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Chronicle 1
THE COUNCIL OF WALES IN THE MARCHES.  (Also known as The Council in the Marches and The Council of Wales in the Marches).
The Great and Good of Tudor Ludlow.
Contains four Footnotes:
    FOOTNOTE 1 -  Ambrosia Sydney
    FOOTNOTE 2 - The Heraldic Roll.
    FOOTNOTE 3 - The Walter Monument in St. Laurence’s Church.
    FOOTNOTE 4 - St. John’s Hospital: The Hospital Of The Holy Trinity, The Virgin Mary, and St. John The Baptist, Ludlow.


Chronicle 1
THE COUNCIL OF WALES IN THE MARCHES.
The Great and Good of Tudor Ludlow
(Click on any photograph to enlarge).
This Chronicle is based on a 60-minute power-point presentation which Jonathan Wood, former Chairman of Ludlow Historical Research Group and one-time Town Guide, prepared and delivered for Ludlow Civic Society.
 
The Council of Wales in the Marches was established at Ludlow Castle in the 1480s, and the Tudors ran Wales and the border counties from this devolved seat of Government.  Its area of responsibility varied but generally covered all of modern Wales and the Welsh Marches of Shropshire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Cheshire and Gloucestershire.  It was abolished by William of
Orange in 1689.
 
C15
The Council was initially responsible for governing the lands held under the Principality of Wales, the lands directly administered by the English Crown following the Edwardian conquest of Wales in the C13 century. In 1457, King Henry VI created for his son, Prince Edward, a Council to rule Wales and the Marches, Cheshire, and Cornwall.  It was re-established by Edward IV of England as a body to counsel and act on behalf of his son, the infant Edward, Prince of Wales. King Edward had recently been restored to the monarchy during the Wars of the Roses, and he and his allies controlled most of the marcher lordships within and adjoining Wales. He established his son at Ludlow Castle, and appointed his allies from the Woodville and Stanley families as leading figures in the Council.

C16
The Council continued after the death of Edward IV and the disappearance of his son. Under Henry VII, the Council was responsible for acting on behalf of his sons as successive Princes of Wales, first Arthur and then Henry.
The second Laws in Wales Act of 1542 gave the Council statutory recognition; it had previously been based solely upon the king's prerogative. The full Council was composed of the Lord President and his deputy, with twenty members nominated by the king; these included members of the royal household, some of the bishops of Wales, and the justices of the Court of Great Sessions. It continued to sit at Ludlow, and had responsibilities for the whole of Wales together with the Welsh Marches. These were initially deemed to comprise Cheshire, Shropshire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire; the City of Bristol was exempted in 1562, and Cheshire in 1569.  Worcestershire unsuccessfully attempted to free itself in 1576, and the Council's authority over the English counties was relaxed in 1606 but restored by royal decree in 1609.
The legislation which gave statutory recognition to the Council did not specify its role, but declared that the President and Council should have power to hear and determine "such Causes and Matters as be or heretofore hath been accustomed and used". However, its functions were interpreted widely. It was to hear all suits, civil and criminal, which were brought by individuals too poor to sue at common law; it was to try all cases of murder, felony, piracy, wrecking, and such crimes as were likely to disturb the peace; it was to investigate charges of misgovernment by officials and the false verdicts of juries; it was to enforce the laws against livery and maintenance, to punish rumour mongers and adulterers, and to deal with disputes concerning enclosures, villein service, and manorial questions; it heard appeals from the common law courts; and it was responsible for administering the legislation dealing with religion. A leading figure was Sir Henry Sydney, President of the Council from 1560 to 1586. According to historian John Davies, at its peak under Sydney and for a period thereafter the Council "represented a remarkable experiment in regional government. It administered the law cheaply and rapidly; it dealt with up to twenty cases a day and George Owen stated that the 'oppressed poor' flocked to it."

C17
The Council was abolished on 25 July 1689, following the Glorious Revolution of 1688 which overthrew James II and established William III (William of Orange) and Mary II as joint monarchs. According to Davies, "when the Council at Ludlow was abolished... there was very little protest in Wales. Instead, the Welsh gentry embraced London"
 
The following served as Presidents of the Council:
THE GREAT AND GOOD OF TUDOR LUDLOW
By the Great and Good, and indeed the Not-so-Good, of Tudor Ludlow, I am referring to members and officials of the Council in the Marches, which was based at Ludlow Castle for some 200 years.
These were individuals of national and local stature who chose to live in the town and built houses to reflect their enhanced social standing.  In doing so, they changed the face of Ludlow forever.
I would at the outset like to acknowledge the work of past Ludlow historians Henry Weyman, David Lloyd and Michael Page.  They have made my task considerably easier than it might have been.
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Broad Street, Louise Rayner.
So why does Ludlow look as it does? We have the Normans to thank for   having laid out the town during the C12.
Based on a simple grid, it was divided into approximately 550 burgage plots that were usually 2 perches wide and 18 long.  That’s about 33 x 300ft or multiples of the same.
The plots are well illustrated in this watercolour painting of Broad Street by Louise Rayner, who, incidentally, was familiar with the Marches, living in Chester in the 1870s.  Most of these properties here have 33ft frontages, the former De Greys, now Wildwood, is a good example.
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A burgage plot is usually characterised as a long walled plot, garden or yard, behind a building, the front of which faces one of the older streets in a town or city with medieval origins. The frontage of the former De Greys Café measures 33ft.
But sometimes houses absorbed two, three or more plots and these were occupied by larger properties than you would expect to find in a Shropshire market town.  They date mostly from the C16 and C17 centuries and reflect the heyday of the Council at Ludlow Castle. 
The Normans built the castle in the 1080s, and the town was laid out at its gates.  This view from Whitcliffe dates from the early C19, and the trees flanking the paths were laid out by the Countess of Powis in 1772. The fabric of the Castle has survived because it was the seat of the Council in the Marches long after its defensive role ceased.

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C19 View of Ludlow Castle.
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The Principality of Wales 1284 - 1536
So, what was the Council?  Its principal role was to administer justice in a hitherto lawless Wales and the border counties.  In doing so, Ludlow became effectively “the capital of Wales”.  You can see from the map how well-placed Ludlow was for this role.  Situated in the centre of the Marches, it covered the large area of Cheshire, Shropshire, Herefordshire, Worcester and Gloucestershire.
Ludlow was full of lawyers who practised at its courts.  They dealt with criminal, civil and ecclesiastical cases, some 1500 or so per year, and met during the Hilary, Lent, Trinity and Michaelmas law terms.  (Hilary term is the second academic term of the University of Oxford and the University of Dublin. It runs from January to March and is so named because the feast day of St Hilary of Poitiers, 14 January, falls during this term.)
The Council’s structural weakness was that it had to be self-financing, its running costs being contributed by fines imposed by the courts.  There was, therefore a temptation to find suspects guilty of misdemeanours to keep the institution in being.
Its members, appointed by the crown, made decisions that were implemented by salaried officers, there being about 40 staff in all.  The Council’s chairman was the Lord President, but it only met intermittently, about once a year, and members consisted of aristocratic courtiers, bishops, lawyers and the local gentry.  A caucus of four met regularly to oversee its day-to-day running.
And as far as Ludlow was concerned, in the early C17, the Council helped to buttress the community against the down-turn of the wool trade, hitherto its most valuable source of revenue.

