CHAPTER II.

OLD ALDERLEY AND ITS MEMORIES--THE STANLEYS--EDWARD STANLEY, PASTOR

AND PRELATE--THE HOME OF DEAN STANLEY.

Men travel far to see the dwelling-places and the costly tombs of Kings

and Conquerors in their desire to recall the memory and the mighty

deeds of the great ones who have gone before, and surely the homes of

those who have taught goodness by example to high and low, and shed a

holy and a happy influence through their country, are shrines equally

worthy of our homage. It is in that spirit, and with the desire to keep

green within the sanctuary of the heart the memory of good men, that

we enter upon our present pilgrimage. It is to the place where Bishop

Stanley spent his happiest years, and where his son, Dean Stanley,

passed his boyhood's days--the one, the "good bishop" who united in

himself the apostolical charity of a Tillotson and the pastoral energy

of a Burnet; and the other, that loving and large-hearted divine who so

lately passed into his rest, and whose removal from our midst sent a

thrill of sadness through the land, and moved the sensibilities not of

Englishmen alone but of the world.

[Illustration: DEAN STANLEY.]

Alderley, or Old Alderley as we prefer to call it in contradistinction

to the aggregation of modern Swiss chalets, Italian villas, and

imitation castles which Manchester's merchant princes have built for

themselves on the wooded hill yclept Alderley Edge, is one of the most

charmingly picturesque spots in the county--we had almost said in

the kingdom; the sort of place where, if lowered with overwork and

worry, you would wish to retire to for perfect peace and quietude--and

of a truth the wearied toiler might wander hither and thither for many

a day before he could find a retreat more to his liking. The country is

rich and varied, and there is an air of wild and untrimmed prodigality

in the woods and plantations that is delighting to the eye. It is not

a village--it can hardly be called a hamlet, the houses are so few. On

a little triangular spot where four roads meet is what is emphatically

called "the Cross," and a little way above, standing by the wayside,

may be seen an antiquated hostelry that might be called the house

of many gables. Time was when the tired wayfarer might find within

its cosy parlour a hearty welcome, and be able to refresh himself

with nut-brown ale; but good things are oftentimes abused, and so,

now-a-days, to enforce sobriety, though the traveller may receive the

welcome he must content himself with tea and coffee or such harmless

beverages as lemonade and ginger ale. Near the inn is the old corn

mill, a building that, with its surroundings, has formed the subject

for many a picture, as the walls of our local exhibitions testify; in

the rear, half hidden among the trees, is the old-fashioned rectory,

standing in the midst of its equally old-fashioned garden, in which

the old mulberry trees still flourish. The garden reaches up to the

churchyard, reminding us of Wordsworth's exquisite description--

Where holy ground begins, unhallowed ends,

Is marked by no distinguishable line.

The turf unites, the pathways intertwine,

And wheresoe'er the stealing footstep tends,

Garden, and that domain where kindred, friends,

And neighbours rest together, here confound

Their several features, mingled like the sound

Of many waters, or as evening blends

With shady night.

The place belongs entirely to the past; the shadows of bygone

centuries seem to spread around, and everything bears the impress of

hoar antiquity and undisturbed respectability; while even the few

homesteads you see retain the picturesque features their builders

imparted to them long ages ago. The church tower, grey and weather

worn, and overgrown in places with ivy, looks with placid serenity over

the broad pastures and the green country that stretches southwards

and away to the west until it seems interminable, and the eye becomes

wearied in trying to follow it to its furthest limits. A sombre-looking

yew that has braved the winter's blasts through long centuries of

time flanks the gateway; the tall trees that partly surround the

churchyard throw their shadows across the grass-grown hillocks, the

grasshopper skips about and the white moth flits to and fro, and above

the blackbirds and the thrushes pour forth their sweetest music.

The ancient fane itself is thoroughly English in its character, a

church such as an artist loves to paint, and of which a true-hearted

Englishman would carry away many a pleasant remembrance. It exhibits

many architectural diversities; the tower is broad and massive, and

nave, and chancel, and porch are picturesque in their grouping. On

the north side a curious dormer window rises above the roof, and on

the south the attention is arrested by the old stone staircase that

leads up from the outside to the Stanley pew, a feature that may

smack somewhat of exclusiveness, but quaint and pleasant to look upon

notwithstanding. As you enter you see at a glance that the fabric has

been cared for both within and without, for though the "restorer" has

been at work he has dealt tenderly and lovingly with it, repairing

only where repairs where needed. The old pews in which somnolent

bucolics were wont to recline during sermon-time have been taken away;

the flat painted ceiling has disappeared and the whitewash of a dozen

generations of churchwardens has been removed from wall and pillar, but

everything that was worth preserving has been carefully retained, and--

So absent is the stamp of modern days

That, in the quaint carved oak, and oriel stain'd

With saintly legend, to Reflection's gaze

The Star of Eld seems not yet to have waned.

[Illustration: ALDERLEY CHURCH.]

The only part that has been modernised is the chancel. It was rebuilt

thirty years ago, and in it you may see many sepulchral memorials of

the Stanleys and other local notabilities. On the south side is the

monumental effigy of John Thomas, the first Lord Stanley, who died in

1850, and on the opposite side, on an altar-tomb, richly inlaid with

mosaic work, is the sculptured form of the last lord, who died in 1869;

it is an exquisite work of art, and as you gaze upon the chiselled

features you are struck with the remarkable resemblance they bear to

the late Dean of Westminster. Against the wall on the same side of the

chancel is a tablet of white marble in memory of Edward Stanley--the

Bishop of Norwich--and his wife and their two sons, Charles Edward and

Owen Stanley, and their daughter Mary.

From these marble memorials of the dead you turn to the galleried pew

where, in life, those they commemorate were wont to worship. The front

of that little enclosure is resplendent with heraldic blazonries,

and tells, in the language of the "noble science," the story of the

marriages of the lords of Alderley for a couple of centuries or more.

The Stanleys are evidently proud of their armorial ensigns, for they

are displayed on every hand, and as you gaze upon the oft-repeated

shields the memory wanders back along the dim avenues of the past

to the time when, ages ago, a Sir William Stanley, by his marriage

with the heiress of Bamville, obtained the forest of Wyrral, and with

it the right to bear, as his device, the three bucks' heads upon

a cross-belt of cerulean hue; and to the time, too, when that Sir

William's great-grandson married the heiress of the house of Lathom,

and thereafter assumed as his crest the eagle and child--the "brid

and babby," as Lancashire people prefer to call it--which tradition

commemorates the circumstance of an infant being found in an eagle's

nest by a Lathom, who adopted it, and, being childless, made it heir of

all his lands.

The church is not a large building, but it is exceedingly picturesque,

and its interest is nothing lessened by the consciousness that within

its walls the voice of praise and thanksgiving has been heard for five

hundred years and more. Everything about it is decent and comely, as

befits the house of God, and if a stranger should happen to be there on

a Sunday he will find the services creditably sung by a choir of boys,

and the prayers devoutly read by a clergyman who is a sound Churchman,

and a worthy successor of good old Edward Stanley.

On one side of the entrance to the churchyard an aged yewtree,

weather-beaten and decayed, but still fighting time gallantly, flanks

the churchyard gate--the emblem of immortality reminding the living

that the spirits of those laid low have passed to the life beyond. On

the other side is the little school-house, with its quaint windows, and

mullions and masonry of red sandstone, a structure that was not reared

yesterday, as its grey lichen-stained walls testify. As you enter the

garden of the dead your ears are greeted with the pleasant music of

young voices, and your attention is arrested by the number of green

mounds where successive generations are sleeping their last sleep. A

summer's day might be spent here in meditation among the nameless but

hallowed graves, and in conning over the "uncouth rhymes" that the

weather and the green moss are fast obliterating from the crumbling

memorials on which they are inscribed. You may note, too, in places

bunches of simple wild flowers that have been placed by loving hands

upon the newly upheaved turf--the offerings of that tender affection

which longs for "the touch of a vanished hand and the sound of a voice

that is still." Near the east end, under the shade of a yew, is a plain

white marble cross, with a small tablet at its base, embedded in the

rock, on which is the following inscription:--

Here

Rests

CATHERINE STANLEY

Died March 5 1862, aged 69

The wisdom

That is from above

Is first pure,

Then peaceable, gentle,

Easy to be entreated,

Full of Mercy

And good fruits

Without partiality

And without hypocrisy

[Illustration: ALDERLY SCHOOL.]

It is to the memory of the wife of Bishop Stanley--the mother of the

late Dean of Westminster--who entered into the dark valley while

her son was accompanying the Prince of Wales on his journey through

Egypt and Palestine. That grave has been once reopened--on the 2nd of

December, 1879, it received the remains of the Dean's sister, Mary

Stanley, a lady whose memory will be gratefully remembered for her

heroic efforts to mitigate the sufferings of our soldiers during the

Crimean War. The 5th of March, on which Catherine Stanley passed away,

was Ash Wednesday, a day that ever after had its saddening associations

for her son, who on another Ash Wednesday (March 1st, 1876), had to

endure another and more terrible trial, for on that day he stood by the

death bed of her who had loved, supported, and comforted him when the

spirit of his mother had passed away--his wife.

My mother--on that fatal day,

O'er seas and deserts far apart,

The guardian genius passed away

That nursed my very mind and heart--

The oracle that never failed,

The faith serene that never quailed,

The kindred soul that knew my thought

Before its speech or form was wrought.

My wife--when clos'd that fatal night,

My being turned once more to stone,

I watched her spirit take its flight,

And found myself again alone.

The sunshine of the heart was dead,

The glory of the home was fled,

The smile that made the dark world bright,

The love that made all duty light.

Now that those scenes of bliss are gone,

Now that the long years roll away,

The two Ash Wednesdays blend in one,

One sad yet almost festal day:

The emblem of that union blest,

Where lofty souls together rest,

Star differing each from star in glory,

Yet telling each its own high story.

In another part of the graveyard is an altar-tomb with a Latin

inscription perpetuating the name of Thomas Deane, of the Park--a house

near Monk's Heath--who endowed the parish school, and who is described

as a lover of God, his Church, his King, and of all good deeds. Not

far distant is an old disused font that was dug up half a century ago;

it has a circular bowl capacious enough to immerse a child in, and, in

its general outline, much resembles the one at Prestbury, both being

probably of the same age.

