114 Wilts hire's Contribution to the Piedmontese Fund in 1655. 



perpetuates their memory. Then, again, the large sums collected 

 at the two Donheads remind us of the dramatic story of Peter Ince, 

 the ejected parson, and of his generous patron, Thomas Grove, of 

 Fern House. From Bradford, where Methuens and Houltons dwelt, 

 we might have expected larger results. But in place of finding 

 any fault, which is far enough from our design, let us hasten to 

 extol the generosity of Salisbury, which, with its suburbs of Harn- 

 ham, Fisherton, Old Sarum, and Stratford, furnished £105, equivalent 

 to at least £500 of our modern money. Next to Salisbury, the 

 contribution of Marlborough, including the suburbs of Preshute 

 and Mildenhall, amounting to £49 5*. 7d. t naturally invites remark ; 

 and the circumstances which may be conceived as giving birth to 

 such a demonstration are worth recital. 



Thomas Eyre, the Mayor of Marlborough at the period in debate, 

 was a personal friend of Oliver Cromwell. Whether or not he may 

 be identified with the Captain Thomas Eyre whom the Parliament 

 placed in the temporary command of Devizes Castle after its sur- 

 render to Oliver, or whether he was only a kinsman of that officer, 

 can perhaps be decided only by Canon Jackson, who may profitably 

 be consulted in all matters relating to that family. Now, there 

 was no town in England which from first to last, throughout the 

 recent war, had rendered more practical adherence to the Parliament's 

 cause than Marlborough did. Cromwell was well acquainted with 

 the whole story of their varied trials ; and when those trials culmi- 

 nated in a disastrous fire which swept through the whole length of 

 their High Street, we cannot doubt that it came home to him as a 

 personal calamity. It was an accidental conflagration, this fire of 

 1653 ; and it occurred just one week after Cromwell's forcible 

 ejectment of the Long Parliament — a busy time, no doubt ; but so 

 confident did Mr. Mayor feel of the Lord General's sympathy that 

 he at once made an appeal in behalf of his ruined fellow-townsmen, 

 and received an equally prompt response. By means of a public 

 collection instituted throughout England and Wales not many 

 months elapsed before the town arose phoenix-like from its ashes; 

 and one of the houses displays the conspicuous date of 1654 to the 

 present day. Cromwell's name, it is true, does not appear on the 



