Welsh Journals

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not to suffer them to have any common therefor as the common of uppiton is a good way from my forest and well known. And in your so doing fear not I will maintain and bear you out against them. However, by August everything had gone wrong. Cottages in the old enclosures had been pulled down; mobs headed by Thomas ap John Gethyn of Welshpool, bragging that they had the authority of the Council, destroyed sections of the new enclosures. Stafford, moreover, had discovered the hopelessness of conflict with Corbet and his servants. The discharged keepers clung to their cottages and roamed Hogstow with impunity. Enclosure upon the fringes of the forest of Hayes probably lapsed until nearly the end of the century; it continued apace in Hogstow until its completion in the mid-1670s. Stafford defended his deer and trees until his death in 1563. More than a century later, however, the destruction of Richard Goodall and Thomas Draper and of later generations of cottagers and squatters was completed by the ironmasters Phillip Foley and Francis Wolfe. Their insatiable demands for cordwood devastated Caus Park, Langley Wood, near the forest of Hayes, and most of Hogstow and Minsterley Wood. It was a devastation which the careful Stafford would have deplored.47 In 1542-47 Stafford's coffers received an actual annual £ 122 in rents and issues from Causland, a considerable achievement.48 However, the gain was only at the cost of disorder and of intensifying the unpopularity of the Stafford family in the marches. The Welshry elaborated upon the cruel minds or extort power of Buckingham and Stafford, and dismissed the zealous William ap David as a comberouse and heady person A Council in the Marches, wearied of Stafford's trivialities, observed that it was against his honour to pursue such simple persons as the Powys tenants. Stafford persisted in his obstinacy, inveigling Rowland Lee into visiting Caus castle and despatching the younger Henry Stafford and his officers to intercept the perambulating Council.49 Stafford's conduct was rooted in the hard fact that his financial plight was only worsened by his improved position at the Court of Edward VI. Stafford became a conscientious member of the House of Lords and sat in the Court of Star Chamber. Regarded, however, with scant favour by the duke of Northumberland, he had to await the accession 47 C.R.O., D1721/1/10, pp. 9, 11-13, 177-80, 272-74, 306, 326, 382-85; VCH., Shropshire, VIII, 185, 297-99, 308, 318-19. 48 C.R.O., D1721/l/12,paKJ>n;Pugh, op. cit., p. 149: this was Stafford's average amount in his coffer, despite the extraordinary diversion of moneys for the repairs of Caus castle. In 1391 the receiver-general had received £ 153 17s. 71d 49 C.R.O..D1721/1/1, p. 331, f. 181, p. 354, f. 182, pp. 373-75, ff. 202-3, p. 377, f. 204, p. 417, f. 217; D1721/1/10, pp. 174-75; Whitfield, loc. cit., part I, 334.