347 



By Albert Goldsbrough. 



As a descendant, through the female line, of Thomas Hickman, Rector of 

 Upton Lovell, 1619 — 47, and as the possessor of the actual original of the 

 verses written to the memory of his son, Nathaniel Hickman, the present 

 writer felt a special interest in Mr. John Harding's recent contribution to 

 the Magazine under the title, " An Episode of the Great Rebellion." The 

 verses, as he has them, are contained in a thin quarto MS. vol., now 

 fragile with age, and occupy twenty-three pages consisting in large part 

 of " Pious Sentences & Ejaculations (Paraphrais'd) as he frequently used 

 throughout ye whole course of his Life, but particulerly in his sicknessess." 

 They are dedicated to the author's mother, and " To the Pious memory of 

 his Vertuous & Honoured Father, Nathaniell Hickman of West Knoyle in ye 

 county of Wilts, Gent. Lately deseased, viz., Sepr. 19, 1703. Aged 77 years." 

 The MS. bears date Feb. 14th, 1703-4, but the name of the author of the 

 verses nowhere appears in it. Fortunately, however, it has been preserved 

 in Mr. Harding's reproduction of a now lost copy that was evidently made 

 by Nathaniel Hickman, junior (who died 1742), from the original composition 

 of his " brother Edmund," who must be regarded as the real author. The MS. 

 has been handed down to its present owner through Nathaniel Goldsbrough, 

 of Bourton, Dorset, who died an old man more than thirty years ago and 

 was the great-grandson of Katherine, daughter of Nathaniel Hickman, senior 

 (to whose memory the verses are inscribed), and wife of Robert Goldisbrough, 

 of Silton, Dorset, yeoman. In a marriage settlement, dated July 23rd, 1705, 

 John Goldisbrough, the elder, of Mere, makes provision for his son Robert 

 Goldisbrough and " Katherine Hickman, his now intended wife," by granting 

 them the remainder of certain leases in the manor of Silton after his own 

 death, Nathaniel Hickman being a witness to the deed. 



The quaint and versified account in the MS. of Thomas Hickman's im- 

 mediate ancestors on his mother's side has led to the investigation of the 

 pedigree, and the account, one important detail excepted, proves to be correct. 

 The statement that he was descended from Bishop Pilkington, of Durham, 

 is wide of the mark in so far as it was only a probable relative of the bishop's 

 from whom descent can be claimed, as the information given below indicates. 



In the Calendar of State Papers — Domestic Series, which gives a recital 

 of the "Proceedings of the Committee for Compounding, 1643 — 60," p. 79, 

 there is a " List of Delinquent Ministers in co. Wilts, whose livings have been 

 sequestered, they removed, and godly and able men placed in their rooms," 

 and in this fatal list is the name Thomas Hickman, Upton Lovel. 



" The humble Petition of Nathaniel Hickman " to the King praying for 

 his " Majesty's Commisseration of his sad and Deplorable condition in some 

 relief," forms no part of the MS., but there can be no doubt as to its genuine- 

 ness, for it is found in a slightly different and more amplified form in 

 Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy . . ■ . during the Great Rebellion," 

 unabridged edition, 1714, Pt. II., p. 276. It is there given, however, as the 

 petition of Elizabeth Hickman, widow of Thomas Hickman, of Upton Lovell, 



