By J. W. G. SPICER, Esq., Spye Park:

*Waterproof dress, made of membrane of seals, and Tappa cloth shawl,. from the Fiji Islands.

By Mr. B. MULLIngs, Devizes :—

Various articles of dress, from China. Mandarin's full dress. Chinese idol. Double-barbed spears from South Seas. Model of Eastern outrigger

canoe.

By the Rev. P. PEACE, Devizes:

Pencil drawing, by Sir T. Lawrence. Engraving of Charles I.

By A. MEEK, Esq., Devizes:

Oil painting, Devizes Market Place, about 1814. MS. Illuminated book, containing copies of the Devizes Charters.

By Mr. H. G. BARREY, Devizes:

Processional cross. Impression of seal. Two spear heads, found on Beckhampton Down. Roman coin, found near Silbury Hill. Three bronze implements. Bronze knife, three bronze awls, and whetstone, found to the east of Wansdyke.

By J. E. NIGHTINGALE, Esq., Wilton:

Photographs of Wiltshire Churches. Four roundells. Fine carvings in ivory.

By the Rev. T. F. RAVENSHAW, Pewsey :

Painting, Sunrise at Stonehenge, 2nd November, 1873, by Tristam Ellis. Etching, Moonlight at Stonehenge, by Slocombe.

By Mr. JOHN Busa, Bristol:

*Sermon on death of S. Wright, by John Filkes, 1712.

By W. STANCOMB, Esq., Blount's Court, Potterne :—

Six Roman coins, and seal with four arms, found in pulling down a cottage at Potterne.

By EDWARD WAYLEN, Esq., Devizes:—

Painting of Simeon and the Infant Jesus, attributed to Vanderburgh. Engravings of Malmesbury, Lacock, and Wardour Castle, by Buck. By the Rev. H. F. EDGELL, Worton :

Hammock, from Nicaragua. Specimen of inlaid work, from the Mosque of San Sophia, at Constantinople.

By Miss A. CUNNINGTON, Devizes :—

*Collection of freshwater and terrestrial Wiltshire shells.

By T. B. ANSTIE, Esq., Devizes:

Water bottle and stone implements, from the South Seas.

140

Wulfhall and the Seymours.

By the Rev. Canon J. E. JACKSON, F.S.A.

PY way of introduction to this paper, I borrow from a very high authority, a few sentences that seem to describe with great accuracy, the particular kind of research that falls within the province of the Archæologist.

Lord Chancellor Bacon, in his "Treatise on the Advancement of Learning," is speaking of Civil History. He says, "It is of three kinds, not unfitly to be compared with the three kinds of pictures or images; for of pictures or images, we see, some are unfinished, some are perfect, and some are defaced. So of Histories we may find three kinds; Memorials, Perfect Histories, and Antiquities; for Memorials are history unfinished, or the first rough drafts of history; and Antiquities are history defaced or some remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time. Memorials, unfinished, are preparatory notes, to serve the compiler of the perfect history. Antiquities, or the remnants of history, are, as was said, fragments from a wreck; when industrious persons, by an exact, and scrupulous diligence and observation, out of monuments, names, words, proverbs, traditions, private records and evidences, fragments of stories, passages of books that concern not story, and the like, do save and recover somewhat from the deluge of time."

I do not remember to have ever met with a happier and more cheering description of our pursuits; for they now and then need refreshment. I mean by refreshment, the encouraging approval of thoughtful and intellectual men. We are twitted, sometimes, with spending our time in raking into old rubbish, wearing out our eyes with decyphering faded handwriting, and the like: so it is well to be able to exhibit as an answer the deliberate judgment of so great

Read before the Wiltshire Archeological Society, at Devizes, Tuesday, September, 8th, 1874, when the original documents from Longleat, out of which it was chiefly compiled, were exhibited by the kind permission of the Marquis of Bath,

a man as Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Albans, viz., that of the three branches of Civil History, "Antiquities" is one. Among obscure sources, he enumerates "Words,"-we all know how much attention has been of late years given to this subject; and how much eurious history is often wrapped up in an old word. "Monuments;" the great trial for the Shrewsbury Peerage is a proof of their importance, where so much often depends upon the preservation of an inscription. "Private Records and Evidences,"-It is my very business this evening to endeavour to show you what they can do for us in the case of an Old Wiltshire Mansion House now no more, and its family (old also, but still vigorous),-WULFHALL and THE SEYMOURS.

