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The branch of the family that settled at All Cannings, with which alone we have any concern, seems to have been founded by Robert Nicholas, of Coate, who was the son of John Nicholas of Roundway, who died 1502. The estate descended from father to son for many generations, as will be seen from an inspection of the pedigree (No. I.), in which the names of those who appear to have possessed it are printed in capitals. Early in the 18th century it came into the possession, how it does not clearly appear, of a collateral branch of the family who were descended from John Nicholas, of Winterbourn Earls, for it was then in the possession of John Nicholas, who is described as of All Cannings, and who died without issue in 1737. (See pedigree No. II.) There was a close connexion between these two branches, for Anthony Wood says distinctly that Robert Nicholas, who was born at All Cannings in 1597, of whom we shall presently speak more at length, was of the same family as Sir Edward Nicholas, Secretary of State to Charles I., and Dr. Matthew Nicholas, Dean of St. Paul's, both of whom were born at Winterbourn Earls, and belonged to that branch of the family. As the said John Nicholas died without issue in 1737, the estate devolved on his sister Elizabeth who died unmarried, and devised it to her great nephew Nicholas Heath, who was Rector of the parish in 1807. His daughter Georgiana, who inherited the estate, married Philip Gell, Esq., of Hopton Hall, co. Derby. As we have already mentioned, the estate of the Nicholas family in All Cannings became afterwards, by purchase, the property of Lord Ashburton.

Of what was strictly speaking the All Cannings branch, one only, as far as we know, rose to distinction. This was ROBERT NICHOLAS, who was born at All Cannings in 1597. The entries in the parish register at the time of his birth, seem to indicate that he was the younger of twins, the elder of whom, also named Robert, died shortly after his birth.

Robert Nicholas was educated for the law, and admitted to the Inner Temple, 25th July, 1614. In 1640, together with Colonel

The entries are as follows:-" Robert Nicholas was baptized the 17th day of November, 1597.”—“ Idem Robt. Nicholas sepult. fuit eodem die et anno.""Robt. Nicholas minor was baptized the 22nd of November eodem anno."

Edward Baynton, he was elected to serve in the Long Parliament, as one of the members for Devizes. Two years afterwards we find him as an active manager of the impeachment against Archbishop Laud. He is said to have treated the Archbishop "with unseemly virulence and insult," so much so that the "lords checked the member in his harangue." The only report of the trial, it is true, was drawn up by the prisoner, and therefore some more allowance may possibly be made for the zeal of an advocate than the Archbishop would be disposed to admit, but there can be no doubt that Robert Nicholas showed but little patience or consideration. "Truly, my lords," said the Archbishop, "I could easily return all his bitterness upon himself, would it befit my person, my present condition, or my calling."1

In 1648, Robert Nicholas was made a Serjeant-at-Law, and he was then appointed one of the Assistant Judges in the approaching trial of the King, but he does not seem to have attended on that occasion. In 1649 he was appointed a Judge of the Upper Bench, and four years afterwards, when Oliver Cromwell assumed the Protectorate, he was removed into the Exchequer. He still held this office of Baron of the Exchequer on the succession of the Protector Richard, in 1658. The Parliament restored him to the Upper Bench in 1659. We hear nothing of him after the Restoration. As Mr. Waylen (to whom we are indebted for the preceding account) suggests, he was probably permitted quietly to take advantage of the Act of Indemnity.

We may not inappropriately close an account of Robert Nicholas by an anecdote, which has much of the interest of romance attaching to it, and which is thus related in the Spectator, (No. 313.) The account was written in the year 1711-12.

"Every one who is acquainted with Westminster School knows

1 See Waylen's Devizes, pp. 186-191. It would appear, Mr. Waylen remarks, that whilst one Nicholas was thus the bitter persecutor of Archbishop Laud, another member of the same family had been his early patroness. Mrs. Burnegham, aunt on the mother's side to William Bailey of Etchilhampton, was at the expense of young Laud's education, a service which the prelate gratefully acknowledged when at the top of his preferment. Most probably William Bailey was the son of Richard Bailey, by Honor, the daughter of Edward Nicholas of All Cannings. If so, then his aunt who was so kind to Laud must have been a NICHOLAS.

