April 12. 1851.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



281 



have saved Mr. F. B. Rej.ton the trouble of ad- 

 dressing the inquiry at Vol. iii., p. 224. Katherine 

 Sedley, daughter of Sir Charles Sedley, com- 

 memorated in Johnson's line — 



" And Sedley cursed the form that pleased a king " — 



was created Countess of Dorchester by James II., 

 and subsequently married David CoUyer, first 

 Earl of Pontmore in Scotland. She died in 1692, 

 having had by King James a natural daughter, to 

 whom, by royal warrant, that monarch gave the 

 rank and precedence of a duke's daughter ; she 

 was styled Lady Catherine Darnley, and married 

 first, in October 1699, James, third Earl of Angle- 

 sey, from whom, on account of alleged cruelty on 

 his part, she was separated by act of parliament 

 in the following year. The earl died in 1701, 

 and his widow married, secondly, in 1705, John 

 Sheffield, firstDuke of Normanby and Buckingham. 

 She died on the 13th of March, 1743, and was 

 interred with almost regal pomp in Westminster 

 Abbey. By her Jirst husband (tlie Earl of Angle- 

 sey) she had an only daugliter, the Lady Catherine 

 Annesley, married to Mr. William Phipps, father of 

 the first Lord Mulgrave, and, consequently, great- 

 grandfather of the present Marquis of Normanby, 

 who on his recent elevation to that dignity, has, it 

 appears, preferred to take one of the ducal titles of 

 a nobleman from whom he does nut descend, and 

 of whose blood there does not flow a sijigle drop 

 in his veins, to the just assumption of the title of 

 one from whom he does descend, and whose sole 

 representative he undoubtedly is. 



Of the Duchess of Buckingham's inordinate 

 pride, there are some curious stories in Walpole's 

 Letters to Sir Horace Mann (sub anno 1743). 

 But perhaps the most remarkable instance of it is 

 to be found in a periodical paper called the Bi'itish 

 Champion, which was published at that time, and 

 which is now not commonly to be met. In the 

 No. for April 7, 1743, there is the following anec- 

 dote : — 



" I have been informed that a lady of high rank, 

 finding her end approacliing, and feL'ling very uneasy 

 apprehensions of this sort, came at length to a resolu- 

 tion of sending for a clergyman, of whom she had 

 heard a very good character, in order to be satisfied as 

 to some doubts. The first question she asked was, 

 whether in heaven (for she made no doubt of going 

 thither) some respect would not be had to a woman of 

 such birth and breeding ? The good man, for such he 

 really was, endeavoured to sliow her the weakness of 

 this notion, and to convince her that there was, where she 

 was going, no acceptance of persons, and much more 

 to the same purpose. This the poor lady heard with 

 much attention, and then said with a sigh, ' Well, if it 

 be so, this heaven must be, after all, a strange sort of a 

 place!'" 



P. C. S. S. is unwilling to believe this painful 

 8tory — the more so, as it must be recollectod that 



the author of the paper was an inveterate Whig, 

 and the Duchess (jure paterno) as inveterate a 

 Jacobite. P. C. S. S. 



SAN GRAIL, 



Sir Walter Scott, in his Marmion (Introduction 

 to Canto First), writes of Sir Lancelot of the Lake, 

 that — 



" A sinful man and unconfessed, 

 He took the Sangreal's holy quest, 

 And slumbering saw the vision high 

 He might not view with waking eye." 

 In his note on this passage, he refers to the 

 romance of the Morte Arthur, and says : 



" One day when Arthur was holding a high feast 

 with his Knights of the Round Table, the Sangreal, a 

 vessel out of which tlie last Passover was eaten (a pre- 

 cious relic, which had long remained concealed from 

 human eyes, because of the sins of the land), suddenly 

 appeared to him and all his chivalry. The consequence 

 of this vision was that all the knights took on them a 

 solemn vow to seek the Sangreal." 



The orthography of the word in the romance 

 itself is Sancgreall, which affords us a clue to what 

 I believe to be its true etymology, Sang reel 

 (Sanguis realis), a name it derived from the tra- 

 dition of its having been employed, not only to 

 hold the paschal lamb at the Last Supper, but also 

 by Joseph of Arimathea to catch the blood and 

 water which flowed from the wounds of our Blessed 

 Lord. 



Archdeacon ISTares, in his Glossary, pp. 209. 443., 

 enters largely into the legendary history of the 

 Sangreal, as well as the question of its orthi)graphy. 

 He takes some pains to refute the etymology given 

 above, and quotes Roquefort {Diet, de la Lnngue 

 Romane) to prove that graal or greal signifies a 

 broad open dish. Will any one who has the means 

 of consulting Roquefort inform us, whether he 

 brings forward any instance of the existence of such 

 a woi-d in this sense? or, if so employed, whether 

 such use may not have arisen from the ordinary 

 erroneous orthography? It is a question well 

 worth investigation, which I hope may call some 

 abler pens than mine into exercise. 



This holy relic, the object of so much fruitless 

 search to Arthur and his knights, is now safely 

 deposited in the cathedral of Genoa, where all, 

 holy or unholy, may behold it, on making the 

 accustomed otfering to its sanctity. Of old, it 

 concealed itself from the eyes of all but those free 

 from mortal sin; but now, the ability to pay five 

 francs puts one in possession of every Christian 

 virtue, and the Sacra Catino (as it is called) is 

 exhibited on the payment of that sum. In ad- 

 dition to the authorities quoted by Nares, I would 

 refer to Sir F. Palgrave, in I\lurrays Handbook 

 to Northern Italy, 1st edition, p. 105. Sa. Ca. 



No. 76. 



