early as the reign of Canute. Radulphus, or Randolph, who is said to
have died in the reign of Edward the Confessor, appears in the pedigree
as the father of Radulphus, who “received the King’s protection from
Sir Hamo de Massey, about the year 1080.” From the daughter of Hamo,
Richard de Trafford had that entire lordship. To this early and obscure
portion of the annals we must refer the tradition of the Trafford
Crest, of which Arthur Agarde writes thus in 1600:—“The auncyentteste I
know or have read is, that of the Trafords or Traford in Lancashire,
whose arms [crest] are a labouring man, with a flayle in his hand
threshinge, and this written motto, ‘Now thus,’ which they say came by
this occasion: That he and other gentlemen opposing themselves against
some Normans who came to invade them, this Traford did them much hurte,
and kept the passages against them. But that at length the Normans
having passed the ryver came sodenlye upon him, and then, he disguising
himself, went into his barne, and was threshing when they entered, yet
beinge knowen by some of them and demanded why he so abased himself,
answered, ‘Now thus.’” At the fancy dress ball in connection with the
Preston Guild of 1823 “Mr. Trafford was remarkably dressed in his own
crest: a Clown in parti-coloured clothes, a flail in his hand and a
motto, ‘Now thus.’” A similar crest was borne by the Asshetons and the
Pilkingtons. The legend was told of a Pilkington to Fuller, who has
given it a place in his “Worthies of England.” It is now impossible to
tell if it has any foundation at all in actual fact. Another undated
tradition is that of a “duel” between John of Trafford and Gilbert of
Ashton, in which the latter was slain and buried by his antagonist in a
field called Barnfield Bank, near Urmston Hall. Following the order of
the pedigree we have as holders of the Trafford estates Radulphus,
Radulphus, Robertus, Henricus, Henry, Richard, of whom little or
nothing is known. They are followed by a succession of five Henrys, of
whom the two last were knights. John, the son of the fifth, having died
young, the estates passed to the grandson of the old knight. This sixth
Henry came of age in 1336, was knighted, and, dying about 1370, left
seven sons, and was succeeded by another Sir Henry, who died about
1386. His son, the eighth Henry, who did not attain to the knightly
dignity, died in 1396, leaving a son six years old, who died about
1403, and was succeeded by his brother Edmund, who was knighted by King
Henry VI. at Whitsuntide, 1426.
In 1422, the parish church of Manchester was collegiated by the action
of the last rector and lord of the manor, Thomas de la Warre. The
parishioners were gathered together at the sound of the bell to confirm
and accept the arrangements he had made for the better service of the
church. After Sir John le Byron and Sir John de Radcliffe, the first
gentleman named is Edmund Trafford. Then follow representatives of the
families of Booth, Longford, Holland, Strangeways, Hyde, Barlow,
Hopwood, and others. Sir Edmund Trafford married Alice, the daughter of
Sir William Venables. This union took place in 1409, when the bride was
but eleven years of age. The little lady was co-heiress with her
sister, Douce or Dulcia, of the lands of her brother Richard, the last
male heir, who was drowned in the Bollin at the early age of eight, in
the year 1402. She was born at Worsley and baptised at Eccles Church.
One who witnessed the ceremony was David le Seintpier, and the ceremony
was impressed upon his mind by the uncomfortable circumstance that he
was setting out on a pilgrimage to Our Lady of Walsingham when he was
thrown from his horse and broke his leg. This form of artificial
memory, though effectual in his case, can hardly be recommended for
imitation. Sir Edmund de Trafford was in the confidence of Henry VI.,
whose dreams of avarice he fanned by visions of the philosopher’s
stone, and of the possibility of changing all the baser metals into
gold and silver. On the 7th of April, 1446, the King granted a patent
to this Trafford and to Sir Thomas Ashton, setting forth that certain
persons had maligned them with the character of working by unlawful
arts, and might disturb them in their experiments, and, therefore, the
King gave them special lease and licence to work and try their art and
science, lawfully and freely, in spite of any statute or order to the
contrary. The King, in issuing this commission, was overriding the
provision of 5 Henry IV., c. 4. Sir Edmund lived until 1457, and if he
succeeded in finding the _aurum potabile_, he carried the secret with
him to the grave. In 1435, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Edmund Trafford,
married Sir John Pilkington. The deeds are still extant by which
Pilkington endowed his bride at the porch of the collegiate church of
Manchester. He entered into a bond to pay 200 marks in silver, and also
“swere upon a boke” that he stood “sole seiset in his demene as of fee
simple or fee tail, the day of weddynge,” of the lands of his father,
including the dower land of his mother, dame Margery.
