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Petition of the tenants of Stoneley, Fynham and Hill, addressed to the king, alleging that they have enjoyed, for time out of mind, common of pasture in Dalley Hethe, Melborne Grene, all other common lands belonging to Mylborne Graunge, and three fields called Harpers Ley Felde; that after the suppression of the monastery of Stoneley one Humphrey Reynoldes took the said grange to farm for 6 pounds per annum, and let it out to others at 20 marks per annum; that one James Cruse, seeing the grange to be of such good value, entered into an agreement with the said Humphrey that, if he would allow him to purchase the said grange at the old rent, he would pay the said Humphrey £6. 13s. 4d. for 21 years; that since the said purchase the said James has forbidden the petitioners to common on the said lands; that, at a commission sent forth upon an earlier complaint, a register containing the old customs of the lordship of Stoneley, then in the keeping of the said Humphrey, was produced in evidence, but that, because it was erased in diverse places, nothing could be determined by it; that the said Humphrey, because he realised that, by the verdict of the aged inhabitants, the petitioners' right of common would be established, and because he was bound to the said James Cruse for peaceable possession of the said lands, persuaded six or seven of the tenants to allow him (?Cruse) to remain in possession of the common lands until Lammas Day, paying them 6 shillings, for which goodness he (?Reynolds) promised to reacquit them; but that the said James Cruse thereupon caused a deed to be engrossed `in the masse boke of Stoneley' granting him and his heirs the said premises forever, paying the said rent in the name of all the tenants; that one Henry Porter, with the support of the said Humphrey and James, keeps two or three hundred sheep on the commons of the petitioners. Endorsed: The tenauntes of the maner of Stonley concernyng a comon ther.

Related material

See no. DR10/1304.