waiters, £5;-the Gentlemen Ushers of the presence chamber, £5 ;— the Sergeants at Arms, £3. 68. 8d. ;-the Knight Harbinger, £3. 68. 8d.; -the Knight Marshal, £1 ;-the Gentlemen Usher and quarter waiters, £1;-the Shewers of the chamber, £1;-the Yeomen of the Wardrobe, 16s. 8d. ;—the Wardrobe, £1;-the Yeoman Usher, £1;-the Groom of the great chamber, £1;-the Pages of the presence, 10s. ;-the Footmen, £2;-the Porters of the gate, £1;-the Serjeant Trumpeter, £1;-the Trumpeters, £2. 16s. ; the Yeoman of the Mouth, £2;-the Coachman, 10s. ;-the Yeoman Harbinger, £1;-the Waymaker, £1; -the Yeoman of the field, 10s. ;-the Taster, 10s. ;"-Total £36. 68.

1661. An Act of Parliament was passed for regulating Corporations, "forasmuch as questions were likely to arise concerning the validity of the [late] elections of magistrates and other officers and members in Corporations, as well in respect of the removal of some as of placing others; and to the end that the succession in such Corporations might be most probably perpetuated in the hands of persons well affected to his Majesty and the established government; it being too well known, that notwithstanding all his Majesty's endeavours, and unparalleled indulgence, by pardoning all that had passed, many evil spirits were still working."*

1662. Commissioners, appointed to carry this Act into effect, in the county of Kent, held a session at Gravesend, on the 14th of August, and removed the following members and officers of the Corporation.

James Woodcott, Mayor; John Parker, Esq., Sergeant at Law, Subseneschal, or Recorder; Thomas Woodcott, and Jacob Parson, Jurats; and Thomas Hill, Common-councilman, and Collector of the Fair and Market dues; and appointed as their

successors :—

John Smith, Esq., Mayor.

John Heath, Esq., Subseneschal, or Recorder.

Thomas Morris, John Leedes, and John Marlow, Jurats. William Leedes, Henry Russell, John Lyon, Henry Fry, and William Nayler, Common-councilmen.

Edward Radcliffe, Chamberlain, and Thomas Foord, Collector of the Fair and Market Dues.

*13 Car. II. stat. 2, cap. 1.

Thomas Castleton, a Common councilman, who was Chamberlain of the Corporation, and Searcher of Leather, appearing before the Commissioners, and refusing to subscribe the required declaration, the offices he held were declared vacant.

As a greater number were appointed than had been removed, other vacancies that had occurred must have been filled upon this occasion.

There is a transaction arising out of the civil war, the interregnum and the restoration; which, although it occurred many years afterward, should be mentioned also in connexion with the account given of those events.

At an assembly of the Corporation held on the 23rd of July, 1680,* the following renunciation of the solemn League and Covenant was made,—

"I, Walter Nynn, Mayor, do declare, that I hold that there lies no obligation upon me, nor any other person, from the oath formerly taken, called the solemn oath and covenant, and that the same was in itself an unlawful oath, and imposed upon the subjects of the realm against the known laws and liberties of the kingdom, and that all and every the persons hereafter named did publicly take the oaths mentioned in the said Act, and also subscribe the declaration above said."

This declaration is signed by the Mayor and twenty-eight other members of the Corporation, and George Etkins, whose name appears in the list, supposed to have been headed with the declaration of the acceptance of the covenant.†

The humiliating position of those who, upon the above occasion, abjured their former oath, should teach a lesson of prudence to political partisans, and check the influence of demagogues.

* The renunciation of the covenant so long after the settlement of affairs at the restoration requires some explanation. The Covenanters in Scotland, in the year preceding this declaration, had murdered Archbishop Sharp, and at the same time, the King and his brother, the Duke of York, were seeking to introduce popery. Hence the continued jealousy on both sides, and the precautions which that jealousy suggested. Another reason for renouncing the covenant at this late period, was probably the necessary observance of the Act of 13 Cha. II. chap. 4, " for the Uniformity of Public Prayer," &c., by which it was provided (sec. 12) that from and after the 25th of March, 1682, the declaration of renouncing the covenant should be discontinued: until which time therefore, the formal renunciation would be required.

See p. 314, ante.

GREENWICH.

Greenwich, or the Green Town,* what a happy interpretation of the rus in urbe ! itself a volume of panegyric; and yet incomplete, for it fails in duteous homage to the stately Thames, reflecting as in a mirror, its amenity and grandeur.

In its primitive beauty, the hill, so much admired and so celebrated by historians, poets and painters, rose above the river, like Ararat above the waters of the Deluge.

The manors of East Greenwich, Deptford (formerly called West Greenwich) and Lewisham, were conferred upon the church of St. Peter at Ghent, by Elstrude, niece of King Edgar, and consort of Baldwin, Earl of Flanders. King Edgar is said to have confirmed the grant, by his charter dated 964, upon the interposition of Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, who had been Abbot of St. Peter's at Ghent.

The manor, or part of a manor, granted to the Abbot and Monks of Ghent, was held by them until the suppression of Alien Priories in the second year of the reign of King Henry V. (A.D. 1414); when the manor of Greenwich, which had been held by the Grey Friars or Franciscans, subject to the Abbey of Ghent, was conferred upon the Carthusians of Shene, near Richmond, in Surrey.

It has been assumed that a palace was here, in the year 1300, because in that year Edward I. made an offering of seven shillings at each of the Holy Crosses in the chapel of the Virgin Mary at Greenwich, and the prince made an offering of half that sum.†

This conclusion, however, must not be hastily formed upon such premises, without regarding the following circumstances.

Henry III. founded the Maison Dieu at Ospringe, in Kent, for the brethren of the Holy Ghost, in which edifice there was an apartment called the Camera Regis; and this is supposed to have been a chamber wherein the King, in his progresses, was wont to sojourn and take rest. In like manner, Edward I. might have *"In Saxon grenapic, that is to say, the Green Towne." Lambarde's Perambulation of Kent, Edit. 1596, p. 429.

Lysons' Environs, vol. iv. p. 426.

Southouse. Monasticon Favershamiense, p. 149.