once.

How many more such traditions have faded into ob

Guild of Merchants' Coat of Arms.

livion, Leland's Itinerary suggests,

1

though it would require a much more remote chronicle ful. ly to testify. "Hall and Webbe," says Aubrey, "bought all the wool on Salisbury Plain;" while of Mr. Ludlow of Devizes, he adds, that he and his predecessors had been wool-brokers for 80 or 90 years. A last will and testament of one of these early

clothiers or weavers of Devizes, named William Salter, dated in 1440, it still extant among the Cathedral archives of Salisbury. His apprentice was John Webbe, a name once very common here and at Bromham, and said by Fuller to have originated in the practice of weaving, under Edward III. Church History, i. 420.

It is commonly said that the woollen manufacture was introduced from Flanders into England in 1331, at the time

"Happy the yeoman's house," says Fuller, "into which one of these Dutchmen did enter, bringing industry and wealth along with them. Such who came in strangers within their doors, soon after went out bridegrooms and returned sons-in-law, having married the daughters of their landlords who first entertained

them. Yea, those yeomen in whose houses they harboured soon proceeded gentlemen, gaining great estates to themselves, arms and worship to their estates." Such is Dr. Thos. Fuller's testimony in reference to the reign of Edward III. Church History, i. 419.

when Edward III. granted to John Kempe the liberty to import his colony of fullers and dyers. That an entire nation which had so long dealt in the raw material, should, down to that period, have remained altogether destitute of the art of weaving it, is of course not to be supposed; but that the trade thenceforward assumed an entirely new character is undoubtedly true. It is during this and the ensuing reign of Richard II. that we first hear of the "blankets of Beckington and the Vyze" as a noticeable article of traffic. See the Rotuli Parl. IV. 361. The epithet blanket" signifying white or undyed cloths (as bluetti and cochinelli represented blue and scarlet) indicated an article which, it must be admitted, was, when sold to be worn as such, a coarse and ordinary material. This is shewn by a provision in the sumptuary law of 37th Edward III. ordaining that carters, herdsmen, and husbandry servants in general should be restricted to the use of "cloth of blanket and russet at 12 pence a yard" though it is also true that for centuries after, "white cloths" continued to be sent from this district to be dyed abroad. Aubrey's allusion to the introduction of woolweaving into these parts seems to point to a period almost two centuries more recent even than that just recorded. Such can hardly have been his real meaning; but viewing his statement as the history of a secondary impulse given to the trade, his narrative looks genuine enough. Henry VII. says he, while living in Flanders, had been so struck with the prosperity of the manufacturers, who derived all their supplies of wool from England, that on coming to the throne, he invited several of them over to this country, and placed them in the West, and particularly at Seend, where they built such good dwelling houses that no other village remote from London could shew the like. Here they flourished till 1580, when they removed to Trowbridge, partly by reason of a plague, but chiefly, Aubrey conjectures, because the water of Seend was so impregnated with iron as to impart a yellow

tinge to their white cloths. The memorial of these Walloon families still lingered in sundry names at Seend, such as Goupy. Natural History of Wilts. 112.

If Seend was enriched by the patronage of Henry VII. 80 was Devizes. Leland writing soon after that period, says "The town of Vies standeth on a ground somewhat clyving [elevated,] and is mostly occupied by clothiers. The beauty of it is all in one street: the market is very celebrate." Lambard, a topographer of Queen Elizabeth's time bears a similar testimony. "The market continueth; but the Castle, from being the most gorgeous in Christendom, for so was it, saith Matthew Paris, is become fellow with the most decayed.

So then the decay of Castles was contemporary with the expansion of commerce. But the fall of the feudal system witnessed likewise the development of a principle of still vaster power and of infinitely higher concernment. This was

The Reformation of Religion.

