822 The Wiltshire Compounders. 
had recently recovered by law at the assizes from Thomas Coleman, 
but at such a ruinous cost that four years’ profit will not reimburse 
him. Moreover, he stands in fear of his adversary, Coleman, who 
may possibly bring him into trouble for something said or done 
against the Parliament. So, on the whole, he thinks it best 
“voluntarily to discover himself.” There is due to him, he admits, 
£115 from Mr. Philpot, but Mr. Philpot is beyond the seas, and 
this debt, he doubts, will prove desperate. Fine, £54 32, 4d. 
Hewry Sxittine, of Whiteparish. Endeavours having been made 
to prove his recusancy, he procured a counter testimonial in matters 
of religion to the following effect, viz.:—That Henry Skilling 
having received his education in Whiteparish, and constantly re- 
siding there, was a frequenter and hearer of the Word, and a good 
Protestant; as were also old Mr. Richard Skilling and Margaret, 
his wife. Signed by Richard Page, the minister, Thomas Attwell, 
yeoman; Richard Durman, aged 70; William Morris, maltster ; 
Thomas Strugnell, churchwarden; and Richard Walker, parish 
clerk. 
Watrer Suytu, of Great Bedwyn, Esq., M.P. for the borough. 
The delinquency charged against him lay in his having deserted 
the Parliament at Westminster and sat in the King’s Parliament at 
Oxford. The fact indeed was patent, and he suffered accordingly ; 
but the attendant circumstances shew that he suffered in a cause 
which he little esteemed. In the first place, when hostilities coms 
menced, he was far advanced in years; and it may well be conceived 
that the increased activities of Parliamentary life at that crisis made 
attendance in the House very irksome to the aged and infirm. On 
the score of ill-health, therefore, he quitted London and repaired 
into Wiltshire, but on reaching his house at Bedwyn he found the 
premises in possession of “‘a French captain,” who, with a troop of 
horse, was quartered in the house. [Major Dowett, most likely, 
who harried the county, first in the Parliament’s name, afterwards 
in that of the King.] A summons from Oxford now reached him 
requiring his attendance in that city. He went, indeed, but he lay 
