But, it may be asked, is there any Evidence, however remote, to show how
it is possible that Mounteagle may have been brought into personal contact
with his morally certain kinsman, Thomas Warde (or Ward)?
There is.
For it is to be remembered that although Mounteagle seems to have spent
most of his time in London and Essex, his grandmother, Elizabeth Lady
Morley, the wife of Henry Parker Lord Morley, was, as we have seen, of the
then well-nigh princely house of the Stanleys Earls of Derby, she being,
in fact, a daughter of Edward Stanley Earl of Derby, as was Margaret Lady
Poyntz, the wife of Sir Nicholas Poyntz,[A] of Iron Acton, in the County
of Gloucester, the father of Edward Poyntz, Esquire, the relative of the
Wardes of Yorkshire.
[Footnote A: It is a remarkable fact that Sir Thomas Heneage (whose name
frequently occurs in the correspondence of Sir Francis Walsingham with the
Earl of Leicester when in the Low Countries), married for his first wife
Anne Poyntz, the eldest daughter of Sir Nicholas Poyntz and the Honourable
Margaret Stanley, the daughter of Edward Stanley Earl of Derby.——See
“_Visitation of Essex, 1612_” (Harleian Soc.) under “Poyntz.”——Sir Thomas
Heneage is described as Secretary of State to Queen Elizabeth and
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Sir Thomas Heneage married for his
second wife the Dowager Countess of Southampton, the mother of
Shakespeare’s friend and patron. Now this Earl of Southampton, like the
Earl of Rutland, was an intimate friend of Lord Mounteagle.]
Besides, as we have also seen, this was not William Parker fourth Lord
Mounteagle’s only relationship with England’s “North Countrie,”——that
birthplace and home of so much that is most original and energetic in the
English race. For this happily-circumstanced young peer was related doubly
to the great Lancashire house of Derby, being, indeed, the heir and
successor to the honours and estates of the Stanleys Lords Mounteagle, of
Hornby Castle, near “time-honoured Lancaster.”
In fact, through his mother Elizabeth (Stanley) Lady Morley, William
Parker fourth Lord Mounteagle was the owner of Hornby Castle, situated in
the Vale of the Lune, one of the grandest portions of North-east
Lancashire.
Again, through his grandmother Anne (Leybourne) Lady Mounteagle, Lord
Mounteagle was descended from two other families belonging to the ancient
and wealthy Catholic gentry of the North, some of whom the Wards, of
Mulwith, Newby, and Givendale, in the Parish of Ripon, in the County of
York, must have known personally, and certainly all of whom they must have
greatly honoured.
I refer to the Prestons, of Levens and Preston Patrick, in the County of
Westmoreland, and of Furness and Holker, in Lancashire, “North of the
Sands,” and to the Leybournes (or Labourns), of Cunswick, Skelsmergh, and
Witherslack,[A] in the County of Westmoreland, and of Nateby-in-the-Fylde,
in the west of the County of Lancaster.[85]
[Footnote A: The modern Witherslack Hall, in Westmoreland, is the property
of the present Earl of Derby. It is situated in a lovely neighbourhood
which instinctively recalls the words of the poet:
“Daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take,
The winds of March with beauty.”——_Winter’s Tale._
Witherslack is reached from Arnside, Silverdale, or Grange-over-Sands.
The old Witherslack Hall of the Leybournes is now a farm-house.]