that there is a curtain which used to be drawn across the room to separate the upper school from the lower. A youth happened, by some mischance, to tear the above mentioned curtain. The severity of the master (Dr. Busby) was too well known for the criminal to expect any pardon for such a fault; so that the boy, who was of a meek temper, was terrified to death at the thought of his appearance, when his friend who sat near him bade him be of good cheer, for that he would take the fault upon himself. He kept his word accordingly. "As soon as they were grown up to be men, the civil war broke out, in which our two friends took the opposite sides; one of them following the Parliament, the other the Royal party. As their tempers were different, the youth who had torn the curtain endeavoured to raise himself on the civil list; and the other, who had borne the blame of it, on the military. The first succeeded so well, that he was in a short time, made a Judge under the Protector: the other was engaged in the unhappy enterprise of Penruddocke and Grove, in the West. Every one knows that the Royal party was routed, and all the heads of them, among whom was the curtain-champion, imprisoned at Exeter. It happened to be his friend's lot at that time to go to the Western Circuit. The trial of the rebels, as they were then called, was very short, and nothing now remained but to pass sentence on them; when the Judge, hearing the name of his old friend, and observing his face more attentively, which he had not seen for many years, asked him whether he was not formerly a Westminster scholar. By the answer he was soon convinced that it was his former generous friend; and without saying anything more at the time, made the best of his way to London, where, employing all his power and interest with the Protector, he saved his friend from the fate of his unhappy associates. The gentleman whose life was thus preserved by the gratitude of his schoolfellow, was afterwards the father of a son whom he lived to see promoted in the church, and who still deservedly fills one of the highest stations in it."

Of the two persons here alluded to, the prisoner was WILLIAM WAKE, whose son, bearing the same name, became afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury; the Judge, who by this generosity to a

schoolfellow made some little amends for his bitterness to Archbishop Laud, was ROBERT NICHOLAS, of All Cannings.

(To be continued.)

ON FOUR

Leaf and Lozenge-shaped Flint Javelin-heads,

FROM AN OVAL BARROW NEAR STONEHENGE; and

On the Leaf-shaped Type of Flint Arrow-head,

AND ITS CONNECTION WITH LONG BARROWS.

By JOHN THURNAM, M.D., F.S.A.

[Read at the Meeting at Salisbury, September, 1865; and reprinted from the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, 1864, 2nd series, vol. ii., p. 427; vol. iii., p. 168.]

HE importance of discoveries, even apparently trivial, which

throw light on the relative age of our more primeval antiquities, or which serve to connect one with another objects of this description, will at once be admitted.

The barrow in which the flint objects now exhibited were discovered is situated on Winterbourne Stoke Down, about 1 mile north-west of Stonehenge. It is within a few yards of the western end of the low earthwork known as the "smaller cursus," and is numbered 49 on the "Map of Stonehenge, and its Environs," in Sir Richard Hoare's Ancient Wilts (vol. i. p. 170). It was passed over, when the barrows around it were generally excavated, in or about the year 1808; and all that Sir Richard says of it is, "No. 49 is a long barrow" (p. 165); a designation, however, which we shall find is not strictly appropriate, and is very liable to misconception. The form of the barrow is oval, it being about 140 feet in length by 70 in breadth, and in height less than 2 feet above the level of the down. Its long axis lies east and west, and it is surrounded by a slight ditch continued round both ends of the barrow. It is thus seen to differ in several particulars from the Long Barrow properly so-called; in which the interments, belonging apparently to the stone-age, and by simple inhumation, are confined to the broad east end of the barrow. The true long barrow is usually of much greater size, often reaching 250 or 300 feet and

upwards in length, and having an elevation of from 5 to 10 feet, or even more. One end, usually that directed to the east, is almost always broader and higher than the other; but the most remarkable distinction is in the trench, which is carried the whole length of the barrow on each side, without being continued around the ends. These peculiarities of the long barrow are well shown in the engraving in "Ancient Wilts," (vol. i. p. 21. "I. Long Barrow.") The Oval Barrow No. 49, like others of a similar form and description, belongs no doubt to a different and more recent period than the true long barrows, and to the same age as the circular barrows of the ordinary bowl and bell shapes. Its oval form appears to depend upon its having been designed for two or three distinct interments, placed at tolerably regular intervals. This variety of tumulus was not altogether overlooked by Sir Richard Hoare, by whom two or three such were excavated. Of one he gives a representation, as the specimen of his twelfth form of barrow, which he terms "Long barrow No. 2." His words are as follows:-“XII. Long Barrow No. 2. This tumulus in shape resembles a small long barrow, but differs from the larger kind, by having a ditch all around it." (p. 22.)

In addition to the two or three Oral Barrows opened by Sir Richard Hoare,2 I have examined two or three others. The result appears to be, that, like the bowl and bell shaped tumuli, they cover interments sometimes by simple inhumation, but more generally after cremation. Like the circular barrows, they belong chiefly, if not altogether, to the age of bronze, and of burning the dead; by which phrase I understand a period when this metal and this mode of burial were in common but not universal use; implements and weapons of stone being still employed for many purposes, and burial

1 For all purposes of argument, oval barrows (as distinguished from long barrows) and round barrows may be regarded as identical. The two are clearly coeval, and the work of the same people. An oval barrow, in my view, is a congeries of two or more round barrows.

2 Those referred to in "Ancient Wilts," vol. i., p. 169 (118), p. 241 (10), p. 242 (22), appear to be of this description. On the last Sir Richard Hoare observes:-"These diminutive long barrows differ very materially from those of the larger sort, in which we have almost invariably found the interments (of entire skeletons) deposited at the east and broadest end."

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