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

The long gallery bears a close resemblance to the one formerly existing at Bramall Hall, near Stockport, and, though smaller, is not unlike in its proportions and general arrangement the grand gallery or banqueting hall at Haddon. It is difficult to determine what purpose it could have been intended to serve, for the width is hardly sufficient to allow of its being used for a dancing room. At the east end is a female figure representing Fate, holding a pair of compasses in one hand and in the other a sword, with which she is piercing a globe placed above her head, the following inscription being carved in two panel-like compartments; one on either side:—

At the opposite end is another female figure in flowing drapery representing Fortune blindfolded, with the right hand raised above the head pointing to her wheel, on the rim of which is inscribed—Qui modo scandit corruet statim (He who is climbing now will shortly be falling down), and at the sides are two panels inscribed—

The small chamber leading from the gallery before referred to is wainscoted, and has an elaborately ornamented fireplace with the figures of Justice and Mercy on the sides, and between them a heraldic shield with the arms of Moreton quartering those of Macclesfield and surmounted by the Moreton crest, the quartering having allusion to the marriage of John de Moreton in the reign of Edward III. with Margaret, daughter of Jordan and sister and co-heir of John de Macclesfield.

Projecting at right angles from the building just described, and forming the eastern side of the quadrangle, is a long uniform wing of two storeys, extending up to the main body of the hall, and containing a number of small gloomy apartments now covered with dirt and dust and litter, and apparently appropriated originally to the use of the servants and retainers. At the end nearest to the entrance is the domestic chapel, extending in a direction east and west; it is approached by a separate entrance, and is of small dimensions compared with the other parts of the building, suggesting the idea that in former times the good people of Moreton, while taking up a very considerable amount of space for the transaction of their temporal concerns, were able to manage their spiritual affairs within extremely moderate limits. The entire length of the structure is thirty feet, but the chapel proper is not more than twelve feet by nine feet. The old sanctuary is now in a sadly dilapidated condition, and damp and dreary enough to remind one of Longfellow's lines—

The pavement is broken and dislocated, the walls are stained with damp and mildew, and altogether it exhibits signs of indifference and unseemly disrespect enough to sear the eye and grieve the heart of any one in whom the sense of veneration is not entirely extinguished. It is now made a depository for useless lumber, and has been applied to even baser uses, cattle having been stalled, where of yore the mass was sung and matins and vespers were said. This part of the hall is approached by an ante-chapel, the doorway of which is enriched with a series of half-round and hollow mouldings of late Perpendicular date; a part of the old oak screen separating the chancel from the nave remains, but from the upper portion, where the rood formerly existed, a plastered wall is carried up to the roof, which is flat and worked in panels. At the further, or eastern, end is a pointed window divided by mullions into five lights carried up to the head with a drip-mould protecting it on the outside. At the opposite end is a small square-headed window of four lights, and there are indications of another window having at some time or other existed on the south side. The plaster work of the chapel is enriched with an ornamentation of Renaissance character, and the walls in places are strewn with scripture texts in black letter characters and of earlier date than the authorised version, but they are now so much defaced as to be hardly decipherable.

Between architecture and history there exists a closer connection than is commonly supposed, for the former subtly expresses the needs, the habits, and the ideas of changeful centuries, epitomises much of the poetry and romance of the past, and marks the gradual growth and development of human society during successive centuries. In England's homes we may read much of England's history—the old dwelling-places of the people are the types and emblems of the changing life of the country, and even in their decay, when having outlived their vital purpose and they survive only in ruin, they serve as memorials to show us how men lived and acted in the days that are gone before.

Little Moreton, though not one of the most pretentious, is certainly one of the most complete and genuine relics of mediæval England. The exterior, as we have previously said, is remarkable for the variety and picturesqueness of grouping, but the interior is even more interesting. The master feature of the whole building, and that which most attracts the attention of visitors, is the portion extending along the north side of the quadrangle comprising the entrance, the great hall, and the principal entertaining-rooms. The effect of the entire facade, as viewed from the gateway, is very striking, and it is doubtful whether, for variety of design, peculiarity of construction, and excellence of workmanship, it is equalled by any other timber house in the kingdom. Upon this part the architect seems to have lavished all his ingenuity and skill, and to have endeavoured to combine as much lightness and delicacy of detail as was consistent with stability of structure. Projecting from the main line of frontage are two singularly picturesque bay-windows, each forming five sides of an octagon, but of unequal dimensions. They are each of two storeys, the upper range of windows overhang the lower, and they are in turn surmounted by projecting roofs that form a series of small gablets, from which hang elaborately-ornamented pendants. The glazing of these windows, as in the case of those in the Long Gallery before referred to, is very remarkable, the panes being small and joined together by slips of lead in such a way as to represent stars, crosses, roses, and other devices as varied in form as the figures in a kaleidoscope. On a band ornamented with scroll-work carried round the upper tiers are the following inscriptions:—

GOD IS AL IN AL THING
THIS WINDOVS WHIRE MADE BY WILLIAM MORETON IN THE YEARE OF
OURE LORDE MDLII
RYCHARD DALE CARPEDER MADE THEIS BY THE GRACE OF GOD

Doubtless "Rychard Dale" was proud of the work to which he affixed his name, and just cause he had to be. It looks as if the taste of a life-time had been expended upon it, the delicate mouldings and rich carving evidencing the skill of the workman, and proving incontestably that our ancestors knew how to impart grace and elegance to whatever material they might employ in the useful or ornamental purposes of architecture. Beautiful it must have been in its pristine state, but it could hardly have possessed the charm of romance or have been so picturesque to look upon then as now. Time lovingly clothes with added beauty the decayed memorials of the past, and the peculiar warmth and richness of colouring which age has given—the sombre tints of the oaken framework, the creamy white of the plaster, the faded reds and yellows of the old roofs, and the sober green of the dark-hued ivy wrapping itself round the tall chimney-shafts being wanting in the days of its proud estate.