From the churchyard we step into the rector's garden. The rectory

house presents much the same appearance that it did fifty years ago,

when Edward Stanley was its occupant; indeed, so little is it changed

that it would require but little stretch of the imagination to picture

the kindly-hearted old pastor watching the movements of his feathered

friends, or, mounted upon his little black cob, setting out on a

mission of mercy to some member of his rustic flock, his pockets the

while filled with sweets and gingerbread for the children, with whom

he was ever a favourite. The house is the _beau-ideal_ of a country

clergyman's home. It has no architectural beauties or peculiarities

to boast of, and there is nothing pretentious about it; but it is a

roomy, enjoyable sort of place, with an air of comfort and contentment

pervading it that suggests the idea of the happy domestic life

peculiar to England. A trellis work that forms a kind of verandah

extends along the front, with honeysuckles, roses, and creeping plants

climbing round the supports, and meeting overhead in a bower of vernal

beauty. Of that verandah, which forms a kind of balcony, the Dean's

mother thus wrote in one of her letters:--

Give me credit for coming from my balcony, from the sky, the stars,

the moon, the heavenly air, to write to you. But it is not quite

coming from them; my door is open, and I look now and then to the

church tower, standing out so clear from the moonlight sky, which

has scarcely yet lost its sunlight tinge--and my summer furniture of

mignonette and sweet peas outside, to say nothing of the roses below

or the trellis and the honeysuckle above--their united perfume all

come streaming in the air. When I think of your imprisonment and your

present deprivations of such a day as this, whose healing influences

you so well would feel, I rejoice in your power of sympathy with the

enjoyments as well as the sufferings of others, which makes me feel

that I am refreshing rather than tantalizing you by placing my present

position before you.

The door of the house stands invitingly open, and the wide entrance

hall into which the visitor is ushered is in itself suggestive of the

welcome awaiting the coming guest. The rooms are spacious, and lead

one into another in a social sort of way, and the windows, reaching

down to the floor and opening on to the lawn, give a bright prospect

of the beautiful world without, of the pleasure grounds and the green

grass carpet, chequered as we look upon it with the woodland shade and

a moving group of laughing, bright-eyed nymphs engaged in a garden

game. Oftentimes from those windows, as well as in his walks and rides,

did the good old rector pursue his favourite study. "Close before

the window of our observation," he says in his "Familiar History of

Birds," "a well-mown, short-grassed lawn is spread before him (the

starling)--it is his dining-room; there in the spring he is allowed to

revel, but seldom molested, on the plentiful supply of worms, which

he collects pretty much in the same manner as the thrush, already

described. Close at hand, within half-a-stone's throw, stands an

ivy-mantled parish church, with its mossy grey tower, from the turreted

pinnacle of which rises a flagstaff, crowned by its weathercock; under

the eaves and within the hollows and chinks of the masonry of the

tower are his nursery establishments. On the battlements and projecting

grotesque tracery of its Gothic ornaments he retires to enjoy himself,

looking down on the rural world below; while, at other times, a

still more elevated party will crowd together on the letters of the

weathercock, or, accustomed to its motion, sociably twitter away their

chattering song, as the vane creaks slowly round with every change of

wind."

But Alderley has other attractions besides its venerable church and its

pleasant old-fashioned rectory. We are not now going to speak of the

Edge--of the Castle Rock, of the Holy Well, of Stormy Point, of the

weather-beaten Beacon and the glorious view over the Cheshire Plain

which it commands; nor yet to repeat the legend of the Wizard, the Iron

Gates, and the Enchanted Cave in which stand the innumerable milk-white

horses with the warriors beside them, all in a profound sleep and so--

Doomed to remain till that fell day,

When foemen, marshalled in array,

And feuds intestine, shall combine

To seal the ruin of our line.

The park, the beech woods, and Radnor Mere are well worthy of a

passing notice, and the story of the Stanleys deserves to be told, for

Alderley, though a small place, has a history behind it, and one which

it need not be ashamed to own.

[Illustration: ALDERLEY RECTORY.]

Alderley Park, "the fair domain" of the Stanleys, lies on the opposite

side of the road to the church and the rectory. It is not so extensive

as Tatton or Lyme, but it is equal to either for sylvan beauty and

the charming views it affords. The rising grounds that extend in the

direction of the Edge are clothed with a thick umbrage, the tall

"patrician trees" mingling with the "plebeian underwood;" many of the

older denizens of the wood are curled and distorted into all sorts of

weird shapes, and bear the marks of the rough warfare they have had

for ages to wage against the elements. Here and there pleasant vistas

open out and from the high ground you can look over the fairest portion

of the Vale Royal of England, over miles and miles of woodland and

pastures and green fields, dotted at intervals with old farm houses

and still older churches, a prospect such as no other country but our

own can show, and which many a wanderer in distant lands would give a

year of his life to see again. It is thoroughly pastoral in character,

and imparts an undefinable sensation of quietude and rest, suggesting

the idea of eternal tranquillity and peace. The view is charming at all

seasons, but never more so than in the spring-time, when the trees have

put on their fresh leafage, when the air is laden with the sweet odours

of the scented thorn, and the thrush and the blackbird pour forth their

melodious notes as if to make perfect the charm and witchery of our

English scenery.

From among the time-worn fathers of the grove a little rindle winds

its way with many a curve and sinuosity until it empties itself in a

broad lake, formerly called Radnor Mere, but now more commonly known as

Alderley Mere--a relic, so tradition affirms, of the great lake that in

pre-historic times is believed to have extended as far as High Legh, a

dozen miles or so away, and of which Tatton Mere, Rostherne Mere, and

Mere Mere formed a part. But the glory of the park is the beech wood

which reaches down almost to the edge of the mere; it was planted, so

the local chroniclers tell us, more than a couple of centuries ago by

Sir Thomas Stanley, the first baronet, who obtained a supply of beech

mast from his father-in-law's grounds at Kyre, in Worcestershire,

the tree being then uncommon in Cheshire. Possibly he was influenced

by the advice which John Evelyn about that time had been giving in

his "Discourse of Forest Trees," and desired to supply his tenantry

with stuffing for their beds. The author of "Sylva" says:--"But there

is yet another benefit which this tree (the beech) presents us; its

very leaves, which make a natural and most agreeable canopy all the

summer, being gathered about the fall, and somewhat before they are

much frost-bitten, afford the best and easiest mattresses in the world

to lay under our quilts instead of straw, because, besides their

tenderness and loose lying together, they continue sweet for seven or

eight years, long before which time straw becomes musty and hard." It

would be interesting to know if the primitive custom to which Evelyn

referred continues in any part of rural England at the present day, or

if it has been entirely discarded. More stately trees than the Alderley

beeches we have seldom seen in any part of the country; they stand

thick in the background, giving a forest-like character to the scene,

and the pathways that wind beneath them in a wild and wandering sort of

way afford as delightful a sylvan walk as the foot of man can tread.

The dead leaves lie the whole year round upon the turf, and overhead

the branches meet in a verdant canopy, imparting a mysterious gloom

that seems like a perpetual twilight. No one who longs for seclusion

needs "fly to a lodge in some vast wilderness," for here he may wander

for a day without the sound of a fellow mortal to disturb him or

hearing any footfall but his own, and can, if so disposed, realise the

full meaning of the words--

One impulse from a vernal wood

Will teach thee more of man,

Of moral evil, and of good

Than all the sages can.

Well do we remember a summer evening's saunter through the park and the

old beech wood in the pleasant companionship of the worthy rector of

Alderley, beguiling the time with cheerful chat.

'Twas Summer tide; the eve was sweet

As mortal eye has e'er beholden;

The grass look'd warm with sunny heat;

Perhaps some Fairy's glowing feet

Had lightly touch'd and left it golden.

Entering by a gate near the old corn-mill we struck across the park

in an easterly direction and soon reached the edge of the wood, from

which there is a good view of the hall and the old deer house, with the

mere in front, feathered down almost to the water's edge with stately

trees. The wilder parts of the grounds are alive with rabbits, and as

we strode over the green sward they started up from the fern and the

thick grass and scampered off to their warrens in all directions; but

no other sign of life was visible, and, save that now and then we could

hear the distant croaking of the corn-crake and the thrush chanting a

requiem to the departing day from a neighbouring copse, even the birds

seemed to have sunk to rest in their foliaged homes. The woods were

in the fulness of their summer verdure, displaying a thousand varied

tints of green and yellow; to the right we could see the great plain of

Cheshire stretching away towards the Frodsham hills and the estuary of

the Dee, the green meadow-breadths looking almost golden in the sunset

sheen. A warm aërial haze suffused itself over the landscape, softening

into beauty every object; the breeze which so lately frolicked through

the trees had died away, and the wide mere lay spread before us calm,

and still, and bright as a mirror, while its surface, unruffled by a

single ripple, gave back with wonderful minuteness the outline of the

plumy woods, the amber radiance of the sky, and the moving forms of

the reeds and water flags that fringe its margin; the effect being

heightened as now and then a shaft of ruddy light quivered through the

foliage and shed an almost unearthly splendour upon the water.

No stir of air was there,

Not so much life as on a summer day

Robs not one light seed from the feather'd grass,

But where the dead leaf fell there did it rest.

That scene has been so exquisitely described in the "Journal" of

Catherine Stanley that we are tempted to transcribe it:--

The purplish brown of the wood rising above the softened reflection

of it in the water, and a few touches of brighter brown in the shrubs

and ferns near the edge; the boathouse relieved by the dark wood

behind it; a line of yellowish brown reeds breaking the reflection of

it in the water, and another still brighter yellow-and-brown island

coming immediately before it; the soft blue haze spread over the water

and softening the reflected outlines of the wood without weakening

the effect, contrasted here and there with the vivid and determinate

outline of a few leaves or weeds lying on the surface of the water;

the scene enlivened now and then by a wild duck darting from the reeds

across the lake, making a flutter and foam before her, and leaving a

line of clear light behind her on her path, her wild cry distinctly

echoed from the wood and deerhouse together--such a simplicity yet

variety of tint, such a force of effect, and such a softness of shade

and colour! Artists, one and all, hide your diminished heads!

The home of the Stanleys is a stone building of no great antiquity and

very little architectural merit, and, considering the many advantageous

sites the park affords, has been placed with a singular disregard for

the charms of situation. Until 1779 the family resided at the old

hall near the church, but in the spring of that year it was burnt

down, and until the present mansion was built they were obliged to

take up their abode at the Park House, a tenement formerly part of

the estates held in Alderley by the Abbey of Dieulacres, near Leek.

The Hon. Miss Stanley, in her description of "Alderley Edge and its

Neighbourhood," says: "The old hall of Alderley was burnt down in the

spring of the year 1779. Sir John Stanley was absent at the time;

he was on the road home, returning from Chester, where he had gone

the day before--he arrived when the whole was nearly consumed--very

little of the furniture was saved. It was never known how the fire

originated. The house stood in the village of Alderley, close to the

mill. It was surrounded by a moat spreading out into a large sheet of

water on the east side, and on the west filling a channel cut out of

the solid rock. When the house was burnt, it consisted of three sides

of (comparatively speaking) a modern built mansion, a large hall of an

older date occupying the other side, and offices behind the hall. A

handsome stone bridge of two arches crossed the moat from the ground

entrance and west side to a stone terrace, which commanded views of

the Park, the church, and the plain of Cheshire, and by a flight of

steps led to a handsome stone arched gateway close to the road, built

by Sir Thomas, the first Baronet." The inscription on the tombstone

in Alderley church of Sir Thomas Stanley, who died in 1591, says: "He

rebuilt the houses of Alderley and Weever," from which it is evident

there was a still earlier mansion upon the site; the house he erected

was doubtless the "large hall of an older date" referred to by Miss

Stanley, the other portions of the building having been added about the

beginning of the last century. The two end pillars, bearing the crest

of the Stanleys--the eagle and child--with a portion of the wall, may

be seen abutting upon the roadside; but, with these exceptions, not a

vestige of the old mansion remains.

