DIARY OF WILLIAM WHITEWAY. 71 



This year Sir George Trenchard kept a very great Christmas at 

 Wolton (1) and on 12th day married his youngest daughter to 

 Mr " 



If Sir George Trenchard kept a very great Christmas at Wolton (1) in 

 this year it must have been a very great one indeed ! for he was Sheriff of 

 the County, and the leading man of his time in Dorset. The " very great 

 Christmas " at Wolton must have troubled Master White, Minister of 

 Holy Trinity, and Master Ben, of All Saints, who were calling upon their 

 respective flocks to renounce all such vanities. 



Feb. 28. "Mr. Eichard Henning left the town." 



1629. April. "In this month Mr. John Brown set up Mr. 

 Hardy's monument in S. Peter's Church, but the town paid 

 for it." 



Aug. 21. " This day the wind was so high that it tore a coach 

 all in pieces upon Eggardon Hill and beat out the brains of a 

 serving maid that was in it." 



26 January. " This night there were strange flashings of light 

 seen in the sky, and the like on the 22nd February, which much 

 troubled the King and the Court; and the llth February there was 

 an earthquake perceived at the new Brewhouse. 



The King and the Court being troubled at the appearance of the Aurora 

 Borealis is a little amusing, but less was known of natural phenomena 

 and their causes in those days than in these. 



Aug. 3. " This day there was a foul outrage committed by the 

 gentlemen of Lincoln upon a pursuivant thither, to apprehend one 

 that killed one of the King's deer. They shaved him, snipt his 

 ears, wash't him in the kennels, and kicked him out at the gate. 

 The King took it much to heart." 



This gentleman who killed one of the King's deer fared better than Sir 

 J. Delalinde, who for killing a white hart belonging to King Henry III. 

 in Blackmore Vale, was condemned, it is said, to pay a sum of money 

 yearly into the King's treasury, and certainly white-hart money has been 

 paid yearly by his successors up to quite recent times. 



(1.) Coker speaks of the stream that "runneth by Wolton more 

 truelie Wolverhampton, a fine and rich seate." " Sir Thomas Freeman, 

 gracious with Henry VIII., was the chief e Builder of the House, nowe the 

 habitation of Sir George Trenchard." 



