CHAPTER IX.

WARDLEY HALL.

Lying away near the north-eastern confines of the great parish of

Eccles, and within a distance of six miles of the manufacturing

metropolis, is the little hamlet of Swinton, a place that, if not

particularly attractive in its outward aspects, yet possesses

historical associations that are neither few nor poor. A great part of

the district was formerly held by that renowned military and religious

brotherhood which for centuries had its _chef lieu_ in Clerkenwell--the

Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem--and antiquaries have

been puzzled to determine whether it derived its name from the fact of

its being the abode or "town" of the Saxon swineherd, or that it may

have, as is supposed, formed part of the possessions of the rainy saint

of Winchester, the rival of St. Médard and St. Godeliève--St. Swithin.

We will leave the learned Dryasdusts to settle the knotty point of

Swinton's etymology and ferret out the evidences of its early dignity,

if such are to be found, for it is not our present purpose to steal

fire--

From the fountains of the past,

To glorify the present,

or to picture the sylvan solitudes of the place in the days when the

son of Beowulph tended the swine of Cedric, the Saxon thegn, in the

primeval forests, and filled himself with the acorns and the mast that

fell thick in the autumn time.

[Illustration: WARDLEY HALL.]

Though a mighty change has been wrought in the physical aspects of the

locality, which now presents an appearance singularly at variance with

the associations awakened by the contemplation of the memorials of the

storied past, the immediate vicinity is not without the indications of

its former dignity and consequence. Within a short distance, running

almost parallel with the modern railway, may still be traced the

line of the old Roman highway--the Stanney Street--along which the

victorious legionaries have ofttimes marched--

When Rome, the mistress of the world,

Of yore her eagle-wings unfurled,

The names which still cling to surrounding localities remind us of

the "dark middle age" of our national history when the light-haired,

blue-eyed Saxon held sway before the predatory Dane and the proud

Norman, cognate tribes of the great Scandinavian stock, had

successively established themselves as masters of the soil, or those

offshoots of the Teutonic family had become welded in the one great,

powerful, and noble race, that "happy breed of men," the English

people. The halls of Wardley, Agecroft, Kempnough, Worsley, and

Booths carry us along the dim avenues of the past to the days of

the Plantagenet and the Tudor sovereigns, and they still remain the

lingering memorials reminding us of the condition of social life as

well as the condition of the country in this corner of the palatinate

ere nature had been expelled by commerce, or the old easy-going

manorial lords had given place to, or been elbowed out by, a race

of striving money-getting manufacturers. The country hereabouts has

lost much of its rural characteristics and pristine beauty. Cotton

has little in common with Arcadia, and the Lancashire industries

generally can hardly be said to be conducive to the picturesque,

the tendency being rather to reverse the process which is said to

make the wilderness blossom as the rose. The signs of busy life are

everywhere apparent; far as the eye can reach it encounters little

else than smoke and steam, the outward evidences of active labour--the

beating of one great artery in the heart of England--and the tall

spectral-like machinery, rising above the pit openings, for drawing to

the surface the coal without which that labour would be of little avail

in its efforts to clothe the nations of the world; while overhead the

atmosphere is dense and heavy with vapour that leaves its blighting

mark upon the country for miles around, withering the hedgerows, making

the few trees that endure to grace the landscape stunted and sickly,

and the fields as if they had never been clothed with a mantle of

living green.

Uninviting as the surroundings are to the passionate lover of the open

field and the clear sky, the antiquary may yet find much to interest

him, and return with the belief that the time he has spent in a

visit to this same little hamlet of Swinton has not been altogether

unprofitably employed. Leaving the cluster of humble dwellings that

constitute what there is of village, and continuing along the north or

Chorley-road, a few minutes' walk brings him to a bye-road rejoicing in

the name of Red Cat-lane; a quarter of a mile further a private road

branches off on the left, leading down past a colliery, and following

this for a short distance an old-fashioned timbered house comes in

view. It is a quaint old mansion, patterned all over in black and

white, with a broad arched gateway, flanked on each side by clustered

chimneys that rise to a considerable height above the gabled roof, and

is surrounded on three sides by a moat that spreads out considerably

on the easterly side, assuming the character of a small lake, in which

the diapered framework of the building, the overhanging cornices, the

quaint casement windows, and the shrubs that partially environ it are

distinctly reflected. Wardley Hall, for that is the name of the house,

has its history; it has been successively the home of the Worsleys,

the Tyldesleys, and the Downes, and many and various are the legends

and romantic incidents associated with it. Of its earlier history we

know little, and that little belongs as much to legend as to actual

ascertained fact. The first possessors of whom any record has been

preserved were the Worsleys, or de Workedeleghs, as anciently they

wrote their name, or rather had it written for them, who were owners

almost from the time of the Conquest. One of them, a certain Elias

or Elizeus de Workeslegh, lord of Worsley, accompanied Duke Robert

of Normandy in the expedition to the Holy Land projected by Peter

the Hermit, when Europe sent forth the flower of its chivalry to do

battle on the plains of Palestine for the recovery of the holy places

from the Paynim foe; he was of such strength and valour as to be

reputed a giant, and, according to the old scribes, was in consequence

designated Elias Gigas, or Elias the Giant. Mention is made of this

hero of ancient romance in Hopkinson's MS. pedigrees, and the quaint

chronicler tells us "he fought many Duells, combats, &c., for the

love of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and obtained many victories," and

another writer[72] adds that after many triumphs over the infidels

he died at Rhodes, and was there buried. The son and heir of this

sturdy old warrior was Richard Workedeley, whose name occurs in a

deed, without date, but apparently of the time of Henry I., conveying

land in Pendlebury, or Penultsbury, as it was then called, and North

Deyne, with the pasture of Swinton, to Adam de Penultsbury. The same

Richard, with Roger de Workedelegh (probably his son), was one of

the witnesses to a deed recorded in the Chartulary of Whalley Abbey,

by which Gilbert, son of William de Norton, who married about the

year 1220, Edith, lady of the manor of Barton, granted to God, St.

Mary, and to the Church of Eccles, and to the clerks and to their men

dwelling in that ville, free common throughout all his lands in the

Parish of Eccles. The third in decent from this Richard was Geoffrey de

Workesley, living in the time of Henry III., who by his wife Agnes had

two sons--Richard, who succeeded as heir, and Roger, who founded the

line of the Worsleys of Kempnough, an old half-timbered house, still

existing, about a mile distant, and which in the time of Elizabeth

obtained an unenviable notoriety on account of the supposed demoniacal

possession for a period of two years of some members of the family

then inhabiting it. Richard, the eldest son of Geoffery de Workesley,

who was living in 1276, had a son Henry, who succeeded as heir; Roger,

who married Cecilia de Rowynton; and a third son, Jordan de Workesley,

the first of the family whose name occurs as owner of Wardley.

The family were among the early benefactors of the ancient church of

Eccles, in which parish both Worsley and Wardley Halls are located.

By a deed, dated at Eccles on Sunday of the octave of St. Martin

the Bishop, in winter (November 18th), 1293, Henry, the eldest son

of Richard de Workesley, the one last named, gave to God and to the

high altar (so called to distinguish it from the small altars in the

chantries or side chapels) of the Church of the Blessed Mary of Eccles,

yearly for ever, for the salvation of Joan, his wife, and of his father

Richard, his predecessors and successors, and of the souls of all the

faithful dead, at the feast of St. Martin, in the winter (November

11th), one pound of wax, faithfully offered (in fulfilment of a vow),

so that whoever should be rector of the church might compel him, by

ecclesiastical censure, or by the lesser or greater excommunication, to

make the offering at the feast, if it should be neglected. The wax was

no doubt intended for the large candles to be burned on the high altar

and the other lights used during the services of the Roman Catholic

Church.[73]

Henry de Workesley had a son Robert, married to Cecilia de Bromhall,

and living in 1292, to whom he gave five hundred acres of wood and

five hundred acres of pasture, called the Boothes, and from him

descended the Worsleys of Boothes, also in Worsley township. Of the

same family was Helias de Workesley, who became Abbot of Whalley in

1309, but resigned his charge and died before 1318; and also Henry

de Workesley, who about the time of Edward III. married Johanna,

daughter and co-heiress of Sir Richard de Greenacres, and in her right

became owner of half the manor of Twiston, in the parish of Whalley.

Another branch of the family was located at Worsley Meyne, near Wigan,

of whom, according to an epitaph in St. Mary's, Chester, was Ralph

Worsley, yeoman of the wardrobe, (_pagettus garderoboe robarum_)

to Henry VIII., who appointed him towards the latter end of his life

to the wardenship of the Tower. The Worsleys of Manchester were

another branch, a pedigree given in the Harleian MSS. (2,100, fo. 32),

"collected," as it states, "from deeds of ye auntient family of Worsley

of Worsley," connecting with the ancient stock Nicholas Worsley, of

Manchester, living in 1598, the scion with whose name the pedigree in

Dugdale's "Visitation of Lancashire" in 1664 commences, and who is said

to have been the son and heir of Otwell, or Otes, Worsley, of Newnham

Green, near Worsley, by his wife Cicely, daughter of Nicholas Rigby,

of Harrock. A younger son of this Nicholas, Charles Worsley, diverged

into trade, and established himself in Manchester as a "haberdasher,"

a phrase that had then a much wider significance than now. He married,

at the old church of Manchester in 1586, Elizabeth, daughter of Ralph

Gee, the sister of Alice, wife of George Clarke, the munificent founder

of the Manchester charity that still bears that worthy's name; and,

prospering in business, he, in 1614, purchased from Sir Oswald Mosley

certain lands in Rusholme. His son and successor, Ralph Worsley,

extended the business, and with such success that he was able in 1625

to add to the paternal purchase of the lands in Rusholme the estate in

the same township called "The Platt," thus founding the line of the

Worsleys of Platt, in the old manor house of which place was born to

him, in 1622, a son and heir, Charles Worsley, who acquired distinction

as the first member for Manchester in the Cromwellian Parliament, and

who was one of the Protector's most trusted generals, and the immediate

instrument of the famous _coup d'état_ when Cromwell, dismissing the

"Rump" Parliament, ordered General Worsley to "take away the bauble."