The entrance is by a porch, occupying the north-east corner, and advanced several feet from the main structure. What a wonderful old doorway it is that we pass through. On those clustered and twisted pillars that form the side posts Richard Dale, the "carpeder," seems to have lavished his greatest skill, every part of the timber work where the carver's tool could be employed being wrought with all the nicety of art; the spandrels of the low Tudor arch are adorned with figures of dragons, and the lintel over them has a running zig-zag ornament carved in relief. The space above is occupied with a double row of exquisitely-carved and moulded dwarf pilasters, the spaces between being filled in with quatrefoils, while over them, springing from a coved cornice, is a projecting window that reaches across the entire width of the bay, surmounted by a gabled roof. From the doorway a passage leads across the western end of the main structure, communicating on the one side with the kitchens, buttery, and other domestic offices, and on the other with the great hall which faces the entrance gateway. It is a spacious apartment 34ft. by 21ft., exclusive of the large bay which projects far out into the court-yard, and is open to the roof-timbers. It is in much better condition than the other parts of the fabric, and if adorned with tapestry, arms and armour, and family portraits would resume much of its original character. In the earlier days of the Moretons it was the principal entertaining-room, and many a scene of boisterous revelry has doubtless been witnessed within its walls in the days when "the two-hooped pot" was indeed "a four-hooped pot," and it was accounted fell felony to drink small beer. Though its glories are greatly faded, it is still a magnificent feature of the old mansion, and, being in part used as a living room by the present tenant, is better cared for than the parts unoccupied; it retains, too, indications of old English hospitality that once prevailed in its huge fireplace, and the ponderous dining table of carved oak, imposing in its very massiveness, and as antiquated in appearance as the building itself. The screen that once separated the room from the vestibule and the kitchens, and that customary appendage of an ancient dining hall, the musicians' gallery, which doubtless once existed, have gone with it. A cursory examination of the construction of the projecting oriel is sufficient to show that it forms no part of the original structure, but was added at a later date. In one of the lights is the heraldic coat of the Moretons, a greyhound statant. A passage behind the hall conducts to the parlour or drawing-room, 22ft. long and 15ft. wide. Like the dining hall, it is lighted by a bold oriel looking into the quadrangle; the walls are wainscoted, and the roof is covered with oak panelling arranged in squares. The fireplace is spacious, and reaches from floor to roof; in the space above the opening is displayed the heraldic insignia of Queen Elizabeth—France (modern) and England, quarterly with the lion and dragon as supporters—an achievement that by a curious mistake Mr. Markland (Britton's Architectural Antiquities, v. ii., p. 91) has described as that of John O'Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. The window still retains some other of its ancient heraldic blazonries, among them being a shield representing the coat of Brereton with its quarterings, placed there doubtless in compliment to Alice, daughter of Sir Andrew Brereton, of Brereton, the mother of William Moreton, whose name is inscribed above the windows on the exterior. In one of the lights appears a greyhound, the coat of Moreton, and in another the crest of the family—a greyhound's head couped and collared with a twisted wreath. There is also displayed the red rose and crown, the badge of Lancaster, to the princes of which house the Moretons, as military tenants, owed allegiance.

A room of somewhat smaller dimensions opens out of the drawing-room, and there are several chambers on the upper story that merit examination. The glass in the windows of these rooms, as in the case of those below, exhibits the same variety of pattern, and they are rendered additionally interesting by the names and inscriptions traced upon the panes by former occupants and guests. On one of them is written the names of "Jonath'n Woodnothe" and "Marie Woodnothe," with the date 1627, and beneath is the following couplet—

Jonathan Woodnoth was the heir of Shavington, and married Mary, elder daughter of William Moreton, of Moreton, but what made him so spiteful against womankind is a mystery that is likely to remain for ever unsolved. There are in other places the signatures of "Somerford Oldfield 11 of Apr. 1627;" "Henry Mainwaring. All change I scorne;" and "Margaret Moreton Aug. 3 1649;" the last named being doubtless the niece of Archbishop Laud, who married Edward Moreton, and was sister-in-law of Mary Woodnoth.

Though there is no evidence of the date when the present mansion was erected, the mouldings and other architectural features show clearly that it cannot be of earlier date than that of the first of the Tudor Sovereigns; probably, it was built upon the site of a more ancient structure in the later years of Henry VII.'s reign, and most likely by the William Moreton who married the daughter of Sir Andrew Brereton, and that the house needing repair, or the space being too circumscribed, his son and successor, also a William Moreton, half a century later of thereabouts, added the beautiful oriel windows that give so much character to the house, completing them, as the inscription on the outside testifies, in 1552.

Within the moated enclosure, near the north-west angle, is a circular mound on which is placed a sun dial, and there were, according to Lysons, formerly standing in front of the house the steps of an ancient cross much resembling those at Lymm, but they were removed about the year 1806.

There is a tradition current in the neighbourhood that Queen Elizabeth was a guest at Little Moreton during one of her Royal progresses, and that she then danced in the Long Gallery, but the story we suspect rests on no better foundation than the creative power of the imagination which assigns a similar honour to Brereton Hall, a mansion a few miles distant, and to almost every old house of note in the kingdom; and to the same unreliable source we fear we must assign the story of the underground passages that extend beneath the moat, as well as the subterranean chambers to which, according to common belief, they lead. But Moreton has sufficient interest in itself, without the mythical attractions which village gossips so much delight in, to make it worth a pilgrimage. It is one of the few old places that have been preserved to our day "unimproved" by the modern "renovator," but Time has, alas made sad havoc among its beauties and peculiarities, and those who should have preserved it as the apple of their eye have unfortunately allowed it to fall into a state of dilapidation and decay. Let us hope that some effort may be made to arrest the further progress of needless destruction. Surely in this utilitarian age there may be found some who—

Unless some friendly hand is stretched out, and that without loss of time, to guard it from further injury, we may soon have to mourn the loss of another of the ancient landmarks of our ancestors.

