The Mystery Of The Dead Queen

In one conversation with the late Mr Frank Howard, of Fenny Stratford, he told me that his son now occupied the farm at Newton Longville known as Dead Queen.  ‘What could I make of a strange name like that?’ he asked me.  At that point the conversation was interrupted and we never got round to the question again.  But as it may be of general interest I will try to deal with it now.

First of all, it should be pointed out that the name is by no means unique.  There are other Dead Queens about, or were about in times gone by.  For instance, there is a deed of Edward I granting land in Whittlebury Forest near Dedequenemore (Dead Queen Moor) and another relating to a Dedequene Furlong there.  Dr J L Scott, keeper of manuscripts at the British Museum, who discovered the deeds in 1907, said this seemed to connect Northants with the tragic death of Queen Boudicca who, he said, poisoned herself.  But Sir Frank Markham, in his History of Milton Keynes and District, points out that Dio Cassius, writing 170 years after the rebellion says she died of a disease and that “the Britons mourned her deeply and gave her a costly burial.”

There is nothing I like more than a touch of exotic where it can be found, but I do not think these names refer either to Boudicca or to any other long-dead queen in today’s meaning and spelling of the word.  There is plenty of evidence that at one time the word simply meant a woman and I would say that that is its meaning in these cases.

Alternatively, it could be that in these cases the original word was quean, meaning a saucy or worthless woman, and that it gradually changed to queen in the speech of local people.  But in that case the woman’s name would have been known, whereas the description implies that it was not.  On the whole, therefore, it seems probable that some poor, unknown woman was once found lying dead in that place, either from foul play or from natural causes and that the Dead Queen name stuck.  However, there cannot be many places – if any at all – where it has stuck as long as at Newton Longville.

I have written previously of my belief that at one time nearly every ‘a’ in the language was actually sounded – as many of them still are farther north.  This could well apply to the Eaton in Water Eaton.  Reb F W Bennitt, in his History of Bletchley, published in 1931, says:  “Ea in Anglo Saxon means literally, an island.  It was applied to village settlements near water, but safely out of reach of floods.”  He does not specify how the word was pronounced but he could have been more right than he probably knew in beginning his next sentence:  “Islands in the Thames are called eyots . . .”

He also lends support to my contention about the wide general use of ‘a’ in a short chapter on local words and pronunciations when he quotes a person as saying:  “I seed the reverend along the rooad.”  Similarly he says that “street” is “stre-at.”  All clear evidence of the ‘a’ sound still lingering on into our own time, not only in the north, but here as well.

Domesday Book spells Eaton as “Etone.”  But that famous tax survey of 1086 was written down by Norman-French monks and lawyers.  I doubt that the long-suffering local Saxons ever pronounced the first syllable like that, for the ‘a’ was re-introduced as soon as English began to regain its ascendancy.

The fact (is) that the French could not get their tongues round English any more than the English could get their tongues round French, for the simple reason that English was a Germanic language and theirs was not.  That still applies today.  Some time ago I listened to a radio programme in which people were asked to telephone for guidance on education problems from two educationists, a schoolmaster and a schoolmistress.  A Manchester boy told them his problem was that he could gain high marks in practically any subject except French, which he couldn’t get along with at all.

The educationists asked him questions like whether his difficulty was speaking it or writing it.  He said both.  They then hum’d and ha’d a bit and finally could offer no advice except that he should keep on trying.  I could have hit them.  I knew the boy’s difficulty before he had finished asking the question.  English is a Germanic language and the boy’s broad diction was entirely suited to it and not to the so-called Standard English which they were using, let alone to the mincing French.  No English schoolboy should be asked to take French as a first foreign language.  He should be told to take German, which he will do far more readily.

Our northern troops discovered this.  They spent four years in France during the first world war and got no further with French than “Wipers.”  But in the occupation of the Ruhr that followed they picked up German as to the manner born – which, in a way, they were.

The Welsh are shouting for Welsh for the Welsh.  We should campaign for English for the English.  Expunging “Dieu et mon droit” from the Royal Arms and replacing it with something English should do quite nicely for a start.