NOOKS AND CORNERS
OF
LANCASHIRE AND CHESHIRE.

Of this work 600 copies have been printed, the whole of which were subscribed for before publication.

Nooks and Corners

OF

Lancashire and Cheshire.

A WAYFARER’S NOTES IN THE PALATINE COUNTIES,
HISTORICAL, LEGENDARY, GENEALOGICAL,
AND DESCRIPTIVE.

BY
JAMES CROSTON, F.S.A.
Fellow of the Royal Historical Society of Great Britain;
Member of the Architectural,
Archæological and Historic Society of Chester; Member of the
Council of the Record Society.
Author of “On Foot through the Peak,” “A History of Samlesbury,”
“Historical Memorials of the Church in Prestbury,”
“Old Manchester and its Worthies,”
etc., etc.

JOHN HEYWOOD,
Deansgate and Ridgefield, Manchester;
and 11, Paternoster Buildings,
LONDON.
1882.

JOHN HEYWOOD, PRINTER, HULME HALL ROAD,
MANCHESTER.

PREFACE.

This volume is not put forth as professedly a history of the places described, the Author’s aim having been rather to seize upon and group from such accredited sources of information as were available, the leading facts and incidents relating to special localities, and to present the scenes of human life and action in a readable and attractive form by divesting, in some degree, the tame and uninviting facts of archæology of their deadly dulness; to bring into prominent relief the remarkable occurrences and romantic incidents of former days, and, by combining with the graver and more substantial matters of history an animated description of the physical features and scenic attractions of the localities in which those incidents occurred, to render them more interesting to the general reader.

A popular writer—the Authoress of “Our Village”—has said that she cared less for any reputation she might have gained as a writer of romance, than she did for the credit to be derived from the less ambitious but more useful office of faithfully uniting and preserving those fragments of tradition, experience, and biography, which give to history its living interest. In the same spirit the following pages have been written. There are within the Palatine Counties of Lancaster and Chester many objects and places, many halls and manor-houses that possess an abiding interest from the position they occupy in “our rough island story,” and from their being associated, if not with events of the highest historic import, yet at least with many of those subordinate scenes and occurrences—those romantic incidents and half-forgotten facts that illustrate the inner life and character of bygone generations. These lingering memorials of a period the most chivalrous and the most romantic in our country’s annals may occasionally have received the notice of the precise topographer and the matter-of-fact antiquary, but, though possessing in themselves much that is picturesque and attractive, they have rarely been placed before the reader in any other guise than that in which the soberest narrative could invest them. In them the romance of centuries seems to be epitomised, and to the “seeing eye” they are the types and emblems of the changing life of our great nation; legend and tradition gather round, and weird stories and scraps of family history are associated with them that bring vividly before the mind’s eye the domestic life and manners of those who have gone before, and show in how large a degree the Past may be made a guide for the Present and the Future.

It only remains for the Author to acknowledge his obligations to those friends who, by information communicated, and in other ways, have aided him in his design. His thanks are due to John Eglington Bailey, Esq., F.S.A., of Stretford; John Oldfield Chadwick, Esq., F.S.S., F.G.S., of London; Dr. Samuel Crompton, of Cranleigh, Surrey; Lieutenant-Colonel Fishwick, F.S.A., of Rochdale; and Thomas Helsby, Esq., of the Inner Temple. He is also indebted to the kindness of Gilbert J. French, Esq., of Bolton, for the loan of the several engravings which add interest to the story of Samuel Crompton.

Upton Hall, Prestbury, Cheshire,
December, 1881.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.PAGE
A Railway Ramble—The Roman City on the Ribble—A Day Dream at Ribchester [ 1]
CHAPTER II.
Marple Hall—The Bradshaws—Colonel Henry Bradshaw—The Story of the Regicide[ 21]
CHAPTER III.
Over Sands by the Cartmel Shore—Wraysholme Tower—The Legend of the Last Wolf [ 76]
CHAPTER IV.
An Afternoon at Gawsworth—The Fighting Fittons—The Cheshire Will Case and its Tragic Sequel—Henry Newcome—“Lord Flame” [ 102]
CHAPTER V.
The College and the “Wizard Warden” of Manchester [ 157]
CHAPTER VI.
Beeston Castle [ 213]
CHAPTER VII.
Whalley and its Abbey—Mitton Church and its Monuments—The Sherburnes—The Jesuits’ College, Stonyhurst [ 242]
CHAPTER VIII.
Adlington and its Earlier Lords—The Leghs—The Legend of the Spanish Lady’s Love—The Hall [ 283]
CHAPTER IX.
The Byroms—Kersall Cell—John Byrom—The Laureate of the Jacobites—The Fatal ’45 [ 361]
CHAPTER X.
Hall-i’-th’-Wood—The Story of Samuel Crompton, the Inventor of the Spinning Mule[ 408]

ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE
Prospect Tower, Turton[ 3]
Ribchester Bridge[ 7]
Marple Hall[ 20]
Autograph and Seal of Colonel Bradshaw[ 34]
President Bradshaw[ 47]
Autograph of John Bradshaw[ 49]
George Fox’s Chapel, Swarthmoor[ 77]
Grange-over-Sands[ 79]
Wraysholme Tower[ 89]
Heraldic Glass at Wraysholme[ 91]
Gawsworth Old Hall[ 105]
Gawsworth Cross[ 109]
The Rev. Henry Newcome[ 143]
“Lord Flame’s” Tomb, Gawsworth[ 153]
John Dee, the “Wizard Warden”[ 156]
The Manchester College[ 196]
Mortlake Church[ 207]
Beeston Castle[ 212]
The Phœnix Tower, Chester[ 240]
Abbot Paslew’s Grave Stone, Whalley Church[ 246]
Ancient Cross, Mitton Churchyard[ 263]
The Hodder Bridge[ 265]
Stonyhurst[ 269]
Adlington Hall[ 282]
Autograph of Sir Urian Legh[326]
Sir Alexander Rigby[ 333]
Autograph of Thomas Legh[ 338]
Kersall Cell[ 360]
John Byrom’s House, Manchester[ 381]
Hall-i’-th’-Wood[ 409]
Hall-i’-th’-Wood: South Front[ 412]
Staircase, Hall-i’-th’-Wood[ 415]
Heraldic Shield, Hall-i’-th’-Wood[ 417]
Oldhams[ 429]

SUBSCRIBERS.

BOOKSELLERS.

NOOKS AND CORNERS
OF
LANCASHIRE AND CHESHIRE.

CHAPTER I.
A RAILWAY RAMBLE—THE ROMAN CITY ON THE RIBBLE—A DAY-DREAM AT RIBCHESTER.

On a bright morning in the exuberant summer time, ere the country had lost the freshness of its earlier beauty, or the forest trees had begun to bend beneath the weight of their blushing burdens, we found ourselves on the platform of the Victoria Station with a friend, the companion of many a pleasant wandering, equipped for a journey to the fair country which skirts the base of Pendle Hill. We were both in high spirits, and the beauty of the opening day added to our enjoyment The morning was cool and clear, and radiant with the early sunshine—one of those genial days when, as Washington Irving says, we seem to draw in pleasure with the very air we breathe, and to feel happy we know not why—the invigorating freshness of the atmosphere giving a pleasant impulse to the spirits. There had been a slight fall of rain during the night, but the breeze which followed had dried up the roadways, and now all was bright and clear, and the unclouded sun poured down a flood of brilliance that added to the charms of the early morn, imparting a gladdening influence which even the sparrows seemed to share as they flitted to and fro about the eaves with unceasing twitter.

For some distance the railway is carried over the house-tops, and as the train speeds along we can look down upon the dreary web of streets, the labyrinth of dwellings, the groves of chimneys, the mills, workshops, and brick-kilns, and the strange admixture of squalor, wretchedness, and impurity that go to make up the royal borough of Salford. Soon we reach the outskirts, where the country still struggles to maintain its greenness; then, after a short stoppage at Pendleton, we enter upon the pleasant vale of Clifton, where we are enabled to breathe the balmy atmosphere and drink in the fresh fragrance of the flower-bespangled meads. Pleasant is it to escape from the gloomy hives of brick, with their busy human throng, and to look abroad upon the expanse of country reposing in the summer sunshine. The gentle showers of the night seem to have refreshed the thirsty soil, and to have given an invigorating aspect to the landscape, imparting to the turf a brighter hue, and to the trees which clothe the folding bluffs a brighter tinge of colouring, whilst the sunlight gleams upon the fields and on the already ripening grain, and sparkles upon the lingering rain-drops that hang like strings of pearls from every bush and twig. On the left the quaint old hall of Agecroft, with its picturesque black and white gables, twinkles through the wind-shaken leaves; the Irwell meanders pleasantly through the fertile meadows on the right; and beyond, the grey embattled tower of Prestwich Church may be seen rising prominently above the umbraged slopes that bound the opposite side of the valley.

