Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/551

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10 s. vii. JUNK s, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.


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of a real portrait, as distinct from a more or Jess imaginative domestic subject, by Teniers The portrait of Charles II. de Lorraine- Guise, Due d'Elboeuf, is therefore a very interesting example of an identified subject by this artist. W. ROBERTS.

47, Lansdowne Gardens, Clapham, S.W.

ST. GEORGE : GEORGE AS A CHRISTIAN NAME (10 S. vii. 308, 375). It is remarkable "that this Christian name does not occur in Domesday Book (1086), Liber Niger (1166), nor Testa de Nevill (c. 1230). The earliest I remember to have met with who bore it was George de Cantilupe, the last baron of Bergavenny of that family. It was not given to him through his being born on St. George's Day, for he was born on Good Friday (14 April), 1251. He lost his father at the age of three, and his wardship was secured by Edmund de Laci, Earl of Lincoln, lord of Pontefract. When he was nineteen he was present at the settlement of a dispute between the monks of Pontefract and those of Bretton, made in the hall of the Friar- Preachers at the former place on 28 July, 1269, being " the Sunday before the feast of St. Oswald" ('Mon. Angl.,' i. 653). I may add that his life was short, for he died 25 Ap il, 1273, and his heart was deposited in the church of the Friar-Preachers named above, because his wife Margaret de Laci and their infant son were already lying there (Coll. Top. et Gen., iv. 73). He left no issue, and John de Hastings was his nephew and heir.

The first Georgius was no doubt the nominal ancestor of the Georgians (the earth workers), according to the usual ancient method of writing ethnology in the form of genealogies. A. S. ELLIS.

Westminster.

I have met with earlier instances of this name than have been as yet mentioned by correspondents. In my ' Notes from the Muniments of Magd. Coll., Oxford' (1882, p. 93), I have recorded a George de Cauncele in Wiltshire, circa 1270-80, and a George

  • de Levetone in Somerset in 1350 ; and I

added that the name is " frequent in 15th century."

G. E. C. in his ' Complete Peerage,' vol. iii. p. 199, remarks, in relation to George, Earl of Dunbar, born about 1336, that the name was " not, perhaps, very usual in England till the birth in 1449 of George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence." W. D. MACRAY.

Although your valuable correspondent W. C. B. says that " before 1700 George is not at all a common Christian name," good


old Camden ranges it under such as are " usual," and marks it as being "a name of special respect in England since the victorious King Edward the third chose S. George for his Patron, and the English in all encounters and battels used the name of Saint George in their cries." 'Remains concerning Britain,' p. 80.

ST. SWITHIN.

I do not think the name George is so un-. common before 1700 as some of your corre- spondents assume. Looking through some Lancashire pedigrees and lists in ' Gregson's Portfolio,' I find the following early instances :

Stanley family. George, Lord Strange, son of the second Lord Stanley, died 1497. Sir George Stanley, Kt., of Crosshall, Lanes, son of Sir James Stanley, died 1570.

Lydiates of Lydiate. In the pedigree is given the achievement of George Ireland, born 1467.

Masey or Massey of Rixton. George Masssy had grant of lands in Cheshire for life from his father, 9 Jan., 1436.

Orrell of Orrell. George Orrell, living in 1506.

Longworth of Longworth. George, son and heir of Thomas Longworth, who was twenty-one in 1448. Anoth3r George Long- worth, living in 1567, married Margaret Trafford, of co. Chester.

Pilkington pedigree. A George is men- tioned in a Rivington deed in 1478, though it is not known if he was a Pilkington.

In the musters of soldiers in the county of Lancaster in 1553 and 1574 the name George occurs 18 times. A. H. ARKLE.

Burke' s ' Peerage,' under Sir Chas. Munro, uotes from Nisbet that William, Earl of iutherland, in the reign of Alexander II. of Scotland granted a charter " carissimo et fidelissimo consanguineo Georgio Munro de Foulis." Alexander II. reigned 1214-49. Georg' de Charnells (or Carneley) occurs in the Inq. P.M. 2 Ed. I. (1273-4). R. S. B.

In the registers of the ancient parish of Groodleigh Prior, North Devon, I have found George prefixed to the following surnames n the years indicated by the figures in parentheses: Ellys (1549), Burte (1556), Parkyn (1562), Smale (1565), Knight (1568), Blakmoor (1573), Downe (1578), Brother md Chappie (1579), Luerthye (1585), Gubb 1589), Hartnoll (1591), Willis (1599), Edger 1612), Pilman (1616), Striblyn (1625), 'asmore (1630), Davie (1643), Waller (1672), ^arrin (1675), Shaw (1687), Gill (1689), ^aramy (1694).

To judge from this evidence of one set of ecords in a small parish, it would seem that