confused with the Rev. Thomas Baldwin, who was ejected (1662) from the
Vicarage of Chaddesley Corbett, and who died at Kidderminster in 1693,
his funeral sermon being preached by a conforming clergyman there, named
White. There was also a Thomas Baldwin, junior, who had been expelled
from the Vicarage of Clent, and died at Birmingham; but notwithstanding
such common mispronunciations as "Badlam" for "Badland," it seems clear
that the facts of the Rev. Mr. Badland's life are as given here, thanks
to the careful researches of Mr. A. A. Rollason, of Dudley.
XIII.--A Century of Wars, Incursions, and Alarms (1640-1745).
Life in Willenhall, as in many other places during the Stuart period, was
not without its alarms and apprehensions. The trouble began when Charles
I., by the advice of Archbishop Laud, tried to force the English liturgy
upon Scotland. The resistance offered to this was the real beginning of
the English Revolution, for the King, in the attempt to carry out his
despotic will, had to enlist soldiers by force.
[Picture: Mosley Hall. Photo. by J. Gale, Wolverhampton]
In the year 1640 a special muster was made for the war against the Scotch
Covenanters; the men from Staffordshire consisted of trained bands who
had been employed in the previous year, and 300 men who were impressed
for the occasion. The service throughout the country was very unpopular,
and in some counties the men mutinied and murdered their officers.
Staffordshire did not escape some riots, and one of the most serious of
them occurred in front of Bentley Hall, a mile and a-half out of
Willenhall.
[Picture: Boscobel House. Photo. by B. Williams, Wolverhampton]
This was the last attempt at raising men on the old feudal levies; the
trained bands were armed partly with pikes and partly with the
newly-invented firelock, while the whole of the impressed men were armed
merely with pikes. The Muster Roll for this immediate locality contains
these names (that of Aspley is cancelled):--
Traine. Presse.
Tipton Thomas Dudley, --Thomas Winney. The
L. dnd.
--William Aspley pst.
--John Winspurre in
loco.
--John Husband.
--Joseph Richard.
--William Dutton.
--Richard Rushton: to
be sp: per R. Turnor.
Darlaston & Bentley Thomas Pye, Willm
Turner,
Wednesfield John Hill,
Willenhall William Wilkes,
Another Roll dated 1634, but apparently in use at this time, gives among
the names of the "trayned horse" liable as (or for) 2 "curiasiers,"
"Thomas Levison, Esq.," and "Mrs. Lane and her sonne."
Within a couple of years Civil War had broken out in England, and
Willenhall had to endure its full share of suffering lying, as it did,
midway between two opposing strongholds--Dudley Castle, held for the King
(under Colonel Leveson), and Rushall Hall, garrisoned for the
Parliamentarian side.
Both sides in turn, as they were in a position to enforce payment, made
levies of money upon the unfortunate inhabitants of the district. While
Rushall Hall was a fortified position, first under its owner, Sir Edward
Leigh, and afterwards under its military governor, Captain Tuthill,
Willenhall was forced to pay to the support of the garrison there.
Here is the evidence of an official notice:--
April 8th, 1643.--Ordered that the weekly pay, and five weeks'
arrears, of Norton and Wirley, Pelsall, Rushall, and Goscote,
Willenhall, Wednesfield and Wednesbury, shall be assigned to Col.
Leigh for payment of his officers of horse and troopers
There is a similar military order, dated 22nd June, 1644, by which the
weekly pay of all these places is assigned to Captain Tuthill, governor
of Rushall, though in the parcelling out of contributory areas, Bushbury,
Wolverhampton, Bilston, and Bradley are included in another district.
The other side were employing forced labour for strengthening the defence
of Dudley Castle, and not improbably the Leveson tenants from Wednesfield
and Willenhall were impressed to go up there equipped with spade and
mattock.
Doubtless troops and detachments of armed men were frequently to be seen
passing through Willenhall; while Wolverhampton, owing to the influence
of the Levesons and the Goughs, was almost a Royalist rallying place.
Soon after the skirmish at Hopton Heath, near Stafford, in 1643, Charles
I. found shelter in the old Star and Garter Inn (then in Cock Street),
and to this hostelry came Mr. Henry Gough, who had accommodated Charles,
Prince of Wales, and his younger brother, James, Duke of York, at his
private residence, to proffer the King a willing war loan of 1,200
pounds.
