The Annals of Willenhall Part 8

Three several letters issued to Walter Leveson, Richard Foxe, and Roger Marchall, to appear.

MICHAELMAS TERM IN THE 14TH YEAR. THE MAYOR AND INHABITANTS OF WALSALL AGAINST JOHN BEAMONDE, ESQUIRE, AND OTHERS. ANSWER FOR SIR ROGER MARCHALL-

The Bill is only "feyned a yenst hym in pure males" [malice] for his great trouble and vexation, and loss of his goods. He did not riotously a.s.semble with any persons in arms, nor is he guilty of any riot. As for the coming to the said Fair at Wylnahale "hit hath byn of olde tymes used and accustumed in the said Fere day that with the inhabitants of sede townes of Hampton, Wednesbury, and Walsall have comyne to the said Fere with the capitanns called the Abot of Marham or Robyn Hodys, to the intent to gether money with their disportes to the profight of the chirches of the said lordshipes," whereby great profit hath grown to the said churches in times past.

Whereupon the said Roger Marchall and his Company at the special desire of the Inhabitants of Weddesbury, come in peaceable manner to the said Fair, according to the said old custom, and these met with one John Walker, of Walsall, and divers others of the said town, and then and there "they make as gud chere unto them as they should do to ther lovying neyburs." And he denies that they came riotously.

THE ANSWER OF WALTER LEVESON-

He heard say at Hampton, where he dwells, that a "rumour and mysdemenying" against the King's peace was had in Walsale, and that the inhabitants were riotously disposed against John Beamont.

Whereupon the said Walter with two of his servants, in peaceable manner, and without any harness, came to the said John Beamont to his place at Weddesbury, to know how the Mayor and Inhabitants of Walsale would entreat him.

John Beamont said that he knew of no hurt that they willed to him.

It has been of old time used and accustomed on the said Fair day that the inhabitants of Hampton, Weddesbury, and Walsale have come to the Fair with such Captains as they have of old time used, to the intent to gather money with their disports to the use of the said churches of the said lordships.

And this is all we know of that lively "Whitsun Morris" at Willenhall Fair in the year of grace 1498. It all reads like a delightful chapter in the vein of Shakespeare's Dogberry and Verges; and it will be noted that the priests are among the captains or ringleaders in this Sunday revelling.

After the Reformation came the Puritans, who severely discountenanced all Sunday revelry. And so the lampoon of their enemies ran:-

There dwells a people on the earth That reckons true religion treason, That makes sad war on holy mirth, Count madness zeal and nonsense reason; That think no freedom but in slavery, That makes lyes truth, religion, knavery; That rob and cheat with "yea" and "nay,"

Riddle me, riddle me, who are they?

Yet, when religious differencies had brought on civil war, it had to be confessed of this Puritan people (so says Sir Francis Doyle in "The Cavalier"):-

That though they snuffled psalms, to give The rebel dogs their due, When the roaring shot poured thick and hot They were stalwart men and true.

And so the mighty struggle for liberty of conscience against the pretensions of a dominant Church had proceeded for over century, when we find the inc.u.mbency of Willenhall held by the Rev. Thomas Badland.

Thomas Badland was born in 1643, matriculated at Pembroke College, Oxford, 1650, and took his B.A. degree, 1653. He was one of the n.o.ble band of ministers who relinquished their livings on August 24th, 1662, rather than conform to the requirements of the Act of Uniformity, pa.s.sed on the Restoration of Charles II.

On his ejectment from Willenhall, this conscientious Puritan divine returned to his native city, Worcester, where "he formed a distinct congregation of Christians, who a.s.sembled for worship in a small room" at the bottom of Fish Street. His family was an old one in Worcester, the name Badland occurring in a charter of James I.

According to Noake's "Worcester Sects," he was minister of that congregation for 35 years; but before his death the Declaration of Indulgence by James II. was made (1687), and immediately thereupon Mr.

Badland's church was regularly const.i.tuted by the adoption of the Covenants of church membership which had been drawn by Richard Baxter-he was a personal friend of the eminent divine-in terms sufficiently general to include almost all denominations who might choose to make it a point of common agreement.

From Nash's "History of Worcestershire" we learn that on a monument on the south wall of the south aisle of St. Martin's church, Worcester, it was set forth:-

Under these seats lies interred the body of the Rev. Thomas Badland, a faithful and profitable preacher of the Gospel in this city for the s.p.a.ce of thirty-five years. He rested from his labours, May 5th, A.D 1698, aet. 64.

Mors mihi vita nova.

When St. Martin's Church was pulled down in 1768 this marble tablet was carelessly thrown aside, and soon got broken into fragments. Happily the pieces were rescued and put together again with loving care for erection in the vestibule of Angel Street Chapel, at the expense of the congregation worshipping there. In the new Independent Chapel, which has taken the place of that older building (registered at Quarter Sessions in 1689 as a Presbyterian place of worship), the memorial has been placed near the pulpit.

From a MS. history of Angel Street Church, written by Samuel Blackwell in 1841, it would appear that Mr. Badland had as one of his a.s.sistants a Mr.

Hand, who had been ordained at Oldbury. At Fish Street Chapel (the site of which was occupied in later times by Dent's Glove Factory), there were 120 Communicants in February, 1687; and the Declaration of Faith drawn up and signed by the church members that year bears first the name of Thomas Badland, pastor, and among many others that follow is that of "Elizab.

Badland," presumably his wife. Such, briefly, is the life history of the good man who relinquished the living of Willenhall, and repudiated its "idolatrous steeple-house," at the Black Bartholomew of 1662, rather than stifle the dictates of his conscience.

In Palmer's "Nonconformist' Memorials" the Rev. Thomas Badland has been 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 misp.r.o.nunciations 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 (16401745).

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 a.s.signed 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 a.s.signed to Captain Tuthill, governor of Rushall, though in the parcelling out of contributory areas, Bushbury, Wolverhampton, Bilston, and Bradley are included in another district.