xiv                 Introduction.

       that matters relating to orphans were ordinarily brought up. Although a new
       commission for justices was issued by the Governor on December 23, 1667, the
       same men were reappointed, with the exception of William Marshall and Walter
       Beane, with the names of Gerard Fowke and Humphrey Warren added, and
       Richard Boughton appointed clerk (Arch. Md. V, 21). Beane was apparently
       in bad health (pp. 106, 113), and died in 1672. Colonel Gerard Fowke, when
       requested at the August, 1668, court to take his seat, declined to do so with “an
       excuse for his not sitting that he was noe Freeholder in this Province” (p. 139).
       Fowke, a prominent emigrant Royalist to Virginia, had married Anne, the
       widow of Job Chandler (d. 1659), a former justice of Charles County, and
       seems afterwards to have divided his time between Charles County, Maryland,
       and Westmoreland County, Virginia (Md. Hist. Meg. XVI, 1921; 1-16).
       Humphrey Warren did not take his seat, however, until the November, 1668,
       court (p. 144) ; he disappeared from the court after the March, 1670/1, session.
       With these slight changes the court, numbering seven, remained practically un-
       changed until September 16, 1670, when a new commission for nine justices,
       with Henry Bonner as clerk, was issued by Governor Calvert (Arch. Md. V,
       75). Adams, Mathews, and a new member, John Stone, son of former Gov-
       ernor William Stone, were designated as “of the quorum”, with Pope, Wade,
       Harrison, Lindsay, and Warren reappointed as associate justices, together with
       a new associate, John Bowles. This bench remained unchanged, with the excep-
       tion of Lindsay, who died in 1670, and Pope, in 1671, until a new bench with
       many new names was appointed, August 1, 1672 (Arch. Md. LI, 81-3). In
       addition to the five holdover members, Adams, Mathews, Stone, Wade, and
       Bowles, there were six new members of the court added, bringing the member-
       ship up to the high figure of eleven. The new justices were Ignatius Causine,
       William Barton, Jr., John Douglas, Thomas Hussey, Robert Henley, and
       Stephen Montague. Philip Gibbon was appointed clerk of the court. Harrison,
       who had been a member of the court since 1660, was not reappointed, doubtless
       on account of ill health, as he died soon afterward. The membership of the
       court, as appointed in 1672, remained unchanged until after the close of the
       period covered by this volume, with the exception of Montague, who sat but
       once, dying a few weeks after his appointment.
        Of the justices just mentioned, Henry Adams and Thomas Mathews, who
       sat during the 1666-1674 period, and John Stone, appointed in 1670, are known
       to have been of the quorum. A county court could not legally function unless
       at least one of the justices of the quorum or a member of the Governor's Coun-
       cil, was present. Adams, who is always mentioned first, was obviously the
       presiding justice. During the years 1665-1666 when he served as sheriff he
       could not legally sit. Lindsay, who died in 1670, was doubtless also of the
       quorum for, at three sessions in 1666 and one in 1668, he is first named on the
       court minutes, and the court functioned when he sat without Adams or Mathews
       being present. Only once do we find a member of the Governor's Council sitting
       on the Charles County court during this period. This was at the June, 1671,
       session, when Sir William Talbot, Baronet, a member of the Council and the
       Provincial Secretary, was present and presiding, although it is not recorded
       that any business was transacted at this meeting (p. 333).