By W. W. Ravenhill, Esq. 179 
away with this Examinate’s horse after his Master to Salisbury. He saith 
further, that the said groom came home on Thursday night without this Exami- 
nate’s horse; and so soon as he came home, he went away and cannot be heard 
of since. And further this Examinate saith not, but to the truth hereof setteth 
his hand, the 9th day of July 1655. 
This Examination was taken before 
The Mark of Rich [R] Rowe.” 
Mr. Willoughby then, though to a certain extent trusted by the 
Government, was fond of the society of Royalists; and thereby 
- brought his body into trouble on the present occasion. Let us hope 
that he and his fiddler lived to see the restoration ; for we need have 
no anxiety, as to his finding dancer-guests. The expression, 
“further saith,” occuring at several intervals, may be thought 
to shew the periods at which the examiner was pressing for infor- 
mation. — 
But we must proceed with the story of the other prisoners. Thorpe, 
Lawrence, and Fryer were found guilty, and Mackes pleaded guilty. 
“ Lawrence, was a poor tenant of Penruddock’s, a person of no 
quality or ability to do mischief, and so was induced to join; this 
with other circumstances might make him a subject for his high- 
nesses mercy.” Not so was John Thorpe, formerly keeper of the 
Salisbury Gaol, now active in breaking it open and setting the 
prisoners at liberty ; moreover he was one of those, who seized horses 
and rode away with them. Lastly, he was a publican, a tree from 
root to branch utterly rotten. ‘ Let him be cut down.” 
The Mercurius Politicus newspaper (April 13th to 19th) says of 
Laurence 
“that he was a servant of Penruddock’s and Fryer was a tenant, both inveigled 
in by him.” 
Edmond Mackes, the apothecary, expected pardon because he had 
made a clean breast of the whole matter (so he said) from the very 
first. But he had been too much engaged, for the Government to 
withdraw from prosecuting him. Again now, he confessed at the 
bar; so that a triat was unnecessary. 
John Woodward, another of the prisoners, was convicted on a 
separate indictment for horse-stealing, he was deserving of no mercy 
thought Mr. Attorney. 
02 
