LATHOM HOUSE. ORM THE SAXON. THE ANCESTRY OF THE EARLS OF DERBY. A
FAMILY LEGEND. “SANS CHANGER.” A STATELY OLD HOME. THE ROYAL GUEST,
AND THE FOOL. THE BARON’S RETAINERS. A GOODLY “CHECKROWLE.” PUBLIC
TROUBLES. THE SIEGE OF ROCHELLE. “THE VILLAIN HAS KILLED ME.”
NATIONAL GRIEVANCES. AN EARNEST REQUEST.
The family of Stanley takes its surname from the lordship of Stonleigh
or Stanleigh in the moorlands of Staffordshire. The appertaining house
and estates had originally belonged to the de Lathoms.
Robert Fitz-Henry appears to have been the first representative of the
family of Lathom. In the reign of Richard I. this Robert founded the
Priory of Burscough for Black Canons, whose scanty ruins, standing in a
field near Ormskirk, still tell of the great nobility and beauty of the
original structure. Burscough Priory was for a long time the
burial-place of the Earls of Derby; but at a later period, many of the
coffins were removed to the vault of the Stanleys in Ormskirk church,
which was built by the sumptuous-minded third Earl of Derby. In the
reign of Edward I. the grandson of Robert Fitz-Henry married Amicia, the
sister and co-heir of the lord and baron of Alfreton and Norton. Sir
Rupert, their son, married Katherine, daughter and heiress of Sir Robert
de Knowsley, that magnificent estate being thus brought into the family.
“Of this ancient and noble family of the Stanleys,” writes Edmondson,[5]
“are the Stanleys of Hooton in Cheshire, from whom descended Sir John
Stanley, who, in the reign of Henry IV., obtained in 1406 a grant in fee
of the Isle of Man, and from that time till February 1736 (except during
the civil wars), the Earls of Derby have had an absolute jurisdiction
over the people and soil.... The grandson of Sir John Stanley, named
Thomas, was summoned to Parliament in 1456 as Lord Stanley; which Thomas
married for his second wife Margaret, daughter and heir to John
Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, and mother of Henry VII. For his services to
Henry he was created, 1485, Earl of Derby. From the eldest son, Thomas,
born to him by his first marriage, descended the Earls of Derby.”
Footnote 5:
1785, Mowbray Herald Extraordinary.
The crest of the Stanleys is an eagle surmounting a child: and
concerning it, tradition hands down the legend that the Sir Thomas
Stanley who was the father of Isabel, his only legitimate offspring, had
a son by a gentlewoman named Mary Osketell. Sir Thomas, who at the time
of the boy’s birth appears to have been well on in years—since his wife
is described as an aged lady—artfully contrived that the infant should
be carried by a confidential servant to a certain spot in the park, and
there laid at the foot of a tree, whose branches were the favourite
haunt of an eagle. Presently, in the course of their walk, came by Sir
Thomas and his wife, and there they beheld the huge bird hovering with
outspread wings above the infant. The crafty Sir Thomas, who loved the
little creature well, feigned to his lady that he believed that the
eagle had borne it hither in its talons, and launched into enthusiastic
praise of the providence which had thus so miraculously preserved the
babe, and placed it in their tender care. The gentle-hearted,
unsuspecting lady placed implicit faith in Sir Thomas’s representations,
and
“Their content was such, to see the hap
That the ancient lady hugs yt in her lap,
Smoths’ yt with kisses, bathes yt in her tears,
And into Lathom House the babe she bears.”
The child was christened Osketell. When however, the knight felt death
not very far off, his conscience began to reproach him for the deception
which he had played upon his wife, and he bequeathed the bulk of his
fortune and estates to his legitimate child Isabel, who was now married
to Sir John Stanley. To the poor “love child,” whom the King had
knighted, he left only the Manor of Irlam and Urmston near Manchester,
and some possessions in Cheshire. Here Osketell settled, and became the
founder of the family of Lathom of Ashbury.
