of Bromham, knt. son of the Sheriff of 1637. He married the daughter of Sir James Thynne. Jackson's List.

MR. RECORDER GLANVILLE'S RESIGNATION.

"To John Sloper, gent. Mayor.

"9th October 1668.

"SIR, I was much beholding to the Burgesses of Devizes when they freely elected me their Recorder, and desire them to be assured that I would and will at any time do them all the service I may. But seeing that it happens that I am and must be detained in these parts for a season, and that I now find I cannot according to promise reside in the Borough, to respect and serve them as I ought and would, I do freely and voluntarily resign to them my office of Recorder; leaving them free to choose in my place whomsoever they may think fit: desiring them still to retain a fair opinion of me, who will ever have and retain a grateful remembrance of their love and favour shewn to,

"JOHN GLANVILLE.

"At this day, John Glanville Esq. Recorder of this borough, by his own consent is dismissed and put forth of his office of Recorder of the Borough. At the same time, Charles Danvers Esq. is elected into the said office."

1669. It is ordered in the Borough council that the Chamber shall no longer pay forty shillings yearly for a flying and extraordinary post from Marlborough to Devizes. -Ordered that Charles Danvers the Recorder shall receive £10 yearly during his life.—And the same sum to Mr. Henry Johnson the minister of the Borough. JOHN HOLLIS, Mayor.

1672. William Filkes a burgess refusing to appear and take his oath, is, according to a vote of the Common Council, fined twenty nobles. At the same time a resolution is passed that in future he shall not be called upon.-Job Palmer a chief-burgess-councillor, and Robert Ings of the Common Council, having lived out of the borough two years and thereby neglected their appearance at the Common Council, contrary to their oaths, are disfranchised and displaced from all offices of trust in the borough.

ELECTIONS OF 1679-80-81.

22 March. A petition from the Common Council and inhabitants was read in the House, complaining of undue and

illegal practices used by the Mayor, [Richard Watton] in electing and returning Sir Edward Baynton and Sir Walter Ernlé to serve in Parliament:-Resolved, That the petition be referred to the Committee of Privileges and Elections:— No report. In the following year, 1st of November 1680, a petition was read from Sir Walter Ernlé and George Johnson Esq., but the matter is not stated. This last election seems never to have been decided. It should be remembered that it occurred at that critical period in Charles II.'s reign when, after the reaction of the Restoration, the tide had again set in against the Stuarts; and all the Protestant feeling of the country, under the leadership of Shaftesbury and Monmouth, was roused to oppose the anticipated succession of the popish Duke of York. After the calling of Charles's second Parliament there had been no general election for seventeen long years, and party spirit was now wrought up to its highest pitch. The popular candidates in 1679-80, (and by "popular" we are also to understand "Protestant") appear to have been Sir Giles Hungerford and Sir John Eyles. The nominees of the select body, which was also the Court party in the Corporation, on the other hand, were Sir Walter Ernlé and George Johnson Esq.; but the outcry against the return of these two gentlemen was so unequivocal that the Mayor, Mr. Watton, knew not how to proceed. Precedent and custom enjoined him to acquiesce in the decision of his brethren, but the public voice was every where against him. "The populacy," as they were termed, for once bore down all technical opposition, and the Mayor put his broad seal to the return of Sir John Eyles and Sir Giles Hungerford. But as the poor man laboured under much alarm as to the possible consequences of so great an irregularity, Sir John Eyles previously consented to sign a bond dated 15th September 1679 indemnifying Mr. Mayor to the amount of £2000 against all damages contingent thereon. George Johnson of Bowden House, Councillor-at-law, Solicitor to the Treasury, and one

of the Welsh Judges, was undoubtedly belonging to the Stuart party; for he is particularly pointed out as one of "the principal labourers in the great design of Popery and arbitrary power" in the tract attributed to Andrew Marvel which came out in 1677, professing to name, in connexion with the various boroughs, the influential gentry likely to influence the coming elections. Perhaps it would be impossible to state who were the legitimate representatives of Devizes during the third and fourth Parliaments of this reign; but in that which met on the 21st of March 1681, the Tory candidates at the previous election, viz. Sir Walter Ernlé and George Johnson Esq., were returned without any serious opposition.

