the patrimonial lands. Towards the close of the century, when the
Butley estates, which had been held for so many generations by the
Pigots, were partitioned among three co-heiresses, he acquired by
purchase the manor and a moiety of the lands, which descended with
the Adlington property until the present century. On the 20th April,
1596, an enrolment was made, as appears by the Cheshire Records, at the
instance of Dame Mary Egerton, his mother, then a widow, of a covenant
by which he undertook to convey the mansion house of Adlington, with
other properties, to her use for life, and afterwards to himself with
successive remainders in fee tail to his sons Urian, Thomas, and
Edward, and his daughter, Maria Legh, and his right heirs for ever. In
the same year his eldest son, Urian Legh, brought distinction to the
family by his gallant bearing at Cadiz, where he earned for himself the
honour of knighthood, an event respecting which we shall have more to
say anon. Proud as the father must have felt at his son’s conspicuous
bravery, the pleasure must have had its alloy when, in the following
year, he had the misfortune to lose his younger son, Ralph, who was
slain by the insurgents in an attack upon Newry, in Ireland; and, to
add to his sorrow, in the next year, 1598, he lost another son, Thomas
Legh, who, with his commander, Sir Henry Bagnall, was killed in the
disastrous attempt to relieve the fortress of Blackwater,—the most
signal defeat ever experienced by an English force in Ireland,—when
Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, who had been for some time in
insurrection against the English rule, was besieging it, and who had,
at the same time, burned down the castle of Kilcoleman, where
Amongst the coolly shade
Of the green aldars, by the Mulla’s shore,
the “Faery Queen” had been written, and its gifted author, Edmund
Spenser, was then residing.
Thomas Legh died at Adlington on the 25th January, 1601-2, in the
fifty-fifth year of his age, and was buried at Prestbury, on the
following day, as the parish registers show. The same year his widow
caused a memorial window, a portion of which still remains, though in
a very mutilated condition, to be placed in the church, on which is a
shield of arms, with several quarterings, representing the alliances of
the two families. Beneath is this inscription:—
ORATE PRO BONO STATV THOMÆ LEYGHE DE ADLINGTON ARMIGERI ET SIBILLA
VXORIS SVÆ VNI’ FILIORVM VRIANI BRERETON DE HANDFORD MILITIS
DEFVNCTI QVI HANC FENESTRAM FIERI FECERVNT IN ANNO DOMINI 1601.
She survived her husband eight years, and was buried at Prestbury,
February 19th, 1609-10.
Sir Urian Legh, who succeeded as heir on the death of his father, in
1602, was born at Handforth in 1566, and was, consequently, in his
thirty-sixth year when he entered upon his inheritance. As we have
seen, he had early embraced the profession of arms, and in the service
of his country had already won renown. It was the time when Elizabeth’s
sea captains, Howard and Essex, and Raleigh and Drake, were adding to
the national laurels by their achievements on the main, justifying
the witty and well-timed impromptu which one of the courtiers gave
when lament was made that England was then under the rule of a queen,
instead of that of a king,—
O fortune! to old England still
Continue such mistakes,
And give us for our Kings such Queens,
And for our dux such Drakes.
In 1596, when Philip of Spain was preparing for a second invasion of
England, Howard, the Lord Admiral, with his characteristic daring and
love of adventure, urged that, instead of waiting for the enemy’s
attack, a blow should be struck at Spain herself, by destroying the
fleet before it could leave her harbours. The more cautious Burleigh
counselled the less hazardous policy, but was overruled by the dashing
and impetuous Devereux, Earl of Essex, who, with Howard and Raleigh,
was eventually entrusted with the command of the expedition. Young
Urian Legh could not remain a laggard when such opportunities for
distinction offered; leaving the bower and the tilt yard for the
Spanish main, and the saddle of the war horse for the deck of the war
ship, he joined the expedition, and on the 1st of June, the fleet,
then lying at Plymouth, loosed its sails and bore away towards the
shores of Spain, arriving before Cadiz on the 12th. Essex, whose
impetuosity could brook no restraint, and who had, moreover, a bitter
aversion to the tyrant Philip, was so eager for action that he threw
his hat into the sea in the exuberance of his delight. The attack was
commenced on the following day, and with such fury that the Spanish
Admiral’s ship and several others were blown up with all their crews
on board, whilst the few vessels which were not either sunk or burned
were run on shore, the English admiral refusing to accept a price for
their release, declaring that “he came to burn and not to ransom.”
This daring and successful enterprise was followed up by an attack on
the strongly-fortified town of Cadiz. The impetuous Essex threw his
standard over the wall, “giving withal a most hot assault unto the
gate, where, to save the honour of their ensign, happy was he that
could first leap down from the wall, and with shot and sword make way
through the thickest press of the enemy.” The daring of the leader
called forth the courage of his followers. The town was captured on
the 26th June, and six hundred and twenty thousand ducats were paid as
a ransom for the lives of the inhabitants. The heir of Adlington took
the leading part in the attack, and displayed such conspicuous bravery
that the Earl knighted him upon the spot. The display of British valour
on the occasion has been justly described by Macaulay (“Essays,”
art. “Lord Bacon,”) as “the most brilliant military exploit that was
achieved on the continent by English arms during the long interval
which elapsed between the battle of Agincourt and that of Blenheim.”
Sir Urian Legh stands out with marked individuality in any record of
the house of Adlington. The Leghs have ever looked with pardonable
pride upon the doughty deeds of their warlike ancestor, and the feeling
has been nothing lessened by the romantic incident which tradition has
linked with his name. He is commonly believed to have been the hero of
the old legendary ballad,—“The Spanish Lady’s Love,” written by Thomas
Deloney immediately after the return from Spain, and reprinted by the
Percy Society from “The Garland of Goodwill”—
Will you hear a Spanish lady,
How she wooed an English man?
The story is that, while with Essex in Spain, a captive maid, “by birth
and parentage of high degree,” was so overcome by Sir Urian’s kindness
that she conceived an ardent attachment towards him, and when he was
about to return, the amorous and high-born beauty, flinging aside
the trammels of country and kin, begged that she might be allowed to
accompany him and share his lot in life—a request the gallant Cheshire
man, after urging many other objections, was compelled to refuse, for
the best of all reasons—he had already a wife.
Courteous ladye, leave this fancy,
Here comes all that breeds the strife;
I in England have already
A sweet woman to my wife;
I will not falsify my vow for gold nor gain,
Nor yet for all the fairest dames that live in Spain.
To which the disappointed lady magnanimously replies—
Ah! how happy is that woman
That enjoys so true a friend!
Many happy days God send her!
Of my suit I make an end.
On my knees I pardon crave for this offence,
Which did from love and true affection first commence.
Commend me to thy loving lady,
Bear to her this chain of gold,
And these bracelets for a token;
Grieving that I was so bold.
All my jewels in like sort bear thou with thee,
For they are fitting for thy wife, but not for me.
It has been stated by some writers that the ballad has reference
not to Sir Urian Legh, but to Sir John Bolle, of Thorpe Hall, in
Lincolnshire, the representative of a family remotely connected in
a later generation with the Leghs of Adlington; while Dr. Percy, in
his introductory remarks, inclines to the opinion that the original
was either a member of the Popham family or Sir Richard Leveson, of
Trentham, in Staffordshire, an ancestor of the Duke of Sutherland.
The legend has doubtless some foundation in fact, though the _actores
fabulæ_ may be phantoms; it should, however, be said that, until recent
years, when they were removed to Shaw Hill, in Lancashire, the Leghs,
in proof of the identity of their kinsman with the hero of Deloney’s
ballad, were able to show the veritable “chain of gold” and the casket
in which through long generations it had been carefully preserved as
an heirloom of the family. A half-length portrait of Sir Urian hangs
upon the staircase at Adlington. It has been taken when he was in the
fulness of manhood, and represents him as fresh complexioned, with a
regular and rather handsome cast of features, suggesting the idea that
comeliness of face and figure blended with courage and courtesy,—the
characteristics of an old English gentleman. He wears a black felt hat
with jewelled front, a black gown with vandyked and richly embroidered
points, and round his neck a gold chain of many links that hangs down
almost to the waist—whether the one given him by the “Spanish Lady” or
not we will not undertake to say. In one corner of the picture is a
shield of six quarters, and in the opposite corner this inscription:—
SIR URIAN LEGH OF ADLINGTON IN THE COUNTY OF CHESTER KNIGHT WHO
WENT WITH ROBERT DEVEREUX EARL OF ESSEX TO THE SIEGE OF CADIZ AND
WAS BY HIM KNIGHTED IN THE FIELD FOR HIS GREAT SERVICES IN TAKING
THAT TOWN IN 1575 (SHOULD BE 1596). HE MARRIED MARGARET DAUGHTER
OF SIR EDMUND TRAFFORD IN THE COUNTY OF LANCASTER KNIGHT BY WHOM
HE HAD FOUR SONS AND THREE DAUGHTERS.
