us. xi. MAY 8, 1915.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
359
t'ime. An important question arises whether
it existed before the Wills Act of Henry VIII.,
arid another as to whether the conditions of
its exercise were limited in any way by the
^written custumals of manors. As to the
latter point, there ought to be a good deal of
evidence ; but I have been unsuccessful in
the search for it. Q. V.
CUSTODY OP ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHIVES. Under this heading in The Church Times correspondence columns of 9 April, Canon .Bullock- Webster makes a suggestion which will appeal to all who are engaged in research work. The real obstacle to the due custody of ecclesiastical documents, as Canon Bullock - Webster points out, lies in the fact that a diocese possesses, or till last year possessed, no income which could be used to meet the expenses involved in such custody.
" Every diocese, it i? true, possesses its Diocesan Registrar and Registry ; but the Registrar is usually a solicitor in general practice, and the registry is his own personal office. In consequence, the diocesan registers, the transcripts of parish registers, and the many other valuable archives belonging to the diocese, being housed in a private office, are neither under the free control of their owners nor easily accessible.
"The new finance scheme offers an opportunity for a salutary reform. Every diocese is now creating its diocesan fund with its own Diocesan Office or Treasury, under the management of its
official Diocesan Secretary The house of the
Diocesan Treasury may, by a very easy arrange- ment, become also the house of the Diocesan Registry, and the Diocesan Registrar might well in 'the future be also Diocesan Secretary. Thus every diocese would be provided with its own Diocesan Treasury and Record Office, where all the financial and secretarial work of the diocese would be trans- acted, where access might be had to all official documents, and a permanent, safe, and worthy home assured for those precious archives which every ancient diocese posse ses."
It is to be hoped that Canon Bullock- Webster's timely proposal will receive the consideration which it deserves.
FRED. R. GALE. 103, Abingdon Road, Kensington, W.
" THE BELL AND HORNS," BROMPTON. The demolition of this public - house, and the conversion of its site to other uses, are -worthy of being recorded in these pages, as the house was contemporary with the most interesting period in the history of the neighbourhood.
Brompton has had, so far as I ana aware, only one historian, Thomas Crofton Croker, a diffuse but pleasant gossiper on things antiquarian, whose ' Walk from London to Fulham ' originally appeared in Fraser. Bevised and edited by his son, it was
published by Tegg in 1860, and the volume
constantly met with was evidently a
- reat success. At p. 58 there is a reference
- o the public - house, the editor adding in a
foot-note that it had been rebuilt.
There was not in the appearance of the louse recently demolished anything to substantiate this, and I believe it would nave been more correct to say it had been refaced, the old brickwork being hidden by stucco. In the Kensington Public Library here is a pretty water-colour drawing by T. Hpsmer Shepperd of this house in 1853, and in dimensions and general appearance it is identical with " The Bell and Horns," familiar to many as a landmark.
ALECK ABRAHAMS.
(gwrus*
WE must request correspondents desiring in- formation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct.
SIR JAMES KENNEDY'S ' ^ENEAS BRI-
TANNICUS.' (See 10S . vii. 388.) -My query
on this work in ' N. & Q.' for 1? May, 1907,
has elicited no information, but it may be
worth while putting 011 record that Mr. Kellas
Johnstone has discovered one of the missing
sheets (F 1-4) in the Edinburgh University
Library, bound in the same volume with the
author's AtaSvjjua /cat Mir/oa and FapjAiov
Awpov of 1662. Signatures E and G on-
wards have still to be traced. They should
be easily identifiable by the head-lines :
verso, ^N T JEAS ; recto, BRITANNICUS.
According to Dr. David Littlejohn's 4 Records of the Sheriff Court of Aberdeen- shire,' vol. iii. p. 119, Kennedy was knighted. When and why ? P. J. ANDERSON.
University Library, Aberdeen.
THE FLAG OP THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA. Their arms were a plain white cross on a red field, and corresponded practically to the modern Danish flag ; but their badge and mediaeval banner were an eight-pointed white cross on a black field. What was the flag flown by their ships, and the flag hauled down when the Grand Master, Count von Hompesch, made his ignominious surrender to Napoleon, 12 June, 1798 ? The modern flag of Malta is merely white and red vertic- ally. Is this the flag the Maltese corsairs flew ? The flag of the " Order of St. John of Jerusalem in England," which has been flying over Messrs. Christie's premises
