Sir Peter Legh's only son, who bore his own baptismal appellation, was born at Clifton, near Halton Castle, a seat of the Savages, on the 4th of June, 1415, the eve of the father's departure to engage in the contest at Agincourt, and had therefore just completed his seventh year. When his mother remarried he was removed from Clifton and brought up in the household at Croxteth, where, in addition to his mother's guardianship, he had the advantage of the friendly interest and supervision of the head of the great Lancashire house of Molineux. In 1426 his grandmother, Margaret, D'Anyers, settled a portion of her Cheshire estates upon him, and the remainder, including Lyme, he succeeded to on her death, June 24, 1428. He had then, at the early age of thirteen, become the owner of large territorial estates, and for the better protection of the fair patrimony that had come to him his stepfather in the same year obtained the custody of all his lands in Cheshire until he should be of age, as well as the right of contracting him in marriage, a right he exercised by covenanting to marry him to his own daughter, Margaret, whom he had had by his first wife, Ellen, daughter of Sir William Haryngton, of Hornby. The year 1432 saw the contract carried into effect and the betrothed couple united. Doubtless it was a season of bustle and business, and we may suppose the stately halls of Croxteth to have been crowded with a gay company assembled to witness and do honour to the espousals of the young people.

Four years later he made proof of age, the inquiry being held at Macclesfield, and he was then put in possession of the splendid inheritance which, by their successful marriages, his progenitors had accreted. During his minority his patrimony had been greatly improved under the careful management of his stepfather, and in the critical times in which his earlier life was passed he appears to have acted with much prudence and caution, taking more interest in the development of his estate than in the fierce contests that were then being waged. It was a time when craft and subtlety had gradually superseded the old spirit of chivalry—when strength of arm was of little avail without astuteness of head in shifting from side to side in the changing fortunes of contending parties; and, living in this age of political chaos, the youthful lord of Lyme skilfully contrived to keep neutral between the factions into which the dominant party was split. Though holding no higher rank than that of esquire, his large territorial possessions gave him considerable influence in the two palatine counties; in the Cheshire records his name is of frequent occurrence, and, like many of his ancestors, he had various offices of trust in connection with the hundred and forest of Macclesfield. Though his father had received many marks of favour from, and had died in the service of, the Lancastrian King, he inherited a predilection for the house of York, from the representative of which, Richard II., his grandfather had received many substantial benefits, including the grant of the manor of Lyme. He was too shrewd and cautious, however, to allow his preferences to betray him into any act of open hostility to the reigning sovereign, though his intimate relations with a powerful Lancashire Baron, Henry Holland, Duke of Exeter, who had married the sister of Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, and who, in opposition to the wishes of Henry VI. and his intrepid wife, Margaret of Anjou, had been made regent during the King's sickness, brought him under suspicion and resulted in a letter being addressed by the King to the Sheriff of Lancashire in 1454, commanding him to deliver letters of Privy Seal to "Thomas Pilkington and Piers Legh, squires," a significant warning which had the desired effect in restraining Peter Legh, for a time at all events, from engaging in any perilous enterprise or openly espousing the cause of either party.

A few years before this he had the misfortune to lose his wife, her death occurring at Bradley, May 13, 1450. She was buried at Winwick, in the chantry chapel which Sir Gilbert Haydock, her husband's maternal ancestor, had founded. In October of the following year Peter Legh again entered the marriage state, his second wife being Elizabeth, the widow of Sir John Pilkington, of Pilkington, and one of the daughters of Edmund Trafford, of Trafford, by his wife, Alice, eldest daughter and co-heir of Sir William Venables, of Bolyn.

The great struggle between the Red and White Roses was now in its birth-throes. The Duke of York had been expelled from the regency; thirsting for revenge, he levied an army in the north and marched to St. Albans, where he found the King's forces encamped in the town, which was assaulted with great fury. The battle lasted but one short hour, but it was disastrous to the cause of Henry; five thousand of his troops were left dead upon the field, among the slain being the Dukes of Somerset and Buckingham, the Earls of Northumberland and Stafford, and Lord Clifford, while the King himself, who during the fight had been wounded in the neck by an arrow, was made prisoner.

The blood shed at St Albans on that fatal 22nd of May, 1455, was the first that flowed in the bitter contest which came to an end only when thirty years had come and gone, when thirteen pitched battles had been fought, and the victory on Bosworth Field had been achieved—a strife so deadly that, as Michael Drayton tells us, the ties of blood and kindred were forgotten, and the nearest relations fought on opposite sides—

Peter Legh doubtless rejoiced in the Yorkist victory at St. Albans, but the warning which Henry VI. addressed to him the year before had deterred him from bearing any part in it, and he appears to have acted with equal prudence four years later, when the reconciliation between the Duke of York and Queen Margaret—the "dissimulated unity and concord," as the city chronicler called it—came to an end and civil war broke out afresh. In that year (1459) the Yorkist forces were once more marshalled against those of the King. The Earl of Salisbury raised the standard of the White Rose, and with an army of 5,000 men marched through Cheshire into Staffordshire, almost within sight of Lyme, and then by way of Congleton and Newcastle-under-Lyme to Drayton. Before he could join the Duke he was overtaken by Lord Audley at the head of a superior force of Lancastrians, and on the 23rd September the battle of Blore-heath, where the head of the house of Stanley amused both sides with promises of support without venturing to strike a blow for either, was fought. The struggle was long and sanguinary, but victory again declared in favour of the Yorkists, Henry's adherents leaving 2,400 dead upon the field, many of whom were from Lancashire and Cheshire, among them being the brother of Peter Legh's first wife, Sir Richard Molineux, who fell fighting in the cause to which Peter Legh was in his heart opposed. At Northampton in July of the following year the fortunes of the Yorkists were again in the ascendant, and we read that Queen Margaret and her son, who had sought safety in flight, had a narrow escape of being captured near Chester by a retainer of the Stanleys.

