2-4 S. IX. Fkb. 18. "60.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



119 



just as likely a person. And here allow me to 

 remark that the inference deduced by Mr. Cham- 

 bers from the word Aberdour is not warranted. 

 The Aberdour referred to in the ballad is not the 

 place of that name in Fife, but one on the north 

 coast, which runs along the Moray Frith, taking 

 its name from a rivulet which falls into the sea a 

 little below the church, at a place known as the 

 Bay of Aberdour. The sea-coast all along is 

 exceedingly rocky and perilous. 



There is another circumstance of moment men- 

 tioned by Professor Aytoun, who tells his readers 

 that in one of the Orcades, belonging to Mr. Bal- 

 four of Trenaby, tradition has preserved a par- 

 ticular spot as the grave of Sir Patrick Spence ; 

 and we may remark in passing that Spens or 

 Spence is an Orkney name, and the unlucky in- 

 dividual, if he ever did exist, may have been a 

 native of these islands, which not much more than 

 three centuries ago were finally united to Scotland. 



There is an odd blunder into which all our emi- 

 nent ballad commentators, includingRitson, Sharpe, 

 and Laing, have fallen. Lady Wardlaw is re- 

 presented as sister of Sir Alexander Halket, the 

 author of " Gilderoy." Now, like the Duke of 

 Mantua's daughter in the " Minister of Finance," 

 Sir Alexander Halket never had existence. The 

 duke's daughter and the Scotch baronet are 

 equally myths. 



Lady Wardlaw was Elizabeth, the second 

 daughter of Sir Charles Halket, Baronet, of 

 Pitferran. She married Sir Henry Wardlaw, 

 third Baronet of Pitreavie, on the 13th June, 

 1698, and by him, who was served heir of his 

 father 24th February, 1698, she had one son, born 

 1705, and three daughters. 



On the 26th July, 1699, Sir James Halket was 

 served heir male of Sir Charles, his father, in 

 certain lands in the parish of Dunfermline. Thus 

 Sir James was Lady Wardlaw's brother, and there 

 has never been a Sir Alexander in the Halket family, 

 at least after the baronetcy was obtained. When 

 Sir James died without issue, the estates fell to 

 Lady Wardlaw's elder sister. Her husband took 

 the name of Halket, and is the lineal ancestor of 

 the present family of Pitferran. 



The baronetcy became extinct on the death of 

 Sir James in 1705; but his sister's husband, Sir 

 Peter Wedderbume, a baronet of 1697, trans- 

 mitted the estates and name of the Halkets, as 

 well as his baronetcy, to the heirs male of the mar- 

 riage, and they are now held by Sir Peter Arthur 

 Halket, who received the Crimean medal with 

 three clasps for his gallant conduct during the 

 war in the Crimea. J. M. 



OLD LONDON BRIDGE. 



In Mr. Peter Cunningham's excellent Haud- 

 lidoh i,f Lmuhn, Past and Present, the following 



statement occurs : " The first London Bridge is 

 said to have been of wood, and to have stood still 

 lower down the river by Botolph's Wharf. Its 

 architect was one Isambard de Saintes." 



Now it was in building, not the first London 

 Bridge, but the bridge that was completed in 1209, 

 that the foreign architect here referred to was 

 employed ; and he was Isenbert, master of the 

 schools at Saintes (the Roman Santones of Caesar's 

 time, which came to the kings of England by the 

 marriage of Eleanor the heiress of Guienne to 

 Henry II.). Mr. T. D. Hardy, in his Introduction 

 to the Patent Rolls, printed by order of the Record 

 Commissioners, makes known some curious facts 

 relating to Isenbert's employment, which seem 

 worthy of preservation among the memories of 

 Old London Bridge. The facts disclosed by the 

 Patent Roll are not alluded to by Stowe, who, 

 following the Annals of Waverley Abbey, states 

 that the building of this bridge was begun about 

 1176 by Peter of Colechurch, and finished in 1209 

 " by the worthy merchants of London, Serle * 

 Mercer, William Almaine, and Benedict Botewrite, 

 principal masters of the work," Peter having died 

 in 1205. This worthy ecclesiastic and architect was, 

 as Stowe informs us, priest and chaplain of St. 

 Mary Colechurch in the Poultry; and London 

 Bridge seems to have been the favourite object of 

 his care, for he is said to have built the new 

 bridge of elm timber, which was erected in 1163, 

 and to have begun, a little to the west of that 

 structure, in 1176, the stone bridge which was 

 completed five years after his death, and on which 

 his body was buried in the crypt of the chapel of 

 St. Thomas of Canterbury within a pier of that 

 enduring work. 



But the Patent Roll of the third year of the 

 reign of King John (itself remarkable as the ear- 

 liest Patent Roll extant, and probably, says the 

 learned Deputy-Keeper, the first of the series ever 

 made), informs us that King John was anxious to 

 bring the bridge to perfection, and in 1201 took 

 upon himself to recommend to the mayor and 

 citizens of London for that purpose the foreign 

 architect above named. The king describes him 

 as " our faithful clerk Isenbert, master of the 

 schools of Saintes, a man distinguished both for 

 his worth and learning, by whose careful diligence 

 the bridges of Saintes and Rochelle had been, 

 under divine providence, in a short time con- 

 structed." 



The king's letter commendatory, addressed to 

 "the Mayor and Citizens of London," is dated 

 at Molineux in Normandy on the 18th April in 

 the third year of his reign ; and the king therein 

 states that " by the advice of Hubert Archbishop 

 of Canterbury and others, lie had entreated and 

 urged Isenbert, not only for the advantage of the 



* Serle le Mercer occurs in 1206 in the list of Sheritfs 

 of London, and in 1214 as mayor. 



