228 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2"* S. VIII. Sept. 17. '59. 



(especially) of Major-General John Bradstreet, 

 Lieutenant-Governor of St. John's, Newfound- 

 land (1746). He is mentioned in " N. & Q.," 2^'^ 

 S. iii. 396. Any aid in this research will greatly 

 oblige John Ribton Gakstin. 



Merrion Street, Dublin. 



Two Kings of Brentford. — There is a legend 

 relating to " Two Kings of Brentford" with which 

 no doubt some of the readers of your most excel- 

 lent work are familiar : it would confer a favour 

 on one of your earliest subscribers by giving an 

 epitome of it, or directing me to what book or other 

 authority to refer for its history.* J. B. Hatnes. 



Abigail Hill {Lady Masham). — There is a 

 work in which the date of the birth, marriage and 

 death f of Abigail Hill is recorded. Will any of 

 .your correspondents oblige me with the title ? 



H. D'AVENEY. 



Cardinal Wolsey. — As everything connected 

 with the great and good Cardinal Wolsey must be 

 an object of interest to every real Christian, per- 

 haps you will be kind enough to give insertion to 

 the following Query. 



Is it the fact that this pious and learned priest 

 was ever chaplain to Sir John Nanfan at Morton 

 Court, Worcestershire, which fine baronial seat, 

 after belonging for many years to the family of 

 Coote, Earls of Bellamont, is now the property of 

 John Cam Thackwell, Esq., D.L., and magistrate 

 for Gloucestershire and Worcestershire, nephew 

 of the late General Sir Joseph Thackwell, G.C.B.? 

 Can any of your readers inform me how long 

 Cardinal AVolsey was an inmate of Morton Court? 

 and who is the representative of the ancient Corn- 

 wall family of Nanfan ? Abmiqer. 



Heralds' Visitation : Assumption of Arms. — 

 Will some one skilled in heraldic lore kindly give 

 me the date of the last Heralds' Visitation in 

 Britain, and tell me whether it extended to all 

 cornel's of the kingdom ? 



In a country churchyard near the Border there 

 exists a tombstone bearing a sculptured coat of 

 arms. The head of the house "departed this life 

 in 1721, aged 60, and his spouse in 1760, at the 

 age of 90 years." The tombstone appears to have 

 been erected shortly after the date first men- 

 tioned. 



I desire to know whether the coat of arms so 



[* We have never met with the legend; but the two 

 Kings of Brentford who figure in TTie Rehearsal, by Vil- 

 liers, Duke of Buckingham, are probably well-known. 

 See "is'. & Q.," 1^' S. iv. 3G9.— Ed.] 



[t Lad J' Masham died at an advanced age on Dec. 6. 

 1734.— Ed.] 



sculptured must necessarily have belonged of 

 right to the family? Or, was there in 1720-30 

 the same laxity in the use of heraldic bearings as 

 there is in the present day ? Would a man who 

 then ventured to use arms to which he was not 

 legally entitled have been guilty of a punishable 

 offence ? Hopewell. 



[The two last Visitations would appear to have been 

 those of Hampshire in 1686, and London in 1687. Divers 

 others were taken a.d. 1681-4, which are to be found 

 only in the College of Arms. Our correspondent having 

 omitted to furnish us with the name of the family, and 

 the bearing in question, we are unable to reply to the 

 latter portion of his Querj'.] 



Inscription on a Ring. — I find in an old MS. 

 note here the following : — 



" Inscription on an ancient gold ring found at Wid- 

 dington, 1771 : 



" +• debaicecvidesvitaani" 

 Can any of your correspondents explain this 

 inscription, which I have copied exactly ? or in- 

 form me if this ring is still in existence in any 

 collection, or elsewhere ? 



Widdington is five or six miles distant from 

 this place. Bbatbrooke. 



Audley End, Essex. 



[The inscription being on a ring, we are inclined to 

 suspect that its two ends meet ; and we w^ould accordingly 

 suggest in the first place that the cross and full stop, 

 which stand at the commencement of the line, might be 

 more properly viewed as its termination. The inscrip- 

 tion will then run thus : — 



" DEBAICECVIDESVITAANI -{-." 



The C, which occurs twice, we take as an old and not 

 very unusual form of S. The fourth character, j^. (Gr. 

 lambda), stands occasionally in old inscriptions for L. 

 ("^. Grsecum pro L. occurrit in aliquot vett. Inscript."' 

 Du Cange.) The AA towards the close of the line may 

 be read M (as VV often for W). With these explana- 

 tions the line becomes ; — 



" PEBLISESVIDESVITMNI +." 



But the last two letters, NI, are a not infrequent 

 Roman contraction for Nomine Ipsius; or they may be- 

 Nomine Jesu. (The former explanation we prefer, /or a 

 reason which will appear presently.) Substituting, then, 

 two entire words for the initials Nl, and also introducing 

 in Italics, for the completion of two other words, two 

 vowels that are deficient, we have 



" DEBrLISESVIDESVIT//MN0iV//A'^EIP5'/£/5 +•" 



That is, 



" Debilis es ; vides vitam nomine ipsius + ." 



Or, 



" Debilis es ? vides vitam nomine ipsius + ." 



The cross at the end piously indicating in Whose 

 name we are to see life; and the "vitam [in] nomine 

 ipsius" being doubtless suggested by the Vulg. version 

 of John XX. 31., ^^ vitam habeatis in nomine ejus." Ac- 

 cording to this view the sense would be : " Feeble though 

 thou art, thou hast the prospect of a better life in Him who 

 died for thee on the cross." 



One would wish, were that possible, to see the inscrip- 

 tion as it stands or stood on the ring itself; for there seems 

 reason for suspecting that the character which we have 



