328 The Wiltshire Compounders. 



volume. Some few domestic facts are revealed in the letters of Mr. 

 Michell, of Laycock, already noticed under the article " Fane/' who 

 appears to have been the legal adviser of the entire branch resident 

 in Wilts, and the especial confidante of the Montagus. But this 

 may suffice. 



William Thurman, of the Devizes, mercer. The charges brought 

 against him wore at first a somewhat threatening aspect ; but 

 whether or not he was a Royalist at heart, he succeeded in ex- 

 plaining them away to the satisfaction of his fellow-townsmen, and 

 apparently also of the sequestrators ; for the fine pronounced against 

 him in London was never paid. His first offence was committed at 

 the very outbreak of hostilities, when the rural districts were 

 paralyzed by the irruptions of Prince Rupert and Colonel Lunsford, 

 who were treating England as a foreign conquered country. Mr. 

 Thurman was accused of aiding in the conveyance to Malmesbury 

 and handing over to the Royalists certain plate which had been 

 gathered from various quarters and lodged in Devizes for the use of 

 the Parliament. Another more serious count in his indictment 

 charged him with giving evidence at Salisbury against sundry of 

 the Parliament's friends, at what were popularly termed " The 

 Illegal Assizes/' to which frequent allusion has already been made 

 in these papers. As to the affair of the plate, he affirms, in his 

 petition, that the part which he took in it was at the request of his 

 neighbours, and that he knew not what was contained in the packages 

 till he reached Malmesbury. In respect of his action at the Salisbury 

 Assizes, he pleaded his personal ignorance of the political character 

 of the proceedings, as also the pressure that had been put upon him 

 by force and threats to compel his attendance there. He makes the 

 further declaration that he was never a Popish recusant, nor Popishly 

 affected — that he had never lived out of the Devizes, and that he 

 had been compelled to pay contributions to both parties as they 

 alternately held the place. He has already compounded for his 

 delinquency with the local committee by paying them £130 on his 

 personal estate, and for greater satisfaction he has taken both the 

 oaths. On his real estate, which consisted principally of messuages 



