CHAPTER IV.
AN AFTERNOON AT GAWSWORTH—THE FIGHTING FITTONS—THE CHESHIRE WILL CASE AND ITS TRAGIC SEQUEL—HENRY NEWCOME—“LORD FLAME.”

Macclesfield does not present a particularly prepossessing appearance, though it possesses much that is historically interesting, and you may here and there see relics of mediæval times; but the long centuries have wrought many changes in its condition, and those changes can hardly be said to be from grave to gay. Its forest was once the hunting-ground of kings. A royal palace occupied a site very near to the present Park Lane, and in the Fourth Edward’s reign Humphrey, Duke of Buckingham, had a princely residence there. The town itself was walled, and though there is not now a single stone remaining, the recollection of its fortifications is preserved in the streets—Chestergate, Church Wallgate, and Jordangate—which form the principal outlets from it. Notwithstanding that it once boasted a royal owner, it now presents but a dingy and uninviting aspect, so that we are little loth to leave its steep and tortuous streets, and what Nathaniel Hawthorne would call its ugliness of brick, and betake ourselves to the open country.

On getting clear of the town, we enter upon a pleasant rural highway that rises and falls in gentle undulations. Tall trees border the wayside, which, as we advance, grow thicker, until we reach a double line of spreading beeches that meet in an entanglement overhead, and form a long shady avenue, through which a pleasant vista is obtained. Now and then we meet a chance wayfarer and occasionally a sleepy-looking carter with his team, but the road is comparatively little frequented, and we almost wonder that with the limited traffic it does not become grass-grown. Though it is quiet now-a-days, it was lively enough in the old coaching times, when the “Red Rover” and the “Defiance” were in the zenith of their popularity, and the tootling of the guard’s bugle daily awoke the echoes to the inspiring notes of the “British Grenadiers,” for it was then the great highway between Manchester and the metropolis. But those days are changed, and our dream of the past is rudely dispelled by the shrill whistle of the “express” as it shoots along the edge of the Moss, leaving a long white pennon of steam in its wake.

As we journey on we get agreeable glimpses of the country, and the varied character of the scenery adds to the charm. Below us on the left stretches a broad expanse of bog—Danes Moss, as it is called—commemorating some long-forgotten incursion of the wild Scandinavian hordes—

On the outskirts of the town is an old farmstead, called Cophurst, on the site of which, as tradition sayeth, Raphael Hollinshead, the chronicler, resided three hundred years ago. Close by is Sutton, once the home of another Cheshire worthy—Sir Richard Sutton—“that ever famous knight and great patron of learning,” as King, in his “Vale Royal,” calls him, “one of the founders of Brazenose, in Oxford, where by his bounty many of Cheshire youth receive most worthy education.” The foreground is broken into picturesque inequalities, and in the rear rises a succession of swelling hills, part of the great Kerridge range—the stony barriers of the Peak country. Where the steep crags cut sharply against the eastern sky is Teg’s Nose, famed for its gritstone quarries. Further on, Shutling’s Low rears its cone-shaped peak to a height of 1,660 feet, and behind we catch sight of the breezy moor, on the summit of which stands that lonely hostelry, the Cat and Fiddle, the highest public-house, it is said, to be found in the kingdom. The great hill-slopes, though now almost bare of wood, once formed part of the great forest of Macclesfield, in which for generations the Davenports, as chief foresters, held the power of life and death over the robber bands who in the old times infested it, as well as the punishment of those who made free with the Earl’s venison; and they not only held but exercised their rights, as the long “Robber Roll” at Capesthorne still testifies. Though it has long been completely disafforested, the memory of it still lingers. Forest Chapel, away up in the very heart of this mountain wilderness, perpetuates the name, and Wildboar Clough—Wilbor Clough, as the Macclesfieldians persist in calling it—Hoglegh, and Wolfscote remind us of the former denizens of these moorland wastes. Beyond Teg’s Nose a great gap opens in the hills, and then Cloud End rears its rugged form—dark, wild, and forbidding. From the summit, had we time to climb it, a charming view might be obtained of the picturesquely varied country—

On the right the scenery is of a more pastoral character. Lawns and meadows stretch away, and the eye ranges over the broad fertile plain of Cheshire—over quaint sequestered nooks and quiet homesteads, and old-fashioned villages, with here and there a grey church tower rising in their midst; over well-tilled fields and daisied pastures, and league upon league of cultivated greenness, where the thick hedgerows cross and recross each other in a network of verdant beauty. The crumbling ruins of Beeston Castle crowning the edge of a bold outlier of rock, may be dimly discerned, with Peckforton rising close by its side, and beyond, where a shadowy form reaches like a cloud across the horizon, we can trace the broken outline of the Welsh hills, with Moel Fammau towering above them all.

