Kent County.             xvii

  with “hog theife “(p. 85). This family feud was, as we have seen, inherited
  by Ringgold's son, Major James Ringgold (p. xvi). Ringgold was dropped
  from the Kent Court when the Province was restored to Cecilius Calvert in
  1658 (Arch. Md. xli, 89), indicating a probable bias towards the anti-Pro-
  prietary or Puritan faction.
    Thomas Hynson (1620-1667), who was a member of the Kent Court from
  1652 to 1658, and the court clerk in 1652 and 1653, was the founder of the
  well known Eastern Shore family of that name. There can be no question
  that he, as was doubtless also his close associate Joseph Wickes, was of that
  group of Virginia Puritans who came into Maryland in 1649-1650, as Hynson
  owned land in, and was living in Isle of Wight County, Virginia, 1643-1646
  (p. 128; Va. Mag. 1898, V. 406; William & Mary Col. Quart. 1899, vii, 291).
  Hynson received a warrant, June 23, 1651, for four hundred acres of land on
  an island opposite Love Point, Kent Island, for having brought his wife and
  three children into the Province, but a patent for this land, which lay on
  Eastern Neck Island, was not issued until this territory was opened up for
  settlement in 1658. It would appear that Hynson lived on Kent Island until
  about 1659, when he apparently moved to the mainland to what in 1662 became
  Talbot County. It is not believed, however, that he lived upon the 2200 acre
  tract, “ Hinchingham “, on the Kent mainland, which he also patented. Hynson
  was clerk of Kent County in 1652 and 1653 (pp. 14, 17). He was serving as
  justice, March 1 1654/5, and was on the bench until 1658 (pp. 66, 99, 126).
  His political sympathies appear to have been favorable to the Parliament, and
  to have been anti-Proprietary in the Fendall “rebellion “. Just after the
  restoration of Charles II and the overthrow of Fendall, there was recorded,
  February 13, 1660/1, in the Kent records a deposition in which it was declared
  that Hynson was heard to have referred to the court house as “his Maiestys
  Dog hous “, hut further inquiry as to this disrespectful speech seems to have been
  dropped (p. 197). He was a member of the Assembly from Kent, including
  the insurgent Assembly called by Fendall in 1660, and for this he and his
  friend, Joseph Wickes, were debarred for seven years from holding office and
  were obliged to give bond for good behavior. His son of the same name was
  one of the justices of the first Talbot County Court (p. xxiii).
    Thomas Bradnox (160-1661), one of the justices of Kent, figures so
  frequently in the records and has such a notorious career, as to require men-
  tion. In 1640 he and William Brantwell has surveyed for them 2000 acres
  called “Love Point” at the north end of Kent Island (p. 11). He had become
  a resident of Kent Island as early as 1641, when he is referred to as “ Corn-
  mander's Mate” under Giles Brent (Arch. Md. iii, 97). He was involved in
  the Ingle “rebellion” and was one of those included in a general pardon, April
  16, 1647; although in a court record, dated November 29, 1648, after reciting
  his various iniquities, including the recent theft of a two-year old steer, which
  he had eaten, it is stated that” he hath beene pardoned by three severall Pardons
  one after another of the crimes of Rebellion, sedition, Rapines, Thefts,
  Roberies, & other like felonious practices—forgetting all former clemency
  & mercy” (Arch. Md. iii, 182; iV, 444). He was appointed a justice in 1647,
      B