looked upon as almost, if not quite, decisive as to the points at issue. It is translated from p. 115, fol., Lond., 1807:

"Of the honour of Walingford in Testa de Nevill. "To his most beloved lords the justiciaries of the lord the king and the barons of the Exchequer the Constable of Walingford with faithful obedience sendeth greeting. Know ye that I have diligently made inquisition concerning the mandate of the lord the king by the sheriff to me transmitted through the knights of my bailiwick, "Wygod of Walingford held the honour of Walingford in the time of King Harold and afterward in the time of King William the First, and he had by his wife a certain daughter whom he gave to Robert Doilly; the same Robert had by her a daughter named Matilda, who was his heir. Milo Crispin married her, and had with her the aforesaid honour of Walingford. When Milo died, the lord the King Henry the First gave the aforesaid Matilda to Brienne, the son of the earl, together with her inheritance. She had no heir. The same Brienne and Matilda his wife in the time of King Stephen gave themselves to religion, and the lord Henry, the son of Matilda the Empress, who was at that time Duke of Normandy, seized the aforesaid honour."

and of the inquisition this is the sum :

This Brienne was charged with the custody of William Martel, the sewer of King Stephen, who was taken at Winchester, and built a prison for him at Wallingford called "Cloere Brien," and when the empress made her celebrated escape from the castle at Oxford over the snow, she fled to him for protection (Mat. Par., Hist. Maj., an. 1141, p. 79, Lond., 1640).

The pedigree would therefore be:

[Tokig, ob. p. s.]

Matilda, = ob. s. hær.

1. Milo Crispin, 2. Brienne, son of ob. s.p. A.D. 1107. earl.

I could not point to any work in which this inquisition is transcribed or cited.

Milo Crispin and his wife Matilda are mentioned as benefactors to the Abbey of Abingdon (Chron. Mon. Abingd., vol. ii. p. 110, Rolls' Ser., 1858). ED. MARSHALL.

LETTER OF LORD BYRON.-The original, which I have in my collection of autographs, is of interest just now:"March 6, 1814.

"Dear Sir, I regret troubling you, but my friend H. who saw the pictures to-day suggests to me that the nose of the smaller portrait is too much turned up. If you recollect, I thought so too; but as we never can tell the truth of one's own features, I should have said no more on the subject but for this remark of a friend whom I have known so long that he must at least be aware of the length of that nose by which I am so easily led.

"Perhaps you will have the goodness to retouch it, as it is a feature of some importance-the Albanian wants nothing if you can-excuse my plaguing you with this request.--Y" very truly,

BIRON."

On referring to Moore's Life and Letters of Byron, I find, March 7, 1814, "At three sat to Phillips for faces," this being the day after the above letter. It is also interesting being signed Biron. CRAWFORD J. Pocock.

24, Cannon Place, Brighton.

"MAZAGRAN."-Most travellers in France are aware that this name is given to café noir (served in a tall glass), to which water is frequently added. It at first struck me that the word might be a Persian compound signifying "warm wine," and in this I thought I was confirmed by Arabic kahwat (whence cafe, coffee), signifying literally "wine." It afterwards occurred to me that the word might be derived from a proper name; and I found in Paris a Rue Mazagran, leading into one of the Boulevards (Bonne Nouvelle ?). A French friend, however, informs me that coffee tempered with water was drunk by the French soldiers in Algeria, especially at the battle of Mazagran, under Bugeaud, and that the drink thus derived its name. It was probably owing either to the badness of the water or to the danger of drinking water alone. In Johnston's map find Masagran near Arzeo, a little N.E. of Oran, and on the coast. In his Ind. Geog. he gives Mazagran, Algeria, N. W. A., 35° 52′ N., 0o 4′ E., and Masagan or Mazighan, Marocco, N. W. A. ; and in his Dict. Geog. he has Mazagan, a fortified seaport E. of Marocco on the Atlantic. R. S. CHARNOCK. Malta.

MISUSED WORD: "SEVERALLY."-Our rector publishes the banns of marriage between half a dozen couples, and invites any of the congregation who know cause or just impediment why those persons should not severally be joined together in holy matrimony to declare it. I declare accordingly that if the arrangement thus expressed be conceivable (but it may be fairly contended that, severance and junction being contradictory in terms, the phrase has no meaning) it will be rank polygamy. I suspect, however, that what is really intended is that the couples indicated are to be respectively joined together, and to this, so far as I am aware, there is no objection. J. F. M.

