I have recently come across three cases noted in a solicitor’s precedent book. In each case the complaint starts in the fashion:

Lancashire to Wit AB complains of CD being in the custody of the Marshal of the Marshalsea of our Sovereign Lord now King before the King himself ...

followed by the complaint. The cases were all for debt – each for £100.

I am interested in the significance of the ‘custody of the Marshal of the Marshalsea’. Does it mean that the defendants were actually held in the Marshalsea debtor’s prison in Southwark, or were they held locally and nominally under his custody? Or, indeed, were they necessarily in custody at all?

In two of the cases there is only the complaint, but in the third there is an answer and a rejoinder – in which the complainant demands that the case be held before a Lancashire jury.

There is no indication of where these cases were heard, although they all give the year and the term. One, from 1780, has ‘Stormont & Way’ at the top of the page, another (1794) says ‘Mansfield & Way’. Presumably these were the judges who were heard the cases.

I am sure that there is someone on the list who can explain what is going on.

May thanks in advance,

Peter Park

Fulwood

Lancashire

There's never any highway when you're looking for the past.

Rosanne Cash A feather's not a bird.