Volume I Part 15 (1/2)
Returning to Ireland with his lady, they lived there happily for some years.
When Henry of Lancaster was crowned by the t.i.tle of Henry the Fourth, Sir John being still Lord Justice of Ireland, and holding the government there in favour of the deposed king, the new monarch, well knowing the knight's power, together with his skill and experience, as well in the senate as in the field, found means to attach him to the reigning interest, and, as a mark of signal favour, granted to him and his heirs for ever, by letters patent, many lands there named, lying in the westerly part of the county of Chester. Soon afterwards occurred that memorable rebellion, when the Welsh blood, boiling to a ferment by the hot appliances of one Owen Glendower, an esquire of Wales, and in his youth a resident at the Inns of Court in London, kindled the flames of intestine war. After he had conspired with the Percies and their adherents, together with a large body of the Scotch, these malcontents threatened to overthrow the now tottering dominion of King Henry.
The most prompt measures were, however, taken to meet this exigency,--and Sir John Stanley was suddenly called out of Ireland; Sir William Stanley, then Lord of Stanley and Stourton, being appointed his deputy. Sir John soon applied himself in such earnest to the service of the king, his master, that a large and powerful army, headed by Henry himself, together with ”Prince Harry,” his son, marched against the rebels. Near to Shrewsbury the latter were overthrown; Sir John, by his great bravery and address, mainly contributing to the success of the engagement. His presence was now become of essential service to the king, who in consequence appointed his second son, the Duke of Clarence--who claimed the t.i.tle of Earl of Ulster in right of his wife--Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in his stead, the new governor landing at Carlingford on the 2d August 1405.
Sir John obtained, as a favour granted but to few, and those of the highest rank, licence from the king to fortify a s.p.a.cious house he was then building at Liverpool, the site whereof was given by Sir Thomas Lathom, who, we may now suppose, had in some measure swerved from his most unjust purpose, possibly on apprehending the great honours and influence that Sir John had already acquired without his aid or furtherance. This plot of land, it was said, contained 650 square yards, which he held together with several burgage houses and lands in that town.
He had full licence to build a castle or house of strength, embattled and machicolated, with _tenellare_, or loop-holes in the walls, and other warlike devices, which no subject could undertake without special leave from the king.
The Isle of Man was at this time, by Northumberland's rebellion, forfeit to the crown. Sir John the same year obtained a grant of it for life, and in the year following a re-grant to himself and his heirs for ever, with the style and t.i.tle of ”King of Man.”
It were needless to enumerate all the honours and distinctions heaped in such unwonted profusion upon our ill.u.s.trious hero. It has rarely happened that so rapid a career has met with no reverse, for the fickle G.o.ddess mostly exalts her votaries only to make their downfall the more terrible.
Henry dying in 1413, was succeeded by his son Henry V., with whom Sir John was held in equal esteem, being again appointed to the government of Ireland; but, landing in Dublin, his health was now visibly on the wane. Four months afterwards he died at Ardee, to the great grief of his family, and the irreparable loss of the nation. He was a rare instance wherein a courtier, through four successive reigns, carried himself unimpeached, and unsullied by the political vices which were then too general to excite reproach. He was truly a knight ”_sans peur et sans reproche_.”
He left two sons, John and Thomas, and one daughter, whose fortunes, at this time, we shall not attempt to follow.
Lady Stanley, his widow, returned to Liverpool with her children, and lived there until her death, in the house built by her husband.
Now did the beam of Sir Oskatell's favour, like an April day, suddenly change its gaudy and suspicious brightness. Sir Thomas, waning in years and ready to depart, began to consider his former misdoings. His daughter and her offspring were, by the laws of nature, justly ent.i.tled to his possessions, which he, reflecting on the great impiety and injustice of withholding, bequeathed, with some exceptions, to Lady Stanley and her heirs, revealing at the same time the fraud which he had practised, and extinguis.h.i.+ng for ever the hopes and expectations of Sir Oskatell. Yet was he not left entirely dest.i.tute: to him and to his descendants were reserved, by due process of law, the manors of Irlam and Urmston, near Manchester, with divers other valuable inheritances.
At the same time was given to him the signet of his arms, with the crest a.s.sumed for his sake, _an eagle regardant, proper_. It was only subsequent to the supplanting of Sir Oskatell that his rivals took the present crest, ”_The Eagle and Child_” where the eagle is represented as having secured his prey, in token of their triumph over the foundling, whom he is preparing to devour. This crest, with the motto ”SANS CHANGER,” the descendants of Sir John Stanley, the present Earls of Derby, continue to hold: the foregoing narrative showing faithfully the origin of that singular device.
