1629--Philip Lord Herbert, 1646--Dr. Gibbon, 1653--Sir R. Ford,
1653--Lord Brounker, 1673--Sir Cloudesley Shovel, 1700--_Extracts from
the Registers made by the Rev. H. Goodhall_, 1818.

EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.

* * * * *

WIVES OF ECCLESIASTICS.

In reply to your correspondent's query as to the "wives of
ecclesiastics," I find amongst my notes one to this effect:--

ERROR, to assume in ancient genealogies that a branch is
necessarily extinct, simply because the last known representative
is described as "Clericus," and _ergo_, must have died S.P.L.

It will be obvious to many of your readers that Clericus is _nomen
generale_ for all such as were learned in the arts of reading and
writing, and whom the old law deemed capable of claiming benefit of
clergy,--a benefit not confined to those in orders, if the ordinary's
deputy standing by could say "_legit ut clericus_."

The title of Clericus, then, in earlier times as now, belonged not only
to those in the holy ministry of the Church, and to whom more strictly
applied the term Clergy, either regular or secular, but to those as well
who by their function or course of life practised their pens in any
court or otherwise, as Clerk of the King's Wardrobe, Clerks of the
Exchequer, &c. Though in former times clerks of this description were
frequently in holy orders and held benefices, it must be evident that