This story would seem purely legendary: at all events, so far as it
connects itself with Sir Thomas; since, in the Harleian MSS., there
stands an account of some painted windows in Ashbury Church, near
Congleton, on which is represented a figure with sword and spurs,
habited in a white tabard, hands clasped. Over its head, a shield set
anglewise under a helmet and mantle, emblazoned _or_; on a chief
indented _az._, three tyrants; over all a bandlet _gules_. Crest, an
eaglet standing on an empty cradle, with wings displayed regardant _or_,
with this inscription: “Orate pro anima Philippi fil. Roberti Lathom
militis.” This Philip of Lathom was uncle of Sir Thomas. Still thrown
back to an earlier date, the tradition would equally hold good, and it
is not beyond the bounds of possibility that some ancestor of Sir Thomas
was really answerable for the crest of the Stanleys which carries with
it the motto, “Sans changer.”
Lathom House was built at a very early period, when the mansions of
great families were castellated and fortified to withstand the attacks
of the foemen, native or foreign. It stood upon flat, marshy ground in
the midst of low, gradual acclivities, its situation being best
described by comparison with the hollow in the middle of the palm of the
hand. Its sturdy environing walls were six feet thick, strengthened with
bastions surmounted by nine towers, which commanded each other. In the
centre, facing the gatehouse, which was flanked by two strong towers,
was the lofty Eagle Keep tower. Externally, a moat surrounded the walls:
this was twenty-four feet wide and six feet deep, full of water; and
between it and the walls ran a stout palisading. The gatehouse opened
into the first court; the dwelling part of the mansion was in the Eagle
Tower. South and south-westward of the house was “a rising ground, so
near as to overlook the top of it, from which it falls so quick that
nothing planted against it on the other side can touch it farther than
the front wall; and on the north and east sides there is another rising
ground, even to the edge of the moat.”
“Thus it will be seen,” writes the Rev. Mr Rutter, his lordship’s
chaplain, “that over and above these artificial defences, there is
something picturesque and noteworthy in the situation of the house, as
if nature hereby had destined it for a place of refuge and safety.” It
could not be taken by assault of battery, since the cannon placed at the
top of the high surrounding hills could not damage the walls so as to
effect a breach in them.
Old Lathom House bristled with towers. Eighteen in all rose from its
walls. Thomas, second Earl of Derby, writing in the time of Henry VIII.,
thus apostrophises his ancestral home:—
“Farewell, Lathom! that bright bower;
Nine towers thou bearest on hye,
And other nine thou bearest in the outer walls,
Within ther may be lodged kings three.”
From the time of its foundation, Lathom was associated with royal
memories and noble deeds. Among its heroes was Sir Thomas Stanley, Chief
Governor of Ireland, the father of the first Earl of Derby, Sir Edward
Stanley—
“There is Sir Edward Stanley stout,
For martial skill clear without make;
Of Lathom House by line came out,
Whose blood will never turn their back”[6]—
and of Sir William Stanley, the brother of the first Earl. Those days of
endless Yorkist and Lancastrian fighting for the crown, causing such
bitterness and division between father and son, brother and brother,
brought about the death upon the scaffold of Sir William Stanley. He was
executed for his brave adherence to the cause of Perkin Warbeck, whom
he, with so many more, believed to be the Duke of York, said to have
been murdered in the Tower by Richard of Gloucester. Sir William met his
fate February 1495; and in the summer following, King Henry VII. made a
royal progress northward, to spend a few days with his mother, the
Countess of Derby, at Lathom. After showing his house to his royal
guest, the Earl conducted him on to the leads for a prospect of the
country which the roof commanded. The Earl’s fool was among the company
in attendance, and observing the King draw very near the edge, which had
no parapet or defence of any kind, Master Yorick stepped up to the Earl,
and, pointing to the perilous verge, said: “Tom, remember Will.” The
King not only caught the words, but their meaning; “and,” concludes the
chronicler, “made all haste down stairs and out of the house; and the
fool, for long after, seemed mightily concerned that his lord had not
had the courage to take the opportunity of avenging himself for the
death of his brother”[7]: thus exemplifying the vast difference that
exists between a fool and a wise man.
Footnote 6:
Harl. MSS.
Footnote 7:
Burke.
