262 Records of the Rising in the West, A.D. 1655. 
Devon, Had theyre Lives and Estates assured them by articles and conditions 
then and there signed and delivered. 
May it therefore Please your Hon". that since they have such articles and 
conditions granted them, that they may insist upon them, and that your 
petitioners being Poore Disconsolate Prisoners whom none dare Assist. Your 
Hon", would be pleased since theyre Lives and fortunes wholly depend thereon, 
to Assigne them counsell Learned in the law to plead they" Articles, that soe 
your Petioners being Ignorant of the Lawes may not cast away they" lives by 
neglect of such meanes the Law in such cases does Afford them. 
And your Petitioners 
Shall ever pray, &c.” 
The following most interesting record follows, and is now printed 
in its original state for the first time, the interpolations or corrections 
of the “gentleman to whom it was entrusted,” being placed in notes. 
It is written by Penruddock himself on two large sheets of white 
paper, and occupies five pages, the sixth is taken up with the notes. 
The writing is small, but usually clear and written with care.! 
““S.* though I received yo". desires something to late it being but two days 
before notice given mee From the Shreife of the day of my Expiration (For I 
cannot call this an execution) it beinge For such a cause yeat in order to yo 
satisfaction I have borrowed soe much time From my more serious meditations 
as to give you this short account of my tryall wherein you must excuset both 
the brevitie & imperfections it being but the issues of a Bad memory. 
Upon Thursday Aprill 19° 1655 the Commission™ of Oyer & Termyner beinge 
sate in the castle at Exon, summons before them myselfe, Mr. Hugh Grove, Mr. 
Richard Ryves, Mr. Robert Duke, Mr. George Duke, Mr. Thomas Fitz-James, 
Mr. { Mr. Francis Jones, Mr. Edward Davis, Mr. Thomas Poulton & Mr. 
Francis Bennet. Being all called to the Barr, wee were commanded to hold up 
1 The trial as given in Howell’s State Trials is apparently copied from the 
pamphlet entitled ‘‘ The Triall of the Hon. Col. John Penruddock, of Compton, 
in Wiltshire, and his speech which he delivered the day before he was beheaded 
in the Castle of Exon, being the 16th day of May, 1655, to a gent. whom he 
desired to publish them after his death. Together with his prayer upon the 
scaffold, and the last letter he received from his vertuous Lady, with his 
answer to the same. Also the speech of that piously resolved gentleman, Hugh. 
Grove, of Chissenbury, in the parish of Enford, and County of Wilts, Esquire, 
beheaded there the same day. Printed by order of the Gent. intrusted, 1655.” 
Date written upon it by Mr. Thomason, July 2nd. This was afterwards used 
in the compilation of ‘‘England’s Black Tribunal,” which has passed through 
many additions and editions, sometimes calling it ‘‘ the Trial and illegal pro- 
ceedings,” sometimes ‘‘ Illegal proceedings” only. The pamphlet will be found 
in the King’s Pamplets, Sm. Qto., vol. 652. 
® “The account’ does not disclose his name; nor have I as yet discovered it. 
+ Here an erasure of a word, clearly “‘ brevitie.” 
$A name erased and quite indecipherable, 
