From the same sources, namely from the records of the ancient Law Courts, as transcribed, translated, and published in the volumes of the Salt Society, we are enabled to gain a knowledge of the most prominent families in this locality during the Middle Ages. There seem to have been lawsuits ever since there were landowners.

The principal family in Willenhall were the Levesons or Leusons, who are said to have been connected with this place and the neighbouring parishes of Wednesbury and Wolverhampton, almost from the time of the Norman Conquest, eking out a living from the soil, of which their tenure was at first a very precarious one.

Their pedigree, given by the county historian, Shaw (II. p. 169), shows the founder to be one Richard Leveson, settled in Willenhall in the reign of Edward I. But we find that in the year before this king’s accession, namely, in 1271, Richard Levison paid a fine of 2s. 3d. in the Forest Court for being permitted to retain in cultivation an assart of half an acre, lying in Willenhall; that is, to be allowed to continue under the plough a piece of land on which he had grubbed up all the trees and bushes by the roots, to the detriment of the covert within the King’s Royal Forest of Cannock.

The founder of the family was succeeded by a son, and by a grandson, both of whom were also called “Richard Leveson, of Willenhall,” although the last one was sometimes designated as “of Wolverhampton,” to which town he was doubtless attracted by the greater profits to be made in the wool trade.

The early commercial fame of Wolverhampton was based on this industry. Although there were no wool-staplers here in 1340, yet in 1354, when the wool staple was removed from Flanders, Wolverhampton was one of the few English towns fixed upon by Parliament for carrying on the trade. (A staple, it may be explained, is a public mart appointed and regulated by law.) Although the staple was again changed to Calais, it was speedily brought back to England, and the Levesons were soon among the foremost “merchants of the staple.”

A Clement de Willenhale is mentioned in an Assize of the year 1338, but not improbably he was identical with the Clement Leveson mentioned in another lawsuit in 1356, a party to which was a member of the ancient local family of Harper—“John le Harpere,” as he is therein called.

Then there is mention in 1351 of the John de Willenhale, who is described as being in the wardship of the Prince of Wales. But perhaps the best insight into the social state of Willenhall at this period will be obtained from a consideration of its inhabitants liable to pay a war tax which was levied by Edward III. in order to enable him to carry on a war of defence against Scotland. For this popular military expedition, Parliament in 1327 granted the youthful king a Subsidy to the amount of one-twentieth leviable upon the value of nearly all kinds of property. Assessors and collectors were appointed for every town and village, and they were sworn to make true returns of every man’s goods and chattels, both in the house and out of it. The exceptions allowable were the goods of those whose total property did not amount to the full value of ten shillings; the tools of trade; and the implements of agriculture. On the face of it, these exemptions seem fair and just to the lower orders; but we find the higher orders were also favoured, and unduly so; not so much perhaps in the matters of armour and cavalry horses, as in the non-liability of the robes and jewels of knights, gentlemen, and their wives, as well as of their silver and household plate.

Here is a copy of the Subsidy Roll of 1327 so far as it relates to

Wyllunhale.

It will be seen that this fragment is imperfect, as the various amounts set down will not add up to the “summa” or total given, notwithstanding that it has been audited—the abbreviation “Pb.” standing for probata, or proved.

But more interest will be found in a brief study of the names of Willenhall’s inhabitants, who were men of substance seven hundred years ago.

It will be observed that Simon is the only member of the Leveson family assessed, and that he pays the least sum, except that paid by the man Hugh, described as “the Gardener” (the amount paid by “John the Baker” has been obliterated from the roll).

The strange surname Odyes, appearing twice in this list, occurs in another record of the year 1422, and seems to belong to a gentle family, resident in Willenhall, and owning lands in Bentley.

As but few people then bore recognised surnames, we find taxpayers here officially set down as “Richard the son of Ralph,” “John the son of Roger,” “Richard the son of Adam,” and “William the son of Robert.” Besides these named according to their parentage, we have those described according to their place of residence; as thus, “Andrew at the Mere,” and “Adam at the Mere”; “Agnes at the Wood,” and “William at the Pear Tree.” William Newman was probably so-called because he was a new-comer, or was lately emancipated from serfdom as a “new man.”

From the Patent Rolls of November, 1334, may be gleaned the bare facts of what seems to have been an extraordinary assault at Willenhall, which was committed upon John, son of John de Bentley, by no less than thirty assailants. Among those implicated may be noted the names of five members of the Leveson family, namely, Geoffrey, Moses, John, Simon, and Simon the younger; also the names of William, son of Robert atte Pirie, Andrew atte Mere, John le Harpere, Richard Coletes, Richard Colyns, and several others which have occurred before in these pages. The Leveson family continue to make many appearances in the records of Willenhall litigation at this early period. In 1347, Andrew, the son of Simon Levesone, of Willenhale, was sued for the treading down and consuming of the corn of Andrew in le Lone at Willenhale, with his cattle, and by force of arms, and for cutting down his trees, and beating and wounding his servant.

In the following year, Geoffrey Levesone, of Willenhale, brought a somewhat similar charge of trespass against John Oldejones, of Wodnesfeld. In 1362, Roger Levesone, of Willenhale, was successful in a suit for recovering two acres of land at Wolverhampton. About the same time Juliana Levesone, of Willenhall, married William Tomkys, a member of one of the leading families of Bilston.

In 1369, John de la Lone, of Wolverhampton, sued John Levesone, of Willenhale, for forcibly taking his fish, to the value of 100 shillings, “from his several fishery in Willenhale.”

