ADLINGTON AND ITS EARLIER LORDS—THE LEGHS—THE LEGEND OF THE SPANISH
LADY’S LOVE—THE HALL.
Cheshire, says Speed, in his “Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain”
(1606), “may well be said to be a seed-plot of gentilitie and the
producer of many most ancient and worthy families.” Smith says that
“it is the mother and nurse of gentility of England;” and, if we
may believe the author of “The Noble and Gentle Men of England,” it
contains at the present day a larger number of old county families than
any other English shire of equal size. “Cheshire, Chief of Men,” or, as
it is versified,
Cheshire, famed for chief of men,
High in glory soars again,
is a popular proverb in the palatinate, though Grose maliciously
insinuates that the Cheshire men fabricated the proverb themselves. If,
however, Menestrier’s definition of a gentleman, that he must be one
“_de nom d’armes et de cir_,” holds good, then the men of Cheshire may
pride themselves upon a lineage unsurpassed by the gentry of any other
county. Among those who have brought renown, the Leghs have ever held a
foremost place, and have proved themselves the worthy compeers of the
Grosvenors, the Egertons, the Davenports, and other of the valiant men
of Cheshire whose names are
Writ in the annals of their country’s fame.
Adlington, the ancestral home of one of the older branches of this
widespread family, is a pleasant old mansion, possessing, besides its
own particular attractions as a good specimen of the half-timbered
manor house of bygone days, much that is interesting in its memories
and associations. It lies, too, in the midst of a spacious park,
prettily feathered with woodlands, and environed with much rural
beauty, so that it is altogether a pleasant place to spend a summer day
in—a spot where you may find enough to occupy your thoughts without
satiety or weariness.
The railway carries you within a hundred yards or so of the park-gates.
A roadside inn—the Unicorn’s Head—(the crest of the Leghs), and a few
picturesque cottages, with cunningly devised porches of open rustic
work, and little plots of garden in front, gay with flowers of every
hue—tall lilies and roses that sway their heads in the passing breeze,
and sweet-scented creepers that trail around and half hide the little
old-fashioned windows—constitute what there is of village. Close by
the station, and abutting upon the high-road, is the old smithy. As we
go by, the smith is hard at work, the sparks fly merrily, and under
the ponderous strokes of his hammer the anvil rings as melodiously as
it did a hundred years ago, when, on a bright morning, Handel, while
taking a constitutional with his host, Charles Legh, of Adlington,
listened to it and first conceived the idea of the “Harmonious
Blacksmith,” the score of which he wrote down immediately on his return
to the hall, where it was long preserved. The park, which is well
stocked with deer, is of considerable extent, varied and picturesque,
and marked by much unrestrained beauty; for Art and Nature seem both
to have stopped short of “improvement,” and to have given Time the
opportunity of softening the harsh outline of man’s labours. It is not
too tamely kept, however, nor yet too rigidly subjected to rule, the
open lawns and broad sunny glades being chequered with clumps of wood
and sturdy trees—
Whose boughs are moss’d with age,
And high top bald with dry antiquity,
whilst through the grassy meads and beneath the woodland shade,
pranked with a thousand silvery shapes of beauty, the freakish Deane—
A gentle stream,
Adown the vale its serpent courses winds,
Seen here and there through breaks of trees to gleam,
Gilding their dancing boughs with noon’s reflected beam,
as it hastens on to mingle its waters with the Bollin, and unite with
it in helping the Mersey to do honour to the British Tyre. It is a
lovely summer day, with just sufficient breeze to cool the overheated
atmosphere, and give a pleasant and invigorating freshness to it;
the sunbeams are dappling the rich sward with their playful and
ever-changing patches of light, and the air is balmy with the odours
of the new-mown hay. The lark carols joyously in the bright blue sky,
the insects are busy in the tall grass, and the lowing of the kine in
the distant meadows, the merry song of the haymakers spreading out
the fresh-cut swaths, and the creaking of the waggon as it bears its
fragrant load to the stackyard, blending together, make a rustic music
delighting to the heart of him who loves the sounds of country life.
As we leisurely wend our way along the broad gravelled path we have
time to note the more prominent features of the surrounding country;
and assuredly there are few localities in the county where the scenery
is more agreeably diversified, the prospect embracing—
Hill and dale, and wood and lawn,
And verdant fields, and darkening heath between,
And villages embosomed soft in trees.
A long line of stately chestnut trees bounds one side of the walk.
Eastward the view is limited by a range of undulating eminences
that stretch along the line of the horizon, dark, shadowy, and
lonely-looking, in places, a kind of mountain wall—the outwork, so to
speak, of the Peak hills beyond—with upland pastures and sweet verdant
slopes, green where the grass has been newly mown, and tinged with
yellow where the grain is ripening in the bright August sunshine,
showing where man has encroached upon Nature’s wild domain, and what
good husbandry has won from the bleak wastes that once formed part of
the great forest of Macclesfield. Hidden from view in a green, cup-like
hollow in the hills is the “lordly house of Lyme,” that calls up
memories of the deeds at Crescy, in which the flower of the Cheshire
chivalry were engaged; for it was in acknowledgment of the seasonable
aid Sir Thomas Danyers rendered to the “Boy Prince,” when on that
bloody field his Royal father bade him “win his spurs and the honour of
the day for himself,” that Richard the Second bestowed the fair domain
of Lyme upon Sir Piers Legh, a younger son of the house of Adlington,
who had wed Sir Thomas’s daughter. Just above the hall the “Knight’s
Low” lifts its tree-crowned summit; tradition hovers around it, and
tells us that far back in the mist of ages a knightly owner of Lyme
there found his resting-place.
Peeping out from the thick umbrage on the adjacent height we get a
glimpse of the modern mansion of Shrigley—the successor of an ancient
house that for full five centuries and a half was the abode of the
once famous, though now extinct, family of Downes; the chiefs of which
held the hereditary forestership of Downes and Taxal, in the Royal
forest of Macclesfield, with the right of hanging and drawing within
their jurisdiction, and further claimed the privilege of holding the
King’s stirrup when he came a-hunting in the forest, as well as of
rousing the stag for his amusement; in allusion to which office they
bore a white hart upon their shield of arms, with a stag’s head for
crest. But Shrigley has other associations. In more recent times the
name was identified with an outrageous case of abduction—the carrying
off and pretended marriage of the youthful heiress of that pleasant
domain by the notorious adventurer, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, in 1826.
Below, where the great break occurs in the mountainous ridge, and the
hills look as if riven asunder by the stroke of a giant’s hand, lies
the little town of Bollington, where the cotton trade has established
itself, and the tall chimneys—the “steam towers,” as Crabbe calls
them—do their best, though in a small way, it is true, to detract from
the natural beauties of the landscape. The hill which terminates the
ridge nearest to us bears the name of the Nab, and the one that bounds
the opposite side of the defile, the summit of which is crowned with
a whitewashed summer-house that gleams brightly in the sunshine, is
popularly known as White Nancy. With White Nancy the Kerridge hills,
famed for their freestone quarries, come in view. The name (Cær Ridge)
suggests the idea that the Romans had a camp or minor station in the
vicinity, and the opinion is strengthened by the fact that one of their
highways led eastwards over the rocky ridge.
Southwards, near the foot of the Kerridge range, lies the old and
somewhat dingy-looking town of Macclesfield, the view of which is,
however, happily shut out by intervening plantations and the eminence
on which stands Bonishall, for a time the residence of Lord Erskine,
the grandson of the distinguished Lord Chancellor, and occupying
the site of an older house, where, in the days of the Virgin Queen,
a branch of the Pigots of Butley, had their abode. Round towards
the right, through the openings in the dark belt of trees, the long
crescent-like sweep of Alderley Edge is seen rising sheer from the
plain to a considerable elevation, and extending a couple of miles or
so, with its rough projecting rocks full of changeful picturesqueness
of indentation, and rich in their exquisite variety of form and
colour. The steep slopes are clothed with vegetation and crested with
a miniature forest of pines and fir trees that mingle their dark-hued
verdure with the brighter foliage of the oak and the birch, making a
little fairyland of woodland beauty, the natural charm of which is
heightened by the cloud-shadows gliding slowly across. With a keen eye
Stormy Point can be discerned standing out a mass of sombre crag, in
striking contrast to the scenery around. The Beacon close by reminds
us of the troublous times when our grandfathers were in daily dread of
invasion, and erected this signal that they might pass the warning on
should their Gallic neighbours put foot on British soil. The Edge is
not without its tale of wonder, nor will it lose the recollection of
it while the sign of “The Wizard” adorns the neighbouring hostelry, or
“The Iron Gates” that of its rival. But we are not now concerned with
the legend of the countless milk-white steeds or the nine hundred and
ninety-nine slumbering knights—“the wondrous cavern’d band”—
Doom’d to remain till that fell day,
When foemen marshall’d in array,
And feuds intestine shall combine
To seal the ruin of our line.
