238 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



C2'><« S. VIII. Sept. 17. '59. 



delivered by way of oration, and taken in short- 

 writing upon the place as 'twas uttered." That 

 the work is genuine can hardly be doubted ; for 

 the translation is dedicated to Sir Kenelm's son, 

 " John Digbye, Esq.," which would be an incon- 

 ceivable impertinence were the original attributa- 

 ble to any person other than the knight himself." 



R. S. Q. 



Origin of the Judges Black Cap (2°^ S. viii. 

 130. 193.) — The meaning of the judge putting on 

 the black cap when passing sentence of death 

 will be obvious to every thinking person ; but I 

 should have asked in my former Query (p. 130.), 

 When do we first read of an English ]w\ge put- 

 ting it on ? I cannot believe in England it is a 

 very ancient custom. Surely when the sentence 

 of death was as common as it formerly was, it 

 could not be customary for the judge to go 

 through this solemnity, there being but little 

 solemnity about the sentence of death itself. We 

 cannot imagine Jeffries putting it on when passing 

 sentence on Sir Thomas Armstrong, or on any of 

 the miserable persons who perished during the 

 Bloody Assize, and there is no mention of the 

 custom to be found in any of the State Trials. It 

 does not seem likely that the nightcap of the 

 modern hangings is Ibunded on the Roman jirac- 

 tice, but more probably it arose wholly in a 

 civilised and humane age, and was first used to 

 hide the distortions of the criminal's face, and 

 for that use alone. Perhaps some of your readers 

 will be able to throw more light on the subject, — 

 more especially on the first use of the black cap 

 in England. W. O. W. 



Side-saddles (2"* S. viii. 187.) — Stow's error 

 Las been constantly reproduced : as by Camden, 

 JRemaines ; Beckmann, Hist, of Inventions ; Pul- 

 leyn, Etym. Compend., &c. Mr. F. W. Fairholt, 

 in the first of his interesting papers on " Ancient 

 Carriages," in The Art Union Monthly Journal 

 (No. 106., p. 119., April, 1847), says : "riding on 

 side-saddles was in use by ladies in England 

 during the Saxon times." In proof of this asser- 

 tion he engraves an example (on p. 118.) of a lady 

 thus riding, copied from an A.-S. MS. ; and adds, 

 " that this fashion was continuous is shown by 

 the seal of Joanna de Stuteville appended to a 

 document dated 1227, who is represented riding 

 in a similar manner." It is engraved in the "first 

 volume of the Journal of Bi-it. Archceol. Assoc, 

 p. 145." 



By the bye. Dean Trench says, in his Select 

 Glossary, p. 23. : — 



" I do not know the history of the word * boot,' as de- 

 scribing one part of a carriage ; but it is plain that not 

 the luggage, but the chief persons, used once to ride in 

 the ' boot.' ■' 



As so eminent an English scholar confesses his 

 Jack of information on this point, it may not be 



superfluous to mention that the "boots" were the 

 two projections from the sides of the carriage ; 

 open to the air, and in which the occupants were 

 carried sideways. Such a " boot" is seen in the 

 carriage containing the attendants of Queen Eli- 

 zabeth in Hoefnagel's well-known picture of Non- 

 such Palace, dated 1582. Taylor the Water-poet, 

 the inveterate opponent of the introduction of 

 coaches, thus satirises the one in which he was 

 forced to take his place as a passenger ; — 



" It wears two boots, and no spurs ;. sometimes having 

 two pairs of legs in one boot: and oftentimes, against 

 nature most preposterously, it makes fair ladies wear the 

 boot. Moreover, it makes people imitate sea-crabs, in 

 being drawn sideways ; as they are when thej' sit in the 

 boot of the coach." — C. Knight, Fictorial Half hours, 

 vol. i. p. 5G. 



Ache. 



Coham House, Sfc. (2"^ S. viii. 146.) — In 

 answer to the Query of W. C, I have no doubt 

 that Cokam House meant Colcombe House or 

 Castle, in the parish of Colyton, a mansion for- 

 merly the property of the Courtenay family, and 

 since of the Poles, Baronets, of Shute Park, 

 which is about two miles distant from it. The 

 place will be found mentioned in all the histories 

 of Devon. 



Chideock (no doubt originally Chidwick) is a 

 village with a mansion-house in Dorsetshire, be- 

 tween Axminster and Bridport, and was formerly 

 the property of the Arundels. The castle at that 

 place, now destroyed, was occupied by the royal 

 party in 1644, and an unsuccessful attempt to 

 storm it was made by the parliamentary forces on 

 the 19th November, on which occasion they had 

 nine men killed and seven wounded. I cannot 

 find any place in the neighbourhood as the resi- 

 dence of Mr. Crewe (probably Carew), unless it 

 be Mohun's Ottery, seven or eight miles from 

 Shute. There is no such place as Wyrwail in the 

 east of Devon. It will perhaps be found in the 

 west of Dorset, for which I refer your corre- 

 spondent to Hutchins. " Lord Poulett's " was 

 Hinton St. George, near Crewkerne in Somer- 

 setshire. J- D. S. 



Chideock (2""^ S. viii. 146.) is a tything, manor, 

 and hamlet, in the parish of Wliitchurcli-Canoni- 

 corum, in West Dorsetshire, and was formerly 

 possessed by the Arundells, ancestors of the pre- 

 sent Lord Arundell of Wardour. Leland spells 

 it Chidwick, CMdiock, Chidiok, and Chidioke, al- 

 most with the same dip of ink ; and Vicars, it 

 would seem, adds two more modes of spelling^ it, 

 viz., Chadwick and Chideok. Its identification 

 may help to ascertain Cokam, or Coxam, and 

 Wyrwail, of which I know nothing. 



C. W. Bingham. 



1 John, v. 7. (2"* S. viii. 175.)— Allow me to 

 correct an error in Mr. T. J. Buckton's article. 

 He says the "Vatican MS. . . . contests with that 



