Historic Sites of Lancashire and Cheshire / A Wayfarer's Notes in the Palatine Counties, Historical, Legendary, Genealogical, and Descriptive.

Doubts have been entertained as to the genuineness of the story which Shenstone has narrated with such simple tenderness and pathos, and a belief expressed that for some of the more tragic details he has had recourse to the poet's licence. But apart from the circumstance that the incident commemorated has been a tradition in each of the three branches of the Dawson family, and accepted as an unimpeachable fact, there is extant sufficient contemporary evidence to remove any misgivings as to its authenticity. "Seldom shall you hear a tale so sad, so tender, and," as the poet adds, "so true." Shenstone, "whose mind," as has been said, "was not very comprehensive, nor his curiosity active," was content to take the event of his song from a narrative first published in the Parrot of August 2, 1746, three days after the "dismal scene" recorded. It is there stated that, "On the young lady being informed that Mr. Dawson was to be executed, not all the persuasions of her kindred could prevent her from going to the place of execution. She accordingly followed the sledge in a hackney coach, accompanied by a gentleman nearly related to her and a female friend. Having arrived at the place of execution, she got near enough to see the fire kindled that was to consume him, and all the other dreadful preparations, without betraying any of those emotions her friends apprehended. But when all was over, and she found he was no more, she drew her head back in the coach, and ejaculating, 'My dear, I follow thee! Lord Jesus, receive our souls together!' fell on the neck of her companion, and expired the very moment she had done speaking. Most excessive grief," the narrative adds, "which the force of her resolution had kept smothered within her breast, is thought to have put a stop to the vital motion, and suffocated at once all the animal spirits." The story is copied from the Parrot into the Whitehall Evening Post of August 7th, 1746, and the remark appended that, "upon inquiry, every circumstance was literally true."

It has been repeatedly stated, though incorrectly, that, after the execution, the head of Captain Dawson, with those of Syddall and one of the Deacons, was sent down to Manchester and spiked upon the old Exchange. Concerning the final disposition of the relics of poor mortality which were so long left to moulder in the sun and rain—the memorials of a barbarous and unchristian revenge—the following communication was some years ago addressed to Mr. Proctor, the author of "Memorials of Manchester Streets," and which, though somewhat lengthy, we venture to transcribe:—

I was dining some years ago, with the late Dr. S. L. (S. A.?) Bardsley. When the cloth was removed, the conversation took a more narrative character than is usual. Many personal recollections were told, and at length one of the guests incidentally mentioned the traditions of Manchester at the time of the Jacobite disturbances. Upon this our host observed how singular it was that the authorities of that day had never discovered the persons who had removed from the Manchester Exchange the heads of Jemmy Dawson (the hero of Shenstone's ballad) and the two deacons which had been exposed there, after their execution, as participators in the Jacobite troubles. He added that he was the only person living who could then solve the mystery. He went on to say, that many years previously (I forget the exact date) [1828] he was in attendance upon one Miss Hale (Miss Frances Hall?) who lived in King Street, and who had been a great partisan of Charles Edward. The old lady, who was then about ninety years of age, and believed herself to be dying, as was in fact the case, dismissed all her attendants from the room except the doctor; and having ascertained from him that she had not many hours to live, told him that her brother, who was then dead, was the person who had removed the heads in question, and that they were then buried in the garden at the back of the house in which she was living. She concluded by making him promise, that when she was gone, he would have them taken up and placed in consecrated ground.

I need hardly add that Dr. Bardsley strictly fulfilled her wishes. Three skulls were found in the garden, as she had stated, and they were placed, as I understand, in St. Ann's churchyard. This is the more probable as there are now tombs of the Deacons to be found there.

