--A Century of Wars, Incursions, and Alarms (1640-1745).

Life in Willenhall, as in many other places during the Stuart period, was
not without its alarms and apprehensions. The trouble began when Charles
I., by the advice of Archbishop Laud, tried to force the English liturgy
upon Scotland. The resistance offered to this was the real beginning of
the English Revolution, for the King, in the attempt to carry out his
despotic will, had to enlist soldiers by force.

[Picture: Mosley Hall. Photo. by J. Gale, Wolverhampton]

In the year 1640 a special muster was made for the war against the Scotch
Covenanters; the men from Staffordshire consisted of trained bands who
had been employed in the previous year, and 300 men who were impressed
for the occasion. The service throughout the country was very unpopular,
and in some counties the men mutinied and murdered their officers.
Staffordshire did not escape some riots, and one of the most serious of
them occurred in front of Bentley Hall, a mile and a-half out of
Willenhall.

[Picture: Boscobel House. Photo. by B. Williams, Wolverhampton]

This was the last attempt at raising men on the old feudal levies; the
trained bands were armed partly with pikes and partly with the
newly-invented firelock, while the whole of the impressed men were armed
merely with pikes. The Muster Roll for this immediate locality contains
these names (that of Aspley is cancelled):--

Traine. Presse.
Tipton Thomas Dudley, --Thomas Winney. The
L. dnd.

--William Aspley pst.

--John Winspurre in
loco.

--John Husband.

--Joseph Richard.

--William Dutton.

--Richard Rushton: to
be sp: per R. Turnor.
Darlaston & Bentley Thomas Pye, Willm
Turner,
Wednesfield John Hill,
Willenhall William Wilkes,

Another Roll dated 1634, but apparently in use at this time, gives among
the names of the "trayned horse" liable as (or for) 2 "curi