298 Notes on the History of Merc. 



but only a soldier of fortune, becoming a favourite of King Henry VIII., at the j ( 

 dissolution of the Abbeys, in few years, from nothing slipt into a prodigious i 

 estate of the Church's lands, which brought great envy on him from this Baron I a 

 of an ancient family, and great paternal estate, besides the difference in religion. I 

 The Lord Stourton aforesayd was a person of great spirit and courage, and kept \ 

 in his retinue the stoutest fellowes he could hear of. Amongst others he heard . 

 of one Hartgill, a mighty stout fellowe who had lately killed a man, who was \ 

 recommended to his Lordship for his valour ; who when he came into his family, li \ 

 the Lord Stourton gave the next Sunday, ten groates to the priest of the parish j B 

 to say a Masse for him at church, for the expiation of Hartgill's sin in killing a i 

 man. A surly, dogged, crosse fellowe it seems he was, who at last, when his | 11 

 Lordship had advanced him to be steward of his estate, cosined his Lord of the ' f 

 Mannour of Kilmanton, the next parish. I think it was a Trust. The Lord j s 

 Stourton who also had as good a spirit, seeing that his servant Hartgill had so J 

 ensnared him in law tricks as that he could not possibly be relieved, not being j 

 able to bear so great and ungrateful an abuse, murthered him." 



John Britton says : — 



" An Interpretation of the number 666 is a curiosity in literature. It ex- 

 emplifies forcibly the obstruse and mystical researches in which the literati of 

 the seventeenth century indulged ; wherein not only the manner how this number 

 ought to be interpreted is clearly proved and demonstrated, but it is also shewed 

 that this number is an exquisite and perfect character truly, exactly and essentially j 

 describing that state of government in which all other notes of Antichrist do i 

 agree ; with all knowne objections solidly and fully answered that can be 

 materially made against it." 



So general were studies of this nature at the time, that Potter's 

 volume was translated into French, Dutch and Latin. The author, , 

 though somewhat visionary, was a profound mathematician, and 

 invented several ingenious mechanical instruments. 



Aubrey, who knew him, says of him : — 



" He looks the most like a monk or one of the pastors of the old time that I 

 ever saw. He was pretty long visaged and pale, clear skin, grey eyes. His 

 discourse was admirable, and all new and unvulgar." 



Another person writing of his book, says : — 



" Exuberant as is the praise which Jose (sic) Mede bestows upon this booke, it 

 is not superior to its deserts. To say it is the most ingenious book ever written 

 on the subject is to say too little ; I know of no Hypothesis on a matter, dubious 

 as this is, so ingeniously constructed throughout." 



He was one of those loyalists on whom lines were imposed at 

 the conclusion of the Civil War. In Waylen's list of Wiltshire 



