76 



Some Western Circuit Assize Records 



have such matters before them. And what would the Court of 

 Chancery or the Charity Commissioners say ? 



The Judges at Winchester, 1604, July 28th— Sir Matthew Hale 

 one of them — are informed that Mr. Cromwell, lord of the manor 

 of Merdon, Hants, upon the apprehension of one Rd. Wasteridge, 

 seized some of his goods and chattels. As Wasteridge is going to 

 foreign plantations, Cromwell is ordered to give them up to him. 

 This may be the quondam Lord Protector Richard Cromwell. 



In Devon, at St. Thomas the Apostle (Exeter?), the ale-house 

 of John Mountstephen is suppressed, as Richard Penstone was 

 convicted at the Assize, for the manslaughter of one Gilbert, the 

 death occasioned by wrestling, the challenge for it made whilst they 

 sat drinking there. 



At the Summer Assize, Salisbury, July 8th, 1665, the High 

 Sheriff is ordered to seize a black mare for the use of the King as 

 a waif upon the flight of felony, Samuell Hooker and Charles 

 Howe having been acquitted of the charge of highway robbery in 

 stealing from John Harris the mare and 9s. Perhaps the mare was 

 Harris's after all I He might re-purchase it of the King \ Now-a- 

 days, on good cause shewn, the undivided half part might go to 

 both Hooker and Howe ! 



At Wells two men are sent to gaol until they provide themselves 

 with masters, or procure themselves to be sent to Jamaica! 



Then appears again that dire calamity of those times — " the 

 Plague." I have previously alluded to its occurrence in 1646, when 

 it was at Salisbury and other places. An entry of 8th March, 

 1666, Winchester Assize, tells us that " Sir John Keelinge and 

 Sir John Archer (complaint being made of the inhabitants of 

 Alverstoke and Borough of Gosport being visited with it are unable 

 to relieve the poor infected persons and others and are now fallen 

 into great want by means thereof) do therefore desire Sir Thos Budd 

 and Sir Humfrey Bennett Knights, Richard Norton, Bartholomew 

 Price, John Stewkley, and William Collins, the Mayor and Justices 

 of the Borough of Portsmouth or any two or more of them, forthwth 

 to take care for their reliefe by rating the adjacent inhabitants 

 according to the statute in that case made and provided. And also to 