The connection of the Stanleys with Alderley dates back about four

hundred and fifty years or thereabouts, when the estate was acquired

by the marriage of John Stanley, a brother of the first Earl of Derby,

with Elizabeth, the daughter and heiress of Thomas Weever, of Weever

and Alderley. This John's father, Sir Thomas Stanley, of Lathom, after

serving as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, emerged from among the country

gentlemen as Lord Stanley, and was made controller of the household of

the "meek usurper," Henry VI., when, in consideration of his services,

he had granted to him by favour of the King the wardship and marriage

of Thomas Weever's heiress, and he, with commendable care for the

worldly well-being of his younger son, bestowed the lady and her lands

upon him.

The house of Stanley, which ranks among the greatest of our governing

families, is one of the most ancient as it is one of the most

distinguished in the page of history, comprising at the present day, in

addition to the baronetcy enjoyed by the elder line--the Stanleys, of

Hooton in Wirral--two peerages, the Earldom of Derby of Knowsley, in

Lancashire, and the Barony of Stanley of Alderley, in Cheshire, besides

the younger branches in Staffordshire, Sussex, Kent, and Hertfordshire.

The first known ancestor was one Adam de Aldithlegh, so named from

his paternal estate of Audithlegh, in Normandy, who came over with

William the Conqueror. Acquitting himself bravely on the field of

Hastings, he was rewarded with large territorial estates in the newly

conquered country. He was accompanied in the expedition by his two

sons, Lydulph or Lyulph and Adam de Aldithlegh. These sons married, and

in due course two grandsons were born to the old Norman warrior, both

of whom married into a Saxon family of noble rank and ancient lineage,

which had been fortunate enough to retain possession of its estates,

while confiscation had been the lot of those around it. The family

derived its name from the manor of Stanley or Stoneley, the stony lea

or stony field according to the Anglo-Saxon meaning, a little hamlet

lying about three miles south-west of the small manufacturing town of

Leek, in Staffordshire, a place which, Erdswick, the old topographer,

remarks "seems to take its name of the nature of the soil, which,

though it be in the moorlands, is yet a rough and stony place, and many

craggy rocks are about it." One of the grandsons, Adam, the son of

Lyulph de Audithlegh, became in right of his wife lord of Stanley, and

was ancestor of the Lord Audley of ancient times, and is represented

through the female line by the Touchets, Lords Audley of the present

day. The other grandson, William, the son of Adam de Audithlegh,

acquired with his wife the lordship of Thalck, better known as Talk o'

th' Hill, in the same county. This William seems to have conceived a

liking for the stony lea before referred to, and exchanged his lordship

of Talk with his cousin for it. Thenceforward he made Stanley his

seat, and, as the old chronicles tell us, in honour of his wife and of

the great antiquity of her family, assumed her maiden name and became

immediate founder of the Stanleys, a race the most illustrious in the

country's annals, and associated with the most stirring events of

history.

Sir William Stanley, the fourth in descent from the William who first

assumed the name, gave an impetus to the fortunes of the family by

one of those matrimonial alliances to which the house of Stanley owes

so much of its prosperity. He took to himself a wife in the person of

Joan, the youthful daughter and co-heir of Sir Philip Bamville, master

forester of Wirral, and lord of Storeton, a place some few miles south

of Birkenhead.

Associated with this match is a love story that in its romantic

incidents is scarcely less interesting than the one related of the

fair heiress of Haddon, Dorothy Vernon. The daughter of the house

of Storeton had given her heart to young Stanley, and to escape the

misery of a forced marriage with one for whom she had no love she

determined to elope. While a banquet was being given to her father,

she stole unobserved away, and, being joined by young William Stanley,

the anxious lovers rode swiftly across the country to Astbury Church,

and there, in the presence of Adam Hoton and Dawe Coupelond, plighted

their troth to each other. Six hundred years have rolled away since

that scene was enacted, but it requires little stretch of the

imagination to picture the resolute maiden hastening with tremulous

steps from her father's house, the exciting ride across country, and

the hurried joining of hands and hearts in the old church at Astbury,

and forgetting that all this occurred long ages ago, we wish from our

hearts all happiness to the pair. The story is no mere legend, for

the facts are to be found in those musty and unromantic records, the

Cheshire Inquisitions, which have been unearthed, and their contents

made accessible to the world, by the Deputy Keeper of the Public

Records. In a return to a writ of enquiry as to the betrothal of

William Stanley, the Inquisition sets forth--

That on the Sunday after the Feast of St. Matthew the Apostle and

Evangelist, two years ago, viz., on the 27th September, 1282, Philip

de Bamville, with his wife and family, was at a banquet given by

Master John de Stanley (an ecclesiastic apparently, priests at

that time who had an academical degree being entitled to be called

master), on which occasion Joan (Bamville), suspecting that her father

intended to marry her to her step-mother's son, took means to avoid

it by repairing with William de Stanley to Astbury Church, where they

uttered the following mutual promise, he saying, "Joan, I plight thee

my troth to take and hold thee as my lawful wife until my life's end,"

and she replying, "I Joan take thee William as my lawful husband." The

witnesses were Adam de Hoton and Dawe de Coupelond.

By this marriage William Stanley became owner of one-third of the manor

of Storeton (the remaining two-thirds he subsequently acquired), and

also the hereditary bailiwick or chief rangership of the Forest of

Wirral, which then overspread the peninsula lying between the estuaries

of the Mersey and the Dee, and which was so thickly wooded that,

according to the old saying:--

From Blacon point to Hilbree

A squirrel may leap from tree to tree.

After this marriage the Stanleys migrated from the Stony-lea in

Staffordshire to their newly acquired home in Cheshire, and at the same

time Sir William, in allusion to his office of hereditary forester

of Wirral, assumed the arms which have ever since been used by his

descendants in place of those borne by his ancestors, viz., _argent_,

on a bend _azure_, three bucks' heads caboshed _or_; in other words,

over a shield of silver a belt of blue crossed diagonally with three

bucks' heads displayed thereon.

Another and still more important addition was made to the patrimonial

lands of the Stanleys through the marriage of Sir William de Stanley,

the fourth in direct descent from the first of the name who held the

forestership of Wirral, with Margery, only daughter and heir of Sir

William de Hooton of Hooton, a township midway between Chester and

Birkenhead, and occupying one of the most delightful situations which

the banks of the estuary can boast, commanding, as Ormerod says, "a

peculiarly beautiful view of the Forest Hills, the bend of the Mersey,

and the opposite shore of Hale, and shaded with venerable oaks which

the Wirral breezes have elsewhere rarely afforded." From this marriage

descended the Stanleys of Hooton and their offshoots, among whom may

be mentioned that Sir William Stanley who, in the reign of Elizabeth,

betrayed the trust committed to him by the English Government in the

base surrender of Deventer to the King of Spain.

The younger line of the Stanleys, with whose fortunes we are more

immediately concerned, commences properly with a younger brother of

Sir William Stanley of Hooton, Sir John Stanley, who married Isabel,

the daughter and sole heir of Sir Thomas Lathom, lord of Lathom,

whose ancestress had also been heir of Sir Thomas de Knowsley, lord

of Knowsley, and who thus, in right of his wife, became master of the

extensive estates around which his descendants' princely property has

accreted. By the marriage with the heiress of Bamville the Stanleys

acquired the three bucks' heads which have continued ever since to

be the distinguishing charge on their heraldic coat; and in like

manner, by the marriage with the heiress of Lathom, they obtained

the remarkable crest which to the present day continues to surmount

their arms, the well-known Eagle and Child, in heraldic language

described as--on a chapeau _gules_ turned up ermine, an eagle with

wings elevated _or_, preying upon an infant swaddled of the first,

banded _argent_. Many are the stories that are told respecting Sir

John's elopement with the heiress of Lathom, and great is the amount

of legendary lore that gathers round the crest which he adopted in her

honour. The tradition has often been related, and the curious who wish

to know more respecting it will find much interesting information in

the _Miscellanea Palatina_ (1851) and in a contribution to Nichol's

_Collectanea_ by the learned historian of Cheshire. The greatness of

the Stanleys may be said to have commenced with Sir John--a cool,

shrewd, and efficient man--who in his lifetime raised the family

from the rank of simple country gentlemen. We need not recount all

the honours and distinctions bestowed, or the steady shower of royal

benefactions that descended upon him. A knight _sans peur et sans

reproche_, he was a rare instance of a courtier who could carry himself

through four successive reigns with ever increasing prosperity--and

without once sustaining a reverse. His eldest son, Sir John Stanley,

fully sustained the dignity of the family, and his grandson, Sir

Thomas, in whose person the elevation of the Stanleys to the peerage

took place, increased it. But it remained for the son of the last-named

Sir Thomas to carry the fortunes of the house to heights before

unknown. Living in an age when the spirit of chivalry had given place

to a policy of subtlety and success depending less on strength of arm

than astuteness of head, he ran a career of successful faithlessness

that has scarcely a parallel in English history. Looking always to his

own interest, fighting always for his own hand, and changing sides

at his own discretion, but always changing to the dominant party, he

received as the reward of his consummate tact enormous royal grants

which went to swell the originally great possessions of his house; and,

finally, by the boldest and most adroit stroke of his whole life--when

the rival Roses met on the field of Bosworth and he had beguiled both

combatants with promises of sympathy, after the fate of the battle

was decided he went over to the side of the victor, and completed his

services by placing the battered crown of the vanquished Richard upon

the brow of the triumphant Richmond, exclaiming--

Courageous Richmond, well hast thou acquit thee!

Lo, here, this long-usurped royalty,

From the dead temples of this bloody wretch

Have I plucked off, to grace thy brows withal;

Wear it, enjoy it, and make much of it.

Thus Thomas Stanley earned for himself and his descendants the Earldom

of Derby. Through his eldest son, George Lord Strange, who succeeded

to the title, Thomas, Earl of Derby, was progenitor of a race of

illustrious men, conspicuous among whom were James, the "Martyr Earl,"

distinguished for his attachment to the Royal cause during the Civil

Wars, and the eminent statesman of more recent times, Edward Geoffrey

Smith-Stanley, 14th earl, who died in 1869--the father of the present

holder of the title.

