Page:The History of the Church & Manor of Wigan part 2.djvu/140

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On 15th August, 3 Car. I., 1627, John, bishop of Chester, was appointed a High Commissioner for the Province of York, a court grounded on the statute of Eliz. for annexing or restoring all special jurisdiction to the crown. This appointment brought him into close connection with Viscount Wentworth (better known as the unfortunate Earl of Strafford), with whom he kept up a close intimacy as long as the life of the latter was spared. The Wigan corn mills seem to have given the bishop more trouble than any thing else connected with the manorial rights. Miles Letherbarrow, of Millgate, miller, who had disclaimed any proprietary right in the mill and accepted the tenancy as a tenant at will, was buried at Wigan on 23rd February, 1627-8, leaving a widow, Alice, and, besides other issue, a son Orlando, to whom the bishop's son had stood Godfather at the font. After Letherbarrow's death, his widow, Alice Letherbarrow, came to the bishop and begged that either she or her son Orlando might be admitted as tenants at will to the Bridge corn mill. The bishop, with his usual caution, told her that she might take comfort, for that he had never dealt unkindly with his tenants, but that, because her husband had at first denied his right and put him to the charge and trouble of recovering it by law, he should take it into his own hand for a while, as anciently his predecessors had done, but that in time he would use her so as she should have cause to thank him. The widow, however, refused to give up possession, and enlisted some powerful friends in her favour, namely, James Lord Strange and his wife. Lady Strange,