Presently the battlemented towers of Gawsworth Church are seen peering above the umbrage; then we come to a cross road, and, turning sharply to the left, continue along a green old bosky lane, and past the village school, close to which is a weather-worn memorial of bygone days—the old wayside cross standing beneath a clump of trees, erected, as old writers tell us, to “guide and guard the way to church,” and the sight of which, with the surroundings, calls to remembrance Hood’s lines on the symbol of the Christian’s faith:—

For a short distance the road now descends, and near the bottom a bank rises abruptly on the right, crowned with a plantation of oak and larch—the “sylvan shade”—beneath which reposes the “breathless clay” of the eccentric poet, wit, and player—Samuel Johnson—known by his generation as “Lord Flame,” of whom we may have something to say anon. A few yards further on is the new hall, or “New Buildings,” as it is sometimes called, a plain brick house, the south wing only of which has been completed, built in Queen Anne’s reign by that Lord Mohun who brought the noted Cheshire will case to a sanguinary end, when he and his adversary, the Duke of Hamilton, fell together in a duel in Hyde Park, Nov. 15, 1712. At this point the view of Gawsworth opens upon us, presenting one of the fairest pictures of quiet rural beauty that Cheshire possesses. There is a dreamy old-world character about the place, a sweet fragrance of the olden time, and a peaceful tranquillity of the present; and the ancient church, the picturesque half-timbered rectory, and the stately old hall, with the broad grass-bordered road, the wide-spreading sycamores, and the old-fashioned fish ponds, in the weed-grown depths of which every object, with the overarching sky and the white clouds sailing therein are given back with distinct vividness, impart an air of venerable and undisturbed respectability. The place belongs so entirely to the past, and there seems such a remoteness between the hoar antiquity of a scene so thoroughly old English and the busy world from which we have just emerged, that we almost hesitate to advance.

There is no village, so to speak, the church, the parsonage, and the two halls, with a cottage or two adjoining the church steps, being all the buildings we can see; there is not even that usual and supposed to be indispensable adjunct of an old English country village, the village inn, the nearest hostelry being the Harrington Arms, an old coaching house on the London road, a quarter of a mile or more away. The church, a grey and venerable pile, with a remarkably well proportioned tower, which exhibits some good architectural details of the perpendicular period, stands in its graveyard, a little to the south of a broad grass-grown road, upon a gentle eminence encompassed by a grey stone fence that looks as ancient as the building itself. Tall trees overshadow it—larch and fir—that rear their lofty spines from near the water’s edge, and, yielding to the northern blasts, bend in graceful curves towards the ancient fane. You can mount the steps and pass through the little wicket into the quiet “God’s-acre,” and surely a spot more suggestive of calm and serious thought is rarely witnessed. Move slowly through the tall grass and round the green graves where

Tread lightly upon the weather-stained and moss-grown stones that loving hands have set up to keep alive the memories of those who sleep beneath. Near the porch is the chamfered shaft of an ancient cross, and close by two or three venerable yews cast their funereal shade. One of them, an aged torso, is garlanded with ivy, and buttressed on one side by a short flight of steps that have been built against it. Its gigantic roots grasp the earth with a tenacity that time cannot relax. It has lived through long centuries, and seen generation after generation christened, married, and buried, and, though now hollowed and decayed, the trunk still preserves some of that vitality that was in its fulness when the valorous Fittons were in the heyday of their power.

Separating the churchyard from the road is an artificial lake or fish-pond, one of a series of three or four, through each of which the water flows in succession, and where, in the chivalrous days of the knightly owners of Gawsworth, the water jousts and other aquatic games took place. But those times of pomp and pageantry have passed away, and the surface is now seldom ruffled save when occasionally a fish rises, or a stately swan glides gracefully through the warm sunshine. In its smooth mirror you can see the old grey tower, the projecting buttresses, the traceried windows, and the embattled parapets of the church, with their pleasant environment of green all clearly reflected, presenting the appearance of an inverted picture; while the old patrician trees that border the wayside bend over the glassy surface, creating in places a vernal shade that Undine might delight in.

On the opposite side is the Rectory, a picturesque old structure of black and white timber work, “magpie” as the people call it hereabouts, with quaint overhanging gables, grotesque carvings, and mullioned windows, with small diamond panes—one of them, that lighting the hall, a spacious apartment with an open timber roof, containing fragments of heraldic glass that would seem to have formerly belonged to the church. There is a wide entrance porch in the centre of the building, and over the door, between two shields of arms, this inscription—“Syr Edward Fytton, Knight, with my lady Mare ffyton, hys wyffe”—from which it has been commonly assumed that the house was built by Sir Edward Fitton, who married Mary, the daughter and co-heir of Guicciard Harbottle, of Northumberland, and so would fix the time of erection in the reign of Henry VIII. But this inscription originally belonged to another building of later date than the Rectory, which, as we learn from some verses preserved in Ashmole’s “Church Notes,” taken circa 1654, was erected by George Baguley, who was rector of Gawsworth from 1470 to 1497.

