2'xi S. No 34, Aug. 23. '66.1 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



153 



duct of the king and the government is adverted to. 

 The harsh proceedings of the Court were defended 

 on the ground that the Puritans " took liberty to 

 nourish their factious and schismatlcal humours in 

 those remote wilds : " but oppressed as they were 

 at home by the civil and ecclesiastical authorities, 

 it does not appear that they profited in the school 

 of adversity ; as the reviewer tells us that they 

 " set up a tyranny of their own in America, infi- 

 nitely more cruel and intrusive than the system 

 from which they indignantly fled," (P. 121.) 



J. H. M. 



THE HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK AND THE CASTING 



VOTE. 



(2"-^ S. ii. 44. 97.) 



Since I replied to the Query of F. S. on this 

 subject, I have had my attention called to De- 

 brett's Baronetage for 1824; in which a some- 

 what different version of the transaction is given. 

 As the matter is curious, and will be widely cir- 

 culated if admitted into the pages of " N. & Q.," 

 perhaps you may not consider it too lengthy for 

 insertion. Debrett says : 



" On the memorable day that the Hanoverian succes- 

 sion bill passed the house of commons, in the beginning 

 of Queen Anne's reign, Sir Arthur Owen, Bart., member 

 for Pembrokeshire, and Griffith Rice, Esq., member for 

 Carmarthenshire, prevented the friends of the present 

 royal family from being left in a minority. If it had not 

 been for these two gentlemen, there is little doubt but 

 the Tory partj"- in parliament, by the influence of the then 

 Tory ministry, would have soon carried it for the Pre- 

 tender to succeed his sister Queen Anne ! 



" The particulars, known now but to few, as related by 

 the posterity of these families, are : 



" Sir Arthur Owen and Mr. Rice on that day met ac- 

 cidentally in the lobby, when the Tory administration 

 were stealing the question through the house at an early 

 hour; when a majority of their friends attended by de- 

 sign, and when many of the Whigs were absent, not think- 

 ing it would come on until the usual hour. 



" When the house was about to divide, one of the Whig 

 members, seeing a seeming majority in favour of the 

 house of Stuart, exclaimed that the whole was an infa- 

 mous proceeding. He immediately ran out of the house, 

 almost frantic, in search of some of his partizans, to give 

 a turn to the question in favour of the Elector of Hanover. 



" Perceiving Sir Arthur and Mr. Rice, as he came out, 

 walking earnestlj'- about the lobb)% he addressed them 

 thus with much vehemence, — ' What do you mean, gen- 

 tlemen! sta3'ing here when the Hanoverian succession 

 bill is going to be thrown out of the house? ' 'When I 

 heard that,' Sir Arthur used often to relate, ' I made but 

 one step into the house, and my voice made the number 

 equal for the bill, 117, and theTories had nO more. Mr. 

 Rice, with great gravity, coming after me, had the honour 

 of giving the casting vote in favour of the Hanoverian 

 succession ! Had it not (added Sir Arthur) been for the 

 Warmth of my zeal, being then a young man, this honour 

 would have been mine ; for as Mr. Rice was my senior, I 

 might have followed him into the house.' " 



This account, which is most probably the cor- 

 rect version, takes the casting vote from Sir 



Arthur Owen, and gives it to Mr. Rice ; but is in 

 no way inconsistent with the tradition of my lady 

 informant respecting Sir Arthur's rapid journey 

 to London, which may have been taken with the 

 intention of being present at the important debate. 

 Thus he actually made the balance even, and his 

 friend turned the scale. John Pavin Phillips. 

 Haverfordwest. 



WHITSUNDAT. 



(2"'» S. ii. 77.) 



Your valuable correspondent F. C. H., after 

 clearly showing that our English word for Pente- 

 cost cannot be derived from the German P/ingsfen, 



says ; 



" The received origin of the name Whitsunday is from 

 the appearance of the neophytes on that Sunday and 

 during the octave, in the church, in the white garments 

 which they had received at their solemn baptism on the 

 preceding Saturday, called Whitsun Eve." 



Unless I be much mistaken F. C. H. is far astray 

 from the mark. 1. To my thinking, we ought 

 not to write "Whitsunday" but Witsonday. That 

 this was the old spelling is certain ; Wycliffe so 

 wrote the word in his translation of the New Tes- 

 tament, 1 Cor. xvi., and such is the spelling of it 

 in the Paston Letters, let. xv. 2. The English 

 word Witsonday, miscalled Whitsunday, drew its 

 origin from nothing whatever connected with the 

 term white, but from ivit — mind, understanding. 

 That in the early ages of the Church all neo- 

 phytes, who were then as often grown-up people 

 as children, used to wear, for the whole week fol- 

 lowing, the white garment in which they were 

 robed as emblematic of spotless regeneration, im- 

 mediately they had been baptized, is undeniable ; 

 and as public baptism was always given with much 

 solemnity in those ages, on the eve of Easter 

 and Pentecost Sundays, this white garment was 

 thrown off on the Saturday following. Easter 

 eve, however, was the time more especially chosen 

 for the public administration of this sacrament ; 

 and hence it is that even now, though the usage 

 of wearing the white baptismal garment for the 

 week has not been followed for many ages, the 

 Sunday next after Easter is yet called Dominica 

 in Albis, the word " depositis " being understood : 

 in the Ambrosial Missal it is named " Donilnica 

 in albis depositis." In some churches, the whole 

 of Easter week was called " in albis," because the 

 newly-baptized went, wearing their white gar- 

 ment, to church, and partook of the holy commu- 

 nion ; and Low Sunday is termed " Dominica 

 post albas," because the white garment had been 

 laid aside the eve before (Ordo Officiorum Ecc. 

 Senensis, p. 191 ; and Lib. Sacramentorum^ S. 

 Gregorii, ed. Menardo, p. 149.). Though this 

 ceremony of the white garment at the Easter bap- 



