In that case they probably incorrectly believed island to be derived to isle (same with the H in Anthony which comes from the Roman person name Antonius and not the Greek anthos ‘flower’), so I’m not sure I’d call it a whim… but certain letters were added at the end of words otherwise they’d be too short, and IIRC (I can’t seem to find a cite right now) money was spelled with a O and give with an E because the sequence un and final v would look bad in blackletter.
Wait, what? I’d always assumed...
In that case they probably incorrectly believed island to be derived to isle (same with the H in Anthony which comes from the Roman person name Antonius and not the Greek anthos ‘flower’), so I’m not sure I’d call it a whim… but certain letters were added at the end of words otherwise they’d be too short, and IIRC (I can’t seem to find a cite right now) money was spelled with a O and give with an E because the sequence un and final v would look bad in blackletter.