On succeeding to his inheritance Sir Urian appears to have settled
down to the discharge of his duties as a country gentleman, and to
have applied himself to the further improvement of his patrimony,
which he managed with so much thrift and care that before the close
of the century he was able to make an addition to the family estates
by the purchase of the lands and hall of Foxwist, in Butley township,
from William Duncalf, whose ancestors had been resident there for more
than three centuries, and in 1603 he built the Milne House, which long
afterwards continued to be used as the dower house of the family. In
1613, the year following that in which Cecil died and the notorious
Carr, a raw Scotch lad, was made Prime Minister, he was entrusted
with the shrievalty of the county, and in local affairs he appears
to have taken an active part, his bold and clearly defined autograph
being of frequent occurrence in the parochial records. He was a man
of some culture, had had the advantage of a university education,
having matriculated at Oxford, and in his private life he would seem
to have had a sweet fancy, turning to literature in the absence of
action, for in the inventory of his effects, taken after his death, it
is mentioned that there were in his closet at Prestbury “his bookes
valued at xvjli.” He affected the society of men of letters: Dee, the
“Wizard Warden” of Manchester, in his “Diary,” under date April 22nd,
1597, records that he was visited at his residence in the College by
Sir Urian Legh and his brother (Edward Legh, probably, for the other
brothers, Thomas and Ralph, were at the time in Ireland engaged in the
suppression of O’Neill’s rebellion), a Mr. Brown, and Mr. George Booth,
of Dunham, then Sheriff of Cheshire.
[Illustration]
On the 6th of September, 1586, ten years before the affair at Cadiz,
Sir Urian Legh was united in marriage to Mary, one of the daughters
of Sir Edmund Trafford, of Trafford, Knight, that “hunter out and
unkeneler of those slie and subtil foxes Iesuites and semenarei
Priests.” The guests who graced the ceremony by their presence must
have formed a goodly company, for William Massie, the rector of
Wilmslow, who preached a sermon on the occasion, speaks of it as being
delivered “before the right honourable the most noble Earle of Derby,
and the right reuerend father in God the B(ishop) of Chester with
diuerse Knightes and Esquires of great worship at the solemne marriage
of your (Sir Edmund Trafford’s) daughter, a modest and vertuous
Gentlewoman, married to a young gentleman of great worship and good
education.”
Sir Urian Legh died at Adlington on the 2nd June, 1627, and two days
afterwards, as the registers show, he was buried at Prestbury.
It is somewhat singular that Thomas Newton,[33] the famous Cheshire
poet, who sang the glories of Essex and Drake in Latin verse, should
have remained silent upon the daring deeds of his quondam friend and
neighbour, Sir Urian Legh, leaving the “Water Poet,” John Taylor, to
record in rhyme the virtues of the hero of Cadiz. Taylor was a guest
at Adlington some time before the close of the century, and in his
“Pennilesse Pilgrimage” describes the reception he met in a manner that
recalls Ben Jonson’s lines in praise of the daily hospitalities at
Penshurst:—
This weary day, when I had almost past,
I came vnto Sir Urian Legh’s at last.
At _Adlington_, neer _Macksfield_, he doth dwell,
Belou’d, respected, and reputed well.
Through his great loue, my stay with him was fixt,
From Thursday night till noone on Monday next.
At his own table I did daily eate,
Whereat may be suppos’d did want no meate.
He would have giu’n me gold or siluer either,
But I with many thankes receiued neither.
And thus much without flattery I dare sweare,
He is a knight beloued farre and neere.
First, he’s beloued of his God aboue,
(Which loue he loues to keep beyond all loue),
Next with a wife and children he is blest,
Each hauing God’s feare planted in their brest.
With faire Demaines, Reuennue of good Lands,
He’s fairely blest by the Almightie’s hands.
And as he’s happy in these outward things,
So from his inward mind continuall springs
Fruits of deuotion, deedes of Piety,
Good hospitable workes of Charity;
Iust in his Actions, constant in his word,
And one that wonne his honour with the sword.
He’s no Carranto, Cap’ring, Carpet Knight,
But he knowes when and how to speake and fight.
I cannot flatter him, say what I can,
He’s euery way a compleat Gentleman.
I write not this for what he did to me,
But what mine eares and eyes did heare and see,
Nor doe I pen this to enlarge his fame,
But to make others imitate the same.
For like a Trumpet were I pleased to blow,
I would his worthy worth more amply show,
But I already feare haue beene too bold,
And craue his pardon, me excusd to hold.
Thanks to his Sonnes and seruants euery one,
Both males and females all, excepting none.
[Note 33: Thomas Newton, before his removal into Essex, resided at Park
House, in Butley, little more than a mile distant from Adlington. His
mother, Alice Newton, in her will, dated December 22, 1597, leaves “one
spurill ryall or XVs. in money to each of the right worshipful Thomas
Legh, of Adlington, and Sybell, his wife,” the testatrix’s “worshipful
good frendes;” and she also appoints “the right worshipful Thomas Legh,
of Adlington aforesaid, Esquire,” overseer, earnestly entreating him to
assist and direct her executors.]
Sir Urian Legh, as we have said, died in 1627; and his eldest son,
Thomas, was approaching the meridian of life when he succeeded as heir
to the family estates. It was a memorable epoch in English history,
for in that year Buckingham, the King’s favourite, by his inglorious
expedition to France, had brought dishonour on his country’s arms, and
was impeached in Parliament; and in the following year the Commons,
before they would grant the supplies necessary to retrieve the
disaster, extorted from Charles the Petition of Rights, confirming
the liberties that were already the birthright of Englishmen—a
measure which, had it been accepted by its authors as final, would
have spared the country the calamities of civil war. Thomas Legh
had married in his father’s lifetime (1610) a rich heiress, one of
the daughters of Sir John Gobert, of Boresworth, in Leicestershire;
with whom he acquired considerable property, including the estate of
Clumber,[34] forming part of the royal manor and forest of Sherwood,
which subsequently passed into the possession of the Pelham-Clintons,
Dukes of Newcastle; so that by the time he came into his patrimony he
had added considerably to the territorial possessions as well as to the
social status of his house. On the death of Sir John Gobert, dame Lucy,
his widow, appears to have resided with her daughter and son-in-law at
Adlington, and to have remained with them up to the time of her death
in 1634. In 1628-9 Thomas Legh was chosen to fill the office of high
sheriff of the county, a distinction that was again conferred on him in
the year 1642-3. The year of the second appointment was a portentous
one, for the seeds of civil strife which had been sown in previous
years had ripened, and King and Commoner—sovereign and subject—were
then placing themselves in open array against each other. The Royalists
of Cheshire, though in a minority, were prompt in obeying the King’s
summons. Thomas Legh, in whom the blaze of youth was then sinking into
the deep burning fire of middle age, for fifty summers had passed over
his head, at once placed himself at the disposal of his sovereign, and
had a colonel’s commission in the Royalist army; Thomas, his eldest
son, had a lieutenant-colonel’s commission; whilst his four younger
sons—John, Charles, Peter, and Henry—and his brother Urian, who had
previously been in the wars in the Low Countries, had also commissions.
[Note 34: A recent writer says (_Contributions towards a History of
Prestbury, p. 102_): “Clumber appears to have been sequestrated from
the Leghs during the Civil War, and never restored.” This is not
quite accurate, for Thomas Legh, who died in 1687, by his will, dated
20th August, 1686, bequeathed to his younger son, Richard Legh, and
his heirs for ever, “all that mannour or capitall messuage called
Clumber, in the county of Nottingham, and all buildings, tenements, and
hereditaments in Clumber aforesaid.”]
