xii. AUG. 29, iocs.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
173
the Dial! of Life, So we shall Dye all. For Mors
ultima lineal "
Mrs. Gatty's book gives the sundial mottoes on pp. 377-8 and 536, " We must and shall ere long dyall," 1647; " We shall," 1693 (scil. dial, ie., die-all); "We shall die all," pro- bably eighteenth century ; and at the last reference a Cornish one, " We shall die all," on St. Eval Church, Cornwall, 1724.
No example of all four lines, as in the supposed epitaph, is given.
ADRIAN WHEELER.
GILLYGATE AT YORK (9 th S. xi. 406, 457,
518; xii. 50) Francis Drake, whose admir- able work on York does not profess to be infallible, merely wished to place on record such facts as had come to his knowledge almost a century after the siege of York, shortly after which event the moat was filled up in that part called Gillygate and built upon. The first record of a house on that side of the street which I can find is 1667. The deed, in Latin, was issued by the Minster authorities, all Church lands being restored after the Restoration. He traces the name of St. Giles to the time of Henry V. (1441). But Lilium goes back to the time of Julius Caesar, and was apparently a native device to stave off the enemy (see Smith's ' Lat. Diet.')- Drake in 1736 may have seen Littleton's codification of the laws of England and Coke's commentary thereon. If so, it is quite clear that he had not realized the effect of the dogmatic words so often quoted from him ; since the principles of the law were the same as they are now, that a parish once made cannot be unmade except by Act of Parliament. He conjoins the words St. Gilligate (p. 597), so that the parallel of W. C. B., who instances Gillygate, near Dur- .ham, is not quite perfect. The Corporation of York have still further unsettled our belief in local traditions by affixing a tablet to Monckbar (as on the other bars) saying that the usually received derivation is "erroneous," while suggesting the name of a monastery in a vague kind of way. I am therefore really glad to hear from ST. SWITHIN that there is some authority he knows of who can put a dot on the spot. My experience of maps and I have had much is that unless made from actual survey they are not always trustworthy. I have verified his statement now.
The local maps show a gap in the wall of St. Mary's Abbey, which turns out to be the inside of a tower, while what I term the veritable Gillygate is not even noticed, although it has been there since 1503 at least ; for I always keep in mind the primary
meaning of " gate " something guarded. The
Barbican of Bootham was taken down in 1831.
The Wai m gate Barbican only remains. Pre-
suming that the four were all alike that is
twenty yards long this would leave twelve
yards (the width of the base of the counter-
scarp) from the gateway, which, after the king
and princess were gone away, except for the
small guard-house, would have been defence-
less but for the supposed Giglio, while the
city had both barbican and bar. Why, then,
did the Parliamentarians not assault when
they attacked the abbey in 1644, but, in-
stead of that, attacked the tower, a hundred
yards higher up 1 The memorial on the tower
says that when pursued " they were caught
in a trap." Is this figurative or a statement of
fact ? We might have known more of the
matter if the documents relating to the whole
of the North that were in this tower had been
saved, and no one need have jeopardized either
name or fame in trying to find it out. There
is reason to believe that a road of some
kind existed before 1124, when Wace records
the fact, as translated by Layamon 1155, that
" the king lette deluen senne die al abuten
[new text, " aboute "] Eouerwic" (Layamon, ii.
p. 277). If this canal or moat was like any
other I have ever seen, including the dykes
in Holland, it would have a walk of some
kind all along it (a couple of miles at least) ;
therefore a road did exist for at least 300
years before the erection of either the church
or parish of St. Giles, and it is a mere quibble
to say, " Oh, yes ; but that was on the top of
the dyke, while this was at the foot of the
counter-scarp," for the distance could not be
more than twenty yards. I would not have
written a syllable about this matter but that
it seemed to me to place the linguistic know-
ledge of my countrymen at such a low level
as to make foreigners laugh at us. Nor would
I have ventured these opinions but that I
have found no mention of it in any of the
great authors ; and having only a small
private collection of books, I naturally appeal
to those who either know more or have access
to other works. And with a town council
who are just now seriously meditating a
repetition of the exploits of the JSTurembergers
in H. C. Andersen's fairy tale ' Under the
Willow ' in the old rnoat, it is hopeless to
think of getting them to take an interest in
the archway, which I still wish to think has
some connexion with Gillygate.
P. M. CAMPBELL. 33, Vyner Street, York.
There was a Gilligate at Pontefract, where also was a chapel of St. Giles; see Surtees Soc., vol. xcii. pp. 273-6. W. C. B.
