Chapter VI (4)

Sir Peter Legh outlived his eldest son, also named Peter, who died at Haydock about the year 1570, and was succeeded by his grandson, who bore the same baptismal name. He was born in 1563, and must therefore have been in his twenty-seventh year when he succeeded to the patrimonial lands. While yet a minor he had received a training well fitted to enable him to discharge the duties that would devolve upon him as the owner of extensive estates. He had been a frequent guest of the Earl of Derby, and in the lordly hall of Lathom and at the kingly court of Castle Rushen he acquired a grace and dignity of manner, and at Gray's Inn, where he entered as a student, he gained a knowledge of the laws which in due course he would be called to administer. When a youth of fourteen he acted as page to Henry, Earl of Derby, and held up his train when he made a visit of ceremony to the town of Liverpool, and seven years later he was in the same Earl's suite as "one of his gentlemen waiters," when, as Elizabeth's ambassador, he went to invest the King of France with the Order of the Garter. In September, 1585, four months after he had entered at Gray's Inn, he married Margaret, daughter of Sir Gilbert Gerard, of Bromley, Master of the Rolls. For some cause or other the marriage had been delayed, as the settlement bears date 1st June, 1579. In the following year he was called upon to bear his part in the Great Council of the Nation, being chosen one of the representatives in Parliament for the ancient borough of Wigan, his wife's kinsman, William Gerard, being his co-representative. The time was one of much anxiety, consequent upon the well-founded apprehensions of a Spanish invasion and the decisive indications of plots for the deposition of Elizabeth and the recognition of Mary's claim to the English crown--that in which the fierce indignation in England against the bigoted King of Spain led the Government to break through the superstitious love of peace and boldly encounter Philip on his own territory. In 1589 Mr. Legh was again elected one of the representatives of Wigan, and in the following year his grandfather, Sir Peter Legh, passed to his rest, when he succeeded as next heir male to the family estates. His wealth and social status marked him as a fitting person to be entrusted with the shrievalty of Cheshire, and in 1595 that dignity was conferred upon him. Proud of his ancestry, he was no less proud of the home of his ancestors. His grandfather had rebuilt the mansion at Lyme and spent much of his time there, maintaining great estate; the older mansion of Bradley had in consequence been comparatively neglected and allowed to fall into decay, and in 1597, as appears by an inscription on one of the beams, he set about repairing the ravages which time had made, thoroughly reinstated it, and at the same time adorned the wall of the great staircase with an heraldic shield of eight quarterings, which may be seen at the present day. On the 2nd July, 1598, just a month before the death of the illustrious Lord Burleigh, the hoary minister, in whom

Old experience did attain
To something like prophetic strain,

he attended at the Royal Palace in Greenwich, and there received the honour of knighthood at the hands of Queen Elizabeth. Two years later--43 Elizabeth--he was elected to represent the county of Chester in Parliament, in the place of Sir William Beeston of Beeston, Knight, his co-representative being Sir Thomas Holcroft, of Vale Royal, and the same year, having completed the restoration of his house at Bradley, he rendered the like good service to the church which his ancestors had founded at Disley, re-roofing it and putting the fabric in a state of complete repair. While this work was going on he was busied in making important additions to his territorial estate, having entered into a contract with Roger and Hamer Bruche for the purchase of their ancestral domain of Bruche, with the hall and lands pertaining to it, which thenceforward formed part of the Legh estates.

On the 24th March, 1603, the most glorious reign in our country's annals was brought to a close; it was a sad day for "merrie England," for it was that on which, in the royal palace at Richmond, in the seventieth year of her age, and the forty-fifth of her reign, worn out with the cares of State and wearied with the fierce contest between her intensely womanly nature and her sense of duty as the queen of a great people, the most powerful and most beloved monarch in Europe, Queen Elizabeth, lay upon her cushions wrestling with death, and terminated a long life of power, prosperity, and glory. Within three short months of that day death had cast a shadow over the home of Sir Peter Legh. On the 23rd July, 1603, he had the misfortune to lose his wife, the Lady Margaret Legh, who was then in her thirty-third year. She appears to have been staying in London at the time, for her body was buried in the church of Fulham, in Middlesex, where a sumptuous monument with her effigy upon it was erected to her memory, and which may still be seen near the north door of the chancel. She is represented as seated beneath an arched canopy with an infant upon her lap and another by her side. Over the head is a shield of arms, and on the face of the tomb is the following inscription:--

To ye memy. or what else dearer remayneth of yt verteous Lady, La. Margaret Legh, daughter of him yt sometimes was Sir Gilbert Gerrard, Knt. and mr of ye Rolles in ye Highe Court of Chancery, Wife to Sir Peter Legh of Lyme, in ye county of Chester, Kt., and by him ye mother of seven sons, Pierce, Frauncis, Radcliffe, Thomas, Peter, Gilbert, and John, with two daughters, Anne and Catherine; of wch Radcliffe, Gilbert, and John, deceased infants, the rest yet surviving to the happy increase of ther house. The years she enjoyed ye world were 33. yt her husband enjoyed her 17, at which period she yielded her soul to the blessedness of long rest and her body to the earth, July 3rd, 1603. This inscription in ye note of piety and love by her sad husband is here devotedly placed.

Among the family portraits at Lyme there is one in the "state bedroom" of the deceased lady--a full length--"Sir Peter Legh's first lady that was Lord Gerard of Bromley's daughter, master of the rolls." She is represented in the costume of the Elizabethan era, with the large hooped petticoats, ruff, &c.