The attempt to maintain the neutrality of the county by the Treaty
of Pacification, as it was called, having failed, the commission of
array was issued, requiring the receivers to see that the tenantry and
others in their respective districts were mustered and properly armed
and accoutred, and each of the hostile parties set to work to procure
military stores in anticipation of approaching conflict. The King’s
troops were at Chester under the command of Sir Thomas Aston, and the
Parliamentarians, led by Thomas Legh’s relative, Sir William Brereton,
of Honford, established themselves at Nantwich, which subsequently
became the scene of important military operations. In March, 1643, the
rival forces met at Middlewich, when an engagement took place in which
the Royalists were defeated, Sir Edward Mosley, of Manchester, and
several Cheshire men of mark being made prisoners; but Sir Thomas Aston
and Colonel Legh, who was present with him and at the time sheriff,
being more fortunate, succeeded in making good their escape. Before
the close of the year the Royalists suffered a series of reverses. At
Nantwich they sustained a defeat at the hands of General Fairfax; on
the 4th of February, 1643-4, Crewe Hall was attacked and taken; three
days later Doddington Hall shared the same fate; in the same month
Adlington was besieged by a force under Colonel Duckinfield, and a few
days after its surrender Mr. Tatton’s house at Wythenshawe, was also
stormed and taken.
The probability of an attack on their home must have been foreseen by
the Leghs, and, consequently, the house was put in a state of defence
on the outbreak of hostilities, and stores of provisions and ammunition
for the use of the garrison collected in anticipation of any attack
that might be made upon it. Colonel Legh appears to have been absent
at the time of Duckinfield’s assault, being probably with the King’s
forces in some other part of the country, and the defence, therefore,
fell to the lot of his eldest son—a brave scion of a brave ancestry,
who must have conducted it with considerable energy and judgment, for
the garrison held out a whole fortnight, notwithstanding that the siege
was carried on with a good deal of vigour. The attacking party appear
to have encamped on the south side of the hall, and the assault must
have been made from that direction, for the door on the south front
is pierced in several places where the bullets and cannon shot passed
through. The garrison, by their obstinate bravery, must have won the
respect of their assailants, for, unlike the case of Biddulph, which
surrendered a week afterwards, when quarter for life only was granted,
the defenders of Adlington when they did capitulate (Feb. 14) had full
leave to depart. Burghall, the Puritan vicar of Acton, thus records the
circumstance in his “Diary”:—
Friday, February 14th.—Adlington House was delivered up, which was
besieged about a fortnight, where was a younger son of Mr. Legh’s
and 140 souldiers, which had all fair quarter and leave to depart,
leaving behind them, as the report was, 700 arms and 15 barrels of
powder.
By an order of the Parliament, dated March 18, 1643, Sir William
Brereton, of Honford, Thomas Legh’s second cousin, and then
major-general of the Cheshire forces, entered upon possession and
seized the family estates into his own hands, so that the owner of
Adlington could hardly say of Sir William what, according to the old
ballad, his kinsman Lord Brereton said when he espied him on the hill
overlooking Biddulph—
Yonder my uncle stands, and he will not come near,
Because he’s a Roundhead and I am a Cavalier.
The house was pillaged, though the fabric itself does not appear to
have sustained any very serious injury considering the quantity of
powder that was burned and the efforts that were expended upon it.
Shortly afterwards it was retaken and held for the King, but it must
have been stormed and taken a second time by the Parliamentarian
soldiers, for when Colonel Legh’s widow appealed to Sir William
Brereton to be allowed to occupy the hall, and to have a portion of her
late husband’s estates assigned to her for the maintenance of herself
and children, the request was denied, so far as the occupancy of
the house was concerned, on the plea that as Adlington Hall had been
garrisoned twice against the Parliament it was not judged fitting it
should be ventured a third time.
Colonel Legh’s active zeal in the Royalist cause made him so obnoxious
to the Parliament party that in the preliminary propositions for the
abortive Treaty of Uxbridge he was specially named as one of those
to be excluded from the councils of his sovereign, and from holding
any office or command from the crown under pain of forfeiture of his
estates and the penalties attaching to high treason. The stipulation
was unnecessary, for before the commissioners had assembled he had
entered into his rest. It is not known with certainty when or where his
death occurred; the Prestbury registers for this period are imperfect,
and no entry of burial can be discovered; it is not unlikely, however,
that he found an unknown grave at some place distant from his home
where he may have lost his life in the service of the King.
His widow took up her abode at the Miln House—the picturesque old black
and white gabled structure, now occupied as a farmhouse, standing near
the railway midway between Adlington and Prestbury, built in the time
of Sir Urian Legh—which she held in jointure. She could hardly have
been as uncompromising a Royalist as her husband, for in a petition
to the committee for compounding with “delinquents,” praying that she
might be allowed to compound for her deceased husband’s estates, she
sets forth that “she had long before the death of her husband misliked
the course of the enemy (_i.e._, the Royalists) in the parts where she
resided, and had departed thence into the Parliament’s quarters, where
she had ever since remained and conformed herself to all the orders of
Parliament.” The statement was no doubt made in good faith, for some
little time after Thomas Legh’s death she married an ardent Republican,
who had been as active in furthering the Parliament’s interest in
Lancashire as her first husband had been in defending that of the King
in Cheshire—Sir Alexander Rigby, of Middleton-in-Goosnargh, a lawyer,
statesman, magistrate, and colonel, and eventually one of the barons of
the Exchequer. Rigby, who represented Wigan in the Long Parliament,
was head and heart and hand and almost everything else of importance
in Lancashire; his activity was unwearied; his energy irrepressible,
and his influence unbounded. He was engaged in every important action;
he commanded at the siege of Lathom, the fight in Furness, the capture
of Thurland Castle, and the defence of Bolton-le-Moors; and he was
nominated one of the King’s judges, but declined to act, the only
occasion in his life, it is said, in which he hesitated to do his worst
against royalty. Dr. Halley, in his “Lancashire Puritanism,” describes
him as “rash, impetuous, rude, haughty, severe, implacable; admired
by many, esteemed by few, and loved by none,” and the same writer
adds, “he is said to have contrived a scheme and bargain by which the
Royalist masters of three Cambridge colleges—St. John’s, Queen’s, and
Jesus’—were to be sold for slaves to the Algerines.”
[Illustration: SIR ALEXANDER RIGBY.]
The “insolent rebell, Rigby,” as Charlotte Tremouille, the heroic
Countess of Derby, designated him when he was besieging Lathom House,
though possessed of only a small estate, was connected by birth and
marriage with many of the best families in Lancashire; he was also
closely allied with the Leghs, of Adlington, having married for his
first wife Lucy, the daughter of Sir Urian, and sister of Thomas Legh,
so that he stood in the relationship of brother-in-law to his second
wife.
The marriage of their mother with the “insolent rebell” could hardly
have been viewed with much satisfaction by the sons, who were all
fighting on the side of the ill-fated Charles, and, therefore,
accounted “delinquents,” one of them being specially mentioned as “very
active against the Parliament” and continuing “extreamelie malitious,”
though, in other respects, it was fortunate, as Rigby’s influence as
a member of the House of Commons in the Parliament interest was no
doubt used in protecting the estates from the more ruinous exactions to
which they would otherwise have been subjected, as well as the illegal
challenges which might have wrested them absolutely from their rightful
owners.
Sir Alexander Rigby died in 1650, having caught the gaol fever of
the prisoners while on circuit at Croydon, and some time after his
widow, who appears to have had a penchant for matrimony, again
entered the marriage state, her third husband being John Booth, of
Woodford, in Over, the uncle of Sir George Booth, of Dunham Massey,
the head of the Presbyterian interest in Cheshire. John Booth was
also a staunch Puritan; like the knight in “Hudibras,” he had ridden
out “a-colonelling” in the interest of the Parliament, and may have
been the identical Puritan whom “Drunken Barnaby,” when on his “Four
Journeys to the North of England,” saw and thus immortalised:—
I came to Over—O, profane one—
And there I saw a Puritane one,
A-hanging of his cat on Monday
For killing of a mouse on Sunday.
The marriage with John Booth could not have been a very felicitous
one, for, according to Sir Peter Leycester, husband and wife lived
apart from each other. She resided at the Miln House, and died there in
February, 1675-6, and was buried at Prestbury. By her first husband,
Thomas Legh, she had five sons, all of whom served in the Royalist
army, one of them, John, losing his life in the war; and seven
daughters, one of whom, Margaret, became the second wife of the eldest
surviving son of her mother’s second husband, Alexander Rigby the
younger, who, like his father, was an active soldier on the Parliament
side, and the representative for Lancaster in the House of Commons in
1658.
