The whipping of
females was stopped by statute in 1791. As Hungerford was on one of the
main roads, many people passed through there, and in 1678 the whippings
were so numerous that John Savidge, the town Serjeant, was given a
special honorarium of five shillings "for his extraordinary paines this
year and whippinge of severall persons."
Prince William with his Dutch troops halted at Hungerford on December
8th, 1688, on his way from Torbay to London, where, three days
afterwards, he was proclaimed King William III. He was armed on his back
and breast, and wore a white plume, and rode on a white charger,
surrounded by nobles bearing his banner, on which were the words:
THE PROTESTANT RELIGION AND THE LIBERTY OF ENGLAND.
We were now practically at the end of Berkshire, and perhaps the River
Kennett, over which we passed, and on which John o' Gaunt of Lancaster
had given free fishery rights to Hungerford town, might have formed the
boundary between that county and Wiltshire. We could not hear of any
direct road to Stonehenge, so we left Hungerford by the Marlborough road
with the intention of passing through Savernake Forest---said to be the
finest forest in England, and to contain an avenue of fine beech trees,
in the shape of a Gothic archway, five miles long.
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