CHAPTER IX.

WARDLEY HALL.

Lying away near the north-eastern confines of the great parish of Eccles, and within a distance of six miles of the manufacturing metropolis, is the little hamlet of Swinton, a place that, if not particularly attractive in its outward aspects, yet possesses historical associations that are neither few nor poor. A great part of the district was formerly held by that renowned military and religious brotherhood which for centuries had its chef lieu in Clerkenwell—the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem—and antiquaries have been puzzled to determine whether it derived its name from the fact of its being the abode or "town" of the Saxon swineherd, or that it may have, as is supposed, formed part of the possessions of the rainy saint of Winchester, the rival of St. Médard and St. Godeliève—St. Swithin. We will leave the learned Dryasdusts to settle the knotty point of Swinton's etymology and ferret out the evidences of its early dignity, if such are to be found, for it is not our present purpose to steal fire—

or to picture the sylvan solitudes of the place in the days when the son of Beowulph tended the swine of Cedric, the Saxon thegn, in the primeval forests, and filled himself with the acorns and the mast that fell thick in the autumn time.

Though a mighty change has been wrought in the physical aspects of the locality, which now presents an appearance singularly at variance with the associations awakened by the contemplation of the memorials of the storied past, the immediate vicinity is not without the indications of its former dignity and consequence. Within a short distance, running almost parallel with the modern railway, may still be traced the line of the old Roman highway—the Stanney Street—along which the victorious legionaries have ofttimes marched—

The names which still cling to surrounding localities remind us of the "dark middle age" of our national history when the light-haired, blue-eyed Saxon held sway before the predatory Dane and the proud Norman, cognate tribes of the great Scandinavian stock, had successively established themselves as masters of the soil, or those offshoots of the Teutonic family had become welded in the one great, powerful, and noble race, that "happy breed of men," the English people. The halls of Wardley, Agecroft, Kempnough, Worsley, and Booths carry us along the dim avenues of the past to the days of the Plantagenet and the Tudor sovereigns, and they still remain the lingering memorials reminding us of the condition of social life as well as the condition of the country in this corner of the palatinate ere nature had been expelled by commerce, or the old easy-going manorial lords had given place to, or been elbowed out by, a race of striving money-getting manufacturers. The country hereabouts has lost much of its rural characteristics and pristine beauty. Cotton has little in common with Arcadia, and the Lancashire industries generally can hardly be said to be conducive to the picturesque, the tendency being rather to reverse the process which is said to make the wilderness blossom as the rose. The signs of busy life are everywhere apparent; far as the eye can reach it encounters little else than smoke and steam, the outward evidences of active labour—the beating of one great artery in the heart of England—and the tall spectral-like machinery, rising above the pit openings, for drawing to the surface the coal without which that labour would be of little avail in its efforts to clothe the nations of the world; while overhead the atmosphere is dense and heavy with vapour that leaves its blighting mark upon the country for miles around, withering the hedgerows, making the few trees that endure to grace the landscape stunted and sickly, and the fields as if they had never been clothed with a mantle of living green.

Uninviting as the surroundings are to the passionate lover of the open field and the clear sky, the antiquary may yet find much to interest him, and return with the belief that the time he has spent in a visit to this same little hamlet of Swinton has not been altogether unprofitably employed. Leaving the cluster of humble dwellings that constitute what there is of village, and continuing along the north or Chorley-road, a few minutes' walk brings him to a bye-road rejoicing in the name of Red Cat-lane; a quarter of a mile further a private road branches off on the left, leading down past a colliery, and following this for a short distance an old-fashioned timbered house comes in view. It is a quaint old mansion, patterned all over in black and white, with a broad arched gateway, flanked on each side by clustered chimneys that rise to a considerable height above the gabled roof, and is surrounded on three sides by a moat that spreads out considerably on the easterly side, assuming the character of a small lake, in which the diapered framework of the building, the overhanging cornices, the quaint casement windows, and the shrubs that partially environ it are distinctly reflected. Wardley Hall, for that is the name of the house, has its history; it has been successively the home of the Worsleys, the Tyldesleys, and the Downes, and many and various are the legends and romantic incidents associated with it. Of its earlier history we know little, and that little belongs as much to legend as to actual ascertained fact. The first possessors of whom any record has been preserved were the Worsleys, or de Workedeleghs, as anciently they wrote their name, or rather had it written for them, who were owners almost from the time of the Conquest. One of them, a certain Elias or Elizeus de Workeslegh, lord of Worsley, accompanied Duke Robert of Normandy in the expedition to the Holy Land projected by Peter the Hermit, when Europe sent forth the flower of its chivalry to do battle on the plains of Palestine for the recovery of the holy places from the Paynim foe; he was of such strength and valour as to be reputed a giant, and, according to the old scribes, was in consequence designated Elias Gigas, or Elias the Giant. Mention is made of this hero of ancient romance in Hopkinson's MS. pedigrees, and the quaint chronicler tells us "he fought many Duells, combats, &c., for the love of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and obtained many victories," and another writer[72] adds that after many triumphs over the infidels he died at Rhodes, and was there buried. The son and heir of this sturdy old warrior was Richard Workedeley, whose name occurs in a deed, without date, but apparently of the time of Henry I., conveying land in Pendlebury, or Penultsbury, as it was then called, and North Deyne, with the pasture of Swinton, to Adam de Penultsbury. The same Richard, with Roger de Workedelegh (probably his son), was one of the witnesses to a deed recorded in the Chartulary of Whalley Abbey, by which Gilbert, son of William de Norton, who married about the year 1220, Edith, lady of the manor of Barton, granted to God, St. Mary, and to the Church of Eccles, and to the clerks and to their men dwelling in that ville, free common throughout all his lands in the Parish of Eccles. The third in decent from this Richard was Geoffrey de Workesley, living in the time of Henry III., who by his wife Agnes had two sons—Richard, who succeeded as heir, and Roger, who founded the line of the Worsleys of Kempnough, an old half-timbered house, still existing, about a mile distant, and which in the time of Elizabeth obtained an unenviable notoriety on account of the supposed demoniacal possession for a period of two years of some members of the family then inhabiting it. Richard, the eldest son of Geoffery de Workesley, who was living in 1276, had a son Henry, who succeeded as heir; Roger, who married Cecilia de Rowynton; and a third son, Jordan de Workesley, the first of the family whose name occurs as owner of Wardley.