Our walk has brought us to the lawn in front of the mansion, but before
we enter let us take a glance at the past history of the house and its
possessors.
Before the days of Duke William, the Norman conqueror, Adlington formed
part of the demesne of the Saxon Earl of Mercia. The name is supposed
by some authorities to be derived from the Saxon words _adeling_
(noble), and _ton_ (a town), but in the Doomsday Book it is written
Edulvintone, signifying Edwin’s town, the inference being that Edwin,
then Earl of Mercia, a grandson of Earl Leofric and that fair Lady
Godiva whose memory the good people of Coventry delight to honour, had
a residence here, and this is the more probable origin. The account
in the great Norman survey is summed up in the word “Wasta,” from
which it is clear that the district had at that time been devastated
or laid waste by the invaders, and the reason of this is not far to
seek, though the story is not without a spice of romance. Edwin and
his brother Morcar, Earl of Northumberland, were two of Harold’s chief
generals at the battle of Hastings. Knowing the power and influence
they possessed throughout the country north of the Trent, William set
himself diligently to discover the means of effecting their overthrow.
The Saxons generally were more impassioned than politic, and Edwin,
having conceived an affection for the conqueror’s daughter, Adela,
consented to abdicate his position as a condition of obtaining that
princess’s hand. As far as a Norman word could bind she was given to
him, whereupon he laid down his arms and undertook to pacify and to
bring over to the invader nearly a third of the kingdom. Immediately
he had done so the treacherous William, feeling himself secure, broke
the promise he had given and refused to accept him for his son-in-law.
Stung with the insult thus offered to himself and his house, Edwin
and his brother flew to arms, and roused their countrymen into open
revolt. The brave Saxons entered into a solemn league and covenant to
expel the foreigners from their soil, or perish in the attempt. Famine,
pestilence, and war did their worst. The Normans devoted themselves
on the one hand to havoc, ruin, and desolation; while on the other,
the outraged Saxons dealt death around them wherever they had the
power. The foreigner was bent upon extermination, and between him and
the native Saxon no intercourse existed save that of revenge and a
rivalry as to which should inflict the greatest amount of injury upon
the other. As a consequence, the country was drenched with slaughter
and made the scene of violation, rapine, and murder. In the bloody
conflict no place suffered more than this part of Cheshire, the
frequent occurrence of the phrase “Wasta” in the survey evidencing the
destruction accomplished by fire and sword. After fruitless struggles,
Edwin, with a small band of followers, fled towards Scotland, but
being overtaken near the coast he turned upon his pursuers. A fierce
resistance was made, in which he was slain, when his head was cut off
and sent as a trophy to the victorious William, and so perished the
first owner of Adlington of whom history has furnished us with any
particulars.
On the death of Edwin the manor with other of his possessions were
given by the Conqueror to that pious profligate, Hugh d’Avranches,
surnamed Lupus, whom he had created Palatine Earl of Chester, and
who, being more concerned for the pleasures of the chase than the
cultivation of the soil, appears to have retained Adlington in his own
hands as a hunting seat, for in the Norman Survey it is mentioned as
then having no less than seven “hays” (deer-fences or enclosures in
which deer could be driven) and four aeries of hawks. It remained in
the possession of the Norman earls until the time of John Scot, the
seventh and last, who died without male heirs, when Henry the Third,
with somewhat indistinct ideas with regard to _meum_ and _tuum_,
took the earldom into his own hands, deprived Earl John’s sisters of
their heritage, and so sowed the seeds of discontent that produced a
plentiful crop of troubles for King Henry’s grandson when he succeeded
to the crown.
Immediately after this high-handed procedure Adlington is found in
the possession of Hugh de Corona, who would appear to have held it
by a grant direct from the Crown, for a Crown rental was payable for
the manor for centuries. He also held the superior lordship of Little
Neston-cum-Hargrave, in the Hundred of Wirral, as well as lands in
Penisby, in the same hundred, formerly belonging to the hospital of St.
John, at Chester. By his wife Amabella, daughter of Thomas de Bamville,
of Storeton, near Chester, he had, in addition to a son, Hugh, two
daughters—Sarah, to whom he gave his lands in Penisby, and Lucy, who
became the wife of Sir William Baggaley, or Baguley, according to the
modern orthography, whose monumental effigy has lately been placed in
the old hall at Baguley.[27] In 1316 Hugh de Corona gave the whole of
his manors of Parva Neston and Hargrave, excepting a third part of the
same held in dower by his wife Lucy, and the tenements held in dower
by Margaret, his mother, to John de Blount, or Blound, citizen of
Chester, in consideration of an annual payment of ten marks; by another
charter, executed about the same time, he granted the reversion of the
said third part to the said John, and in the same year the grantee
was released from the payment of the ten marks, and an amended grant
of the manors “in fee simple” was made to him, with the exception of
the dower estates. On the 15th March, 10 Edward II. (1316-17), Thomas
de Corona appeared in the Exchequer at Chester, and prayed that these
three grants might be enrolled, and they now appear on the Plea Rolls,
together with a separate one granting the reversions. Finally, in the
27 Edward III., Thomas de Corona, the grandson of Hugh, quit-claimed to
John, son of John de Blound, all title to the manors.
[Note 27: The mutilated effigy of Sir William Baggaley, after being
discarded from the church at Bowdon and lost for several generations,
was, some years ago, discovered by Mr. John Leigh, of Manchester, and
the author, affixed to a wall in the garden of a house at Mill Bank,
Partington, near Warrington. It was subsequently acquired by Mr. T.
W. Tatton, and removed by him to its present position in the hall at
Baguley. An account of it was given in the _Manchester Courier_, March
13, 1866.]
Having in this way completely alienated the Wirral estates,
Adlington seems to have been made the chief abode of the Coronas.
Lucy, the daughter of Hugh de Corona, who became the wife of Sir
William Baggaley, had a son, John, who died without issue, and two
daughters—Isabel, who married Sir John de Hyde, and Ellen, who
became the wife of John, son of Sir William Venables, of Bradwell,
Knight, younger brother of Sir Hugh Venables, Baron of Kinderton,
but who assumed the surname of Legh, the maiden name of his
mother, Agnes de Legh, as also of the place (High Legh) where he
was born and resided until he became the possessor by purchase of
Knutsford-Booths-cum-Norbury-Booths, from William de Tabley, 28 Edward
I., 1300.
Hugh de Corona, the second of the name who resided at Adlington, had a
son, John, who inherited the estates, and was in turn succeeded by his
son, Thomas de Corona, who died unmarried in the reign of Edward III.,
when the male line of the family became extinct. By a deed executed in
the early part of Edward II.’s reign, this Thomas granted to John de
Venables, _alias_ Legh, and Ellen de Corona, or Baggaley, his wife, all
his part of the manor and village of Adlington, excepting the lands
which Margaret, his mother, and Lucy, the widow of his grandfather,
Hugh de Corona, the second of the name, had in dower; and by another
charter, dated 9 Edward II., he gave to the said John Legh and Ellen,
his wife, all the rest of his lands in Adlington previously held in
dower by his mother and grandmother. Thus John de Legh became lord of
Adlington, and on the paternal, as his wife Agnes de Legh was on the
maternal side, founder of the house of Legh of Adlington, a house that
has held possession of the manor for an uninterrupted period of more
than five centuries and a half.
John de Legh, who acquired the lordship of Adlington by his marriage
with Agnes de Corona, could boast a lineage as ancient and honourable
as that of the Conqueror himself. When the subjugation of England was
accomplished the Norman invader was enabled to reward his faithful
followers out of the numerous forfeitures that had accrued through
the fruitless insurrections of Earl Edwin and the other Saxon nobles.
Hugh d’Avranches, or Hugh Lupus, as he was more generally designated,
from the wolf’s head which he bore for arms, and which may have been
given as symbolical of his gluttony, a vice Oderic says he was greatly
addicted to, though he does not appear to have been with the invading
army at Hastings, having followed the victor in the succeeding year,
was largely instrumental in establishing William upon the English
throne. In acknowledgment of his services, as well as for his valour in
reducing the Welsh to obedience, he had conferred upon him in 1070 the
whole of the fair county of Cheshire, “to hold of the King as freely
by the sword as the King himself held the realm of England by the
crown”—he was, in fact, a Count-Palatine, and all but a king himself.
Thoroughly appreciating the conditions of his tenure, he, in order the
more effectually to secure it, divided his palatinate into eight or
more baronies, which he distributed among his warlike followers upon
the condition of supporting him with the sword as he was in turn to
support the King. He also established his officers as well as his own
courts of law, in which any offence against the dignity of “the Sword
of Chester” was as cognisable as the like offence would have been at
Westminster against the dignity of the Royal crown.[28]
[Note 28: The “Sword of Chester” is now preserved in the British
Museum. The last instance of the exercise of the Earl’s privileges was
in 1597 when the Baron of Kinderton’s Court tried and executed Hugh
Stringer for murder.]
