Thank you for buying from Flatcapsandbonnets.com Click here to revisit THE • tstog of Or 6ttr4* anor of ratigan IN THE COUNTY OF LANCASTER. BY THE HONOURABLE AND REVEREND GEORGE T. 0. BRIDGEMAN, Rotor of Wigan, Honorary Canon of Liverpool, and Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen. (AUTHOR OF "A HISTORY OF THE PRINCES OF SOUTH WALES," ETC.) PART II. PRINTEDwww.flatcapsandbonnets.com FOR THE CH 1.71'HAM SOCIETY. 1889. Thank you for buying from Flatcapsandbonnets.com Click here to revisit 'tam of die cpurcl) ant) manor of Etligatt. PART II. OHN BRIDGEMAN was admitted to the rectory of Wigan on the 21st of January, 1615-16. JHe was the eldest son of Mr. Thomas Bridgeman of Greenway, otherwise called Spyre Park, near Exeter, in the county of Devon, and grandson of Mr. Edward Bridgeman, sheriff of the city and county of Exeter for the year 1562-3.1 John Bridgeman was born at Exeter, in Cookrow Street, and christened at the church of St. Petrok's in that city, in the paro- chial register of which is the following entry : " the seconde of November, A.D. 1597, John Bridgman, the son of Thomas Bridgman, was baptized." '1 Bishop John Bridgeman is rightly described by Sir Peter Leycester as the son of Mr. Thomas Bridgeman of Greenway, though Ormerod, in his History of Cheshire, who takes Leycester's Historical Antiquities as the groundwork for his History, erro- neously calls him the son of Edward Bridgeman, and Ormerod's mistake has been repeated by his later editor (Helsby's ed. vol. i. p. 99). My authority for his parent- age is the best that can be given, viz., a memorandum in his own handwriting, preserved among the family evidences at Weston. The Leger, or memorandum book, in which it occurs, is a MS. (marked No. 2) containing much valuable information, from which a list of loans, contributions and subsidies, and also of ship money, paid by the clergy of the diocese of Chester, between the years 162o and 1639 inclusive, has been published in vol. xii. of the Record Society for Lancashire and Cheshire. The Leger refers chiefly to matters between the years 16o8 and 1641, and contains more than Soo folio pages written in the minute and careful autograph of the bishop himself. It is in a good state of preservation, though a few of the early pages, containing tran- scripts of deeds connected with his paternal inheritance at Spyre Park, are damaged and partially corroded. This is the volume which will be generally referred to in this memoir, under the title of "Familywww.flatcapsandbonnets.com Evidences," where it is not otherwise specified. BB Thank you for buying from Flatcapsandbonnets.com Click here to revisit 82 History of the Church and Manor of Wigan. He commenced his college life at Oriel College, Oxford, from whence he removed to St. Peter's college, Cambridge. Anthony a Wood tells us that on 12th July, 1597, John Bridgeman, B.A., was incorporated at Oxford.' He was elected a fellow of Magdalene college, Cambridge, 31st October, 1599, having been proposed for election on 21st May, 1598, as it was then the custom to pre-elect before a vacancy actually occurred ; and the following entry records his election in the college books ; "Ego Yohannes Bridgman admissus fui in perpetuum Socium hujus Collegii pro domino fundatore in locum quem nuper resignavit Magister Paulus Brudenel tricesimo prima Octobris, A.D. I 5 99."2 Having commenced M.A. at Cambridge, on 11th April, 1600, he was admitted ad eundem at Oxford on 4th July of the same year.3 He was ordained deacon and priest by Dr. Thomas Dove, bishop of Peterborough, at Walden, 29th April, 1601, and quali- fied as his chaplain on 2nd August, of the same year.4 He was made university preacher on 1st July, 1603 ;5 and in the following year was preferred by his uncle, Mr. Jasper Bridgeman, to the prebend of Carswell attached to St. Mary's chapel in the castle of Exeter, to which he was admitted by Bishop Cotton on 20th February, 1603-4.6 It would seem that at this time he resided upon his fellowship at Magdalene college, for on 18th May, 1604, a notice occurs in the college books of his having leave of absence until the ensuing Michaelmas, reserving to him the rights and profits of his fellow- ship, dividend only excepted. This notice is signed by himself. On 4th October, 1604, he was instituted to the rectory of North Tawton, in Devonshire, void by the death of Christopher Cottle, on the presentation of Mark Cottle, Esq., and Richard Cottle, his son and heir, dated on 2nd July of that year.' Having now • Fasti Oxonienses. ▪ Ex inf. Hon. and Rev. Latimer Neville, Master of Magdalene college, Cambridge. 