A HISTORY OF DORSET 



offence and the fine of each case amounted to 5/., the total income from this 

 source must have been considerable. An alternative punishment was to sit in 

 the stocks, E. Bouzer in 1652 being allowed to choose whether he would 'pay 

 5J. or sitt vi houres by the heeles.' ^" 



A variety of other offences came before the local authorities at this period, 

 such as ' abusing the watch,' ' suffering on the Sabbaoth day to drincke sundry 

 persons,' making armed assaults upon the house of the mayor, ' making com- 

 parisons with him . . . swering many fearful! oathes and using divers unfitt 

 bragges,' disturbing the peace and setting the neighbours by the ears, allowing 

 Frenchmen to drink at the time of evening prayer, and carrying on business 

 without licence.'"' The punishments allotted were as various as the offences. 

 The man who insulted the mayor had to come and make public submission 

 on the following day, abusing the watch was punished in the stocks, the five 

 women who had disturbed the king's peace were found guilty by a jury, and 

 it was ordered by the court ' quod praedicte Temperantia, K., Gratia, Alicia 

 et Thomasina laventur, Anglice ducked ' — the cucking-stool being also the 

 punishment proposed for the wife of a certain ' poore impotent man ' who was 

 in the habit of troubUng her neighbours."" Swearing was punishable with a 

 fine, Nicholas Marriner having to pay 3/. 4^. for one oath in 1652.*"^ Witches 

 also came within the cognizance of the local authority, a deposition being 

 made in the borough court of Melcombe and Weymouth by Edith Bull in 

 1647, to the effect that she had heard Damaris Harvey say 'that A vice Miles 

 is a witch,' and that Amy Gotten ' never prospered after shee was cursed by 

 the said Avice Miles.'*"' A similar case of presentment for witchcraft 

 occurred at Lyme at a somewhat earlier date."" Rogues and vagrants — a class 

 whose existence always constituted one of the problems of English rural life "'^ 

 — were liable under the Vagrants Act to be returned to their birth- 

 place or last habitation. An entry in the Melcombe borough archives for 

 1 617 records that a vagrant person had been 'whipped and sent away by a 

 passe,' but they were always liable to congregate at fairs and other popular 

 gatherings, and appear to have caused considerable anxiety to the Dorset 

 justices ; for in 163 i they paid 40J. to their marshal 'for the great pains and 

 care ' he had given ' in the searching out and apprehending rogues and 

 vagrants at fairs and other great places of meeting within this county.' "' This 

 may have been the outcome of the stringent orders under which the justices 

 were placed at this time to return reports to the Privy Council of their activity 

 in dealing with vagabonds."^' 



But while the new Poor Law system was struggling somewhat in- 

 effectually with the distress caused by the dissolution of the monasteries, 

 inclosures of land, and low wages, the whole country was plunged into far 

 greater misery by the civil wars of the seventeenth century. 



It would be mere speculation to say which of the towns fared worse ; 

 probably the decision would rest between those which were occupied by both 

 parties alternately and the staunch Royalist centres which offered a stout resist- 

 ance. Weymouth illustrates the former, and Clarendon tells us that the 

 pillage committed by the soldiers of Prince Maurice was so great that 



*» H. J. Mode, Deicriptive Catalogue, 81. "* Ibid. 57, 58, 63, 65, 77. «" Ibid. 73. 



^ Ibid. 81. "' Ibid. 78. "» G. Roberts, ?,ocial His/, of the Southern Cos. 523. 



»" See above. "' Webb, Engl. Local Govt, i, 522-3. '" See above. 



252 



