WILLIAM SHELLEY, of Michelgrove, Clapham, Sussex (son of John Shelley, Esq., and grandson of the Sir William Shelley whose biography is given in the 'D.N.B.,' lii. 41), appears to have been born on 14 September, 1538 (Sussex Record Soc., iii. 8).

At the age of twelve he succeeded his father in 1550 (Dallaway and Cartwright's 'Sussex,' ii. ii. 77), and Sir Anthony Cook was appointed his guardian (Strype, M.,' ii. ii. 246). The Thomas Shelley who entered Winchester College in 1555, aged twelve, from Michelgrove, must have been his brother, though the genealogies do not mention him (cf. 9th S. xii. 426).

William Shelley's first wife was Mary (not, as Berry, in his 'Sussex Genealogies,' p. 62, says, Margaret), one of the daughters of Thomas Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. Machyn, in his 'Diary,' under the year 1561, thus refers to her funeral:

"The xiii day of December was bered at Sant Katharyns-chryst chyrche my lade Lyster, sumtyme wyff of master Shelley of Sussex, and the dowther of the erle of Southamptun late lord chanseler of Engeland, Wresseley, with a harord of armes and a ii dosen skochyons of armes.' What this certainly seems to imply-viz,

that William Shelley was her first husband, and that she subsequently married Richard Lyster, son of Sir Michael Lyster, and grandson of the Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench is definitely asserted in Banks's 'Extinct Baronage of England' (iii. 672) and 'D.N.B.' (lxiii. 152). However, she bore Richard Lyster a son in 1556 (Berry's 'Hants Genealogies,' p. 240), and so, on the above theory, must have (1) been married to William Shelley, and (2) had her marriage annulled, and (3) remarried before William Shelley was eighteen, which seems improbable. Can we hold, as Machyn's editor apparently does, that William Shelley was not her first, but her second husband?

William Shelley's second wife (who is quite ignored in Dallaway and Cartwright, and whose surname is not given in Berry) was Jane, born in 1544, only daughter and heiress of John Lingen, Esq., M.P., by Isabella or Sibyl Breynton, his wife. John Lingen, who died on 3 May, 1554, and was buried in St. Dunstan's-in-the-West, was the owner of extensive properties at Sutton, Stoke Edith, Kenchester, Credenhill, and other places in Herefordshire, as well as of lands in Shropshire (see Duncumb and Cooke's 'Herefordshire,' iv. 52; 'Collectanea Topogr. et Genealog,' iv. 109-10; Burke's Landed Gentry,' 1900, p. 222; 'S.P. Dom. Eliz.,' cxlviii. 39, clv. 59).

In 1564 William Shelley was one of the Justices of Peace notified by the Bishop to the Privy Council as being "myslykers of religion and godlye procedinges" (Camden Miscellany,' Ix.). Subsequently, when the Sheriff and Justices of Sussex assembled at Steyning, in December, 1569, to subscribe the order of the Privy Council for the uniformity of public worship, he was absent ('S.P. Dom. Eliz.,' lx. 18); and again on 5 March, 1576, his name was sent up to the Privy Council as of one suspected of recusancy (Strype, Ann.,' ii. ii. 22), and he was at the same time cited to appear before the Bishop.

On 11 August, 1580, he appeared before the Clerk of the Privy Council in accordance with some previous judgment (P.C.A.,' N.S., xii. 150), and two days later was committed to the Fleet for his religion (ibid., 152). He was released on bail, possibly in response to his wife's petition to the Council ('S. P. Dom. Eliz.,' cxlviii. 39), on 26 June, 1581, being bound to return by 20 August following (P.C.A.,' N.S., xiii. 105), and was again released on bail for a month on 1 November, 1581, in order to visit his wife, who was lying ill at Sutton (ibid., 252). Apart from her illness he must have had much

