8 Charles William Wallace 



[7-32] 



BELOTT VS. MOUNTJOY. 



Court of Requests, James I, Uncalendared. Case of Stephen 

 Belott vs. Christopher Mountjoy. 



[Four skins, comprising Bill, Answer, Replication, and Rejoinder, 

 thonged together as usual at upper left corner ; three sets of paper depo- 

 sitions thonged to their three respective skins of interrogatories, compris- 

 ing fifteen documents, one of which is Shakespeare's deposition. These 

 nineteen documents, since my report of the case to the Master of the Rolls 

 and publication in Harper's Magazine for March, 1910, have been with- 

 drawn from circulation and are now preserved under glass in the Histor- 

 ical Museum Room of the Public Record Office. Seven other records are 

 in the Miscellaneous Books of the Court of Requests. Besides these 

 twenty-six documents preserved in the Public Record Office, bearing 

 directly on the case, three others, touching Mountjoy, are also there. 

 Other information is furnished by the Parish Registers of St. Olave, Silver 

 street, concerning the family and marriage as presented above, and by the 

 consistorial records of the French Protestant Church, Soho square, 

 London, containing notices of the action taken by the Church in accord- 

 ance with the Court's final order referring the case there for settlement, 

 and by Belott's Will at Somerset House. 



It is remarkable that every court-record in the entire case is preserved, 

 as published below. The set of depositions in which Shakespeare's testi- 

 mony occurs is slightly rotted along the right edge. All the rest are 

 splendidly preserved.] 



[7] 

 BILL. 



[In dorso] xxviij die Januarij Anno Regni Regis 

 Jacobj Angliae &c Nono et Scotiae xlv° 



per warrantum 

 To the King*?.? moste Excellent Ma ty 



In all humblenes Complayninge sheweth vnto yo r moste excellent 

 Ma : tie yo r highnes poore and f aythf till and obedient subpliant 

 Stephen Belott of London Tyermaker, That whereas yo r Sup- 

 pliant aboute nyne yeares sithence laste paste beinge then a 



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