BoAr: FNQ: C17 Civil War

http://boar.org.uk/ariwxo3FNQ693.htm Latest edit 30 Nov 2007.

The Bourne Archive

FNQ

Fenland Notes and Queries. Edited by Rev. W.D. Sweeting, Rector of Maxey.

Part 36. January 1898.

This quarterly periodical took the form of a forum in which people sent in questions about the history, ecology and so on of the Fens and the region’s environs and others replied with some sort of answer. Some ‘answers’ seem to have been spontaneous, so qualifying as ‘notes’.

Seventeenth Century Civil War.

693. Lawrence Wiltshire, Rector of Peakirk. – Among some notes on Peakirk by Bishop Kennett preserved in the Lansdowne MSS. (991, fo. 168) is a memorial inscription to a rector of the parish said to be on a ground stone in the chancel. As it is no longer to be found the inscription is here given.

“Here lyeth interred the body of Laurence Wiltshire Rector of this place whose Piety to his dear Mother the Church was such that in the late Rebellion when she lay wallowing in dust and Cloud he faithfully bore her company ; and for his Loyalty it was of that noble strain that he did not only shed tears in private, but engaged in publick for his pious and Anointed Master And as an encouragement to Piety and Loyalty Heaven was pleased to bless him with a hopeful Offspring, five sons and three Daughters, and crowned him with length of Daies, dying aged 64. Who Departed this life upon Wednesday being the first of March 1681-2.”

Is anything known of any special services this loyal Divine rendered to the King’s cause? He does not appear to have been connected with Peterborough, the Dean and Chapter of which are patrons of the living, and certainly never held a stall there.

Ed.

Chronology, Civil War in Lincolnshire