The next holder of the estate, Sir John de Trafford, “belonged to the
great Earl of Warwick,” and with his retainers fought for the Red Rose
of Lancashire under the banner of the King-maker. His allowance was
twenty marks yearly, in addition to the wages usual for one of his
degree. For some reason now difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain,
he resigned his estates to his son Edmund, the offspring of a marriage
with the daughter of Sir Thomas Ashton, of Ashton-under-Lyne. One of
his sisters married Sir John Ashton. Sir John Trafford transferred his
estates in 1484, and died in 1488. Edmund Trafford married the young
widow of John Honford, and had the guardianship of her first husband’s
only son and heir. This was granted to him in a document which is worth
quoting as an example alike of the customs and language of the
time:—“Be hit knowen to all men wher now of late the Warde and marriage
of the landez and Body of William Honford son and heir of John Honford
esquier perteynet and langet to me John Savage th’ elder knight by
cause ye sayd William at that tyme beinge tendur of age that is to
witte under ye age of xxi yerez. I the said John Savage giffe and
graunte the seid Warde and Mariage of the Body and landez of ye seid
Willm during all his seid nonage to my Son in lagh Edmund Trafford
esquier and my doghter Margaret his wife they to have all the seid
Wardez and to marye hym at their pleasurez, worshipfullye, they takinge
the profetez of all the seide Wardez and mariage during his seid nonage
to their owne usez. And this is my Will and grawnte without any manner
interrupcon or lett of me, myn herez, or of any other by our makyng,
procuringe counsaile or assente. In wythence whereof to this my
writinge I the saide Sir John Savage have sette my seall Theressez
witnessez Thomas Leversege, John Sutton, William Savage the elder,
Thomas ffaloghys.”
The boy became a bold soldier, and was slain at Flodden Field in 1515,
and with him ended the male line of the ancient family of Honford. His
daughter Margaret married, before she was twelve, Sir John Stanley, the
stout knight, whose life forms a curious episode in mediæval biography.
He was the son of James Stanley, the warlike Bishop of Ely, and Warden
of Manchester, who was blamed by Fuller for “living all the winter at
Somersham, in Huntingdonshire, with one who was not his sister, and who
wanted nothing to make her his wife save marriage.” Young Stanley took
part in the battle of Flodden, and is thought to have been knighted in
the field. Notwithstanding his prowess he appears to have been
“sicklied o’er with a pale cast of thought,” his favourite mottos being
those of the preacher who declares _vanitas vanitatum omnia vanitas_.
In 1523, he became engaged in a dispute with one of the Leghs, of
Adlington, who had married the daughter of a reputed mistress of
Cardinal Wolsey. That haughty prelate summoned Sir John to London, and
committed him to the Fleet until he surrendered his lease. Sir John
founded a chantry in the church of Manchester, and arranged his estates
for the benefit of his wife and child. Then by mutual consent a divorce
was pronounced between him and Dame Margaret, and he became a monk of
the Order of St. Benedict in the abbey of Westminster. His wife, when
the divorce was arranged, intended to enter a nunnery, but anticipating
the sentiment of a once popular song, she altered her mind, and married
Sir Urian Brereton. When Stanley settled his property he directed that
his son was not to be married until he was twenty-one, and then he was
to choose his own wife by the advice of the Abbot of Westminster and
Edmund Trafford.
The guardian of the monk’s childhood carried forward the fortunes of
the Traffords, for in 1514 he was created a Knight of the Bath by Henry
VIII. His son, the second Sir Edmund, was born in 1485, and died at the
age of forty-eight, leaving behind him five sons and five daughters.
Sir Edmund was one of the first feoffees of the Manchester Grammar
School. When the school was built the east part of it adjoined “a stone
chymney” of George Trafford’s.