When James of Scotland was proclaimed as the successor of Elizabeth on the English throne, Sir Peter Legh deemed it expedient to sue out a general pardon; not that he was conscious of having done any wrong, but in those days it was a convenient mode of settling old scores, for by paying a fine into the exchequer a general absolution could be obtained for all sins of omission or commission, real or imaginary.

Having paid his money and obtained the bill of indemnity which enabled him to begin the new reign without a blot, he was free to take unto himself a second wife, and he found a suitable partner in the person of Dorothy Egerton, the daughter of Sir Richard Egerton, of Ridley, and the widow of Richard Brereton, of Worsley, in Lancashire, and Tatton, in Cheshire--the _quasi_ sister of Thomas Egerton Lord Viscount Brackley, Elizabeth's Lord Keeper, and subsequently James the First's famous Lord Chancellor, the progenitor of the Earls and Dukes of Bridgewater that were, and the Earls of Ellesmere, and Lords Egerton of Tatton that are. The marriage settlement, which is among the Lyme deeds, bears date 11th March, 1604, Dame Brereton having then been a widow more than five years, while Sir Peter had been a widower only eight months. The match was in many respects a wise one; the lady was of good birth, richly dowered, kind hearted and benevolent, and, being childless herself, she had the good fortune to gain the affection and respect of Sir Peter's children. A few years after the marriage, Sir Peter, who united with the love of letters a love of art, had her portrait painted as he had previously had those of himself and his first wife. The picture is said, though on somewhat doubtful authority, to be the work of Cornelius Jansen; it is a three-quarters, and one of the finest in the collection at Lyme. The lady is represented as habited in the costume of the time, with a lace ruff and necklace of beads, and a pet dog sitting upon the table by her side. In one corner is depicted a shield, with the arms of Egerton, of Ridley, and three other quarterings, and in the opposite corner is the inscription:-- "_Ætatissuæ 50, Anno Dni. 1615._"

For some years after his second marriage, Sir Peter seems to have led a comparatively uneventful life. When not engaged in the fulfilment of his duties as Lieutenant-governor, or Captain of the Isle of Man, he spent much of his time on his Lancashire and Cheshire estates; Lyme was his favourite residence, and was frequented by the best company, and often the scene of much gaiety and display. The only shadow that darkened his path was cast by his eldest son, Piers, who, while at Magdalene College, Cambridge, appears to have disappointed his hopes, or been guilty of some irregularity that necessitated his sending for him home, being, as he says, "enforced to do so for cause." This was not the only trouble, for about the year 1619 the young man married, presumably without his father's consent, and probably without his knowledge, though the lady was in every way of equal rank with himself, being the daughter of Sir John Saville, of Howley, in Yorkshire, the first Lord Saville of Pontefract. Mr. Beamont inclines to the opinion that the great difference between the political views of the two houses of Lyme and Howley was very likely the reason which occasioned Piers Legh to marry Anne Saville without waiting for his father's consent. Be that as it may, the father was much displeased, an estrangement ensued, and his intercourse with his son was never renewed. Piers Legh's married life seems to have been brief; little is known respecting him, and it is not known with certainty when he died or when he was buried, but it was commonly believed, though erroneously, as will hereafter be seen, that he predeceased his father some years, having by his wife, who survived him many years, one son and three daughters.

Sir Peter Legh attained to a greater age than many of his ancestors; born near the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, it was his lot to serve three successive sovereigns--the Maiden Queen, James the First, and Charles the First--and he appears to have been hale and strong until within a short period of his death, which occurred at Lyme on the 17th February, 1635-6. Three days after, his body was buried at Winwick in accordance with his expressed desire, and from the unusual haste with which the funeral arrangements were carried out it has been surmised that he must have fallen a victim to the plague or some other infectious disease. In his will, which was executed on the 18th January immediately preceding his death, he desired that his body might be buried with little pomp, and a stone with a brass placed over his grave. The brass still remains, the only memorial recording his burial, and bears this inscription:--

Here underneath this stone lyeth buried the body of Sir Peter Legh, Kt., who departed this life, February 17th, 1635. Ætatis suæ 73.

Sir Peter's _Inquisition post mortem_ was taken at Wigan on the 18th April, 1636, and some idea of the extent of the territorial possessions of the family may be gathered from the following list of messuages, mills, lands, wards, rents, &c., in Lancashire, Cheshire, and Westmoreland, given as having been held by him at the time of his death:--Bradley Manor, Burtonwood Manor, Haydock Manor, Bruch Manor, and Hanley Manor; Halton, Pemberton, Norley, Bridgemore, Newton-in-Makerfield, Lawton, Golborne, Fernhead, Hindley, Kenion, Warrington, Sankey Magna and Parva, Overforde, Wolstone, Penketh, Garston, Ollerton, Much Woulton, Much Hoole, Walton-le-Dale, Ulnes Walton, Bretherton, Eccleston-juxta-Crofton, Bold, Childwall, Croston, Poulton, the advowson of Claughton-juxta-Horneby, the church of Shevington, and the church near Prescott. Lands, &c., in Westmorland, Lyme, Grapnall, Disley, Broome, Heatley, Sutton, Marple, Offerton, Norbury, Weyley (Whaley), Macclesfield, Latchford, Warburton, Kettleshulme, and Bridgemoor.

