26 EXPENSES OF THE SHRIEVALTY. 



Dr. Cox* gives a fairly complete list of the High Sheriffs 

 for the county from the year 113-1-, but the county records, 

 prior to the time of the Commonwealth, are so scanty and so 

 incomplete that the writer has searched in vain both in Derby 

 and elsewhere for any information with respect to the names 

 of the gentlemen of the grand jury, the judges, or other officials 

 who attended this assize in July, 1631, or of the names and 

 offences of the prisoners who were tried. It may be that the 

 men who were sentenced to be hanged had been found guilty 

 of murder, but it is more likely that they were executed for 

 some much less serious crime, such as larceny or sheep-stealing. 

 It will be noticed that a payment is made for twenty-six hat- 

 bands,! besides that evidently intended for the Sheriff himself.]: 

 This number exactly corresponds with the number of servants 

 attendant on the High Sheriff of to-day, which includes, besides 

 the coachman and two footmen, twenty-one javelin men and 

 two trumpeters. Hatbands are especially mentioned as part 

 of the High Sheriff's correct livery in 1691, when "an agree- 

 ment concerning the Shreffalty"§ was drawn up and signed by 

 forty-five Derbyshire gentlemen in view of their being chosen 

 to serve, among whom is John Bradshawe, of Bradshaw, himself 

 High Sheriff in 1 71 7. 



The hatbands would probably be black, and as there are 

 several other articles of black material mentioned in the 

 accounts presumedly to be used as wearing apparel, besides 

 black coverings of saddles,|| it seems more than probable that 

 black, at that time, was the correct colour to be worn at a 

 State ceremony, and has survived in the judge's black cap. 

 The cap is undoubtedly a portion of his original State dress, 

 but is now only assumed at certain great functions, as, for 

 instance, when he receives the newly-elected Lord Mayor of 

 London on November 9th, and, in his official capacity, 

 when pronouncing sentence of death. No other suggestion 

 seems possible to account for the black material, for although 



* Three Centuries of Derbyshire Annals, p. 52. 



t P. 39> post. % p. 31. § Original in possession of Sir Geo. Sitwell. 



II P- 3i- . 



