Welsh Journals

that is, meeting-houses for dissenters, were reported at Shirenewton, Dinham (William Blethin), Llanvaches (Nathan Rogers), Caldicot, Magor, Wilcrick, Salisbury Farm in St. Bride's Netherwent, Llanwern, Newport, Caerleon, Llangybi, Llantrisant, Llangwm and Usk.31 Cottagers in most of these places would have been among those with minor rights in Wentwood. Rogers says that dissenters, especially the free tenants of Wentwood, were particularly picked on by the local magistrates, and this seems to have been a consistent policy. Rogers cites 'one Piece of Injustice and Barbarity executed on one Edward Webly.for keeping a Meeting in his House' in the 1670s. The Constable was order'd to destrain on five or six large Cows, which were brought to the next Market, but none would buy them; besides, one H.I. an Attorney, and the Lord Marquis's Agent and Tenant, to whom they were sold for half the Value. It was presumably to persecutions of this kind that Lord Herbert, Worcester's son, referred when he wrote to Secretary of State Jenkins in 1682 that 'If we keep steady in our proceedings against the dissenters we shall have no more trouble with them, and in a short time I believe a dissenter will scarce be heard of.32 The belief was laughably ill-founded. During the Commonwealth, the Worcester estates were sequestrated, and Wentwood came under the direct supervision of Oliver Cromwell. Though the enclosures remained in some places, in others they were removed. Nathan says that Cromwell's agents cast longing eyes on the timber, then valued at £ 100,000, but his father and William Blethin prevented them from seizing it. At the Restoration the estates were returned to the Worcesters, by now marquesses, but the second marquess made no move to repeat his father's attempt to enclose the forest." Thus Matters continued neither the Lord invading the Rights of the tenants, but yearly at least keeping a Court to the securing of them, and the better and more regular Government of the said Chase; nor the Tenants questioning the Earl's former Enclosure of the third Part. In April 1678, however, the third marquess sent men into the forest to enclose it. To prepare the way, he first removed some troublesome J.Ps. from the Monmouthshire bench. Manipulation of the bench for political purposes became increasingly common during the 1670s, and was seen by the opposition as an example of the Crown's attempt to establish arbitrary 31 These details are taken from Thomas Rees and Thomas Richards, op. cit. 12 Henning, op. cit., p. 453. D.W.B., p. 918.