ENGLISH Lollardism, the term by which the doctrines of

John Wyckliffe were stigmatised, was disturbing the peace of Holy Mother Church in this island long before the preaching of Martin Luther was heard in Germany: and though the Diocesan scribes in Sarum and elsewhere have recorded the name of many a confessor of the new faith whose virtues they were under no temptation to parade and whose fortitude they regarded with horror, yet doubtless many of the sufferers must still for ever remain unrecorded on any roll of human fame. Indeed, the extraordinary success which attended the preaching of Wyckliffe's band of evangelists itself explains the absence of any lists of these early Protestants. Some few victims from time to time represented the larger mass of secret disciples; and it is gratifying to add that Devizes and its neighbourhood furnished their "contingent" to "the noble army of martyrs." The prosecutions in the Bishop's Court

of the Salisbury diocese become increasingly numerous as we approach the period of the Reformation. In the Langton register, extending from the year 1487 to 1491 sixteen instances occur, chiefly near Newbury, but none at Salisbury itself. The Blythe register, embracing the period 1493-1500 records twenty-two cases, principally at or near Reading, none at Salisbury. The register of Bishop Audley 1502-1524 has forty-eight judgments; three persons as relapsed and incorrigible being delivered over to the secular power, viz., John Bent of Erchfont, tailor; John Tropenell of Bradford, weaver; and John Whitehorn rector of Lidcombe Basset. Of the remaining 45, three only of Salisbury. See Hatcher's Salisbury.

MARTYRDOM OF WILLIAM PRIOR AND JOHN BENT.

As early as the reign of Henry VII. William Prior a native of Devizes fell under ecclesiastical censure for promulgating Lollardy. On being cited at Salisbury, the terrors of a cruel death induced him to sign a recantation of his principles; but heartily repenting of this step, and resuming his former professions, he was delivered to the flames, in that city, as an incorrigible heretic. This was in the year 1507. Communicated by the late Henry Hatcher Esq.,

The present generation are unable fully to estimate the difficulty good men had, to think and judge for themselves in that trying hour when the universal voice of the Church was against them, and even the standard-bearers of Truth ever and anon bent to the blast. Here follows a form of recantation to which another Wyckliffite of Devizes was subjected before Bishop Audley in 1517. It is still preserved at Salisbury, and was first printed by Mr. Hatcher in the Devizes Gazette in 1841. In the following copy, which is slightly abridged, the spelling has been modernised.

"I, H. S. of the parish of St. John Baptist of the Devizes in and of the diocese of Salisbury, being noted and defamed of heresy, and to you,

Reverend Father Edmund Bishop of Salisbury my judge and ordinary, being of heresy greatly and vehemently suspecte

through communication and words which I have had and spoken against offering to images of saints and against the Sacrament of the Altar; saying in speciality, that it was well done to offer to our Lady, but better it had been done to give a penny to a poor lame man That the Word maketh all things, and the priest hath no power to make the Word. And by reason also of great familiarity and receiving into my house relapsed [persons] and certain persons suspect of heresy; and also by depositions of one witness deposing against me that I have said that images of saints be but stocks and stones made by an earthly man as I am; and therefore to set lights before these, is done [foolishly?] . . . Also, that I trusted to see no church standing neither "presk or lyfe" within three years

. . Also, what be Popish religious men and priests but devils and tyrants?: they should teach us as I teach thee, but they will not, for they have the third part of the goods of the world. Also, that we should do well enough and have matrimony and baptism without priests; for christening is but washing the child with water and salt, and wedding is but wedding, and burying but burying. These articles and every of these afore rehearsed, and to me H. S. by you Reverend Father judicially objected, I understand and know to be false errors and heresy against the faith . . . and teaching of our Mother Holy Church. Wherefore, of my free will and unconstrained mind, I renounce, forsake, and abjure all the said articles and every of them upon these Holy Evangels; and not only these of the which I am defamed and to you Reverend Father vehemently suspect, but also all other errors, articles, and opinions which be contrary to the faith and determination of Holy Church; promising faithfully, by virtue of my said oath, that from henceforth I shall never willingly be furtherer, counsellor, maintainer, or receiver of any misbelieving or evil-teaching person or persons, openly or privily. But when I shall have knowledge of any such, I shall them shew, discover, and detect to their ordinarys or to their officers; submitting myself to the rigour of the law provided in such cases, if I from this day forth offend or do contrary to this mine abjuration or to any part of the same. In witness whereof I subscribe with my hand, making a cross X. And require all Christian people here present to record and witness against of this mine abjuration, if I from this time forward offend or do contrary to the same or any part thereof." Bishop's register.

MARTYRDOM OF JOHN BENT.

John Bent a tailor of Erch font was burnt to death in the market place of Devizes, somewhere about the year 1523; the principal charge laid against him being a denial of the doctrine of transubstantiation, or as it was more commonly