Early Maryland County Courts.        xvii

        now extant, except those of Charles County, which help to bridge over this
        gap. That Fendall had completely repudiated the Proprietary is shown by an
        entry at the September 1660: session of the Charles County Court of a writ
        issued against Henry Lillie upon suspicion of felony, which runs, not in the
        name of the Proprietary, Cecilius Calvert, but in the name of “his Majesty”
        (pp. 93-94), an action in Maryland treasonable to the Lord Proprietary.
          Despite the fact that following the restoration of Charles II in 1660 the Gov
        ernor had issued a general amnesty proclamation, reports were circulated that
        the followers of Feridall in Charles County would be prosecuted. A certain
        John Tompkinson was called before the county court at its February 12, 1660/1
        session, for “reproachful words” in having circulated the story that “thear
        wear fiftie men to bee hanged “ at the next Provincial Court. It developed that
        the story traced its origin to certain Virginians then in Maryland, who declared
        it had been told them by Richard Trew of Charles County, who was forth
        with arrested and put under bond (pp. 107-108, 113).
          During the period of the civil wars when the Proprietary's power was in
        abeyance, the county courts themselves seem to have exercised considerable
        control over their own members. In 1652, at the August 12, court, Capt. Rob
        ert Vaughan, Commander of the Isle of Kent, and as such the chief judge of
        the Kent County Court, was twice fined by his recent colleagues for “oppro
        bious” epithets, and for bending his fist over the heads of the justices, and for
        swearing at the clerks, doubtless a political outburst, as he had recently been
        displaced from office. (Arch. Md. liv, 9.) The Council then ordered an investi
        gation of his “divers misdemeanors and abuses in the execution of his Office”
        (Arch. Md. iii, 276-277), but things seem to have been smoothed over by an
        apology which he made in court on April 1, 1653, when the fines were remitted
        (Arch. Md. liv, 15, 16). Thomas Bradnox, a member of the Kent court, was
        fined in 1659 for drunkenness and profanity at his own tobacco house (Arch.
        Md. liv, 178). Even after Proprietary control was restored, at the March 1663
        session this same court suspended Thomas Hynson, Jr. for a year and a day
        because he was reported to have committed fornication with a girl whom he had
        later married (Arch. Md. liv, 366, 371). Some time after Hynson resumed his
        seat on the court he brought suit for defamation against James Ringgold, one
        of his fellow justices, for constant taunting references to his “offence “, and
        received Ringgold's apology in open court (Arch. Md. liv, 367). In another
        instance a member of the court, Thomas Baker, under grave suspicion as a hog-
        stealer, disappears from the bench in the summer of 1662 (pp. 234-239). No
        less important a personage than Joseph Wickes of Kent, was suspended from
        the Kent County Court from February 2 until November 2, 1657, on account
        of the rumors, spread by Thomas Ringgold, of Wickes' relations with a
        Virginia girl (Arch. Md. liv, 38, 78, 84, 85, 113, 121, 127). The court exer
        cised authority over its own members under an act of the Assembly, and absen
        tees from its sessions were occasionally rather heavily fined. In January 1666/7
        the Somerset County Court promulgated certain rules of court procedure.
        After ordering the acquisition of land and the erection of a court house, the
        court ruled that any justice leaving the bench without permission be fined 10









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