262 Records of the Rising in the West, A.D. 1655. 



Devon, Had theyre Lives and Estates assured them by articles and conditions 

 then and there signed and delivered. 



May it therefore Please your Hon rs . that since they have such articles and 

 conditions granted them, that they may insist upon them, and that your 

 petitioners being Poore Disconsolate Prisoners whom none dare Assist. Your 

 Hon", would be pleased since theyre Lives and fortunes wholly depend thereon, 

 to Assigne them counsell Learned in the law to plead they r Articles, that soe 

 your Petioners being Ignorant of the Lawes may not cast away they r lives by 

 neglect of such meanes the Law in such cases does Afford them. 



And your Petitioners 



Shall ever pray, &c." 



The following most interesting* record follows, and is now printed 

 in its original state for the first time, the interpolations or corrections 

 of the "gentleman to whom it was entrusted/'' being placed in notes. 

 It is written by Penruddock himself on two large sheets of white 

 paper, and occupies five pages, the sixth is taken up with the notes. 

 The writing is small, but usually clear and written with care. 1 



" S r .* though I received yo r , desires something to late it being but two days 

 before notice given mee From the Shreife of the day of my Expiration (For T 

 cannot call this an execution) it beinge For such a cause yeat in order to yo r 

 satisfaction I have borrowed soe much time From my more serious meditations 

 as to give you this short aocount of my tryall wherein you must excusef both 

 the brevitie & imperfections it being but the issues of a Bad memory. 



Upon Thursday Aprill 19° 1655 the Commission 1-8 of Oyer & Termyner beinge 

 sate in the castle at Exon, summons before them myselfe, Mr. Hugh Grove, Mr. 

 Richard Ryves, Mr. Robert Duke, Mr. George Duke, Mr. Thomas Fitz-James, 

 Mr. \ Mr. Francis Jones, Mr. Edward Davis, Mr. Thomas Poulton & Mr. 

 Francis Bennet. Being all called to the Barr, wee were commanded to hold up 



1 The trial as given in Howell's State Trials is apparently copied from the 

 pamphlet entitled " The Triall of the Hon. Col. John Penruddock, of Compton, 

 in Wiltshire, and his speech which he delivered the day 'before he was beheaded 

 in the Castle of Exon, being the 16th day of May, 1655, to a gent, whom he 

 desired to publish them after his death. Together with his prayer upon the 

 scaffold, and the last letter he received from his vertuous Lady, with his 

 answer to the same. Also the speech of that piously resolved gentleman, Hugh 

 Grove, of Chissenbury, in the parish of Enford, and County of Wilts, Esquire, 

 beheaded there the same day. Printed by order of the Gent, intrusted, 1655." 

 Date written upon it by Mr. Thomason, July 2nd. This was afterwards used 

 in the compilation of " England's Black Tribunal," which has passed through 

 many additions and editions, sometimes calling it "the Trial and illegal pro- 

 ceedings," sometimes " Illegal proceedings" only. The pamphlet will be found 

 in the King's Pamplets, Sm. Q,to., vol. 652. 



• " The account " does not disclose his name; nor have I as yet discovered it. 

 + Here an erasure of a word, clearly " brevitie." 

 X A name erased and quite indecipherable. 