With Jordan, the younger son of Richard de Worsley, the brother of

Henry, the benefactor of the church at Eccles, who, as we have seen,

was lord of Wardley in the reign of Edward I., may be said to have

begun and ended the line of Worsley of Wardley, for at his death, in

the succeeding reign, the estate was conveyed in marriage by Margaret,

one of his daughters and co-heiresses, to Thurstan, son of Thomas

de Tyldesley, lord of the mesne manor of Tyldesley, and from this

match sprang the several branches of the famous house of Tyldesley of

Tyldesley, of Wardley Hall in Worsley, Morley's Hall in Astley, the

Lodge in Myerscough Park, an outlying portion of Quernmore Forest, in

Lancaster parish, and of Fox Hall, Blackpool, in Bispham parish.

The Tyldesleys were a family of considerable note and influence in the

county, deriving their patronymic from the place of their abode, which

was held by feudal service as the tenth part of a knight's fee under

the Norman barony of Warrington. In the _Testa de Nevill_, or _Liber

Feudorum_ as it is sometimes called--a return of the Nomina Villarum,

Serjeanties and Knights' Fees in the several counties, made, as is

generally supposed, either in the year 1236 or 1242 by Ralph Nevill,

an accountant of the Exchequer, or Jollan de Nevil, of Weathersfield,

a justice itinerant--Henry de Tyldesley, the great-grandfather of the

Thurstan just named, is mentioned as being then in possession of the

manor of Tyldesley, and as holding of William Fitz Almeric Pincerna or

Boteler, the seventh Baron of Warrington, the tenth part of a knight's

fee, which Henry de Tyldesley (his father) held of the heirs of Almeric

Pincerna, and he of the Earl of Ferrers, who held of the King. The

name of the same Henry also occurs first on the list of jurors for the

hundred of West Derby, or Wapentake of Derbyshire, as it is called in

the return when De Nevill's Inquisition was taken. A younger brother of

Henry de Tyldesley, the juror, Adam de Tyldesley, had a son Geoffrey,

who became owner of Shakerley, a hamlet in the higher division of

Tyldesley. Following the practice of the age, he assumed the name of

the place in which he was located, and became progenitor of the family

of Shakerley, now represented through the female line by Sir Charles

Watkin Shakerley, of Somerford, Cheshire, Baronet.

To return to Henry de Tyldesley; his grandson Thomas, son of Richard de

Tyldesley, as appears by an inquisition taken after the death of John

Tyldesley, Dec. 1, 1410, married and had four sons, John, Nicholas,

and Ralph, who each died issueless, and Thurstan, who, as previously

stated, married the daughter and co-heiress of Jordan de Worsley; in

right of his wife he became lord of Wardley, and by her was founder

of the family of Tyldesley of that house. The first-born of this

marriage was a son, Thomas de Tyldesley, who became serjeant-at-law

to King Henry IV., but, dying without issue, the estates on the death

of the father descended to his younger brother, Hugh de Tyldesley.

From an early date a close intimacy had existed between the Tyldesleys

and the Stanleys of Knowsley, who were then rapidly rising to power,

having in the revolution which seated the house of Lancaster upon the

throne contrived to add immensely to their territorial possessions. A

steady shower of royal benefactions descended to them during Henry the

Fourth's reign, not the least important being the transfer from the

old Earls of Northumberland of the lordship of the Isle of Man, after

the unsuccessful revolt of the Percies, and with it such an absolute

ownership of soil and jurisdiction over the islanders as to make their

position as Lords of Man little less than regal, the homage to be paid

in consideration being the presentation of two falcons on coronation

days. The intimate relations that long existed between the two families

of Stanley and Tyldesley account for the frequent occurrence of the

name of Tyldesley in the annals of the island. In 1405-6 Henry IV.

granted a letter of protection to William de Stanley, Knight, John

de Tyldesley, and others, on their going to the Isle of Man to take

possession of the island and the castle, which had then been wrested

from the Percies. In 1417 Sir John de Stanley, who is styled "King and

Lord of Man," being called to England, left Thurstan de Tyldesley, "a

wise and severe magistrate" as he is described, and Roger Haysnap, his

commissioner, with instructions to settle the people. The Thurstan

last named was, doubtless, the son of Hugh de Tyldesley, and the one

who is commonly supposed to have erected the present hall of Wardley

on the foundation of an earlier structure. His grandson, Thomas de

Tyldesley, who died in 1502-3, left a son Thurstan, who succeeded as

heir to Tyldesley and Wardley; he married Mary, the daughter of Henry

Keighley, of Keighley and Inskip, the sister of Sir Henry Keighley, Knt.

Inskip was a manor in the parish of St. Michael-le-Wyre, in the hundred

of Amounderness, held at one time by the Keighleys and Cliftons, but

which subsequently passed into the exclusive tenure of the first-named

family, in whose descendants it remained until about the reign of

James I., when Anne, daughter and co-heiress of Henry Keighley,

conveyed it in marriage to William Cavendish, afterwards created Earl

of Devonshire. At the time of Thurstan Tyldesley's marriage with the

co-heiress of Inskip his family had, in addition to the old manor

house at Tyldesley and the more modern mansion at Wardley, a residence

known as the Lodge, in Myerscough Park, in the neighbouring parish

of Lancaster,--a part of the ancient forest land of the Duchy. In

the reign of Henry VIII. the Earl of Derby was Keeper of the Park

of Myerscough, which was in reality within the limits of the forest

of Quernmore, and the Tyldesley's were "deputy keepers," "deputy

master-foresters," and "farmers of the herbage," and in the proceedings

of the Duchy Court of Lancaster it is recorded that in 1531 Thurstan

Tyldesley was plaintiff in an action brought against Henry Keighley

for "deer killing in Broks Gille, Mirescoghe Park." The defendant was,

doubtless, his wife's kinsman, but whether father or brother, or what

other relationship he stood in, is not known.

The Lodge in Myerscough, where the family occasionally resided, and to

which we shall have occasion hereafter to refer, is now occupied as a

farm house, but, though it has undergone many transformations, it still

retains the evidences of its former state and dignity. Twice it has

been the temporary abode of royalty, once in 1617, when James I. slept

in it for a night or two in his progress from Edinburgh to London,

and subsequently on the 13th August, 1651, when Charles II. "lodged

one night at Myerscoe, Sir Thomas Tyldesley's house," on his advance

from Preston to Worcester. The lodge stands a short distance from the

hall of the same name, on the westerly side of the road leading from

Preston to Lancaster, and within about three or four miles of the old

home of the Keighleys at Inskip. It is approached by a small bridge

spanning an expanse of water that appears to have been originally

extended for ornamental purposes. A portion of the main building has

been cased with brick, but in other parts the original timber framework

remains exposed to view, with some of the old mullioned windows, the

irregular gables, and the huge buttressed chimney stacks--the latter,

from their peculiar construction suggesting the idea that they were

intended more for the purpose of concealment in times of danger than

for that which their outward form would seem to indicate. The principal

entertaining-room is on the north-west side; it is wainscoted from

floor to ceiling, and has a spacious fireplace on one side with a

handsome chimney-piece of carved oak. The portion above the mantel is

arranged in a double row of panels,--eight in all,--each of those in

the lower stage being ornamented by a medallion head, encircled by a

wreath and carved in high relief. On the first of the upper row of

panels is a shield charged with the arms of Tyldesley--_Arg._ three

rushhills _vert_, with the initials TT beneath. In the second shield

are displayed the arms of the Isle of Man, with an eagle's claw--an

ancient crest of the Stanleys--beneath. On an adjoining shield is a

representation of the eagle and child, the crest of the Earls of Derby;

and on the fourth panel is a shield bearing the arms of Langton, which

seems to fix the period when the work was executed as in the time of

Thurstan, the grandson of Thurstan Tyldesley and Mary Keighley, who had

for his second wife Jane, daughter of Ralph Langton, Baron of Newton,

the initials on the first panel also answering to his name. Opposite

the principal entrance a broad staircase of oak, with massive and

highly-decorated balusters, leads to the upper chambers, one of which,

at the east end of the building, is traditionally said to be that in

which the two Kings slept on the occasions of their respective visits

to the Lodge.

Thurstan Tyldesley, by his wife Mary Keighley, had a son, Thomas,

who was Receiver-General and one of the Council of Thomas Stanley,

first Earl of Derby--the wily soldier and astute politician whose

fickle but far-sighted adhesions secured for his house additional

wealth and power with every change of dynasty, and whose matrimonial

affairs were managed with fully as much prudence and success--his

first marriage making him the brother-in-law of a king-maker and his

second the stepfather of a king. He married a daughter of Sir Alexander

Radcliffe, the head of the knightly house of Ordsall, an alliance that

is commemorated by a device in one of the windows of that ancient

mansion--that lighting the room commonly known from its decorations as

the Star Chamber--where still may be discerned the faint outlines of

an heraldic shield charged with three rushhills, the Tyldesley coat.

The issue of this marriage were, in addition to a son, Thurstan, who

succeeded as heir, Thomas, and a younger son, Alexander, who became

a monk at the Charter House, and a daughter, Ellena, the second of

the two wives of Sir Alexander Osbaldeston, of Osbaldeston. This

lady by her will, which bears date 1560, directed three stones with

inscriptions in brass to be laid in the Osbaldeston chapel within

Blackburn church over herself, her husband, and Thomas Tyldesley, her

brother.

Thurstan Tyldesley, who succeeded to the patrimonial lands at his

father's death, is mentioned as being in the Commission of the Peace

and a Grand Juryman for the County Palatine of Lancaster in 1522.

