By J. Waylen. 861 
During this winter of 1645-6, while the people of Wiltshire were 
nursing the fond belief that the war was at an end, they were 
suddenly undeceived by the irruption of a body of about eight 
hundred horse from Oxford, under the command of Sir John 
Cansfield, and Sir James Long. This was about the 20th of 
January ; and it so happened that a portion of the Wilts Committee 
was just then sitting in conclave at Marlborough, protected by 
Colonel Eyre, the Governor of Devizes, with three troops of horse 
and a hundred foot soldiers. These were all captured ; and by the 
aid of the newspapers we can then track the further advance of the 
invaders through the south of the county, gathering as they went 
along horses, money, and prisoners. Skippon, then at Bristol, 
strove hard but in vain to come in contact with them; till at last 
they were intercepted and scattered by Mr. Sheriff Thistlethwayte 
at the head of the posse comitatus, probably near Salisbury.—% The 
mischievous horse from Oxford,” writes one of the newspaper cor- 
respondents, “ that took the Committee and gentlemen at Marl- 
borough, of whom I told you last week, have since been beaten by 
the High Sheriff of the County, gallant Master Thistlethwayte. 
Would that we had more such sheriffs and fewer committees, for 
they make divisions in most counties,’—Scottish Dove, 4th Feb. 
The “gallant” sheriff here memorialised, namely Alexander 
Thistlethwayte, jun., of Winterslow, was not, it need hardly be said, 
the nominee of the King, though, like many other of the great 
families at that crisis, the Thistlethwaytes were a divided house. 
Besides the two Alexanders, father and son, Peregrine and Henry 
are conspicuous on the Parliament’s side as early as November, 1642. 
In February, 1646, Mrs. Thomasine petitions the House for arrears 
due to her deceased husband. See also under Ist May, 1647, for 
the case of Bridget, the widow of Captain Francis Thistlethwayte. 
On the other hand, John Thistlethwayte, Esq., belonging, like the 
Alexanders, to Winterslow, was witnessed against before the Falstone 
House Committee by Henry Thistlethwayte and Timothy King. 
The charges, it is true, were of a very slight nature, just sufficient 
to indicate his Royalist tendencies; for though he donned a buff 
coat and pistols, he does not appear to have gone into action. The 