In 1394, Roger Liefson (Leveson), of Wylenhale (who has been previously mentioned in Chapter VII.), was at law with Thomas Colyns, of the same place, for forcibly taking away from Willenhall twelve oxen belonging to him. Immediately after, one William de Chorley was attacked for taking away from Great Wyrley, also with a display of armed force, three oxen and two cows, the property of Richard Leveson, of Willenhall. If these two cases were not reprisals, they at least show a state of disturbance and insecurity.

Another exhibition of lawlessness is brought to our notice in 1429, when Richard Leveson is found suing Robert Dorlaston, weaver, Richard Colyns, lorymer, William Brugge, and William Bate, yeomen, all described as “of Wylenhale,” for violently and forcibly breaking into his close at Willenhall.

A similar case of forcible entry into the close and houses of James Leveson, at Willenhale, by one Roger Waters, a Willenhale lorymer, was an outrage which occupied the attention of the law courts in 1433.

Three years later (1436) another law case shows the same James Levesson suing John Pippard, chaplain, for a messuage and 20 acres of land in Wolverhampton, which he asserted had descended to him from Richard Levesson, of Willenhall, who held it in the time of Edward I., in a direct line, namely, from Richard to his son Geoffrey, from Geoffrey to his son Roger, and from Roger to his son Nicholas, who was plaintiff’s father.

By this time the Leveson family seems to have been not only firmly established in and around Willenhall, Wednesfield, and Wolverhampton, but to have been very numerous as well. Originally yeomen of the first-named place, cultivating their lands within the precincts of the Royal Forest of Cannock, they gradually grew and prospered, one branch taking advantage of the greater commercial opportunities offered by the last-named town, and settling there as merchants and wool-staplers.

Woolstapling was a prosperous trade in Wolverhampton as early as 1354; and in its ancient market place the Levesons of the younger branch were to be found bartering wool and steadily accumulating riches until they were able to marry into the most exclusive of the county families.

Among the Bailiffs of the Staple—which, in the case of Wolverhampton were wool and woolfel—we find the names of William Leveson in 1485, and Walter Leveson in 1491.

Members of other old and well-known local families also filled this office of Bailiff at various times, namely, William Jennings in 1483, Richard Gough in 1486, Edward Giffard in 1493, Y. Turton in 1496, and W. Wrottesley in 1499. If evidence were required of the enterprise of these Wolverhampton merchants, it would be forthcoming in the fact that a Leveson and a Jennings, both natives of this place (the latter a “merchant taylor” in 1508) filled the high office of Lord Mayor of London.

An Inquisition Post Mortem (one of those feudal inquiries into the extent of a man’s landed possessions which passed to his heirs) was held on the death of Henry Beaumont, lord of the Manor of Wednesbury, at Willenhall, on 28th June, 1472. Among those sworn of the jury on that occasion were James Leveson Esq., Richard Leveson, Esq., Cornelius Wyrley, Esq., Robert Leveson, Ralph Busshbury, Esq., and William Mollesley, all local magnates.

It has not been possible to identify all the members of this extensive family. There were two distinct branches of the Levesons or Luesons. The elder line were of Prestwood and Lilleshall, and produced Sir Richard Leveson, of Trentham; the younger branch, descended from William, the son of Richard Leveson, of Willenhall, produced the Sir Thomas Leveson who was the Royalist governor of Dudley Castle during the great Civil War (1643).

The elder line were “of Prestwood” because Nicholas Leveson, in the time of Henry VI. married Maud, heiress of John de Prestwood. The Lilleshall and other properties were fat church lands, purchased by the wealthy Levesons at the Dissolution of the Monasteries. It was a Richard Leveson of the Prestwood branch who acquired the Haling Estate in Kent by marriage with a Lord Mayor’s daughter, and died in 1539 after being himself Lord Mayor of London.

Also from this branch came the famous Vice-Admiral of England in Queen Elizabeth’s days. This gallant sea-dog, whose romance with the “Spanish Lady” has been retold by the present writer in his “Staffordshire Stories” (pp. 22–35), took part in that daring attack upon Cadiz which has been sung by Henry John Newbolt in his “Admirals All”—

Essex was fretting in Cadiz Bay
With the galleons fair in sight;
Howard at last must give him his way,
And the word was passed to fight.
Never was schoolboy gayer than he,
Since holidays first began:
He tossed his bonnet to wind and sea,
And under the guns he ran.

Admiral Leveson’s effigy in Wolverhampton Church stamps him as one of the heroes of old romance—his career was indeed remarkable, as may be read in the work alluded to.

The present-day representatives of the family are the Leveson-Gowers, the head of whom is the Duke of Sutherland. The Gowers were an Anglo-Saxon family seated in Yorkshire, and the union of the two occurred about the time of Charles I., when Sir Thomas Gower, then Sheriff of Yorkshire, married Frances, daughter and co-heir of Sir John Leveson, of Haling and Lilleshall.

At the time Richard Leveson was sailing the seas with Essex and Drake, there was a John Leveson living in Willenhall as lord of the manor, the site of his residence being still marked by the position of Levison Street and Moat Street.

In Wolverhampton “Turton’s Old Hall” was originally known as Leveson’s Hall; this massive old mansion, surrounded by its once deep and wide moat, is believed to have been erected by John Leveson, a wool merchant, who was High Sheriff of Staffordshire in 1561.

Truly the local record of the Levesons is a long and notable one; and it is interesting to note that John Leveson, son of Thomas, who had been Sheriff of the county, and died in 1595, is the last in Shaw’s pedigree to be described as “of Willenhale,” although in a succeeding chapter we shall find members of this family still seated on their native soil, Willenhall, as late as the years of the Jacobite Rebellions, 1715 and 1745.