Wiltshire Quarter Sessions. 



99 



Easter, 2]st Elizabeth :— 



" It is further ordered that in answer to the Counsell's letters concerning the 

 captives taken in Turkey * that the Justices of Peace within every division shall 

 delyver unto the constables of every hundred the copies of the letters to them 

 in that behalf directed who shall thereupon charge the said Constables to move 

 the Churchwardens Also to deal with the parsons or mynisters of every parishe 

 to move them to further this charitable matter, and to require them to make the 

 colleccons so farforthe as men shalbe disposed accordinglie And to answer the 

 sommes of money collected to any justice of peace within every devision which 

 justice of peace shall make delivery thereof to the Shrief betweene this and 

 Michaelmas next." 



XVIII — Transactions of a Single Sessions. 



The foregoing pages have afforded illustrations of the multifarious 

 matters which needed for their due conduct some action by the court 

 of Quarter Sessions : it may be useful to recount seriatim the trans- 

 actions which occupied the attention of the court at some single 

 sessions ; and the last which was held in Queen Elizabeth's reign 

 may very well serve as the example. 



The court then assembled at Salisbury, on the Tuesday after the 

 Feast of the Epiphany, 1603, and the four following days: the 

 Justices present were Henry Bishop, of Salisbury, Sir James Mervyn 

 and Sir Edward Ludlow, Knights, William Tooker, " sacrse theologise 

 doctor," Edward Penruddocke, Henry Sadler, Jasper Moore, Henry 

 Smyth, Henry Willoughby, John Dauntsey, Alexander Tutt, John 

 Ernley, Edward Estcourt, Henry Martin, James Ley, Edward 

 Lambert, Walter Vaughan, Giles Tooker, and William Blacker, 

 Esquires. 



The matters dealt with by them occupy forty -two small folio 

 pages, and are recorded as follows : — 



Recognizances taken in court at the last sessions (Be Uecogn ad 

 ult in cur capt) . These were twelve in number. In one case the 

 principal gives bail in 100 marks and his two sureties in £50 each. 

 But the general measure of bail was £40 for the principal and £20 



* The humourous reader will have already amused himself with some pleasantry about Turkish 

 Bonds (Mr. Hamilton's joke). Tn such matters the seafaring population of Devonshire had a 

 keener interest than the land-locked Wiltshireman ; the Devonshire records contain entries far more 

 detailed and interesting than the above. 



H % 



