Page:The History of the Church & Manor of Wigan part 1.djvu/56

 £200 to the King for his transgression, which was accepted and his manucaptors were discharged.

This sentence did not deprive him of his benefice, and in the next reign we find him justifying his conduct, in a petition to the King and his council, on the ground that he was assessed in Lancashire for the lands which he held there, and required to find, for the Earl of Lancaster, whenever he should go to war against the enemies of his country, a man mounted and armed. For doing this, and because he had caused prayers to be said in his church for the Earl of Lancaster and the other barons, that God would give them grace to maintain the crown and the peace of the realm against the plunderers of the land, he had been arraigned and sent to Nottingham whence he had been ransomed for 300 marks. In order to pay this he had been obliged to sell his land and pay 200 marks into the exchequer and 30 marks for the Queen's money, and Sir Robert de Leyburn, late Sheriff of Lancashire, who is now dead, had levied 300 marks of the said Robert to his great loss, for 200 of which he had an acquittance from the said Sheriff, but they are not yet paid into the exchequer. In a second petition he complains that whereas King Henry, the great grandfather of the present King, had granted to John Maunsell, late parson of the church of Wigan, by charter, two annual fairs, and a weekly market every Monday, with the customs appertaining thereto, of which the said Robert receives toll on market day, and amercements of emends of the assize of bread and beer, the burgesses, who are his tenants, come and hold a market among themselves, and with strangers, every day of the week, in diverse goods, although they be ill-gotten or stolen, and take toll for such merchandize and appropriate it to themselves, without any manner of charter or warrant. Also they make assay of bread and tasting of beer on every day of the week, except Monday, and take the amercements and profits thereof unwarrantably, by force and power, to the prejudice of the