Communicated by Mr. James Waylen. 



79 



Westminster he was ever a favourer of their proceedings, but when 

 Wiltshire was overrun by the King's forces he was compelled to go 

 to Oxford, from which he took the first opportunity of escaping, and 

 reaching the quarters of the Parliament. The fine was at first 

 calculated at £960, on the supposition that his estate was inheritance, 

 as coming from his father; but if Sir Theobald could make it 

 appear that he held but for life, then £230 was to be deducted. 

 This estimate was " at a third," but the sum eventually paid was 

 £209, or a tenth. 



Sir Richard Gurney, the Lord Mayor of London in 1642, whose 

 attachment to Royalty induced him so seriously to cripple the 

 Parliament's action at that crisis. His heavy fine of £5000 was 

 not levied to any great extent on lands in Wilts, though he had 

 some possessions here, amongst others, Titherton manor or farm, 

 worth £100 a year, and other lands let to Vincent and Thomas 

 Smith at £200. It also appeared that he had recently purchased 

 East or Great Chalfield, the seat of Sir William Eyre, for he com- 

 plains in petition that he had lost at least £2000 there by the 

 cutting down of his woods and injury done to the house (no doubt 

 referring to the siege of that place. See above, under the article 

 Robert Eyre). 



Benedict Hall, Esq., a recusant (Romanist). The same person, 

 presumably, as described in Dring's List as " Bendish Hall/' whose 

 children paid through their trustee, Edward Perkins, £266 13*. 4<d, 

 In the House of Commons, 2nd August, 1643, it is ordered, on the 

 petition of Colonel Nicholas Devereux, of Malmesbury, that the 

 wife and daughter of Benedict Hall, with their solicitor, have leave 

 to come to London to attend the business of his delinquency, not- 

 withstanding the ordinance prohibiting papists and delinquents from 

 abiding in Town. 



Sir Thomas Hall, of Bradford, Kt., accepted in December, 1643, 

 the office (with others) of commissioner to press men in Wilts for 

 the King's service. He declares that he was compelled so to act by 

 written menaces from the King and from the Earl of Forth. That 

 his neighbours also believed he might mitigate the oppression of 

 free quarters by accepting a prominent position ; and with this end 



