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his son was the last Grand Prior of the order of St. John of Jerusalem in the reign of Mary, an honor, conferred on him through the interest of Cardinal Pole, which entitled him to a seat in the upper House of Parliament, next to the Abbot of Westminster, and above all lay Barons. Another, as we have seen, was the last Abbess of St. Mary, Winchester. As the pedigree, from which we give extracts, will shew, no less than two Baronetcies, each of them existing at the present time, were in course of years granted to them. The Shelley family appear as owners of the manor of Easton, in the parish of Berwick St. John, in South Wilts, in 1643, and some further account of them may be seen in Sir R. C. Hoare's History of the Hundred of Chalk, from the pen of Mr. Bowles.1

The family of NICHOLAS was seated at Roundway (or Ryndway) as early as the time of Edward III., and this continued for nearly five centuries to be the elder branch. The same family are afterwards found in other places in Wilts,-at Compton Chamberlain, Coate in Bishops Cannings, Brokenborough, Stert, All Cannings in 1553;-at Seend in 1669,-Manningford Braose (Bruce) in 1756, and at Ashton Keynes. Some account of this elder branch of the family will be found in the Wilts Magazine, vi., 136, in Archdeacon Macdonald's "Memoir of Bishops Cannings."

sent him (the Judge) to take the same recognisance, having in his Grace such affiance as that he would not refuse so to do."--The Cardinal answered, "Master Shelley, I know that the King is of his own nature of a royal stomach not willing more than justice shall lead him unto by the law of the land, and therefore I counsel you and all other judges and learned men of his council to put no more into his head than that law may stand with conscience; for when you tell him this is the law, ye shall tell him also that, though this be law, yet this is conscience, for law without conscience is not meet to be given to a King by his council, for every Counsellor to a King ought to have respect to conscience before the rigour of the law; the King ought for his dignity and prerogative to mitigate the rigour of the law, when conscience hath no more force." The Cardinal, nevertheless, entered into the said recognisance, returning by Judge Shelley this message to the King:-"That he was his Majesty's most faithful subject, obediencer, and beadsman, whose royal commandment and request he would in no way disobey, but fulfil his pleasure in all things wherein the fathers of the law say that he might lawfully do,"-adding however these words, "That he most humbly desired of his Majesty to call to his most gracious remembrance, that there is both a Heaven and Hell."

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From Harl. MS. 1165, fol. 38; and the All Cannings' Registers.

ARMS. Or, on a chevron between three ravens sable, two lions combatant, argent.

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