The valuation of Ronton after the Dissolution (_Monasticon_, vi, 259) amounted to £116 16s. 9d. There were additions as follows: A salt-pan at Nantwich, £1 11s.; rents at Brichford, 9s. 4d.; Heathcote Grange, £3 16s.; tithes in Aston (Staffs.); Doddington and Cotton, £3 13s. 4d.; Oldall Grange, £1 4s.; Ronton Rectory, £4 13s. 4d.; Ellenhall Rectory, £3 12s. 8d. The omissions are Ronton, rents £3 0s. 4d.; water-mill, 18s. 4d.; Clanford, rents, £2 13s. 4d.; Hevedale, rents, £1 4s.; Orslowe, 12s.; Apeton, 8s.; Offley, 9s.; Cowley, 6d.; and Newport (Salop), 1s. Seighford Church is £6 5s. 2d. only, and there are tithes there worth £4 13s. 4d. Watteley More Grange, £2 13s. 4d., is added. Aston (Staffs.) and Cokysland has risen from 6s. 8d. to 19s. 4d., including 1s. for “_terra vasta_.” Grenburgh Rectory was £36 7s. instead of £32 17s. The remaining items are either unchanged or usually show a slight increase. The demesne remained practically unchanged, though in the Paper Survey it is £16 7s.[103] ST. THOMAS’S PRIORY, STAFFORD The Austin Canons of St. Thomas the Martyr, near Stafford, had often given striking illustrations of the worldly spirit which gradually infused itself in the “religious.” They were such keen men of business that their transactions were sometimes questionable. It has already been mentioned that when a verderer of the Forest of Cannock, in the latter part of the thirteenth century, laid himself open to the severe penalties of the Forest Laws and fled for his life beyond the seas, St. Thomas’s Priory did not hesitate to strike a bargain with him and to buy his manor. They possessed it at the Dissolution. They built a fine church and had a well-furnished house, fit to entertain Henry IV on his return from his victory at Shrewsbury. They were paid 26s. 8d. for their hospitality on the occasion. In 1389 the Priory received from Robert de Ferrers an interesting grant from the revenues of the rectory of Weston. It was to vary with the number of Canons. There was to be an allowance of food (_pictancia_) from the kitchen every Thursday, and it was to be suitable to the season of the ecclesiastical year (_prout tempus_), and if the number of canons increased the allowance was to be correspondingly increased. Moreover, in 1409, the Bishop ordered that it was to be paid “_in Refectario seu Infirmaria prout tempus aut necessitas exquirit_.”[104] In 1535 the Prior was Richard Whytwell. The Commissioners[105] found that at the Priory were lands--arable, meadow, and pasture--worth £2, and similarly at Arberton Grange, worth £10. At each of the manors was a demesne and usually a Court: