Page:The histories of Launceston and Dunheved, in the county of Cornwall.djvu/317

THE COMMONWEALTH. 285 the Castle, are of interest to the inhabitants of the old borough. On the presentment of the jury "for the keepers of England by authority of Parliament, Geoffrey Pearse, blacksmith, was on the 22nd September, 1652, found guilty of quarreling and using contemptuous and reviling words against Mr. Corke, an alderman of the borough, and for asserting that Mr. Corke had seised on armes for the use of the Comonwealth, and had sold divers of them." Oliver Cromwell, having dissolved the Long Parliament on the 20th April, 1653, was made Lord Protector of the Commonwealth on the 12th December of the same year, and we find that the Mayor of Dunheved on the 27th of that month " bestowed att the proclaymeinge of the lord protector att Mr. Bolythoe's, w th the rest of the aldermen, 5s. 2d.; and, later, that he "bestowed at the proclaiming of the second proclimation of the lord protector is. 8d." Oliver honoured " Launceston alias Dunheved " with a warrant to return one member to his Parliament, summoned to meet at Westminster 3rd September, 1654. He did not so honour every borough. The Mayor thus records his grateful acknowledgments : " Gave to a messenger that brought the warrnt for chuseing of a burgishe [burgess] for the Parlymt, 6d. ! ! ! " The electors chose Robert Bennett, Esq., of Hexworthy. The same mayor spent another 6d. on the constables Blagdon and Midleton " for openeinge of the grave in w ch the wich [witch] was buryed." He has omitted the date of this lavish ex- penditure. On the 24th October, 1657, tnc J ur y to inquire for his Highness the Lord Protector and the Commonwealth of the borrough, presented " a parcell of wast ground w ch sometyme was a dwelling howse adjoyning to the South- gate of this borrough, & customary land, sometyme in the tenure of one Richard Estcott, gent, dec d , to bee now &