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King Edward IV.
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“The Princes in the Tower” were hauntingly captured by Millais in his 1878 portrait.
The Council was established in Ludlow by chance, and in a small way.  In 1461 Edward IV became King of England.  He was the great nephew of the last of the male line of Mortimers who had made Ludlow Castle their caput or headquarters.  On his accession, it became royal property and was to remain so until 1811.  The Council’s starting point in Ludlow was 1473, when the King’s son, Prince Edward, who had been made Prince of Wales and thus responsible for the Principality, presided over what was termed the Prince’s Council.
This came to an end 10 years later, in 1483, when as King Edward V, he and his brother, Richard, Duke of York, were moved from Ludlow Castle to the Tower of London under the protection of their uncle, Richard of Gloucester, later Richard III. And we all know what happenned then.

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Prince Arthur
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Arthur’s Prince of Wales’ Feathers are incorporated in Ludlow’s coat of arms.
The Prince’s Council remained in abeyance but after Henry VII took the throne in 1485 he continued to use Ludlow Castle as a regional base, granting it to his son, Prince Arthur, in 1493, and re-establishing the dormant Council in the Marches at the property.  But Arthure died here in 1502 and his brother, Henry, married his widow, Catherine of Aragon.  Arthur’s Prince of Wales’ feathers are depicted in Ludlow’s coat of arms.
The Council only began to be effective when Rowland Lee, who was Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield and a protégé of Thomas Cromwell, became its President in 1534.  Bishops were not supposed to exercise capital punishment but Lee had no such scruples and was ruthless in his methods in subduing Wales, hanging offenders in Ludlow on market days.  However, he did not limit his punishments to the poor; members of the gentry found guilty of crimes could expect no clemency.
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Sir Henry Sydney.
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Ambrosia Sydney's tomb in St. Laurence's Church, Ludlow.
Sir Henry Sydney was Council President for longer than anyone else, a total of 26 years, from 1560 from 1586, although he spent much of his time in Ireland where he was Lord Deputy.  In Contrast to Lee, he was a humane pragmatist; he died in office and was buried at his home, Penshurst Place in Kent, but requested that his heart be preserved in Ludlow.  His son, Philip, was a celebrated Elizabethan courtier and poet.  However, his fourth daughter, 14-year-old Ambrosia, who died at Ludlow Castle in 1574, was buried in St. Laurence’s.  The initials HS and coat of arms above are those of Sir Henry Sydney, whilst AW on the opposite side refers to Ambrose Dudley. Earl of Warwick, who was Ambrosia’s godfather.  The inscription says rather more about her parent, including her mother being the daughter of the “famous” Duke of Northumberland."  The memorial was erected in 1580, six years after Ambrosia’s death.

(See Footnote 1 - Ambrosia Sydney)

Sir Henry undertook a spate of building and Ludlow’s became one of the few English castles to be kept in repair during the C16.  Interestingly, he was also an antiquary who responded to the age of chivalry and had undertaken work at Dublin Castle during his time there.
His building at Ludlow included an imposing entrance, in the form of a new bridge over the moat, changes to St. Peter’s Chapel, which became an additional courtroom, and improvements to the Great Tower.
The most significant of these works was the three storey Judges’ Lodgings for the Justices presiding over the Council Courts, completed by 1581 and built against the wall of the Inner Bailey.  The polygonal, that’s to ay five-sided, tower contained a spiral staircase, giving access to the rooms on each floor.
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The Norman chapel of St. Mary Magdalene (left).
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The chapel, Thomas Dineley, from 1684.
Sydney also undertook work at the Norman chapel of St. Mary Magdalene with its distinctive circular nave.  The drawing by Thomas Dineley of the chapel (above) dates from 1684.  It includes the chancel, now demolished, but does not show that it abutted the wall of the Inner Bailey.  The foundations of the leaden fountain in the foreground, another Sydney initiative, were  uncovered when William St. John Hope excavated the Castle in 1903-1904.
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Shield of Sir Henry Sydney.
There was also a gallery that ran from the nave to the Great Council Chamber, that’s to the right of the Great Hall.  This is where the lawyers practised their advocacy as the court was held there.  Around its walls were the coats of arms of Council Presidents and members carved on to oak panels, as required by law, and they were also displayed within the chapel.
There were no less than 200 of them and these are just three examples.  Members of the aristocracy replaced bishops as Presidents and at the top is the coat of arms of the Earl of Pembroke, who held office between 1550 and 1553, the Earl of Northampton (1617 - 1630) and the Marquis of Worcester (1672 - 1688).  Fortunately, much of this Councillor heraldry was recorded when in situ by the Rev William Mytton of Holston, Shropshire, and his original drawings are in the Birmingham University Library.  These are Victorian copies.
PictureThe Bull Hotel, Corve Street.
But with the demise of the castle in the second half of the C18, when its interior was stripped bare, some were removed to a most unlikely location….

Namely to be displayed on the walls of The Bull Hotel in Corve Street.  There they remained for many years but disappeared in unexplained circumstances in the early 1900s.  It is believed they were bought by a rich American and spirited off to the USA, never to be seen again.

(See Footnote 2 - The Healdic Roll).

