Demerary.
_Compositions under the Protectorate_ (Vol. v., p. 68.).--Such is the name
of a heading to one of your recent Notes; and such is the formula of the
very common error that Dring's _List_, and the lists of his re-editors,
represent the fines levied by Cromwell when he decimated the incomes (not
the estates) of the Royalists, in consequence of Penruddock's rising.
Dring's _List_ has reference to the compositions during the years
1646-1648, when the fines were based on a totally different calculation.
The error has arisen from Dring's catalogue having been published in 1655,
the year after Penruddock's affair. I have compared a great number of the
compositions as they are stated in the Lord's Journals, 1646, _et seq._,
with Dring's account; and though there are discrepancies, their average
resemblance is sufficient to show that they refer to one and the same
affair. Indeed, any one acquainted with the actors in those events will see
in a moment that Dring's _List_ contains many who had repented of and
acknowledged their "delinquency."