306 On some Curiosities and Statistics of Parish Registers. 



Exeter Cathedral, which was addressed by Sir Piers Edgecombe to 

 Lord Cromwell on this subject. It runs thus : — 



" Plesse it yovr goode Lordeshyp to be advertyssed that the Kynng's Majesty 

 hath oommandyd me at my beynge in hys gracious presens, that in casse I par. 

 ceyvyd any grugge or myscontentacyon amangge hys sojectes, I shulde ther off 

 advertyssey our Lordeschypp by my wry tinge. Hyt ys now comme to my knolegge 

 this 20 day of Apryll by a ryght trew honest man a servant of myn, that ther 

 is moche secrett and severall communycacyons amongges the kyngges sojettes and 

 that off them in sundry placess with in the schires of Cornwall and Devoasher 

 be in greate feer and mystrust what the Kyngges Hyghness and hys Conseyll 

 schulde meane to give in commaundment to the parsons and vy cars of every 

 parisse that they shulde make a booke, and surely to be kept wher in to be 

 specysfy-yd the namys off as many as be wedded and the namys off them that be 

 buryyd, and off all those that be crysteyned. 



"Now ye may perceyve the myndes off many what ys to be don to avoyde 

 ther unserteyn conjecturys, and to contynue and stablysse ther hartes in trew 

 naturall loff accordynge ther dewties, I referr to yovr wysdom. Ther mystrust 

 ys that somme charges more than hath byn in tymys past shall growe to theym 

 by this occacyon off regesstrynge of thes thynges; wher in ytt hyt schall 

 please the Kyngges Majeste to put them youte off dowte, in my poor mynde 

 schall encresse moche harty loff. And I besseche our Lorde preserve yow ever 

 to his pleasser. 20"^ daye off Apryll. Scrybelyd in hast. P. Eggecomb." 



Thus far Sir Piers Edgecombe, but Sir Cuthbert Sharp, in his 

 Chronicon Miral)ile, does not give us at all the like account of the 

 reception accorded to the injimctions. He says : — 



" Cromwell, who sternly governed poop and helm, 

 Bade registers be kept throught the realm. 

 Then each incumbent gat him grey goose quill 

 And ' boke of Pergamene,' and wrote his fill." 



Prologue iv. 



And in fact in no less than forty parishes there are entries dating 

 to an even earlier period, copied no doubt from still older books which 

 have perished. Of the books begun in the year 1538 in obedience to 

 the injunctions, as many as eight hundred and twelve are still extant, 

 among which are to be reckoned those of Ogbourne St. Andrew 

 and Calne, while the Heddington books begin only one year later, — 

 as early, very probably, as there was anything to record. The best 

 preserved of these original books that I have come across, is in the 

 church of St. Michael's Bassishaw, London, where the old leaves 

 were in 1872 skilfully embedded in margins of toned paper, and 



