By Mr. J. Waylen. 117 
union of the gentry and agriculturists of South Wilts and Dorset, 
to protect their property from both the conflicting parties.) Andrew 
Marshman swore that Dr. Wren not only encouraged his parish- 
ioners to assist, but when Mr. Thomas Bennett, of Pythouse, came 
to Knoyle to invite their co-operation, Dr. Wren seconded Mr. 
Bennett’s remarks, and even went forth himself with Mr. Bennett, 
carrying a caliver upon his shoulder. (The Doctor was probably 
shooting pheasants.) 
Against this and other testimony to the same import, Randall 
Dominick declared that Dr. Wren had expressed so decided an 
opposition to the ‘Club-business,” that the parish of Knoyle did 
not list themselves. 
We next come to the story of the pictures in the church. These 
were loosely reported at first as “superstitious,” but the only evi- 
dence worth reciting in this place, will be that of the workman 
who executed them under the Doctor’s supervision ; and the whole 
affair shows that the love of pictorial embellishment as an accessory 
to architecture, which his distinguished son afterwards gratified 
in the Dome of St. Paul’s, was a taste derived from the father. 
Little Christopher was perhaps too young to have watched the 
progress of the frescoes at Knoyle, being then only eight years of 
age, but he was fifteen or sixteen before he left Wiltshire. 
Robert Brockway, of Quinten, in Dorset, plasterer, being sworn, 
saith,—‘That about July, eight years ago, or thereabouts, Dr. Wren 
sent for him, and agreed with him to make and set up in the chan- 
cel at Knoyle, in fret-work, the picture of the four Evangelists and 
such other things as the Doctor should invent. And, accordingly, 
he did invent and make a model or draught thereof in paper, which 
he gave to this examinant and caused him to make it, viz., the 
picture of the Ascension, with the twelve Apostles, and Christ as- 
cending in the clouds, his feet and lower part of his garment being 
seen below the clouds. This stood at the lower end of the chancel 
next towards the church. He also gave this examinant a draught 
of ‘The Trinity,’ formed by three rounds linked in each other, 
an emblem in the midst, with glory around it; and above that, 
clouds on the roof. This was over the communion table. Further, 
