AN AFTERNOON AT GAWSWORTH—THE FIGHTING FITTONS—THE CHESHIRE WILL
CASE AND ITS TRAGIC SEQUEL—HENRY NEWCOME—“LORD FLAME.”
If any reader wishes to obtain a brief respite from the busy life of
the “unclean city,” to get away from the noise of looms and spindles,
the smoke of factories and the smell of dyes, and to find within easy
distance of the great manufacturing metropolis a place of perfect quiet
and repose where he may feel that for all practical purposes he is “at
the world’s end,” let him by all means spend a summer afternoon in that
quaint little out-of-the-way nook, Gawsworth, and he will return to the
crowded mart with little inclination to cry out with the Roman Emperor,
“_Perdidi diem_.” Yet how few there are who have made acquaintance with
this _beau-ideal_ of a quiet rural retreat. The places which it is the
proper thing to visit, or “do,” as the phrase is, are all carefully
mapped out for our convenience; but the literary finger-posts afford
but little guidance to the true rambler, who knows that the fairest
spots are those which are oftenest overlooked. Gawsworth may be easily
reached from Alderley or Chelford; but perhaps the most convenient
starting point is Macclesfield, from which it is distant a short four
miles.
Macclesfield does not present a particularly prepossessing appearance,
though it possesses much that is historically interesting, and
you may here and there see relics of mediæval times; but the long
centuries have wrought many changes in its condition, and those
changes can hardly be said to be from grave to gay. Its forest was
once the hunting-ground of kings. A royal palace occupied a site
very near to the present Park Lane, and in the Fourth Edward’s reign
Humphrey, Duke of Buckingham, had a princely residence there. The
town itself was walled, and though there is not now a single stone
remaining, the recollection of its fortifications is preserved in
the streets—Chestergate, Church Wallgate, and Jordangate—which form
the principal outlets from it. Notwithstanding that it once boasted
a royal owner, it now presents but a dingy and uninviting aspect, so
that we are little loth to leave its steep and tortuous streets, and
what Nathaniel Hawthorne would call its ugliness of brick, and betake
ourselves to the open country.
On getting clear of the town, we enter upon a pleasant rural highway
that rises and falls in gentle undulations. Tall trees border the
wayside, which, as we advance, grow thicker, until we reach a double
line of spreading beeches that meet in an entanglement overhead,
and form a long shady avenue, through which a pleasant vista is
obtained. Now and then we meet a chance wayfarer and occasionally a
sleepy-looking carter with his team, but the road is comparatively
little frequented, and we almost wonder that with the limited traffic
it does not become grass-grown. Though it is quiet now-a-days, it was
lively enough in the old coaching times, when the “Red Rover” and the
“Defiance” were in the zenith of their popularity, and the tootling
of the guard’s bugle daily awoke the echoes to the inspiring notes of
the “British Grenadiers,” for it was then the great highway between
Manchester and the metropolis. But those days are changed, and our
dream of the past is rudely dispelled by the shrill whistle of the
“express” as it shoots along the edge of the Moss, leaving a long white
pennon of steam in its wake.
As we journey on we get agreeable glimpses of the country, and the
varied character of the scenery adds to the charm. Below us on
the left stretches a broad expanse of bog—Danes Moss, as it is
called—commemorating some long-forgotten incursion of the wild
Scandinavian hordes—
When Denmark’s raven soared on high.
On the outskirts of the town is an old farmstead, called Cophurst,
on the site of which, as tradition sayeth, Raphael Hollinshead, the
chronicler, resided three hundred years ago. Close by is Sutton, once
the home of another Cheshire worthy—Sir Richard Sutton—“that ever
famous knight and great patron of learning,” as King, in his “Vale
Royal,” calls him, “one of the founders of Brazenose, in Oxford, where
by his bounty many of Cheshire youth receive most worthy education.”
The foreground is broken into picturesque inequalities, and in the
rear rises a succession of swelling hills, part of the great Kerridge
range—the stony barriers of the Peak country. Where the steep crags cut
sharply against the eastern sky is Teg’s Nose, famed for its gritstone
quarries. Further on, Shutling’s Low rears its cone-shaped peak to a
height of 1,660 feet, and behind we catch sight of the breezy moor, on
the summit of which stands that lonely hostelry, the Cat and Fiddle,
the highest public-house, it is said, to be found in the kingdom. The
great hill-slopes, though now almost bare of wood, once formed part
of the great forest of Macclesfield, in which for generations the
Davenports, as chief foresters, held the power of life and death over
the robber bands who in the old times infested it, as well as the
punishment of those who made free with the Earl’s venison; and they
not only held but exercised their rights, as the long “Robber Roll”
at Capesthorne still testifies. Though it has long been completely
disafforested, the memory of it still lingers. Forest Chapel, away up
in the very heart of this mountain wilderness, perpetuates the name,
and Wildboar Clough—Wilbor Clough, as the Macclesfieldians persist in
calling it—Hoglegh, and Wolfscote remind us of the former denizens
of these moorland wastes. Beyond Teg’s Nose a great gap opens in
the hills, and then Cloud End rears its rugged form—dark, wild, and
forbidding. From the summit, had we time to climb it, a charming
view might be obtained of the picturesquely varied country—
Of farms remote and far apart, with intervening space
Of black’ning rock and barren down, and pasture’s pleasant face;
And white and winding roads that creep through village, vale, and glen,
And o’er the dreary moorlands, far beyond the homes of men.
[Illustration: GAWSWORTH OLD HALL.]
On the right the scenery is of a more pastoral character. Lawns and
meadows stretch away, and the eye ranges over the broad fertile plain
of Cheshire—over quaint sequestered nooks and quiet homesteads, and
old-fashioned villages, with here and there a grey church tower rising
in their midst; over well-tilled fields and daisied pastures, and
league upon league of cultivated greenness, where the thick hedgerows
cross and recross each other in a network of verdant beauty. The
crumbling ruins of Beeston Castle crowning the edge of a bold outlier
of rock, may be dimly discerned, with Peckforton rising close by its
side, and beyond, where a shadowy form reaches like a cloud across the
horizon, we can trace the broken outline of the Welsh hills, with Moel
Fammau towering above them all.
Presently the battlemented towers of Gawsworth Church are seen peering
above the umbrage; then we come to a cross road, and, turning sharply
to the left, continue along a green old bosky lane, and past the
village school, close to which is a weather-worn memorial of bygone
days—the old wayside cross standing beneath a clump of trees, erected,
as old writers tell us, to “guide and guard the way to church,” and
the sight of which, with the surroundings, calls to remembrance Hood’s
lines on the symbol of the Christian’s faith:—
Say, was it to my spirit’s gain or loss,
One bright and balmy morning, as I went
From Liège’s lonely environs to Ghent,
If hard by the way-side I found a cross,
That made me breathe a pray’r upon the spot—
While Nature of herself, as if to trace
The emblem’s use, had trail’d around its base
The blue significant Forget-me-not?
Methought, the claims of Charity to urge
More forcibly, along with Faith and Hope,
The pious choice had pitched upon the verge
Of a delicious slope,
Giving the eye much variegated scope;—
“Look round,” it whisper’d, “on that prospect rare,
Those vales so verdant, and those hills so blue;
Enjoy the sunny world, so fresh and fair,
But (how the simple legend pierced me thro’!)”—
“Priez pour les Malheureux.”
For a short distance the road now descends, and near the bottom a bank
rises abruptly on the right, crowned with a plantation of oak and
larch—the “sylvan shade”—beneath which reposes the “breathless clay”
of the eccentric poet, wit, and player—Samuel Johnson—known by his
generation as “Lord Flame,” of whom we may have something to say anon.
A few yards further on is the new hall, or “New Buildings,” as it is
sometimes called, a plain brick house, the south wing only of which
has been completed, built in Queen Anne’s reign by that Lord Mohun who
brought the noted Cheshire will case to a sanguinary end, when he and
his adversary, the Duke of Hamilton, fell together in a duel in Hyde
Park, Nov. 15, 1712. At this point the view of Gawsworth opens upon
us, presenting one of the fairest pictures of quiet rural beauty that
Cheshire possesses. There is a dreamy old-world character about the
place, a sweet fragrance of the olden time, and a peaceful tranquillity
of the present; and the ancient church, the picturesque half-timbered
rectory, and the stately old hall, with the broad grass-bordered road,
the wide-spreading sycamores, and the old-fashioned fish ponds, in
the weed-grown depths of which every object, with the overarching sky
and the white clouds sailing therein are given back with distinct
vividness, impart an air of venerable and undisturbed respectability.
The place belongs so entirely to the past, and there seems such a
remoteness between the hoar antiquity of a scene so thoroughly old
English and the busy world from which we have just emerged, that we
almost hesitate to advance.
[Illustration: GAWSWORTH CROSS.]
There is no village, so to speak, the church, the parsonage, and the
two halls, with a cottage or two adjoining the church steps, being all
the buildings we can see; there is not even that usual and supposed to
be indispensable adjunct of an old English country village, the village
inn, the nearest hostelry being the Harrington Arms, an old coaching
house on the London road, a quarter of a mile or more away. The church,
a grey and venerable pile, with a remarkably well proportioned tower,
which exhibits some good architectural details of the perpendicular
period, stands in its graveyard, a little to the south of a broad
grass-grown road, upon a gentle eminence encompassed by a grey stone
fence that looks as ancient as the building itself. Tall trees
overshadow it—larch and fir—that rear their lofty spines from near the
water’s edge, and, yielding to the northern blasts, bend in graceful
curves towards the ancient fane. You can mount the steps and pass
through the little wicket into the quiet “God’s-acre,” and surely a
spot more suggestive of calm and serious thought is rarely witnessed.
Move slowly through the tall grass and round the green graves where
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep,
Tread lightly upon the weather-stained and moss-grown stones that
loving hands have set up to keep alive the memories of those who sleep
beneath. Near the porch is the chamfered shaft of an ancient cross,
and close by two or three venerable yews cast their funereal shade.
One of them, an aged torso, is garlanded with ivy, and buttressed on
one side by a short flight of steps that have been built against it.
Its gigantic roots grasp the earth with a tenacity that time cannot
relax. It has lived through long centuries, and seen generation after
generation christened, married, and buried, and, though now hollowed
and decayed, the trunk still preserves some of that vitality that was
in its fulness when the valorous Fittons were in the heyday of their
power.
Separating the churchyard from the road is an artificial lake or
fish-pond, one of a series of three or four, through each of which the
water flows in succession, and where, in the chivalrous days of the
knightly owners of Gawsworth, the water jousts and other aquatic games
took place. But those times of pomp and pageantry have passed away,
and the surface is now seldom ruffled save when occasionally a fish
rises, or a stately swan glides gracefully through the warm sunshine.
In its smooth mirror you can see the old grey tower, the projecting
buttresses, the traceried windows, and the embattled parapets of the
church, with their pleasant environment of green all clearly reflected,
presenting the appearance of an inverted picture; while the old
patrician trees that border the wayside bend over the glassy surface,
creating in places a vernal shade that Undine might delight in.
On the opposite side is the Rectory, a picturesque old structure of
black and white timber work, “magpie” as the people call it hereabouts,
with quaint overhanging gables, grotesque carvings, and mullioned
windows, with small diamond panes—one of them, that lighting the hall,
a spacious apartment with an open timber roof, containing fragments of
heraldic glass that would seem to have formerly belonged to the church.
There is a wide entrance porch in the centre of the building, and over
the door, between two shields of arms, this inscription—“Syr Edward
Fytton, Knight, with my lady Mare ffyton, hys wyffe”—from which it has
been commonly assumed that the house was built by Sir Edward Fitton,
who married Mary, the daughter and co-heir of Guicciard Harbottle, of
Northumberland, and so would fix the time of erection in the reign
of Henry VIII. But this inscription originally belonged to another
building of later date than the Rectory, which, as we learn from some
verses preserved in Ashmole’s “Church Notes,” taken _circa_ 1654, was
erected by George Baguley, who was rector of Gawsworth from 1470 to
1497.