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to do in the way of setting his house in order, for, from the moment of his committal to the Fleet, his servants had caused his wife great trouble, afterwards (in 1582) going so far as to eject her from her house at Sutton ('S.P. Dom. Eliz.,' cxlviii. 39, clv. 59). On his arrival there he found his wife's mother on her death-bed, and on 27 November obtained an extension of leave to the following 15 January ('P.C.A.,' N.S., xiii. 262). The opportunity for following his religion was too good a one to be lost, and he therefore made "great preparation for the keeping of a solemne and extraordinary Christmas, a thing," as the Lords of the Council thought, "very inconvenient for him." In consequence, steps were taken to have him summoned back to the Fleet by St. Stephen's Day, should it be necessary (ibid., 286-8). Whether it was necessary does not appear. The next we hear of him is that he was again released, this time on his own bond, on 24 February, 1581/2, to watch certain lawsuits respecting his Sussex and Surrey properties, and ordered to return by 7 April, 1582, which he did (ibid., 331, 384). Before 24 August, 1582, he had been transferred from the Fleet to the Marshalsea, and Mass was being celebrated in his chambers there ('S.P. Dom. Eliz.,' clv. 27). Nevertheless, he must again have had a temporary release in the autumn of 1583, for on the night of 16 September, 1583, he met Charles Paget in Patching Copse, and plotted with him for an invasion of England, the liberation of Mary, Queen of Scots, and the return of the nation to the Catholic faith (Baga de Secretis, Pouch 47, in Fourth Rep. of the Deputy-Keeper Pub. Rec.,' App. ii. 274-5; cf. also S. P. Dom. Add. Eliz.,' xxix. 39). Inquiries being made as to the means whereby Lord Paget and Charles Paget had escaped again beyond the sea, William Shelley's name began to be mentioned (S. P. Dom. Eliz.,' clxiv. 23, 30). He was therefore arrested on suspicion of treason, and on 18 January, 1583/4, committed to the Tower. On 12 February he was indicted before Sir Christopher Hatton and others at Westminster, and pleaded guilty. It is probable that he also made some confessions on the rack ('S.P. Dom. Eliz,' clxviii. 14). He was sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn, His attainder was subsequently confirmed by statute 29 Eliz., c. 1, "An Acte for the Confirmacion of the Attainders of Thomas, late Lorde Pagett, and others." But the sentence of death was, it seems, remitted.

He was sent back to the Tower, where we find him mentioned as being in 'S.P. Dom. Eliz,' clxxviii. 11, 74, clxxix. 35, clxxxii. 16,

27. He was still there, apparently, in 1588, when, to his great discredit, he gave evidence against the Earl of Arundel (Strype, 'Ann.,' iii. ii. 79). One result of his attainder was that all his property was forfeited, and this included his estate jure uxoris in the Herefordshire and Shropshire freeholds (compare 'S. P. Dom. Eliz., ccxxxii. 67). However, Mrs. Shelley must have possessed some influence at Court, for on 20 June, 1586, a warrant was issued to the Receiver-General of Herefordshire and Salop to pay annually to Jane Shelldie, wife of William Shelldie, Esq., late attainted of high treason, the sum of 2001. out of the rents, &c., the said William held in right of his wife, and to assign her one of the houses to inhabit in during pleasure; also to allow the said William such sums as are accustomed to be paid for prisoners in the Tower, and the yearly sum of 50l. for apparel, &c. ('Cal. Cecil MSS.,' iii. 146). This annuity seems to have been paid to Jane Shelley down to her husband's death, though she complains that she sometimes had great difficulty in getting it (Cal. Cecil MSS. iv. 433).

It was probably some time after this warrant that Mrs. Shelley was convicted of harbouring a priest, and, as Cooke relates ('Herefordshire,' iv. 52), was lodged in the common gaol of Worcester, from which, it appears, she was liberated at last on paying a fine. Thereupon she went to London, and probably lodged in Holborn. There she consulted a cunning man named Shepton concerning certain things she had lost, and an astrologer named John Alfry about the likelihood of the execution, natural death, or escape of her husband, to whom she attributed all her troubles, and who at the time was apparently dosing himself to death with too much physic. On three occasions she went to Cambridge to consult John Fletcher, Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, on these and similar points ('S.P. Dom. Eliz.,' ccxliv. 42).

This not altogether blameless superstition on the part of Mrs. Shelley was twisted by her enemies into an accusation that she had sought by witchcraft to discover the date of the queen's death. She was accordingly thrown into the Fleet Prison in January, 1592 3. There she was subjected to extortion on the part of the warden, and to disgraceful treachery on the part of a young man named Benjamin Beard, who (apparently on the pretext that his mother's brother, Benjamin Tichborne, afterwards first baronet of that name, had married a Shelley of Mapledurham, who was probably a first cousin of William

Shelley) claimed cousinship with the Michelgrove branch.

It was, however, owing to his influence with the Government that, in order to throw dust into the eyes of the Catholic prisoners, Mrs. Shelley was, on 4 November, 1593, liberated from strict confinement and given the liberty of the Fleet (see 'S.P. Dom. Eliz.,' ccxlviii. 43, 47, 71, 83; Cal. Cecil MSS.,' iv. 407, 413). She was probably released on bail some time in 1594, and thereafter resided in London.