The same year the King made the same hostelry his headquarters, dating a
letter which he addressed to the Lichfield magistrates, directing them to
send their arms to join the Royal standard at Nottingham, "Att our Court
at Wolverhampton, 17 August, 1642."
In 1643, Prince Rupert, after his memorable fight at Birmingham, made an
attack upon Rushall Hall; and notwithstanding the gallant defence of
Mistress Leigh, in the absence of her husband, its lord, took and held it
for the King, putting in as governor Sir Edward Leigh's neighbour,
Colonel Lane, of Bentley. With a garrison of 100 to 200 men, he held
Rushall Hall for some months, having some exciting times, chiefly in the
plundering of the enemy's stores, and the private merchandise of carriers
passing along the great Watling Street over Cannock Chase.
On May 10th, 1644, the Earl of Denbigh, after a vigorous attack,
recaptured Rushall, finding there thousands of pounds' worth of stolen
goods, and taking among other prisoners William Hopkins, of Oakeswell
Hall, Wednesbury. It was then Captain Tuthill became commander of the
garrison.
In the same month the Stafford Parliamentarian Committee ordered the
seizure of all the horses and cattle belonging to that staunch Royalist,
Squire Lane, and of all the other cavalier landowners around Bentley.
The seizure was duly made, and realised by sale at Birmingham. As a
set-off to this it must be recounted that at the beginning of the year
Colonel Lane had fallen upon a Parliamentary escort convoying stores and
provisions to Stafford, routed the enemy, and taken no less than sixty
horses, fifty-five of their packs containing ammunition. Hence, the
reprisal at this first opportunity.
In the September of the year (1644) a remarkable episode occurred. The
governor of Dudley Castle, Sir Thomas Leveson, employed one of his trusty
tenants, a yeoman named Francis Pitt, of Wednesfield, to make a secret
attempt to bribe Captain Tuthill to betray Rushall and its garrison into
his hands. A number of letters passed between Leveson and Tuthill, for
the latter pretended from the outset to fall in with the treacherous
proposal, with the object of recovering some prisoners; which having
accomplished, he seized Pitt, the go-between, and delivered him up to the
Parliament.
Colonel Leveson, unconscious of this treachery, came according to
arrangement to Rushall, but instead of finding an easy entrance, had two
"drakes," or small cannons, fired upon him, killing a number of his
troops. The letters of Leveson and Tuthill will be found printed in full
in Willmore's "History of Walsall." The unfortunate messenger, Francis
Pitt, was tried in London by "Court Martial," and hanged at Smithfield on
October 12th. It transpired at the trial that he was selected by Colonel
Leveson because he held a farm of him for life, was familiar with Rushall
Hall, and had told him he had to go there to pay his war contributions,
and sometimes to redeem his neighbours' cattle. On the one side Captain
Tuthill had promised him 100 of the 2,000 pounds bribe by which it was
proposed to seduce him, and on the other his landlord had offered to
remit seven years of his rent. Such is the fortune of war, however, the
poor wretch, instead of reward, met with an ignominious death at the age
of 65, after a life of honest toil.
In 1645 Prince Rupert had his headquarters in Wolverhampton, while the
King lay two miles to the north of the town, where tradition says he
watched a skirmish with the enemy from Bushbury Hill. When Charles I.
fled before Cromwell at Naseby on June 14th of that year he passed
through Lichfield and entered Wolverhampton. After sleeping the night,
either at the Old Hall, Robert Levenson's residence, or at a house in Old
Lichfield Street, the unfortunately King passed on the next morning
towards Bewdley.
Some interesting local information during this war time is to be derived
from the literary remains of an officer in the King's Army, one Captain
Symmonds, who amused himself on his marches by taking heraldic notes, and
noticing monumental inscriptions. An entry in his Diary thus alludes to
the foregoing facts:--
Friday, May 16, 1645.
The rendezvous was near the King's quarters. Began after 4 o'clock
in the morning here. One soldier was hanged for mutiny.
The prince's headquarters was at Wolverhampton. A handsome towne.
One faire church in it.
The King lay at Bisbury. A private sweet village where Squire
Grosvenor (as they call him) lives. Which name hath continued here
120 years. Before him lived Bisbury of Bisbury.
Our military diarist next writes:--
Satterday, May 17, 1645.--His Majestie marched from here to Tong--
and goes on to enumerate the garrisons in Staffordshire at that date,
distinguishing by initials which were "Rebel" and which were the
"King's"; among them:--
K. Lichfield.--Colonel Bagott, governor.
R. Russell hall.--A taylor governor.
R. Mr. Gifford's house at Chillington, three miles from
Wolverhampton. Now slighted by themselves.