On, on we go with a screech and a roar, rattling over viaducts, rumbling through rocky cuttings, rushing along steep embankments; then rolling rapidly again over the level country, from whence we can look back upon the dingy town of Bolton, memorable in the annals of the great civil war as the place where the martyr Earl of Derby sealed his loyalty with his life. The changing aspect of the country now becomes manifest. Every mile brings a fresh picture, and the variety itself adds to the interest of the journey. The land is prettily featured—green and undulating, with well-wooded cloughs and shady dingles, backed by lofty gritstone ridges, which here and there soften into slopes of fertile beauty that form an admirable relief to the pale blue hills which stretch away to the furthest point of distance. Just before reaching the station at Chapeltown we get sight of Turton Tower, a fine old relic of bygone days, once the home of Manchester’s most noted “worthy”—Humphrey Chetham—and for a time, as tradition tells us, the abode of Oliver Cromwell; and close by is a picturesque gabled summer-house, surmounting a gentle eminence, that forms a conspicuous object for miles around. Still onward, past scattered hamlets, past mills, bleachworks, and collieries; past farms, cottages, and old-fashioned timber-built dwellings that more or less merit the appellation of “hall” applied to them; past meadows, fields, and pastures, where the hedgerows and trees seem to revolve in a never-ending reel, while the telegraph wires that stretch from post to post rise and fall in a succession of graceful genuflexions. On, on! Small streams are crossed, bridges are shot through, and then the “express” thunders past with a deafening roar, almost terrifying the life out of a nervous old lady who sits opposite to us, and who, on recovering her breath, feels instinctively inside her left-hand glove to make sure that her ticket has not been spirited away by the fiery iron monster. Darwen—cold, stony-looking Darwen—is passed, and presently Blackburn is reached, where a few minutes is considerately allowed to stretch our legs and look about us. The prospect, however, is not altogether lovely, and the people are as little prepossessing in appearance as the place itself, so that we are not sorry when our brief respite is brought to an abrupt termination by the sharp “Now then, gentlemen,” of the guard, when, resuming our seats, the carriage door is slammed to by that energetic official.

A few puffs, a whistle, and a screech, and we are moving swiftly over the green landscape again. The meadows widen, and the trees and hedges fly past as if driven by the whirlwind. Onwards, on and on, until we reach the little roadside station that forms the terminus of our railway journey.

Ribchester, for that is the name of the station, is Ribchester station only by courtesy[1]—the old Roman town whose name has been somewhat unceremoniously appropriated being a good three miles away; so that we shall have to lengthen our walk considerably before we reach the Roman Rigodunum. On leaving the station we turn to the left, and then, crossing the railway bridge, follow an ascending path that leads past a few squalid-looking cottages which stand irregularly along the edge of a tract of common land—the grazing ground of an impassive donkey and of a flock of geese that begin to sibilate and crane their necks spitefully as we go by. A little brick chapel with a bell-cot at one end stands on the further side of the green, and close by is the village school. Leaving this uninviting spot, we continue our walk past a few waste-looking fields and across the level summit of an eminence the verdant slopes of which stretch away on either side. Presently the road descends, winding hither and thither between pleasant hedgerows and embossed banks, garlanded with the gaily-coloured flowers of the exuberant summer time, “the jewels of earth’s diadem,” speaking of Him

Whose hand hath shed wild flowers

In clefts o’ the rock, and clothed green knolls with grass,

And clover, and sweet herbs and honey dews,

Shed in the starlight bells, where the brown bees

Draw sweets.

At every turn we get pretty snatches of scenery, with glimpses of cattle-dappled pastures and green fields, where the black, glossy rooks are hovering about and cawing loudly to each other as if discussing the result of their recent entomological researches. Looking across the country the high downs are seen with their broad green cloud-mottled shoulders, half-hiding the undulating hills that stretch away along the dim blue line of the horizon. By-and-by Ribblesdale, one of the prettiest vales in the kingdom, opens upon us. Below, the river winds its snake-like course through the meadows, its ample bosom gleaming in the sun like molten silver. On the right, lying low among the tall ash-trees, is Salesbury Hall, a quaint half-timbered mansion, once the abode of a branch of the great family of the Talbots, one of whom aided in the capture of the unfortunate Henry VI., and previously the home successively of the Salesburys, the Cliderhows, and the Mauleverers. Conspicuous on the further side of the valley are seen the stately towers of Stonyhurst crowning a wooded slope, that swells gradually up from the margin of the Hodder, forming one of the spurs of Longridge Fell. Looking up the valley, the eye takes in the long-backed slopes of Pendle Hill, the abrupt elevation on which stands the ruined keep of Clitheroe Castle, the wooded heights of Wiswell and Whalley, the dark-hued moorlands that extend to the ancient forests of Bowland, with Bleasdale Moor, Waddington Fell, and the screen of hills that sweep round in an irregular circle to meet the huge form of Longridge Fell lying upon the landscape like a monster couchant.

A quaint relic of the olden time stands by the wayside on the left. A gabled mansion of the time of the Second Charles, now occupied by a farmer, but still bearing the name of New Hall, though, as the date (1665) testifies, the storms of more than two hundred winters have broken upon it since George Talbot, a younger son of Sir John of that name, placed his initials and the crest of his family above the doorway. At this point the road diverges to the right, and a few paces bring us to the margin of the Ribble, when a charming prospect meets the eye, a prospect that would have delighted the heart of Cuyp had he had the opportunity of sketching it. There was no stir or fret—no excitement. All was calm, placid, and serene. The swift and shallow Ribble lay before us, sparkling and glistening all over, save on the further side, where a row of trees that fringed the roadway flung the broad shadows of their spreading branches upon its placid bosom. There was a Sabbath-like peace in the air, and the stillness of a summer day lay profoundly as a trance upon the scene. An old-fashioned punt, moored to the side, lazily dragged its creaking chain, and now and then chafed itself against the bank as the motion of the water gently swayed it to and fro. Before us Ribchester Bridge lay bestriding the stream—its broad circular arches reflected in the water with a distinct vividness that was interrupted only at intervals when their image was broken into a quivering indistinctness as a passing gust rippled the mirrored bosom of the water. As we stood gazing upon the scene, a boat borne by the current slowly glided down the river, looking like a bird suspended in the blue of heaven. The oars were poised in the rowlocks, and the water, dripping from their flashing blades, fell upon the glassy surface, and spread out in widening silver rings that floated slowly onwards.

RIBCHESTER BRIDGE.

Crossing the bridge, at the foot of which stands a comfortable inn—the De Tabley Arms—we wound away to the left, following the bold sweep of the Ribble, and a few moments later entered the “Aunciente Towne” of Ribchester. Ribchester! What visions of antiquity float before the imagination as the stranger enters this little unpretending village, for town it can now hardly be called. What memories of the past are awakened at the mere mention of the name. The old distich, which the inhabitants still take pride in repeating, tells us that

It is written upon a wall in Rome

Ribchester was as rich as any toune in Christendome. [2]

The first glimpse, even were we unsupported by tradition, would lead us to believe that this part of the valley of the Ribble was even in earliest times a place of some importance, for, admirably protected by Nature, and adapted as it must then have been to the requirements of an untamed and uncivilised race, it was hardly likely to have escaped the searching eye of our Celtic forefathers, being then protected by naked marshes, and flanked on each side by lofty eminences, with a wide river between on which their slim coracles might float; whilst adjacent was the great forest of Bowland, the haunt of the wolf, the boar, and other wild animals, whose skins would supply clothing, and their flesh sustenance, to the hardy hunter. Whether the primeval Britons established a colony here or not, certain it is that when the more refined subjects of the Cæsars had established themselves as conquerors of the country, Ribchester attained to a high degree of eminence, and became one of the richest and most important stations in the newly-acquired territory. For the greater protection and security of the conquered lands in the North, Agricola constructed a chain of forts from one extremity of Lancashire to the other, and occupying the sites now held by Lancaster, Ribchester, Walton, Blackrod, Manchester, Overborough, and Colne. The most important of these stations, as evidenced by the richness and variety of the remains that have at different times been discovered, was the one at Ribchester. The place lost its pre-eminence after the fall of the Roman government in Britain, but the foundation of its buildings long defied the ravages of time, though now the searching eye can scarce discover the faintest relic of their former existence. Leland, the old topographer, who visited the place in the early part of the 16th century, says: “Ribchester is now a poore thing; it hath beene an Auncient Towne. Great squared stones, voultes, and antique coynes be found ther: and ther is a place wher that the people fable wher that the Jues had a temple.”[3] No doubt the temple existed, for the remains of it have been traced in later times, but it was Pagan and not Jewish, and was dedicated, as Dr. Whitaker supposed from an inscription found upon the site, by an empress or princess of the Imperial Roman family to the goddess Minerva. Ribchester has been prolific in remains of Roman art, and many of the altars, statues, bronzes, and “antique coynes” that have been dug up have been carried away to enrich the archæological museums of other parts of the country, or have found their way into those of private collectors, where they are practically lost to the student of antiquity, for, unfortunately, there is hardly a town in Lancashire which possesses a museum worthy of the name where such exhumed treasures might find a fitting resting-place. Pennant mentions having seen a sculpture, discovered on digging a grave in the churchyard, representing a Roman soldier carrying a labarum, or standard of cavalry; but perhaps the most remarkable relic is the elaborately ornamented bronze helmet found in 1796, familiar to antiquaries by the engravings which have appeared in the Vetusta Monumenta, and in the histories of Whitaker and Baines. So lately as the beginning of the present century a Roman house and hypocaust were brought to light whilst excavating the foundations for a building on the banks of the river; altars dedicated to various divinities have on different occasions been unearthed, with other memorial stones, coins, pottery, glass, articles of personal adornment, ampullæ, fibulæ, &c; and even in recent times, though less frequently than of yore, when the earth is removed to any considerable depth relics are turned up which help to illustrate the habits and customs of the Roman settlers, and prove the wide diffusion of the elegant and luxurious modes of life it was their aim to introduce.

It requires no great stretch of the imagination to picture the Ribchester of those far-off days. The picture, it is true, may be only shadowy and indistinct seen through the long distance which intervenes; but, carrying the mind back to those remote times, let us contemplate the scene presented to our fancied gaze. It is Britain—Britain in the darkest period of its history, the Britain of Caractacus and Boadicea—but how great the contrast from the Britain of to-day! A broad flowing river separates us from the opposite land, the tide flows up, and the wavelets break monotonously upon the shore. Before us and on each side rise gently swelling hills clothed with dense forests of oak—primeval monarchs that have budded and flourished and shed their leaves through long centuries of silent solitude. There are no towns or villages, no fertile meadows and rich pasture fields; not a sign of a habitation can we discern save here and there where the dark woods have been thinned, and a solitary hut, rudely constructed of wood and wattles, bears evidence of man’s existence. Looking more closely into the picture, we can discover the naked and painted forms of human beings—men eager, impetuous, brave, armed with javelin and spear, and ready to engage with any chance foe that may cross their path whilst seeking for their prey among the wild beasts of their native woods.