The family were among the early benefactors of the ancient church of Eccles, in which parish both Worsley and Wardley Halls are located. By a deed, dated at Eccles on Sunday of the octave of St. Martin the Bishop, in winter (November 18th), 1293, Henry, the eldest son of Richard de Workesley, the one last named, gave to God and to the high altar (so called to distinguish it from the small altars in the chantries or side chapels) of the Church of the Blessed Mary of Eccles, yearly for ever, for the salvation of Joan, his wife, and of his father Richard, his predecessors and successors, and of the souls of all the faithful dead, at the feast of St. Martin, in the winter (November 11th), one pound of wax, faithfully offered (in fulfilment of a vow), so that whoever should be rector of the church might compel him, by ecclesiastical censure, or by the lesser or greater excommunication, to make the offering at the feast, if it should be neglected. The wax was no doubt intended for the large candles to be burned on the high altar and the other lights used during the services of the Roman Catholic Church.[73]

Henry de Workesley had a son Robert, married to Cecilia de Bromhall, and living in 1292, to whom he gave five hundred acres of wood and five hundred acres of pasture, called the Boothes, and from him descended the Worsleys of Boothes, also in Worsley township. Of the same family was Helias de Workesley, who became Abbot of Whalley in 1309, but resigned his charge and died before 1318; and also Henry de Workesley, who about the time of Edward III. married Johanna, daughter and co-heiress of Sir Richard de Greenacres, and in her right became owner of half the manor of Twiston, in the parish of Whalley. Another branch of the family was located at Worsley Meyne, near Wigan, of whom, according to an epitaph in St. Mary's, Chester, was Ralph Worsley, yeoman of the wardrobe, (_pagettus garderobœ robarum_) to Henry VIII., who appointed him towards the latter end of his life to the wardenship of the Tower. The Worsleys of Manchester were another branch, a pedigree given in the Harleian MSS. (2,100, fo. 32), "collected," as it states, "from deeds of ye auntient family of Worsley of Worsley," connecting with the ancient stock Nicholas Worsley, of Manchester, living in 1598, the scion with whose name the pedigree in Dugdale's "Visitation of Lancashire" in 1664 commences, and who is said to have been the son and heir of Otwell, or Otes, Worsley, of Newnham Green, near Worsley, by his wife Cicely, daughter of Nicholas Rigby, of Harrock. A younger son of this Nicholas, Charles Worsley, diverged into trade, and established himself in Manchester as a "haberdasher," a phrase that had then a much wider significance than now. He married, at the old church of Manchester in 1586, Elizabeth, daughter of Ralph Gee, the sister of Alice, wife of George Clarke, the munificent founder of the Manchester charity that still bears that worthy's name; and, prospering in business, he, in 1614, purchased from Sir Oswald Mosley certain lands in Rusholme. His son and successor, Ralph Worsley, extended the business, and with such success that he was able in 1625 to add to the paternal purchase of the lands in Rusholme the estate in the same township called "The Platt," thus founding the line of the Worsleys of Platt, in the old manor house of which place was born to him, in 1622, a son and heir, Charles Worsley, who acquired distinction as the first member for Manchester in the Cromwellian Parliament, and who was one of the Protector's most trusted generals, and the immediate instrument of the famous coup d'état when Cromwell, dismissing the "Rump" Parliament, ordered General Worsley to "take away the bauble."

With Jordan, the younger son of Richard de Worsley, the brother of Henry, the benefactor of the church at Eccles, who, as we have seen, was lord of Wardley in the reign of Edward I., may be said to have begun and ended the line of Worsley of Wardley, for at his death, in the succeeding reign, the estate was conveyed in marriage by Margaret, one of his daughters and co-heiresses, to Thurstan, son of Thomas de Tyldesley, lord of the mesne manor of Tyldesley, and from this match sprang the several branches of the famous house of Tyldesley of Tyldesley, of Wardley Hall in Worsley, Morley's Hall in Astley, the Lodge in Myerscough Park, an outlying portion of Quernmore Forest, in Lancaster parish, and of Fox Hall, Blackpool, in Bispham parish.

The Tyldesleys were a family of considerable note and influence in the county, deriving their patronymic from the place of their abode, which was held by feudal service as the tenth part of a knight's fee under the Norman barony of Warrington. In the Testa de Nevill, or Liber Feudorum as it is sometimes called—a return of the Nomina Villarum, Serjeanties and Knights' Fees in the several counties, made, as is generally supposed, either in the the year 1236 or 1242 by Ralph Nevill, an accountant of the Exchequer, or Jollan de Nevil, of Weathersfield, a justice itinerant—Henry de Tyldesley, the great-grandfather of the Thurstan just named, is mentioned as being then in possession of the manor of Tyldesley, and as holding of William Fitz Almeric Pincerna or Boteler, the seventh Baron of Warrington, the tenth part of a knight's fee, which Henry de Tyldesley (his father) held of the heirs of Almeric Pincerna, and he of the Earl of Ferrers, who held of the King. The name of the same Henry also occurs first on the list of jurors for the hundred of West Derby, or Wapentake of Derbyshire, as it is called in the return when De Nevill's Inquisition was taken. A younger brother of Henry de Tyldesley, the juror, Adam de Tyldesley, had a son Geoffrey, who became owner of Shakerley, a hamlet in the higher division of Tyldesley. Following the practice of the age, he assumed the name of the place in which he was located, and became progenitor of the family of Shakerley, now represented through the female line by Sir Charles Watkin Shakerley, of Somerford, Cheshire, Baronet.