The “old” Hall, the ancestral home of the Fittons, now occupied by
Lord Petersham, stands a short distance east of the church. Like
the Rectory, it is half-timbered and of the Elizabethan period, but
the building is now incomplete, a part having been taken down some
seventy years ago, though the original quadrangular form may still be
traced. In the rear, in what has been originally the courtyard, is a
curious octagonal oriel of three stories, each story overhanging the
one immediately below in a sort of telescope fashion. The windows are
filled with leaded panes arranged in a variety of shapes and patterns.
The principal front, which faces the road, has been rebuilt and painted
in imitation of timber-work. Over the principal entrance is a shield
of sixteen quarterings, representing the arms of the Fittons and their
several alliances, surrounded by a garter, on which is inscribed the
motto, “_Fit onus leve_”—a play upon the family name. There is also the
following inscription beneath—
Hec scvlptvra finita fvit apvd
Villam Galviæ in Hibernia per
Richardvm Rany, Edwardo Fyton
Milite primo dn͞o presidente totius
Provinciæ Conatiæ et Thomoniæ.
Anno Domini 1570.
In front of the hall is a grove of walnut trees, very patriarchs
of their kind; and adjoining is a large grassy amphitheatre, which
Ormerod, the Cheshire historian, has described as “a deserted pleasure
ground;” but, after careful examination, and with some show of
probability, pronounced by Mr. Mayer to be an ancient tilting ground,
where in times past the warlike Fittons amused themselves and their
Cheshire neighbours with displays of martial skill and bravery.
Before we enter the church or view the hall, it may be well to glance
briefly at the earlier history of the place. Gawsworth, though now an
independent parish, was formerly included within the limits of the
great parish of Prestbury; and even at the present day the whole of the
townships which surround it—Macclesfield, Sutton, Bosley, North Rode,
Marton, Siddington, and Henbury—all owe ecclesiastical allegiance to
the mother church of that widespread parish. The original name, as we
learn from the Domesday survey, was _Gouersurde_. After the Conquest
it formed part of the possessions of the Norman Earls of Chester; one
of whom, Randle de Meschines, in the twelfth century, gave it to his
trusty follower, Hugh, son of Bigod, with the right of holding his
own courts, without pleading before the prefects at Macclesfield, in
consideration of his rendering to the earl annually a caparisoned
horse; and this Hugh, in accordance with the fashion of the age,
adopted the name of Gawsworth. Subsequently the manor seems to have
passed to Richard Aldford, whose daughter, Lucy, brought it in marriage
to the Orrebies, who held it free from all service save furnishing one
man in time of war to assist in the defence of Aldford Castle. They
retained possession until the reign of Edward I., when Richard, son of
Thomas de Orreby, dying without male issue, his only sister, Isabel,
who succeeded to the inheritance, and who had previously married in
succession Roger de Macclesfeld and Sir John de Grindon, Knight, both
of whom she survived, conveyed it on her marriage in 1316-17 to her
third husband, Thomas Fytton, a younger son of Edmund Fytton, of Bolyn
(Wilmslow); and thus Gawsworth became closely associated with a family
noted for their chivalrous exploits, and famous in the annals of the
county.
Of the early history of this distinguished family—“Knights of a
long-continued Race and of great worth,” as Webb styles them—who for
so many generations held sway and practised a splendid hospitality in
Gawsworth, but few memorials have been preserved beyond the dry details
embodied in their _Inquisitiones post mortem_ in the Public Record
Office, and the inscriptions which still remain upon the sumptuous
monuments erected to their memory in the church which their pious
munificence reared.
Thomas Fitton, who acquired the manor of Gawsworth by his marriage
with the heiress of Orreby, had a son also named Thomas, who married
Margaret, a daughter and co-heir of Peter Legh, of Bechton, and added
to the patrimonial estate half of the manor of Bechton and lands
in Lostock-Gralam, which he obtained in right of his wife. It was
during the lifetime of this Thomas that we find the first attempt
made to erect the chapelry of Gawsworth, which was then dependent
upon Prestbury, into a separate parish. At that time the Abbot of
St. Werburg’s, Chester, held the rectory of Prestbury, and in the
chartulary of his house it is recorded that in April, 1382, he conceded
to John Caxton, rector of Gawsworth, the privilege of burying his
parishioners on paying a moiety of the dues within ten days after each
burial, and with a proviso that any parishioner of Gawsworth might be
interred at Prestbury without any claim on the part of the rector of
Gawsworth.
In explanation of the granting of this privilege it may be mentioned
that in those times, on the formation of a parish, the inhabitants
were required to perform their parochial rites at the mother church,
the “ealdan mynstre” of the parish. But as many parishes were of
considerable territorial extent, those resident in the remote hamlets
found it inconvenient to resort on all occasions to the mother church.
To provide for the spiritual requirements of the people in such
districts, private chapels or oratories, founded by the lords of the
soil, were allowed to be licensed in convenient situations. They were
frequently attached or immediately adjacent to the lord’s mansion, and
were designed more especially for his own accommodation and that of
his dependents; and Gawsworth, which is distant nearly six miles from
Prestbury, was of this class. To prevent such foundations trenching
upon the rights of the mother church, they were merely licensed for
preaching and praying, the ministration of the sacrament of baptism
and the performance of the right of burial being strictly prohibited.
These latter were the true parochial rites, and the grant of them to a
chapel or oratory severed its connection with the parish church, and
converted it into a parochial chapel, or, more strictly speaking, into
an independent church.
But who was John Caxton, the parson of Gawsworth? The name is not
very frequently met with, and the thought suggests itself that he may
have been, and probably was, a kinsman of that William Caxton who, a
century later, set up his press in the precincts of Westminster Abbey,
and revolutionised the world by practising the art which Gutenberg had
invented.
In 1391 Thomas Fitton was appointed one of a number of influential
persons in Cheshire who were constituted a commission to levy a subsidy
of 3,000 marks (£2,000) in the city of Chester, on account of the
King’s confirmation of the old charters belonging to that city. He died
in 1397, and was succeeded by his son, Sir Lawrence Fitton, then aged
22, who married Agnes Hesketh, a daughter of the house of Rufford,
in Lancashire. This Sir Lawrence, who held the lordship for the long
period of 60 years, fills no inconsiderable space in the annals of
the county. He was frequently one of the forest justices in eyre, the
assizes being then held in Macclesfield, and took an active part in the
stirring events of his time. When, in 1399, Richard the Second went
over to Ireland to avenge the death of Roger Mortimer, by chastising
the Irish chieftains who had risen in insurrection, he, in order to
increase the strength of his Cheshire guard by a fresh levy, issued
his orders to Sir Lawrence Fitton and others commanding them to summon
the best archers in the Macclesfield hundred between 16 and 60, and
to select a number to go to Ireland in his train, who were to be at
Chester on the morrow of the Ascension of our Lord for inspection by
the King’s officers. The King did not actually sail till the 4th of
June, when he was joined by Sir Lawrence Fitton, who, as appears by
an entry on the Recognizance Rolls of the palatinate, had protection
granted him on his departure; and at this time, under date June 5,
we find a licence to William Prydyn, parson of Gawsworth, Robert de
Tounley, John Tryket, and Matthew del Mere to act as his attorneys and
to look after his affairs while absent in Ireland on the King’s service.
“When the shepherd is absent with his dog the wolf easily leaps into
the fold.” So says the proverb, and Richard had unpleasant experience
of the truthfulness of it, for scarcely had he loosed his sails before
some of the more discontented of his nobles at home were plotting for
his overthrow.
Within a month of his departure Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Hereford,
the only son of old John of Gaunt, who had been banished the kingdom,
landed at Ravenspur, near Hull—as Shakspere writes—
The banish’d Bolingbroke repeats himself,
And with uplifted arms is safe arrived
At Ravenspurg,
and before the end of July was at the head of a large army in the wolds
of Worcestershire. It was not until towns and castles had been yielded
to the invader that the King received intelligence of the insurrection,
for the winds had been contrary, and by the time he landed at Milford
the revolution was virtually accomplished. Ill news does not always
travel apace, and in these days, when the trembling wire speeds the
message through air and sea, it seems difficult to realise the thought
of a rebellion stalking through England unchecked for weeks without
the news reaching in the sister isle him whom it most immediately
concerned. On reaching England, Richard started for Chester, where he
had many friends and his power was strongest. At Flint he was delivered
by the perfidious Percy into the hands of Bolingbroke, thence he was
taken to Chester, and afterwards conveyed to London and lodged in
the Tower, when, after having resigned the crown, he was formally
deposed—an act that was followed by his removal to Pontefract, where,
according to common report, he was murdered by Sir Piers Exton and
his assistants, though it is more likely he was allowed to perish of
starvation.
Whether Fitton was one of those who hastened to pay court to the
usurper, and in a bad game elected to adhere to the winning side,
is not clear, but he must have quickly accommodated himself to the
changed state of affairs, and to have gained the confidence of
Bolingbroke—“King Henry of that name the Fourth.”
Scarcely was Richard dead when a great revulsion in public feeling
occurred, old hatreds and jealousies were revived, and those who had
clamoured most for his death now exclaimed—
Oh, earth, yield us that King again,
And take thou this;
and the usurping Henry, who had dreamed only of the throne as a bed of
roses, found himself between the fell spectres conscience and insatiate
treason. In Wales, where Richard had possessed a strong attachment,
Owen Glendower raised the standard of revolt, renounced allegiance
to the King, and claimed to be the rightful Prince of Wales, when he
was joined by young Harry Percy, the Hotspur of the famous ballad
of _Chevy Chase_. To meet this new danger, Prince Henry, Falstaff’s
Prince Hal—“the nimble-footed mad-cap Harry, Prince of Wales,” who was
also Earl of Chester, and lived much in the county, joined his forces
to those of his father, and on the 11th January, 1403-4, we find him
directing a writ to Sir Lawrence Fitton, requiring him to repair “to
his possessions on the marches of Wales, there to make defence against
the coming of Owen Glendower, according to an order in Council enacting
that, on the occasion of the war being moved against the King, all
those holding possessions on the marches should reside on the same for
the defence of the realm,” and the Recognizance Rolls show that a few
days later the Lord of Gawsworth was appointed on a commission “to
inquire touching those who spread false rumours to the disquiet of the
people of the county of Chester, and disturbance of the peace therein,
also to array all the fencible men of the hundred of Macclesfield.”
In 1416, when, after the victory at Agincourt, Henry V. was preparing
for his second expedition to France, with the design of claiming the
crown, Sir Lawrence Fitton, with Sir John Savage, Knight, Robert de
Hyde, Robert de Dokenfield, and John, the son of Peter de Legh, was
appointed collector of the subsidy in the Macclesfield hundred, part
of the 3,000 marks granted to the King by the county of Chester; and
in 1428, with other influential Cheshire knights and gentry, he was
summoned to the King’s Council at Chester, with regard to the granting
of a subsidy to the King (Henry VI.) His death occurred on the 16th
March, 1457, when he must have been over 80 years of age, and his
inquisition was taken 37 Henry VI. (1459), when his grandson Thomas,
then aged 26, was found to be his next heir. As previously stated,
he had to wife Agnes Hesketh. This lady died in 1422, and he would
appear to have re-married, for in the inquisition taken after his death
mention is made of “Clemencia, his wife,” who is said to be then alive.