The struggle of the Roses was now at fever heat, and in the short space of a single year no less than three great and bloody battles were fought. Peter Legh's prudence and circumspection failed him; his sympathy with the House of York could no longer be restrained, and, drawing the sword, he openly cast in his lot with the insurgent Yorkists who were then gathering at Sandal Castle in Yorkshire. Margaret of Anjou, repudiating the compromise by which on the death of Henry VI. the Duke of York was to succeed to the crown to the exclusion of her son, collected a numerous army out of Lancashire and Cheshire, and posted herself near Wakefield, whither the Duke of York advanced to meet her, but with a much inferior force. Conceiving that his courage would be compromised if he refused to meet a woman in battle, he, without waiting for his expected reinforcements, risked a contest, hoping by skill and daring to make up for deficiency in numbers. In that bloody fray Peter Legh "fleshed his maiden sword;" he was conspicuous for his valour, and for his daring deeds his princely leader made him a banneret upon the field. But the tide of success had turned; the Yorkists were entirely routed, and the triumph of the Lancastrians was complete. After performing prodigies of valour the Duke of York himself was slain. The Queen, proud of such a trophy, ordered the Duke's head to be struck off and placed upon the gates of York, adorned with a paper crown to indicate the frailty of his claims—

An unfeminine speech that did not cause her much feeling of remorse, for afterwards, when gazing upon the terrible spectacle as she entered the city, she exclaimed to Henry—

And Lord Clifford—the "Black-faced Clifford," as he has been called—more sanguinary than his Royal mistress, when the battle was over plunged his sword into the breast of the Duke's youngest son, the Earl of Rutland, in revenge, as he alleged, for the death of his father at St. Albans.

If the battle of Wakefield was fatal to the house of York, it proved no less fatal to the victors, for the cruelties perpetrated by the Black Clifford were repaid a few months after with tenfold vengeance at Towton, a contest in which, there is reason to believe, Peter Legh also bore a part. On the 4th of March (1461), the young Duke of York assumed the crown and sceptre, but the ceremonies attendant upon his accession to the throne were few and brief. Queen Margaret was in the field with a powerful army, and on the 12th of March Edward marched out of London northward to give her battle. On the eve of Palm Sunday (March 29th) the opposing forces met on Towton Heath; at four o'clock the battle began; the hours of darkness brought no rest, and through the long night and until the afternoon of the next day, amidst a fall of snow, it raged with unrelenting fury. It was the bloodiest battle in all the wars of the Roses, and when the sun went down thirty-three thousand Englishmen lay dead upon the field. Some of them were buried in the neighbouring church at Saxton, but by far the greater number sleep where they fell, and the red and white roses which bloom on the field of their last strife form their touching and appropriate memorial.

The carnage of this terrible field is appalling. If we are to believe the statements of contemporary writers, for weeks afterwards the blood stood in puddles and stagnated in the gutters.[56] Among the slain was the "Black-faced" Clifford, who slew Rutland at Wakefield, and of those whom the sword spared upon the field not a few fell beneath the headsman's axe. Well might Warwick, dealing out a poetic justice, then say to the victorious Edward—

The fate of the Cliffords has been consecrated by the poet. The widow of the "black-faced" lord and her infant boy fled "to the caves and to the brooks;" the child led a solitary life—

wandering at will through "Mosedale's groves" and in "Blencathra's rugged caves" until the—

When the victory at Bosworth again placed the Lancastrians upon the throne his estates and honours were restored. Though unable to read or write when called to Parliament, he had, during his shepherd life, learnt purer and wiser lessons than those through which his progenitors had brought destruction on themselves.

The triumph at Towton Field broke the hopes of the Lancastrian party, and left Edward unquestionably King. The services which Peter Legh had rendered at Wakefield and elsewhere did not long remain unrewarded; within six weeks of the fight he was appointed governor and constable of the Castle of Rhuddlan in Flintshire, for life, with a salary of £40 a year, and two years later he was made escheater of Flint during the King's pleasure. It was not long before his services were again called in requisition. In 1462 the unconquerable activity of the resolute Queen Margaret had once more inspired the hopes of the Lancastrian party. Having raised an army of adventurers in France, she landed on the northern coasts in October; Edward was quickly at the head of a great force to meet her, and among those who went out with him, on the feast of St. Andrew the Apostle, as we learn from old Stowe the chronicler, was Peter Legh, of Lyme, who appears on the list as "Sir Peirce A'Leigh," and is included among the knights who engaged in the enterprise, from which it is evident that that honour had been conferred upon him either at Towton or immediately after.[57] There was little occasion for his services. On the advance of Edward, Margaret escaped to her ships, which were scattered by a tempest, and a portion of her forces, being cast on Holy Island, were pursued and destroyed.

For a time the country was comparatively tranquil, and Sir Peter Legh, if he did not turn his sword into a pruning hook, was content to lay it aside and repair to his home at Bradley, where he employed his leisure in adorning his mansion and improving his estate. While so engaged he drew up a minute account of the territorial possessions of the family in Lancashire and Cheshire, which is still preserved among the muniments at Lyme. It is closely written in Latin on vellum, and forms a thick volume of 333 folios. That portion which relates to Warrington has been transcribed and translated for the members of the Chetham Society[58] by Mr. William Beamont, and to the same authority we are indebted for the following description of Lyme, which shows that it had been emparked and that a mansion had been erected there as early as 1466:—

Rental of Lyme, its manor and park, with Over Hanley and Nether Hanley in the Forest of Macclesfield, in the parish of Prestbury and county of Chester, belonging to Sir Peter Legh, Knight, at the feasts of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist and St. Martin in winter, written and described on the 29 March in the year of our Lord 1466 and in the sixth of King Edward IV. after the Conquest.