The Stanleys of Alderley trace their descent from John, a younger

brother of Thomas the first Earl, who became possessed of the manor

of Alderley by his marriage with the heiress of Thomas Weever, lord

of Weever and Alderley. When Duke William of Normandy parcelled out

the land in the newly-conquered country among his faithful followers

Alderley fell to the share of William Fitz Nigel, the builder and

fortifier of Halton Castle, and was held by him as of his manor of

Halton. In 1294 he granted Over Alderley to one Roger Throsle, who

in turn gave it as a marriage portion to his daughter Margery when

she became the wife of Edmund Downes. Subsequently it passed into the

possession of the Ardernes, who held it for two or three generations.

Peter de Arderne, the last male representative of this line, had an

only surviving daughter, the heiress of all his lands; wishing in

his life-time to secure a suitable match for her he, in the reign of

Edward III., purchased from Sir John de Arderne, lord of Aldford and

the paramount lord of Weever, the wardship and marriage of Richard,

son and heir of Thomas de Weever, paying for the same 40 marks (£26

13s. 4d.), an investment he turned to profitable account by marrying

his young ward to his daughter. In this way the estates of Weever

and Alderley became united, and so they continued until the reign of

Henry VI. In 1445 Thomas de Weever, the great-grandson of Richard de

Weever and Margaret Arderne his wife, died, leaving an only daughter,

Elizabeth, who thus became heiress of the lands in Weever and Alderley.

Being under age at the time of her father's death she became a ward of

the King, and he, as previously mentioned, gave the disposal of her in

marriage to his favourite, Thomas, the first Lord Stanley, who made

the most of his opportunity by marrying her to his third son, Thomas

Stanley, thus securing for him and his descendants a very handsome

patrimony, embracing the manor of Weever and the lands in Over and

Nether Alderley, &c.. Weever remained in their possession until 1710,

when it passed by sale to the Wilbrahams of Townsend, now represented

by George Fortescue Wilbraham, Esq., of Delamere House, but Alderley

was retained and still continues the chief residence of the family, who

have held it in continuous succession for a period of more than four

hundred years.

It is not our purpose to trace the descent of the Stanleys through

successive generations, we therefore pass over the history of the

ancient house to the time of Sir Thomas Stanley, the sixth in direct

descent from John Stanley, who married the heiress of Weever, and the

one who added a baronetcy to the honours of the Alderley line--an

interval of nearly two centuries, during which time the family

estates had been largely increased, partly from the possessions of

the dissolved abbey of Dieulacres, and partly from lands acquired

at different times through prudent marriages, as evidenced by the

Inquisition taken in 1606, after the death of Sir Thomas Stanley,

Knight, who had married the heiress of Sir Peter Warburton of Grafton,

Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and which shows that at his

decease he held the manors of Weever, Over Alderley, Nether Alderley,

Clive, Little Meols, and Pulton Launcelyn; and lands in those and the

following places: Barretspool, Wimbaldesley, Stanthorne, Spittle,

Middlewich, Rushton, Bredbury, Upton near Macclesfield, Chorley, Hough,

Warford, Chelford, Astle, Birtles, Mobberley, Ollerton, Torkington,

Offerton, Norbury, Occleston, Sutton, &c., all in the county of

Chester. This Thomas, who had been knighted by James I. while at

Worksop Manor on his progress towards London, after the death of

Elizabeth, a journey during which he shed the honours of knighthood on

no less than two hundred and thirty-seven gentlemen who were presented

to him, was succeeded by his eldest son, Thomas Stanley, who was only

eight years of age at the time of the father's death.

Shortly after he came of age Thomas Stanley married Elizabeth,

daughter of Sir James Pytts, of Kyre, in Worcestershire, and in 1634

he was honoured with the shrievalty of his native county. The time

was an anxious one. It was the year preceding the arbitrary levy of

ship-money, when the storm was gathering that ere long was to break

with such disastrous force upon the head of the ill-fated Charles. When

the sword was drawn the head of the Alderley Stanleys ranged himself

on the side of those who contended for the privileges of Parliament in

opposition to Kingly prerogative, and who were resolved upon upholding

the bulwark of the national liberties; he does not appear, however, to

have engaged in any of the great military enterprises which marked that

stirring period, the help he rendered to the cause being limited in a

great measure to the discharge of the civil functions which devolved

upon him as a magistrate, and in the performance of which he was very

zealous and energetic. His name is of frequent occurrence in the church

books in his own part of the county, and when, during the time of the

Usurpation, marriage, as a religious ceremony, was forbidden by the

law, and transformed into a civil contract to be entered into before

a justice of the peace, Mr. Stanley appears to have been one of the

magistrates most frequently performing the office. Though a staunch

Puritan, he can hardly be said to have been a violent supporter of the

party, and except in the assiduous discharge of his magisterial office

he took little part in the events that were then transpiring. Possibly

it was the moderation shown in those exciting times that led to his

being one of the Cheshire gentlemen selected for a baronetcy on the

occasion of the Restoration of Charles II., and curiously enough his

name appears first on the list from the county on whom that dignity was

conferred. The hall at Weever had up to this time been the principal

residence of the family. Some time before 1640 Thomas Stanley added

to his possessions by the purchase of Chorley Hall, an old mansion of

the Davenports, in Wilmslow parish; afterwards he greatly improved

the ancestral home at Alderley, and erected in front of it a handsome

stone-arched gateway, two of the pillars of which may still be seen in

the wall bordering the roadside; it is said that he also planted the

beech woods bordering upon the Mere, which now form such a pleasant

adjunct of the park.

Until the present century the succeeding generations of the Stanleys

took little active interest in national affairs, preferring the

quieter and less exciting life of country gentlemen, passing much of

their time in Cheshire improving their estates, and spending much of

their leisure in the indulgence of their literary tastes. Sir Peter

Stanley, who succeeded as second baronet on the death of his father,

Sir Thomas, in 1672, served the office of sheriff in 1678. He died in

1683, having had by his wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Leigh of

Northcourt, in the Isle of Wight, two sons and seven daughters. Thomas

Stanley, the eldest son, who succeeded to the barony and estates, was

born at Alderley on the 25th March, 1652, and baptized there on the

15th April following. He added to the family estates by his marriage

with Christiana, daughter and heiress of Sir Stephen Leonard, of

West Wickham, Kent, Bart. During his time the old hall of Weever, a

half-timbered mansion, pleasantly situated on an acclivity that rises

from the banks of the river of the same name, and which had come into

the possession of the Stanleys as early as the reign of Henry VI., and

been their principal residence until 1660 or thereabouts, was sold,

the purchaser being Randle Wilbraham, of Townshend, direct ancestor

of the Wilbrahams of Delamere House. Lady Stanley, who died February

16, 1711-12, bore him in addition to two daughters, both of whom died

unmarried, two sons, who in turn succeeded to the honours and estates

of the family. Sir Thomas Stanley died at West Wickham in 1721,

when the eldest of his two sons, James Stanley, succeeded as heir.

He married in November, 1740, Frances, youngest daughter of George

Butler, of Ballyragget, in the county Kilkenny, in Ireland, but by her

had no issue. He seems to have been a somewhat eccentric personage, if

we may judge from a remark made by Miss Stanley. She says, quoting from

the recollections of John Finlow, an old retainer of the family, that

"Sir James used to drive up to the Edge almost daily in his carriage

drawn by four black long-tailed mares, always accompanied by a running

footman of the name of Critchley." She adds that her informant, Finlow,

was a lad then, and used to get up behind the carriage. Notwithstanding

his little foibles the old baronet is represented as having been of a

remarkably mild and placid temperament, a character that seems to be

borne out by some lines he is believed to have written, and which were

found among his papers after his death--

The grace of God and a quiet life,

A mind content, and an honest wife,

A good report and a friend in store,

What need a man to wish for more.

Sir James Stanley died March 17th, 1746-7, when the baronetcy as well

as the patrimonial lands devolved upon his younger brother, Edward, who

succeeded as fifth baronet. He did not, however, long enjoy possession

of the estates, for in 1755, while returning from Adlington, where he

had been on a visit to Charles Legh, he was suddenly seized with a fit

of apoplexy, and died in his carriage before he could be conveyed home.

By his marriage with Mary, daughter of Thomas Ward, a wealthy banker,

of London, who survived him and died at Bath in 1771, he had two sons,

James Stanley, who died in infancy, and John Thomas, born 26th March,

1735, who succeeded as sixth baronet. He was in his twenty-first year

at the time of his father's decease, and married in April, 1763,

Margaret, daughter and heiress of Hugh Owen, of Penrhos, in Anglesey,

a well-wooded estate, about a mile from the town and harbour of

Holyhead. When he came into possession of the family estates the steep

rocky promontory known as the Edge, and with which every Manchester

holiday-maker is familiar, was a wild dreary common, without any sign

of cultivation, except the few clumps of hardy fir trees which had been

planted by his father and by his uncle, Sir James Stanley, between the

years 1745 and 1755. It is recorded that in 1799 he enclosed the Edge,

with other waste lands on the estate, and, at the same time repaired

or rebuilt the old Beacon which had been in existence from the time of

Elizabeth, if not from a still earlier date, and which was then in a

state of decay, covering in the square chamber with the pyramidal roof

which, until it became obscured by the thick umbrage around, made it

one of the chief landmarks in Cheshire.

Sir John Thomas Stanley died in London, November 29th, 1807, and

was buried at South Audley. By his wife, who survived him, and died

February 1st, 1816, he had a numerous family--two sons and five

daughters. Of the sons, the eldest, born November 26th, 1766, and named

after himself, succeeded as seventh baronet, and in 1839 was elevated

to the peerage by the title of Baron Stanley of Alderley. The other

son, Edward, the youngest of seven children, was born at his father's

residence in London, January 1st, 1779.

While the baronetcy and the broad lands of Alderley were reserved for

the eldest son of Sir John Thomas Stanley, the family living--the

rectory and the pleasant old rectory house--was the portion that

Edward, the youngest son, could look forward to, for the Stanleys were

then, as now, patrons of the church, as well as lords of the manor of

Alderley.

The future rector, as we have seen, first saw the light on New Year's

Day, 1779. He was born at his father's residence in London, and

his birth and baptism are thus recorded in the church register at

Alderley:--

1779. Feb. 21.--Edward, son of Sir John Thomas Stanley and Margaret,

Lady Stanley, was born in the parish of St. George's, Hanover Square,

co. Middlesex, the 1st of January, 1779, and baptized on the 31st of

the same month (by the Rev. Ralph Carr, rector of Alderley) at Sir

John's house, in the said parish of St. George's.