Henry Trafford, the younger brother of Sir Edmund, who died in 1537,
was rector of Wilmslow, and built the chancel and placed stained glass
in many of the windows. He was the youngest son of the Sir Edmund
Trafford who died in 1514. His monument in Wilmslow Church represents a
tonsured priest in ecclesiastical costume. The inscription, now
illegible, set forth his clerical honours as “licensed doctor of
divinity,” formerly Chancellor of York Cathedral, and rector of Bolton
Percy, Siglisthorne, and Wilmslow. He was succeeded by Henry Ryle, who,
in 1542, resigned to make way for another Henry Trafford, who was
rector of Wilmslow for nearly fifty years. He died in 1591. His will
contains several interesting provisions. He was anxious to be buried in
the same tomb as his uncle and predecessor, and left 6s. 8d. to be paid
for his funeral sermon. Evidently disapproving of sable trappings, he
desired that there should be no mourning gowns at his funeral, but that
a “worshipful dinner” should be made for the friends that should happen
to attend. His best gown he left to the curate of Wilmslow, and the
furniture of the parsonage was to remain for the use of whoever should
be his successor.[6]
The third Sir Edmund, born in 1507, was knighted by the Earl of
Hertford, in Scotland, in the thirty-sixth year of King Henry VIII. He
was with the King at the siege of Boulogne, and died in 1564. He
married a daughter of the knightly house of Radcliffe. His brother
Thomas was the founder of the Traffords of Essex. Sir Edmund, in 1542,
paid tax on £80 as the value of his Lancashire property. In Mary’s
reign he was captain of the military musters of Salford hundred, and
High Sheriff of the county. “Between 1542 and 1558,” says Mr. J. E.
Bailey, “Sir Edmund Trafford was interested in promoting, in the
church, the advancement of the following persons, who, belonging in
some cases to the families of his tenants, were ordained at Chester
upon the knight’s title: Dns Alexander Chorlton; Dns Alexander Hugson
(or Hudson); Dns Robert Williamson; Dns Johannes Gregorie; Dns Willm’s
Trafforde; Dns Jacobus Walker. Thomas Acson, of the diocese of Chester,
an acolyte in April, 1546, soon afterwards became sub-dean, deacon, and
presbyter on the title of Edmund Trafford, co. Lincoln, gentleman. The
Trafford family had connections in Lincolnshire. George Trafford, a
younger son of the Sir Edmund who died in 1514, had lands in Lincoln,
but lived in the neighbourhood of Manchester, and in dying left
provision for certain copes and vestments (which had been bought by his
father-in-law) ‘to be restored again for the service of God.’” In 1564,
a curious legal document was executed between Edmund Trafford, of
Trafford, Esquire, and John Boothe, of Barton, Esquire, by which it was
agreed that Edmund’s son (also Edmund) should marry Marget Boothe,
daughter of the said John, and if she died before the union was
completed he was to marry Anne, and in her default any other daughter
of Boothe’s who might be her father’s heir. If Edmund died his next
remaining brother in succession was to take his place. Moreover, if
Boothe had any male issue a similar marriage was to be arranged with a
daughter of the house of Trafford. In point of fact the feelings and
dispositions of the young folk were not dreamed of as being of any
account, and the future of their respective offspring, born and unborn,
was dealt with by the seniors in the most arbitrary fashion, with the
sole view of joining together the great estates of the two families.
The fourth Sir Edmund was born in 1526, and died in 1590. His first
wife was a sister of Queen Catharine Howard. By his second marriage,
with Elizabeth, the daughter of Ralph Leicester, of Toft, he had three
children. In 1586, the marriage of his daughter was celebrated with
great pomp at Trafford, the Earl of Derby, the Bishop of Chester, “with
divers knights and esquires of great worship,” were present, and the
wedding-sermon, which still survives, was preached by William Massie,
B.D., who dedicates it to Sir Edmund. “I having right honourably
received,” he says, “by your good means, great courtesies, both in the
country and at my studie at Oxford.” He was a Fellow of Brasenose
College, and had been helped in his education by Sir Edmund. The
conclusion of the dedication is worth quoting:—“For your selfe as you
have long been a principal protection of God’s trueth and a great
countenance and credit to the preachers thereof in those quarters, and
have hunted out and unkenneled those slie and subtil foxes the Jesuites
and seminarie Priests out of their celles and caves to the uttermost of
your power, with the great ill will of many both open and private
enimies to the prince and the church, but your rewarde is with the
Lorde, and as you have maintained still your house with great
hospitality in no point dimming the glory of your worthy predecessors,
but rather adding to it: So I pray God stil continue your zeale, your
liberality, your loyaltie and fidelitie, to your Prince, Church, and
Common Wealth, that here you may live long with encrease of worship and
after the race of your life wel runne here you maie be partaker of
those unspeakable ioies in the kingdome of Heaven which be prepared for
all the elect children of God, unto whose blessed protection I
recommend you and al yours. Amen.”
