Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/404

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398


NOTES AND QUERIES. ffii s. iv. NOV. n, 1911.


HALDEMAN SURNAME (11 S. iv. 329). Surely the name is German. Haleman might easily have been changed into Halde- man if the latter was already in use." Halde " is given in Fliigel's ' German Dictionary ' as a provincial word meaning a hill or a holt. But the original sense was " a slope." Breul translates Halde by " declivity " which is the best sense.

The sb. was derived from an old adjective viz., the O.H.G. kald, Norse hallr, A.-S heald, meaning " sloping down," or " lean- ing to one side."

Besides the examples given in Toller, ] have found three in Birch's 'A.-S. Charters, at vol. ii. 524, vol. iii. 33 and 338. The first of these is dated 943, and gives us " on healdan weg," i.e., on the way downhill. Bardsley has no record of such a name in England. WALTER W. SKEAT.

There was a family of note in England named Haldimand, of Swiss extraction. William was a director of the Bank of England and M.P. for Ipswich, and Sir Frederick Haldimand, K.B., Governor of Quebec.

R. J. FYNMORE. [R. B. is also thanked for reply.]

NOBLE FAMILIES IN SHAKESPEARE (11 S. iv. 248, 296). An immense number of people are descended from Shakespearian characters, but lineal male descendants now sitting in the House of Lords are not many. The Marquis of Abergavenny is the lineal representative of Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmoreland ('1 King Henry IV.'), a peerage which was forfeited in 1570, though his title of Abergavenny is derived through Edward Neville, the sixth son of that Earl. From John Talbot, " the great Alcides of the field" ('1 King- Henry VI. 1 ), is lineally descended in the male line the Earl of Shrewsbury and Talbot. The Earl of Huntingdon is the lineal descendant of William, Lord Hastings (' 3 King Henry VI.'), although the Barony of Hastings, being heritable by females, is held by the Earl of Loudoun. From Thomas, Lord Stanley ('King Richard III.'), is descended the Earl of Derby ; while from " Jockey of Norfolk " (ibid.) we have as descendants in the House of Lords the Duke of Norfolk, the Earls of Carlisle, Suffolk and Berkshire, and Emngham, and Lord Howard of Glossop.

I think this list exhausts the number of peers who are lineally descended in the male line from characters mentioned by Shakespeare, though there are, of course, a large number of collateral Howards,


Nevilles, and Talbots. Of peers who are descended in the female line may be named the Dukes of Somerset, Northumberland, Athole, and Portland (through De Vere, Earl of Oxford), Lord Stafford, Lord Petre, Lord Saye and Sele, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, and, I think, Lord Bagot.

It would take too much space to go through all the historical plays, and I will confine myself to the earliest, ' King John.' In this play five great feudal barons are among the characters William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke ; Geoffrey FitzPeter or FitzPiers, Earl of Essex ; William Longsword, Earl of Salisbury ; Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk ; and Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent. Of the last three I am unable to trace any living descendants, though some probably exist, but the first two are still represented in the House of Lords. The five sons of William Marshall, who successively held the- Earldom of Pembroke, died without children, but their sister Joan married Warine de Montchesni, and their daughter and heiress Joan married William de Valence, Earl of Pembroke. Their daughter and heiress, Joan married John, Lord Comyn of Bade- noch, whose daughter Elizabeth married Richard, Lord Talbot, the direct ancestor of the Earl of Shrewsbury. Mary, the daughter of Geoffrey FitzPiers, married Henry de Bohun, who was created Earl of Hereford' in 1199. Eleanor, the daughter and heiress of the sixth earl, married Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, and their daughter and heiress Anne married Henry Bourchier, Count of Ewe, and afterwards Earl of Essex. Their daughter Cecily married John Devereux, Lord Ferrers of Chartley, from whom the present Viscount Hereford is lineally descended. From this John Devereux are also descended in the female iine the Marquis Townshend and Earl Ferrers, as well as a large number of com- moners.

Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, jo whom ' Venus and Adonis ' and ' The Rape of Lucrece ' were dedicated, is repre- sented in the House of Lords by the Duke of Bedford and the other peers belonging

o the family of Russell.

W. F. PRIDEATJX.

LONDON'S ROYAL STATUES (11 S. iv. 188). Information can be had in the lately ssued ' Return of Outdoor Memorials in London' (Messrs. P. S. King & Son, 2-4, 3rreat Smith Street, Victoria Street, West- minster, post free Is. 8^cL).

WILLIAM MAC ARTHUR. Dublin.