Though born, as it were, to the prospect of taking Holy Orders, Edward

Stanley's sanguine temperament, his love of adventure and spirit of

enterprise, led him in early years to long for the excitement and the

perils of a naval life, a passion that is said to have been inspired

by a visit he made, when a child of three or four years, to Weymouth,

where he first saw an English man-of-war. Though the boyish fancy was

overruled by circumstances beyond his own control, the impression made

upon his mind was never eradicated, and his enthusiastic love for a

profession from which he was excluded remained and gave a colour to his

whole after life. As his son in later years observed, "the sight of a

ship, the society of sailors, the embarkation on a voyage, were always

sufficient to inspire and delight him wherever he might be."

A bright, happy, eager childhood seems to have been his. Of amiable

disposition, with a cheerful flow of animal spirits, fertility of

resource, activity of mind and body, and an exuberance of boyish

mirth and daring, he carried with him into the active business of

life those natural characteristics which enabled him, when he had

attained to manhood, to overcome whatever difficulties might beset

his path--characteristics that were especially useful to him when he

entered upon his University career, for it can hardly be said that

up to that time his education and training were such as to specially

fit him for the sacred calling in which he was to find his vocation,

or such as were ordinarily given to boys destined for the Church. His

early life was passed in a succession of removals from one private

school or tutor to another; subsequently he was placed in the Grammar

School at Macclesfield, under the Rev. Dr. Inglis, whose classical

attainments had earned for the school a high reputation in the

Universities. In 1798 he entered at St John's College, Cambridge, to

find, however, that he had to begin his course of study almost from

the very foundation. Dean Stanley, in his "Memoirs," to which we are

indebted for many interesting particulars of his life, says: "Of Greek

he was entirely, of Latin almost entirely, ignorant; and of mathematics

he knew only what he had acquired at one of the private schools where

he had been placed when quite a child." His earnest application and

indomitable perseverance, however, soon enabled him to make up for

these deficiencies, and to make such progress that in 1802 he appeared

as 16th Wrangler in the mathematical tripos. Of him it might with truth

be said that "he applied his heart to know, and to search, and to seek

out wisdom," and we might almost fancy him to have been the subject of

the portrait of an English clergyman which a Fellow of his own college,

W. Mackworth Praed, drew with such a skilful hand--

Sit in the Vicar's seat: you'll hear

The doctrine of a _gentle Johnian_,

Whose hand is white, whose tone is clear,

Whose phrase is very Ciceronian.

He cherished a grateful recollection of the advantages he gained from

his academic course at Cambridge, and his affection for his _alma

mater_ was shown in the spirited letter he addressed to a local journal

when, a generation later, an attack was made upon the University by Mr.

Beverley. "I can never," he says, "be sufficiently grateful for the

benefits I received within those college walls; and to the last hour

of my life I shall feel a deep sense of thankfulness to those tutors

and authorities for the effects of that discipline and invaluable

course of study which rescued me from ignorance, and infused an abiding

thirst for knowledge, the means of intellectual enjoyment, and those

habits and principles which have not only been an enduring source of

personal gratification, but tended much to qualify me, from the period

of my taking orders to the present day, for performing the duties of an

extensive parish."

Having taken his B.A., he made a Continental tour, visiting

Switzerland, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. On his return he was admitted

to Holy Orders and ordained to the curacy of Windleshaw, in Surrey,

where he remained for about three years, when the rectory of Alderley

became vacant, by the resignation of the Rev. Ralph Carr, who had held

it for the long period of forty-three years, the greater part of which

time he had been non-resident. This was in 1805--the year in which

he proceeded to his degree of M.A.--and he was then presented by his

father to the vacant living and inducted November 15th.

Though little of his early life had been passed at Alderley, the place

was endeared to him by many family associations, and from his first

entering upon the ministerial office the ardent desire of his heart

was to do something for the people, who, through the apathy and long

continued absence of his predecessor, had been as sheep having no

shepherd.

At that time the religious life of England was at a very low ebb;

ministerial neglect was the rule rather than the exception, and the

conduct of the clergy generally was not regulated by any very high

standard of morality or excellence. Among the changes that have been

wrought in our national institutions during the present century none

have been more remarkable than those in the Church--not in its abstract

constitution, but in the character and conduct of its ministers. The

clerical "lights of other days" shone but dimly. Those who resided

upon their benefices were content to spend their days in an easy

hand-in-glove kind of association with their people, but seldom or

never rose above the ordinary routine of the stated services of the

Church. With the wise man they believed that "in much study is a

weariness of the flesh," and to avoid that "weariness" they were

wont to give more time to the foxes than to the Fathers. The typical

clergyman of eighty years ago preferred conviviality to controversy;

he was more concerned about his pigs than his preaching, and dreaded

distemper in his herd a great deal more than he did dissent in his

flock. Alderley was no exception to the general condition of the

country, and many are the stories of clerical shortcomings that still

linger in the memory of the older inhabitants. Rector Carr had made it

his boast that he "never set a foot in a sick person's cottage," and it

is related that when service was held in the church "the clerk used to

go to the churchyard stile to see whether there were any more coming to

church, for there were seldom enough to make a congregation."

A parish which had remained so long in a state of spiritual torpor

presented many difficulties to a new comer filled with a desire to

promote the well-being of his people, and whose creed was--

Of hope, and virtue, and affection full.

Surrounded by so much ignorance and indifference the enthusiasm of his

fervent spirit was enkindled, and his ardent nature, combined with his

strong sense of duty, acted as an incentive, and increased the desire

to minister to the wants, both temporal and spiritual, of his flock,

and faithfully to fulfil the sacred trust committed to him in his

parochial cure. But those among whom he was called to minister were

untaught in the first rudiments of the Christian faith, and upon ground

so unprepared it was clear that the seed of the Word read and preached

in the church, and the services of the liturgy, however reverently

said or sung, could profit little, and that it was only by clothing

his thoughts in language suited to their capacity--by giving in the

plainest words such simple instruction as should touch their hearts,

and by a kindly sympathy in all their concerns that he could hope to

become "a father and a leader" to his hitherto neglected parishioners,

and sustain among them a higher standard of conduct than was then

common among an agricultural population. To be, in short--

A pastor such as Chaucer's verse portrays;

Such as the heaven-taught skill of Herbert drew;

And tender Goldsmith crown'd with deathless praise.

With him duty seemed to be a delight, and piety an instinct; though

among the indolent, easy-going divines of the old school, in whom the

true liturgical teaching of the Church had withered down into a mere

lifeless form, his unwearying devotion to the charge committed to

his care was looked upon as only the fervid zeal of an enthusiastic

visionary.

Edward Stanley had nearly completed his twenty-seventh year when he

entered upon his ministry at Alderley. In his twenty-ninth year he

became engaged to the lady who may with truth be said to have been

the sunshine of his heart, who took an unfailing interest and pride

in his labours, and who was his constant stay and support through

life--Catherine Leycester, the eldest of the two daughters of the Rev.

Oswald Leycester, at the time rector of Stoke-upon-Terne, but who, in

Edward Stanley's boyhood, had been curate of Alderley, a position he

resigned on being presented by his brother, George Leycester, to the

living of the neighbouring church of Knutsford. They were married in

1810, as Maria Leycester in her family notes, transcribed in "Memorials

of a Quiet Life," thus records: "On the 8th of May, 1810, my sister

was married in Stoke Church, to Edward Stanley, Rector of Alderley.

Upon her marriage I left Leighton Cottage, and until my mother's

death I remained at home. My father gave me lessons in--it must be

confessed--_bad_ French and Italian, but it was my sister who still

directed my studies by letter, constantly sending me questions on the

books which I read, and expecting me to write her the answers....

Edward Stanley was to me the kindest of brothers, and great was the

amusement he gave by the playful verses he wrote to please me."

The Leycesters of Toft, of which house Oswald Leycester was a younger

son, were an offshoot of the Leycesters of Tabley, now represented

by Lord de Tabley. The family held high rank among the Cheshire

squirearchy, and between them and the Stanleys a friendship had

long existed, the intimacy being increased by near neighbourship,

for Toft, their ancestral home--a charmingly situated manor-house,

where, before his removal to Stoke, Oswald Leycester resided with

his widowed mother--was only a few miles distant, and a continuous

intercourse was kept up between the two families. "My great delight,"

wrote Maria Leycester, "was to go to Alderley Park and play with the

'Miss Stanleys;' and it was a joy when, standing by the breakfast

table, I heard it settled that the carriage was to be ordered to go

to Alderley, and that I was to be of the party." The Leycesters could

boast a lineage as ancient as that of the Stanleys, and through the

Tofts, whose estates they had acquired by marriage with a heiress of

that family in the reign of Richard II., were able to trace their

descent from Gunnora, Duchess of Normandy, the grandmother of William

the Conqueror.

Edward Stanley was approaching his thirty-second year at the time of

his marriage--his wife had then just passed her nineteenth birthday.

But, young as she was, she had, owing to the delicate health of her

mother, been taught, almost from the time of leaving school, to think

and act for herself, and had had moreover the responsibility cast

upon her of educating her younger sister, Maria Leycester. "Hers was

a porcelain understanding," said Sydney Smith; her journal and the

letters written in her earlier life give a true reflex of her mind,

and justify the remark of her son that "there was a quiet wisdom, a

rare usefulness, a calm discrimination, a firm decision, which made her

judgment and her influence felt through the whole circle in which she

lived."

To the old rectory house at Alderley, Edward Stanley took his bride,

and in that happy home five children were brought up. Of the every-day

life in that household we get many pleasant glimpses in the journal of

Maria Leycester, to which reference has already been made. She writes

upon one occasion:--

We live here (Alderley Rectory) in such perfect retirement and

tranquillity that it is more like Stoke than Alderley, and I enjoy

excessively the exemption from all interruption to the happiness of my

life here. I believe you will not have any difficulty in imagining how

great that happiness is, in the society of two people that one loves

excessively, with children that are as interesting to one as if they

were one's own, and with all the luxury of delicious spring weather

(this was written May 10, 1819) in beech woods and green fields. I

would defy you to tantalise me with the greatest temptations London

could offer; as far as happiness, real _true_ happiness is concerned,

nothing in London could present to me half as much as one perfectly

retired uninterrupted day at Alderley.

In one of her letters to Miss Clinton, written from Stoke Rectory in

the early summer of 1825, she says:--

That I have not written to you before you will easily understand to

have arisen from my unwillingness to lose a single hour of my last

days at Alderley. They were indeed very precious to me, and after

staying there for four months uninterruptedly you may well imagine how

painful it was to me to leave all those who were more than usually

endeared to me by the comfort they had offered me during a time

when nothing else could have pleased or interested. Certainly, too,

altogether, with its inhabitants, its abundance of books, of drawing,

liberty unrestrained, beautiful walks and rides and seats, luxuriance

of flowers, and, in delicious weather, there cannot on earth be so

perfect a paradise. During the hot weather we generally went on the

mere--or rode in the evenings. Every morning, before breakfast, Lucy

and I met in the wood at the old Moss House, where we spent an hour

together, and Owen (Edward Stanley's eldest son) came to ferry me

home. With so much around to interest and please me, I put away self

as much as possible, and endeavoured as much as I could to enjoy the

present. You know how dearly I love all those children, and it was

such a pleasure to see them all so happy together. To be sure it would

be singular if they were not different from other children, with

the advantages they have, when education is made so interesting and

amusing as it is to them.... While others of their age are plodding

through the dull histories, of which they remember nothing, of

unconnected countries and ages, K.'s (Katharine Stanley's) system is

to take one particular era, perhaps, and upon the basis of the General

History, pick out for them from different books all that bears upon

that one subject, whether in memoirs or literature, making it at once

an interesting study to herself and them.