To return to Henry de Tyldesley; his grandson Thomas, son of Richard de Tyldesley, as appears by an inquisition taken after the death of John Tyldesley, Dec. 1, 1410, married and had four sons, John, Nicholas, and Ralph, who each died issueless, and Thurstan, who, as previously stated, married the daughter and co-heiress of Jordan de Worsley; in right of his wife he became lord of Wardley, and by her was founder of the family of Tyldesley of that house. The first-born of this marriage was a son, Thomas de Tyldesley, who became serjeant-at-law to King Henry IV., but, dying without issue, the estates on the death of the father descended to his younger brother, Hugh de Tyldesley. From an early date a close intimacy had existed between the Tyldesleys and the Stanleys of Knowsley, who were then rapidly rising to power, having in the revolution which seated the house of Lancaster upon the throne contrived to add immensely to their territorial possessions. A steady shower of royal benefactions descended to them during Henry the Fourth's reign, not the least important being the transfer from the old Earls of Northumberland of the lordship of the Isle of Man, after the unsuccessful revolt of the Percies, and with it such an absolute ownership of soil and jurisdiction over the islanders as to make their position as Lords of Man little less than regal, the homage to be paid in consideration being the presentation of two falcons on coronation days. The intimate relations that long existed between the two families of Stanley and Tyldesley account for the frequent occurrence of the name of Tyldesley in the annals of the island. In 1405-6 Henry IV. granted a letter of protection to William de Stanley, Knight, John de Tyldesley, and others, on their going to the Isle of Man to take possession of the island and the castle, which had then been wrested from the Percies. In 1417 Sir John de Stanley, who is styled "King and Lord of Man," being called to England, left Thurstan de Tyldesley, "a wise and severe magistrate" as he is described, and Roger Haysnap, his commissioner, with instructions to settle the people. The Thurstan last named was, doubtless, the son of Hugh de Tyldesley, and the one who is commonly supposed to have erected the present hall of Wardley on the foundation of an earlier structure. His grandson, Thomas de Tyldesley, who died in 1502-3, left a son Thurstan, who succeeded as heir to Tyldesley and Wardley; he married Mary, the daughter of Henry Keighley, of Keighley and Inskip, the sister of Sir Henry Keighley, Knt.

Inskip was a manor in the parish of St. Michael-le-Wyre, in the hundred of Amounderness, held at one time by the Keighleys and Cliftons, but which subsequently passed into the exclusive tenure of the first-named family, in whose descendants it remained until about the reign of James I., when Anne, daughter and co-heiress of Henry Keighley, conveyed it in marriage to William Cavendish, afterwards created Earl of Devonshire. At the time of Thurstan Tyldesley's marriage with the co-heiress of Inskip his family had, in addition to the old manor house at Tyldesley and the more modern mansion at Wardley, a residence known as the Lodge, in Myerscough Park, in the neighbouring parish of Lancaster,—a part of the ancient forest land of the Duchy. In the reign of Henry VIII. the Earl of Derby was Keeper of the Park of Myerscough, which was in reality within the limits of the forest of Quernmore, and the Tyldesley's were "deputy keepers," "deputy master-foresters," and "farmers of the herbage," and in the proceedings of the Duchy Court of Lancaster it is recorded that in 1531 Thurstan Tyldesley was plaintiff in an action brought against Henry Keighley for "deer killing in Broks Gille, Mirescoghe Park." The defendant was, doubtless, his wife's kinsman, but whether father or brother, or what other relationship he stood in, is not known.

The Lodge in Myerscough, where the family occasionally resided, and to which we shall have occasion hereafter to refer, is now occupied as a farm house, but, though it has undergone many transformations, it still retains the evidences of its former state and dignity. Twice it has been the temporary abode of royalty, once in 1617, when James I. slept in it for a night or two in his progress from Edinburgh to London, and subsequently on the 13th August, 1651, when Charles II. "lodged one night at Myerscoe, Sir Thomas Tyldesley's house," on his advance from Preston to Worcester. The lodge stands a short distance from the hall of the same name, on the westerly side of the road leading from Preston to Lancaster, and within about three or four miles of the old home of the Keighleys at Inskip. It is approached by a small bridge spanning an expanse of water that appears to have been originally extended for ornamental purposes. A portion of the main building has been cased with brick, but in other parts the original timber framework remains exposed to view, with some of the old mullioned windows, the irregular gables, and the huge buttressed chimney stacks—the latter, from their peculiar construction suggesting the idea that they were intended more for the purpose of concealment in times of danger than for that which their outward form would seem to indicate. The principal entertaining-room is on the north-west side; it is wainscoted from floor to ceiling, and has a spacious fireplace on one side with a handsome chimney-piece of carved oak. The portion above the mantel is arranged in a double row of panels,—eight in all,—each of those in the lower stage being ornamented by a medallion head, encircled by a wreath and carved in high relief. On the first of the upper row of panels is a shield charged with the arms of Tyldesley—Arg. three rushhills vert, with the initials TT beneath. In the second shield are displayed the arms of the Isle of Man, with an eagle's claw—an ancient crest of the Stanleys—beneath. On an adjoining shield is a representation of the eagle and child, the crest of the Earls of Derby; and on the fourth panel is a shield bearing the arms of Langton, which seems to fix the period when the work was executed as in the time of Thurstan, the grandson of Thurstan Tyldesley and Mary Keighley, who had for his second wife Jane, daughter of Ralph Langton, Baron of Newton, the initials on the first panel also answering to his name. Opposite the principal entrance a broad staircase of oak, with massive and highly-decorated balusters, leads to the upper chambers, one of which, at the east end of the building, is traditionally said to be that in which the two Kings slept on the occasions of their respective visits to the Lodge.