He was, like his father, a staunch Protestant, and is credited with
special activity against the partisans of the old faith. Lancashire was
regarded as a hot-bed of Popery, and Manchester was thought a
convenient place “wherein to confine and imprison such Papists as they
thought meet, and to train up their children in the Protestant
religion.” Chaderton, Bishop of Chester, was a resident in the town,
and some of the children of the Roman Catholic gentry were committed to
his charge. In 1580, Trafford wrote to the Earl of Leicester
complaining that the state of Lancashire was lamentable to behold, for
mass was said in several places, and if harsh measures were not used
“our country is utterly overthrown. I know no lenity will do any good
by experience.” Towards the close of 1582, Sir Edmund apprehended a
priest named John Baxter, who, “for the more ease of Sir Edmund
Trafford,” was committed to the common gaol until the next assizes. The
zealous priest-hunters were “righte hartelie” thanked by the Privy
Council for their activity. The persecuting spirit was exhibited in
1583, when, at the quarter sessions held in Manchester, two priests,
Williamson and Hatton, who had been arrested by Sir Edmund, and James
Bell, a priest, who had been apprehended by the Earl of Derby, were
indicted for high treason for “extolling the Pope’s authority, &c.”
Bell and a recusant, named Finch, were condemned to death, and executed
at Lancaster. Their heads were placed on the steeple of the Manchester
Parish Church. At the same sessions, Sir John Southworth and seven
other gentlemen were fined for recusancy, each having to pay £240. The
same fine was imposed upon a number of priests and “common persons.” Of
four women it is remarked that, “although they be very obstinate, and
have done great harm, yet being indicted it was not thought good to
arraign them.” The next year, 1584, we find Trafford, at the
instigation of Bishop Chaderton, making a descent upon Blainscough, but
finding that Mr. Worthington had fled, they proceeded to Rossall to the
house inhabited by the widow of Gabriel, the brother of Cardinal Allen.
That lady having received a friendly hint had fled, but the High
Sheriff found £500, which was secured on the plea that it was intended
for the use of the Cardinal. Her three daughters, of whom the eldest
was but sixteen, hearing that it was intended to convey them to prison,
made their escape at midnight, and luckily finding a boat ready,
crossed the Wyre and found refuge with friends. Ultimately, and after
many hardships, they escaped to Rome, where they lived upon the bounty
of Cardinal Allen. The Rev. James Gosnell, writing from Bolton about
1584, says:—“Here are great store of Jesuits, Seminaries, Masses and
plenty of whoredom. The first sort our sheriff (Edmund Trafford, Esq.)
courseth pretty well.”
From Warden Herle the Traffords received, about 1574, some ambiguous
leases of the tithes of Stretford, Trafford, and half of Chorlton,
which were ultimately decided to mean possession for ninety-nine years
after twenty-one years. This transaction is probably the origin of the
right of the family to nominate one churchwarden and two sidesmen, and
to appoint the parish clerk of Manchester. When Peploe was warden these
leases were the occasion of much trouble, and it was with great
difficulty that the Fellows obtained their surrender. The fifth Sir
Edmund was thrice High Sheriff of Lancashire. In 1603, when James made
his progress into England, he was received at York with great pomp and
state by the Lord Mayor and burgesses. A seminary priest was sent to
prison for presenting a petition, and a number of gentlemen were
“graced with the honour of knighthood.” Amongst these was Edmund
Trafford, who, like his father, was a hater of Roman Catholics, and
employed a spy named Christopher Bayley to ferret them out. Sir Edmund
died in 1620. His first wife was a Booth, of Barton. In a second
marriage he espoused Lady Mildred Cecil, the second daughter of the
Earl of Exeter. A daughter received the name of Cecilia, and a son the
name of Cecil, in honour of the mother’s family. In 1584, there was a
levy of 200 men for the service of the Queen in her Irish wars, and
that the Lancashire lads might not be committed to strange captains who
“for the most part” had not used their soldiers “with the love and care
that appertained,” one of their own shire, Edmund Trafford, eldest son
of Sir Edmund Trafford, Knight, was appointed their commander. Two
years later an entry in the Court Leet book shows that the town paid
£16 to Mr. Trafford and Mr. Edmund Assheton for the “makeing of
soldiers into Ireland.”
Sir Cecil Trafford, who was born in 1599, and knighted by King James at
Houghton Tower in 1617, succeeded his father in 1620. Leonard Smethley
writes from Manchester, 10th May, 1620, that Sir Edmund Trafford was
buried on the 8th at Manchester Church by torchlight, and had a funeral
sermon by candle-light, leaving a will so ambiguous that the heir who
should inherit could not be known. Sir Urian Legh, of Adlington, and
Sir Peter Legh, of Lyme, were expected to meet for the ordering and
establishing of quietness amongst the four brethren. Smethley, with a
keen eye to business, wanted to secure Sir Edmund’s “hearse-cloth” as a
perquisite of the College of Arms, whose minion he was. From the
Reformation the Traffords had been staunch Protestants, and Sir Edmund
in particular was a vigorous hunter of recusants. In his earlier years
Sir Cecil was thought to be tainted with Puritanism, and in an excess
of religious ardour engaged in an attempt to bring back a convert, Mr.