This note introduces us to a family that for a century or more occupied a prominent position in the society of Manchester, and the members of which were in each generation distinguished alike for their public spirit and private worth. Richard Edward Hall, who resided in an old half-timbered house in Deansgate, at the corner of Bridge-street, and afterwards in Hulme, where he died September 13th, 1793, at the age of ninety, was an eminent surgeon at the time of the Pretender's visit, the friend of John Byrom[70] and Dr. Dawson, and an ardent Jacobite withal. Two of his sons, Edward Hall and Richard Hall, adopted the father's profession, and were surgeons to the Infirmary, and it must have been one of them who removed the rebel heads from the Exchange. The survivors of the family were their two sisters, Frances and Elizabeth Hall, who remained unmarried, and died at an advanced age, the last-named in 1826, at the age of eighty, and Miss Frances Hall, June 4th, 1828, aged eighty-four. These two ladies, after their father's death, resided, with the other members of the family, in a house near the top of King Street, at the point where Spring Gardens has lately been carried through; their home was a large old-fashioned dwelling of stately exterior, with a spacious garden extending in rear to Chancery Lane, and a clump of tall trees, in which a colony of rooks had established themselves. The rookery remained within the recollection of the present generation, and only disappeared when garden and greensward were taken possession of by the builder, and the tumultuous occupants became but a memory of the past. When Prince Charles Edward passed through the town in 1745 Frances Hall was a child in arms, and had in all probability been held up to view the gay cavalcade; her brother Edward was then a youth of fourteen, and, inheriting his father's attachment to the exiled race, it is easy to understand his desire to remove from their ignominious position, the ghastly relics of those whose lives had been sacrificed for their devotion to the Stuart cause. The Halls were as wealthy as they were prominent, and when Miss Frances Hall died in 1828 she left by her will no less a sum than £44,000 to the Royal Infirmary, House of Recovery, Lying-in Hospital, Ladies' Jubilee School, and other charities in her native town. She is buried in the Derby chapel within the Cathedral, where a monument by Chantrey was erected to her memory in 1834, which has since been removed to the Derby chapel.

It is stated in the communication we have quoted that three heads were removed from the Exchange—those of Jemmy Dawson and the two Deacons—but this is clearly an error. Dawson's head was not exposed in Manchester, and there is no record of more than two being placed upon the Exchange—those of Adjutant Syddall and Captain Thomas Theodorus Deacon. In the constable's accounts for the year the cost of placing them is thus recorded:—

1746: Expenses tending the Sheriff this morning for Syddall's and
Deacon's heads put up. 0 1 6

And it is worthy of note that when the Exchange was pulled down in 1792 the two iron rods on which they had been spiked remained fixed in one of the stones.

The statements that have come down to us respecting the disposal of the heads of the unhappy Jacobites are singularly vague and conflicting. Baines adopts the oft-repeated statement that the head of Colonel Townley, with that of Captain Fletcher, another officer of the Manchester Regiment, was fixed on Temple Bar, the "City Golgotha" as it came to be called; but this statement, so far as Townley is concerned, is incorrect, that part of his sentence having, at the intercession of friends, been remitted, and an undertaker at Pancras allowed to take charge of his corpse, by whom it was buried. There were, however, two heads exposed on the Bar; one of them was Captain Fletcher's, and there is good reason to believe that the other was that of Captain Dawson. Walpole, writing to Montague, August 15, 1746, says:—"I have been this morning at the Tower, and passed under the new heads at Temple Bar, where people make a trade of letting spying-glasses at a halfpenny a look." For several weeks people flocked to the revolting exhibition, which afforded to many a savage pleasure, and a print, published at the time, gives a view of Temple Bar with the heads spiked on the top, and the following doggrel lines beneath:—

Dr. Johnson relates the impression which the sight of these trunkless heads made upon him. "I remember," he says, "once being with Goldsmith in Westminster Abbey. While he surveyed Poet's Corner, I said to him—

When we got to the Temple Bar, he stopped me, pointed to the heads upon it, and slily whispered—

Goldsmith's rejoinder is so charmingly witty that we make no apology for repeating it. After this we have little mention of these relics of the victims of Hanoverian vengeance—the lips that love had kissed, the cheeks that children had patted were left to blacken and rot until the 31st of March, 1772, when one of the heads was blown down, and shortly afterwards the remaining one was also swept down by a stormy gust; the cruel-looking spikes, however, remained until the beginning of the present century, when they were removed, and since then the Bar itself, with its ponderous gates—black, weather-worn, and dilapidated—successively a protection, an ornament, and an obstruction, have disappeared, and is now only remembered as belonging to the past.

