Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/379

 9 th S. XL MAY 9, 1903.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

371

authorities. The story, however, would hardly be complete if I did not add that the narrator, conscious that the readers of the magazine would hardly appreciate Funny Joe's confessions without some acquaintance with the facts which they professed to explain, prefixes an account of the said facts,

" drawn up and signed by the commissioners them- selves, and which I believe was never published, tho' it agrees very well with the accounts Dr. Plot and other authors of credit give of the whole affair. This I found affixed to the author's memorial with

this title, 'A particular account collected and

attested by themselves.' "

The modesty displayed by our contributor is admirable ; the account had indeed never been published, and its agreement with that of Dr. Plot is beyond question. It is, in fact, as a comparison of the two will show, vamped up from the latter with the necessary inser- tions relative to ** Giles Sharp," and a few playful touches, such as the following :

" Yet no footsteps appeared of any person what- ever being there, nor had the doors ever been opened to admit or let out any persons since their honours [the title invented by our contributor for the com- missioners] were last there It was therefore voted, nem. con., that the person who did this mischief could have entered no other way than at the key- hole of the said doors " !

" In the morning the bedsteads were found cracked and broken, and the said Giles and his fellows declared they were sore to the bones with the tossing and jolting of the "

And once more, while Plot is satisfied with telling us that a noise like the discharge of cannon was heard " a great way off," our account, determined that Giles's exploits shall lose nothing in the telling, magnifies this into ''throughout the country for six- teen miles round." It is almost superfluous to add that, as Mr. Lang pointed out, the secretary to the Commissioners in Widdowes is a "Mr. Browne"; but this tract of the Woodstock minister is an extremely rare one, and had probably escaped the researches of the discoverer of "Funny Joe." Together with 'The Scuffle' it is among the tracts formerly stolen from Wood's collection now in the Bodleian.

The only writers I have found who seem to have been acquainted with the British Magazine and its ' Authentic Memoirs of the Memorable Joseph Collins ' previous to Hone (1826) are Mavor in his * New Description of Blenheim ' (1810) and Brewer in the ' Beauties of England and Wales ' (1813).

H. A. EVANS.

Begbroke, Oxon.

ANCIENT DEMESNE OR CORNWALL FEE (9 th S. x. 443 ; xi. 153, 210). At the Record Office I have just come upon some Court Rolls of South Tawton, Devon (Port. 165, No. 37), which I propose to print in cxtenso in my next Devon Association paper. Mean- while a brief abstract may throw some further light on the subject of the over- lordship of that "Ancient Demesne," and may perhaps interest one of your correspondents who recently inquired after Manor Rolls.

The first is headed

" South tawton. Cur legalis man'ii ib'm ten't Quinto Die Octobris A regn. D'ne Elizabeth Dei Gratia decimo-quinto."

Its first items are

"Decenn' ib'm cu' eius decenn' yen' p's Xpoferu' man et Andrea Battishill quia p'mitt sepes suas sup'crescent' cu' Ramis int' Spyttell yeate et Spytell Crosse. I'o distr'. It'mp'sent' Nich'm Webber quia no' escur' Gutter suas us West Nymp. I'o distr'."

Then follows a list of the jurors, with the marginal note " xii pro manerio " ; and several presentments follow, the first being that "Ricus Wykes citra ult' cur legal diem suu' Claun extrem' q' se'it fuit in dom'ico suo ut de feod' de tr et ten' infra man'iu' p'dict' et q'd Anna Wykea quond'm ux'em sua sect' debet p' ten' p'dict' a'cd'm cons' man'ii p'dict'."

Another list of jurors has the note "xii p' d'na Regina," and one of their presentments is " q'd quidam Ricus Battyshill de luxillyan in Com' CornuV, gen'os, dedit & concessit ^cuidam petro Ebbysworthy om'ia messuag' tr' ten' reddit' reu'c'

in Myddel Wyke infra man'm p'dict', hend

eidem petro "

Another is that

"Thomas hole & Joh'es Oxenham ven' et dant d'ne de fin' p' licen' ei' dat' ad vendend' c'uic' [i.e., cerevisia, ale or beer] infra man'iu p'd 't p unno anno intigro p'ximo futuro." In the margin are the words " ffin' p' o'uic' vendend vid." A list of fifty-two names follows, prefaced by "Ad hoc cur' ven'," and with the sum of " viiid" in terlined^ above each, the amount being set down in the margin as "fine sect 1 xxxiiis. vind, and the remark following, " Qui dant d'ne Regine de ffine p' eor' secta hoc anno respectanda."

The first three names of this list are repeated in the next entry :

"Ad hanc Cur' ven' Joh'es Wadham (viiid.), Thorn's Carewe de haccombe (viiid) et Joh'es Cople- ston,* Ar. (viiid.), qui dant d'ne Regine de fine p eor' homag' et fidelit' hoc anno futuro respect inn homag' ijd." The margin bears the same sum, and the

(sub-) manors of South Tawton-i.e., Blackball, Ash, and Itton. The borough of Zele, as will be seen, had its separate accounts.
 * These are evidently the lords of the three