.April 9. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



359 



Richard Fermour, Esq., who had relieved him du- 

 ring his incarceration, should, for this apparently 

 simple act of charity, have incurred a prcemunire, 

 for which he was subjected to so heavy a fine as 

 the forfeiture of his estate ? I should be glad of 

 any further particulars respecting him, or to be 

 referred to any work in which an account of him 



-is recorded ; and also to be informed by whom the 

 Peerage of England, quoted by Dr. Willis, was 



<5ompiled, when published, and whether it contains 

 a more copious account of this reprehensible eccle- 



■«iastic. Arthur E,. Carter. 



Camden Town. 



[Richard Fermor was a merchant of the staple at 

 Calais, and having acquired a considerable fortune, 

 located himself at Easton Neston, co. Northampton. 

 Being a zealous Romanist he refused to conform to 

 'the Reformed faith, and thus rendered himself ob- 

 noxious to the court ; and being accused of admini- 

 stering relief to Nicholas Thane, formerly his confessor, 

 who was then a prisoner in Buckingham Castle for 

 •denying the supremacy of the king, he was committed 

 to the Marshalsea in July, 1540, and was afterwards 

 ■.arraigned in Westminster Hall, though nothing could 

 be proved against him, except that he had sent Qd. and 

 a couple of shirts to the imprisoned priest. He was 

 adjudged to have incurred a praimunire, whereby all 

 his lands and goods became forfeited, and the rapacious 

 monarch enforced the sentence with the most unre- 

 lenting severity. See Baker's Hist, of Northampton- 

 shire, vol. ii. p. 142. ; Collins's Peerage, edit. Brydges, 

 vol. iv. p. 1 99. ; and Lipscomb's Buckinghamshire, 

 vol. ii. p. 570.] 



Churchwardens, Qiuilification of. — Can any of 

 ■your correspondents give the title and price of 

 any work which will define the qualifications re- 

 -quisite for filling the office of churchwarden ? The 

 fCase on which the question has arisen is that of 

 a country parish divided into two townships, each 

 township naming a warden. One of these is a 

 dissenter, and seldom or never attends church ; the 

 other is said not to be a householder. Both of 

 these are, by many of the parishioners, considered 

 ineligible, owing to these circumstances. Should 

 any one send the required information, you would 

 oblige by allowing it to appear in the next Number 

 ■of " N. & Q.," where it would be sure to be seen, 

 ^nd thankfully acknowledged by 



B. B. F. F. T. T. 



[Our correspondent will find the required inform- 

 ation in Prideaux's Churchwarden^ s Guide, 5th edit. 

 1850, price 6s., who has devoted sect. ii. "to the 

 -persons liable to be chosen to the office of church- 

 warden, and the persons disqualified and exempt from 

 ■serving that office." (Pp. 4—17.) Consult also Cripps's 

 Practical Treatise on the Law relating to the Church and 

 the Clergy, 8vo. 1850, pp. 176 — 201., price 26s.] 



Sir John Powell — In Vol. vii., p. 262., of "N. 

 & Q." is an Inquiry respecting Sir John Powell, 

 and an answer given, in which there must surely 



be some mistake, or there must have been two Sir 

 John Powells. 



I beg to give the following extract from Brit- 

 ton's History and Antiquities of the Abiey Church 

 of Gloucester : 



" A full-length marble statue, in judicial robes, 

 erected by John Snell, Esq., to the memory of his 

 uncle. Judge Powell, who in 1685 represented this 

 city, his native place, in parliament. He was succes- 

 sively a Justice of Common Pleas and the King's 

 Bench, and was one of the Judges who tried the seven %■ — 

 Bishops, and joined in the declaration against the 

 King's dispensing power. For this, James II. de- 

 prived him of his office, July 2, 1688 ; but William III. 

 created him, first a Baron of the Exchequer, then a 

 Judge in the Common Pleas, and on June 18, 1702, 

 advanced him to the King's Bench, where he sat till his 

 death, June 14, 1713." 



I will add, that on the floor near the above 

 monument are inscribed the names, &c. of various 

 members of his family. 



Sir John Powell is traditionally said to have 

 lived at an old house called Wightfield in this 

 county, which certainly belonged, at one time, to 

 the above John Snell, who had married the judge's 

 niece, and from wkose descendants it was pur- 

 chased by the grandfather of the present possessor. 



Allow me to ask, by-the-bye, if the place, as 

 spelt in your paper, should not be Langharne, or 

 more correctly still, Llangharne ? F. S. 



Gloucestershire. 



[There were not only two, but three judges of the ^-^ 

 name of Powell, who were cotemporaries, viz. — 



1. Sir John Powell, mentioned in " N. & Q." 

 (Vol. vii., p. 262.), whose burial-place should have 

 been printed Llangharne, as our correspondent sug- 

 gests. He was made a Judge of the Common Pleas 

 on April 26, 1686, and a Judge of the King's Bench 

 on April 16, 1687. He was removed on June 29, 



1688, in consequence of the resolution he displayed on 

 the trial of the seven bishops ; but was restored to the 

 Bench, as a Judge of the Common Pleas, in May, 



1689, and continued to sit till his death in 1696. 



2. Sir Thomas Powell became a Baron of the Ex- 

 chequer on April 22, 1687, and was transferred into 

 the King's Bench in June, 1688, to take the seat there 

 left vacant by the removal of the above Sir John 

 Powell. He himself was removed in May, 1689. 



3. Sir John Powell, or, as he was then called, John 

 Powell, junior, was made a Baron of the Exchequer on 

 November 10, 1691, removed into the Common Pleas 

 on October 29, 1695, and into the King's Bench in 

 June, 1702, where he sat till his death in 1713. He it 

 was who was buried at Gloucester. 



Britton has evidently, as Chalmers and Noble had 

 done before him, commingled and confused the histories 

 of the two Sir Johns.] 



S. N:s ''Antidote" Sr^.—l have just purchased 

 an old book, in small quarto, of which the title is — 



« An Antidote or Soveraigne Remedie against the 

 pestiferous Writings of all English Sectaries, and in 