The jester was an important personage at Lathom, as in all great
families of the time. The homes of the nobility were each in themselves
royal courts in miniature, and the quips and cranks of these “strange
caperers” must have been, not merely acceptable and welcome, but in a
manner indispensable to the many—from my lord himself to the kitchen
scullion—when books were rare, even for those who possessed the
accomplishment of reading them. The wise saws and modern instances too
often wrapped up in the quips of a clever fool must have kept awake many
a brave gentleman when he had laid aside baldrick and hunting horn, and
the falcon slept upon his perch. Moreover, as extremes so frequently do
meet, in justice to all concerned the fact should never be lost sight of
that the fool so called was often furnished with a very superior if
fantastic headpiece beneath his cap and bells, and in many instances was
a poet of a high order. To wit, one such a “fool” as Master John
Heywood, King Henry VIII.’s jester, would be nowadays as acceptable as
half a score of savants.
In a catalogue, or, as it is called, a “Checkrowle of my Lord of Darby’s
householde,” drawn up in 1587, “Henry ye ffoole” is enumerated last
indeed, but obviously as a very distinctive member of the establishment.
At this time the steward of Lathom had three servants, the controller
three, and the receiver-general three. Seven gentlemen waiters had each
a servant, and the chaplain, Sir Gilbert Townley, had one. Then came
nineteen yeomen ushers, six grooms of the chamber, two sub-grooms,
thirteen yeomen waiters, two trumpeters, and inferior servants: making
the total number to feed, one hundred and eighteen persons. As will be
seen, a spiritual teacher figures in this list, in the person of Sir
Gilbert Townley; but neither physician nor surgeon, nor, for that
matter, a barber. Possibly, these indispensable members of a large
household are both included in the person of “a conjurer,” kept in his
lordship’s service, “who cast out devils and healed diseases.”
The weekly consumption of food at Lathom in the sixteenth century was an
ox and twenty sheep; and in the way of liquor, fifteen hogsheads of
beer, and a fair round dozen tuns of wine, yearly. In addition to the
above enumerated comestibles were consumed large quantities of deer from
the park, game from the woods, and fish from the ponds. For magnificence
and hospitality, Lathom House in the time of the Stanleys surpassed all
the residences of the north; and its possessors were regarded with such
veneration and esteem, that the harmless inversion, “God save the Earl
of Derby and the King,” was as familiar as household words.
And if in the days of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth this was held no
treason, still less was it so in the days of Charles I. in the time of
the Lord and Lady of Lathom whom peril and death itself could not render
disloyal to their King, or a mockery to their motto, “Sans changer.”
This was the home in which Lady Strange spent the best part of the years
of her married life, happily enough in the domestic relations of wife
and mother, but hampered by the public and political complications in
France, which were for ever hindering the payment of the money supplies
belonging to her by inheritance, and troubled by yearly increasing
anxiety for the disturbed condition of her adopted country.
Charles, from the beginning of his reign, had given great offence to the
nation by the taxations which he strove to impose upon it for the
carrying on of his foreign wars. This discontent was aggravated by the
favour which he showed to the Duke of Buckingham. The Duke had not
merely a voice in every question of State affairs, for which privilege
he did his royal master the doubtful service of defending him against
the Parliamentary attacks which daily gathered in angry strength, but he
crowned all by aspiring to and obtaining the command set on foot for the
assistance of the Huguenots against the forces of Richelieu, which were
beleaguering the city of la Rochelle. Buckingham’s religious convictions
were however considerably less strong than his anger against the
Cardinal, to whom his behaviour had begun to give offence ever since the
day when he first set foot in the French Court and had cast amorous eyes
upon Anne of Austria, the beautiful wife of Louis XIII. Buckingham took
his fleet to Rochelle, having persuaded Charles that the expedition
would be regarded with special favour by the English nation, since it
was to contend for Protestantism and Protestants against the proud
Romanist arch-priest. This might in a measure have proved to be the case
had the undertaking been successful; and, since there is nothing that
succeeds like success, it might have turned the whole course of
subsequent events for Charles. But George Villiers was not of the stuff
to measure arms with Armand de Richelieu, whose axiom was that there was
“no such word as fail”—and the expedition was a total fiasco. Buckingham
returned to England to organise a second attempt; but while waiting at
Portsmouth for this purpose, he died by the hand of the assassin Felton.
