Monmouth, who had been expatriated, had returned a year or two previously to find himself hailed as the “Protestant Duke,” and exalted into a popular hero. He made a partisan progress through Cheshire, with the view of ingratiating himself with the men of the county; while at Chester, courting popularity, a violent “No Popery” mob broke into the Cathedral, and, amongst other outrages committed upon the contents of the sacred building, wholly destroyed the painted glass of the east window of the Lady Chapel, broke up the organ, and knocked the ancient font to pieces. Enquiries were instituted as to those who were believed to sympathise with the action of Monmouth, when Thomas Legh’s name was included in the list of persons, who, being suspected, it was deemed expedient should give security for their good behaviour. He must, however, have regained the Royal favour, for he retained his commission as colonel of militia, and the year following that in which he entered upon possession of his patrimonial lands he was honoured with the shrievalty of the county. He did not live long to enjoy the estates, having met his death by an accident on the 6th April, 1691, as thus recorded in a MS. diary, preserved at Tabley:—
1691, April 6th.—Col. Legh, of Adlington, layning on a raile in Adlington, whch breaking he fell and broak his neck and dyed.
His wife, who survived him several years, resided at the Miln House, in Adlington, and died about November, 1700. The bulk of her personal property was, in accordance with her directions, invested in the purchase of lands for the benefit of her second surviving son, Robert, who married Mary, daughter of Sir Richard Standish, of Duxbury, and settled at Chorley, in Lancashire, on the lands purchased under his mother’s will. Thomas Leigh, by his wife had, inter alia, Anne, his co-heiress, who became the wife of Thomas Crosse, of Crosse Hall and Shaw Hill, in Lancashire, by whom she had a son, Richard Crosse, of Shaw Hill, who, through failure of direct male heirs, eventually succeeded to the Adlington estates, and took the name and arms of Legh by Royal license.
Thomas Legh, who died in 1691, was succeeded in the estates by his eldest son, John, who was then thirty-two years of age, having been born in 1668. Two years after he entered upon his inheritance (July, 1693) he married Isabella, the daughter of Robert Robartes, Viscount Bodmin, and granddaughter of the first Earl of Radnor. During his time some important additions were made to the family estates. In the year of his marriage he purchased from William Sherd, of Sherd and Disley, the descendant of an old companion in arms of his grandfather, the estate of Sherd-fold, on the confines of Adlington; three years later he purchased Hope-green from Edward Downes, and in 1696 he acquired the property known as “Day’s Tenement,” in Prestbury. In 1705 he was nominated sheriff of the county, and he appears to have succeeded his father as colonel of the militia, in which capacity he was called upon to aid in suppressing the political disturbances that arose in Lancashire on the occasion of the Hanoverian succession.
At the dine of Queen Anne’s death, in 1714, the country was divided into two powerful factions, a large number of the people, with that old English feeling of which we see traces even yet, preferring as their monarch the son of an English king to the son of a petty foreign prince. The flames of rebellion were kindled, and a determined effort was made to restore the direct succession to the throne, in the person of the Chevalier de St. George, the eldest son of James II., and a half-brother of the deceased queen. On the 10th June, 1715, the birthday of the Chevalier, a Jacobite mob, headed by “Tom” Syddall, a peruke maker, attacked the Nonconformist Chapel in Cross Street, Manchester—the only dissenting place of worship at that time in the town—smashed in the doors and windows, pulled down the pulpit and pews, and carried away everything portable, leaving only the ruinous walls; and, a few days later, sacked and destroyed the meeting-houses at Blackley, Monton, and Greenacres. In October of the same year the Earl of Derwentwater and General Foster, with the Earls of Wintoun, Nithsdale, and Carnwath, and Lords Widdrington and Nairne, raised the standard of the Pretender, and, with a small army, crossed the border, passed through Kendal and Lancaster, and as far as Preston—that “Capua” of Scotchmen, as it has been called—on their way south. In the last-named town, if we are to believe the Jacobite journalist, Peter Clarke, they were so fascinated by the good looks and the gay attire of the Lancashire witches that “the gentleman soldiers from Wednesday to Saturday minded nothing but courting and feasting.” While they were thus “courting and feasting” the news of their advance reached General Willes, who was then in command of the garrison at Chester, and he at once set out to attack them, passing through Manchester on his way. Finding a strong Jacobite feeling existing there, he caused several of the more influential leaders of the faction to be secured, and disarmed the others, leaving a troop behind him to overawe the disaffected. Before leaving he wrote to the Earl of Cholmondeley, the lord lieutenant of Cheshire, urging him to send on the militia while he with his regular forces marched against the insurgents, and in the “Memoires of the family of Finney, of Fulshaw,” written by Samuel Finney in 1787, it is recorded that in October a warrant from three of the deputy lieutenants was directed to John Legh, of Adlington, or, in his absence, to John