Page:The History of the Church & Manor of Wigan part 2.djvu/89

268 successor was collated on 2nd June, 1621. On the same day the King directed him to see that the four preachers of Lancashire were resident in the county, and not in possession of distant benefices.

After his return to Chester, Roger Bullock and Oliver Plat came to him there on the 25th of July, 1621, and asked leave to dig a pit near the midst of the street called Millgate at Wigan, adjacent to the river, whereby they might make use of the coal pit before mentioned, which is higher up in that street and which is filled with water and useless, offering to pay him 12d, and a load of coals weekly so long as they should get coals from the higher pit, or elsewhere near the old coal mine. This he gave them permission to do, but only for the purpose of drawing water from the said pit; and they bound themselves to fill up the said pit, whenever they should leave off digging, and sufficiently to amend the highways, so that no annoyance or danger should come to anybody there. From several entries in the Wigan Leger it appears that the potters and others always came to ask leave when they wanted to get clay from the parson's wastes, and undertook to make the land level again. The bishop returned to Wigan, with his family, in September, 1621. In that year he ordered the pound to be removed (which stood till then close to Hugh Winstanly's house) and to be set up on the hill about "a butt shot's length" from where it formerly stood. On the 13th of November, 1621, he rode towards London to the parliament on its re-assembling. He remained in London till the 13th of February following, and then returned to Wigan.

On 19th March, 1621-2, while holding a court baron at Wigan Hall, he claimed the pendice chamber in Moot Hall as being built upon the waste within the memory of divers old men.