The oftener these changes occurred the better for the priors, who held the right of presentation to the bishop, and exacted fealty and fees. In Madeley, being lords of the manor, they nominated and presented the vicars: and in Badger, Beckbury, and elsewhere, where there were lay lords who nominated, they held the right of presenting such as were nominated to the bishop, and of exacting fees for their mediate offices between the nominators and the bishop. As the land came to be cultivated, and the population engaged in agricultural and other pursuits increased in number, the living, we imagine, improved in value, and the advowson in importance. We have shown from the commissioners’ description in Domesday what was the state of Madeley just subsequent to the Norman conquest, and Madeley being still within the limits of the forest of the Wrekin, which surrounded it on three sides, little progress was made in the way of cultivation. From the “Survey of Shropshire Forests” in 1235, it appears that the following woods, besides those of Madeley, were subject to its jurisdiction:—Leegomery, Wrockwardine Wood, Eyton-on-the-Weald Moors, Lilleshall, Sheriffhales, the Lizard, Stirchley, and Great Dawley. Forest laws were rigorously enforced, and encroachments, either by cultivation or building without royal license to do so, were severely punished. Prior Imbert was fined for three such trespasses, in 1250, in the heavy sum of £126 13s. 4d., chiefly in connection with Madeley. In 1390 the park and meadows the prior had been permitted to enclose with those at Madeley, Oxenbold, and other manors, were estimated as barely capable of maintaining the livestock of the priory. A perambulation of forests in the reign of Edward I. shows the village of Madeley, with its bosc and two plains, to be disforested, as well as Coalbrookdale, one half of Sutton Maddock, and some other places. Coming down, however, to a much later period,—to the thirty-sixth year of the reign of Henry VIII., when he sold the Madeley manor,—cultivation had made considerable progress, and the property of the priory had very much increased in value. The last of the Wenlock priors, Sir John Bailey, _alias_ Cressage, gave up possession on the morrow of the Conversion of St. Paul, 1539, _with his own free will and consent_, according to the deed, together with that of the sub-prior, and eleven monks. Take “The fourth part of the Close Rolls of the 31st King Hen. VIII. 26th January, 31st Hen. VIII. Deed of Surrender to the Crown of the Monastery of Wenlock.