30
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. ix. JAN. n, 1902.
KINBOROUGH AS A FEMALE CHRISTIAN
NAME.
(9 th S. viii. 504.)
KINBOROUGH is not a place-name, but the modern form of the Old English ( = Anglo- Saxon) female name Cyneburgh or Kyne- burh, latinized Cyniburga, well known as that of the sainted daughter of King Penda of Mercia, the sister of Kings Peada and Wulfhere, who was married in 653 to Alcn- frid, son of Oswiu, King of Northumbria, as recorded by Bsecla, ' Hist. Eccles.,' III. xxi., where she appears as " Cyniburgam filiam Pendan regis." (One may assume that every reader of ' N. & Q.' knows that Latin and Old English C was = K.) The Old English Chronicle (Laud MS.) contains in the annal of 656 the account of the consecration of the Minster of Medeshamstede (later Peterborough), built by the Kings Peada and Wulfhere, at which the latter was present with his two sisters Kyne- burg and Kyneswith, written in the later annal of 675 Kineburh and Kineswith. And the annal of 963 tells how, three centuries later, Abbot ./Elfsi took up the bodies of St. Kyneburh and St. Kyneswith that lay at Castor, and brought them to Peterborough, and presented them there to St. Peter. For the traditional accounts of the sister saints, see Rev. C. Plummer's edition of Breda (III. xxi. note). Cyne, "kingly, royal," is the first element of a long list of Old English per- sonal names, male and female ; the feminine lurk, " fort, fortress," is an equally frequent second element of names of women, of which TEthelburh, Eadburh, and Seaxburh latin- ized Ethelburga, Edburga, and Sexburga are perhaps the best known ; but more than twenty others occur in the Durham ' Liber Vitse ' and Breda's ' History.' The Old English proper names in Cyne- mostly take Ken- in their modern form, as in Cynehelm = Kenelm, Cyneric = Kenrick or Kendrick, Cynewulf= Kennulph ; but Kin- or Kyn- is the regular phonetic representative of Cyne-, Kyne-, already, even in Old English times, shorteneo to Cyn-, Kyn- : Cyneburh itself appears as Cynnburg, Kynnburug (see Sweet, 'Oldest English Texts,' 553). It would be of interest to know whether the group of related Kin- boroughs in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had had their name handed down from Old English times, or whether it was introduced at a later date as a baptisma name, perhaps for a female child born 01 baptized on 6 March, St. Cyneburh's or Kmborough's day. J. A. H. MURRAY.
G. D. B. says that this name occurs at
times spelt Kynburgh, though Kinborough
is the more usual form. I therefore do not
think there can be much room for doubt that
the ladies he mentions were called after the
Anglo-Saxon saint Kyneburga, whose festi-
val was observed on 6 March, under which
date an account of her may be seen in the
'Acta Sanctorum,' Alban Butler's 'Lives of
the Saints,' and the late Rev. Richard Stan-
ton's 'Menology of England and Wales.'
EDWARD PEACOCK.
DESBOROUGH PORTRAITS AND RELICS (9 th S.
viii. 497). SIR E. F. Du CANE writes of
engravings of portraits of General and Mrs.
Desborough, and wishes for some information
about them. There is a reproduction of a
photograph of a family portrait of Major-
General Disbrowe (Desborough), in posses-
sion of Miss Desborough, facing p. 172 of my
'Oliver Cromwell' (Goupil, 189'9), which may
assist him in determining whether his en-
graving represents the general or not.
SAMUEL R. GARDINER.
ST. BRIAVEL (9 th S. ix. 9). The accounts of his hundred and parish in various Gloucester- shire and Dean Forest books seem to prove that he was a Norman St. Brule. D.
ADULATION EXTRAORDINARY (8 th S. x. 152, 322 ; 9 th S. viii. 473). The following is bad to beat. It occurs in a speech addressed to Charles I. by Thos. Widdrington, Recorder of Berwick, when his Majesty was passing through the town in June, 1633, on his way to be crowned at Edinburgh (Rushworth, ii. 179) :
" It were unseasonable for us to represent to Your Majesties view the Gloomy Cloud of our Pressures
and Wants : No I need not do it for that Cloud
is suddenly vanished by the Radiant Beams of Your Sun-like Appearance. By whose approach these Rusty Ordnances, these Solitary Walls, these Soul- diers, this now despicable Town, have all instantly received their former Life, Luster, and Vigour; and hence we are induced to think, that this Year (being the Year of Your Majesties most Royal Pro- gress) is likewise the Year dreamed on by Plato, wherein all things were to return to their former
Life, Splendor and Excellency We well know
(as indeed who knoweth not) that Royal Blood running in Your Majesties Veins, to be Extracted from the most Renowned Kings of both these Kingdoms, and by those Kings (Most Dread Sove- reign) especially by Your Royal Father of ever Blessed and Happy Memory, hath this Town, though in the Skirts of either Kingdom, been richly Imbroidered, with many Priviledges, Franchises, and Immunities : And therefore we doubt not but Your Majesty, in whom each Man may behold the Worth of all Your Ancestors, You being no less Rightful Inheritor of their Vertues, than of their Crowns, will gratiously maintain what they have.