In the first place the said Peter holds the aforesaid manor of Lyme, in the county of Chester, to him, his heirs and assigns for ever; that is to say, one fair hall with a high chamber, a kitchen, a bakehouse, and a brewhouse, with a granary, stable, and a bailiff's house, and a fair Park, surrounded by palings, and divers fields and hays (hedged enclosures) contained in the same park, with the woods, underwoods, meadows, feedings, and pastures thereunto belonging, which are worth to the said Peter xli (£10) a year.

The other lands belonging to the estate are then described, the total rental being set down at £42 9s., but no mention is made of any deer or of the famous wild cattle.

Occupied in more peaceful pursuits, we do not meet with the name of Sir Peter at Hedgeley Moor, at Hexham, or in any other of the contests that occurred in the subsequent years of Edward's reign. In 1468 a sorrow fell upon his home caused by the death of his only son, Peter Legh, which occurred at Macclesfield on the 2nd of August, and on the 4th April, 1474, his second wife was taken from him. Both were buried by the side of his ancestors at Winwick. Four years later he set about the fulfilment of a project he had long had in contemplation, the endowment of the chantry chapel of the Holy Trinity in Winwick Church, which his mother's kinsman, Sir Gilbert de Haydock, had founded. His charter bears date 16th November, and he must then have felt his end approaching, for he died at Bradley on the 27th of the same month at the age of 63; and a few days later, amid the sorrowing regrets of his dependents and neighbours, he was borne to his last resting place in the family chapel to which he had so recently been a liberal benefactor.

Sir Peter Legh's only son, who had predeceased him, and who bore the same baptismal name, married at a very early age a rich Lancashire heiress—Mabel, the elder of the two daughters and co-heirs of James Croft, of Dalton-in-Lonsdale—Sir James Croft, as Flower, the Herald, erroneously styles him—acquiring in right of his wife, as a note to an ancient Latin pedigree of the Leghs expresses it, "the inheritance of the manor of Dalton and ye presentation of ye parsonage of Claughton alternis vicibus," thus greatly enlarging the already extensive possessions of his house. Alison, the sister of Mabel Croft, conveyed her portion in marriage to Geoffrey Middleton, of Middleton in Kirby-Lonsdale. These two ladies were double heiresses, their mother being a heiress of the Butlers, who owned lands in Freckleton, within the parish of Kirkham. The alternate advowson which the Leghs thus acquired remained in their possession until 1807, when it was sold to the Fenwicks, and once more became united with the lordship of the manor.

While Sir Peter Legh was busied in repairing and enlarging the ancestral home at Bradley, his son Peter and his young wife took up their abode at Lowton, an estate inherited from the Haydocks. The times were full of trouble, for though Edward IV. was seated upon the throne, and, as Stowe, the ancient chronicler, solemnly assures us, an angel had come down from heaven and "censed him" when the crown was put upon his head in St Paul's, and the Pontiff had written him a letter of congratulation, the angry billows of civil war were heaving and breaking in different parts of the country and kept the government in continuous alarm. The King's secret marriage with Elizabeth Woodville, the widow of a Lancastrian, led to an estrangement with Warwick which threatened a renewal of internecine strife. The wise caution and far-sighted sagacity which had so often kept Sir Peter Legh from embarking in rash and dangerous enterprises was not exemplified in his son, who, forgetting the traditions of his house, would seem to have fallen under suspicion of favouring the Lancastrians and sympathising with the efforts made by the King-making Warwick to restore the same Henry VI. whom his father had helped to dethrone. Mr. Beamont inclines to the belief that for some imprudent act he had been bound over to keep the peace, and unable to find sureties had been committed to the gaol at Chester. We learn from the Cheshire Records that under date September 8th, 6th Edward IV. (1466), Peter Legh, of Lowton, Esquire, was lodged in the city prison in the custody of Agnes Darby—a fact we commend to the notice of the advocates of women's rights, for women must surely have been exercising their rights when one of them could hold such an important trust. The nature of Peter Legh's offence is not stated, but in an age when knights and gentlemen not unfrequently had recourse to acts of violence in preference to the slow processes of the law, in defence of their fancied rights, it is just possible that it was some such rough-and-ready dispensation of justice and not a political offence that subjected Peter Legh to the ward of Agnes Darby. In any case he must have quickly recovered his liberty and the King's favour as well, for in the following year he was free and had demised to him for a term of six years (18th October, 1467) the King's town of Vaynoll, with the pleas and issues of his court of the town of Rhuddlan, with the tolls of the markets and fairs (excepting the pleas of the Crown), and also the town of Bagilt—then written Baghegre—together with a corn-mill there with its toll and mulcture. His death occurred in the following year at the early age of thirty-five. His widow survived him a few years only, and died at Dalton, in 1474, where she would appear to have been living after his death. Her will, which has been printed by the Chetham Society, bears date 8th July in that year, and in it she names four of her sons, but omits all mention of the fifth, Robert, who is known to have been living in 1527.

It will thus be seen that Sir Peter Legh outlived both his son and his son's widow. After his death in 1478 an Inquisition was taken in accordance with custom, when it was found that Piers Legh, his grandson, then twenty-three years of age, was his next heir. This Piers or Peter, who was the fifth in direct succession bearing the same name, had succeeded to his mother's estates on her death in 1474. Seven years previously, and when he could only have been about twelve years of age, he had, with the consent of his father, been united in marriage, with Ellen, the daughter of Sir John Savage, of Clifton, an alliance that brought him in close connection with the Stanleys, his wife's mother being Katherine, daughter of Thomas Lord Stanley, of Lathom, and sister of the first Earl of Derby. They were in close kinship, and hence it was necessary, to make the marriage valid, to obtain a Papal dispensation, which was accordingly done.