During his long life a movement was taking place in the Church which
brought about a great change in religious thought and action, and in
which Wycliffe, the rector of Lutterworth, may be said to have been
the chief actor. The rapacity of the monks was securing or had secured
for themselves the larger portion of the livings of the country, the
parishes being handed over to the spiritual care of vicars, with the
small tithes as a miserable stipend. In this manner the rich rectory of
Prestbury had been appropriated to the Abbey of St. Werburg, Chester;
and possibly it was this circumstance, as much as his own personal
convenience, which induced Caxton, acting under the influence of his
patron, the father of Sir Lawrence Fitton, to seek to detach the chapel
of Gawsworth from the mother church of Prestbury. Having accomplished
this, Sir Lawrence Fitton would seem to have set about the erection of
a building more suited to its increased importance as a parish church,
and an examination of the building points to the conclusion that the
greater portion of the fabric was erected during his lifetime, as
evidenced by the architectural details of the building, as well as
by the shields of arms displayed on different parts of the tower,
representing the alliances of the family, the latest impalement being
the coat of Mainwaring, intended to commemorate the marriage of his son
Thomas with Ellen, daughter of Randle Mainwaring, of Over Peover, which
would seem to fix the date between the years 1420 and 1430, and not in
the reign of Edward III., as generally supposed. In the Cheshire Church
Notes, taken in 1592, there is preserved an account of a window to the
memory of Sir Lawrence Fitton and his wife, which formerly existed in
the church at Gawsworth. He is represented as in armour, and kneeling
with his wife before desks in the attitude of devotion; on his surcoat
were displayed the arms of Fitton, and on the lady’s mantle those of
Hesketh; behind the knight were eight sons, and in rear of the lady
four daughters, and underneath the inscription, “_Orate pro bono statu
Laurencii ffitton milit’ et Agnet’ uxor ejus cum pueris suis_.”
By his wife Agnes Sir Lawrence Fitton had a son Thomas, who, as stated,
married Ellen, daughter of Randle Mainwaring, of Over Peover, and
their names were in like manner commemorated by a window, which has
now disappeared, comprising three panes, one representing Sir Randle
Mainwaring and his wife Margery, daughter of Hugh Venables, Baron of
Kinderton, kneeling before desks; the second, Thomas Fitton and seven
sons; and the third, his wife and six daughters, all kneeling, and
the inscription, “_Orate pro a’iabus Thomæ ffitton, filii Laurencii
ffitton, et Elene ux’ ejus, et om’ puerorum suorum, qui istam fenestram
fieri fecerunt_.”
Thomas Fitton pre-deceased his father, leaving a son, also named
Thomas, who succeeded as heir on the death of his grandfather in 1457,
he being then 25 years of age. This Thomas inherited the martial
spirit of his ancestors, and took his share in the fierce struggle of
the White and Red Roses, which destroyed the flower of the English
nobility, and impoverished and well-nigh exhausted the country—“that
purple testament of bleeding war”—
When, like a matron butcher’d of her sons,
And cast aside some common way, a spectacle
Of horror and affright to passers by,
Our bleeding country bled at every vein!
He was present in the sanguinary encounter at Bloreheath, near Drayton,
on that fatal 23rd July, 1459—St. Tecla’s Day—when Lord Audley and the
Lancastrians were defeated, and was knighted on the field; and there is
on the Cheshire Recognizance Rolls, under date April 29th, 38-9 Henry
VI. (1460), the record of a general pardon granted to Thomas Fitton and
Richard Fitton, late of Gawsworth; William, son of Lawrence Fitton,
late of Gawsworth; Edward, brother of Thomas Fitton, late of Gawsworth;
some of their kinsmen of the Pownall stock, and other Cheshire
gentry, with a long list of residents in Gawsworth, the retainers of
the Fittons—names that are still familiar in the neighbourhood—“in
consideration,” as it states, “of the good service of the said Thomas
Fitton, Knight, and his adherents at Blore-heth.” His name also occurs
under date June 10, 1463, with those of John de Davenport, of Bramhall;
Hugh Davenport, of Henbury; and Christopher Davenport, of Woodford, in
the appointment of collectors of a subsidy for the King (Edward IV.) in
the Macclesfield Hundred. He married Ellen, daughter of Sir Peter Legh,
of Lyme, but this lady, who predeceased him, bore him no issue. He died
April 27, 1494, when the estates devolved upon his brother and next
heir, Edward Fitton, then aged 60 years. This Edward, by his marriage
with Emmota, the daughter and sole heiress of Robert Siddington, had at
that time acquired possession of two parts of the manor of Siddington,
which had been held by his wife’s family for many generations on the
tenure of rendering a red rose yearly, and thus he added materially to
the territorial wealth and influence of the Gawsworth house. Though
there is no absolute evidence of the fact, there is yet good reason to
believe that the south porch of Gawsworth Church was added or rebuilt
by this Edward Fitton, one of the carved decorations being a rose, in
the leaves of which may be discerned two heads, evidently intended to
represent Henry VII. and his Queen, who, by their marriage, had united
the rival houses of York and Lancaster, and so terminated the long and
bitter War of the Roses.
Edward Fitton died 15th February, 1510-11, leaving, with other
issue, a son John, who succeeded as heir, and who, as appears by the
inquisition taken after his father’s death, was then 40 years of age.
He had married, in 1498, Ellen, daughter of Sir Andrew Brereton, the
representative of a family that had been seated at Brereton from the
time of William Rufus. By her he had, with other issue, a son Edward,
who succeeded at his death, which occurred on the Sunday after St.
Valentine’s Day, 1525. In the Cheshire Church Notes already referred
to, mention is made of a memorial window formerly existing on the south
side of Gawsworth Church, containing the arms of Fitton quartering
those of Siddington and Bechton, with the inscription underneath:
“_Orate pro a’iabus Edwardi ffitton et Emmotæ uxis suæ, et pro a’iabus
Johannis ffitton, et Elene ux’ sue ... et Roberti Sedyngton et Elene
uxoris sue_;” and there was also formerly in one of the windows of
the south aisle of Wilmslow Church, as we learn from Mr. Earwaker’s
“East Cheshire,” a representation of John Fitton and his wife. The
drawing made by Randle Holmes shows the figure of a knight kneeling on
a cushion and wearing a tabard of arms, the coat being that of Fitton
of Gawsworth; and lower down is a knight kneeling, with his tabard
of arms quarterly—(1) Orreby, (2) Siddington, (3) Bechton, and (4)
Fitton. Behind him kneel eight sons; opposite, also kneeling, is his
wife, wearing an heraldic mantle representing the arms of Brereton,
with a shield containing the same coat above her head; and behind her,
kneeling, six daughters. The inscription had then disappeared, but
it is clear that the first figure was intended for Edward Fitton of
Gawsworth, whilst the other represented his son John, and his wife,
Ellen Brereton, and their children.
On the death of John Fitton, in 1525, the family estates devolved upon
his eldest son Edward, who received the honour of knighthood, and
in the 35th Henry VIII. (1543-4) held the shrievalty of the county.
He married Mary, the younger daughter and co-heir of Sir Guiscard
Harbottle, a Northumberland knight, and by her had five sons and six
daughters. He died on February 17, 1548, and on his inquisition, which
was taken the same year, Edward Fitton, his son, then aged 21 years,
was found to be his heir.
Edward Fitton, who succeeded to the Gawsworth estates on the death of
his father, in 1548, was born 31st March, 1527; and when only 12 years
of age had been united in marriage with Anne, one of the daughters of
Sir Peter Warburton, of Warburton and Arley, the lady being a month
younger than himself. He was one of the foresters of Macclesfield, and
was exempted from serving upon juries and at the assizes, in accordance
with the terms of a writ dated 29th March, 5 and 6 Edw. VI. (1532),
addressed to the sheriff of the county. Eight years after his coming
in possession of the patrimonial lands, as appears by letters patent
bearing date 3 and 4 Philip and Mary (1556-7), he, in conjunction with
William Tatton, of Wythenshawe, who in 1552 had espoused his eldest
sister, Mary, obtained a grant from the Crown of Etchells, part of the
confiscated estates of Sir William Brereton, together with Aldford
and Alderley, the property being subsequently partitioned; Aldford
and Alderley remaining with Sir Edward, whilst Etchells passed to his
son-in-law, William Tatton.
Subsequently his name occurs in the palatine records, with those of
William Davenport, Knt., and William Dokenfield and Jasper Worth,
Esquires, as collectors of a mise in Macclesfield, in 1559-60.
The influential position which the Fittons held in their own county
was due, as we have seen, not less to their martial bearing than to
their successful marriages, and it was this chivalrous spirit which was
ever a characteristic of the stock that led to their being frequently
employed in the public service. In the person of Sir Edward Fitton the
ancient fame of the family was well sustained. In 1569, the year in
which Shane O’Neill, the representative of the royal race of Ulster,
was attainted in Parliament—that daring chief of a valorous line, whose
Kings with standard of green unfurl’d,
Led the Red-branch knights to danger;
Ere the emerald gem of the western world
Was set in the crown of a stranger—
when Ireland was in a state of anarchy and confusion—when the Desmonds
and the Tyrones were trying the chances of insurrection rather
than abdicate their unlicensed but ancient chieftainship, and the
half-civilised people were encouraged in their disobedience to the
law by the mischievous activity of the Catholic clergy, who had been
forcibly dispossessed of their benefices, and therefore wished to
free themselves from the English yoke—Sir Edward Fitton was sent over
to Ireland by Queen Elizabeth to fill the difficult and responsible
post of first Lord President of the Council within the Province of
Munster and Thomond—an office he held for a period of over three
years. His position can hardly be said to have been an enviable one,
for the country at that time had become so wasted by war and military
executions, and famine and pestilence, that two years previously Sir
Henry Sidney, the viceroy, in his letters to Elizabeth, described the
southern and western counties as “an unmeasurable tract, now waste and
uninhabited, which of late years was well tilled and pastured.” He
adds,—
A more pleasant nor a more desolate land I never saw than from
Youghall to Limerick.... So far hath that policy, or rather lack
of policy, in keeping dissension among them prevailed, as now,
albeit all that are alive would become honest and live in quiet,
yet are there not left alive in those two provinces the twentieth
person necessary to inhabit the same.
And the description is confirmed by a contemporary writer—a Cheshire
man, by the way, whose early life was spent in the neighbourhood of
Gawsworth (Hollinshead)—who thus expresses the truth with hyperbolical
energy:—
The land itself, which before those wars was populous, well
inhabited, and rich in all the good blessings of God, being
plenteous of corn, full of cattle, well stored with fruits and
sundry other good commodities, is now become waste and barren,
yielding no fruits, the pastures no cattle, the fields no corn,
the air no birds, the seas, though full of fish, yet to them
yielding nothing. Finally, every way, the curse of God was so
great, and the land so barren, both of man and beast, that
whosoever did travel from one end unto the other he should not
meet any man, woman, or child, saving in towns and cities; nor
yet see any beast but they were wolves, the foxes, and other like
ravenous beasts.
On the dissolution of the Council in September, 1572, Sir Edward Fitton
returned to England; but remained only a few months, when he was
appointed (March, 1573) Treasurer for the War and Vice-Treasurer and
Receiver-General in Ireland. He appears to have taken up his abode in
Dublin, where in January of the following year he lost his wife. She
was buried in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, in that city, January, 1573-4;
and in the MSS. of Bishop Sterne there is preserved the following
curious account of the ceremonial observed on the occasion of her
funeral:—
“The order in the presyding for buriall of the worshypful Lady
Fitton, on Sonday, bein the 17 day of January, Anno 1573.
First, serteyne youmen to goo before the penon with the armes
of Syr Edwarde Fytton, and his wyfe’s dessessed; and next after
them the penon, borne by Mr. Rycharde Fytton, second son to Syr
Edw. Fytton and Lady, his wyfe dessessed; and sarten gentillmen
servants to the sayd Syr Edw. Fytton; then the gentill-hossher
and the chapplens, and then Ulster Kyng of Armes of Ierland,
weyring his mornyng goune and hod, with hys cote of the armes
of Ynglande. And then the corpes of the sayd Lady Fytton, and
next after the corps the lady Brabason, who was the principal
morner, bein lyd and assysted by Sir Rafe Egerton, knyght, and
Mr. Fran. Fytton, Esq., brother to the said Syr Edwarde, and next
after her, Mistress Agarde, wyfe to Mr. Fran. Agarde; then Mrs.
