Communicated by Mr. James Waylen. 



323 



there under the continual care of physicians and chirurgeons, and 

 thus avoided taking part in any councils of importance. In the 

 summer of 1644 he made his second escape to Bedwyn, and found 

 the place in possession of a party o£ Parliamentarians under the 

 personal com maud of the Earl of Essex, to whom he at once sur- 

 rendered himself, and obtained permission to remain there in peace, 

 land recruit his broken health. The die was now cast ; but he declared 

 in his after petition that he was always looked upon as a disaffected 

 person by the King's party, who told him he was liable to be tried 

 for his life for sending munitions of war to the Parliament's cause. 

 Thenceforward that party made him sufficiently sensible of the fact 

 i by repeated acts of plunder and living at free-quarters. On the 

 other hand there was still the Covenant and the Negative Oath to 

 | be taken. A section of the Wilts Committee was sitting at Devizes, 

 [but by the testimony of his doctor, Hugh Barker, Mr. Smyth 

 [was quite unfit to travel to that town ; and a letter from Devizes 

 | shews that the committee-men themselves looked upon a ride to 

 l Bedwyn as a very risky affair. This formidable obstacle was at last 

 [surmounted. Henry Hungerford, Mr. Smyth's successor in the 

 I representation of Bedwyn, tendered him the documents, and three 

 [of the Devizes Committee witnessed his signature in December, 

 1 1645. In the final compounding at Goldsmith's Hall, it was found 

 that his real estate consisted principally of houses in London, on 

 which a fine was estimated of £1600 at a third, or £750 at a tenth, 

 but finally adjudged at £685. 



John Spencer, of Quidhampton, Esq. Served the King as a 

 .cavalry officer till the autumn of 1645, when, becoming, as he says, 

 convinced of his error, he surrendered himself to the garrison at 

 iMalmesbury, took the two oaths, and, to liberate his personalities, 

 Ipaid £50 to the Wilts Committee, there sitting, represented by 

 1 William Legge, Richard Talboys, Edmund Marty n, and Thomas 

 iGoddard. In respect of his final composition in London, he is seised 

 I of a freehold in the manor of Quidhampton, in the parish of Rawton, 

 I worth, over the rent reserved, £140 per annum, and lands at Elcombe, 

 I £64. Against this he craves a heavy set-off in the shape of an 



y % 