By the same inquisition it was found that Sir Peter Legh's next heir was his grandson, also named Peter, and that he was then of the age of thirteen and upwards. Being a minor, his mother, then describing herself as "Anne Legh, of Ripley in the countie of Yorke, widowe," obtained from the courts of wards and liveries the custody, wardship, and marriage of her son Piers, paying to the King the sum of £2,000 as the consideration. Before he had attained his majority the young Lord of Lyme was chosen as one of the representatives of Newton in the Parliament which assembled at Westminster on the 3rd November, 1640--the most memorable in the annals of England--the Long Parliament, which endured for thirteen years, and which has been the theme of the most extravagant hatred and the most exaggerated praise. He did not, however, long enjoy his senatorial honours, for happening to become involved in one of the quarrels so common in those days, a duel was the result, and he was mortally wounded in the encounter. The affair is thus referred to in "The Perfect Diurnall of Passages in Parliament," under date Friday, January 28th, 1641-2:--

This evening Sir Peter Lee, a member of the House of Commons, was hurt dangerously in a duell by one Master Mansfield.

There is an inaccuracy in styling him "Sir" Peter, for he had not received the honour of knighthood, and there is an error, too, in the name of his antagonist, whom Lord Herbert of Cherbury describes as his nephew, the son of Sir John Browne, and who, he says, "had the fortune to kill one Lee of a great family in Lancashire."[61] He lingered for some days--sufficiently long to enable him to dispose of his affairs, as will be seen by the following copy of his will with the codicil annexed:--

28 January, 1641.--Peter Legh, esqr., being dangerouslie wounded maketh his desires and requests as followeth, viz. The barron of Kinderton to take the moneyes in his trunk which is about 70li. Desired him to speake to his unckle Frauncis to be good to his mother and sisters. Sir Willm. Gerrarde to have his dun nage.

1 February, 1641.--He desireth his unckle Frauncis over and above his owne bountie to his sisters, that he will for his sake give them cli. a peece. To his man Ralph Arnefielde the xiiijli. he oweth him to be made upe xlli. The boy here with him, Myles Leighe vli., his footboy at Blackley vli., and every servant at Blackley xs. a peece. Ralphe Swindells xli. He giveth his greye nage he had of Mr. Brathwates [his sister's husband] to Captain Broughton. His sword at his lodging in towne to Mr. Carrel Mulineux and praieth God he may make better use of it than he hath done, and his case of pistoles. His watche to his aunt Lettice Leigh. His cloathes to his three servants, the boy at Blakeley, Ralphe Arnfield, and Myles Leighe. Desireth his father to see his bodie buried at Winwicke, and Mr. Jones, who hath beene with him at his sickness, to preach at his funerall. To his brother Tom his sword at Blakeley, and a gray nage he bought of the barron. To his father his white mare and best saddle. Praieth his unkele Frauncis to consider the debts he oweth Sir Wm. Gerrarde and all the debts he oweth to others. To his friend Mr. Roger Moston his caen. To his unkele Frauncis the sword that was his grandfather's, his great seale ringe, and his greate fowlinge piece. Desireth his unkle to give his mother cli. a year during her life if she give the porcon in money she hath to his sisters, which if she otherwaies dispose of them cli. in money.

I say my hand.

Witnesses hereof
Raphe Assheton K.
John Jones
Roger Mostyn
Tho. Munckas.
1641.

In this will he expressly mentions his father as then living, a statement that is in conflict with the decree of the Court of Wards and Livery of November 22nd, 1624, which represents him as having "dyed in his (father's) displeasure." The later years of the father's life are shrouded in much mystery, and it may be that after the quarrel with Sir Peter Legh he had disappeared, and, being for a time unheard of, was supposed to be dead; certain it is that he was not among the mourners at Sir Peter's funeral at Winwick, in 1635, and he is not named in the inquisition taken after his death, his son being therein named as the heir to his grandfather.

The "unkele Frauncis" whom young Peter Legh so affectionately remembers in his will was the second son of Sir Peter. He resided at Blackley Hall, near Manchester, which, with the demesne, had been conveyed to him in 1636 by Ralph Assheton, of Middleton, "in consideracon of the full somme of two thousand pounds of currant English money."

Peter Legh died on the 2nd February, the day after he had added the codicil to his will. His body was brought from London and interred in the family vault at Winwick, the burial being thus recorded in the parish register:--

1641-2 Feb. 14. Mr. Peter Legh grandchild of Sir Peter Lee of Lime, slaine in London by Mr. Browne, and buried at Winwicke ye 14 day.

Peter had never married, and by this fatality the direct succession to the territorial possessions of the family was broken after having passed uninterruptedly through eleven generations, in every one of which the eldest son bore the name of Peter or Piers.

