In darkness, for thy rare fidelity—
To save thy faith—content to lose thy head,
That reverent head, of good men honoured—
Sir Robert of Adlington elected to join the winning side, and repaired to Shrewsbury, where he made his submission to the victorious Bolingbroke, and afterwards joined with Sir James Booth and other Cheshire men in furthering his cause. In this it must be admitted the lord of Adlington showed as little gratitude as loyalty, for it was only a few short months before that he had been retained and pensioned by the king, and made constable or keeper for life of Oswestry Castle, with an adequate salary; and had, moreover, been honoured in receiving his sovereign as his guest during the sitting of the Parliament at Shrewsbury, the occasion being the memorable one when Bolingbroke charged the Duke of Norfolk with treason to his liege lord the king. After Richard’s deposition and the accession of Bolingbroke as Henry IV., Sir Robert was made one of the conservators of the peace for the hundred of Macclesfield, and about the same time had a confirmation of the letters of the 20th August, 1397, granting him the annuity of £40 for life. Hugh le Despencer, Knt., having in 1401 been appointed steward of Macclesfield, and surveyor, keeper, and master of the forests of Macclesfield and Mara, and all other of the Prince’s forests in Cheshire for life, Sir Robert de Legh was appointed by him to act as his deputy. In the follow-year (Oct 16, 1402) he was again named one of the justices for the three hundreds of the eyre at Macclesfield, and at the same time a commission was issued to him and the other justices, directing them to inquire into the doings of certain malefactors and disturbers of the peace in the hundred of Macclesfield of whose enormities the Prince (as Earl of Chester) had been informed. After the battle of Shrewsbury, in which the valorous Hotspur lost his life, Henry, who had found the throne of an usurper only a bed of thorns, had to direct his arms against the obnoxious Glendower, and the young Prince of Wales, then only seventeen years of age, who was appointed to head the expedition, issued his precept (11th January, 1403–4) to Sir Robert Legh and others “to hasten to his possessions on the Marches of Wales, there to make defence against the coming of Owen Glendower, according to an order in council, enacting that, on the occasion of war against the King and the kingdom of England, all those holding possessions on the Marches nearest to the enemy should reside on the same for the defence of the realm.” This order, however, would seem to have been countermanded, for in an old MS. account of the family, beautifully written on vellum, and still preserved at Adlington, it is stated that on the breaking out of the revolt in the north of England, when the Earl of Northumberland, the Earl of Nottingham, Lord Bardolf, and Scrope, Archbishop of York, confederated to place the Earl of March on the throne, Sir Robert Legh received a summons from the Prince of Wales, as Earl of Chester, countermanding one previously issued, and “requiring him to attend him (the Prince) in person at Warrington on Thursday the next, or on Friday at Preston, or on Saturday at Skipton-in-Craven, with 100 defensible, honest, able bowmen, in good array for war, to go with him thence to his father the King, then on his journey to Pontefract.” This was on the 26th May, 6 Henry IV. (1405), and it is the last occasion on which Sir Robert’s name occurs in connection with any important movement, for three years later (August, 1408) he brought to a close a short but very active and eventful life, being then only forty-seven years of age.
Sir Robert Legh, of Adlington, made his will on the 9th August, 1408, and he must then have been in extremis, for he died before the 18th, and was buried, in accordance with his expressed desire, in the Church of St. Mary de la Pree, near Northampton. Among other things, he directed the payment of 14 marks (£9 6s. 8d.) to a priest celebrating in the church of Prestbury for two years—probably the priest serving at one of the chantry altars there. The inquisition taken after his death is interesting as showing the extent of the family possessions at that time. They included the whole of the manor of Adlington, a moiety of the manor of Hyde, the manor of Belgrave, 40 acres of land in Eccleston, 12 messuages and 20 acres of land in Stockport, three messuages and 20 acres of land in Romiley, one messuage and 20 acres of land in Cheadle, one messuage in Macclesfield, one messuage and three acres of land in Rainow within the forest of Macclesfield, two messuages and two acres of land in Bollington, one messuage and 10 acres of land in Budworth, in the Fryth (the forest of Delamere), one messuage and 10 acres of land in Tyresford, two messuages and two acres of land in Kelsall, one messuage and 20 acres of land in Legh, four salt pits, four shops and land in Northwich, three messuages in Chester, one messuage and 20 acres of land in Warford, two messuages and 40 acres of land in Mottram Andrew, one messuage and 20 acres of land in Fulshaw, and the third part of one messuage and two acres of land in Mottram-in-Longdendale. By his wife, Elizabeth Belgrave, he had two sons—Robert, who inherited Adlington, and Reginald, of Mottram Andrew, who built the tower and south porch of Prestbury church, as the inscription on his sepulchral slab in the chancel there, which may still be seen, testifies,[31] and two daughters. The name of his second wife is not known with certainty, but she did not long wear the trappings of widowhood, for on the 28th February, 1409–10, as appears by an enrolment on the Recognisance Rolls in the Record Office, she had a pardon granted to her for marrying Richard de Clyderhow without the licence of the Earl of Chester.
