_Pokership_ (No. 12. p. 185., and No. 14. p. 218.).--It is to be
regretted that no information has been supplied respecting the meaning
of this remarkable word, either from local sources or from the surveys
of crown lands in the Exchequer or Land Revenue offices. In one or the
other of these quarters we should surely find something which would
dispense with further conjecture. In the meantime the following facts,
obtained from records easily accessible, will probably be sufficient
to dispose of the explanations hitherto suggested, and to show that
the _poker_ of Bringwood forest was neither a _parker_ nor a _purser_.
The offices conveyed to Sir R. Harley by James I. had been, before
his reign, the subject of crown grants, after the honor of Wigmore had
become vested in the crown by the merger of the earldom of March in
the crown. Hence, I find that in the act 13 Edward IV. (A.D. 1473),
for the resumption of royal grants, there is a saving of a prior grant
of the "office of keeper of oure forest or chace of Boryngwode,"
and of the fees for the "kepyng of the Dikes within oure counte of
Hereford, parcelles of oure seid forest." (6 _Rot. Parl._ p. 94.)
In a similar act of resumption, 1 Henry VII., there is a like saving
in favour of Thomas Grove, to whom had been granted the keepership of
Boryngwood chase in "Wigmoresland," and "the _pokershipp_ and keping
of the diche of the same." The _parkership_ of Wigmore Park is saved
in the same act. (6 _Rot. Parl._ p. 353 and 383.)
In the first year of Henry VIII. there is a Receiver's Account of
Wigmore, in which I observe the following deductions claimed in
respect of the fees and salaries of officers:-
"In feodo Thomæ Grove, forestarii de Bringewod,
6l. 1s. 6d.
-- ejusdem Thomæ, fossat'de Prestwode dych,
18d.
-- Edm. Sharp, parcarii parci de Wiggemour,
6l. 1s. 6d.
-- Thomæ Grove, pocar' omnium boscorum
in Wiggemourslonde 30s. 4d."
There is another like account rendered in 23 & 24 Hen. VII. These,
and no doubt many other accounts and documents respecting the honor of
Wigmore and its appartenances, are among the Exchequer records, and
we are entitled to infer from them, firstly, that a _parcarius_ and a
_pocarius_ are two different offices; secondly, that, whether the duty
of the latter was performed on the dikes or in the woods of Boringwood
chase, the theory of Mr. Bolton Corney (pace cl. viri dixerim) is
very deficient in probability. If the above authorities had not fallen
under my notice, I should have confidently adopted the conjecture
of the noble Querist, who first drew attention to the word, and,
so far from considering the substitution of "poker" for "parker"
an improbable blunder of the copyist, I should have pronounced it
fortunate for the house of Harley that their founder had not been
converted into a porcarius or pig-driver.