Among the manuscripts at the House of Lords there are some returns that have not been used sufficiently in books on local history. In May 1641 a Protestation against all Popery, etc., was taken by the Lords and Commons, and in August it was circulated in the country. At the beginning of the following year returns were required from every parish, giving the names of those who had taken the Protestation; and many of these returns are at the House of Lords. I obtained copies of the returns for this parish and seven adjoining parishes, made an index to the names, and had my index printed in 1913 for private circulation. The return for Moreton parish does not say if anyone refused to take the Protestation, but the returns for the other seven parishes say that nobody refused: so these returns give a complete list of all the male inhabitants over eighteen years of age, that being the limit of age for taking the Protestation. There were 411 in Moreton, 53 in Lustleigh, 150 in Hennock, 345 in Bovey, 139 in North Bovey, 77 in Manaton, 179 in Ilsington and 255 in Widdicombe. None of these people had more than one Christian name, and many had the same surname. In Widdicombe there were five-and-twenty men called Hamlin or Hamlyn, and six of them were Richard, four were Thomas and three were John. In Moreton there were twenty men called Bowdon, and four of them were John, three were William and three were George. They could easily have been distinguished by saying where they lived; but in only three cases was this done. In Hennock one of the two John Potters is ‘of Kelly,’ and one of the five John Wreafords is ‘of Nepton’; and in North Bovey one of the three John Nosworthies is ‘de Kindon.’ On the Court Rolls of Wreyland Manor one John Wills is distinguished from another as ‘of Eastawray’ in 1710 and ‘de Eastawray’ in 1714. In 1718 Jane Clampitt of Yeo is called Jane Yeo; and, going a long way back, a man is twice called John atte Yeo and three times called John Yeo at the same sitting of the Court, 30 April 1438. In course of time the ‘atte’ or ‘de’ dropped out, and a man was known by the name of the place where he was living, or the place whence he had come. That explains why these returns have so many surnames that are names of places not far off, or corruptions of such names. The surname Bunckum (in Bovey) is a corruption of Boncombe or Buncombe, the parent hamlet of that home of eloquence, Bunkum, in North Carolina.