Note 70 — Chapter V · CALSHOT CASTLE AND THE OLD SOUTH-EASTERN COAST.

In a letter of Southampton’s to Cromwell, 17th September, 1539 (State Papers, vol. i. p. 617), it is called Calsherdes; whilst in another letter of his, also to Cromwell (Ellis’s Letters, second series; vol. ii. p. 87), he writes Calshorispoynte. Leland, in his Itinerary (Ed. Hearne, second edition, vol. iii., p. 94, f. 78), speaks of both “Cauldshore” and “Caldshore Castelle;” and again (p. 93, f. 77), calls it Cawshot, as it is also spelt in Baptista Boazio’s Map of the Isle of Wight, 1591; whilst in the State papers of Elizabeth we find Calshord. (Record Office. Domestic Series, No. 43, f. 52. Aug. 27th, 1567.) I give these examples to show the number of variations through which the name has passed. No form is too grotesque for a corruption to assume. How names become corrupted, let me give an instance in the word Hagthorneslad (from the Old-English “hagaþorn;” a hawthorn), as it is written in the perambulation of the Forest in the twenty-ninth year of Edward I., which in Charles II.’s time is spelt Haythorneslade, thus losing its whole significance, although to this day the word “hag” is used in the Forest for a “haw,” or “berry.”