Thurstan Tyldesley, by his wife Mary Keighley, had a son, Thomas, who was Receiver-General and one of the Council of Thomas Stanley, first Earl of Derby—the wily soldier and astute politician whose fickle but far-sighted adhesions secured for his house additional wealth and power with every change of dynasty, and whose matrimonial affairs were managed with fully as much prudence and success—his first marriage making him the brother-in-law of a king-maker and his second the stepfather of a king. He married a daughter of Sir Alexander Radcliffe, the head of the knightly house of Ordsall, an alliance that is commemorated by a device in one of the windows of that ancient mansion—that lighting the room commonly known from its decorations as the Star Chamber—where still may be discerned the faint outlines of an heraldic shield charged with three rushhills, the Tyldesley coat. The issue of this marriage were, in addition to a son, Thurstan, who succeeded as heir, Thomas, and a younger son, Alexander, who became a monk at the Charter House, and a daughter, Ellena, the second of the two wives of Sir Alexander Osbaldeston, of Osbaldeston. This lady by her will, which bears date 1560, directed three stones with inscriptions in brass to be laid in the Osbaldeston chapel within Blackburn church over herself, her husband, and Thomas Tyldesley, her brother.

Thurstan Tyldesley, who succeeded to the patrimonial lands at his father's death, is mentioned as being in the Commission of the Peace and a Grand Juryman for the County Palatine of Lancaster in 1522. Following the example of his progenitors, he maintained a close friendship with the Stanleys of Knowsley, and in 1532 his name occurs as Receiver-General for the Isle of Man. He was twice married—in the first instance to Parnell, daughter of Geoffrey Shakerley, of Shakerley, descended from Adam, younger son of Henry de Tyldesley, living in the time of Henry III., whose son Geoffrey, as we have seen, assumed the name of Shakerley; in the second, to Jane, daughter of Ralph Langton, Baron of Newton; and by each he had issue. By his will, which bears date 6 Edward VI., he left to the children of his first marriage Tyldesley and Wardley, and to those of the second the estate at Myerscough.

Thomas Tyldesley, his son by the first marriage, was, doubtless, the one whose name occurs in 1540 as Deputy Captain of the Isle of Man, George Stanley being at the time Captain. About this time, as appears by Chalmer's Treatise of the Isle (Manx Society's Publications, v. 10), mention is made of a Robert Tynsley (a corruption probably of Tyldesley), but in what relation he stood to the Lancashire Tyldesleys is not clear. Thomas Tyldesley had a sister Alice, who became the wife of Richard Worsley, of the Booths. He died in 1556, and was buried at Eccles, having had by his wife Jane, daughter and heiress of Hugh Birkenhead, whom he married in 1518, six sons and three daughters. Thomas, the eldest son, born in 1532, married Margaret, daughter of Sir William Norreys, of Speke, who bore him, in addition to three sons, James, Gilbert, and Alexander, a son Thomas, of Gray's Inn, Attorney-General for the county of Lancaster, who received the honour of knighthood; he was one of the learned Council of the North, and added to the ancestral estates by his marriage with Anne, daughter and sole heiress of Thomas Norreys, of Orford, near Warrington, the issue of the union being—in addition to two daughters, Elizabeth and Anne, married respectively to Edward Breres, of Brockhall, and (1) to Thomas Southworth, of Samlesbury, (2) Adam Mort, of Preston—three sons, Thomas, who died in infancy, 1597; Edward, who also died in infancy; and Richard, who survived his father only a few years and died unmarried in 1639, thus terminating the male line of the elder branch of the family.

To return to the issue of Thurstan Tyldesley by his second wife, Jane Langton. Besides three daughters—Mary, wife of Ralph Standish, of Standish; Anne, wife of Richard Massey, of Rixton; and Dorothy, wife of Richard Brereton, of Worsley—he had a son, Edward Tyldesley, who, by a fortunate though clandestine marriage, about the year 1560, with Anne, daughter and sole heiress of Thomas Leyland, became, in right of his wife, owner of Morleys Hall, in Astley, in the parish of Leigh. Popular tradition has cast the glamour of romance around this marriage, and tells how that the young heiress of the Leylands, having formed an attachment for the younger son of the house of Tyldesley, in opposition to the wishes of her father, was confined in her room, but, verifying the truth of the old adage that love laughs at locksmiths, she contrived to possess herself of a rope, one end of which she fastened to her person and the other she threw from the window to her expectant lover on the other side of the moat; then, casting herself into the water, which was thirty feet wide, she was drawn to land, when the pair rode off, and before morning dawned, or the lady's family had become aware of her escape, the marriage ceremony had been performed and the twain made one.

Of the old mansion of the Leylands, which thus became an inheritance of the Tyldesleys, we have an interesting description in Leland's "Itinerary" (vol. v. pp. 78-9, Ed. 1711):—"Morle in Darbyshire [the Hundred of West Derby is meant] Mr. Leland's Place is buildid saving the Foundation of Stone squarid, that risith within a great Moote a vi. Foote above the water; al of Tymbre after the commune sorte of building of Houses of the Gentilmen for most of Lancastreshire. Ther is as much Pleasur of Orchardes of great Varite of Frute, and fair made Walkes and Gardines as ther is in any Place of Lancastreshire. He brenneth [burneth] al Turfes and Petes for the Commodite of Mosses and Mores [near] at hand.... And yet by Morle as in Hegge Rowes and Grovettes is meately good Plenti of Wood, but good Husbandes keepe hit for a Jewell."