Meanwhile, back to Ludlow Castle.  The above drawing on the left by Dineley is of 1684 when the Council was still sitting.  You can see the Judges' Lodgings, although Thomas has moved the turreted staircase tower to the front of the building.  The Shrewsbury architect, Thomas Farnolls Pritchard, got it right and the tower still had its turret in 1756 when he executed this drawing (above right) for the Earl of Powis, whose family would buy the castle in 1811.  As can be seen, the Lodgings, also known as the Governor’s House, were still more or less intact at the time.
The above photo was taken in the C19, and although the Judges’ Lodgings are bereft of their roof, the characteristic Tudor gables are still in place.  Above the entrance is the coat of arms of Sir Henry Sydney, as recorded by Dineley.  His heraldic device is a pheon, an arrow head with indented edges, surrounded by the Order of the Garter.
We have an inkling of Ludlow in the 1580s in the poetry of Thomas Churchyard, Shrewsbury-born and previously a soldier.  In truth, he had something in common with William McGonagall, the Scottish Victorian poet infamous for the doggerel verse penned to the memory of the Tay Disaster Bridge.
But Churchyard did record the high summer of the Council in the Marches in his poem, Worthiness of Wales, published in 1587, in which he refers to Ludlow as “On every side thereof fayre houses are, That make a shew, to please both mynd and eye.”
The ‘fayre’, that is to say beautiful, houses were owned by Council officials.  One of these was “the fayre house of Maister Sackford which he did build” that we now know as Castle Lodge.
It is, unquestionably, the finest example of a Councillor’s house to survive to the present day.  Significantly, it was built of stone at a time when most properties in medieval Ludlow would have been timber-framed.  Built in the 1570s by Thomas Sackford, he took his name from his family’s home, the village of Seckford in Suffolk, and was Steward to Sir Henry Sydney.  He was also Porter of Ludlow Castle, being responsible for prisoners and he was able to benefit from the payments made by the richer of them for their comforts.  Another office was that of MP for Bridgnorth.  He died in 1588 and the lease on Castle Lodge and the position of Porter was taken over by a Devonian named Robert Berry.  Unlike many of his contemporaries, he was a member of Ludlow Corporation, served as High Bailiff on four occasions and was the town’s MP.
Berry also left his mark on the building because he added the timber-framed upper storey, probably in the 1590s.
The structure next to the Lodge at the top of Mill Street is the Butchers’ Shambles, demolished in 1739 by the lawyer, Benjamin Karver, the Lodge’s then occupant.

The exterior of Castle Lodge was rendered, probably in the late C18, when stone and timber-framed buildings became unfashionable.  Both materials remained so concealed until 1895 when the stucco was stripped off and ivy planted in its place.
This is when it was The Castle Lodge Private Hotel, between the 1920s and 1946.  The bay window overlooking Mill Street dates from the C18, more appropriate windows replaced the sashes, but the Lodge’s structure and scale remains impressive.
Ludlow nearly lost Castle Lodge, as can be seen from the above report in the Birmingham Mail of June 1938.  Perhaps we have the outbreak of WW2 the following year to thank for its survival?
Picture

  


Castle Lodge was not the only Ludlow building to be so
threatened with export to  America. 
In 1929, there were fears that The Feathers could be dismantled
and shipped across the Atlantic……

High Hall stands on the opposite side of Castle Square to Castle Lodge and the location so close to the Castle made it favoured by lawyers who practised at the Council.  There were previously two houses on the site, the one nearest to the Castle having been occupied in the mid-1600s by John Aston, a lawyer, town bailiff and MP.  His next-door neighour was Sir Charles Foxe, a member of the Council in the Marches.  We will be encountering the Foxe family later.
In about 1667 this property, rebuilt after the Civil War, passed to Sir Timothy Littleton, a judge and one of six Welsh Justices of Great Sessions, a Council member, and MP and Recorder of Ludlow.  Nationally, he was one of the so-named “fire judges” whose role was to settle property disputes following the Great Fire of London.  Prior to moving to Castle Square, he had occupied The Feathers as a tenant.
Later, in 1682, both properties were sold to Edward Kettleby, another lawyer, and in 1773 his descendant passed it on to James Poole, a barrister, who was responsible for building the present house.
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The Great Stone House stood on the site of present-day Nos. 8 and 9 Mill Street.
There was a further, larger property in Mill Street, occupied by a Council official.  The Clerk of the Signet (no law could be enacted without his seal) was the resident of The Great Stone House.  It stood on the site of the present-day Georgian properties of Nos. 8 and 9.
There is a passing reference to it in the lease of 7 Mill Street which in 1657 referred to it “being a tenement and garden next above The Great Stone House.”

Traces of it have all but disappeared, but take a look at the south elevation of No. 9 Mill Street (above left).  You will notice that the upper section has been rendered.  A few years ago, the south stone wall of the Great Stone House was exposed to view, and I am grateful to Michael Page for this photograph.  Apart from anything else, it give you an idea of the height of the original, which probably resembled Castle Lodge in appearance.
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Nos. 35 - 37 Broad Street.
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Vogelsanck and Lens’ painting of Ludlow dating from 1722.
Another lost Council property of similar size once stood at the south western end of Broad Street, today occupied by Nos. 35-37.  This was what Thomas Churchyard described as “a fayre house by the gate of the making of Justice Walter”, the lawyer in question being Edmund Walter.
In the 1560s, he is said to have obtained the site of five burgage plots, three in Broad Street and two behind in Maryvale, now known as Silk Mill Lane, by what David Lloyd has described as “methods that were not entirely scrupulous.”  Walter had a reputation for hot temper and hard drinking.   He was accused by Council Vice President, Sir John Throckmorton, as being “a man full of passion and rancour, a common drunkard…”, but as Throckmorton was later convicted of forgery, perhaps it was a case of pots and kettles….
It should be mentioned that Edward Walter’s daughter, Mary, was the mother of Timothy Littleton, who, as just recorded, lived at High Hall. 
Practically all traces of Walter’s house has disappeared, but we do have an idea of what it looked like from Vogelsanck and Lens’ painting of Ludlow dating from 1722.  The five gables can clearly be seen and house was, in all probability, built of brick, possibly the earliest use of the material in the town.
This is Edmund Walter’s tomb on the south wall of the chancel in St. Laurence’s. He died in 1594 but it was not erected until some 30 years later and probably accounts for the fact that the date f his death is incorrectly recorded as 1592.  This monument was initiated in the will of his eldest son, James, who died in 1625. 

(See Footnote 3 - Walter Monument in St. Laurence’s Church). 

You will notice that the inscription on Walter’s tomb indicates that he married Mary, the daughter of Thomas Hackluyt, who was clerk to the Council of the Marches.  We’ll be meeting him later.  This is the finest of the tombs in the chancel.  It should be said that, following the Reformation, the chancel was no longer used for services of worship taking place in the nave.  So it became a sort of chantry chapel for the local Tudor aristocracy. And that meant officers and members of the Council in the Marches.
Picture1577 map of Edmund Walter’s holdings in Bringewood Chase.




   This is the earliest known map of Ludlow, although it only shows a fragment of the  town.  It dates from 1577, and was drawn to show Edmund Walter’s holdings in Bringewood Chase.  It also depicts his son, James’s, country seat, The Moor at Bishop’s Castle, together with a romanticised rendering of the ruined castle, top right.