Following the example of his progenitors, he maintained a close

friendship with the Stanleys of Knowsley, and in 1532 his name occurs

as Receiver-General for the Isle of Man. He was twice married--in

the first instance to Parnell, daughter of Geoffrey Shakerley, of

Shakerley, descended from Adam, younger son of Henry de Tyldesley,

living in the time of Henry III., whose son Geoffrey, as we have seen,

assumed the name of Shakerley; in the second, to Jane, daughter of

Ralph Langton, Baron of Newton; and by each he had issue. By his will,

which bears date 6 Edward VI., he left to the children of his first

marriage Tyldesley and Wardley, and to those of the second the estate

at Myerscough.

Thomas Tyldesley, his son by the first marriage, was, doubtless, the

one whose name occurs in 1540 as Deputy Captain of the Isle of Man,

George Stanley being at the time Captain. About this time, as appears

by Chalmer's Treatise of the Isle (Manx Society's Publications, v.

10), mention is made of a Robert Tynsley (a corruption probably of

Tyldesley), but in what relation he stood to the Lancashire Tyldesleys

is not clear. Thomas Tyldesley had a sister Alice, who became the wife

of Richard Worsley, of the Booths. He died in 1556, and was buried

at Eccles, having had by his wife Jane, daughter and heiress of Hugh

Birkenhead, whom he married in 1518, six sons and three daughters.

Thomas, the eldest son, born in 1532, married Margaret, daughter of

Sir William Norreys, of Speke, who bore him, in addition to three

sons, James, Gilbert, and Alexander, a son Thomas, of Gray's Inn,

Attorney-General for the county of Lancaster, who received the honour

of knighthood; he was one of the learned Council of the North, and

added to the ancestral estates by his marriage with Anne, daughter

and sole heiress of Thomas Norreys, of Orford, near Warrington, the

issue of the union being--in addition to two daughters, Elizabeth and

Anne, married respectively to Edward Breres, of Brockhall, and (1) to

Thomas Southworth, of Samlesbury, (2) Adam Mort, of Preston--three

sons, Thomas, who died in infancy, 1597; Edward, who also died in

infancy; and Richard, who survived his father only a few years and died

unmarried in 1639, thus terminating the male line of the elder branch

of the family.

To return to the issue of Thurstan Tyldesley by his second wife, Jane

Langton. Besides three daughters--Mary, wife of Ralph Standish, of

Standish; Anne, wife of Richard Massey, of Rixton; and Dorothy, wife

of Richard Brereton, of Worsley--he had a son, Edward Tyldesley, who,

by a fortunate though clandestine marriage, about the year 1560, with

Anne, daughter and sole heiress of Thomas Leyland, became, in right of

his wife, owner of Morleys Hall, in Astley, in the parish of Leigh.

Popular tradition has cast the glamour of romance around this marriage,

and tells how that the young heiress of the Leylands, having formed an

attachment for the younger son of the house of Tyldesley, in opposition

to the wishes of her father, was confined in her room, but, verifying

the truth of the old adage that love laughs at locksmiths, she

contrived to possess herself of a rope, one end of which she fastened

to her person and the other she threw from the window to her expectant

lover on the other side of the moat; then, casting herself into the

water, which was thirty feet wide, she was drawn to land, when the pair

rode off, and before morning dawned, or the lady's family had become

aware of her escape, the marriage ceremony had been performed and the

twain made one.

Of the old mansion of the Leylands, which thus became an inheritance

of the Tyldesleys, we have an interesting description in Leland's

"Itinerary" (vol. v. pp. 78-9, Ed. 1711):--"Morle in Darbyshire [the

Hundred of West Derby is meant] Mr. Leland's Place is buildid saving

the Foundation of Stone squarid, that risith within a great Moote a vi.

Foote above the water; al of Tymbre after the commune sorte of building

of Houses of the Gentilmen for most of Lancastreshire. Ther is as much

Pleasur of Orchardes of great Varite of Frute, and fair made Walkes

and Gardines as ther is in any Place of Lancastreshire. He brenneth

[burneth] al Turfes and Petes for the Commodite of Mosses and Mores

[near] at hand.... And yet by Morle as in Hegge Rowes and Grovettes is

meately good Plenti of Wood, but good Husbandes keepe hit for a Jewell."

Nearly every old historic home is linked to romance by some story of

love or adventure, and endeared to the memory by the image of some

fair woman whose name is associated with some particular incident or

bit of legendary lore that tradition has preserved, and which, if not

actually attested fact, is yet not without some glimmering of truth

that reflects light upon familiar history. At Morleys it is the tender

tale of the loves of Anne Leyland, the heiress of her father's lands,

and Edward Tyldesley, a young scion of the house of Wardley, that

excites the interest and which has for many a generation furnished food

for the village gossips. They had looked upon each other and loved. The

spark that had been kindled in their young hearts was fanned into a

flame, but--

Ah me! for aught that ever I could read,

Could ever hear of tale or history,

The course of true love never did run smooth.

At Morleys it was the old old story. To prevent the tender passion

ripening into a union an unsympathising father forbade the lovers

meeting, and to prevent the chances of clandestine intercourse kept his

daughter within the strict seclusion of her own chamber. The result

may be guessed. Rather than be kept asunder from the object of her

affection, Anne Leyland determined on braving the stormy temper of

her father. Risking all dangers and throwing aside all obstacles, she

cast herself into the moat surrounding her home, whence she was drawn

ashore, and under cover of the darkness escaped in the arms of her

expectant lover, and before night's candles had burned out and--

The first low fluttering breath of waking day had stirred the wide air--

the two were united in the indissoluble bonds of wedlock.

It may well be supposed that Thomas Leyland's ire when he learned

the real circumstances of the case was not of the mildest character;

be that as it may, his anger must eventually have been appeased, for

in 1562, two years after the marriage of the runaways, he made his

will, and in token of his affection for his infant grandson, gave

"unto Thomas Tyldesley sonne unto my sonne in lawe Edward Tyldesley

twoe silvr spones and one angell off gold." The old man was a staunch

Papist and determined persecutor of heretics. When the brother-in-law

of George Marsh, the martyr--"Jeffrey Hurst, of Shakerley, who

was preserved by God's providence from burning in Queen Mary's

time"--absented himself from his parish church because of the Romish

ritual that had been reintroduced, and encouraged the teachers of

the reformed faith to secretly assemble in his house "for sermon and

prayer," "Justice" Leyland went with his "mass-priest" to Hurst's

cottage to search for heretical books, and having found Tyndale's

Testament, which was pronounced to be "plain heresy and none worse,"

and some Latin books which neither he nor the mass-priest could read,

he, by a stretch of authority not unfrequent in those days, bound the

mother and brother of Hurst in the penalty of £100 to produce him

within fourteen days. Hurst appeared at the appointed time and was

committed to Lancaster, but news of Queen Mary's death arriving about

the same time, he was set free.

Thomas Leyland died July, 1564, at the age of fifty years. His end

appears to have been very sudden. It is recorded that "in July, as the

foresaid Thos. Lelond sate in his chair talking with his friends, he

fell down suddenly dead, not much moving any joint; and such was his

end; from such God us defend." His will, which bears date April 2,

1562, was proved on the 23rd September following his death, when his

son-in-law, Edward Tyldesley, in right of his wife, succeeded to the

estates.

From this union descended the younger branch of the Tyldesleys, a

line that in successive generations manifested a devoted attachment

to the cause of the ill-fated Stuarts. In addition to the estate of

Morleys acquired through his wife, Edward Tyldesley inherited from

his father the Lodge at Myerscough and also the paternal estate of

Tyldesley, which, however, continued to pay quit-rents to Wardley Hall,

probably in right of the appendent estate of Wardley, where the elder

branch of the family was settled. He appears to have been the first,

if not the only one, of the family who had any difference or dispute

with its early patrons, the Stanleys of Knowsley and Lathom. In the

proceedings of the Duchy Court of Lancaster, without date, but of the

time of Edward VI. or Philip and Mary, Edward, Earl of Derby, "keeper

of Myerskoo Park," and elsewhere called "master of the game," appears

as plaintiff in an action against Edward Tyldesley, "farmer of the

herbage," the dispute having arisen out of some claim to turbary or the

right of cutting turves on the land of the superior lord.

Edward Tyldesley died in 1586-7, having had by his wife, Anne Leyland,

a family of three sons and three daughters. Thomas, the eldest son,

who succeeded as heir, enjoyed possession of the estate for four years

only, his death occurring in 1590. He married Elizabeth, daughter of

Christopher Anderton, of Lostock Hall, near Bolton, who bore him,

in addition to three daughters--Anne, who became the wife of Sir

Cuthbert Clifton, of Westby, Knight; Dorothy, who married John Poole,

of Poole Hall, in Cheshire; and Elizabeth, who became Abbess of the

religious house of Gravelines, in Flanders--one son, Edward Tyldesley,

who was only four years of age at the time of his father's decease.

He succeeded as heir to the Tyldesley estates as well as to Morleys

and Myerscough, and entertained King James the First at the last

named seat in August, 1617, on the occasion of his memorable visit

to Lancashire--memorable for the reason that it was the occasion of

the presentation of a petition from a number of Lancashire peasants,

tradesmen, and others while on his progress (some authorities say

while at Myerscough) that led to the publication of the famous "Book

of Sports,"--the beginning of a course of events which led through the

Civil War and the temporary subversion of the Throne and the Church to

the ultimate exclusion of the Stuarts from the Crown. Edward Tyldesley

did not long survive the honour of entertaining his sovereign, his

death occurring in the following year at the comparatively early age of

32. By his wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Christopher Preston, of Holker,

in Cartmel parish, an off-shoot of the Prestons, of Preston Patrick

and Levens Hall, who survived him and re-married (1) Thomas Lathom, of

Parbold, and (2) Thomas Westby, of Bourne Hall, he had, in addition

to Edward, who died in infancy, a son, Thomas, who succeeded as heir,

the most distinguished member of the family--a _chevalier sans peur

et sans reproche_--certainly the ablest soldier who fought on the side

of the King in Lancashire during the Civil Wars, and probably the most

active, resolute, and uncompromising partisan, for, as has been well

said, if Lord Strange was the head of the King's forces in Lancashire,

Sir Thomas Tyldesley was their right hand, or rather, their heart and

soul, and living power. He was one of those Cavaliers whose deeds were

more suited to the pages of a romance than to those of history, and

who, by his dauntless courage, may be said to have cast a halo round

the cause he espoused. Born near the close of Elizabeth's reign, he

early embraced the profession of arms, and served with distinction in

the wars in the Low Countries. A soldier by temperament, as well as by

profession--brave, proud, generous, enthusiastically loyal--he raised

and equipped troops at his own expense, and immediately on the breaking

out of the war joined the King and served as lieutenant-colonel when

the two armies were first put in array against each other at Edgehill,

October 23, 1642. In the preceding month Colonel Tyldesley accompanied

Lord Strange, afterwards Earl of Derby, to Manchester, and in person

led the attack on the Deansgate entrance to the town, but, after firing

a barn or two and destroying some trifling defences, his men were

obliged to retire, and eventually, through the stubborn and successful

resistance of the townsmen, were compelled to abandon the siege.

