DORSET ASSIZES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 23 



bewitching Nathaniel Scorch, was apparently acquitted. For 

 speaking against the Church in 1673 a fine of 3s. 4d. was 

 imposed, but even this small sum was remitted ; and by May 

 of contrast it may be stated that absence from church for 

 three weeks was punished by a much heavier fine, 26s., and 

 that three men who in 1675 had worked on " The Lord's 

 Day " were kept in prison till the following Assizes. Cheating 

 and uttering false coin were not considered serious crimes, 

 but the clipping of coin was a very different matter, con- 

 stituting in fact an act of high treason, and clippers were 

 always drawn and quartered. 



It will be convenient for present purposes to take the 

 more important cases of sedition and high treason together, 

 although in legal eyes they were of course by no means the 

 same thing. Probably many Dorset men were implicated in 

 Penruddock's rising in Wiltshire in 1655, and the names of a 

 few occur in the Bail Books of 1655-6, the most prominent 

 being Roger Coker, of Keyneston, and Thomas Bragge, vicar 

 of Horton. In Charles the Second's reign there is nothing 

 but a few paltry accusations of speaking seditious words, and 

 a prosecution of 14 men for joining in a seditious assembly at 

 Sherborne in 1674. It is not until the coming of the Duke of 

 Monmouth that there is anything worth recording, and then 

 in the Gaol Book of 1685 may be found page after page filled 

 with the names of those indicted for levying war against the 

 King. So much has been printed respecting the Monmouth 

 rebels, that it will be sufficient to note here that the charges 

 of levying war number 321 , and that opposite 57 of the names is 

 drawn a hieroglyphic resembling a wheel, the words " Ts et 

 Ss," signifying that these 57 wretches were drawn and quar- 

 tered. But, besides the actual rebels, there were 21 convicted 

 of lesser offences in connection with the rebellion, such as 

 spreading false news, uttering seditious words, recruiting for 

 the Duke's forces, or entertaining rebels. The false news was 

 generally to the effect that the King was dead, or that Mon- 

 mouth was not dead and would come again, and in an utter- 

 ance of Thomas Pitt's we have a specimen of the rumours 



