330 



The Wiltshire Compounders. 



Wilts, worth £1G 8s. over and above the reserved rent, paid to the 

 Lord Cottington, of £3 12s. He craves allowance for forty shillings 

 a year, payable out of Critchell Farm to Eleanor Miles, widow. 

 Fine, £65. Dated, 6th August, 1646. 



Pyt-house, the seat of an ancestor styled Pytt, alias Bennett, 

 remained in the family till sold in 1669 to Peter Dove, of New 

 Sarum. ' In 1725 it was bought by Thomas Bennet, of Norton 

 Bavant (nephew of Colonel Thomas Bennett, the secretary to Prince 

 Rupert), who married Ethelred, daughter and co-heir of William 

 Wake, Archbishop of Canterbury, and was grandfather of the late 

 John Bennett, so many years M.P. for the county. 



"William Bennett, of Heytesbury, gent. 



The petition " Sheweth— That your petitioner's estate being, by an order of 

 the Committee for advance of moneys, dated 10 July last, seized for the use of 

 the State, upon pretence of delinquency discovered by Mrs. Margaret Mounsell 

 administratrix of Captain Peter Mounsell deceased, for the payment of his arrears, 

 according to an ordinance of Parliament : — In obedience unto which order, your 

 petitioner submitting himself to the favour of this honourable Court, humbly 

 confesseth that for about the space of two months he rode in the troop of Sir 

 George Vaughan the High Sheriff of this county for the late King ; which he 

 was enforced to do for the preservation of himself, and of his wife and children, 

 who must otherwise have perished, because your petitioner had formerly engaged 

 for the Parliament, and durst not stay at home : — which your petitioner leaves 

 to your favourable consideration, humbly praying to be dismissed of his charge- 

 able attendance here ; and hath hereunto annexed his particular. Your petitioner 

 humbly prays your honours that if in your grave judgment you think him worthy 

 to pay any fine at all, you will please in the settling thereof to consider his wife 

 and children and many debts and to be favourable unto him. 



"He is seised of a messuage or tenement in Heytesbury of the yearly value 

 of £40. He hath several small tenements in Heytesbury in reversion of his 

 mother, annual value £3 16s. His goods and personal estate he estimates at 

 £102 19s. 4>d. In abatement he affirms that £30 a year is made over to friends 

 in trust for the use of his wife in consideration of marriage ; that he payeth to 

 his mother an annuity of £12, and that the messuage is mortgaged to William 

 Adlam of Crockerton for a debt of £320." 



" 15 Nov. 1849. The fine at a sixth is £154 ; but if there be legally settled 

 on his mother for life £12 per annum and he can make it appear, then the 

 abatement is £18. And if the estate be legally charged with any debt, then 

 abatement to be made accordingly, provided the same be made to appear unto 

 this committee. This the compounder hath undertaken to do within one month, 

 and if not performed the fine to stand at £154." 



