1109.

In these earlier centuries of the Middle Ages the machinery the law was
crude and ineffective; as a consequence lawlessness was rampant, and
everywhere might became right.

The nobles, whenever the weakness of a king emboldened them, fortified
their castles, and increased the number of their retainers, whom they
reduced to a condition of complete vassalage; and each baron strove to
make himself a figure in the great national convulsions which, from time
to time, broke out under the malign influences of the feudalism that
dominated the whole land and blighted its every hope of progress.

The Franklins, the inferior grade of gentry, who, under the old Saxon
system were called Thanes, were often compelled by force of environment
to range themselves under the protecting banner of one or other of these
petty kings. And where authority was systematically set at defiance by
the great and the powerful, inoffensive conduct and dutiful obedience to
the laws of the land afforded no guarantee for the security of either
life or property.

To these disturbing influences must be added the barbarous severity of
the laws of the chase, the vindictive nature of which sometimes made the
heavy feudal chains of the common people almost too grievous to be borne.
As Willenhall was on the confines of the Royal Forest of Cannock, the
oppressive nature of the Forest Laws was not unfelt by the inhabitants of
this secluded hamlet.

In 1306, when John de Swynnerton married the daughter and heiress of
Philip de Montgomery, Seneschal of the Royal Forest of Cannock, and
became Steward of the Forest in customary succession, Willenhall was
officially returned, along with a number of surrounding places
(Wednesfield, Wednesbury, Darlaston, Essington, Hilton, Newbrigge,
Moseley, Bushbury, Pendeford, Coven, and a score more), as appurtenant to
a third part of the said forest bailiwick.

The Swynnerton interest in Willenhall transpires again in 1364, when John
de Swynnerton is found suing two Willenhall men for forcibly and
feloniously removing some of his goods and chattels from that place.

In the previous reign--that of Henry III.--numerous fines for illegal
enclosures of Cannock Forest had been imposed upon landowners in this
locality. Among them were Stephen de Hulton (or Hilton), and John, his
son, "of Wednesfield," who had enclosed with a hedge and a ditch three
acres of heath in Wednesfield, which they held under the Dean of
Wolverha