What Rigby was to the cause of the Parliament, Colonel Tyldesley may be

said to have been to that of the King. Connected by birth and marriage

with the best families in the county his influence was unbounded. Of

indomitable zeal, irrepressible energy, and reckless daring, he became

the head and heart and hand and almost everything besides in his own

county, and took part in almost every important action. He served at

the sieges of Bolton and Lancaster; defeated by Colonel Ashton before

Wigan, he retreated towards Liverpool, but, collecting a considerable

force, he again marched northwards, with the view of recovering

Preston and Lancaster. Subsequently he distinguished himself at

Burton-on-Trent by the desperate heroism with which he led a cavalry

charge over a bridge of thirty-six arches, and for that display of

valour, as well as his faithful adherence to the King, he received the

honour of knighthood and was made a brigadier. At a later period in

that sanguinary struggle he accompanied Prince Rupert into Yorkshire,

and was present at the disastrous fight at Marston Moor, July 2nd,

1644, when Cromwell gained his greatest victory, and drove the Royalist

troops in confusion from the field. Tyldesley, with his shattered

force, retreated in hot haste into Lancashire, resolved to raise fresh

troops and make a stand in the Fylde country. Sir John Meldrum was sent

after him, and the first encounter took place on Freckleton Marsh. A

fierce attack having been made upon their lines by the Parliamentarians

under Colonel Booth, the Royalists broke and fled; Tyldesley rallied

and reformed his men, but his efforts were unavailing. Victory followed

victory, one position after another was forced, and one detachment

after another was broken or dispersed At that time, as Rushworth

writes, "there remained of unreduced garrisons belonging to the King

in Lancashire only Lathom House and Green(halgh) Castle." Greenhalgh

surrendered in 1645; and the subsequent fall of Lathom House and the

surrender of the King to the Scotch army of the Puritans brought the

contest, for a time, to a close in 1647, when Sir Thomas Tyldesley

received instructions to disband the troops under his command.

In 1651 the second of the Stuarts was proclaimed King by the Scotch

under the title of Charles the Second. In August of that year the Royal

Standard floated once more over the battlemented tower of old John o'

Gaunt--time-honoured Lancaster--and Charles was proclaimed King in the

chief town of the palatinate. Sir Thomas Tyldesley, who had retired

with the Earl of Derby to the Isle of Man, once more appeared upon the

scene, and immediately set about arming his tenantry and collecting

auxiliaries. Charles spent a night in his mansion at Myerscough, but

under very different circumstances to those which had characterised

the entertainment of his father in the same house thirty-four years

previously. Before the month was over the force which he and Lord

Derby had been able to raise encountered the Parliamentarians, under

Colonel Lilburne, in a lane on the north side of Wigan. Tyldesley took

the place he ever loved to take--at the head of his friends and in

front of his foes. The fight was courageously sustained on both sides,

and for more than an hour victory remained undecided. At the moment

that Lilburne's horse seemed to be giving way before the unbroken

firmness of Tyldesley's foot, a body of Parliamentary troops took

up a position behind the hedges on both sides of the lane. A deadly

discharge from their firelocks threw the Royalists into confusion;

after a stubborn and desperate resistance their line wavered, when

Lilburne's horse dashed up and drove the remnant of them in confusion

from their position. The Earl of Derby escaped, only to be taken

prisoner in Cheshire, after the retreat from Worcester, and suffer

the fate of his former Royal master, but Sir Thomas Tyldesley was

left dead upon the field. Thus fell the most heroic and most daring

defender of the cause of the Stuarts in Lancashire. A large-hearted

Nonconformist, Dr. Halley, thus sums up the character of the ill-fated

Cavalier:--"The most active, the bravest, and in many respects the

best of the Lancashire friends of Royalty. Never daunted, never weary

in consultation, marching, or fighting, he was engaged in every

intrigue, present in every conference, ready for every emergency, and

unreservedly devoting all he had to the cause of Royalty, and as he

understood it, to the true religion. Beloved and trusted by all the

members of his own party, he was respected by his enemies, and treated

by them more leniently than the other malignants whom the fortune of

war brought under their power." Memorials of him remain in the eloquent

eulogy of Clarendon, and in the inscription upon the column which his

"grateful cornet," Alexander Rigby,[74] twenty-eight years afterwards,

when he was sheriff of the county, erected upon the spot where fell, as

a mark of esteem for his many virtues and gallant deeds, and as a "high

obligation on the whole family of the Tyldesleys to follow the noble

example of their loyal ancestor."

When the brave and popular Cavalier, Sir Thomas Tyldesley, sank down

upon the blood-sodden ground in Wigan Lane the power of the Royalists

in Lancashire was broken. Many a family in the palatinate had long

cause to remember that day with grief, for there were few that had not

some member killed or made prisoner. Tyldesley's body, covered with

wounds, was found lying among a heap of slain when the fight was over,

and a day or two later it was borne to its last resting place in the

vault by the side of his fathers, in the old chantry of St. Nicholas,

in the parish church of Leigh.

That late summer day was a sorrowful one for the supporters of

the Stuart cause. It requires no great stretch of the imagination

to picture that procession of true mourners--a little band of

buff-jerkined warriors who had boldly confronted death on many a

hard-fought field--weeping aloud, and not ashamed to shed tears, as

they wend their way to the ancient fane to deposit therein all that

was mortal of their much-beloved leader. Within a week from that day

Worcester had been lost, and "Charles Stuart, son of the late tyrant,"

as the Cromwellians styled him, was a sorrowful fugitive, hastening for

life from the fatal field in the endeavour to escape from his merciless

pursuers. A tomb was afterwards erected in Leigh Church, over the grave

which holds the ashes of the loyal soldier; but though the spot is

still pointed out nearly every trace of the memorial has disappeared.

It is of little consequence--

Praises on tombs are idly spent,

His good name is his monument!

No self glory stirred the mind of the chivalrous soldier, and no

thought had he of "storied urn" to record his gallant deeds. The Earl

of Derby felt keenly the loss of his old friend and comrade, and in

his last solemn moments, when passing through Leigh on his way to the

scaffold at Bolton, his earnestly expressed wish was that he might be

permitted to dismount from his horse and go into St. Nicholas' chapel

to cast a last long look upon the honourable grave where his faithful

companion in arms lay at rest.

Sir Thomas Tyldesley had married in early life Frances, only daughter

of Ralph Standish, of Standish, near Wigan, and by her had a son

Edward, born in 1635, who succeeded as heir; Thomas, born in 1642, and

living in 1702; Ralph, born in 1644, and living in 1694; and seven

daughters. Edward, the eldest son, following in the steps of his

father, was an ardent supporter of the Stuarts, and when Charles II.,

after the restoration of monarchy, proposed to create a new order of

knighthood to be called the order of the "Royal Oak," as a reward to

some of his more faithful adherents, Edward Tyldesley was one of the

Lancashire men selected to receive the honour, and would have done so

had not the project, from considerations of prudence, been abandoned.

Having some cause to believe that he would, on the Restoration, receive

from the Crown a grant of the lands in Layton Hawes, near Blackpool,

in recognition of the services rendered by his father and himself,

he began the erection of a residence near the south shore called Fox

Hall, a portion of the walls of which may still be seen in the more

modern erection known as the Fox Hall Hotel, placing over the gateway

a sculptured figure of the device that had inspired the enthusiasm of

his father's soldiers in many a hard-contested fight--a pelican feeding

her young, or, as the heralds have it, in piety, surrounded by the

motto _Tantum Valet Amor Regis et Patriæ_--and here he occasionally

resided during the later years of his life. He was twice married, his

first wife being Anne, daughter of Sir Thomas Fleetwood, of Colwich,

in Staffordshire, who bore him two sons, Thomas, born April 3rd, 1657,

and Edward, and two daughters. After her decease he espoused Elizabeth,

daughter of Adam Beaumont, of Whiteley, and by her he had a daughter,

Catherine, who died unmarried. His death occurred between the years

1685 and 1687, when the eldest son by his first marriage, Thomas

Tyldesley, succeeded to the estates, with the exception of the lands

in Tyldesley, which had been previously disposed of. In 1679, being

then twenty-two years of age, he married Eleanor, daughter and co-heir

of Thomas Holcroft, of Holcroft. This lady, who was only fourteen

years of age at the time of her marriage, brought Holcroft Hall to the

Tyldesleys. By her Thomas Tyldesley had a son, Edward, his heir, and

four daughters. On the death of his wife he again entered the marriage

state, his second wife being Mary, daughter of Alexander Rigby, of

Layton, and the co-heiress of her brother, Sir Alexander Rigby, son and

heir of the "grateful cornet" who erected the monument in Wigan Lane to

the memory of the gallant Sir Thomas Tyldesley, and by her was father

of three sons--Charles, Fleetwood, and James; and two daughters--Agatha

and Winifred. To this Thomas Tyldesley we are indebted for the

interesting personal records contained in a "diary" written during

the years 1712-13-14, which has in recent years been published under

the able editorship of Messrs. Joseph Gillow and Anthony Hewitson.

