(2). SIR ROBERT PYE, SEN. Upon the breaking out of the Civil War he sided with the Parliamentarians, and, as Colonel of horse in General Fairfax's regiment, headed an assault on his own house at Faringdon, in which he was repulsed by the royalist governor Sir Marmaduke Rawdon. During the protectorate he enjoyed many high favours; he nevertheless joined in the attempt to restore Charles II., and was subsequently committed to the Tower for a breach of privilege in presenting a petition from the County of Berks, complaining of the want of a settled form of Government. Pye was released at the Restoration and appointed Equerry to King Charles II. He married a daughter of John Hampden. He lived with her upwards of 60 years, and died in 1714 within a week of her death. Sir Robert Pye's great-great-grandson was the poet-laureat Henry James Pye.

(3). SIR BENJAMIN RUDYERD, KNT., of West Woodhay, near Newbury, descended from the Rudyerds of Rudyerd, co. of Stafford ; third son of James Rudyerd, Esq. of Hartley, co. Hants, by Margaret his wife, daughter, and heiress of Lawrence Kidwelly, of Winchfield, in the same county, esquire. Sir Benjamin was born on St. Stephen's day, 1572, and educated at the public school, Winchester, and St. John's College, Oxford. By the influence of his patron, Sir John Harrington, afterwards Lord Harrington, of Exton, preceptor to the accomplished but unfortunate Princess Elizabeth, Rudyerd soon obtained a favourable reception at the Court of King James I. and in the abovementioned noble family, distinguished alike by their talents and piety, he, no doubt, received those lessons of moderation which so greatly distinguished his whole political career. From that family, too, he chose a partner in the joys and sorrows of his life, in the person of Elizabeth, one of the two daughters and co-heiresses of Sir Henry Harrington, next brother to John, first Lord Harrington of Exton. On the 9th March, 1617, Rudyerd was appointed to the then high and distinguished office of Surveyor of His Majesty's Court of Wards and Liveries, and on the 30th of the same month, King James honoured him with the degree of knighthood. Upon the differences arising between King Charles I. and Parliament, Sir Benjamin was one of the several members of both houses who did all they could to persuade the Parliament to an accommodation, and warned them of the miseries of a civil war. On the abolition of the Court of Wards and Liveries in 1647, £6,000 was voted to Rudyerd, and so great was the esteem of the House towards him, that they further voted him a part of the forfeited estates of the Marquis of Worcester as a reparation for the loss of his office, but notwithstanding these marks of favour, he was heartily disgusted with the disloyal attempts of the Independents, and he stood to his post to the last moment advocating moderation and deprecating destruction. In December, 1648, Rudyerd and other well affected members of the Parliament having been beaten on the 4th instant, question, "whether the King's answers to the propositions of both Houses were satisfactory," on the 6th, the question was varied by the King's friends, among whom Rudyerd stood prominently forward, in the hope of further averting the progress of the rebellion, and making a happy peace with the Sovereign, then a prisoner. It was now put in these terms,-that the answer of the King to the propositions of both Houses are a ground

for the House to proceed upon for the settlement of the peace of the kingdom," which was carried by a majority of 129 to 83. Such an unexpected occurrence threw Cromwell and the Parliamentary generals into the greatest consternation, and the result was the well-known coup d'état, when all the obnoxious members were seized as they arrived at the House: one of the victims on this occasion was Rudyerd, then 76 years of age, who was thrown into prison with the rest. It appears Rudyerd did not remain in confinement any length of time, as the Journals of the House of Commons record his release from the Gate-house shortly afterwards, owing, it is said, to the influence of Mr. Prynne. Sir Benjamin then retired to his house at West Woodhay, built for him by Inigo Jones, and spent the remainder of his days in the quiet to which his mind must have been a stranger while engaged in the political struggles of the times. Sir Benjamin died at West Woodhay on the 31st May, 1658, aged 86 years; a few months only before the death of Cromwell. No stronger example of the sincerity of Rudyerd's religious sentiments can be adduced than the following beautiful hymn which he composed in his declining years:

"O God! my God! what shall I give

To Thee in thanks? I am and live
In thee; and thou dost safe preserve
My health, my fame, my goods, my rent:
Thou mak'st me eat, whilst others starve,
And sing, whilst others do lament.
Such unto me thy blessings are
As though I were thy only care.

