for his donation. The arms of Sir Francis are on a large shield above the western door.

In 1655 the north side of the church was rebuilt. It has been once more rebuilt in modern times, and the sooner it undergoes the operation again, the better the church will look.

THE RECTORY and VICARAGE.

Chippenham would have a Rector resident until about A.D. 1150, when the tithes were for the first time severed from parish uses. They were bestowed, about that year, by the Empress Maud, on the Monastery of Monkton Farley; the gift consisting of the tithes of the whole parish, including the chapelry of Titherington-Lucas. The Prior and Monks then appointed a Vicar, with a small endowment. The Vicar frequently complained that it was too little, and the Bishop augmented it. Again he complained, and again it was increased. Under the second application of the Episcopal screw, the Prior and Monks began to wince, and presented a remonstrance in their turn that the Vicar's share was too large, that his income was now "immoderate;" whereupon the Bishop directed an entirely new Ordination. A copy of this document is preserved in the Registry at Salisbury, and it forms in fact the title-deed of the present Vicarage. In it the Official, one Master Stephen, professes his determination to pursue a just and middle course. He will do on the one hand, not too little, on the other not too much. The Vicar's income, for all time to come, shall not be lean, but it must not be exuberant. The Parish Priest must live, but to be pampered is not good. Following out these cautious principles, his sentence therefore is that the first augmentation shall stand, and that in addition to it, the Vicar shall take and enjoy the profits of the chapelry of Titherton-Lucas, the tithes of which had hitherto belonged to the Prior. But Master Stephen's mind still secretly feared the error of excess to the secular clergy. The Vicar might, after all, be overpaid and underworked. He would have indeed upon his hands the care of the parish, and the ministrations of the parish church. This might one day be enough, whilst the emoluments of Titherton might be superfluously plenteous. The further precaution was therefore taken, that out of the Titherton

incomings the Vicar should pay a pension of 40s. a year to the impoverished Prior of Farley, and should also provide for the services of Titherton chapel, by proper ministers, at his, the Vicar's, own cost. This deed is dated 20th April, A.D. 1272, the 56th year of King Henry III. This was the way in which the chapel of St. Nicholas and Rectory of Titherton-Lucas became annexed to the Vicarage of Chippenham.

Things having been thus amicably arranged between the Prior and his Vicar, the Monastery of Farley continued to take the tithes (plus the 40s. a year from the Vicar) until the dissolution, when the estate of the Priory in this parish was bestowed (as mentioned above) upon the Protector Somerset. The Rectorial tithes were then transferred, not, as they ought to have been, back to the parish, but to Oxford; being granted by King Henry VIII. to the Dean and Chapter of Christ Church, then newly founded. The grant is dated 11th December, 1546, just two months before the king's death.

DISTINGUISHED NATIVES.

One more point must be alluded to in this sketch of Chippenham history. It will not detain you very long, but you would perhaps not object to its being longer, as it is to refer to the distinguished natives of your town. No doubt there have been many, but unluckily ("carent vate sacro,") for want of some one to collect in times past the particulars of this interesting property, we are left in considerable ignorance of the eminent deceased. At present my list is very brief, for it contains only two names.

One of these was Dr. Thomas Scott, the author of "The Christian Life." Born at Chippenham, as the Register states, in October 1638, he became a very celebrated Divine; was within reach of Prebends, Deaneries, and twice, of Bishopricks; but from private scruples he refused all. His works were printed in two volumes folio. I need not more particularly allude to them, as of course they are to be found in every library in Chippenham. This will hardly be the case with the literary remains (if indeed there are any) of the second fellow-townsman to be brought before your notice, for the very fact of his connection with the place at all will

probably be quite novel to the greater part of the audience. But with his name you will be historically familiar; for every one will remember amongst the extravagances of the Commonwealth, a certain denomination of fanatics who rejoiced in the title of Muggletonians. I have no claim to particular intimacy with their doctrines, and therefore in giving authority for the fact that their founder, Lodowick Muggleton, was Chippenham born and bred, I can only hope that there is no Muggletonian present to take offence at the pungent description of his chief which I am obliged to borrow. A memoir of this person, in which he is said to have been born here, "of poor though honest parents," is printed in the Harleian Miscellany,' and its title is as follows: "A modest account of the wicked life of that grand Impostor, Lodowick Muggleton: wherein are related all the memorable actions that he did, and all the strange accidents that have befallen him, ever since his first coming to London, to this 25th day of January, 1676. Also a Particular of those reasons which first drew him to those damnable principles; with several pleasant stories concerning him, proving his commission to be but counterfeit, and himself a cheat." The biography goes on to show that Mr. Muggleton (of Chippenham) began his religious career as a Church of England man; exchanged for Independent; slipped off to Anabaptist; tasted Quakerism; and finally, as might be expected, subsided into no religion at all. His practice is described as having been as loose as his theories were wild, and through the one or the other he appears to have fallen occasionally into troubles.

