Old Sports and Sportsmen; or, the Willey Country: with sketches of Squire Forester and his whipper-in Tom MoodyRandall, John
History
Old Sports and Sportsmen; or, the Willey Country: with sketches of Squire Forester and his whipper-in Tom Moody
Randall, John
Forester, George, -1811; Hunting -- England -- Shropshire; Shropshire (England) -- History
Willey fell to the lot of a Norman, named Turold, who, as he held twelve
other manors, considerately permitted the Saxon owner to continue in
possession under him. Domesday says: “The same Turold holds Willey, and
Hunnit (holds it) of him.” “Here is half a hide geldable. Here is
arable land sufficient for ii ox teams. Here those ox teams are,
together with ii villains, and ii boors. Its value is v shillings.” At
the death of Hunnit the manor passed to a family which took its name from
the place; and considerable additions resulted from the marriage of one,
Warner de Williley, with the heiress of Roger Fitz Odo, of Kenley.
Warner de Williley appears to have been a person of some consequence,
from the fact that he was appointed to make inquiry concerning certain
encroachments upon the royal forests of Shropshire; but an act of
oppression and treachery, in which his wife had taken a part, against one
of his own vassals, whose land he coveted, caused him to be committed to
prison. Several successive owners of Willey were overseers of Shirlot
Forest; and Nicholas, son and heir of Warner, was sued for inattention to
his duties; an under tenant also, profiting probably by the laxity of his
lord, at a later period was charged and found guilty of taking a stag
from the king’s preserves, on Sunday, June 6th, 1253. Andrew de Williley
joined Mountford against King Edward, and fell August 4th, 1265, in the
battle of Evesham; in consequence of which act of disloyalty the property
was forfeited to the crown, and the priors of Wenlock, who already had
the seigniory usual to feudal lords, availing themselves of the
opportunity, managed so to increase their power that a subsequent tenant,
as shown by the Register at Willey, came to Wenlock (1388), and “before
many witnesses did homage and fealty,” and acknowledged himself to hold
the place of the lord prior by carrying his frock to parliament. They
succeeded too, after several suits, in establishing their rights to the
advowson of the Church, founded and endowed by the lords of the place.
By the middle of the 16th century Willey had passed to the hands of the
old Catholic family of the Lacons, one of whom, Sir Roland, held it in
1561, together with Kinlet; and from them it passed to Sir John Weld, who
is mentioned as of Willey in 1666. He married the daughter of Sir George
Whitmore, and his son, George Weld, sat for the county with William
Forester, who married the daughter of the Earl of Salisbury, and voted
with him in favour of the succession of the House of Hanover.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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