own for the benefit of the
inhabitants generally.

One stalwart stickler for "the eternal fitness of things" upheld the
sound principle of the members of every church exercising the right to
choose their own minister, and he deprecated generally the practice of
trafficking in advowsons.

In the end, although those in favour of selling almost threatened to
apply for an Act of Parliament for effecting a sale compulsorily, the
meeting finally resolved by a very substantial majority: "That it was not
advisable at the present time to sell the Advowson."

So that two well-conducted public meetings, held within a brief space of
each other, were unable to come to any definite decision by which the
position of things would be materially altered.

XXI.--Willenhall Church Endowments.

By the courtesy of Mr. S. M. Slater, of Darlaston, a summarised, but
fairly comprehensive account of the Willenhall endowments, and the
somewhat exceptional parochial privileges connected therewith, may be
given here.

The foundation of the Endowment of the Benefice and the establishment of
the right of the Parishioners, or rather the Parishioners of the Township
"having lands of inheritance there," may be said to rest upon, or at all
events to have been defined and regulated by, three documents, namely:--

(a) A Decree dated the 27th March in the 5th Year of James the 1st
(1607), made in pursuance of an Inquisition, or Commission, issued by the
King on the 12th February of the previous (regnal) year.

(b) A Deed of the 23rd September of the 6th Year of James the 1st (1608),
entered into between the Lords of the Manor of Stowheath on the one hand,
and Sir Walter Levison and others, on behalf of themselves and the rest
of the Inhabitants of Willenhall, on the other hand.

(c) A Memorandum entered on the Court Rolls of the Manor of Stowheath,
dated the 10th October in the 6th Year of James the First (1608).

Reference to Chapter VII. of this work will recall how a Chantry Chapel
had been founded and endowed in Willenhall by the Gerveyse family. This
Chantry Chapel would be a "separated place" within the Chapel-of-Ease
specially used to celebrate masses for the departed souls of certain
persons. Now, one of the earliest signs of the approaching Reformation
was a decline in the belief in Purgatory; and presently Henry VIII. was
empowered by Act of Parliament to seize all lands, tenements, rents, &c.,
which had been given for the main