PictureThe Foxe's coat of arms.
Look at the top left-hand corner of this building, which is clearly a church.  It is the only known image of St. John’s Hospital in Lower Broad Street.  This is its Church of St. John that stood on the north-eastern side of Ludford Bridge, which is also shown, together with its three arches.
It was then occupied by one William Foxe, a local landowner.  I always feel there’s a whiff of gunpowder about the Foxes, arguably the richest and most powerful family in South Shropshire.  The Ludlow historian, Henry Weyman, got it about right when he wrote that the Foxes owed much of their importance to three causes, namely, “the Dissolution of the Monasteries; the Court of the Marches of Wales, and to marriages with heiresses.”
William Foxe, the founding father, in 1536 and on the expectation of its dissolution by Henry VIII, purchased St. John’s Hospital “in consideration of a certain sum of money”.  Founded in the early C13 century, it had offered accommodation to the travellers visiting Ludlow.  It covered a large area, occupying much of the south eastern side of Lower Broad Street and owned much valuable property in the town.  William then transformed it into a commodious town house.  In the process, he took over the manor of Ludford and St. Giles’ House, owned by St. John’s since the C14.  One branch of the Foxe family lived there until 1638, selling to Robert Charlton, a successful London goldsmith.
What survives today is built of stones from the original buildings.  This reconstructed arch may have been the repositioned chancel arch of St. John’s Church or could even have been the front door of the building.

The Foxes’ coat of arms can be seen on the left of this plaster shield positioned above the entrance of the Edward IV room at The Feathers’ hotel.  Heraldry is full of imagery and puns and here you can see the fox’s head and the axes of the Hackluyt family.  An axe is used for hacking - get it….?
The Hackluyts hailed from Eyton, near Leominster and Thomas Hackluyt, who built the house that became The Feathers, had been appointed secretary of the Council in the Marches in 1528.
William Foxe’s eldest son, Edmund, married Katherine, Thomas Hackluyt’s widow, and he agreed to bring up her sons.  This may be the reason for this coat of arms being displayed where it is.
William’s second son was Charles, an ambitious lawyer of the Inner Temple, who not only became Secretary of the Council of the Marches in 1558, effectively its chief executive, for life, but he was Clerk of the Signet and also the Clerk who kept the records and registers.  The last two offices alone were worth £400 and £500 a year respectively.  These were all positions of immense power but, when combined, Charles Foxe’s position appeared unassailable.

In the mid-C16, and no doubt to reflect his status, Charles built a large house of brick and stone around a central court in what is now Quality Square.  The name no doubt reflected the opulence of the original.  Thomas Churchyard wrote of “the fayre house that Master Secretary Fox did bestow great changes on.”  In doing so Foxe took over two 49ft. burgages, which had already absorbed no less than three original plots, making six in all.
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The front (left) and back of the 'fayre house' in Quality Square.
PictureThe west wing of Charles Foxe's house in Quality Square.
The house survived in this form until the C18, when the market frontage and later the south wing, now much diminished, were rebuilt, but you can get an idea of the scale of the original.

The west wing is of a particular interest.  It is built, in part, of brick, and is probably the earliest surviving example of brick in the town, a material that spread to England from the Low Countries.  Hampton Court, the best-known Tudor brick building, dates from 1514. 
This is a typical example of Elizabethan brickwork.  The bricks of English bond are handmade and thus irregular in shape, the mortar being lavishly applied between them to remedy the deficiency.  Charles Foxe, who would have been familiar with the new building material from regular visits to London, had his finger on the fashionable pulse.  He also installed a long gallery on the first floor, a familiar feature in country houses but a rare one in town properties.

Foxe died in 1590 and, perhaps realising the end was near, that year endowed these almshouses for four occupants in Corve Street.
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Foxe's Almshouses in Corve Street.
PictureNo. 27 Broad Street.
Nothing elaborate from one of the richest men in Shropshire, perhaps he considered it sufficient to avoid too long in purgatory. 
To paraphrase John Newman in Pevsner, they are “as plain as plain could be.”



Another house that absorbed a number of burgage plots with Council associations was the site of 27 Broad Street although the present house is later, having been built in the early C18 for Sir Francis Charlton, now resident in Ludford. 

Prior to this, William Lane, who was one of the Clerks of the Signet and Charles Foxe’s assistant, had united three burgage plots, two in Broad Street and one in Brand Lane, under common ownership and built three houses, later converted to one, on the land.

The impact of the Council in the Marches not only applied to houses of officials who chose to settle in Ludlow.  Many visitors came to the town to do business at the Castle and inns sprang up to accommodate them.  Just three of these were in Broad Street, namely The Angel (below left) at the Buttercross end of the street which was recorded as an inn in 1551.  The Crown, on the opposite side of the road on the site of Nos. 56 - 58, was the largest building in town with 18 hearths.   Oriel House (below right) was built on the site of the Talbot Inn, so mentioned in 1492; it was owned at the time by the Earls of Shrewsbury, whose family name was Talbot.
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The Angel Inn on Broad Street.
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Oriel House, on the site of the former Talbot Inn.
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This is a reconstruction of the Austin Friary at Galdeford which stood on the site now occupied by the Smithfield car park.  The drawing was the work of Ludlow architect, Herbert Evans, based on excavations undertaken there in 1861.
Another victim of the Dissolution of the Monasteries of 1538, the buildings were rapidly demolished and the materials sold off for £17 18s 4d.  In 1547, Norfolk-born Sir Robert Townshend, Chief Justice of Chester and a Council member, took a lease on the site and built a large property there.  This was another of Churchyard’s “fayre houses.”   Sir Robert died in 1556 and the property was taken over by his son, Sir Henry, also Chief Justice of Chester and, like his father, a Marches Councillor. 
Sir Robert’s tomb, with juxtaposed Medieval and Renaissance themes set within a Gothic canopy, is located against the north wall of the sanctuary close to the high altar of St. Laurence’s.  The recess is of significance because it was the redundant Easter Sepulchre, it was always in this location, central to a solemn ceremony of resurrection in the Roman Catholic church.  It may have originally contained an Easter Garden or a statue of Christ.  Townshend was a Catholic and on-going veneration for the Sepulchre was indicated by his family placing his tomb in this position.  The Reformers did not regard this part of the church as being holy; in their eyes the Sepulchre would have been seen as a superstitious monument.
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Monument to Sir Robert Townshend and his wife, Alice.

