3i(d 



NOTES AND QUERIES. C2»-i S. No 68., April 18. '57. 



#(cants — comprises the names of George Peele, Anthony 

 Munday, Thomas Dekker, Thomas Middleton, John 

 •Squire, John Webster, Thomas Heywood, John Taylor, 

 n*idmund Gayton, Thomas Brewer, John Tatham, Thomas 

 .Jojdan, Matthew Taubman, and Elkanah Settle. (TAe 

 iCivic Garland, p. xxxvii., Percy See. Publications.)] 



Middlesex Knights of the Shire. — I offer no 

 :npology for asking your insertion of the following 

 in deference to a wish expressed in the " leading 

 journal " of the day, from whose columns I tran- 

 scribed it. Vide Times, April 9. : 



" It may be noted that the irtembers for the metro- 

 politan count}^ are not ' girt with a sword ' like other 

 county members upon their election; perhaps some 

 readers of ' N. & Q.' may be able to state whether the 

 practice in Middlesex is singular in this respect, and why 

 the custom (if it ever prevailed) fell into desuetude." 



Henry W. S. Taylor. 

 Southampton. 



[We have not been able to trace any authority for 

 omitting to gird with the sword the newly elected M.P.'s 

 for Middlesex. The only notice of the Knights of the 

 Shire for this county differing from their brethren which 

 we can discover is, " that Parliaments being usually held 

 in this county, the knights had only fees for attendance, 

 and no allowance for coming and going as in other 

 counties." If the girding was formerly practised, it pro- 

 bably fell into desuetude in 1769, when Wilkes was re- 

 peatedly re-elected, but being in the King's Bench could 

 not attend at the declaration of the poll ] 



DUKE OF riTZ-JAMES. 



(2°'« S. ii. 296.) 



In reply to F. C. H.'s Query regarding the 

 Bishop of Soissons of this family, I am able to 

 give the following particulars. Francois, Due de 

 Fitz-James, second but eldest surviving son by 

 the second marriage of the celebrated Marshal- 

 Duke of Berwick (illegitimate son of King James 

 II. of England, by Arabella Churchill, sister of 

 the Duke of Marlborough), was born January 10, 

 1 709, was styled Governor of the Limosin in his 

 youth, and on his father's death, at the siege of 

 Philipsburg, in Baden, June 12, 1734, would have 

 succeeded to the French Duche-Pairie of Fitz- 

 James, erected in 1710 ; but having entered into 

 holy orders previously, he never assumed the title ; 

 and his next brother, Henry, being also an eccle- 

 siastic, the honours and estates passed to James 

 (the third son of the above second marriage of the 

 Duke of Berwick with Anne, daughter of Henry 

 Bulkeley, Esq.), who was ancestor of the present 

 Duke of Fitz-James in France. Francis was 

 nominated, in 1738, to the Bishopric of Soissons, 

 in Picardy, in succession to Mgr. Charles le Febre 

 de Laubrieres ; this see gave the title of Count to 

 its occupants, and its bishop was first suffragan to 

 the metropolitan of Rheims, having also the right 

 to crown the kings of France in the absence of 



the archbishop, by permission of the Chapter of 

 Rheims. The bishopric, which was founded in 

 the third century, is still existing ; and the de- 

 partment of the Aisne forms the limits of the 

 diocese at the present day. The new prelate was 

 also shortly afterwards appointed first Almoner 

 to King Louis XV., and worthily performed the 

 functions of that ofBce when his sovereign was 

 taken ill at Metz, and supposed to be dying ; but 

 he subsequently adopted Jansenist principles, and 

 on many occasions borrowed his writings from 

 them. The Jansenist La Borde, an Oratorian 

 priest, edited and compiled the bishop's Instruc- 

 tion Pastorale against the Jesuit Pichon in 1748 ; 

 and Gourlin, another Jansenist priest of the dio- 

 cese of Paris, composed for him his long mande- 

 ment, in seven volumes, directed against the 

 Jesuits Hardouin and Berruyer, in the year 1759. 

 M. de Fitz-James, about the same period, issued, 

 to his diocese of Soissons, a Catechism and a 

 Ritual, with instructions for Sundays and holi- 

 days ; this work, which was in three volumes, was 

 probably also written by the above-mentioned 

 Gourlin. At the assembly of the French bishops 

 in 1761, he declared himself of the paijly opposed 

 to the Jesuits ; and published, on th^ occasion, 

 another Instruction Pastorale, the authorship of 

 which was generally assigned to the same Gourlin, 

 — which was afterwards condemned by a brief of 

 Pope Clement XIII., and was the cause of his 

 being looked upon unfavourably by his episcopal 

 colleagues, from the principles there enunciated. 

 The Bishop of Soissons appears to have taken no 

 part in public affairs subsequently to the publi- 

 cation of his last work ; and he is generally 

 considered as the last member of the French epis- 

 copacy who supported the Jansenist cause by his 

 writings and speeches. The date of his death I 

 have not ascertained, though it probably occurred 

 within a few years after the period of his last ap- 

 pearance in public, above alluded to, in 1761. 

 The right of M. Fran9ois Fitz-James to bear the 

 royal arms of England 'was derived from his de- 

 scent, as already noted ; as those described by 

 F. C. H. are those of the present ducal house of 

 Fitz-James, as handed down from their ancestor, 

 the Duke of Berwick. 



For the greater part of the above particulars I 

 have chiefly consulted Moreri's Dictionnaire His- 

 ioriqiie, and Rohrbacher's Histoire UniverseUe de 

 VEglise Catholique, lO*"" edit., 1852 ; torn. 27""% 

 pp. 149—150. A. S. A. 



Barrackpore (E. I.), Feb. 21, 1857. 



EARLY MENTION OP TOBACCO. 



(2"" S. iii. 207.) 

 It may be considered somewhat singular, as re- 

 marked by Mfi,. H. T. Riley, that no mention of 