The sun of the Stuarts went down with the rout and slaughter of the rebel army at Culloden. On that memorable 16th of April, 1746, a dynastic contest of fifty-seven years was conclusively ended in less than fifty-seven minutes; the visions of thrones and sceptres vanished, the hopes and aspirations of the youthful adventurer were blighted, and he who, one short hour before, had been a nominal king, was reduced to the condition of a luckless and forlorn outcast, shunned by every one except those who sought his destruction. Though the friends of the exiled house adhered to their mystically significant toasts, drank "The King over the water," and sang "The King shall enjoy his own again," Jacobitism as a principle, may from that time be said to have waned, and to have become extinct as a profession of faith with the death of Charles Edward in 1788; for though the Prince's younger brother, Cardinal York, issued a medal bearing his name as "Henricus Nonus Dei Gratia Rex," with the meek addition, "Haud desideriis Hominum, sed voluntate Dei," his assumption of the regal title excited little interest or feeling among the English people. The Jacobites had a firm belief in the right divine of kings, and viewed the case of the Stuarts as that of a family deprived of its rights by unjust means. Influenced by that belief, their conduct in seeking to affect a restoration of the dynasty was both logical and generous. The effort they made in 1745 was in many respects a brilliant one, but it was out of time; the House of Brunswick had then become firmly seated upon the throne, and there was little chance of effecting its overthrow. From the first the enterprise was hopeless; the country gentlemen sympathised with it, but the great mass of the people were indifferent and had certainly no attachment or prejudice in favour of the House of Stuart. But while we may condemn an attempt dictated by youth and presumption, and conducted without art or resolution, we cannot but admire the heroic efforts, and pity the sufferings of those engaged in it.

Though the hope of a restoration of the exiled family was finally extinguished, the bitterness of party feeling long continued to manifest itself in Manchester, where political and religious excitement was maintained at fever heat by the two contending factions. The partisans of the House of Brunswick had regained the ascendancy; inflamed with the sense of victory, they made an ostentatious parade of their loyalty, and in their exultation treated their opponents with every contumely, accounting Jacobites, Tories, and Non-jurors as the equivalent of Jews, Infidels, and Heretics. The local magistrates were energetic in the discharge of their office, and as severe as they were energetic, everyone whose Hanoverian sympathies were not of the most pronounced character being compelled by them to take the oath of allegiance to the reigning sovereign. But the fiercest feuds must some time come to an end, for society cannot continue in a state of perpetual antagonism; if party principles were maintained, party feeling gradually subsided, and King de facto men and partisans of the Pretender eventually laid aside their differences and settled down to the calm enjoyment of social intercourse and the ordinary amenities of civilised life.

With the suppression of the rebellion and the renewal of active business life we may leave the story of the "'forty-five," with all its painful memories, to note some few particulars respecting the family of the luckless Jemmy Dawson.

Dr. Dawson, the father of the rebel captain, as previously stated, had his town residence in the upper part of King Street—but then known as St. James's Square—a fashionable quarter, intended, originally, to be what the name imported, a square, and a rival in stateliness and substantial dignity, to the one lower down, named after the Hanoverian Queen. In addition, he had become the owner of a house called the "Cottage," which stood in the fields near the site of the present Concert Hall—a pleasant out of-town abode, with a walled garden, orchard, and pleasure ground, contiguous to which, on the high ground called the Mount, stood an antiquated windmill that gave name to Windmill Street; Mosley Street, which commemorates the former manorial lords, and "the most elegant and retired street in the town," as Dr. Dalton afterwards described it, was then Mosley Street only in name, and the narrow alleys and streetlets leading into it had not come into existence. The lower part of the street, from the present Nicholas Street to St. Peter's Church (erected many years afterwards), was then called Dawson Street, and led directly to Mr. Dawson's house, standing within its own grounds in the open country. When the street came to be built upon, it was inhabited by some of the best families in the town, and numbered at one time among its residents Nathan Meyer Rothschild and the well-known Major Shakspeare Phillips. Mr. Dawson's family consisted, in addition to the ill-starred subject of Shenstone's ballad, of a son, William Dawson, and two daughters, Elizabeth and Sarah. In the earlier years of his married life there was residing with him a lady, the circumstances of whose life are shrouded in much mystery—the Lady Barbara Fitzroy, one of the daughters of Charles Duke of Cleveland by his second wife, Ann, daughter of Sir William Pulteney, of Misterton, in Leicestershire—a lady in whose veins coursed the blood of the Stuarts, the Duke, her father, being one of the children which Charles II. had by the notorious Lady Castlemaine, a vain and volatile beauty, whose pretty face helped to undo a nation. Lady Fitzroy had withdrawn from her own family when she took up her abode with the Dawsons, but the circumstances which led to the alienation and her being disowned by her mother are not known, and we fail to discover by what means her fortunes became identified with those of the family of "Jemmy Dawson," though, doubtless, the connection helped to strengthen his attachment to the Stuart cause. She was born February 7th, 1695-6, and died January 4th, 1734, in her 38th year. Robert Thyer, the accomplished scholar and critic, writing to John Byrom under date January 20th, 1734-5, says "My Lady Barbara Fitzroy, that lived with Mrs. Dawson, and Mrs. Mort were both buried this week. My Lady has made Mr. Dawson her heir, if he can but come at the money." Mr. Dawson did not "come at the money," and neither he nor any of his family benefited by Lady Barbara's benevolent intentions. She is buried in the choir of the cathedral, where upon her gravestone, is a brass with the inscription—

Lady Barbara Fitz Roy, Eldest Daughter of the Most Noble Charles Duke of Cleveland and Southampton. Died January 4th, 1734.