Chalenor, wyfe to Mr. John Chalenor; then Mrs. Dyllon; then Mrs.
Bruerton, being the other III murners. Then Syr Edward Fytton
goying bytwene the Archebysshoppe of Dublin and the Bishop of
Methe; then Sir John Plunkett, Chefe Justice of Ireland; then
Master Dyllon, beying the Chefe Baron; then Mr. Fran. Agard and
Mr. John Chalenor, wyth other men to the number of XIII gentylmen;
then sarten other gentyllwomen and maydens, morners, to the nomber
of VIII; and then the Mayor of Dublyn, wyth his brytherne, the
Schyreffes and Aldermen; and the poure folks VI men on the one
syde of the corse and VI women on the other syde. And so coming
to the cherche of St. Patryke, where was a herse prepared, and
when they cam to the herse, the yomen stode, halfe on the one side
and halfe on the other, the penon berer stood at the fette of the
corps; then the corps was layd upon a payer of trestels within the
herse, and then the III morners were brought to their places by
Ulster Kyng of Armes aforesaid, and the cheffe morner was brought
to her place at the hede of the corps, and so the herse was closd;
and the tow assystants set uppon tow stowles without the rayles,
and then sarvyce was begon by the Bysshope of Methe, and after
sarvyce there was a sermon made, and the sermon endyd, the company
went home to the house of the sayd Sir Edw. Fytton; and the corpse
was buryed by the reverent father, the Bysshop of Methe, and
when the corpse was buryed, the clothe was layd again upon the
trestylls wythin the herse, which was deckyed with scochyens of
armes in pale of hys and her armes, and on the morow the herse was
sett over the grave and the penon sett in the wall over the grave.
And Ulster Kyng of Armes had V yardes of fyne blake clothe for
his lyvery, and 50s. sterling for hys fee, and the herse with the
cloth that was on the corse wyth all the furnyture there of the
herse.”
It may be mentioned that the claim of Ulster King of Arms to the costly
materials of which the hearse was composed was disputed by the Vicars
Choral of St Patrick’s, and the matter was not settled until 1578, when
a decision was given in favour of the former by the Lord Deputy of the
Council. Sir Edward Fitton died July 3, 1579, and his remains were
interred by the side of those of his wife, the memory of both being
perpetuated in an inscription on a sepulchral brass still remaining in
St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, on which is engraved the figure of
a man with nine children behind him, and, opposite, a woman with six
children behind her, all kneeling. The inscription which is below is as
follows:—
Glorify thy name, hasten thy
Kingdome; Comforte thy flock;
Confound thy adversaries;
Ser Edward ffitton, of Gausworth, in the counte of Chester, in
Englande, knight, was sent into Ireland by Quene Elizabeth, to
serve as the first L President of her highnes Counsell within
the province of Connaght and Thomonde, who landing in Ireland on
the Ascention day, 1569, Ao. R. R. Elizabeth XI. lyued there in
the rome aforesaid till Mighellmas, 1572, Ao. Elizabeth XIIIIº.;
and then, that Counsell being dissolued, and he repayring
into England, was sent over againe in March next following as
Threasaurer at Warres, Vice-treasaurer, and general receyvor
within the realme of Ireland, and hath here buried the wyef of
his youth, Anne, the seconnd daughter of Sir Peter Warburton, of
Areley, in the county of Chester, knight, who were born both in
one yere, viz., he ye last of Marche, 1527, and she the first
of May in the same yeare; and were maried on Sonday next after
Hillaries daye, 1539, being ye 19 daye of Januarie, in the 12 yere
of their age, and lyued together in true and lawfull matrymonie
just 34 yeres; for the same Sonday of ye yere wherein they were
maried, ye same Sondaie 34 yeres following was she buried, though
she faithfully departed this lyef 9 daies before, viz., on the
Saturdaie, ye 9 daie of Januarie, 1573; in which time God gave
them 15 children, viz., 9 sonnes and six daughters; and now her
body slepeth under this Stone, and her soul is retourned to God
yt gave yt, and there remayneth in kepinge of Christe Jesus, her
onely Saviour. And the said Ser Edward departed this lyef the
thirde daie of July, Ao. Dni. 1579, and was buried the xxi daie
of September next folowing; whose fleshe also resteth under the
same stone, in assured hope of full and perfect resurrection to
eternall lyef in ioye, through Christe his onely Saviour; and the
said Ser Edward was revoked home into England, and left this land
the ---- day of ---- Anno Domini being the ---- yere of his age.
At the east end of the north side of Gawsworth Church there is a
replica of this inscription, with the figures of Sir Edward and Lady
Fitton, and their fifteen children.
A younger brother of Sir Edward was Francis Fitton, who in 1588 married
Katherine, the Countess Dowager of Northumberland, one of the four
daughters and co-heirs of John Neville Lord Latimer. His portrait was
formerly to be seen in the “new” hall at Gawsworth, with a long and
curious inscription surrounding it, recording some of the alliances of
the family.
Sir Edward Fitton, as stated, died July 3, 1579. His inquisition was
taken the following year, when his son, Sir Edward Fitton, Knight,
then aged 30, was found to be his heir. He was probably at the time
in Ireland, for it was not until April 24, 25 Elizabeth (1583), that
he had livery of his lands. In 1602, as appears by an indenture dated
June 20 in that year, he sold the manor of Nether Alderley, which had
been acquired by his father, to Thomas Stanley, ancestor of the present
Lord Stanley of Alderley. Sir Edward filled the office of President
of Munster, in Ireland, and died in 1606, leaving, by his wife Alice,
daughter and sole heir of John Holcroft, of Holcroft, in Lancashire,
with other issue, a son, Sir Edward Fitton, born 29th November, 1572,
who was created a Baronet in 1617. He died May 10, 1619, being then
aged 47, and was buried at Gawsworth, where a sumptuous monument was
erected to his memory by his wife, “the Lady Ann Fytton,” daughter and
co-heir of James Barratt, of Tenby, in Pembrokeshire, Esq., with the
following extravagant effusion inscribed on a panel below:—
Least tongves to fvtvre ages shovld be dvmb,
The very stones thvs speak abovt ovr tomb.
Loe, two made one, whence sprang these many more,
Of whom a King once prophecy’d before.
Here’s the blest man, his wife the frvitfvl vine,
The children th’ olive plants, a gracefvll line,
Whose sovle’s and body’s beavties sentence them
_Fitt-ons_ to weare a heavenly Diadem.
Lady Ann Fitton survived her husband many years. Her will bears date
January 31, 1643-4, but the date of probate has not been ascertained.
In it she bequeaths several small legacies to her grandchildren and
others, appoints her daughter, Mrs. Lettice Cole, sole executrix, and
her two grandchildren, William, Lord Brereton, and Charles Gerard,
supervisors. She died 26th March, 1644, and was buried at Gawsworth.
On the death of Sir Edward the family estates passed to his son, also
named Edward, who was baptised at Gawsworth, August 24th, 1603, and
must, therefore, have been under age on his accession to the property.
In October, 1622, he married Jane, daughter of Sir John Trevor, of Plâs
Teg, in Denbighshire, by whom he had a daughter, Margaret, who died
in infancy. Lady Fitton died June, 1638, and was buried at Gawsworth,
when Sir Edward again entered the marriage state, his second wife being
Felicia, daughter of Ralph Sneyd, of Keel, in Staffordshire. Concerning
this second marriage there is the following curious entry in the
Corporation books of the borough of Congleton:—
1638. Paid for an entertainment for Sir Edwd. Fitton, of
Gawsworth, his bride, father, and mother-in-law, on their
first coming through the town, and divers other gentlemen who
accompanied him and his bride, on their going to Gawsworth to
bring his lady. He sent his barber two days before to the mayor
and aldermen, and the rest, to entreat them to bid them welcome
12s. 4d.
The civic authorities of Congleton were noted for their hospitality,
and we may therefore assume that little “entreaty” was required on
the part of the “barber” to secure a cordial welcome for the Baronet
and his bride. We are not told what the entertainment consisted of,
but no doubt the cakes and sack for which the old borough had even
then long been famous entered largely into the festivities, though
the amount charged does not suggest the idea of any very extravagant
convivialities.
Sir Edward was soon called by the stern duties of the times from the
enjoyment of domestic life. Clouds were gathering upon the political
horizon which heralded a tempest; the seeds of civil war had been
sown, and soon King and Commons were arrayed against each other,
neither caring for peace, for if the olive branch was held out it was
stripped of its leaves, and appeared only as a dry and sapless twig.
In the great struggle between Charles and the Parliament the owner
of Gawsworth espoused the cause of his Sovereign, and distinguished
himself in several military engagements. He raised a regiment of
infantry for the King’s service from among his own tenantry and
dependents, of which he had the command; and the good people of
Congleton, not wishing to have the tranquillity of their town disturbed
by the quartering of his troops in it, in the hope of avoiding the
inconvenience proferred him their hospitality, as one of the entries in
the Corporation accounts shows:—
1642. Wine gave to Colonel Fitton, not to quarter 500 soldiers on
the town
3s. 4d.
Colonel Fitton fought in the battle at Edgehill, where the two armies
were first put in array against each other, and was also present with
the King at the taking of Banbury, as well as in the operations at
Brentford and Reading. He afterwards took part with Prince Rupert in
the storming of Bristol, and when that city—exceeded only by London
in population and wealth—was, after a terrible slaughter, surrendered
(July 27, 1643) by Nathaniel Fiennes to the arms of its sovereign, he
was left in charge of the garrison, and died there of consumption in
the following month, at the early age of 40. His body was removed to
Gawsworth for interment, and the occasion of its passing through the
town of Congleton is thus referred to in the accounts:—
Paid for carrying Sir Edwd. Fitton through the town, and for
repairing Rood-lane for the occasion
4s. 0d.
In the south-east angle of Gawsworth Church there is a large monument
to the memory of Sir Edward, his first wife, and their infant daughter,
placed there by his second wife, who survived him, and afterwards
re-married Sir Charles Adderley. It consists of an arch resting upon
pillars, beneath which is an altar-tomb supporting the effigies of
Sir Edward and his wife, and that of their infant daughter. A tablet
containing a long Latin inscription, formerly affixed to the south
wall, beneath the canopy, has in recent years been removed to the east
wall of the chancel.
Sir Edward left no surviving issue, a circumstance which gave rise to
almost endless contentions between the kinsmen of his name and their
cousins—the Gerards. Lawsuit followed lawsuit; long and rancorous were
the proceedings in the “Great Cheshire Will Case,” as it was called;
and the fierce struggle, which began in one century with forgery,
followed by seduction and divorce, was ended in the next, when the
husbands of the two ladies who claimed to be heiresses were slain by
each other in a murderous duel in Hyde Park. Immediately after the
death of Sir Edward Fitton, Penelope, Anne, Jane, and Frances, his
four sisters—married respectively to Sir Charles Gerard, Knight; Sir
John Brereton, Knight; Thomas Minshull, Esquire; and Henry Mainwaring,
Esquire—entered upon possession of the estates; but, after long
litigation, they were ejected by William Fitton, son of Alexander,
second surviving son of Sir Edward Fitton, Treasurer of Ireland, who
claimed under a deed alleged to have been executed by Sir Edward,
settling the estates upon himself, with remainder in succession to his
sons, Edward and Alexander, the latter of whom succeeded him in the
possession, and he obtained three verdicts in his favour. One of the
sisters of Sir Edward Fitton—Penelope—had married Sir Charles Gerard,
of Halsall, in Lancashire, and by him had a son, Sir Charles Gerard,
created Lord Brandon in 1645, and Earl of Macclesfield in 1679. Lord
Brandon was one of the notable gallants at the profligate Court of
Charles II. He held the office of Gentleman of the Bedchamber, and
was also Captain of the Guards—the latter a commission which he
relinquished for a douceur of £12,000 when the King wanted to bestow
the dignity upon his illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth. He kept
up a large establishment in London, surrounded by trim gardens, the
remembrance of which is perpetuated in the names of the streets that
now occupy the site—Gerard Street and Macclesfield Street, in Soho. His
wife, a French lady, brought herself into disfavour at Court through
indulging in the feminine propensity of allowing her tongue to wag too
freely in disparagement of the notorious courtesan, Lady Castlemaine,
as we learn from an entry in “Pepys’s Diary”:—
1662-3. Creed told me how, for some words of my Lady Gerard’s
against my Lady Castlemaine to the Queene, the King did the other
day apprehend her in going out to a dance with her at a ball, when
she desired it as the ladies do, and is since forbid attending the
Queen by the King; which is much talked of, my lord her husband
being a great favourite.
