Page:The History of the Church & Manor of Wigan part 1.djvu/125

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History of the Church and Manor of Wigan.
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the last incumbent, by Thomas White, citizen and merchant-tailor of the city of London,[1] having paid his first-fruits two days before into the Office of First-Fruits and Tenths.[2] He was instituted and admitted by John, bishop of Chester[3] (probably on that or the following day). On 9th August he appointed John Grene and John . . . . . to act as his proctors to take possession of the rectory of Wigan.[4]

Shortly afterwards he had a contention with Ralph Bradshagh (or Bradshawe), Esq., then mayor of Wigan, and the burgesses thereof, for possession (inter alia) of the deed of John Maunsell, whereby he granted to the town of Wigan her liberties. This appears from a bill of complaint which was laid in the Duchy Court by William Fourde. mayor of Wigan, Adam Banke, Charles Lee and others, burgesses of Wigan, in 38 Hen. VIII. (1546), wherein they state that in the 35th year of the reign of Henry VIII. there was a contention between Ralph Bradshagh, at that time mayor of Wigan, and the burgesses of the same town, of the one part, and John Herbert, clerk, then and yet parson of Wigan, of the other part, concerning certain tithes and deeds relating to the liberties of the town, by one of which deeds John Maunsell, parson of the said town, granted to the burgesses all the rights and liberties of their said town, as they were by King Henry III. granted unto him (the said Maunsell) and to his successors for ever: Maunsell to receive 12 pence from each burgess

  1. Chester Diocesan Register.
  2. Record Society (Lancashire and Cheshire), vol. viii. p. 408.
  3. Presentatio Joh'is Harbert clerici ad rectoriam ecclesiæ parochialis de Wygan Presentatus est Johannes Harbert clericus ad ecclesiam parochialem de Wygan Cestrien, Dioc. per mortem naturalem Ric'i Kuyghley clerici ultimi incumbentis ejusdem vacan. ad presentationem Thomæ White civis et mercatoris scissorum civitatis London, (ratione advocationis et assignationis super hujusmodi factum ut superius patet pro hac unica vice pleno jure spectan.) octavo die mensis Augusti anno domini millesimo quingentesimo quadragesimo tertio ac admissus et institutus est idem Johannes Herbert in candem ecclesiam parochialem de Wygan cum suis juribus et pertinentiis universis per Reverendum in Christo patrem et dominum dominum Johannem permissione Divina Cestrien. Episcopum . . . die mensis . . . anno domini predicto. (Chester Diocesan Register.)
  4. Raines' MSS., vol. xxii. being extracts from the Registers of Chester.