And the bones of Sir Peers his sonne,
That with King Henrie the Fift did wonne
In Paris.
This Perkin served King Edward the Third and the Black Prince his sonne in all their warres in France, and was at the Battell of Cressie and hadd Lyme given him for that service. And after their deaths served King Richard the Second, and left him not in his troubles, but was taken with him and beheaded at Chester by King Henrie the Fourth. And the sayd Sir Peers his sonne served King Henrie the Fift and was slain at the Battell of Agincourt 1415.
Here, then, lie the Leghs of that old time, with a lying epitaph over them; for it was not Perkin a Legh, but his father-in-law, Sir Thomas D’Angers, whose monument is at Grappenhall, who was given Lyme for his loyal devoirs at Crecy. Whether the misstatement was on the original inscription, or was inserted by Sir Peter Legh, who in 1620 “restored” it, does not appear.
“THE BARNABY”
There is something of everything in Macclesfield, and while much of the old order of things prevails, and while barbaric granite setts pave almost every street, above or below, there are modern evidences, in the shape of Public Libraries, Technical Institutes, and drinking fountains. Time was when your only drinking fountain was a tankard in one of the inns, and when the silk-mills themselves were the sole technical schools: and yet in those times Macclesfield still contrived to become great. That period of growing greatness, when the factory system first brought wealth to the Roes, the Brocklehursts, and other foremost silk-weavers, is reflected in the long rows of very urban, rather grim, houses as you enter the town from the direction of Leek, and in the great box-like brick front of the old “Macclesfield Hotel” of pre-railway days; and the present period of full-blown prosperity is marked by the public parks and museums. The town is always bustling, but to see it at its busiest—when it is strenuously engaged in the business of making holiday—you must come here either on the 22nd of June, or at Michaelmas. On the first occasion is held “the Barnaby,” i.e. the St. Barnabas Fair, and on the second, “the Wakes”; both crowded pleasure fairs. Still, as in old testimony, the genuine townsfolk reckon time and events, past or future, as so long “since last, or come next Barnaby,” or Wakes, as the case may be. The former is the favourite, and thus becomes associated with the circumstances of life, whether of joy or sorrow, prosperity or adversity, in a family. The aged couple count the length of their wedded life by “the Barnaby”; the mother tells you the age of her children by “the Barnaby”: the simple annals of operative existence measure the periods of working prosperity, or the privations of short time, by “the Barnaby.”
Macclesfield presents a very striking view from the road on to Manchester. No sooner are the last houses of the town left behind than the highway plunges into a beautiful avenue. From it you look out upon that “field,” folded in between the great hills, in which the town is situated. There the church of St. Michael, on its eyrie, seems in the distance to be set about with woods; while down below is the church at Park Green, neighboured by chimney-stacks and gasometers: manufactories set in the lap of scenic beauty.
MACCLESFIELD, FROM THE ROAD TO STOCKPORT.