In mediæval times mercenary considerations entered rather largely into matrimonial arrangements, and marriages were frequently contracted at a very early age, the parties most directly concerned being rarely consulted as to the choice of their respective partners, a practice that the then state of the law almost necessitated. Indeed, a prudent father generally deemed it a parental duty to seek out a suitable match for his heir and marry him in his lifetime, lest, in the event of his dying and leaving him unmarried, he might fall into the hands of some greedy courtier, who under pretence of taking care of his lands, but in reality to enrich himself, might obtain his wardship and dispose of him in marriage to the highest bidder without any regard to inclination or mutual liking. This state of things will sufficiently account for Piers Legh, the heir apparent to so large an estate, being married at such an early age.

The name of this Piers is unpleasantly associated with a tragic act alleged to have been committed at Bewsey Hall, near Warrington, the recollection of which tradition, that delights in passion and revenge, has preserved. Much mystery hangs about this terrible deed, and the versions that have come down to us through succeeding ages are manifestly untrue in many particulars, though the main facts are doubtless correct. In the Dodsworth MSS., in the Bodleian Library, the story is told as follows:—

Sir John Boteler, Knight, was slain in his bed by the Lord Stanley's procurement, Sir Piers Legh and Mister Willm Savage joininge with him in that action, corruptinge his servants, his porter settinge a light in a windowe to give knowledge upon the water (i.e. the moat) that was about his house at Bewsaye when the watch that watched about his house at Bewsaye where your way to ... (Bold?) comes, were gone awaye to their own homes and then they came over the moate in lether boates and soe to his chambre where one of his servants called Houlcrofte was slaine, being his chamberlaine, the other brother betrayed his mr. They promised him a great reward and he going with them a way they hanged him at a tree in Bewsaye Park. After this Sir John Boteler's lady pursued those that slewe her husband, and indyted xx men for that sarte (i.e., assault), but being marryed to Lord Gray, he made her suites voyd, for which cause she parted from her husband, the Lord Graye, and came into Lancastershyre and sayd if my Lord wyll not helpe me that I may have my wyll of mine enemies, yet my bodye shall be berryed by him, and she caused a tombe of alabaster to be made where she lyeth upon the right hand of her husband, Sir John Boteler.

Another paper in the Dodsworth collection represents the murder as being perpetrated in the reign of Henry VII., and assigns as the cause of the quarrel the refusal of the Botelers to wear the livery of the Stanleys on the occasion of King Henry's visit to his brother-in-law, the Earl of Derby, in the summer of 1496. The Earl is stated to have sent a messenger to Bewsey desiring its lord to wear "his cloath at that tyme," but, in the absence of Sir John, his lady, with becoming regard for her lord's dignity, said, "She scorned that her husband should wayte on her brother, being as well able to entertayne the King as he was." A note in the Shakerley Papers states that "sir Peter (Legh) slewe sir Thomas Butteler of Bewseye knight, and for the same was forced to build Disley church for his penalty at his own cost and charges 1527." The late Mr. Roby, in his "Traditions of Lancashire," has made the tragedy the theme of one of his legendary lyrics, and describes the struggle with much circumstantial detail; and since then a resident of Warrington, Mr. John Fitchett, in a poem of considerable merit, "Bewsey," has told the story, incorporating in it an incident traditionary in the neighbourhood, though not referred to in the Dodsworth papers—that when the assassins broke into the hall they were resisted by a faithful negro, who was killed in the melée:—

The interest in the story has been rather increased than lessened by the recovery of the ancient ballad of "Sir John Butler," printed by the Early English Text Society from Bishop Percy's folio MS. (v. iii. p. 210). In the following ballad the story as related in the Dodsworth MSS. is adhered to with tolerable accuracy:—

The "alabaster tomb" in the Butler Chantry in Warrington parish church still exists, and the effigies of Sir John and his wife are recumbent upon it; and there also is an effigy of the faithful negro reposing near to that of his murdered master, or at least what common report proclaims as such, only that, unfortunately for the story, the darkened figure is that of a former lady of Bewsey, and not the faithful servitor of the Botelers, and is, moreover, believed to have been brought from Warrington Friary, since the time when Randle Holme made his Church Notes in 1640.

The tragic story of Bewsey, which is so involved in obscurity and contradiction, and overlaid with so much legendary exaggeration, has been a cause of perplexity for many a long year to local antiquaries. No one of the alleged actors, no one of the facts, and no one of the causes of the supposed quarrel can be true. Sir John Butler's death occurred before the Earldom of Derby had been conferred on Lord Stanley; when King Henry visited Lathom, the Earl's sister, Sir John Butler's widow, was sleeping her last sleep, and at the time of Sir John's death Piers Legh was a mere child of eight years, so that unless he was very precocious his share in the outrage is purely mythical, and we may therefore dismiss the story of his being sentenced, as a penance for his participation in the murder, to build Disley Church. And yet the story has, doubtless, a foundation in fact, though the actores fabulæ may be phantoms. Sir John Butler died on the 26th of February, 1463; the cause of his death is shrouded in mystery, but that he died by violence is not altogether improbable. In those days, when feuds were rife and outrages of daily occurrence, the crime of murder was held of small account, and one that ofttimes might be expiated by the payment of a sum of money. The Botelers had ranged themselves on the side of the Lancastrians. Lord Stanley, who was a consistent supporter of the party of good luck, was then a Yorkist, as was also his nephew, Piers Legh, and Piers Legh's brother-in-law, William Savage. Was the Boteler, whichever of the family he might be, whose life was sacrificed the victim of some political feud arising out of the contentions of the rival houses of York and Lancaster?

