The name of our Queen Bertha was, in the seventh century, written
Beorhte.
The Duke Brythnoth's name was frequently written Byrthnoth, in the
tenth century.
In Eardweard, we have dropped the _a_; in Ealdredesgate, the _e_. In
Aedwini, we have dropped the first letter (or have sometimes
transposed it), although, I think, we are wrong; for the given name
Adwin has existed in my own family for several centuries.
John was always written Jhon till about the end of the sixteenth
century; and in Chaucer's time, the word _third_, as every body
knows, was written _thridde_, or _thrydde_. I believe that the _h_
in Jhon was introduced, as it was in other words in German, to give
force to the following vowel. Certain letters were formerly used in
old French in like manner, which were dropped upon the introduction
of the accents.
B. WILLIAMS.
Hillingdon, Jan. 5.
* * * * *
PICTURES OF QUEEN ELIZABETH AND CHARLES I. IN CHURCHES.
Your correspondent "R.O." will find two pictures of Charles I. of
the same allegorical character as that described by him in his note
(_ante_, p. 137.), one on the wall of the stairs leading to the
north gallery of the church of St. Botolph, Bishopsgate, and the
other in the hall of the law courts in Guildhall Yard. I know
nothing of the history of the first-mentioned picture; the latter,
until within a few years, hung on the wall, above the {185} gallery,
in the church of St.
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