At the time of Colonel Legh’s death, in 1644, his eldest son and
heir, Thomas Legh, was a prisoner of war at Coventry, having been
captured in the engagement at Stafford in May in the preceding year,
where he was detained until June, 1645, when he was exchanged for his
brother-in-law, Alexander Rigby,[35] who had been taken prisoner during
the siege of Lathom House. He had then been married some few years,
his wife being Mary, the daughter of Thomas Bolles, of Osberton, in
Nottinghamshire.
[Note 35: According to Colonel Fishwick it was Urian Legh, the uncle of
Thomas, who was exchanged for Alexander Rigby the younger.—_History of
Goosnargh_, p. 148.]
Civil war has ever a devouring and insatiable maw, and in those days of
political trouble and disturbance, when hostile armies were marching
and counter-marching through the country, neither persons nor property
were safe. It was the time—
When nobles and knights so proud of late,
Must pine for freedom and estate,
especially if they were suspected of having any political partialities,
whether on the “malignants” or the “roundheads” side. The Leghs were
all active partisans, and no family in Cheshire sustained heavier
losses or endured greater hardships in defending what they believed
to be the rights of their sovereign. While Thomas Legh was a prisoner
at Coventry his young wife petitioned the sequestrators that some
provision might be made for her, and eventually she had allotted to
her a small portion of her husband’s lands. In June of the following
year she again memorialised the sequestrators that her husband might be
allowed to compound for his estates, pleading that since his release
he had foreborne to repair to the enemy’s quarters, and setting forth
the miseries which she and her children were enduring, being destitute
of the means of livelihood until relieved. Mr. Legh also presented a
petition praying that he might be allowed to compound, when a statement
of his “delinquencies” and a report upon his estates was submitted,
which is preserved among the State papers in the Record Office. The
charges exhibited against him were—
(1.) That he led a company of musquetiers into Adlington Hall when it
was first garrisoned against the Parliament, and brought some who were
well affected to the Parliament prisoners into the garrison, and kept
them there till they compounded with him.
(2.) That he bore arms in that garrison; was governor of it; and gave
directions to the inferior commanders therein.
(3.) That he refused to deliver up the said house to Colonel
Duckinfield for the use of Parliament.
(4.) That he went from that garrison to Shrewsbury, thence to Chester,
and thence to other garrisons of the enemy, and that he associated
himself and held intercourse of intelligence against the Parliament
with them.
On the 10th March, 1645-6, the Committee of Sequestrators agreed that
Thomas Legh should be permitted to compound on payment to them of the
sum of £2,000. This amount having been secured he, in July, obtained
his discharge, and in the succeeding year sued out a pardon under the
great seal for himself and his three surviving brothers, Charles,
Peter, and Henry (John having been killed in action), who had also been
admitted to compound. But his troubles were not yet ended. In November,
1648, he was required by the commissioners to settle the tithes of
Bosley in Prestbury parish, valued at £56 a year, in trust for the
minister of Bosley, the following being the minute of the Commissioners
of Augmentation:—
_Thomas Leigh_, of Adlington, in ye said countie (Cheshire), by
deeds dated ye 16th of November, A.D. 1648, hath settled ye tithes
of _Prestbury_, of ye value of £56 per ann. upon George Booth,
Esq., in trust for ye minister of _Boseley_, and his successors
for ever. Consideration £560.
Before the close of the year, in pursuance of an order of Parliament,
he was ordered to pay £220, being an assessment of one-twentieth part
of the estate. Subsequently he was required to furnish a particular
account of his real and personal estate, which being done, it was
submitted to Major-general Worsley and the Commissioners then assembled
at Middlewich, in February, 1655.
In November, 1656, he had the misfortune to lose his wife, who had
borne him a family of six sons and four daughters. She was buried at
Prestbury, November 22, and at the very time she lay dead his estate
was again decimated and himself secured. Whereupon he presented a
petition to the Lord Protector, alleging that he had behaved peaceably
under the then government, and praying that he might no longer be
looked upon as an enemy, but might partake of the Protector’s grace and
favour. The petition was referred to Worsley and the Commissioners for
securing the peace of the county, who in January, 1656-7, reported that
since his composition he had behaved peaceably and respectably to the
Parliament party, soldiers and friends, and had not been concerned in
any plots against the Protector or Parliament to their knowledge; that
he had constantly paid all taxes for the use of the Commonwealth; had
sent forth such forces, both horse and foot, for the service of the
late Parliament as required; and had, moreover, offered his personal
assistance for them at the battle of Worcester; and, finally, that
they considered him a person capable of favour. From this time he
appears to have been left in undisturbed possession of his property. He
survived these troublous times, and lived to see the overthrow of the
Commonwealth and the restoration of monarchy in the person of Charles
the Second. In 1662 he was nominated sheriff of his native county—the
only recognition he ever received of the losses sustained and the great
services which he and his family had rendered to the cause of the
Stuarts. Fortunately for his house, those losses were in some measure
made up from another source. In the year in which he served the office
of sheriff his late wife’s mother, Dame Mary Bolles, who, in 1635,
had been created a baroness in her own right, the only instance of
such a creation, died, leaving property, to the value, it is said, of
£20,000 to be divided between her two sons-in-law, Sir William Dalston
and Thomas Legh—in the case of the latter a welcome addition to an
estate which during the usurpation had been so greatly impoverished.
The fortune thus acquired he seems to have employed in improving and
extending his territorial possessions, for about the year 1669 he
is found purchasing from Sir Thomas Brereton the old manor-house of
Handforth, which one of his progenitors, Urian Brereton, erected in
1557, and subsequently (1681) he became the owner, also by purchase,
of lands in Newton, adjoining Butley, that have since descended with
the other Adlington properties. Thomas Legh survived all his brothers,
and died in December, 1687, being then in his seventy-third year.
In accordance with his expressed desire, his remains were “decently
buried amongst his Ancestors in the Chancell of the parish church of
Prestbury.”
[Illustration]
Thomas Legh, the third of that name, was in his forty-fourth year when
he succeeded to the Adlington estates—those in Leicestershire and
Nottinghamshire passing under his father’s will to his two surviving
brothers, Edward and Richard. Shortly after the Restoration (1666)
he chose himself a wife from the historic house of Maynard—Johanna,
the daughter, and eventually heir, of the distinguished statesman
and lawyer, Sir John Maynard—a match that must have brought him
considerable wealth, and have added to his social influence. Sir
John had been an active member of the Long Parliament, in which he
distinguished himself as one of the prosecutors of Strafford and Laud,
but afterwards, for his opposition to the violent acts of the army and
the unconstitutional proceedings of Cromwell, he was twice committed
to the Tower. At the conference between the Lords and Commons at the
time of the Revolution he displayed considerable ability, and warmly
advocated the abdication of James II. He was appointed one of the
Commissioners of the Great Seal in 1689, being then eighty-seven years
of age. He had frequently to submit to the coarseness of Jeffries’
ribald tongue. On one occasion, when addressing the court, that unjust
dispenser of justice interrupted him with the rude remark, “Mr.
Serjeant, you’ve lost your knowledge of law; your memory is failing
you through age.” “It may be so,” responded Maynard, “but I am sure I
have forgotten more law than your lordship ever knew.” And it is said
of him that when William III., alluding to his great age, remarked that
he must have outlived all the lawyers of his time, he happily replied,
“Yes, and if your highness had not come over to our assistance I should
have outlived the law itself.”
Political prudence was not always a distinguishing characteristic of
the lords of Adlington, and Thomas Legh does not seem to have profited
greatly by his father’s and grandfather’s experiences of political
partisanship, for he contrived to get himself involved in the troubles
which fell upon Cheshire in 1683, the year of the notorious Rye House
Plot, when he was suspected of conspiring with others to place the Duke
of Monmouth upon the throne.
Monmouth, who had been expatriated, had returned a year or two
previously to find himself hailed as the “Protestant Duke,” and exalted
into a popular hero. He made a partisan progress through Cheshire,
with the view of ingratiating himself with the men of the county;
while at Chester, courting popularity, a violent “No Popery” mob broke
into the Cathedral, and, amongst other outrages committed upon the
contents of the sacred building, wholly destroyed the painted glass of
the east window of the Lady Chapel, broke up the organ, and knocked
the ancient font to pieces. Enquiries were instituted as to those who
were believed to sympathise with the action of Monmouth, when Thomas
Legh’s name was included in the list of persons, who, being suspected,
it was deemed expedient should give security for their good behaviour.