Gradually the view dissolves. Softly, slowly, it fades away, and darkness overspreads the scene. Hark! The sound of distant strife breaks faintly upon the ear; there is a rumble of war chariots and the hollow tramp of legionaries; then a fire blazes on the top of Longridge Fell, lighting up the heavens with a ruddy glare; the signal is answered by successive flashes from Pendle Hill and from beacons more remote. In a moment the scene is alive with the forms of men armed with spear and shield, hurrying to and fro, brandishing their javelins with impatient haste, eager to meet the coming foe. Meanwhile the conquering eagles of imperial Rome are seen advancing. Cohort follows cohort, and legion succeeds to legion. With measured pace and steady tread they come. There is the shock of mortal combat; the valley echoes with the clang of arms and the fell shout of war; and Briton and Roman are struggling together for conquest and for life.

The hardy Briton struggled with his foe,

Dared him to battle on the neighb’ring height;

And dusky streamlets reddened with the flow

From heroes dying for their country’s right.

Their simple weapons ’gainst the serried ranks,

Full disciplined in war, were hurled in vain;

Well greaved and helmeted, the firm phalanx

Received their fierce attack in proud disdain.

It is over. Undisciplined valour yields to superior military skill, and the heroic Britons, defeated but not subdued, are driven for refuge within the fastnesses of their native woods, leaving those green slopes crimsoned with the life-blood of a people who, if they knew not how to fight, knew at least how valiant men should die.

Another tableau of history succeeds. Order arises out of disorder. After many struggles, in which her greatest generals have taken part, Rome, by her obstinate bravery, has succeeded in carrying her eagles northward as far as the banks of the Tay. The line of conquest is marked by a chain of forts erected with masterly judgment to keep in check the more disaffected of the northern tribes, and these strongholds are connected by a network of military ways, the course of which, after a lapse of eighteen centuries, may still be discerned—a proof that the Roman road makers were no despicable engineers.

One of these military ways—the one from Mancunium (Manchester)—led through Ribchester, and, passing Stoneygate, climbed the rugged slopes of Longridge Fell and along the tops of the hills, whence, taking an easterly direction, it traversed the Forest of Bowland, and thence continued to Eboracum (York). Though their levels were chosen on different principles, the lines they followed were indicated by the great features of nature, and were pretty much the same as those adopted by the makers of our modern iron roads. Long centuries after the Roman had taken his departure these military roads formed the great highways of traffic. The tracks traversed by Agricola and his victorious legionaries have since been trodden in succession by Pict and Scot, by Plantagenet and Tudor, by Cavalier and Roundhead, by the hapless followers of the ill-fated Stuart, and by the ruthless soldiery of the Hanoverian King, and in later and more peaceful times by long lines of pack-horses, laden with the products of the Lancashire looms.

Agricola, having now satisfied his thirst for military glory, has become a pacificator and law-giver in the newly-acquired provinces. The subjugated natives, attracted by the fame of the illustrious Roman, steal from their hiding places in the woods, and learn the manners and customs of civilisation, and with them, it is to be feared, vices which before they knew not of.

Turn we again. Another picture dawns upon us, dimly and obscurely enough at first, but becoming more distinctly visible as the darkness fades away. The appearance of the people is changed, and the aspect of the country has changed with them. Time has passed on—the river that we before gazed upon still flows on as of yore, though somewhat narrowed in its proportions. The woods now ring with the war clarion of the invincible auxiliaries; the wattled huts have disappeared; and in the assart space they occupied a flourishing city is seen, with halls and porticoes and statues, in humble imitation of the then magnificence of the city that crowns the seven hills. Where the oaks grew thick, and the wild bull, the wolf, and the boar reigned in undisputed possession, a military fortification has been built, with ramparts and towers and turrets, and close by, to celebrate the subjugation of the brave Brigantes, a pagan temple has been reared in honour of Minerva, for the sound of glad tidings has not yet come across the sea. The scene is one of bustle and organisation. Here, on the quay, merchants are congregated with traders from Gaul and Phœnicia, and adventurers from more distant lands, bartering earthenware, implements of agriculture, and other commodities which those colonists of the old world have brought with them, for the treasures of the soil. There a gang of labouring captives, sullen and unwilling, are toiling under the eye of their relentless taskmasters. Strange-looking vessels are borne upon the bosom of the stream, unwieldy in form, with long lines of oars shooting out from each side, and prows resplendent with paint and gilding, standing high up out of the water. Now and then a gaily-decorated galley floats past, freighted with fair Olympias, or bearing, perchance, some tender Sistuntian maid, whose loving heart, flinging aside the trammels of religion and race, has cast her lot with the conquerors of the land. Under the shadow of that wall a sentinel, in classic garb, with helmet and sandal, paces his measured round, and, pausing now and then, leans upon his spear, and muses upon the scenery of his own German home. Within the garrison all is gaiety and enthusiasm; there are marchings and countermarchings, and transmissions of signals, and relievings of guard. How the lances glitter in the light, and the brazen helmets reflect the glory of the midday sun. Here are gathered fighting men from all parts of Europe—Dalmatians, Thracians, and Batavians—who are talking over the victories of the past, and thinking, perhaps, of those timorous eyes that beamed tenderly upon them, and wept their departure from their distant homes—Moors of swarthy hue from the shores of Africa, whose dark skins have flashed terror into the souls of the pale Northern tribes; stern-visaged Frisians from the marshes of Holland; and stalwart Asturians, with veteran warriors who have fought through many a campaign and earned for themselves the proud title of conquerors of the world.

The conquerors of the world! Time has passed rapidly on, and Rome, the vaunted mistress of the world, with difficulty grasps her own. Pierced by barbarian hordes, torn by intestine wars, weakened at heart and tottering to her ruin, her last legions have been recalled for her own defence, and the fair provinces of the West are abandoned to the Northern savages, who come, as Gildas relates, “like hungry and ravening wolves rushing with greedy jaws upon the fold.”

Yet once again, a change—and lo!

The Roman even himself must go;

While Dane and Saxon scatter wide

Each remnant of his power and pride.

Enfeebled by long submission to the Roman yoke, deprived of the protection of the forces of the empire, the flower of her youth drafted away to swell the armies of the Emperors Maximus and Constantine, Britain is left in a state of utter defencelessness, and speedily becomes a prey to those warlike hordes that come pouring in from the maritime provinces of Germany, Norway, and Sweden. The period that follows is one of anarchy and confusion, of Saxon conquest and Danish spoliation.

But we pass on. Another picture is shadowed forth, and what is this that meets the gaze? The scene of fierce war and angry passions, of conquest and oppression, of barbaric rudeness and pagan splendour, is now a desolate and deserted waste, where the frail creations of man are blended with the ever-enduring works of God. The relentless foot of Time has pressed heavily upon these wrecks of human greatness—a few straggling walls, a ruined temple, pavements worn down by the tread of many a Roman foot, broken columns, with fragments of masonry, are all the vestiges that remain to denote the ancient importance of the Roman Rigodunum—all the signs that are left to point out where merchants gathered and where warriors prepared for conquest and for fame.

The departure of the Roman legionaries inflicted a heavy blow on the fortunes of the city. The period of Saxon conquest was followed by the descent of the wild Scandinavian marauders—the Jarls and sea-kings of the North, who, with their piratical hordes, swept the country, leaving the red mark of death and desolation in their wake.

What time the Raven flapped his gory wing,

And scoured the White Horse o’er this harried realm;

His crowded galley brought the dread Viking,

Lust at his prow, and rapine at the helm.

The splendour of Ribchester must have waned rapidly, for after the overthrow of Harold on the red field of Hastings, when the victorious Norman made his great survey of the conquered country, it had become so insignificant as to be accounted a mere village dependent upon Preston, then rising into note. Yet it did not escape the fury of the invading Scot, whose footsteps were everywhere marked with blood and destruction, for in one of those frequent incursions after the defeat at Bannockburn—when, as old Hollinshead tells us, the victorious Bruce marched his army through Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Lancaster to Preston—the miserable inhabitants were driven from their homes, and the place burned to the ground. Subsequently its fortunes revived, and for a time it could boast of having no less than three fairs, an evidence of its increased importance. In the unhappy struggle between Charles the First and his Parliament it was the scene of an encounter (April, 1643) between the Royalist forces, led by the Earl of Derby, and the Parliamentarian levies, commanded by Colonel Shuttleworth, resulting in a victory for the latter; and tradition says that five years later (August, 1648) Cromwell slept at the old white house, opposite the Strand, on the night before the memorable battle of Ribblesdale, and there, with Major-General Ashton, matured the plan of those operations which ere the next setting of the sun had proved fatal to the Duke of Hamilton, and tinged the flowing river with the blood of his Scottish followers as deeply as their ancestors had dyed it with English blood three centuries before. In more peaceful times, when the cotton trade was yet in its infancy, hand-loom weaving flourished, and formed the staple industry; but the day of prosperity has passed, and the place has now dwindled down to the condition of a mean and insignificant country village, old-fashioned in aspect and quiet enough for the grass to grow in the narrow and painfully-ill-paved streets that struggle on towards the river. So lifeless looking is it that were it not for a few loiterers standing about the doorway of the “Bull,” and that we now and then hear the clack of the shuttle, it would seem

Like one vast city of the dead,

Or place where all are dumb.