K. Dudley Castle.--Colonel Leveson, whose estate and habitation is
at Wolverhampton, is governor.
"Slighted" signifies dismantled of its fortification; the allusion to "a
tailor" being military governor of Rushall is, of course, a cavalier's
sneer at the Republican soldiery.
Coming now to the end of the war, when Charles II. was defeated at
Worcester in 1651, the country round Willenhall became the scene of that
fugitive monarch's most romantic wanderings. Flying from the battlefield
at the close of that fatal September day, Charles made his way through
Stourbridge to Whiteladies and Boscobel. Then occurred the episode of
his hiding in the "Royal Oak," and his concealment inside the house, in
the "priests' hole" at the top of the stairs, by Mrs. Penderel.
Fearing discovery, the King was escorted by the brothers Penderel to
Moseley Hall, near Bushbury, a timber-framed mansion in the picturesque
Elizabethan style, the home of the Whitgreates, where the hunted monarch
was welcomed and immediately refreshed with some biscuits and a bottle of
sack. Charles had scarcely departed from Boscobel ere a troop of
Roundheads arrived to search it. And another narrow escape now occurred
at Moseley, where again a cunningly contrived hiding place was brought
into requisition. Even after the frustration of the search party, one
Southall, a notorious "priest catcher," called at the suspected house.
Prudence dictated another secret flight, and taking advantage of a dark
night the unhappy King was taken by Colonel Lane to his own house, and
was next hidden at Bentley Hall.
The story of the escape of Charles II. from Bentley towards the
continent, disguised as a groom and riding in front of Jane Lane's
pillion, is too well known to need re-telling here. The episode is
historic; it is the subject of a fresco painted on the walls of a
corridor in the gilded chambers of Parliament.
The whole romance of Boscobel and Bentley is told with considerable
fulness in Shaw's "Staffordshire" (I., pp. 73-84), and is accompanied by
very interesting engravings of Boscobel, Moseley Hall, and Old Bentley.
As a result of the Revolution of 1688, and with the death of Queen Anne
in 1714, the impracticable Stuarts disappeared for good from the English
throne; but as adherents to their discredited cause, known as Jacobites,
still remained numerous, it may be guessed they were not lacking in and
around Willenhall.
After the Hanoverian Succession there were, in fact, a number of avowed
Jacobites in this vicinity, who refused to take the oath of allegiance to
George I. Their names and behaviour were kept strictly under notice by
the Government, but for fear of driving them to extremes no active
measures were taken against them or their estates. A list of these
non-jurors and Roman Catholics was compiled after the rebellion of 1715,
and again in 1745, when the rebellion of the Young Pretender once more
disturbed the Kingdom. A list of these suspects was published on each
occasion by the Government, with the amount of penalties incurred (but
not exacted) against each name. In these lists appeared the following
names:--
pounds s. d.
Charles Smith, of Bushbury, Esq. 67 0 0
Anne Kempson, of Estington, widow 11 0 0
Ursula Kempson, of Wolverhampton, 39 0 0
widow
John Kempson, of Great Sardon 41 0 0
William Ward, ditto 9 2 6
Mary Leveson, of Willenhall, in 31 10 0
Wolverhampton
John Leveson, ditto 50 17 6
John Brandon, of Prestwood, yeoman 12 5 6
Thomas Giffard, of Chillington, Esq. 2100 6 6.5
Elizabeth Giffard, of Wolverhampton, 58 19 0
spinster
Thomas Whitgreaves, of Moseley, Esq. 73 2 6
[Picture: Decorative flower]
XIV.--Litigation Concerning the Willenhall Prebend (1615-1702).
The Prebend had little to do with Willenhall, except in name. However,
as the name of Willenhall was attached to this particular "canonical
portion" in the Collegiate Church of Wolverhampton, and more especially
as the Levesons are connected with its later history, reference to it
cannot well be omitted.
The Leveson family had been dealing with Wolverhampton church property
for centuries, and in the Stuart period were lessees of the greater part
of it at a nominal rent of 38 pounds per annum. Their standing in the
county may be gauged by this entry which the Heralds made concerning the
family at "Visitation" 1538:--
Richard Leveson of Willenhall was living in 27 Edward I. He married
Margereye, daughter of Henry Fitz Clemente of Wolverhampton.
