Madeley as a part of the Franchise of Wenlock.
Madeley for the last 900 years has been associated with Wenlock. It formed part of the possessions of the Church of St. Milburgh in the time of King Edward (son of the Great Alfred) at the commencement of the tenth century, and is mentioned as such in Domesday. It shared the privileges which the many franchises obtained by the Prior of Wenlock conferred. These privileges and exemptions from taxation gave, Mr. Eyton observes, to each acre of land a two-fold value. On the other hand it suffered from the occasional extortions of the Priors, and inconveniences from being subject, as all lands of the Borough were, to the Mother Church of Holy Trinity, Wenlock. It was subject to the Courts of Wenlock, and as early as 1267 a case is mentioned in which the Provost of Wenlock and the Prior were engaged in disseizen one of the tenants of the Prior at Madeley.
The Bailiff and his peers, together with the Recorder, were Justice of the Peace, with a Jurisdiction co-extensive with the Borough.
These officers had Constables in the several divisions of the Borough, termed Allotments, sometimes Constablewicks. The men selected for the office appear to have been men of substance, standing, and integrity; and upon them devolved the duties of maintaining the laws, of collecting monies for the king &c.
Here, for instance, are the “Articles which the constables” of Madeley and Little Wenlock were called upon “to present upon oath.”
1.—What felonies have been committed and what default . and by and in-whom.
2.—What vagrant p’sns. and sturdy beggars have passed through yo’r. limitts unpunished, and whether the same and impotent poor of yo’r. p’ share provided for, and poor children bound apprentices according to Law.
3.—What Recusants of about the age of sixteen are in yo:e limitts, and who absent themselves from church on ye Lord’s Day, and how many sabbaths.
4.—Who have profaned the Sabbath by swearing, labouring or otherwise.
5.—What Ingrossers, forestalled, or . . . of the market, of cow or cattle, or other dead victuals are within yo’r limitts, or any Badgers or Drovers of cow or cattle.
6.—Who make mault to sell of corn or grain or tythe or tylth not being their own . and are not licensed thereunto.
7.—What Masters or Servants give or take greater wages than is appointed by Justices of the Peace according to Law.
8.—What cottagers or inmates are evicted, removed or maintained, and by whom, and how long.
9.—What unlawful games, drunkenness, tipling other evil rule or disorder hath been in Inns, ale houses &c. and by whom.
10.—What Servants have departed from their masters, and what masters have put away their servants within the compass of their time.
11.—Who use gunns, or take or destroy hawks or hawk’s eggs, of pheasants, partridges, younge deer, hares, snipes, fish, or fowl, with snares or other engines whatsoever for that purpose against the Law.
12.—Who use unlawful weights or measures or buy by a greater and sell by a lesser weight or measure.
13.—Whether watch and ward be duly observed and kept according to ye statute; that is to say, between Ascension Day and Michaelmas in convenient places, and who has made default therein.
14.—What highways have been repaired and what have been neglected.
15.—Who have sold beer, or syder, or perry, &c. unlicensed, or who hath evaded ye assize of bread and drink unlawfully, either the bakers or assizers.
16.—What butchers have killed or sold meate on the Lord’s Day, or sold any unwholesome flesh at any other time.
17.—Who have any assault, battery, or bloodshed.
18.—Who have profanely sworn or cursed, and how often.
19.—What common brawlers, drunkards, scoulds, eavesdroppers, talebearers, and such disordered p’sns are within y’re limits.
20.—Who have sold ale or beer on the Sabbath day, or who have been drinking or tipling in any alehouse on that day.
As the reader may surmise, from references to recusants and others who refused or neglected to attend church, or to acknowledge the supremacy of the King as the head, these instructions were drawn up and submitted by the Bailiff to the Constables of Madeley, Little Wenlock, Beckbury, and Badger, in the early part of reign of William and Mary.
Vagrants and sturdy beggars, it appears, were to be strictly looked after; they swarmed through the country, giving themselves up to pilfering; the women breeding children whom they brought up to the same idle way of living, so that, according to a writer about that period, (1677) there were 100,000 paupers in England. Harsh measures were therefore resorted to: the law of Settlement was passed, and once more the poor were reduced to bondage to the soil from which they had been emancipated a century or two before. By this law, which remained in force 130 years, and which was not repealed till the close of the last century, the poor were imprisoned within their allotments; and upon the complaints of the Churchwardens or Overseers, any two Justices of the Peace had power to lay hold of the new comer and within forty days remove him to the Parish in which he was last settled, unless he could prove that he was neither a pauper nor a vagabond, or that he rented a tenement of the value of £10 per annum.
