PAGE ix QUARTER SESSIONS UNDER QUEEN ELIZABETH QUARTER SESSIONS UNDER JAMES THE FIRST. QUARTER SESSIONS UNDER JAMES THE FIRST. QUARTER SESSIONS UNDER CHARLES THE FIRST QUARTER SESSIONS DURING THE CIVIL WAR QUARTER SESSIONS UNDER THE COMMONWEALTH QUARTER SESSIONS UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. QUARTER SESSIONS UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. QUARTER SESSIONS UNDER JAMES THE SECOND QUARTER SESSIONS UNDER WILLIAM AND MARY INTRODUCTION. THIS volume consists almost entirely of a series of papers contributed to Fraser's Magazine during the last two years. I have been encouraged to reprint them in a more permanent form, but the utmost that I can hope for them is that they may be recognized as affording some glimpses of the history of England from a new point of view. It is not easy to find any material for history which has been neglected by the diligent explorers of recent times, but I cannot discover that any use has been hitherto made of the records of "Quarter Sessions." They are not a very inviting study, for the great bulk of them is composed of merely formal and very monotonous documents, from which the more valuable facts can only be extracted by much patient labour. I venture to think, however, that the labour has not been without its reward, as it has recovered some clear and most trustworthy evidence respecting the condition of the provincial districts of England in former times. a These papers are founded in great measure on the cords of the County of Devon, which I have had the fu opportunities of investigating. But I think I am just in asking my readers to accept that county as a type of more civilized parts of England during the space of t to which this volume relates. It happens, too, that records of Devon commence at an earlier period, and fuller in detail, than those of any other county with wh I am acquainted. The earliest records are in this c certainly the most valuable. The affairs transacted Quarter Sessions were undoubtedly of greater imp tance in the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. than th have been since. It is perhaps not too much to say th they have been continually dwindling, and it seems to fated that the reign of Queen Victoria should reduce the to utter insignificance. The records of Quarter Sessions in Devonshire com mence in the year 1592. There are very few counties in which they are older than the time of the Civil War. In Somerset they begin in 1647. In Bucks they commence in 1678. An account of the records of that county down to the death of Queen Anne is comprised in the present volume. In Oxfordshire there are no papers earlier than the Revolution of 1688, and those subsequent to that date are very scanty. There are no regular Sessions Books earlier than the year 1761. I am informed that in Cheshire, Westmoreland, and Wilts, there are records extending from |