with the details of civic life, and left her people very much to work out their own pathway to independence. She issued a few stringent laws for conformity, and occasionally committed an Anabaptist or a Recusant to the flames: but the incubus of Rome at least was no longer a terror; and the emancipated mind of England rapidly gathered around it those elements of adventurous daring, love of splendour, and contempt of the Spaniard, which found their incarnation in Sir Walter Raleigh and the heroes of the Armada. This seems a suitable place for recording the names of the Wilts gentry who subscribed to the defence of the country in 1588 (extracted from the Repertorium Wiltoniense.) Barnard, Richard Baylie, John Baynton, Sir Edw. Bennett, Thomas Blagden, Roger Geering, Anthony Ludlow, Edmund Grove Thomasine. wi- Noyes, William Green, Francis dow Pinckney, Will. Brounker, Will. Brydges, Dame Jane Chafin, Thomas Hulbert, Thomas Hungerford, Sir Walter St. John Nicholas Thistlethwayte, John Toppe, Thomas Ernle, Michael Lea, [Ley] Will. Walton, Thomas Eyre, William Lodge, Thomas Webbe, William Of the above list, every individual either subscribed or was assessed at £25; except Sir Walter Hungerford, Edward Horton, William Darrel, and Sir John Danvers, who each gave £50. Whether these sums were ever absolutely required, may admit of a doubt, but the catalogue in itself is primâ facie evidence of the truth of Stowe's remark, that, "no words could express the great forwardness of the people in their zealous love and duty towards their sovereign at this juncture." The regular force of the county trained bands at the commencement of Elizabeth's reign consisted of about 76 horse and 507 foot; Literary Panorama, i. 235; but they appear to have been greatly augmented and systematised at and after the Spanish invasion. On this subject see the Hertford correspondence in the Wilts Magazine, vol. i. Lemon's Kalendar also chronicles sundry letters to the council, touching the condition of the Wilts forces, but none of special interest. One, dated Nov. 1570, from Arthur Gray of Wilton, says, "that the armour of the Wiltshire trained bands was at that time kept at Aylesbury." The Devizes Corporation books record the arrangements then in force for maintaining in efficiency its contingent of regular soldiers, and keeping their corslets scoured; but they appear to have been very insignificant in point of numbers, consisting only of some score of pikemen and archers. In matters more strictly domestic, municipal discipline in Devizes had evidently acquired considerable consistency and power during this reign. Mr. Chamberlain's books are kept with great regularity, and well merit more elaborate notice than we have space for. The following specimens will indicate the character of the entries : "On the 21st August, 1583, John Scott shoemaker being examined before John Lewen the mayor, Stephen Flower, Richard Maundrell, John Batt, and Matthew Spencer, confessed, that a month past he bought of Lewis Audley a pennyworth of ratsbane, which he mixed up with ale and gave unto his wife at night: the cause which he assigned for the act being that she had not used him well. He was put into the ward. "7 August. Elizabeth the wife of John Webb complains before the mayor and his brethren of evil and unseemly language uttered against her by Edith wife of William Martin; which being corroborated by the additional testimony of John Cadby, John Pearce, and Julian Angles, the culprit is adjudged to ride in the cucking-stool from the Guildhall to the dwelling house of her husband the said Martin, and the cucking-stool to stand at her door. "1585. Whereas Thomas Fitzall had been for contempt and misdemeanour ejected from the number of the burgesses; now, by submitting to Mr. Mayor [John Willis] he is received again. "1585. Complaint was made before John Lewen, deputy to John Willis the mayor, that John North had in the presence of Lord Howard slanderously charged Richard Baynton and Henry Hancock servants to Sir Edward Baynton with stealing a buck. North was thereupon set in the stocks and sent to prison, as an example to all others offending in the like manner. "1585. Bryan Bennet and Walter Stephens, constables, being required by Mr. Willis the mayor, by virtue of a warrant from the Queen's Council, to take up post-horses for her present service, demanded a horse of John Cannon, when his wife fell upon the two constables with a brock [stake?] and might have killed them had not her husband taken it out of her hands. Nevertheless he joined in execrating them. Committed to prison. "Mem. Richard Truslowe of Avebury distributed five marks among the poor in St. John's Church agreeable to the will of John Truslowe, 21 Dec. 30th Eliz. "1595. Paid 5s. to my Lady Sharington's keeper, his fee for a buck. Fee for his Mayoralty [to Mr. Erwood] £4 6s. 8d. Repairing the little room in the chapel 9s. 8d. 1596. Mending the Weaver's Hall, the shop in the shambles, the cucking-stool, and the gallows, 62s. 8d. For a few years considerable space is devoted to the account kept of small tradesmen to whom 40 shillings was lent for limited periods, on the security of two brother burgesses, in accordance with the terms of a gift made by the Lady Anne Sharington relict of Sir Henry Sharington of Lacock. In 1603, Alexander Webb is paid for his travail to the Court to save the town from serving with carriage for the remove of the Court. [This points to the oppressive laws of purveyance, put in execution whenever the monarch travelled, which were not fully abolished till the reign of the second Charles.] From 1598 down to 1612 various payments occur for constructing a bench in the castle, for cords and lines for the tent in the castle, for the general Sessions of the county. This temporary species of accommodation for the administration of justice seems to have been felt as insufficient, for in 1615 we read "This year was the measuring house near the corn-market erected and set up for the measuring of corn. The same year was begun to be erected and built the new market-house for wool and yarn, and for the holding of the Sessions of the county: and the year following was the same finished, in the time of John Stephens, mayor." THE BOROUGH'S SUITS WITH THE CROWN. 