On the 14th April, 1642, an inquisition was taken at Wigan before the Escheator of Lancashire. It is a lengthy document, and, after reciting many family deeds and settlements, states that Peter Legh had died while under age; that his sisters Frances, Margaret, and Elizabeth were his heirs, and that Francis Legh (of Blackley, his uncle) was heir male of the body of Sir Peter Legh, and then of the age of fifty and more. He did not long enjoy possession of the estates, his death occurring February 2nd, 1643-4. He had to wife Anne, the daughter and heiress of Sir Edward Fenner, of Hampton, in Oxfordshire, knight; but as this lady, who survived, bore him no issue, the estates at his death, reverted to his nephew, Richard Legh, the second surviving son of his brother, the Rev. Thomas Legh, D.D., rector of Sefton and Walton, in Lancashire, by his wife, Lettice, daughter and co-heiress of Sir George Calveley, of Lea, a descendant of Sir Hugh Calveley, the famous Cheshire hero, who fought so gallantly at Auray and Navarette in the days of the third Edward. Born on the 7th May, 1634, Francis Legh was under ten years of age when he succeeded to the family inheritance; his father had been dead five years, but his mother was still living, though she did not survive many years, her death occurring October 14, 1648. Her body was interred in the Lyme Chapel in Macclesfield Church, where, against the east wall, there is a black marble tablet to her memory bearing a long Latin inscription.

It was a fortunate circumstance that Richard Legh, when he so unexpectedly succeeded to the lordship of Lyme and the vast territorial possessions in Lancashire and Westmorland his progenitors had acquired, was too young to be entrusted with the control of his own affairs. He had not completed his tenth year at the time of his uncle's decease. It was an eventful period in England's history: the storm which had so long been gathering upon the political horizon had burst; eighteen months before, the shot which signalled the commencement of the great civil war had been fired at Manchester; Edgehill had been fought; and England's purest patriot had been laid to rest, uncenotaphed but not forgotten, in the church at Great Hampden, beneath the shadow of the Chiltern Hills. Sovereign and subject were separated for ever, and each, wearied of the other, no longer sought for peace; the loud beating of the warlike pulse drowned the faint, decaying traditions of the miseries which had attended the ancient domestic feuds; hostile armies were marching and countermarching; every manor house was put by its owner in a position of defence, and every Englishman declared for King or Parliament and prepared himself for the struggle, never swerving for a moment from what he believed to be the path of honourable, though perilous duty. Amid these political distractions Richard Legh's youthfulness stood him in good stead; too young to take any part in the strife then being waged, he escaped many of the services and exactions he would otherwise have been subjected to had he been suspected of any strong partiality either for the Cavaliers or the Roundheads. On the 7th May, 1655, he attained his majority, and in the following year he was returned as one of the members for Cheshire in the Parliament which assembled at Westminster on the 7th September, 1656, his colleagues in the representation being Sir George Booth, of Dunham; Thomas Marbury, of Marbury; and Peter Brooke, of Mere--a Parliament notable as that in which the ancient privileges were violated on the broadest scale, no member being admitted who could not produce a certificate that he was "approved by his Highness's Council." As Richard Legh was not among the excluded members, he must have satisfied the requirements of the "Council," and been therefore accounted one of the "betrayers of the liberties of England;" but he took little part in the proceedings, and when his name was called on the memorable occasion when it was intended that the Protector should be invested with the powers and the title of King he was reported to have gone away into the country "dangerously sick." After the death of Cromwell, in 1659, and when his son Richard had been proclaimed as his successor in the Protectorate, a new Parliament was called, and Mr. Legh was again returned as one of the members for Cheshire; John Bradshaw, the regicide, being returned with him. It had, however, but a very brief existence. The members assembled on the 29th January (1659); on the 27th April a proclamation was issued dissolving it, and the members returned to their own homes. With the fall of the Parliament fell Richard Cromwell; the sceptre which had proved too heavy for his grasp, was laid aside, and, as Thurloe wrote to Lockhart, he was "excluded from having any share in the Government," and "retired as a private gentleman." Mr. Legh appears to have been concerned in the Royalist insurrection--the "Cheshire Rising," as it was called--which occurred in the following year, when Sir George Booth appeared in arms and obtained possession of the city of Chester, the object being the recall of the exiled Stuarts, and he was for a time incarcerated in York Castle; but the unsuccessful "Rising" was quickly followed by the accomplishment of the design it failed in; Charles was restored to the Crown, and Mr. Legh regained his liberty.

On the 29th May, 1660, Charles the Second passed in triumphal procession through the streets of London. The delirium of joy manifested on that occasion was no mere exuberance of delight, but the expression of the nation's belief that the Government of England had again a solid foundation upon which peace and security, liberty and religion, might be established. Peace and good order being restored, Mr. Legh, who had now attained the age of twenty-six, had time to attend to matters affecting his own domestic happiness. On the 1st January, 1660-1, he took to himself a wife in the person of Elizabeth, one of the daughters of Sir Thomas Chicheley, of Wimpole, in Cambridgeshire, descended from a brother of Archbishop Chicheley, the munificent founder of All Souls', Oxford, and himself Charles the Second's Master of the Ordnance and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

On the 23rd of April following the King was crowned at Westminster, and it is not improbable that Richard Legh and his young bride were among the guests in Westminster Hall on the occasion when Samuel Pepys was so dazzled with the fine hangings, and the brave ladies, and the "musique" of the violins; though they could hardly have been among the "many great gallants, men and women," who laid hold of the garrulous diarist, and would have him drink the King's health upon his knees, kneeling upon a faggot, which he did. Certain it is that the lord of Lyme was in favour with the Court, and when Charles proposed to found the new order of the "Knights of the Royal Oak," in which only those distinguished for their loyalty were to be admitted, his name was placed among those on whom the distinction was proposed to be conferred. The order was, however, soon abolished, "it being wisely judged," as Noble, in his "Memoirs of the Cromwell Family," remarks, "that it was calculated only to keep awake animosities which it was the part of wisdom to lull to sleep."