He died in 1715, shortly before the breaking out of the rebellion,

in the preparation for which there is good reason to believe he had

been concerned, and was buried at Churchtown, near Garstang, January

26th,[75] his eldest son Edward succeeding. On the Jacobite rising

in 1715 Edward Tyldesley, with the representatives of many other of

the old Catholic families who had upheld the banners of Charles I.,

hastened to support the cause of his grandson. For his share in the

rising he was put upon his trial in London, but, although the evidence

of a number of witnesses left no possible doubt that he had led a body

of men against the King's forces, he was fortunate enough to obtain

an acquittal, a result which so provoked the anger of Baron Montagu,

a sort of Whig Jeffreys, who presided over the court, that he openly

rebuked the jury for their verdict, himself failing to see that the

harrowing records of the "bloody assize at Lancaster" had produced a

revulsion in popular feeling, and that the spirit of vindictiveness

manifested by the government of the Hanoverian King had caused even

Protestant juries to manifest a feeling of commiseration for those of

their countrymen who still retained a feeling of devoted attachment for

the head of the exiled house of Stuart, whom they looked upon as their

legitimate sovereign.

At the time of his death, in 1725, Myerscough, which had been held for

so many generations, had passed from the possession of the Tyldesleys,

having, as is supposed, been sold to satisfy the demands of Thomas

Tyldesley the father's creditors, but Holcroft Hall, inherited from

his mother, as well as Morleys, still remained. By his wife Dorothy,

who survived him, Edward Tyldesley had, in addition to a daughter

(Catherine), a son (James), who succeeded as heir to both Morleys and

Holcroft. True to the traditions of his family, he remained faithful in

his adherence to the exiled dynasty, and when Charles Edward, the young

Pretender, appeared in Lancashire, he took up arms and joined the rebel

forces. From this time the fortunes of the family seemed gradually to

decay. Myerscough, as we have seen, had been already alienated, and,

in 1745, Morleys, which had been acquired two centuries previously by

a marriage with the heiress of Thomas Leyland, was sold, and gradually

the remnants of the once large estates were mortgaged or sold.

James Tyldesley died in August, 1765. His will bears date 8th of

February, of that year, and was proved at Chester, April 23, 1768.

Thomas Tyldesley, the eldest son, succeeded to Holcroft, the only

estate remaining in the family's possession, the other issue being

three sons and one daughter, all of whom seem to have drifted into a

state of comparative poverty, their descendants being now to be looked

for in a much lower position in the social scale than that held for so

many generations by the owners of the proud name of Tyldesley.

To return to the old ancestral home at Wardley. As previously

stated, Thurstan Tyldesley, who died in 1553, was twice married; his

inquisition post-mortem was taken in the year of his decease, when,

in accordance with the provisions of his will, the family estates were

divided between the children of each marriage, Tyldesley and Wardley

falling to the lot of Thomas, the son borne him by his first wife, and

Myerscough to Edward, the issue of his second wife. In the early part

of the reign of Elizabeth the Wardley estate, which had been held by

the Tyldesleys for a period of three centuries, was sold in parcels,

when the old manor house became the property of Gilbert Sherrington of

Lincoln's Inn, a busy Lancashire lawyer, and at his death it passed to

his brother Francis Sherrington, a successful trader and money-lender,

who had been at one time located at Wigan. Subsequently Wardley became

the property of Roger Downes, son and heir of Roger, a younger son of

the ancient house of Downes, of Worth and Shrigley, in Cheshire, by a

marriage with Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Alexander Worsley.

Roger Downes, the younger, who was living at Wardley in 1613, twice

represented Wigan--one of the four Lancashire boroughs entitled to send

representatives to Parliament before the passing of the Reform Act in

1832--first in 1601, and again in 1620. On the 24th July, 1 Charles

I. (1625), he was appointed by the Earl of Derby Vice-chamberlain

of Chester, during pleasure (_durante bene placito_), an office he

continued to hold under the Earl and his son, Lord Strange, until his

death in July, 1638, when Orlando Bridgeman, son of the Bishop of

Chester, was appointed by James Lord Strange his successor, much to

the displeasure of John Bradshaw, the future president of the High

Commission Court, who was then Attorney-general for Cheshire, and, as

Seacombe affirms, had applied for the office.[76] In the will of Sir

Alexander Barlow, of Barlow Hall, near Manchester, dated 4th April,

1631, Roger Downes, of Wardley, is joined with Sir George Gresley,

Knight and Baronet (of Drakelowe), as overseer, and is therein

described by the testator as his "loving cosen;" and a few years

later, when Richard Halliwell, landlord of the Bull's Head Inn, in the

Market Place, opposite the Cross, in Manchester--a successful vintner,

who had managed to accumulate a considerable landed estate--made

his will (May 12th; 1638), he desired that his "friend, the Right

Worshipful Roger Downes, Esquire," should act as his overseer.

Roger Downes was twice married, his first wife being Elizabeth,

daughter of Myles Gerard, of Ince, by whom he had a son Roger, who

predeceased him. His second wife was Ann, daughter of John Calvert,

of Cockerham, and she bore him, in addition to a daughter, Jane, who

became the wife of Ralph Snede, of Keele, in Staffordshire, three

sons, Francis, Lawrence, and John. Concerning Francis, a curious

story is related by Hollingworth in his "Mancunienses." He had, it

seems, "revolted from the reformed religion," when his neighbour, Sir

Cecil Trafford, of Trafford, who was known as "a cruel persecutor of

Papists," resolved before he resorted to harsher measures to attempt

the reconversion of his friend by the force of argument; but he

reckoned without his host, for in reasoning the Catholic proved himself

too clever for the Protestant, and so thoroughly argued Sir Cecil out

of his beliefs that he abjured his own religion and became a convert to

the Roman faith; and from that time the Traffords, who had been among

the earliest adherents of the Reformed faith in Lancashire, have been

steady and consistent Catholics.

Francis Downes, who represented Wigan in the Parliament of 1625,

predeceased his father, and died issueless, as did also his brother

Lawrence, the estates, on the death of Roger Downes in 1638, devolving

upon the youngest son, John Downes, who had married Penelope, one of

the daughters of Sir Cecil Trafford, an alliance that explains the

anxious desire manifested by Sir Cecil to effect the conversion of his

son-in-law's elder brother.

John Downes, who succeeded on the death of his father to the Wardley

estate, was an ardent adherent of King Charles in the unhappy struggle

between that monarch and his Parliament, and in September, 1642, when

Lord Strange, having completed his arrangements with the commissioners

of array, appointed Warrington as the place of meeting, he armed and

equipped his tenantry, and appeared with the host of other Lancashire

chieftains to support the cause of the sovereign. Before the month had

drawn to a close he was at Manchester, having accompanied Lord Strange

and Sir Thomas Tyldesley in their fruitless expedition to secure the

town for the King. He died in May, 1648, leaving an only son, Roger,

his heir, then an infant a few months old, and a daughter Penelope.

Roger Downes, who succeeded as heir to the patrimonial estates on

the death of his father, John Downes, in 1648, was the last of the

family seated at Wardley. His history is not a pleasant one to

contemplate. Living in an age when the people could take delight

in the dissoluteness of the sovereign, he abandoned himself to the

vicious courses of the time and became one of the most profligate of

the profligate court of Charles the Second. The patrimony which had

descended to him was wasted in riotous extravagance, and, to use the

figurative language that Johnson applied to Rochester, "he blazed out

his youth and his health in lavish voluptuousness," and brought his

career to a violent and untimely end at the early age of twenty-eight.

He was the Roger Downes of whom Lucas speaks, when he says that,

according to tradition, while in London, in a drunken frolic, he vowed

to his companions that he would kill the first man he met; when,

sallying forth, he ran his sword through a poor tailor. Soon after

this, being in a riot, a watchman made a stroke at him with his bill,

which severed his head from his body, and the skull was enclosed in

a box and sent to his sister at Wardley Hall. "The skull," adds the

narrator, "has been kept at Wardley ever since, and many superstitious

notions are entertained respecting it." The late Mr. Roby, in his

entertaining "Traditions of Lancashire" wrought the incidents into a

pathetic story, under the title of the "Skull House." Tradition, which

always delights in the marvellous, took up the story, and many and

incredible are the legends which the ghastly relic of mortality has

given rise to. Certain it is that from time immemorial a human skull

has had an abiding place at Wardley, carefully secured in an aperture

in the wall beside the great staircase. According to popular belief,

the grim fixture is as strongly averse to removal as the miraculous

skull of "Dickey of Tunstead," which caused so much trouble to the

engineers when constructing the railway near Chapel-en-le-Frith some

years ago. Its rayless sockets, we are told, love to look upon the

scenes of its former enjoyments, and it never fails to punish with

severity those who venture to disturb or lay irreverent hands upon

it. How the story originated it is impossible to say, but, though

a skull, whitened by long exposure, is still exhibited, it is very

certain that it never graced the shoulders of young Roger Downes.

