Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 2.djvu/443

 us. viii. NOV. 29, i9i3.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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to be " most emphatic in his expression of disbelief in any form of persecution by the Pilgrim Fathers," unless he used the term " Pilgrim Fathers " in the sense indicated above. As a descendant of the original John Alden, I should be happy to accept the dictum of the member of the English Parliament who made it, but I fear that it is too sweeping. Nevertheless, it is true that the persecution of Baptists and Quakers, and also of those who were charged with witchcraft (as related in the passage quoted from Oldmixon by M. N.), was largely con- fined to Massachusetts.

ALBERT MATTHEWS. Boston, U.S.

It is not quite so easy to acquit the Pilgrim Fathers of responsibility for the persecution of the Quakers and Baptists of ^s"ew England as C. C. B. supposes. The Pilgrims were aware on their first landing at Plymouth Rock that they were invading a country to which they had no just rights, their patent from the King not applying to that latitude. In consequence thereof they all appended their signatures to a " Body- politic " whilst on board the Mayflower, whereby they undertook to abide by such laws as might thereafter be agreed upon for the government of the colony. The author of ' The History of the British Empire in America,' who was 200 years nearer to the events he records than we are to-day, says :

" We find that the Brethren of New England, flying from the most flagitious persecution in the Christian world, are so far from being deterred "by their own sufferings that they are scarce out of the reach of them before they themselves set up the most strange and cruel of all persecutions, as being against their fellow sufferers and fellow exiles in the wilderness to which they fled from the fury of their implacable enemies."

And then he sets out a list of laws they passed, of which the following are an example :

"Jesuits and Popish Priests. Banishment; if returning, Death. Indians. Their lands in the jurisdiction not improved by them, Forfeited. Quakers. To bring one in, 100J. fine ; to preach, fine of 51. Not an Inhabitant, Banishment ; if returning, Death. Witchcraft. Death."

The persecution of the Baptists and Quakers was in full swing in 1650 at the whipping- post, the pillory, the prison, and the gibbet ; one individual, who refused to plead, was pressed to death, and the names of women who were whipped with thirty lashes are known.

The persecutions for witchcraft were ac- companied by treatment even more revolting,

and the author of the ' History,' appa- rently fearful that his narrative might be doubted, states in his Preface that there was not a single line he had written but had been seen and approved of by responsible people in the various towns where the events had happened. M. N.

BENNETT OF WALLHILLS, LEDBUBY, HERE- FORD (11 S. viii. 369). Having a collection of notes relating to Benett or Bennett of Berkshire, Hampshire, Herefordshire, and Hertfordshire, I am able to give your corre- spondent the following particulars of the Wallhilh branch. See Chancery Pleadings, Series II., 257/37.

Richard Bennett, yeoman, had an estate at Pridepark. in the parish of Yarkhill, and also lands in Wallhills, Wellington, and Ledbury, co. Hereford, which he assigned in 1551 or 1552 to his son Edward on his intended marriage. By his first wife, Jane, he had issue :

(1) Edward.

(2) A daughter wiio married William Layrence.

After 1586 Richard Bennett married "a woman of loose life," and had a daughter who married John Bond.

Edward Bennett of Hopton, in parish of Much-Cowarne, married firstly, in 1551 or

1552, Elizabeth, widow of Baker, and

sister of John Berrington, who shortly died without issue. He married secondly Mary Stamford, who survived him, and by whom he had issue :

(1) William ; (2) George, vivens 1609, Inq. post Mortem 1633 ; (3) Thomas ; (4) Henry ; (5) Robert ; (6) John ; (7) Richard ; and a daughter Katharine.

He died in 1587 in his father's lifetime, and was buried at Much-Cowarne ; his will was proved in P.C.C. (31 Spencer), 10 May, 1587.

William Bennett of Wallhills and of Pride- wood, or Pridepark, had by Ursula his wife an only daughter Dennys or Dyonis (of whom presently) ; he died 16 July, 1617 ; Inq. post Mortem, 1632.

Dennys or Dyonis Bennett married firstly John Hooper, who died before 1610, and secondly Pryor, by whom she had a son arid heir

Bennett Pryor of Wallhills (declared by the Inquisition of 1632 to be grandson and heir of William Bennett, his mother being dead) married Frances, daughter of Thomas Coningsby of Hampton-wafer, in parish of Docklow, co. Hereford. She had probably been married previously, as her son John Coles was living at the time that her brother,