In the same year Mr. Legh purchased from Sir Thomas Fleetwood the barony of Newton-in-Makerfield, or Newton-in-the-Willows, as it is more generally styled, thus adding considerably to the territorial possessions of his house as well as to his social status in the county. Newton, which in Saxon times was of sufficient importance to give name to one of the hundreds of Lancashire, by virtue of a charter granted in the first year of Elizabeth's reign, had the privilege of returning two members to Parliament conferred upon it, a dignity it retained until disfranchised by the Reform Bill of 1832. The nomination of members was in the Baron of Newton until the year 1620, when the franchise became vested in the burgesses possessing freeholds of the value of 40s. a year and upwards, but this was only a nominal change, for, the burgage tenures being chiefly in the lord of the manor, the election was as much in him after the right came nominally into the hands of the burgesses as it was before, the place continuing to rank among the nomination boroughs until the Reform Act, and thus the Leghs acquired with the barony a seat in the legislature whenever they might choose to seek that honour. Mr. Legh sat as one of the members for the borough in the Convention Parliament of 1660, and again in that which assembled a few days after the King's coronation. In the succeeding year (September 20, 1662) he was appointed a deputy-lieutenant of Cheshire, and on the 26th April the same office in Lancashire was, by the King's command, conferred upon him by the Earl of Bridgewater. It was while holding these offices that Mr. Legh found himself in a position of some difficulty with regard to a distinguished visitor who it was intimated had expressed his intention of becoming a guest at Lyme. The Duke of Monmouth, the eldest of the many illegitimate children of Charles II.--"the Duke whom," as Evelyn says, "for distinction they called the Protestant Duke, though the son of an abandoned woman the people made their idol," had suddenly returned from temporary exile and set up a claim to be considered the legitimate heir to the throne in opposition to the Duke of York, who, on account of his Popish proclivities, the Whigs of the time sought to disinherit. The vanity of the bastard son of Lucy Waters being inflamed by the enthusiastic demonstrations of the people, he made a "glorious progress" through the country, which is referred to by Dryden in his "Absalom and Achitophel," who thus represents the Earl of Shaftesbury as remonstrating with him on his doubts and apprehensions when a crown was within his view:--

Did you for this expose yourself to show,
And to the crowd bow popularly low?
For this your glorious progress next ordain,
With chariots, horsemen, and a numerous train?

Cheshire was among the counties in which he sought to keep alive the political cry by appealing to popular opinion against the dreaded predominance of Popery, and in 1683 we find one of his partisans, Caryll, Lord Molineux, thus writing to Mr. Legh:--"At Chester they are in consternation how to treat the Monmouth Duke. You, I hope, are settled in your resolution of entertaining him when he comes to Lyme, which, I hear, will be very soon." But Mr. Legh was not so "settled;" on the contrary, we find him with two of his brother magistrates busied in taking the depositions of certain individuals respecting the Duke and his progress, and transmitting them to the Secretary of State, for which he received his Majesty's thanks.

Monmouth's progress through Cheshire was attended with considerable tumult, and he is said to have given countenance to riotous assemblies, whose violence was such that they forced open the doors of the Cathedral at Chester, destroyed most of the painted glass, and tore the surplices of the clergy into rags; they also broke the font to pieces, pulled down some of the monuments, attempted to demolish the organ, and committed other outrages. A memoir of his reception in the city mentions several arts to gain popularity not unworthy of notice. The infant of the Mayor was christened Henrietta, Monmouth acting as sponsor, and the following day (August 25, 1683,) it is said that he went to the horse races at Wallasey in Wirral, where he rode his own horse and won the plate, which he presented in the evening to his goddaughter.

While these events were transpiring Mr. Legh occupied himself with rebuilding the old Episcopal chapel of St. Peter on his Newton estate, and providing for the better maintenance of the incumbent. Two years later, on the accession of James II., he was reappointed Deputy-lieutenant of Cheshire, but he did not long retain the office, his death occurring at Lyme on the 31st August, 1687, at the age of 53. His body was removed to Winwick, and there interred in the family vault on the 6th of the following month, when a sermon, entitled "The Christian's Triumph over Death," was preached by the Rev. William Shippen, Rector of Stockport. This sermon, which was afterwards published, contains a brief sketch of his life and character, which Mr. Earwaker, in his "East Cheshire," thus summarises:--

The greatest Excellencies of his Ancestors seem'd to Concenter in his Person. The singular Piety of his Grandfather, Sir Peter; the extraordinary Charity and Benignity of his Uncle, Francis; the Constancy and Fixedness of Religion of his Father; the quickness and Gaiety of Spirit of his Mother. Educated at the University in his "Blooming Youth", and "refined and finished afterwards at City and Court," he was "rendered a most accomplished and useful gentleman both to his Prince and Country." He added "the Parliamentary Burrough and Barony of Newton" to his other estates, and his "Mansion House (Lyme Hall) he so far Rebuilt and Ennobled, partly in Effect, and partly in Design and preparations for its finishing." ... "There was such an Affluence of all things, so great a resort of Persons of Quality, ... that his house might very well be styled a Country Court, and Lime the Palace to the County Palatine of Chester."