The family of Seymour, Duke of Somerset, though the Title was taken from the neighbouring county, has been for centuries connected with our own. It fills a very exalted place in English History, for it is able to say, what very few can say, that a single generation of brothers and sisters supplied a Queen of England, a Protector of the Realm, and a Husband to a Queen Dowager. Of course the public and political career of those distinguished personages is to be found in our English Histories, and the genealogical account of the family in Books of the Peerage; but there are some smaller and more private matters, relating to themselves, in connection with our neighbourhood, which, having been recovered from the wreck of time, will be considered, I hope, a not unsuitable subject for the evening ears of a Wiltshire Archæological audience.

In the large collection of Old Documents at Longleat, which I had the pleasure of bringing out into the light and identifying, there happens to be an unusual number that relate to the Seymour family, especially to the Protector Duke; and though I will not say that there are any State Papers of the highest importance, still, there are papers of considerable value affecting certain historical transactions in which, as you will hear, one or two of his family were involved. Besides correcting, in a few points, the usual accounts of those events, these papers supply us, who take interest more particularly in Wiltshire History, with a good deal of new material for our purpose.

The Name appears to have been anciently spelled St. Maur. They had, among other residences, a Castle called by their name, near Penhow, in the county Monmouth, and also Hatch Beauchamp, in the county of Somerset.1 There being no occasion to go into all their early history, I begin with them when they came into the county of Wilts. This was in the reign of Henry V. (A.D. 1413), when a Roger St. Maur of Hatch Beauchamp, by marrying the daughter and heiress of the old Wiltshire family of Esturmy, became owner of Wulfhall.

In order to know exactly where Wulfhall is, you are to suppose yourselves on the railway going from Devizes towards London. Stop at Savernake Station, get out and walk along the towing path of the canal by the side of the railway for about a mile beyond the station, take the first turn to the right, and you are at Wulfhall. All that is left of the old mansion is a picturesque little red-brick house with tall chimneys, called the Laundry. It stands at the foot of a rising ground, on the top of which, about 250 yards off, is the old farm house and large barton of Wulfhall.

As to the meaning of the name, I would merely say that it has

'Mr. J. R. Planché (Brit. Archæol. Journ., 1856, p. 325) says: "There are two families of St. Maur. The St. Maurs or Seymours of Kingston Seymour, in Somersetshire, who trace their pedigree to Milo de Sancto Mauro, who, with his wife Agnes, is named in a fine roll of King John; and the St. Maurs or Seymours of Penhow, Monmouthshire, from which the present ducal house of Somerset descends. All our genealogists, from Dugdale downwards, are scrupulous in observing that there is no connexion whatever between the two families, who bore different arms and settled in different counties, and I freely admit there is no connection to be traced between them from the earliest date to which they have proved their pedigree; but that fact by no means satisfies me that they did not branch from the same Norman stock. We have no proof that there were two St. Maurs who came over with the Conqueror (probably from St. Maure sur Loire in la Haute Touraine), nor can we assert that if there were two or more, they were not, as in many similar instances, near kinsmen. That their arms should be different is no proof at all, for although a similarity in their bearings would be strong evidence in favour of some connection, it is one of the most common things in the world to find, in those early days of heraldry, the son bearing a coat quite distinct from that of his father, as he did frequently a perfectly different name." The St. Maurs of Kingston bore Argent, two chevrons gules, a label of five points. The St. Maurs of Penhow, Gules, a pair of wings conjoined in lure or.