After long centuries of vicissitude and change, except the shadowy memories of the past, the ancient parish church is almost the only object that remains to arrest the steps of the inquiring wayfarer, and this well deserves examination. Tradition hovers about the place, and tells us that after the conversion of King Edwin, the great missionary Paulinus here proclaimed the glad tidings of salvation, in commemoration of which event the symbol of the Christian’s faith—the cross—was planted, contemporaneously with those in the neighbouring churchyard of Whalley; and that the first “modest house of prayer” was erected on the spot once occupied by the temple of Minerva. The late Canon Raines believed the church at Ribchester was coeval in antiquity with that at Whalley. It is the work of many hands and many separate eras, and, as may be supposed, exhibits many different styles of architecture. The oldest part is undoubtedly the chancel, the windows of which are, for the most part, of the narrow lancet style, showing that it must have been built about the year 1220. Portions of the nave and the north aisle exhibit the rich detail of the Decorated period, and the tower bears evidence that it is of later date, the main features being of Perpendicular character. In the south wall of the chancel is an ancient arched sedilia, with a piscina and credence table attached, and on the north side is a solid block of stone, whereon are carved three heraldic shields bearing the arms of the Hoghtons and some of their alliances. This stone is commonly supposed to be a tomb, but it is more probable that it was intended as a seat in times when only the patron and some of his more influential neighbours were so accommodated, the general body of worshippers standing or kneeling during the services of the Church. The Hoghtons, whose arms it bears, were for generations lords of Ribchester, and one of them, Sir Richard Hoghton, in 1405, founded and endowed the chantry on the north side known as the “Lady Chapel,” in which are still preserved the remains of the ancient altar and piscina.

Our story is told, and we now draw the veil over these grass-grown by-ways of the past. Eighteen centuries have rolled by since Agricola planted his eagles on the northern shores of the Ribble; for 400 years the Roman wrought and ruled; Saxon and Dane and Norman have followed in his wake, and each successive race has left its distinctive peculiarities stamped upon the institutions of the country. In that time kingdoms and empires have risen and passed away, generation after generation has come and gone. The old hills still lift their heads to the breezes of heaven, the stream flows on as of yore, and the sun shines with the same splendour as it shone in those ancient days—but where are they who peopled the busy scene?

They are vanished

Into the air, and what seemed corporal melted.

With Cassius we might exclaim,—

They are fled away and gone,

And in their stead the ravens, crows, and kites

Fly o’er our heads.

The splendid civilisation which the Roman colonists brought with them did not long outlive their departure. The strongholds they built, the palaces they reared, have disappeared. Where once gleamed the spears of the Imperial soldiery the plough now passes and the harvest smiles. The Roman has passed away, and the glory of Ribchester has passed away with him, scarcely a stone now remaining to tell the story of its former greatness.

MARPLE HALL.

CHAPTER II.
MARPLE HALL—THE BRADSHAWS—COLONEL HENRY BRADSHAW THE STORY OF THE REGICIDE.

Cheshire abounds with ancient houses, but few, if any, of them are more interesting from their historical or traditional associations than Marple Hall, the home of Colonel Henry Bradshaw, the noted Cromwellian soldier, and the place where his younger brother, “Judge” Bradshaw, passed the earlier years of his eventful life. It is one of the few old mansions of the county that have remained to the descendants of the earlier possessors, and though located in close proximity to a district singularly at variance with associations awakened by the time-honoured memorials of bygone days, is yet surrounded by much that is picturesque and attractive.

The house, which stands a mile or more away from the straggling village from which it takes its name, is within the compass of a pleasant walk from Stockport or Hazel Grove, but it is more readily approached from the Rose Hill Station of the Macclesfield and Bollington Railway. It cannot be seen from the highway, but an antiquated and somewhat stately looking gateway, a few yards from the station, gives admission to a tree-shaded drive that leads across the park, at the further end of which the quaint old pile comes in view, standing upon a natural platform or terrace, with a lichened and moss-grown wall on the further side, all grey and weather-worn, that extends along the edge of the precipice on which it is built. The shelving slopes below are clothed with shrubs and trees that furnish a pleasant shade in the summer time; wild flowers in abundance peep out from the clefts and crevices; and were our visit made in the earlier months of the year, while the white fringe of nature’s weaving yet lingers upon the skirts of winter’s mantle, we should find the acclivities plentifully besprinkled with the pale and delicate blossoms of the snowdrop—the firstling of the year awakening from its lengthened sleep to proclaim the reanimation of the vegetable world. At the foot of the cliff is a sequestered dingle with a still pool, the remains, possibly, of a former moat or mere,[4] that gleams in the green depths, and a tiny rivulet that looks up through the overhanging verdure as it wanders on in pastoral and picturesque seclusion. The well-wooded heights of Thorncliffe shut in this bosky dell from the valley of the Goyt, across which, from the terraced heights, there is a delightful view in the direction of Werneth Low, the Arnfield and Woodhead Moors, and the range of green uplands and dusky eminences which stretch away in long succession to the pale blue hills that in the remote distance bound the landscape. There this interesting memorial of the stormiest period of England’s history stands in peaceful serenity, lifting its dark stone front above the surrounding offices and outbuildings, with its high-peaked gables draped with a luxurious mantle of ivy that softens the sterner outlines into beauty, its long, low, mullioned windows, and its entrance tower and balcony above, now protected by a latticed railing, so as to form a kind of observatory, and which once had the addition of a cupola.

High on a craggy steep it stands,

Near Marple’s fertile vale,

An ancient ivy-covered house

That overlooks the dale.

And lofty woods of elm and oak

That ancient house enclose,

And on the walls a neighb’ring yew

It sombre shadow throws.

A many-gabled house it is,

With antique turret crowned,

And many a quaint device, designed

In carvings rude, is found.

So says Mr. Leigh, in one of his “Legendary Ballads of Cheshire.” The first glimpse gives evidence of the fact that it has been erected at different periods, additions having been made from time to time as the convenience or requirements of successive occupants have dictated; but none of these are of modern date, or in any way detract from its venerable aspect. On the south a lofty wall encloses the garden and a court that occupies the entire front of the house. Tall pillars of the Carolinian period, supporting a pair of gates of metal-work, forming the principal entrance, give admission to this court; and if the wayfarer is fortunate enough to be provided with an introduction, or if with a taste for antiquarian investigation he unites the manners of a gentleman, he may rely upon a courteous reception.

The time of our visit is a pleasant autumn afternoon. The trees and hedges are in the fulness of their summer verdure; but the waning of the year is evidenced by the lengthened shadows, the warm golden hue that is deepening upon the landscape, and the russet, purple, and yellow with which the woods, though green in the main, are touched. Turning suddenly to the right, we quit the highway, and saunter leisurely along the broad gravelled path. As we approach the gates we become conscious that something unusual is astir. Pedestrians are wending their way towards the hall; occasionally a carriage rattles past; and then, as we draw near, the sounds of mirth and minstrelsy break upon the ear. Passing through the old gateway leading to the court, we find groups of people on the lawn, and the lady of the house is flitting to and fro with a pleasant word and a kindly greeting for every one. A fête champêtre is being held in the grounds, and a fancy fair is going on in one of the outbuildings, which has been smartened up and decorated for the occasion, the proceeds of the sale, we are told, going towards the rebuilding of

The decent church that tops the neighbouring hill,

or rather the building of a new one by its side, which, when finished, is to supersede it. A “steeple-house,” forsooth! At the very mention of the name a host of memories are conjured up. For a moment the mind wanders back along the dim avenues of the past to the stormy days of Cavalier and Roundhead, and we think of the mighty change the whirligig of time has brought about since Bradshaw’s fanatical soldiery bivouacked here, ready to plunder and profane the sanctuary, and to destroy, root and branch, hip and thigh, the “sons of Belial” who sought solace within its walls, or, as Hudibras has it:—

Reduce the Church to Gospel order,

By rapine, sacrilege, and murder.

Happily, fate has not ordained that we should sleep here this night; for Marple, be it remembered, has its ghost chamber—what ancient house with any pretensions to importance has not?—and if the shades of the departed can at the “silent, solemn hour, when night and morning meet,” revisit this lower world, those of the stern old Puritan colonel and the grim-visaged “Lord President” would assuredly disturb our slumber.

But let us quit the shadowy realms of legend and romance, and betake ourselves to that of sober, historic fact. After the overthrow of Harold on the fatal field of Hastings, Marple passed into the hands of Norman grantees, and in the days of the earlier Plantagenet Kings formed part of the possessions of the barons of Stockport, being held by them under the Earl of Chester on the condition of finding one forester for the Earl’s forest of Macclesfield. The lands, with those of Wyberslegh, in the same township, were, some time between the years 1209 and 1229, given by Robert de Stockport as a marriage portion to his sister Margaret on her marriage with William de Vernon, afterwards Chief Justice of Chester, a younger son of the Baron of Shipbrooke, who through his mother had acquired the lands of Haddon, in Derbyshire; and from that time Marple formed part of the patrimony of the lords of Haddon until the death of Sir George Vernon, the renowned “King of the Peak,” in 1567, a period of three centuries and a half, the estates being then divided between his two daughters, Haddon with other property in Derbyshire devolving upon Dorothy Vernon, the heroine of the romantic elopement with Sir John Manners, the ancestor of the Dukes of Rutland, whilst Marple and Wyberslegh fell to the lot of Margaret, the wife of Sir Thomas Stanley of Winwick, the second son of Edward Earl of Derby—that Earl of whom Camden says that “with his death the glory of hospitality seemed to fall asleep.” Their son, Sir Edward Stanley, of Tonge Castle, in Shropshire, having no issue, sold the manor and lands of Marple in small lots to Thomas Hibbert,[5] chaplain to Lord Keeper Bridgman, who married Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Bradshaw, of Marple, and who was the grandfather of the celebrated divine, Henry Hibbert.