Here, for instance, is a copy of a letter addressed to the constables of Madeley.
To the Constables of the p sh. of Madeley,
Greeting.Whereas I have been informed yt. Thomas Richasson doth endeavour to make a settlement within the s’d p’ish of Madeley, contrary to the laws &c. I am therefore in the King and Queen’s Ma’ties names, of England that now are, to will and require you the said Constables, or one of you that you bring before me or some other of their Ma’ties Justices of the Peace for the said Town and lib’ties, the body of the said Thomas Richasson, to the Serjeant’s House in Much Wenlock, upon Tuesday the tenth day of this instant month of March, to answer to such matters as shall be objected against him by the overseers of the poor of the parish of Madeley. And you, the said constables, are required to give notice to John York of yo’r p’sh, Smith, that he be and appear before me &c. at the time and place above said, by nine o’clock in the morning, to put in sureties for his and his wife’s good behaviour towards Elinor Alnord, Widdy, and all their Ma’ties loyal people. And you are to make due returns of this warrant at the time above stated &c. Given under my hand and seal this second day of March, Anno domini 1690.
You must give notice to Thomas Cope, Anne Cludd, and Elizabeth Morris to appear to testify the truth of their knowledge.
Lan. Stephens.
Probably there were other reasons for these strict enquiries, as the feudal bondage to which the poor were reduced was closely interwoven with another evil, the thriving-traffic of Shipping likely young paupers to American Plantations, as was done by the Bristol Corporation, which held out to the poor wretches the alternative of leaving England or being flogged or imprisoned.
It may perhaps be a redeeming feature in the character of that “ermined iniquity and prince of legal oppressors,” as Judge Jeffreys, who was not unconnected with Shropshire, was called, to say that as Lord Chief-Justice he exerted himself successfully to put down this abomination.
Another summons from Wenlock to the constables requires them by virtue of an Act of Parliament (fifth of William and Mary) to give notice to all householders, and to all others they may believe to be disaffected, inhabiting within their “Constablewick,” being sixteen years of age and above sixteen, to appear at the house of, Humphrey Powell, Sergent-at-mace, at Wenlock &c. to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy to their Ma’ties, and to subscribe the declaration in the Act &c. Dated 16th June, 1692.
Signed Thos. Crompton, Bailf.
Chas. Rindar. Recorder.
Lan. Stephens.
John Mason.
This summons does not appear to have brought the parties to book, for we find a large number charged with contempt, and again summonsed under a fine of 40s. to appear before the Sergeant-at-mace.
In 1693, William Hayward, Roger Brooke, Gent., and John Smytheman, Gent., and others are applied to, as assessors for Madeley, Beckbury and Little Wenlock, in carrying out the Act passed in the fifth year of the reign of William and Mary, entitled “an Act for granting to their Majesties an aid of Four Shillings in ye pound for one year, for carrying on a vigorous War against France.” After giving the nature of the property to be taxed, the Bailiff and his Officers call upon the assessors to levy a double tax upon “every papist, or reputed papist, of ye age of 16 years or upwards, who hath not taken the oath mentioned and required to be observed in an Act of Parliament passed in the first year of that reign, entitled an Act for abrogating the oaths of Supremacy and allegiance,” unless they then take the oath they shall administer. The papists however were not alone in this respect; others who had not taken the oaths, or who refused to take those tendered, were to be similarly rated or assessed.
In some cases the Constables were required to look after and to report upon all young men of a certain age and height, likely to be of use to his Majesty in war times, &c.
Here is a specimen.
(To the Constables of Madeley.)
“We whose names” &c., His Ma’ties Justices of the Peace, having received a summons from the Deputy Lieutenant of the county, together with a copy of a letter from the Lords of the Privy Council &c., Command you to make diligent search for all straggling seamen, watermen, or seafaring men, and to impress all such, giving each one shilling, impressment money, and to bring the same before us, to the intent that they may be sworn and provided for, as by the said letter directed; and You, the sd. Constables are not to impress any very old, crazy, or unhealthy men, but such as are younge, and of able healthy bodies, fit for se’vice; and herein you are to use yo’e: best endeavours as you and any of you will answer the contrary. Given under our hands &c.
