James Dyer, Ch.C.P. in the reign of Elizabeth.  The only difference between it and Sir Thomas More’s is, that the rose is placed between the portcullises.  I have another, in a later period of the same reign, of Sir Christopher Wray, Ch.K.B., in which the Esses are alternated with ornamental knots.  I am not aware of any portrait of a chief baron before Sir Thomas Bury, in the first year of George I.; so that I am uncertain whether the collar was previously worn by that functionary.

It is curious that during the Commonwealth the Collar of Esses was worn by John Glynne, the Chief Justice of the Upper Bench, with a difference; that difference being a quatrefoil, instead of the knot, between each S; and a large jewel, surrounded by smaller ones, being substituted for the portcullises and rose.

These facts may, I hope, be of some use to MR. J.G.  NICHOLS in the volume I am glad to see that he contemplates.  I hope he will not forget to answer the other Query of [Greek:  phi]., “Under what circumstances, and at what dates, was the privilege of wearing these collars reduced to its present limitation?”

EDWARD FOSS.

The Story of the three Men and their Bag of Money (Vol. ii., p. 132.).—­In Tales, and quicke Answers, very mery, and pleasant to rede, is the following, with the title “Howe Demosthenes defended a Mayde:”—­

“There were two men on a time, the whiche lefte a great somme of money in kepyng with a maiden, on this condition, that she shulde nat delyuer hit agayne, except they came bothe to gether for hit.  Nat lang {172} after one of them cam to hir mornyngly arrayde, and sayde that his felowe was deed, and so required the money, and she delyuered it to hem.  Shortly came the tother man, and required to have the moneye that was lefte with her in kepyng.  The maiden was than so sorrowfull, both for lacke of the money, and for one to defend her cause, that she thought to hange her selfe.  But Demosthenes, that excellent oratour, spake for her and sayd:  ’Sir, this mayden is redy to quite her fidelitie, and to deliuer agayne the money that was lefte with her in kepyng, so that thou wylt brynge thy felowe with thee to receyue it.’  But that he coude not do.”

This is the 69th tale in the collection.  I cite from the reprint which appeared in 1831, under the title of The Hundred Merry Tales:  or Shakspeare’s Jest Book.

C.H.  COOPER

Cambridge, July 29. 1850.

The story of the three men and their bag of money (Vol. ii., p. 132.) is here stated to be “in the Notes to Rogers’s Italy”:  but it is in the body of the work, as a distinct story, headed, “The Bag of Gold.”

ROBERT SNOW.

Will.  Robertson of Murton (Vol. ii., p. 155.) is stated by Douglas in his Baronage, p. 413., to be descended in the fourth decree from Alexander Robertson, fifth baron of Strowan.  The pedigree of Robertson of Strowan is given in the same vol.