FOOTNOTES:
[12] ”Thomas Stanley, Bishop of Man, was a cadet of the n.o.ble family of the Stanleys, Earls of Derby; and, after he had spent some time in this and another university abroad, returned to his native country (Lancas.h.i.+re), became rector of Winwick and Wigan therein; as also of Badsworth, in the diocese of York, and dignified in the church. At length, upon the vacancy of the see of the Isle of Man, he was made bishop thereof, but when, I cannot justly say; because he seems to have been bishop in the beginning of King Edward VI., and was really bishop of that place before the death of Dr Man, whom I have before mentioned under the year 1556. This Thomas Stanley paid his last debt to nature in the latter end of 1570, having had the character when young of a tolerable poet of his time.”--Wood's _Athenae Oxonienses_.
[13] This extract is from an interesting pamphlet, printed for private circulation only, by Thomas Heywood, Esq. of Manchester, ent.i.tled, ”The Earls of Derby, and the Verse Writers and Poets of the 16th and 17th Centuries.” 1825.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BLACK KNIGHT OF ASHTON.]
THE BLACK KNIGHT OF ASHTON.
”O Jesu I for Thy mercies' sake, And for Thy bitter pa.s.sion, Save us from the axe of the Tower, And from Sir Ralph of a.s.sheton!”
It would be a curious inquiry to trace the origin of services and other customs, paid by tenants to their feudal sovereign. Connected as the subject is with the following tradition, it may be worth while if we attempt to throw together a few notices on that head. A rose was not a very unfrequent acknowledgment. Near to the scene of our story, the tenant of a certain farm called Lime Hurst was compelled to bring a rose at the feast of St John Baptist. He held other lands; but they were subject only to the customary rules of the lords.h.i.+p, such as ploughing, harrowing, carting turves from Ashton-moss to the lord's house, leading his corn in harvest, &c. This species of service was called boon-work; and hence the old adage, ”I am served like a boon-shearer.” It, however, seems that some trifling present was made in return. In a MS. of receipts and disburs.e.m.e.nts belonging to the Cheethams, kept in the time of Charles II., there is an item for moneys paid for gloves to the boon-shearers at Clayton Hall, where Humphrey Cheetham, founder of the college at Manchester, then resided. The acknowledgment of a rose before mentioned might seem to have some allusion to the Knights Hospitallers.
The estate of Lime Hurst was called John of Jerusalem's land, and the t.i.thes and rent, in all probability, once went to the support of that order.
In the Ashton pedigree we find a Nicholas a.s.sheton, as it was then spelt, who enrolled himself amongst these warrior-monks. It seems not improbable that the profits of this estate belonged to him.
The custom of heriots.h.i.+p, however, was the most oppressive, being paid and exacted from the parties at a time when they were least able to render it. Our tradition will best ill.u.s.trate this remnant of barbarism, to which, even in the customs of the most savage tribes, we should scarcely find a parallel.
In the early records of the Ashton family we find that Thomas Stavely, or Stayley, held a place called the Bestal by paying one penny at Christmas. This Bestal was, perhaps, a place of security or confinement.
Adjoining the hall yard, the ancient residence of the Ashtons, is an old stone building facing the south, now called the Dungeon. It is flanked at the east and west corners by small towers with conical stone roofs.
The wall is pierced by two pointed windows. Judging from its appearance, it must have been a place of strength; the name Bestal being probably a corruption of Bastile, basilion, or bastilion--all of which we find appropriated to places of this description. Tradition, indeed, says the ancient lords of Ashton made this a place of confinement, when the power of life and death were at their command. A field near the old hall, still called Gallows Meadow, was then used as a place of execution.
Sir John a.s.sheton, in the fifth year of Henry VI., became possessed of the manor on payment of one penny annually. He is generally supposed to have founded the church about the year 1420. We find him a.s.signing the forms or benches to his tenants: the names for whose uses they are appointed are all females. From this it may seem that seats in our churches were first put up for their convenience. Eighteen forms or benches are mentioned for the occupation of one hundred wives and widows, who are named, besides their daughters and servant wenches.
Their husbands had not this privilege, being forced to stand or kneel in the aisles, as the service required. In the windows there yet remains a considerable quant.i.ty of painted gla.s.s, but very much mutilated. Three or four figures on the north side represent a king, saints, &c. In the chancel are the coats and effigies of the a.s.shetons in armour, kneeling.
In one part seems to have been portrayed the invention of the Holy Cross by St Helen. At whatever period the church was built, the steeple must either have been erected afterwards, or have undergone a considerable repair in the time of the last Sir Thomas a.s.sheton; for upon the south side are the arms of Ashton impaling Stayley. There is a tradition, that while the workmen were one day amusing themselves at cards, a female unexpectedly presented herself. She asked them to turn up an ace, promising, in case of compliance, that she would build several yards of the steeple; upon which they fortunately turned up the ace of spades.