He engaged in the Cheshire rising to restore his Exiled Sovereign, though being surprised by the Enemy, he was prevented from appearing in that successful Enterprise, of which both the Palatine Counties (the Stage of the Action) and York Castle (the place of his Imprisonment) are unquestionable Witnesses. "Although he was actually in every Parliament during his whole Reign (i.e., of Charles II.), yet he never joyn'd any Faction in the House." ... "His present Majesty (James II.) in his Royal Progress at Chester heard of his last fatal Indisposition." ... "He never fail'd of his Daily Service in his Domestick Chapel." ... "His Love and Zeal for the Church of England" are shown "in his Parish (Winwick) where he has at his own proper Charges built a Decent and Elegant Chapel, and taken care to Establish a Competent Maintenance for the constant Ministry therein for the Publick Worship of God."

In the church at Winwick there is a handsome monument to his memory with marble busts of himself and his wife, and in the hall at Lyme there are several portraits of both. By his wife, who survived him and retained her widowhood for the long period of forty-one years, he had a family of six sons and seven daughters, all of whom, with the exception of two daughters, Sarah and Anne, who died in infancy, were living at the time of his decease.

Peter Legh, the eldest son, who succeeded, though under age, had been married some few months at the time of his father's death, the lady being his own cousin, Frances, only surviving daughter of Piers Legh, of Bruche, and eventually heiress of her brother of the same name; the Bruche estates thus becoming reunited with the patrimonial lands. Peter Legh, like his father, was a staunch adherent of the Stuarts, and after the abdication of James II. and the "Peaceful Revolution" had placed the Prince and Princess of Orange upon the English throne, it is not surprising that he should have been suspected of entertaining opinions hostile to the reigning family, and of opening communications with the Irish supporters of King James, with a view to the restoration of the exiled monarch. Many Protestant Royalists, whose fathers had fought for Charles the First, although opposed to the designs of James upon the Church, avowed their attachment to his inviolable person and crown, and professed themselves bound by their oath of allegiance, from which, as they affirmed, no personal misconduct of the King could release them. Some of the more enthusiastic armed their tenantry in defence of the Stuarts, and began to prepare themselves, as they had done fifty years before, to unite in rallying round the standard of their legitimate King. Suspicion having been excited by the landing of several Irishmen on the coast, and by the discovery of arms in transit from London to Lancashire, Lord Delamere issued a proclamation summoning the friends of liberty, and the new Government to meet him on Bowdon Downs, a proceeding that served to quell the spirit of disaffection among the Jacobites, and preserve the tranquility of the two counties. At this time an attempt was made by a common informer, one John Lunt, to fix on Mr. Legh the charge of treason, in having, as was alleged, accepted a colonel's commission in King James's service. Mr. Beamont gives the following interesting particulars respecting his arrest and imprisonment:--

On the 19th of July, 1694, while Mr. Legh was still a very young man, a King's messenger, with Lunt, the informer, attended by fourteen Dutch troopers, each wearing a blue cloak, and armed with a case of pistols, arrived at Lyme, where Mr. Legh was living, between the hours of six and seven in the morning. The messenger, with one Oldham, their guide, and two or three of the troopers, immediately ascended the great staircase, and having found Mr. Legh, who was in his dressing-room and not yet dressed, they apprehended him under a Secretary of State's warrant, charging him with high treason. From his dressing-room they led him, attired only in his night gown, to his closet, where were Mr. Lunt and two or three more of the troopers. There the messenger and Mr. Lunt began to search his papers, and continued their search until noon, selecting and putting by from time to time, to be carried away, such of them as they thought fit. The alleged colonel's commission, had it been found, would have raised a damning presumption; and the only wonder is that, like the witness against Spratt, Bishop of Rochester, Lunt, who was evidently aware of this practice, had not so contrived as to hide where it should be found a forged commission somewhere in the house at Lyme. After being allowed to dress himself, Mr. Legh was taken downstairs into the parlour, and there left in charge of two of the troopers, while a search for arms was made in every part of the house; the result, however, must have disappointed the searchers, for, except a case of pistols and a carbine found in Mr. Legh's closet, which they seized and carried away, nothing whatever was found. Their quest being ended, Mr. Legh was taken from his house, and conveyed the same night, guarded by twelve troopers, to Knutsford, Lunt setting his own saddle on one of Mr. Legh's horses and riding away with it. From Knutsford Mr. Legh was conveyed by the troopers to Chester Castle, where he remained a prisoner until about the first of September following, when Lord Molyneux, Sir William Gerard, Sir Thomas Clifton, Philip Langton, Esq., William Blundell, Esq., and some others were conducted to London, guarded by four messengers, and an escort of twenty-one Dutch troopers, commanded by Captain Baker. On arriving at St. Giles's the prisoners were all committed to the custody of the messengers, who, at the end of three days, brought them, by command, before the Duke of Shrewsbury, his Majesty's Principal Secretary of State, when his Grace, having heard and considered the charge against Mr. Legh, remanded him for three days, and then committed him to the Tower on a warrant, of which the following is a copy:--'These are in their Majesty's names to authorise you to receive and take into your custody, the body of Peter Legh, of Lyme, Esquire, herewith sent you, being charged before me for high treason in levying warr against their Majestys, and adhering to their Majesty's enemies; and you are to keep him safe and close until he shall be delivered by due course of law, and for so doing this shall be your warrant. Given at the Court at Whitehall, the 12th September, 1694.--SHREWSBURY. The Right Honourable Robert Lucas, Governor-in-Chief of the Tower, or his deputy.'

