NOTES AND QUERIES.
249
for Dover (on 14 August, 1770) on his way to
Eome ? He was "once esteemed at the British
Court one of the most accomplished noblemen
of the age," but
"he is gone with the full determination never to return. He has cut his hair close to his head, carries a knapsack on his back, and intends walking to Rome on foot with no other companion than a very
big dog He has never appeared in public since
the much talked of connexion between him and a certain lady, by whose friends he was never par- doned, and from their behaviour he has adopted the above-mentioned extraordinary resolution.
Was this " Lord " William the son of the third Duke of Gordon, and the brother of the rioter ? That Lord William, at any rate, had been in love with Lady Sarah Bunbury. Was this " Lord " William also the author of a political satire against England, published at Amsterdam in 1781, and entitled " Catalogus
van eene verzarneling van manuschripten
betreffende den staat van Engeland " 1
J. M. BULLOCH. 198, Strand.
'THE EDUCATION OF ACHILLES.' Such ap- pears to be the title of two well-known pic- tures the one by James Barry (1772), the other by J. B. Regnault (1783). Is this a mere coincidence ?
RICHARD H. THORNTON.
Portland, Oregon.
ALFREY MICKEFER. Can your i-eaders give any information respecting the above beyond the fact that he was one of several young Russians sent to England by Peter the Great, was educated at Oxford, and held a country living in Cambridgeshire ? Was he of royal descent? GEORGE E. FYSON.
REV. CHRISTOPHER HARRIS. He was rector of Stourmouth 1690-1719, and vicar of Wing- ham 1672-1719, being buried in the latter church at his death, 24 November, 1719. Further particulars Us to parentage, &c., wanted. ARTHUR HUSSEY.
Wingham, Kent.
ERKENWALD. Some little time ago Erken- wald, Bishop of London 675-693, was given in your notes as son of Offa, King of East Anglia. I should be grateful if one of your correspondents would tell me : (1) Was Offa King of East Anglia ? I cannot find any one of the name as ruler of that kingdom. (2) If Offa, King of Essex, is meant, what is there to show that Bishop Erconwald was his son ? Offa is an enigma. He is said to have been persuaded by Cyneswitha, his betrothed wife, to give up his throne and go to Rome. He lies buried in St. Peter's, so Lanciani says. This abdication is said to have been in 709.
Could he have had a son old enough to be
bishop thirty-four years before? (3) Then
could his betrothed wife Cyneswitha have
been daughter of old Penda, who died in
655? and could Offa have been the son of
St. Osyth, Cyneswitha's niece? I should be
very glad of some clue out of this apparent
labyrinth. THOMAS WILLIAMS.
Aston Clinton Rectory.
' THE BIRDS OF CIRENCESTER.'
(9 th S. ii. 66.)
THE story appears as follows in Camden (' Brit.' by Gibson, vol. i., 1722, col. 284) :
" The British annals tell us that this city was set on fire by one Gurmundus, I know not what Afri- can tyrant ; and that he made use of sparrows to effect it, whence Giraldus calls it the ' city of spar- rows '; and from these memoirs Necham writes thus : Urbs vires experta tuas, Gurmunde, per annos
septem ;
A city that defy'd proud Gurmund's strength For seven long years. Who this Gurmund was I confess I am ignorant.
" [The author of the Welsh History makes mention of one Gurmundus, an arch pirate, captain of the Norwegians who assisted the feaxons. Gibs.]"
Rudder's ' History of Gloucestershire,' 1779 p. 350, states that in A.D. 879 the Danes under Godrum or Gothrum, who was pro- bably the same as Gormon or Gurmond, an African tyrant, besieged the city for a year without taking it. He then relates the story as above from the 'British Annals.' But there is the caution "that poets are not always good historians."
The 'A.-S. Chronicle' states at A.D. 879 that
the heathen army "went to Cirencester
and sat there one year."
ED. MARSHALL, F.S.A.
This legend is related by the villagers in Hants to account for the destruction of the Roman town of Calleva Attrebatum, otherwise Silchester. The Rev. A. White, who has pub- lished a charming little pamphlet upon the old city, told me he believed the origin of the legend to be the fire arrows of the ancients, which became in the tradition fire sparrows, which with lighted straws tied to their tails (not an easy process) flew over the high walls and alighted on the roofs, thus setting the city on fire. EMMA ELIZ. THOYTS.
The story of the burning of Cirencester is a legend found in old English chronicles. It is not in Geoffrey of Monmouth, al- though he mentions its siege and capture by
