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the duties of a good pastor. A brass tablet in the Lady Chapel of the Cathedral records his death at the age of eighty on May 6, 1687. While bearing testimony to his Christian character, it tells how he esteemed himself "chief of sinners and least of the servants of God."2

The Rev. F. Willoughby Jones, present Rector of Dumbleton, informs me that there is no monument to the Doctor in the church, and no reference to him in the parish records.

Mr. Grosart, who speaks of Washbourne as "shy, timid, and meek," yet forms a high estimate of the consistency with which he held on his way in times of difficulty and danger. "He looks to me," he says, as fine a specimen of the Class Royalist as you meet with.

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'Constant as the northern star,

Of whose true fixed and resting quality
There is no fellow in the firmament.""

NOTES.

1. Excellent man as Hopkins was, he was yet an active persecutor of the Quakers, stirring up magistrates and people against them. Vide "Evesham Friends in the Olden Time." By Alfred W. Browne.

2.-Near this brass is a monument to William, a younger brother of Thomas, who was installed Prebend of the Cathedral May 8, 1669, and died 28th November, 1675, aged 60.

SIR ROBERT ATKYNS, SENR.

[1621-1709.]

HOMAS FULLER, writing in the middle of the seventeeth century, found the list of Gloucestershire legal worthies notably scant. Although in his opinion the people were as "litigious here as in other places," few lawyers of eminence had been produced. Among the two or three whom he had deemed worthy of mention was Edward Trotman, a native of Cam, whom he describes as “an eminent Bencher of the Inner Temple," and the compiler of an 'Abridgment of Sir Edward Coke's Eleven Volumes of Reports." He appears to have died in London, being buried in the Temple Church, May 29, 1643.

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Had Fuller written a few years later he would, no doubt, have named William Sheppard, born at Whitminster, and in 1656 called to the Bar by the Society of the Inner Temple. Oliver Cromwell made him a serjeant-at-law, and also appointed him a Welsh Judge. He died in 1674. Among the eleven works which he wrote one was "An Epitome of the Common Statute Laws," and another was entitled The Faithful Counsellor."

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Quaint John

But whatever the quality of Gloucestershire lawyers there was at this period no paucity of numbers. Aubrey, writing in 1689, tells us "Mr. Baynham, of Cold Ashton, in Gloucestershire, bred an attorney, sayes, that an hundred yeares since there were in the county of Gloucester but four attorneys, and now no fewer than three hundred attorneys and sollicitors." Neighbouring counties were. similarly favoured. In less than seventy years the lawyers in

Worcestershire are said to have multiplied from two to one hundred. Of Somersetshire it was reported that "anciently it had but one attorney, and he was so poor that he went afoot to London; but now they swarme there like locusts." "'Tis thought," says the gossiping writer, "that in England there are at this time near three thousand; but there is a rule in hawking, the more spaniells the more game."

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Referring to the previous lack of Gloucestershire names standing high on the legal rolls, Fuller somewhat pathetically says: "I have been informed, from excellent hands, the natives of the county, that no capital judge of the three great Courts was ever born in this county." But he is encouraged to hope that its "long barrenness in judges may be recompensed with fruitfulness at last, because Gloucestershire at this very day showeth two eminent ones, Mr. Justice Atkins and Mr. Justice Hale, which grace the Court Common Pleas with their known ability and integrity."

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The subsequent careers of these two great lawyers fully justified the high estimate which Fuller had formed of their abilities and worth. Of Sir Matthew Hale some account was given in a former work; of "Mr. Justice Atkins" mention will be made further on.

