2»><> S. N* 63., Mar. 28. '57.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



24T 



Whitborne Queries. — 1. From the Heralds' 

 Office : " Whidborne, originally from Scotland, 

 residing in Essex." Can any of your Essex 

 readers inform me in what part of the county they 

 resided, or give me any information respecting 

 them ? 



2. It appears from a note on Latimer's letter 

 to Cromwell, No. 42., that llichard Whitborne 

 was the Prior of Great Malvern in his time. Can 

 any of your readers give me any information re- 

 specting this person ? 



3. At Exmouth, — , 



" was born Sir Richard Whitebourne, Knight, whose ad- 

 venturous voyages in discovering the commodities of 

 Newfoundland, and endeavours for the plantations and 

 profitable fishing there, have merited the general com- 

 mendations of his country, and received honour from the 

 king.'' — Risdon's Survey of Devon, p. 123. 



Can any of your readers tell when or where this 

 knighthood was conferred, or whether this or 

 something else is the honour referred to in the 

 conclusion of the sentence ? Capt. Whitburn, as 

 he is generally called, was sent with a royal com- 

 mission to Newfoundland to make arrangements 

 respecting the ships engaged in the fitiliery, and 

 afterwards publislied an account of his discoveries 

 there, which has been rather hardly dealt Avith by 

 some writers, but was honoured at the time by a 

 royal letter ordering collections to be made for its 

 circulation in all the parishes of the kingdom. 



C. C. R. R. 



Education : Royal Descent or Kin. — Are there 

 any schools, colleges, &c., where any preference, 

 or oiher advantages, in matters of education, are 

 given to those v/ho can show descent from royalty ? 



Pater. 



Bajazets Mule. — Steevens, in a note to AlVs 

 Well that Ends Well, Act IV. Sc. 1., says, that 

 " in one of our old Tui'kish histories, there is a 

 pompous description of Bajazet riding on a mule 

 to the Divan." Could any reader of " N. & Q." 

 give a reference to this ? There is more than one 

 old play in which Bajazet is introduced, but I 

 have no note respecting his mule, any reference to 

 which, either in a play or " old Turkish history," 

 would be of importance in illustration of the pas- 

 sage in Shakspeare above alluded to. H. 



Richard Savage. — Was Savage an impostor, or 

 was he really the son of the Countess of Maccles- 

 field, as he represented himself?* He said that he 

 discovered that he was the son of that lady from 

 letters which he found among the effects of his 

 nurse (whom he had always regarded as his 

 mother) at her death. Sir John Hawkins says 

 that he was an impostor, and that his own tale, 

 which Johnson repeats, was sufficient to prove 

 him so. No writer, as far as I know, has echoed 



[* See a curious Note on this point by Mrs. Pio/.zi in 

 our present number, aniS, p. 242. — Ed. "N. & Q."] 



the opinion of the knight ; but is it certain that 

 there is no ground for such an opinion ? Is it 

 apparent, from any quarter, that any trustworthy 

 j)erson saw the papers which Savage said that he 

 found ? or does the story of his birth rest entirely 

 on Savage's own statement ? Lesby. 



Moses Foioler. — Moses Fowler, elected Fellow 

 of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, proceeded 

 B.D. 1585, and married Catharine Raye of Land- 

 beach, Cambridgeshire, Oct. 6, 1586. We find 

 him pleading the University privilege in an action 

 of debt, wherein he had been outlawed, Easter 

 Term, 1587. He was presented by the queen to 

 the rectory of Brandsburton, Yorkshire, and was 

 instituted thereto June 26, 1591. He soon after- 

 wards resigned the same ; and on August 30, in 

 the same year, was instituted on the queen's pre- 

 sentation to the rectory of Sigglesthorne, in the 

 same county. This he resigned, 1593. He was 

 afterwards the first dean of the Collegiate Church of 

 Ripon, wherein he was buried. In the aisle south of 

 the choir of that church is, or was, a monument to 

 his memory, with his bust, much defaced. We 

 shall be glad of farther particulars respecting him, 

 especially the date of his death, and a copy of any 

 inscription on his monument. 



C. H. & Thompson Cooper. 



Earl of Elgin Duhe of Alcala. — Is there any 

 written authority for saying that the eleventh 

 Earl of Elgin and Kincardine was also Duke of 

 Alcala in Spain ? No notice is taken of such a 

 fact in Burke's Peerage. Does this title still exist ? 



M. A. Ball. 



The Potato " Parent Stock." — Sir AValter Ra- 

 leigh is generally believed to have planted at 

 Youghall, in July, 1586-7, the first potatoes grown 

 in the British empire; and "from these few, this 

 country was furnished with seed." This was on 

 the return of Sir Walter's expedition, for which 

 the patent passed the Great Seal in 1584. Ileriot, 

 a scientific man, who accompanied the expedition, 

 describes, under the head of " Roots," those called 

 in Virginia, " Openawk," which are "round, some 

 as large as a walnut, others much larger." (Sir 

 Joseph Banks ; Hall's Ireland, p. 80.) But al- 

 though all this be true, the honour of first intro- 

 ducing this " root " into England belongs to Ad- 

 miral Sir Francis Drake, who brought them, 

 amongst other rare exotics, from the ^ wilds of 

 South America, on his return expedition, after 

 circumnavigating the globe, in 1580, seven years 

 prior to Sir Walter Raleigh's return expedition. 



It has, however, been asserted that the potato, 

 celebrated in the Elizabethan age, "is not the 

 same root as that now commonly known by the 

 name." 



I opine that, if " not the same root," the present 

 potatoes are the descendants of that "parent 

 stock," though undoubtedly changed in their qua- 



