Balthazar Willix was a settler at Exeter in New England in 1640, and
Mr. Frank W. llackett, in a brief article containing interesting informa-
tion about him and his family (Register, vol. 50, pp. 46-48), stated that
his name could scarcely be English. He was unquestionably the son of
Balthasar Willick or Willech of Alford, co. Lincoln, the testator of 1598/'.),
who had a wife Anne, and who was buried at Alford 13 Feb. 1598/'.).
The entries in the transcripts of the Alford registers show the baptisms of
three sons of the elder Balthasar, namely. Peregrine, 22 July lo'Jo, Bal-
thasar (the Exeter settler), 27 July 1595, and P^dward, 30 Apr. 1598, and
the burial of a daughter Susanna, 28 May 1600. Of the three witnesses
to the will of Balthasar Willick of Alford Robert Wight was perhaps the
father of Thomas Wight of Exeter, as we have seen; Leonard-Thory was
of a good Lincolnshire family ; and William Bellingham lived at Alford,
married there, 3 July 1600, Anne, the widow of Balthasar Willick, and
had a daughter Susanna, baptized there 1 Sept. 1601. This daughter was
married at Alford, 11 Oct. 1627, to Philemon Pormort, later of Boston,
where he was schoolmaster, Exeter, and Wells. William Bellingham
made his will 25 Aug. 1606, and was buried at Alford 2 Sept. 1606.*

This Bellinghaiu connection is interesting, although I do not believe
that the Alford yeoman was closely if at all related to the morose and
aristocratic Puritan, Richard Bellingham, recorder of Boston in England
and governor of the Massachusetts Bay.

Balthasar Willick of Alford seems to have been a man of substance,
and was perhaps a protege of Peregrine Bertie, Lord Willoughby d'Eres-
by. The oldest son of this Balthasar was evidently named Peregrine in
honor of Lord Willoughby, and here one may indulge in theory to help
out the gaps in genealogy. Nowhere else in Lincolnshire or in England
have I found the name of Willick. It has a Flemish sound. Peregrine
Bertie was a typical Elizabethan nobleman, a friend of Sidney, and in
command when the latter fell at Zutphen. Bertie was born at Cleves, and
from 1582 to 1590 was almost constantly abroad on diplomatic or military
service,. mainly in Holland and the Low Countries. In 1597 he was made
govei'nor of Berwick Castle. He died in 1601, and is buried at Spilsby in
Lincolnshire. It may well be that Lord Willoughby attached to himself
the Flemish youth, Balthasar Willech, and brought him to England on
one of his numerous visits. This would explain the fact that the name
appears nowhere else in England, and might account for the leaseholds
which Balthasar Willech of Alford acquired from his lord.

It would be intei-esting to follow the line of Anna Willix, one of the
daughters of Balthazar of Exeter, who, according to the records presented
by Mr. Hackett, married first Robert Roscoe, who moved to Roanoke

and died there ; secondly Blimt ; thirdly Southwell ; and

fourthly Col. Leare of Virginia.! It will be remembered that Winthrop
recites with rather too much particularity the murder of the first wife of
Balthazar Willix of Exeter. The recently published files of the old Nor-
folk County Court show that at the court at Plampton, 7 Sept. 1648, Wil-
lex sued one Rol^ert Hithersay " for raising an evil report of his deceased
wife, and for breach of promise in carrying his wife to Oyster River in a
canoe and not bringing her up in a canoe again." Hithersay, who roved
from Concord to Lynn, P^xeter, and York, was apjiarently a wayward
character, and maj^ have been suspected of the murder.

* Wentworth Genealogy, vol 1, p. 77.

tFor records concerniug Anna Willix and her sisiers vide htfra, pp. 81-82. — Editor.