o any of your
readers who could give me his name.

SIGMA.

_Richard Plantagenet, Earl of Cambridge._--In a note in the first volume of
Miss Strickland's _Lives of the Queens of Scotland_, she remarks that
Bourchier, Earl of Essex, "was near of kin to the royal family, being
grand-nephew to Richard, Duke of York, father of Edward IV., but did not
share the blood of the heiress of March, _Jane_ Mortimer." I quote from
memory, not having the book at hand; but allowing that Jane for Anne may be
a slip of the pen, or a mistake of the press, where did Miss Strickland
discover any second marriage of Richard, Earl of Cambridge? All pedigrees
of the royal family that I have seen agree in giving him only one wife, and
in expressly stating her to be mother to Isabel, Countess of Essex.

J. S. WARDEN.

_Highland Regiment._-Can any of your Gaelic or military correspondents
inform me whether it is at present the custom for the officers in the
Highland regiments to wear a dirk in addition to the broadsword? Also
whether the Highland regiments were ever armed with broadswords, and {494}
whether their drill is different to that of the other troops of the line? I
have somewhere heard it said that the 28th (an English regiment) were once
armed with swords, whence their name of "The Slashers?" Is this the real
origin of the name? and if not, what is? I should also like to know the
origin of the custom of wearing undress _white_ shell jackets, which are
now worn by the Highlanders?

ARTHUR.

_Ominous Storms._--A remark by a labouring man of this town (Grantham),
which is new to me, is to the following effect. In March, and all seasons
when the judges are on circuit, and when there are any criminals to be
hanged, there are always winds and storms, and roaring tempests. Perhaps
there are readers of "N. & Q." who have met with the same idea.

JOHN HAWKINS.

_Edward Fitzgerald_, born 17th January, 1528, son of Gerald, ninth Earl of
Kildare, and brother of the celebrated "Silken Thomas," an ancestor of the
Duke of Leinster, married Mary, daughter and heiress of Sir John Leigh of
Addington, and widow of Sir Thomas Paston (called improperly Sir John).
There are contradictory pedigrees of the Leigh family in the _Surrey
Visitations_, _e. g._ Harl. MSS. 1147. and 5520. Could one of your
correspondents oblige me with a correct pedigree of this Mary Leigh; she is
sometimes called "Mabel?"

Y. S. M.

_Boyle Family._--Allow me to repeat the