_Mary, Daughter of King James I. of Scotland._--This princess is stated to have been married to the Count de Boucquan, son of the Lord of Campoere in Zealand, and she had at least one son, born 1451: any information as to her husband's family, her own death, &c. is requested; for all notitia of our royal princesses are interesting.
_Hibernicis Hibernior._--Whence, and what the proper form of this proverbial expression?
_The Cucking-stool, when last used._--Can any of the correspondents of "N. & Q." inform me of the latest period at which this instrument of punishment for scolds is recorded to have been used { 261} in England? The most recent instance mentioned by Brand was at Kingston-upon-Thames, in 1745. In Leicester, however (and probably elsewhere), the practice continued to a much later period, as appears by the following entry in our municipal accounts for the year 1768-69:
"Paid Mr. Elliott for a cuckstool by order of Hall, 2l."
I have been informed by an octogenarian inhabitant of this town, that he recollects, when a boy, seeing the cucking-stool placed, as a mark of disgrace, against the residence of a notorious scold; and the fact of this use of it here at so comparatively recent a period has been confirmed by another aged person, so that this practice probably obtained for some years after the punishment by immersion, or exposure upon the cucking-stool, had fallen into desuetude.
Did a similar use of the instrument prevail in other places about the same period?
I may mention that an ancient cucking-stool is still preserved in our town-hall.
_Grafts and the Parent Tree._--Is there any ground for a belief that is said to prevail among horticulturists, that the graft perishes when the parent tree decays?
_Conway Family._--Is it true that Sir William Konias (founder of the Conway family) was Lord High Constable of England under William the Conqueror? The Welsh pedigrees in the British Museum assert as much, and that he married Isabel, daughter of Baldwin, Earl of Blois; but it does not appear that there was a Count of Blois of that name.
_Salt._--Dugdale, in his _Antiquities of Warwickshire_, p. 294., speaking of the town of Leamington, says:
"All that is further observable touching this place is, that nigh to the east end of the church there is a spring of salt water (not above a stone's throw from the river Leame), _whereof the inhabitants make much use for seasoning of meat_."