By an indenture of the year 1613 the Dean and Chapter of Wolverhampton
leased the deanery, prebends, and manor of Wolverhampton to Sir Walter
Leveson, and all the lands belonging thereto in various parts of
Staffordshire and Worcestershire, including those at Willenhall,
Wednesfield, Bentley, &c., with all the mines of sea coal, ironstone,
&c., on the said premises, but specially excepting the patronage and
gifts of prebends, canonship, and all their offices and ecclesiastical
jurisdiction; all at an annual reserved rent of 38 pounds, and the quaint
old-world tenure of having "to entertain the Dean and his retinue two
days and three nights in each year."
The validity of these leases was questioned a few years later in the 13th
year of James I., the lessee having refused to pay the reserved rents
without considerable deductions; and a bill was filed in Chancery by
Joseph Hall, D.D., prebendary of Willenhall, and Christopher Cragg,
prebendary of Hatherton (probably on the advice of the newly installed
Dean, Dr. Anthony Maxey), against the aforesaid, Sir Walter Leveson, who
was then in possession of the property belonging to their two prebends,
as well as other possessions belonging to the College of Wolverhampton.
Although the case was decided against Sir Walter Leveson, the
prebendaries reaped little or no benefit; for Sir Walter died immediately
after, leaving his heir a minor, and a ward of the King. During the
wardship the King attempted to settle the questions and controversies
which had arisen when he made the appointment of a new Dean.
It must be borne in mind that the Deans of Wolverhampton were also Deans
of Windsor; and Dr. Maxey dying about 1618, there followed a somewhat
quick succession of Deans. These were Matthew Wren (1628), protege of
Laud, and successively Bishop of Hereford, of Norwich, and of Ely;
Christopher Wren, his brother (1634), father of the famous architect of
the same name; Dr. Bruno Ryes (1660); and Dr. Brideoak, who became Bishop
of Chichester in 1675.
The wardship of young Leveson lasted 16 years, and when he came of age
the prebendaries were glad to come to a composition with him.
By this composition he agreed to pay them 30 pounds per annum each, in
full satisfaction of the several tithes and other profits belonging in
right to their respective prebends; this being over and above the said
reserved rents which had been previously paid. Arrangements were made at
the same time with the rest of the prebendaries respecting the several
proportions of the tithe belonging to them.
About this time the Dean and Prebendaries successfully resisted an
attempt of the Archbishop of Canterbury to hold a visitation within the
"peculiar"--the church's jurisdiction within itself.
After the Civil War the Prebendaries found that they had suffered
considerable losses by the acts of their predecessors; so it was
determined by Thomas Wren, LL.D. (son of the aforementioned Rev. Matthew
Wren, Bishop of Ely, whose literary remains include "A Brief History of
the Parish and Jurisdiction of Wolverhampton, from the Time of King
Edgar") prebendary of Willenhall, and Caesar Callendine, B.D., prebendary
of Hatherton, to file a bill in Chancery against Robert Leveson for a
discovery of the lands he held which anciently belonged to the
prebendaries of Wolverhampton, and that he might show by what title he
held them.
The hearing was before the great Lord Chancellor of that day, Lord
Clarendon, who dismissed the bill, though without costs.
The Leveson family consequently continued in the undisturbed enjoyment of
the church property, granted to them in fee farm by six prebendaries, as
well as of divers other freehold estates in the parish of Wolverhampton.
The Leveson property in Wolverhampton became much implicated in the
numerous family settlements till, in 1702, Frances, Earl of Bradford,
purchased it of Robert Leveson for 22,000 pounds. Lord Bradford also
acquired, three years later, the estate of the Dean and Prebends of
Wolverhampton which had been leased to the Earl of Windsor; so that the
entire property of the Collegiate Church (except the prebendal houses and
some property which had been set aside for the use of the Sacrist),
passed into the hands of one and the same proprietor.
In the same year, however, the Dean, Prebendaries, and Sacrist filed a
bill in Chancery against Leveson and the Earl for the recovery of the
property. The plaintiffs were Gregory Hascard, D.D., dean; Prebendaries
John Hinton (Willenhall), Richard Redding (Kinvaston), Thomas Allestree
(Hilton), John Plimley (Fetherstone), John Hilman (Hatherton), Richard
Ames (Monmore), Walter Ashley (Wobaston), and Henry Wood, sacrist.
