Chapter San Benito to Sangraal of S by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Sancy Diamond (The) weighs 53½ carats, and belonged to Charles “the Bold” of Burgundy. It was bought, in 1495, by Emmanuel of Portugal, and was sold, in 1580, by don Antonio to the sieur de Sancy, in whose family it remained for a century. The sieur deposited it with Henri IV. as a security for a loan of money. The servant entrusted with it, being attacked by robbers, swallowed it, and being murdered, the diamond was recovered by Nicholas de Harlay. We next hear of it in the possession of James II. of England, who carried it with him in his flight, in 1683. Louis XIV. bought it of him for £25,000. It was sold in the Revolution; Napoleon I. rebought it; in 1825 it was sold to Paul Demidoff for £80,000. The prince sold it, in 1830, to M. Levrat, administrator of the Mining Society; but as Levrat failed in his engagement, the diamond became, in 1832, the subject of a lawsuit, which was given in favour of the prince. We next hear of it in Bombay; in 1867 it was transmitted to England by the firm of Forbes and Co.; in 1873 it formed part of “the crown necklace” worn by Mary of Sachsen Altenburg on her marriage with Albert of Prussia; in 1876, in the investiture of the Star of India by the prince of Wales, in Calcutta, Dr. W. H. Russell tells us it was worn as a pendant by the maharajah of Puttiala.

N. B.—Streeter, in his book of Precious Stones and Gems, 120 (1876), tells us it belongs to the czar of Russia, but if Dr. Russell is correct, it must have been sold to the maharajah.

Sand (George). Her birth-name was Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, afterwards Dudevant (1804–1877). (“Sand” is half Sandeau (Jules), a young man who assisted her in bringing out some of her earlier works.)

Sand-Bag. Only knights were allowed to fight with lance and sword; meaner men used an ebon staff, to one end of which was fastened a sand-bag.

Engaged with money-bags, as bold
As men with sand-bags did of old.!

S. Butler: Hudibras (1663-78).

Sandabar, an Arabian writer, about a century before the Christian era, famous for his Parables.

It was rumoured he could say
The Parables of Sandabar.

Longfellow: The Wayside Inn (prelude, 1863).

Sandalphon, one of the three angels who, according to the rabbinical system of angelology, receive the prayers of the Israelites and weave them into crowns.

Sandalphon, the angel of prayer.

Longfellow: Sandalphon.

Sanden, the great palace of king Lion, in the beast-epic of Reynard the Fox (1498).

Sandford (Harry), the companion of Tommy Merton.—T. Day: History of Sandford and Merton (1783- 9).

Sandstone (The Old Red), a geological treatise by Hugh Miller (1841).

Sanglamore , the sword of Braggadochio.—Spenser: Faërie Queene, v..I (1596).

Sanglier (Sir), a knight who insisted on changing wives with a squire, and when the lady objected, he cut off her head, and rode off with the squire’s wife. Being brought before sir Artegal, sir Sanglier insisted that the living lady was his wife, and that the dead woman was the squire’s wife. Sir Artegal commanded that the living and dead women should both be cut in twain, and half of each be given to the two litigants. To this sir Sanglier gladly assented; but the squire objected, declaring it would be far better to give the lady to the knight than that she should suffer death. On this, sir Artegal pronounced the living woman to be the squire’s wife, and the dead one to be the knight’s—Spenser: Faërie Queene, v..I (1596).