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

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“In consideration of the military service due in taxation to us, our heirs and successors, viz., the twentieth part of the value of one feudal knight, £4 13s. 9¼d. of our legal English money are to be paid to our legal treasurer, for the increase of the common revenues of our crown, on the feast of St. Michael the Archangel, each year, for all the rents, services, and demands whatsoever . . .

“We also wish, and by these presents we concede, to the aforesaid Robert Broke that the said Robert Broke shall have and retain these letters patent of ours, drawn up in the usual manner, under our great seal of England, and signed without fine or tax, heavy or light, to be paid into our revenue office, or in any other way to be demanded or paid to the use of us, our heirs, or successors.

“Therefore express mention of this our will has been made, etc. In testimony of which, etc., T. R. Signed at Westminster, 23 July [1544]. On behalf of the king himself, in virtue of the royal commission.”

The MS. breaks off abruptly in places, probably from the copyist not being able to decipher the original. Of the Richard Charleton here mentioned we have no account in connection with Madeley, but a Richard Charlton is mentioned some ten years earlier, in the accounts of the first-fruits office, as the king’s bailiff or collector at the Marshe, near Barrow, where the Wenlock priors had one of their principal granges, and held a manorial court.