On the restoration of the King, nineteen years after the death of Sir
Edward Fitton, and thirty after the entail had been confirmed, as
alleged by a deed-poll, Lord Gerard produced a will which would be
looked for in vain in the Ecclesiastical Court at Chester, purporting
to have been made in his favour by his mother’s brother, Sir Edward
Fitton. Hot, fierce, and anxious was the litigation that followed, and
in 1663 a small volume was printed at the Hague, entitled, “A True
Narrative of the Proceedings in the several Suits-in-law that have
been between the Right Honourable Charles, Lord Brandon, and Alexander
Fitton, Esqr., published for general satisfaction, by a Lover of
Truth.” Fitton pleaded the deed-poll, but Gerard brought forward one
Abraham Grainger, then confined in the Gate House, who made oath that
he had forged the name of Sir Edward to the deed under a threat of
mortal violence, whereupon the Court of Chancery directed a trial to
determine whether the deed-poll was genuine or not. The forgery was
admitted by Grainger, and corroborated by other witnesses, who deposed
that they had heard Fitton confess that Grainger had forged a deed for
him, for which he had paid him £40. The judgment of the Court was given
in favour of Gerard, and the deed declared to be a forgery.
The strangest part of the story remains. Grainger, impelled either
by remorse or the desire to escape a heavy penalty by acknowledging
the smaller offence, made a written confession setting forth that he
had perjured himself when he swore that he had forged the name of
Sir Edward, and had been compelled to do so by the threats of Lord
Gerard. Pepys, who had a strong dislike to Lord Gerard, refers to the
circumstance in his “Diary”:—
My cosen, Roger Pepys, he says, showed me Grainger’s written
confession of his being forced by imprisonment, &c., by my Lord
Gerard, most barbarously to confess his forging of a deed in
behalf of Fitton, in the great case between him and my Lord
Gerard; which business is under examination, and is the foulest
against my Lord Gerard that ever anything in the world was, and
will, all do believe, ruine him; and I shall be glad of it.
The anticipations of the gossiping diarist were not, however, realised.
The confession, being unsupported by evidence, was discredited, and
Fitton, who was adjudged to be the real offender, was fined £500 and
committed to the King’s Bench.
Alexander Fitton, who was thus dispossessed of the property, lingered
in prison until the accession of James II., when, having embraced the
Romish faith, he was released from confinement and taken into favour
by the King, who made him Chancellor of Ireland, and subsequently
conferred upon him the honour of knighthood and created him Lord
Gawsworth. He sat in the Irish Parliament of 1689, where he appears to
have been actively employed in passing Acts of forfeiture of Protestant
property, and attainder of Protestant personages. On the abdication of
James he accompanied him into exile, where he remained, and, dying,
left descendants who, it is to be feared, benefited little from the
tutelar dignities his sovereign had conferred upon him.
The whimsical _finesse_ of the law, which wrested from Alexander Fitton
the lands owned for so many generations by his progenitors and bestowed
them upon the Gerards, though it added wealth, did not convey peace
or contentment to the successful litigants. Their history during the
brief period they owned the Gawsworth estates partakes much of the
character of a romance in real life, but it is one that is by no means
pleasant to contemplate. Charles Gerard, on whom the barony of Brandon
and the earldom of Macclesfield had been successively conferred, died
in January, 1693-4, when the titles and estates devolved upon his
eldest son, who bore the same baptismal name. Charles, the second earl,
was the husband of the lady who, by her adulterous connection with
Richard Savage, Earl Rivers, and as the heroine of the famous law case
that followed upon the birth of the celebrated but unfortunate poet,
Richard Savage, acquired an unenviable notoriety even in that age, when
profligacy formed such a prominent characteristic of society.
The Countess of Macclesfield, 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, the 16th
January, 1697-8. The earl denied the paternity, and satisfactorily
proved the impossibility of his being the father of the son borne by
his countess; who, on her side, narrated a stratagem she had devised,
whereby the disputed paternity could not be denied. The stratagem was
not unknown in the licentious comedies of the time, but no credit was
given to it in this case; and thus the honour of Gerard was saved
from being tainted by the bastard of Savage. A divorce was granted
in 1698; but the law deemed the earl to be accountable, through his
own profligacy, for the malpractices of his wife, and decreed that he
should repay the portion he had received with her in marriage. With
this amount she married Colonel Brett, the friend of Colley Cibber, by
whom she had a daughter, Ann Brett, the impudent mistress of George
I., her illegitimate offspring by Lord Rivers—Richard Savage, whom she
disowned—being educated at the cost of her mother, Lady Mason. It has
been alleged that Savage was an impostor, and this 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, baptized the 18th.
Notwithstanding the discredit that has been thrown upon 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 contained in it. Moreover, he
was openly recognised in the house of Lord Tyrconnell, a nephew of
the Countess of Macclesfield, with whom he resided as a guest for two
years, and he was also on terms of acquaintance with the Countess of
Rochford, the illegitimate daughter of Earl Rivers by Mrs. Colydon.[20]
[Note 20: In a tavern brawl, in 1727, Savage had the misfortune to kill
a Mr. James Sinclair, for which he was tried and condemned to death.
His relentless mother, it is said, endeavoured to intercept the royal
mercy; but he was pardoned through the influence of Queen Caroline, and
set at liberty. He afterwards addressed a birthday ode to the Queen, in
acknowledgment of which she sent him £60, and continued the same sum to
him every year.]
The Earl of Macclesfield did not long survive the granting of his
divorce. He was sent as Ambassador to Hanover, and died there, November
5, 1701, when the title devolved upon his younger brother, Fitton
Gerard, who died unmarried in the following year, when the Earldom
of Macclesfield became extinct, the estates then passing under the
will of the second earl to his niece and co-heiress, the daughter of
his sister, Charlotte Mainwaring, married to Charles, Lord Mohun,
son of Warwick, Lord Mohun, by Philippa, daughter of Arthur, Earl of
Anglesey. The preference thus shown offended the Duke of Hamilton, who
had married the daughter of another niece, Elizabeth, daughter and
sole heiress of Digby, Lord Gerard—by his wife, the Lady Elizabeth
Gerard—the heir-general of the Macclesfield family, who felt himself
injured by this disposition of the property. A lawsuit to determine
the validity of Lord Macclesfield’s will was commenced, much jealousy
and heart-burning followed, and eventually the two disputing husbands
brought their feud to a sanguinary end in the memorable duel which
proved fatal to both.
The circumstances of this tragic affair are recorded in Dean Swift’s
“History of the Four Last Years of Queen Anne,” published in 1758,
and are more fully detailed in “Transactions During the Reign of
Queen Anne,” published in Edinburgh in 1790, by Charles Hamilton, a
kinsman of one of the combatants. It appears that upon the return of
Lord Bolingbroke, after the peace of Utrecht, and the suspension of
hostilities between Great Britain and France, the Duke of Hamilton,
long noted for his attachment to the Stuarts, and the acknowledged
head of the Jacobite party, was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary
and Plenipotentiary to the Court of France. Previous to his departure
he wished to bring to a close the Chancery suit which had been
pending between Lord Mohun and himself. With that view he, on the
13th November, 1712, attended at the chambers of Olebar, a Master in
Chancery, where his adversary met him by appointment. In the course of
the interview, Mr. Whitworth, formerly the steward of the Macclesfield
family, gave evidence, and, as his memory was much impaired by age, the
duke somewhat petulantly exclaimed, “There is no truth or justice in
him,” upon which Lord Mohun retorted, “I know Mr. Whitworth. He is an
honest man, and has as much truth as your grace.” This grating remark
was allowed to pass unnoticed at the time, but Lord Mohun afterwards
meeting with General Macartney and Colonel Churchill, both violent
men, and declared partisans of the Duke of Marlborough, who had then
been removed from the command of the army by the party to which the
Duke of Hamilton was attached, it would seem that the offending person
was induced by them to challenge the person offended. Preliminaries
having been arranged, the combatants met in Kensington Gardens, Hyde
Park, on the morning of the 15th November—the duke attended by his
relative, Colonel Hamilton, and Lord Mohun by General Macartney. In a
few moments the affair was ended, and when the park keepers, alarmed by
the clashing of swords, rushed to the spot whence the sound proceeded,
they found the two noblemen weltering in their blood—Lord Mohun was
already dead, and the Duke of Hamilton expired before he could be
removed. Nor had the combat been limited to the principals alone. The
seconds had crossed swords and fought with desperate rancour. Colonel
Hamilton remained upon the field, and was taken prisoner, but Macartney
fled to the Continent. Colonel Hamilton subsequently declared upon
oath, before the Privy Council, that, when they met upon the ground,
the duke, turning to Macartney, said, “Sir, you are the cause of this,
let the event be what it will.” To which Macartney replied, “My lord, I
had a commission for it.” Lord Mohun then said, “These gentlemen shall
have nothing to do here.” Whereupon Macartney exclaimed, “We will have
our share.” To which the duke answered, “There is my friend—he will
take his share in my dance.” Colonel Hamilton further deposed that when
the principals engaged, he and Macartney, as seconds, followed their
example; that Macartney was immediately disarmed; but that he (Colonel
Hamilton), seeing the duke fall upon his antagonist, threw away the
swords, and ran to lift him up; and that, while he was employed in
raising the duke, Macartney, having taken up one of the swords, stabbed
his grace over Hamilton’s shoulder, and retired immediately.
A prodigious ferment was occasioned by this duel, which assumed a high
political character. Neither of the combatants were men who could lay
claim to any great admiration on the score of integrity or principle.
Lord Mohun had, in fact, been long known as a brawler, and had
acquired an infamous reputation for his share in the murder of William
Mountford, the player, before his own door, in Howard Street, Strand.
The Duke of Hamilton, as we have said, was the recognised head of the
Jacobite faction, whilst his antagonist, Lord Mohun, was a zealous
champion of the Whig interest. The Tories exclaimed against this event
as a party duel, brought about by their political opponents for the
purpose of inflicting a vital wound on the Jacobite cause, then in the
ascendant, by removing its great prop before his departure to the Court
of France. They affirmed that the duke had met with foul play, and
treated Macartney as a cowardly assassin. That the allegation was well
founded may be doubted, for all the evidence points to the conclusion
that both sets of antagonists, seconds as well as principals, were
so blinded by the virulence of personal hatred as to neglect all the
laws both of the gladiatorial art and the duelling code, and assailed
each other with the fury of savages. A proclamation was issued by the
Government offering a reward of £500 for the apprehension of Macartney,
and £300 was offered in addition by the Duchess of Hamilton. After
a time Macartney returned, surrendered, and took his trial, when
he was acquitted of murder, and found guilty of manslaughter only.
Subsequently he was restored to his rank in the army, and entrusted
with the command of a regiment. After the accession of George I. he was
in great favour with the Court of Hanover, and was employed in bringing
over Dutch troops on the occasion of the insurrection in England, which
ended in the capitulation at Preston of the Earls of Derwentwater and
Nithsdale, and other English and Scottish lords and gentlemen.
