The
dignity being subsequently conferred on several of the blood-royal,
and of the nobility, who came to
untimely
ends, an idea seems to have
been entertained by the vulgar, that the title itself was ominous.
Ben Jonson - The Devil's Association
2. 95-96; _New
Inn_ 3. 1; Middleton, _Wks._ 2. 290; 3. 94; and 8. 36), and were
used as an aphrodisiac (Bullen). Nares quotes Minsheu: 'Vinum
muscatum, quod moschi odorem referat; for the sweetnesse and
smell it resembles muske.'
=2. 1. 116, 7 the receiu'd heresie, That England beares no Dukes.=
'I know not when this _heresy_ crept in. There was apparently some
unwillingness to create dukes, as a title of honour, in the Norman
race; probably because the Conqueror and his immediate successors were
dukes of Normandy, and did not choose that a subject should enjoy
similar dignities with themselves. The first of the English who bore
the title was Edward the black prince, (son of Edward III.) who was
created duke of Cornwall, by charter, as Collins says, in 1337.
The
dignity being subsequently conferred on several of the blood-royal,
and of the nobility, who came to
untimely
ends, an idea seems to have
been entertained by the vulgar, that the title itself was ominous.
At
the accession of James I. to the crown of this country, there was, I
believe, no English peer of ducal dignity.'--G.
The last duke had been created in the reign of Henry VIII., who made
his illegitimate son the Duke of Richmond, and Charles Brandon, who
married his sister Mary, Duke of Suffolk. After the attainder and
execution of Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, in 1572, there was no duke
in England except the king's sons, until the creation of the Duke of
Richmond in 1623. (See _New Int. Cyc._ 6. 349.)
=2. 1. 144 Bermudas.= 'This was a cant term for some places in
the town with the same kind of privilege as the mint of old, or the
purlieus of the Fleet.'--W.
