Page:The History of the Church & Manor of Wigan part 2.djvu/101

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280
History of the Church and Manor of Wigan.

the rather because there is daily seen a most shameful! and unsufferable abuse, by the demiseing of some of those buildings in the Abbey Court and Cloysters, and sometimes in the church itself! being prophaned or much annoyed by horses, hoggs, and other means, so as the Court which was formerly kept for the decent and convenient use and refreshment of the church members is now become most vile and sordid; and with the dayly noyse of the brewers, with the knocking, cooping, carting, and the like, all the members of the church are much annoyed: for which cause it is ordered that all such abuses be taken away, and that they also receive the rents of those demises, provided that the Abbey Court be from henceforth freed from the same, upon pain of such censure as their neglect herein shall deserve.

Lastly. Because by presentment (as alsoe by complaint of divers of the best respected citizens), it appeareth that the Gate House is become a receptacle of many disorderly people of the city and others, who taking themselves to be exempted from the power of the city do resort thither, and much wrong themselves and discredit the government of the church by their immoderate drinking, gaming, and other wicked expence of time: it is decreed that from henceforth there shall be none alehouse, beerhouse, or victualling house kept in the said gatehouse; nor any of the city or elsewhere shall be suffered to drink, game, or lodge therein, nor any horses taken in or permitted to stand in the gatehouse; nor any come to be measured there for the private gain of the porter, or any other use made of the said Gate than for the passages of the people and other necessaries of the house and members thereof."[1]

From Chester bishop Bridgeman went to Bangor, where he arrived on 5th August, 1623, being the feast kept for his majesty's deliverance from the Gowryes.[2] Here he remained in residence for a time, and repaired the parsonage house.

This autumn he resigned his prebendal stall at Lichfield, to

  1. Cheshire Sheaf vol. iii. pp. 199, 204. These Injunctions are taken from an early Cathedral Register, which was found among the effects of a clergyman in the county of Chester lately deceased in the year 1875, and which then fell into the hands of the writer of the article in the Cheshire Sheafs Mr. Geo. Neasham, of North Bailey, Durham. The same Injunctions were renewed by bishop Cartwright in 1687, and again by bishop Stratford in 1692.
  2. Family Evidences.