CHAPTER VIII.

Robert Greslet, Seventh Baron of Manchester-The Manor of Manchester taken into the hands of Henry III.-Robert Greslet attains his majority, and is summoned to Parliament-Surveys of the Lordship of Manchester-Thomas Greslet, Eighth Baron-Charter granted to the Town, which is constituted a Free Borough-Explanation of the Pr visions of the Charter-John La Warre marries the Heiress of the Greslets, with whom he receives the Manor of Manchester.

THOMAS GRESLET, the sixth baron of Manchester, had, as we have seen, two sons, Robert and Peter, the former of whom died during the lifetime of his father, leaving an infant son, Robert, who became eventually the seventh baron. Peter, the second son, appears to have been a priest, and to him Thomas Greslet, to the prejudice of his grandson, wished to convey the manor of Manchester, together with the chapels of Ashton, Hale, and Garston, making a grant to that effect. But this arrangement of the property of the family was not permitted to be carried out, though strenuous efforts were made for that purpose, the plea being that because Robert, the eldest son and heir, had died before he had attained his full age, the possessions had devolved upon Peter, the second son. On the other side, it was objected that the late baron had not infeoffed his son Peter with the manor of Manchester. The consequence of this dispute was that the king sent orders to the sheriff to take possession of and retain in safe keeping the estates of Thomas Greslet, as we learn from the following entry in the Fine Rolls :

♦ Concerning the manor of Manchester to be taken into the hands of the King. 'The king to William Le Latymer his escheator beyond the Trent, greeting: Because it has been proved before us that THOMAS GRESLEY, lately deceased, did not infeoff PETER GRESLEY his son of the manor of Manchester in such a time and in such a mode that he might thence possess a free tenement, and that the custody of the same manor belongs to us by reason of the land and of the existing heir of

the aforesaid Thomas who held from us in chief [in capite] for the barony in our hands, we command that without delay you place the aforesaid manor in our hands, and that you keep it in safe custody, so that from the issues thence proceeding you answer at our treasury. For we have commanded our sheriff of Lancaster, that if you should find any resistance in this place, whence you may be the less enabled to place the aforesaid manor in our hands, that then the power [posse] of the aforesaid county being charged with him, he may repair to the manor in his own person with the aforesaid, and place the same in our hands, and commit it to you in custody as aforesaid. Witness the king at Westminster, on the sixth day of May.'1

1

In consequence of this order, the manor of Manchester was held by the king, as guardian, until the heir attained his majority. As some compensation for the loss sustained by Peter Greslet, and to preserve the right of patronage to the Greslet family, Peter was declared guardian or custodian of the church of Manchester, and as such is mentioned in an assize plea, at Winchester, relative to a church in the county of Buckingham. He also occurs as rector of Manchester in two deeds of the 9th and 12th of Edward I.

The year 1272 saw the termination of the reign of Henry III., and the commencement of that of Edward I., to whom fealty was sworn on November 20, though men were ignorant whether he was alive, for he had gone to distant countries beyond the sea, warring against the enemies of Christ.' It was also the year in which Robert Greslet attained his majority, and performed homage. From this to the fourth year of Edward's reign, the Baron of Manchester was summoned to Parliament. In 1275-6, Robert Greslet occurs as confirming some grants made to the Abbey of Stanlawe, by Thomas de Perpoint. In 1276 we find that he was summoned to take part in the expedition against the Welsh Prince Llewelyn, and in the following year the summons was repeated. On another occasion Robert Greslet was summoned at Oxford, and performed military service by himself with three retainers as an acknowledgment of the services of two knights' fees. In 1280, he married Hawise, daughter and co-heir of John de Burgh, descendant of Hubert de Burgh, earl of Kent, and received with her lands in Sussex, Somersetshire, and Northamptonshire. By this lady he had two children,-Thomas, born in 1279 or 1280, and Joan about a year later. This baron died in the 10th Edward I. (1281-2), at which time his son and heir would

1'Excerpta è Rotulis Finium,' Vol. ii., p. 372.

not be more than three years old. Soon after his decease, it was found that he died seised of Withington Villa, Pilkington, Worthington, Coppull, Childwall et ecclesia, Manchester et ecclesia, et Ashton ecclesia pertinen', et Manchester maner', as well as lands in Rutland, Norfolk, and other counties.' Shortly after her lord's demise, in 1282, Hawise de Greslet was summoned to a muster at Rhuddlan, on the morrow of St. Peter ad Vincula (August 1). She seems to have died in 1298 or 1299, when her son, Thomas Greslet, the last of his family who held the barony of Manchester, was in his twentieth year.

