482 NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s . ix. D BO . n, 1.21. be that Adam de Amneville bought the manor charged with the obligation to render to the capital lord of the fee the service due, and that Henry conceded and confirmed the same. The facts are obscure.* The present charter is Richard I.'s con- firmation of his father's grant to Adam de Amneville and his heirs. The name Amneville has no connexion with Ampney (Amney), another Gloucester- shire manor. Doubtless it is of foreign origin. But it should be noted that in this charter, as also in others, it appears as Damneville, and Damneville is really an anagram of Mandeville. A writer in The Herald and Genealogist (vol. iv., p. 202) points out that the Damnevilles bore on their shields an escarbuncle of eight rays, which was the charge armorial of the Mandevilles. The witnesses were both famous men in their day, whose lives will be found in the ' D.N.B.,' in Miss Northgate's ' England under the Angevin Kings,' and in other works of easy access. William de Mandeville was the third and last of the Mandeville Earls of Essex. William Mar- shall, not yet, but soon to be, Earl of Pembroke and Strignil jure uxoris, was Joint Marshal at Richard's coronation and subsequently Hereditary Marshal of Ireland. Both these men were old Cru- saders. The King's Chancellor, William Longehamp, at this time Bishop of Ely elect, was also a man of the greatest renown, though, a poor Norman priest, he rose from obscurity. He died at Poictiers. A point of pathetic interest in this charter is the fact which it helps to disclose, namely, that on Nov. 10, 1189, William de Mandeville was with the King at West- minster attesting this charter, and that four days afterwards, on Nov. 14, as we learn from another source, he was lying dead at Rouen. Perhaps he had been sent on ahead to prepare for the coming of his master, who crossed the Channel later in the same month on his way to the Crusade. CHARLES SWYNNEBTON, F.S.A.
- The Rev. Charles S. Taylor, F.S.A., suggests
that Henry may have created a new manor for the Amnevilles out of that portion of Bitton which in 1086 had been held by a King's thegn. But no mention of Bitton is found among FitzHarding's fees in Liber Niger (1166). Hannam, in the parish of Bitton, was theirs by purchase of Richard Foliot. JACOB TONSON SENT TO FRANCE AS A SPY ON PRIOR. A CLOSE study of the political correspon- dence of the eighteenth century, including the reports sent by French spies in England in Queen Anne's time to the Marquis d'Argenson, yields a rich harvest to the historian who is not repelled by the enormous size of the registers kept in the Archives du Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres in Paris. These reports leave us with a poor opinion of the English Ministers and political leaders of the period. Bolingbroke, when drunk, reveals the most important State secrets to a French spy, the Abbe Gaultier ; the Earl of Oxford flirts with the Jacobite refugees in France, though he manages to avoid saying or writing anything that could be really compromising ; Marlborough himself never misses an opportunity of declaring he is not personally hostile to " Monsieur de Montgoulin " (this is the name flven to the Pretender in the letters of rench spies as " Vandenberg " designates the Earl of Oxford, and " Monsieur de Mont- plaisir " Bolingbroke). And yet those statemen served Queen Anne and openly professed their attachment to the Protestant Succession. The duplicity of the statesmen is equalled only by the duplicity of the writers in those troubled times. Defoe's double-dealing is well known. A document preserved in the records of the Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres (fo. 265) shows that the book- sellers also took an active part in the political struggle. This document, un- noticed till now, is a letter sent to the Mar- quis d'Argenson by Hooke, an Englishman paid by the French Government in 1714 to spy on his countrymen residing or travel- ling in France. It concerns Jacob Tonson, the famous bookseller, and sheds new light on his character : it Constitutes, there- fore, an interesting addition to G. A. Aitken's excellent article in the ' D.N.B.' : Un libraire anglois nomme Tonson est a Paris depuis quelque temps : il est creature du due de Somerset, de Mylord Wharton, de 1'eveque de Salisbury et des plus zelez whigs, et fort avant dans leurs secrets. Je suis informe de bonne part que son commerce n'est que le pretexte de son voyage, et qu'il est certainement employe pour observer M. Prior, et pour fournir, en en- venimant tout, des armes a ses patrons contre lui et contre le service du Roy. J'ay cru qu'il est de mon devoir de vous en donner avis, Mon- seigneur, aussi bien que des habitudes que cet homme-la a fait a Saint- Germain depuis son arrivee ; il y est fort souvent et en cachette.
- son
lette.