They contended they were all clerks, constituted one entire body, and
rector or parson incorporate, of the whole parish of Wolverhampton, which
was of very great extent, consisting of 16 or 17 hamlets or villages
besides the large town of Wolverhampton, being in circuit about thirty
miles, in three of which said hamlets there were chapels of ease, the
several cures thereof belonging to the said College or Free Chapel Royal.
In all this litigation it was a question much agitated whether, as all
the prebendaries with the Dean and the Sacrist constituted one entire
body, any single prebendary could demise his annual portion of the said
general tithes without the consent of the whole body.
The defendant Leveson was accused of having contrived secret conveyances
of many parcels of the said tithes and lands for the benefit of his own
family, some of the properties having been sold for large sums of money,
and the church revenues defrauded thereby. Also that he had so altered
and confounded the buildings, fences, and boundaries of the church lands,
and so mixed them up with his own inherited lands, that it had become
impossible to discern or distinguish which were the original possessions
of the College; possessions which at the Domesday Survey had extended to
3,000 acres, besides the lordship of Lutley, near Halesowen.
Dr. Oliver states that in his time (1836) there remained some "houses and
lands now belonging to the prebendaries and Sacrist, which are leased out
for lives."
The "corpses" of the six prebends are supposed to have consisted of the
tithes of their respective districts in Willenhall, Hilton, Hatherton,
Fetherston, Monmore, and Wobaston.
The Rev. Richard Ames, Curate of Bilston for 46 years (1684-1730), makes
the following record:--
1723, December 9th.--The Reverd. Mr. Wm. Craddock, Rector of
Donnington (Salop), was installed Prebendary of Willenhall, he having
resigned that of Hatherston. The mandate for his installmt. was
directed to me (ye Senior Prebendary) by ye Rt. Hon'ble George, Lord
Willoughby de Broke, Deane of o'r Collegiate Church of Wolverhampton,
and of Windsor; I being constituted locum tenens.
On ye 10th December, 1723, by virtue of an'r mandate to me, directed
by ye same Ld. Willoughby de Broke, ye same Mr. Wm. Craddock was by
me put in possession of ye Sacrist's Stall, both which places became
vacant by ye death of Mr. Hinton. He (Mr. Craddock) was also
constituted principal official.
In 1836, when Dr. Oliver wrote his history of the church, the Chapter of
the College consisted of the Hon. Henry Lewis Hobart, D.D. (Dean), the
Rev. R. Ellison, M.A., prebendary of Willenhall, and the other
prebendaries (of Kinvaston, Hilton, Featherston, Monmore, Hatherton, and
Wobaston respectively), and the Rev. G. Oliver, D.D., perpetual curate
and Sacrist (an Act obtained in 1811 by Dean Legge had constituted the
Sacrist the real incumbent of the church). The Chapter had it own seal,
which was of proper ecclesiastical design, and of some antiquity.
On the death of the very Rev. and Hon. H. L. Hobart, D.C.L., &c., in
1846, the Collegiate establishment of Wolverhampton ceased to exist, and
its property became vested in the ecclesiastical Commissioners.
Such was the gross abuse of ecclesiastical patronage, the entire income
of the Collegiate Church (except 100 pounds a year for a curate of very
indefinite status) had been absorbed in the payment of a Dean of the two
"peculiars" of Windsor and Wolverhampton, and of some half-dozen
legendary prebendaries who were for the most part unknown, even by name,
to the oldest inhabitant of the parish.
With the suppression of the ancient Deanery, the modern township of
Wolverhampton was divided into thirteen ecclesiastical parishes.
[Picture: Decorative flower]
XV.--Willenhall Struggling to be a Free Parish.
In the eighteenth century the ecclesiastical history of Willenhall
reached a critical stage. Long and bitter were the disputes which arose
between the mother church of Wolverhampton and the daughter chapelries of
Willenhall and Bilston; and perhaps the temper of the authorities at the
former had not been improved by the gradual impoverishment of the
residentiaries there, the history of which formed the subject of the last
chapter.
The first cause of the quarrel was found in the fact that these two
places, having become as populous as towns of ordinary status, were
without legal burying-grounds. When land had been provided there seems
to have been considerable hesitancy on the part of the authorities in
allowing Willenhall and Bilston these ordinary parochial privileges. The
Rev. Richard Ames, of Bilston, has left it on record that on June 9th,
1726, he waited upon the Bishop of the diocese, while he was holding a
confirmation at Walsall, when "John Lane, Esqre., of Bentley, mov'd his
lordship to consecrate Willenhall and Bilston Chapelyards for
burial-places, wch. his lordship seemed inclinable to do."