One Council official who combined his office with being a preacher at St. Laurence’s was Thomas Kay.  Born in Middleton, Yorkshire, and a Cambridge graduate, he was appointed the Council’s chaplain in 1611 and during his time in Ludlow also enjoyed a living at Barnburgh in Yorkshire.  Kay is today what we could call an entrepreneur.  His salary was augmented by property rentals from a number of houses in Old Street, as well as the Preacher’s House there and two houses and gardens in Maryvale, that is Silk Mill Lane.
In 1616 Thomas Kay built one of Ludlow’s finest properties, namely The Reader’s House, so-called because in the C18 it was occupied by the curate, who read out parts of the lesson during services.
A house had occupied the site since the C12.  But by the early C17, this stone property, complete with distinctive roof lantern with glazed apertures, was reported to be in a ‘ruinous’ state, with perhaps only this western wall, complete with chimney stacks, left standing.  This is why there are no large windows on this elevation.
Kay had leased the site from the Corporation in 1611, which included some shops in the Bull Ring, and transformed the ruin into the fine three-storey house you can see today.  The magnificent timber-framed porch bears the date of 1616, the year of its construction.
This view of the house from the south (left) reveals that only the westerly stone wall from the earlier property remains although the full impact of the timber-framing initiated by Kay is not apparent until it is viewed from the east.
This (right) is the side that we don’t usually see. Originally there were two gables, the southerly one having been demolished.  Incidentally, when the then owner, Simon Buteux, excavated the garden in the early 2000s, he found the foundations of the earlier stone house on the site, with walls no less than 4ft. thick, suggesting it was a substantial structure.
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Monument to Edward Waties and his wife, Martha.
The eastern end of the Reader’s House faced the Bull Ring, and another house, just a few doors down the hill, was occupied by a Council member, one Edward Waties.  Like Foxe’s house, this one also possessed a gallery and contained six chambers.  Above is Waties’ monument in the chancel of St. Laurence’s.  We not only know what he looked like, but also his wife, Martha, who died in 1629.  She was the daughter of Sir Charles Foxe, Council secretary Charles Foxe’s son.  Edward Waties had this memorial erected before his death in 1635.
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Like the Foxes, Edward Waties was a local man.  His father, John, a wealthy dyer and High Bailiff of Ludlow, lived at the lower end of Corve Street, by the river; it was one of six houses he owned.  Today it is named The Merchant House and happens to be our family home.

Edward probably attended Ludlow Grammar School.  He then went to Brasenose College, Oxford, to read law, returning to Ludlow to practise at the Council of the Marches and became the town’s Recorder.  

As we have seen, he also married well.
Edward Waties owned the town house today known as The Feathers Hotel for some 15 years through the good offices of his father-in-law Charles Foxe. Previously it had belonged to Thomas Hackluyt.
In 1619 Edward sold the property to a friend, another wealthy attorney who practised at the Council, one Rees Jones, and it was he who was responsible for visually transforming and enlarging the property.  Rees Jones had married Edward’s widowed sister-in-law, Isabell, and following Jones’ death, his house became The Feathers Inn in 1670.  It was named in recognition of the owner’s connection with the Council in the Marches, feathers being the crest of the Prince of Wales and a pointer to the royal ownership of Ludlow Castle.
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The Feathers in 1882.
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The Feathers circa 1840.
The drawing of The Feathers on the left dates from 1822.  It is of particular interest because it shows the front door in its original location under the north gable, that is proud of the other two.  I’ve featured the second drawing of circa 1840 because it shows the two gables at the northern end, something I’d like you to bear in mind on the next image.
This familiar view of The Feathers dates from 1846 and you’ll see that the entrance has been moved from its north end position to the centre of the building, where it remains today.  But what is also of interest is that it has acquired a chimney stack on the north side, which necessitated the demolition of the rear gable we saw in the previous illustration.
Now let’s go inside The Feathers and to the King James I Lounge on the first floor on the northern side of the present entrance.  It’s a magnificent room with this impressive C17 plaster ceiling, recently restored by craftsman Stuart Preece.  Look at the tableware, and this was just the coffee room!  The Feathers had been transformed into a quality hotel by Robert Edwards, one-time Mayor of Ludlow, who bought it in 1870.  But the reason I am showing this photograph is because you will see it has a fireplace which can only date from the 1840s, when the chimney stack was built.

Although the fireplace is Victorian, the magnificent overmantel dates from the early C17.  Its centrepiece is the coat of arms of King James I, hence the room’s name, who was also James VI of Scotland.  This was, incidentally, the first occasion that the English lion was joined by the unicorn of Scotland.  Prior to that, the Welsh dragon of the Tudors had kept company with the English beast.
The overmantel is not an original fitment.  Its most likely place of origin is Ludlow Castle and its quality - look at the lovely Renaissance detail with its triumphal Roman arch flanked by caryatids - can only provide an inkling of the grandeur of its interior at the time of the Council of the Marches.
This was the Council’s seal at the time of Charles II, although the institution was only destined to survive for a further four years after his death in 1685.
It was at the start of the reign of William and Mary, in 1689, that the Council, which was in a diminished state by this time, was abolished and reflected the growing power of the Westminster parliament.
But the landed gentry, having grown accustomed to Ludlow, continued to build houses here in the C18, and provided the town with some of its finest Georgian architecture.
 
So how can we judge the Council in the Marches? A C16 view came from George Owen, a member of the Welsh gentry.  He wrote that it was “the best cheap court in England for fees, and there is a great speed made in trial of all causes.”
The last word should go to Penry Williams, who in his academic study of the Council, wrote:
“Its faults were many but we cannot escape the conviction that, at a time when the whole machinery of Tudor administration was labouring under heavy burdens, the Council in the Marches was making some contribution to good government and was not much worse than many other courts.”

Some 300 years on, in physical terms, its impact has been enduring. It remains all around us and ensures that Ludlow looks like no other Shropshire town.
 
We are experiencing the afterglow of a lost regional capital.
Jonathan Wood


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FOOTNOTE 1 - Ambrosia Sydney
Ambrosia Sydney, 4th daughter of Sir Henry Sydney died in 1574 aged 9. Her tomb is dated 1580 and stands on the south side of chancel. Elaborate monuments to children at this time were uncommon, unless they were heirs or heiresses, and, although Henry commissioned monuments to two of her older sisters, this seems an extraordinary display of parental love.
Her father gave instructions to his secretary about its construction, referring to an ‘oratory’ and ‘kneeling place’, which suggests that the tradition of a family chapel, with a tomb-chest resembling a small altar, was still current forty years after the Reformation. The small tomb-chest without an effigy is set back into the wall, leaving seating space on either side.