Some time about the year 1560 the Henry Bradshaw here named, who was a younger son of William Bradshaw, of Bradshaw Hall, near Chapel-en-le-Frith, the representative of an old Lancashire family of Saxon origin, seated at Bradshaw, near Bolton, from a time anterior to the Conquest, and which had been dispossessed and repossessed of its estates by the Norman invaders, married Dorothy, one of the daughters and co-heirs of George Bagshawe, of the Ridge, in the parish of Chapel-en-le-Frith, a family that in a later generation numbered amongst its members the eminent Nonconformist divine, William Bagshawe, better known as the “Apostle of the Peak,” and became tenant of a house in Marple called The Place, still existing, and forming part of the Marple estate. By this marriage he had a son bearing his own baptismal name, and, in addition, two daughters, Elizabeth, who became the wife of Thomas Hibbert as already stated, and Sarah, who is said by some genealogists—though on what authority is not clear—to have been the wife of John Milton, the wealthy scrivener, of Bread Street, London, and the mother of England’s great epic poet, whom John Bradshaw in his will spoke of as his “kinsman John Milton.”

In 1606, as appears by a deed among the Marple muniments, dated 7th July, 4 James, Henry Bradshaw the elder, therein styled a “yoman,” purchased from Sir Edward Stanley, for the sum of £270, certain premises in Marple and Wyberslegh, comprising a messuage and tenement, with its appurtenances, another tenement situate in Marple or Wibersley, and a close commonly called The Place, the said premises being at the time, as is stated, partly occupied by Henry Bradshaw the elder and partly by Henry Bradshaw the younger, his son and heir-apparent. The estate at that time must have been comparatively small. Two years later (30th June, 1608), as appears by the Calendar of Recognizance Rolls of the Palatinate of Chester, now deposited in the Record Office, London, Henry Bradshaw, to further secure his title, obtained an enrolment of the charter of Randal Earl of Chester, granting in free-forestry Merple and Wibreslega, as they are there called, with lands in Upton and Macclesfield, to Robert, son of Robert de Stockport; and another enrolment of the charter of Robert de Stockport, granting to William Vernon, and Margery his wife, the lands of Marple and Wybersley, from which William and Margery the property passed, as we have said, by successive descents to Sir Edward Stanley, from whom Bradshaw acquired it.

Henry Bradshaw the younger, following the example of his father, also married an heiress, thus further adding to the territorial possessions, as well as to the social status, of his house, his wife being Catherine, the younger of the two daughters and co-heirs of Ralph Winnington, the last male representative of a family seated for seven generations at Offerton Hall, a building still standing near the highroad midway between Stockport and Marple, though now shorn of much of its former dignity. The registers of Stockport show that they were married there on the 4th February, 1593. To them were born four sons and two daughters. William, the eldest, died in infancy. With Henry, born in 1600, and John, born in 1602, we are more immediately concerned, for it is round them that the interest and the associations of Marple chiefly gather.

The elder Bradshaw, the founder of the Marple line, died in 1619–20, when Henry, his son, who had then been a widower sixteen years, succeeded to the family estates. No records of his private life have been preserved, but it may not be unreasonably assumed that, after the death of his wife, and as he did not remarry, he lived in comparative retirement, leading the life of an unostentatious country gentleman, improving his estate, and supervising the education of his children. Two years after he had entered upon the possession of his inheritance, that important functionary the Herald made his official visitation of Cheshire, when the gentlemen and esquires of the county were called upon to register their descents and show their claim to the arms they severally bore; and it is worthy of note, as indicating his indifference to, or disdain of, the “noble science,” that though, as we have seen, of ancient and honourable lineage and entitled to bear arms, Henry Bradshaw did not obey the Herald’s summons,[6] probably “feeling assured,” as Macaulay said of the old Puritan, “that if his name was not found in the Registers of Heralds, it was recorded in the Book of Life; and hence originated his contempt for territorial distinctions, accomplishments, and dignities.”

Surrounded by home affections, Bradshaw appears to have taken little interest in public affairs; though, as a strict Calvinist and stern moralist, he could not but have looked with disfavour on the republication of the “Book of Sports,” and the revival of the Sunday wakes and festivals, in which religion and pleasure were so strangely blended; nor, as an Englishman, could he have been an indifferent spectator of the breach which was gradually widening between the King and his people.

A cloud was then gathering which presaged a great religious and political tempest. The year in which Bradshaw lost his wife was that which closed the long and brilliant reign of the last of the Tudor sovereigns. James of Scotland succeeded—a King who reigned like a woman after a woman who had reigned like a man. The Puritans in Elizabeth’s time were comparatively insignificant in numbers, but the strictness of the Queen’s ecclesiastical rule acted upon their stubborn nature, and those who were averse to Episcopacy, and impatient of uniformity in rites and ceremonies and the decorous adjuncts of a National Church, grew formidable under James, and turbulent and aggressive after the accession of Charles. The policy of Elizabeth gave a political standing ground to Puritanism, and Puritanism gave to the political war in which the nation became involved a relentless character that was all its own. In 1634 was issued the writ for the levying of Ship-money—“that word of lasting sound in the memory of this kingdom,” as Clarendon calls it—a word which lit the torch of revolution, and for a period of eleven years kept the country in almost uninterrupted strife. The occasion was eagerly availed of by the discontented; pulpits were perverted by religious fanatics, and violent appeals made to the passions of the populace, who were preached into rebellion; while more thoughtful, yet brave and strong-minded men, impressed with a stern, unflinching love of justice, and a determination to maintain those liberties they held to be their birthright, contended to the death against “imposts” and “levies” and “compositions,” and against the worse mockery of “loans” which no man was free to refuse, as well as the despotism that more than threatened their common country. It was a fatal time for England. Dignified by some high virtues, possessing many excellent endowments both of head and heart, Charles yet lacked sincerity, forethought, and decision, and the capacity required for the wise conduct of affairs. The blame for the strifes and contentions which arose does not, however, attach wholly to the sovereign, nor yet to his subjects. The absolutism of the Tudors was, in a measure, the cause of the sins of the Stuarts, and the sins of the Stuarts brought about the miseries of the Rebellion, just as in turn the despotic rule and grinding social tyranny of the Commonwealth period led to the excesses of the Restoration. Charles was born out of season, and lived too much in a world of his own ideas to comprehend the significance of events that were passing around him. The twining of the Red and White Roses upon the ensanguined field of Bosworth was followed by the break-up of the feudal system, and the effacement of many of the old landmarks of English society; a new class of landowners had sprung into existence, eager for the acquirement of political freedom, and the king was unable or unwilling to recognise the changed condition of things. He inherited from his father inordinate notions of kingly power, and he resolutely shut his eyes to the fact that he had to deal with an entirely different state of public opinion. The power of the sovereign had waned, but that of the people had increased; Parliament, while bent upon abridging the ancient constitutional prerogative of the Crown, was equally resolute in the extension of its own. The King persisted in his determination to reign and govern by “divine right”—he refused to yield anything—and in the fierce struggle which he provoked he fell. Moderation was no longer thought of; the time for compromise was past; the seeds of strife were sown and nurtured both by King and Parliament, who, distrusting and wearied of each other, no longer cared for peace. At length the storm burst. At Manchester, on the 15th July, 1642—a month before the unfurling of the Royal standard at Nottingham—very nearly upon the spot where now stands the statue of Cromwell, the first shot was fired and the first blood shed in that great conflict which drenched the country in civil slaughter.

When the first shot was fired which proclaimed to anxious England that the differences between the King and the Parliament were only to be settled by an appeal to arms, the two sons of Henry Bradshaw had attained to the fulness of manhood, Henry, the eldest, having then lately completed his forty-second year, while John was his junior only by two years.

Henry Bradshaw, the third of the name, who resided at Marple, was born, as previously stated, in 1600, and baptised at the old church at Stockport on the 23rd June in the same year. Following with admirable consistency the practice of his progenitors, he further added to the territorial possessions of his house by marrying a rich heiress—Mary, the eldest of the two daughters and co-heirs of Bernard Wells,[7] of Holme, in the parish of Bakewell. The marriage settlement bears date 30 Sep., 6 Charles I. (1631), and Mr. Ormerod, the historian of Cheshire, says that he had bestowed upon him by his father-in-law the hall of Wyberslegh, but this is evidently an error, for, as we have previously seen, his father and grandfather between them purchased Wyberslegh, along with Marple, from Sir Edward Stanley, a quarter of a century previously, and the hall continued, as it had been from time immemorial, appendant to that of Marple. It is more than probable, however, that he took his young bride to Wyberslegh, and resided there during his father’s lifetime, so that it would appear that the first of the Bradshaws settled at Marple lived at The Place, where he died in 1611, after which it ceased to be occupied as the family residence. Henry, his son, resided at the hall, and the youngest of the three occupied Wyberslegh until he succeeded to the family estate. Mary Wells, by whom he had a son who succeeded as heir, and two daughters, predeceased him, and he again entered the marriage state, his second wife being Anne, daughter of George Bowdon, of Bowdon, in Cheshire, by whom he had five sons and one or more daughters, Though by no means insensible to the advantages accruing from the possession of worldly wealth, it does not appear that he added materially to his temporal estate by his second marriage. The Bowdons were a family of ancient rank, who at one time owned one-fourth part of Bowdon, but their estates had gradually dwindled away, and were finally alienated by sale to the Booths of Dunham, in the early part of Elizabeth’s reign.