"Howbeit," says the "modest account," "a little before Oliver's death, Muggleton, by continual flatteries had got into his books, and, amongst other prophecies concerning him, had declared that Oliver should perform more wonderful actions than any he had yet achieved, before he died. But, he happening to depart this life, before he had done any thing else that was remarkable, Muggleton was demanded why his prophecy proved not true? He answered very wisely, and like himself, viz., that he was sure Oliver would have performed them had he lived long enough." J. E. J.

1 Vol VIII. p. 83, (8vo. 1810).

47

On Edington Church, and Memorials of
its Bistory.

By the Rev. ARTHUR FANE.

It devolved upon me at the last year's Archæological Meeting at Salisbury, to endeavour to elucidate the antiquities and throw some light upon the historical associations of an ancient church of much beauty and rare interest in the Vale of Wylye,-a church, too, which was the centre of many stirring historical traditions, but which remains at once a monument of the munificence, splendour, and architectural style of past ages, and of the neglect and want of taste of more recent times.

It chances, from near residence, that another church has specially interested me, which in all particulars seems a twin church to that of St. Mary's, Boyton. The Church of All Saints, Edington, to which I purpose calling the attention of my brother archæologists, is a far grander and more imposing building than its sister church; it is also as remarkable a specimen of the transition from one style to another, as the mortuary chapel of the Giffards at Boyton. As in the latter building we see the struggle between the harsher and more severe times of early English, gradually blending into the trefoil or quatrefoil of Decorated architecture, and the fuller foliations of the architecture of the middle of the 14th century warming the acute cuspings and plain mouldings of the 13th; so in the church of Edington, we may observe the straight and more formal lines of the Perpendicular dispersing the elegant tracery and cutting the flowery developments of the 14th century. We see at Boyton, so to speak, Henry the 3rd contending with Edward the 1st; whilst at Edington we see the struggle of Edward the 3rd with Richard

the 2nd.

Without further delay-except to entreat the most favourable consideration for a paper roughly sketched amidst the engrossing cares, the ceaseless anxieties of a large parish, and the usual share of social and domestic occupations which I believe entangle antiquarian quite as much as more modern students-I will proceed to the details of the church and parish of Edington.

The table-land which, dispersed in several groups, is called by the common appellation of Salisbury Plain, terminates from Westbury to the high road hanging over Earlstoke in a series of ramparts of turf, which seem to stand out against the Vale of Pewsey with the sheer massiveness of a fortified town. At no point does the upper plain rise more abruptly than where the down lands, forming a bason in which the little hamlet of Bratton is placed, sweep round to the northwestward and rise up almost perpendicularly from the Vale of Pewsey below. Close under this natural rampart, about four miles from Westbury, a rich fringing of gigantic elms and walnuts surrounds the village of Edington, whilst on a sort of open space where cross roads meet, the magnificent old church startles the passer by with its almost cathedral proportions and rich outline of pinnacle, and battlement, and tower. The village is mentioned by Camden-"At Edindon, heretofore called Eathendone, King Alfred won the most glorious victory that ever was obtained over the ravaging Danes, and drove them to that extremity that they took a solemn oath immediately to depart the land." It would appear, on the authority of Tanner and Leland, that as early as the reign of John, the Church and Manor of Edington were held under the Abbey of Romsey, and that the church was held as a prebendal benefice under that Abbey. William of Edington, Bishop of Winchester, and so well known by the commencement of that work of restoration in Winchester Cathedral which was so gloriously carried forward by his successor, William of Wykeham, determined to acknowledge God's goodness in raising him to so high a post in His Church, and built the present church; and furthermore, moved by the same pious gratitude and zeal, founded subsequently a college for a dean and twelve ministers, to the honour of the Blessed Virgin, St. Katharine, and All Saints. The