102 



Extracts from the Records of the 



offenders, for encouraging gaming, for unlicensed taverns, for regrat- 

 ing butter and cheese, for obstructing one highway, and for failing 

 to repair another : and they " found 13 Quidhampton Long-bridge to 

 be dangerously narrow. Nor were the hundred juries behind-hand 

 with presentments as to highways and taverns. 



Next in order after the Presentments come the Appearances. The 

 first of these is by attorney, a concession which is expressly stated to 

 be by the favour of the court ; next a technical quibble 1 suffices to 

 quash an indictment. Then the inhabitants of Broad Chalke and of 

 Porton (their attornies, too, being heard by special favour), obtained 

 an adjournment of the presentments (whatever they were) against 

 them till next court, and after these, .eight other defendants appear, 

 three of them by attorney. Robert Holmes seems to have been the 

 favourite attorney, his name appears five times, that of Michael 

 Titcombe once. 



After the presentments come the Writs and Processes, (five in 

 number and all for personal arrest), and after the writs, the Orders. 



These orders deal with a variety of subjects, the practice and pro* 

 cedure of the court is regulated ; affiliation orders are made ; relief 

 is administered under the Poor Law, in one instance overseers are 

 bidden to provide a habitation for a houseless couple, " one this side 



1 The highly technical plea upon which the accused escaped is not without 

 interest, and may as well be recounted in full ; the minute runs as follows. 

 Epiphany, 1603 :— 



" William Chapman of Leigh within the parish of Westbury in the County aforesaid in his own 

 proper person appears to an idictment against him, at the suit of our Lady the Queen prosecuted at 

 the General Sessions of the Peace of the County aforesaid held at Marlborough on Thursday next 

 after the Feast of Saint Michael the Archangel last past And prays a hearing of that indictment 

 And the same is read to him Which having been read and heard He says that he contends that 

 our said Lady the Queen neither would nor ought further to impeach or wrongfully charge (im- 

 petere seu occasionare) the same William forasmuch as he says that the indictment aforesaid is 

 insufficent in law for compelling the same William to his answer by the law of the land and that no 

 process ought by the law of the land to taken against him upon that indictment By reason that is 

 to say that in the said indictment it is alleged that the said William on the first day of January in 

 the year &c the forty -forth and on many other days together after the said first day of January 

 ** per spatium nonnarum mensium extunc proxime sequentium " that is to say &c the said art &c 

 used and exercised Which word " nonnarum " indeed is bad Latin and has no certain meaning but 

 ought to be *' novem " And for the insufficiency of the same he prays judgment And that he con- 

 cerning the premises may be hence discharged by the Court &c Upon which things seen and by 

 the Court were understood of all and singular the premisses forasmuch it seems to the Court here 

 that the indictment aforesaid is insufficient in law as the aforesaid William in his discharge concern- 

 ing the premisses last aforesaid in his pleadings has alleged It is considered by the Conrt that the 

 aforesaid William go hence without day &c." 



