372
NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. in. MAY 13, mi.
home this May-pole (this stinking Ydol, rather)
which is couered all puer with floures and hearbs,
bound round about with strings from the top to the
bottome, and sometime painted with variable
colours, with two or three hundred men, women,
and children, following it with great deuotion.
And thus being reared up with hankercheefs and
flags houering on the top, they straw the ground
rounde about, binde green boughes about it, set up
sommer haules, bowers, and arbors hard by it;
And then fall they to daunce about it, like as the
heathen people did at the dedication of the Idols,
whereof this is a perfect pattern, or rather the
thing it self."
A. R. BAYLEY.
GEFFEBY LE BAKESTEB DE LOFFITHE (11 S. iii. 207). Baker, Bakester, or Bakyster, and Baxter are the same name under different spellings, and the word represents the occu- pation of the person so designated. In the
- Calendar of Documents for Scotland,'
the ' Registers of the Great Seal,' and the ' Exchequer Rolls ' the name appears fre- quently under one or other of its various forms. In 1252 payment was made " for the pack-horse of Master Geoffry the baker (pistor) which he lost in coming from Scot- land." In 1296 "Geffrei le Baxtere of Lossithe, Forfarshire," swore fealty to King Edward I. Though the interval between the above dates is considerable, there is nothing impossible in the supposition that both entries refer to the same person.
SCOTUS.
Sm MILES WHABTON (US. iii. 309). This gentleman belonged to an old Yorkshire family, long settled at Beverley. His grand- father, Sir Michael Wharton, was a sturdy Cavalier, whose estate in the ' Catalogue of the Lords, Knights, and Gentlemen that have compounded for their Estates' was rated at 4,3701. with 180?. per annum settled. He died in 1655, and, as his son Michael had predeceased him, was succeeded by a grandson of the same name, who was 42 years of age on 15 September, 1666, and must therefore have been born in 1624. He married Susan, daughter of John, Lord Poulett of Hinton St. George, co. Somerset, and had issue three sons. Miles, the eldest, was knighted at Whitehall, 30 June, 1666. He sat in several Parliaments for the borough of Beverley, and, owing probably to the fact that his ancestors for five generations had always been called Michael, he figures in the Returns of Members of Parliament, as well as frequently in the correspondence of the period, as " Sir Michael." So usually was this the case that in a letter in which he happens' to be called by his right name, the editor of
the Portland MSS. (Hist. MSS. Comm.,
15th Report, App., part iv. p. 494) puts
a sic after the name Miles. So far as
I can discover, however, no one of the
name of " Sir Michael Wharton " was alive
during the reigns of William III. and Queen
Anne. He sat as member for Beverley in the
Parliament of 1701, lost his seat for that of
1705, but was re-elected in those of 1708,
1710, 1713, and 1714/15. He was a man of
some humour, as is evinced in the anecdote
narrated in the query.
Another joke of his is also recorded. In a letter to the Duke of Newcastle, dated 3 May, 1-695, the writer says :
" Nothing of the- Duke of Leeds but that he kept open house at Hell (Hull ? ) with rost beef e and pott ale to debauch Lord Morley, Hunsden, Culpepper, and the rest of the Mumpers. Sir Michael [Miles] Wharton's pun was that the House of Commons should send him Sauce Robart to his beefe." Hist. MSS. Comm., 13th Report, App., part ii. p. 173. I will leave it to the readers of ' N. & Q. to interpret this witticism.
Sir Miles Wharton died unmarried in March, 1724/5, leaving unfortunately no descendants to inherit his pawky humour and his honesty of principle.
W. F. PBIDEAUX.
Sir Miles Wharton was eldest son and heir of Michael Wharton (or Warton) of Beverley Park, Yorks (who was M.P. for Beverley 1660-87, and died in August, 1688), by Susannah, 3rd daughter of John, 1st Baron Poulett of Hinton St. George. He was knighted at Whitehall during his father's lifetime, 30 June, 1666 ; M.P. for Borough- bridge, 1675-9 ; Hull, 1679-81 ; and for Beverley in ten Parliaments, 1689-1702 and 1708-22. He died unmarried 25 March, 1725, and was buried in Beverley Minster. Sir Miles (who is mostly called Sir Michael) was a great benefactor to the town of Beverley, and contributed largely, alike by gifts during his life and by will, to the repair and embellishment of the Minster.
W. D. PINK.
Sir Mile? Wharton's pedigree is in Le Neve's 'Knights,' p. 205.
JOHN R. MAGBATH. Queen's College, Oxford. [MB. A. B. BEAVEN also thanked for reply.]
AUTHOBS OF QUOTATIONS WANTED (11 S. ii. 408, 512 ; iii. 253). At the second reference MB. PIEBPOINT mentioned that Nicholas Reusner in his ' Symbola Heroica ' (10th ed., London, 1664, Symbolum xxi, p. 468) attributed to Thucydides the words
