Persons' cattle who have no right of common are to be impounded by the Lord's Bayliff. The Lord is entitled to make one drift of the commons, between May-day and Midsummer, in order to ascertain whose cattle are pasturing thereon.

"Persons chosen and sworn by each parish may afterwards make drifts as often as they think proper.

"The Court Baron to be held twice a year. All offences within the Manor to be presented by the juries at the Court Leet: and all amerciaments made. to be the usual and customary amerciaments. The tenants to appear at the Court Leet twice a year, unless on special occasion, notice having been given by the Bailiff.

"The grand jury may settle disputes on freehold lands, as to the boundaries, &c.; and the copyhold jury may do the same on copyhold lands. The grand jury may make bye-laws, and compel observance of the same.

"No tenant dwelling within the Manor is to be sued in any other Court for any debt under forty shillings; and the person who sues him elsewhere to be fined by the juries of this Manor Court.

"The duty of Pinders when they impound any cattle, before they give them up to the Lord, is to give notice in three several parish churches within. the Manor; and the Lord's Bailiff, or receiver of estrays, is to keep them in some open place, within the Manor, for a year and a day, before he proceed to sell them or convert them to his own use.

66

Any one employing counsel or attorney in any cause in this court, to do so at his own expence. None of the Lord's tenants, either freehold or copyhold, to be tallied out of the Manor, to the Assizes, Sessions, or Sheriff's Court. "If any wild swan be taken in the Manor, the takers are to bring it to the Steward, and to receive xijd.

"When any fish royal be taken in the river of Trent, within this Manor, between full sea and full sea, it belongs to the Lord of the Manor, and the taker is to receive vjs. viijd.

"All wrecks taken in the Trent, between Kelfield and Old Dun, belong to the Lord of the Manor.

"No

"No ferry between Heckdyke and Amcoats, but the Lord's ferry at Kinnall ferry; and that the Lord of this Manor has been accustomed to give for his landing on the other side, a buck in summer, and a doe in winter."

It appears from a survey of this Manor, made by virtue of a commission issued by Act of Parliament for settling the crown lands, in the year, 1649, that the quit rents due to the Lord, from the freeholders, payable by fines certain at Michaelmas and Lady-day, in the township of Epworth, were valued at £52 15s. 2d.—in Belton, £24 17s. 14d-in Beltoft, £3 15s. 6d.—in Butterwick, £6 3s. 14d.-in Althorpe, £1 5s.—in Garthorpe, payable at Michaelmas only 10s. 64d.-Owston, £15 6s. 114d.-Haxey, £4 1s. 6d.-Westwood, £19 4s. 14d.-Haxey again, £28 15s. 2d.-Rents due from several tenants, for release from suit and service, 8s. 2d. Benefit arising to the Lord from driving the moors and commons, 10s.

The fines and amerciaments of the Courts Leet and Courts Baron, issues and fines upon default or alienation, wayfes, strays, goods of felons, fugitives, fishing and fowling, and all other perquisites, are valued at £65 per annum, -making together the annual value of £222 17s. 41d.

The Lord of this Manor had, in Epworth, four hundred and forty acres of land, which were then valued at £238 8s. 6d. being a little more than 10s. per acre.

Also twenty acres of ground in Epworth, called Messie Moors, valued at 5s. per acre.

In Belton, 132 acres and a half, valued at £64 13s. 2d.-which is something less than 10s. per acre.

In Owston, 60 acres, valued at £25 16s. 6d. or about 8s. per acre ;-in Haxey, 20 acres, valued at 10s. per acre ;—and 52 acres, called the Cunny Garth, valued at £13 3s. 9d. or about 5s. per acre.

It appears from the inquisitiones post mortem, temp. Edward III. that the following knight's fees, or parts of fees, belonged to the Lord of this Manor; that is, the persons who held certain lands in the places mentioned, were bound to attend the Lord of the Manor of Epworth to the wars, for so many days in every year when called upon to do so, which attendance was their