Robert Legh, who succeeded as lord of Adlington, though he was only twenty-two years of age at the time of his father’s death, did not long enjoy possession of the property. Dr. Renaud, relying apparently on the MS. at Adlington, says that he died in 1410, but this statement, as we shall hereafter see, is inaccurate. Shortly after he entered upon his inheritance, a dispute arose between him and the Grosvenors, of Eaton, touching their respective rights to certain lands at Pulford and other places in the neighbourhood of Chester, under the settlement of Robert Legh’s maternal grandfather, Thomas de Belgrave, and his wife, who was heiress of Pulford. Eventually the two disputants, with their relations and friends, on the 14th April, 1412, repaired to the “Chapel” at Macclesfield—the old church of St Michael—when a very remarkable ceremony took place, which is thus recorded in the pages of Ormerod:—
A series of deeds relating to these lands having been publicly read in the chapel, it was stated that Sir Robert de Legh, Isabel, his wife, and Robert de Legh, their son and heir, having claimed them, it had been agreed, in order to settle their differences, that Sir Thomas Grosvenor should take a solemn oath on the body of Christ, in the presence of 24 gentlemen, or as many as he wished. Accordingly Robert del Birches, the Chaplain, whom Robert de Legh had brought with him, celebrated a mass of the Holy Trinity, and consecrated the Host, and after the mass, having arrayed himself in his alb, with the amice, the stole, and the maniple, held forth the Host before the altar, whereupon Sir Thomas Grosvenor knelt down before him whilst the settlements were again read by James Holt, counsel of Robert de Legh, and then he swore upon the body of Christ that he believed in the truth of these charters. Immediately after this Sir Lawrence de Merbury, sheriff of the county, and 57 other principal knights and gentlemen of Cheshire affirmed themselves singly to be witnesses of this oath, all elevating their hands at the same time towards the Host. This first part of the ceremony concluded with Sir Thomas Grosvenor receiving the sacrament, and Robert Legh and Sir Thomas kissing each other in confirmation of the aforesaid agreement. Immediately after this, Sir Robert publicly acknowledged the right to all the said lands was vested in Sir Thomas Grosvenor and his heirs, and an instrument to that effect was accordingly drawn up by the notary, Roger Salghall, in the presence of the clergy then present, and attested by the seals and signatures of the 58 knights and gentlemen.
The historian of Cheshire, in commenting upon the pomp and circumstance attending the settlement of this family dispute, remarks: “Seldom will the reader find a more goodly group collected together, nor will he easily devise a ceremony which will assort better with the romantic spirit of the time, and which thus turned a dry legal conveyance into an exhibition of chivalrous pageantry.”
Robert Legh inherited the martial spirit of his father, and was not long, after he had succeeded to the estates, in seeking an opportunity to display his prowess. In 1415, Henry V., having revived the old claim to the crown of France, determined upon an invasion of the French King’s dominions, whereupon Robert Legh engaged himself to join in the expedition, and accordingly, on the 18th July, protection of his lands whilst abroad in the retinue of the King was granted him. The force mustered at Southampton early in August, and on the 11th of the month the fleet, consisting of 1,400 vessels, with 6,000 men-at-arms and 24,000 archers, an army of picked men, strong of limb and stout of heart, caring little for the abstract justice of the cause for which they were to fight, content to know that they would receive their due share of the “gaignes de guerres,” set sail. On the 14th, the force—
A city on the inconstant billows dancing,