Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/424

 346 NOTES AND QUERIES. In the Probate Court at Chester is preserved an administration bond of goods not admini- stered of Robert Ashton of Salford, gent. The bond is dated 1693, and William Ashton is mentioned as administrator of the goods not administered of Robert Ashton, of Salford, gent., his late father. This evidence is further corroborated by the matriculation entry, in 1667, of the Rev. Robert Assheton at Magdalene College, Cambridge, furnished me by Mr. Ernest Axon of Stockport, in which the boy is given as eighteen years of age and son of Robert Ashton of Salford, gentleman. This Robert Ashton would seem to have been identical with the Robert Ashton of Salford, gentleman, whose will is listed at the Probate Court in Chester, 1668, but cannot be found there at present. Raines says that letters of administration were granted to Mary, widow of Robert Ashton ; this suggests an error in the record. The identity of Robert Ashton of Salford, father of William and the Rev. Robert Assheton, remains somewhat in doubt. It would seem probable that he was the same as that Mr. Robert Ashton mentioned on August 8, 1654, by Humphrey Chetham as going with him " to Latham to take an Acknowledgm* of y ffine from y e Earle and Countesse of Darby" ('Chetham Society,' N.S., vol. 1., p. 211 ; see also pp. 213 and 214). The arms borne by the Salford Asshetons and by their descendants in America are described by Raines as " Argent, a mullet sable, a canton of the second, quartering 2 and 3 a mascle within a bordure engrailed. Crest : On a wreath, a man holding a scythe " (F. R. Raines, ' The Fellows of the Collegiate Church of Manchester/ ed. by Frank Renaud, M.D., F.S.A., 'Chetham Society,' N.S., vols. xxi. and xxiii., vol. xxi., p. 206.) This is almost identical with the arms of the Ashtons of Shepley : Quarterly : 1 and 4, Argent, a mullet sable, a crescent for differ- ence ; 2 and 3, argent, a mascle within a bordure engrailed, sable. Crest : A man with a scythe. In the pedigree of the Shepley Ashtons given by Dugdale in his ' Visitation of Lan- cashire,' 1664-5, pp. 16-17 (' Chetham Society,' Ixxxiv.), Robert Ashtpn of Shepley is given as sixty years of age. His eldest son is John, then aged thirty-four i.e., on September 9, 1664 ; his second son, Robert, is mentioned but without any comment or description. At the earliest, John Ashton could not have been born before 1629 and his brother before 1630-1631. In view of the fact that the Rev. Robert Assheton of Salford was born in 1648-1649, any identification of his father with Robert, the second son of Robert Ashton of Shepley, would necessarily postulate a very early marriage on the part of the second son Robert. In view, however, of the early marriages of the Salford Asshetons and their descendants, I do not regard this as impos- sible : Robert, the emigrant, married at twenty or before (C. P. Keith, ' Provincial Councillors of Pennsylvania,' Philadelphia, 1883 ; ' Assheton,' pp. 281-307) ; his son Ralph married at twenty a girl of fifteen (ibidem). But should it be that William Assheton of Salford was the elder brother of the Rev. Robert Assheton, this hypothesis would become, if not untenable at least in- creasingly improbable. It is interesting to note that on August 2, 1647, John Ashton, son and heir of Robert Ashton of Shepley, was admitted to Gray's Inn (J. Foster, ' The Register of Admissions to Gray's Inn, 1521- 1889 ' . . . London, 1889, p. 246), and that on June 10, 1713, William Ashton of Salford, gentleman (son of Robert Assheton of Pennsylvania), was admitted to the same in- stitution. The Salford and Pennsylvania Asshetons, descendants of William Assheton,* father of the emigrant, were all members of the bar ; it is not without significance that the Shepley Ashtons followed the same profession. I should be glad to have any information in regard to (1) the descent of Robert Assheton of Salford, died 1668 ; (2) his marriage ; (3) the date of birth of his son William ; (4) the mar- riage of Robert Assheton, the emigrant, about 1689 to Margaret. JOSEPH M. BEATTY, Jr. Goucher College, Baltimore, Md., U.S.A. AMONG THE SHAKESPEARE ARCHIVES. Since writing the article that appeared in ' N. & Q. ' of April 16, 1 have learned that the pillory at Stratford (p. 303, col. 2, 1. 5) was not at the Market Cross, but on a piece of common ground at the corner of Sheep Street and Chapel Street, which was used as the Bull Ring, and subsequently was the site of the Town Hall burned down by the Cavaliers in 1643. The stocks and pillory are referred to in Commission (14th Report, Report on MSS., Lord Kenyon) contain interesting references to this William Assheton, who was a man of considerable distinction, apparently associated with the Earl of Derby.
 * The Publications of the Historical MSS.