capture the arch-conspirator Guy Fawkes. See Burke's extinct and dormant baronetage. 1648. The following statements-perhaps not very reliable are from a List of lands restored to Salisbury Cathedral after the Rebellion, recited (it is believed) in the Antiquitates Sarisburienses. On the 3rd of June the court-leet and royalties of Potterne were sold to William and Thomas Barter for £43 17s. 4d. On the 12th July, the Lordship of Potterne was sold to Gregory Clement for £8226 7s. 2d. William and Joseph Barter also bought the Palace of Salisbury for £880 2s. In March 1649 the manor of Bishops Cannings passed to Samuel Whitwick for £6063 15s. 74d. and the manor of Bishops Lavington to Edward Cressett for £1465 8s. 3 d. THE SECOND CIVIL WAR. The disturbance in 1648 known as the second civil war, requiring a renewed draft of the Militia, and again setting on foot in Wilts a county Committee of fifty-seven, was productive of no other noticeable effect in Devizes than a temporary stagnation of the Thursday market. Mr. Toby Allen who had contracted for the tolls of the beams and scales, prayed to be released from his engagement, and the Council taking his case into their consideration, consented to release him accordingly. Peace was almost immediately reestablished; and the small county force then on foot under the command of Captain Henry Aland of Langley Burrell, was ordered to Ireland, to serve under Edmund Ludlow. KING CHARLES'S TRIAL. JANUARY 1649. Among the 135 persons to whom the Commission was directed to try the King, occur many names which have already come before us in these pages;-such as Serjeant Robert Nicholas M.P. for Devizes, Sir Edward Baynton, Sir Arthur Hazlerig, Edmund Ludlow, Oliver Cromwell, Sir Hardress Waller, Sir John Danvers, Francis Allen, &c., but of these the three first abstained from sitting in judgment. Of the witnesses brought up to prove that the King had appeared in arms against his people (that is to say, riding on divers battle-fields with his sword drawn) two of them were from the county of Wilts; viz. John Vinson [Vincent?] of Damerham, gent. and Samuel Burden of Lineham, gent. Burden afterwards sought to expiate his offence by giving evidence against three of the regicides, at the Restoration; viz. against Daniel Axtell, John Cook, and William Hulet; and by admitting that at the beginning of the war he had fought for the King. It was Axtell, he said, who had drawn him in to appear against his Majesty; and of Hulet he affirmed that common report attributed to him the act of the executioner. THE LEVELLERS. The insurrection of the two regiments of Colonels Scrope and Ireton, known as the Rising of the Levellers, in May 1649, commencing at a convocation held within the area of Old Sarum, subsequently infecting parts of four other regiments, and eventually being crushed by Cromwell in person at Burford in Oxfordshire, is noticed here because the mutineers, after the execution of four of their number, were all marched off to Devizes, here to remain in quarantine until they should either be restored to their respective regiments or be otherwise disposed of. Possibly, as Ireton's regiment was implicated, some of them may have been the very men who had witnessed or instigated the disturbance in St. John's Church in 1646. The authorities at head-quarters seem to have been somewhat prone to select Devizes for a sort of soldiers' market; for when Longford castle was evacuated as a military post in May 1646, the troops there stationed were in like manner sent all the way to Devizes, to await further orders. It was the scene, as already described, of the dis banding of Massey's brigade; and subsequently, in 1654, it became one of the asylums for Dutch soldiers taken in Oliver's wars with Holland, who disturbed the peace of the place by breaking windows. Mention is also made of [Bishops] Cannings and Bromham as "quarters" for soldiers mustering for Ireland in 1650, in connexion with a street-brawl in Devizes, the narrative of which, in chronological order, here finds its appropriate place. [The Judge Nicholas in the case, is Robert Nicholas of All-Cannings, M.P. for Devizes in the Long Parliament.] THE KILLING OF JOEL SWETTINGHAM. The Parliament having been induced, on the 25th July 1650, to grant a month's respite to three soldiers, viz. Nicholas Westwood, and Samuel Cowdree (or Cowdrey) sergeants, and Walter Goffe a drummer, convicted at the recent county Assizes, of murdering Joel Swettingham of Devizes, a letter was, on the 21st of August, read in the House, from Henry Rolle Lord Chief Justice and Robert Nicholas one of the Justices of the Upper Bench, explanatory of the whole affair, as follows: "Taunton 14 August 1650. "In obedience to the vote of the honourable Parliament on Thursday the 25th of July last, whereby we were required to certify the whole state of the matter concerning the condemning of Nicholas Westwood, Samuel Cowdrey, and Walter Goffe at the last Assizes held in the county of Wilts for the murdering of one Joel Swettingham (a very honest man, and had been a soldier and drummer in the service of the Parliament1) at the town of the Devizes in the said county of Wilts, and continued faithful unto the Parliament until his death.-We humbly certify that the evidence appeared before us to be thus.