132 



Ptoceclimss of if)c 43cvi)gsl)ire d^ommittrr for 

 Compountrtng, antf otJ)cv CommonUjcaltib 

 l^apcvs. 



By Rev. J. Charles Cox, LL.D., F.S.A. 



IN the eleventh volume of the Journal of this Society, 

 a considerable number of documents were given 

 relative to the sequestration of the Derbyshire estates 

 of Philip Earl of Chesterfield. Among the manu- 

 scripts of the library at Meynell Langley, are various other 

 original papers pertaining to the sequestrated lands of different 

 Derbyshire "delinquents" during the Commonwealth. These 

 papers are chiefly of the year 1652, but extend also occasionally 

 a year or two on either side. There is no record at Meynell 

 Langley, that we have been able to trace, which in any way 

 explains how the late Mr. Godfrey Meynell became possessed of 

 this bundle of interesting papers. But the late Dr. Webb, of 

 Wirksworth, once assured us that he had heard on good authority 

 that they were obtained for a trifle by Mr. Meynell from an 

 impoverished descendant of Robert Mellor, who was Mayor of 

 Derby in 1647, and who was one of the most active of the 

 Derbyshire Commissioners for the sequestration of the estates 

 of delinquents. At the Restoration, almost the whole of the local 

 documents of this class, showing the work done by the resi- 

 dent Commissioners, were naturally destroyed, a fact that gives 

 additional value to these Derbyshire instances. 



For brief notes with regard to some of the central Commis- 

 sioners for Compounding, as well as the Derbyshire officials, the 

 reader is referred back to the article in the eleventh volume. 