"SILE."-This word is not given in Johnson nor in the Library Dictionary, 1871. It is in common use, I believe, throughout England. Its use is restricted to the operation of passing newly drawn milk through a sieve of fine wire or hair, called a sile, so as to free the milk from the froth caused by milking. It is given in Bailey: "Sile (s., fr. the Sax. syl), filth, filth that sinks to the bottom"; "To sile, to sink, to fall to the bottom." In this case, I suppose, the word is a congener to silt; but the modern use is not connected with anything which sinks to the bottom, but to that which floats on the top. E. L. BLENKINSOPP.

Queries.

[We must request correspondents desiring information on family matters of only private interest, to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that the answers may be addressed to them direct.]

VIRGINIA.-One of the oldest and most renowned of the United States of America bears the English name "Virginia." For nearly half a century this name designated the English territory in America, lying between Florida and the Gulf of St. Lawrence, between New Spain and New France.

Historians mention two entirely different reasons for choosing this name. The earliest mention of it, as a geographical name applied to this territory, is in the report made to Sir Walter Raleigh by one of his captains sent to make discovery in America in the year 1584, printed in the third volume of Hakluyt's collections. It occurs but once in the report, in this sentence, viz.: "His name was Gronganimeo, and the king is called Wingina, the country Wingandacoa, and now by her Majesty Virginia." Why did she call it Virginia?

Oldmixon, in his British Empire in America, printed in 1708, mentions two grounds for the origin and application of this name. He says:"Queen Elizabeth was herself so well pleased with the account these adventurers [Amidas and Barlow, captains sent by Raleigh] gave of the country, that she honoured it with the name Virginia, either because it was first discovered in her reign, a virgin queen, or, as the Virginians will have it, because it still seemed to retain the virgin purity and plenty of the first creation, and the people their primitive innocence." He cites no authority for this statement.

choice of a new geographical name would appear. It was deliberately coined for this occasion. It has been said that this name was Raleigh's suggestion to the queen, and adopted by her. This seems not unlikely. If it be so, what did he intend to commemorate by the name Virginia?

In the report in Hakluyt mention is made of a king called Wingina, and also of a country called Wingina. There is a striking resemblance between this name and the name Virginia. Did the Indian name suggest the English one?

There was a good opportunity to christen this new English territory "New England," and to come in early between New Spain and New France with this august designation. Thirty years later Capt. John Smith had only to mention this name to designate the northern part of Virginia, and it was universally accepted by the English people. Does the name But to return. "Virginia commemorate the virgin state of Queen Elizabeth, or the virgin state of the new country in America visited by Raleigh's captains? C. W. TUTTLE.

Boston, U.S.A.

:

DE MONTFORT, EARL OF LEICESTER PULESTON OF EMRALL: ANCIENT KINGS OF SPAIN.Can any of your readers tell me where I shall find a correct list of the sons of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, who married Eleanor, sister of King Henry III.? Sandford gives them as 1. Henry, 2. Simon, 3. Almeric, 4. Guy, 5. Richard. Anderson follows suit. Père Anselme, vol. vi. p. 77, gives them as 1. Henry, 2. Richard, 3. Almeric, 4. Simon, 5. Guy. It will be seen that these great authorities all concur in naming Henry

son. What I especially wish to know is, which was the second son, Simon or Richard? Where can I find anything decisive on this point?

He cites for authority the report in Hakluyt. That certainly gives no such reason for the name; it barely affirms that the queen called it Virginia. Bancroft, the latest and best historian of the United States, says that she bestowed the name as a memorial of her state of life"; a substantial confirmation of Robertson.

This is the generally accepted reason for giving the name Virginia to that part of America visited by Raleigh's ships in 1584, and claimed by England. Is there any ancient authority to support it ?

One would think that so important an affair as the naming of a vast country in the New World, designed to form part of the English empire, must have been made public at the time by a royal edict or proclamation, wherein the grounds for the

Can any one tell me whether the family of Pule

I shall find a pedigree of them of later date than 1622, the date to which Vincent's pedigree is brought down? I want to see a good pedigree of the old kings of Spain, giving Alphonso X. of Castile and his issue-something better than Anderson. L'Art de Vérifier les Dates is utterly insufficient. C. H.