1585. MATTHEW SPENCER, mayor. Whereas there are divers suits commenced against the Borough for its lands and liberties, which charges the Borough is unable to bear, the following burgesses offer to lend money to carry them on and defend their privileges. The nature of these law-suits will best be exhibited by an extract from Justice Kent's Ledger-Book, a MS. collection of charters and other documents connected with Devizes, of which two copies are extant, one in the possession of Alexander Meek, Esq., the other among the Lansdowne MSS. in the British Museum. "The Mayor and Burgesses of this Borough having been, all the time whereof the memory of man is not to the contrary, seized in their demesne as of fee and right in divers messuages, burgages, lands, tenements and heriditaments, with their appurtenances lying and being in the said Borough of Bishops Cannings, Rowde, Meek, [Wick ?] and Marlborough,1 mentioned in King James's charter of confirmation dated at Westminster 2 April in the 8th year of his reign:-And having of late years had many other messuages, lands, and tenements in and near the aforesaid Borough, unjustly, by colour of "concealed lands" pretended to belong to chantries in the Borough, plucked and drawn from them; and notwithstanding that the Mayor and Burgesses have ever since paid chief to the King and his progenitors:-They the said Mayor and Burgesses in the 23rd of Queen Elizabeth, in order to prevent such mischiefs in the residue of their antient possessions, did unadvisedly and without the advice of learned council of law, entitle the said Queen in and to the aforesaid messuages, burgages, and premises in King James's aforesaid letter of confirmation. Whereupon a grant from her, as of concealed lands, was The property in Marlborough owned by the Devizes Corporation consisted in 1617 of six houses in the Green-ward occupied by William Cowper, James Portlock, Robert Pilgrim, John Jessop, and George Bason; also a barn and close in the occupation of Richard Cornwall. Chamberlain's books. obtained unto William Erwood the elder and Roger Erwood their heirs and assigns, to the use nevertheless of the Mayor and Burgesses: whereas the same or any part thereof was never concealed, but ever in charge before the Auditor of the County and a chief-rent of £10 yearly was paid to the Crown for the same and for the others plucked away. Wherefore the Queen's grant was void by a proviso mentioned in the said grant, the letters patent of which still remain [1628] in the Council House of this Borough. Mr. Kent's Ledger-Book also furnishes us with the following history of proceedings. The Mayor and Burgesses at the time whereof the memory of man is not to the contrary held the bailiwick of the Borough consisting of the lawday and view of Frank-pledge, the profits of of fairs, markets, fines, issues, perquisites, and profits of Court-leets, amerciaments, waifs, strays, heriots, goods and chattels of felons, tolls, pickage, passage, pye-powder [Court] customs, liberties, authorities, and other advantages whatsoever to the said Courts belonging, (under 40 shillings in each case) in fee-farm to them and their successors for ever (as was conceived) by the yearly rent of 100 shillings payable half-yearly to the Crown, until about the 32nd. of Henry VIII. at which time the Manor and Borough of Devizes was parcel of the Queen's jointure:-And upon a survey taken by the Queen's commissoners, for that the Mayor and Burgesses could make no other title to the said bailiwick than by prescription, which could not hold against the Crown, they were urged to take a lease thereof from the Queen, which they did, at the same rent; and afterwards they held it by lease from Queen Elizabeth under the great seal of England from one and twenty years to one and twenty years, till 26 June in the 7th of King James, at which time they still having eighteen years to run to complete a lease, Edward Wardour of St. Martin's in the fields, esquire and afterwards knight, obtained a lease from King James by letters patent for forty years in reversion of the aforesaid lease then in being; which reversionary lease of 40 years was assigned and set over to the Mayor and burgesses for the sum of £300.-But to prevent in future such like leases to be obtained over their heads, they in the 19th of King James petitioned his Highness for a grant of the fee farm of the said bailiwick on its former footing of 100 shillings rent yearly paid to the Crown; which, his Majesty most graciously received; and after many references and much attendance, labour and charge taken and distributed in and about the obtaining of the said grant, it pleased his most excellent Majesty of his gracious favour, afterwards by letters patent dated 31st July in the 22nd of his reign, for a further sum of £120, to give back the aforesaid bailiwick with its appurtenances, which was their lawful right;-except as before to be holden as of the Manor of East Greenwich, by fealty, as in free and common socage, and not by knight's service or in capite; and for 100 shillings yearly rent to be paid at the Exchequer or to his High |