The Gawsworth property, which Lord Mohun had acquired by his first
wife, Charlotte Mainwaring, he bequeathed by will to his second wife,
Elizabeth, daughter of Dr. Thomas Lawrence, first physician to Queen
Anne; and the Lady Mohun, who thus became possessed of the estates,
which she held in trust, directed that at her death they should
be sold, and the proceeds, after the payment of certain specified
bequests, applied to the use of her two daughters by her first husband,
Elizabeth Griffith, wife of Sir Robert Rich, Bart., and Ann Griffith,
wife of the distinguished soldier and statesman, William Stanhope, who,
in recognition of his public services, was elevated to the peerage,
Nov. 20, 1729, by the title of Baron Harrington, and subsequently
raised to the dignities of Viscount Petersham and Earl of Harrington.
Lord Harrington in 1727 purchased the manor from his wife’s trustees,
and thus passed into the family of Stanhope an estate with which they
had no connection by blood or by alliance. From the first Earl of
Harrington the property has descended in regular succession to the
present owner, Charles Augustus Stanhope, the eighth earl.
A curious feature in connection with the Old Hall of Gawsworth, and
one strongly suggestive of the warlike spirit of its former owner,
is the ancient tilting ground in the rear of the mansion. Ormerod,
the historian, was of opinion that this relic of a chivalrous age had
been a pleasure ground; but Mr. Mayer, the honorary curator of the
Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, who made a careful survey
some years ago, shows, with much probability, that it was intended
for jousts and other displays of martial skill and bravery. The
“tilt-yard,” the form of which may still be very clearly traced, is
about two hundred yards in length and sixty-five in width, surrounded
on three of its sides by a steep embankment or mound, sixteen yards in
width. Within this enclosure the lists were arranged and the barriers
erected, and here the knights, with pointless lances or coronels in
rest, assembled to perform the _hastiludia pacifica_ or peaceable
jousts for the amusement of the ladies and other spectators who
occupied the embankment.
At the further end of the long flat is a raised circular mound, with
a base twenty-five yards square, on which was placed the tent of the
Queen of Beauty, who, surrounded by her attendants, could overlook
the whole field, and to her the successful competitors were heralded
to receive at her hand the prize or guerdon to which their chivalrous
skill had entitled them. Near to this mound is a smaller piece of
ground, about fifty-seven yards in length, with three rows of seats
cut out of the bank, on three of its sides, and one row on the fourth,
that nearest the throne of the “Queen of Beauty.” This, Mr. Mayer
surmises, was intended for battles by single combat with the sword and
quarter-staff, for wrestling, and other athletic displays; where, also,
at Christmastide, and at wakes and festivals, the mummers practised
their rude drolleries; where, too, the itinerant bards sang their
rugged and unpolished lays in glorification of the achievements of the
Cheshire warriors of ancient days, and where
Minstrel’s harp poured forth its tone
In praise of Maud and Marguerite fair.
The level ground is divided by a small stream that flows through the
middle, and the flat space beyond, which is hemmed in by a mound
similar to that surrounding the “tilting ground,” is supposed to have
been used for such games as football, leap-frog, prison-bars, and
foot-racing, in which the people generally participated. Here, too,
is a raised circular earthwork, corresponding with the lady’s mound
already referred to, where it is probable the awards were made and the
prizes distributed to the successful competitors. The stream, after
passing by the eastern end of the Old Hall, empties itself into the
uppermost of the series of lakes before referred to, which are divided
from each other only by a narrow strip of land, and where, as has been
said, in days of yore the water jousts took place.
Taken altogether, in the tilting ground, with its raised terraces
for spectators—the court, which formed the arena for quarter-staff,
wrestling, and similar games of strength—and the lakes or ponds, used
for water jousts and other aquatic sports—we have one of the most
remarkable, as well as one of the most complete, memorials to be found
in the North of England illustrative of the manners and customs of our
forefathers—of the military pomp and pageantry, and those displays
of prowess, skill, daring, and strength, which in the reigns of the
Plantagenet and Tudor Kings the English gentry so much encouraged, and
the common people so greatly delighted in—the relic of an age the most
chivalrous and the most picturesque in our country’s history, when
there was no lack of heroism and brave hearts and noble minds, when men
ruled by the stern will and strong arm, and through successive ages
fought the battle of England’s liberties, and laid the foundations of
the freedom we enjoy. The place seems to belong so entirely to a bygone
age that imagination wings her airy flight to those remote days, and
in fancy’s eye we re-people the Old Hall, when
Every room
Blazed with lights, and brayed with minstrelsy;
and call up in each deserted nook and shady grove the figures of those
who have long ago returned to dust. We can picture in imagination the
time when these grass-grown terraces were thronged with a gay company
of gallant youths and fair maidens, of stern warriors and sober
matrons, assembled to witness the princely entertainments provided by
the proud owners of Gawsworth. We see the barriers set up, and hear
the braying of the trumpets, and the proclamations of the heralds; we
see the knights, with their attendant esquires, mounted upon their
well-trained steeds, with their rich panoply of arms and plumed and
crested casques, and note the stately courtesy with which each, as he
enters the arena, salutes the high-bred queen of the tournament; we
hear the prancing of horses, the clang of arms, the shock of combat,
and the loud clarions which proclaim to the assembled throng the names
of the gallant victors. But the days of tilt and tournament have passed
away, the age of feudalism has gone by, and in the long centuries of
change and progress that have intervened, time has mellowed and widened
our social institutions, and raised the lower stratum of society to
a nearer level with the higher. Yet, while we boast ourselves of the
present, let us not be unmindful of what we owe to the past, for those
times were instinct with noble and true ideas, and with Carlyle we may
say that, “in prizing justly the indispensable blessings of the new,
let us not be unjust to the old. The old _was_ true, if it no longer
is.” The glories of Gawsworth are of the past. The old mansion is still
to be seen, and the silent pools, the deserted terraces, the forlorn
garden grounds, and the stately trees still remain as representatives
of the once goodly park and pleasaunce, but those who here maintained
a princely hospitality, and bore their part in those splendid
pageantries, are sleeping their last sleep. We may not lift the veil
which hides their secret history, or reveal much of the story of their
hopes and fears, their perils by flood and field, and their deep feuds
and still deeper vengeances. Their graven effigies and gaudily-painted
tombs are preserved to us, but
The knights’ bones are dust,
And their good swords rust,
Their souls are with the just
We trust.
In this quiet, out-of-the-way nook, amid these old landmarks, an
afternoon will be neither unpleasantly nor unprofitably spent. We
may learn something of English history, and of the historic figures
which played their parts in our “rough island story.” Our thoughts
and fancies will be stirred anew, and our sense of patriotism will be
nothing lessened by the contemplation of the relics of that past on
which our present is securely built
Any notice of Gawsworth would be incomplete that did not make mention
of the remarkable series of fresco paintings that were discovered
during the work of restoring the church in the autumn of 1851. At
that time the fabric underwent a thorough repair, and the remains of
coloured ornamentation in the timber-work of the roof led to the belief
that the same method of decoration had been applied to the surface
of the walls. Accordingly a careful examination was made, and on the
removal of the whitewash and plaster some curious and interesting
examples of mediæval art were discovered; but, unfortunately, no effort
was made at the time to preserve them. Happily, however, before their
destruction careful copies were made by a local artist, Mr. Lynch,
which have since been published as illustrations to a work he has
written. The three principal frescoes represented St. Christopher and
the Infant Saviour; St. George slaying the Dragon; and the Doom, or
Last Judgment. From the details they would appear to have been executed
in the early part of the fifteenth century—probably about the time
the tower was built and some important additions made to the main
structure, which, as previously stated, would be between the years 1420
and 1430.
At the period referred to, St. Christopher had come to be regarded as
a kind of symbol of the Christian Church, and the stalwart figure of
the saint wading the stream with the Infant Jesus upon his shoulder
was a favourite subject for painting and carving in ecclesiastical
buildings. The Gawsworth fresco is especially interesting, from the
circumstance of its being an exact _fac-simile_ (except that it is
reversed) of the earliest known example of wood engraving, supposed to
be of the date 1423—an original and, as is believed, unique impression
of which was acquired by Lord Spencer, and is now preserved in the
Spencer library. The second picture represents St. George on horseback,
armed _cap-à-pie_, brandishing a sword with his right hand, whilst
with the left he is thrusting a spear into the mouth of the dragon. In
the distance is the representation of a castle, from the battlements
of which the royal parents of the destined victim witness the fray,
whilst the disconsolate damsel is depicted in a kneeling attitude.
The knight’s armour and the lady’s costume furnish excellent data in
fixing the time when the work was done. The third subject—the Last
Judgment—occupied the space between the east window and the south
wall. It was in three divisions, representing heaven, hell, and earth,
and from the prominent position it occupied was no doubt intended
to be kept continually before the eyes of the worshippers, that, to
use the words of the Venerable Bede, “having the strictness of the
Last Judgment before their eyes, they should be cautioned to examine
themselves with a more narrow scrutiny.”
Among the rectors of Gawsworth was one who added lustre to the place,
but whose name is, curiously enough, omitted from the list given in
Ormerod’s “Cheshire”—the Rev. Henry Newcome, M.A., who held the living
from 1650 to 1657, when he was appointed to the chaplaincy of the
Collegiate Church at Manchester. Newcome was born in November, 1627,
at Caldecote, in Huntingdonshire, of which place his father, Stephen
Newcome, was rector. In January, 1641-2, both his parents died, and
were buried in one coffin, when Henry removed to Congleton, where his
elder brother Robert had recently been appointed by the Corporation
master of the Free School. The circumstance is thus referred to in his
“Autobiography”:—
I was taught grammar by my father, in the house with him; and when
my eldest brother, after he was Batchelor in Arts, was master
of the Free School at Congleton, in Cheshire, I was in the year
1641, about May 4, brought down thither to him, and there went to
school three quarters of a year, until February 13, at which time
that eloquent and famous preacher, Dr. Thomas Dodd, was parson at
Astbury, the parish church of Congleton, where I several times
(though then but a child) heard him preach.
Newcome entered at St. John’s, Cambridge, May 10, 1644, and began
to reside in the following year. In 1646 he was a candidate for the
mastership of a Lincolnshire grammar school, but failed in obtaining
the appointment—a disappointment he bore with much stoicism. In
September, 1647, he was nominated to the mastership of the Congleton
School, and in the February succeeding he took his degree of B.A.
From his boyhood he seems to have had a fondness for preaching, and
the inclination grew with his years. His first sermon was delivered at
a friend’s church (Little Dalby) in Leicestershire; and on settling
down at Congleton, as he tells us, “he fell to preaching when only
20 years old.” He was appointed “reader” (curate) to Mr. Ley, at
Astbury, and preached sometimes in the parish church and sometimes at
Congleton. At first he “read” his sermons and “put too much history”
into them, whilst “the people came with Bibles, and expected quotations
of Scripture.” Before he had attained the age of 21 he entered the
marriage state, his wife being Elizabeth, daughter of Peter Mainwaring,
of Smallwood, to whom he was married July 6, 1648. He speaks of himself
as rash in taking this step at so early an age, but admits that it
turned to his own good, and he dwells on the excellent qualities of
his wife. It was indeed not only a happy, but in a worldly sense an
advantageous match, as by his alliance with the Mainwarings he became
connected with some of the most influential families in the county, and
to their interest he undoubtedly owed his preferment to Gawsworth. He
was ordained at Sandbach in August, 1648, the month following that of
his marriage, and began his ministerial labours at Alvanley Chapel, in
Frodsham parish, to which place he went for many weeks on the Saturday
to preach on the following day; but before the close of the year he
had settled at Goostrey, where he officiated for a year and a half. It
was whilst residing here that he received the startling intelligence
of the trial and execution of Charles I., for, under date January 30,
1649, he writes: “This news came to us when I lived at Goostrey, and a
general sadness it put upon us all. It dejected me much (I remember),
the horridness of the fact; and much indisposed me for the service
of the Sabbath next after the news came.” Newcome, though a zealous
Presbyterian, was a scarcely less zealous Royalist, and boldly avowed
his abhorrence of the murder of the King.
