7G Some Stray Notes from the Marlborough Court Books. 



At a Court of Piepowder, held on Holy Innocents Day, 16 Henry 

 VIII., Thomas Blundell, Rector of the Church of Saint Peter and 

 Saint Paul, becomes surety for the good behaviour of John Tucker. 



Elsewhere a gutter is described as situate between the house of 

 Thomas Wilkes and the House of the Fraternity of the Blessed 

 Name of Jesu, below the Church of the Blessed Peter and PauL 



The Fraternity of the Blessed Mary in the Church of the Blessed 

 Mary is mentioned more than once. On one occasion (in October, 

 1525,) William Head and John Collins, stewards or agents for that 

 society, appear as suitors against John Lewis, for a trespass, the 

 damages being laid at 4s. 6d., but in the following January these 

 persons are themselves the subject of a complaint lodged against 

 them by their employers, the co-feoffeatores of the brotherhood, on 

 a matter of account to the extent of twenty marks. 



Other presentments relate to the state of repair of the king's 

 highway and a gutter near Saint John's, without doubt the Hospital 

 of Saint John, the estates of which furnish the endowment of the 

 present grammar school. 



The Chapel of Saint Martins — at the east end of the town — gave 

 then, as it does now, its name to the neighbouring highways. In 

 the seventh year of Henry VIII. a well in the lane of St. Martins 

 is presented as out of repair, and seven persons are ordered to 

 amend it, under a penalty of #d. apiece. 



For depasturing sheep in this lane, to the number of fifty, two 

 persons are fined in what is there described as the ancient penalty 

 of one penny for each foot, with the prospect of forfeiture of the 

 whole flock in case of repeated trespass. 



At the Mayor ; s Court, on the 21st October, 1525, William 

 Boswell was examined wherefore he had struck the bells of Saint 

 Martin, on Saturday then last past, at nine o'clock at night. And 

 he saith that it was for no other cause and for no other reason save 

 that he was then and there drunk. 



But the name of the House and Church of Saint Margaret, near 

 Marlborough, is that which occurs most frequently. Not that the 

 court minutes afford any insight into the history or constitution 

 of this priory, but that entries are numerous of the constant 



