Introduction.            xxxi

    parties Consent and Publication thearof befor a Lawfull Churchman and for
    their Consents it is Apparent and for the worlds Satisfaction thay hear publish
    them selues Man and wife till death them doe part” (Arch. Md. LIII; 599).
    As no action by the court is recorded, the marriage was doubtless recognized
    as valid under the common law.
      The Rev. Matthew Hill appears four years later, to have followed John
    Legett as the minister in Charles County. There are not many references to
    Hill in the Maryland records. He is said to have come to Charles County in
    1669. It must have been very soon after his arrival that he married Edith
    Beane, the daughter of Walter Beane, one of the justices of Charles County,
    who, in his will dated April 20, 1670, names his daughter Edith as then the
    wife of Matthew Hill. On July 2, 1670, William Marshall of Piquasquo,
    Charles County, a former justice of that county and a prominent planter,
    recorded an interesting deed of gift of cattle. This recites that, on account of
    his good will and the pious affection he bears to the people of Charles County
    and particularly to the Protestant minister and inhabitants of Charles County,
    he gives “all the cattle [ear-marked in a designated way] . . . . Comonly called
    the Church Cattle . . . . in the prsnt Custody of Francis Pope & Bridget Legatt
    to the number of thirty . . . . for the use of the Minister for the time being
    elected & chosen by the Protestant inhabitants.” A fat steer was given to
    Minister Hill personally. The remaining cattle were given in trust to three
    overseers, “Mr Mathew Hill Mr Humph. Warren of Hattons Point & Mr John
    Bowles att Pickywaxen” . . . . “for the use & benefits of the poor or indigent
    Inhabitants”, living between the Wicomico and the Potomac rivers “from
    John Coates now dwelling plantation on Wicocomoco side & from Thomas
    Bakers now dwelling plantation on Potomack side downe wards the neck as farr
    as the point Commonly called Cobe-point [Cob Point].” Numerous restrictions
    and conditions were imposed upon the trustees (pp. 262-264).
      Little has been learned about Matthew Hill's activities while minister of
    Charles County, but from what follows it appears that he had his difficulties

    during the ten years he was here. Perhaps it was leanings towards Puritanism
    that got him in difficulties with his congregation. It appears from what fol-
    lows that Hill had an interesting, if stormy, clerical career in England before
    crossing the Atlantic. As no reference to his English career is to be found in
    any Maryland published record, it is worth noting here that the following sketch
    of his life appeared in Edmund Calamy's Noncomformist's Memorial, the
    second edition of which was published in London in 1803 (Vol. III, pp. 471-
    472). From this, and from John Venn's Alumni Cantabrigienses; London,
    1922-1927, (Part 1, Vol. II, p. 372), we learn that Matthew Hill, the son of
    Matthew Hill of York, attended school in York and was admitted in 1649 at
    the age of sixteen to Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he received his
    B.A. degree in 1652-1653, and his M.A. in 1656. He was “solemnly ordained”
    and became a preacher at Healough, Yorkshire, and later at Thirsk, Yorkshire,
    during the Commonwealth. He was ejected from Thirsk in 1662 after the
    restoration of Charles II, on account of his non-conformity. His struggles
    for a livelihood after his ejection are recited in some detail; but he is said to