The “old” Hall, the ancestral home of the Fittons, now occupied by Lord Petersham, stands a short distance east of the church. Like the Rectory, it is half-timbered and of the Elizabethan period, but the building is now incomplete, a part having been taken down some seventy years ago, though the original quadrangular form may still be traced. In the rear, in what has been originally the courtyard, is a curious octagonal oriel of three stories, each story overhanging the one immediately below in a sort of telescope fashion. The windows are filled with leaded panes arranged in a variety of shapes and patterns. The principal front, which faces the road, has been rebuilt and painted in imitation of timber-work. Over the principal entrance is a shield of sixteen quarterings, representing the arms of the Fittons and their several alliances, surrounded by a garter, on which is inscribed the motto, “Fit onus leve”—a play upon the family name. There is also the following inscription beneath—

In front of the hall is a grove of walnut trees, very patriarchs of their kind; and adjoining is a large grassy amphitheatre, which Ormerod, the Cheshire historian, has described as “a deserted pleasure ground;” but, after careful examination, and with some show of probability, pronounced by Mr. Mayer to be an ancient tilting ground, where in times past the warlike Fittons amused themselves and their Cheshire neighbours with displays of martial skill and bravery.

Before we enter the church or view the hall, it may be well to glance briefly at the earlier history of the place. Gawsworth, though now an independent parish, was formerly included within the limits of the great parish of Prestbury; and even at the present day the whole of the townships which surround it—Macclesfield, Sutton, Bosley, North Rode, Marton, Siddington, and Henbury—all owe ecclesiastical allegiance to the mother church of that widespread parish. The original name, as we learn from the Domesday survey, was Gouersurde. After the Conquest it formed part of the possessions of the Norman Earls of Chester; one of whom, Randle de Meschines, in the twelfth century, gave it to his trusty follower, Hugh, son of Bigod, with the right of holding his own courts, without pleading before the prefects at Macclesfield, in consideration of his rendering to the earl annually a caparisoned horse; and this Hugh, in accordance with the fashion of the age, adopted the name of Gawsworth. Subsequently the manor seems to have passed to Richard Aldford, whose daughter, Lucy, brought it in marriage to the Orrebies, who held it free from all service save furnishing one man in time of war to assist in the defence of Aldford Castle. They retained possession until the reign of Edward I., when Richard, son of Thomas de Orreby, dying without male issue, his only sister, Isabel, who succeeded to the inheritance, and who had previously married in succession Roger de Macclesfeld and Sir John de Grindon, Knight, both of whom she survived, conveyed it on her marriage in 1316–17 to her third husband, Thomas Fytton, a younger son of Edmund Fytton, of Bolyn (Wilmslow); and thus Gawsworth became closely associated with a family noted for their chivalrous exploits, and famous in the annals of the county.

Of the early history of this distinguished family—“Knights of a long-continued Race and of great worth,” as Webb styles them—who for so many generations held sway and practised a splendid hospitality in Gawsworth, but few memorials have been preserved beyond the dry details embodied in their Inquisitiones post mortem in the Public Record Office, and the inscriptions which still remain upon the sumptuous monuments erected to their memory in the church which their pious munificence reared.

Thomas Fitton, who acquired the manor of Gawsworth by his marriage with the heiress of Orreby, had a son also named Thomas, who married Margaret, a daughter and co-heir of Peter Legh, of Bechton, and added to the patrimonial estate half of the manor of Bechton and lands in Lostock-Gralam, which he obtained in right of his wife. It was during the lifetime of this Thomas that we find the first attempt made to erect the chapelry of Gawsworth, which was then dependent upon Prestbury, into a separate parish. At that time the Abbot of St. Werburg’s, Chester, held the rectory of Prestbury, and in the chartulary of his house it is recorded that in April, 1382, he conceded to John Caxton, rector of Gawsworth, the privilege of burying his parishioners on paying a moiety of the dues within ten days after each burial, and with a proviso that any parishioner of Gawsworth might be interred at Prestbury without any claim on the part of the rector of Gawsworth.

In explanation of the granting of this privilege it may be mentioned that in those times, on the formation of a parish, the inhabitants were required to perform their parochial rites at the mother church, the “ealdan mynstre” of the parish. But as many parishes were of considerable territorial extent, those resident in the remote hamlets found it inconvenient to resort on all occasions to the mother church. To provide for the spiritual requirements of the people in such districts, private chapels or oratories, founded by the lords of the soil, were allowed to be licensed in convenient situations. They were frequently attached or immediately adjacent to the lord’s mansion, and were designed more especially for his own accommodation and that of his dependents; and Gawsworth, which is distant nearly six miles from Prestbury, was of this class. To prevent such foundations trenching upon the rights of the mother church, they were merely licensed for preaching and praying, the ministration of the sacrament of baptism and the performance of the right of burial being strictly prohibited. These latter were the true parochial rites, and the grant of them to a chapel or oratory severed its connection with the parish church, and converted it into a parochial chapel, or, more strictly speaking, into an independent church.

