Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/552

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456


NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. v. JUNE s, 1912.


LEGEND OF THE LAST LORD LOVELL (11 S. v. 167, 291). With reference to MR. HUM- PHREYS'S very interesting summary, I under- stand that the " legend :< that the skeleton found at Minster Lovell was that of Francis, the last Lord Lovell, was accepted as a fact by the House of Lords in the year 1840, when the title to the Barony of Beaumont was decided in favour of Miles Thomas Stapleton.

The issue was whether Lord Lovell had survived his uncle, William, Lord Beaumont, or had predeceased him. If the former, he had inherited the Barony of Beaumont, which had therefore fallen under the same attainder as that of the Barony of Lovell in 1487. If the latter, the Barony of Beaumont was unaffected by Lord LovelPs attainder.

In the absence of proof of Lord Lo veil's death, he had been assumed to have sur- vived his uncle, Lord Beaumont, who died in 1508 ; but the discovery at Minster Lovell was taken to prove that he had pre- deceased him. This is stated in the ' History of Bedale,' by Mr. H. B. M'Call, a well- known North-Country archaeologist.

B. M. G.

PERCIVAL BANKS (11 S. iii. 267). MB BOWKER'S query at this reference relates to the ancestors of a distinguished Irish phy- sician, the late Sir John Banks. The first member of his family to settle in Ireland rppears to have been Samuel Banks, who came to this country after the rebellion of 1641 as an officer in the English Army, and was granted during the Commonwealth a share of the barony and town of Ardee in Ihe county of Louth. He is said to have belonged to the family seated at Aylesford in Kent, but the armorial bearings used by his descendants accord more nearly with those of a London family. (See ' Visita- tion of London, 1633-5,' Harleian Society, p. 42.) In a petition which was presented after the Restoration to Charles II., Samuel Banks and the other owners of Ardee set forth that, " having for many years served as officers and soldiers against the Irish rebels in the wars of Ireland," they were given in satisfaction of their arrears of pay the barony and town of Ardee, where they had built " many fair stone houses," and such of them as were handicraftsmen had erected shops and other conveniences for their trades, " whereby the town was become from a heap of rubbish a place of English manufacture, and was likely to daily improve " (Fifteenth Report of Irish


Record Commissioners, p. 125). From the records of the Corporation of Ardee it appears that between the years 1661 and 1680 Samuel Banks served five times as one of the portreeves of the town, and that in the succeeding ten years John Banks served four times in the same position. The latter was possibly a son of Samuel Banks and the elder brother of Timothy Banks, who entered Dublin University in 1681, and graduated B.A. in 1686. In the next cen- tury the Corporation records mention Henry Banks, who in 1705 was chosen as a burgess ; John Banks, who, between 1732 and his death in 1766, served thirteen times as one of the portreeves; and Samuel Banks, who. in 1773 was elected a member of the council. The first named migrated to the county of Clare, apparently on his marriage to a daughter of Hugh Percival of Gortadroma in that county, and resided at Nutfield near Ennis, where there was formerly to be found a monument bearing the follow- ing inscription, surmounted by the crest of the family, a dragon's head :

" Deo soli gloria. This tomb was erected to> the memory of Lieutenant Henry Banks, late of Ardee, who departed this life in the year 1728, by his sou Percival Banks of Ennis, for his and the remains of his family. Anno Domini 1773. Sic transit gloria mundi."

Henry Banks left three children : Samuel, who married Anne Pierson ; Percival, who married Mary Pyne ; and Anne, who married Col. James Clarke. On the death in 1766 of the second John Banks, who appears to have been a nephew of Henry Banks, and left no issue, Samuel Banks went to reside at Ardee, where he died in 1776. His brother Percival remained, however, at Ennis, where he practised as a physician. He was succeeded there by his son, who bore the same name and adopted his father's pro- fession. The last Percival Banks, who married Mary Ramsay, was the father of Sir John Banks. Remarkable longevity i? exhibited in the family. Sir John Banks, at the time of his death, was 95, his father lived to be 84, and his grandfather cannot have been far from 80 when he died.

F. ELRINGTON BALL. Dublin.

LONDRES : LONDINITJM (11 S. V. 129, 191,

314). It is quite true that the Latin termina- tion in -nia becomes -gne in French so far, at least, as names of towns are concerned, for in ordinary words this rule is not followed, colonia, for instance, becoming colonie ; but it does not necessarily follow that words ending in -nium should also be affected in