In the summer of 1482 England was in a state of commotion; Edward had quarrelled with James III. of Scotland and concluded a treaty of alliance with the Duke of Albany, the brother of the Scottish King, who was then aspiring to the royal authority, and had agreed to hold Scotland as a fief of England in return for the support that had been promised him. The Duke of Gloucester—so soon to become Richard III.—who was lord of the marches, had the chief command of an invading force and marched northwards. The wily chief of the house of Lathom, Thomas Lord Stanley, commanded the right wing, some 4,000 strong, and Piers Legh, of Lyme and Bradley, who four years before had succeeded to the full enjoyment of his patrimony, buckled on his armour and marched under his banner. By July they had reached the old border town which overlooks the estuary of the silvery Tweed, the scene of so many stirring events—Berwick, which the "meek usurper," Henry VI., had surrendered when he fled to Scotland after his defeat at Towton. The town quickly yielded, but, as the castle held out, Gloucester, unwilling to lose time, marched northwards towards Edinburgh, leaving Lord Stanley and his force to prosecute the siege. On the 24th of August the garrison capitulated, and from that time to the present Berwick has remained severed from the sister kingdom. Peter Legh by his dash and daring gained golden opinions, and gained the right to wear his golden spurs as well, for he was made a banneret on Hutton Field.

Had Gloucester had sufficient discernment he might during that expedition have discovered how little reliance was to be placed on the fidelity of a Stanley. Tradition says that either in going or returning dissensions and jealous bickerings arose between the two commanders; the spirit of hostility spread to the ranks of their followers, and several frays occurred between Richard's and Stanley's men, in one of which, near Salford Bridge, the latter had the best of it and succeeded in capturing one of Gloucester's banners, an incident commemorated in Glover's rhyming chronicle—

On the 9th of April in the succeeding year Edward IV. died. Gloucester was at the time at York, and it is said that he attended the minster with a retinue of six hundred knights and esquires to observe the obsequies of his departed brother, and swear fealty to his nephew, the boy-King—Edward V.—the King whose death he was so soon to compass. Having performed these duties he hastened southwards with the intention of intercepting the King before he could reach London, and it is said that on his way he spent a night under Sir Peter Legh's roof at Bradley, when, in the hope, as it would seem, of securing the future services of his host, he granted him an annuity of £10 for life.

On the 6th of July Richard and his Queen, Anne, were crowned at Westminster, when, "the Lord Stanley bare the mace before the King, and my Lady of Richmond (his wife) bare the Queen's train," for the Stanleys were fated to flourish whatever party was in the ascendant. But "uneasy lies the head that wears a crown," especially when the head is that of a usurper, as Richard had painful experience. His cruelties had made him unpopular with the people; the Lancastrian party, which still numbered many adherents, took heart in the hope of being able to displace him and seat Henry of Richmond, Lord Stanley's stepson, upon the throne, and ere long the standard of revolt was raised. In January, 1485, commissions were addressed "to all knights, esquires, gentlemen, and all other of the King's subjects" in the counties of Lancaster and Chester. The Cheshire commission notified all concerned that "the King hath deputed the Lord Stanley, the Lord Strange, and Sir William Stanley to have the rule and leading of all persons appointed to do the King's service when they be warned against the King's rebels, and if any rebels arrived in those parts that then all the power that they could make should be ready to assist the said lords and knight upon their faith and (al) legiances." The Lancashire commission required the "knights, esquires, and gentlemen, and others" of the county "to give their attendance upon the Lords Stanley and Strange to do the King's Grace service against his rebels in whatsover place within this Royaume (realm) they fortuned to tarry." Yet at that very moment Lord Stanley was pledged to Richmond's cause, and as steward of the Royal Household was sending him information of all Richard's plans. Thus did the misguided Crouchback thrust into the hands of the Stanleys the power which, a few short months later, upon the field of Bosworth, was to be used against him with such fatal effect.

The records of Lyme as well as the old annalists and chroniclers are silent as to the part which Sir Peter Legh bore in the great struggle on Redland Heath[59] when the sun of the Plantagenets went down, and the claims of the rival Roses were finally decided;

but we may be well assured that when commissions were addressed to "all the knights, esquires, and gentlemen" of Lancashire and Cheshire, and Lord Stanley was to "have their rule and leading," Sir Peter would not be idle or allow his armour to rust unused. His house owed allegiance to the White Rose. Richard had been his guest at Bradley, and had then conferred an annuity upon him; duty and gratitude should, therefore, equally have bound him to the cause of his Sovereign, but whether he was with the "stout fellows in white surcoats and hoods" who followed his cousin Sir John Savage into the thick of the fight, or in the camp of Lord Stanley, who looked down upon the fray with calculating judgment, beguiling both combatants with promises and assurances of sympathy while waiting to see on which side victory was likely to fall, we have no means of knowing. At ten o'clock on the morning of that memorable 22nd of August, 1485, while the sun, mounting high in the heavens, flashed on pike, and corslet, and helm, and brightened every pennon that lagged in the lazy air, with a great shout and a rattling shower of arrows the fight began. "Lord! how hastily," says Holinshed, "the soldiers buckled their helmets—how quickly the archers bent their bows and frushed their feathers—how readily the billmen shook their bills and proved their staves, ready to approach and join when the terrible trumpet should sound the bloody blast to victory or death." The Duke of Norfolk, who led the van of the royal army, singled out the Earl of Oxford, and engaged him in a personal encounter, for in those days the leaders deemed it a point of honour to fight hand to hand; his vizor was hewn off by a single blow, an arrow from a distance pierced his brain through his broken helmet, and he fell lifeless to the ground. The brave Surrey, hurrying up to avenge the death of his father, was overpowered by Sir John Savage, who led the left wing of Richmond's army, when he requested that his life might be taken to save him from dying by an ignoble hand. He was led to the rear, but lived to be the Surrey of Flodden Field, and the worthy transmitter of "all the blood of all the Howards," But the men whom Richard had loaded with benefits deserted him in the hour of his need with a treachery that proclaimed that the knell of chivalry was rung. Lord Stanley, who three nights before had held a secret interview with Richmond at Atherstone, stirred not a finger, nor moved a man, until the fate of the battle was decided, when he threw off his disguise and charged boldly against his master on his stepson's side. No strategy could now be of avail, and, in the effort of despair, Richard made the final charge upon his rival. Descrying Richmond, he put spurs to his horse, and with lance in rest rushed towards him, when, in the nick of time, Sir William Stanley, "with three thousand tall men," closed in and Richard fell overpowered, with wounds enough to have let out a hundred lives, and murmuring with his last breath, "Treason! Treason! Treason!" The royal army was but a rope of sand, and when the shout went up that Richard King of England had bitten the turf his troops, three-fourths of whom were ready to side with the strongest, rushed in inglorious retreat, the victors following in hot pursuit The fight lasted but two short hours, yet on the morrow many a whimpled dame mourned the loss of her belted lord, and many a sobbing Joan and village Winifred grieved for husband and lover slain at Bosworth Field.

