By the Rev. W. H. Jones. 



297 



for the King's use, at £37 6s. This sum must be multiplied by 

 about 20 to bring it to its relative value in the present day. 



Two men, each of mark in their generation, have been connected 

 intimately with Dinton. Here, on 5th January, 1595-6, was 

 baptized Henry Lawes, whose name is so closely identified with 

 the Church Music of the 17th century. And here also, a few years 

 afterwards, was baptized Edward Hyde, afterwards the great 

 Lord Clarendon. 



Dinton of course derives its chief interest from the latter circum- 

 stance, it having been for some years the home of the 'Hyde* 

 family. Lawrence Hyde, of whom I have spoken in my account 

 of Tisbury, seems to have been the first owner of property here. 

 He left the Rectory impropriate of Dinton to Lawrence his second 

 son, (who afterwards, as Sir Lawrence Hyde, was Attorney- General 

 to Anne, Queen of James I.), but charged with £40 per annum to 

 be paid out of its proceeds to Henry, his third son. This Henry 

 Hyde was the father of Lord Clarendon. He lived at Dinton, in a 

 house no longer standing, and there several of his children were 

 born. Edward, his third son, was born on February 18th, 1608, 

 and the entry of his baptism, a few weeks afterwards, may be seen 

 in the Parish Register. In his life, Lord Clarendon tells us, that 

 he was, in early childhood, ' taught by a schoolmaster, to whom his 

 father had given the Vicarage of Dinton/ so that an arrangement 

 must have been made respecting the patronage between Henry 

 Hyde and his elder brother, Sir Lawrence. It is provoking that 

 in the Wiltshire Institutions (as printed by Sir Thomas Phillipps) 

 there is no presentation to the living recorded between 1570 (when 

 Henry Earl of Pembroke appointed 'George Coryate') and 1661, 

 when the Crown nominated ' Samuel Fyler.' From an inspection 

 of the Registers, however, in which the Incumbents' names occasion- 

 ally appear, I can have little doubt that ' Stephen Roberts,' who 

 was Yicar between the time of ' George Coryate's ' decease, and the 

 Incumbency of Philip Pinkney (who signs as Vicar in 1634), was 

 the person alluded to as the first tutor of Lord Clarendon. 



The Church at Dinton is well worth a careful inspection. It 

 is cruciform, having a chancel, nave, two transepts, with a central 