But who was John Caxton, the parson of Gawsworth? The name is not very frequently met with, and the thought suggests itself that he may have been, and probably was, a kinsman of that William Caxton who, a century later, set up his press in the precincts of Westminster Abbey, and revolutionised the world by practising the art which Gutenberg had invented.

In 1391 Thomas Fitton was appointed one of a number of influential persons in Cheshire who were constituted a commission to levy a subsidy of 3,000 marks (£2,000) in the city of Chester, on account of the King’s confirmation of the old charters belonging to that city. He died in 1397, and was succeeded by his son, Sir Lawrence Fitton, then aged 22, who married Agnes Hesketh, a daughter of the house of Rufford, in Lancashire. This Sir Lawrence, who held the lordship for the long period of 60 years, fills no inconsiderable space in the annals of the county. He was frequently one of the forest justices in eyre, the assizes being then held in Macclesfield, and took an active part in the stirring events of his time. When, in 1399, Richard the Second went over to Ireland to avenge the death of Roger Mortimer, by chastising the Irish chieftains who had risen in insurrection, he, in order to increase the strength of his Cheshire guard by a fresh levy, issued his orders to Sir Lawrence Fitton and others commanding them to summon the best archers in the Macclesfield hundred between 16 and 60, and to select a number to go to Ireland in his train, who were to be at Chester on the morrow of the Ascension of our Lord for inspection by the King’s officers. The King did not actually sail till the 4th of June, when he was joined by Sir Lawrence Fitton, who, as appears by an entry on the Recognizance Rolls of the palatinate, had protection granted him on his departure; and at this time, under date June 5, we find a licence to William Prydyn, parson of Gawsworth, Robert de Tounley, John Tryket, and Matthew del Mere to act as his attorneys and to look after his affairs while absent in Ireland on the King’s service.

“When the shepherd is absent with his dog the wolf easily leaps into the fold.” So says the proverb, and Richard had unpleasant experience of the truthfulness of it, for scarcely had he loosed his sails before some of the more discontented of his nobles at home were plotting for his overthrow.

Within a month of his departure Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Hereford, the only son of old John of Gaunt, who had been banished the kingdom, landed at Ravenspur, near Hull—as Shakspere writes—

and before the end of July was at the head of a large army in the wolds of Worcestershire. It was not until towns and castles had been yielded to the invader that the King received intelligence of the insurrection, for the winds had been contrary, and by the time he landed at Milford the revolution was virtually accomplished. Ill news does not always travel apace, and in these days, when the trembling wire speeds the message through air and sea, it seems difficult to realise the thought of a rebellion stalking through England unchecked for weeks without the news reaching in the sister isle him whom it most immediately concerned. On reaching England, Richard started for Chester, where he had many friends and his power was strongest. At Flint he was delivered by the perfidious Percy into the hands of Bolingbroke, thence he was taken to Chester, and afterwards conveyed to London and lodged in the Tower, when, after having resigned the crown, he was formally deposed—an act that was followed by his removal to Pontefract, where, according to common report, he was murdered by Sir Piers Exton and his assistants, though it is more likely he was allowed to perish of starvation.

Whether Fitton was one of those who hastened to pay court to the usurper, and in a bad game elected to adhere to the winning side, is not clear, but he must have quickly accommodated himself to the changed state of affairs, and to have gained the confidence of Bolingbroke—“King Henry of that name the Fourth.”

Scarcely was Richard dead when a great revulsion in public feeling occurred, old hatreds and jealousies were revived, and those who had clamoured most for his death now exclaimed—

and the usurping Henry, who had dreamed only of the throne as a bed of roses, found himself between the fell spectres conscience and insatiate treason. In Wales, where Richard had possessed a strong attachment, Owen Glendower raised the standard of revolt, renounced allegiance to the King, and claimed to be the rightful Prince of Wales, when he was joined by young Harry Percy, the Hotspur of the famous ballad of Chevy Chase. To meet this new danger, Prince Henry, Falstaff’s Prince Hal—“the nimble-footed mad-cap Harry, Prince of Wales,” who was also Earl of Chester, and lived much in the county, joined his forces to those of his father, and on the 11th January, 1403–4, we find him directing a writ to Sir Lawrence Fitton, requiring him to repair “to his possessions on the marches of Wales, there to make defence against the coming of Owen Glendower, according to an order in Council enacting that, on the occasion of the war being moved against the King, all those holding possessions on the marches should reside on the same for the defence of the realm,” and the Recognizance Rolls show that a few days later the Lord of Gawsworth was appointed on a commission “to inquire touching those who spread false rumours to the disquiet of the people of the county of Chester, and disturbance of the peace therein, also to array all the fencible men of the hundred of Macclesfield.”