The Atkyns family was anciently connected with Monmouthshire. One of its members, Thomas Atkyns, residing near Chepstow, died in 1513. He was succeeded by David, who, removing into this county, settled at Tuffleigh Court, on the pleasant southern side of Robin's Wood Hill. He died in 1552. His grandson and heir, Richard, was in his minority, but on coming of age succeeded to the Manors of Tuffleigh, Hempstead, Morecote in Minsterworth, and Brickhampton in Churchdown; also to lands in Sodbury and Todenham. He rose to considerable distinction, becoming Justice of Sessions of North Wales and one of the Councillors of the Welsh Marches. He married Eleanor, the daughter of Thomas Marshe, Esq., of Waresleie, Hunts. Both lie buried in the chancel of Hempstead Church, in which, on the north side, is

a fine marble monument, bearing a recumbent life-sized effigy of the justice in his official scarlet robes. The inscription has, unfortunately, disappeared from a mural tablet at its head, but as given by Bigland it ran thus: "Here lyeth the body of Richard Atkyns, of Tuffley, Esquior, waighting for the resurrection to glory, and was buried 8 day Nov., 1610." A tablet to the memory of his wife records her death on April 3, 1594, but does not give her age, and bears an epitaph, simple in composition, but beautiful in sentiment :

"Hir godli life hir blessed deathe

Hir hope and consolation

Were signes to us and seales to her

Of joyful resurrection."

Sir Edward Atkyns, the "Mr. Justice Atkins" of whom Fuller wrote, was a son of this worthy couple, and was born in 1587. He attained eminence as a lawyer; and notwithstanding his political leanings and independent conduct, was made sergeant-at-law by Charles I. in 1640, and appointed a Baron of the Exchequer by Charles II. immediately after the Restoration.2 He died in 1669.

His eldest son, Sir Robert Atkyns, the subject of this sketch, was born in 1621-probably at Tuffleigh, which was at that time the family seat. There is some question as to whether he pursued his studies at Baliol College, Oxford, or Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. It is certain that he took his Master of Arts degree at the former University. Leaving college he applied himself very closely to the study of the law at one of the Inns of Court, and was called to the Bar in 1645. In 1653 he was appointed Recorder of Evesham. While filling this office he presided, in October, 1655, at the trial of several Quakers, who were prosecuted at the Borough Sessions as disturbers of the peace. In common with most of the authorities of the time, he was strongly prejudiced against these persecuted people, harshly fining them and committing them to prison. Their alleged contempt of Court, by refusing to take off their hats, was, perhaps, their greatest

offence in his eyes.

"I shall fine you every one," he said, with great warmth of temper, "and send you to prison until you know better manners, where you will lie from one Sessions to another, until you come with your hats off."

He held this office until he was returned as member for the borough to Richard Cromwell's Parliament in 1659. The following year he was made a Knight of the Bath at the Coronation of Charles II. in April. In 1661 he was chosen as representative for Eastlow, and in the same year he was appointed Recorder of Bristol.

About this time the family seat in the vale was exchanged for two on the hills. Swell Bowl, in the parish of Lower Swell, was purchased in 1659, and Sapperton Hall, in the village of Sapperton, in 1660. Swell Bowl estate was anciently Church property, but at the dissolution of monasteries was appropriated by Henry VIII. and disposed of according to his own sweet will to the Bartlett family. The spacious residence was on the side of the Deckler, which coming down from Donnington through Upper Swell, passes on its way to join the Windrush. It was within one mile of Stow and fifteen of Sir Robert's constituency at Evesham.

Sapperton Hall, "a large stone house," stood near the ancient parish church of St. Kenelm, in the midst of the picturesque village, which is situated on the east side of one of the most beautiful parts of the upper portion of the Golden Valley, through which the river Frome flows from Brimpsfield to Stroud. It was for many years the residence of Sir Henry Poole, who is described as "eminent for his great housekeeping." A costly monument in the church records his death in 1616, at the age of 75. His grandson, who bore his name, sold the manor to Sir Robert.3

Honours and promotions still followed him. In 1661 he was appointed a King's sergeant-at-law; and the following year he was made a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas. This high office, which he filled with great ability and uprightness, he resigned under peculiar circumstances in 1679, and

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