42 



Murder in the Seventeenth Century. 



The Ludloes long- held it. In the fourteenth century the town is 

 said to have been a busy centre of the wool trade. 



Queen Elizabeth found the manor in the crown, and with con- 

 sideration, valuable, we may feel sure, granted it to "a Mr. Smith," 

 who sold it to Sir Baptist Hickes, afterwards created first Viscount 

 Campden. 



We may doubt whether this period or the fourteenth century was 

 the golden age of the town, which does not, however, appear to have 

 ever sent a Member to Parliament. In the third year of King James I. 

 its ancient civic honours were enhanced by a fresh charter of municipal 

 incorporation. This corporate body consisted of fourteen capital 

 and twelve inferior burgesses, two bailiffs elected annually, and a 

 steward cc learned in the law." Plenty of persons to rule and property 

 to protect, we suppose, so plenary and absolute are the provisions — 

 fine, amerciament, castigation, we are glad to find a lawyer on the 

 scene. To a member of that profession the place was also indebted for 

 the institution, at that period, of the famous Cotswold Games, which 

 were held on Dover's Hill, already mentioned, thus named after their 

 founder, Mr. Robert Dover, an attorney of Barton-on- the- Heath, 

 Warwickshire. These " manly sports of all sorts/' which won the 

 patronage o£ Royalty, were the theme of the first poets of that time, 

 and attracted for forty years — till the Civil War — nobles and gentles 

 far and near : — 



" On Cotswold Hills there meets, 

 A greater troop of gallants than Rome's streets 

 E'er saw in Poinpey's triumphs ; Beauties too 

 More than Diana's beavie of nymphs could show 

 On their great hunting days .... 



. . . there in the morn, 

 When bright Aurora peeps, a bugle horn 

 The summons gives, straight thousands fill the plain 

 On stately coursers." 



Annalia Dubrensia.* 



• The Annalia Dubrensia contain poems by Michael Drayton, Ben Jonson, and about thirty other 

 poets, more or less eminent. We read :— 



"The Nemean and Isthmian pastures still 

 Though dead in Greece, survive on Cotswold Hill." 



A great many wonderful things happen there, e.g , lambs to dwell with tigers, and ladies to 

 plaster over their furrowed faces, &c ., and then the poem proceeds to sing Dover's praises ; — 

 " First shall Vigeteman, that bird of night, 

 To fly at noon take pleasure and delight, 

 Ere Cotswold shepherds on their jointed reeds 

 Shall cease to sing his fame-deserved deeds, 

 Who from their tombs wherein they were enthral' d, 

 The ancient dancing Druides hath call'd." 

 Bigland says, "Dover with the leave of James I, selected the place for the games, and that 