Above the inscription on a lozenge shield are the arms of Charles II., differenced with a baton sinister flanked on each side with the usual emblems of mortality, a skull, cross-bones, winged hour-glass and scythe, and a candle nearly extinguished.

Dr. Dawson died at his house in King-street, then called St. James's Street, March 20th, 1763. He is buried in the cathedral by the side of his wife (who died before her son came to his tragic end) and one of his daughters. The gravestone is inscribed—

Guls. Dawson de Mancr. Gen. ob. 20mo Mar. A.S. 1763, æt 67. Eliz. Ux. Gul. Dawson ob 30 Maij anno salutis 1737, ætatis suæ 41. Saræ filia prædic. obt. 7mo Maij 1725.

Mr. Dawson was succeeded by his second but eldest surviving son, William Dawson, who, as previously stated, had entered at Lincoln's Inn and been called to the bar. He resided at the "Cottage" before referred to, and from the little that is known respecting him appears to have been a somewhat eccentric personage. When John Byrom's son, Edward Byrom, the banker, established himself in Quay Street and conceived the idea of founding St. John's Church, Mr. Dawson associated with him in the good work, but from some cause or other a dispute arose which led him to withdraw from the undertaking after contributing to the cost of the erection. While travelling in Italy he had purchased the picture by Annibal Carracci of "The Descent from the Cross," which he intended should grace the altar recess of St. John's, but when the misunderstanding arose the intention was abandoned, and some years after his death, when St. Peter's was erected in close proximity to his house, and became, by the attractiveness of its services, if not the carriage-way to heaven, at least the shrine to which the "fashionable idlers" and "genteel sinners" of Mosley Street and Dawson Street turned their steps one day in seven, the picture was placed there, over the communion table, where it still remains. Several years before his death he had engaged Mr. Bottomley, an engraver in the town, to inscribe the plate which he purposed having placed over his remains, and this, according to Dr. Hibbert-Ware, he kept in his room as a memento until the day of his death. Sapiens, qui, dum vivat sibi monumentum parat. He died unmarried at "the cottage, near the Mount," on Thursday, the 17th August, 1780, and was buried on the following Sunday in the grave in which forty-six years before his friend and patron Lady Barbara Fitzroy had been laid. The plate before referred to, which is placed on the lower compartment of the stone, bears the following inscription:—

Here are deposited the Remains of William Dawson, Esq., who died the 17th day of August, 1780, and in the 60th year of his Age.

He desired to be buried with the above named lady, not only to testify his gratitude to the memory of a kind benefactress: although he never reaped any of those advantages from her bounty to his family she intended.

But because his fate was similar to her's. For she was disowned by her Mother. And he was disinherited by his Father.

Above the inscription is a shield of arms and crest, but, by some unaccountable mistake, instead of the Dawson's those of the Allens of Redivales are depicted, a family from which Mr. Dawson was descended through the female line.

In Mr. Barritt's MSS. in the Chetham Library we have the following particulars respecting Mr. Dawson:—

This gentleman was buried agreeably to his request, in the following dress, ruffled shirt, and cravat, nightcap of brown fur, morning gown striped orange and white, deep crimson-coloured waistcoat and breeches, white silk stockings, and red morocco slippers. In his bosom was put a folded piece of white paper, which enclosed two locks of hair cut from the heads of two boys that died, for whom Mr. Dawson had a great regard; they being the children of Mr. Cooper, his steward, with whom Mr. Dawson lived, and likewise became his heir at his death.

Nothing is known of the circumstance that led to the differences between Mr. Dawson and his father; the breach, however, would seem never to have been healed, and the son, as the inscription on his grave evidences, retained an unpleasant recollection of it to the last. Mr. Dawson was a prominent figure in the Manchester society of the last century, and many were the stories that used to be told of his foibles and peculiarities. By his will he bequeathed the greater part of his property to Mr. William Cooper, the steward referred to in Barritt's MSS., and constituted him his sole executor. Mr. Cooper thus became the owner and occupier of the "Cottage," which thenceforward became commonly known as "Cooper's Cottage," a name it retained until half a century ago, when it was pulled down to make room for the present Concert Hall; and as the patronymic of its former possessor was commemorated in Dawson-street, so, in like manner, Cooper-street perpetuates the name of its subsequent owner.