Thomas Churchyard's long 1589 poem, The Worthiness of Wales mentions ‘a closet fair … where lords may sit in stately solemn wise … ’ and to ‘the top of fair touchstone’. This refers to the use of the black polished stone, often called marble, which was imported from the Netherlands for high class tombs. The rest of the monument is of oolitic limestone. The simple carved details with sunburst motif are classical, but pride of place goes to the heraldic features, although these have been repainted and differ from descriptions in antiquarian records.
As a female child, Ambrosia had no arms other than her father's. These are displayed at the top of the monument within a lozenge form, the traditional heraldic form for women. The arms are enriched by the Order of the Garter, which Henry had received in 1564, and include the family motto quo fata vacant ‘where destiny falls’. On the right are the arms of her uncle and godfather Ambrose Dudley, 3rd Earl of Warwick, from whom she derived her name. On the left are those of her mother, Mary Sydney née Dudley: her husband Henry's arms impaled with the Dudley arms and the initials M.S. The chest below repeats the three shields but with Ambrose Dudley's in the centre — perhaps a reflection of his probable role as godfather.
The Sydneys were a very well-connected family. Henry Sydney was President of the Council of the Marches — effectively the Government of Wales — from 1560 to 1586 and served two terms as Lord President of Ireland. His wife Mary Dudley was a daughter of the 2nd Earl of Warwick and brother of Elizabeth I's favourite Robert Dudley. She served as lady-in-waiting to the Queen. Ambrosia's elder brother Philip Sydney, the poet and scholar, was another favourite of the Queen. Her sister Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, was a remarkable poet and lady of letters. Her brother Robert was a statesman who was made Earl of Leicester in 1618.
Sir Henry Sydney died in 1586 and was buried at his own request at the family seat of Penshurst in Sussex, but his heart was buried in Ambrosia's tomb at Ludlow in a lead heart coffin which is now in the British Museum. This could be interpreted as Sydney's devotion to his daughter, loyalty to Ludlow, where he had lived and worked so long, or perhaps a deliberate echo of the supposed heart burial at Ludlow of Prince Arthur, an earlier head of the Council. Sir Henry's proposed heraldic tomb at Penshurst was never built so perhaps Ambrosia's can in a way be regarded as a monument to this extraordinary family as a whole.
Ludlow Palmers. https://www.ludlowpalmers.uk/m1-ambrosia-sidney.html

FOOTNOTE 2 - The Heraldic Roll.
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In the late C16, Sir Henry Sydney, Lord President of the Council of Wales and the Marches, set up a collection of the coats of arms of a number of people of significance associated with the castle. They were displayed in the chapel of St Mary Magdalene in the inner bailey. As well as including all the current members of the Council, he included the arms of past owners from Walter de Lacy in the 11th Century down to Queen Elizabeth I.
A few years later, Sir Henry decided to create a permanent record of these shields. They were copied onto a long roll, made of pieces of parchment, and each one was labelled. Although the original shields are long gone, the roll has survived. The Heraldic Roll is a fantastically preserved pictorial record (on parchment) of 42 heraldic shields, which was originally placed in the chapel of St Mary Magdalene in the inner bailey of the castle on 23rd January 1574, with accompanying text. The roll itself is about 10cm wide and 4.5m long and is made from seven pieces of animal skin, sewn together.
 It is in three sections:
  1. 11 (supposed) owners of Ludlow castle; from Walter de Lacy to Queen Elizabeth I
  2. 23 Members of the Council in the Marches of Wales, including the Lord President at the time, Sir Henry Sydney.
  3. 8 former Lord Presidents

Hugh Wood, former Chairman of The Conservation Trust for St. Laurence, Ludlow and the Mortimer Society, played a vital role in bringing the Heraldic Roll back to Ludlow Castle.  When art dealer Miles Wynn Cato attended a tour of St Laurence’s church that Hugh organised in October 2015, Hugh introduced the group to much of the heraldry in the church.  Miles had some experience of pedigree rolls and had seen the roll for sale some years previously. All he knew was that it contained coats of arms relating to Ludlow. With his help, Hugh contacted the dealer who, mercifully, still had the roll, and arranged to view it in a toyshop in Portobello Road, London. The dealer had had the roll assessed by a herald who vouched for its authenticity. It had been partly eaten by rodents and had been expertly repaired.
On returning to Ludlow, Hugh gathered together a group of interested local people.  A successful appeal by the Mortimer History Society (https://mortimerhistorysociety.org.uk/) and Friends of Ludlow Museum (http://friends-of-ludlow-museum.com/)  enabled the purchase of the roll. 
To ensure its preservation in suitable environmental conditions, the original will be kept at Shropshire Archives (ref 9546)
As a result of the Heraldic Roll project, you can view high resolution images of the Heradic Roll on the Shropshire Archives website (https://www.shropshirearchives.org.uk/blog/ludlow-castle-heraldic-roll/) and zoom into the incredible and colourful detail.


FOOTNOTE 3 - The Walter Monument in St. Laurence’s Church.
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Edmund and Mary Walter, depicted on their monument in the chancel of St. Laurence’s Church.
“ heere lye the bodies of Edmund Walter esquier Chieffe Justice of three shiers in South Wales and one of his Majesties Councill in the Marches of Wales, and of Mary his (first) wife, daughter of Thomas Hacklyit of Eyton esquier who had issue three sonnes named James, John and Edward and two daughters named Mary and Dorothy. He was buried the XXlX the Daye of Januarie AD 1592"
 
Although the inscription is 1592 Edmund died in 1594.  The tomb was provided for in the will of his son James who died unmarried in 1625 "to have erected over my father and mother some fitting remembrance ...where they lie."
 
Edmund came from Staffordshire and won a reputation as a "good gainer at the barre" though his methods were at best unscrupulous. He enjoyed a successful practice in the Court of the Marches at Ludlow. Promoted to the Council of the Marches in 1576, on the recommendation of Sir Henry Sydney, he became a Welsh judge three years later, shortly after leasing Ludlow castle. He was Chief Justice, Brecknock circuit, South Wales, The Walter estate known as ‘Mary Vale’ lay to the west of Ludlow. He was benefactor of an ‘almshouse, infirmary and traveller’s hostel,’ He also owned an estate called The Moor which he bequeathed to his son John.
Born in 1519, Edmund was the son of Robert Walter / Waller of Beaconsfield & Elizabeth Tryon Fryer.  He married Mary, b1518, daughter of Thomas Hackluyt /Hackluit esq of Eyton Herefordshire, by his second wife, Katherine, daughter of Thomas Trentham of Shrewsbury, and Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Corbet and Elizabeth Devereaux.  Thomas Hackluyt was Clerk of the Council in the Marches of Wales. His widow, Katherine, subsequently married Edmund Foxe of Ludford, Burgess (M.P.) for Ludlow, son and heir of William Foxe of Stoke by Greet and St. John’s Hospital, Ludlow, and Jane, daughter of Richard Downe of Ludlow.
 
Edmund and Mary Walter had 16 children, five of whom, James, Mary, John, Edward and Dorothy, are depicted kneeling round the monument in St. Laurence's.
James, 1563-1625, first son of Edmund and Mary, died unmarried and by his will erected the Walter monument.  Educated at Brasenose, Oxford, he was called to the bar in 1586.  He worked in New Radnor Boroughs in 1589 through his father, in whose circuit Radnorshire lay.  James himself was a country gentleman, probably the James Walter who in 1595 leased property at Knocklas and elsewhere in Radnorshire, formerly belonging to the Earl of March. He died on 24 June 1625, and was buried in Ludlow church, as he had asked in his will, drawn up in February the same year: he requested his brother John to see that a monument was erected there to their parents. Among the bequests was an annual sum of £20 from his lands at Richard’s Castle, Shropshire, of which £10 was to be distributed among the inmates of Hosyer’s almshouse, and the rest divided between the rector and preacher of Ludlow.
His sister, Mary, married Sir Edward Littleton of Munslow, Shropshire.
James’s younger brother John (later Sir John) kept up the legal tradition of the family, becoming chief baron of the Exchequer.  John married first Margaret, daughter of William Offley, then Anne, daughter of William Witham, widow of Sir Thomas Bigg, of Norton, Worcestershire. They are all buried at Wolvercote, Oxon. 
Dorothy, b.1572, married Lloyd Sheriff of Montgomeryshire, son of David Lloyd and Lowry Gwyn.