When the fight was ended, Lord Stanley, ever the faithful adherent of the party of good luck, led the descendant of Cadwallader to the slope of the hill at Stoke Golding, ever after called Crown Hill. A knight handed him the battered circlet of gold which adorned the chapeau of estate Richard had worn upon his salade or head piece, and, commanding the attendants to kneel, he placed it on the brow of the victorious Earl and proclaimed him "Conqueror and King." Meanwhile the stripped and mutilated corpse of him who at the morning's rise led a gallant army to assured victory, "trussed like a calf and naked as he came into the world," was flung across a horse and carried in triumph behind a pursuivant at arms to Leicester, where, after being exposed to the gaze of the scornful mob for two hot summer days, it was buried without ceremony in the church of the Gray Friars.

Henry of Richmond came out of the field of Bosworth a victor to ascend the throne of a nation bleeding at every pore, and the leading nobles of which had been swept away. He was not ungrateful. One of his first acts was to seize the estates of the adherents of the fallen Richard. With them he was able to reward his faithful followers, and the originally great possessions of the Stanleys became swollen by enormous grants out of the Yorkists' confiscated lands. The Leghs of Lyme fared but indifferently in comparison; at all events, there is no evidence of Sir Peter having come out of that struggle with any addition to his territorial possessions. On the 14th of January following the houses of York and Lancaster were united by the marriage of the King with Elizabeth of York, and on the 20th of September, with almost undue punctuality, the popular wish was realised in the birth of a Prince—a bud from the peaceful grafting of the White Rose upon the Red—for whom Lord Stanley, or rather Lord Derby, for he had then been elevated to the earldom, was one of the two sponsors.

But the partiality for the house of York was not yet extinguished among the men of Lancashire and Cheshire. As Lord Bacon says, the memory of the ill-fated Richard "lay like lees at the bottom of their hearts, and would come up if the vessel was but stirred;" it was not long before a spirit of resistance began to manifest itself, and Henry found himself threatened with the loss of his ill-gotten sovereignty from a source as unexpected as it was deemed contemptible. In 1487 a youth appeared in Ireland calling himself Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Warwick, but whose real name was Lambert Simnel. He was proclaimed as Edward VI., and the Duchess of Burgundy, favouring the imposture, sent over from Flanders an experienced captain, Martin Swartz, with two thousand men to his aid. In the "merry month of May" they landed on the barren island of Fouldrey, and took possession of the castle—the Peel of Fouldrey, as it was called—a fortress commanding the entrance to Morecambe Bay, which had been built by the monks of Furness as a retreat from the ravages of the Scots. Thence they marched southwards through Yorkshire into Nottinghamshire, where they were joined by Lord Lovel. Henry, with his usual promptitude, hastened to give the insurgents battle; Sir Peter Legh, who had again buckled on his armour, served under the banner of the King, and bravely bore his part in the battle of Stokefield, near Newark, where, on the 6th of June, the two armies were put in array against each other. The issue was quickly decided, and resulted in the complete overthrow of the insurgents, one half of whom were slaughtered. This appears to have been the last military exploit in which Sir Peter Legh had any share. The sword was returned to the scabbard, never again to be unsheathed, the remainder of his days being passed in more peaceful pursuits. It is not unlikely that his abandonment of the profession of arms thus early—for he was only in his thirty-second year when the battle at Stokefield was fought—was caused by the death of his wife, which occurred on the 7th May, 1491, at Bewgenet, a small village in Sussex, where she appears to have been staying, and where her body was buried.

Though wealth and honours were not lavished on Sir Peter Legh in the way they had been on the Stanleys, yet the services he had rendered at Stokefield and elsewhere were not allowed to go entirely unrequited, though it must be admitted that his reward came somewhat late. By letters patent, dated at Lancaster, 3rd March, 20 Henry VII. (1505), he was, in consideration of services he had rendered to the King, as the grant states, appointed successor to the Earl of Derby in the important and lucrative office of seneschal or steward of Blackburnshire, including Tottington, Rochdale, and Clitheroe, within the county of Lancaster—a vast tract of country embracing within its limits the forests of Blackburnshire and Bowland. These forests or chases were extensive wastes inhabited by the roe, the stag, and the wolf, and also the wild ox, which latter is said to have been imported into these northern wilds from the Forest of Blackley, on the confines of Manchester. According to popular tradition, the wild cattle which still constitute one of the peculiarities of Lyme date their existence there from the time that Sir Peter Legh held the seneschalship of Blackburnshire, having, it is said, been conveyed by him from the Lancashire forests to his chase at Lyme.

