Sex

Female

Parish

Rostherne

Marital Status

At Issue

Causes

EDC 5/14/1 – defendant

Sex

Male

Marital Status

Unknown

Occupation Status

Clerk

Remarks

CCEd person ID 30246

Career: named as clerk at St Oswald’s in Chester in clergy lists from 1534 to 1554 and was presumably a curate there from at least 1527 until 1554.

Further notes: This is based in part on evidence that in 1527 and 1530 he witnessed wills of Chester men as their ‘gostly fader’ or confessor. He named in later clergy lists.

Sources:

W.F. Irvine, (ed.), A collection of Lancashire and Cheshire wills not now to be found in any probate registry. 1301-1752 (The Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 30, 1896), pp. 168-169

Cheshire Sheaf, 3rd Series, xix, p. 96

British Museum Harley 594, f. 147
CALS EDV 1/1, f. 16

Causes

EDC 5/13/6 – witness to the sentence

Sex

Male

Approx Year of Birth

1499

Marital Status

Unknown

Occupation Status

Clerk; vicar of St Oswald's, Chester

Literacy

yes

Remarks

CCEd person ID 35637

Career:  a curate at Tarporley and in 1542 under the will of the rector of Tarporley he and another curate were bequeathed 8 marks each ‘to gette them seruices’. He was instituted as vicar of the parish of St Oswald’s in 1552 (CALS EDC 2/8 ff. 59-59v) when the patron was the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral.

Further notes: At the Royal Visitation of 1559 it was found that, as unnamed vicar of St Oswald’s, he was not resident in the parish and his curate ‘dothe not declare the chapters accordingelye’. In 1562 he was admonished by the Ecclesiastical Commission in Chester and ordered not to administer communion to parishioners who could not say the Lord’s Prayer, the articles of belief and the Ten Commandments and was bound in the sum of £40 to teach the catechism to the children of the parish. However, in 1563 he signed the Three Articles with other Cheshire clergy.

He had died by 1571 in which year there was a dispute concerning his will (CALS WC 1581).

Sources:

C. J. Kitching (ed.), ‘The Royal Visitation of 1559; Act Book for the Northern Province’, Surtees Society, 197 (1975 for 1972), p. 85

Cheshire Sheaf, 3rd Series, i, p. 34; xviii, pp. 86-87

CALS EDA 12/2, f. 81 (Ecclesiastical Commission)

Causes

EDC 5/13/6 – witness to the sentence.

Sex

Male

Parish

Dodleston

Marital Status

Unknown

Causes

EDC 5/13/5 – defendant

Sex

Male

Marital Status

Unknown

Remarks

He may have been related to John Bradley, defendant in a suit brought by Robert Assheton (EDC 5/12/1). This was the same plaintiff as in EDC 5/13/3 in which Randle Bradley was a witness to the sentence.

Causes

EDC 5/13/3 – witness to the sentence
EDC 5/13/4 – witness to the sentence
EDC 5/13/5 – witness to the sentence

Sex

Male

Marital Status

Unknown

Causes

EDC 5/13/3 – witness to the sentence

Sex

Male

Marital Status

Unknown

Occupation Status

Probably the vicar of St John's in Chester and acting as a proctor in the consistory court

Remarks

He is referred to as ‘dominus’ or ‘sir’ so was probably the cleric of that name who was retained as a vicar of St John’s in Chester after the dissolution of the college  in 1547/8. He was born in about 1508. By 1559-1560 he had resigned and was living in a chapel in the churchyard (Douglas Jones, The Church in Chester 1300-1540 (Chetham Society 3rd series, 7, 1957), p. 162).

See also his entry in the Directory under Proctors.

Causes

EDC 5/12/3 – witness to the sentence

Sex

Male

Parish

Middleton

Marital Status

Unknown

Causes

EDC 5/12/1 – defendant

Sex

Female

Marital Status

At Issue

Spouse Name

Sir Robert Worsley

Remarks

Career: Her husband, Sir Robert Worsley, considered that his marriage to his first wife, Alice Tyldesley, had been dissolved on the grounds of her alleged adultery. The church authorities did not agree, and his second marriage to Margaret was considered bigamous. This probably explains the following reference to her the 1547 will of Alice’s father ‘notwithstanding yt my sone in law Sir Robert Worsley knight is married to Margerit Bethum his wif yet levyng yet I remyt and pardon to him vij^li x^s apon condicion yt he geve yerly unto my doughter Alis his wif v^li or mor for hir exhibicion duryng her absens from him or apon condcion yt he take his said wif into his company and intreat hir as he ought to do’ (Piccope, Wills, pp. 100-101).

Sources:

Rev. G. J. Piccope (ed.), Lancashire and Cheshire Wills and Inventories from the Ecclesiastical Court, Chester (Chetham Society, old series, 33, 1857 (First Portion), pp. 97-114

F. R. Raines (ed.), The visitation of the county palatine of Lancaster, made in the year 1664-5, by Sir William Dugdale, Knight, part III (Chetham Society, old series, 88, 1873), pp. 339-340

Causes

EDC 5/11/2 – Sir Robert Worsley

Sex

Male

Marital Status

Married

Spouse Name

Jane

Occupation Status

Gentleman

Remarks

Career: Lawrence Banastre lived at Banister Hall, also called Darwen Hall, in the northern part of the township of Walton-le-Dale. His family had occupied the hall for several generations. He was married to Jane, daughter of Sir Richard Hoghton, and he died in 1558.

He was named as one of the out-burgesses at Preston gild in 1542.

Sources:

F. R. Raines (ed.), The visitation of the county palatine of Lancaster, made in the year 1567 by William Flower, Esq (Chetham Society, old series, 81, 1870), p. 35

‘Townships: Walton-le-Dale’, in A History of the County of Lancaster: Volume 6, ed. William Farrer, J Brownbill( London, 1911), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/lancs/vol6/pp289-300 [accessed 5 January 2025]

Causes

EDC 5/11/1 – defendant