x. NOV. is, 1902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
395
revel in the records, the fee being waived or
left to my own inclination.
While on this -subject I may mention that I have been told by Mr. C. E. Chanter (of Broadmead, Barnstaple), who is much in- terested in the matter, that copies of all old Devonshire registers are deposited at Exeter, but are in such dire disorder that a combined effort would be required to arrange and cata- logue them. I quite concur in the opinion that this would be a very useful piece of work. ETHEL LEGA-WEEKES.
" DIVET" (9 th S. x. 327). In connexion with the domestic use of turf, it seems apposite here to mention an old privilege that is rapidly becoming obsolete in the Scottish Lowlands. When thatched houses were com- mon the ridges, and sometimes other parts of the roof, were covered with turf, and dwellers in a given area had the privilege, of " casting divots " for their use on a certain stretch of pasture land. When a common adjoined a village there was no difficulty, but sometimes the inalienable right was exercised over the set portion of a field two or three rniles distant. One case occurs at the moment to the memory. A generation ago a strug- gling villager or two, reverent of ancient ways, exercised the privilege of "shooling the divots " (shovelling the turf) where their forefathers had regularly done so ; but their descendants have allowed the habit to fall into abeyance. Thatched houses are no longer in fashion. THOMAS BAYNE.
69, West Cumberland Street, Glasgow.
The ' Century Diet.' and the ' Encyclopaedic Diet.' state that divet, divot, (fee. (Sc. and North E.), mean a thin, flat piece of turf used for covering cottages, also for fuel. The origin of the word divet is obscure. Jamie- son's 'Scott. Diet.' suggests a connexion with the Lat. defodere = to dig.
HASTINGS SHADDICK.
The Athenaeum, Barnstaple.
LADY WHITMORE (9 th S. x. 268, 318). This lady was the youngest daughter of Sir William Brooke, K.B., M.P. for Rochester, and nephew of Henry Brooke, eighth Lord Cobham, to whose honours he would have succeeded had it not been for the attainder passed in 1604. Frances Brooke was a daughter of his second wife, Penelope, daughter of Sir Moyses Hill, Knt, of Hills- borough, co. Down, M.P. for Antrim. Of her sisters, Hill became the wife of Sir William Boothby, second baronet, of Ashbourne, co. Derby, and died 14 May, 1704, having had ten children, whose descendants represent the old line of Brooke, Lords Cobham, while
Margaret married Sir John Denham, K.B.,
Survey or -General of his Majesty's Works
and author of ' Cooper's Hill.' The story of
her unhappy life and death is recorded by
Grammont. Frances known in the pages
of Grammont as Miss Brooks married first
Sir Thomas W'hitmore, K.B., of Build was,
co. Salop, second son of Sir Thomas Whit-
more, first baronet, of Apley, co. Salop, by
his wife Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of
Alderman Sir William Acton, Knt. By Sir
Thomas, who was buried at St. Paul's, Covent
Garden, 21 May, 1682, Frances Brooke had
three daughters, of whom the eldest, Eliza-
beth, died in infancy ; the second, Frances,
married her cousin William, son and heir of
William Whitmore, of Balmes in Hackney,
27 November, 1679, she being then but thir-
teen and her husband a year older. It
appears from the Hackney register that a
preliminary marriage had taken place on
25 August, 1675 (Robinson's 'Hackney,'
i. 163). In July, 1684, Mr. Whitmore, when
returning from Epsom, accidentally shot
himself, and nine months afterwards his
young widow, who had inherited her mother's
beauty, married Sir Richard Myddelton,
third baronet, of Chirk Castle, co. Denbigh,
and nephew to the husband of another cele-
brated beauty of King Charles's Court.
Dorothy, the third daughter, married Jona-
than Langley, of the Abbey, Shrewsbury,
high sheriff of Shropshire 1689, and left no
issue. Frances Brooke married for her second
husband Matthew Harvey, of Twickenham,
co. Middlesex, brother of Sir Eliab Harvey,
Knt., of Chigwell, co. Essex (whose wife,
Dorothy, was a sister of Lady Whitmore's
first husband), and nephew of the great
physician. The Twickenham register records
the burial of Lady Whitmore on 15 May,
1690, and her husband died on 14 January,
1693. Husband and wife were buried under
a massive monument which was originally
erected in the north-east corner of the chancel
of Twickenham Church, but which was
removed during the alterations of 1859 to the
top landing of the north staircase. On this
tomb were inscribed the following lines by
Dryden :
Faire, kind and true ! a treasure each alone, A Wife, a Mistress, and a Freind [we] in one.
Rest in this Tomb, rais'd at thy Husband s cost, Here sadly summing what he had and lost.
Come, Virgins, er'e in equall bands you joine Come first, and Offer at Her sacred bhryne. Pray but for halfe the Virtues of this wife Compound for all the rest w' 1 ' longer life, And wish your Vowes like her's may be return d So lov'd when living and when dead so mourn d.