MONTGOMERIE FAMILY.-In 1728 John Montgomerie was the Captain-General and Governor-inChief of his Majesty's colonies of New York and New Jersey, America. I think he governed for about five years, died, and was buried in New York on July 4, 1732 or 1733. He was buried in what was then called the King's Chapel in Fort George, subsequently and now called The Battery, in Castle Gardens, New York. His books and general effects were sold by public auction. Some

of his early preferment in Kent, under the name of Rotherham; which town the archbishop himself is at pains to explain, in his will, was the place of his birth, but he does not with equal care and pride state that he was born of parents of that name or any other. It is equally conceded-1. That his arms (probably assumed with the name of Rotherham) were Vert, three bucks or stags trippant or; 2. That the Scotts of Ecclesfield, his kinsmen, bore (doubtless from the archbishop) precisely the same arms, which the heralds of that day would not have permitted except by legal adoption or right, a contrary course being then penal, and heralds exacting; 3. That the arms of Rotherham of Farley, Beds (John Rotherham, the brother of the archbishop, being head of this family), are, according to Burke (our first authority), in his General Armoury, stated to be the same as the archbishop's and those of the family of Scott of Ecclesfield, his kinsmen, plus a bend sinister argent, which, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, denoted illegitimacy. This fact is very suggestive to those who have leisure to follow it out to its origin; and to my mind, taken in connexion with the probably studious avoidance of all mention of his parents and their names in the archbishop's will (which in this respect, I again repeat, is puzzling and unsatisfactory), may be the key to the whole question.

The archbishop, in his will, states, "because I was born in the same town [Rotherham], and so at that same place was born into the world, and also born again by the holy bath flowing from the side of Jesus"; but he fails to state that he likewise gloried in the name of Rotherham, his

ancestors'.

There are no post obits or trentals in his will in favour of his parents, the only names mentioned being "John Rotherham, my brother," and his kinsmen or cousins, the Scotts. These individuals, I contend, adopted the assumed name and arms, or arms alone, of the archbishop in respect of property which, in their lifetime or afterward, came to them through the patronage of the prelate. Such a theory would be in accordance with practice

then as now.

practice of ecclesiastics in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries adopting the names of places of their birth or preferment on their becoming mortui sæculo is established as a popular error, I must contend again that the host of commentators on the life and biography of this dignitary will again and again be of opinion that the name of Rotherham was merely assumed, whatever conclusion they may arrive at as to his real patronymic or the precise family to which he belonged. Notwithstanding that difficulties may and do exist in adducing satisfactory evidence that he belonged to either of the families of Scott of Ecclesfield or of Scotshall, in Kent, but for which fact heralds and commentators of as good repute as Mr. Vincent have vouched,-I again suggest that, as the arms of the Scotts of Ecclesfield are the same substantially as those of the Rotherhams of Luton, and these such as have been attributed to the archbishop, the fact, otherwise inexplicable, points to the conclusion of an identity of origin of both Scotts of Ecclesfield and Rotherham families. Finally, as regards the arms (stated by Willement to have been, sixty years ago, in a dilapidated condition, and which he attributed to Archbishop Rotherham) which were carved in stone on the roof of the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral, and impaled or impaling the see of York, viz. three wheels gules. I repeat that it was impossible for Willement to have done more than guess at the tincture or charges, as I personally, with the sanction of the authorities, by means of a scaffold, some years ago inspected the same, and whilst still of opinion that the charge suggested wheels or catherine wheels, so dilapidated were the bosses in that portion of the cathedral, it was impossible to come to the conclusion that the charges were stags or roebucks. MR. GREENSTREET, respecting this doubt, states, or suggests, that the wheels in question were those of the family of Roet (Catherine Swinford, third wife of John of Gaunt, being a daughter of Sir Payne Roet); but allow me to ask in what way the arms of Roet or Swinford could heraldically be connected with either of the sees of Canterbury or York. So far as the catherine wheel is concerned, this cognizance of the Scotshall family figures on the roof of the Martyrdom (temp. Edw. IV.), and formerly on the beautiful gate of Christchurch at the entrance of the cathedral, traditionally asserted to have been erected at the cost of six Kentish knights, of whom Sir William Scotte, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and Governor of Dover Castle, was one. Apologizing for having occupied so much of your space, and I fear to so little purpose, I now conclude. JAMES RENAT SCOTT, F.S.A. Clevelands, Walthamstow.

Before this matter is dropped, would those who have lately so ably corrected the errors that have