The old rectory house at Alderley was not the home of the parson

only--it was, in a sense, the home of the parish, and became the

resort of all who were in trouble or difficulty, or who needed counsel

or assistance. The house was, as it were, thrown open, and every one

knew that in it they had a friend ready to listen to their little

grievances, and equally ready to remedy them where it was in his power

to do so--one who could "weep with them that wept, and rejoice with

them that rejoiced"--who had a kindly sympathy in all their concerns,

and could enter into their interests with the feelings of a father

and a friend. The good man's delight in ministering to the temporal

comforts of his people was extreme, and he took an especial pleasure

in drawing them around him, in order that he might turn any passing

circumstance to profitable account, and speak to them more familiarly

and more directly upon matters connected with the parish that might

be commented upon or set right. He preferred kneeling by the sick

bed in a cottage to the cushioned ease of a mansion, and a serious

conversation with the poor to the small talk of the drawing-room. It

was this feature in his ministerial career that left a never-fading

recollection in the minds of those he ministered to, and many a good

deed done in secret only came to light when he was removed to another

sphere of duty, and but for that removal would probably never have

been disclosed. Mounted upon his little black cob, he might be seen

daily going his rounds among his parishioners, advising them in their

difficulties, comforting them in their sorrows, and encouraging or

reproving them as he saw occasion. The sound of his horse's feet was

as music in the ears of the rustic cottagers, who would hasten to

their doors to greet his approach, while their children, with bobbing

courtesies, would stand in eager expectation of the "goodies" that

were sure to be the reward of those who were clean and tidy. "When

he entered a sick chamber," it was said, "he never failed to express

the joy which order and neatness gave him, or to reprove where he

found it otherwise," and whatever was proposed for the general good

was sure to receive his active support; he took so much trouble, the

people said, in whatever he did--never sparing himself in whatever he

took in hand. He felt that he was in a measure a temporal as well as a

spiritual guide, a leader and encourager of sobriety, good order, and

peacefulness, as well as a teacher of sound doctrine and an example of

Christian practice, and that his mission was rather to raise the rude

and uncultivated to his own level than to lower himself to theirs.

In those days pastoral life was not so charmingly innocent, nor the

Colins and Phoebes nearly so amiable and virtuous, as imaginative

poets and painters have pictured them to us. In Alderley, as in many

other places, drunkenness was the besetting sin; immorality, as a

matter of course, followed in its train; and what should have been a

kind of Arcadia was oftentimes the scene of riotous disorder. The good

rector spared no pains to repress the evil, and whenever he heard of

any drunken fight in the village he would, with the dash and daring

of an English sailor, hurry off to put a stop to it. It is related

that on one occasion word was brought to him that a riotous crowd had

assembled on the confines of his parish to witness a desperate prize

fight. "The whole field," so a rustic spectator described it, "was

filled, and all the trees round about, when in about a quarter of an

hour I saw the rector coming up the road on his little black horse as

quick as lightning, and I trembled for fear they should harm him. He

rode into the field, and just looked quick round (as if he thought the

same) to see who there was that would be on his side. But it was not

needed--he rode into the midst of the crowd, and in one moment it was

all over; there was a great calm; the blows stopped; it was as if they

would all have wished to cover themselves up in the earth--all from

the trees they dropped down directly--no one said a word, and all went

away humble." The following day he sent for the two men, but instead of

scolding he reasoned with them, and sent each away with a Bible in his

hand.

He was the centre from which whatever there was of spiritual life in

the parish emanated. Self-reliant, resolute and unwearied, but kind

and conciliatory, and withal cautious and discreet in his operations,

he exhibited a thoroughness of character that enabled him to exercise

a controlling influence over his charge, and his self-devotedness

was often gladdened by the sympathy and encouraged by the affection

of those whom he had won from the slavery of sin to the freedom of

Christian life. When he settled down with his young wife among the

scattered units that in the aggregate constituted his flock, he found

them for the most part sunk in ignorance, mental and moral; and the

parents, indifferent themselves, had allowed their children to grow up

in the same indifference. To reclaim the young, he set about gathering

them into the village schools, in the successful working of which he

ever manifested the deepest interest. Public elementary education had

then made but little progress, and the proverbial three R's, with

perhaps a dash of unintelligible geography and history, made up the

total of the knowledge usually imparted. Edward Stanley was far in

advance of many of his clerical brethren in the desire to place the

means of instruction within the reach of even the poorest classes of

society, as well as to improve the methods of conveying it; and his

zeal in this direction has been testified to by a former Chancellor of

the diocese of Chester, the Rev. Henry Raikes.

"He was the first," said the Chancellor, "who distinctly saw and

boldly advocated the advantages of general education for the lower

classes. Schools had been founded; he had borne his part--and a

most active part--in the first movement, but I think that he first

set the example of the extent to which general knowledge might be

communicated--and beneficially communicated--in a parochial school. I

well remember the appearance," he says, "of the school at Alderley,

where, in addition to the usual range of desks and books, the

apparatus for gymnastic exercises was seen suspended from the roof.

I remember the admiration excited at a lecture which he delivered in

Chester, where he exhibited a 'hortus siccus' of the plants found in

the parish, made by one of the girls in the school; and, though few

or none did more than wonder at what was accomplished at Alderley, an

impression was created that a large amount of useful secular knowledge

might be added without any deduction from what would be considered the

proper objects of a school."

His love of learning manifested itself in other ways. When half

a century ago the British Association had sprung into existence,

causing a flutter among Church dignitaries, who failed to see that

Christianity had everything to hope and nothing to fear from the

advancement of science, and very reverend deans were addressing letters

of remonstrance to its promoters on the "Dangers of Peripatetic

Philosophy," Edward Stanley courageously came forward as its advocate,

and was enrolled as one of its early vice-presidents. A one-sided

development of the mind was then the characteristic of the older

universities, and men often-times left college without a single idea

concerning the common things of every-day life or the slightest

knowledge of any of God's works. The rector of Alderley was in many

respects self-educated; dependent in a great measure upon his own

resources, he had discovered that dead literature could not be made the

parent of living science or active industry, and was one of the first

clergymen to direct popular attention to the wondrous history of the

stones of the field, the birds of the air, and the "gnats above the

summer stream." "The perversions of men," he was wont to say, "would

have made an infidel of him but for the counteracting impressions

of Divine Providence in the works of nature." Like Gilbert White, at

Selborne, he devoted much of his leisure in noting the instincts of

animals and the phenomena of ever-changing nature. Ornithology was his

favourite subject of study, and the staircases and corridors of his

rectory house, adorned as they were with cuttings from "Bewick," bore

testimony to his love of birds, while their habits and peculiarities

formed a constant source of interest and amusement to him in his

rambles through the fields and along the rural lanes of his parish.

The result of his labours he embodied in a pleasantly-written work,

published by the Christian Knowledge Society--"A Familiar History

of Birds: their Nature, Habits, and Instincts"--a work that has

passed through several editions--in which are recorded many of the

observations made at Alderley.

On the 13th of June, 1811, the rector's heart was gladdened by the

birth of a son, who, in compliment to his grandmother, was named Owen.

Owen Stanley inherited his father's passionate desire for the naval

profession, and the wish was indulged from a recollection of the

painful effort it cost the father in his boyhood to overcome the same

impulse. Another child, a daughter, was born on the 14th December,

1813, Mary Stanley, and his happiness was added to by the birth of

a second son, on the 13th December, 1815--Arthur Penrhyn Stanley,

the future Dean of Westminster. Of the home life in the pleasant old

parsonage house many glimpses are given us in that tribute of filial

affection from the pen of Arthur Penrhyn Stanley to which reference

has previously been made, as well as in that delightful chronicle of

English domestic life--its comfort, its quiet, and its innocence,

written by Arthur Stanley's kinsman--"Memorials of a Quiet Life."

Writing to her sister in May, 1818, Mrs. Stanley remarks:--

How I have enjoyed these fine days--and one's pleasure is doubled, or

rather, I should say, trebled, in the enjoyment of the three little

children basking in the sunshine on the lawns, and picking up daisies,

and finding new flowers every day--and in seeing Arthur expand like

one of the flowers in the fine weather. Owen trots away to school at

nine o'clock every morning, with his Latin grammar under his arm,

leaving Mary (his sister) with a strict charge to unfurl his flag,

which he leaves carefully furled, through the little Gothic gate, as

soon as the clock strikes twelve. So Mary unfurls the flag and then

watches till Owen comes in sight, and as soon as he spies her signal

he sets off full gallop towards it, and Mary creeps through the gate

to meet him, and then comes with as much joy to announce Owen's being

come back as if he was returned from the North Pole. Meanwhile I am

sitting with the doors open into the trellice, so that I can see and

hear all that passes.

Two years later the fond mother writes:--

I have been taking a domestic walk with the three children and the

pony to Owen's favourite cavern, Mary and Arthur taking it in turns to

ride. Arthur was sorely puzzled between his fear and his curiosity.

Owen and Mary, full of adventurous spirit, went with Mademoiselle to

explore. Arthur stayed with me and the pony, but when I said I would

go, he said, colouring, he would go, he _thought_. "But, mamma, do

you think there are any wild dogs in the cavern?" Then we picked up

various specimens of cobalt, &c., and we carried them in a basket, and

we called at Mrs. Barber's, and we got some string, and we tied the

basket to the pony with some trouble, and we got home very safe, and I

finished the delights of the evening by reading _Paul and Virginia_ to

Owen and Mary, with which they were much delighted and so was I. You

would have given a good deal for a peep at Arthur this evening, making

hay with all his little strength--such a beautiful colour, and such

soft animation in his blue eyes.

Among the letters of Mrs. Stanley is one that has more than a local or

domestic interest. She was one of the spectators on the occasion of

the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester railway on that memorable

15th September, 1830, when the Duke of Wellington, who was then Prime

Minister, came down to preside at the ceremony, and poor William

Huskisson, who had been such a strenuous and eager supporter of the

enterprise, met his death. After a vivid account of the scene and the

incident that gave such a mournful interest to it, she describes a

visit she made a year or two after to High Legh. She says:--

We are a party of twenty-six in the house. There are so many that

one's presence or absence is perfectly immaterial and unremarked.