In 1416, when, after the victory at Agincourt, Henry V. was preparing for his second expedition to France, with the design of claiming the crown, Sir Lawrence Fitton, with Sir John Savage, Knight, Robert de Hyde, Robert de Dokenfield, and John, the son of Peter de Legh, was appointed collector of the subsidy in the Macclesfield hundred, part of the 3,000 marks granted to the King by the county of Chester; and in 1428, with other influential Cheshire knights and gentry, he was summoned to the King’s Council at Chester, with regard to the granting of a subsidy to the King (Henry VI.) His death occurred on the 16th March, 1457, when he must have been over 80 years of age, and his inquisition was taken 37 Henry VI. (1459), when his grandson Thomas, then aged 26, was found to be his next heir. As previously stated, he had to wife Agnes Hesketh. This lady died in 1422, and he would appear to have re-married, for in the inquisition taken after his death mention is made of “Clemencia, his wife,” who is said to be then alive.

During his long life a movement was taking place in the Church which brought about a great change in religious thought and action, and in which Wycliffe, the rector of Lutterworth, may be said to have been the chief actor. The rapacity of the monks was securing or had secured for themselves the larger portion of the livings of the country, the parishes being handed over to the spiritual care of vicars, with the small tithes as a miserable stipend. In this manner the rich rectory of Prestbury had been appropriated to the Abbey of St. Werburg, Chester; and possibly it was this circumstance, as much as his own personal convenience, which induced Caxton, acting under the influence of his patron, the father of Sir Lawrence Fitton, to seek to detach the chapel of Gawsworth from the mother church of Prestbury. Having accomplished this, Sir Lawrence Fitton would seem to have set about the erection of a building more suited to its increased importance as a parish church, and an examination of the building points to the conclusion that the greater portion of the fabric was erected during his lifetime, as evidenced by the architectural details of the building, as well as by the shields of arms displayed on different parts of the tower, representing the alliances of the family, the latest impalement being the coat of Mainwaring, intended to commemorate the marriage of his son Thomas with Ellen, daughter of Randle Mainwaring, of Over Peover, which would seem to fix the date between the years 1420 and 1430, and not in the reign of Edward III., as generally supposed. In the Cheshire Church Notes, taken in 1592, there is preserved an account of a window to the memory of Sir Lawrence Fitton and his wife, which formerly existed in the church at Gawsworth. He is represented as in armour, and kneeling with his wife before desks in the attitude of devotion; on his surcoat were displayed the arms of Fitton, and on the lady’s mantle those of Hesketh; behind the knight were eight sons, and in rear of the lady four daughters, and underneath the inscription, “Orate pro bono statu Laurencii ffitton milit’ et Agnet’ uxor ejus cum pueris suis.”

By his wife Agnes Sir Lawrence Fitton had a son Thomas, who, as stated, married Ellen, daughter of Randle Mainwaring, of Over Peover, and their names were in like manner commemorated by a window, which has now disappeared, comprising three panes, one representing Sir Randle Mainwaring and his wife Margery, daughter of Hugh Venables, Baron of Kinderton, kneeling before desks; the second, Thomas Fitton and seven sons; and the third, his wife and six daughters, all kneeling, and the inscription, “Orate pro a’iabus Thomæ ffitton, filii Laurencii ffitton, et Elene ux’ ejus, et om’ puerorum suorum, qui istam fenestram fieri fecerunt.”

Thomas Fitton pre-deceased his father, leaving a son, also named Thomas, who succeeded as heir on the death of his grandfather in 1457, he being then 25 years of age. This Thomas inherited the martial spirit of his ancestors, and took his share in the fierce struggle of the White and Red Roses, which destroyed the flower of the English nobility, and impoverished and well-nigh exhausted the country—“that purple testament of bleeding war”—

