122 Review of Waylen’s History of Marlborough. 
who held there in 1267 the Parliament at which the celebrated 
“Statutes of Marlborough” were enacted. Like many other 
boroughs, if not all, its Constitution was at first, and for a long 
period, of a liberal character, the entire body of the inhabitants, 
paying scot and lot, having the rights and privileges of burgesses. 
But by degrees the governing body became, as in so many other 
instances, narrowed to a small exclusive self-elected body, till 
“yeduced at last to some half-dozen individuals, they invited by 
their insignificance the hand of reform.” The history of these 
various changes is given in an interesting narrative by Mr. 
Waylen, but we have not space, of course, to follow him through it. 
The Seymour family, who possessed the castle of Marlborough, 
with the lordship called the “ Barton,” and the forests of Savernak 
and Albourn Chase, as also many large adjoining estates, mostly 
inherited from the Esturmys of Wolfhall, who had held lands in 
this neighbourhood from the time of the Conqueror, naturally 
exercised great influence over the borough. The Karl of Hertford, 
son of ths Protector, inhabited the mansion of Amesbury, and 
oceasionally resided at Tottenham. It was his grandson, Sir 
Francis Seymour, younger brother of the then Earl, who built for 
his residence the large house on the ‘site of the old castle, long 
known to many.yet living as the Castle Inn, and now the nucleus 
of the Marlborough College. He was returned to the long Par- 
liament as one of the members for Marlborough, his colleague being 
John Franklyn, and both at first opponents of the extravagant 
pretensions of the prerogative. Sir Francis, however, when the 
crisis approached, sided with the King, who raised him to the 
peerage under the title of Baron Trowbridge, while his colleague, 
Franklyn, and his successor, Philip Smith, remained firm to the 
popular cause, and the former played a very prominent part in the 
ensuing incidents of the great rebellion. 
Wiltshire was full of non-conformists, and the inhabitants of 
Marlborough especially were in Clarendon’s estimation “ notoriously 
disaffected.”” This was shewn in 1642 by their liberal contributions 
to the parliamentary loans, and their voluntary enrolment in large 