FOOTNOTE 4 - St. John's Hospital: The Hospital of the Holy Trinity, the Virgin Mary, and St. John the Baptist, Ludlow.
This hospital stood at the northern end of Ludford Bridge, in Ludlow, and was founded by the Ludlow burgess Peter Undergod.  In his foundation charter, probably executed in the 1220s, Undergod endowed the hospital with a fulling mill on the Teme, which he had acquired from Walter de Lacy's son Gilbert, and with rents in Ludlow and lands at Rock (in Stanton Lacy) and Ludford.  It is clear from the charter that the hospital was already in existence and that Undergod was then its master.  Walter de Lacy, as manorial lord, executed at least four charters in favour of the hospital before his death in 1241.  In addition to confirming the foundation charter, he granted the hospital exclusive rights to full the cloth of the men of Ludlow, liberty to trade on his estates quit of toll, and the amercements of his tenants in Rock and Stanton Lacy manors. It was not felt necessary to secure royal confirmation until 1266. 
By 1255 the hospital's endowments included 6 burgages in Ludlow, 8 virgates in Rock, 16 a. in Richard's Castle, and half a virgate in Corfham;  by the end of the C13 it possessed lands in Overton  and its Ludford property included a wood.  Grants to the hospital under mortmain licences between 1316 and 1364, which also covered a few properties acquired in the later C13, included 34½ burgages or other house property in Ludlow, 2 mills and some 90 a. in Ludford, and £3 17s. 10d. rents in Ludlow, Ludford, and Hawkbatch in Arley (Worcs.).  The hospital also appears to have obtained possession of the manor of Ludford shortly after 1330. 
Nearly all these grants to the hospital were made by Ludlow burgesses, although a grant in 1354 to endow a chantry by Joan, widow of Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, is the first indication of a close relationship with the earls of March, whose patronage guaranteed the hospital's survival at a period when Ludlow burgesses seem to have diverted their interests to the Palmers' Guild.  The foundation charter had made no reference to a patron, merely directing that masters were to be chosen by the brethren from among their number, but rights of patronage appear to have been vested in the Lacy family following Walter de Lacy's confirmation, and passed with Ludlow manor to the Mortimers in the early C14. In 1369 the Crown claimed the right to appoint a master during the minority of Edmund, Earl of March, but its nominee was not instituted and in the following year licence was given to the brethren to elect a master themselves.  A further attempt to foist a Crown nominee was made in 1391.  During the C15, however, the earls themselves appear to have been content to confirm the candidate elected by the brethren. 
In 1417 Edmund, Earl of March, gave the hospital licence to convert its fulling mills on the Teme into corn mills and to grind the corn of the inhabitants of Ludlow there, and in 1458 his nephew, Richard, Duke of York, granted to it the chapel of St. Mary Magdalen in Ludlow castle. Patronage of the hospital passed to the Crown on the accession of Edward IV. In consideration of the losses suffered by the hospital at the hands of the Lancastrians, presumably during the sack of Ludlow following the 'Rout of Ludford' (1459), Edward IV in 1466 granted it the right to hold view of frankpledge on its estate in Ludlow, Ludford, Rock, Hawkbatch, and Overton, and acquitted it of clerical taxation and of suit at the county and hundred courts.  Mortimer patronage may account for the comparative esteem in which the hospital was held locally in the early C15. On at least three occasions it was called upon to act as guarantor that endowments of Palmers' Guild obits were applied to their proper purposes. In 1407 the master was among those appointed to collect a clerical tax in the diocese,  in 1433 a papal bull obtained by the parishioners of Ludlow was deposited at the hospital, and in 1435 the master was empowered to conduct a visitation on behalf of the bishop in Ludlow and at Limebrook Priory (Herefordshire).  These features may, however, be no more than a reflection of the local reputation of the master, Hugh Ferrour. 
Little is known of the hospital's internal life. Its original function was to provide relief for the poor and infirm, and its site at the entrance to the town suggests that it was also intended as a rest-house for travellers. By the early C15, the hospital seems to have developed into a small college of priests whose principal functions were to serve chantries and obits in the hospital church and in the chapels at Ludlow castle. Masters of the hospital were usually referred to as priors after 1300 and the institution was known indifferently as a hospital or a priory in the C15 and C16. The decay of hospitality to poor travellers and strangers was among the reasons given for the annexation of the chapel of St. Mary Magdalen in 1458 and an appreciable part of the hospital's income continued to be spent on alms until its dissolution.
The foundation charter had directed that the brethren should be regulars, living under certain religious rules and, as in many other hospitals, the Augustinian rule had been adopted here by the later C14.  Their claim to be regulars led to occasional clashes between the brethren and the bishop of Hereford, as in 1435, when they submitted to the collation by the bishop of one of their number as master but indicated that this should not be treated as a precedent.  In 1512 the master refused to proffer obedience to the bishop on the grounds that he was a regular of the order of St. Augustine.  If the lists of those brethren responsible for electing priors in the later Middle Ages represent all the brethren in residence, numbers were very small. Four brethren are named in 1384, two in 1435, and three in 1457.  By 1535 the hospital contained a master, and two chaplains, both of whom had been there for at least 20 years.  A deponent in the later C16 described the habit worn by the brethren: a hooded cape of murrey and blue with a cross on the breast. 
The hospital church was built at, or shortly after, its foundation and the hospital's right to celebrate divine service there was confirmed by the patron before 1241.  The hospital possessed rights of burial, at least for its inmates, since there is a reference to its graveyard in 1418.  An indulgence for the repair of the hospital's bells was obtained in 1411. 
The endowment of a daily mass in the hospital church by Richard of Eastham in 1364  was presumably only one of several such services of which no record survives. In the later Middle Ages, however, the principal obligation of the brethren was to maintain regular services for their Mortimer patrons in the castle chapels of St. Peter and St. Mary Magdalen. A service in St. Peter's chapel for Roger, Earl of March, was established by his widow in 1354 and in 1458, following the annexation of St. Mary's, Richard, Duke of York, specified in some detail the services to be performed in both chapels for his soul and that of his wife. 
The hospital seems to have fallen into decline during the mastership of John Holland (c. 1502-28). This was no doubt due in part to the absence of a local patron, although a fire said to have destroyed stores and crops belonging to the hospital in 1515 may also have contributed. Holland, who had been found guilty of incontinence before his election as master, found it necessary to expel one of the brethren, c. 1517.  He clearly took an interest in the management of the hospital estate, for he was presented at the borough court in 1526 for oppressing Whitcliffe Common with sheep and for inclosing the commons there in the following year. Holland was succeeded by Edward Leighton, an Oxford graduate who had 'made himself as bare as ever was Job' in seeking the appointment from Cardinal Wolsey and who had turned for help to Thomas Cromwell in October 1529.  In the following month the next presentation was granted to two of Leighton's kinsmen, one of whom was a doorward at the Tower of London, and Leighton was instituted prior in the following year.  Like his predecessor Leighton was presented for inclosing the commons; he may have farmed directly a part of the hospital estate, for in 1535, when the whole estate had a gross annual value of a little more than £30, its 'demesne lands' were separately assessed and were said to be worth £5 a year.  As in the C14, the estate then lay in Ludlow, Ludford, Overton, Rock, and Hawkbatch.  Although no detailed survey survives it is known to have included over 40 burgages in Ludlow. 
The forms of a religious life were still being observed in 1535, for two chaplains received stipends of £2 apiece, and £3 6s. 8d. was said to be spent annually on alms. A lay steward and receiver were employed, and a further £4 was being paid to a Crown corrodiary.  In 1537 Leighton granted the hospital to William Foxe and his son Edmund, and in 1539, with the consent of the bishop, Leighton surrendered the mastership to Charles, brother of Edmund Foxe, who subsequently received a pension of £6 a year from the grantees.  Although Edmund Foxe stated in 1546 that he was paying £9 19s. 8d. a year to the two priests for their service in the castle chapel of St. Peter and 60s. a year in alms, it is clear that conventual life had ceased by this date.  In 1547 the hospital's estates were granted by the Crown to John, Earl of Warwick, who immediately conveyed them to William and Edmund Foxe. 

