The fifth Act is all one scene, mainly taken up with the underplot. Towards the end Peek comes in once more. His exploits have been made known to the King, who offers him splendid rewards if he will serve him by land or by sea. Peek is infinitely obliged, but for the love of his native land, he would be content to be the king of Spain's "galley slave." As it is, he only asks:

That I may once more

See my own country chimneys cast out smoake.

I owe my life and service to the king,

(The king of England) let me pay that Bond
Of my allegeance; and, that being payd,
There is another obligation,

One to a woeful Wife and wretched Children
Made wretched by my misery. I therefore beg
Intreat, emplore, submissively hold up my hands
To have his kingly pitty and yours to lett me go.
Duke. Well, since we cannot win you to our service,
We will not weane you from your Countryes love.
The king our lord commands us here to give you
A hundred pistoletts to beare you home.
Dick of D. A royall bounty, which my memory
Shall never loose;

All. Fare thee well, Englishman.

Dick of D. I will ring peales of prayer for you all,
My Lords and noble Dons.

Duke. Doe so; if thou hast just cause: howsoever,
When thy swift ship cutts through the curled mayne,
Dance to see England, yet speake well of Spayne
Dick of D. I shall.

I hope these extracts have shewn us that Dick of Devonshire, whether written by Heywood or not, is a thoroughly good play, worthy to belong to the first and most productive period of our English drama, and not unworthy of its subject, the daring deeds of our local hero, Richard Peek, of Tavistock.3

3 That Mr. Bullen's edition of Dick of Devonshire had been out of print for some years was my excuse for bringing this notice of the play before the members of the Devonshire Association. Since my paper was read at Plymouth, I have heard rumours that Mr. Brooking Rowe has it in hand to publish Dick of Devonshire, together with the full text of Manly Peek's own account of his adventures. Such a book should be welcome to all Devonians, and especially to the people of Tavistock.

THE FROUDES, OR FROWDES, OF DEVON.

BY THE REV. R. E. HOOPPELL, M.A., LL.D., D.C.L.
(Read at Plymouth, July, 1892.)

THE origin of the name of Froude, or Frowde, is not easy to discover. Some derive it from the Icelandic "Frod," wise, a soubriquet which is said to have been bestowed upon more than one eminent Northman. Others recall the traditionary line of kings descended from Odin, and note the several Fridleifs (three), Frodis (four), and Fridfrodi (one), that appear among the ancestors, and their kin, of Harald Fairhair. There was, however, a place in Kent, in the 13th century, called Frode, and as very many of our English surnames are derived from place-names, and that very often when ordinary readers would least suspect it to be the case, I much prefer to think that this was the true origin of the name of our English Froudes. The place-name, Frode, itself dated back probably to British times, for in the Keltic language "ffrwd" signifies a rushing stream.

Several landed proprietors of Frode, in Kent, are commemorated in a document of 45 Hen. III. (A.D. 1261), printed in Roberts's Extracts from the Fine Rolls preserved in the Tower of London. The record is as follows:

Kanč.

Ivo Fil' Alani De Frode et Adam et Joh' et Ričs fres ejus dāt unā marč pro una as cap coram eodem Willmo [de Wilton] et mand est vič Kanč.

The meaning of the above is that Alan de Frode, the father of Ivo, Adam, John, and Richard de Frode, had died, and that the four brothers joined in paying a mark for the issue of a writ for an inquisitio post-mortem, and that the sheriff of Kent was instructed to take the necessary steps in the matter.

Where, however, the estate so commemorated was, I have

not as yet succeeded in discovering, nor have I been able to identify any of this quartette of brothers in the Hundred Rolls, which were compiled only a few years afterwards, viz., in 1274. Of course, Fitzalans were numerous, and some of them highly distinguished. One, Richard Fitzalan, descended from the Lady Isabel, sister of Hugh de Albeney, became Earl of Arundel, in Sussex, in 1289. His arms were "Gules, a lion rampant or, armed and langued azure."

There was a Frowde in Kent, or Sussex, in 1542, when a tragical occurrence took place. On the occasion of a birth celebration at Herstmonceaux Castle, Lord Thomas Dacre, the happy father, as no doubt his guests would have called him, and three companions, John Mantel, John Frowde, and George Roydon, were implicated in the death of the parkkeeper of a neighbour, Nicholas Pelham, of Laughton, and were all tried for murder, and all executed. Lord Thomas Dacre was only twenty-four years old, and John Frowde, and the rest of his companions, were, in all probability, little, if any, older.