But oh my God, thou art more kind,
When I look inward on my mind:
Thou fill'st my heart with humble joy,
With patience meek, and fervent love
(Which doth all other loves destroy),
With faith which nothing can remove,
And hope assur'd of Heaven's bliss:
This is my state, my grace is this."

Sir Benjamin was buried in the Church at West Woodhay, where in Ashmole's time there was "a neat black marble monument" to his memory, with an epitaph, written (according to the authority of Wood, "Athenæ Oxonienses," vol. iii.) by Sir Benjamin in his younger days. It is printed in Ashmole's "Collections," and in the "Hist. of Newbury," p. 289. The only son of Sir Benjamin married one of the five daughters and co-heirs of Sir Stephen Harvey, of Morton Murrell in the co. of Warwick (created Knight of the Bath at the coronation of King Charles I.); and by this connection Mr. Rudyerd was brother-inlaw to the celebrated Speaker Lenthall. Mr. John Rudyerd, the ingenious designer of the Eddystone Light-house erected in 1708, and which stood until destroyed by fire in 1755, was a lineal descendant of Sir Benjamin.

(4.) EDMUND DUNCH. Member for Wallingford in the Parliaments of 1628-40, and for the County in the Parliaments of 1654-56.

His

return to the Long Parliament was declared void. Mr. Dunch, High Sheriff of the County, 9 Car. 1, 1632-3, was the son of Sir William Dunch, who married Mary, daughter of Sir Henry Cromwell, and aunt to the Protector. In 1658 he was created a baronet, and afterwards called to the Upper House by the title of Baron Burnell, of which he was divested at the Restoration, he died in 1678. The grandson of "Baron Burnell," and his namesake (Edmund Dunch) married a daughter and co-heiress of Col. Godfrey, by Arabella Churchill, sister to the great Duke of Marlborough; and on his demise without male issue in 1719, his family became extinct. The marriage just alluded to is note-worthy, as, the last Mrs. Dunch being halfsister to the children of James II., the blood of the Cromwells and Stuarts became thereby commingled.

(5.) DANIEL BLAGRAVE, of Southcote, one of the Regicides, was third son of Anthony Blagrave, Esq., and nephew of the eminent mathematician who built Southcote Manor-house. He represented the borough of Reading in Parliament; and, as a reward for his services to the Commonwealth, received the office of "Exigenter" in the Court of Common Pleas, worth annually at that time £500, and was made Master in Chancery. He was likewise Treasurer of Berkshire, and one of the County Committee, who were authorized to remove all "inefficient" ministers, in which office he distinguished himself by his vexatious persecution of the clergy. The emoluments of his office in the Common Pleas, it is supposed, enabled him to purchase the King's fee-farm-rent of the valuable Manor of Sonning and some other estates; and, having kept in with every form of government during the interregnum, he obtained a seat in the Convention Parliament of 1658. At the Restoration, finding the danger which threatened him, he fled the kingdom, and, retiring to Aachen in Germany, died in 1668 in an obscure condition. John Blagrave, nephew of the above and son of Anthony Blagrave, by Dorothy, daughter of Sir Thomas Dolman, of Shaw, was one of the gentlemen of Berks who had assisted in the Restoration, and qualified to be made a knight of the proposed Order of the Royal Oak. This family of the Blagraves of Bulmarsh Court and Southcote became extinct in the male line on the demise of John Blagrave, Esq., in 1787, and is now represented in the female line by J. H. Blagrave, Esq., of Calcot Park.

(6.) RICHARD BROWNE. Major-General of Oxfordshire, Berkshire, and Buckinghamshire, was an eminent citizen of London, a warm advocate for the presbytery, greatly distinguished himself in the field, and had no small influence in the Parliament. He attended the Earl of Essex when he first marched against the King; and had a considerable hand in defeating the Royalists near Worcester and at Edgehill. He took Arundel Castle by storm, and, seizing on Abingdon, bravely defended it against the whole force of the garrison at Oxford. In a sudden sally from Abingdon he surprised and took Bellasith House, which was strongly garrisoned by the royal party, and found in it a good supply of provision. He was one of the Commissioners deputed to receive the King from the Scots army; when, perceiving the great advantage His Majesty had in his disputes with their politicians and divines, and probably penetrating the designs of the Independents, he 1eturned to his allegiance, and ever after inflexibly adhered to it.

