Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/25

 s. ix. JAN. 4, i902.i NOTES AND QUERIES.

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the task of producing a light was often a formidable one. We had no matches, the tinder-box was not known in our parts, and the servantmaid had to enlist the services one of the ploughmen with his pocket flint and steel. The touch paper was speedily ignited, but to produce a flame sufficient to light a candle was by no means easy, and often took up a considerable amount of time The first time I ever saw lucifer matches was, if I remember rightly, in 1843 or 1844.

ALEXANDER PATERSON. Barnsley.

COMIC DIALOGUE SERMON (9 th S. vii. 248, 339; viii. 309, 433). In a review of 'Me- morials of William Charles Lake, Dean of Durham, 1869-1894,' is given a passage from (as I suppose) his own pen, which cannot fail to be of interest to those involved in the present quest :

" One course at the Church of the Gesu used to amuse us much. It was in the form of a dialogue con- ducted on a stage between a good man and a sinner, and the repartees of the sinner in answer to the remonstrances of the good man were often rather telling. On the whole, it certainly struck me that the Roman Catholic clergy had all the power of dealing with the lower classes which our Metho- dists have, and in which our own clergy (at that time, at least) were very deficient. Another point I thought remarkable was the character of the tracts which I was fond of collecting in the book- shops of the lower parts of Rome, and which almost always referred entirely or were addressed to our Lord, and seldom either to the Virgin or to the saints."

ST. SWITHIN.

ARMS OF SCOTLAND (9 th S. vii. 368, 452). MR. EASTON (p. 368), in speaking of the royal treasure of Scotland, states that it was " the emblem of the ancient league with France, from whose kings it was a gift to the kings of Scotland." The high authority of the late Dr. Woodward was not in favour of this origin. His observations upon this point (' Heraldry, British and Foreign,' ed. 1896, vol. i. p. 187) are, I think, worthy of repro- duction here:

" Popular belief long associated this bearing in the arms of Scotland with a supposed alliance between one Achaius, King of the Dalriadic Scots, and Charlemagne ; and declared that it commemo- rated the agreement that the French lilies should be for all time coming a defence to the lion of Scot- land..

_" It is easier to laugh at the transparent absurdity ot this fable than to account for the first introduc- tion of the fleur-de-lis into the royal coat of Scot- land. Historically no alliance between Scotland and France can be found earlier than the reign of Robert Bruce.

" On the seal of Alexander II. the lion is the, sole charge. On the great seal of Alexander III. | (1249-1286) the lion rampant appears alone upon the i

shield borne by the monarch, but the caparisons of this [? his] charger have the lion surrounded by a bordure ; this is charged with small crosslets, but the inner edge has a border of demi-Jleura-de-lix. (Vre"e, 'GenealogiedesComtesdeFlandre,' plate xv.) A portion of this seal is engraved in Laing's ' Scot- tish Seals,' vol. ii. plate ii. fig. 1, and, I am inclined to think, not so accurately given as in Vree's ex- ample, where the whole seal is given, and the crosslets distinctly shown on the bordure. To this bordure I believe we must trace the origin of the tressure flory-counter-flory, which had no direct connection with any French alliance, connubial or political."

From this extract MR. EASTON will see that the lion of Scotland was borne alone upon the seals of the second and third Alexanders, and this certainly at a period long anterior to the time given by him (1471), when King James III. decided to eliminate the double tressure from the royal arms, though long subsequent to that pre-heraldic period when the supposed alliance with Charlemagne led to the popular belief, as Dr. Woodward states, that it was the origin of the tressure in the Scottish arms.

Dr. Woodward would seem to have been aware of the Act of Parliament in 1471, men- tioned by MR. EASTON, by which James III. affected to do away with the tressure. He gives the enacting words (p. 189) : " In tyme to cum thar suld be na double tresor about his armys, but that he suld ber hale armys of the lyoun without ony mar," and says that it is not easy to explain the motive for the Act, which, however, was never carried into effect. J. S. UDAL, F.S.A.

Antigua, W.I.

BEAULIEU AS A PLACE-NAME (9 th S. vi. 87, 216 ; viii. 397). The abbot of a monastery de Bello Loco is recorded in various docu- ments of Honorius III., which SIR E. BEWLEY will easily find from the index to Pressuti's magnificent edition of that Pope's * Regesta ' (Typ. Vat., 1888-95). My diplomatic and geographical knowledge does not go far enough to say whether the place is in the diocese of Chalons-sur-Marne, Troyes, or Toul, or identical with any of those already nentioned. O. O. H.

"OUTRIDER" (9 th S. viii. 462). This word,


 * ormerly applied to sheriffs' officers and

Dostillions, and still used in the latter

apacity, may have been utilized locally as

an expansion or variant of "rider"; for in

he north of England, before steam was

ipplied to locomotion, commercial travellers,

riding on horseback from place to place

soliciting orders, were very widely designated

"riders." Hence that fine old farce in one

act (was it not George Column's?) entitled