The closing years of the seventeenth century were distinguished if not disgraced by a succession of intrigues and conspiracies for the overthrow of the reigning dynasty. The country was in a state of political ferment, and the public mind, ever eager for some new sensation, caught with avidity and believed every story of real or pretended attempts to involve the nation in bloodshed. Plots were innumerable, and plot-hunting became as gainful a trade among unscrupulous knaves as witch-finding had been with their great-grandfathers nearly a century previously. That Peter Legh entertained strong Jacobite sympathies and desired to see the return of King James there can scarcely be a doubt, but that he took up arms or engaged in any treasonable enterprise against the person and government of the "Dutch usurper," as the disaffected styled the Prince of Orange, is extremely improbable. John Lunt, who seems to have taken the leading part in attempting to fasten the charge of treason upon him, was a miscreant of the most infamous type and actuated by the basest of motives; he had been a highwayman, one of his accomplices was a convicted cattle lifter, and at the time of the trial he made such a ridiculous figure that the jury were compelled to treat his evidence as altogether unworthy of belief.

For some time after his committal to the Tower Mr. Legh was subjected to very harsh treatment, and denied all communication with his friends or counsel. At no time could the Tower be said to be an agreeable place of residence, but lodged as he was in its worst room, with the atmosphere poisoned by the polluted exhalations of the surrounding ditch and the ague-giving marshes which then stretched east and west, and without any opportunity for outdoor exercise, the confinement must have been exceedingly trying, and especially to a constitution such as his, accustomed to the breezy moors of Lyme. Happily the rigidity of his imprisonment was after a while relaxed, and at the instance of the Queen permission was given for Mrs. Legh and a maid-servant to be with him if they were willing to share his confinement; and subsequently a further order was given that he should be allowed "such liberty of walking within the Tower at convenient times" as might be consistent with his safe keeping--conversation, however, being strictly forbidden. This latter injunction seems to have been strictly enforced, for it is recorded that when Mr. Legh's mother, Madam Legh, who was busied in getting up the evidence for his defence, came under the window of the room in which he was confined to inquire how he was, the sentinel pointed his musket and declared he would shoot her if she spoke another word. At length the order came that he was to prepare for trial at Chester,[62] and, guarded by a party of horse, the gentleman porter, gentleman gaoler, and two warders of the Tower, he was reconducted to Chester Castle, when, without even being put on his trial, he was called to the bar and discharged, the evidence in support of the accusation which the informer Lunt had trumped up having, it would seem, been of so worthless and unsatisfactory a character as to leave no doubt of his innocence.

Barely eighteen months, however, elapsed before Mr. Legh was again arrested and lodged in Chester Gaol charged with similar treasonable offences, but no evidence was adduced, and when he was placed at the bar, no witnesses appearing, he was at once acquitted, and in accordance with the following order, dated June 2nd, 1696, and addressed to the High Sheriff directing his release, was discharged:--"Mr. Legh, charged with high treason and treasonable practices, in consequence of his Majesty's gracious directions."

The treatment Mr. Legh received at the hands of the State left upon his mind a sense of injustice that was never wholly removed, for in some directions respecting his burial, given nearly half a century after these occurrences, he wrote as follows:--

I would have no monument set over me, but a plain brass nailed to the wall to express my innocency in that wicked conspiracy (to ruin me) by false witnesses, imprisonments, and trials in 1694 and 1696, and that I die a member of the Church of England, looking on it to be the best and purest of churches; and that I do most sincerely wish it may continue for ever.

On the whole, however, it was perhaps not an unmixed evil that at so early a period of his career Mr. Legh should have had painful experience of the perils that political partizanship sometimes entails; for the remembrance of the dangers he had so narrowly escaped would necessarily have a salutary effect, and, on a later occasion, doubtless inspired that prudence which saved him from the ruin and destruction that befel so many of the partizans of the House of Stuart after the abortive rising in favour of the Chevalier de St. George in 1715. Certain it is that when in that year the members of the Cheshire Jacobite Club met to discuss the prospects of the rising in favour of the Stuarts, Mr. Legh's advice that they should abstain from taking any part in the revolt was acted upon, and, finding it difficult to harmonise their belief in the divine right of kings with their faith in the principles of the Reformation, they contented themselves with drinking the health of the King over a bowl of water, thus figuratively expressing their allegiance to the exiled monarch "over the water."[63]

Though Mr. Legh never entered Parliament and took but little interest in the conduct of public affairs, not being even upon the commission of the peace, he was by no means neglectful of the social duties that lay nearer home. In him the reputation of the ancient lords of Lyme was well sustained, and the old ancestral home continued to be the scene of munificence and hospitality, being accounted the centre of whatever there was of society and life in the county. John Byrom, the laureate of the Jacobites, as he has been sometimes styled, was frequently a guest at Lyme at this time, and Mr. Legh, who was one of his shorthand pupils, is often named in his letters to Mrs. Byrom. Another visitor was the eccentric genius, Samuel Johnson, better known by his _sobriquet_ of Lord Flame, who, in the epistle dedicatory of his play of "Hurlothrumbo'" enumerates "the integrity of Leigh of Lime" among the many virtues possessed by his patroness, the Lady Delves. In 1699 Mr. Legh found employment for his time in founding and liberally endowing the school at Newton-in-Makerfield; and ten years later he was busied in erecting the Church of the Holy Trinity for the spiritual benefit of the tenantry on his Warrington estates, and, as the trust deeds recite, "upon trust and confidence, that the same might be used and employed for a chapel, for all the inhabitants of Warrington to resort unto and hear Divine service and sermons, according to the liturgy, rites and usage of the Church of England, as by law established."