3 Fasti Oxonienses, vol. i. p. 286. • Family Evidences. 5 Ibid. 6 Register Cotton 791, (Diocesan Registry at Exeter). I www.flatcapsandbonnets.comEx inf. Hon. and Rev. L. Neville. Thank you for buying from Flatcapsandbonnets.com Click here to revisit History of the Church and Manor of Wigan. 1 83 A /J• accepted preferment in the church, he betrothed himself to his future wife Elizabeth Helyar, though his marriage did not take place till more than eighteen months afterwards. At this time the bishop of Peterborough, who seems to have been his constant friend, wrote a letter on his behalf to the Earl of Suffolk,2 then Lord Chamberlain, to ask preferment for him. In this letter, which is dated from Peterborough on 16th October, 1604, the bishop speaks of him as a fellow of Magdalene college, Cambridge, and says : "He is an honest man, a good scholer, and a rare preacher : this I doe report out of mine owne knowledge, being well acquaynted bothe Wth the sufficiencie of his learning and wth the synceritie of his lyfe by the meanes of his domesticall conversation wth me."3 Shortly afterwards, namely on 13th October, 1604, he was presented by King James I. to the rectory of Lezant, in the county of Cornwal1,4 and on the 21st of the same month to the vicarage of Alvington, in the county of Devon,5 to which last he was admitted on the 3rd of the following December.6 In the following year he accepted a prebendal stall in the cathedral church of Peterborough, to which he was collated on 13th April, 1603,7 by his friend and patron Bishop Dove, with whom he resided when at Peterborough. He was made chaplain in ordinary to King James I. in 1605, he was sworn at Grafton,8 and was in waiting at that summer's progress at Oxford. • Thomas Howard, first baron Howard de Walden, created Earl of Suffolk in 1603. • Reg. Cotton, folio 8o, and Family Evidences. 3 Contemporary copy of original letter among Family Evidences. 4 Family Evidences. S Rot. pat. 2 Jac. I., part 7, memb. 27. 6 Ex inf. T. Wilkinson, Esq. As no mention is made by Mr. Bridgeman, in his accou9ts, of either Alvington or Lezant, it is probable that he resigned them both before 16o8. 7 Le Neve's Ftuti, and Brown Willis's Survey of Cathedrals, vol. ii. p. 516. In both these he is entered as S.T.P., but it should probably be S.T.B., for he did not take his doctor's degree till 1612. ▪ Family Evidences. The King reached Grafton, the seat of the Earl of Cumber- land, on 16th August, where he remained four nights, and proceeded to Oxford on the loth (Nichol's Progresseswww.flatcapsandbonnets.com of ?fames I., vol. i. p. 527). Thank you for buying from Flatcapsandbonnets.com Click here to revisit 184 History of the Church and Manor of Wigan. In the meantime, namely, on 29th April, 1606, he married, in Dunchideock church, Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. William Helyar, archdeacon of Barnstaple, rector of Dunchideock and canon of Exeter.I Their eldest son, William Bridgeman, was born on 4th February, probably in his grandfather's house, at Dunchideock, where he was baptized on 6th February, 16o6-7. He died at Wigan in the loth year of his age, on the 26th of July, 1616,2 and was buried on the following day in the chancel of Wigan parish church.3 In the year 16o7 Mr. John Bridgeman was presented to the vicarage of Heavitree, near Exeter.4 It is probable that at this period of his life he resided at Exeter, for his second son Orlando (afterwards Lord Chief Justice and Lord Keeper of the Great Seal) was born there on 30th January, 1608-9, and baptized at St. George's church in that city two days afterwards by Mr. More, the sponsors being Mr. Jasper Bridgeman (his great uncle), Mr. Edward Gibbons, and Mrs. Elacot.5 On 5th October of that year he left Exeter with his household and took up his residence at Peterborough, where he lodged at first in the palace of the bishop, whom he paid for his diet at the rate of £20 per annum ; and on 28th October he was chosen by the dean and chapter, receiver and treasurer of the cathedral church of Peterborough. His third son, Dove, was born at Peter- borough in the bishop's palace on 21st March, 1609.--1o, and baptized in the cathedral on the 23rd of the same Month. In 1610 he resigned the rectory of North Tawton and the ' Ibid. In Le Neve's Fasti it is stated that William Helliar (Helyar) was collated to the archdeaconry of Barnstaple 27th November, 1605, and died about the end of 1645, &tat.