154 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 251. 



tially distinct from the garden flower, which has 

 five petals. It has been said that it is the cor- 

 ruption of "delice," as if "flos deliciarum," as 

 Spenser spells it (Shepherd's Calendar, April) ; 

 and Drayton, in his Poly- Olbion, Song xiv., makes 

 it rhyme with " point device." I believe this to 

 be pure trifling ; it was long called the " Fleur de 

 S. Louis," and so, adopted into the arms of France, 

 alternately with the cross : it now adorns the 

 crown of England. " De luce " and " de lys " are 

 mere colloquial vulgarisms. The emblem flower 



— lowly and spotless — of the Visitation of the 

 Blessed Virgin, is a white lily in blossom. The 

 Iris, so called from the brilliancy of its colouring, 

 is the common water-flag. One species has been 

 called " Iris liliata ; " and Peacham, On Drawing, 

 speaks of a " lily or flower de luce," so that pro- 

 bably the names were interchanged. Other lilies 

 were sacred to holy names, as the Lent lily, now 

 the daflbdil, and the " Star of Bethlehem." 



Mackenzie Walcott, M.A. 



Proxies for absent Sponsors (Vol. ix., p. 321.). — 

 Without venturing an opinion as to the period in 

 the history of our Church when proxies were first 

 allowed at the baptismal font, I may yet adduce 

 for the information of your readers a much earlier 

 instance of its occurrence than that quoted by 

 E. M. His bears date 1696 ; mine is older by 

 nearly eighty years, as will appear by the follow 

 ing extract from " The Domestic Chronicle of 

 Thomas Godfrey, Esq.," given at length in the 

 second volume of Nichols's Topographer and Ge- 

 nealogist. This gentleman was the father of Sir 

 E. B. Godfrey, the Westminster magistrate who 

 was murdered in the year 1678, of whom a memoir 

 appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine for De- 

 cember 1848. After enumerating in their chro- 

 nological order the births of several children, and 

 the frequent premature mischances of his second 

 ■wife, our diarist proceeds as follows : 



" My wife was delivered of a girle, at my house in 

 Grub Street, on Wednesday, being the 30th August, 1615, 

 betweene five and six o'clock in the morning, and it was 

 christened at St. Giles's Church without Cripplegate, the 

 Thursday sevennight after, and named Jane. My gossips 

 were, Mrs. Jane Hallsye, wife to Mr. John Hallsye, one of 

 the citty captains, and my sister Howlt and Sir Multon 

 Lambard, who sent Mr. Michael Lee for his deputy : my 

 brother, Thomas Isles, afterwards bestowed a christening 

 sermon on us." 



This extract gives rise to another Query. When 

 were sponsors first denominated gossips ? * 



T. Hughes. 



Chester. 



'Rous, Provost of Eton (Vol. ix., pp. 440 — 442.). 



— In a note at p. 442. it is stated that the year in 

 •which Provost Rous acknowledged his will, should 

 doubtless be 1657, and not 1658. I apprehend it 



[♦ See «K & Q.," Vol. ix., p. 399.] 



will turn out that the text is perfectly correct. 

 It should be borne in mind that at the period in 

 question the date of the year was commonly 

 changed, not as at present on the 1st January, 

 but on the 25th March ; consequently, the 10th 

 February, 1658, was after, and not before, the 

 12th April, 1658. Assuming that the old style 

 was used throughout the provost's will, its real 

 date would be March 18, 1657-8, its acknow- 

 ledgment April 12, 1658, and its probate, Feb. 10, 

 1658-9. 



In addition to the books cited by Me. Ella- 

 COMBE, I may mention Alumni Etonenses, 22. ; 

 Bridges's Restituta, ii. 240., iv. 7. 425. 458. ; Lords' 

 Journals, vi. 419. ; Fuller's Worthies (Cornwall). 



Thompson Cooper. 



Cambridge. 



" Branks " (Vol. ix., p. 336.). — Much satis- 

 factory information may be found on " branks " 

 and "jorgs," or "jugges" (Fr. joug), in Dr. Ja- 

 mieson's Scottish Dictionary, under the words. I 

 may mention that till about twenty years since a 

 pair of these ^Mg-g-e*, which I have often seen, hung 

 at the cross steeple (the site of the old gaol) in 

 Glasgow. They were near what was called the 

 " houf door," or entrance to the common staircase 

 leading up to the prison. Dangling from the 

 wall at a height of seven to eight feet above the 

 pavement were two iron chains at least a foot 

 long, and at the end of each an iron collar for en- 

 circling the necks of the offenders, who must have 

 stood on some block of stone or wood, or stool to 

 be raised to the proper elevation. It is said one 

 was suffocated before proper assistance could be 

 rendered from the support having been acci- 

 dentally kicked away. 



It is yet quite common among us to hear the 

 term " branks " applied to the collar or harnessing 

 about the necks of work horses, and I believe^ is 

 also still used in the country as a particular species 

 of muzzling bridle. Gr. N". 



Broad Arroio (Vol. iv., p. 412. ; Vol. vii., 

 p. 360. ; Vol. viii., p. 440.). — Agreeably to 

 A. C. M.'s suggestion, that previous to farther re- 

 search as to the origin of the broad arrow, it 

 would be as well to ascertain how long it has been 

 used as the "king's mark," I beg to observe 

 that I have somewhere seen it stated that this go- 

 vernment mark was first adopted in the days of 

 the first Edward, when " the iron sleet of arrowy 

 shower " was so formidable. A. C. M. will perhaps 

 find a confirmation of his opinion that it is of 

 Celtic origin, in the circumstance of its having 

 become an English hieroglyphic at the period 

 when Wales was first subdued. Abmigee. 



Polygamy among the Turks (Vol. x., p. 29.). — 

 When in London in the summer of 1846, I had 

 the pleasure of receiving a volume of poems from 



