Licence for Eating Meat. 



" Martii 13. Anno dom. 1634. A special license, granted 

 by the moste reverende fi'ather in God, William Lord Arch- 

 bishop of Canterbury his Grace, under his Grace's hand and 

 scale, used in the like grants, dated the nyneteenth day of 

 ffebruarie, Anno dom. 1634, and second yeare of his Grace's 

 translation. And confirmed by the Letters patents of our 

 Sovraigne Lord Charles the King's rna. tie that now is .... 

 Under the Greate Seale of England ffor S r White Beconsaw of 

 this parish and county of Soutnton .... (and) Dame 

 Edith hys wife ffor the tyme of their naturell (lives) .... 

 to eate flesh on the daies phibited by the Lawe .... 

 (upon condition of their giving to the) poore of the pish 

 . . . . Thirteene shillings . . . ." 



Whether or no the knyght and his lady were to give the 

 sum yearly, as seems most probable, it is impossible, from the 

 torn condition of the leaf, to say. Their daughter was the 

 noble Alice Lisle. The licence, of course, refers to the prohi- 

 bition against eating meat on Fridays and Saturdays, and other 

 specified times, first made by Elizabeth for the encouragement 

 of the English fisheries, which had even in her reign begun to 

 decay.* And now that we are on the subject of Church- 



* Burn, in his History of Parish Registers, second edition, pp. 171, 

 172, 173, gives several similar instances of such licences. These most valu- 

 able books at Ellingham are, notwithstanding the incumbent's care, in a 

 shocking state of preservation. I trust some transcript of them may be 

 made before they quite fall to pieces. Ellingham also possesses another 

 book containing the names of the owners of the different pews in the church 

 in 1672, invaluable to any local historian. In the beginning of this book are 

 inserted a number of law-forms of agreements, wills, and indentures, pro- 

 bably for the use of the clergyman, who was, perhaps, consulted by his 

 parishioners in worldly as also spiritual matters. In the Register there is, 

 unfortunately, no mention of the death of Alice Lisle, as the burials are torn 

 out from 1664 to 1695. 



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