redditus

redditus or return, rent or service, for the land which they claimed to hold. In Gainsbrough, two fees from Aymer de Valence; in Scalkeby, one-fourth part of a fee from Walter de Langton; idem one-fourth part of a fee from Wm. de Wacelin; Stretton near Scalkeby, one-fourth part of a fee from Wm. de Hoveden; Haxey, Butterwyke, and Kelfield, half a fee from the heirs of Robert Takel; Overbrunnum, Netherbrunnum, Kelfield, Haxey, and Butterwyke, half a fee from the heirs of Oliver Bussey; Haxey, the fourth part of a fee from the Abbot of Selby; Westwood and Haxey, the tenth part of a fee from Roger Cocum; Beltoft, and Butterwyke, two parts of a fee from Thomas de Beltoft and others; Beltoft, the fifteenth part of a fee from William Berner; Belton, the twelfth part of a fee from Henry Sotehill and John Barbur; Owston, one-twentieth part of a fee from William Cutwolf; Belton, one-twentieth part of a fee from William Crake; Garlythorpe, one-twelfth part of a fee from William de Rednesse and others; Bliburgh, one feod from Warren de Bassingburne; Burton near Lincoln, Kynardiferi (Kinnard Ferry) and Tolcote, half a fee from N. de Vneflet and Adam de Insula; South Ferriby, one fee from the Prior of Thornholme; Yolthorpe, near Bliburgh, one fee from the heirs of John de Yolthorpe.

This Manor was disposed of, together with his other property in the Isle, by Wm. Marquis of Berkley, to Thomas Stanley*, Earl of Derby, in the reign of Henry the Seventh, who had married the last female representative of the house of Mowbray. It came by exchange to the Crown in the reign of Queen Elizabeth*. A small portion, consisting of the Ferry and Ferry House, commonly called Kinnard Ferry, together with certain portions of land in the Belgraves, was sold by James the First to a goldsmith in London, for the sum of four hundred pounds; the remainder formed part of the marriage jointure of the Queen of Charles the First. In 1649, Charles the Second granted this Manor, together with some other crown lands, on a lease for 90 years, to Sir George Carteret†, baronet, in consideration "for the sum of ninety

* Epworth Court rolls.

+ This Sir George Carteret was Comptroller of the Navy in the time of King Charles the First: he was an officer of great courage and skill.—After he had refused, in the beginning of the troubles,

to

ninety-one thousand two hundred and forty-eight livres turnoys, for several disbursements and debts contracted by himself, for the service of our late dear father of ever blessed memory*.

All the rolls and documents belonging to the Manor Court were lost and destroyed in the civil wars, so that after the restoration several of the tenants and copyholders confederated together not to pay their several fines, rents, and services; whereupon they were subpoenaed into the Court of Exchequer, on the petition of Lady Carteret, widow of Sir George. Part of these rolls were accidentally discovered, some years since, by the late Allan Johnson, Esq. of Temple-Belwood, in a small shop at Newark, where he had purchased some trifling article. He perceived that the He perceived that the paper in which his purchase was folded was part of one of the Epworth Court rolls; the shopkeeper willingly let him have all the paper of the same description in her possession; and the rolls, as far back as the reign of Henry the Seventh, were

restored

to take a command in the fleet under the Earl of Warwick, he withdrew himself with his family, out of England, to Jersey, and "being there impatient of being quiet, whilst his master was in the field, transported himself into Cornwall, with a purpose to raise a troop of horse, and to engage in that service. When he came thither, he was unanimously importuned by the Commanders, after they had acquainted him with their hopeless and desperate want of powder, to assist them in that manner that the many good ports in their power might be made of some use to them in the supply of powder; whereupon he shortly returned into France; and first upon his own credit, and then upon return of such commodities out of Cornwall as they could well spare, he supplied them with such great proportions of all kinds of ammunitions that they never found want of after." After the battle of Worcester, and King Charles the Second's return to Paris, Sir George Carteret defended the Island of Jersey as long as he could, and then retired to the castle, Elizabeth, which he also defended during a siege of three months, when the enemy, by means of "mortar pieces of incredible greatness, shot gradnadoes of a vast bigness into the castle, beat down many houses, and at last blow'd up a great magazine.” The king not having it in his power to support him, he sent him orders to make the best conditions which he could; after which he came to Paris to give the King a full account of all which had happened during the siege, and remained in France until the restoration. See Clarendon's History of the Rebellion.

He was created a Baronet, May 9th, A. D. 1645; and in 1681, Baron Carteret of Hawnes, county of Bedford.-ob. 1695. After the death of his grandson, Henry Frederick Thynne assumed the name of Carteret. He was the second son of Thomas, second Viscount Weymouth, who had married Louisa, daughter of John Carteret, Earl Granville, sister and co-heir of Robert the last Earl Granville and Baron Carteret. Nicholas's Synopsis of the Peerage of England.

*From a true copy of the original, inrolled in the office of John Phillips, Auditor for the County of Essex, and examined the 25th of March, 1674.

restored to their proper place. Carteret's lease was renewed; before the expiration of the second term, was sold to Allan Johnson, Esq. who left it by will to his son Alexander Johnson, who left it in trust to Thos. Lightfoot, the present owner.

The Courts are regularly held in the Court House, which is a neat and commodious brick building in the Market-Place, and was rebuilt in the year 1806, by the late Lessee.