Part of the hospital buildings was converted into a house, which was occupied by various members of the Foxe family until the early C17.  The church was still being used for worship, presumably as a private chapel, in 1564, when Jane, widow of William Foxe, left a chalice and other church goods there to her son Edward.  It was apparently intact in 1577, when a sketch shows a small rectangular building with a round-headed door on its northwest gable, two round-headed windows on the southwest wall, and a bellcote near the south-east gable.  The church was described as 'decayed' in 1593 and was largely demolished by Ludlow corporation in 1636, when the materials were used to repair the parish churchyard wall. 

St. John's House, facing Ludford Bridge at the corner of Lower Broad Street and Temeside, incorporates a small part of a building which originally stood at the south-west corner of the hospital site. Its west wall contains medieval masonry and there are remains of a pointed archway on the south gable. The latter has been largely reconstructed but the western jamb and the lower part of the arch, which are intact, date from the early C13. The Foxe family inserted upper floors in this part of the house and added a two-bay stone wing to the east in the later C16 or early C17. Other parts of the hospital may have survived in a range of tenements extending northwards on Lower Broad Street. These were occupied by 'labourers and journeymen artificers' in the mid-C18 but were rebuilt c. 1770.  The hospital site (2½ a.) was still accounted extra-parochial in 1790. 

Masters or Priors of St. John's Hospital, Ludlow.Peter Undergod, occurs c. 1220. 
Stephen, occurs 1293-7. 
John, occurs 1300. 
Richard, occurs 1346. 
William of Onibury, instituted 1349, died 1369. 
Richard de Wottone, instituted 1370.
Philip Kymley, elected 1384. 
Nicholas Stevens, occurs 1392. 
Hugh Ferrour, occurs from 1399,  died 1435. 
John Thorpe, collated 1435,  died 1457. 
Thomas Oteley, instituted 1457,  occurs 1466. 
John Holland, occurs 1502-28. 
Edward Leighton, instituted 1530,  resigned 1539. 
 
OVAL SEAL OF THE HOSPITAL
Impressions of the pointed oval seal of the hospital, attached to deeds, 1404-47,  measure 1¾ × 13/8 in. They show the seated figure of the Virgin with Child; a dove hovers above the Virgin's head and there is a crescent moon in a cusped niche at her feet. Legend, lombardic: . . . FRATRUM HOSPITALIS SANCTE . . .
 
Definitions:
Amercement(s).   
The term is of Anglo-Norman origin, and literally means "being at the mercy of": a-merce-ment.
Also:  to punish by a fine whose amount is fixed by the court. 
 
Collation.
The presentation of a member of the clergy to a benefice, especially by a bishop who is the patron or has acquired the patron's rights.

Corrody.A corrody was a lifetime allowance of food and clothing, and often shelter and care, granted by an abbey, monastery, or other religious house.
 
 Deponent.
A person who testifies under oath, especially in writing.
 
Frankpledge.
System in medieval England under which all but the greatest men and their households were bound together by mutual responsibility to keep the peace.
 
Indulgences.
A monetary payment of penalty,imposed by the Catholic church, which supposedly absolved one of past sins and/or released one from purgatory after death.
 
Mortmain Licences.
A licence of mortmain, or licence in mortmain (the French word means 'dead hand'), issued by the Crown was necessary after 1279 for any lands to be alienated, or conveyed.
 
Murrey.
Purplish black, mulberry.
 
Obits.
 A note recording a death. Obits were often entered into liturgical calendars to commemorate the deceased and can provide valuable provenance information.
Obit, a medieval mass of remembrance, named from the 3rd person singular perfect indicative active of the Latin verb ob-eo, to go away: "(s)he has gone away." 
 
Regular Clergy.
Clergy who are monks, living under a monastic Rule (regula), as opposed to secular clergy who live in the world and do not belong to a religious order.
 
Suit of Court .
Originally, all dwellers within the hundred were expected to attend, but gradually suit of court (attendance) became restricted to the tenants of specific land.
 
Acknowledgements:
Primary Source:  British History Online - a not-for-profit digital library based at the Institute of Historical Research. It brings together material for British history from the collections of libraries, archives, museums and academics. These primary and secondary sources, which range from medieval to twentieth century, are easily searchable and browsable online. Visit https://www.british-history.ac.uk
 
Citation:     M J Angold, G C Baugh, Marjorie M Chibnall, D C Cox, D T W Price, Margaret Tomlinson and B S Trinder, 'Hospitals: Ludlow (St John)', in A History of the County of Shropshire: Volume 2, ed. A T Gaydon and R B Pugh (London, 1973), pp. 102-104. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/salop/vol2/pp102-104 [accessed 11 April 2023].

C