Thomas Barritt, the antiquary, in his MS. pedigrees, gives the

following explanation:--"Thos. Stockport," he says, "told me the skull

belonged to a Romish priest who was executed at Lancaster for seditious

practices in the time of William III. He was most likely the priest

at Wardley, to which place his head being sent, might be preserved as

a relique of his martyrdom," and he adds, "The late Rev. Mr. Kenyon,

of Peel, and librarian of the College in this town (Manchester), told

me about the year 1779 the family vault of Downes in Wigan Church had

about that time been opened, and a coffin discovered, on which was an

inscription to the memory of the above young Downes. Curiosity led

to the opening of it, and the skeleton, head and all, was there; but

whatsoever was the cause of his death, the upper part of his skull

had been sawed off, a little above the eyes, by a surgeon, perhaps by

order of his friends, to be satisfied of the nature of his disease;

his shroud was in tolerable preservation. Mr. Kenyon showed me some of

the ribbon that tied the suit at the arms, wrists, and ankles; it was

of a brown colour. What it was at first could not be ascertained." The

name of Roger Downes is perpetuated on a massive marble slab affixed

to the wall of Wigan Church, in which his remains are interred. It is

surmounted by the arms of the family--_sable_, a stag lodged _argent_,

and bears the following inscription:--_Rogerus Downes de Wardley,

Armiger, filius Johannes Downes, hujus Comitatus Armigeri, obijt. 27

Junij. 1676. Ætatis suæ 28._

Roger Downes having died unmarried, the family estates, including

Wardley, devolved upon his only sister and sole heiress, Penelope,

who conveyed them in marriage (31 Charles II, 1679-80) to Richard

Savage, of Rock Savage, who succeeded as fourth Earl Rivers of the new

creation, a title that had originally been held by the father-in-law

(Woodville) of Edward IV., the Savages deriving through the marriage

of an ancestor with the aunt of a former earl. Lord Rivers took a

prominent part in public affairs during the eventful reign of Queen

Anne. As a soldier and statesman he displayed no mean abilities,

and, possessing these qualities, he was not unfrequently employed on

complimentary and diplomatic missions. In 1706-7 he was ordered to the

command of the English forces in Spain, and at the same time received

the appointment of ambassador to King Charles, and some few years later

(1712) he was sent on a diplomatic mission to the Elector of Brunswick

prior to the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht, that famous landmark of

modern history which put an end to the wars of Queen Anne, secured the

Protestant succession to the English throne, and separated for ever the

crowns of France and Spain. He did not long survive this last mission,

his death occurring August 18th, 1712, the only surviving issue by his

marriage with the heiress of Wardley being a daughter, Elizabeth, who

about the year 1706 married James Barry, fourth Earl of Barrymore, who

was then a widower, and by whom she had an only child, Penelope, of

whom anon.

The career of Earl Rivers was not unmarked by the libertinism which

formed so prominent a characteristic of society in the age in which

he lived. In addition to the daughter by his marriage with Penelope

Downes--Elizabeth Savage, who became heiress of her mother's estates as

well as those of her father--he had an illegitimate daughter by Mrs.

Colydon, who married, in 1714, Frederick Earl of Rochford, to whom

it is said she conveyed a fortune of £60,000; he was also the reputed

father of the poet, Richard Savage, a writer better known for his

misfortunes than for any peculiar novelty or merit in his poetry--the

offspring of an illicit intercourse with the notorious Countess of

Macclesfield, who acquired an unenviable notoriety as the heroine of

the famous law case which followed upon the birth of her base-gotten

son. Some curious particulars of this extraordinary scandal are to

be found in the records of the time. The countess, under the name of

Madame Smith and wearing a mask, was delivered of a male child in

Fox-court, near Brook-street, Holborn, by Mrs. Wright, a midwife, on

Saturday, January 16, 1697-8. Lord Macclesfield denied the paternity,

and established the impossibility of his being the father of the child

his countess had borne. A divorce was granted in 1698, but, as the

law deemed the earl accountable through his own profligacy for the

malpractices of his wife, he was required to repay the portion he

had received with her on marriage, and with this she secured another

husband in the person of Colonel Brett, by whom she had a daughter,

Anne Brett, the impudent mistress of George I. The inhuman mother

disowned her illegitimate offspring by Lord Rivers, Richard Savage,

and had him placed under the charge of a poor woman who brought him up

as her son, but Lady Mason, her mother, caused him to be removed to

a school near St. Alban's and educated him at her own expense. Earl

Rivers died without making any provision for his unfortunate son, a

circumstance that was due, as Johnson says, to the fact that in the

earl's last illness the degraded countess--then Mrs. Brett--had the

inhumanity to state that Savage was dead, and through this falsehood

the boy was deprived of a provision that was intended for him. It

has been said that young Savage was an impostor, and the opinion was

held by Boswell, the biographer of Dr. Johnson, who says: "In order

to induce a belief that the Earl Rivers, on account of a criminal

connection with whom Lady Macclesfield is said to have been divorced

from her husband by Act of Parliament, had a peculiar anxiety about

the child which she bore to him, it is alleged that his lordship

gave him his own name, and had it duly recorded in the register of

St. Andrew's, Holborn; I have," he adds, "carefully inspected that

register, and I cannot find it." That Boswell should have failed in the

discovery is explained by a reference to "The Earl of Macclesfield's

case," presented to the House of Lords in 1697-8, from which it appears

that the child was registered by the name of Richard, the son of John

Smith, and christened on Monday, January 18th, in Fox-court, and this

statement is confirmed by the following entry in the register of St.

Andrew's, Holborn:--

Jany. 1696-7, Richard, son of John Smith, and Mary, in Fox Court, in

Gray's Inn Lane, Baptised the 18th.

Notwithstanding the discredit that has been thrown on Savage's story,

there can be little doubt of its truth. It was universally believed at

the time, and no attempt was ever made by the countess to contradict

or to invalidate any of the statements connected with it. Moreover, he

was openly recognised in the house of Lord Tyrconnell, a nephew of his

reputed mother, with whom he lived on equal terms, and who allowed him

a sum of £200 a year until Savage quarrelled with him, when the peer

stopped the allowance, and the hapless poet was again sent adrift upon

the world. He was also on terms of acquaintance with the Countess of

Rochford, the illegitimate daughter of Earl Rivers by Mrs. Colydon.

Savage's folly and extravagance left him almost without a friend.

Pope, whom he had supplied with the "private intelligence and secret

incidents" that add poignancy to the satire of the "Dunciad," was

about the last to withdraw his aid, and the poor fellow was eventually

left to wander about in a state of destitution. He repaired to the

West of England, and while in Bristol was arrested for a small debt,

and being unable to find sureties was thrown into prison. During his

incarceration he was taken ill, and on the morning of the 1st of

August, 1743, was found dead in his bed, having been unable to procure

any medical assistance. It is related that the keeper of the prison,

who had treated him with kindness, buried him at his own expense.

Before his decease, Lord Rivers had executed indentures of lease

and release, dated 13th June, 1711, by which his large estates in

Lancashire, Cheshire, Yorkshire, and Essex were vested in trustees for

the use of himself for life and remainder to him in tail; remainder

to the use of his cousin, John Savage, a Romish ecclesiastic, who

inherited the earldom, but never assumed the title; remainder to his

illegitimate daughter, Bessy Savage, afterwards Countess of Rochford;

remainder to his own right heirs. From some irregularities in the

disposal of the property, the will was disputed, and eventually an Act

of Parliament (7th George I., 1720) was obtained for the disposal of

the estates, which were declared to be vested in trust for the earl's

son-in-law, James, fourth earl of Barrymore, with remainder to Lady

Penelope Barry, the only issue of his marriage with the Lady Elizabeth

Savage, and the granddaughter of Richard Earl Rivers and his wife

Penelope Downes, the heiress of Wardley.

Lady Penelope Barry, who was a minor, in 1720 brought the estates of

her family in marriage to General James Cholmondeley, second surviving

son of George Earl of Cholmondeley. Her ladyship seems to have

inherited the frailties of her father, for in 1737 her husband obtained

a sentence of divorce against her for adultery with one Pa[77]ck

Anderson, a surgeon. She died childless about the year 1742;[A] General

Cholmondeley, who survived her many years but did not remarry, died at

the age of sixty-seven, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, October

19th, 1775, when, in accordance with the provisions of a settlement

made in 1729, the estates passed to James Cholmondeley's great nephew,

George James, fourth Earl and afterwards first Marquis of Cholmondeley,

the father of William Henry Hugh, the present marquis, Hereditary Grand

Chamberlain of England.

More than a century has elapsed since the historic house of Wardley was

occupied by any direct descendant of its earlier lords. At one time it

was in the occupation of a farmer, and subsequently was divided into

several tenements, when it was allowed to fall into a state of decay,

the humbler dwellers caring little for its antiquity, and content if

they only could protect themselves from the elements and keep a roof

above their heads. From the last representative of the Downes family

the hall was conveyed by purchase to other owners, and for many years

past it has formed part of the estates of the Earls of Ellesmere, to

whom the grateful acknowledgments of all antiquaries are due for the

thoughtful care they have taken in protecting it from further injury,

as well as for the judgment they have exercised in carrying out the

work of restoration. Within the last half century important renovations

have taken place, and some portions have been rebuilt, but whatever

has been done has been in perfect keeping with the architectural

peculiarities of the original structure. The old mansion is now in

a good state of repair, and, notwithstanding its situation in close

proximity to a mining and manufacturing district, it furnishes a

picturesque and singularly interesting example of a somewhat rare

class of building, the moated dwelling of a gentleman of the fifteenth

century.

L'ENVOI.

To my friend JAMES CROSTON, ESQ., F.S.A.,

on the completion of his

"HISTORIC SITES OF LANCASHIRE AND CHESHIRE."

At length is done thy voluntary task,

Thy pleasant work, fruition of thy will,

Which in the past doth find its fondest lore.

As o'er the meads, the wilds, the plains, the woods,

Which form the glowing landscape 'neath our eye,

Our vision rests in well-pleased rhapsody,

How few remains are seen to tell the tale

Of deeds on which the memory doth dwell;

How few the relics that are strewn abroad

Of castled valour and the Church's pride:

A ruined keep, with now-defenceless walls!

A beauteous vision of the pomp that once

In glorious fanes paid homage unto God!

The ivy clustering o'er the mouldering walls

Doth hold together what alone remains

Of graceful arch, proud pinnacle, and pier

That mark where once man's noblest work had stood.

Nor these alone Time's saddest work reveal,

Mildewed and torn, rotting in damp recess

The records of their history remain,

Until some reverent hand doth bring them forth,

And give their wondrous tale unto the world.

Thine own, my friend, oft seeks their soilèd page,

And from their blurred and faded writing tries

To fill again the mind-restorèd walls

With all the motley crowds that gave them life.

