Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/84

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76


NOTES AND QUEKIES.


[9 th S. I. JAN. 22, '98.


ever attempted anything of the kind, and so far his " vigorous remonstrance" was uncalled for.

Whatever SIR HERBERT MAXWELL'S opinion of my explanation may be, it does not absolve him from what is due to a correspondent, nor is it an excuse or a fair reason for his ignoring my protest against his method of attack his charging me with saying what I did not, as well as taking an undue and unfair liberty with regard to what I did say. It appears SIR HERBERT MAXWELL has difficulty in ridding himself of this sort of literary incubus, for he now says : " No good purpose is served by attempting to describe in a couple of pages the condition of society" between 1191 and 1707. Who " attempted" to do this ? might I ask. Certainly not the writer. It can only exist in SIR HERBERT MAXWELL'S imagina- tion. I said, "planted by William and his followers." SIR HERBERT MAXWELL says, " William planted no followers." I fail to see the point.

It is for SIR HERBERT MAXWELL to accept or not, as he pleases, my assurance as to Sauchieburn. His acceptance, followed by such paragraphs as it is, I candidly confess I am un- able to place any value on. It was not, and is not, iny intention to enter upon a controversy as to the origin of the surnames referred to, and I am surprised that SIR HERBERT MAXWELL should so frame his observations on this head as to give them the appearance that I had such an intention, or that I had actually ventured to do so. What I did say on or approaching the subject was, "William's followers intermarried with half a dozen or so native families," and, to satisfy SIR HERBERT MAXWELL'S expressed curiosity, I mentioned names of some families I looked upon as native in contradistinction to those of Norman origin or descent. Does he deny that the latter married into the families as mentioned 8 th S. xii. 364? Just one word as to the surname Maxwell. Anlaf, father of Maccus, may have been Irish or Saxon. It is an open question. Capt. Grose mentions a tradition that the first of the name Maxwell in Scotland was a Norwegian. However, the Maxwells whom I ventured to name, and of the perioc about which I wrote, were to all intents anc

Purposes natives. We are not interested in racing the native to his Aryan origin.

ALFRED CHAS. JONAS. My neighbourhood in the south of Fer- managh, near Clones, lies within the Ulster Plantation area, as the * State Papers, Carew MSS.,' p. 396, date 1619, show. The origina tenants came from what is generally known as the Border. The names of their descend


nts are those of Scottish Border families, lius we have Johnstons, Grahams, Forsters,

^lains, Armstrongs, Knights, Loughs, 1'Vitties, Mooreheads, Hamiltons, Betties,

cfec. In one district there is what might be tyled a clan of Johnstons, all small farmers, ^he names William and James are common mongst them. The speech of these descend- ,nts of the borderers also bewrayeth them ; ,nd it is interesting to note how words, ihrases, and, no doubt, accent, have been, at east in remote rural districts, transmitted rom father to son for centuries. For in- tance, one phrase in common use here,

which signifies to save or get in the hay, is o "wynn the hay." This is exactly what )ne finds in the opening lines of that old

ballad 'The Battle of Otterbourne,' pre- erved in Percy's 'Reliques of Ancient D oetry':

Yt f elle abought the Lamasse tyde Whan husbonds wynn the haye.

Some other words found in Percy, and still in use here with the same meaning, are keel= raddle, fadge = a kind of cake, byre=d, cow-

louse, &c. I think one point which militates against Johnston being a Norman territorial name Anglicized is, that although these Irish Johnstons have intermarried largely among

themselves, and still continue to do so, they show no trace of Norman blood either physic- ally or otherwise ; and most of us have some

belief in atavism. Ireland was therefore saved from what would have amounted to a sort of minor Norman invasion or settlement in the seventeenth century.

S. A. D'ARCY, L.R.C.P. and S.I. Rosslea, Clones, co. Fermanagh.

I fear that MR. JONAS makes a somewhat feeble reply to SIR HERBERT MAXWELL'S very natural criticisms. The information he thought he was giving about the above family was quite useless to any one who knows any- thing of the subject. Personally I shall be glad to know something of the descendants of Robert Johnston of Wamphray, who died in 1733. One gleans very little from the pages of Douglas's ' Baronage.' Can any one inform me how and when the estate of Wamphray passed out of the possession of the family ? F. A. JOHNSTON.

EPISCOPAL FAMILIES (8 th S. xii. 185, 316). A notable case in point is that of Bishop Barlow, of Chichester (t!568), whose five daughters had all episcopal husbands. Of Frances, who married, firstly, Matthew Parker, son of the archbishop (at whose consecration her father had assisted), and, secondly, Tobias Matthew, Archbishop of York, Camden