Page:The History of the Church & Manor of Wigan part 2.djvu/28

Rh subsequently obtained possession of these lands again, and, moved thereto by one Ralph Forth, who made himself a party to the action by laying down money for it and giving his advice, she brought an action of ejectment against Lawrence Prescot; but the jury (having heard her say that the land was not her own but the parson's) gave a verdict for Prescot, and the rector was advised to insure his right by a suit. However, the widow died shortly afterwards in the spring of the following year, and on Easter Tuesday the rector made three leases, one of the two closes called the Lees, another of Cuckstool croft, and a third of the toft that lieth near Robert Smalshaw's ground, all which four pieces of ground were formerly in the possession of Ellen Lathwayt; these three leases he signed, but did not deliver till the 7th of April, when he made a letter of attorney to his servants William Brown the younger and William Wicksteed, to enter upon the said several grounds and there to deliver the said leases unto Alexander Buckley, which they did accordingly. After which the rector appears to have been left in quiet possession of his land; but the Cuckstool toft in Wallgate no longer forms a part of the Wigan glebe.

The parson's right to the Diglatch meadow seems to have been also disputed, but this was settled by the renunciation of the tenant's right by the tenant, and on the 19th of October, 1617, "it was agreed that Thomas Brigs of Wigan shall rent the parson's acre of meadow in Diglatch, paying yearly for it at Midsummer four marks, and renouncing all claim to it save from this present demise of the parson, which he shall hold for three years from Michaelmas last past before the date hereof, and he shall not demise it to any other, but keep it in his own occupation, and preserve and leave it well."

Another small property in dispute was a toft of land in Scholes which had been taken in from the waste by one John Fayrbrother, and for which the said Fayrbrother had agreed to pay the fine