Long may thy pen its pleasant work pursue,

Resuscitate the mighty men of old,

Again enact the noble deeds that once

Made history, and living interest gave

To the sad monuments of earlier time.

JOHN LEIGH.

THE MANOR HOUSE,

HALE, CHESHIRE.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Knight's "England."

[2] See pp. 7 and 8.

[3] Sawrey was eventually drowned, an untimely end that was by some

accounted a Divine judgment.

[4] "The Fells, of Swarthmoor Hall," p. 139.

[5] The fanatical outbreak of the Fifth Monarchy men in 1661 had

been made the excuse for a proclamation for closing the conventicles

of Quakers, Anabaptists, and other sectaries; and in 1662 an Act of

Parliament was passed by which they were to be fined for assembling for

public worship, and for a third offence to be banished.

[6] _Præmunire_ involved the forfeiture of all real estate during life,

personal estates for ever, and imprisonment during the King's pleasure.

[7] From a rare broadsheet in the British Museum, issued, as it would

seem, in 1683, for the use of the Constables and Officers of the Peace,

we find specified the nine following "unlawful meetings" of the people

called Quakers: Bull and Mouth; Devonshire Buildings; Gracechurch

Street; Quaker Street, in Spitalfields; the Peel, Clerkenwell;

Tothill Street, Westminster; Savoy, near the church; Horsleydown; and

Winchester Park, Southwark.

[8] Lancashire Puritanism and Nonconformity, p. 258, ed. 1872.

[9] A phrase that in those days signified a merchant or wholesale

dealer, _i.e._, a dealer in gross.

[10] It is worthy of note that, according to Earwaker, while Mr. Turner

was resident upon his benefice at Wilmslow he had under his tuition the

present Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.A., the Bishop of Sodor and Man,

and Sir C. A. Wood.

[11] The occasion was that when Charles, untaught by the signs of the

times, with almost incredible infatuation, accelerated the fatal crisis

by going down to the House on the 4th January, 1641-2, and attempting

to seize the five members of the Commons--Pym, Hollis, Hampden,

Hazlerig, and Strode, on the charge of traitorously endeavouring to

deprive him of his regal power, and subvert the fundamental laws and

government of the kingdom.

[12] Hunter's "Life of Oliver Heywood," p. 63.

[13] Worthington's Diary, Chet. Soc.

[14] William, third Lord Brereton, of Leighlin, in Ireland, and

Brereton, in Cheshire, who married Frances, daughter of Lord

Willoughby, and died in London, March 17, 1679.

[15] Archæologia, V. v.

[16] The Sir William Stanley here named was the eldest son of Sir

Rowland Stanley, of Hooton, in Wirral, Cheshire, and the one who

afterwards covered himself with infamy by his shameless violation of

trust in the betrayal and surrender of Deventer to the enemies of his

country while holding the commission of the Queen and charged with its

defence--an act of perfidy that was only equalled by Cardin Allen's

(a Lancashire man) attempted justification of it. He had accompanied

the English auxiliaries under Leicester, and in a few weeks after

the Earl's return to England he and Rowland Yorke entered into a

treacherous correspondence with Baptisti Tasse, governor of Zutphen,

and began to propose their measures for delivering to him the important

fortresses that had been entrusted to their care, and in the beginning

of February both Deventer and the fort opposite Zutphen were given up

to the Spaniards. Stanley is said to have been concerned in Babington's

conspiracy in favour of Mary Queen of Scots, and was probably betrayed

by a dread of discovery into this unworthy conduct.

[17] It is on record that, so late as the reign of Elizabeth, of the

30 "sworn men," a kind of select committee chosen by the inhabitants

to take charge of the affairs of the parish of Kirkham, only one could

write, and consequently in his absence the business of the parish had

not unfrequently to be postponed.

[18] The fire was really caused by the carelessness of the sexton,

but it happening to be a tempestuous day the catastrophe was by him

confidently affirmed to be caused by lightning, and was generally

believed to the hour of his death; but he then confessed the truth of

it, after which "the burning of St. Paul's by lightning" was left out

of our common almanacks.

[19] These desecrations, notwithstanding Pilkington's denunciation,

continued long after, for 60 years later Bishop Earl in his

"Micosmography," says:--"Paul's walk is the land's epitome, or you may

call it the lesser isle of Great Britain. It is the great exchange

of all discourse, and no business whatever but is here stirring and

afoot.... It is the general mint of all famous lies, which are here,

like the legends of popery, first coined and stamped in the church.

All inventions are emptied here and not a few pockets. The best sign

of a temple in it is that it is the thieves' sanctuary." The place was

the common resort and lounge for idlers and hunters after news, wits

and gallants, cheats, usurers and knights of the post; the font itself

being used as a counter. It was here that Sir Nicholas Throgmorton held

a conference with the emissaries of Wyat; here, too, the bravoes who

murdered Arden, of Faversham, were hired; Captain Bobadil was a "Paul's

man," and Shakespeare's Falstaff bought Bardolph in Paul's.

[20] Wordsworth, in "The White Doe of Rylstone."

[21] It is a singular fact that even at the present day the wife

of a bishop has absolutely no rank or title whatever, and is the

only wife in English society who reflects none of the lustre of her

husband's dignity, nor appropriates even by courtesy the feminine of

his masculine titles. The wife of every other lord is addressed as "My

lady," whilst she is never anything more than plain "Mrs."

[22] Edited by the Rev. James Schofield, M.A., Regius Professor of

Greek, Cambridge.

[23] Brereton's Travels, Chet. Soc. v. I, p. 122.

[24] Ibid. p. 161.

[25] There is a tradition, unsupported, however, by any evidence, that

so many of the burgesses of Macclesfield fell at Flodden that the

survivors had to petition the King to grant the continuance of their

charter, though they could not muster a sufficient number of aldermen

to constitute a corporation.

[26] Hynde Swyer--a courteous esquire.

[27] Robert Fouleshurst of Crewe.

[28] Kere--return.

[29] It is an absurd mistake to suppose that Richard wore the Royal

crown upon his helmet during the battle; he was too experienced a

soldier to put on such a headgear, even supposing the crown could have

been attached to the helmet. The story may have arisen from his wearing

some distinguishing ornament, resembling a crown, such as was worn by

Henry V. upon his helmet at the battle of Agincourt, and which then

served to break the force of the stroke of the Duke of Alençon's battle

axe.

[30] _i.e._, Fierce men, proud, furious.

[31] The eagle's foot--"A fote of the faireste foule," was a cognizance

of the Stanleys, and three eagles' feet were borne upon the shield of

Sir John.

[32] "Nooks and Corners of Lancashire," p. 314.

[33] It may be mentioned that at his death, in 1637, Jonn Paget was

succeeded by his brother Thomas, "a man of much frowardness," and able

to create "much unquietness," as Henry Newcome affirms, who had been

minister of Blackley, in Manchester parish, but deprived in 1631 by

Dr. Bridgman, Bishop of Chester, when, to escape the fines imposed by

the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, he fled to Holland and joined his

brother, whom he eventually succeeded in the pastorate of the English

Church. Brook, in his "Lives of the Puritans," says he "most probably

spent the remainder of his days there," but this was not so; in 1646

he returned to England, was appointed to the rectory of St. Chad's,

Shrewsbury, and remained there until 1656, when he was presented

by the Commonwealth party to the rich rectory of Stockport. Thomas

Paget's son, Nathan Paget, who practised as a physician in London,

was the intimate friend of John Milton, and cousin to the great epic

poet's fourth wife, Elizabeth Minshull, and also of Thomas Minshull,

the Manchester apothecary and noted Nonconformist, whose name, as

well as that of his residence, Chorlton Hall, in Manchester, is still

perpetuated in Minshull and Chorlton streets, where he at that time

owned considerable property.

[34] The "Mr. Urione Brereton," who, according to the Cheadle

registers, was buried there "Jan. 6, 1631," must have been another

member of the family.

[35] Peter Venables had been elected with Sir Wm. Brereton, but, being

a Royalist, he withdrew, and was succeeded by George Booth.

[36] An old portrait in oil of the loyal and intrepid mayor taken in

1657, when he was 61 years of age, was presented some years ago by Mr.

J. Edisbury, of Bersham, near Wrexham, to the Water Tower Museum, at

Chester, where it is now preserved.

[37] Richard Percival, linen webster, of Kirman's Hulme, is said to

have been the first person whose blood was shed in the great Civil

War. The Manchester Register thus records his burial: "1642, Julie 18,

Richard Parcivall, of Grindlowe."

[38] This work, which has been commonly recognised as Burghall's, can

be no longer attributed to him, the _bonâ-fide_ author, as Mr. Hall,

the historian of Nantwich, has recently shown, being Thomas Malbon, of

Nantwich.

[39] Sergeant-major Lothian.

[40] Congleton has been noted for centuries for its confectionery and

for the excellence of its sack. Among the recent celebrations was the

hospitable reception given by the corporation to the Lord Mayor of

London, Sir Francis Graham Moon, Bart., in 1855, when the entertainment

well represented the ancient festivity. On the chairman's table lay the

gold and silver maces of the borough, and capacious china corporation

bowls full of sack, and flanked by large old two-handled silver flagons

by which the sack was gradually drawn off and circulated among the

company. On every plate was placed a "count cake," and the centres of

the tables were covered with delicate cakes and confectionery, among

which was pre-eminent the famous Congleton gingerbread and a profusion

of choice fruit. The brewage of the sack was entrusted to Joseph

Speratti, who boasts that he alone possesses the true recipe.