In concluding our account of the Dawsons it only remains to notice one other member of the family,—Elizabeth, the younger of the two daughters of Dr. Dawson. The eldest daughter, Sarah, as we have seen, died unmarried in 1725; Elizabeth Dawson married some time before March 24, 1749, William Broome, the representative of a family which had then been settled for half a century or more at Didsbury, and the heads of which held the position of legal agents to Sir John Bland, of Hulme, and also of the Barlows, of Barlow Hall. Tradition points to this lady, "Bessy Dawson," as the one who accompanied "Jemmy Dawson's" affianced bride on the morning of the sad 30th of July, 1746, to witness the terrible tragedy to be enacted on Kennington Common, and the same authority tells us that afterwards, having formed an attachment for the handsome young lawyer of Didsbury, and failing to obtain her father's consent to the match, she eloped with him and was married clandestinely, a procedure which gave such offence to her father that he never forgave her. The first part of this statement has such an air of probability about it that we would not willingly spoil the effect by questioning its accuracy, but the story of the elopement does not appear to rest upon any reliable foundation.

Elizabeth Dawson died February, 1764. By her marriage with William Broome she had several children; the eldest, named after his father, married and had issue a daughter, Mary, his heir, who became the wife of Henry Fielding, of Didsbury, and by him had a son, Robert Fielding, who married Ann, eldest daughter of Sir John Parker Mosley, of Ancoats. The eldest son by this marriage was the Rev. Robert Mosley Fielding, rector of Bebbington, in Cheshire, who died in 1862, leaving with other issue a son—Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Fielding, of Dulas Court, Hereford, high sheriff of that county in 1864, who is the present representative of this branch of the Fieldings, as well as of the old Manchester families of Broome and Dawson. Colonel Fielding married in 1858 his second cousin, Louisa Willis, fifth daughter of Joseph Fielding, of Witton Park, formerly M.P. for Blackburn, and sister of Major-general Randle Joseph Fielding, M.P. for North Lancashire, by whom he has a numerous issue.

In thus relating the story of "Jemmy Dawson," we have endeavoured to rescue from oblivion some few particulars respecting the life and family connections of one of the most notable of the Manchester victims of Hanoverian vengeance, and one whose tragic end forms a dark page in the history of the fatal '45.

CHAPTER VIII.

A MORNING AT LITTLE MORETON.

In that interesting old national record, the Dome Bock, or Doomsday Book, as it is commonly called—a survey which William the Norman caused to be made of all the possessions of the Crown, and which for eight hundred years has been a perpetual register of appeal for those whose title to their estates has at any time been questioned—mention is made of the township or ville of Rode, which even at a period so remote as the Saxon era, as appears, had been divided into the two manors of Moreton and Rode, places that at a subsequent date gave names to two distinct families.

Moreton, or Little Moreton, as it is usually designated, to distinguish it from the adjoining township of Moreton-cum-Aucumlow, or Great Moreton, is situated at the extreme corner of Cheshire, in the midst of rich level meadow-breadths that stretch away from the foot of the wild moorland ridge that here divides the county from Staffordshire—a spur, so to speak, thrown out from the lofty Pennine range, or "back-bone of England," and which, in olden times, was included within the limits of the great forests of Leek and Macclesfield. These bold outliers of sandstone rock, from their coarse conglomerate and smoothly-rounded outlines towards the plain, show unmistakably that they were deposited in water and moulded to their present form by the great icebergs that in the glacial period swept past and ground down their rugged forms to mix with and enrich the soil below. Picturesque are they in appearance as they stretch away towards the north in wild heathery wastes, where, in the pleasant autumn time, the "hech-hech" of the startled grouse and the sound of the sportsman's gun may oftentimes be heard. Just above Little Moreton the well-known Mow Cop[71]—the "high-crowned Mole Cop," as Michael Drayton calls it—rises to a height of 1,090 feet, its summit crested with an imitation ruin that, as tradition says, was built by Randle Wilbraham, of Rode, nearly a century and a half ago; and further north the range terminates in the bold promontory of Cloud End, which descends in a series of steep shelving crags towards the Dane, a gentle stream that comes down from the hills near Bosley, and, after performing some little acts of industry at Congleton, and receiving the indignities of that ancient borough in return, wanders freakishly onwards to add its tribute to the waters of the Weaver.