One of the eight barons created by Hugh Lupus was Gilbert, a younger
son of Eudo, Earl of Blois, and a first cousin of the Conqueror.
He was one of the combatants at Hastings, where he received the
honour of knighthood for his valour in the field, and he afterwards
rendered important services against Edgar Atheling, as well as in the
subjugation of the Welsh, for which welcome aid Earl Hugh rewarded him
with considerable estates in the newly-acquired county, and he chose
Kinderton as the seat of his barony. Like his patron, he was devoted
to the pleasure of the chase, and from that circumstance acquired the
name of Venables _(Venator abilis)_, which some of his descendants
have retained to the present day, in the same way that another Norman
chieftain, a nephew of Hugh Lupus, and a mighty hunter withal, took the
name of Grosvenor—Gilbert _Le Gros venor_—which is now perpetuated by
the ducal house of Westminster.
Gilbert Venables, Baron of Kinderton, who was a widower at the time of
the Norman Conquest, again entered the marriage state, his second wife
being Maud, the daughter of Wlofaith Fitz Ivon, another Norman soldier,
who had the lordship of Halton, near Daresbury, conferred upon him by
the gift of his brother Nigell, Baron of Halton. This lady bore him in
addition to a son, William, who succeeded to the barony of Kinderton,
and a daughter, Amabella, who became the wife of Richard de Davenport,
a second son, Thomas Venables, whose exploits, if that most respectable
authority, tradition, is to be believed, rivalled those of the mythical
champion, St George, and that more modern hero, More of More Hall, who—
With nothing at all,
Slew the Dragon of Wantley.
Here is the story as veraciously recorded by an ancient chronicler
in the Harleian MSS. (No. 2,119, art. 36) In the time of this Thomas
Venables, it says, “Yt chaunced a terrible dragon to remayne and
make his abode in the lordshippe of Moston, in the sayde countye of
Chester, where he devowred all such p’sons as he lay’d hold on, which
ye said Thomas Venables heringe tell of, consyderinge the pittyfull and
dayly dystruction of the people w’thowte recov’ie who in followinge th’
example of the valiante Romaynes and other worthie men, not regarding
his own life, in comparison of the commoditie and safeguard of his
countrymen, dyd in his awne p’son valiantlie and courragiouslie set on
the saide dragon, where firste he shotte hym throwe with an arrowe, and
afterward with other weapons manfullie slew him, at which instant tyme
the sayd dragon was devowringe of a child. For which worthy and valiant
act was given him the Lordshippe of Moston by the auncestors of the
Earle of Oxford, Lord of the Fee there. And alsoe ever since the said
Thomas Venables and his heires, in remembrance thereof, have used to
bear, as well in theire armes, as in their crest, a dragon.”[29] The
old chronicler has omitted to give us a description of this wonderful
creature, but doubtless it bore a close resemblance to the monster of
Wantley, whose appearance is thus pourtrayed in the “Percy Reliques”:—
This Dragon had two furious Wings,
Each one upon each Shoulder,
With a sting in his Tayl
As long as a Flayl,
Which made him bolder and bolder.
He had long Claws,
And in his Jaws,
Four and Forty Teeth of Iron,
With a Hide as Tough as any Buff,
Which did him round Inviron.
Have you not heard that the Trojan Horse
Held seventy men in his Belly!
This Dragon was not quite so big,
But very near, I’ll tell ye.
Devour did he,
Poor children Three,
That could not with him grapple;
And at one Sup
He eat them up,
As one should eat an Apple.
[Note 29: The Venables, Barons of Kinderton, bore for their crest a
wivern (_i.e._, dragon), with wings endorsed, gules, standing on a fish
weir, or trap, devour-a child, and pierced through the neck with an
arrow, all ppr.]
The sixth in direct descent from the first Baron of Kinderton was Sir
William Venables, who, by his wife Margaret, daughter of Sir Thomas
Dutton of Dutton, had two sons, Sir Hugh, who inherited the barony, and
Sir William, to whom his father gave the lordship of Bradwall, near
Sandbach. This William was twice married, his second wife being Agnes,
daughter and heir of Richard de Legh, of the West Hall, near Knutsford,
and the widow of Richard de Lymme. By her he had John Venables, who, as
previously stated, assumed his mother’s maiden name of Legh. He became
the owner by purchase of Norbury Booths, and married some time previous
to 1315 Ellen de Corona, who inherited the Adlington estates under the
settlement of her grand-nephew, Thomas de Corona. Four sons were born
of this marriage, three of whom became the founders of distinct houses:
John, ancestor of the Leghs of Booths; Robert, to whom, at the death of
his mother in 1352, the manor of Adlington reverted under the Corona
settlement, and who thus became progenitor of the Leghs of Adlington,
Lyme, Ridge, Stoneleigh, Stockwell, &c.; William, founder of the line
of Isall in Cumberland, and from whom descended Sir William Legh,
Bart., Lord Chief Justice of England; and Peter de Legh, who in right
of his wife Ellen, daughter and heir of Philip de Bechton, acquired
the Bechton estates, which were in turn conveyed by his two daughters,
Margaret and Elizabeth, to their respective husbands, Thomas Fitton, of
Gawsworth, and John de Davenport, of Henbury.
Robert de Legh, who succeeded to the manor of Adlington on the death
of his mother in 1352, had a commission as a justice in eyre for
Macclesfield, and was also appointed a steward of the manor and forest
of Macclesfield. He was twice married, his first wife being Sibilla,
the daughter of Henry de Honford, of Honford (Handforth), by whom he
had, in addition to two daughters, Robert, who succeeded as heir to the
Adlington estates, and Hugh, who predeceased him. His second wife was
Maud, the daughter and heir of Adam de Norley of Northleigh, of the
manor of that name, near Wigan, Knight. This lady, who is said to have
been his second cousin, and very young at the time of her marriage,
bore him two sons in his old age, Peter or Piers, and John. Peter, who
was born about the year 1361, married in 1388, Margaret, the daughter
and heiress of that famous Cheshire hero, Sir Thomas d’Anyers, who
distinguished himself at the battle of Crescy[30] by taking prisoner
the Count de Tankerville, chamberlain to the King of France, and
rescuing the standard of the Black Prince when it was in danger of
being captured, in acknowledgment of which services his daughter
afterwards received a Royal grant of the manor of Lyme Handley, and,
with her husband, became progenitor of the Leghs of Lyme and the Leghs
of Ridge. John de Legh, the younger son by the second marriage, was
keeper of Macclesfield Park prior to 1395, and was sometimes designated
John de Macclesfield. He was living in 1399, and had issue.
[Note 30: It has been frequently stated that Peter Legh, the first of
Lyme, also fought at Crescy; but he was not born until fifteen years
after that famous victory.]
Robert de Legh died at Macclesfield, about the year 1370. Before his
death his wife Maud, who survived, conveyed to him all her estates
in trust for their son, Piers Legh, who, at the time of his father’s
death, was a child of nine years. Six years after the death of Sir
Robert the name of his widow was unpleasantly associated with a charge
of fraud, as appears by the Chamberlain’s accounts at Chester, she
being indicted with one Thomas le Par, who possibly may have been more
active in the matter than herself, with fabricating, in the name of
Adam de Kingsley, the trustee, a false settlement of the Broome estates
within Lymm in fraud of the heir and in favour of her youngest son,
John, and his heirs male; and with having, through such false charter,
unjustly retained possession of the land for six years after her
husband’s death. The issue of the indictment is not recorded; but it
is clear that if she had succeeded her act would have given to her son
John a considerable estate, to the disadvantage of his elder brother.
Robert de Legh, who inherited the manor of Adlington on the death
of his father, _circa_ 1370, was, in 1358, in the retinue of Edward
the Black Prince in the war in Gascony; and there is an entry in the
Palatinate Rolls at Chester that he, with William de Bostock and
Hugh, son of Thomas le Smyth, of Mottram, entered into a recognisance
indemnifying the chamberlain for any moneys that might be due to two of
the Cheshire archers who were serving under him while with the prince.
In 1360-61, as appears by the Recognisance Rolls, he had granted to
him the custody of the lands in Cheshire lately belonging to Henry de
Honford, then deceased, with the wardship and marriage of his daughter
and heiress, Katherine. In 1382, Joan, Princess of Wales, the widow
of the Black Prince, and the once “Fair Maid of Kent,” gave to him
and William del Dounes a lease for twelve years of her part of the
town of Bollington, with the water-mill there, on a payment of eight
marks yearly. He appears to have succeeded his father in the office
of bailiff of the manor of Macclesfield, and to have held it until
1382, when his half-brothers, Peter and John, were appointed in his
stead. He died on the 9th November, 1382, leaving by his wife Matilda,
daughter of Sir John Arderne, of Aldford, Knight, a son, Robert, born
at Roter-le-Hay, and baptised at Audlem on the 2nd March, 1361-2, and
then aged 20; and two daughters—Margery, who became the wife of Thomas
de Davenport, of Henbury, and Katherine, who married Reginald Downes.
