of the pishe. Mr Byard & Mr Hacor 20/- apiece. Sonne William & daur Katherin £6 : 13 : 4 apiece. Sonne ffrancis & daŭr Dorcas 5/- apiece. Residue of goods to my sonnes, John Thoresbie, Paul Thoresbie, & Peter Cooper, exors, they giving unto my grandchild Thomas Hawthornewhite 5/- as to the rest of my grandchildren. Geo'. Thursbye [Seal illegible]. Witnesses, Henr: Byard, min: Phill Thorisby, Frederick Thoresbie, John Thoresbey, Peter + Cowper. Proved at York, 11 July, 1646.

Whatever may be the date of the antiquary's pedigree, it is a pleasure to state that he himself was in no way responsible for it. He was only seven years old when Sir William Dugdale recorded it at Leeds, 4 April, 1666. The fact seems to be that his branch knew they were related to the old stock, and to Cuthbert Thoresby, of Woolhouse, but the exact connection was left for some unscrupulous professional to show, and accepted in good faith as beyond the memory or knowledge of the living, which seldom extends unaided further back than a great grandfather. This is not the only Yorkshire pedigree approved by Dugdale in 1666 with less than his usual care and judgment. It is not absolutely proved that there was no Ralph, of Woolhouse, elder brother, according to the Visitation pedigree, of Cuthbert, of Woolhouse, apparently a great grandson of the elder Cuthbert before mentioned, but it is extremely unlikely. This second Cuthbert was himself of Woolhouse, and died 1635, leaving several sons. See his will in Surtees Durham. Ralph was not a Thoresby name, and our antiquary himself was clearly called so after his mother's father, Ralph Idle.

In conclusion, I submit there is a very fair chance of his descent being made out from the old stock on good evidence in the way indicated, but it will entail some deeper research than I have been able to make. I am sorry to have to leave his grand genealogy in this rather shattered condition.

Since the above was written, Mr. Brown has printed, in the York shire Archaeological Journal, Part 56, from the Stowe MSS. in the British Museum, with several letters of the Thoresbys of Leeds, one from Mr. Nathaniel Johnson to Mr. W. Dugdale, informing him that the family "desire a pedigree and scutcheon signed as I formerly intimated to you." The writer adds, "There is no doubt but that they are descended from Thoresby of Thoresby," etc., p. 437.

In a letter from Mrs. Ellinor Mitford, of Burnhall, to Mr. George Thoresby, dated 1666, the Thoresbyes pedigree-possibly the Rotulus, from its antiquity and description-is referred to as having been lent by her son, Charles Barker, to Mr. George Thoresby; but it was evidently missing, though said to have been returned by George's brother John. Mrs. Mitford was a Thoresby, and formerly wife of Simon Peacock, of Burnhall (m. at Richmond, 8 Dec., 1622). In her will she mentions her brother Matthew Thursby's children, and ten pounds due to her from Thomas and Ralph Thursby. (Surtees Durham, iv., 99.)

The Rotulus, like the Nevill pedigree (see Gen. New S., iii., 31), the Grimaldi Roll of Arms, and the Registrum, of which there is another copy, "the Gilling MS.," at Castle Howard, probably came from the Scriptorium at Jervaulx Abbey. A note by Canon Raine (in the Gilling MS.) states that the internal evidence tends to show that the MS. was written there, from the great prominence given to all that relates to that Abbey. (Hist. MSS. Com. Report on the MSS. of the Earl of Carlisle, 1897.)

A. S. E.

Wapentake of Skyrack,

30 June and 20 October, 1545.

T

HE following list of persons in the Wapentake of Skyrack, assessed to the payment of the subsidy granted in the thirty-fourth year of King Henry VIII., is copied from the original, preserved in the Public Record Office.' There are in the same Office many documents relating to such subsidies, from a period long anterior to the year in question, which are calendered, county by county, in the manuscript "descriptive slips" placed in the round room; but full lists of the persons assessed, such as the following, are comparatively rare,—very rare before the time of Henry VIII. Such a list for Skyrack exists for 1525, and it has been printed in the Yorkshire Archæological Journal, Vol. II., pp. 43 and 289. The list here given is, so far as is at present known, the next one still remaining to us.