Inheriting from his father the Puritan sentiments of the age, Henry Bradshaw carried those feelings with him into a more active arena. Living in close neighbourship with Colonel Dukenfield, Edward Hyde, of Norbury, Ralph Arderne, of Harden, Ralph Holland, of Denton, and holding intimate relations with the Booths of Dunham, the Breretons of Handforth, the Stanleys of Alderley, and other influential Presbyterian families, their friendship doubtless helped to shape the part he took in public affairs. When the storm which had been long gathering burst, he took his stand with the Parliament against the King, and became one of the most active officers on the side of the Commonwealth. He served as sergeant-major in the regiment commanded by his neighbour, Robert Dukenfield, and would, therefore, in all probability, take part in the lengthened siege of “Mr. Tatton’s house of Whittenshaw (Wythenshawe),” in the winter of 1643–4, as well as in the fruitless attempt, a few months later, to defend Stockport Bridge against Rupert and his Cavaliers, who were hastening to the relief of Lathom House, in Lancashire, where the heroic Countess of Derby was bravely defending her husband’s home against greatly superior forces. Though a Cheshire man, he held a lieutenant-colonel’s commission in Assheton’s Lancashire regiment, and subsequently was appointed to the command of the entire militia within the Macclesfield hundred, in his own county. He was present also with the Cheshire men at the final overthrow of the Royalist army—the “crowning mercy,” as Cromwell phrased it—at Worcester, Sept 3, 1651, where it was said he was wounded, but if so the injury must have been only slight, for before the end of the month he was acting as one of the members of the court-martial appointed under a commission from Cromwell for the trial of the Earl of Derby. After the disaster at Worcester, the Earl had accompanied the King in his flight, until he was safe in the care of the Pendrells, when, with Lord Lauderdale, Lord Talbot, and about 40 troopers, he started northwards, in the hope of overtaking the remnant of the Scotch army, but when near Nantwich the fugitives fell into the hands of Oliver Edge,[8] a captain in the Manchester regiment, also returning from Worcester. Quarter having been given by his captor, the Earl naturally believed that he would be entitled to the immunities of a prisoner of war, but he soon found himself under close confinement in Chester Castle, of which Colonel Dukenfield was at the time governor. Cromwell, having got his most formidable foe in his power, resolved to get for ever rid of him by the shortest process that time and circumstances admitted. The Earl was therefore at once brought for trial before Bradshaw and the other members appointed on the court-martial, on the charge of high treason in contravening an Act of Parliament passed only a few weeks before, and of which, as his accusers were well aware, he could have no knowledge, and, in defiance of the recognised laws of war and the conditions on which he had surrendered, was pronounced guilty and sentenced to be beheaded at Bolton. Dr. Halley, in his history of “Lancashire Puritanism and Nonconformity,” says that Colonel Bradshaw, notwithstanding that he had voted for the rejection of the Earl’s plea; “earnestly entreated his brother, the Lord President, to obtain a commutation of the punishment,” but, if he did, his efforts were unsuccessful. Seacombe attributed the execution of the Earl to the “inveterate malice” of (President) Bradshaw, Rigby, and Birch, which originated, he says, as to Bradshaw, because of the Earl’s refusing him the Vice-Chamberlainship of Chester;[9] Rigby, because of his ill-success at Lathom; and Birch, in his lordship having trailed him under a hay cart at Manchester on the occasion of the outbreak in July, 1642, by which he got, even among his own party, the epithet of “Lord Derby’s Carter.” He adds that, “Cromwell and Bradshaw had so ordered the matter that when they saw the major part of the House inclined to allow the Earl’s plea, as the Speaker was putting the question, eight or nine of them quitted the House, and those left in it being under the number of forty, no question could be put.” The latter statement, however, is hardly borne out by the Commons Journal,[10] which, under date “14 October, 1651,” makes this brief mention of the reception of the Earl’s petition:—

Mr. Speaker, by way of report, acquaints the House with a letter which he had received from the Earl of Derby; and the question being put—That the said letter be now read, the House was divided. The yeas went forth, Sir William Brereton and Mr. Ellis tellers for the yeas, with the yeas, 22; Mr. Bond and Major-General Harrison, tellers for the noes, with the noes, 16, so it passed in the affirmative. A letter from the Earl of Derby, of the 11th of October, 1651, with a petition therein enclosed, entitled, “The Humble Petition of the Earl of Derby,” was this day read.

In the administration of affairs in his own county, Colonel Bradshaw took an active part. He was one of the commissioners for the Macclesfield hundred for the sequestration of the estates of those who retained Royalist opinions, or who refused to take the national covenant, and his name appears first among the signataries to the famous Lancashire and Cheshire petition to the Parliament, praying for the establishment of the Presbyterian religion, and urging that “the frequenters of separate conventicles might be discountenanced and punished.” The petitioners who had previously pleaded conscience having gained the ascendancy were now anxious to stifle freedom of thought, and to exercise a tyranny over their fellow-men, justifying the remark of Fuller, that “those who desired most ease and liberty for their sides when bound with Episcopacy, now girt their own garments closest about the consciences of others.” In those troublous times marriage as a religious ceremony was forbidden, and became merely a civil contract entered into before a justice of the peace, after three “publications” at the “meeting place,” or in the “market place,” the statute declaring that “no other marriage whatsoever shall be held or accounted a marriage according to the laws of England.” Bradshaw, as a county justice, officiated at many of these civil marriages, and his neat and carefully-written autograph frequently appears in the church books of the period, with his heraldic seal affixed (for, however he might affect to contemn such vanities, he was yet careful to display the armorial ensigns of his house when acting officially with his more aristocratic neighbours), sometimes as appointing parish registrars, and at others ordering the levying of church rates and sanctioning the parish accounts, which at the time could not be passed without magisterial confirmation.

Colonel Bradshaw lived to see the fall of the Commonwealth, and the overthrow of that form of government he had done so much to establish, but he did not long survive the restoration of monarchy. After that event had taken place, he was brought before the Lords Committee to answer for the part he had taken in the court-martial on Lord Derby, and committed to the custody of the Messenger of Black Rod. He appears, however, to have been leniently dealt with, for, after submitting to what reads very like an apology for his conduct, he was set at liberty, and permitted to pass the remainder of his days in peace. Those days were but few: the anxiety consequent upon the changed aspect of affairs was too much for him—his spirit was broken, and he died at Marple a few months after (11th March, 1661–2). On the 15th March, 1661–2, in accordance with his previously-expressed desire, his remains were laid beside those of his father and grandfather in the little chapel belonging to his family, then standing on the south side of the chancel of Stockport Church.

It does not appear that a copy of his will, which was proved at Chester, by the executor, 27th February, 1662, has at any time been published, but the following abstract, made by Mr. J. Fred. Beever, and contributed by him to “Local Gleanings,” appeared in the Manchester Courier of October 15, 1875:—

2 July 12 Car. II (1660) I Henry Bradshaw of Marple co. Chester doe ... buried in my father’s grave in Marple Quire in the par. Churche of Stockport if I depart this life in Cheshire ... my sonne John Bradshawe ... all my lands in Bowden Medlarie (Bowdon Edge?) and Mellor in the county of Darbie ... my sonne William Bradshawe ... my lands in Chapel-le-Frith and Briggeworth (Bugsworth?) co. Derby ... Godfrey Bradshawe, Francis Bradshawe and Joseph Bradshawe, my three youngest sonnes ... all my lands in Torkington co. Chester ... Anne my lovinge wife ... she having a jointure out of my lands in Cheshire and Wibersley ... my sonne and heire Henery Bradshawe ... all my bookes ... my twoe daughters Barbara and Catharine, they being by their grandfather Wells and his wife well provided for. To my daughter Dorothy ... £400, to my daughter Rachel ... £500, to my youngest daughter Anne ... £400 ... my said sonne Henery Bradshawe ... (the residuary legatee and executor) ... my good friend Edward Warren, of Poynton esq.... (overseer).

Bradshaw was wont to lament that he had “a small estate and eleven children.” The whole eleven, as well as his second wife survived him. Among the family portraits at Marple was (and may be still) one of a young maiden, said to be a daughter of the colonel. Round this lady the glamour of romance has been cast, and a tradition tells the story of her unhappy fate. In those times, when not unfrequently members of the same family took opposite sides, when father contended with son, and brother met brother in mortal conflict, Miss Bradshaw, with scant regard for the religious and political principles of her house, had formed an attachment for a young officer in the Royalist army, whose family had in happier days been on terms of intimacy with her own. Though he had espoused the cause of his sovereign, the Puritan colonel, in consideration of former friendships, treated him with personal kindness and welcomed him to his house. On one occasion, when entrusted with the conveyance of despatches to the King, who was then with his army at Chester, having occasion to pass near Marple, the young cavalier halted and stayed the night with the family of his betrothed. Mistress Bradshaw, with a woman’s intuitiveness, suspecting the nature of his mission, and fearing the letters he was commissioned to deliver might bode no good to her husband’s house, resolved, with the help of a trusty waiting-maid, to secretly ascertain their contents. Having done this, and found that her worst fears were realised, her next thought was how to prevent their reaching the King’s hands without awakening the suspicions of their bearer. Summoning to her councils an old servitor of the family, it was decided to partially sever the straps by which the saddle-bags containing the dreaded missives were attached, so that the attendant, when guiding their bearer across the ford, might detach and sink them in the Goyt, when they would be lost for ever. On the early morrow the gay young soldier, having taken leave of his lady-love, hastened upon his mission; the old retainer, who was nothing loth to speed the parting guest, accompanying him towards the river, but, giving a somewhat free interpretation to his instructions, concluded that if it was desirable to get rid of the letters it might be equally desirable to get rid of their bearer, and so, instead of conducting him to the ford, he led him to the deepest part of the river, which had become swollen with the storm of the previous night. The young cavalier plunged into the stream, and in an instant both horse and rider were swept away by the surging flood. Miss Bradshaw witnessed the act of treachery from the window of her chamber, but was powerless to prevent the catastrophe. She saw the fatal plunge, gave one long piercing shriek, and fell senseless to the ground. Reason had for ever left her.