[41] By that fatal coincidence which arrayed friends and kinsmen

under the opposite banners in the contest, Sir William Brereton,

both at Nantwich and Chester, the greatest scenes of his exertions,

was opposed to Lord Byron, whose family was nearly allied to that

of the Parliamentary general, his brother, and ultimate heir, Sir

Richard Byron, equally distinguished as a Loyalist, having married

Elizabeth, daughter of Sir George Booth, and the sister of Lady

Brereton,--_Ormerod._

[42] Ormerod (Hist. Ches. v. 2), says the minister who ejected Seddon

was "unquestionably" Richard Banner, but this is an error; the one

whose "name and character" William Seddon's son "entirely forgot"

was none other than John Murcot, the son of a Warwickshire attorney,

and well known in the literature of Nonconformity. He was ordained

by Warden Heyricke and others at Manchester, February 9th, 1647, and

preceded Henry Necome as reader to the celebrated John Ley at Astbury.

He had been there only a short time when he removed to Seddon's

vicarage house at Eastham, and before he had been there a year he

received a "call" to be minister of West Kirby, but, being dissatisfied

with the condition of his congregation and refusing an invitation to

settle at Chester, he crossed over to Dublin, became pastor of an

Independent congregation, and died there before the close of the year

1654. Richard Banner succeeded him at Eastham.

[43] Besides the Puritan brother Peter, who was an officer in the

army of the Parliament, there was a third, a Ralph Seddon, M.A., who

resided some time as probationer with the Rev. John Angier, at Denton,

in Manchester parish, in order that he might have "the benefit of his

grave example, pious instruction, and useful converse." He succeeded

Adam Martindale as pastor of the Independent Church at Gorton, whence

he removed to Langley, in Derbyshire, whence he was ejected in 1662.

[44] It is from a portrait by Vicars that our illustration is taken.

[45] The Rev. Edmund Law, who was curate of Staveley from 1693 to 1742,

and master of the school there, resided at Buck Crag, in Lindale,

about four miles distant. It has been computed that he must have

walked 2,504 miles every year, and during the time he was curate and

schoolmaster 122,696 miles, or a distance nearly equal to five times

the circumference of the globe; and this for a pittance of £20 a year.

Mr. Stockdale relates that about the year 1818 a grandson of the humble

curate visited the house at Buck Crag accompanied by his secretary

and a posse of clergymen, examined every part of the premises, and

overwhelmed the then occupant with questions; the poor man when he had

recovered from his amazement exclaiming in the vernacular "t' bishop

inquir't t' dog tail oot a-joint."

[46] From the Cymric Caer, an enclosure or camp, and _mell_ a bare hill

or fell.

[47] Before the dissolution of the priory the canons of Cartmel

maintained a guide to conduct travellers across the broad expanse of

sand left by each receding tide, paid him out of "Peter's Pence,"

and, in addition, gave him the benefit of their prayers. Since the

suppression of their house the expenses of the "carter," as he is

locally designated, have been charged upon the revenue of the Duchy of

Lancaster, but the office is now almost a sinecure.

[48] The "sworn men," which answered in some degree to a select vestry,

was an institution common in many parts of North Lancashire, though

rarely met with in other parts of the kingdom.

[49] In the churchwardens' accounts there is an item of 4s. for

"painting the umbrella." In the church books of Prestbury, in Cheshire,

there is an entry of a payment made in 1745 of £3 for an umbrella,

from which it would seem that the article was not uncommon in country

churches.

[50] Chronicles, p. 376.

[51] Froissart's Chronicles, I, p. 157.

[52] The particulars of this grant are given in a paper read before the

Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, February 20th, 1879, by

Mr. J. Paul Rylands, F.S.A., of Thelwalls, near Warrington.

[53] Piers Legh was Chief Justice of Macclesfield Hundred, but the

office of Chief Justice of Chester had not then been created.

[54] Archæologia, v. xx.

[55] Clifton, near Halton, was the property of Sir Peter Legh's mother,

and there Sir Peter seems to have resided in the earlier years of his

married life, for, in the proof of age of his son, taken in 1436, one

of the witnesses, John de Worth, testified that he "was at Clifton,

near Halton, where the said Peter (the son) was born; and when he was

baptised in the church of Runcorn he held a burning wax candle in his

hand near the font in which he was baptised."

[56] It has been computed that the number of Englishmen slain at Towton

exceeded the sum of those who fell at Vimeria, Talavera, Salamanca,

Vittoria, and Waterloo.

[57] Sir Peter Leycester affirms that Peter Legh was made a banneret

upon the field at Wakefield, but Dr. Whitaker, with much show of

reason, argues that from the hasty nature of the fight there the Duke

of York could hardly have found time to confer the honour upon the

field, and the opinion of Whitaker is strengthened by the fact that the

annuity of xxli (£20), granted to him for life by the Duke of York out

of the "issues, profitez, and revenews of the lordship of Wakefield"

was made in the name of "Perez Legh Esquier."

[58] Warrington in 1465. Chet. Soc. v. xvii.

[59] Redland Heath, on which the battle was fought, is three miles from

Bosworth.

[60] The bells were afterwards removed to Norbury and recast.

[61] Lord Herbert of Cherbury's Life of Himself, p. 16.

[62] Mr. Legh's removal to Chester is referred to in the following

Treasury order signed by William III.:--"To Robert Lord Lucas, governor

of our Tower of London, in satisfaction of so much expended and

disbursed by him in sending down the gentlemen (late prisoners in the

Tower) into Cheshire and Lancashire--to wit, Caryl Lord Visc. Molyneux,

Sir Thomas Clifton, Sir William Gerard, Sir Roland Stanley, _Peter Lea

of Lyme_, Bartholomew Walmsley, and William Dicconson, Esq.--and all

other charges and expenses of the guards and attendants".

[63] After the defeats at Preston and Sheriff Muir, which destroyed the

hopes of the Pretender, the members of this Cheshire club "unanimously

agreed to commemorate the fortunate decision," as they phrased it,

which had been come to on Peter Legh's recommendation, by having their

several portraits painted life-size. The pictures remained at Ashley

Hall, near Bowdon, until about twenty years ago, when they were removed

by the late Lord Egerton, to Tatton, where they now grace the upper

panels of the staircase. The members of the club were Thomas Assheton,

of Ashley; Sir Richard Grosvenor, of Eaton; James (Barry) Earl of

Barrymore, of Marbury; Charles Hurleston of Newton; Amos Meredith,

of Henbury; Alexander Radcliffe, of Foxdenton (Lancashire); Robert

Cholmondeley, of Holford; John Warren, of Poynton; Henry Legh, of High

Legh; and Peter Legh, of Lyme. The club was dissolved in 1720.

[64] Edward Gibbon Wakefield, the perpetrator of this notorious

outrage, died at Wellington, New Zealand, May 16, 1862. In after life

he rendered good service to his country, and engaged in enterprises

much more honourable than the one that cast such a stain upon his

earlier career. He was largely instrumental in forming the important

colonies of South Australia and New Zealand, and afterwards acted as

private secretary to the Earl of Durham while Governor-general of

Canada.

[65] Mr. John Paul Rylands, F.S.A., of Thelwall, has made a careful

examination of these windows, and with painstaking zeal, identified

almost every coat and quartering. A list of the shields, as identified

by him, is given in the second volume of Mr. Earwaker's "East

Cheshire," and some interesting particulars are supplied in Dr.

Renaud's "Ancient Parish of Prestbury."

[66] Mr. John Dickenson, a wealthy merchant, who lodged and entertained

the Pretender on the occasion of his visit to Manchester, purchased, in

1745 the Birch Hall estate, in Rusholme. His grandson, John Dickenson,

had an only daughter, Louisa Frances Mary Dickenson, who married

General Sir William Anson, Bart., K.C.B., a distinguished Peninsular

officer, and by him was mother of Sir John William Hamilton Anson, who

was killed in the railway accident at Wigan, August 2nd, 1873, and of

the Venerable and Rev. George Henry Greville Anson, rector of Birch

and Archdeacon of Manchester. It is stated that the bed on which the

Pretender lay while Mr. Dickenson's guest, was removed to Birch Villa,

where it remained until the death of Miss Dickenson, when it was sold.

[67] Dr. Deacon's tomb and strange epitaph, describing him as "the

greatest of sinners and the most unworthy of Primitive Bishops," may

still be seen in the north-east corner of St. Ann's churchyard.

[68] It is said that on the occasion referred to a soldier approached

with a drawn sword and demanded that in the prayer for the King he

should substitute James for George, when the intrepid divine, whose

loyalty was afterwards rewarded with the Wardenship of Manchester,

unhesitatingly read the prayer for King George and the House of

Brunswick.

[69] Ensign Maddock, who was admitted as evidence for the Crown.

[70] It was to Dr. Hall, whilst paying his addresses to the lady who

became his wife, that Byrom addressed the following epigram:--

"A lady's love is like a candle snuff, That's quite extinguished by

a gentle puff But, with a hearty blast or two, the dame, Just like a

candle, bursts into a flame."

[71] The name is evidently a compound of the Celtic _Mole_, a hill, and

its Saxon equivalent _Cop_, of which the modern designation is only a

corruption.

[72] "Kimber's Barons," vol. i., p. 84, Lanc. Famil. MS.

[73] In pre-Reformation times wax was extensively used in the churches,

and it was not uncommon for offerings of it to be made at the altar.

Dr. Rock, in his "Church of our Fathers," says it was not unusual for

our forefathers to make a vow when sick to offer to the Church, in case

of recovery, a wax candle of their own height or that of the diseased

limb from which they were suffering.

[74] Cornet Alexander Rigby was of the house of Layton, near Wigan,

but, though bearing the same name, was in no way connected with Colonel

Sir Alexander Rigby, who rendered such distinguished service in

Lancashire to the cause of the Parliament.

[75] The entry is thus recorded in the burial register--"1714-15,

January 26. Thos. Tinsley, of Lodge."

[76] Seacombe attributed the execution of the Earl of Derby to the

"inveterate malice" of Bradshaw, originated, he says, because of the

Earl's having refused him the Vice-chamberlainship.

[77] Some authorities give the date of her death as 1786, but the name

is not mentioned in any of the family deeds later than 1742, and there

is good reason to believe that her decease occurred in that year, or

shortly after.

INDEX.