SIEGE OF LATHOM.
"Let me no longer live, she sayd,
Than to my lord I true remain;
My honour shall not be betray'd
Until I see my love again.
"Oh! blame her not if she was glad
When she her lord again had seen.
Thrice welcome home, my dear, she said,—
A long time absent thou hast been:
The wars shall never more deprive
Me of my lord whilst I'm alive."
—Mirrour for Married Women.
No authentic drawing or representation of Lathom House, we believe, exists. The author has, however, had the temerity to present a restoration of this renowned edifice, as it appeared before the siege, and before "the sequestrators under Cromwell, weary of the slow disposal of the building materials by sale, invited the peasants of the hundred of West Derby to take away the stones and timbers without any charge."
The very numerous documents to which he has had recourse were aided by measurements, and a visit to the spot, where he found that a tolerable accurate idea might be formed of the situation and extent of the walls and towers, together with the main entrance, and the "great Eagle Tower."
The accompanying view is taken from a hill above the valley or trench, where, it is said, the main army of the besiegers was encamped. It is called in the neighbourhood "Cromwell's Trench," and the engraving may serve to convey some idea of that magnificent and princely dwelling, which, as the old ballad expresses it, would hold "two kinges, their traines and all." Henry the Seventh, two years after his visit to Lathom, restored his palace at Richmond, the same authority tells us, "like Lathom Hall in fashion." The gate-house in the engraving is drawn from the description of a carving of the Stanley legend in Manchester Collegiate Church, executed in the time of James Stanley, Bishop of Ely. From this it appears to have had two octagonal turrets on each side of an obtusely-pointed or circular archway with battlements, machicolated and pierced for cannon.
The Eagle Tower alone remained when part of the estate was transferred to John Lord Ashburnham, on his marriage, in 1714, with Henri