What this groom's surname is, or what it isn't would do, please? It is for a Nicholas ? to Joan Tyllett 15 May 1599 at Felsted. This was suggested to me that possibly it could be the Nicholas Flack marriage to a Joan that I've been searching unsuccessfully for and given up on for now, I have magnified it but it didn't help. The year 1599 would fit since the earliest child I've found for the couple was Thomas Flacke baptised 2 Nov 1600 at Lindsell Essex. My own feeling is that the surname is not Flack(e) but I have been known to be wrong. Regards
Please ignore the name Sarah heading the file I don't know where that came from, in my database the image is headed Marriage Flacke,1599, Nicholas & Joan. The entry is directly under the heading "in the year of our Lord 1599" on the left hand side, so the entry is the 5th from the top.
That's a really dificult one, but I'm sure the initial letter is not F, which would look like ff. Don't be put off by the downward stroke of the h in the line above. All the letters in Nicholas' surname appear not to have either ascenders or descenders.
As Steve says, the descenders from the 'h' and 'y' on the line above get in the way, but without them I'm wondering if it might be Goer (= Gower?). I'm not convinced the first letter of the bride's surname is 'T' - my best guess is a lower-case 'g', but I don't have time to examine it any more closely at present.
That's my take also, it does look more like a C or a G. It wouldn't surprise me if it was a J for a phonetic spelling of Gillet, in that particular spelling Jyllett. In two transcripts I'm advised the surname spelling agrees with you, they have Goer and Coke, I didn't mention it before because I wanted to avoid those clouding opinions. Regards.
The next down is John Stuart (I think). His J is quite different from the first letter of the bride's first name and second.
I thought of J as the initial letter of Joan's surname too, but as Sue says, it differs from the other Js on the page, including Joan. The letter was certainly used like this though; could this line be written by a different hand who used differing letters at different times?
The entry does appear to be squashed in under the year heading, (perhaps added after the John Stuart entry) so it could well be.
I think the John Strayte (not Stuart) entry is the odd one out here. Look at 'were' in 'were married' in the entries for this year - all except John S have 'weare', and the 'r' in his is different too. So I think someone wrote his entry first, and later (after 10 September when the next entry is) the person who wrote the other entries realised that Nicholas had been missed out, and there was more room at the top of the year than anywhere else. Looking a bit further, I now agree that his bride's surname begins with 'J', so Jyllett. Not only does the 'J' match her own forename, but there's a John a bit further down too with a similar initial letter. And being squashed up here would account for the letters being a bit badly formed.