Such is the legend that has floated down through successive generations, and still obtains credence with many of the neighbouring villagers, who, with a fondness for the supernatural, delight to tell how the shade of the hapless maid of Marple is sometimes seen lingering at nightfall about the broad staircases and corridors of what was once her home, or, as the pale cold moon sheds her silvery radiance on wood and sward, wandering along the grassy margin of the river and by the deep dark pool where her lover lost his life. Mr. Leigh has made the incidents of this tradition the basis of one of the most pathetic of his recently-published Cheshire ballads. Another writer on Marple has, however, given a different version. He says the lady was Miss Esther Bradshaw, and that her lover was “Colonel Sydenham, the Royalist commander,” whom she ultimately married. It is a pity to spoil so pretty a story, but strict regard for prosaic fact compels us to avow our disbelief in it, and that for a twofold reason—(1) that Colonel Sydenham was not a “Royalist,” but had been an active officer during the war on the Parliament side; and (2) that Colonel Bradshaw never had a daughter Esther. The story so circumstantially related rests, we believe, on no better foundation than the once popular though now almost forgotten romance of “The Cavalier,” written under the nom de plume of Lee Gibbons, by Mr. Bennett, of Chapel-en-le-Frith, some sixty years ago.

Henry Bradshaw, the Parliamentarian soldier, as the eldest surviving son, inherited the family estates, while John, his younger brother, was left to push his fortunes as best he could. Possessing much natural shrewdness and ability, with no lack of energy and self-confidence, he was content with the position, strong in the belief that

The world’s mine oyster,

and in the bitter struggle between monarchy and democracy he was quick to avail himself of the opportunities which tended to his own wealth and aggrandisement.

He first saw the light in 1602, but the exact place of his birth has not been ascertained. In an article in Britton and Brayley’s “Beauties of England and Wales,” believed to have been written by Watson, the historian of the Earls of Warren, it is stated that he was born at Wyberslegh; but Mr. Ormerod, in his “History of Cheshire,” doubts the probability of this, “inasmuch,” he says, “as the family only became possessed of that seat by the marriage of his elder brother Henry with the daughter of Mr. Wells,” but this, if we may venture to differ from so deservedly high an authority, must be an error, for Wyberslegh, which had for many generations been appendant to the hall of Marple, was in the occupation of his father or grandfather when the Marple property was purchased by them in 1606; it is not unlikely, therefore, that the younger Bradshaw was residing at Wyberslegh at the time of his son John’s birth. His baptism is thus recorded in the Stockport register:—

1602. Dec. 10. John, the sonne of Henrye Bradshawe, of Marple, baptized.

At a later date some zealous Royalist has written in the margin the word “traitor.” It has been said that his mother died in giving him birth. This, however, is not strictly correct, though her death occurred a few weeks after that event, the register of Stockport showing that she was buried there January 24, 1603–4, and her son Francis, who would seem to have been a twin with John, was baptised at the same place three days later.

Of the early life and habits of the future Lord President nothing positively is known. From his will we learn that he received his early classical education at Bunbury, of which school that staunch Puritan, Edward Burghall, afterwards Vicar of Acton, was at the time master; subsequently he was sent to Queen Elizabeth’s Free School at Middleton, in Lancashire, then lately remodelled and endowed by Nowell, Dean of St Paul’s, and, “as part of his thankful acknowledgment,” he at his death bequeathed to each of these institutions £500 for “amending the wages of the master and usher.” There is a very general opinion that he was at King Edward’s Grammar School in Macclesfield also for a time; though there is no evidence of the fact, this is by no means improbable. Macclesfield was conveniently near to his home, and the school had at that time obtained a high reputation from the ability and scholarly attainments of at least two of its masters, John Brownswerd, “a schoolmaster of great fame for learning,” as Webb says, “who living many years brought up most of the gentry of this shire,” and Thomas Newton, one of the most distinguished Latin poets of the Elizabethan era; and some countenance is given to this supposition by the phrase in his will, “I had part of my educa’con” at Middleton and Bunbury. The Macclesfield school at that time abutted upon the churchyard, and there is a tradition that young Bradshaw, while with some of his playmates, and in a boyish freak, wrote the following prophetic lines upon a gravestone there:—

My brother Henry must heir the land,

My brother Frank must be at his command,

Whilst I, poor Jack, will do that

That all the world shall wonder at.

The authenticity of this production may very well be questioned, for, however ambitious his mind, we can hardly suppose that this young son of a quiet, unostentatious country gentleman could have had the faintest glimmering of his future destiny any more than that his muse was moved by prophetic inspiration.

He served his clerkship with an attorney at Congleton, whence he proceeded to London, and studied for some time at Gray’s Inn, of which learned society he entered as a student for the bar in 1622, and with such assiduity did he apply himself to his studies that in later years Whitelock, in his “Memorials,” bore willing testimony that he was “a man learned in his profession.” Having completed his studies, he returned to Congleton, where he practised for some years, and, taking an active part in the town’s affairs, was elected an alderman of the borough—the house in which he resided, a quaint black and white structure, having been in existence until recent years. In 1637 he was named Attorney-General for Cheshire and Flintshire, as appears by the following entry on the Calendar of Recognizances Rolls for the Palatinate of Chester: “13 Car. I., June 7. Appointment of John Bradshawe as one of the Earl’s attorneys-at-law in the counties of Chester and Flint, during pleasure, with the same fees as Robert Blundell, late attorney there, received.” In the same year he was chosen Mayor of Congleton, an office he is said to have discharged with ability and satisfaction, being, as a local chronicler records, “a vigilant and intelligent magistrate, and well qualified to administer justice.” He certainly cannot be charged with indifference or lack of zeal while filling this position, for the corporation books show that he left his mark in the shape of “certain orders, laws, and ordinances,” he set down “for the better regiment and government of the inhabitants, and the preservation of peace and order.” These regulations, which were of a somewhat stringent character, imposed fines upon the aldermen and other dignitaries who neglected to provide themselves with halberds, and to don their civic gowns and other official bravery, when attending upon their chief, while the “freemen” of the borough were left with little freedom to boast of. It is evident that, Calvinist and Republican though he was, and a Puritan of the most “advanced” school, Bradshaw, even at that early period of his public career, had little liking for the severe simplicity affected by his political and religious associates, the regulations he laid down indicating a fondness for histrionic display and a love for the trappings and pageantry of office. As might be supposed, a small country town, the merry-hearted inhabitants of which were proverbial for their love of bear-baiting and their fondness for cakes and sack, was not a likely place to afford scope for the exercise of the talents of so resplendent a genius, so, seeking a more active sphere, he betook himself to the metropolis, where he continued to follow his profession. The year in which Cromwell gained his great victory at Marston Moor was that in which we find him for the first time employed in the service of the Parliament, being joined (Oct., 1644) with Mr. Newdegate and the notorious Prynne in the prosecution of the Irish rebels, Lords Macguire and Macmahon, before the Commissioners of Oyer and Terminer, which resulted in the rebel lords being condemned and executed.

It is not unlikely that Bradshaw had made the acquaintance of Prynne before he left Congleton, for the year of his mayoralty there was one in which that “pestilent breeder of sedition,” as he was called, after standing in the pillory with Bastwick and Burton, and having his ears clipped, passed through Cheshire on his way to the prison at Carnarvon, making what reads very like a triumphal progress, and creating no small stir among the disaffected Puritans in the county, who regarded the victim of a harsh and unwise persecution as a sufferer for the cause of the true Gospel. His conductors treated him with much leniency—indeed, on the whole, they seem to have had rather a pleasant outing, stopping for two or three days at a time at the principal halting-places, and enjoying themselves when and where they could. At Tarporley, Tarvin, and Chester the offender was admitted to the houses of his friends, and received visits from some of the more notable of the anti-Royalist faction in the city and county, a procedure which drew down upon him the episcopal wrath—Bridgeman, the Bishop, being greatly scandalised at the idea of the “twice-censured lawyer and stigmatised monster,” as he called him, being entertained in his own cathedral city “by a set of sour factious citizens.” The complaint, it must be admitted, was not without cause, for it seems the mayor and corporation began to waver in their orthodoxy, and became slack in going to hear sermons at the cathedral, so that the energetic prelate “could not have his eye upon their behaviour” as he desired. Whether this was due to the pleasant and moving discourses of Prynne, or that the sermons at the cathedral were too dry and lifeless to suit the tastes of the Cestrians, is not clear, but to remedy the evil Bridgeman had a brand new pulpit erected in the choir, capacious enough for all the canons to preach in at one time, had they been so minded; and, further, ordered all other preachers in the city to end their discourses before those at the cathedral began, in order that the civic authorities might have no excuse for negligence in their attendance on sound doctrine, as delivered within its walls.

The manner in which Bradshaw conducted the prosecution of the Irish rebels evidently gave satisfaction to his employers, and paved the way to his future advancement; certain it is that, after this time, he is frequently found engaged upon the business of the Parliament. When so employed he was not a pleasant person to encounter, as poor old Edmund Shallcross, the rector of Stockport—the parish in which his boyhood was spent—had good reason to know. For the particulars of this little incident in the life of the future judge, affording, as it does, an interesting side glance of the state of religious feeling in Marple when the Bradshaws were all-powerful, we are indebted to the researches of that indefatigable antiquary, Mr. J. P. Earwaker. It seems there had been a dispute of long standing between the Bradshaws and Shallcross on the vexed question of the tithes of Marple, a circumstance that in itself would no doubt be sufficient to satisfy the rector’s Presbyterian neighbours when in authority that he was “scandalous” and “delinquent.” Be that as it may, on the breaking out of the war Shallcross was turned out of his living, and his property, which included an extensive library, was confiscated. He appealed to the Commissioners of Sequestrations, and among the State papers which Mr. Earwaker has lately unearthed is an interesting series of interrogatories relating to persons in Cheshire suspected of delinquency, the following being the answer to those concerning the parson of Stockport:—

Edward Hill, of Stopforth (Stockport), glazier, knew Mr. Shallcrosse, formerly minister at Stopforth, who about the yeare 1641 refused to lett to farme the tythes of Marple to the townsmen of Marple att their own rates, but offered them the same at such rates as was conceived they might well gaine att. And that aboute two yeares after Articles were exhibited against the said Mr. Shallcrosse for delinquency, who thereupon appealed to the Committee of Lords and Commons for sequestracons, and went severall times to London about the same busines, and was once goeing to have the same heard, and had a convoy of horse of the Parliament’s partye, and some of the King’s partye came forth of Dudley Castle, and (he) then was by them slayne. And this deponent further saith that he was servaunt to the said Mr. Shallcrosse for seaven yeares before his death, whoe did acquaint this examinante that hee had found much opposition by Sergeant Bradshawe, whoe then was solicitor for the Commonwealth.

