half colliers," so rapidly had coal-mining
advanced, and so important had its condition become. An examination
of the original document shows this order to have been signed by one
person writing down the names of the forty-eight free miners, since
they all exhibit the same hand-writing.

The _seventh_ of the orders still extant reports the Court of the Mine to
have been held at Clearwell on the 5th of April, 1687, before William
Wolseley, Esq., and commences by stating that more money was wanted for
legal purposes, and that every miner must pay two shillings, with two
shillings besides for every mine-horse, towards meeting them.

It likewise directed that each coal-pit and dangerous mine-pit, if
left unworked for a whole month together, should be fenced with a
stone wall or posts and rails, under a penalty of 10s. All previous
orders, fixing the prices at which the minerals of the Forest were
alone to be sold, were now abolished, not having been found to
answer; and all miners were left at liberty to sell or carry and
deliver their ore and coal to whom, where, and how they pleased; and
whereas previously all colliers were entitled to be first served at
the pits, now it was ordained that the inhabitants of the hundred
should precede the trade, and that those miners only should keep
horses who had land sufficient to feed them. The following provision
speaks for itself--"For the restrayning that pernicious and
abominable sinne of perjury too much used in these licentious times,
every myner convicted by a jury of 48 miners in the said Court shall
for ever loose and totally forfeite his freedome as touching the
mines, and bee utterly expelled out of the same, and all his working
tooles and habitt be burnt before his face, and he never afterwards
to be a witness or to be believed in any matter whatsoever." Of the
forty-eight jurymen whose names are appended to the above, sixteen
signed.

It was in the month of January following (1688) that a riotous assemblage
of the people pulled down Worcester Lodge and York Lodge, besides much
defacing and spoiling the Speech House; an outrage connected probably
with the unpopularity of James II., after whom the Speech House and York
Lodge were called. With reference to the general feeling of the
neighbourhood respecting the principles of the Revolution, Mr. Pyrke, of
Dean Hall, states th