By W. W. RavenJrill, Esq. 



161 



Readers of Lord Macaulay's History will remember that War- 

 minster was the point where men turned towards William III. Hither 

 the unhappy James II. was to have come from the Bishop's Palace, 

 Salisbury, had not the sudden bleeding of his nose prevented him. 

 Here troops were massed and fell away to the Orange Camp at the 

 beck of Churchill, and of Kirke. Justice in Warminster, in England, 

 is Protestant, and desires not to be swayed by foreign bishops and 

 potentates, nor the return of inquisitions, racks, etc., etc. 



In 1816 Samuel Newman was executed for obtaining near £500 

 from Messrs. Phipps, Biggs, and Bannister, bankers of this town, 

 by means of forged bills. 



Then there were the agricultural riots of 1830, and the special 

 commission which followed. There may be some present who re- 

 member the charge of the yeomanry in Knook fields, and the rioters, 

 who were armed with scythes chiefly, taking to the river Wylye. 



In 1839 was the highway robbery of Mr. Dean, of Imber. Every 

 one has heard of the Robbers's Stone, and its story. And there re- 

 mains but to mention one other. The claimant of the Smyth 

 baronetcy — Thomas Provis — was a national criminal, though a 

 Warminster man. The famous trial at Gloucester Assize, 1853, 

 in which the public took the deepest interest. Prisoner's evidence 

 broken down by Sir Frederick Thesiger (now Lord Chelmsford) 

 owing to an accident, like Louie in the Titchbourne trial — the 

 tradesman in Oxford Street, from whom he had purchased "the 

 family ring," having read the newspaper report, telegraphed in the 

 midst of the cross-examination. 



Warminster parish — -as a rule — is, remarkably free from crime, 

 and bears an honourable name for its grammar school. Amongst 

 its pupils was Dr. Arnold, of Rugby. But of native authors I 

 find only one, Samuel Squire, 1 son of Thomas Squire, born A.D. 

 1713, a writer on theology, who was consecrated Bishop of St. 

 David's, A.D. 1761. To this town, if to any, we must award the 

 praise of the great Roman poet : — 



" Sacra Deum, Sanctique patres, extrema per illos 

 Justitia excedens terris vestigin fecit." 



1 Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, in., 348. 



