land, Earl of Kent, acknowledge to have received of the Bailiffs of the Town of Andover fifty two pounds and six pence, and that the aforesaid Bailiffs are quit towards the Lord Earl aforesaid by these presents. In witness of which I have set my seal to these presents. "Given at London the 12th day of October, the second year after the Conquest."

Part of the seal remains; it has, within a much enriched quatrefoil, a lion's face with lolling tongue.

The pathetic coincidence is that it is dated the last year of Edmund's short life, 1328. "Winchester", says that most delightful of historians, its present Dean, "always seems to have loved its worst kings best, and remained faithful to Edward II. The nobles at Winchester planned the favourite's overthrow, and their leader, Edmund Earl of Kent, was seized, attainted by a Parliament in the Castle at Winchester, and condemned to die. So much was he beloved that no one could be found to behead him, and for a long day he stood waiting before the Castle gate, until at last came an accursed ribald from the Marshalsea, who, to save his own wretched life, put him to death."

The next receipt we have is dated May 12, 1332. It is from Margaret Countess of Kent, the widow of the unhappy young nobleman just mentioned. The sum is still the same, £104 a year. This lady was the daughter of John, and sister and heiress of Thomas Lord Wake; and the exquisitely lovely seal attached bears on a heatershaped shield, within a bordure, three lions passant gardant, for Edmund Earl of Kent, impaling two bars, in chief three torteaux, for Wake. The sum does not vary during the Countess's time. The last quittance we have of hers is 1348.

This Countess's two sons died without issue, and it may possibly be that this fee-farm went to their sister Joan, the Fair Maid of Kent, wife of Edward the Black Prince; but at any rate, so far as Andover is concerned, the thread of the story is broken here; and when we next find a receipt, it is for a different sum, one payment being £12 a year, the other £8 : 10:10, and the two sums are in the hands of different owners.

I do not know whether it would be safe to hazard a query whether the sums we deal with in future are the

knights' fees and money-payment. We can, however, gather that the £8: 10: 10 kept in the hands of the Queen. It formed part of the jointure of Joan of Navarre, second wife of Henry IV, who died 9 July 1437.

The annuity of £12 first appears in the documents we have in 1482, in the name of Edward IV; and our next is of the same annuity of £12 in the name of Henry VIII (1515), while the Queen, Catherine of Arragon, is having the other payment of £8: 10:10. There is proof that the King derived his from his grandmother, Margaret Countess of Richmond, and it is in the Compotus of the Richmond lands.

"This present bill, made the v day of December, the vij yere of the Raigne of our Sou'aigne Lorde King Henry the viij, witnesseth that I, James Morice, one of the Kings Receyuors generall of all those his Londs and possessions which were of late my lady his grandame, late Countess of Richmond and Derby, have received of William Drake and Vincent Jumper, Bayliffs of the town of Andover, vjli. sterling for the fee-farm of the same, due unto our said Sou'aigne Lord at the feaste of Saynt Mychell the archangell last past before the date hereof; of the which vjli. I knowledge me to be fully contented and paid, and thereof acquyte and discharge the said Bailliffs in this behalff by these presents. Sealed with my seale and with my hand this day and yere aboue said.

"By me, James Morice."

I am tempted to notice that by this time the quittances have lost their charm. The diction is now severely legal, the handwriting infinitely less attractive than the beautiful calligraphy of the time of the Edwards, and I had almost said the romance had fled, and left only the prosaic figures; but the form of the next possessor, with her white hair dabbled with blood, seems to rise before us as we handle the quittance from Margaret Countess of Salisbury. She receives the £12, and the last quittance from her is in 1530, twelve years before her execution.

Meanwhile, in 1525, Thomas Manners, Earl of Rutland,1 gives quittance for £6 for one whole year's fee; Lady Elizabeth Neville for £11 3s. for the year ended Michael

1 Thomas Manners, thirteenth Lord Ros, K.G., created Eari of Rutland, 18 June 1525, was succeeded by his son Henry, second Earl. He married Lady Margaret Nevill, daughter of Ralph, fourth Earl of Westmoreland.

mas 1528; while the Queen in 1529 gives quittance for only £1:10:11. But on 22 May 1532, the year before the marriage was declared null, it is Richard Justice who gives the receipt for £8:10:10, then described as Queen's rent; while on 1 March 1533, little more than a month after the private marriage with Anne Boleyn, it is the same sum in the name of the Queen again.

In 1593 some other change has taken place, and the Marquis of Winchester is owner of the fee-farm of £28:1:5. At this date William, third Marquis, held the title. His mother was Elizabeth, daughter of Robert, second Lord Willoughby de Broke.

