2»* S. IX. June 16. '60.] 



NOTES AND QUEKIES. 



461 



way, or any other great engineering work, it is 

 usual to inaugurate the undertaking by soliciting 

 the presidency of some distinguished personage, 

 who, with a spade or other instrument presented 

 for the occasion, turns the first sod. A few days 

 since the " silver trowel " was placed in the hands 

 of Her Majesty, who laid the foundation of a new 

 church in the parish of Whippingliam. This may 

 appear a very trivial notice of a ceremony of so 

 common an occurrence, but most customs have 

 their origin, and the one already mentioned may 

 possibly be an old one revived. A iloman em- 

 peror began the cutting of a canal through the 

 Istlinus of Corinth by turning the "first sod" 

 with a golden spade ; this was only one of his 

 many imperial freaks, but it furnishes at any rate 

 an ancient precedent. F. Phillott. 



Coverdale's Bible. — Lowndes says that there 

 are only two perfect copies of this Bible : one in 

 the British Museum, the other in the library of 

 Lord Jersey. I, therefore, send you the enclosed 

 cutting from the Southern Times of last December, 

 as some of your readers may probably be glad to 

 know that another perfect copy of Coverdale's 

 Bible has been discovered : — 



" Interesting Discovery. 



" A few days ago, as some workmen were pulling down 

 an old building formerly used as a glebe-house, and 

 lately in the occupation of Mr. William Eagles, of Will- 

 scot, Oxon, they came upon a closet or oratory, which 

 had been bricked up, and the wall wainscotted, to accord 

 with the panelling of the room, of which it formed a 

 part. This closet contained about fifty volumes, pro- 

 bably concealed therein during the early days of the 

 Reformation, to evade the penalties attendant on the pos- 

 session of prohibited books, and consisted chiefly of works 

 of controversial theology, btuj including a copy of the 

 first edition of the complete English Bible, printed in 

 1535, commonly called Coverdales Bible, which was in 

 perfect condition. Another of the books is entitled, 

 Admonititm to the Faithful in England, by John Knox, 

 bearing the dato 1054." 



W. H. W. T. 



Mind and Matter. — Isaac Taylor, in his 

 Physical Theory of Another Life (ed. Bell & Daldy, 

 1857), p. 17. says : — 



" The doctrine of the materialist, if it were followed 

 out to its extreme consequences, and consistently held, is 

 plainly atheistic, and is therefore incompatible with any 

 and with every form of religious belief. It is so because, 

 in affirming that mind is nothing more than the product of 

 tal organisation, it excludes the belief of a pure and 

 uncreated mind — the cau:;e of all things ; for if there be 

 a supreme mind, absolutely independent of matter, then, 

 unquestionably, there may be created minds, also inde- 

 pendent." 



To this it may be added, that a person who 

 asserts that Mind is the secretion of the Brain, 

 may be placed on the same level as a man who 

 declares that one of Beethoven's Sonatas is the 

 secretion of the piano. John Bavin Pbjllifs, 



Haverfordwest. 



«Rume3. 



GOWRIE'S MOTHER. 



As a question on which some light may be thrown 

 by the readers of " X. & Q.," may I be allowed to 

 send the enclosed for insertion ? — 



" Gowrie's mother, Dorothea Stewart, could not have 

 been the Queen's daughter, for her Majesty had died in 

 1541, aged within a few days of 53 ; whereas Dorothea, 

 first and only Countess of Gowrie, had borne children, at 

 intervals, after 1580. A son, whom Margaret bore when 

 Dowager, although omitted by all our peerage-writers, is 

 expressly mentioned, in Lord Methven's patent of crea- 

 tion, 1525, as 'uterine brother' of the ro3 - al donor, James 

 the Fifth ; and, by two credible and nearly contemporary 

 authors, Bishop Lesley, and Hume of Godscroft, for- 

 merly stated to have been slain at Pinkey, in 1517. 'The 

 Master of Methven,' as these designate him, must have 

 been son of the Queen; because no son by Methven's 

 second lady could have been old enough to appear in 

 arms. Her Majesty's second son, according to the first 

 Viscount Strathallan, had been born in 1515, or the fol- 

 lowing year; and, consequently, must, at his death, have 

 been turned of thirty. That he was father of the Coun- 

 tess of Gowrie, is stated by the Viscount. This, if we 

 mistake not, is the noble Author's meaning; although we 

 feel ourselves under the necessity of remarking, which 

 we do with great deference, that Mr. Scott, quoting his 

 Lordship's words from a manuscript in the library of the 

 Literary and Antiquarian Society of Perth, had, contrary 

 to his accustomed vigilance, been lulled by the false 

 punctuation, and by the misnomer of ' Lord ' for Master, 

 and did not enlist the passage in his service as he might 

 well have done. Who the Countess's mother had been, 

 does not appear." (?) — Extract from a Summary Review 

 of the Gowrie Conspiracy, written by the Rev. W. M'Gre- 

 gor Stirling, Port of Menteith, and presented by him to 

 the Literary and Antiquarian Society of Perth. 



That some connexion existed between the 

 Methuens and Buthuens, through Queen Marga- 

 ret Tudor, has been often asserted. A somewhat 

 curious but trifling incident bearing on this be- 

 lief is, that after Queen Margaret's death, the 

 first carriage belonging to her ever seen in Scot- 

 land was found at Buthuen Castle, near Perth. 

 I somewhere have an old document stating this 

 circumstance, of which, if I can lay my hands on 

 it, I will send you a copy. A Querist. 



Dame Ann Percy. — The following is a copy of 

 a monumental inscription upon a brass plate in 

 the parish church of Hessle, in the East Biding of 

 the county of York : — 



" Here under lieth Dame An Percy, Wyff to Syr 

 Henri Percy: to him bah' xvij Children. Wieh An 

 departed the xix day of December, the, year of our Lflfd 

 itv & xi (1511), on wohis soullis J'hu have merci." 



I should feel obliged if any genealogist amongst 

 your readers would inform me who was this Sir 

 Henry Percy and Dame Ann, his wife (i. e. her 

 maiden name), or any other particulars concern- 

 ing them. 



I presume that Sir Henry was a cadet of the 