The notice in the Norman survey, brief though it is, gives us a side glance of the condition of the country in the far off days of Gurth and Wamba; it tells us of the woods that spread over the hill sides, of the aerie for hawks, and of the enclosures for taking wild deer; and as we read it we picture in imagination the wild scenes of sylvan solitude when the serfs and bondmen of the Saxon thegn tended their herds beneath the wide-branched oaks, and the swineherd, winding his horn, gathered his scattered porkers to fatten on the luxurious banquet of acorns and beech-mast which the forest supplied. As Ben Jonson, in the "Sad Shepherd," says:

But the reign of the country-loving Saxon came to an end. When William of Normandy came out of the gory field of Senlac a victor, and strengthened his claim to the English throne by his military successes, he, in conformity with existing usage, seized upon the lands of the vanquished Harold and his adherents, and bestowed them upon the hordes of needy adventurers who had in truth placed the crown upon his head, and who looked for their recompense in the unreserved plunder of the Saxon people; for the chief having taken what he could by force of arms, the knights who helped him took what they could of what was left: chascun sur sa main forte: the Saxons were to them, in fact, what the Arabs call "Damalafong," things to be plundered, and plundered they were by the unanswerable right of "la main forte," the strong Norman hand.

The Earldom of Chester was granted by the Conqueror to that pious profligate Hugh d'Avranches, better know from his savage characteristics as Hugh Lupus, or Hugh the Wolf, and he in turn distributed the lands among his feudatory followers. Rode has its reminiscences of the predatory adventurers who accompanied Duke William, for at the time of the survey it had been wrested from the possession of its Saxon owner and had passed into the hands of two Norman grantees, Hugh de Mara, progenitor of the Barons of Montalt, and William Fitznigel, Baron of Halton, a grandson, it is said, of that Ivo de Constance who encountered the English whom King Ethelred sent to France and slew them as they stepped ashore.

The manor of Moreton was held under the barony of Halton by knight service by a family who took their surname from their possessions. Some time during the long reign of Henry III. Letitia or Lettice Moreton, who, through failure of the direct male line, had become heiress, conveyed the lands in marriage to a neighbouring knight, Sir Gralam de Lostock, of Lostock Gralam, near Northwich, the fourth in direct descent from another Norman warrior, Hugh de Runchamp; and their grandson, also named Gralam, adopted his grandmother's patronymic. From this time the estate continued in strict male descent until the time of Sir William Moreton, Knight, Recorder of London, who died childless in March, 1763, when the estates passed by will to his sister's son, the Rev. Richard Taylor, Rector of West Dean and Vicar of West Firle, in Sussex, who, in accordance with his uncle's directions, assumed the surname of Moreton. He died in 1784, leaving, with two daughters, a son who succeeded as heir, the Rev. William Moreton, who died some few years ago, leaving two daughters his co-heiresses, Frances Annabella, of Maison Moreton, Pau, in France, widow of John Craigie, Esq., formerly sheriff-substitute of Roxburghshire, and Elizabeth Moreton, a sister of mercy at Clewer, near Windsor, the present owners of the Moreton moiety of the manor of Rode, and the picturesque old moated manor house that forms the subject of our present paper.

As already stated, the other moiety of the manor of Rode gave name to a family who were settled there as early as the reign of King John. Whether they were descended, like the Moretons, from the Lostocks of Lostock Gralam, as Mr. Ormerod seems to believe, is not very clear, but if they were their kinship did not strengthen the ties of friendship or put them on more neighbourly terms with each other, for the Recognisance Rolls and other public records bear testimony to the frequent feuds that arose between the two families, and tell of the many occasions on which the chiefs of each house were bound over in heavy recognisances to keep the peace towards each other. One of their disputes was of a sufficiently humorous character to make it worth recording. In the chancel of Astbury Church is a chapel or side aisle that appears to have belonged jointly to the two manors, and in the fifth year of Henry the Eighth's reign a quarrel arose between William Moreton and Thomas Rode, the owners of two moieties, as to "which should sit highest in the church, and foremost goo in procession." It was a weighty matter, and Sir William Brereton was eventually entrusted by George Bromley, lieutenant justice of Chester, who had been joined with him in the arbitration, with the responsibility of determining which of these sticklers for precedence should have the highest seat in the synagogue, and, as we learn from the award, which is printed at length in the Magna Britannia, "the said William Brereton, calling to him xii. of the most auncyent men inhabiting within the parish of Astebery," somewhat comically decided "that whyther of the said gentylmen may dispende in landes, by title of inheritance, 10 marks or above more than the other, that he shall have the pre-eminence in sitting in the churche, and in gooing in procession, with all other lyke causes in that behalf;" a decision that is worthy of being classed with the direction given a few years later (1534) by one of the Townleys of Townley, who, when called upon to issue an order regulating precedence to the seats in Whalley Church, in Lancashire, decreed that the earliest comers should take precedence in the highest seats nearest the choir, observing that it might operate beneficially on "the proud wives of Whalley," who would not "rise betimes to come to church." The award signed by Sir William Brereton is preserved among the archives of the Moreton family, but which of the disputants outdid the other in liberality—acquiring priority by purchase—history hath failed to record.