Robert de Legh made proof of age on the 3rd March, 1382-3. On the 13th
May following he had livery of his father’s lands, and on the 18th June
he had also, as heir of his mother, livery of what pertained to her as
one of the heirs of Alina, daughter of Robert Daa, whose lands were
then in the king’s hands. In 1385, or thereabouts, he married Isabel,
daughter and heir of Sir Thomas de Belgrave, Knight, who brought him
the manor of Belgrave, with several other estates in Cheshire and
Flintshire. With these, and the lands in Hyde, Stockport, Romiley,
and Etchells, the inheritance of his mother, the influence and social
importance of the family were largely increased, while Robert de Legh
himself, by the active part he took in the service of his country,
as well as in the administration of the affairs of his own county,
attained to considerable distinction, and well sustained the honour and
dignity of his house. In July, 1385, shortly after his marriage, he had
protection of his lands guaranteed to him on his departure to Scotland
in the King’s service, the occasion being the expedition headed by
Richard in person, following upon the invasion of John of Gaunt, which,
however, terminated without any trial of strength in battle, for while
the English army proceeded northwards, took Edinburgh, and marched
towards Aberdeen, wasting the country as it advanced, the Scotch,
with their French allies, in turn entered Cumberland and Westmorland,
burning and plundering as they went on every side. In the succeeding
year Robert de Legh had the honour of knighthood conferred upon him,
and shortly after (September 26, 1386), on the threatening of a French
invasion, he, with Robert de Grosvenor, Knight, Reginald del Dounes,
and William de Shore, had protection granted on his departure for
the coast, there to stay for the safe custody of those parts and the
defence of the realm. In 1389 a contention arose between Sir Robert and
his kinsmen Peter, of Lyme, and John, his brother, a renewal probably
of a former dispute, touching the manner in which they should discharge
their several offices within the hundred of Macclesfield, when Sir
Robert with his sureties entered into recognisances to the King for one
thousand marks, to keep the peace towards Peter and John Legh, they at
the same time entering into counter-recognisances of the same amount
to keep the peace towards Sir Robert. He and Peter de Legh, of Lyme,
having been entrusted with the custody of John, the son and heir of
William Launcelyn, during his minority, an order was made to them in
1392, as appears by the Recognisance Rolls, to deliver possession of
all his inheritance to the said John on his making proof of age; at
the same time a like order was made with reference to Thomas, son and
heir of William Voil, who, while under age, had been in their custody,
and in the same year a commission was issued to Sir Robert, jointly
with Peter Legh, to arrest all malefactors and disturbers of the peace
within the hundred of Macclesfield. On the 12th October, 1393, John
de Massey, of Tatton, Sheriff of Cheshire, having been attainted, a
commission was issued to Sir Robert Legh and others, directing them to
arrest him and Thomas Talbot, Knight, and convey them to the castle
of Chester, and two days afterwards another commission was issued
appointing Sir Robert de Legh sheriff of the county during pleasure,
in the place of Massey. In 1394, when Richard the Second proceeded
to Ireland to quell the revolt which had broken out among the native
chiefs, taking with him four thousand knights, and thirty thousand
archers, including many of the noted Cheshire bowmen, we find Sir
Robert Legh, of Adlington, accompanying him, he being in the train of
Thomas, Earl of Nottingham; before his departure license was given to
William de Shore, William de Prydyn (afterwards rector of Gawsworth),
and Henry Marchall, to act as his attorneys during his absence. On the
23rd September, 1396, a commission was issued appointing him one of the
King’s justices for the three hundreds of the eyre of Macclesfield;
on the 12th February following he was a second time made Sheriff of
Cheshire; six months later (August 20th, 1397) he had a grant of an
annuity of £40, the King retaining him in his service for life; and
as a further mark of his sovereign’s favour he had conferred upon him
on the 4th October following the office of Constable of the Castle of
Oswaldestre (Oswestry) for life, with £10 yearly and the accustomed
fees. In 1398 he was again named one of the justices for the three
hundreds of the eyre at Macclesfield, and on the 20th August in the
following year, when the banished Bolingbroke, taking advantage of
the King’s absence in Ireland, had returned to England, raised the
standard of insurrection, and eventually compelled the humbled and
wretched Richard to renounce the crown, John de Legh, of Booths, one
of the seven gallant Cheshire men who had met the King on his landing
in Wales, submitted himself to the usurper, when Sir Robert de Legh of
Adlington and Sir John Stanley became sureties in £200 for his good
behaviour. Unlike his relative of Lyme, Peter Legh, who remained true
to his sovereign to the last, and at Chester sealed his loyalty with
his life, as his monumental inscription in Macclesfield old church
still testifies, and whose name Daniel thus perpetuates—
Nor thou, magnanimous Legh, must not be left
In darkness, for thy rare fidelity—
To save thy faith—content to lose thy head,
That reverent head, of good men honoured—
Sir Robert of Adlington elected to join the winning side, and repaired
to Shrewsbury, where he made his submission to the victorious
Bolingbroke, and afterwards joined with Sir James Booth and other
Cheshire men in furthering his cause. In this it must be admitted the
lord of Adlington showed as little gratitude as loyalty, for it was
only a few short months before that he had been retained and pensioned
by the king, and made constable or keeper for life of Oswestry Castle,
with an adequate salary; and had, moreover, been honoured in receiving
his sovereign as his guest during the sitting of the Parliament at
Shrewsbury, the occasion being the memorable one when Bolingbroke
charged the Duke of Norfolk with treason to his liege lord the king.
After Richard’s deposition and the accession of Bolingbroke as Henry
IV., Sir Robert was made one of the conservators of the peace for the
hundred of Macclesfield, and about the same time had a confirmation
of the letters of the 20th August, 1397, granting him the annuity of
£40 for life. Hugh le Despencer, Knt., having in 1401 been appointed
steward of Macclesfield, and surveyor, keeper, and master of the
forests of Macclesfield and Mara, and all other of the Prince’s forests
in Cheshire for life, Sir Robert de Legh was appointed by him to act
as his deputy. In the follow-year (Oct 16, 1402) he was again named one
of the justices for the three hundreds of the eyre at Macclesfield,
and at the same time a commission was issued to him and the other
justices, directing them to inquire into the doings of certain
malefactors and disturbers of the peace in the hundred of Macclesfield
of whose enormities the Prince (as Earl of Chester) had been informed.
After the battle of Shrewsbury, in which the valorous Hotspur lost
his life, Henry, who had found the throne of an usurper only a bed of
thorns, had to direct his arms against the obnoxious Glendower, and
the young Prince of Wales, then only seventeen years of age, who was
appointed to head the expedition, issued his precept (11th January,
1403-4) to Sir Robert Legh and others “to hasten 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 war against the King and the kingdom of England, all
those holding possessions on the Marches nearest to the enemy should
reside on the same for the defence of the realm.” This order, however,
would seem to have been countermanded, for in an old MS. account of
the family, beautifully written on vellum, and still preserved at
Adlington, it is stated that on the breaking out of the revolt in
the north of England, when the Earl of Northumberland, the Earl of
Nottingham, Lord Bardolf, and Scrope, Archbishop of York, confederated
to place the Earl of March on the throne, Sir Robert Legh received a
summons from the Prince of Wales, as Earl of Chester, countermanding
one previously issued, and “requiring him to attend him (the Prince)
in person at Warrington on Thursday the next, or on Friday at Preston,
or on Saturday at Skipton-in-Craven, with 100 defensible, honest, able
bowmen, in good array for war, to go with him thence to his father the
King, then on his journey to Pontefract.” This was on the 26th May, 6
Henry IV. (1405), and it is the last occasion on which Sir Robert’s
name occurs in connection with any important movement, for three years
later (August, 1408) he brought to a close a short but very active and
eventful life, being then only forty-seven years of age.
Sir Robert Legh, of Adlington, made his will on the 9th August, 1408,
and he must then have been _in extremis_, for he died before the 18th,
and was buried, in accordance with his expressed desire, in the Church
of St. Mary de la Pree, near Northampton. Among other things, he
directed the payment of 14 marks (£9 6s. 8d.) to a priest celebrating
in the church of Prestbury for two years—probably the priest serving
at one of the chantry altars there. The inquisition taken after his
death is interesting as showing the extent of the family possessions
at that time. They included the whole of the manor of Adlington, a
moiety of the manor of Hyde, the manor of Belgrave, 40 acres of land
in Eccleston, 12 messuages and 20 acres of land in Stockport, three
messuages and 20 acres of land in Romiley, one messuage and 20 acres
of land in Cheadle, one messuage in Macclesfield, one messuage and
three acres of land in Rainow within the forest of Macclesfield, two
messuages and two acres of land in Bollington, one messuage and 10
acres of land in Budworth, in the Fryth (the forest of Delamere), one
messuage and 10 acres of land in Tyresford, two messuages and two
acres of land in Kelsall, one messuage and 20 acres of land in Legh,
four salt pits, four shops and land in Northwich, three messuages in
Chester, one messuage and 20 acres of land in Warford, two messuages
and 40 acres of land in Mottram Andrew, one messuage and 20 acres of
land in Fulshaw, and the third part of one messuage and two acres of
land in Mottram-in-Longdendale. By his wife, Elizabeth Belgrave, he
had two sons—Robert, who inherited Adlington, and Reginald, of Mottram
Andrew, who built the tower and south porch of Prestbury church, as
the inscription on his sepulchral slab in the chancel there, which
may still be seen, testifies,[31] and two daughters. The name of his
second wife is not known with certainty, but she did not long wear the
trappings of widowhood, for on the 28th February, 1409-10, as appears
by an enrolment on the Recognisance Rolls in the Record Office, she had
a pardon granted to her for marrying Richard de Clyderhow without the
licence of the Earl of Chester.