Charles was now left to bear alone the bitter complaints of his people,
who had been taxed for the expenses of the fleet, the ill-success of
which had cast ridicule not only on England, but on the Protestant
cause, and simply enhanced the growing triumphs of the Catholics in
France. The King furthermore, was giving great offence to Protestants of
all denominations by the toleration which he granted the papists. From
the Independents, the growing party of the Puritans, and almost without
exception from the Episcopalians, the Roman Catholics of the country met
with no quarter. Many patriotic and loyal English men and women had
remained faithful to the old creed, keeping spiritual and political
conviction absolutely apart; but upon these, baleful reflections were
cast by the foreign Jesuit party, and suspicion fell on the most
unbigoted and inoffensive. Charles’s leniency towards his Roman Catholic
subjects was far less the effect of any sympathy with their doctrines
than that of a mistaken policy. His idea in coming to any sort of
_entente cordiale_ with them was to make terms for dispensations from
the severity of the penal laws existing against them. He wanted the
benevolences of them, and forced loans, for the purpose of carrying on
his war against Spain, since he could not obtain the needful supplies
from Parliament; and the nation objected on the double score of the
illegality of such a measure, and the inadvisability of keeping up
warfare with the Continent at all.
These offences on the King’s part crowned the grievances he had caused
by his levy of tonnage and poundage, and the new Parliament which was
now summoned inaugurated proceedings by an inquiry into the “national
grievances.” In 1628 all this resulted in the bill known as the Petition
of Rights, which, after some demur in the Upper House, was finally
passed by the lords, and received the royal assent. This bill required
the consent of both Houses to the furnishing by anyone of tax, loan, or
benevolences. It claimed for the people exemption from enforced
quartering upon them of soldiers and seamen. Martial law was to be
abolished, and no person to be arbitrarily imprisoned.
Matters might now have improved; but Charles sprang a new mine by the
tenacity with which he clung to the disputed right of tonnage and
poundage. The Commons, unfaithful to their promise to look into the
justice of the claim, arrived at the decision that anyone paying it
should be held a traitor to his country. The offended King, calling the
members of the Commons all “vipers,” once more dissolved Parliament,
made peace with France and Spain, and proceeded to act upon his
declaration that he would govern without the aid of Parliament.
The blame of all these disputes was laid to the Duke of Buckingham. The
sanction given by the King to the Bill of Rights did little to appease
the storm of discontent. Five months after the prorogation of Parliament
(23rd August 1628) Buckingham was assassinated by one of his disbanded
officers.
“I expect,” writes Lady Strange to her sister-in-law a month later,
“that before this reaches you, you will have heard of the death of the
Duke of Buckingham, who was killed by one Felton, the lieutenant of a
company to whom the Duke had refused it after the death of its chaplain.
“He might have been saved, but a wish to die, and a melancholy
disposition contributed to his end.
“His wife,[8] whom he loved greatly, and who is very amiable and modest,
is much to be pitied. The King has shown great displeasure at the deed,
and for a whole day would see no one, nor eat till ten o’clock at night.
He received the news at morning service, at which he remained, and on
the Sunday following was present at the sermon. He has sent word to the
Duchess that he will befriend her to the utmost. You may judge what a
change all this will make at Court. God grant that it may be to His
glory, and for peace.”
Footnote 8:
Lady Catherine Manners, daughter of the Earl of Rutland.
The subsidies voted by Parliament were however levied.
“The greatest people contribute to these subsidies, and each according
to his possessions,” writes Lady Strange to her mother. “My husband’s
great-grandfather was taxed at four thousand francs. He possesses,
however, quite three times as much money as we have, and yet we gave as
much. All this is greatly to the disadvantage of the wealthy; but the
people are satisfied; and since the King has not power to raise these
subsidies but when Parliament permits, it will not happen every year,
but only on special occasions.”
Lady Strange prefaces with these observations a new request for the
payment of her marriage portion.
“If Château-Neuf has the honour of seeing you, he will be able to tell
you Madame, how it injures my repute and that of my family that I have
not yet had this sum of twenty thousand crowns. If my husband were not
as good as he is, he would begin to grow suspicious, which, thank God,
he does not. What most distresses me is that I find myself one of this
household only to increase its debts and expenses; and that also several
of his friends from whom he borrowed money for his journey (to Holland,
on the occasion of his marriage) were pressed to ask him to pay it back,
and that he could not do so is a great trouble to him, as it is to me
also; for there is nothing that he hates more than not keeping his
word.”
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