Wiltshire Quarter Sessions. 



97 



gaole Then upon cornplainte made by any officer to any justice of peace of any 

 of the p r misses it shalbe lawf ull for the same Justice unto whome such complaint 

 is made to send for the party offender by warrant and to commit him to prison 

 there to remayne untill he become conformable to the p r misses and every of them." 



Memorandum, about 1600 : — 



" Forasmuch as it appearith by oath that the hundred and Towne of War- 

 mister and the hundred of Heytesbury, (the Burrow Excepted) have used to 

 watch the Beacons It is therefore ordered that the said place shall watch accord- 

 ing to their accustomed manner." 



Of the Star Chamber, a single trace only has been found in the 

 Elizabethan minutes. At the Epiphany Sessions, 29th Elizabeth :— 

 Lucy Long, wife of William Long, of Devizes, gentleman, John Trew, 

 of Southbroom, gentleman, and Anthony Hort, of Devizes Green, yeo- 

 man, were bound over in £50 each, to appear in the Star Chamber, 

 before the Queen in council, at Westminster, in the octave of Saint 

 Hilary next, to answer upon those things which were laid against 

 them, and there not to return without leave of the Court. 



The same may be said of the grants of monopolies, dear to the 

 heart of Elizabeth but strenuously resisted by her people. The 

 Wiltshire Magistrates seem to have accommodated themselves to 

 circumstances as they existed ; but it is to be observed that the 

 qualifying words "and by the lawe" are inserted on both the 

 occasions on which the authority of the Council is quoted ; the minute 

 runs as follows : — 



Epiphany, 42nd Elizabeth : — 



" It is ordered by the Court upon the motion of Mr. Lawe being a Counsell for 

 the said Francis Pope that an attachment shall forthwith be awarded out of this 

 Countie against Eichard Cranmer, Francis Browne, Susan Hetcher, William 

 Noyes Clarke, Eomsey, Trilcott, and Gough, to bring the said 



parties before some Justice of the peace within this Countie neare to the place of 

 their aboades there to answer their contempts for making selling or uttering of 

 Stearche Contrary to the true meaning of Her Maties lers patent granted to S r 

 J ohn Packington Knight bearing date the xx th day of Maye in the xl th yere of 

 Her Ma ties raigne. And the said justice to inflict such punishment upon the 

 offenders as by the Councell's lers bearing date the xxiiii th day of November last 

 past and shewn forth here m Court (as by the lawe is required.) And further 

 by all possible means to exame the validitie of a lycence heretofore granted by 

 the said Francis Pope to the said Richard Cranmer. And if the same shalbe 

 founde voyde Then to inflict such punishm* as by the said lers patent and 

 Councell's warrant and by the lawe is warranted and required." 



VOL. XXI. — NO. LXI, H 