[Note 31: It is somewhat remarkable that though the Leghs have been
settled in the parish for more than five centuries, and have been
patrons of the church for many generations, there is not a single
monumental inscription or other memorial of them in the church,
excepting that of Reginald Legh, of an earlier date than the one of
Charles Legh, who died in 1781.]
Robert Legh, who succeeded as lord of Adlington, though he was only
twenty-two years of age at the time of his father’s death, did not long
enjoy possession of the property. Dr. Renaud, relying apparently on the
MS. at Adlington, says that he died in 1410, but this statement, as we
shall hereafter see, is inaccurate. Shortly after he entered upon his
inheritance, a dispute arose between him and the Grosvenors, of Eaton,
touching their respective rights to certain lands at Pulford and other
places in the neighbourhood of Chester, under the settlement of Robert
Legh’s maternal grandfather, Thomas de Belgrave, and his wife, who was
heiress of Pulford. Eventually the two disputants, with their relations
and friends, on the 14th April, 1412, repaired to the “Chapel” at
Macclesfield—the old church of St Michael—when a very remarkable
ceremony took place, which is thus recorded in the pages of Ormerod:—
A series of deeds relating to these lands having been publicly
read in the chapel, it was stated that Sir Robert de Legh, Isabel,
his wife, and Robert de Legh, their son and heir, having claimed
them, it had been agreed, in order to settle their differences,
that Sir Thomas Grosvenor should take a solemn oath on the body of
Christ, in the presence of 24 gentlemen, or as many as he wished.
Accordingly Robert del Birches, the Chaplain, whom Robert de Legh
had brought with him, celebrated a mass of the Holy Trinity, and
consecrated the Host, and after the mass, having arrayed himself
in his alb, with the amice, the stole, and the maniple, held
forth the Host before the altar, whereupon Sir Thomas Grosvenor
knelt down before him whilst the settlements were again read by
James Holt, counsel of Robert de Legh, and then he swore upon the
body of Christ that he believed in the truth of these charters.
Immediately after this Sir Lawrence de Merbury, sheriff of the
county, and 57 other principal knights and gentlemen of Cheshire
affirmed themselves singly to be witnesses of this oath, all
elevating their hands at the same time towards the Host. This
first part of the ceremony concluded with Sir Thomas Grosvenor
receiving the sacrament, and Robert Legh and Sir Thomas kissing
each other in confirmation of the aforesaid agreement. Immediately
after this, Sir Robert publicly acknowledged the right to all
the said lands was vested in Sir Thomas Grosvenor and his heirs,
and an instrument to that effect was accordingly drawn up by
the notary, Roger Salghall, in the presence of the clergy then
present, and attested by the seals and signatures of the 58
knights and gentlemen.
The historian of Cheshire, in commenting upon the pomp and circumstance
attending the settlement of this family dispute, remarks: “Seldom will
the reader find a more goodly group collected together, nor will he
easily devise a ceremony which will assort better with the romantic
spirit of the time, and which thus turned a dry legal conveyance into
an exhibition of chivalrous pageantry.”
Robert Legh inherited the martial spirit of his father, and was not
long, after he had succeeded to the estates, in seeking an opportunity
to display his prowess. In 1415, Henry V., having revived the old claim
to the crown of France, determined upon an invasion of the French
King’s dominions, whereupon Robert Legh engaged himself to join in
the expedition, and accordingly, on the 18th July, protection of his
lands whilst abroad in the retinue of the King was granted him. The
force mustered at Southampton early in August, and on the 11th of the
month the fleet, consisting of 1,400 vessels, with 6,000 men-at-arms
and 24,000 archers, an army of picked men, strong of limb and stout of
heart, caring little for the abstract justice of the cause for which
they were to fight, content to know that they would receive their due
share of the “_gaignes de guerres_,” set sail. On the 14th, the force—
A city on the inconstant billows dancing,
arrived in the Seine, and landed near the fortified town of Harfleur,
which surrendered on the 22nd September. Henry’s army had, however,
to contend with a more powerful foe than the French. Disease made
frightful ravages in his camp, the poisonous miasma of the marshes of
Harfleur carrying off in those few weeks fully five thousand of the
besiegers. On the 7th October the remnant of the army advanced, and on
the 25th the splendid victory of Agincourt was achieved. Robert Legh,
however, was not permitted to share in the glories of that memorable
day, he having died of the pestilence five days after the surrender
of Harfleur, and an inquisition by virtue of a writ of _diem clausit
extremum_, dated 16th October, 1415, was taken.
He was succeeded by his only son, also named Robert, who, though then
only five years of age, boasted the possession of a wife, he having,
in accordance with the fashion of the time, and well nigh before he
could quit his cradle, been wedded to Isabel, one of the daughters of
Sir John Savage, of Clifton, Knight, who was entrusted with the custody
of his lands during his minority. On the 16th October, 3 and 4 Henry
V. (1416), Robert Legh’s young widow petitioned for and had livery of
dower, and shortly after she became the wife of William Honford, of
Chorley, a younger brother of Sir John de Honford, of Handforth.
On the 4th May, 1431, Robert Legh made proof of age, when his mother’s
second husband, William Honford, “aged 60 and upwards,” was one of the
witnesses, and testified “that the said Robert was born at Adlynton,
and baptized in the church at Prestbury, the Tuesday on the feast of
the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (March 25, 1410), and was
aged 21 on the feast of the Invention of the Holy Cross (May 3) then
last past; and that he, William, was present at Prestbury the day when
Robert Hyde, his godfather, came to the church at Prestbury with the
said Robert.” (Earwaker.)
The name of Robert Legh appears among those who on the 3rd March,
1435-6, were summoned to attend the Council of the boy King Henry VI.
at Chester, when he and the others then assembled, in the name of the
whole community of the county of Chester, granted to the King a subsidy
of 1,000 marks (£666 13s. 4d.); and on the 28th May, in the same year,
he with Robert de Honford, Knight, Robert Massy of Godley, and John
Pygot were appointed collectors of the subsidy within the hundred
of Macclesfield. In March, 1441-2, a further subsidy of 3,000 marks
(£2,000) having been granted by the county, Robert Legh was again
deputed, with the others named, to collect the same within the hundred.
In the MS. account of the Legh family, preserved at Adlington, and
to which reference has already been made, it is said that, in 1447,
Robert de Legh obtained a licence from the Bishop of Coventry “to keep
a chaplain to perform mass and other divine offices in any of his
manor houses within the diocese for the term of thirty years, without
prejudice to the curate of the place, on which licence a domestic
chapel was built at Adlington.” The chapel thus erected stood in the
park, within a few hundred yards of the front of the present mansion,
and on the site known at the present day by the name of the Chapel
Field.
The first connection of the Leghs with the manor of Prestbury dates
from 1448, when the manor with the great and small tithes, which had
previously been leased to the Pigots, of Butley, were demised by
the Abbot of St Werburgh’s, Chester, to Robert Legh for thirty-nine
years, together with the Heybirches and Ewood, and also the advowson
of the church of Prestbury, and all other rights and appurtenances
belonging to it and the manor, the vicar’s endowment excepted—one
of the conditions being that the lessee should provide a fit and
proper chaplain to celebrate divine service in the chapel of Poynton,
within the parish of Prestbury, during the continuance of the lease,
a condition, however, that was not always observed, for in 1500 the
tithes of Poynton were sequestrated in consequence of the omission or
neglect to fulfil the condition named. Some dispute having subsequently
arisen, a new lease was granted in 1461, which was renewed in 1493.
