The Portsmouth Road and Its Tributaries: To-Day and in Days of OldHarper, Charles G. (Charles George)
History
The Portsmouth Road and Its Tributaries: To-Day and in Days of Old
Harper, Charles G. (Charles George)
England -- Description and travel; England -- Social life and customs; Portsmouth Road (England)
"June 25, 1570. Sonday was her Iho Jinkin by pattin w{ch} was robbid
on the sea by Spanyards.
"February 1571.
"10 Sonday was her a man for his Father who was robbed on the Sey by
Lycence from my Lord Admirall."
Here we are not to assume, from the absence of punctuation, that this
unfortunate man was robbed by licence from the Admiral, but that this was
a variety of licence from the ecclesiastical kind--a kind of secular
recommendation to all and sundry, subscribed by the man's commanding
officer.
"10 Item was here the proctor of Kingsland beside Knightbrig.
"24 Sonday was here ij weman the mother and dowghter owte of Ireland
she called Elynor Salve to gather upon the deathe of her howsbande a
gentlman slayne amongst the wylde Iryshe being Captain of Gallyglasses
and gathered xviij_d_.
"May 26 Item her was a man from Dorkinge whose howse was brent.
"August 20 Item the proctor of Kingsland was here the Sonday being the
20 of August. In the same day was here ij men being robbid on the
Seye."
This licensed mendicancy was finally suppressed by the Act of Parliament,
passed in the thirty-ninth year of Queen Elizabeth's reign, "For the
Suppressing of Rogues, Vagabonds, and Sturdy Beggars." It begins by
setting forth in detail all those who were considered to come under these
designations. These were:--"Persons calling themselves scholars, going
about begging; all idle persons going about in any country either begging
or using any subtil craft or unlawful games or plays, or feigning
knowledge in physionomy or palmestry; patent-gatherers; common players of
interludes, other than players belonging to any Baron of the Realm;
juglers, tinkers, pedlers, and petty chapmen; and generally all wandering
persons using, loytering, and refusing to work for reasonable wages, or
pretending to be Egyptians. These are to be taken, adjudged, and deemed
rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars, and on apprehension to be, by
appointment of any justice of the peace, &c., being assisted therein with
the advice of the minister and one other of the parish, stripped naked,
from the middle upward, and openly whipped until his or her body be
bloody; and then sent from parish to parish to his or her last residence,
and in default of going there within a time limited, to be eftsoons taken
and whipped again."
This statute was continued and altered in subsequent reigns, and not
repealed until the twelfth year of Queen Anne.
There is an entry in Godalming parish registers, on this very road, which
shows that this was no disregarded law. On April 26, 1658, the Godalming
authorities seem to have inflicted a peculiarly brutal scourging:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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