132 



NOTES AND QUEKIES. 



[No. 119. 



The cognate languages would have led us to 

 a different interpretation of Baclie. In Suevo- 

 Gothic, Backs is "an ascent or descent, extremitas 

 montes, alias crepido vel ora." Wachter has Backe ; 

 collls, tumulus ; of which Bilhel, coUis clivus, is the 

 diminutive still in use. In Swedish Backe, and in 

 Danish Bakke, is a hill or rising ground ; and Ray, 

 in his Travels, has " a baich, or languet of land." 

 There has probably been some confusion here, as 

 well as in the two similar words dune and dene, for 

 hill and valley. S. W. Singee. 



The legend of the sainted King Kenelm is re- 

 lated at great length, and with very precise re- 

 ferences to the various chroniclers in which it 

 is to be found, in the 1st vol. (pp. 721-4.) of 

 MacCabe's Catholic History of England. The Saxon 

 couplet in which his death was announced at 

 Rome is very neatly rendered ia liutler's Lives 

 of the Saints: — 



" In Clent cow pasture under a thorn, 

 Of head bereft, lies Kenelm king-born." 



A.M. 



ISABEL, QUEEN OF THE ISLE OF MAW. 

 (Vol. iv., p. 423.) 



The lady about whom Fanny inquires, was the 

 wife of William Lord Fitz-Warine, who died in 

 35 Edward III. (1361), as to whom see Dugd. 

 Bar. I. 447. The register of interments and sepul- 

 chral inscriptions in the church of the Grey Friars, 

 London, printed in the fifth volume of Collectanea 

 Topogr. et Geneal. (the entry is at p. 278.), which 

 I presume to be the authority for the statement in 

 Knight's London, does not afford further informa- 

 tion as to this lady, who is reckoned amongst the 

 four queens said by Weever (following Stowe) to 

 have been interred in this church. Mr. J. G. 

 Nichols, in his note to the entry referred to, does 

 not add any information about the lady Isabel. 



There was a Sybil, who was daughter of William 

 Montacute, Earl of Salisbury and King of Man 

 and Derby, one of the most distinguished cha- 

 racters in the heroic age of Edward III. She 

 married Edmund, the younger of the two sons of 

 Edmund Earl of Arundel, by Alice, sister and 

 heir of John, last Earl of Warren and Surrey, who 

 died in 1347 {Dugd. Bar. i. 82.). William Mon- 

 tacute was created Earl of Salisbury 16ih March, 

 1337, and died in 1343, and was entombed in the 

 church of the Friars Carmelites, London ( Weever, 

 437.). He was connected witli the family of John 

 Earl of Surrey, for it appears from a grant made 

 by the king in 1 1 Edward III. to William Earl of 

 Salisbury, that he was entitled in reversion to cer- 

 tain hereditaments then held by John de Warren, 

 Earl of Surrey, and Joan his wife (Collect. Top. 

 et Gen. vii. 879.) The valiant Montacute, lord of 

 Man, did not die without heirs male, for his son 



William was his heir ; otherwise we might have 

 supposed the dominion of the isle to have devolved 

 on his daughter Sybil or Isabel, who, surviving 

 Edmund her husband, may have married the Lord 

 Fitz-Warine. Can evidence of such connexion be 

 found ? I have not met with anything to connect 

 his family with the lordship of the Isle of Man, 

 and am not aware that " Isabel Queen of Man " is 

 mentioned in any record save the sepulchral re- 

 gister of the Grey Friars. I wish some clue could 

 be found to a satisfactory answer. 



The other branch of the question proposed by 

 Fanny, viz., when did the Isle of Man cease to 

 be an independent kingdom ? can be answered by 

 a short historical statement. So early as the reign 

 of John, its sovereigns rendered fealty and homage 

 to the kings of England. Reginald, styled King 

 of Man, did homage to Henry III., as appears by 

 the extract given from the Rot. Pat. 3 Hen. III., 

 by Selden. During a series of years previously, 

 the kings of Man, who seem to have held this isle 

 together with the Hebrides, had done homage to 

 the kings of Norway, and its bishops went to Dron- 

 theim for consecration. Magnus, last sovereign 

 of Man of the Norwegian dynasty, died in 1265'. 

 From that period the shadowy crown of Man is 

 seen from time to time resting on lords of different 

 races, and its descent is in many periods involved 

 in great obscurity. After the death of Magnus, 

 the island was seized by Alexander III. of Scot- 

 land. A daughter and heiress of Reginald sued 

 for it against John Baliol before Edward 1. of 

 England as lord paramount of Man {Rot. Pari. 

 31 Edw. I.). In 35 Edw. I., we find Anthony Bek, 

 the warlike Bishop and Count Palatine of Durham, 

 in possession of the isle ; but the king of England 

 then claimed to resume it into his own hands, 

 as of the ancient right of the crown. Accordingly, 

 from sundry records it appears that Edw. II. and 

 Edw. HI. committed its custody to various per- 

 sons, and the latter king at length conferred his 

 right to it upon William Montacute, Earl of Salis- 

 bury, in consideration, probably, of that valiant 

 Earl having by his arms regained the island from 

 the Scots, who had resumed possession, and of the 

 circumstance that his grandmother, the wife of 

 Simon de Montacute, was sister and heiress of one 

 of the former kings of Man, and related to the lady 

 who had claimed it as her inheritance on the death 

 of Magnus. The son and heir of the grantee 

 sold the isle to Scrope, Earl of Wiltshire, about 

 16 Rich. IL In the time of Hen. IV., Sir William 

 Scrope forfeited his possessions {Dugd. Bar. ii. 

 250.) ; and the isle again came to the crown. It 

 was granted to Percy, Earl of Northumberland, by 

 the service of bearing the Lancaster sword on the 

 left shoulder of the king on the day of coronation ; 

 was forfeited by Percy ; and was thereupon granted 

 by the same king to Sir John Stanley and his 

 heirs, under which grant the Earls of Derby sue- 



