Trentham Monastery was, it is stated, founded by Ethelred, who succeeded his brother Wulphere as King of Mercia in 675, and who induced his niece Werburgh (daughter of Wulphere) “to leave the religious house at Ely, where she was abbess, to superintend the nunnery he had built at Trentham, as well as other similar religious foundations in Mercia—viz. Hanbury, near Burton-on-Trent; Repton (the capital of the Mercian kingdom), in Derbyshire; and Weedon, in Northamptonshire. Werburgh died at Trentham, after leading a long and pious and eminently useful life, and, being shortly afterwards canonised, became one of the most celebrated of Anglo-Saxon saints. It is supposed that the original site of St. Werburgh’s Nunnery was at Hanchurch, about a mile from Trentham, the spot being marked by some venerable yews of great antiquity, which still form three sides of a square. It was called Tricengham, and is by that name described by Tanner, Dugdale, and others.
There is no record for the next four hundred years; but in the Domesday survey a priest is mentioned as being there. In the time of William Rufus (1027 to 1100), the priory having been restored or rebuilt by the Earl of Chester, “the prior and canons entered upon Trentham by a deed of gift from Hugh, first Earl of Chester; and a deed of institution by Roger de Clinton, Bishop of Lichfield (1139), describes John, the prior, as instituted to the priory of Trentham and its appendages, on the presentation of the Empress Maude, at a synod held at Lichfield.” The building appears to have been continued by the fourth Earl of Chester, as the charter, commonly known as the deed of “Restoration,” is that of Randle, the fourth earl (about 1152). It is the remains of this building which have furnished the fine Norman pillars of the present church. In 1162 the church of Sutton-en-le-Felde, in Derbyshire, was given to Trentham by Ralph de Boscherville. The chapelries of Whitmore and Newcastle also belonged to it; and soon after this date Hugh Kyveliok, Earl of Chester, gave to it the church of Bettesford. In the next century Clayton Griffith became an appanage of the priory, as did Over-Elkiston. In 1321 the advowson was claimed by the Earl of Lancaster, who instituted a prior (Richard of Dilhorne), whose election was afterwards confirmed by the King.
Early in the reign of Henry VI. the priory obtained from the King in very express terms a confirmation and enlargement of former grants. After reciting the original deeds of gift of Henry II. and Randolph, Earl of Chester, the King bestows on “my Canons of Trentham” “Crofts for cultivation, and all other lands belonging to the manor (in malo territoris), and the two moores on either side of the village between the wood and the river of Trentham for the purpose of being made into meadow land for the maintenance of the brotherhood and of the hospitalities of the house.... And forbid any man to sue them at law in opposition to this deed, except in my own court.” Given at Dover, 23rd of May, 6th Henry VI. In the latter part of this deed the prior is described as abbot. The territorium which was to be taken into cultivation appears to have been the land extending from the King’s Wood and the High Greaves, and North Wood down to the river. The field lying on the sloping ground between the farmhouse of North Wood and the river is still called the Prior’s More, or Moor.
Trentham, from Monument Hill, Tittensor.
After the dissolution of the monasteries in 1531, the priory of Trentham (whose last prior was Thomas Bradwell, who, elected 22nd Henry VIII., held office at the time), whose annual value was returned at £106 2s. 9d. clear, was granted, in 1539, to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, brother-in-law to Henry VIII., and afterwards came into the possession of the Levesons, a Staffordshire family of great antiquity seated at Willenhall. Nicholas Leveson, Lord Mayor of London, died in the year that Trentham was granted to the Duke of Suffolk. His great-grandson, Sir John Leveson, left two daughters only, his co-heiresses, one of whom, Frances, by marrying Sir Thomas Gower of Sittenham, carried Trentham and other extensive possessions into this ancient Yorkshire family, which dates from the Conquest.
Sir Richard Leveson was distinguished as a naval commander. He is considered to be the subject of the fine old plaintive ballad “The Spanish Lady’s Love,” although the same honour has been ascribed to Sir John Bolle, for he accompanied the Earl of Nottingham in his expedition against Cadiz when he was twenty-seven years of age. The ballad, one of the best in our language, tells the story of a “Spanish lady” “by birth and parentage of high degree,” who, being detained as a prisoner by the English captain, was so overcome with his kindness that she conceived a violent attachment towards him; so much so, indeed, that when—
“... At last there came commandment
For to set the ladies free,