He was present in the sanguinary encounter at Bloreheath, near Drayton, on that fatal 23rd July, 1459—St. Tecla’s Day—when Lord Audley and the Lancastrians were defeated, and was knighted on the field; and there is on the Cheshire Recognizance Rolls, under date April 29th, 38–9 Henry VI. (1460), the record of a general pardon granted to Thomas Fitton and Richard Fitton, late of Gawsworth; William, son of Lawrence Fitton, late of Gawsworth; Edward, brother of Thomas Fitton, late of Gawsworth; some of their kinsmen of the Pownall stock, and other Cheshire gentry, with a long list of residents in Gawsworth, the retainers of the Fittons—names that are still familiar in the neighbourhood—“in consideration,” as it states, “of the good service of the said Thomas Fitton, Knight, and his adherents at Blore-heth.” His name also occurs under date June 10, 1463, with those of John de Davenport, of Bramhall; Hugh Davenport, of Henbury; and Christopher Davenport, of Woodford, in the appointment of collectors of a subsidy for the King (Edward IV.) in the Macclesfield Hundred. He married Ellen, daughter of Sir Peter Legh, of Lyme, but this lady, who predeceased him, bore him no issue. He died April 27, 1494, when the estates devolved upon his brother and next heir, Edward Fitton, then aged 60 years. This Edward, by his marriage with Emmota, the daughter and sole heiress of Robert Siddington, had at that time acquired possession of two parts of the manor of Siddington, which had been held by his wife’s family for many generations on the tenure of rendering a red rose yearly, and thus he added materially to the territorial wealth and influence of the Gawsworth house. Though there is no absolute evidence of the fact, there is yet good reason to believe that the south porch of Gawsworth Church was added or rebuilt by this Edward Fitton, one of the carved decorations being a rose, in the leaves of which may be discerned two heads, evidently intended to represent Henry VII. and his Queen, who, by their marriage, had united the rival houses of York and Lancaster, and so terminated the long and bitter War of the Roses.

Edward Fitton died 15th February, 1510–11, leaving, with other issue, a son John, who succeeded as heir, and who, as appears by the inquisition taken after his father’s death, was then 40 years of age. He had married, in 1498, Ellen, daughter of Sir Andrew Brereton, the representative of a family that had been seated at Brereton from the time of William Rufus. By her he had, with other issue, a son Edward, who succeeded at his death, which occurred on the Sunday after St. Valentine’s Day, 1525. In the Cheshire Church Notes already referred to, mention is made of a memorial window formerly existing on the south side of Gawsworth Church, containing the arms of Fitton quartering those of Siddington and Bechton, with the inscription underneath: “Orate pro a’iabus Edwardi ffitton et Emmotæ uxis suæ, et pro a’iabus Johannis ffitton, et Elene ux’ sue ... et Roberti Sedyngton et Elene uxoris sue;” and there was also formerly in one of the windows of the south aisle of Wilmslow Church, as we learn from Mr. Earwaker’s “East Cheshire,” a representation of John Fitton and his wife. The drawing made by Randle Holmes shows the figure of a knight kneeling on a cushion and wearing a tabard of arms, the coat being that of Fitton of Gawsworth; and lower down is a knight kneeling, with his tabard of arms quarterly—(1) Orreby, (2) Siddington, (3) Bechton, and (4) Fitton. Behind him kneel eight sons; opposite, also kneeling, is his wife, wearing an heraldic mantle representing the arms of Brereton, with a shield containing the same coat above her head; and behind her, kneeling, six daughters. The inscription had then disappeared, but it is clear that the first figure was intended for Edward Fitton of Gawsworth, whilst the other represented his son John, and his wife, Ellen Brereton, and their children.

On the death of John Fitton, in 1525, the family estates devolved upon his eldest son Edward, who received the honour of knighthood, and in the 35th Henry VIII. (1543–4) held the shrievalty of the county. He married Mary, the younger daughter and co-heir of Sir Guiscard Harbottle, a Northumberland knight, and by her had five sons and six daughters. He died on February 17, 1548, and on his inquisition, which was taken the same year, Edward Fitton, his son, then aged 21 years, was found to be his heir.

Edward Fitton, who succeeded to the Gawsworth estates on the death of his father, in 1548, was born 31st March, 1527; and when only 12 years of age had been united in marriage with Anne, one of the daughters of Sir Peter Warburton, of Warburton and Arley, the lady being a month younger than himself. He was one of the foresters of Macclesfield, and was exempted from serving upon juries and at the assizes, in accordance with the terms of a writ dated 29th March, 5 and 6 Edw. VI. (1532), addressed to the sheriff of the county. Eight years after his coming in possession of the patrimonial lands, as appears by letters patent bearing date 3 and 4 Philip and Mary (1556–7), he, in conjunction with William Tatton, of Wythenshawe, who in 1552 had espoused his eldest sister, Mary, obtained a grant from the Crown of Etchells, part of the confiscated estates of Sir William Brereton, together with Aldford and Alderley, the property being subsequently partitioned; Aldford and Alderley remaining with Sir Edward, whilst Etchells passed to his son-in-law, William Tatton.

Subsequently his name occurs in the palatine records, with those of William Davenport, Knt., and William Dokenfield and Jasper Worth, Esquires, as collectors of a mise in Macclesfield, in 1559–60.