At the present moment the town of Andover pays quitrent of £18, £22, and £9, to Lord Scarsdale, Lord Bolton, and Mr. Duncan respectively. I cannot see my way to trace the amounts to the old charge.

The series of receipts, as far as they have been found, concludes with the printed forms filled, in 1593, with the particulars by the deputy-auditor,-a sort of testimony to the lasting bond of history, which holds together such differing times, such varying circumstances, but gives its own matchless interest to everything brought in contact. with it.

I have always thought, as I have been looking over the town documents, that Andover has contrived with singular ingenuity to avoid the romance of history by sedulously going with the times, and siding with the powers that be; but I submit that so prosaic a matter as the receipts for rent, paid by a quiet-going country place with no claim even to be considered an "historic town", shows that no spot in the kingdom can help feeling that noble inheritance of ours, the historic influence of Old England.

SOME

NOTES ON THE PLAGUE IN WINCHESTER.

BY W. H. JACOB.

(Read during the Winchester Congress, 3rd August 1893.)

AMONGST many objects of interest in Winchester, the Obelisk without Westgate is noteworthy. It recalls the plague and its ravages here and in the Soke, the foundation and still vigorous existence of the Society of Natives, its champion, and good work in apprenticing children; its primary purpose having been to aid those who lost their parents in the pestilence, 1665-6. It is kept up by the Natives' and Aliens' Societies, and possesses a twofold interest, recalling a processional cross of the fifteenth century, the remains of which are in its base; whilst the "Broad Stone", on which, in a pan of vinegar or water, coin was placed in exchange for provisions (to escape contagion), is yet to be seen in the foundations. In 1665-6 the locality was bounded, south, by the dilapidated walls and towers of the Castle of Norman, Plantagenet, and later kings, as left after the "slighting" process of the Commonwealth; north, by a fine range of wall connecting Westgate and Hermit's Tower; west was the deep fosse of the Castle, and open country traversed by the Roman Road. The picturesque details and terrors of that Market must be imagined. The Gate remains, the Castle towers are gone, and the grand wall, "A sure defence 'gainst Winton's foes"," has yielded to destruction and tenements. The Natives' books style the spot the "Old Market Cross without Westgate.'

The plague, which visited England twelve times in seven centuries, was the product, not of defective, but of entirely absent sanitation. Common decency was outraged, and filth abounded; London, according to writers in 1665, rivalling the filthiness of any Oriental city. So

1 Harl. MSS., Brit. Mus., "A Tarrage of the City." (See Woodward's Hampshire, vol. i, note, p. 262.)

2 Hampshire Chronicle. Time of destruction, 1825.

did Winchester, her ancient rival. This is proved by presentments and other records of Tudor and Stuart times preserved to us. These are almost incredible, and amus

ing.

A few examples must suffice :

"10 April 1563.-Ffor nusance. Item that noe p'son from henceforthe laye anie ded dogge, horse, or anie other carreyne, in any strete or hyewaie of the cittie, neither shall laye anie such ded carron in anie other place, excepte he burie ye same sufficientlie forthwith, upo' payne of vis. viiid. ffor everie tyme he may be duelye convict thereof. Halfe to goe to the Chamber of the cittye, halfe to the ffynder."

The finding could hardly have been difficult. In 1577 there is another nuisance legislated on :

"All p'sons above the age of twelve are forbidden to make the stretes a place of easement. If taken in the fact, to forfeit vid., or in default to suffer such punishment as in the discretion of the Mayor was proper."

Pigsties, manure-heaps, and other nuisances abounded, hogs wandered in the streets, and the river suffered from manifold abominations, as the following extract in 1583

proves

"Entrayyles. At a com'on convocation of the citizens it is ordayned that from henceforth no bocher shall throwe Intrayles or other vile things in the ryver or elsewhere, to the noyance of their neighbors, but onelie in the place accustomed, called Abbie Bridge, and there p'vided alwaies that such vyle things shalbe cutt into iiii inches longe att least, upon penaltie of iiis. iiiid."

Doubtless the trout and eels were fine, but our good Dean and Canons' predecessors could hardly have enjoyed their gardens.

Cleansing was left to individuals, and in 1583 each householder had daily to throw down five buckets of water to cleanse the gutter before his premises, under a penalty of 20s. No wonder the dread of the plague prevailed thus early.

The only parochial evidences of the pestilence existing in Winchester are in the almost perfect sets of Registers of SS. Maurice, Mary Kalendar, and Peter Colebrook, kindly entrusted to me by the Rector and Wardens of these united parishes. In 1583 there is no proof of extra mortality, and this part of Winchester included the