6 



Facts relating to Marlborough. 



Thomaa A.bothe, Richard Austen, John Gtoddard, William Seymer, 

 Nicholas Ffryso, Thomas Seymer, and John Matthew. Attached to 

 ill is Vicarage is a Library of valuable Ecclesiastical works given by 

 the Will of the Rev. William White of Pusey, in the county of 

 Berks, dated the twenty-fifth day of October, 1677, in which he 

 desires that every succeeding Vicar of St. Mary's will add one good 

 book to the Library. Two of the most curious are the " Manuale, or 

 Book of Offices," in use before the Reformation, (in which the word 

 "Papa" is struck out with a pen, under an ordinance of King Henry 

 8th, in 1541); and the "Hours of the Blessed Virgin ;" the latter was 

 printed in 1535, and is interspersed with many curious woodcuts. 



St. Martin's Church, or Chapel. — This could not have been 

 more than a Chapel, as it does not appear in any of the Ecclesiastical 

 taxations. It is thus mentioned by Leland in his "Journey through 

 Wiltshire, in 1540, (cited, Wilts Arch. Mag. Vol. 1, p. 178):— "There 

 is a Chappel of St. Martyne at the Entre at the est ende of the 

 Towne*" Mr. Waylen states this to have been north of the road 

 leading to Mildenhall, between Blowhorn Street and Cold Harbour. 1 

 The Chantry Commissioners, 2 Edw. 6th, mention "the parisshe of 

 Saynte Marten's in Marleborowe," and state that Richard Croke 

 founded an Obit within the same Church. The sums paid for these 

 Obits varied from two shillings to six and eightpence. 



Hermitage. — Of this there is no trace but the name. A Hermit 

 was a person not necessarily a priest, the Bishop issued a commis- 

 sion to two clergymen to examine as to his fitness. Two such 

 were issued by Chandler, Bishop of Salisbury ; and Sir Richard 

 Colt Hoare 2 gives the profession of Richard Ludlow, one of the 



1 I was informed by the Rev. E. B. Warren, Vicar of St. Mary's, that human 

 bones have been dug up under a yew tree at this place, F.A.C. 



3 Sir Richard Colt Hoare in his history of Wilts (Hund: of Branch and Dole, 

 p. 161.) gives a copy of a commission dated 1418 addressed to two Canons of 

 Salisbury, to examine a person who was a candidate for the Hermitage of 

 Fisherton Anger : this commission was granted by Bishop Chandler, who in 

 1423 granted a similar commission to examine Richard Ludlow, who was a 

 candidate to become hermit at the foot of Maidenhead Bridge. Sir R. C. H. 

 also gives a copy of the profession of Richard Ludlow as a hermit, which is in 

 English, and also states that in 1352 Bishop Wyvil issued an Episcopal mandate 

 against some lay person who had assumed a clerical dress not being in Orders, 



