The Wilts County Court — Devizes versus Wilton. 113 



the hundred of Egleij has unintentionally streng-thened his argument 

 by mentioning Yatiendon, a village seven miles north-east from 

 Newbury, as the place referred to by Dr. Beke as the site of the 

 action ; but it is Eddington, near Hungerford, which the latter 

 suggested, and some fourteen miles nearer Ecbright's stone. 



^\t W\\h Countg Court. 



§MltS versus MiltOll.^ 

 By James Watlen, 



^j^'HE changes which the last two hundred years have brought 

 ^TJKfi^ about in the judicial machinery of courts and polling places, 

 quite remove from the discussion which the above headmg may seem 

 to indicate, anything like the ignominious element of local rivalry. 

 With all this we have now done. Bui the t-tory of the transfer of 

 the County Court may still have attractions for the archaeological 

 mind; the more so as it has hitherto received very little notice from 

 our local annalists. 



The first thing to be noted is that in the great Civil War the 

 Parliament's cause had not a more ardent adherent in Wiltshire than 

 Robert Hippisley, of Stanton Fitz warren : and that in after days 

 he became so attached to the Protector Oliver as to be spoken of by 

 his adversaries as one of Cromwell's creatures. The same epithet 

 was applied to another gentleman in that part of the county, namely 

 Isaac Burgess, of Marlborough. Now, both of these gentlemen 

 were in turn sheriffs of the county during the transition period 

 before and after Cromwell's death, and both of them interested 

 themselves in getting the County Court transferred from Wilton to 



^ A portion of this paper has already appeared in " Gillman's Devises 

 Almanack and Directory for 1892." 



