The Ancient Styles and Designations of Persons. 343 
wiffe doughter of Edwarde Leuknor Esqvier, fovre sonnes and thre doughters 
and bylded the hovse at Brodhinton Ao Di 1540.” 
Dame is the proper style of the wife of a Baronet or Knight; 
but it was within the last thirty years often applied in North Wilts 
to the old women in the cottages, as “Dame Cox,” “ Dame 
Eagle,” &c. And the village schools for little children kept by 
such old women were called Dame Schools, and are so called in the 
Parliamentary Reports on Education. And down to the present 
time, elderly ladies at Eton who keep boarding and lodging houses 
for the Etonians are called ‘‘ Dames.” 
Mapa. 
This style was applied to Ladies, frequently to the wives of the 
gentry and clergy, from the time of Charles the Second till nearly 
the present time. 
Under the engraving of Miss (or as she was called Mrs.) Davis, 
an actress who was a mistress of Charles the Second, is engraved, 
*«« Madam Davis.” 
The late Rev. W. Slatter, Vicar of Cumnor, told me, in the year 
1848, that the father of the parish clerk of that place, a very old 
man, related to him the village tradition of the tragic conclusion 
of Sir Walter Scott’s novel of Kenilworth, in the following words, 
long before the publication of that novel :— 
‘‘A many years ago Madam Dudley [for the title of Leicester and the name 
of Robsart were wholly unknown at Cumnor] was murdered at the Hall, and her 
ghost walked in the Park for a long time, till nine parsons came from Oxford 
and laid her, and they laid her in a pond which is now called Madam Dudley’s 
pond.”! 
In the old Ogbourne St. George Churchwarden’s account book 
(before referred to), in a list of subscriptions in 1680, “ towards 
the Redemption of the Poor Christian Slaves which were lately 
taken by the Turkish pyrates,”’ there is an entry “ Madam Hart, 
£0. 2s. 6d.” The sister of the two Baronets, Sir Michael and Sir 
Edward Ernle, who was known as the beautiful Miss Ernle, and 
1 The Park is now a field adjoining Cumnor Churchyard, Madam Dudley’s 
pond, which was in the Park, is now filled up, but a spring that was in it still 
denotes the spot. 