Shortly after this event his name was mentioned in connection with the
then vacant rectory of Gawsworth, and an effort was made, through the
interest of the Mainwaring family, to secure his induction under the
Broad Seal. Under the Usurpation Independency was in the ascendant, and
“Dame ffelicia ffitton,” the widow of Sir Edward Fitton, in whom the
patronage of Gawsworth had been vested, was then included in the list
of delinquents whose estates were to be sequestered for loyalty to the
sovereign. Eventually the instrument of institution under the Broad
Seal was obtained. It bears date November 28, 1649, and the opening
sentence sets forth that, “Whereas, the rectory of the parish church
of Gawsworth, in the county of Chester, is become void by the death
of the last incumbent, and the Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal
of England have presented Henry Newcome, a godly and orthodox divine,
thereunto. It is therefore ordered,” &c. Considerable demur was made,
however, to the appointment, and the people locked the church doors
against their new minister; but eventually, as we are told, “it pleased
God to move upon the people when I thought not of it, and they came
(some of the chief of them) over to Carincham on February 12th, and
sent for me, and told me they were desirous to have me before another;
and so were unanimously consenting to me, and subscribed the petition,
not knowing that the seal had come.”
The obstacles to this induction having been removed, Newcome and
his family took up their abode in the pleasant old rectory-house at
Gawsworth, April, 1650, and on the 14th of the month he preached his
first sermon to his new flock from Ezekiel iii., 5.
[Illustration: THE REV. HENRY NEWCOME.]
There are several incidents recorded in his “Autobiography” which throw
light on the life and habits of the youthful divine at this period.
Thus he writes:—
Whilst living here (Goostrey) my cousin, Roger Mainwaring, would
needs go to Gawsworth (the park being then in the co-heirs’
possession) to kill a deer, and one he killed with the keeper’s
knowledge; but they had a mind to let the greyhound loose, and to
kill another that the keeper should not know of, partly to hinder
him of his fees and partly that it might not be known that he had
killed more than one. I was ignorant of their design; but had
the hap to be one of the two that was carrying the other little
deer off the ground, when the keeper came and only took it and
dressed it, as he had done the other, and sent it after them to
the alehouse where the horses were. But I remember the man said
this word, that “_priests should not steal_.” I have oft after
thought of it, that when I was parson at Gawsworth, and that
tho’ Edward Morton, the keeper, was sometimes at variance with
me, he never so much as remembered that passage to object against
me; which, though I could have answered for myself in it, yet it
might have served the turn to have been retorted upon me when the
Lord stirred me up to press strictness upon them. But the Lord
concealed this indiscretion of mine, that it was never brought
forth in the least to lessen my authority amongst them.
It is pleasant to reflect that while Newcome was residing in his snug
parsonage at Gawsworth, he was visited by his brother-in-law, Elias
Ashmole, the learned antiquary and founder of the Ashmolean Museum at
Oxford, who spent some time with him at the rectory and rambled thence
into the Peak country. They had married sisters; Ashmole, who was
Newcome’s senior by ten years, having had to his first wife Eleanor,
daughter of Peter Mainwaring. This lady died in 1641, and in 1649
Ashmole married Lady Mainwaring, the widow of Sir Thomas Mainwaring,
of Bradfield, who died in 1668; and the same year he again entered the
marriage state, his third wife being Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William
Dugdale, Norroy, and afterwards Garter King of Arms. Ashmole, in his
“Diary,” thus refers to his visit to Gawsworth and his ramble in the
Peak:—
1652.
Aug. 16.—I went towards Cheshire.
" 28.—I arrived at Gawsworth, where my father-in-law, Mr.
Mainwaring, then lived.
Sept. 23.—I took a Journey into the Peak in search of plants and
other curiosities.
Nov. 24.—My Good Father-in-law, Mr. Peter Mainwaring, died at
Gawsworth.
Oddly enough, Ashmole nowhere makes mention of Newcome’s name in his
“Diary,” but Newcome himself refers to the visit in one of his letters
to his brother-in-law, preserved among Ashmole’s MSS. in the Bodleian
Library, and printed by Mr. Earwaker in his “Local Gleanings,” where,
speaking of the Theatrum Chymicum he had lent to Hollinworth, the
author of “Mancuniensis,” he says, “It was with him when you were with
me at Gawsworth, and I then sent for it home.”
Puritan though he was, Newcome was by no means of a soured or morose
disposition, nor so rigid in his notions as were some of his southern
brethren. He was fond of amusement within reasonable limits, and his
experiences he relates with charming candour and impartiality. Indeed,
sometimes his hilarity was a little too exuberant. “I remember,” he
says, “this year (1650), when the gentlewomen from the hall used to
come to see us, I was very merry with them, and used to charge a
pistol I had, and to shoot it off to affright them.” Notwithstanding
his liveliness of disposition, he set himself determinedly against the
vices to which some of his parishioners were addicted. Drinking and
swearing seem to have been prevalent, and he records how, one Sabbath
evening, at the house of Lady Fitton, a Mr. Constable,—
A known famous epicure ... told the lady there was excellent ale
at Broad [heath—what this place was does not appear], and moved
he might send for a dozen, some gentlemen of his gang being with
him. I made bold to tell him that my lady had ale good enough in
her house for any of them; especially, I hoped, on a Sabbath day
she would not let them send for ale to the alehouse. The lady took
with it, and in her courteous way told him that her ale might
serve him. But notwithstanding, after duties, he did send; but
durst not let it come in whilst I staid.... At last I took leave;
and then he said, “Now he is gone! Fetch in the ale.”
“My lady” was the beautiful and youthful Felicia Sneyd, the second
wife, and then widow of Sir Edward Fitton, who resided at the hall,
her jointure house. In all Newcome’s efforts to improve the spiritual
condition of his parish Lady Fitton warmly joined; the Sacrament, which
hitherto had been discontinued, was with her co-operation revived.
She offered herself to the minister for instruction, and instituted
family prayers twice a day in her house, which Newcome for a while
read; and we gather from several passages that the fascination and
dignified bearing of the youthful widow greatly attracted the divine
of twenty-three. It was not long, however, before he had occasion to
describe another and more painful scene. Lady Fitton, as has been
previously stated, re-married Sir Charles Adderley; and on the 20th
January, 1654, Newcome writes she “was in lingering labour.”
I had been at Congleton, and was just come home; and they came
shrieking to me to pray with Lady Fitton; she did desire it, it
should seem. I went as fast as I could; but just as I came the
fit of palsy took her. We went to prayer in the gallery for her
again and again. Mr. Machin[21] came in, and he helped me to pray.
We prayed there two or three times over. We begged life for mother
and child, very earnestly at first. After we begged either, what
God pleased. After the night we were brought to beg the life of
the soul, for all other hopes were over. The next day I went, and
prayed by her i’ th’ forenoon. I was much afflicted to see her
die, as in a dream, pulling and setting her head clothes as if she
had been dressing herself in the glass; and so to pass out of the
world. A lovely, sweet person she was; but thus blasted before us,
dyed Jany. 21 (1654), just after evening service. She was buried
the next day, at night.... Sir C. Adderley was removed, and all
manner of confusion and trouble came upon the estate, Mr. Fitton
and the co-heirs striving for possession, which begat a strange
alteration in the place.
[Note 21: John Machin was then minister of Astbury, and an intimate
friend as well as neighbour of Newcome’s.]
Lady Fitton, “a very courteous, respectful friend to me while she
lived,” as Newcome observes, lies near the east end of the church of
Gawsworth, close by the communion rails, and near to the stately tomb
of her first husband, on which she is described as “_nulli secundam_.”
In her death Newcome lost a good friend, for the living of Gawsworth
was very poor, and, finding it difficult to equalise the wants of a
growing family and the supplies of a small stipend, he was led to
consider the expediency of removing to some other and more lucrative
charge. His labours had been by no means confined to his own parish. On
the contrary, he devoted a good deal of his time to ministerial work
in other places. The fame of the wonderful young preacher spread to
the larger towns, and those who had heard him once wished to hear him
again. Among other places, he had visited Manchester, and preached in
the Old Church during the sickness of Richard Hollinworth. It was only
on one Sunday, but the generosity of the town brought him considerable
relief at the moment that the necessities of his family were pressing
inconveniently upon him. As Dr. Halley tells us, the relief produced
an effect the contributors did not intend, as it induced him, when
contemplating his removal, to remain in Gawsworth, where Providence had
so unexpectedly relieved him of his anxieties by their liberality. He
painted his rectory-house, parted off a little study from his parlour,
and spent what he could of his friends’ bounty in smartening his home
and making it pleasant and comfortable.
Newcome was not allowed to remain long in undisturbed tranquillity in
his quiet parsonage. On the 3rd November, 1656, Mr. Hollinworth died;
four days later a meeting of the “Classis” was held at Manchester to
nominate to the vacancy. Three persons were mentioned as suitable—Mr.
Meeke, of Salford; Mr. Bradshaw, of Macclesfield; and Mr. Newcome,
of Gawsworth—but the feeling was so unanimous in favour of Newcome
that nothing was said about the other two. Friday, December 5th, was
fixed for the election; but here a difficulty occurred. Newcome had
spent a Sunday at Shrewsbury as well as at Manchester. He had preached
at “Alkmond’s, and the people of Julian’s” (there were no saints in
Puritanical times) “set their affections” upon him while ministering
in the neighbouring church, and by a curious coincidence, on the same
day that he received intelligence of the arrangement at Manchester
he received letters from the people of “Julian’s,” from the Mayor of
Shrewsbury, and from three of its ministers, entreating him to accept
their invitation. On the Sunday preceding the election at Manchester
he preached in the Old Church, and, as he tells us, “the women were so
pleased that they would needs send tokens,” which amounted to seven
pounds. This gave great dissatisfaction to the proud Salopians, who
were evidently afraid the young preacher might not be proof against the
fascinations of the “Lancashire Witches,” and so they “gave him a very
unhandsome lash” for being drawn away from them by “women’s favours.”
Angry contentions arose, Richard Baxter was asked to interfere, and
a conference was suggested, but the good folks of Shrewsbury were
resolved upon securing the services of Newcome, and would not agree
to arbitration, or listen to any other proposition. They were doomed,
however, to disappointment, and, in opposition to the advice of Baxter,
Newcome, on the 24th of December, made choice of Manchester.
His removal from Gawsworth was a sorrowful time both for himself and
his rustic congregation. The sight of the wagons sent to remove his
furniture overwhelmed him with sorrow, and when the time came for
leaving the old rectory, he says, “I was sadly affected, and broken
all to pieces at leaving the house. I never was so broken in duty as
I was in that which I went into just when we were ready to go out of
the house;” and he adds, “I prayed the Lord the sin of the seven years
might be forgiven us, and that we might take a pardon with us.” On his
arrival in Manchester he was welcomed with extraordinary manifestations
of friendship and pleasure, and many of the townspeople went out to
Stockport to meet him.
This “prince of preachers,” as he has been called by his friends,
continued his ministrations in the Church at Manchester until the
passing of the Act of Uniformity, when, unable to conform to the
discipline of the Church, he withdrew from her communion, to the
great grief of his people, by whom he was greatly beloved. On the
passing of the Act of Toleration, at the accession of William of
Orange, the wealthy Presbyterians of Manchester gathered round their
favourite divine and built him a tabernacle on the site of the present
Unitarian Chapel in Cross Street—the first erected for the use of the
Nonconformist body in the town. He was not long permitted, however, to
continue his ministrations, his death occurring on the 17th September,
1695, little more than a year after the opening of the “great and fair
meeting house.”
