his heirs; and for greater security the seal of the Borough is affixed to this grant. The seals of the respective grantors have evidently been affixed to both these feoffments, but are now lost. The Corporation seal of Marlborough used now, has on it the Town Arms as given in the title page of Mr. Waylen's "History of Marlborough." F. A. CARRINGTON. Christopher Wren of East Knoyle, D.D. By Mr. J. WAylen. Among the many distinguished names which gave prominence and lustre to the County of Wilts during the 17th century, not the least was that of the first English architect of his day, Sir Christopher Wren, born in 1631 at East Knoyle, at the parsonage house of his father, Dr. Christopher Wren, the Dean of Windsor. As the following incidents, occurring during the childhood of Sir Christopher, will not be found in the Parentalia, published by his descendant Dr. Stephen Wren, their appearance in the Wiltshire Magazine, may, it is hoped, provoke further elucidation and illustration from other local contributors. When the civil wars broke out between Charles I. and his Parliament, Knoyle was the centre of a group of royalist families, such as Stourton, Bennett, Cottington, Digby, Green of Mere, Willoughby, and Hyde. The Doctor's advanced age, moreover, made him averse to any movement of a revolutionary kind. His adherence to the King's party was therefore from the first pro nounced in a decided manner. This, in fact, was all that could be alleged against him, to prove what was termed "Delinquency," for he had served his cure with credit for nearly thirty years. Still, delinquency, though in the form only of adherence to the king, was a crime to be punished, and even on this point the evidence was very contradictory. There was also another charge, relating to pictures which he erected in the chancel, but it was not shewn that they were "superstitious." comment, we proceed to the facts alleged. Without further Soon after the commencement of hostilities, Dr. Wren retired to Windsor. Sir Edward Hungerford, the Parliamentary general, sweeping through the south of Wilts, compelled Christopher Williams and Henry Marshman to surrender £25, due to the Doctor as rent of part of the parsonage of East Knoyle. In a few months after, Ludlow was shut up in Wardour Castle, and Colonel Barnes, who lay before it, had the command of the country adjacent. Down comes the Dean from Windsor, armed with a warrant from Sir Ralph Hopton, empowering Colonel Barnes to send a troop of horse to his aid, by which means he speedily collects all rents due to him, and compels Williams and Marshman to pay their £25 over again. This was in the autumn of 1644, and from this time he seems to have considered Knoyle a safer place than Windsor. The spring of the next year was signalised by Cromwell's capture of Sir James Long's troop near Devizes; and about Lady-day, Cromwell and Waller were lying near Shaftesbury, laying their plans for the relief of Taunton. Keeping these two facts in mind, we seem to trace in the following fragment of the evidence in Dr. Wren's case, the movements of the scattered remnants of Long's troop, who, being chased, (as is known), through Steeple Ashton, and seeking safety by flying southward, and distributing themselves among their associates in South Wilts, must have heard with great consternation that the enemy was so close upon their traces. "On the morrow after Lady Day, 1645," deposed George Styles of Knoyle, "at about 10 o'clock at night, there came to his house a large company of Royalist soldiers, accompanied by Dr. Wren, who saluted this informant with the name of 'Landlord.' Mistress Styles provided for the Doctor and one of the Commanders a bed, in which they lodged together: and in the morning as they lay in bed, the Doctor spake these words to his friend, 'Sir, all is well, there is no danger, for I left word with my wife that if there were, she should send word over the grounds.' [Across the fields.] The next thing we hear of Dr. Wren is his advocacy of the Club-rising in the autumn of the same year, 1645. (This was a union of the gentry and agriculturists of South Wilts and Dorset, to protect their property from both the conflicting parties.) Andrew Marshman swore that Dr. Wren not only encouraged his parishioners to assist, but when Mr. Thomas Bennett, of Pythouse, came to Knoyle to invite their co-operation, Dr. Wren seconded Mr. Bennett's remarks, and even went forth himself with Mr. Bennett, carrying a caliver upon his shoulder. (The Doctor was probably shooting pheasants.) Against this and other testimony to the same import, Randall Dominick declared that Dr. Wren had expressed so decided an opposition to the "Club-business," that the parish of Knoyle did not list themselves. We next come to the story of the pictures in the church. These were loosely reported at first as "superstitious," but the only evidence worth reciting in this place, will be that of the workman who executed them under the Doctor's supervision; and the whole affair shows that the love of pictorial embellishment as an accessory to architecture, which his distinguished son afterwards