Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 4.djvu/88

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82


NOTES AND QUERIES. [1-2 s. iv. MARCH, ms.


MRS. LEGH OF LYME, CHESHIRE 112 S. iv. 48). The portrait respecting which MB. LEONARD PRICE inquires is that of Margaret, daughter of Sir Thomas Gerard of the Bryn, Lancashire, widow of Sir Piers Legh of Lyme. It is said to have been painted in 1595, when the lady was 90. In her arms she holds her year- old great- granddaughter Anne Legh, afterwards the wife of Richard Bold of Bold, Lancashire.

Although her age is inscribed on the portrait, I think it unlikely that Lady Legh can have been 90 years of age in 1595, as this would have made her married at 13 to a husband of 5 a disparity of years surely unusual even for those early days.

The span of life was shorter then than now. Assuming her, therefore, to have been even 80, this was an instance of lon- gevity quite exceptional, and one that would warrant the lady being commemorated by a portrait. EVELYN NEWTON.

6 Belgrave Square, S.W.I.

K.C.B. : ITS THREE CROWNS (12 S. iii. 449, 487). I would suggest that the writer whose name has escaped S. R. C. is Bishop Kennett. In an article on ' The Order of the Bath ' in The Retrospective Review, and Historical and Antiquarian Magazine, Second Series, vol. i. pp. 439-65, there is a quotation, p. 44.0, note, from p. 410 of Kennett' s ' Register and Chronicle,' where, in speaking of the Knights of the Bath made at the coronation of Charles II., he writes :

" Which Knights of the Bath were first dubbed Knights Batchelors, being knighted by the King with the Sword of State ; and then" every one was adorned with the red riband of Knighthood of the Bath, with a medal adjoining unto it of three crowns, with an inscription about it of TRIA JUNCTA IN UNO, which words, till King James's coronation, were TRIA NUJIINA JUNCTA IN UNO, from the Holy Trinity ; but at that time the word ' NUMINA ' was left' out, which is sup- posed to be that, from that time, it might be looked on to be an Order of Knighthood, in allusion unto the union of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, as TRIA REGNA

JUNCTA IN UNO." >+

According to the writer of the article, however, p. 439, note :

" Although some persons who were knights of that Order in the reigns of Elizabeth and James the First are represented with a kind of jewel or badge suspended by a riband from their necks, and notwithstanding the statement of Bishop Kennett, it is by no means certain that any insignia was worn by the Knights of the Bath previoxis to the accession of Charles the First; for though the well-known egotist, Edward Lord Herbert of Cherbury, describes, with considerable


minuteness, the ceremonies with which he was. admitted, in 1603, he takes no notice of any badge ; nor does it occur in the portrait of him, dressed in the robes of the Order, to which he alludes in his life."

A command issued by the Earl Marshal on Feb. 4, 1625/6, is then quoted from MS. I 26, f. 25, in the College of Arms, by which it is declared to be the King's will^and pleasure

" that all the Knights of the Bath, as well those made by the Kinge, his father, of glorious memory, in any time of his reigne, as those by himself, at the royal coronation, shall con- tynually weare the Ensigne of that Order about their necks as a marke of Honour."

EDWARD BENSLY.

TANKARDS WITH MEDALS INSERTED (12 S. iii. 445, 483, 520 ; iv. 23, 59). I possess such a punch-ladle as is described at the close of the last reference. In the base of the bowl is inserted a George III. half- guinea. The handle, of whalebone, is spirally fluted at the top " with a neat silver tip." The obverse of the coin, inside the bowl, shows the profile of the sovereign, with the words : " Georgius III. Dei gratia." The reverse, somewhat worn, has the date 1781, and the royal arms surrounded by the legend : M. B. F. ET H. REX F. D. B. ET L. D. So far I am able to decipher and interpret, but the many letters that follow are so worn that I cannot read them. Will one of your readers be kind enough to complete the inscription, with, perhaps, a friendly expansion ? K. S.

ST. CLEMENT AS PATRON SAINT (12 S. iv. 14). According to the legend, St. Clement was drowned in the sea with an anchor fastened round his neck, and con- sequently he is often represented with an. anchor, as, e.g., in the painting by Corn. Ghirlandajo in San Martino Church, Lucca. Moreover, his day is celebrated on Nov. 23^ which in Northern calendars is marked with an anchor, for the information of seafaring men that it marks the beginning of winter, when their craft has to be laid up. The connexion between the saint and seafaring people is therefore obvious. L. L. K.

A paper of June, 1915, printed in Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, xxviii. 112-38, has much about the saint in relation to black- smiths, and also mentions him as the patron of felt-makers (Hone's ' Year-Book'),, bakers (' N. & Q.,' 3 S. iv. 492), sailors, and tanners ; but nothing is said as to merchants- and traders generally. W. B. H.