2nd §, No 15., Aprin 12.56.) 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
299 
Edmund Anderson, of Stretton Park in Biggles- 
wade, Bedfordshire. He died April 4, 1638. 
The Bruce Cottons became extinct in the male | itself was abandoned some time after the Reformation. 
line on the death of Sir John Bruce Cotton, | 
March 27, 1752, et. 64. 
Sir John Cotton, son of Sir Thomas, had by his 
first wife one son, John, who died in the lifetime 
of his father. This John had a son John, who 
died without issue, and one daughter, married to 
William Hanbury. They had four daughters, 
1. Elizabeth, who married William Neale, and 
died without issue. 2. Frances, who married 
Francis Barrett, and died without issue. 3. Mary, 
who married Rev. Dr. Martin Annesley, whose 
lineal descendants now exist. 4. Catherine, who 
married Vellus Cornwall; their only surviving 
child married Sir George Amyand. Mr. Annesley 
therefore is the lineal representative of the elder 
branch of the Cottons, and as such is the here- 
ditary Cottonian family trustee of the British 
Museum. Epw. Hawxins. 
The portrait of Margaret Howard, first wife of 
Sir Thomas Cotton, said to have been painted at 
the age of seventy-three, must, I think, have been 
misnamed in the catalogue at Castle Howard, or 
some mistake may have crept into CurHBERT 
Bepe’s notes respecting it, the more likely as 
Cornelius Jansen died the year before the portrait 
is said to have been taken by him. He died 
at Amsterdam, in 1665*, and she, according to 
Curupert Beper’s date of her birth, would be 
seventy-three in 1666. There is only one way of 
accounting for her having survived to that age, 
and that is, by supposing that she was divorced 
by Sir Thomas Cotton, of which I find no evidence. 
Mrs. Margaret Cotton, who was buried at Con- 
ington, Feb. 12, 1688, was perhaps a grandchild 
to Sir Thomas, one of the seven unrecorded 
children of Sir John Cotton’s family of ten, by 
his second wife, who all died young. Paronce. 
[We have omitted the first part of PAToncr’s com- 
munication, as it contained merely the information printed 
in the preceding articles. Ep. “N. & Q.”] 
—_— —— 
“srr,” AS A CLERICAL PREFIX. 
(2"4 S. i, 234.) 
On this subject we quote the following from 
Dr. Doran’s recently published work, Knights and 
their Days : 
“The Knightly title given to clergymen was not so 
much by way of courtesy as for the sake of distinction. 
Tt was worn by the Bachelors of Arts, otherwise ‘ Domini,’ 
to distinguish them from the Masters of Arts, or ‘ Ma- 
* Did not Jansen return to Holland, his native country, 
many years before his death? Did he ever come back 
to England? 
gistri.’? Properly speaking the title was a local one, and 
ought not to have been used beyond the bounds of the 
University. . . . The practice was continued till the title 
The old custom was occasionally revived, by the elderly 
stagers, much to the astonishment of younger hearers. 
Thus, when Bishop Mawson, of Llandaff, Was, on one oc- 
casion, at court, he encountered there a reverend Bachelor 
of Arts, who was, subsequently, Dean of Salisbury. His 
name was Greene. The bishop, as soon as he saw the 
‘bachelor’ enter the drawing-room, accosted him loudly 
in this manner: ‘How do you do Sir Greene?’ Mr. 
Greene, observing the astonishment of those around him, 
took upon himself to explain that the bishop was only 
using an obsolete formula of by-gone times.” 
The above is from the chapter on “Sham 
Knights.” In another, on “Sir John Falstaff,” 
the author says : 
“ John Kemble occasionally took some unwarrantable 
liberties with Shakspeare. When he produced the Merry 
Wives of Windsor, at Covent Garden, in April, 1804 (iu 
which he played Ford, to Cooke’s Falstaff), he deprived 
Sir Hugh Evans of his knightly title, out of sheer igno- 
rance or culpable carelessness. Blanchard was announced 
for ‘ Hugh Evans,’ without the Sir.” 
To show that the prefix was common to cheva- 
liers and churchmen, Dr. Doran quotes from the 
New Trick to cheat the Devil; wherein Anne says 
to her sire, “ Nay, Sir!” to which the father re- 
plies, “Sir me no Sirs! I am no knight nor 
churchman.” Anon. 
In the Buttery books of St. John’s College, 
Oxford, whereas no title is prefixed to the names 
of Undergraduates, every Bachelor has the prefix 
“ Sir” (Sir Nicholas, Sir Howell, &c.); every 
Master that of Mr. (M7. Williams, &c.). When- 
‘ever it is proposed that a Bachelor should be al- 
lowed to take his Master’s degree, the President 
sends the following notice to the Common Room : 
«“ A Convention to-morrow, at —o’Clock,for the Grace 
of the House, for Sir Harris’s (or whatsoeVer the name 
may be) M.A. Degree. 
“Signed, President.” 
When a Master proceeds to a higher degree, 
the title Mr. takes the place of Sir in this notice. 
Of course when an Undergraduate is about to 
proceed B.A., the notice ought to give no title at 
all; but modern politeness is superior to that of 
the Buttery book; and, in anticipation of a title 
belonging (more academico) only to an M.A,, 
Mr. Harris (by courtesy) is to be advanced to 
B.A. and become a Sir. 
These customs, and the inconsistent manner in 
which they have been broken in upon, are curious. 
You will observe that in academic usage, Sir has 
nothing to do with Holy Orders. 
A Constant Reaper. 
The prefix Dominus, “ Sir,” is the ancient, and 
still existing, title of a Bachelor of Arts. In the 
Buttery, or weekly account books of the present 
