Читать книгу History of Madeley including Ironbridge, Coalbrookdale, and Coalport онлайн

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We need not wonder, then, to find in the thirteenth century the Rector of Madeley a sportsman. Henry III, being in Shrewsbury, in Sept. 1267, at which time he concluded a treaty with Llewellyn, and settled sundry little differences with the monks and burgesses respecting a monopoly claimed by the former, of grinding all corn used in the town, and possessing all mills within its limits, granted through Peter de Neville to Richard de Castillon the rector, licence to hunt in the royal forest of Madeley. In such sport the clergy were borne out by their prelates. Of one Walter, bishop of Rochester, it is recorded that he was so fond of the sport that at the age of four score he made hunting his sole employment, to the total neglect of other duties. There were jolly churchmen in those days, for

“The Archdeacon of Richmond, we are told, in his initiation to the Priory of Bridlington, came attended by ninety-seven horses, twenty-one dogs, and three hawks. Walter de Suffield, Bishop of Norwich, bequeathed by will his pack of hounds to the king; whilst the Abbot of Tavistock, who had also a pack, was commanded by his bishop, about the same time, to break it up. A famous hunter, contemporary with Chaucer, was the Abbot of Leicester, whose skill in the sport of hare hunting was so great, that the king himself, his son Edward, and certain noblemen, paid him an annual pension that they might hunt with him.”