This last expired in 1524, and in the year following another lease
was granted for forty years. On the 9th March, 1462 (2 Edward IV.),
the King, as Earl of Chester, granted to Robert Legh a licence to
enclose and impark a certain wood called Whiteley Hay and Adlington
Wood, and also a place called Whiteley Green, with liberty to hold the
park so enclosed and imparked to him and his heirs for ever. The place
remained enclosed until the early part of the last century, when it
was disparked, and a tract of land more conveniently near the hall
applied to the purpose. In 1478 his mother, Matilda, who had survived
her first husband sixty-three years, and had also outlived her second
husband, William de Honford, died. She must have been very old, for
in the inquisition taken after her death her son Robert was said to
be sixty-eight years of age. He had livery of the lands held by her
in dower, but did not long enjoy possession of them, for his death
occurred on the 21st January following. As already stated, he had been
married in his infancy to Isabella, daughter of Sir John Savage, of
Clifton. This lady predeceased him, and he afterwards married Isabella,
a daughter of Sir William Stanley, of Stanley, Stourton, and Hooton,
who, according to the Adlington MS., was within the prohibited degrees,
being of the blood of his first wife, and, consequently, it was thought
prudent, if not indeed necessary, to make the marriage valid, to obtain
a dispensation from the Pope.
On the death of Robert Legh, his eldest son, who bore the same name,
and who was then fifty years of age, and married to Ellen, daughter
of Sir Robert Booth, of Dunham Massey, Knight, succeeded to the
patrimonial lands. Two years afterwards, a quarrel having arisen
between Edward IV. and James III. of Scotland, which resulted in the
breaking off of the marriage treaty between the English Princess Cicely
and the son of the Scottish King, and the resumption of hostilities
between the two countries, a commission was issued (November 18, 1480)
to Robert Legh, and other persons therein named, requiring them to
array the fencible men of the hundred before the Christmas following,
and to command the same to be in readiness in warlike attire to attend
upon the Earl of Chester on three days’ notice; and on the 15th January
following another commission was issued to the same persons, requiring
them to communicate with the gentlemen of the hundred to determine the
number of horsemen, with their harness, that could be raised in their
households, and to make a return before the Wednesday next before the
Feast of the Purification. A third commission was issued to them in
May, 1481, to array the fencible men of the hundred between the ages of
sixteen and sixty, and to appoint a certain day for the same to depart
“_pro viagio dicti partes nostri versus partes socie_.” Mr. Earwaker
cites a deed from which it appears that on the 6th December, 1483, John
Legh, a younger brother of Robert, a priest in orders, and then rector
of Rostherne, and Douce or Dulcia, his sister, granted to the said
Robert all their right and title to the manor and church of Prestbury.
The fierce struggle of the Red and White Roses destroyed the power and
weakened the influence of the English nobility and their feudatory
chiefs by sweeping away the heads of the principal families. Their sun
went down when the stout Earl of Warwick, the renowned “King-maker,”
lay weltering in his gore upon the field at Barnet; Tewkesbury
extinguished their hopes; and the fight at Bosworth ended a contest
which, in the field and on the scaffold, had cost the lives of more
than sixty princes of the royal family, above one-half of the nobles
and principal gentlemen, and above a hundred thousand of the common
people of England. Fortunately for themselves, the lords of Adlington
passed harmless through that eventful period. It does not appear that
Robert Legh took any very active part in the protracted struggle
between the rival houses of York and Lancaster. The Lyme Leghs had
plucked the “pale and maiden blossom” and given their verdict “on the
White Rose side,” but there is reason to believe that, in the closing
years of his life at least, the sympathies of Robert Legh were on the
side of the Red Rose of Lancaster. It may be that, like the kinsmen of
his father’s second wife, the Stanleys of Lancashire, he believed that
to be “the true policy which had the most success,” and, like them,
have been a faithful adherent of the party of “good luck.” Certain it
is that the great and exhausting quarrel between these rival houses,
which brought death and destruction to so many an English home, left
his house with unimpaired estates and undiminished power; but he
did not long survive the close of that unhappy struggle, his death
occurring on the 8th December, 1486, when he must have been sixty-eight
years of age. By his wife, whom he predeceased, and who died in 1504,
he had Thomas Legh, who succeeded as his heir, four younger sons, and
one daughter.
Thomas Legh was thirty-five years of age when he entered upon his
inheritance, and he had then been married about seven years, his wife
being Katharine, daughter of Sir John Savage, of Clifton, and sister of
Thomas Savage, Archbishop of York, the founder of the Savage chantry in
Macclesfield church, and of Ellen Savage, who married Sir Piers Legh,
of Lyme.
Two years after the victory at Bosworth, which gave the crown of
England to Henry of Richmond, a desperate effort was made by the
friends of the fallen tyrant, Richard III., to secure the throne for
the impostor Lambert Simnel, and when the new King’s crown was in peril
at the battle of Stokefield, Thomas Legh’s relative, Piers Legh, of
Lyme, drew his sword and fought valiantly to defend it. In November of
that year (1487) a subsidy was voted to the King by his loyal subjects
in the county of Chester, and the name of Thomas Legh, of Adlington,
occurs _inter alia_ among those authorised to collect the portion due
from the hundred of Macclesfield.
In 1498 he obtained a licence from the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry
to have mass and other divine offices performed by a fit chaplain in
the chapel situated within his manor of Adlington—a renewal, it would
seem, of the privilege conceded to his grandfather, Robert Legh, in
1447. When Henry’s eldest son, Arthur, Prince of Wales, succeeded to
the earldom, he was at great pains to guard against any encroachment
affecting the “sword and dignity of Chester,” and with that object
made a searching inquiry as to the authority in which many of his
feudatories exercised their privileges. Among them Thomas Legh, in
1499-1500, had a _quo warranto_, requiring him to show cause why he
claimed to have a park at Whiteley Hay and to hold a court-leet, &c. He
replied, setting forth the grant made by Edward IV. to his grandfather;
he further pleaded right of free-warren in all his Cheshire
possessions, and claimed the assize of bread and ale, the punishing of
scolds by the cucking-stool, of bakers by amercement or the pillory,
and brewers by judgment of the tumbrell, and to have amercements and
fines for trespasses, offences, and effusions of blood in affrays
presented within the leet to be assessed by the jury. The answer must
have been deemed satisfactory, for no further action appears to have
been taken against him in the Earl’s court.
If we may judge from some of the enrolments on the Recognisance Rolls,
Thomas Legh must have been a somewhat turbulent subject, and have been
frequently at variance with his neighbours and friends. Impatient
of the dilatory and uncertain processes of the law, he sometimes
had recourse to the simpler and less tardy method of taking the
adjustment of his differences into his own hands, a mode of procedure
that occasionally brought him into trouble, and subjected him to the
inconvenience of having to find sureties for his good behaviour.
He oftentimes appeared in the legal arena, and not unfrequently
his quarrels were with his wife’s father, Sir John Savage, who was
then residing at the park at Macclesfield, the custody of which had
been granted him by King Henry in acknowledgment of his services at
Bosworth. Thus, on the 14th November, 1488, he was required to enter
into a recognisance of 1,000 marks that he and all his children and
servants would keep the peace towards Sir John Savage, sen., knight,
and on the same day he entered into another recognisance of the like
amount that he, his children, and servants would keep the peace towards
Nicholas Davenport, of Woodford, and his servants. On the 28th April,
1489, he again gave sureties in two sums of 1,000 marks each that
he would keep the peace towards his father-in-law, Sir John Savage,
his children, and servants, and Nicholas Davenport, of Woodford,
his children, and servants, and at the same time he entered into a
further recognisance of £200 to keep the peace towards Hamo Ashley,
Esq. Whatever may have been the cause of the difference with his
father-in-law, it was a long time before the variance was composed, for
on the 20th April, 1490, he again appeared in the law courts, when he
was required to find sureties in 1,000 marks to keep the peace towards
him. On the 11th May, 1495, he and his brother, John Legh, of Lawton,
entered into recognisances of 1,000 marks each to abide the award of
Hamnet Massy and others named, touching all disputes between the two
brothers and Nicholas Davenport and William Honford, of Davenport
and Honford, at the same time entering into recognisances for the
same amounts. The arbitration must have been very protracted, for
the recognisances and counter recognisances were renewed on the 12th
April, 1496, again on 9th September in the same year, and a third time
on the 19th June, 1498. On the 8th June, 1501, Thomas Legh was again
required to give sureties, this time in £100, to keep the peace towards
John Carter and Robert Rokeley; and on the 19th September, 1502, he
entered into recognisances of £100 to keep the peace towards Richard
Phillips, chaplain. He either lacked prudence, or his neighbours must
have been more than ordinarily litigious, for it was not long before
he was again involved in a suit, this time at the instance of Robert
Walls, the representative of a family located at Adlington. He appears
to have been then outlawed in error, for on the 5th March, 1st and 2nd
Henry VIII., proceedings were taken against Roger Downes and others for
restitution of goods seized under the outlawry. In July of the same
year he entered into recognisances to the Earl of Chester to keep the
peace towards his neighbour, Sir John Warren, of Poynton.
