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forbear to add that we have another Morton bearing the name of George living at this time, not indeed at Austerfield, but at Bawtry. There is a mystery

hanging over this person's history. He

George
Morton of

was the eldest son and heir apparent of the Bawtry

family.

Anthony Morton, who was one of the witnesses in the Hospital suit, and died long before his father, having married Catherine Boun, half-sister of Gilbert Boun, serjeant-at-law, whose daughter, Thoroton, the historiographer of Nottinghamshire, married. Thoroton must have known everything about these Mortons, who were one of the most ancient of the Nottinghamshire families, and they are even to be classed among the families whom Sir Egerton Brydges so happily styles the historical families of England, on account of the important part which they took in all the Catholic movements against Queen Elizabeth, and especially the insurrection of the northern earls in 1569. Yet he gives no full and precise information respecting the later generations, which we might have expected from him, when the family was declining in importance, and about soon to be removed from their hereditary seat. Nor are the deficiencies supplied by the Visitation of Yorkshire in

1612, or that of Nottinghamshire in 1614, and the family is wholly absent from Dugdale's great Visitation of Yorkshire in 1665 and 1666. We are thus left without any certain information concerning the fate of George, and the ruin of the family is attributed to his father Anthony and his brother Robert, who married one of the Lindleys, of whom we have spoken, and who is the person who sold their ancient estate to Mr. William Saunderson. Is it possible that this George Morton can have so far departed from the spirit and principles of his family, as to have fallen into the ranks of the Protestant Puritans and Separatists, to have disguised himself in London under the name of Mourt, and then to have concealed himself in the American wilds. The conjecture is, perhaps, too bold and too improbable. But it is easier to say so, than to inform us what became of this prominent member of a very eminent family.57

57 It is remarkable how little assistance the inquirer into the minutiae of Nottinghamshire history can derive from the labours of any former antiquary. Thoroton's History is very meagre, and it is not known that any manuscript remains of his exist. Lincoln shire in this respect is not much better off, but it has better Visitations.

Mary, the wife of Anthony Morton, of the parish of Harworth, Esquire," an obstinate papist, neither fearing God, nor the smart

And while upon the Mortons in the connection of the name with the affairs of the first colo

nists, it may be added that there was a

Thomas Mor

ton.

Thomas Morton, who joined the colony in 1625, and was a very unworthy member of it. Bradford says that "he had been a kind of pettifogger at Furnival's Inn," but in the title of his New English Canaan, a disparaging account of the colony, which he printed at Amsterdam in 1637, when he had been sent back to Europe for selling powder and fire-arms to the natives, he describes himself of Clifford's Inn. There are doggrel verses written in 1624 relating to Ferdinando Cary by a "Captain Thomas Morton from Breda;" probably the same person, which different pens have thought it worth while to transcribe, as copies are to be found in the Ashmole, the Harley, and the Sloane Collections of Manuscripts.

of Her Majesty's good and necessary laws in that behalf provided, having for many years refused to go to the church to hear Divine service and sermons, and to conform herself to the godly religion now publicly received within the realm of England," was attached by the Pursuivant of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to appear to answer before them at the cathedral church at York, and gave bond accordingly in £100; and not appearing at the time, the bond was enforced against her and her two sureties. She would not fare the better for her connection with Nicholas Morton, the principal

person in stirring up the Rebellion of 1569.

To these names, as lay-members of the Separatist body in Basset-Lawe, may be added that of FRANCIS Francis Jessop JESSOP, a younger son of a family of good reputation and fortune, who possessed lands at Heyton and Tilne, in the neighbourhood of Scrooby and Babworth, before they acquired larger possessions in Yorkshire and Derbyshire by marriage with one of the co-heirs of Swyft, from which family Lord Carlingford descended. They were indeed a wealthy and considerable family, being at last ennobled with the title of Baron Darcy of Navan, an Irish honour. They were also a literary and religious family, not going the length of separation, except in this Francis, but professing themselves Puritans, and being great encouragers of the Puritan ministry. 58

58 There is a very remarkable will of Wortley Jessop, who resided at Scofton, in the parish of Worksop, a nephew of Francis. It is dated April 13th, 1615, seven years after the Basset-Lawe exodus. He gives a small legacy to Toller, and directs that £4. a year shall continue to be paid to William Carte, who had succeeded (with a short interval), to Bernard as vicar of Worksop, as long as he shall remain there. Carte was a Puritan, and had afterwards the living of Hansworth. The light in which the Puritans of Basset-Lawe regarded their Catholic neighbours appears in the provision which Jessop makes for an infant daughter:-" If it please the Lord of Heaven to move my brother George to remove his habitation from amongst that idolatrous people amongst whom he now liveth, which

The Francis Jessop, who is to be claimed as one of the Puritans of Basset-Lawe, and who appears afterwards as an active member of Robinson's church in Holland, was the third son of Richard Jessop and Anne Swyft, and was left very young by his father, who died in 1580. The Basset-Lawe property was left to him and another brother, named Richard, while the eldest son took the lands which had been inherited from the Swyfts. The father directs in his will that the children shall be brought up in learning; and it may be added as illustrating the domestic antiquities of the English nation, that he directs the surplus of the rents of the lands given them to be placed in a box with three locks, to be kept for their use. We have seen that Richard was the friend of Clifton and Toller, and the confidence which he placed in them, and we have now to add that Francis Jessop sold his lands at Tilne, and there can hardly be a doubt that he is the Francis Jessop who appears at Amsterdam fighting by the side of Clifton in his sharp controversy with Smith on the baptismal ques

I will not cease to pray for," then the daughter is to live with him : if not, he desires she may be placed where she shall hear the word of God faithfully taught.

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