1)2 



The Wiltshire Compounders. 



political reformer, Henry Hunt, of Chisenbury, Esq. In his own 

 memoirs, published while he was a prisoner in Ilchester gaol, he 

 correctly describes the part which his ancestor had taken in the 

 Penruddocke affair, including his remarkable escape from that same 

 prison in female disguise, all of which is amply ratified by Thurloe's 

 papers ; but he ignores his ancestor's previous action in the Civil 

 War, and he is clearly at fault in the matter of sequestration, His 

 narrative is to the following effect: — that Colonel Thomas Hunt, after 

 escaping from Ilchester Gaol and finding his way to Holland, suffered 

 the confiscation of his entire estate; and though returning at the 

 Restoration in the same vessel with Charles II. he never recovered 

 an acre, and only escaped absolute indigence by retiring to his 

 estate at Enford, which the agents of Cromwell had overlooked. 

 The agents of Cromwell, had they resolved on seizing it, were not 

 likely to overlook a property which, as shewn above, had been 

 publicly sequestered and then redeemed. The most credible view 

 of his case seems to be that, in order to preserve Enford as the 

 patrimonial domain, he had sold his other estates to meet the fine at 

 Goldsmith's Hall ; and that Cromwell's agents took nothing from 

 him — in consideration, perhaps, of the elder Mrs. Hunt's claim. 



Sir Robert Hyde, of Dinton, Sergeant-at-law, M.P. for 

 Salisbury. The delinquency charged against this gentleman was 

 that he left his dwelling in 1644 and resided at Oxford while that 

 city was a garrison for the King. He is to have the benefit of the 

 articles of the surrender thereof, as by Sir Thomas Fairfax's certifi- 

 cate of 25th June, 1646, doth appear. He hath taken neither the 

 Negative Oath nor the Covenant, but prays to be exempted upon 

 the said articles and vote of the House of Commons pursuant. 



He is seised of a freehold for life, remainder to his wife for her 

 life, being her jointure, remainder to his brother, Frederick Hyde, 

 and others (sureties for him for divers of his debts for the term of 

 sixty years for their discharge), remainder in fee to the right heirs 

 of the compounder, with liberty to make leases for life or for twenty- 

 one years, and a clause of revocation upon discharging the debts of 

 the grantors or by his otherwise securing the same. He is thus 

 seised of and in certain improved rents reserved upon leases for 