Francis Downes, who had gone over to Rome. This entry into the thorny
fields of controversy had an unexpected result. Sir Cecil found himself
converted by the very arguments he had sought out only to confute. Sir
Cecil married a daughter of Sir Humphrey Davenport, Lord Chief Baron of
the Exchequer, and his daughter Penelope, named after her mother,
became the wife of John Downes, of Wardley, the brother and heir of the
man whose reclamation the Knight of Trafford had attempted with so
curious a result. His grandson, Roger Downes, was the young rake whose
tragic fate has given rise to the story of the “skullhouse.” The death
of the Rector of Ashton-on-Mersey, who was drowned on Good Friday, in
1632, “being, as it is feared, somewhat overcharged with drink,” the
suicide of the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge on Easter Day, and the
controversy between two Fellows of the College as to the nature of sin,
seemed to new converts like Trafford and Downes “signal evidences of
God’s anger and wrath, and presages of the ruin of the reformed
religion.” It has, however, been claimed that the re-conversion of the
Traffords, the Downes, and the Sherburnes was the work of Richard
Hudleston, a Lancashire Benedictine monk, who prosecuted the dangerous
mission of keeping alive Roman Catholicism in England, and died in
1655, at the age of seventy-five. In 1580, there was at Trafford a
priest of this English mission, but no particulars respecting him are
known. In religion a Roman Catholic, in politics a Royalist, Sir Cecil
played a busy part in the troublous period of the Civil War.
Ship-money, perhaps the most momentous impost in its results ever
levied, was the subject of a letter from Sir Cecil to Humphrey Chetham,
then High Sheriff of Lancashire, which for its quaint formalism may be
worth quoting:—
“Mr. Sheriffe,—I hope you will excuse mee for my late sending you
venison, for in truth I was ashamed my keeper cold doe noe better,
though he had Mr. Fox to help him. I have in recompense of your
patience sent you a quarter of a hinde, & if you need more venison
I pray lett me knowe and you shall have assoone as it will be kild.
I have perused our directions from his Maty and the Llds for the
levying of men & money within this County & compared it with
Cheshire, & find that some time Cheshire hath byn equall to us,
sometyme deeper charged, & sometymes this County hath borne 3 parts
and Cheshire 2. Yet I clerely hold equallity is the best rate
betweene the Countys, though Cheshire be lesse yet it is generally
better land, and not soe much mosses and barren ground in it. Mr.
Adam Smiths is now with me and acquainted mee with your desire,
which I will as willingly perform as you desire, if God make me
able; for I have byn a little troubled with rewme in my head this
two dayes, though I am better to-day; I have looked for the Coppy
of the letter from the Llds of the Councell for providing a Shipp
in this County, but yet I cannot find it; but I find this
proclamation for the discharge of it, and by my remembrance in
writing on the back of the proclamation you may see the charge of
money demanded by the Kinge and Llds because the shipp could not
possibly be provided in time. I shall further acquaint you with my
booke of Lieutenancy wherein are those few notes of remembrance. I
desire to know your tyme of going, and I will prepare myself for
you accordingly, and thus with my harty commendations to you I rest
Your well wishing ffrend,
CECYLL TRAFFORD.
Trafford the third of January, 1634.
To the right worll. my very good freind Humfrey Chetam, esq.
High Sheriffe of the County of Lancaster at his House at Clayton
these present.”
These worthy gentlemen discuss the matter of Ship Money with an
exclusive eye to its purely business aspect, and seem quite unconscious
of the momentous issues beneath these details, and yet the freedom of
England was involved in the settlement. Sir Cecil writes from Trafford,
16th February, 1638, to William ffarington that “wee” have enrolled all
the able men between sixteen and sixty, “a great number,” out of which
levy may be made for the King. On the 11th of March he writes again
that he has been to the houses of various gentlemen as requested, to
see who would help with arms or money for the Kings cause, and that
“few denyed.” In 1639, Sir Cecil, in conjunction with other Loyalists,
“suspecting that sundry in the towne did favour the Scots, did charge
the towne of Manchester with more arms than ever before in the memory
of man it had been charged with, which war being composed they had
their arms in their own possession.”