Sir Peter continued in his office for a period of six years, and with the exception of an occasional lawsuit, when he was supposed to have exceeded his powers, he appears to have discharged the duties of his office to the general satisfaction of both sovereign and subject. In 1511 he resigned his post, the reason for which will hereafter appear. He was then verging upon sixty, and had been a widower twenty years; his sons had all attained to man's estate, and his only daughter had been suitably mated, her husband being Lawrence, son and heir of Sir John Warren, of Poynton. He seems, therefore, to have had a desire to withdraw from the more active duties of life, and to spend his few remaining years in peaceful quietude. The year which followed his wife's death was that in which her brother, Thomas Savage, was made Bishop of Rochester, from which see he was subsequently translated to London, whence he was elevated to the Archbishopric of York, and doubtless his brother-in-law's advice and counsel would be sought. Be that as it may, Sir Peter Legh determined upon entering the Church, and took orders, thenceforward describing himself as "knight and priest," and about the same time he set about the foundation of a chantry chapel upon his estate at Lyme—the present church at Disley. The time was one of much religious energy and life, notwithstanding that the faith might be in a dim lantern and obscured by not a few superstitions and scandals, but it must not be assumed that the only object of Sir Peter Legh's foundation was that prayers might be offered for the dead by the officiating priest. The place was removed from the mother church, which at some seasons would be almost inaccessible, especially to the aged and infirm; it would seem therefore to have been intended more as a kind of oratory or domestic chapel appurtenant to his manor house, and available for the neighbouring population, who would thus have some of the ministrations of religion if not all the public means of grace carried almost to their own doors. In the erection of it he took counsel with the parsons of Wilmslow, Prestwich, and Gawsworth, and also with Mr. Brygges, the master of Sir John Percival's Grammar School at Macclesfield, then just founded; but curiously enough no mention is made of the parson of Stockport, in whose parish it was to be situate, and who would claim sacerdotal superiority. Sir Peter died before his work was completed, but prior to his decease he bound his son by solemn promises to finish the work he had begun. His idea seems to have been to found a kind of Ecclesiastical College, with three priests and two deacons, but unfortunately he did not define the exact character of the foundation he contemplated, and the omission gave rise to protracted litigation and much ill-feeling between the executors under his will and his son and successor. It was of little consequence, however, for within a very few years the Act was passed for the suppression of the minor religious houses, and Sir Peter Legh's chantry chapel at Disley shared the common fate, the various lands and tenements belonging to it being seized into the hands of the King's Commissioners.

Sir Peter, who must have begun to feel the weight of years upon him, made his will in 1521, but omitted to name his executors. In the following year he executed two other wills, the latest of which, dated December 1, 1522, has been printed by Mr. Earwaker from the original in the muniments at Lyme, and is interesting from the very specific directions given respecting his funeral, the ceremonies to be observed at it, the monument to be erected over his remains, and especially the adorning of it "wt a pictor aftr me and my wieff and or Armes," all which his executors carefully observed. Two years after the execution of his last will he is said to have erected the structure known as Lyme Cage, the precursor of the present building, the precise purpose of which it is difficult to define, unless it was intended as a stand from which the ladies of Lyme might, without fatigue, enjoy the pleasures of the chase. About the same time, too, he is found helping in the work of rebuilding the tower of Lyme Church, and inviting the "contributions of all pious persons," without whose help, so the appeal declares, "the parish was not able to finish the work." His death occurred at Lyme, August 11th, 1527, at the ripe age of seventy-two, and in accordance with his testamentary instructions his body was removed for burial by the side of his ancestors in the old church at Winwick, where a sepulchral brass, with the "pictors" of himself and his wife, was placed to his memory, which still remains in a tolerable state of preservation, and which is more than usually interesting on account of the peculiar character of his effigy. He is represented in the plate-armour of the period, with a sword upon his side, and wearing the spurs of knighthood; whilst over the armour of the soldier is represented the chasuble and other vestments of the ecclesiastic. His head is bare, with a tonsured crown denoting his priestly office. His hands are uplifted, though not closed, and between them is a shield of six quarterings. By his side is the effigy of his wife, habited in a long robe, and wearing a headdress with lappets that depend on each side; a girdle encircles her waist, and the hands are uplifted as if in supplication. At their feet are graven the figures of their several children, and there is also this inscription in black-letter characters:—

Orate pro aiab' provi viri, dni Petri Legh, militis, hic tumulati, et dnæ Elene, ux. ejus, filie Johis Savage, militis, cujus quid Elene corpus sepelitr. apud Bewgenett 17° die mensis Maij, anno Domini millesimo cccclxxxxj. Idemq. Petrus, post ipius Elenæ mortem i. Sacerdotem canonice, consecrat obiit apud Lyme i. Hanley xi. die Augusti ao. di mvcxxvij.

Sir Peter Legh had issue five sons and one daughter. His third son, Galfred or Gowther Legh, who resided at Woodcroft, founded the grammar school at Winwick; his will bears date "Apryll 14, 1546," and a lengthy abstract from the original in the registry at York will be found in the "Lancashire Chantries," edited for the Chetham Society by the late Canon Raines.

When Sir Peter Legh's body had been peacefully committed to the grave, and his executors, in accordance with his expressed desire, had provided the sumptuous tomb with its coverings of "marbull" and its "pictors in brass," an inquiry was held before the Escheator of the County of Chester respecting the lands he had held at the time of his death, and it was then found that Peter Legh was his son and heir, and of the age of 48. On the 22nd June, 1528, he had writ of livery granted him of his patrimonial estates, and he then entered upon possession. The document, which is on the Recognizance Rolls of Chester, is a lengthy one, and recites several family deeds and settlements, and gives a clear idea of the extent of the family estates at that time.

Peter Legh had then passed the meridian of life, and had been twice married. His first wife, Jane, daughter of Sir Thomas Gerard, of Bryn, to whom he had been contracted in marriage by his father in 1487, when he was only seven years of age, died on the 5th May, 1510, leaving him two daughters, the eldest of whom, Cicely, had been given in marriage three years previously to Thomas, son of Sir Thomas Boteler, of Bewsey, the match having probably been arranged with the hope of putting an end to the feud that had so long existed between the two families, just as in the year before the contention of the rival houses of York and Lancaster had been terminated by the union of the red and white roses; though if this were the expectation of the promoters of the match their hopes were doomed to disappointment, for the heads of the houses of Lyme and Bewsey had still to appeal very frequently to the law courts for help in the adjustment of their difficulties.