The preamble to the Act granting the subsidy recites that it had been made plain to Parliament by the examination of "soondrye olde auncient and autentique rolles, patents, wrytings, and recordes, openlye and manifestlye exhibited and maturelye redde and debated in this present Parliament," that Henry VIII. had a good and just title to the crown and realm of Scotland, and that although the assertion of that title had been suspended by the king and his predecessors, yet his rights remained unimpaired: and that the late "pretensed" King of Scotland (i.e. James V.), and his subjects had inflicted great wrongs upon the English dwelling on the marches, in spite of Henry's frequent remonstrances, whereby the king was constrained to use his forces against the Scotch, and consequently

(1) Thoresby, in the Ducatus Leodiensis, p. 120, states that an original copy of this Roll was in his possession. This is probably the copy which is now in the Bodleian Library.

to raise great armies and increase his garrisons, at a heavy cost. The preamble goes on to state that the recent death of James had afforded a suitable opening for assertion of the king's rights to the Scottish crown, and to aid in this and in payment of the expenses already incurred, it had been agreed to grant him one. entire subsidy, to be levied as follows:

On the personal estate of subjects worth £1 to £5, fourpence in the pound; £5 to £10, eightpence in the pound; £10 to £20, sixteen pence in the pound; above £20, two shillings in the pound. Payment was to be made by three yearly instalments,-the first three classes paying half the assessment the first year, and a quarter in each of the succeeding two years; the remaining class one-third in each year.

On the real estate of subjects, where the annual value was £1 to £5, eightpence in the pound; £5 to £10, sixteen pence in the pound; £10 to £20, two shillings in the pound; above £20, three shillings in the pound. Payment to be spread over three years, as before, the first two classes paying half the assessment the first year, and a quarter in each of the succeeding years; the remainder paying a third in each year.

The present return relates to the third or final instalment.

The

The loose and extravagant system of finance current under the government of Henry VIII. is exemplified by the record of the direct taxation imposed. The new revenues accruing to the crown from the dissolution of the religious houses in 1539 and 1540 were so immense, that the people naturally expected that taxation would be very light for a long time. But heavy subsidies were asked, or rather required, from Parliament in 1540, 1543, and 1545: and yet when the king died in 1347, he left a load of debt to his successor. financial straits of the government are illustrated by the second list here printed (p. 150), which is really earlier in date than the first list, though it refers to the same instalment. It had been found necessary to raise a large sum by calling upon a number of persons to pay this instalment in advance, and the second list gives the names of such persons for the wapentake of Skyrack. It was not an unknown thing for Henry VIII. to require from his richer subjects. such a payment in advance, and then to obtain from Parliament an Act cancelling his liability to allow for such prepayments, and leaving the unlucky contributors still responsible for the instalment they had already paid.

The genealogical value of the return is of course considerable. In the whole wapentake of Skyrack there are probably not more than two or three parish registers dating back to this period, still remaining to us: so that in very many cases the mention of an inhabitant in the subsidy rolls must be the only surviving record of his existence. But the chief practical value of the rolls lies in the statistical information they furnish,-information which is of great importance in elucidating the contemporary history and the progress of the districts to which they relate. It is proposed to print in future parts of the Miscellanea other assessment lists still extant for the wapentake of Skyrack in the sixteenth century; and when that has been done, it will be possible to found upon them an article which should undoubtedly throw much new light upon our local history.

A word may be added as to the movements consequent on or following the recent dissolution of the abbeys, as illustrated by this return. In some of the townships of the wapentake nearly every inhabitant had been a tenant of the house of Kirkstall; and if we compare the lists of tenants at the dissolution with the names here printed, we find some curious variations in the different vills. Thus in Bardsey, of eleven persons formerly holding of the Abbey, only one figures in the subsidy roll; whereas in the adjacent vill of Collingham, of fourteen persons late tenants of the Abbey, eleven still remain, the remaining three being cottagers not likely to be assessed. At Adel and Eccup, nearly all the old tenants, or their families, are still represented; but at Gledhow only two out of six remain. From the year 1543 we find that purchases of the lands of the Abbey from the king occur pretty frequently, and change of ownership may have now commenced to bring about considerable changes in the tenantry.

The copy has been made from the original Roll by Mr. C. E. Gildersome-Dickinson.

This Indentur mayd the Twynty Day off October in the Thirtye and Seyvon yere of the Reigne of our Soueryn lorde kyng Henrye th'eight by the grace of God off Englonde France and Irelonde kyng defendoure of The Faithe and of the Churche of Englonde and also of Irelond In erthe the Sup'me hed Betwixt S Witm Gascoigñ of Gawkthorpe th’elder knyght John Gascoigñ of lasynCrofte [? hys Sone]. . . . .1 Robert Chaloner Sqivyerf Auctorized emongst oder . seid Sou'ayn lordes heighe Commyssioners.

(1) Whenever dotted spaces appear in the text, utter illegibility of the original must be understood.