On the 10th of January 1681, the House, being aware that a prorogation was intended, had voted,-That whoever advised the King to this step for any other purpose than in order to the passing of a bill to exclude James Duke of York, is a betrayer of the King, the Protestant faith, and of the kingdom of England, a promoter of the French interest, and a pensioner to France. The prorogation lasted only ten weeks; but on their reassembling in March, Charles dissolved them in the course of a week, and thenceforward dispensed with their aid. While the Metropolis was thus in arms, abundant evidence exists, in the form of addresses and resolutions by the Corporation of Devizes, that Court intrigues had fully succeeded in once more agitating by their distant vibrations the remote and stagnant element of borough-life. Perhaps the following home scene was one of the fruits of the controversy. In the time of John Child, Mayor [1681], Mr. Robert Sloper was charged with having called two of his brother magistrates "a couple of knaves and fools:" and at the Quarter Sessions he so far forgot himself as openly to declare that all the Borough dignitaries were forsworn; and to shake his staff at Mr. Mayor, calling him an impudent rogue. The matter was some time under discussion, but it was eventually Ordered, that Robert Sloper should be dis

franchised and removed from his office of magistrate and chief-burgess; and that all the expenses occurred by the aggrieved parties should be paid out of the Chamber.

SURRENDER OF THE CHARTER.

The close of Charles II.'s reign brings under review the series of unconstitutional attempts to destroy the liberties of his people to which he was urged by the counsels of his infatuated brother the Duke of York. It were foreign to our purpose to record the fate of the titled patriots who perished on the scaffold, none of their names belonging to this county; but the unprecedented attack on the charters of boroughtowns must not be passed unnoticed. The object of the Court by this measure was simply and solely to erect an absolute kingly power by filling the Corporations with the abject tools of the Sovereign's will. To this end, writs of Quo Warranto were issued to several of these communities, requiring them to shew by what warrant they held office, and whether or not they had obeyed the conditions of their charters. Judge Jeffereys and other courtiers perambulated the realm, advising all the Corporations forthwith to make a voluntary surrender of their charters into the King's hand as the best means of averting a more sweeping calamity. The city of London was the first dealt with; and other large communities being forced to succumb, after a faint show of resistance, the smaller boroughs hastened to imitate their example. In Devizes the affair took the following form.

"At a Court of Common-council or Guildhall-assembly held in the Guildhall of the Borough on the 8th of November in the 36th year of our Sovereign lord King Charles II., Defender of the Faith &c., A.D. 1684.-William Watts gentleman being Mayor. [Then follows "Nomina majorum et capital-burgensium" eleven signatures:-and "Nomina capital-burgensium de Communis consilii," twenty-two signatures.] This Court taking into consideration that His sacred Majesty has lately issued out divers writs of Quo Warranto against divers Corporations of this kingdom to call in their charters, and does continue so to do; so that this Corporation cannot expect any thing less than the like course to be

taken against it unless timely prevented by a voluntary surrender to his Majesty of the charter of this Corporation, whereby this Corporation may have a greater expectation of his Majesty's bounty and favour than by a compulsive surrender.-It is therefore ordered by this Court that the charters of this Corporation be forthwith surrendered, or offered to be surrendered, unto his sacred Majesty King Charles II. that now is. And it is desired by this Court that Charles Danvers Esq. Recorder of the Borough, and John Kent Esq. both Justices of the Peace for the Borough and John Child, gentleman, with such other assistants as they can procure and think fit, do attend and wait upon his Majesty with the said charters. And it is also desired that Mr. Recorder will draw up and prepare against the next Common Council an instrument or instruments in writing for surrendering the said charters accordingly." [Here follow twenty-eight names.]

"It is also ordered and desired that the now Chamberlains of the Borough do take up at interest on the account of the Chamber of this Borough the sum of £100 or such other sum as shall be requisite for defraying the necessary costs and expenses of surrendering the aforesaid charters, and of procuring a new charter for this Corporation."

At a Court of Common Council or general assembly held at the Guildhall on the 10th of November in the 36th year of the reign of our Sovereign lord King Charles. [Then follow "Nomina Majorum et capital-burgensium," ten signatures; and "Nomina capital-burgensium de communis consilii," twenty signatures]. At this Court a surrender of the charters of this Borough was sealed and subscribed according to the order of the last Court of Common Council for that purpose, a true copy of which surrender followeth in these words, namely,

"To all persons to whom these presents shall come.—We, the Mayor and burgesses of this Borough of Devizes in the county of Wilts, send greeting. Whereas our late Sovereign King Charles I. of ever blessed memory by his charter and letters-patent under the Great Seal of England bearing date the 5th day of June in the 15th year of his reign, did grant, ordain, and declare, that the said Borough of Devizes should be from thenceforth one entire free borough-corporate, in the name of the Mayor and Burgesses of the said Borough: and did thereby grant divers privileges, emoluments, and advantages to the Mayor and Burgesses and their successors, as by the said charter may more particularly appear:Know ye therefore that we the said Mayor and Burgesses of Devizes, with our free and unanimous assent and consent and agreement, have surrendered and given up, and by these presents do surrender and give up unto our most gracious Sovereign lord King Charles II. the charters and letters-patent of incorporation, and all the liberties, privileges, and ad