The Neir Forest : its History and it* 



the second earliest parish register in Hampshire, beginning one 

 year before Cromwell's Act has been passed ; showing, as was 

 before noticed, that this part of the Forest was always the richest, 

 and, consequently, the most civilized.* In this register we find 

 the following most interesting entry : 



" 1654. Thomas Burges, the sonne of William Burges and 

 Elizabeth Eussel, the daughter of Elizabeth, the now wife of 

 Stephen Newland, were asked three Sabbath dayes, in the Parish 

 Church of Eling: sc : Apriel 16th, Ap r 23rd, Ap r 30th, and were 

 rnarr : by Richard L d Cram well, May xxii d ." 



I need scarcely add that it was under the Protector that an 

 Act of Parliament was passed in 1653, enabling any persons, 

 after the due proclamation of the banns in the church or chapel, 

 or in the market-place, on three market days, to be married by 

 a simple affirmation before a magistrate ; thus in a remarkable 

 way nearly anticipating modern legislature. f The Protector's 

 son, at the date of this entry, was probably living at Hursley, 

 about ten miles away to the north. 



Going across to the other side of the Forest, we shall, at 

 Ellingham, find, in the Churchwardens' Books, an entry in a 

 different way quite as interesting. The leaf is, I am sorry to 

 say, very much torn, and, towards the lower part, half of it is 

 wanting. I give, however, the extract as it stands, indicating 

 the missing passages by the breaks : 



* See chapter v., p. 51, foot-note. 



f Part of the Act is quoted in Burn's History of Pariah Registers, 

 second edition, pp. 2G and 27, and where, at pp. 159, 160, 161, are given 

 several examples of this kind of marriage amongst them, that of Oliver 

 Cromwell's daughter Frances, in 1657, from the Register of St. Martin's-in- 

 the Fields. 



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