Lord Lovel's Fate.
The Lovel family came into possession of the township of Mottram at an
early period. In the time of Edward III. Sir John Lovel held the
lordship of Longdendale from the King (as Earl of Chester) by military
service. Sir John was a warrior of great bravery and fame. He served
through the French wars, and in 1368 is mentioned as a leader under
the Duke of Clarence. Most of the Lovels figure in history, and
Francis, Lord Viscount Lovel, was a great favourite with Richard III.
He was the King's chief Butler and Chamberlain of the Household.
Moreover, he exercised a great influence in shaping the course of
English affairs of his day. He was the Lovel of the ancient couplet:--
The cat, the rat, and Lovel the dog,
Rule all England under a hog.
The cat was Catesby, the rat Ratcliffe or Radcliffe, of Ordsall Hall,
Salford, and the hog represented the crookbacked King.
Francis Lovel was looked upon by his tenants in Mottram as a being of
almost equal importance to the King. His word was law, his favour was
courted, his anger feared. There are many curious stories told
concerning his connection with Mottram and its neighbourhood. It is
said that he owned a hall in Mottram which was connected by a
subterranean passage with the Parish Church. He is also the hero of
many adventures, most of which may be set down as pure stories of
imagination. Perhaps the following legend is of this class.
Now it should be stated that at the period of which we speak there
were witches in Longdendale. The age was one of gross superstition,
and it was universally believed that certain mortals, notably old
women, were in league with the evil one, and that Satan had bestowed
upon them powers of evil whereby they were enabled to work harm upon
the persons of any to whom they took a dislike. What particular powers
these wretched women possessed will probably never be known; it is
quite possible that some of them were students of magic, for in those
ages some of the most learned men professed to dabble in mystic arts;
but the probability is that by far the greater part of their dreaded
powers existed only in the superstitious imaginings of the day. But to
the people of that time the witches and their witchcraft were real
enough and terrible to boot; so much so that if a man fell ill, or if
some piece of bad luck befell him, to all the suffering caused thereby
was added the mental torture consequent upon the belief that all the
trouble had been caused by the evil schemes of some demon-possessed
witch-woman. This belief was widespread, even among the better
educated classes, to such an extent, that if a person lay ill of
consumption, it was supposed that his waxen image was at that moment
slowly melting before some witch-woman's fire, and that every fresh
pang of pain was caused by the witch thrusting her sharp bodkin into
the image. In Longdendale it was asserted that at night the witches
sailed across the bleak moors seated on broomsticks. Often would the
peasants rush in terror to the shelter of their cots as they heard a
strange rustling overhead, and, on looking up, beheld the wizened
forms of old hags riding on broomsticks through the air with a speed
which no horse could equal.
There are certain stories told which ascribe to Lord Lovel the habit
of consulting and using the services of these unholy mortals, but
implicit faith cannot be placed upon these stories, because other
tales describe him as absolutely fearless and devoid of
superstition--a man, in fact, who placed no faith in their supposed
powers.
On one occasion Lovel was in Longdendale. History does not tell us the
cause of his visit, but he had left his hall at Mottram, and was
walking in the woodland, when suddenly he found himself confronted by
a woman of evil shape. She was an old hag, of bent form and wrinkled
face, and she leaned heavily upon a crutch. For all that when she
walked she was nimble enough, and could get about with speed. When she
spoke it was in a cracked voice, like the croaking of a raven, so that
her very tones caused the flesh to creep, and a shudder to pass
through the frame of the listener. The nobleman would have passed on
with a brief salutation, but the hag planted herself firmly in his
path, and sawing the air with her fore-finger commenced to speak.
"Thou art a proud man, Lord Lovel, and like all thy class thou
regardest the poor as dirt beneath thy feet. But I tell thee that the
hour is at hand when thou shalt be lower than they. They that live by
the sword shall e'en perish by the sword, and they who scheme to
entrap others shall be caught in their own net. The curse of doom is
already on thee, and this night I can prophesy the end. Thy downfall
shall be speedy, and thy death paltry. Nothing heroic shall there be
about either. And the end shall be total. Neither child nor kindred
of thine shall rule after thee in Longdendale."
Lovel heard, and, despite his courage, he could not help trembling at
the terrible aspect of the witch.
"Out upon thee, thou whelp of Satan," he said at length, "or I will
have thee in the ducking stool."
But with a shriek of horrible laughter the witch vanished.
Now this was the end of Lord Lovel, and the reader may decide for
himself whether or not the witch's prophesy was fulfilled. It is quite
certain that from that date his fortunes began to wane. He fought in
the Battle of Bosworth Field on the side of the defeated King Richard
III., and after the battle he took refuge for a time in Longdendale
and Lancashire, but finally was forced to fly to Flanders. He returned
to England with the Earl of Lincoln as a supporter of the Pretender,
Lambert Simnel, and was a prominent figure at the "court" held for a
brief space by that would-be King at the Pile or Peel of Fouldrey--now
a picturesque ruin on Fouldrey Island off the coast of Lancashire. On
behalf of Simnel he fought in the Battle of Stoke, and the last seen
of him was after the defeat of the rebel army, when he was observed to
join in the flight, and to swim his horse across a river, and to
scramble safely up the further bank. Some say he was slain in this
battle, but the popular version of his death ascribes to him a far
different ending. According to this version some days after the
combat, the disguised figure of a man might have been seen wending his
way stealthily to a house at Minster Lovel, near Oxford. The fugitive
was none other than Lord Lovel himself.
With his enemies on his track, and afraid to trust even his friends,
he made his way alone to his own house and entered it under cover of
the darkness. Then, not daring to trust even his oldest servants, lest
they might be tempted to betray him, he quietly stole to a secret
underground chamber, and there immured himself, thinking to lie hidden
within until he could find some means of escape from the country. What
actually happened no man will ever know, but it is easy to surmise. It
would appear that Lovel, from some cause or other, was unable to open
the door by which he had entered his hiding-place, and having told no
one of his intention to make use of the chamber--or else through
treachery--he was perforce left to his fate, and died of starvation.
In all probability when he found out his predicament he attempted to
set some record of it down on paper, but, if so, his story was
destined never to be read. He disappeared from the sight of his own
generation, and the world had well-nigh forgotten him. But in the
Eighteenth Century--several hundred years after his death--a party of
workmen broke into the remains of an underground chamber at Minster
Lovel, and to their great surprise came across a skeleton. It was
thought that this skeleton was the frame of the once powerful
noble--Lord Lovel.
It is said that when the workmen broke into the vault, the skeleton
was found sitting at a table, the hand resting on a bundle of papers,
but that with the admission of air it soon crumbled into dust.
After the Battle of Stoke, Lovel's lands were confiscated, and in 1409
were granted to Sir Wm. Stanley, who had turned the fortunes of the
day at Bosworth Field. With this change of ownership Longdendale
passed out of the hands of the Lovels for ever.