He must, however, have regained the Royal favour, for he retained his
commission as colonel of militia, and the year following that in which
he entered upon possession of his patrimonial lands he was honoured
with the shrievalty of the county. He did not live long to enjoy the
estates, having met his death by an accident on the 6th April, 1691, as
thus recorded in a MS. diary, preserved at Tabley:—
1691, April 6th.—Col. Legh, of Adlington, layning on a raile in
Adlington, whch breaking he fell and broak his neck and dyed.
His wife, who survived him several years, resided at the Miln House,
in Adlington, and died about November, 1700. The bulk of her personal
property was, in accordance with her directions, invested in the
purchase of lands for the benefit of her second surviving son, Robert,
who married Mary, daughter of Sir Richard Standish, of Duxbury, and
settled at Chorley, in Lancashire, on the lands purchased under his
mother’s will. Thomas Leigh, by his wife had, _inter alia_, Anne,
his co-heiress, who became the wife of Thomas Crosse, of Crosse Hall
and Shaw Hill, in Lancashire, by whom she had a son, Richard Crosse,
of Shaw Hill, who, through failure of direct male heirs, eventually
succeeded to the Adlington estates, and took the name and arms of Legh
by Royal license.
Thomas Legh, who died in 1691, was succeeded in the estates by his
eldest son, John, who was then thirty-two years of age, having been
born in 1668. Two years after he entered upon his inheritance (July,
1693) he married Isabella, the daughter of Robert Robartes, Viscount
Bodmin, and granddaughter of the first Earl of Radnor. During his time
some important additions were made to the family estates. In the year
of his marriage he purchased from William Sherd, of Sherd and Disley,
the descendant of an old companion in arms of his grandfather, the
estate of Sherd-fold, on the confines of Adlington; three years later
he purchased Hope-green from Edward Downes, and in 1696 he acquired
the property known as “Day’s Tenement,” in Prestbury. In 1705 he was
nominated sheriff of the county, and he appears to have succeeded his
father as colonel of the militia, in which capacity he was called
upon to aid in suppressing the political disturbances that arose in
Lancashire on the occasion of the Hanoverian succession.
At the dine of Queen Anne’s death, in 1714, the country was divided
into two powerful factions, a large number of the people, with that
old English feeling of which we see traces even yet, preferring as
their monarch the son of an English king to the son of a petty foreign
prince. The flames of rebellion were kindled, and a determined effort
was made to restore the direct succession to the throne, in the
person of the Chevalier de St. George, the eldest son of James II.,
and a half-brother of the deceased queen. On the 10th June, 1715, the
birthday of the Chevalier, a Jacobite mob, headed by “Tom” Syddall,
a peruke maker, attacked the Nonconformist Chapel in Cross Street,
Manchester—the only dissenting place of worship at that time in the
town—smashed in the doors and windows, pulled down the pulpit and
pews, and carried away everything portable, leaving only the ruinous
walls; and, a few days later, sacked and destroyed the meeting-houses
at Blackley, Monton, and Greenacres. In October of the same year the
Earl of Derwentwater and General Foster, with the Earls of Wintoun,
Nithsdale, and Carnwath, and Lords Widdrington and Nairne, raised
the standard of the Pretender, and, with a small army, crossed the
border, passed through Kendal and Lancaster, and as far as Preston—that
“Capua” of Scotchmen, as it has been called—on their way south. In the
last-named town, if we are to believe the Jacobite journalist, Peter
Clarke, they were so fascinated by the good looks and the gay attire
of the Lancashire witches that “the gentleman soldiers from Wednesday
to Saturday minded nothing but courting and feasting.” While they were
thus “courting and feasting” the news of their advance reached General
Willes, who was then in command of the garrison at Chester, and he at
once set out to attack them, passing through Manchester on his way.
Finding a strong Jacobite feeling existing there, he caused several of
the more influential leaders of the faction to be secured, and disarmed
the others, leaving a troop behind him to overawe the disaffected.
Before leaving he wrote to the Earl of Cholmondeley, the lord
lieutenant of Cheshire, urging him to send on the militia while he with
his regular forces marched against the insurgents, and in the “Memoires
of the family of Finney, of Fulshaw,” written by Samuel Finney in
1787, it is recorded that in October a warrant from three of the
deputy lieutenants was directed to John Legh, of Adlington, or, in his
absence, to John Finney, his captain-lieutenant, requiring them to give
notice to the constables of Macclesfield Hundred to order all persons
charged with any foot soldiers to send on the same by the 17th of the
month, “every Soldier to appear compleatly armed with musket, bayonet
to fix in the muzel thereof, a Cartooch Box, and Sword, to bring pay
for two days, and the Salary for the Muster Master. Every Muskateer to
bring half a pound of powder, and as much (sic) Bullets, and the said
Constables to appear and make returns.” On the 27th October another
warrant was issued requiring them to assemble the forces at Knutsford
on the 7th November, when, as we are told in the “Memoires,” “having
exercised their appointed time, and the Rebells advancing, the Regiment
was ordered to advance northwards and secure the town of Manchester,
whilst Generals Willes and Carpenter advanced with the horse to attack
the Rebells at Preston. When,” it is added, “the Cheshire Regiment was
advanced to the Top of Deansgate, the Entrance of the Town, they made
a Halt to wait for Billets from the Constables, which were so long in
coming and the Weather extremely wet and cold, and the road Miry, that
both Officers and Men grew so impatient that a messenger was despatched
to the Constables to tell them that if they did not immediately send
them Billets they would fire the Town; this had an immediate good
Effect; they soon got into warm quarters. The King’s Head in Salford
fell to the share of Sir Samuel Daniel, Coll. Legh, and Captain Finney,
intimate Friends, and jolly brave Fellows, who, instead of saying their
prayers and going to bed like good Folks, expecting to be killed next
day, sat drinking, laughing, and taking Spanish Snuff till the morning,
when they expected to come soon into action; but Willes and Carpenter
soon eased them of that trouble, by forcing the Town of Preston.”
Mr. Legh’s military experiences were not of a very sanguinary
character, and this appears to have been the last occasion in which
he was employed in any soldierly capacity. He died in 1739, and on
the 12th December was buried in the family vault at Prestbury, having
had in addition to a son Charles, who succeeded, two daughters, who
pre-deceased him; Elizabeth, who died unmarried, and was buried at
Westminster, August 20th, 1734, and Lucy Frances, second wife of
Peter Davenport (afterwards Sir Peter), of Macclesfield, who died in
November, 1728, leaving an only daughter her sole heiress, Elizabeth
Davenport, who became the wife of John Rowlls, of Kingston, in Surrey,
Receiver-General, who afterwards assumed the surname of Legh.
Charles Legh, who succeeded as heir on the death of his father, John
Legh, in 1739, was born at Adlington, September 17, and baptised at
Prestbury, October, 1697, so that he must have been in his forty-fourth
year when he entered upon his inheritance. He had then been married
some years, his wife being Hester, daughter of Robert Lee, of Wincham,
in Bucklow Hundred, who by the death of her brothers, Robert and Clegg
Lee, and her sister, Elizabeth, without issue, became heir to the manor
of Wincham.
In earlier years the Leghs had evinced their piety by important
additions made to their parish church, as well as by the erection of
a chapel on their estate for the convenience of their more immediate
dependents; and Charles Legh, on first coming into his patrimony,
applied himself to the work of enlarging the old church of Prestbury by
the rebuilding of the north aisle and the Legh chapel, to the cost of
which he was the chief contributor. He could not, however, have felt
much appreciation of the beauties of the original design, or he would
not have replaced a Gothic structure with the unsightly, barn-like
erection which has happily within the present year been superseded by
one of more ecclesiastical character.