The influential position which the Fittons held in their own county was due, as we have seen, not less to their martial bearing than to their successful marriages, and it was this chivalrous spirit which was ever a characteristic of the stock that led to their being frequently employed in the public service. In the person of Sir Edward Fitton the ancient fame of the family was well sustained. In 1569, the year in which Shane O’Neill, the representative of the royal race of Ulster, was attainted in Parliament—that daring chief of a valorous line, whose

when Ireland was in a state of anarchy and confusion—when the Desmonds and the Tyrones were trying the chances of insurrection rather than abdicate their unlicensed but ancient chieftainship, and the half-civilised people were encouraged in their disobedience to the law by the mischievous activity of the Catholic clergy, who had been forcibly dispossessed of their benefices, and therefore wished to free themselves from the English yoke—Sir Edward Fitton was sent over to Ireland by Queen Elizabeth to fill the difficult and responsible post of first Lord President of the Council within the Province of Munster and Thomond—an office he held for a period of over three years. His position can hardly be said to have been an enviable one, for the country at that time had become so wasted by war and military executions, and famine and pestilence, that two years previously Sir Henry Sidney, the viceroy, in his letters to Elizabeth, described the southern and western counties as “an unmeasurable tract, now waste and uninhabited, which of late years was well tilled and pastured.” He adds,—

A more pleasant nor a more desolate land I never saw than from Youghall to Limerick.... So far hath that policy, or rather lack of policy, in keeping dissension among them prevailed, as now, albeit all that are alive would become honest and live in quiet, yet are there not left alive in those two provinces the twentieth person necessary to inhabit the same.

And the description is confirmed by a contemporary writer—a Cheshire man, by the way, whose early life was spent in the neighbourhood of Gawsworth (Hollinshead)—who thus expresses the truth with hyperbolical energy:—

The land itself, which before those wars was populous, well inhabited, and rich in all the good blessings of God, being plenteous of corn, full of cattle, well stored with fruits and sundry other good commodities, is now become waste and barren, yielding no fruits, the pastures no cattle, the fields no corn, the air no birds, the seas, though full of fish, yet to them yielding nothing. Finally, every way, the curse of God was so great, and the land so barren, both of man and beast, that whosoever did travel from one end unto the other he should not meet any man, woman, or child, saving in towns and cities; nor yet see any beast but they were wolves, the foxes, and other like ravenous beasts.

On the dissolution of the Council in September, 1572, Sir Edward Fitton returned to England; but remained only a few months, when he was appointed (March, 1573) Treasurer for the War and Vice-Treasurer and Receiver-General in Ireland. He appears to have taken up his abode in Dublin, where in January of the following year he lost his wife. She was buried in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, in that city, January, 1573–4; and in the MSS. of Bishop Sterne there is preserved the following curious account of the ceremonial observed on the occasion of her funeral:—

“The order in the presyding for buriall of the worshypful Lady Fitton, on Sonday, bein the 17 day of January, Anno 1573.

First, serteyne youmen to goo before the penon with the armes of Syr Edwarde Fytton, and his wyfe’s dessessed; and next after them the penon, borne by Mr. Rycharde Fytton, second son to Syr Edw. Fytton and Lady, his wyfe dessessed; and sarten gentillmen servants to the sayd Syr Edw. Fytton; then the gentill-hossher and the chapplens, and then Ulster Kyng of Armes of Ierland, weyring his mornyng goune and hod, with hys cote of the armes of Ynglande. And then the corpes of the sayd Lady Fytton, and next after the corps the lady Brabason, who was the principal morner, bein lyd and assysted by Sir Rafe Egerton, knyght, and Mr. Fran. Fytton, Esq., brother to the said Syr Edwarde, and next after her, Mistress Agarde, wyfe to Mr. Fran. Agarde; then Mrs. Chalenor, wyfe to Mr. John Chalenor; then Mrs. Dyllon; then Mrs. Bruerton, being the other III murners. Then Syr Edward Fytton goying bytwene the Archebysshoppe of Dublin and the Bishop of Methe; then Sir John Plunkett, Chefe Justice of Ireland; then Master Dyllon, beying the Chefe Baron; then Mr. Fran. Agard and Mr. John Chalenor, wyth other men to the number of XIII gentylmen; then sarten other gentyllwomen and maydens, morners, to the nomber of VIII; and then the Mayor of Dublyn, wyth his brytherne, the Schyreffes and Aldermen; and the poure folks VI men on the one syde of the corse and VI women on the other syde. And so coming to the cherche of St. Patryke, where was a herse prepared, and when they cam to the herse, the yomen stode, halfe on the one side and halfe on the other, the penon berer stood at the fette of the corps; then the corps was layd upon a payer of trestels within the herse, and then the III morners were brought to their places by Ulster Kyng of Armes aforesaid, and the cheffe morner was brought to her place at the hede of the corps, and so the herse was closd; and the tow assystants set uppon tow stowles without the rayles, and then sarvyce was begon by the Bysshope of Methe, and after sarvyce there was a sermon made, and the sermon endyd, the company went home to the house of the sayd Sir Edw. Fytton; and the corpse was buryed by the reverent father, the Bysshop of Methe, and when the corpse was buryed, the clothe was layd again upon the trestylls wythin the herse, which was deckyed with scochyens of armes in pale of hys and her armes, and on the morow the herse was sett over the grave and the penon sett in the wall over the grave. And Ulster Kyng of Armes had V yardes of fyne blake clothe for his lyvery, and 50s. sterling for hys fee, and the herse with the cloth that was on the corse wyth all the furnyture there of the herse.”

