And these bracelets for a token;
Grieving that I was so bold.
All my jewels in like sort bear thou with thee,
For they are fitting for thy wife, but not for me.
It has been stated by some writers that the ballad has reference not to Sir Urian Legh, but to Sir John Bolle, of Thorpe Hall, in Lincolnshire, the representative of a family remotely connected in a later generation with the Leghs of Adlington; while Dr. Percy, in his introductory remarks, inclines to the opinion that the original was either a member of the Popham family or Sir Richard Leveson, of Trentham, in Staffordshire, an ancestor of the Duke of Sutherland. The legend has doubtless some foundation in fact, though the actores fabulæ may be phantoms; it should, however, be said that, until recent years, when they were removed to Shaw Hill, in Lancashire, the Leghs, in proof of the identity of their kinsman with the hero of Deloney’s ballad, were able to show the veritable “chain of gold” and the casket in which through long generations it had been carefully preserved as an heirloom of the family. A half-length portrait of Sir Urian hangs upon the staircase at Adlington. It has been taken when he was in the fulness of manhood, and represents him as fresh complexioned, with a regular and rather handsome cast of features, suggesting the idea that comeliness of face and figure blended with courage and courtesy,—the characteristics of an old English gentleman. He wears a black felt hat with jewelled front, a black gown with vandyked and richly embroidered points, and round his neck a gold chain of many links that hangs down almost to the waist—whether the one given him by the “Spanish Lady” or not we will not undertake to say. In one corner of the picture is a shield of six quarters, and in the opposite corner this inscription:—
Sir Urian Legh of Adlington in the county of Chester Knight who went with Robert Devereux Earl of Essex to the siege of Cadiz and was by him knighted in the field for his great services in taking that Town in 1575 (should be 1596). He married Margaret daughter of Sir Edmund Trafford in the county of Lancaster Knight by whom he had four sons and three daughters.
On succeeding to his inheritance Sir Urian appears to have settled down to the discharge of his duties as a country gentleman, and to have applied himself to the further improvement of his patrimony, which he managed with so much thrift and care that before the close of the century he was able to make an addition to the family estates by the purchase of the lands and hall of Foxwist, in Butley township, from William Duncalf, whose ancestors had been resident there for more than three centuries, and in 1603 he built the Milne House, which long afterwards continued to be used as the dower house of the family. In 1613, the year following that in which Cecil died and the notorious Carr, a raw Scotch lad, was made Prime Minister, he was entrusted with the shrievalty of the county, and in local affairs he appears to have taken an active part, his bold and clearly defined autograph being of frequent occurrence in the parochial records. He was a man of some culture, had had the advantage of a university education, having matriculated at Oxford, and in his private life he would seem to have had a sweet fancy, turning to literature in the absence of action, for in the inventory of his effects, taken after his death, it is mentioned that there were in his closet at Prestbury “his bookes valued at xvjli.” He affected the society of men of letters: Dee, the “Wizard Warden” of Manchester, in his “Diary,” under date April 22nd, 1597, records that he was visited at his residence in the College by Sir Urian Legh and his brother (Edward Legh, probably, for the other brothers, Thomas and Ralph, were at the time in Ireland engaged in the suppression of O’Neill’s rebellion), a Mr. Brown, and Mr. George Booth, of Dunham, then Sheriff of Cheshire.
