€f)e ^cvi)|)s1^itt Iftitton of X641. 



Contributed by Sir George Sitwell, Bart. 



|E are fortunate in possessing information as to the 

 part which Derbyshire has played in the great events 

 of the last four or five hundred years. The roll of 

 those who fought at Agincourt and Crecy has been 

 printed by Mr. Yeatman, and the names of the subscribers for 

 the defence of the county in 1588, 1745, and 1794 are to be 

 found in Simpson's " Derby," and in the newspapers of the time. 

 But I have always regretted that we have no list of the Derbyshire 

 squires who followed the Earl of Devonshire to Derby and 

 Nottingham in 1688, or any record to show us who took the 

 side of king or of Parliament at the outbreak of the Civil War. 

 It was, therefore, a real and an unexpected pleasure to me, when 

 lately glancing at Dr. Pegge's collection in the College of Arms, 

 to find in one of his " miscellaneous " volumes the following 

 petition from the " Baronets, Knights, Esquires, Gentlemen, 

 Freeholders, and others, inhabitants of the county of Derby." 

 Two or three similar petitions are preserved in the National 

 Library, as may be seen by referring to the general catalogue 

 under " Derbyshire," but this differs from them in having the 

 names of those who signed it attached. It is endorsed " 1640," 

 probably by Dr. Pegge, but the signatures of Sir John Harpur, 

 the High Sheriff, and of Luke Whittington, Mayor of Derby, 

 proves that it was drawn up in the following year. The position 

 occupied by the names of Sir William Every, who was created a 

 Baronet on the 26th May of that year, and of Sir Samuel Sleigh 



