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near a town, it can still show green lanes from which the original charm has not departed, and its pleasant walks with the traces of its former greatness in Roman Villa, Church, and Castle. Oglander's account of Carisbrooke is not full of details, but he does not omit the well-known story of the vicar of Carisbrooke's Love feast with his Newport parishioners.' Sir John appears to have copied this from the records of the Corporation of Newport. This primitive interchange of friendly hospitalities probably died out under the Puritan ascendency, and was not revived at the Restoration, when the vicars of Carisbrooke began to reside at Northwood. The only other entry relates to the separation of Shorwell from Carisbrooke as an ecclesiastical parish. 'Shorwell did once belonge to Caresbroke, and wase part of that p'risch in Edward ye 3rd his time, and then by mediation of ye inhabytantes and through the power of ye Pryor of Lacoke, it wase reduced from Caresbroke and made a p'risch. One reason amongst others that they urged wase ye greate inconvenience they suffered in carryinge of corses to buriol to Caresbroke through ye waltorish lane at winter, whereby many caught theyre deaths. So that ye death in winter tyme of one cawsed many more.'

In an earlier portion of his Memoirs, we are told that 'At Clatterforde (near Carisbrooke) liveth one James Rookely, a member of that awntient house; this man hath lived theyre, and his awncestors inoyed that smal thinge he is now theyre possessed of evor since Edward ye fyrst's reygne; as may appeare by a dede from Isabella de Fortibus to his awncestor.'

Rookley, on the road from Carisbrooke to Ventnor, still preserves the name of this ancient family, afterwards settled at Brooke, the manor of which in later times came into the possession of Thomas Boureman, who married Joanna, daughter and heir of John Rookley. She died in 1501. Alvington was the manor house, and it was at Alvington that in succession the families of those who would now be squires of the parish lived the St. Martins, Pophams, Wadhams, and Harveys. In Oglander's time John Harvey was the owner of Alvington, and after the Governor of Carisbrooke Castle the biggest gentleman in the village.

March 16, 1889.

THE DEFENCES OF THE ISLE OF WIGHT IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

It is stated in the County Press for March 16, 1889, that by order of the Commander-in-Chief an Artillery camp will be formed in the Isle of Wight from May 6 to July 20, when some important operations respecting the defence of the Island and the Channel will be carried out. With the prospect of this forthcoming scheme for the protection of the Island it may be of interest to refer to the efforts that were made for the same purpose in the Isle of Wight during the seventeenth century. From very early times here, as elsewhere in England, a military force of a domestic and defensive character was kept up, to which alone the name of Militia was in later ages applied. In those early times, when the Isle of Wight formed a portion of the West-Saxon kingdom, every freeholder if not every freeman was bound to defend his country from hostile invasion. Of this force the Alderman or Earl was before the Norman Conquest the proper commander. When the De Redvers were 'Lords of the Wight,' Henry II, in order to render this defensive force more effective in cases of emergency, enacted that every freeman according to the value of his estate or moveables should hold himself constantly furnished with suitable arms and equipments. During the period that Isabella de Fortibus was Lady of the Wight these provisions were by the 'Statute of Winchester' enforced and extended. Every man between the ages of fifteen and sixty was to be assessed and sworn to keep armour according to the value of his lands and his goods; for fifteen pounds and upwards in rent, or forty marks in goods, a hauberk, an iron breastplate, a sword, a knife, and a horse; for smaller property, inferior arms. A review of this armour was to be taken twice a year by constables chosen from every hundred. Following the precedent of the 'Assize of Arms,' which under Henry II had restored the national Militia to the place which it had lost under the Norman Conquest, the 'Statute of Winchester' had especial regard to the preservation of public order by

suppressing riots and arresting robbers. The sheriff, as chief conservator of public peace and minister of the law, had always possessed the right of summoning the 'posse comitatus,' that is of calling on all the king's liege subjects within his jurisdiction in case of any rebellion or tumultuous rising, or when bands of robbers infested the public ways, or when, as very often happened, the execution of legal process was obstructed. At the same time the provisions of the 'Statute of Winchester' applied also to national defence. In seasons of threatened invasion it became customary to issue 'commissions of array,' empowering those to whom they were addressed to muster and train all men capable of bearing arms in the counties to which their commission extended, and hold themselves in readiness to defend the kingdom. The form of these commissions of array' was settled in Parliament in the fifth year of Henry IV, but the earliest of them to be found in Rymer, is in 1324, and the latest of them in 1507. The obligation of keeping sufficient arms according to each man's estate was preserved by a statute of Philip and Mary, which made some changes in the rate and proportion as well as in the kind of arms. These ancient provisions were abrogated by James I in his first Parliament. The nation, freed from the dangers which had menaced the throne of Elizabeth, was glad to be released from an expensive obligation. The Government on the other hand was no doubt of opinion that weapons of offence were safer in its own hands than in those of its subjects. Magazines were formed in different places, in the Isle of Wight at Carisbrooke Castle. At the same time there was little regard for military array and preparation except in the Isle of Wight, where the trained bands of Newport seem to have met for the encouragement of artillery (artillery being the word used in that age for all engines discharging missiles, including catapults, slings, arbalests, and the long bow).