Later, in 1637, we find a Thomas Froud, gentleman, resident at Gillingham, in Kent. A marriage license was granted him in that year by the Bishop of London. He is described as a bachelor, of the age of 23. The bride was to be Frances Powell, of St. Ann's, Blackfriars. She is described as a spinster, of the age of 20; and the wedding was to take place at St. Martin's Orgar.

Whether the Froudes of the more western counties migrated to them from Kent it is impossible for me to say at this present writing, but in the reign of Elizabeth there were Frowdes in Wiltshire; and, earlier still, a John Frode was connected as a clerk in Holy Orders both with Somersetshire and Devonshire.

The family of Froude appears to have been persistent in Wiltshire. They occur several times in the Proceedings in Chancery of the reign of Elizabeth, sometimes as plaintiffs, sometimes as defendants. In one case it was the settlement of a dispute between two brothers, Christopher Parsons, alias Frowde, and John Parsons, alias Frowde, respecting the parsonage of Heytesbury and Knocke, held under a lease from William Bradbridge, the Dean. Earlier than this, Thomas Froude appears in the Valor Ecclesiasticus, as Auditor of the Deanery of Amesbury. From the same document it appears that the rectory of Heytesbury was at that time, 27 Hen. VIII., held on lease by Edward Frode of the Dean and Chapter, and that its value was reckoned at

£40 a year. Later again, on July 18th, 1662, we find another Edward Frowd removed from his office as a member of the Corporation of Salisbury, under the new Act for the Regulation of Corporations. The next year a conveyance of the rectory of St. Edmunds, in the city of Salisbury, was made to several persons, of whom Edward Frowd was one, the significant explanation being given that the Feoffees were Puritans. This same Edward Frowd appears to have been the founder of Frowd's almshouses, still existing in Bedwin Street, Salisbury; and his portrait probably still hangs in the vestry of St. Edmund's Church. It was there in 1843. In 1783, the first Lord Exmouth, then plain Edward Pellew, married Susan, the second daughter of James Frowde, Esq., of Knoyle, co. Wilts.

To come now to Devonshire, the information we have relating to the clergyman alluded to above is contained in the register of Bishop Stafford, of Exeter, which the self-denying labours of Prebendary Hingeston-Randolph, the rector of Ringmore, have recently rendered available to scholars. It is to the effect that:

John Frode, who had received all the sacred orders without license, from the bishop of another diocese, obtained a dispensation from the Bishop of Exeter, on September 22nd, 1408, and was ordained sub-deacon on a title derived from the hospital of St. John Baptist, at Bridgewater, the same day, in the Collegiate Church of Crediton. On June 1st, 1409, he was ordained deacon, on a title derived from the same hospital, in the same church; and on December 21st, 1409, he was ordained priest, on a similar title, in the same Church.

It would seem from this record that, amongst the other manifold and most grave abuses of that time, was that of the re-ordination of clergymen by bishops, who chose not to recognise, in certain cases, ordination conferred by the hands of other bishops.

In the year 1592, Frowdes appear at Stoke-in-Teignhead. Two wills of this branch of the family are in the Probate Registry at Exeter. In one:

John ffrowde, the elder, makes bequests "for the use of the Church of Stoke-in-Teignhead, to the poor man's box of the parish," to his eldest son William, when he shall be 20 years of age, to his son Gregory, to his son Peter, to his daughter Dorothy, when she shall be 20 years of age, and to his wife Elizabeth. He names his father Thomas ffrowde, and Gregory A. Leigh, as trustees, and mentions debts which

he owes to his brother John ffroude, and to his brother-inlaw John Kellye. The will is dated April 5th, in the 24th year of Elizabeth, and was proved at Exeter, May 15th, 1592.

In the other, the father of the preceding testator, Thomas Froude, makes bequests to the poor people of his parish, towards the repairing of the parish church, to his kinswoman Alice Benet, to all his god-children, to Alice Froude, to Dorothy Froude, to John Froude his son, to all his children's children, to Christian Kellye, to his son-in-law James Paine. The will is dated 21st January, in the 37th year of Elizabeth, and was proved at Exeter, 13th January, 1597.

But long before 1592 there was quite a colony of Froudes in the South Hams. Many Devonshire Lay Subsidy Rolls have been preserved, and may be seen at the National Record Office, Fetter Lane, London. From them we learn the names and worldly position of all the principal inhabitants of the several parishes. As a specimen of these invaluable documents, I will give a few parishes in full from a Lay Subsidy Roll of the year 1546, and I will give it in its original Latin, and with all its quaint spelling and other peculiarities. The Roll in question is numbered "Devonshire" " and it is one of the few that can be described as "in very fine condition."