Page:The History of the Church & Manor of Wigan part 2.djvu/86

Rh In October of this year there was an unpleasant quarrel between the mayor of Wigan and the justices of peace for the county. It seems that Robert Barrow, the then mayor, came into the Moothall at Wigan where bishop Bridgeman and the other justices were sitting at quarter sessions, and putting on his hat before them, told them that the ordering of alehouses in Wigan belonged not to them but to his leet. For this indignity he was ordered by the bench to put in sureties for his good behaviour, and to appear before the judges at next assizes to answer for his contempt, and because he refused to find sureties, they committed him to the under sheriff, then present, who took him to the gaol at Lancaster, where, after he had been imprisoned a fortnight, he was freed by a habeas corpus cum causâ out of the duchy, upon an order made there that he should put in good bond to appear at the duchy court in Westminster, on 16th of November next, to answer what should be objected against him for these misdemeanors. The justices who committed him seem to have been the bishop of Chester, William Leigh, John Blundell, Edward Rigby, and E. Chesnal. The case was heard at Westminster on Monday, the 28th of November, but privately, in the upper chamber, when Barrow was defended by Sir Edward Moxley, the attorney [for the duchy], who brought with him an order for his release, which he wished the chancellor to sign, but this the chancellor refused to do, and thereupon took time to conceive another order, the effect of which was that Barrow was released, and to the intent that there should be no remembrance of his commitment (to his disgrace as Mayor) he ordered that there should be a vacat entered in the office of the clerk of the peace, and that the said Barrow during his time should be put in the commission of the peace. But the matter did not end here, for Barrow afterwards brought an action for false imprisonment against the justices who had committed him. The case was tried at the Guildhall, London, before Lord Hubbart [Lord Chief Justice Sir Henry Hobart], on Saturday, the 25th of May, 1622, as between Robert