By C. E. Long, Esq. 



391 



to have been, at one time, stitched together. With the exception 

 of this deposition, and a short and irrelevant letter from Bridges 

 to Darell about a lease of lands, they relate to one subject only, viz. 

 the assassination of a person of the name of Brind of Wanborough, 

 by two brothers of the name of Browne, in a brawl at the above place. 

 With this affair Darell was only connected as a magistrate and a 

 landowner. His conduct seems to have been rather praiseworthy 

 in objecting to the "price of blood" to be paid to the widow, 

 whereas, that of Sir Henry Knevett is open to censure, and the 

 result was somewhat of a rupture between Knevett and Darell, 

 and their adherents. The dates of these papers are 1577, and 

 part of the year 1578. The second letter of Bridges to Darell, the 

 last in date on the list, and which will be given as, apparently, al- 

 luding to the deposition of the midwife, is, as to the ink, the writ- 

 ing, and the age of the paper, similar to the deposition itself. I 

 have, therefore, little doubt but that Bridges, according to his pro- 

 mise made in that letter, had subsequently the interview, as intima- 

 ted, with Darell at Littlecote ; that he then gave him the deposition, 

 and that the whole set of documents were, eventually, tied up 

 together, and kept perad venture in those " greate chestes" alluded 

 to in Vol. iv. page 220, which came into Popham's possession on 

 Darell's decease, were sent up to London, as we are told, by Pop- 

 ham's agent, Mr. Rede, and ultimately, with a mass of other docu- 

 ments, found their way into the Court of Chancery in a cause in 

 which the widow of Sir Francis Walsingham, who had purchased 

 Darell's lands at Chilton, was a plaintiff in 1592. (See Yol. iv. p. 

 221.) If, therefore, we arrive at the conviction, that the letter 

 and the deposition bear nearly the same date, the whole tradition 

 of Darell's trial and acquittal, and the breaking of his neck two 

 or three months afterwards, is scattered to the winds, inasmuch as 

 we know that the date of his death was Oct. 1, 1589, eleven years 

 subsequent to the taking of the deposition. 



I now give the letter of Mr. Bridges, subjoining the deposition 

 of the midwife. 



Anthony Bridges to William Darell. 

 " My good Cosen, I commende me hartely unto you, being very sory that my 

 happ was not to be at home when you were laste at my house, for I am w th 



CC 



