330 The Wiltshire Compounders. 
Wilts, worth £16 8s. over and above the reserved rent, paid to the 
Lord Cottington, of £3 12s. He craves allowance for forty shillings 
a year, payable out of Critchell Farm to Eleanor Miles, widow. 
Fine, £65. Dated, 6th August, 1646. 
Pyt-house, the seat of an ancestor styled Pytt, alias Bennett, 
remained in the family till sold in 1669 to Peter Dove, of New 
Sarum. In 1725 it was bought by Thomas Bennet, of Norton 
Bavant (nephew of Colonel Thomas Bennett, the secretary to Prince 
Rupert), who married Ethelred, daughter and co-heir of William 
Wake, Archbishop of Canterbury, and was grandfather of the late 
John Bennett, so many years M.P. for the county. 
Witutam Bennett, of Heytesbury, gent. 
The petition ‘‘ Sheweth—That your petitioner’s estate being, by an order of 
the Committee for advance of moneys, dated 10 July last, seized for the use of 
the State, upon pretence of delinquency discovered by Mrs. Margaret Mounsell 
administratrix of Captain Peter Mounsell deceased, for the payment of his arrears, 
according to an ordinance of Parliament :—In obedience unto which order, your 
petitioner submitting himself to the favour of this honourable Court, humbly 
confesseth that for about the space of two months he rode in the troop of Sir 
George Vaughan the High Sheriff of this county for the late King; which he 
was enforced to do for the preservation of himself, and of his wife and children, 
who must otherwise have perished, because your petitioner had formerly engaged 
for the Parliament, and durst not stay at home :—which your petitioner leaves 
to your favourable consideration, humbly praying to be dismissed of his charge- 
able attendance here; and hath hereunto annexed his particular. Your petitioner 
humbly prays your honours that if in your grave judgment you think him worthy 
to pay any fine at all, you will please in the settling thereof to consider his wife 
and children and many debts and to be favourable unto him, 
‘“‘He is seised of a messuage or tenement in Heytesbury of the yearly value 
of £40. He hath several small tenements in Heytesbury in reversion of his 
mother, annual value £3 16s. His goods and personal estate he estimates at 
£102 19s. 4d. In abatement he affirms that £30 a year is made over to friends 
in trust for the use of his wife in consideration of marriage ; that he payeth to 
his mother an annuity of £12, and that the messuage is mortgaged to William 
Adlam of Crockerton for a debt of £320.” 
‘(15 Nov. 1649. The fine ata sixth is £154; but if there be legally settled 
on his mother for life £12 per annum and he can make it appear, then the 
abatement is £18. And if the estate be legally charged with any debt, then 
abatement to be made accordingly, provided the same be made to appear unto 
this committee. This the compounder hath undertaken to do within one month, 
and if not performed the fine to stand at £154.” 
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