10th November 2008, 04:46 PM
The answer to Dirty Dave Lincoln's question comes, I think, from Aesop. According to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography,
"David Hume of Godscroft, in his History of the Houses of Douglas and Angus (1644), was the first writer to apply the epithet Bell-the-Cat to the fifth earl. According to Godscroft, when the nobles were holding their conference in Lauder kirk to decide what could be done to remove the royal favourites, Lord Gray told the old story of the mice who resolved to hang a bell about the cat's neck, to give warning of its approach, but lacked the courage to do so, whereupon Earl Archibald volunteered to bell the cat."
Sounds made-up to me, but then much of the best history is...
Brian
Resistance is futile. Your project documentation will be MoRPHE-compliant.
"David Hume of Godscroft, in his History of the Houses of Douglas and Angus (1644), was the first writer to apply the epithet Bell-the-Cat to the fifth earl. According to Godscroft, when the nobles were holding their conference in Lauder kirk to decide what could be done to remove the royal favourites, Lord Gray told the old story of the mice who resolved to hang a bell about the cat's neck, to give warning of its approach, but lacked the courage to do so, whereupon Earl Archibald volunteered to bell the cat."
Sounds made-up to me, but then much of the best history is...
Brian
Resistance is futile. Your project documentation will be MoRPHE-compliant.