In the Calendar of Warrants, removed from Chester to the Public Record
Office, London, there is one dated at Ludlow Castle, 1st April, 12th
Henry VII., 1497, appointing the Bishop of Lincoln, the Bishop of
Lichfield and Coventry, and others named, a commission to levy money
in the counties of Chester and Flint, to aid the King in repelling the
unprovoked invasion of James IV. of Scotland, who, in violation of
the treaty of 1493, had raised an army in support of Perkin Warbeck
and crossed the borders, spoiling and plundering the country. The
Parliament which assembled at Westminster in January of that year had
granted him £120,000 under certain restrictions, and on the 6th April,
Thomas Legh, and other loyal men of Cheshire, assembled at Chester,
and in the name of the county granted him a further sum of 1,000 marks.
Four days later a commission was issued to Thomas Legh and others to
array the fencible men of the hundred before the 1st May following, for
the purpose of aiding in the war against the Scotch. Henry VII., in the
indulgence of his inordinate passion for money, had frequent recourse
to a system of benevolences or contributions, apparently voluntary,
though, in fact, extorted from his wealthier subjects, and also to
the granting of subsidies—“reasonable aids,” as they were called. In
1501, on the occasion of the marriage of Arthur, Prince of Wales, with
Katharine of Arragon, afterwards the unhappy queen of Henry VIII.,
a subsidy was granted by the county of Chester, and Thomas Legh was
appointed with others to collect the portion due from his own hundred.
When Henry of Richmond came out of the field of Bosworth a victor
it was to rule over a nation weak and impoverished, and bleeding at
every vein. The sword had vied with the axe, and the nobles had shown
themselves too powerful for the comfort or security of the monarch.
To destroy their influence the King determined upon the suppression
of their retainers—virtually the rent of the lands granted in
knights’ service, thus freeing their properties from the burden of
supplying the armies of the State. In this way peace and good order
were re-established, and an end put to those intestine wars which had
well-nigh exhausted the country. Though the Leghs had not suffered
to any appreciable extent from these internal broils, it is more
than probable that less attention had been paid to their ancestral
home than would have been the case had public affairs been in a more
settled state. With the return to a more peaceful order of things they
had leisure to add to the beauty and convenience of their permanent
home. Architecture marks the growth and development of human society,
and the progress of refinement as well as the changes society had
undergone rendered alterations at Adlington necessary for the comfort
and convenience of the inmates. Thomas Legh, if he did not rebuild the
house, remodelled and greatly enlarged it; and much of the traceried
panel-work forming part of the ancient screen, as well as other carved
work still remaining, was no doubt executed during his time. In
commemoration of his work, he caused his name and that of his wife,
with the date, to be affixed in carved Lombardic letters—
=Thomas Legh & Catarina Sauage uxor ejus=
=Ao. Doi. Mo cc/ccc Vto R. R. H. bij., xx.=
The inscription appears over the high-place at the west end of the
great hall, and was probably replaced in the last century during the
occupancy of Charles Legh.
Thomas Legh died August 8, 1519, leaving, with other issue, a son,
George Legh, then aged 22 years, who succeeded as his heir.
“Better marry over the mixen than over the moor” has ever been a
favourite proverb with the men of Cheshire; and the heads of the house
of Legh evidently believed in the soundness of the advice it conveyed,
for, from the time their Norman progenitor first settled in the county,
they had been content to mate within their own shire. The first of
the manorial lords of Adlington to depart from this long-established
custom was George Legh, who, in 1523, married the daughter of a
Huntingdonshire squire—Joan, daughter of Peter Larke, and a sister of
that Thomas Larke on whom Cardinal Wolsey had bestowed the rich rectory
of Winwick, in Lancashire—and it can hardly be said that the departure
added much to the reputation of his house, the supposed antecedents of
the lady having given rise to no inconsiderable amount of scandal. It
is said that, previous to her marriage with Thomas Legh, Joan Larke
had been the mistress (not the illegitimate daughter, as a recent
writer has unnecessarily sought to disprove) of Cardinal Wolsey. The
statement is evidently made on the authority of one of the “Articles
of Impeachment” against Wolsey presented to Parliament by a committee
of the House of Lords, December 1, 1529, and quoted in Lord Herbert of
Cherbury’s “Life of Henry VIII.” The story is a curious one, and, if
true, reflects little credit either upon the Cardinal or his frail
companion. The accusation is embodied in the 38th article—
That the sd Cardinal did call before him Sir Jno. Stanley, kt.,
which had taken a farm by convent seal of the Abbot and Convent of
Chester; and afterwards by his power and might, contrary to right,
committed the said Sir Jno. Stanley to the prison of Fleet by the
space of one year, until such time as he compelled the sd Sir Jno.
to release his convent seal to one Leghe, of Adlington, which
married one Lark’s daughter, which woman the sd lord cardinal
kept and had with her two children; whereupon the sd Sir John
Stanley, upon displeasure taken in his heart, made himself monk in
Westminster, and there died.
The story, it must be confessed, has much improbability about it;
and may, as has been suggested, have been prompted by feelings of
malice against the fallen ecclesiastic. Certain it is, the charge was
not pressed to a direct issue. Whatever may have been the relations
existing between Wolsey and the wife of Thomas Legh, there is no doubt
that in the short interval between the expiry of the lease of the
Prestbury tithes, in 1523-4, and the granting of a new one by the Abbot
of St Werburg, in the following year, a dispute had arisen between
George Legh and Sir John Stanley respecting them. It is not improbable
that the latter had endeavoured to steal a march upon his neighbour by
securing a lease of a portion of them to the disadvantage of the Leghs,
who, as we have seen, had been farmers of the impropriate rectory for a
lengthened period, and that the Cardinal, who is known to have been a
patron of the Larkes, was then appealed to with a view of inducing the
monks of Chester to grant George Legh a renewal of the privileges his
family had so long enjoyed. If so, the appeal was unsuccessful, for in
1524-5 a new lease for forty years was granted, which was subsequently
renewed.
Sir John Stanley was a natural son of James Stanley, warden of
Manchester, and afterwards Bishop of Ely, a younger son of that Thomas,
Lord Stanley, who placed the crown of the vanquished Richard upon the
head of the victorious Richmond on the field of Bosworth. He commanded
his father’s retainers at the battle of Flodden Field, in 1513, when
his uncle, Sir Edward Stanley, afterwards created Lord Monteagle, led
the forces of Lancashire and Cheshire, and Sir Edmund Savage, mayor of
Macclesfield, and so many of the burgesses of that town were slain;
and on that occasion by his valour in the field won his golden spurs.
He married Margaret, the only daughter and heir of William Honford, of
Honford, by his wife Margaret, daughter of Sir John Savage, and was
consequently closely allied to the Leghs of Adlington. In 1528 he and
his wife prayed for a divorce in order that they might severally devote
themselves to a religious life, and be quit of the world for ever. The
divorce was granted, and he became a monk of Westminster, where he
died; his wife also entered a religious house, but must have abandoned
her intention of becoming a recluse, for she afterwards married Sir
Urian Brereton, by whom she had a family, who through her inherited
the Honford estates. Though Sir John assumed the cowl and tonsure of
a monk, it is hardly credible, even supposing the story of Wolsey’s
arbitrary exercise of power to have been true, that he forsook the
society of his wife, retreated from the world, and disappeared in the
shadow of the cloister “from displeasure taken in his heart” upon a
matter of such comparatively little moment, and occurring four or five
years previously.
A recent writer, in an account of Adlington, says that Sir John Stanley
“was himself an ecclesiastic and warden of Manchester;” that his claim
“was espoused by the Bishop of Ely, his father;” and that “the battle
seems in reality to have been fought between the powerful Bishop of
Ely on the one hand, and the yet more powerful Cardinal on the other.”
These statements are entirely erroneous. Sir John, in early life,
had embraced the profession of arms; as a soldier he had earned his
knighthood by bravery on the field; and, being married, he would by the
canons of the Church be disqualified from holding an ecclesiastical
preferment, while, as a fact, his father, the Bishop of Ely, had been
in his grave eight or nine years when the dispute respecting the
Prestbury tithes arose.
George Legh died on the 12th June, 1529, at the early age of
thirty-two. His will was only made on the day preceding his decease,
and the broad lands of Adlington were transmitted to his only son,
Thomas Legh, then an infant two years of age. His wife survived
him, and was remarried to George Paulet, brother of the Marquis of
Winchester, and she with her second husband appear to have resided
at Adlington during the minority of the heir, for in a return of the
clergy serving at the various chapels of ease within the parish of
Prestbury there occurs the name of Sir James Hurst, a stipendiary
priest, paid by George Pollet (Paulet), and apparently serving in
the chapel at Adlington. By an unaccountable error Thomas Legh, of
Adlington, has been confounded with another personage of the same name,
who, as one of the commissioners under Sir Thomas Cromwell, took an
active part in the suppression of the religious houses. The mistake
will be apparent when it is remembered that at the time (1536) that
worthy was denouncing monachism and despoiling the monks of their lands
and houses Thomas Legh, of Adlington, was only in his ninth year, and
before he had attained to manhood the great and lesser monasteries had
been swept away.