The following year was one of considerable excitement, for it was
that in which Prince Charles Edward, the Young Pretender, renewed the
attempt to recover the throne of his ancestors—the fatal ’45. On the
28th November the rebel army reached Manchester, which, as the story
goes, was taken by “a sergeant, a drum, and a woman;” three days later
the march towards London was resumed, Macclesfield being chosen as
the terminus of the first day’s journey. The Prince marshalled his
forces in two divisions, and, leading one of them, forded the Mersey
at Stockport, and then marched through the level country, by way of
Woodford, Adlington, and Prestbury, to Macclesfield. The story is
told that as they were passing through Adlington they came up with a
carter, named Broster, returning from Stockport, who was forthwith
“pressed” into the service and ordered by the soldiers to convey their
baggage to Macclesfield. Among the chattels put into Broster’s cart
was a heavy chest evidently containing treasure, the money possibly in
which the Manchestrians had been mulct, and which poor James Waller,
of Ridgefield, the borough-reeve, had been compelled to gather in. The
darkness of a December night had fallen upon the scene by the time they
approached Prestbury, and, the baggage guards not being over vigilant,
Richard Broster watched his opportunity and made the most of it when it
came. Suddenly turning up a bye-lane, he whipped his horses briskly,
and succeeded in reaching his home at Old Hollin Hall Farm, near
Bollington, before he was missed; arrived there, the box was quickly
tipped into the yard pit as a hiding-place from the troopers who might
be sent in search of the lost treasure, and there it lay until the
rebels had started upon their march to Derby, when it was fished up.[36]
[Note 36: It is said that in the cellar at Old Hollin Hall there is a
stone bench with this inscription graven upon it:—“This must stand here
for ever—Richard Broster, 1757.”]
Though the Leghs of Lyme, who were suspected of favouring the cause
of the Pretender, might not be able to wipe out altogether from their
hearts the old Stuart affection, their kinsman of Adlington could not
have had much sympathy either for the young Chevalier or the cause he
represented, or, if he had, his Jacobitism must have been under the
control of a very cautious possessor, and not so demonstrative as to
imperil his personal and family interests, for when Joseph Ward, the
Vicar of Prestbury, preached a sermon on the occasion of the “General
Thanksgiving” for the suppression of the “unnatural rebellion” it was
published, as by the title-page appears, “at the request of Charles
Legh, of Adlington, Esquire.”
In 1746 Mr. Legh added to his territorial possessions by the purchase,
from Thomas Pigot, of the estate of Bonishall, which for several
generations had been the residence of a younger branch of the Pigots
of Butley, the representative of which had then migrated to Fairsnape,
near Preston, and from that time Bonishall has descended to the
successive owners of Adlington with the other estates of the family. In
the following year Mr. Legh had the shrievalty of Cheshire conferred
upon him, a dignity that, as we have seen, had been enjoyed by his
ancestors in six consecutive generations previously. He does not,
however, appear to have devoted much attention to public matters,
preferring to reside upon his own estate and there discharge the duties
devolving upon him as a country gentleman. In the later years of his
life he occupied his time in remodelling, and in part rebuilding, the
home of his fathers; in doing so, however, it is to be regretted that,
influenced by the then prevailing fancy for works of classic type, he
was led to adopt a style so much at variance with the character of the
original structure, and which, outwardly at least, robbed it of its
most picturesque and interesting features. In commemoration of his work
he inscribed his own name and that of his wife with the year of its
completion, 1757, upon the frieze of the portico, and on the pediment
above affixed a shield of arms—Legh quartering Corona, with Lee of
Wincham, on an escutcheon of pretence.
While engaged in the re-edification of his house the barony of
Kinderton became extinct, when Mr. Legh set up a claim to be considered
heir male of the family, in right of his descent from Gilbert Venables,
the first baron, and, as such, entitled to bear the Venables coat
without any mark of decadence. The claim was never admitted, but
Mr. Legh assumed the arms notwithstanding, and, in assertion of his
supposed right, caused them to be placed conspicuously in the hall at
Adlington, and also on the chancel screen in the church at Prestbury,
where they may still be seen.
Unlike his mother, who, if we may judge from the directions she gave
respecting her funeral, had as little respect for the blazonments of
chivalry and that ancient and respectable guild, the College of Arms,
as Macaulay’s old Puritan who wished to have his name recorded in the
Book of Life rather than in the Register of Heralds, Mr. Legh had a
great fondness for heraldry, and was much given to the study of the
“noble science.”
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
was with him no meaningless phrase, and before he began the rebuilding
of the south front of his mansion he had been at considerable pains to
adorn the interior of the great hall of Adlington with the armorial
ensigns of his progenitors and the families with which they had
severally become allied, like the lord of Gray’s “ancient pile” at
Stoke-Pogeis, upon
The ceiling’s fretted height
Each panel in achievements clothing.
The fine series of armorial shields which still appear were painted
under his directions, and are in place of a series, one hundred and
eighty-one in number, which were affixed shortly after the rebuilding
of the mansion by Thomas Legh, in 1581,[37] about which time that
assiduous worthy, William Flower, Chester Herald, and subsequently
Norroy King of Arms, was corresponding with and enjoying the friendship
and hospitality of the owner of Adlington, and his kinsman, Sir Peter
Legh, of Lyme.
[Note 37: In the Chetham Library there is a curious MS. folio volume
purchased at the sale of the Adlington Library in 1846, and now known
as the “Adlington MS.” On the fifth page from the end is written,
“_Finis, Quod sum non curo quod ero spero Thomas Leyghe_.” Thomas Legh,
it would seem being the compiler. Among other interesting matters
relating to Cheshire which it contains are “The Armes of Gentlemen as
they be placed over the Chimney in Adlington Hall, 1611.”]
In 1758, the year following the rebuilding of the south front of
Adlington, Charles Legh’s only son, Thomas Legh, was united in marriage
with Mary, daughter of Francis Reynolds, of Strangeways, Manchester,
who represented Lancaster in Parliament for the long period of
forty-five years, and the sister of Thomas and Francis Reynolds, who
inherited successively the barony of Ducie of Tortworth. The young
couple took up their abode at Wincham, which had come to Thomas Legh’s
mother by inheritance, and there he died, in his forty-first year,
on the 15th June, 1775, without surviving issue—thus terminating a
line which had maintained an unbroken succession for more than four
centuries. His widow survived him for the long period of forty-three
years, her death occurring March 26, 1818.
Charles Legh is said to have been somewhat autocratic and austere in
his bearing, and to have ruled his little kingdom with a strong hand,
dispensing justice in a summary fashion, and not scrupling at times
to administer correction to the refractory with his own hand. Many
curious stories concerning him are related and still find credence in
the cottage homes around Adlington. There is a tradition that it was
his daily practice to perambulate the boundaries of his domain with
the object of discovering and expelling any marauder or sturdy rogue
who might be prowling about his lands. Notwithstanding these little
peculiarities, he kept up a style of true old English hospitality, and
was greatly esteemed and respected by his neighbours. With his fondness
for heraldry, he united a love of music; and he had, moreover, some
claim to rank as a poet, though his muse, it must be confessed, was
at times a little halting. When Handel[38] was in the zenith of his
popularity he was for some time a guest at Adlington, and there is a
common belief that while there he composed his charming piece, “The
Harmonious Blacksmith,” in response to a request made by his host for
an original composition, the melody being suggested by the natural
music of the smiths plying their vocation at Hollinworth smithy,
close by the park gates.[39] The original score is said to have been
preserved at Adlington until the sale of the library in 1846, but the
music is undoubtedly a variation of an old French air. There is also
preserved in the drawing-room at Adlington a hunting song written by
Charles Legh, and set to music by Handel, which may find a fitting
place in the anthology of the county:—
[Note 38: A story is told respecting the great composer which, as it
associates his name with Cheshire, we may be excused for repeating. As
is well known, his masterpiece, the _Messiah_, was first performed in
Dublin, in 1741. While on his way there he was detained for a time at
Chester, the wind being unfavourable for his embarkation at Parkgate.
Wishing to employ the time in trying some pieces in his new oratorio,
he inquired for some one who could read music at sight, and a printer,
named Janson, who had a good bass voice, was recommended to him as one
of the best musicians attached to the cathedral. A time was fixed for a
private rehearsal at the Golden Falcon, where Handel was staying; but,
alas! on trial of the chorus in the _Messiah_, “And with His stripes we
are healed,” poor Janson after repeated attempts, failed so egregiously
that Handel let loose his great bear upon him; and, after swearing in
four or five different languages, cried out, in broken English, “You
schauntrel! Tit not you dell me dat you could sing at soite?” “Yes,
sir,” replies the printer, “and so I can; but not at _first sight_!”
Handel on this burst out laughing, and the rehearsal, it is said,
proceeded no further.]
