The Wiltshire Compounders. 



extinct. Pursued as a " popish recusant/' Thomas Gawen of Queen 

 Elizabeth's time who was, by an inquisition taken in the forty-third 

 year of her reign fined no less a sum than £1380 for non-attendances 

 at his parish Church, and in a further sum of £120 for failing to 

 make his submission in the required form. In fact, the Queen, or 

 her successor, just took two-thirds of his property. As he lived to 

 be an adherent to the Crown during the Civil War, his estates at 

 Norrington, Baverstock, and elsewhere, were sequestered 31st July, 

 1647, and publicly sold at Drury House in 1653 ; the ostensible 

 purchaser being Mr. Walter Barnes, of Shaftesbury, who in reality 

 only acted as trustee for his friends, Thomas Gawen and his son, 

 William. But as all secret trusts to the prejudice of the State in 

 favour of popish recusants were declared void, the sequestration was 

 not finally withdrawn till 1657, down to which period £166 had, 

 by order from the Exchequer been yearly charged upon the tenants 

 and occupiers of two-thirds of the estate. On the removal of the 

 sequestration, Jane Barnes, who held as widow of the aforesaid 

 Walter Barnes, was discharged from all further liabilities to the 

 State, and allowed to retain possession. The elder Gawen had in 

 the meantime deceased. 



Notwithstanding that it would appear from all this that whoever 

 had a hold upon the estates the Gawens had none, yet in the fol- 

 lowing year William, the surviving son, covenanted with Wadham 

 Wyndham, Esq., for the sale of Norrington, Trowe, Hurdcott, and 

 other lands, for £9000, and Mr. Wyndham paid him £300 as deposit. 

 Mrs. Jane Barnes agreeing to join in the conveyance on receiving 

 for her share £1600, said to be due from Gawen to her late husband 

 as the balance of the account between them. But before the 

 settling day arrived, Mrs. Barnes re-married and changed her mind. 

 In concert with her second husband, John Barnes, she now claimed 

 all the estates purchased at Drury House as their absolute property 

 and made a pretended sale thereof to one Taylor, a brother of hers. 

 Mr. Wyndham promptly filed his bill in the Court of Exchequer 

 that same Michaelmas term, 1658, and after some litigation was 

 declared the legal purchaser, and proper assurances of the same were 

 then made to him. It is to be inferred that William Gawen also 