There is one person who interests me very much--Mrs. Tom Blackburne,

"the Vicaress" of Eccles, who received poor Mrs. Huskisson, and

immortalised herself by her activity, sense, and conduct all through.

She made one ashamed of the ease and idleness of one's own life,

compared with hers. They have to deal with such a population--25,000

souls. She has been the ruling spirit evidently; and under her

guidance, and the help of a sound head and heart her husband has

become the very man for the place, with quickness and presence of mind

for any sudden emergency: and she describes the people--all Manchester

weavers--as grateful and sensitive, far beyond our agricultural

experience. He is in general at home to parishioners from 8 till 12

and from 4 to 6 every day, and often fully occupied all the time; but

during the four days Mrs. Huskisson was in the house, none of them

entered the gates. She asked afterwards why it was, and one of them

said, "Eh, we knowed what you were at, and so we did without."

I made her give me the details of those days. She said the most

painful thing she had to do was waking Mrs. Huskisson out of her sound

heavy sleep the morning after. She went three times into the room

before she had resolution to wake her outright, as was necessary. Mrs.

H. went into the most violent hysterics the moment she opened her

eyes and saw Mrs. Blackburne. Lord Granville, hearing her screams,

came to Mrs. Blackburne's assistance. He and his valet were her chief

assistants all through. She said the advantage of having such people

to deal with was great. Many would have thought it an additional

trouble to have great people in such circumstances--she found it just

the reverse; the high breeding and true gentlemanliness that come out

smooths over every difficulty and awkwardness of strangers in such

close quarters. Lord Granville, in particular, entered into every

feeling with a woman's delicacy. Poor Mrs. Huskisson was alternately

in paroxysms of grief and a still more dreadful calmness, especially

the day after, when it was wished to relieve her of all business, and

she insisted on doing everything herself.

Just before she left the house, she locked herself into the room, and

after violent hysterics, during which Mrs. Blackburne tried in vain to

get to her assistance, she heard her praying for her and her husband,

and all connected with them.

She desired Mrs. Blackburne to remember her to Lady Elizabeth

Belgrave, and to hope she had not suffered from the shock (she was

near her confinement). "What should I have felt if you had been in

her situation?" This she said to Mrs. Blackburne, who was at the

moment within three months of her time. Of course Mrs. Blackburne said

nothing, but wrote to her after her confinement, and Mrs. Huskisson

answered her that it was the first ray of sunshine that had come to

her, for she had afterwards found it out, and it had weighed heavily

upon her.

Some months afterwards she sent Mr. Blackburne a Bible with gold

clasps, and in the purple silk lining inside, these words in gilt

letters:--"I was a stranger and ye took me in." Both last Christmas

and this she sent also £20 to him to distribute amongst his poor, well

knowing that she could not make him a more acceptable present.

[Illustration: Handwritten signature]

For thirty-two years Edward Stanley continued to minister to the

wants--temporal as well as spiritual--of the population of his pleasant

little rural parish, looked up to by the cottage as a father and

a friend, and endeared to all by his earnestness, his simplicity,

and his geniality; his faithful coadjutor during the whole of that

long period being the Rev. Isaac Bell, his curate, the father of the

present worthy rector of Alderley, the Rev. Edward John Bell. For a

time (1824 to 1829) he enjoyed the friendly co-operation of the rector

of the adjoining parish of Wilmslow--the Rev. J. Mathias Turner,[10]

who afterwards became Bishop of Calcutta, and many were the schemes of

parochial improvement then formed, and which, doubtless, afterwards

influenced in no small degree the Church work in the dioceses to which

the two rectors were respectively appointed. Stanley could never find

happiness in repose; his intervals of leisure, as we have said, were

mainly devoted to the study of ornithology, but he also found time

for literary pursuits. In addition to the pamphlets which he issued

from time to time in the form of addresses to his people--"A Few Words

on behalf of our Roman Catholic Brethren," "A Few Observations on

Religion and Education in Ireland," and "A Country Rector's Address

to his Parishioners"--he contributed to the "British Magazine," to

"Blackwood," and to other periodicals, the results of his studies and

the records of his brief holiday excursions; one of these latter, an

account of an adventure in the Alps, on the "Mauvais Pas," is believed

to have suggested to Sir Walter Scott the opening scene in his novel

of "Anne of Geierstein." Among the results of his scientific and

antiquarian investigations is a history of the parish of Alderley,

still preserved in MS., which it is hoped will at no distant day be

given to the world.

But the time came when the literary occupations and the scientific

investigations with which he had so pleasantly beguiled his leisure

hours at Alderley were to be laid aside--when he was to be wrenched

out of his rural surroundings to undertake the episcopal supervision

of an important diocese. When it was proposed to erect Manchester into

a see the rector of Alderley declined the invitation to become its

first bishop, but in 1837, at the instance of the then Prime Minister,

Lord Melbourne, he was, after much deliberation and a severe struggle

which almost broke down his health, induced to accept the nomination

to the bishopric of Norwich. To leave the quiet, peaceful parsonage

where so many happy years had been passed, and where all his children

had been born and reared--to part from those among whom he had so long

laboured--was a sore trial, and the news of the preferment which was to

sever the tie that had so long bound pastor and people was received by

the parishioners amidst an uncontrollable outburst of grief.

It is not our purpose to dwell at any length upon the labours of Edward

Stanley as a bishop of the Church of England; suffice it to say that

on leaving Alderley, where so many years of his useful life had been

spent, and which was endeared to him by so many ties of affection and

sympathy, he turned with alacrity to the work which lay before him, and

with the same spirit of energy, and the same dauntless courage, applied

himself to the development of those schemes of practical usefulness

that lay within his grasp, in order that his cathedral city might

become the centre of the moral and religious life of the diocese. Broad

in his sympathies, courageous in his outspeaking, and impetuous in his

temperament, he oftentimes brought himself in conflict with those who

were content with things as they had been, and in the earlier years of

his episcopate he found his diocese anything but a bed of roses, for

during the closing years of the long rule of his predecessor, Bishop

Bathurst, Norwich had been a byword for laxity among the sees of

the English Church, a condition of things the new prelate could not

endure. Stanley's whole life had been a protest against the lethargy

and inactivity which was then only too common a characteristic of

the clergy, yet his broad liberality, his fatherly sympathy, and his

geniality and simplicity enabled him, while correcting abuses, always

to leave peace behind. His personal kindness won the hearts of the

clergy of his diocese as thoroughly as it had previously won those of

the cottagers in his parish. "I felt," said one of them, after a visit

from the bishop, "as if a sunbeam had passed through my parish, and had

left me to rejoice in its genial and cheerful warmth. From that day I

would have died to serve him; and I believe that not a few of my humble

flock were animated in a greater or less degree by the same kind of

feeling."

[Illustration: Handwritten signature]

Amid the cares inseparable from the active supervision of an important

diocese, he never forgot his old parish of Alderley, and his attachment

for the scene of his early labours continued unshaken. "It would be

vain and useless," he said, on commencing his primary visitation, "to

speak to others of what none could feel so deeply as myself. What it

cost me to leave Alderley, it is for myself alone to feel." On parting

with his parishioners he had given a sacred pledge that he would visit

them every year, and the annual recurrence of the time when he could

again make the familiar round of visits to those he had known and loved

during his long ministerial intercourse, and who themselves looked

forward to his coming as the greatest pleasure of their lives, was

anticipated with fond delight. "I have been," he wrote to a friend, a

few months before his death, "in various directions over the parish,

visiting many welcome faces, laughing with the living, weeping over

the dying. It is gratifying to see the cordial familiarity with which

they receive me; and Norwich clergy would scarcely know me sitting by

cottage firesides, talking over old times, with their hands clasped in

mine, as an old and dear friend."

On the last day of December, 1848, the eve of his seventieth birthday,

he wrote in his Journal:--

In a few hours I shall have attained the threescore years and ten and

closed the eleventh year of my episcopal life ... and though these

latter years have been accompanied with much labour and pain and

sorrow, more and more alive as I am to the difficulties presenting

themselves, still I feel satisfaction in what I have been instrumental

in doing. How many parishes have been supplied with resident clergy,

in which no pastoral care had been for years manifested? How many

churches have had the full measure of services prescribed, in which

from time immemorial the most scanty administration had sufficed?

And how many schools have been established for the benefit of the

thousands who had been, with the most culpable negligence, permitted

to remain brutalised and uncivilised and perishing for lack of

knowledge?

Before another year had passed away, the good prelate was numbered

among those who "fell asleep and were laid unto their fathers." During

the summer the state of his health had been such as to cause anxiety

to his family; his overtaxed faculties needed rest, and, after an

ordination at Norwich, he was induced to start with his wife and

daughters on a short tour in Scotland. While at Brahan Castle, in

Ross-shire, a change for the worse occurred; this was on the 3rd of

September; on the following day he rallied a little, and expressed a

desire to go down to the warm sunshine of the bright autumnal morning

which lay on the greensward under his window, and rose to attempt it,

but the effort was more than his strength would bear, and he sank down

upon the bed never in life to rise again. For two days the struggle

with nature continued, and on the evening of the 6th, in the presence

of his wife and daughters and his son, Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, calmly

and unconsciously, as if in a dream, he passed into his rest.

In life he had expressed a desire to be buried in the churchyard of

Alderley, among those with whom he had so long lived, unless that

"circumstances and the wishes and judgment" of those on whom he most

confided "might decide upon the spot which had been the last scene

of his ministerial labours." Their decision was that he should rest

within the precincts of his own cathedral; and there, on the 21st of

September, his remains were interred, a vast multitude attending to

pay the last tribute of respect to his memory. "I can give you the

facts," wrote one who was present, "but I can give you no notion of

how impressive it was, nor how affecting. There were such sobs and

tears from the school children, and from the clergy who so loved their

dear bishop. A beautiful sunshine lit up everything, shining into the

cathedral just at the time. Arthur was quite calm, and looked like an

angel, with a sister on each side."

In the centre of the nave of Norwich Cathedral, where the warm rays of

the setting sun as they steal through the great west window which he

had desired should be restored as a memorial of him, dye the pavement

with rainbow hues, a plain black marble tablet marks the spot where his

ashes lie. It is inscribed:--

Installed Aug. 17, 1837

Born Jan. 1, 1779.

In the faith of Christ

Here rests from his labours

EDWARD STANLEY

32 years Rector of Alderley,

12 years Bishop of Norwich;

Buried amidst the mourning

of the diocese which he had animated,

the city which he had served,

the poor whom he had visited,

the schools which he had fostered,

the family which he had loved,

and of all Christian people

with whom, howsoever divided, he had joined

in whatever things were true, and honest,

and just, and pure,

and lovely, and of good report.

Died Sept. 6, 1849, aged 70.