[Note 39: According to another version, it was at Edgeware, and not at
Adlington, that Handel heard the anvil sounds which suggested the
“Harmonious Blacksmith.” The great composer dwelt at Canons, the guest
of the Duke of Chandos, within three quarters of a mile of Edgeware,
and was for three years the organist of Little Stanmore Church. The
authority for the Edgeware or Little Stanmore version rests mainly on
local tradition and the following inscriptions:—On the organ of Little
Stanmore Church: “Handel was organist of this church from the year
1718 to 1721, and composed his oratorio of ‘Esther’ on this organ.”
On a tombstone in the churchyard: “In memory of William Powell, the
‘Harmonious Blacksmith,’ who was buried 27th February, 1780, aged 78
years. He was parish clerk during the time the Immortal Handel was
organist of this church.” Powell was a blacksmith at Edgeware smithy.
[Information obligingly communicated by J. Oldfield Chadwick, Esq.]]
HUNTING SONG.
_The words by Charles Legh, Esq._ _Set by Mr. Handel._
The morning is charming, all Nature is gay!
Away, my brave boys, to your horses, away;
For the prime of our pleasure and questing the hare,
We have not so much as a moment to spare.
_Chorus of the Hunters._
Hark! the merry loud horn, how melodious it sounds
To the musical song of the merry-mouth’d hounds!
In yon stubble field we shall find her below,
So ho! cries the huntsman; hark to him, So ho!
See, see, where she goes, and the hounds have a view!
Such harmony Handel himself never knew.
Gates, hedges, and ditches to us are no bounds,
But the world is our own while we follow the hounds!
Hold, hold! ’tis a double; hark! hey, _Tanner_, hey!
If a thousand gainsay it, a thousand shall lie;
His beauty surpassing, his truth has been try’d—
At the head of a pack an infallible guide.
To his cry the wild welkin with thunder resounds
The darling of hunters, the glory of hounds!
O’er high lands and low lands and woodlands we fly,
Our horses full speed and the hounds in full cry;
So match are their mouths and so even they run,
As the tune of the spheres and their race with the sun.
Health, joy, and felicity dance in the rounds,
And bless the gay circle of hunters and hounds!
The old hounds push forward, a very sure sign
That the hare, though a stout one, begins to decline.
A chase of two hours or more she has led;
She’s down, look about ye; they have her; ’ware dead.
How glorious a death, to be honoured with sounds
Of the horn, with a shout to the chorus of hounds!
Here’s a health to all hunters, and long be their lives!
May they never be cross’t by their sweethearts or wives
May they rule their own passions, and ever at rest,
As the most happy men be they always the best!
And free from the care the many surrounds,
Have peace at the last when they see no more hounds!
Hunting was a favourite pursuit of Mr. Legh’s. In Prestbury churchyard,
near the lych gate, is a flat stone, with an inscription recording the
death of one of his huntsmen, and a couplet, which he no doubt wrote.—
Here lye the Remains of Thomas Bennison,
Head Huntsman many years to Charles Legh,
of Adlington, Esq. He died the 17th of February,
in the year of our Lord 1768. Aged 75.
The Joys of his Heart were good Hounds and good Nappy,
Oh! wish him for ever still more and more Happy.
On the 26th July, 1781, Mr. Legh, who had attained the ripe age of 84,
was removed by death, and on the 3rd August his remains were committed
to the family vault which he had himself erected at the east end of the
north aisle of Prestbury Church. His wife survived him some years. By
her will, which bears date September, 1787, the manor of Wincham passed
to her second cousin, Colonel Edward Townshend, of Chester, whose great
grandson, Edward Townshend, Esq., is the present possessor.
By the death of Charles Legh without surviving issue the direct
succession ceased, and the manor and dependencies of Adlington reverted
to his niece Elizabeth, the only child of Lucy Frances Legh, by her
husband, Sir Peter Davenport, who was then married to John Rowlls,
of Kingston. She assumed, by royal licence, the surname of Legh, as
did also her eldest son John, who had married Harriet, daughter and
co-heir of Sir Peter Warburton, of Arley. He pre-deceased his mother,
and, his two sons dying in infancy, the estates, with the exception
of Butley Hall and some lands adjacent, which were alienated to his
daughter Elizabeth Hester, who married, in 1800, Thomas Delves, third
son of Sir Thomas Delves Broughton, Bart., and died in 1821, reverted
in 1806, on the death of Mrs. Elizabeth Rowlls Legh, to Richard
Crosse, of Shaw Hill, Lancashire, great grandson of Robert, the third
son of Thomas Legh, of Adlington, who took the name and arms of Legh
by royal licence. He served the office of sheriff of Lancashire in
the succeeding year, and died on the 11th August, 1822, at the age
of sixty-eight, leaving by his wife Anne, only surviving daughter of
Robert Parker, of Cuerden, who pre-deceased him, two sons and three
daughters. Thomas (Crosse) Legh, the eldest son, succeeded to the broad
lands of Adlington; the Lancashire estates of Shaw Hill, Chorley, and
Liverpool devolving upon his younger brother, Richard Townley Crosse,
who died, unmarried, February 27, 1825, when they reverted to his
sister Anne Mary, married to Thomas Bright Iken, of Leventhorpe House,
Yorkshire, who assumed the name of Crosse, the father of the present
possessor.
Thomas Crosse Legh, of Adlington, was accidentally drowned in crossing
the river at Antwerp, April 25, 1829, being then only thirty-six years
of age. By his wife, Louisa, daughter of George Lewis Newnham, of New
Timber, Sussex, who survived him, and married, May 12, 1830, the Hon.
Thomas Americus, third Lord Erskine, the grandson of the distinguished
Lord Chancellor of that name, he had, with other issue, Charles Richard
Banastre Legh, the present representative of this ancient stock. _Esto
perpetua._
As previously stated, the hall of Adlington stands in the midst of an
undulating and well-timbered park, from the higher parts of which the
views are extensive and pleasingly diversified. It is a remarkably
fine example of the ancient manorial residence of the time when the
power of the feudal chief had waned and the great landowners were
no longer under the necessity of cooping themselves up in their
fortified strongholds—a type of building that is rapidly passing out of
existence, and, with the exception of the part rebuilt in the middle
of the last century, furnishes an excellent illustration of a style
of architecture which, if not altogether peculiar to, was certainly
nowhere else practised so commonly or on so extensive a scale as
in Cheshire and Lancashire. The timber-work is remarkable for its
strength and solidity, an evidence that our forefathers were by no
means economists in the use of their building materials; and, though
the lighter ornaments of architecture which give grace and beauty to
the more stately fabrics of brick and stone raised in other parts of
the country, may not be apparent, there is yet a rude magnificence and
ingenuity of construction, as well as excellence of decoration, that
make it well deserving of examination.
The principal front has a southward aspect; it is the latest built
and most pretentious part of the mansion, but, withal, the least
interesting. It is of brick, with a portico of four columns in the
centre, surmounted by a frieze, bearing the inscription, “Charles and
Hester Legh, 1757,” with a pediment above, in which is a shield with
the Legh arms quartered with those of Corona, and an escutcheon of
pretence over all on which is the coat of Lee of Wincham.
On entering, the first thing that meets the eye is the ponderous oaken
door, thickly studded with iron nails and black with age, which stirs
the fancy with images of the strife with Roundhead and Cavalier, for it
bears abundant evidence of the rude assaults of Colonel Duckinfield’s
troopers in the shot-holes with which it is pierced in several places.
Over the door within the vestibule is written, _Sic vos nunc vobis
mellificatis apes_, one of the four lines by which Virgil exposed the
imposture of Bathyllus. At the further end of the corridor we enter the
courtyard, on the opposite side of which is the great hall, one of the
finest in the county, if, indeed, it has its equal, with its projecting
porch, its long lofty windows, its high-pitched roof, and quaint
chequer work of black and white. Over the doorway as we enter we notice
the old black letter inscription which Thomas Legh placed when, as he
tells us, he “made this buyldinge in the year of or lorde god 1581.”
The “hall” itself is an admirable and almost perfect specimen of the
period when that apartment constituted the chief feature of every
mansion, serving not only as an audience chamber on occasions of
state and ceremony, but as the place where the owner and his family,
with his guests and dependents, assembled daily at the dinner hour,
and where, in fact, the public life of the household was carried on.