It may be mentioned that the claim of Ulster King of Arms to the costly materials of which the hearse was composed was disputed by the Vicars Choral of St Patrick’s, and the matter was not settled until 1578, when a decision was given in favour of the former by the Lord Deputy of the Council. Sir Edward Fitton died July 3, 1579, and his remains were interred by the side of those of his wife, the memory of both being perpetuated in an inscription on a sepulchral brass still remaining in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, on which is engraved the figure of a man with nine children behind him, and, opposite, a woman with six children behind her, all kneeling. The inscription which is below is as follows:—

Glorify thy name, hasten thy

Kingdome; Comforte thy flock;

Confound thy adversaries;

Ser Edward ffitton, of Gausworth, in the counte of Chester, in Englande, knight, was sent into Ireland by Quene Elizabeth, to serve as the first L President of her highnes Counsell within the province of Connaght and Thomonde, who landing in Ireland on the Ascention day, 1569, Ao. R. R. Elizabeth XI. lyued there in the rome aforesaid till Mighellmas, 1572, Ao. Elizabeth XIIIIº.; and then, that Counsell being dissolued, and he repayring into England, was sent over againe in March next following as Threasaurer at Warres, Vice-treasaurer, and general receyvor within the realme of Ireland, and hath here buried the wyef of his youth, Anne, the seconnd daughter of Sir Peter Warburton, of Areley, in the county of Chester, knight, who were born both in one yere, viz., he ye last of Marche, 1527, and she the first of May in the same yeare; and were maried on Sonday next after Hillaries daye, 1539, being ye 19 daye of Januarie, in the 12 yere of their age, and lyued together in true and lawfull matrymonie just 34 yeres; for the same Sonday of ye yere wherein they were maried, ye same Sondaie 34 yeres following was she buried, though she faithfully departed this lyef 9 daies before, viz., on the Saturdaie, ye 9 daie of Januarie, 1573; in which time God gave them 15 children, viz., 9 sonnes and six daughters; and now her body slepeth under this Stone, and her soul is retourned to God yt gave yt, and there remayneth in kepinge of Christe Jesus, her onely Saviour. And the said Ser Edward departed this lyef the thirde daie of July, Ao. Dni. 1579, and was buried the xxi daie of September next folowing; whose fleshe also resteth under the same stone, in assured hope of full and perfect resurrection to eternall lyef in ioye, through Christe his onely Saviour; and the said Ser Edward was revoked home into England, and left this land the —— day of —— Anno Domini being the —— yere of his age.

At the east end of the north side of Gawsworth Church there is a replica of this inscription, with the figures of Sir Edward and Lady Fitton, and their fifteen children.

A younger brother of Sir Edward was Francis Fitton, who in 1588 married Katherine, the Countess Dowager of Northumberland, one of the four daughters and co-heirs of John Neville Lord Latimer. His portrait was formerly to be seen in the “new” hall at Gawsworth, with a long and curious inscription surrounding it, recording some of the alliances of the family.

Sir Edward Fitton, as stated, died July 3, 1579. His inquisition was taken the following year, when his son, Sir Edward Fitton, Knight, then aged 30, was found to be his heir. He was probably at the time in Ireland, for it was not until April 24, 25 Elizabeth (1583), that he had livery of his lands. In 1602, as appears by an indenture dated June 20 in that year, he sold the manor of Nether Alderley, which had been acquired by his father, to Thomas Stanley, ancestor of the present Lord Stanley of Alderley. Sir Edward filled the office of President of Munster, in Ireland, and died in 1606, leaving, by his wife Alice, daughter and sole heir of John Holcroft, of Holcroft, in Lancashire, with other issue, a son, Sir Edward Fitton, born 29th November, 1572, who was created a Baronet in 1617. He died May 10, 1619, being then aged 47, and was buried at Gawsworth, where a sumptuous monument was erected to his memory by his wife, “the Lady Ann Fytton,” daughter and co-heir of James Barratt, of Tenby, in Pembrokeshire, Esq., with the following extravagant effusion inscribed on a panel below:—