have felt any scruple about retaining his connection with his clothier's business. In the inventory of goods taken at his death, we find references to "testator's part of the cloth in parnershipp" and "his part of the small goods in the shopp." He evidently had carried on the business in partnership with his brother Henry, no doubt as successors to their father Christopher and grandfather Alexander in the Bolton shop.

While thus keeping in touch with his old business Alexander Norris seems to have identified himself with public affairs, and being a strong Puritan, he accepted in 1645 the onerous and responsible post of Treasurer to the Lancashire Committee of Sequestrators. In this capacity he had the handling of the funds which came from Royalists' confiscated estates, and also had to deal with a portion of the money derived from different church benefices. He held this position from 1645 until 1649, and possibly later. Cynically minded Royalists may have pointed to the fact that it was just at this time that Mr. Norris launched out in his new house-building project at Tonge! It is certainly a little amusing to find in a survey of the Rectory of Bolton, taken during the time of the Commonwealth, that zealous in all good causes as Alexander Norris doubtless was, he evidently did not believe in paying out in furtherance of these good causes more of his own money than was absolutely necessary. In this survey it is stated that Mr. Alexander Norris and the other inhabitants of Tonge only pay between them the sum of eight shillings and eightpence to the church of Bolton in composition for their tithes, though they are "well worth to bee payd in kind six poundes per

annum.

"1

The family name of Alexander Norris' wife is

1 Rec. Soc. Lanc. and Ches., vol. i. p. 31.

B

not known, though he mentions her Christian name, Anne. He probably married about the year 1626, and appears only to have had two children who survived, both of them daughters, Alice and Anne.1 Anne married in 1665 the Rev. William Bordman, a Bolton man, who subsequently became Rector of Grappenhall, in Cheshire. Alice married in 1654 John Starkie,2 grandson of the John Starkie of Huntroyd, Esquire, who was Sheriff for the County in 1656.

Most of the existing pedigrees of the Starkies of Huntroyd are very inaccurate, not excepting Dugdale's in his "Visitation of Lancashire" in 1664. In the notes on next page will be found the correct details of the steps which carried Hall 'i th' Wood into the Starkie family. From this it will be seen that all the sympathy lavished on Mistress Alice Norris for marrying an old man of sixty-five, as Dugdale's pedigree would indicate, is quite misplaced. Instead, the sympathy should rather be bestowed on John Starkie, who was a boy of barely fifteen years when his marriage covenant with Alice Norris was signed, while his bride was three years his senior. There is no record at Bolton of their marriage, but the Register about this date is rather defective. It cannot, however, have been long delayed after the signing of the marriage covenant, as their first child was baptized at Bolton Parish Church in 1657.

1 He had two sons, who both died in infancy.

2 In Room No. 4 is in plaster a coat-of-arms of the Starkies of Huntroyd. It is a quartered coat, having in the first quarter the Starkie arms, a bend between six storks; in the 2nd quarter, a coat apparently that of Standish, three standing dishes; in the 3rd quarter, two bars with a bordure engrailed for Parr of Kempnough and Cleworth; and 4th, a chief (query is the fess point a crescent ?) for Worsley, a quartering brought in by the Parrs, whose heiress Nicholas Starkie of Huntroyd married at Leigh, 5th August 1578. (See Croston's Baines, vol. iii. p. 292.) I am indebted to Mr. Moss, the caretaker of Hall i' th' Wood, for a very careful drawing of the above achievement. 3 See opposite page.

In an earlier portion of these notes reference was made to the love of litigation which seems to have marked the Lancashire character at this time. Evidences of this were seen in the suits brought by disappointed relatives against the fortunate ones who benefited under the wills of both Lawrence and Roger Brownlow, and also the will of Christopher Norris. Alexander Norris' will again proved a subject of contention among the relatives. The document, which is a lengthy one, certainly appears to show a marked preference for the elder daughter Alice Starkie to the detriment of Mistress Anne Bordman. Hall i̇' th' Hall i' th' Wood is not referred to directly in the will, but by inference we learn that it