ii s. vm. OCT. is, 1913.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
311
a fifth at Newmill, a sixth at Teindside,
while the most active pushed on to the
Change House, where the coach changed
horses for the last stage on the way to
Hawick. When these learnt that the
battle had been fought at Waterloo, and
had resulted in a signal victory, there was
a shout of exultation and wild hurraying,
which was heard at Teindside ; there it was
at once repeated and sent on to Newmill,
and so stage by stage, till almost before
the coach left the Change House wild
hurrays at the Loanhead announced to
the burghers of Hawick that a great victory-
had been won ; and long before the mail
coach reached the town the whole popula-
tion " everybody that could crawl," as I
was told was assembled on the Tower
Knowe to hear the particulars of the great
victory. Women also lent their aid. My
mother, then in her early teens, accom-
panied two or three elder sisters as far as
Langbaulk, and some fifty years after
pointed out to me the spot on which they
stood and heard the cheering at Branxholm
Bridge, and raised their own cheers to be
heard at the Loanhead. One of my uncles
pushed on much farther. The first time I
heard the tale I asked him how they knew
that there had been a battle, and that there
would be news of it that day. His answer
was that it had been expected all over the
country for several days that there would be
a battle somewhere on the way to Brussels,
and that the mail-coach on the preceding
day, or the day before, brought news that
heavy cannonading had been heard on the
coast of Kent all Sunday, the 18th of June,
and that news of the result was expected to
come that day. Thus the sound of the
guns heard on the Dover cliffs gave the first
intimation of the battle, although it did not
give the result.
Hawick, being an inland town, was one of those selected for the quartering of French prisoners on their parole of honour. These were mostly officers and educated gentle- men, possessed of pecuniary means, and many of them employed their time of cap- tivity in works of art and ingenuity. When I was a boy many such proceeds of the skill of " the French Prisoners " were pre- wrved in the town, and doubtless many still exist. Among other things, the earliest map or plan of the burgh and neighbour- hood was made by some of them from actual survey. My mother has told me that one of the most vivid impressions of her childhood was that of seeing grown -up men French prisoners weeping when everybody
Jse was rejoicing because news had come
of a battle in which the British had been
victorious and the French defeated with
much slaughter. At the Peace of 1814 the
French prisoners were released, and returned
to France, where several of them subsequently
rejoined Bonaparte when he returned from
Elba. Many of these had been great favour-
ites with those with whom they lodged in
Hawick ; and it in some degree damped the
exultation over the glory of W r aterloo when,
by and by, news came that one and another
of these officers who had been liberated and
had again joined Bonaparte, had fallen in the
great battle. J. A. H. MURRAY.
Oxford.
" QUEEN'S TRUMPETER " (11 S. viii. 249). -By this is probably meant the Sergeant- Trumpeter, who is an officer of the Royal Household presiding over sixteen ordinary trumpeters. The earliest mention of the office occurs in the reign of Edward VI., when the post was held by Benedict Browne. This gentleman had been Trumpeter to Henry VIII. at an annual salary of 241. 6s. 8d. The office is mentioned as being filled in 1641, but without name of the holder. In 1685 Gervase Price held it, and he was succeeded by Mathias Shore, who had been a trum- peter-in-ordinary to James II. , being pro- moted afterwards to Sergeant Trumpeter. Mathias died 1700. He was succeeded in the office by his son William, who, like his father, had been previously a trumpeter- in-ordinary. William died December, 1707, and is buried at St. Martin-in-the-Fields. He was succeeded by his brother John, who was the most famous trumpeter of his time. At the public entry of George I. in 1714 he rode as Sergeant Trumpeter in cavalcade, bearing his mace. He was the inventor of the tuning-fork. He is said to have split his lip in blowing his favourite instrument, and to have thus incapacitated himself from playing. He died 20 Nov., 1752, aged 90 (" 20 Nov. John Shore, Esq., Serjeant Trumpeter to his Majesty," Gent. Mag., 1752, p. 536).
His sister Catharine was Mrs. Colley Gibber. It will be remembered that Gibber lamented that his muse and his spouse were equally prolific : " the one was seldom the mother of a child but in the same year the other made me the father of a play." Catharine Shore had been a pupil of Henry Purcell, and shortly after her marriage she appeared on the stage as a singer, to her brother John's trumpet accompaniment. Purcell composed for John Shore (see