Though perhaps not so large as in some of the baronial mansions of
the country, it is yet a noble apartment, and sufficiently spacious
for the hospitalities which in bygone days the lords of Adlington
maintained. It occupies the entire height of the building, the form
being that of a parallelogram, and, being the master feature of the
house, is superior in architectural adornment, as well as in the
amplitude of its dimensions, to any of the other rooms. The floors are
laid with polished oak, and the walls, which are elaborately carved
and ornamented, support a roof of dark oak acutely pointed and open
to the ridge piece. The framework of this roof is divided by massive
principals into bays, the collar braces being so arranged as to
form a series of fine Gothic arches, springing from bold projecting
hammer-beams that terminate in carved figures of angels holding
heraldic shields, each being in turn connected by a hammer-brace
with the main timbers of the walls. The daïs, or high place, which
undoubtedly had its position at the further end, and where the master
and mistress with their chief guests sat above the salt, as Chaucer
relates in his “Marriage of January and May”—
And at the feste sitteth he and she
With other worthy folk upon the deis
has disappeared, and the screen which separated the lower end from
the passage communicating with the buttery and the kitchener’s
department has been subjected to considerable alterations, though the
original form may be distinctly traced, and much of the exquisitely
ornamental panel work remains, though now well-nigh hidden from view.
These panels, though mutilated in places, are deserving of careful
examination; the design of the tracery is very beautiful, and the
carving, where not broken, remains almost as sharp and as fresh as
the day it left the workman’s hands, save that time has given that
sombre tint which so well harmonises with the ancient character of the
house. Above the screen a gallery, the front of which is ornamented in
arabesque work, extends the entire width of the apartment; in it is an
organ elaborately painted and decorated, which, from the two shields
of Corona and Robartes on the top, would appear to have been erected
during the occupancy of John Legh, who married Isabella Robartes, and
died in 1739, and no doubt it was at this time the original screen was
subjected to so much injury. In addition to the organ gallery there
are two small side galleries near the opposite end, each lighted by a
dormer window, to which, in time past, the ladies of the household and
the more honoured guests could retire to witness the revelries of the
assembled retainers below.
Though it can no longer be said that—
With heraldry’s rich hues imprest
On the dim window glows the pictured crest
for every trace of the “storied pane” has disappeared, the want of
this species of decoration is in some measure compensated for by the
remarkable series of armorial shields with which the upper end of the
hall is adorned. At this end the roof is coved and divided into square
panels, each panel containing the arms of one of the Norman Earls of
Chester, the barons of their court, or of some Cheshire family with
whom the Leghs could claim kindred. There are eight rows of panels in
all. The upper ones contain the heraldic insignia of the seven Norman
Earls of Chester in their successive order; immediately beneath are the
arms of the eight Norman baronies—Halton, Montalt, Nantwich, Malpas,
Shipbrooke, Dunham, Kinderton, and Stockport; and below these again,
and separated by an elaborately carved oak cornice, the coats of the
chief Cheshire families, including those with which the Leghs are
allied—fifty-four in all. In the centre is placed an achievement of
arms—quarterly (1) Corona impaling Venables (for Legh, of Adlington),
(2) Honford, (3) Arderne, and (4) Belgrave; over all an escutcheon
of pretence bearing the coat of Legh of Wincham, with a crescent for
difference. Beneath is the motto _Da gloriam Deo_, and, to give effect
to his work, the artist, with scant regard for the laws of heraldry,
has added a couple of unicorns as supporters; honourable accessories
which it was not in the power of Garter King or even the Earl Marshal
himself to bestow. On the knots of the framework of the panels is an
inscription in single letters carved in relief—
THOMAS LEGH & CATARINA SAVAGE UXOR EIUS
CC
AO DOI MO CCC VTO R.R.H. vij., xx.
The walls on the west and north sides are adorned with paintings of
scenes from the “Æneid”—the one on the west end, which occupies the
entire width, representing Hector taking leave of Andromache, and
those on the north Venus presenting Æneas with armour, and Andromache
offering presents to Ascanius. The wall spaces on each side of the
organ at the west end are similarly decorated, one representing St.
Cecilia and the other a figure playing upon the harp.
Nash, in his “Ancient Mansions,” has given a characteristic view of
this glorious old banquetting room, and it requires little stretch of
the imagination to picture it as it must have appeared in its pristine
state in the days of bluff King Hal and the maiden Queen—of Thomas Legh
who built it, and his son, the valorous Sir Urian, when banners gay
with many a proud device floated overhead; when the huge fire blazed
cheerfully upon the halpas, and the long windows shed a profusion of
light and dyed the pavement with the reflected hues of the heraldic
cognisances with which they were dight; when the walls were draped
with richest arras, and the screen, wrought with all the nicety of
art, was hung with arms and armour—halberds, bills, and partisans,
and the spreading antlers of deer captured in many a memorable chase;
to re-people it with the departed forms of sturdy warriors and sober
matrons, of gallant youths and lovely maidens; to see again the figures
and faces of those who have long ago returned to dust, and listen in
imagination to the lusty laugh and the jocund song of the nameless men
who, at the trumpet call of “boot and saddle,” were ready to mount and
ride away wherever their lord might lead,
Alike for feast or fight prepared,
Battle and banquet both they shared,
Giving the rein to fancy, we may see the stately owner with his
dependents seated at the well-spread table, and hear the thrice-told
tale, while
flagons pass along the board,
Filled to the brim with foaming ale;
And goblets flash with ruby wine,
And merrily speeds the glad wassail.
The hall was proverbially the place of festivity, and many a scene of
jocund mirth and roystering revelry, unrestrained by the laws which
modern civilisation imposes, has, doubtless, here been witnessed, as
the nut-brown ale, the mead and the sack, the Malmsey, and the Rhenish,
the mazer-bowl, and the highly-spiced claret cup passed from hand to
hand, and the “top beam of the hall” was enthusiastically toasted as
symbolising the health of the lordly owner, whose armorial ensigns
occupied that elevated position, for
Merry swith it is in halle
When the berdes waveth alle.
On the north side of the hall, near what was the “high-place,” a
doorway communicates with the dining-room and some of the principal
apartments, and also with the staircase leading to the drawing-room
and the corridor which extends the entire length of the south front;
but these parts of the mansion have been greatly modernised, and, with
the exception of the dining and drawing rooms, remodelled by Charles
Legh about the middle of last century, and in each of which are some
exquisite carvings, said to be by Grinling Gibbons,[40] but more
probably the work of Sephton, which well deserve examination, do not
call for any special description.
[Note 40: Gibbons, of whom Horace Walpole said “there was no instance
of a man before who gave to wood the loose and airy lightness of
flowers, and chained together the various productions of the elements
with a freer disorder natural to each species,” died in 1721, and,
while there is good reason for supposing that the reconstruction of
the dining and drawing rooms was affected at a later date, Sephton
was certainly employed by Charles Legh, and it is more than probable
that the carvings at Adlington were his work. Possibly, the close
resemblance which these productions of the chisel bear to the
well-known works of the great artist led to their being attributed to
Gibbons.]
In 1846 a large portion of the contents of Adlington, including many
family portraits by Vandyke, Lely, and Kneller; books, manuscripts, and
curiosities, were sold by auction. Some of the books and manuscripts
are now in the Chetham Library, and others were purchased for the
Portico in Manchester. Fortunately many of the family portraits
have since been recovered and restored to their original positions,
among them being the one of Sir Urian Legh already referred to, and
a large-sized picture in the dining-room by Cornelius Janssens; a
full length of Thomas Legh, the Royalist soldier, and his wife Mary,
daughter of Thomas Bolles.
Apart from its memories, its traditions, and its associations as the
home of an ancient Cheshire stock, Adlington possesses a deep interest
as an example of old English domestic architecture. Whilst retaining
many of the more striking and important of its ancient features
comparatively unimpaired, it marks the growth and development of human
society, and expresses the needs and ideas of changeful centuries, the
varied and somewhat rude magnificence of the Tudor and Stuart periods
and the classic forms of the earlier Georgian era mingling in curious
contrast, and carrying the mind rapidly through a long series of years.
Happily, within the present century the house has been subjected to
but little change or innovation, and has escaped, in a great degree,
the evil influences of “renovators” and “improvers.” It is one of the
comparatively few old places that have remained to the descendants of
the ancient worthies by whom they were erected, and we may venture to
indulge the hope that as it has endured for centuries past, so for
centuries to come it may be preserved a genuine relic of mediæval
England—a monument and a memorial of what men call “the good old times.”
[Illustration]
[Illustration: KERSALL CELL.]
[Illustration]