Finney, his captain-lieutenant, requiring them to give notice to the constables of Macclesfield Hundred to order all persons charged with any foot soldiers to send on the same by the 17th of the month, “every Soldier to appear compleatly armed with musket, bayonet to fix in the muzel thereof, a Cartooch Box, and Sword, to bring pay for two days, and the Salary for the Muster Master. Every Muskateer to bring half a pound of powder, and as much (sic) Bullets, and the said Constables to appear and make returns.” On the 27th October another warrant was issued requiring them to assemble the forces at Knutsford on the 7th November, when, as we are told in the “Memoires,” “having exercised their appointed time, and the Rebells advancing, the Regiment was ordered to advance northwards and secure the town of Manchester, whilst Generals Willes and Carpenter advanced with the horse to attack the Rebells at Preston. When,” it is added, “the Cheshire Regiment was advanced to the Top of Deansgate, the Entrance of the Town, they made a Halt to wait for Billets from the Constables, which were so long in coming and the Weather extremely wet and cold, and the road Miry, that both Officers and Men grew so impatient that a messenger was despatched to the Constables to tell them that if they did not immediately send them Billets they would fire the Town; this had an immediate good Effect; they soon got into warm quarters. The King’s Head in Salford fell to the share of Sir Samuel Daniel, Coll. Legh, and Captain Finney, intimate Friends, and jolly brave Fellows, who, instead of saying their prayers and going to bed like good Folks, expecting to be killed next day, sat drinking, laughing, and taking Spanish Snuff till the morning, when they expected to come soon into action; but Willes and Carpenter soon eased them of that trouble, by forcing the Town of Preston.”
Mr. Legh’s military experiences were not of a very sanguinary character, and this appears to have been the last occasion in which he was employed in any soldierly capacity. He died in 1739, and on the 12th December was buried in the family vault at Prestbury, having had in addition to a son Charles, who succeeded, two daughters, who pre-deceased him; Elizabeth, who died unmarried, and was buried at Westminster, August 20th, 1734, and Lucy Frances, second wife of Peter Davenport (afterwards Sir Peter), of Macclesfield, who died in November, 1728, leaving an only daughter her sole heiress, Elizabeth Davenport, who became the wife of John Rowlls, of Kingston, in Surrey, Receiver-General, who afterwards assumed the surname of Legh.
Charles Legh, who succeeded as heir on the death of his father, John Legh, in 1739, was born at Adlington, September 17, and baptised at Prestbury, October, 1697, so that he must have been in his forty-fourth year when he entered upon his inheritance. He had then been married some years, his wife being Hester, daughter of Robert Lee, of Wincham, in Bucklow Hundred, who by the death of her brothers, Robert and Clegg Lee, and her sister, Elizabeth, without issue, became heir to the manor of Wincham.
In earlier years the Leghs had evinced their piety by important additions made to their parish church, as well as by the erection of a chapel on their estate for the convenience of their more immediate dependents; and Charles Legh, on first coming into his patrimony, applied himself to the work of enlarging the old church of Prestbury by the rebuilding of the north aisle and the Legh chapel, to the cost of which he was the chief contributor. He could not, however, have felt much appreciation of the beauties of the original design, or he would not have replaced a Gothic structure with the unsightly, barn-like erection which has happily within the present year been superseded by one of more ecclesiastical character.
The following year was one of considerable excitement, for it was that in which Prince Charles Edward, the Young Pretender, renewed the attempt to recover the throne of his ancestors—the fatal ’45. On the 28th November the rebel army reached Manchester, which, as the story goes, was taken by “a sergeant, a drum, and a woman;” three days later the march towards London was resumed, Macclesfield being chosen as the terminus of the first day’s journey. The Prince marshalled his forces in two divisions, and, leading one of them, forded the Mersey at Stockport, and then marched through the level country, by way of Woodford, Adlington, and Prestbury, to Macclesfield. The story is told that as they were passing through Adlington they came up with a carter, named Broster, returning from Stockport, who was forthwith “pressed” into the service and ordered by the soldiers to convey their baggage to Macclesfield. Among the chattels put into Broster’s cart was a heavy chest evidently containing treasure, the money possibly in which the Manchestrians had been mulct, and which poor James Waller, of Ridgefield, the borough-reeve, had been compelled to gather in. The darkness of a December night had fallen upon the scene by the time they approached Prestbury, and, the baggage guards not being over vigilant, Richard Broster watched his opportunity and made the most of it when it came. Suddenly turning up a bye-lane, he whipped his horses briskly, and succeeded in reaching his home at Old Hollin Hall Farm, near Bollington, before he was missed; arrived there, the box was quickly tipped into the yard pit as a hiding-place from the troopers who might be sent in search of the lost treasure, and there it lay until the rebels had started upon their march to Derby, when it was fished up.[36]