36 The History of the Parish of All Cannings. 



his son was the last Grand Prior of the order of St. John of Jeru- 

 salem in the reign of Mary, an honor, conferred on him through 

 the interest of Cardinal Pole, which entitled him to a seat in 

 the upper House of Parliament, next to the Abbot of Westminster, 

 and above all lay Barons. Another, as we have seen, was the 

 last Abbess of St. Mary, Winchester. As the pedigree, from 

 which we give extracts, will shew, no less than two Baronetcies, 

 each of them existing at the present time, were in course of years 

 granted to them. The Shelley family appear as owners of the 

 manor of Easton, in the parish of Berwick St. John, in South Wilts, 

 in 1643, and some further account of them may be seen in Sir R. C. 

 Hoare's History of the Hundred of Chalk, from the pen of Mr. 

 Bowles.^ 



The family of Nicholas was seated at Roundway (or Ryndway) 

 as early as the time of Edward III., and this continued for nearly 

 five centuries to be the elder branch. The same family are after- 

 wards found in other places in Wilts, — at Compton Chamberlain, 

 Coate in Bishops Cannings, Brokenborough, Stert, All Cannings 

 in 1553 ; — at Seend in 1669, — Manningford Braose (Bruce) in 

 1756, — and at Ashton Keynes. Some account of this elder branch 

 of the family will be found in the Wilts Magazine, vi., 136, in 

 Archdeacon Macdonald's " Memoir of Bishops Cannings." 



sent him (the Judge) to take the same recognisance, having in his Grace such 

 affiance as that he would not refuse so to do." — The Cardinal answered, "Master 

 Shelley, I know that the King is of his own nature of a royal stomach not wil- 

 ling more than justice shall lead him unto hy the law of the land, and therefore 

 I counsel you and all other judges and learned men of his council to put no 

 more into his head than that law may stand with conscience ; for when you tell 

 him this is the law, ye shall tell him also that, though this be law, yet this is 

 conscience, for law without conscience is not meet to be given to a King by his 

 council, for every Counsellor to a King ought to have respect to conscience 

 before the rigour of the law ; the King ought for his dignity and prerogative 

 to mitigate the rigour of the law, when conscience hath no more force." The 

 Cardinal, nevertheless, entered into the said recognisance, returning by Judge 

 Shelley this message to the King : — " That he was his Majesty's most faithful 

 subject, obediencer, and beadsman, whose royal commandment and request he 

 would in no way disobey, but fulfil his pleasure in all things wherein the fathers 

 of the law say that he might lawfully do," — adding however these words, "That 

 he most humbly desired of his Majesty to call to his most gracious remembrance, 

 that there is both a Heaven and Hell." 



' History of the Hundred of Chalk, pp. 34, 65, 