The William Moreton who was a party to this pretty quarrel married Alice, one of the daughters of Sir Andrew Brereton, lord of Brereton, by whom he had, with other issue, a son, William Moreton, born a year or two after the accession of Henry VIII., and there is good reason to believe that he was the one who began the erection of the present manor house of Little Moreton on the site of an earlier building, his son, John Moreton, who died about the end of Elizabeth's reign, completing the work the father had begun. A grandson of this John Moreton, Dr. Edward Moreton, who was rector of Tattenhall, Barrow, and Sephton, married a niece of William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, and by her was father of the Right Reverend William Moreton, Bishop of Kildare, in Ireland, and afterwards Bishop of Meath, who died in Dublin, November 21st, 1715, leaving an only son, Sir William Moreton, of Moreton, Recorder of London, before referred to, the last of the direct male line who owned the manor.

There were formerly in the Moreton Chapel in Astbury Church some altar tombs and other sepulchral memorials of this ancient race, but these have, in the course of ages, disappeared, with the exception of a monumental slab, east of the altar steps, which bears an inscription to the memory of the last male representative of the stock—"Sir William Moreton Knt. recorder of the city of London, who died March 14 1763 aged 67 and his wife Dame Jane Moreton (widow of John Lawton of Lawton) who died February 10 1758 aged 61." On the same tomb there is also an inscription to the memory of Sir William's mother, Dame Mary Jones, who died April 19th, 1743, aged 85, the second wife of William Moreton, of Moreton, who afterwards married Sir Arthur Jones.

King, in his "Vale Royal," referring to the ancestral home of the Moretons, says:—"Near the foot of that famous mountain called Mow Cop begins the water of the Whelock, making his first passage near unto Moreton, wherein are two very fair demeans and houses of worthy gentlemen and esquires, of most antient continuance—the one of the same name of Moreton, and which, as I have heard, gave breeding to that famous Bishop Moreton, who in the time of Richard III. contrived that project of the marriage of the two heirs of the Houses of York and Lancaster, from whence proceeded the happiness that we enjoy at this day." The old chronicler is here alluding to Cardinal John Moreton, or Morton, Master of the Rolls in 1473, created Bishop of Ely and Lord Chancellor in 1478, and Archbishop of Canterbury in 1486. Sir Thomas More, who was well qualified to appreciate his character, has given an account of this prelate in his "Utopia." Godwin and Fuller both incline to the opinion that he was a native of Dorsetshire, but differ as to the exact place of his birth, the former fixing it at Bere Regis and the other at St. Andrew's, Milborne; others say he was born in Cheshire, but there is no evidence, so far as can be discovered, confirmatory of King's statement that the old manor house at Moreton "gave breeding to that famous bishop."

From Mow Cop to Little Moreton is but a few minutes' walk. It may be reached by a short path across the fields or by the high road—the London road of the old coaching days, leading through Congleton and the Potteries—which is a little more circuitous, though not much. The country is for the most part level, the base of the hills being a mile or so to the eastward, and, though not pre-eminently beautiful or impressive, presents nevertheless many charms of situation and rural and scenic attractions enough to leave a pleasant impress upon the memory. The land is devoted to crops and pasture, and the pleasant green lanes winding in sun and shadow between meadows and corn lands, with glimpses here and there of rustic cottages and blooming apple orchards, call up thoughts and fancies ever new and ever beautiful.

