All-saints, and occupying the site of "the old guild-hall,”726 is at present let by the churchwardens, at a rent of £20: the yard and premises adjoining, being further let to Mr. Solomon Hunt, on lease for twenty-one years, at £21 yearly, with an engagement to expend £150 upon the premises. The rents are applied to purposes con

nected with the church.

The SWAN HOUSE, in High-street, now the Star Hotel, is, as noticed on page 392, subjected to a rent-charge, under Gardner's charities; and by indenture of 19th February, 1771, the fee was, without notice of the rent-charge, purchased by the parishes of All-saints and St. Lawrence, for £130. The parishioners have recently let the premises on a repairing lease to Mr. R. H. Hughes, at £30 per annum; and the rental, subject to the rent-charge, is appropriated by the churchwardens of both parishes to purposes

connected with the church.

FUNDED INVESTMENT.-An ancient tenement, till lately standing at the south-west angle of the church-yard, and having a small plot of ground attached, had immemorially been claimed as the property of the churchwardens and overseers of the parish of St. Lawrence. In 1793, these officers demised the above, to Misses E. and I. Horne, for twenty-one years, at £6 per annum. On the expiration of that term, and at the death of the survivor in 1829, William Welch, esq. was let into possession of the whole, by Miss Horne's executors and in 1831, the parish officers accepted from that gentleman £150 in exchange for the premises. This sum was, by order of the vestry, invested in the public funds; there to remain, till it could be vested in other freehold property: and on such re-investment being made, the churchwardens were directed to convey the premises to Mr. Welch. In 1833, after the removal of the tenement and the conversion of the garden into a stableyard, by Mr. Welch, the vicar of All-saints and St. Lawrence obtained possession, by ejectment, of nearly the whole garden, with its improvements; 727 upon evidence of small yearly payments, of from five to ten shillings, having been made to his predecessors. No claim s however made, upon his part, to the site of the house;

7:26 See page 199, in chapter x.

727 Being that noticed upon page 178, among the profits of the benefice.

nor to the yard, including a small portion of the garden: of which Mr. Welch's devisees continued in possession, under the above exchange with the parish. Of the £150 received from Mr. Welch, £100 was appropriated toward paying off a mortgage on the "Swan house;" and the remaining £50 continues vested in the 3 per cent. annuities, in the names of the present churchwardens: the interest being appropriated to the church fund.

HOUSES IN BEWDLEY-STREET.—A row of dilapidated tenements situate in Vine-street, and belonging to the parish of St. Lawrence, was taken down in the year 1824, when their sites were added to the church-yard; which was at the same time bounded by the present palisades, pillars, and gates. For this improvement, the public are principally indebted to the exertions of Mr. A. New and the late Mr. Thompson, with the consent of the parish. These gentlemen, assisted by a donation of £100 from the late Miss Horne, together with contributions from other individuals, effected the whole, without any expense to the parishioners. The original tenements were colloquially termed "alms-houses;" though for what other reason, save their being tenanted by paupers, does not appear. The subscribers afterward erected in lieu of these, three tenements in Bewdley-street, upon ground belonging to both parishes, which was leased by the churchwardens, on the 30th September, 1824, for ninety-nine years-at a chief-rent of 78. 6d.-to the overseers of the parish of St. Lawrence, who appropriate them as dwellings for paupers, occupied rent-free.

CHAPTER XXI.

CHRONOLOGICAL RECORD-CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS.

THE contents of the present chapter, although they could not with perspicuity be incorporated with other portions of the work,—yet as being requisite to the completion of the volume, are here inserted in the order of occurrence.

1235-6.-20th Henry III.-The liberties of Evesham were seized on account of false measures being used when the king was here; but they were restored upon the submission of the abbot and monks.728

1289, April.-King Edward the First, in his journey from London to Worcester, rested at Offenham,-where the abbots possessed a mansion and park-adjoining Evesham, upon the old high road.729 1328, June. King Edward the Third visited Evesham at this time, as appears from acts dated hence on the 24th and 28th of this month.730

1409. The second individual burned in England for protestation against the peculiar doctrines of the church of Rome, was a native of Evesham, Thomas Badby by name, and by occupation a tailor.731 This individual, having apparently imbibed the doctrines of the venerable Wicliff, pastor of Lutterworth, in Leicestershire, fearlessly made the avowal when brought before his diocesan in the cathedral at Worcester; where he undauntedly maintained— as also before both primates of the church in the cathedral of St. Paul afterward-that "after the consecration at the altar, there

728 Abingdon MSS. in Nash's Worcestershire, vol. i. page 411.

729 Anglia Sacra, i. p. 510. 730 Rymer's Foedera, iv. p. 356, in Nash. 731 Owen's Character and Conduct of Ecclesiastics, page 155.

remaineth materiall bread and the same bread which was before, notwithstanding it is a sign or sacrament of the living God." 732 Upon this, he was, by the king's writ, issued under the statute of Henry IV. condemned to be burned as a heretic, in Smithfield. This sentence may almost be said to have been twice executed. For the Prince of Wales afterward Henry V.-thought proper to attend at it, and when the martyr was in the midst of his torture, the prince ordered the fire to be removed, and promised the sufferer a pension for life if he would recant his opinions. But Badby, when he had recovered himself, nobly refused, and once more resigned himself to death in a fire horribly rekindled for the occasion.733

1611, January 4th.-As an instance of the local monopolies formerly held by freemen of the corporation, we find it ordered in the mayor's court, that no victualler or ale-house keeper should, after the 1st of March, brew either beer or ale; "but shall have the same of the common-brewers assigned, whereof Mr. Philip Parsons, one of the common-council, is appointed to be one; under penalty of ten shillings, one half to the borough, the other half to the informer."

1611, July 9th.—Ordered by the corporation, that "no householder or other, should entertain any inmate, poor stranger, person or persons;" nor erect any cottage, nor convert any outhouse into tenements, without leave of two justices; under penalty of five pounds, "to the use of the borough." 734

1632, August 28th.-Ordered by the corporation, that each mayor should, every market-day, personally sit "within the Boothhall," with the town-clerk, his deputy, and the serjeants-at-mace; "with the action book, for the entry of actions."

1665, August 23d.--The parishioners of All-saints and Saint Lawrence, agreed jointly to repair the bells in the clock-tower; which, according to the entry in the parish-books, were then about to be re-hung.

1671.-The sum of £29 17s. 6d. was this year collected in the borough, and paid to the chamber of the city of London, for the

732 Fox's Martyrs, edition 1641, p. 680. 733 Rapin's England, vol. i. book xi. 734 In the 31st of Elizabeth, 1588-9, a curious act passed; which, after reciting that great inconveniences have been found to grow by the erecting and building of great numbers of cottages, which are daily more and more increased, enacts that, for the time to come, no such tenement shall be erected, unless four acres of land be attached to it.