a 
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By W. W. Ravenhill, Esq. 13 
placed with the body. If it was exposed on the scaffold or on the 
castle gate at Exeter, it may easily have disappeared. 
Returning now to the survivors. 
Fortunately there stood by Mrs. Penruddock’s side, at this time, 
one who appears to have faithfully and kindly fulfilled the trust re- 
posed in him by Colonel Penruddock, of protecting her and her 
children.? 
John Martin, the Vicar of Compton, can have been no ordi- 
nary man; for more than half a century he retained the re- 
spect and esteem of dis contemporaries. To a manly character 
he added a highly-cultivated intellect. He was the counterpart 
of the Vicar of Bray, for John Martin never wavered in his 
allegiance to the trust which in his opinion was committed to 
him at his ordination as a clergyman of the Church of England. 
The account books at Compton and the parish register appear to 
indicate that he was a good man of business, one likely to throw 
some method and thought into the conduct of his lost patron’s 
affairs. Perchance he was of the old Wiltshire family of Martyn. 
“There is a “ John Martyn” on the Commission of the twelfth year 
of Henry VI. (1468 ; see note to Fuller’s Worthies), who may have 
been his ancestor. But it will be well to give Anthony Wood’s account 
of him, for he knew his relation, Nicholas Martin, Vice Principal of 
Hart Hall, Oxford, and heard of him also from Aubrey :— 
*¢ John Martin son of a father of both his names, who was a schoolmaster in 
a little market town called Meere in Wilts, was born there, became a batler of 
Trin. Coll. in Lent term an 1637 aged 17 years, with hopes of obtaining a 
scholarship there by the favour of Dr. Hannibal Potter, the president of that 
House (upon whose account he first settled there),* but that design failing, his 
father caused him to be entered into Oriel Coll,.where being put under a careful 
tutor, he took one degree in arts Anno 1640. In 1642 the civil war began, and 
whether he bore armes for his Majesty within the Garrison of Oxon, or was 
called home by his relations, I know not. 
1 What Anthony Wood meant by talking of Colonel Penruddock’s “ altar- 
tomb” was best known to himself. It never existed. I am indebted for the 
_ above information about Colonel Penruddock’s grave to Mr. Penruddock, of 
Compton, and a recent correspondence in a local paper. 
2 Desire Mr. Martyn to attend you in this business.”—Col. Penruddock’s 
letter to his wife, March 16th, 1655. Wilts Arch. Mag. vol. xiii., p. 133, 
* How this intimacy arose does not appear, as Wood gives no details of Potter’s birth, &, 