In consequence of the tender age of Thomas de Greslet, the eighth baron, at the time of his father's decease, the custody of the manor of Manchester was granted to Amadeus de Savoy, and during the lord's minority two surveys of the lordship were made, from which we obtain a glimpse of the civil and ecclesiastical state of the town and neighbourhood at the period of our history to which we have now arrived. The first of these surveys appears to have been a local inquisition made in the 10th Edward I. (1281-2); the second, and most complete, took place ten years later, in the 20th Edward I. (1291-2). The last-named survey informs us that the manor of Manchester, Heton, and Barton, were held of Edmund Earl of Lancaster, by service of doing suit to the Earl of Lancaster and to the hundred of Salford; nothing being held in chief of the king by the late baron in the manors just named. It also tells us that, 'the late baron died seised of the manor of Manchester, &c., of a small park, called Aldpark and Lithake; another park called Blakley, a quantity of demesne land called Bradford and Brunhull, and another quantity of demesne land called Greenlawmere; a certain quantity near the cross of Openshaw, another quantity called Hullis and Nisworth, a piece of demesne land called Kepir Field, two pieces called Milnward Croft and Samland, certain land called Kepir Cliff, two parts of an oxgang in Denton, and a piece of land in Farnworth. Within the said manor was one water-mill, worth £17 16s. 8d.; one fulling-mill, worth 26s. 8d.; and a certain oven, yielding annually 10s. The rent of assize or burgages in Manchester was annually £7 3s. 2d.; the toll of the markets and fairs, £6 13s. 4d., and of the cottagers near the town, 17s. 6d. each quarter; the bondage land of Gorton paid 64s. quarterly; the hall land there,

20s.; and the mill there, 26s. 8d.; the bondage land in Atherswyke [Ardwick], 43s.; and a certain piece of land there called Twanterford, 6s. 8d.; the bondage land in Crumpsall, 40s.; and the assarted lands there, 10s. 2d. The rent of free tenants and foreign tenants of Manchester, £7 9s. 8d., and one goshawk from Thomas de Eston at the Feast of St. Michael, and one barbed arrow from Adam de Levir; for the rent of Sakfee, 49s.; and for the farm of Wards at the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, 49s. 24d.; and for the farm of five foot bailiffs for having their bailiffs by the year, 100s.; and of the perquisites of the court of the borough of Manchester, 8s.; and of the pleas and perquisites of the court baron of the manor, 100s. There was also a certain fee of Whitington on fifteen acres of land, which was worth 7s. 6d.; and a certain custom to reap there in autumn, belonging to thirty oxgangs of land, worth 2s. 6d. The whole annual sum from the manor of Manchester was £84 12s. 6d. The manor of Heton Norreys, member of Manchester, yielded an annual rent of £4 6s. 41d.; the manor of Barton, £6 16s. 94d.; the manor of Kuerdeley, £11 12s.; the Forest of Hepworth [Horwich] £24."

From this survey we learn that some of the lands of Crumpsall were 'assarted' lands, that is, forest lands, the trees of which had been destroyed by being assarted, or plucked up by the roots. We also find Manchester returned as a borough, but not as a free borough; and mention is made of its court baron, and borough court, the former of which yielded to the lord, in fees and perquisites, 100s. a year, while the latter only produced eight shillings. The term 'Sakfee' has been understood to mean the fee for arbitrating in disputes from the 'farm of wards' and from the 'farm of bailiffs.' We learn another important fact from this survey, respecting the mill at Manchester, the profits of which seem to have no longer been paid to the abbey of Swineshead, to which they had been given in the twelfth century, as stated at page 40. The reason for the cessation of this payment does not appear to have been recorded. With regard to the 'foreign tenants' mentioned in the survey, we may remark that at this period the term 'foreigner,' when used as above, simply means any one who resided out of the bounds or liberties of a city or borough.

1 'A concise History of the Manor or Seignory of Manchester,' in Corry's 'History of Lancashire.' Vol. ii., pp. 449, 450.

Nine years subsequent to this survey, in the 29th Edward I. (1808), Thomas Greslet, baron of Manchester, became of age, and shortly afterwards granted to the town a charter, long called the Magna Charta of Manchester, and by the provisions of which the town was governed till its incorporation in 1838. The following extracts from an article on this charter, from the pen of J. Harland, Esq., which appeared in the 'Manchester Guardian' of Saturday, July 25th, 1846, will no doubt be acceptable to our readers. After making a reference to the Salford charter, Mr. Harland continues,

'We were also desirous to see and examine, for a similar purpose, the original charter granted by Thomas Grelle [as the ancestor of the Gresleys spelled his name] in the year 1301, only seventy years later than that of Salford. But on referring to the historians of Manchester, we found a statement, by almost all of them, that the original charter was lost. Whitaker, whose "History of Manchester" was published in 1775, gives in an appendix at the end of the second volume (page 580), a "copy" or rather translation of the charter, from a document in the boroughreeve's chest, to which translation he affixes the following note: "The original charter was secretly taken out of the boroughreeve's chest, about forty years ago, and destroyed. I was in hopes of recovering it for the town, by procuring an authentic copy from our public offices. I therefore searched the records of the Tower, though with little expectation of meeting with it there, as it was merely a baronial charter. I had very sanguine hopes, however, of finding it in the Rolls Chapel, as Mr. Hollingworth (MSS. p. 6.) asserts it to have been confirmed by James the First, and the confirmation must have recited the original. And yet I was equally disappointed in both. The charter is therefore lost for ever, I suppose. And all the copies, I believe, have perished with the original. But an authenticated translation of it luckily fell into my hands, and so was rescued from immediate destruction. I found it inserted in an old boroughreeve's book of accounts, which was kept by Mr. William Byrom, boroughreeve, in 1657, and given me by his descendant, the late Edward Byrom, Esq. The translation is evidently so literal, that to an historian it is equally as useful as the original. And it is probably the only transcript of the whole existing at present. In James Butterworth's "Antiquities