The power of calling into arms and mustering the population of each county, given in earlier times to the sheriff or justices of the peace or to special commissioners of array, began to be entrusted in the third year of Edward VI to a new officer entitled the lord lieutenant, though the office was little known, for Camden speaks of them in the time of Queen

Elizabeth as extraordinary magistrates, constituted only in times of difficulty and danger. The lord lieutenant was usually a peer, or a gentleman of large estate in the county, whose office gave him the command of the Militia and rendered him the chief vicegerent of his sovereign, and responsible for public order. The appointment of a lord lieutenant took away from the sheriff a great part of the dignity and power which he had previously held. Yet the lord lieutenant had so peculiarly a military authority that it did not in any degree control the civil power of the sheriff as the executive minister of the law (see Hallam, Const. Hist. vol. i. PP. 550-552; Blackstone, Book IV. part 1, chap. viii).

In the Isle of Wight the governor and captain of Carisbrooke Castle had the military power which elsewhere was wielded by the lord lieutenant, and till the change of late years, which transferred to the Horse Guards the granting of commissions in the Militia from the lords lieutenant of counties, the governor of the Isle of Wight appointed the commissioned officers in the Militia, while the lord lieutenant of the county of Hants had, as he has now, the appointment of the justices of the peace for the Island. In the seventeenth century the defences and military strength of the Isle of Wight were under the command of the captain or his deputies. The Island was divided into ten districts called Centons,' that is Hundreds,' each commanded by a 'Centoner,' who was always a resident landowner and who had under him a lieutenant and from 150 to 200 men, with a number of 'hobblers' or watchmen mounted on 'hobbies' or small horses, who were constantly on the alert to give warning of the approach of an enemy. Each centoner exercised his company once a month at least, and another of his duties was to see that the field gun of each parish in his district was provided with ammunition and in readiness for service. In the time of the alarm of the Spanish Armada the local militia amounted to nearly 2,000, and in case of emergency 3,000 men in addition could be supplied from the mainland. In 1625 A trewe note of the strength of the Island,' delivered to the Council from Sir John Oglander, also shows that the local levies were divided into eleven 'bands,' each commanded by a knight or gentleman, exclusive of Newport band of 304

men, the total amounting to over 2,000 men, of whom more than half were musketeers and the rest pikemen. Sir Richard Worsley, in his History of the Island, Appendix xiv, gives the names of the commanders of these bands-Sir John Oglander, Sir Edward Dennis, Appuldurcombe Band; Mr. Dilington, Sir John Rychardes, Mr. Cheeke, Sir William Meux, Mr. Leygh, Mr. Boorman, Mr. Hobson, Mr. Urrie, Newport Band.

'Watches and wards' with beacons ready for firing were kept on all the downs and headlands, and every point and peak was jealously guarded. If a Spanish or Dutch vessel was sighted off the Island, the discovery was at once sent on to head-quarters. The watchmen with loaded muskets and lighted matches were changed at sunrise and sunset, and were visited by a 'searcher' twice during the day and three times by night. Mr. Long, in his interesting introduction to the Oglander Memoirs, has published from the Lansdowne MSS. 213, the relation of a short survey by a lieutenant of the military company at Norwich, who visited the Isle of Wight in 1635, in which he gives his impressions of the discipline and efficiency of the Island Militia: 'This fertile and pleasant Island, for her martial discipline, I found her most bravely and prudently guided by the government of two generous knights lieutenants, and fourteen gentle and expert captains, most of them all worthy knights and gentlemen, having pleasant situations in this Isle; and having under their command 2,000 foot soldiers of ready exercise and well disciplined trained men, most of them as expert in handling their arms as our artillery nurseries, which skill they attain to by taking pleasure in that honourable exercise and training, and drilling from their very infancy. Every captain hath his proper field piece, which marches and guards him into the field, where they all often meet together and pitch an equal battle of 1,000 on each side, with an equal distribution of the captains, eight of each party, with the two lieutenants, who are also captains, the East against the West Mede, on St. George's Down, by the river that runs down to Cowes Castle. A brave show there is and brave service performed. They have besides in this Island arms for 2,000 more, if need should require.'

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