GENERAL PARDONS.
(Vol. v., p. 496.)
In reference to the pardon to John Trenchard, Esq., here communicated in answer to me, I request permission, in the first place, to present my acknowledgments to Mr. E. S. Taylor for his courtesy; and, in the next, to explain the motive of my inquiry. I was about to print a very long document of this nature, which was issued on the 2nd Jan., 12 Car. II. (1660-1), in favour of Colonel Richard Beke, who had married a cousin of the Protector Cromwell. It appeared to me probable that some general pardon had been already printed, and I wished either to avoid the needless repetition should the pardon to Colonel Beke prove to be in the ordinary form, or, at least, to make a comparison between that and other records of the same class. I could not, however, ascertain that any general pardon had been printed, nor have I hitherto heard of any. The pardon to Colonel Beke has been printed for The Topographer and Genealogist, but is not yet published. It occupies nearly seven large octavo pages, and consequently is much longer than that granted to Mr. Trenchard: speaking freely, it is between three and four times as long. It is evidently formed on a different and more ample precedent; but perhaps the main difference consists in its having relation to the tenure of landed property, and not merely to the simple pardon of offences conferred in the grant made to Trenchard, though, from the enumeration introduced in it of all imaginable offences and crimes, political and moral, it is certainly more quaint and extraordinary.
I much regret that the pardon to Trenchard has not been presented in extenso to the readers of "N. & Q.;" for the contractions and very irregular punctuation will render it almost unintelligible to those who are not conversant with other documents of the kind. The following words are actually misprinted. In line 3. "he" for l're (literæ); line 12. "nuncupabatur" (one word); col. 2. line 1. "Jud'camenta" for Indictamenta, and "condempnac'onas" for condempnationes; line 3. and again line 14. "fforisfutur" for forisfactiones; line 23. "n're" for nostri; line 34. "existim't" for existunt; line 37. "p'liter" for placitetur; line 39. "mea parte" for in ea parte; last line, "p'rato" for privato.
It is also necessary to correct the error into which Mr. Taylor has fallen in supposing that this pardon was granted on the 7th of December, 1688. The date it bears, "decimo septimo die Decembris anno regni nostri tertio," refers to a year earlier, viz., the 7th of December, 1687. The Revolution occurred in the fourth year of the reign of James II. "Mr. Trenchard of the Middle Temple" was clearly the same who was afterwards Sir John, and Secretary of State to King William. See the biographical notice of him appended to the pedigree of Trenchard in Hutchins's History of Dorsetshire, in which work two portraits of him are given. He had been engaged in Monmouth's rebellion; and it is said that he was at dinner with Mr. William Speke at Ilminster, when the news arrived of Monmouth's defeat at Sedgmoor. Speke was shortly after hung before his own door; whilst at the same time, having secreted himself, Trenchard had the good fortune to be embarking for the continent. The other John Trenchard mentioned by Mr. Taylor as occurring among the regicides, was great-uncle to Sir John, who was only forty-six at his death in 1694.
John Gough Nichols.
Macaulay may be right about the great seal notwithstanding Trenchard's pardon. It is just possible such documents may have been kept ready "cut and dried" for filling up. Charles I. began to reign March 27, 1625. I know of a pardon dated Feb. 10th in the first year of his reign, with the great seal of James I. appended. Surely it did not take eleven months to cut a new great seal, which seems the likeliest way of accounting for the use of the old one.
P. P.