A year or two after the death of his first wife Peter Legh entered into a marriage with Margaret, daughter of Nicholas Tyldesley, and by her he had a numerous family—three sons and seven daughters. He is said to have been afflicted with lameness, the result, it is supposed, of a wound he had received at Flodden, in 1513, when his kinsman Christopher Savage, the valiant mayor, and so many of the burgesses of Macclesfield were numbered among the slain. Possibly the pain and inconvenience experienced from his lameness had tended to sour his temper, for he appears to have been of a more than usually litigious disposition if we may judge from the many occasions in which he figured in the law courts, sometimes at the instance of his neighbours, often in connection with the Botelers, and occasionally to answer charges brought by his father's trustees, who accused him of improperly receiving and retaining the rents and property belonging to the Chantry at Disley, which he had founded. How far these last-named accusations were well founded is not clear. Possibly the religious feelings of the son were not as intense as those of the sire, and hence the neglect of a duty on the delegated performance of which the father had partly rested his hopes of salvation; or it may be that he took a charitable view of things and believed that his father's faults were not of a very flagrant or inexpiable character, and therefore not requiring a continuance of the posthumous invocations he had provided for. Certain it is that when Peter Legh the younger made his own will in anticipation of his approaching end, he made provision for the services of a chaplain who should continue "only for seven years," evidently believing that that period would be sufficient for his probation in the purgatorial region.

Peter Legh ended his days at Bradley on the 4th December, 1541, and on the 24th January following, an inquisition as to his Cheshire estates was taken at Chester, when his eldest son by his second wife, who also bore the name of Peter, and was then aged twenty-eight years, was found to be his heir.

The year in which the battle of Flodden was fought was that in which Peter Legh the younger first saw the light. In 1518, while still an infant, for he was only five years of age, he was united in marriage with his kinswoman, Margaret, daughter of Sir Thomas Gerard, of Bryn, the Church's dispensation having been first obtained—a match that brought him, it may be hoped, more happiness than fell to the lot of his younger sister, Joan Legh, who when six years old was married to his wife's brother, the son and heir of Sir Thomas Gerard, from whom she was afterwards divorced. In May, 1544, two years after he had entered upon his patrimony, he joined the expedition headed by the Earl of Hertford to demand the surrender of the infant Queen of Scotland, whom Henry had intended uniting in marriage with his son, and in this way securing the union of the two kingdoms. The force marched upon Edinburgh, which was speedily captured, pillaged, and burnt. After this rough kind of courtship, and when they had plundered and destroyed the towns and villages in the neighbourhood, the army moved on to Leith, which was also demolished. Before taking ship on their return the Earl of Hertford distributed honours to those who had been conspicuous by their bravery; Peter Legh, of Lyme, was one of them, and was then advanced to the rank of banneret.

After the accession of Edward VI. he was entrusted with the shrievalty of Lancashire, and on the 17th November, 1553, the first year of Queen Mary's reign, he was appointed to the office of sheriff of the county of Chester, and re-appointed to the same office "during pleasure" in the following year, an evidence that he enjoyed the confidence of both sovereigns. The times were, however, troublous. A great religious revolution, the seeds of which had been sown by "the preacher of Lutterworth," attained to maturity in the time of Henry VIII. In the "infant reign" of Edward VI. the Reformation continued to advance with steady step, but at his death his sister Mary ascended the throne, Popery was restored, and many of the people returned to the religious observances of their fathers. The then Earl of Derby, acting upon the maxims of his family, had been able to accommodate himself to the changing circumstances of the times. Though a staunch Protestant under Edward, he became an uncompromising Roman Catholic under Mary, orthodox in every article of the faith except the restitution of the property which he had filched from the Church, and about which his conscience was somewhat tender, restitution being, in his estimation, inconsistent with the traditional canon of "good luck;" his heresies on this head, however, were amply atoned for by his readiness to persecute those who adhered to the reformed doctrines. When George Marsh, the Lancashire martyr, was taken before Justice Barton, at Smithell's Hall, for preaching false doctrine in the church of Dean, the justice sent him to the Earl of Derby, at Lathom, for further examination. "Then was I called," says Marsh, "to my Lord and his council, and was brought into the chamber of presence, where were Sir William Norris, Sir Piers a Lee (Sir Peter Legh), Mr. Sherburn, the parson of Grapnel, Mr. Moore, and others. My Lord asked me whether I was one of those that sowed evil seed and dissension amongst the people; which thing I denied, desiring to know my accusers, and what could be laid against me, but that I could not know. Then he and his counsel would examine me themselves." Sir Peter does not seem to have liked the office of Inquisitor, for, though an active member of Lord Derby's council, he took care to absent himself when Marsh was brought up a second time for examination. Very likely his own religious opinions were a little undecided, and the patience, meekness, and tranquillity of the martyr may have inclined him towards the faith for which so worthy a man was to suffer so terrible a death.

In the year in which Sir Peter was appointed to the shrievalty of Cheshire a general muster of soldiers was ordered from the respective hundreds of the county of Lancaster, and his name occurs in the muster for West Derby as holding a command under the Earl of Derby. Three years later a commission was issued to array, inspect, and exercise all men-at-arms, and men capable of bearing arms, as well archers as horse and foot men, so that they might be arrayed in arms to serve their country in case of need. But all this preparation was of little avail, for, after a short siege of eight days, the fortress of Calais, which had cost the conquerors of Crescy eleven months to acquire, and which for two hundred years had been held as the key to the dominions of the the French King, was surrendered, and England found herself expelled from the continent of Europe. The loss filled the kingdom with murmurs, and overwhelmed the Queen with despair, and at the age of forty-two years she descended childless to the grave, leaving the throne to her half-sister Elizabeth, whose masculine habits and resolute will made her better fitted to wield the sceptre.

In the year of Elizabeth's accession Sir Peter Legh caused the church at Disley to be consecrated for Protestant worship, and dedicated to the Virgin Mary. At the same time he added a peal of bells,[60] one of which bore the following inscription:—