-That the said Westwood, Cowdrey, and Goffe, amongst divers other soldiers and new raised men for Ireland, were quartered at Cannings some two miles from the Devizes: and some of the said soldiers coming to the Devizes some three days before the said murder was committed, and offering some incivilities unto the people of the town, they were questioned for it by the constable 1 There must have been two brothers Swettingham, drummers: for early in the war, when the town was under Sir Edward Baynton, "Michael Swettingham is paid 6d. for beating for volunteers. and officers of the said town, and were detained in custody for some time, but were the same day released, and so went back to their quarters at Cannings. And from thence within a day or two after, the said soldiers removed their quarters to Bromham, about two miles likewise distant from the said town of the Devizes. And the next day being the day when the murder was committed, the said Westwood, Cowdrey, and Goffe, amongst divers other soldiers, came to the said town of the Devizes, and expressed some dislike against the said townsmen for imprisoning some of their company the day or two before. And the said Goffe coming into the Mayor's shop of the Devizes [John Eyles] and talking with John Imber his apprentice, cast out some words of dislike concerning the imprisoning of the soldiers a day or two before; and then asked of the said apprentice whether there were not a fat constable in the town, meaning one Fitzall, a very honest man and who had been very faithful to the Parliament. And the said Goffe expressed himself to be much discontented with the said constable for imprisoning of the soldiers, saying that he would be revenged to the death of the said constable, calling the said constable "rogue." And shortly after, the same day, the said Goffe meeting with one Thomas Street a youth of the Devizes, asked the way to some place in the town. The said Street told him he might go which way he would. And the said Goffe presently drew his sword and ran the said Street into the thigh. Whereupon the said Street's brother took the said Goffe's sword and endeavoured to break it but could not, yet he bended it very much. Whereupon the said Goffe ran after the said Street's brother with his sword in his hand; and the said Street's foot slipping, he fell. And the said Goffe laid on the said Street with his sword very much; which some of the townsmen seeing came to rescue the said Street from Goffe. Whereupon the said Goffe, Westwood, and Cowdrey, and two or three soldiers more unknown, fell on the said Swettingham, who had nothing to do with them, being then gathering up of moneys for the rent of the Butchers' Shambles; and having only a wooden hilt of a hatchet in his hand, defended himself as well as he could, but in short space he was run into the groin by the said Goffe and received another wound in the buttock by the said Cowdrey. And feeling himself so wounded, he ran away very feebly from them into a house, and they all three followed him, and there the said Westwood gave Swettingham a great wound on the shoulder. But Swettingham got into the house and shut the door to keep out the said Westwood, Goffe, and Cowdrey, for that they thrust very hard at the door to come in after him. But the said Swettingham and some others which were in the house kept the door fast and kept them out. But the said Swettingham was so mortally wounded by them, that within a short time after, the same night, he died. Upon which evidence, the jury found them all guilty of the murder; upon which, sentence of death was given on all three, in regard they were all three present and actors in the said murder. All which we humbly submit to the consideration of the Honourable Parliament. HENRY ROLLE. "ROBERT NICHOLAS." Resolved, by the Parliament, That the Sheriff of the county of Wilts be and is hereby required to proceed to the execution of Nicholas Westwood, Samuel Cowdrey, and Walter Goffe, according to law; notwithstanding the order of Parliament of the 25th of July last for respiting their execution. Commons' Journals. Vol. vi. page 456. BOSCOBEL. August 1651. The flight of Charles II. after the battle. of Worcester was, as is well known, assisted by Mistress Jane Lane of Staffordshire who rode on a pillion behind him. But it is not so well known that the part borne in that affair by another member of her family is thus commemorated in a church near Devizes.—at Manningford Bruce : : "Underneath lyeth the body of Mary Nicholas daughter of Thomas Lane of Bentley co. Stafford, Esq. a family as venerable for its antiquity as renowned for its loyalty, of which the wonderful preservation of King Charles II. after the defeat at Worcester is an instance never to be forgotten; in which glorious action she herself bore a very considerable part. And that the memory of this extraordinary service might be continued to posterity, the family was dignified with the addition of this signal badge of honour, the arms of England in a canton. She was married to Edward Nicholas, the son of Sir Oliver Nicholas cupbearer to James I. and carver to Charles I. by whom she had one son only, who died before her: near to whose body she desired her own might be interred. She died 24 Dec. 1686, aged 67." The monument is also in memory of Edward Nicholas hujus pagi toparcha [Lord of the Manor] who died 1706, aged Mistress Jane Lane, as Lady Fisher, ever after enjoyed £1000 a year, as a gift from the Crown. 77. 1653. In the list of sufferers by the great fire which destroyed half the town of Marlborough on the 28th of April, appears the name of "Mr. Smyth chirurgeon of the Devizes" whose losses were estimated at £394. Subscriptions for the restoration of the ruined town and compensation to the sufferers, were made by authority throughout the country. From a passage in Evelyn's Diary we learn the remarkable fact that a single year sufficed to see the place "new built." Sir |