Page:The History of the Church & Manor of Wigan part 2.djvu/47

226 if the said William Langshawe should not show good cause for the occupation of the said mill, then it was further ordered that the plaintiff should have such part or parts of the said mills as the said William Langshawe then occupied; and the said William Langshawe should leave his occupation of the said mill at the Feast of All Saints next ensuing, and the plaintiff to have such costs and charges as should be assesssed by the court. Forasmuch as the said Langshawe did appear and shewed' no cause or title to his occupation of the said mill or any part thereof, but alleged that he had been at some charges on the reparation of the mill whereof he prayed some consideration to be had, it was ordered or decreed that the said William Langshawe should avoid the possession of the said mill and quietly suffer the plaintiff and his assigns to occupy and enjoy the same. After which Edward Fleetwood entered the said mill and received the profits of the same. Yet now the present defendants, knowing Fleetwood to be dead, endeavour to deprive the complainant (Bridgeman) of his rights."

Commission from the King was granted to Augustine Wildbore, Edward Tempest, clerks, Richard Molyneux and Peter Marshe, gentlemen, to enquire into the case, dated 10th November, 15 James I. (1617).

Of the several answers of the defendants, William Langshawe says he remembers that Edward Fleetwood did exhibit a bill of complaint against him and others, to which bill he made answer, whereupon a commission was awarded for examination of witnesses. "Since his said answer, he (Langshawe) hath been given to understand that long before the said complainant had anything in the said fulling mills, and during all the time whereof the memory of man is not to the contrary, a certain selected number of men have been burgesses of the borough and Town of Wigan, and that the same burgesses during all that time have been a body politic, and so being, one Sir John Maunsell, clerk, long before the said complainant 'anything had' in the said fulling mills,