Whilst he was in his minority he had been united in marriage with
one of the younger daughters of the great house of Grosvenor—Mary,
the daughter of Robert Grosvenor, of Eaton, the direct ancestor of
the present Duke of Westminster. It is not known with certainty how
the match was brought about, but in those days the lord of the fee
was entitled to the wardship of the heir, with the right to put up
his or her hand to sale in marriage; and if Richard Grosvenor, as
is not unlikely, had the wardship of the Adlington estates, he may
have thought the alliance a desirable one for a younger member of his
numerous family. It was to avoid the evil arising from this feudal
practice that so many early marriages were in former times resorted
to, parents being oftentimes prompted to seek an eligible match for
their heirs while under age to free them from the exactions and other
consequences of wardship—a circumstance that could have been little
understood by the President Montesquieu, when he cast the sneer upon
our country in saying there was a law in England which permitted girls
of seven years of age to choose their own husbands, and which, he
added, was shocking in two ways, since it had no regard to the time
when nature gives maturity to the understanding, nor to the time when
she gives maturity to the body. Mary Grosvenor survived her husband
and remarried Sir Richard Egerton, of Ridley, Knight, with whom she
appears to have resided at Adlington during the minority of the son by
her first husband. She had the manor and tithes of Prestbury settled
upon her as dower; and in 1558 her second husband is found attending a
meeting in the church at Prestbury, and acting there in the capacity of
warden—an office then held in much higher esteem than at the present
day. The lady deserves to be held in special remembrance by the men
of Cheshire, from the circumstance that she is generally believed to
have superintended the education and taken a kindly interest in the
well-being of a notable Cheshire worthy, who attained the highest
honours of the peerage, Richard Egerton’s base-born son by Alice
Starke, of Bickerton—Thomas Egerton, Viscount Brackley, Lord Keeper and
Chancellor of England, ancestor of the great Duke of Bridgewater, as
well as of the present Earl of Ellesmere—a worthy who, if precluded by
the circumstances of his birth from deriving honour from an illustrious
ancestry, reflected on them, his descendants, and his county the
lustre of a name brighter than any other its annals can boast. It
is pleasant to think that some of the earlier years of the great
Chancellor were spent within the old house at Adlington, and that the
generous-hearted lady to whom he owed so much was not forgotten when
he had attained to distinction, and she in her old age had become the
victim of religious persecution.[32] She died in 1599, having survived
her first husband for the long period of fifty-one years. In her will,
dated 18th October, 1597, she appoints the Lord Keeper Egerton, whom
she designates her “wellbeloved sonne,” one of her executors, and
bequeaths to him “one ringe of Goulde having thereon a Dyamond.” She is
buried at Astbury, where her altar-tomb, with a recumbent effigy upon
the top, may still be seen.
[Note 32: Lady Egerton, who remained a firm adherent of the ancient
faith, is frequently named in the prosecutions for recusancy under the
severe statutes of Elizabeth, but appeals for mitigation were often and
successfully made through, as would seem, the influence of the Lord
Keeper Egerton.]
Thomas Legh, the first husband of Mary Grosvenor, did not long enjoy
possession of the ancestral domains, his death occurring at Eaton, May
17, 1548, the year in which he attained his majority. The only issue
by his marriage was a son, Thomas, aged one year at the time of his
death, so that the broad lands of Adlington were once more held in ward
through the infancy of the heir.
On the 21st April, 1548, three weeks before his death, Thomas Legh
granted to his wife’s eldest brother, Thomas Grosvenor, of Eaton, all
the lands which his family had held in Belgrave from the time of the
marriage of Sir Robert Legh with the heiress of Sir Thomas Belgrave,
_circa_ 1385; and four days later he settled the remainder of his
estates, including “the Hall of Adlington,” in trust for the benefit of
himself and his wife and his heirs in tail male.
Sir Urian Brereton, who married the widow of Sir John Stanley, the
quondam recluse, seems to have acquired, with the lady, Sir John’s
craving for the Prestbury tithes, for in 1538, during the minority of
Thomas Legh the elder, he obtained from the Abbot of St. Werburg’s, in
the names of himself and John Broughton, the reversion of the lease of
the manor and advowson, to commence on the expiry of the one for 40
years renewed to George Legh in 1524; and this reversion was afterwards
purchased by Richard and John Grosvenor, the brothers of Mary, the
wife of Thomas Legh, in trust, and to prevent their alienation from
the other Adlington properties. But a great revolution in religious
thought and action was then gradually gaining strength and power,
and the day was near at hand when the monks and their system were to
be overthrown. On the dissolution of St. Werburg’s Abbey the manor
and advowson of the church of Prestbury were granted to the Dean and
Chapter of the newly-founded Cathedral of Chester. They did not,
however, long enjoy possession; William Clyve, the third dean, and two
of the prebendaries, were confined in the Fleet by procurement of Sir
Richard Cotton, of Werblington, comptroller of the King’s household, a
Hampshire knight, who appears to have shared the acquisitive properties
of his elder brother, Sir George Cotton, another courtier and favourite
of the King, who had had conferred upon himself the dissolved abbey and
the greater part of the demesne of Combermere, in Cheshire, and who,
in other ways, had increased his worldly possessions out of the spoils
of the religious houses. While in the Fleet, under intimidation, as
was alleged, the dean and canons granted to Sir Richard (20th March,
1553), for ever, most of their lands on the payment of a yearly rental;
he in turn, on the 28th July, 1555, re-conveyed the manor and advowson
of Prestbury to Richard and John Grosvenor, who, in 1559, are found
presenting to the vicarage. The validity of the grant to Cotton was
subsequently disputed, and on the Cheshire Recognisance Rolls, under
date January 13th, 5 and 6 Elizabeth (1563-4), there is the enrolment
of a complaint exhibited by Richard and John Grosvenor. Eventually the
feoffees surrendered to the Crown; on the 19th December, 1579, the
whole of the lands formerly held by the abbey were granted by Elizabeth
to Sir George Calveley, Knight, George Cotton, Hugh Cholmondeley,
Thomas Legh, Henry Mainwaring, John Nuthall, and Richard Hurleston,
Esquires, and their heirs for ever; and, by another indenture, dated
6th August, 1580, the counterpart of which is preserved among the
Adlington charters, these fee farmers, after reciting the grant of
Elizabeth, for divers good causes and considerations them specially
moving, demised and quit-claimed to Thomas Legh and his heirs the
rectory, church, and manor of Prestbury, with the appurtenances,
excepting the certain messuages, tenements, and hereditaments, with the
appurtenances and the tithes, oblations, and obventions, of Chelford
and Asthull (Astle). They have since continued in the possession of the
Leghs, and have descended with their other estates.
Thomas Legh had a long minority, and it was a fortunate thing for him
that in those early years of his life he had a good mother, who, with
the aid of her powerful kinsmen, was able to guard his estates and
protect him from undue taxation. On the 16th March, 1567-8, he obtained
livery of his father’s lands, he being then of full age. He had,
five years previously (29th June, 1563), being then in his sixteenth
year, married, at Cheadle, Sybil, the youngest daughter of Sir Urian
Brereton, of Honford, by his first wife, Margaret, daughter and heir of
William Honford, and widow of Sir John Stanley, a marriage that it may
be fairly assumed happily terminated the long-standing disputes between
the two houses respecting the tithes of Prestbury.
Following the example of his father-in-law, who rebuilt the hall of
Handforth, Thomas Legh, in 1581, rebuilt, or at all events, greatly
enlarged, the house at Adlington, as the following inscription, in
black-letter characters, over the entrance porch leading from the
court-yard testifies:—
=Thomas Leyghe esquyer who maryed Sibbell doughter to Sir Urian
Brereton of hondforde knight, and by her had Issue four sonnes &
fyue doughters, made this buyldinge in the yeare of or lorde god
1581 And in the raigne of our soveyraigne lady Queene Elizabeth
the xxiijth.=
In 1587 Thomas Legh had the shrievalty of Cheshire conferred upon him.
The time was one of considerable excitement and no little anxiety, for
scarcely had he entered upon the duties of his office than news came
that the “Invincible Armada,” so long threatened and so long deferred,
had unfurled its sails, and was then actually advancing towards the
English coast. The spirit of patriotism was aroused; Roman Catholic and
Protestant united as one man to repel the haughty Spaniard, and the
Queen issued a proclamation to her sheriffs and others, urging them
by every consideration of social and domestic security to call forth
the united energies of their respective counties, in common with the
country in general, to resist the meditated attack. Thomas Legh, who
was then in the prime of manhood, was not likely to be idle on such
an occasion, and doubtless he acted with much the same spirit that
Macaulay’s sheriff did when the signal fires announcing the approach
of the enemy flashed along the southern coasts,—
With his white hair unbonneted, the stout old sheriff comes,
Behind him come the halberdiers, before him sound the drums;
His yeomen round the market cross make clear an ample space,
For there behoves him to set up the standard of Her Grace.
And haughtily the trumpets peal, and gaily dance the bells,
As slow upon the labouring wind the royal blazon swells.