J.M.

Oxford, Feb. 5.

Sir William Rider.—­In reply to the queries of “H.F.,” No. 12. p. 186., respecting Sir William Rider, I beg to say that among the many MS. notes which I have collected relating to the Rider family, {269} &c., I find the following from the Visitation of Surry, 1623, and from a MS. book of Pedigrees of Peers in the Herald’s College, with additions.

“Thomas Rider married a daughter of ——­ Poole of Stafforde, by whom he had Sir William Rider, born at Muchalstone, co.  Stafforde, Sheriff of London, 1591, Citizen and Haberdasher, Lord Mayor, 1600.  Will dated 1 Nov., and proved 9 Nov. 1610, 8 Jas. I. (94 Wood); buried at Low Layton, Essex, &c.  Sir William married Elizabeth, da. of R. Stone, of Helme, co.  Norfolk; by whom he had, besides other children and descendants, Mary daughter and coheiress, who married Sir Thomas Lake, of Canons, Middlesex, from whose issue descended Viscount Lake.”

S.S.

Pokership (No. 12. p. 185., and No. 14. p. 218.).—­It is to be regretted that no information has been supplied respecting the meaning of this remarkable word, either from local sources or from the surveys of crown lands in the Exchequer or Land Revenue offices.  In one or the other of these quarters we should surely find something which would dispense with further conjecture.  In the meantime the following facts, obtained from records easily accessible, will probably be sufficient to dispose of the explanations hitherto suggested, and to show that the poker of Bringwood forest was neither a parker nor a purser.

The offices conveyed to Sir R. Harley by James I. had been, before his reign, the subject of crown grants, after the honor of Wigmore had become vested in the crown by the merger of the earldom of March in the crown.  Hence, I find that in the act 13 Edward IV. (A.D. 1473), for the resumption of royal grants, there is a saving of a prior grant of the “office of keeper of oure forest or chace of Boryngwode,” and of the fees for the “kepyng of the Dikes within oure counte of Hereford, parcelles of oure seid forest.” (6 Rot.  Parl. p. 94.)

In a similar act of resumption, 1 Henry VII., there is a like saving in favour of Thomas Grove, to whom had been granted the keepership of Boryngwood chase in “Wigmoresland,” and “the pokershipp and keping of the diche of the same.”  The parkership of Wigmore Park is saved in the same act. (6 Rot.  Parl. p. 353 and 383.)

In the first year of Henry VIII. there is a Receiver’s Account of Wigmore, in which I observe the following deductions claimed in respect of the fees and salaries of officers:-

“In feodo Thomae Grove, forestarii de Bringewod,
6l. 1s. 6d.
—­ ejusdem Thomae, fossat’de Prestwode dych,
18d. 
—­ Edm.  Sharp, parcarii parci de Wiggemour,
6l. 1s. 6d. 
—­ Thomae Grove, pocar’ omnium boscorum
in Wiggemourslonde 30s. 4d.”