r 



Wiltshire Quarter Sessions. 19 



Michffilmas, 1609 :— 



"May it please yo' good worPP" to understand that this bearer .... 

 of Bulkington had a good while since be married to .... but that they 

 both stand excommunicate. For they both desired that y^ Bannes of Matnmome 

 betwene them might be published, and that in short tyme after they might be 

 maried. Which I might not doe before they were restored to y' Church. On 

 Thursday next at y' visitation I ti-ust that at their humble petition Mr. Chancellor 

 will absolve them. And then, God willing, with as much speed as convemently 

 may be used in such a busines they shalbe maried. 2 October 1609 



" Fbancis Gkeateakes 



" Vicar of Kevelei^k 



" alias Kevell." 



At the Michaelmas Sessions, 1604, occurs the following memo- 



randum : — 



"Albeit I find in the Eegister but one .... chUd of . . . .yet 

 by the report .... in Brinctworth parish he had 2 . . . • both 

 were baptized in Brinckworth before my time 



" Ed : HuTCHiNS 



" Rector of Brinckworth." 



And this, o£ some impenitent profligate :— 



" Which order the seyd reputed father hath obstinately neglected and doeth 

 utterly refuse to accomplish the same, saying that he wiU rayther rottm prisone 

 than paye a penye of it." 



At the Trinity Sessions, 1607, a petitioner, for an order on a neigh- 

 bour for the support o£ a child adds a warning that the latter :— 



" Beinge often intreated to that purpose .... hath neverthelesse of late 

 threatened your suppliant to choppe a dagger into his side, and for that bee 

 within these few yeares past did kill a man and is a dangerous and sweannge 

 person and farder saith .... lihe [the dangerous and swearing person^ 

 have any charge .... there should no purse uppon the plaine * escape 

 his fingers." 



To excommunication and its consequences allusion also occurs on 

 the file of the Easter Sessions, 1606, in a complaint of Thomas 



• So an old proverb, quoted in an earlier volume by the Eev. A. C. Smith :- 



" Salisbury Plain," 



Is seldom without a thief or t-wain." 



C % 



