test MR. ST. JOHN HOPE'S view of the matter, I invite him to cite a single authentic instance in British or foreign heraldry of "dimidiation per saltire."

I have taken penknife and paper and tried to work out MR. ST. JOHN HOPE'S picture puzzle, but it will not do, unless indeed the saltires are divided quarterly as well as per saltire, in which case the fragments can, of course, be arranged according to the key- picture by any one accjuainted with the design of the Union flag. But, as I have already shown, this is not dimidiation ; neither is it free from ambiguity in the other respect I have mentioned, inasmuch as the word " quarterly" does not appear in the proposed new blazon.

I am sorry MR. ST. JOHN HOPE thinks my criticism unduly strong. By way of repara- tion, and in the hope of drawing down the fire of his criticism on my own head, I suggest an alternative blazon for the flag, viz., Azure, a saltire quarterly and per saltire counter- changed argent (for St. Andrew) and gules, fimbriated of the second (for St. Patrick), debruised by the cross of St. George fim- briated as the saltire.

The matter is one of great difficulty, and I do not wish to dogmatize as to the value or otherwise of my suggestion. P9es MR. ST. JOHN HOPE doubt the possibility of dimidiation per bend ? If so, I would refer him to Woodward and Burnet's 'English and Foreign Heraldry,' p. 477, where he will find an example of such dimidiation.

ARTHUR F. HOWE.

Walton-on-Thames.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE (9 th S vii 510; viii. 72).- Major William Hathorne, the first