2 Facts relating to Marlborough. 



souters (shoemakers), three butchers, one baker (which showed that 

 most people then baked at home), three tailors, one shearman, two 

 merchants, one mercer, two ironmongers, one plumber, four weavers, 

 one webber, one saddler, four carpenters, two coopers, one mason, 

 four heliers (tilers), one mustard maker, one glazier, one netmaker, 

 one honeymonger, (a considerable trade before the introduction of 

 West India sugar), one victualler, two brewers, twenty-five men 

 servants (of whom William t*ie Rector's footman was one), forty- 

 eight female servants. Many of the servants of both sexes had 

 no surnames. Eleven labourers were taxed at sixpence each, as were 

 eleven Liberi (probably small freeholders), the tax upon servants 

 being fourpence each, and on the artizans sixpence. 



There is one Mareschal who is charged sixpence, but it is stated 

 by Mr. Riley in his introduction to the Liber Albus, that notwith- 

 standing his high sounding appellation, a Mareschal means a 

 shoeing smith. 



It has been erroneously supposed that there was no Poll Tax 

 after the revolt of Wat Tyler, in the reign of Richard 2nd : this is 

 not so, as by an Act passed in the eighteenth year of the reign of 

 Charles 2nd, every subject in this kingdom was assessed to a Poll 

 Tax according to his degree ; a Duke a hundred pounds, a Marquis 

 eighty pounds, a Baron fifty pounds, a Baronet thirty pounds, a 

 Knight twenty pounds, an Esquire ten pounds, and every common 

 person one shilling. And in the Ist and 2nd years of King William 

 3rd and Queen Mary a general twelvepenny Poll Tax was granted 

 by the Parliament for the public service. 



The Churches. 

 I will next advert to the Churches, as to which the Commissioners 



of Chantries (2 Edw. 6, 1548, certif. no. 58), say:— 



"The Towne of Marlbrowe is a great Towue, wherein be three parisshe 

 Churches, and in the same a thousand and sixty-one people, which receyve the 

 blessed Communion; in every of which parisshe Churches there is a Vicar 

 inducted, albey t there ly vingis be so small and their Cures so great, that withoute 

 helpe of some minister they be not able to serve the said Cures." 



This number of Communicants appears to be very large, but by 



