Page:Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament.djvu/42

 large estates in Huntingdonshire. They "bore arms" of course; and evidently with the desire, if possible, to aristocratize their name, they called themselves Taylards. And this continued to be the spelling till the close of the sixteenth century, when the patronymic was restored to the more ancient plebeian form by an irate Taylard who considered that he had had enough of aristocracy. The head of the family had died, leaving a pregnant wife behind him, and a will which intentionally or otherwise omitted the normal word "male." A girl was born; and an astute gentleman, named Brudenell, who afterwards became Earl of Cardigan, married the heiress and her estates in her fourteenth year. The Taylards took the matter into chancery, but failed to secure the succession; and, being greatly impoverished, their chief representative came to London, and established himself on the spot where Messrs. Longmans' well-known publishing-house now stands as plain "Mr. Taylor, Haberdasher."

He prospered in business, and was a stanch [sic] supporter of the Commonwealth, which rewarded his zeal by several important appointments. He was a warm friend of the regicides, and added to his political misconduct religious heresy. He ably defended the noted Socinian preacher of the day, Goodwin.

At the Restoration, William Taylor, son of this republican haberdasher, was pardoned by Charles II. for his father's manifold offences on the payment of a heavy fine,—pardoned (he was but fourteen!) "for all manners of treacheries, crimes, treasons, misprisions, &hellip; all and singular murders."

Passing rapidly down the stream of time, we come to the Rev. Henry Taylor of Portsmouth, who matricu-