gratified in the Dome of St. Paul's, was a taste derived from the father. Little Christopher was perhaps too young to have watched the progress of the frescoes at Knoyle, being then only eight years of age, but he was fifteen or sixteen before he left Wiltshire. Robert Brockway, of Quinten, in Dorset, plasterer, being sworn, saith,-"That about July, eight years ago, or thereabouts, Dr. Wren sent for him, and agreed with him to make and set up in the chancel at Knoyle, in fret-work, the picture of the four Evangelists and such other things as the Doctor should invent. And, accordingly, he did invent and make a model or draught thereof in paper, which he gave to this examinant and caused him to make it, viz., the picture of the Ascension, with the twelve Apostles, and Christ ascending in the clouds, his feet and lower part of his garment being seen below the clouds. This stood at the lower end of the chancel next towards the church. He also gave this examinant a draught of The Trinity,' formed by three rounds linked in each other, an emblem in the midst, with glory around it; and above that, clouds on the roof. This was over the communion table. Further, on each side of the east window there was set up the picture of Jacob's dream and his sacrifice; clouds above: Jacob sleeping below, and a ladder let down to the earth. On the one side of the window, angels holding crowns of laurel in their hands, ascended, and on the other side of the window they descended; and underneath were these words written, 'Let prayers ascend that grace may descend."" He further saith that "Dr. Wren did himself pay for the work, and used to come every day to overlook it, and give directions therein." Testified before the Committee sitting at Longford Castle, 8th May, 1647. [Abbreviated.] Fret-work, Mr. Wilton tells me, is the same as pargetting, a sort of Arabesque ornament found in the ceilings of mansions of that date, and also in some country churches. In the latter case, when the church and roof happen to be contemporaneous, this pargetting is found worked into Gothic forms. The pargetting at Knoyle is commended by Sir Richard Colt Hoare. That Dr. Wren had not designed to raise any scandal by his fret-work, is proved by the fact that while resident at Windsor, he wrote to Randall Dominick, (probably his church-warden), giving him full authority to remove the whole series of paintings, if any offence seemed likely to be taken against them. The Parliament also seems to have taken a view of his case creditable to him in every respect, as shewn in the following "Letter from the Committee of Lords and Commons for sequestrations, to the Wilts Committee touching Dr. Wren;" without date, but apparently written about February, 1647. “GENTLEMEN.—There are come to our sight several Orders of Parliament, and other public certificates, some of them attested by our Committee, whereby it appears that Dr. Christopher Wren hath been much employed by the Parliament, and hath suffered many violences and plunderings in the performance of those employments: And likewise that he hath contributed very large sums to the service of the State, and been a painful labourer in the work of the ministry almost these thirty years:-All which do fully induce us to believe that he is a Parson far from meriting the doom of sequestration, (the punishment of most malignant ministers.) Wherefore we desire you to take his cause into your serious consideration, and narrowly to weigh the number and quality of the witnesses and informers, looking upon him with such favourable inclinations as the due consideration of these premises do warrant. And what tenderness you please to afford him, shall be esteemed as an obligation upon, Your very assured friends, JOHN DANVERS, JAMES HERBERT, WILLIAM LISTER. Such are the main facts connected with Dr. Wren's share in the civil war, which might have been much extended by reciting in full all the evidence tendered. At the time when the last quoted document is supposed to have been written, his son Christopher was executing his treatise of spherical Trigonometry, having left Wiltshire for Wadham College, Oxford, in the previous year, 1646. (Wiltshire during the Civil Wars.) Who destroyed the Images at the west end of Salisbury Cathedral? It is so common a practice to attribute to Oliver Cromwell every spoliation of which the traces remain in the ecclesiastical buildings of England, that any attempt to represent such a view as the offspring of ignorant prejudice, may seem almost Quixotic. But, independently of the fact that the desecrations of this sort, which can with certainty be dated from the civil war, took place in the early part of that struggle, and before Oliver guided the counsels of the nation; it should be borne in mind, that the object even of the fanatical, was not so much to destroy existing institutions, as to usurp their revenues. In the Order, therefore, for abolishing superstitious relics, which may be seen in outline in the Lords' Journals, IV, 392, the specific objects alluded to are very limited indeed. The design of the Act was nothing more than just to |