It was a bright, clear morning, near the close of the pleasant autumn time, when our visit was made; a cheery November day, with an exhilarating freshness in the atmosphere that made us almost think the mild October was trying to hold its own, though the drift of withered leaves that crackled beneath our feet, the tall trees half stripped of their vernal pride, and the naked underwood and brambles told unmistakably that summer had passed away, and that winter was rapidly advancing in the background to—

The red leaves rent from the shivering branches descended in flaky showers, reminding us of William Allingham's lines on "Robin Redbreast"—

Turning off the highway a gate admits us to a private road that leads across a pasture field in which a few stirks and young stock are grazing; the tall trees that border it, divested of their summer garniture, look gaunt and grim and bare; the intricate network of twigs overhead shows like a pattern in lace against the sky, and their nakedness reveals to us the many happy nests that in the warm summer time were

Below us a little rindle that comes down from the neighbouring heights, courses its way with many a freakish twist and sinuosity, and in front the long moorland ridge, sullen and sombre looking, stretches across the plain towards Congleton Edge and the gigantic Cloud, its rugged slopes softened in places with patches of scrub and gorse. A few minutes brings us in full view of the curious old mansion we are in search of—the "Old Hall" as it is called, to distinguish it from the more pretentious residence hard by, which has vainly endeavoured to assume its name. It attracts the eye from a distance, but it is not until you are close upon it that you fully realise the effect of its picturesquely broken outlines, its projecting upper storeys and numerous gabled roofs, its quaint casemented windows, its curious columnar chimneys partially draped with ivy, and its walls chequered in black and white and diapered in patterns wrought in trefoils and quatrefoils and chevrons and lozenges upon the white ground of intervening plaster. It is a singularly interesting specimen of the half-timbered manor-house of the early part of the sixteenth century, and, though in a decayed and dilapidated state, still preserves more nearly its original form and features than perhaps any other example of domestic architecture of equal antiquity in the country.

Drawing near we see that it is encompassed by a moat, now partially choked with rubbish, which encloses altogether about a statute acre of land, and which on the south side is spanned by an antiquated bridge of one arch, with the arms of its owners carved in relief on a panel in one of the battlements. The south side constitutes the principal front, and presents a surprising variety and fancifulness in its parts. It is of three storeys, the uppermost being much narrower than the others, and rising like the clerestory of a church from the sloping roof of the lower apartments. From near the centre of the main structure a lofty gable is advanced towards the bridge, the ground story of which forms a covered gateway, giving admission to the inner quadrangle. The doorway merits special attention by the richness and profusion of its carvings; the framework enclosing the door is composed of an elaborate series of round, fillet, and hollow mouldings, and the huge outer posts are worked with double cable mouldings, enclosing an elaborate scroll work of foliage, the frieze above, which is supported by double brackets, having a running ornament of arabesque character. Above this doorway, divided by dwarf pilasters, is a double row of panels, with trefoiled heads, the spandrels of which are in each case enriched with carved work, and in one of them is placed an horologe of antique date. Surmounting them is a large square window, lighting the porch chamber, divided by moulded mullions into five rows of lights, double transomed. In the storey above, which slightly projects from a coved cornice, is another window of similar character but of larger dimensions: an overhanging gable with barge boards and carved pendants crowning the whole. The general effect of the exterior is light and graceful, exhibiting that picturesque irregularity of outline so favourable to external beauty which our ancestors knew how to produce without unnecessary sacrifice of internal comfort.

As we cross the threshold our attention is drawn to an old stone horse block standing in a corner behind the gate, from which, doubtless, in days gone by, many a stately matron and many a graceful maiden has mounted to her palfrey to follow hawk and hound. A door opens on each side of the gateway, one communicating with some small rooms, and the other admitting to a small chamber that has evidently served as the porter's lodge. At the opposite end, entering into the quadrangle, is a wide doorway, the sideposts of which are deserving of special notice; they are elaborately ornamented, the upper portion of each being adorned with the carved representation of a soldier holding a partisan or bill in his hand; and from the morion or head piece and the other accessories, we are able to fix pretty nearly the period when this part of the mansion was built. Within the covered porch a stair winds spirally round the trunk of an immense tree that reaches from floor to roof, giving admission to several panelled chambers—the State rooms, as they are commonly designated, though, alas! they have now little stateliness to boast of—and also to the gallery occupying the third or uppermost storey of the south front, extending, with the exception of a small withdrawing room, the entire length of that part of the building from east to west. The length of this gallery is seventy-one feet, with a width of twelve feet, and the height to the centre of the roof, which is of open timber work adorned with quatrefoils, is seventeen feet. The lower portions of the walls are covered with oak wainscoting, arranged in panels, and above is a continuous line of windows extending all round, with the exception of a space in the centre, where a small chamber projects over the gateway, the profusion of light thus gained reminding us of Lord Bacon's complaint that in his day the houses "were so full of glass that you cannot tell where to come to be out of the sun or the cold." The glazing of these windows is very remarkable; it is arranged in a kind of diaper work, and exhibits a marvellous variety of intricate forms. Scratched with a diamond on one of the panes we noticed the following couplet—