From Silverdale to Kent Sand Side,[87]
Whose soil is sown with cockle shells;
From Cartmel eke and Connyside,
With fellows fierce from Furness Fells.”
Now, the fourth Lord Mounteagle would, almost certainly, know that among the many valiant knights that fought with his forbear, Sir Edward Stanley, was Sir Christopher Ward, who led the Yorkshire levies to the victorious field, and who came of the great family of Ward (or Warde), long famous in the annals of the West Hiding of Yorkshire about Guiseley, Esholt, and Ripon.
For, as the grand old “Ballad of Flodden Field” again tells us, the English arms were reinforced
“With many a gentleman and squire,
From Rippon, Ripley, and Rydale,
With them marched forth all Massamshire,
With Nosterfield and Netherdale.”
The honourable fact just mentioned concerning the valiant Yorkshire knight, Sir Christopher Ward, together with the fact of the relationship, whatever was its precise degree, between the families of Mounteagle and Ward, through the Nevilles and, almost certainly, other ancient houses besides, would tend to cement the bond of union betwixt William Parker fourth Lord Mounteagle and his private secretary or gentleman-servant, who — as we have proved by evidence and inevitable inferences therefrom — it is all but absolutely certain must have been Thomas Warde,[A] of Mulwith, the brother of Marmaduke Ward, of Mulwith, Newby, and Givendale.[88]
[A] Sir Edward Hoby is the only contemporary, so far as I know, that has written in English the name of Lord Mounteagle’s gentleman-servant as such who read the Letter on the 26th of October, 1605.
Now, Hoby writes Ward without the final “e.” If this be borne faithfully in mind there is no objection to my writing the name either “Ward” or “Warde” indifferently.
To write Thomas Warde as well as Thomas Ward helps the mind, I think, to realize the force of the evidence and arguments of this Inquiry; hence my so doing. But, of course, I wish to make it clear that it is inference only, not direct proof, that supplies the missing link in identifying Thomas Ward.
With the consequence that both Lord Mounteagle and his older — almost certainly diplomatist-trained — Elizabethan kinsman would share the lofty traditions, memories and ways of looking at things common to both, which would characterize an historic race that had
been of high “consideration” long before the sister Kingdom of “bonnie Scotland” gave to her ancient foe a King from her romantic and fascinating but ill-fated Stuart line.