In 1725 Mr. Legh had the misfortune to lose his son and heir, the only issue of his marriage, Piers Legh, who died unmarried, and was buried at Winwick on the 14th of June, and not long after (February 17, 1727-8) his fond and faithful wife, who had so cheerfully shared the privations of his prison life in the Tower, Madam Frances Legh, was called to her rest, her remains being laid beside those of her son on the 23rd February. Before the close of the year, having no direct heir, he made a settlement of Lyme and the other estates in favour of the four surviving sons of his younger brother, Thomas Legh, of Bank, who, in the event of his own death without issue, were to inherit in succession in tail male. These sons were Peter, who eventually succeeded; Piers, a merchant of Liverpool, engaged in the African trade, who died unmarried May, 1774; Ashburnham Legh, who became rector of Davenham, in Cheshire, and died at Golborne in 1775, and Henry, who died young.

Mr. Legh survived his wife several years, his death occurring in January, 1743-4, at the ripe age of 73, and on the 16th of that month his body was committed to its last resting place at Winwick.

Peter Legh, the second, but eldest surviving son of Thomas Legh, of Bank, who succeeded, was thirty-six years of age at the time of his uncle's decease, and had then been married several years, his wife being Martha, the only child of Thomas Bennet, of Salthrop, in Wiltshire. In November of the year following his accession to the estates the country was thrown into a state of ferment by the announcement that Charles Edward Stuart, the young Pretender, at the head of an army of Highlanders, had crossed the Borders, taken the city of Carlisle, and was then marching southwards--

The Stuart leaning on the Scot,
Pierc'd to the very centre of the realm,
In hopes to seize his abdicated helm.

In Cheshire the partizans of the exiled family were greatly excited, and a meeting of such of the members of the old Jacobite Club as still survived was held. Peter Legh was present, but, profiting by the experiences of his uncle, he counselled caution, and his counsel was acted upon, the more ardent spirits who had been anxious to don the white cockade having cause to rejoice that they had taken his advice. He subsequently entered Parliament as representative of the family borough of Newton, in November, 1747, and he was also returned to the Parliament which sat from May 31, 1754, to March 20, 1761, and in those which assembled in 1761, 1762, and 1768, the last-named continuing until 1774, the year which witnessed the beginning of the struggle between England and her Transatlantic colonies which culminated in American independence.

The year which followed Mr. Legh's second return to Parliament was a year of sorrow, for it was that in which he lost his only surviving son, Benet Legh, who died on the 8th July, aged eight years; his eldest son, Peter Benet Legh, who also died in childhood, he had buried a few years previously, and thus the lord of Lyme was again left without a direct heir to succeed him in the possession of the ancestral lands.

After his retirement from Parliament Mr. Legh took little part in public affairs, occupying his time chiefly in dispensing hospitalities and discharging those minor duties which devolved upon him as a country gentleman. In the later years of his life he began the work of remodelling the mansion at Lyme, under the direction of the then famous architect Giacomo Leoni; a great portion was rebuilt, and what of the original was left was so altered as to entirely change its appearance and give it the characteristics of an Italian building. After fifty years' enjoyment of married life he had the misfortune to lose his wife, Madam Martha Legh, who died at Lyme on the 21st June, 1787; shortly afterwards (October 9, 1787) he made his will, and on the 20th May, 1792, having reached the patriarchal age of eighty-five, he was removed by death. His remains were interred in the church at Disley, where on the south side of the nave is a tablet to his memory, with a shield quartering the arms of himself and his wife, and the following inscription:--

Sacred to the memory of Peter Legh, Esqre, once the owner of Lyme
Park, and all its large appendages.... Obit May 20, 1792. Ætat 85.

Having no male heir, the entailed estates passed in accordance with the terms of the settlement to his nephew, Thomas Peter, the eldest son of his younger brother, Ashburnham Legh, rector of Davenham, by his wife, Elizabeth Charlotte, daughter of Sir Holland Egerton, of Heaton Park, near Manchester. Mr. Legh was a bachelor of the mature age of forty at the time his uncle's death placed him in possession of the estates, and he had then sat in Parliament for several years as representative of the family borough of Newton, having been returned in 1783, in 1784, and again in 1790. He was a man of much public spirit, and on the breaking out of the war with France at the time of the Revolution in 1794, he raised a regiment of horse for the defence of the country. Reilly, the historian of Manchester, says, "He proposed to raise six troops of cavalry, and did so in fourteen days." Of this regiment, the Third Lancashire Light Dragoons, he had the colonelcy, and it is recorded that, in addition to the Government grant, he expended upon it no less a sum than £20,000 of his own money. He was again returned as representative of Newton, in the Parliament elected in 1796, but he did not long enjoy the dignity, his death occurring suddenly on the 7th August, in the following year, while serving with his regiment at Edinburgh. His body was removed to Winwick, and there buried in the family chapel. Colonel Legh, who was only forty-four years of age at the time of his death, had never married; having no legitimate issue, and his only brother having predeceased him, he bequeathed Lyme and the other possessions of the family, with the barony of Newton, to his eldest (natural) son, Thomas Legh, for life, with remainder to his issue in tail male, and on failure with like remainder to his second natural son, William Legh.