Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/173

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11 S. X. AUG. 29, 1914.]


NOTES AND QUERIES.


167


HISTORY OF THE BERKELEY FAMILY. Sir Edward Brabrook, in his paper on the

  • Directors of the Society of Antiquaries '

(Archasologia, Ixii. 59-80), mentions (p. 70) that Samuel Lysons's ' History of the Berke- ley Family ' occupied fifteen evenings in the reading. This paper was not printed in Archceologia, though it is evident that its publication was intended, and it may be of interest to record that a portion of it was set up in type. I have acquired a set of the sheets, of which a few copies may have been struck off, these being paged 1 to 39, with signatures B to F. P. 1 is headed

" Archaeologia 1. Extracts from a MS.

History of the Berkeley Family. Com- municated by Samuel Lysons, Esq. Director. Read May 23, 1779, &c. &c." In the left- hand bottom corner is printed " Vol. XV.," in which volume it was intended to publish the paper. I know of another set (though only to p. 24) of these sheets, on p. 1 of which is written in pencil by Samuel Lysons, " These Sheets were set up for the 15 vol. of Archaeologia, but afterwards Cancelled. S. L."

I am informed that there is not a copy of these printed sheets in the library of the Society of Antiquaries.

Lysons prepared his paper from the MS. compiled by John Smith of Nibley, 'A Rela- tion of the Lives of the Lords Berkeley,' lent to him by the Earl of Berkeley. This MS. was published in full in 1883-5 by the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Societ}-. ROLAND AUSTIN.

WHITEHEAD FAMILY : ROYAL SAXON DESCENT. The following paragraph as to the Royal ancestry of the late Mr. T. N. Whitehead, which appeared in the daily papers of 13 February last, seems to be worth reproducing in ' N. & Q.' :

" OF DISTINGUISHED ANCESTRY. The executors of the late Mr. Thomas Newman Whitehead, a native of Cheltenham, who was for forty-five years Town Clerk of Burton-on-Trent, have decided to record on his tombstone in Burton public cemetery particulars of his ancestry, and the inscription in this respect will read as follows : 4 Thirty-seventh in descent from King Alfred the Great ; thirty-sixth from King Edward the Elder ; thirty-fifth from King Athelstan ; thirty-fifth from Guy, the famous Earl of Warwick ; thirtieth from Ermenild, sister of Leofric, Earl of Mercia, and Lady Godiva, his wife, better known as Lady <'odiva of Coventry; ninth from Joan, sister of William Shakespeare of . Stratford-on-Avon, the celebrated dramatist."

In addition, I am told by the executors that this Royal descent comes through Leonetta, daughter of King Athelstan, and thence


through the Ardens and Shakespeare's sister Joan, who married William Hart, a descendant of whom married William White- head, the grandfather of the late T. N. Whitehead.

I have suggested that the tombstone might record the names of Kings Cerdic and Egbert and also Woden

BENJAMIN WHITEHEAD. 2, Brick Court, Temple, B.C.

RESULT OF CRICKET MATCH GIVEN our IN CHURCH. The successful result of a cricket

match between the R Town Club and

M , a village hard by, was announced

to the assembled parishioners from the altar

rails in W (the parish) Church on

Sunday, 3 May, 1914. I do not for obvious reasons give the names, but I can vouch for the fact. I am not aware of any similar case. Perhaps your readers can supply one.

Hie ET UBIQUE.

IRISH PILLAR - STONES. Commemorating the sites of bygone battle-fields ; fixing the boundaries of neighbouring septs and dis- tricts ; marking the resting-places of de- parted heroes, like Dathi's red column at Rathcraghan, and Brien's, the ancestor of the Connaught kings, at Roscam, by Galway ; symbolizing worship, like the group once surrounding the great idol of Crom Cruach, on the plains of Magh Slecht, in Cavan the pillar-stones of Ireland form an interesting study. They figure chiefly in districts where stone circles, cairns, and cro mlechs predominate. Forming the simplest of all memorials, and having their prototype in early Biblical history, they have to-day equivalents in other lands in the hoar stones of England, the harestanes of Scotland, the maenqwyrs of Wales, and the menhirs of the Continent. Christian emblems appear on several of the Irish pillar-stones, made by the leaders of the faith which displaced the old belief of the Celt signalizing the triumph of the former, and manifesting the wish to set at naught any influence for evil still attaching in the minds of believers to the pillars as linked with paganism.

Ogham inscriptions are also on some Irish pillar-stones. Into Irish nomenclature enter the various equivalents for pillar-stones, like coirthe, gallaun, liagan, ailethri (from aill, an upright stone, and triallim, to go round, symbolizing the course of the sun). A pillar-stone in one of the great Raths of Tara disputes with the stone in Westminster the right to be the Lia Fail. Dr. Petrie gave weighty arguments in favour of the