He was much in favour with Charles II., whose Resident he was at Paris before the Restoration, and was soon after created a baronet, having before received the honour of knighthood. He had the command of the City Militia, and was Lord Mayor of London in 1660. His only daughter and heiress espoused John Evelyn* during her father's residence in France.

(7.) JOHN PACKER, of Donnington Castle. (8). ROBERT PACKER his son.

See Appendix to the
Second Battle.
One of the King's

(9.) CORNELIUS HOLLAND, M.P. for Windsor. judges. Once servant to Sir Harry Vane, by whom he was preferred to be Clerk of the Green Cloth to the King whose death-warrant he ultimately signed. Winstanley in his "Martyrology," and the author of a work entitled "The History of the King Killers," concur in representing this regicide as a man of great depravity. In "The Mystery of the Good Old Cause," it is stated that Holland made himself a farmer of the King's Feeding-grounds at Crestoe in Bucks, worth £1,800 or £2,000 per annum, at the rate of £20 a year, which he discounted. He possessed Somerset House a long time, where he and his family nested themselves. He was keeper of Richmond House which served for his country-retreat. He was also commissary for the garrison at Whitehall and the Mews; and he had an office in the Mint. It is supposed he gave £5,000 to each of his ten children!

VIII.-SHIP-MONEY.

"Ship-Money," a word, says Lord Clarendon, "of a lasting sound in the memory of this kingdom," indicates a project which in its progress made the dissensions between King and Parliament irreparable, and in its consequences led to the misery of eleven years of almost uninterrupted Civil War.

Schedules were prepared and sent to each Sheriff, containing the list of all the counties, cities, and corporate towns, and the proportions in which each was rated, to the end that each district and community might be made aware that the contribution was enforced impartially. These Schedules present a view of the comparative wealth and importance of those places, which is remarkable in the contrast it affords with their respective conditions in present times.

*Cowley in his "Garden," addressed to this worthy gentleman, compliments him upon his taste for horticulture and books, and his happy choice of a wife, who had, as he expresses it, "The fairest garden in her looks,

And in her mind the choicest books."

DISTRIBUTION OF SHIPS, WITH THEIR TONNAGE, NUMBER OF Men, and CHARGE, AND THE SUMS SET ON THE CORPORATION TOWNS IN THE COUNTY of BERKS. (From Sir Peter Temple's MS. Papers-Stowe, given in the Appendix to Lord Nugent's "Life of Hampden.")

Portsmouth was assessed at £60; Bath £70; Preston £40; Stafford £30; and Liverpool £25! Such a disproportion to the present wealth of some of these places shows what great changes are wrought by the hand of Time!

PETITION OF THE GRAND JURY OF THE COUNTY OF BERKS AGAINST SHIP MONEY, &c.*

To the King's Most Excelent Matie.

The Humble Petition of your Maties most Loyall subjects the Grand Jury Impaneled 11 July, 1640, to serve at the generall assizes holden for the County of Berks, in the behalfe of themselves, and the rest of the Countie. Sheweth, That whereas your Petitioners have been of late yeares and still are much burthened with sundry grievances of divers natures deriving ther authority from yr Maje but being directly contrary to yr Maties Lawes established in this your kingdom, the chief of these presenting themselves in a schedule hereunto annexed, for redresse, whereof, as your petitioners hoped, your Matie was graciously pleased about the midle of Aprill to assemble the great Councell commonly called the High Court of Parliament, and about three weeks after to dissolve it, for want (as it seemes to your petitioners) of a goode agreemente betwixt the two houses. Neverthelesse since the said dissolution to express such a fatherly care of your Poor people, that yr Matie has vouchsafed by a Printed declaration to invite them to the poureing out of their complaynts unto your Princely eare. It may therefore please your most Excellt. Matie to take the sayd particulers into your tender consideration, to give your Petitioners such ease therein, as in your Royall Wisdome shall be thought fitte. And whereby it may appeare to all your Maties Subjects, and especially to thos of yr Maties most honorable Privy Councell, and your Officers and Ministers of Justis, that yr Matie is resolved to continue unto them all their rights and Liberties which they desired by ther Petition of Right, and wer

* Addl. MSS., Brit. Mus., No. 204064, f. 9.