328 The Wiltshire Compounders. 
volume. Some few domestic facts are revealed in the letters of Mr. 
Michell, of Laycock, already noticed under the article ‘‘ Fane,” who 
appears to have been the legal adviser of the entire branch resident 
in Wilts, and the especial confidante of the Montagus. But this 
may suffice. 
Witiiam Tuurmay, of the Devizes, mercer. The charges brought 
against him wore at first a somewhat threatening aspect; but 
whether or not he was a Royalist at heart, he succeeded in ex- 
plaining them away to the satisfaction of his fellow-townsmen, and 
apparently also of the sequestrators ; for the fine pronounced against 
him in London was never paid. His first offence was committed at 
the very outbreak of hostilities, when the rural districts were 
paralyzed by the irruptions of Prince Rupert and Colonel Lunsford, 
who were treating England as a foreign conquered country. Mr. 
Thurman was accused of aiding in the conveyance to Malmesbury 
and handing over to the Royalists certain plate which had been 
gathered from various quarters and Jodged in Devizes for the use of 
the Parliament. Another more serious count in his indictment 
charged him with giving evidence at Salisbury against sundry of 
the Parliament’s friends, at what were popularly termed “ The 
Illegal Assizes,” to which frequent allusion has already been made 
in these papers. As to the affair of the plate, he affirms, in his 
petition, that the part which he took in it was at the request of his 
neighbours, and that he knew not what was contained in the packages 
till he reached Malmesbury. In respect of his action at the Salisbury 
Assizes, he pleaded his personal ignorance of the political character 
of the proceedings, as also the pressure that had been put upon him 
by force and threats to compel his attendance there. He makes the 
further declaration that he was never a Popish recusant, nor Popishly 
affected—that he had never Jived out of the Devizes, and that he 
had been compelled to pay contributions to both parties as they 
alternately held the place. He has already compounded for his 
delinquency with the local committee by paying them £130 on his 
personal estate, and for greater satisfaction he has taken both the 
oaths, On his real estate, which consisted principally of messuages 
