Though the Leghs of Lyme, who were suspected of favouring the cause of the Pretender, might not be able to wipe out altogether from their hearts the old Stuart affection, their kinsman of Adlington could not have had much sympathy either for the young Chevalier or the cause he represented, or, if he had, his Jacobitism must have been under the control of a very cautious possessor, and not so demonstrative as to imperil his personal and family interests, for when Joseph Ward, the Vicar of Prestbury, preached a sermon on the occasion of the “General Thanksgiving” for the suppression of the “unnatural rebellion” it was published, as by the title-page appears, “at the request of Charles Legh, of Adlington, Esquire.”
In 1746 Mr. Legh added to his territorial possessions by the purchase, from Thomas Pigot, of the estate of Bonishall, which for several generations had been the residence of a younger branch of the Pigots of Butley, the representative of which had then migrated to Fairsnape, near Preston, and from that time Bonishall has descended to the successive owners of Adlington with the other estates of the family. In the following year Mr. Legh had the shrievalty of Cheshire conferred upon him, a dignity that, as we have seen, had been enjoyed by his ancestors in six consecutive generations previously. He does not, however, appear to have devoted much attention to public matters, preferring to reside upon his own estate and there discharge the duties devolving upon him as a country gentleman. In the later years of his life he occupied his time in remodelling, and in part rebuilding, the home of his fathers; in doing so, however, it is to be regretted that, influenced by the then prevailing fancy for works of classic type, he was led to adopt a style so much at variance with the character of the original structure, and which, outwardly at least, robbed it of its most picturesque and interesting features. In commemoration of his work he inscribed his own name and that of his wife with the year of its completion, 1757, upon the frieze of the portico, and on the pediment above affixed a shield of arms—Legh quartering Corona, with Lee of Wincham, on an escutcheon of pretence.
While engaged in the re-edification of his house the barony of Kinderton became extinct, when Mr. Legh set up a claim to be considered heir male of the family, in right of his descent from Gilbert Venables, the first baron, and, as such, entitled to bear the Venables coat without any mark of decadence. The claim was never admitted, but Mr. Legh assumed the arms notwithstanding, and, in assertion of his supposed right, caused them to be placed conspicuously in the hall at Adlington, and also on the chancel screen in the church at Prestbury, where they may still be seen.
Unlike his mother, who, if we may judge from the directions she gave respecting her funeral, had as little respect for the blazonments of chivalry and that ancient and respectable guild, the College of Arms, as Macaulay’s old Puritan who wished to have his name recorded in the Book of Life rather than in the Register of Heralds, Mr. Legh had a great fondness for heraldry, and was much given to the study of the “noble science.”
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
was with him no meaningless phrase, and before he began the rebuilding of the south front of his mansion he had been at considerable pains to adorn the interior of the great hall of Adlington with the armorial ensigns of his progenitors and the families with which they had severally become allied, like the lord of Gray’s “ancient pile” at Stoke-Pogeis, upon
The ceiling’s fretted height
Each panel in achievements clothing.
The fine series of armorial shields which still appear were painted under his directions, and are in place of a series, one hundred and eighty-one in number, which were affixed shortly after the rebuilding of the mansion by Thomas Legh, in 1581,[37] about which time that assiduous worthy, William Flower, Chester Herald, and subsequently Norroy King of Arms, was corresponding with and enjoying the friendship and hospitality of the owner of Adlington, and his kinsman, Sir Peter Legh, of Lyme.
In 1758, the year following the rebuilding of the south front of Adlington, Charles Legh’s only son, Thomas Legh, was united in marriage with Mary, daughter of Francis Reynolds, of Strangeways, Manchester, who represented Lancaster in Parliament for the long period of forty-five years, and the sister of Thomas and Francis Reynolds, who inherited successively the barony of Ducie of Tortworth. The young couple took up their abode at Wincham, which had come to Thomas Legh’s mother by inheritance, and there he died, in his forty-first year, on the 15th June, 1775, without surviving issue—thus terminating a line which had maintained an unbroken succession for more than four centuries. His widow survived him for the long period of forty-three years, her death occurring March 26, 1818.