Nearly every old historic home is linked to romance by some story of love or adventure, and endeared to the memory by the image of some fair woman whose name is associated with some particular incident or bit of legendary lore that tradition has preserved, and which, if not actually attested fact, is yet not without some glimmering of truth that reflects light upon familiar history. At Morleys it is the tender tale of the loves of Anne Leyland, the heiress of her father's lands, and Edward Tyldesley, a young scion of the house of Wardley, that excites the interest and which has for many a generation furnished food for the village gossips. They had looked upon each other and loved. The spark that had been kindled in their young hearts was fanned into a flame, but—

At Morleys it was the old old story. To prevent the tender passion ripening into a union an unsympathising father forbade the lovers meeting, and to prevent the chances of clandestine intercourse kept his daughter within the strict seclusion of her own chamber. The result may be guessed. Rather than be kept asunder from the object of her affection, Anne Leyland determined on braving the stormy temper of her father. Risking all dangers and throwing aside all obstacles, she cast herself into the moat surrounding her home, whence she was drawn ashore, and under cover of the darkness escaped in the arms of her expectant lover, and before night's candles had burned out and—

the two were united in the indissoluble bonds of wedlock.

It may well be supposed that Thomas Leyland's ire when he learned the real circumstances of the case was not of the mildest character; be that as it may, his anger must eventually have been appeased, for in 1562, two years after the marriage of the runaways, he made his will, and in token of his affection for his infant grandson, gave "unto Thomas Tyldesley sonne unto my sonne in lawe Edward Tyldesley twoe silvr spones and one angell off gold." The old man was a staunch Papist and determined persecutor of heretics. When the brother-in-law of George Marsh, the martyr—"Jeffrey Hurst, of Shakerley, who was preserved by God's providence from burning in Queen Mary's time"—absented himself from his parish church because of the Romish ritual that had been reintroduced, and encouraged the teachers of the reformed faith to secretly assemble in his house "for sermon and prayer," "Justice" Leyland went with his "mass-priest" to Hurst's cottage to search for heretical books, and having found Tyndale's Testament, which was pronounced to be "plain heresy and none worse," and some Latin books which neither he nor the mass-priest could read, he, by a stretch of authority not unfrequent in those days, bound the mother and brother of Hurst in the penalty of £100 to produce him within fourteen days. Hurst appeared at the appointed time and was committed to Lancaster, but news of Queen Mary's death arriving about the same time, he was set free.

Thomas Leyland died July, 1564, at the age of fifty years. His end appears to have been very sudden. It is recorded that "in July, as the foresaid Thos. Lelond sate in his chair talking with his friends, he fell down suddenly dead, not much moving any joint; and such was his end; from such God us defend." His will, which bears date April 2, 1562, was proved on the 23rd September following his death, when his son-in-law, Edward Tyldesley, in right of his wife, succeeded to the estates.

From this union descended the younger branch of the Tyldesleys, a line that in successive generations manifested a devoted attachment to the cause of the ill-fated Stuarts. In addition to the estate of Morleys acquired through his wife, Edward Tyldesley inherited from his father the Lodge at Myerscough and also the paternal estate of Tyldesley, which, however, continued to pay quit-rents to Wardley Hall, probably in right of the appendent estate of Wardley, where the elder branch of the family was settled. He appears to have been the first, if not the only one, of the family who had any difference or dispute with its early patrons, the Stanleys of Knowsley and Lathom. In the proceedings of the Duchy Court of Lancaster, without date, but of the time of Edward VI. or Philip and Mary, Edward, Earl of Derby, "keeper of Myerskoo Park," and elsewhere called "master of the game," appears as plaintiff in an action against Edward Tyldesley, "farmer of the herbage," the dispute having arisen out of some claim to turbary or the right of cutting turves on the land of the superior lord.

Edward Tyldesley died in 1586-7, having had by his wife, Anne Leyland, a family of three sons and three daughters. Thomas, the eldest son, who succeeded as heir, enjoyed possession of the estate for four years only, his death occurring in 1590. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Christopher Anderton, of Lostock Hall, near Bolton, who bore him, in addition to three daughters—Anne, who became the wife of Sir Cuthbert Clifton, of Westby, Knight; Dorothy, who married John Poole, of Poole Hall, in Cheshire; and Elizabeth, who became Abbess of the religious house of Gravelines, in Flanders—one son, Edward Tyldesley, who was only four years of age at the time of his father's decease. He succeeded as heir to the Tyldesley estates as well as to Morleys and Myerscough, and entertained King James the First at the last named seat in August, 1617, on the occasion of his memorable visit to Lancashire—memorable for the reason that it was the occasion of the presentation of a petition from a number of Lancashire peasants, tradesmen, and others while on his progress (some authorities say while at Myerscough) that led to the publication of the famous "Book of Sports,"—the beginning of a course of events which led through the Civil War and the temporary subversion of the Throne and the Church to the ultimate exclusion of the Stuarts from the Crown. Edward Tyldesley did not long survive the honour of entertaining his sovereign, his death occurring in the following year at the comparatively early age of 32. By his wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Christopher Preston, of Holker, in Cartmel parish, an off-shoot of the Prestons, of Preston Patrick and Levens Hall, who survived him and re-married (1) Thomas Lathom, of Parbold, and (2) Thomas Westby, of Bourne Hall, he had, in addition to Edward, who died in infancy, a son, Thomas, who succeeded as heir, the most distinguished member of the family—a chevalier sans peur et sans reproche—certainly the ablest soldier who fought on the side of the King in Lancashire during the Civil Wars, and probably the most active, resolute, and uncompromising partisan, for, as has been well said, if Lord Strange was the head of the King's forces in Lancashire, Sir Thomas Tyldesley was their right hand, or rather, their heart and soul, and living power. He was one of those Cavaliers whose deeds were more suited to the pages of a romance than to those of history, and who, by his dauntless courage, may be said to have cast a halo round the cause he espoused. Born near the close of Elizabeth's reign, he early embraced the profession of arms, and served with distinction in the wars in the Low Countries. A soldier by temperament, as well as by profession—brave, proud, generous, enthusiastically loyal—he raised and equipped troops at his own expense, and immediately on the breaking out of the war joined the King and served as lieutenant-colonel when the two armies were first put in array against each other at Edgehill, October 23, 1642. In the preceding month Colonel Tyldesley accompanied Lord Strange, afterwards Earl of Derby, to Manchester, and in person led the attack on the Deansgate entrance to the town, but, after firing a barn or two and destroying some trifling defences, his men were obliged to retire, and eventually, through the stubborn and successful resistance of the townsmen, were compelled to abandon the siege.

