From Silverdale to Kent sand side,
Whose soil is sown with cockle shells,
From Cartmel eke and Connyside,
With fellows fierce from Furness Fells.
He and his brave men marched forward until they came to “Flodden’s fatal field,” when Stanley was entrusted with the command of the rear of the English army, which he led so valiantly, and made such a sudden and unexpected onslaught with his bowmen, that the Scots were put to flight, leaving their King dead upon the field. Scott has enshrined Stanley’s deeds at Flodden in imperishable verse, and few couplets are more frequently quoted than that which tells us—
“Victory!—
Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on!”
Were the last words of Marmion.
Doubtless it was a gay day at Wraysholme when the stout Lancashire lads, with their brave leader, returned to tell the tale of victory. Henry VIII., keeping his Christmas at Eltham, the following year (1514), commanded that Sir Edward Stanley, as a reward for his services in having won the hill and vanquished those opposed to him, as also that his ancestors bore the eagle as their crest, should there be proclaimed Lord Monteagle, which was accordingly done, and by that title he had summons to Parliament, and was made a Knight of the Garter.
Sir Edward Stanley, Lord Monteagle, died in 1584, and about this time the old peel of Wraysholme passed to the Dicconsons, a branch of the family of that name seated at Wrightington, in Eccleston parish, for in the following year “Richd. Dicconson, of Raisholme,” appears among the liberi tenentes in Cartmel parish, and the place continued in the possession of this family for a century or more. In 1756 it was purchased by John Carter, of Cart Lane, and given by him, in 1790, to his daughter Dorothy, the wife of John Harrison, from whom it has descended through the female line to the present possessor—Thomas Newby Wilson, of Landing, Newby Bridge.