Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/79

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9 th S. III. JAN. 23, '99.]


NOTES AND QUERIES.


73


o place at the disposal of any of the readers f ' N. & Q.' interested in the subject.

JNO. HEBB. Canonbury Mansions, N.

I am obliged to ME. A. B. STEELE for his Correction, which, not being a botanist, I

uccept with all humility. But I was alluding

,o a period quite forty years ago, and writing

rom memory. I accurately remember a

'crimped " flag, and also a "sweet" flag, the two being (I speak from memory again) not dissimilar in general form, size, and appear- ance ; and I assumed that they were identical. EDWARD P. WOLFERSTAN.

"PIGGIN" (9 th S. ii. 85). Is it really an ascertained fact that, as PROF. SKEAT says, the Welsh form is borrowed from English? The root pig, meaning a peak, a pike, a spike, is found in mediaeval Welsh compositions ; and in modern Welsh we have pigyn (pro- nounced " piggin "), meaning a thorn, stitch, the pleurisy. JOHN HOBSON MATTHEWS.

Town Hall, Cardiff.

ERA IN ENGLISH MONKISH CHRONOLOGY (8 th S. xi. 387 ; xii. 421, 466 ; 9 th S. i. 10, 92, 231 ; ii. 29, 292, 473). MR. STEVENSON'S asser- tion that he had already cited the passage which I have quoted from p. 199 of RuhTs 'Chronologic' is inaccurate: the passage quoted by me runs from line 5 to line 7 ; that correctly cited by him runs from line 19 to line 22. MR. STEVENSON, when assuring me of the strong support which he derived from Prof. Riihl, did not mention the important fact that that scholar is in exact agreement with Kemble and myself as regards the primary point on which MR. STEVENSON misguidedly attacked Kemble. Kemble arid Ruhl assert that St. Augustine introduced the Dionysian era into England ; MR. STEVENSON, in his attack upon Kemble, said that it is not likely that Augustine would introduce the era ; and now, instead of confessing his error, he asserts that Riihl's statement " in no way contro- verts " his own. He also reiterates his belief that it was Bede who introduced the Diony- sian era, but, as heretofore, he fails to supply the requisite proof.

MR. STEVENSON does not conclude his note without falling into error once more. He says, "The first historical writer to use the era of the Incarnation was undoubtedly Beda, who commenced to use it in his 'Chronica

Minora,' written in 725 " The 'Chronica

Minora ' (i.e., the ' Liber de Temporibus Minor' cf. 9 th S. ii. 31) was not written in 725, and if we accept MR. STEVENSON'S date, we must add that Bede was undoubtedly not


the first historical writer, even in England, to use the era. In the ' Historia Abbatum/ a work which Bede abbreviated (vide Mr. Plummer's 'Bede,' Introd. p. xlvi), and the latest date in which falls in A.D. 716, the foundation of the monastery at Wearmputh is dated "anno dominicse incarnationis DCLXXiv , indictione secunda " (ibid. p. 390).

A. ANSCOMBE. 4, Temple Road, Hornsey, N.

THE GEORGE WORN BY CHARLES I. (9 th S. ii. 263, 354 : iii. 16). KILLIGREW may be glad to know that the fact of the king having delivered his George to Juxon with the word "Remember" is supported by very early evidence in a pamphlet of eight pages, en- titled :

"King Charles | His | Speech | Made upon the | Scaffold | at Whitehall Gate, | Immediately before his Execution, | On Tuesday the 30 of Jan. 1648. | With a Relation of the manner | of his going to Exe- cution. | Published by spetiall Authority. | London | Printed by Peter Cole, at the Sign of the | Print- ing Press in Cornhill, near the 1 Royall Exchange 1649."

The following paragraph is on p. 8 of the pamphlet, and comes immediately after Juxon's final words of consolation :

" The King then said to the Executioner, is my Hair well. Then the King took off his Cloak and his Georg, giving his George to Doctor Juxon, say- ing, Remember"

with a marginal note, " It is thought for to give to the Prince."

After describing the execution, the narra- tive ends, " The King's Body now lies in his Lodging Chamber in Whitehall," showing that it was written, if not printed, in the short interval that elapsed before the burial at Windsor. R. MARSHAM-TOWNSHEND.

DR. JOHN DEE AND EDWARD KELLY (9 th S. ii. 407). A good account of Dr. Dee will be found in Kippis's 'Biographia Britannica.' The Camden Society in 1842 published the ' Private Diary of John Dee, and the Cata- logue of his Library and MSS.,' edited by James O. Halliwell, F.R.S. For Dr. Dee's connexion with Edward Kelly see ' N. <fe Q., 7 th S. iv. 306 ; v. 32.

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

W. T. S. will find information respecting the above in ' Lives of the Necromancers,' by William Goodwin (London, 1834), pp. 373-98; 'Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delu- sions,' by Charles Mackay (London, 1856), vol. i. pp. 152-63 ; and ' A Relation of what passed for many Years between Dr. John Dee and some Spirits, also the Letters of