“You are to take notice that what monye you shall lay out of yo’e: purse upon this service we will take care the same shall be speedily repaid you according to the order of their Majesties Privy Council.”
Jas: Lewis, Balf.
Geo: Weld.
Tho: Compton.
Turning back to the period when great political, religious, and moral changes were taking place in the country, when Royalists and Republicans had been struggling for the mastery, and the latter were victorious, to ascertain their reflex and influence upon the little local parliaments sitting in the Guildhall at Wenlock, we found some characteristic presentments by those then important officers the constables, from the several constablewicks within the franchise, with other matters coming before the bailiffs and Justices of the Peace, and instructions issued by them such as may be of interest in shewing the intermeddling spirit of Puritanism in its then rampant attitude, when the neglect of public worship, and the walking out of sweethearts, and even husbands and wives, during sermon time, was punished with fines, imprisonments or the stocks. The stocks in fact appear to have been in frequent requisition, and fines as frequently imposed for such trivial offences as hanging out clothes on a Sunday, being seen in an ale house on the Sabbath, and for the very mildest form of swearing, or for the least utterance of disaffection or disrespect of the Commonwealth. Here, for instance, is the presentment of
“Articles of evil behaviour of Edward Jeames, of Long Stanton Clee, in the Liberties of Much Wenlock, xiiiith day of September, 1652, John Warham, gent., Bailiff.
“First, that the said Edward Jeames is a common disturber of the Publike Peace, of this Commonwealth, by stirring up strife and sedition among his neighbours.”
The presentment then proceeds to state that the said Edward Jeames doth often quarrel with his owne wife and family.
“Secondly That the said Edward Jeames doth take abroade wh. him a Welsh servt. Lad wch. he keepeth, to the end yat if any neighboure being by him abused by opprobvious and unseemely language and word of provocation, doe make any answeare or reply to him, out of which any advantage may be taken, the said Lad shall verify ye same upon oath on purpose to vex and molest the same neighboure and to gaine revenge against him. Thirdly that the said Edward Jeames, in September, 1651, when the titular king of Scotte invaded yis land wh. an army, saied openly in ye heareing of divse persons yt he was glad yt ye kinge was comen into ye land, for if he had not come he thought yt ye pesent. government would have altered religion & turned all unto Popery.”
We did not turn to other old parchments containing the decisions of the Justices to see what punishment, if any, was meted out to Mr. Jeames for his evil behaviour, but turned to note some of the Informations laid against ale house keepers, and persons frequenting ale houses on the Sabbath. Here is one from Barrow, not from the Constable, or from one living within the franchise; but from a gentleman who first proclaims his own goodness by telling us that he himself had attended service twice on the Sunday, but who, like many others just then, felt it to be his duty to look after others. He commences by saying
“that yesterday, being Lord’s Day, I was at Wenlock morning and evening prayer, and going home by the house of John Thompson of Barrow, ale seller, both the doors being open I saw both hall and parlour full of people, both men and women drinkeinge and some drinkeinge forth of dores. There is a private house standing farr from any rode and hath the report to bee a verye rude house on ye Lord’s Day. I am Louth to be the informer, because I doe nott live wthin ye franchise, but leave yt to ye worshps. consideration hoping you will take som course whereby God may bee better honoured, and his Sabbathes less defamed in that house. What I can speke of that man further I forbear, for ye pesent.
Yours to command,
WILLIAM LEGG, senr.”
“Sworn before the Bailiff, John Warham, gent.”
The above John Thompson appeared, and we find
“& is ordered to appear at any tyme hereafter when Mr. Bailiff shall requyer.
6th September, 1652.”
The next is an information against John Aston, of Madeley, in the county of Salop, in which the said John is summonsed to appear before the Bailiff, John Warham, gent., and Justices of the Peace of the said town and liberties. The information appears to have been sworn to by Thomas Smytheman, of Madeley, husbandman, who states that Lawrence Benthall, and William Davies, of Madeley, were seen drinking on the Lord’s Day, at Aston’s ale-house. The summons appears to have been issued by John Weld the younger, of Willey. The case is now brought before the Bailiff who says:
“Let a warrant issue forth to the officers for the leviing of the monies forfeited for the said offence, according to the Act of Parliament in that behalf; signed, John Warham, Bailiff.”
We find similar informations as to ale-houses from Broseley and other parts of the franchise about the same time.