The Chantry, being regarded as one of the abhorred institutions of Romanism, thus came to an end under the reforming zeal of our Protestant legislators in the early years of the reign of Edward VI.
All the possessions of the Colleges of Wolverhampton and Tettenhall, with their Prebends, together with the Chantry lands of Willenhall, Bilston, and Kinver, when they passed from the Crown in 1552, fell into the hands of the notorious John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, who contrived to grab no end of church property in this immediate locality. When Northumberland came to the block shortly afterwards, there was a great redistribution of this property, that of Wolverhampton being once more annexed to the Royal Free Chapel of St. George at Windsor.
XI.—How the Reformation Affected Willenhall.
As recorded in the last chapter, the Willenhall Chantry, in common with all others throughout the country, was finally suppressed by Edward VI. and his Protestant ministers (1547). It had been in existence upwards of 200 years, the name of its first Chantry Priest being given (1341) as “William in the Lone.”
The Prebendal lands also, as we have seen, were leased in the fourth year of this reign to John Leveson, for the sum of £6 6s. per annum. All the other lands belonging to the Deanery of Wolverhampton then passed into the hands of the King, but did not long remain in the Crown, being conveyed, with much more ecclesiastical property hereabouts, to John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland. On his attainder in the reign of Mary (1553), the Deanery lands reverted to the Crown, to be again restored to their original use by that most pious queen.
In 1547 the zeal of the Protestant reformers induced the Government of Edward VI. to send Commissioners round the country to make inquiry in every parish and every church as to the ecclesiastical appointments used in ritual, with orders to suppress all that made for “idolatrous Popish practices.”
The Commissioners for this locality were all men of high standing in the county, as will be seen from their names. They were sworn to make—
A juste, treu, and parfett survey and inventorie of all goods, plate, juelles, vestements, belles, and other ornaments, of all churches, chappells, brotherhoddes, gyldes, fraternities, and compones within the Hundred of Offeley, in the Countie of Stafford; taken the seventh day of October, in the sixte yere of the Rayne of our Sovereyn Lord, King Edward the Sixte, by Thomas Gyffard and Thomas Fytzherbert, knyghts; and Walter Wrottesley, Esquier, by virtue of the King’s commissein to them, directed in that behalf, as hereafter particularly appereth.
On one hand, they had to put a stop to the embezzlement, concealment, and appropriation by private persons of the condemned church property, and to recover as much of it as possible for the King’s Exchequer. For, under pretence of a burning zeal for the reformed faith, there had been much sacrilegious spoliation—church plate finding its way on to the table of the neighbouring gentry, marble coffins being utilised as horse-troughs, altar cloths serving as tapestry for parlour walls, and similar malpractices by those who ought to have known better. This property was to be retrieved, and the detected offenders were to be heavily fined.
The Return made for Willenhall Church by the Commissioners and their official “Surveyor,” or assessor, runs, verbatim:—