“Cappas Romanas duas, unam videlicet ex rubeo cindato, et fimbriis viridibus in circuitu ornatam; alteram ex cane Pontico, quero vulgus Bevurum nuncupat, similiter fimbriis sui coloris decoratam in orbe.”

I do not conceive this cap to have been made of the skin of a beaver, for the term would then most probably have been “ex pelli canis Pontici.”

This Chronicle contains several curious inventories of the gifts of many of the abbots; in which we may see the splendour of the vessels and vestments used at that period in religious services, as well as the style of reading then prevalent amongst the monks.

Gastros.

Cambridge, March 11.

[There is a Query which arises out of this subject which none of our correspondents have yet touched upon—­What was the original meaning of Beaver, as applied to a hat or cap? and was it taken from the name of the animal, or did it give the name to it?]

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REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES.

Anecdote of the Civil Wars.—­In looking through your “Notes and Queries,” to which I heartily wish continued success, I find, in No. 6. p. 93, a question which appears to be as yet unanswered.

The story to which your questioner alludes as an “anecdote of the Civil Wars,” is a very beautiful one, and deserves authentication.

I have a note of it from Dr. Thomas’s additions to Dugdale’s Warwickshire, which dates the occurrence as having taken place Oct. 22, 1642, the day previous to the battle of Edgehill, and identifies the merry sportsman as Richard Schuckburgh, of Upper Shuckburgh; who, however, on his presentation to the king, “immediately went home, aroused his tenants, and the next day attended the army to the field, where he was knighted, and was present at the battle.”  Being out of the reach of books, I am unable further to verify the story; but it is to such unhappy rustics that your publication is most acceptable.

C.W.B.

[Thanks to the kindness of our correspondent “C.W.B.,” we have referred to Dugdale’s Warwickshire (ed.  Thomas, 1730). vol. i. p. 309., and extract from it the following proof that Walpole had authority for his story.  Who knows, after this, but we may in the same way trace from whence he procured the celebrated letter of the Countess of Pembroke, respecting which there is a query from Mr. Peter Cunningham, in No. 2. p. 28.

“As king Charles the First marched to Edgcot, near Banbury, on 22nd Oct., 1642, he saw him hunting in the fields not far from Shuckborough, with a very good pack of hounds, upon which it is reported, that he fetched a deep sigh and asked who that gentleman was that hunted so merrily that morning, when he was going to fight for his crown and dignity.  And being told {339} that it was this Richard Shuckburgh, he was ordered to be