The Long familif in Potterne. 269 



Queen Elizabeth the sum of twenty pounds for the space of one 

 year. This, I imagine, must have been a brother of the ex-member, 

 who sued the unhappy burgesses for his " one session's wages/' He 

 need not have been so urgent, for, as the writ testifies, " special 

 choice hath been made of such of our loving subjects as are known 

 to be of ability," for the purposes of this loan. The "accommodation" 

 was loyally rendered at the Crown Inn in The Devizes on July 26, 

 1597, a due receipt having been given for it by Edward Hungerford, 

 appointed to be the receiver of the same. 



A word or two must be said about the Long family in Potterne. 

 The first known settler here was Thomas Long who died in 1566, 

 and whose first wife was Isabel daughter of John Flower of Potterne. 

 It is from him that the late Mr. Charles Edward Long (than whom 

 no one knew more of the wide-spreading and well-treasured pedi- 

 grees of his family) traced the direct paternal descent of the Longs, 

 both of Preshaw in Hants, and of Rood Ashton. It would be in- 

 deed venturesome, not to say irrelevant, to attempt to find a way 

 through the labyrinth of the Long pedigree. Thus much however, 

 I may say, that this same Thomas Long of Potterne, was believed 

 by Mr. C. E. Long to have been a son of Thomas Long of Semington, 

 who died in 1509, and was buried in the chapel of St. George there, 

 and who gave his said son a house and property at Littleton, a ham- 

 let of Steeple Ashton. He considered it probable moreover that 

 " Thomas of Semington " was a near kinsman, probably a nephew 

 of Robert Long of Wraxall, the Rodolph of their race, though the 

 actual joroo/" was wanting. " The descendants of Thomas of Potterne," 

 to use Mr. C. E. Long's words written to me but a few weeks before 

 his lamented decease, " gradually distributed themselves all along 

 the river, in one parish after another — at Keevil, Bulkington, 

 Marston, Worton, Cheverell, and Potterne — all using the same 

 water for their woollens, whilst some were fighting themselves into 

 knights." 



(1600-1700.) — As far as the principal gentry were concerned the 

 Grubbes, the Rookes, and the Flowers were the leading persons in 



1 Jackson's Aubrey, 337. 



