Catalogue description Lease fr. Tho. Bankes, surveyor; Fr. Coling, mercer; Joh. Mayo, hempdresser; Will....

Lease fr. Tho. Bankes, surveyor; Fr. Coling, mercer; Joh. Mayo, hempdresser; Will. Burbage, baker; and feoffees (as DR429/167 with exception of Will. Turberville), to Joh. Downes, son of Ralph, of Winnall, gent., of messuage, closes, etc., in Brinklow, formerly in tenure of his father, for 21 years, at £11 10s. a year.

Sig. and seal of Joh. Downes, Sam. Downes, Obad. Chambers.

A very interesting name occurs in these deeds, that of William Jelliff, clothier (DR429/172), whose will, dated 1681-2, I once copied in Somerset House, and whose collaterals - not lineal descendants since he died without male heir - now live in America, where one is a specialist in mental diseases.

Jelliff was the founder of the Great Fair Sermon, usually preached in Trinity week. It is curious to note the change in form of church bequests after the Reformation; in the early period the foundation of perpetual lights or of anniversary masses (obits) for the soul of the departed one form a regular testamentary feature; while in the late sixteenth or seventeenth century a common item in wills is the foundation of sermons. Trinity is particularly rich in these foundations. There is one at Stoneleigh, too, where some small sum bequeathed by the Duchess Dudley still attaches to the preaching of a sermon on Whit Sunday, and an old Stoneleigh parishioner tells me how, in early Victorian days, an Oxford don, Vaughan Thomas, then vicar of Stoneleigh, used always to make a practice of preaching there at Whitsuntide, though the fee might have been acceptable to his curate, the father of a numerous family. Whether he prepared a fresh sermon yearly, I know not, but the word "eleemosynary," in allusion, no doubt to the Duchess's charitable benefactions, always occurred in it, much to the mystification of the parioshioners.

Jelliff's will reflects the terror of Popery prevalent at the season of the Exclusion Bill and and the Popish Plot. It provides that the Mayor and his brethren "shall and will yearly pay unto the Viccar of the said parish of Trinity for preaching a Sermon upon every Coventry faire day, called the great faire, which is on the friday next after Whitsun weeke in the Church of either Trinity or St. Michael's forever, the summe of tenne shillings. And I doe hereby desire and appoint," the will proceeds, "that the Viccar of the said parish and the Successive Viccars shall yearly on that day preach a sermon forever for the good and edificacion of the people that shall resort thither. And I committ it to the care of the Maior and his Brethren to see it be done according to the true intent and meaning of this my will; and in case it should be neglected or popery sett up (as God forbid it should) then my will is that the Tenne Shillings shall be given to the poore of the said parish of the Holy Trinity the next Sabbath day following forever, if Popery bee sett up and continue." The will contains numerous bequests to relations, including his grandsons, Robert Smith and William Jesson, and his granddaughters, Mary and Anna Jesson, and to his servant, Mary Mayo, the not unhandsome sum of £100, with a feather bed and bolster, two blankets, a green rug, with ten pounds' worth of linen, brans and pewter vessels, the whole document furnishing a most interesting testimony of citizen life in the period of the Restoration.