By a statute as old as the time of Richard II, County Magistrates were allowed to make a charge of 4s. per day, and the Clerk of the Peace 2s., as wages for attending Quarter Sessions. That charge has been regularly made and allowed by the Sheriff up to the close of last year (1855), when the ancient statute was repealed by the passing of the Criminal Justice Act, 18th and 19th Victoria, chap. 126. In this county these wages were clubbed together as a dinner and wine fund for the magistrates, but the old practice is now discontinued, and the magistrates will henceforth be thrown upon their own resources. In the year 1810 a long and bitter controversy, at one time wearing a serious aspect, arose among the magistracy of this county, in consequence of Mr. Welch, the chairman, having been charged by Mr. Johnson, a fellow magistrate, with misappropriating a part of these "justice wages" that had been intrusted to him. The Bench acquitted Mr. Welch. ROYAL VISIT TO KING'S NORTON. There is a common tradition at King's Norton that Queen Elizabeth came thither, and was entertained at an ancient house adjoining the churchyard, probably the residence of the Manorial Bailiff; but the name of the Queen has perhaps been mistaken for that of Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I, she, according to Dugdale's Diary (p. 52), having come to King's Norton from Walsall on July 10, 1643. The manor was part of the Queen's dower. CROMWELL'S PARLIAMENT. Names of the members for Worcestershire returned for Cromwell's second Parliament, July, 1654: Sir Robert Rouse, Knt. and Bart., Edward Pitt, Esq., Nicholas Lechmere, Esq., John Bridges, Esq., Talbot Badger, Esq., (Worcester City), William Collins, Esq. (ditto), Edward Elvines, Alderman (ditto). The names of the gentlemen returned to Parliament on September 17, 1656, are--Major-General James Berry, Colonel of Horse, and Major-General of the counties of Worcester, Hereford, and Salop, and also North Wales; Sir Thomas Rouse, Bart., Edward Pitt, of Kiere Park, Esq., Nicholas Lechmere, Esq. (Attorney of the Duchy of Lancaster), John Nanfan, Esq., Worcester City.--Edmund Giles, Esq., one of the Masters in Chancery, who married a relation of the Lord Protector; William Collins, Esq. WORCESTERSHIRE ROYALISTS COMPOUNDING. By an ordinance of the Parliament[10] made on the 31st of March, 1643, it was ordained that the estates of the two Archbishops and twelve of the Bishops, including the Bishops of Worcester, Hereford, Gloucester, and Coventry and Lichfield, and of all persons ecclesiastical and temporal as had raised arms or been in active war against the Parliament, or had voluntarily contributed any money, horse, plate, arms, munition, or other aid or assistance, towards the maintenance of any forces against the Parliament, should be sequestered. [10] This ordinance will be found in extenso in Scobell's Collection of Acts and Ordinances of Parliament (a work in the Worcester Law Library) p. 37.