Whereupon the said Roger Marchall and his Company at the special desire of the Inhabitants of Weddesbury, come in peaceable manner to the said Fair, according to the said old custom, and these met with one John Walker, of Walsall, and divers others of the said town, and then and there “they make as gud chere unto them as they should do to ther lovying neyburs.” And he denies that they came riotously. THE ANSWER OF WALTER LEVESON— He heard say at Hampton, where he dwells, that a “rumour and mysdemenying” against the King’s peace was had in Walsale, and that the inhabitants were riotously disposed against John Beamont. Whereupon the said Walter with two of his servants, in peaceable manner, and without any harness, came to the said John Beamont to his place at Weddesbury, to know how the Mayor and Inhabitants of Walsale would entreat him. John Beamont said that he knew of no hurt that they willed to him. It has been of old time used and accustomed on the said Fair day that the inhabitants of Hampton, Weddesbury, and Walsale have come to the Fair with such Captains as they have of old time used, to the intent to gather money with their disports to the use of the said churches of the said lordships. And this is all we know of that lively “Whitsun Morris” at Willenhall Fair in the year of grace 1498. It all reads like a delightful chapter in the vein of Shakespeare’s Dogberry and Verges; and it will be noted that the priests are among the captains or ringleaders in this Sunday revelling. * * * * * After the Reformation came the Puritans, who severely discountenanced all Sunday revelry. And so the lampoon of their enemies ran:— There dwells a people on the earth That reckons true religion treason, That makes sad war on holy mirth, Count madness zeal and nonsense reason; That think no freedom but in slavery, That makes lyes truth, religion, knavery; That rob and cheat with “yea” and “nay,” Riddle me, riddle me, who are they? Yet, when religious differencies had brought on civil war, it had to be confessed of this Puritan people (so says Sir Francis Doyle in “The Cavalier”):— That though they snuffled psalms, to give The rebel dogs their due, When the roaring shot poured thick and hot They were stalwart men and true. And so the mighty struggle for liberty of conscience against the pretensions of a dominant Church had proceeded for over century, when we find the incumbency of Willenhall held by the Rev. Thomas Badland. Thomas Badland was born in 1643, matriculated at Pembroke College, Oxford, 1650, and took his B.A. degree, 1653. He was one of the noble band of ministers who relinquished their livings on August 24th, 1662, rather than conform to the requirements of the Act of Uniformity, passed on the Restoration of Charles II.