Interred Sept. 21, 1849

While the solemn sound from the great bell-tower of the cathedral

announced to the citizens of Norwich that the mortal frame of him

who had won the hearts of all sorts and conditions of men was

being committed to the tomb, a mournful knell echoed from the grey

tower of the quiet old church of Alderley, cleaving the silent air

with its funereal tone--the tongue of death with mournful accents

laden--conveying

A message to the living from the dead

that awoke a feeling of sorrow as touching and unfeigned as that more

openly manifested at Norwich; for though twelve years had gone by since

Edward Stanley had been withdrawn from the parish, and many changes

had taken place, the feeling of affection which had gathered round him

during the thirty-two years of his ministry was fresh and green in the

hearts of the people, and the tidings of his death were received with a

burst of grief that was all the more affecting from the simple language

in which it found utterance; a sorrowful gloom spread over the parish,

many a cottage was darkened, and many an eye was dimmed with tears at

the consciousness that the same hand which had deprived the Church

of one of her worthiest sons had reft them of a sincere and devoted

friend. When the bishop's papers came to be examined, it was found he

had not forgotten those who held him in such loving regard. Among the

documents were two addresses, one to the parishioners and the other to

the school children of Alderley, with a request that a copy of each

might be sent to every house in the parish.

Bishop Stanley was spared one affliction. His youngest son, Charles

Edward Stanley, who had entered the service of the Royal Engineers,

and was afterwards appointed private secretary to Sir William Denison,

Governor of Van Diemen's Land, was suddenly cut off by fever at his

official post in Tasmania on the 13th of August, 1849. The news had not

reached England at the time of the prelate's decease, and it was not

until December that the widowed mother became acquainted with the fact

of her son's death. To add to her sorrow, intelligence was received in

the course of the following summer that the eldest son, Captain Owen

Stanley, had been found dead in his cabin on board ship at Sydney, a

few days after receiving the tidings of his father's and his brother's

death. The two brothers remain in those distant regions, one in St.

George's churchyard, Hobart Town; the other in a secluded spot in

the graveyard of St. Leonard's, which Owen Stanley had chosen as his

resting-place in the event of his dying in Australia.

Thus, of the three sons of Edward Stanley, only one survived to be a

stay and comfort to the widowed mother--Arthur Penhryn Stanley, the

profound scholar and the earnest and fearless thinker, who afterwards

became Dean of Westminster. Born and brought up in his father's

rectory, he to the last retained an affectionate interest in the place

where his boyhood was passed; when he had attained to manhood he was in

the habit of regularly visiting his old nurse, Ellen Baskerville, and

when she died, only a few years ago, he came down from Westminster to

read the burial service over her body.

A brief notice of Arthur Stanley's early days may fittingly conclude

our notice of Alderley and the Stanleys. The letters already quoted

have given us a side glance into the happy home in which his boyhood

was passed. Unlike his brothers, who were strong, robust, and full

of spirit and adventure, the little Arthur was weak and delicate,

thoughtful and reserved in his manner, with a shyness in his

disposition that caused him to shun the companionship of other boys

of his own age. Mrs. Stanley's happy method of imparting instruction

had awakened in his young mind a passion for poetry and romance, and

his imagination was stirred by the many weird legends and quaint

traditions that gathered around the neighbourhood of his home, and

which, though now fast dying from the memories of the inhabitants,

were then implicitly believed. His ideas frequently found vent in

rhyme, and at the early age of twelve he is said to have written some

verses on the occasion of his watching the sun rise from the tower

of Alderley church. When nine years of age he was sent to a private

school at Seaforth, near Liverpool. Twelve months after his aunt, Maria

Leycester, who was on a visit at his father's rectory, wrote to one of

the family:--

July, 1825.--You know how dearly I love all these children and it has

been such a pleasure to see them all so happy together. Owen, the hero

upon whom all their little eyes were fixed, and the delicate Arthur,

able to take his own share of boyish amusements with them, and telling

out his little store of literary wonders to Charlie and Catherine.

School has not transformed him into a rough boy yet. He is a little

less shy, but not much. He brought back from school a beautiful prize

book for history, of which he is not a little proud; and Mr. Rawson

has told several people, unconnected with the Stanleys, that he never

had a more amiable, attentive, or clever boy than Arthur Stanley, and

that he never has had to find fault with him since he came. My sister

finds in examining him, that he not only knows what he has learnt

himself, but that he picks up all the knowledge gained by the other

boys in their lessons, and can tell what each boy in the school has

read, &c. His delight in reading _Madoc_ and _Thalaba_ is excessive.

Again, writing from her father's rectory at Stoke-upon-Terne, under

date August 26, 1826, Maria Leycester remarks:--

My Alderley children are more interesting than ever. Arthur is giving

Mary quite a literary taste, and is the greatest advantage to her

possible, for they are now quite inseparable companions, reading,

drawing, and writing together. Arthur has written a poem on the Life

of a Peacock Butterfly in the Spenserian stanza, with all the old

words, with references to Chaucer, &c., at the bottom of the page....

I never saw anything equal to Arthur's memory and quickness in picking

up knowledge; seeming to have just the sort of intuitive sense of

everything relating to books that Owen had in ships--and then there is

such affection and sweetness of disposition in him.... You will not

be tired of all this detail of those so near my heart. It is always

such a pleasure to me to write of the rectory, and I can always do it

better when I am away from it and it rises before my mental vision.

At the age of thirteen, that is in 1828, Arthur Stanley had his

first experience of foreign travel, having in that year accompanied

his parents and some other relatives in a tour to Bordeaux and the

Pyrenees. The sight of the snow-tipped peaks rising above the masses of

cloud filled his mind with wonder, and in a thrill of childish delight

he exclaimed, "What shall I do? What shall I do?" In the spring of

the following year he was sent to Rugby, where Dr. Arnold had, only

a few months before, been appointed to the head-mastership. It was an

anxious time for all at the rectory, for the weak, timid, bashful boy,

accustomed only to the peaceful seclusion of his native village and the

quietude of the private school at Seaforth, was but ill-fitted to cope

with the active, strong-limbed youths he would be sure to encounter

in a large public school, where might oftentimes takes the place of

right, to say nothing of the terrors of prepostors and fagging. Under

the judicious training of Dr. Arnold, however, his native diffidence

was in a great degree overcome; he began to take his part in the manly

exercises in which all Rugbeians were expected to perfect themselves,

and made for himself many friends, among them being one who in after

life became associated with him by closer ties--the Rev. Charles J.

Vaughan, D.D., Master of the Temple, who in 1850 married his youngest

sister, Catherine Maria Stanley. We get a glimpse of him during his

school life from one of his mother's letters written in February, 1831.

She says:--

Charlie writes word from school, "I am very miserable, not that I

want anything, except to be at home." Arthur does not mind going half

so much. He says he does not know why, but all the boys seem fond of

him, and he never gets plagued in any way like the others; his study

is left untouched, his things unbroke, his books undisturbed. Charlie

is so fond of him and deservedly so. You would have been so pleased

one night, when Charlie all of a sudden burst into violent distress

at not having finished his French task for the holydays, by Arthur's

judicious good nature in showing him how to help himself, entirely

leaving what he was about of his own employment.

From a child he had manifested a tender spirit of piety, and it is

related on good authority that he was the original Arthur who won the

heart of Tom Brown at Rugby, by kneeling down at his little bed in

the presence of a rough crowd of boys, and saying his prayers before

retiring, the practical effect of which was that several of his

schoolfellows who from shame had given up all habit of prayer were

emboldened to begin the practice again.

For five years Arthur Stanley was the favourite pupil of Dr. Arnold,

but the friendship then formed continued until the great schoolmaster's

sudden and memorable death on the eve of his birthday in 1842. In

1834 Stanley entered at University College, Oxford, and was elected

a scholar on that foundation in 1837, the year in which his father

removed from Alderley to Norwich. On the 7th of June in the same year

he recited in the Sheldonian Theatre his Newdegate prize poem, "The

gipsies;" his father was a listener, and when he beheld the tumult

of applause with which it was received, he burst into tears. In the

following year he graduated B.A.; shortly after he proceeded to the

higher degree of M.A., and in the Autumn of 1839 was ordained.

It does not come within the scope of this brief sketch to relate in

detail his progress at the University, or his career as a divine of

the Church of England--they are familiar to everyone. As was truly

remarked in a sermon preached in the old church of Alderley by the

present rector on the occasion of his death, he "combined in a singular

degree not only the excellences of his father and the virtues of his

accomplished mother, but he inherited also their combined intellects.

It was not, however, so much his high and refined intellect or his

graphic writings which endeared him to those who knew him, as the

more genial and gentle virtues of his private life." He had the

widest sympathies, and he manifested them with remarkable tact and

delicacy; indeed, the great work of his life seemed not so much the

writing of books or the preaching of sermons as the broadening of the

foundations of Christian charity, and the furthering of a spirit of

Christian union. Few men were less influenced by theological dogma.

He was always ready to draw moral lessons from Christian doctrines,

but it is doubtful if he had any very definite conception regarding

those doctrines, or subjected them to any serious sifting. It was this

loose hold on theology--this indifferentism in regard to inspiration

that, while it made him popular among laymen, created a feeling of

irritation among those of his brethren who had definite ideas on the

most momentous of subjects. To him such questions served mainly as a

background to a high morality and wide charity.

With clear calm eye he fronted Faith, and she,

Despite the clamorous crowd

Smiled, knowing her soul-loyal votary

At no slave's altar bowed.

With forward glance beyond polemic scope,

He scanned the sweep of Time,

And everywhere changed looks with blue-eyed Hope,

Victress o'er doubt and crime.

But inward turning, he, of gentle heart,

And spirit, mild as free,

Most gladly welcomed, as life's better part,

The rule of Charity.

[Illustration: Handwritten note]

After a brief illness, which was not at first regarded as serious,

erysipelas supervened, and shortly before midnight, on Monday, the

18th of July, 1881, in the Deanery House, at Westminster, quietly and

without suffering, the spirit winged its flight from earth. On the

Monday following his body was deposited in the grave in Henry VII.

Chapel, Westminster, where, on the 9th of March, 1876, his wife, Lady

Augusta Stanley, had been laid to rest.

Dean Stanley's visits to Alderley were frequent. The last time he

occupied the pulpit of the old church was on the 5th of May, 1878,

when he preached before a crowded congregation in aid of the fund

for restoring the church. On a more recent visit, though pressed for

time, he stopped by the way at the cottage of a suffering parishioner,

offered words of comfort and prayer by his bedside--"the same prayer,"

as he afterwards remarked, "that he had used by the bedside of his own

dear wife." His final visit was in the autumn of 1880, on his return

from a short sojourn in the Isle of Man, when he visited the rectory

and his mother's and sister's grave, accompanied by his friend, the

Bishop of Manchester.