What Rigby was to the cause of the Parliament, Colonel Tyldesley may be said to have been to that of the King. Connected by birth and marriage with the best families in the county his influence was unbounded. Of indomitable zeal, irrepressible energy, and reckless daring, he became the head and heart and hand and almost everything besides in his own county, and took part in almost every important action. He served at the sieges of Bolton and Lancaster; defeated by Colonel Ashton before Wigan, he retreated towards Liverpool, but, collecting a considerable force, he again marched northwards, with the view of recovering Preston and Lancaster. Subsequently he distinguished himself at Burton-on-Trent by the desperate heroism with which he led a cavalry charge over a bridge of thirty-six arches, and for that display of valour, as well as his faithful adherence to the King, he received the honour of knighthood and was made a brigadier. At a later period in that sanguinary struggle he accompanied Prince Rupert into Yorkshire, and was present at the disastrous fight at Marston Moor, July 2nd, 1644, when Cromwell gained his greatest victory, and drove the Royalist troops in confusion from the field. Tyldesley, with his shattered force, retreated in hot haste into Lancashire, resolved to raise fresh troops and make a stand in the Fylde country. Sir John Meldrum was sent after him, and the first encounter took place on Freckleton Marsh. A fierce attack having been made upon their lines by the Parliamentarians under Colonel Booth, the Royalists broke and fled; Tyldesley rallied and reformed his men, but his efforts were unavailing. Victory followed victory, one position after another was forced, and one detachment after another was broken or dispersed At that time, as Rushworth writes, "there remained of unreduced garrisons belonging to the King in Lancashire only Lathom House and Green(halgh) Castle." Greenhalgh surrendered in 1645; and the subsequent fall of Lathom House and the surrender of the King to the Scotch army of the Puritans brought the contest, for a time, to a close in 1647, when Sir Thomas Tyldesley received instructions to disband the troops under his command.

In 1651 the second of the Stuarts was proclaimed King by the Scotch under the title of Charles the Second. In August of that year the Royal Standard floated once more over the battlemented tower of old John o' Gaunt—time-honoured Lancaster—and Charles was proclaimed King in the chief town of the palatinate. Sir Thomas Tyldesley, who had retired with the Earl of Derby to the Isle of Man, once more appeared upon the scene, and immediately set about arming his tenantry and collecting auxiliaries. Charles spent a night in his mansion at Myerscough, but under very different circumstances to those which had characterised the entertainment of his father in the same house thirty-four years previously. Before the month was over the force which he and Lord Derby had been able to raise encountered the Parliamentarians, under Colonel Lilburne, in a lane on the north side of Wigan. Tyldesley took the place he ever loved to take—at the head of his friends and in front of his foes. The fight was courageously sustained on both sides, and for more than an hour victory remained undecided. At the moment that Lilburne's horse seemed to be giving way before the unbroken firmness of Tyldesley's foot, a body of Parliamentary troops took up a position behind the hedges on both sides of the lane. A deadly discharge from their firelocks threw the Royalists into confusion; after a stubborn and desperate resistance their line wavered, when Lilburne's horse dashed up and drove the remnant of them in confusion from their position. The Earl of Derby escaped, only to be taken prisoner in Cheshire, after the retreat from Worcester, and suffer the fate of his former Royal master, but Sir Thomas Tyldesley was left dead upon the field. Thus fell the most heroic and most daring defender of the cause of the Stuarts in Lancashire. A large-hearted Nonconformist, Dr. Halley, thus sums up the character of the ill-fated Cavalier:—"The most active, the bravest, and in many respects the best of the Lancashire friends of Royalty. Never daunted, never weary in consultation, marching, or fighting, he was engaged in every intrigue, present in every conference, ready for every emergency, and unreservedly devoting all he had to the cause of Royalty, and as he understood it, to the true religion. Beloved and trusted by all the members of his own party, he was respected by his enemies, and treated by them more leniently than the other malignants whom the fortune of war brought under their power." Memorials of him remain in the eloquent eulogy of Clarendon, and in the inscription upon the column which his "grateful cornet," Alexander Rigby,[74] twenty-eight years afterwards, when he was sheriff of the county, erected upon the spot where fell, as a mark of esteem for his many virtues and gallant deeds, and as a "high obligation on the whole family of the Tyldesleys to follow the noble example of their loyal ancestor."

When the brave and popular Cavalier, Sir Thomas Tyldesley, sank down upon the blood-sodden ground in Wigan Lane the power of the Royalists in Lancashire was broken. Many a family in the palatinate had long cause to remember that day with grief, for there were few that had not some member killed or made prisoner. Tyldesley's body, covered with wounds, was found lying among a heap of slain when the fight was over, and a day or two later it was borne to its last resting place in the vault by the side of his fathers, in the old chantry of St. Nicholas, in the parish church of Leigh.

That late summer day was a sorrowful one for the supporters of the Stuart cause. It requires no great stretch of the imagination to picture that procession of true mourners—a little band of buff-jerkined warriors who had boldly confronted death on many a hard-fought field—weeping aloud, and not ashamed to shed tears, as they wend their way to the ancient fane to deposit therein all that was mortal of their much-beloved leader. Within a week from that day Worcester had been lost, and "Charles Stuart, son of the late tyrant," as the Cromwellians styled him, was a sorrowful fugitive, hastening for life from the fatal field in the endeavour to escape from his merciless pursuers. A tomb was afterwards erected in Leigh Church, over the grave which holds the ashes of the loyal soldier; but though the spot is still pointed out nearly every trace of the memorial has disappeared. It is of little consequence—