William third Lord Mounteagle, the son and heir of Thomas the second Lord Mounteagle, died in 1584, and is buried in the Parish Church of St. Peter, Melling.
Lady Mary Brandon,[A] the eldest daughter of the Duke of Suffolk, was the first wife of Thomas second Lord Mounteagle, whose second wife was Ellen Leybourne (née Preston), the mother of Anne, the wife of William third Lord Mounteagle, who died in 1584.
[A] Lady Mary Brandon was the daughter of Charles Brandon Duke of Suffolk, who was married four times, one of his wives being a sister of Henry VIII. The Duke of Suffolk was grandfather of Lady Jane Dudley, commonly called Lady Jane Grey, one of the finest moral characters Protestantism has produced. — See Spelman’s “History of Sacrilege” (Masters, ed. 1853), p. 228.
Ellen Preston’s father was Sir Thomas Preston; her mother was a Thornborough, of Hampsfield Hall, Hampsfell, in the Parish of Cartmel, North Lancashire. The Thornboroughs (or Thornburghs) had held some of the following manors from the time of Edward III.: — Hampsfield Hall, Whitwell, Winfell, Fellside, Skelsmergh, Patton, Dallam Tower, Methop, Ulva, and Wilson House, all either in North Lancashire or Westmoreland.
In the parish church of Windermere, at Bowness, near Lake Windermere, there is a window containing, besides royal arms (possibly those of Henry V.), the
arms of Harrington, Leybourne, Fleming de Rydal, Strickland, Middleton, and Redmayne, most of which houses of gentry of “the North Countrie” were more or less allied to the fourth Lord Mounteagle.
Sir Edward Stanley first Lord Mounteagle was in possession of Hornby Castle and its broad acres at the date of Flodden Field, 1513.[A] This is interestingly evidenced by the two following stanzas from the old “Ballad of Flodden Field”: —
[A] In the battle of Flodden Field, which caused such lamentation, mourning, and woe in Edinburgh, several citizens of York behaved themselves valiantly under Sir John Mounville. Among English lords in this fight were the Lords Howard (Edmund Howard), Stanley, Ogle, Clifford, Lumley, Latimer, Scroope (of Bolton), and Dacres; among knights were Gascoyne, Pickering, Stapleton, Tilney, and Markenfield; and among gentlemen were Dawney, Tempest, Dawbey, and Heron. — See Gent’s “Ripon,” p. 143.
It is said that the gallant Northumbrian Heron knew all the “sleights of war.”
“Most lively lads in Lonsdale bred,
With weapons of unwieldly weight;
All such as Tatham Fells had bred,
Went under Stanley’s streamers bright.