The church in which Newcome ministered, and where rest the bones of so
many of the “Fighting Fittons,” well deserves a careful examination.
Let us bend our footsteps towards the ancient fane. It is a fair and
goodly structure—small, it is true, but presenting a dignified and
pleasing exterior—
Beauty with age in every feature blending.
The bold, free hand of the old English architect is seen in every
detail—in the deep mouldings, the varied tracery, and the quaintly
grotesque carvings, where burlesque and satire and playful fancy have
almost run riot. The restoring hand of the modern renovator—Sir
Gilbert Scott—is also visible; but what he has done has been well done,
and, if we except the interesting examples of mediæval art to which
reference has already been made, everything that was worth retaining
has been carefully preserved. Though erected at different times, the
general features harmonise and point to the conclusion that nearly the
whole of the existing fabric was erected in the period extending from
the end of the 14th to the middle of the 15th centuries.
The nave, which is three bays in length, is undoubtedly the oldest
part, and the point at which it originally terminated is clearly
shown by the diagonal projection of the angle buttress which still
remains. The chancel appears to have superseded an older foundation
of smaller dimensions. It is of equal width with the nave, and, in
fact, a continuation of it, and both are covered in with a timber
roof of obtuse pitch, with elaborately moulded and ornamented beams
and rafters. The external walls of both the nave and chancel are
surmounted by an embattled parapet, relieved at intervals with
crocketted pinnacles, that are carried above the edge of the parapet
wall as a termination to each buttress. There being no clerestory or
side aisles, the windows are unusually lofty. They are of pointed
character, with traceried heads and mouldings, terminating in
curiously-carved corbels, that have afforded scope for the humorous
fancy of the mediæval masons. On the south side is an open porch with
stone seats, that has at some time or other been added to the original
structure, as evidenced by the fact that the greater portion of the
buttress has been cut away where it is joined up to the main wall.
It has coupled lights on each side, with hood mouldings, the one on
the west terminating in a curiously-carved corbel, representing a
rose with two heads enclosed in the petals, an evidence that this
part of the fabric must have been built shortly after the union of
the rival houses of York and Lancaster, in the persons of Henry VII.
and Elizabeth the eldest daughter of Edward IV. The tower is well
proportioned, and, rising gracefully as it does above the surrounding
foliage, forms a conspicuous object for miles around. It is remarkable
for the armorial shields, 14 in number, carved in relief, in stone, on
each face. These insignia are especially interesting to the antiquary
and the genealogist, as showing the alliances of the earlier lords
of Gawsworth. They include the coats of Fitton, Orreby, Bechton,
Mainwaring, Wever, Egerton, Grosvenor, and Davenport, as well as those
of Fitton of Bollin, and Fitton of Pownall, and there is one also
containing the arms of Randle Blundeville, Earl of Chester, with whom
the Fittons appear to have been connected.
The interior of the church is picturesque and well cared for, and
the garrulous old lady who brought us the keys looks upon it with an
affection that is not diminished by the serving and tending of many
long years. It is an interesting specimen of an old English house of
worship. As you cross the threshold a host of memories are conjured up,
and you feel that you are in the sanctuary where in times past have
communed, and where now rest, the remains of a line famous in chivalry,
the members of which, in their day and generation, did good service
to the State. The seats are low and open, and the appearance has been
greatly improved by the removal of the heavy cumbrous pews with which
until late years it was filled. At the east end, within the chancel
rails, are the effigies and stately tombs of the Fittons already
described. The shadows of centuries seem to fall on the broad nave,
while the slanting rays of the westering sun, as they steal through the
tall windows, brighten the elaborate figures of the knights in armour,
and bring out the colouring of gown and kirtle, where their stately
dames are reposing by their side. During the restorations some of them
were removed from their original positions, and shorn of their original
canopies, as the inscription upon a tablet affixed to the north wall
testifies. Near the centre of the aisle is a plain marble slab with a
brass fillet surrounding it, on which is an inscription commemorating
the marriage and death of Thomas Fitton of Siddington, the second son
of Sir Edward of Gawsworth, by his wife Mary, the daughter of Sir
Guiscard Harbottle.
After our brief survey we passed out through the western door into the
churchyard. The sun was circling westwards over the woods, a warm
haze suffused the landscape, and the shadows were lengthening over the
hillocks and grass-grown mounds in the quiet graveyard. As our cicerone
turned the key in the rusty wards of the lock and turned to depart,
a robin poured out its wealth of song in the neighbouring copse, a
fitting requiem to the expiring day. We stood for a moment looking
through the trees at the picturesque old parsonage. What a lovely
spot!—the spot of all others that a country clergyman might delight to
pass his days in. Well might good Henry Newcome be “sadly affected and
broken all to pieces” at leaving it.
Another celebrity connected with Gawsworth, though of a widely
different character to Henry Newcome, deserves a passing notice—Samuel
Johnson, popularly known by the title of “Lord Flame,” and sometimes by
the less euphonious _sobriquet_ of “Maggotty Johnson.” This eccentric
character was well known in his day as a dancing master, to which
he added the professions of poet, player, jester, and musician. He
appears to have been among the last of the paid English jesters, those
professional Merry Andrews whose presence was considered indispensable
in the homes of our wealthier forefathers—their duty being to promote
laughter in the household, and especially at meals, by their ready
wit and drollery. Johnson was frequently hired out at parties given
by the gentry in the northern counties, where he had licence to bandy
his witticisms, and to utter or enact anything likely to enliven
the company or provoke them to laughter. “Lord Flame” was the name
of a character played by him in his own extravaganza, entitled
“Hurlothrumbo, or the Supernatural,” a piece which had a lengthened
run at the Haymarket in 1729. It is upon this burlesque that his fame
chiefly rests. After much patient labour he succeeded in getting it
on the London boards. Byrom records the circumstance in his “Journal”
under date April 2, 1729:—
As for Mr. Johnson, he is one of the chief topics of talk in
London. Dick’s Coffee-house resounds “Hurlothrumbo” from one
end to the other. He had a full house and much good company on
Saturday night, the first time of acting, and report says all
the boxes are taken for the next Monday.... It is impossible to
describe this play and the oddities, out-of-the-wayness, flights,
madness, comicalities, &c. I hope Johnson will make his fortune
by it at present. We had seven or eight garters in the pit. I saw
Lord Oxford and two or more there, but was so intent on the farce
that I did not observe many quality that were there. We agreed
to laugh and clap beforehand, and kept our word from beginning
to end. The night after Johnson came to Dick’s, and they all got
about him like so many bees. They say the Prince of Wales has been
told of “H,” and will come and see it.... For my own part, who
think all stage plays stuff and nonsense, I consider this a joke
upon ’em all.
On the same day, in a letter to Mrs. Byrom, he writes—
Mrs. Hyde must let her brother teach (dancing), for
“Hurlothrumbo,” as the matter stands, will hardly be quitted while
it brings a house, and consequently more money, into the author’s
pocket, than his teaching would do of a long time.
The play was afterwards published with a dedication to Lady Delves,
and an address to Lord Walpole. The former, while remarkable for its
extravagant panegyrism, is interesting from its reference to many of
the local female celebrities of the time. It is as follows:—
To the Right Honourable the Lady Delves.
Madam,—When I think of your goodness, it gives me encouragement
to put my play under your grand protection; and if you can
find anything in it worthy of your Praise, I am sure the
_super-naturals_ will like it. I do not flatter when I say your
taste is universal, great as an Empress, sweet and refined as Lady
_Malpas_, sublime as Lady _Mary Cowper_, learned and complete
as Lady _Conway_, distinguished and clear as Mrs. _Madan_, gay,
good, and innocent as Lady _Bland_. I have often thought you
were a compound of the world’s favourites—that all meet and
rejoice together in one: the taste of a _Montague_, _Wharton_, or
Meredith, Stanhope, Sneid, or Byrom; the integrity and hospitality
of _Leigh_ of _Lime_, the wit and fire of _Bunbury_, the sense of
an Egerton, fervent to serve as _Beresford_ or _Mildmay_, beloved
like _Gower_. If you was his rival, you’d weaken the strength of
that most powerful subject. I hope your eternal unisons in heaven
will always sing to keep up the harmony in your soul, that is
musical as Mrs. Leigh, and never ceases to delight; raises us in
raptures like _Amante Shosa_, _Lord Essex_, or the sun. If every
pore in every body in Cheshire was a mouth they would all cry out
aloud, _God save the Lady Delves!_ That illuminates the minds of
mortals, inspires with Musick and Poetry especially.
Your most humble servant, LORD FLAME.
The prologue was written by Mr. Amos Meredith, of Henbury, near
Macclesfield, and, at the urgent request of its author, Byrom was
induced to write the epilogue. Johnson’s subsequent career was marked
by many whims and oddities, and even death was not permitted to
terminate his eccentricity, his very grave being made to commemorate it
for the amusement or pity of future generations. As we have previously
stated, he is buried in a small plantation of firs near the road, and a
short distance from the New Hall, in accordance with a request he had
made to the owner in his life-time. His remains are covered by a plain
brick tomb, now much dilapidated, on the uppermost slab of which is the
following inscription:—
[Illustration]
Under this stone
Rest the remains of Mr. SAMUEL JOHNSON,
Afterwards ennobled with the grander Title of
LORD FLAME,
Who, after being in his life distinct from other Men
By the Eccentricities of his Genius,
Chose to retain the same character after his Death,
and was, at his own Desire, buried here, May 5th,
A.D. MDCCLXXIII., Aged 82.
Stay thou whom Chance directs, or Ease persuades,
To seek the Quiet of these Sylvan shades,
Here undisturbed and hid from Vulgar Eyes,
A Wit, Musician, Poet, Player, lies
A Dancing Master too, in Grace he shone,
And all the arts of Opera were his own;
In Comedy well skill’d, he drew Lord Flame,
Acted the Part, and gain’d himself the Name;
Averse to Strife, how oft he’d gravely say
These peaceful Groves should shade his breathless clay;
That when he rose again, laid here alone,
No friend and he should quarrel for a Bone;
Thinking that were some old lame Gossip nigh,
She possibly might take his Leg or Thigh.
On the west side of his tomb a flat stone has been placed in later
years, on which some rhyming moralist has sought to improve on his
character, in a religious point of view, in a lengthy inscription which
says more for the writer’s sense of piety than his regard for prosody:—
If chance hath brought thee here, or curious eyes,
To see the spot where this poor jester lies,
A thoughtless jester even in his death,
Uttering his jibes beyond his latest breath;
O stranger, pause a moment, pause and say:
“To-morrow should’st thou quit thy house of clay,
Where wilt thou be, my soul?—in paradise?
Or where the rich man lifted up his eyes?”
Immortal spirit would’st thou then be blest,
Waiting thy perfect bliss on Abraham’s breast;
Boast not of silly art, or wit, or fame,
Be thou ambitious of a Christian’s name;
Seek not thy body’s rest in peaceful grove,
Pray that thy soul may rest in Jesus’ love.
O speak not lightly of that dreadful day,
When all must rise in joy or in dismay;
When spirits pure in body glorified
With Christ in heavenly mansions shall abide,
While wicked souls shall hear the Judge’s doom—
“Go ye accursed into endless gloom,”
Look on that stone and this, and ponder well:
Then choose ’twixt life and death, ’twixt
Heaven and Hell.
Poor Johnson! His last whim has been gratified: his “breathless clay”
reposes beneath the “sylvan shade” that in life he so much delighted
in. The thrush and the blackbird sing their orisons and vespers
there; the fresh and fragrant breeze sweeps by; and the nodding trees
that rustle overhead cast a verdant gloom around, that is brightened
only where the warm sunlight steals through the intricacy of leaves
and dapples the sward with touches of golden light. May no rude or
irreverent hand disturb his resting-place, or “old lame gossip” share
his sepulchre.
[Illustration: John Dee, the Wizard Warden]
[Illustration]