At some period unknown William Shelley was transferred from the Tower to the Gatehouse Prison, Westminster, whence, on 19 August, 1596, he was liberated for the sake of his health, and committed to the custody of Sir John Carrell, Knt., of Warnford-Sir John Hungerford, Knt., and Henry Guildford, Esq., being his sureties (P.C.A., N.S., xxvi. 122). Whether Sir John Carrell was a relative or not I cannot say, but as he was in 1604 one of the trustees for William Shelley's heir, I think it probable. Of the sureties, Sir John Hungerford was the son and heir of Anthony (not John, as Berry calls him) Hungerford, Esq., of Down Ampney, Gloucestershire, by Bridget his wife, William Shelley's sister (see Collectanea Topogr. et Genealog., v. 28; and compare 'S.P. Dom. Eliz.,' ccxli. 47; P.C.A.,' N.S., xxiv. 474, xxvi. 484); and Henry Guildford probably also a nephew, and son of William Shelley's sister Elizabeth by her marriage with the person whom Berry calls Thomas Guildford, but who was probably Richard (see 'S. P. Dom. Eliz.,' clxxxii. 16).

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William Shelley did not long survive his liberation. He died on 15 April, 1597, and was buried in St. Dunstan's-in-the-West, near his father-in-law John Lingen.

On the payment of 1,000l. to Lord Effingham, and 10,000l. to the Exchequer, William Shelley's lands were conveyed to Sir John Carrell, Sir Henry Guildford, and others on behalf of the heir, then aged eighteen (S.P. Dom. James I.,' viii. 52). This was John Shelley, a recusant ('S.P. Dom. James I., xxvii. 32, lv. 51), who, though made a baronet on 22 May, 1611 (G. E. C.'s 'Baronetage,' i. 25), remained a recusant ('S.P. Dom. James I.,' lxviii. 62).

All the genealogies (ie., G. E. C., Berry, and Cartwright) say he was the son of William Shelley's brother John; but in 'S.P. Dom. James I.,' viii. 99, 'S.P. Dom. Add. James I., xxxvi. 36, and D.N.B.,' lii. 42, he is said to be William Shelley's son. That the former authorities are correct is shown by the devolution of Mrs. Shelley's property.

On her husband's death she took steps to recover her inherited lands, and King James restored to her her jointure lands, dispensing her from taking the oath required by law. These included Stondon Place, Essex, from which, however, she was excluded by a grantee of the late queen, one William Bird ('S.P. Dom. Add. James I.,' xxxvi. 5; ‘S.P. Dom. James I.,' xxxvii. 36). She did, however, recover enough to bring her in 3,000l. a year (ibid., lxv. 45).

She does not appear to have ever again resided in Herefordshire, though she was not unmindful of her tenants there, and in her will gave various charitable bequests mentioned by Cooke (loc. cit.), and also founded an almshouse in Hereford itself. She was also, as Cooke shows, very kind to her poor relations, and was credited with not forgetting. her religion, being said to have demised lands in Shropshire to support Jesuit colleges ('S.P. Dom. James I., Ixv. 45). In 1606 she was paying 2601. a year as a fine for her recusancy (S.P. Dom. Add. James I.,' xxxviii.. 75). She died in March, 1609/10, and was. buried on the 11th of that month in St. Dunstan's-in-the-West, near her husband and her father (Collect. Topogr. et Genealog.,' iv. 110).

It seems quite clear that she was childless, for her estates in Herefordshire and Shropshire descended to her cousin Edward Lingen, son and heir of her father's brother William, and nephew of the Catholic martyr John Ingram. The said Edward Lingen had been attainted of treason in 1594 (cf. 'S. P. Dom. Eliz.,' ccxlvii. 21, 78; ccxlix. 1), but reprieved, and eventually pardoned on 4 May, 1604 ('S.P. Dom. James I..' viii. 10), though he remained a recusant(ibid., liii. 111, liv. 11,lxiii. 78).

In 1624, after he had been for a long time a prisoner in "the Porter's Lodge Prison," he was discovered to be a lunatic and committed to the charge of Sir John Scudamore, Bart. (Hist. MSS. Comm. Thirteenth Rep.,' iv. 271). He was succeeded by his son, the famous. Royalist Sir Henry Lingen.

JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

THE CONVENTION OF ROYAL BURGHS OF SCOTLAND.

(See ante, p. 401.)

SOME 150 years later, in the City of Edinburgh, there was considerable dissatisfaction among the trades against the administrators of the city's affairs. They managed to procure an Act of Council in 1763 applying to the Convention of Royal Burghs