250 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 46. 



of the bridle of the war steed," — a conjecture 

 which will assuredly have fewer adherents tlian 

 any one of its predecessors. But now comes forth 

 the disclosure of what school of heraldry this 

 Armiger is the champion. He is one who can 

 tell us of " many more rights and privileges than 

 are dreamt of in the philosophy either of the court 

 of St. James's or the college of St. Bennet's Hill ! " 

 In short, he is the mouthpiece of " the Baronets' 

 Committee for Privileges." And this is the law 

 which he lays down : — 



" The persons now privileged to wear the ancient 

 golden collar of SS. are the erjuites auratt, or kniglits 

 (chevaliers) In the British monarchy, a body which in- 

 cludes all the hereditary order of baronets in Engl.and, 

 Scotland, and Ireland, with such of their eldest 

 sons, being of age, as choose to claim inauguration as 

 knights." 



Here we have a full confession of a large part 

 of the faith of the Baronets' Committee, — a com- 

 mittee of which the greater number of those wlio 

 lent their names to it are probably by this time 

 heartily ashamed. It is the doctrine held forth in 

 several works on the Baronetage compiled by a 

 person calling himself " Sir Ilich.ard Broun," of 

 whom we read in Uodd's Baronetage, that " pre- 

 vious to succeeding his father, he demanded in- 

 auguration as a knight, in the capacity of a 

 baronet's eldest son ; but the Lord Chamberlain 

 having refused to present him to the Queen for 

 tliat purpose, he assumed the title of ' Sir,' and 

 the addition of 'Eques Auratus,' in June, 1842." 

 So we see that Armiger and the Lord Chamber- 

 lain are at vari.ance as to part of the law above 

 cited ; and so, it might be added, have been other 

 legal authorities, to the privileges asserted by the 

 mouthpiece of the said committee. But that is a 

 long story, on which I do not intend here to enter. 

 I had not forgotten that in one of the publications 

 of Sir Eichard Broun the armorial coat of the 

 premier baronet of each division is represented en- 

 circled with a Collar of Esses; but I should never 

 have thought of alluding to this freak, except as an 

 amusing instance of fantastic assuniption. I will 

 now confine myself to what has appeared in the 

 pages of "Notes .-vnd Queries;" and, more par- 

 ticularly, to the unfounded assertion of Armiger 

 in p. 194., " that the golden Collar of SS. was the 

 undoubteil badge or mark of a knight, eques aura- 

 tus ;" whicli he follows up by the dictum already 

 quoted, that " the persons now privileged to wear 

 the ancient golden Collar of SS. are the equites 

 aurati." I believe it is generally admitted that 

 knights were equites aia-ati, because they wore 

 golden or gilt spurs; certainly it was not because 

 they wore golden collars, as Armiger seems to 

 wish us to believe : and the best jn-oof that the 

 Collar of Esses was not the badge of a knight, as 

 such, at tlie time when sucli collars wei'e most 

 worn, in the fifteenth centiu-y, is this — that the 



monumental effigies and sepulchral brasses of many 

 knights at that time are still extant which have no 

 Collar of Esses; whilst the Collar of Esses appears 

 only on the figures of a limited number, who were 

 undoubtedly such as wished to profess their espe- 

 cial adherence to the royal House of Lancaster. 



John Gough Nichols. 



SIR GREGORY NORTON, BART. 



(Vol. ii., p. 21G.) 



The creation of the baronetcy of Norton, of 

 Rotherfield, in East Tysted, co. Hants, took place 

 in the person of Sir Bichard Norton, of Rother- 

 field, Kt., 23d May, 1622, and expired with him 

 on his death without male issue in 1652. 



The style of Baronet, in the case of Sir Gregory 

 Noi'ton, the regicide, was an assumption not un- 

 common in those days ; as in the case of Prettyman 

 of Lodington, and others. 



The regicide in his will styles himself " Sir 

 Richard Norton, of Paul's, Covent Garden, in the 

 county of Middlesex, Bart." It bears date 12th 

 March, 1G.51, and was proved by his relict, Dame 

 Martha Norton, 24th Sept., 1652. lie states tliat 

 his land at Penn, in the county of Bucks, was mort- 

 gaged, and mentions his " disobedient son, Henrie 

 Norton;" and desires his burial-place may be at 

 Richmond, co. Surrey. 



The descent of Gregory Norton is not known. 

 There is no evidence of his connexion with the 

 Rotherfield or Southwick Nortons. His assump- 

 tion of the title was not under any claim he could 

 have had, real or imaginary, connected with the 

 Rotherfield patent; for he uses the title at the 

 same time with Sir Richard of Rotherfield, whose 

 will is dated 2Gth July, 1652, and not proved till 

 5th Oct., 1652, when Sir Gregory was dead: and, 

 what is singular, the will of Sir Richard was proved 

 by his brother, John Norton, by the style of 

 liaronet, to which he could have had no pretension, 

 as Sir Richard died without male issue, and there 

 was no limitation of the patent of 1622 on failure 

 of heirs male of the body of the grantee. G. 



SHAKSFEARE S WORD " DELIGHTED. 



Tlnit the Shakspearian word delighted might, as 

 far as its ibrm goes, mean " endowed with delight," 

 "full of delight," I should readily concede ; but 

 this meaning would suit neither the passage in 

 3Ieusjirefor Measure, — " the delighted spirit," — 

 nor (satisfiictorily) that in Othello, — "delighted 

 beauty." Whether, therefore, delighted be de- 

 rived from the Latin delectus or not, I still believe 

 that it means "refined," " dainty," "delicate ; " a 

 sense which is curiously adapted to each of the 

 three places. This will not be questioned with re- 

 spect to the second and third passages cited by 