He also saith that the tythes of Stopforth are reputed to be worth 400li. by the yeare or thereabouts, and saith that hee hath heard generally reported that Sir William Brereton had a power invested in him to place or displace such ministers as were scandalous or delinquents. And he further saith that hee believed if the said Mr. Shallcrosse had complied with the desires of the said Mr. Bradshawe and his father and brother, that the said Mr. Shallcrosse would not have been sequestrated.

Bradshaw’s next step in advancement was in 1646, when, on the 6th October, the House of Commons appointed him, in conjunction with Sir Rowland Wandesford and Sir Thomas Bedingfield, Commissioners of the Great Seal for six months, an appointment that was, however, overruled by the House of Lords. From this time his rise was rapid, honours and emoluments seeming to crowd upon him. On the 22nd February following both Houses voted him to the office of Chief Justice of Chester, an appointment that would amply compensate for the disappointment he had experienced in Lord Derby’s previous refusal to bestow on him the vice-chamberlainship of the city. On being relieved of his office as one of the Commissioners of the Great Seal, he was named (March 18, 1647) as one of the judges for Wales, an office he appears to have held conjointly with his post at Chester. Three months later we find him again associated with Prynne, the two, with Serjeant Jermyn and Mr. Solicitor St. John, being appointed by the Parliament to conduct the proceedings against the intrepid Judge Jenkins, who, when impeached of treason before the Commons, not only refused to kneel at the bar of the House, but had the temerity to call the place “a den of thieves.”

On the 12th October, 1648, as we learn from Whitelocke, Parliament, in accordance with a recommendation of the Commissioners of the Seal, ordered a new call of serjeants-at-law, and Bradshaw’s name is found among those then voted to receive the coif.

It has been suggested by a local writer that, in this, Parliament had an ulterior object in view, the purpose of Bradshaw’s promotion being to secure an efficient instrument for conducting the proceedings against the Sovereign, which were then contemplated. This, however, is extremely improbable, for Parliament, it should be remembered, was averse to any extreme measure, and was, in fact, anxious to come to terms with the beaten King, its agents being at the very time engaged in negotiating with him the abortive treaty of Newport. But Cromwell had determined that Charles’s life should be sacrificed, and the will of the army and its guiding genius had become paramount, for a military despotism was already usurping the powers of the State. The breach between the army and Parliament was widening daily, and the great struggle which was to decide the future destinies of England was at hand. The army, flushed with victory, had returned from the destruction of its enemies; conscious of its own power, it demanded vengeance on the “chief delinquent,” as the King was called, and sent an expedition to the Isle of Wight to seize his person, and convey him to Hurst Castle. Meanwhile, the Commons had discussed the concessions made by Charles, and by a majority of 140 to 104 had decided that they “were sufficient grounds for settling the peace of the kingdom.” Scarcely had the vote been recorded when a decisive blow was struck by the army at the independence of Parliament, for on the following morning, Colonel Pride, at the head of his regiment of foot, and accompanied with a regiment of horse, blockaded the doors leading to the House of Commons, and seized in the passage all those members who had been previously marked on a list as hostile or doubtful, and placed them in confinement, none being allowed to enter the House but the most furious and determined of the known friends to “the cause.”[11] The obnoxious element having been thus effectually got rid of, the sword waved openly over the legislative benches, and the army in effect constituted the government. The next day this remnant of the House—the “Rump,” as it was thereafter designated—rescinded the obnoxious vote, and appointed a day of humiliation, selecting Hugh Peters, Caryl, and Marshall to perform the service. The “purge” of the Commons had secured the certainty of concurrence in the wishes of the army, and accordingly, on the 23rd December, a committee was appointed to prepare charges for the impeachment of the King, and on the 28th an ordinance for his trial was read. In order to give their designs some resemblance to the form and principle of law, the House on the 1st January voted “that by the fundamental law of the land, it is treason for the King of England to levy war against the Parliament and kingdom.” This vote, when sent up to the Lords for their concurrence, was rejected without a single dissentient voice, a procedure that led the remnant of the Commons a few weeks later to declare that “the House of Peers was useless and dangerous, and ought to be abolished.” On the 4th January an ordinance was presented for erecting a new High Court of Justice for the trial of the King, which was read the first, second, and third time, assented to, and passed the same day. The Commissioners named in it included all the great officers of the army, four peers, the Speaker, and principal members of the expurgated House of Commons. The twelve judges unanimously refused to be of the commission, declaring its purpose and constitution to be contrary to the principles of English law; Whitelocke, who had received the coif at the same time as Bradshaw and his colleague Widdrington, two of the most eminent lawyers of the time, also refused to sit on the tribunal. The Commissioners met on the 10th, and appointed Bradshaw, who was absent, their president. It would seem to have been originally intended that he should only take a subordinate part in the business, for on the 3rd January the committee had decreed that Serjeants Bradshaw and Nichols, with Mr. Steel, should be “assistants.” Steel acted as Attorney-General, but Nichols could not be prevailed upon to give attendance.

It is not known with certainty whether Bradshaw was aware of the intention to elect him president of the commission for the trial of the King, but it is more than probable he had been informed of what was contemplated, and he certainly cannot be said to have been averse to the office, for undoubtedly he had resolution and courage enough to decline it had he felt so disposed. He attended the court in obedience to the summons on the 12th, and, when called to take the place of president, after asking to be excused, submitted to the order and took his place, whereupon it was ordered, “that John Bradshaw, serjeant-at-law, who is appointed president of this court, should be called by the name and have the title of Lord President, and that as well without as within the said court, during the commission and sitting of the said court.” Clarendon says that “when he was first nominated he seemed much surprised, and very resolute to refuse it; which he did in such a manner, and so much enlarging upon his own want of abilities to undergo so important a charge, that it was very evident he expected to be put to that apology. And when he was pressed with more importunity than could have been used by chance, he required time to consider of it, and said ‘he would then give his final answer,’ which he did the next day, and with great humility accepted the office, which he administered with all the pride, impudence, and superciliousness imaginable.”

PRESIDENT BRADSHAW.

Clarendon was evidently of opinion that he had been previously informed of the position he would be asked to fill, and the “pride” spoken of in the administration of the office was only in accord with that fondness for display to which allusion has already been made. Suddenly raised to a position of pre-eminence as the head of a tribunal wholly unprecedented in the extent and nature of its assumed authority, he was not the man to dispense with any of those outward manifestations which might give dignity and impressiveness to his dread office. He had 20 officers or other gentlemen appointed to attend him as a guard going and returning from Westminster Hall; lodgings were provided for him in New Palace Yard during the sittings of the court; and Sir Henry Mildmay, Mr. Holland, and Mr. Edwards were deputed to see that everything necessary was provided for him. A sword and mace were carried before him by two gentlemen, 21 gentlemen that were near carried each a partizan, and he had in the court 200 soldiers as an additional guard. A chair of crimson velvet was placed for him in the middle of the court, and a desk on which was laid a velvet cushion; many of the commissioners, as Whitelocke says, donned “their best habits,” and the President himself appeared in a scarlet robe, and wearing his celebrated peaked hat, remaining covered when the King was brought before him, though he expressed himself as greatly offended that his Sovereign did not remove his hat while in his presence.

Into the particulars of the trial we do not desire to enter—they are matters which history has made known; nor do we wish to dwell upon the incidents attendant upon it—the calm and dignified demeanour of the ill-starred King; his denial of the authority of the court, and consistent refusal to recognise a power founded on usurpation; the ill-concealed vanity of the judge; the imposing pomp and glitter of the regicidal court; the intrepid loyalty of Lady Fairfax, who startled the commission by her vehement protest when the charge was made, and the scarcely less courageous conduct of her companion, Mrs. Nelson; the rancorous hatred displayed by the King’s accusers; the mockery of proof; the refusal to hear the fallen monarch’s appeal; the revilings of the excited soldiery; the expressions of sympathy of the people; or the brutal blow bestowed upon the poor soldier who ventured to implore a blessing on his Sovereign’s head—all these are recorded and are embalmed in the hearts of the English people. The bloody episode which will for ever darken our national annals was an event without precedent in the world’s history. For the constitution of the court no authority could be found in English law, it was illegal, unconstitutional, and, in its immediate results, dangerous to liberty. Whatever might be the faults of Charles—and they were many—his death was not a political necessity, nor can it be justly said to have been the act of the nation, for the voice of public opinion had never been heard, and therefore the country must be exonerated of any participation by approval or otherwise in the criminality of that unfortunate deed—it was the act of a faction in the House of Commons, acting under the influence of a faction in the army. In this momentous business Bradshaw may have persuaded himself that he was performing a solemn act of duty to his country, but, looked at in the light of after history, that act can only be pronounced a criminal blunder.

Tradition says that the warrant for the King’s execution was signed in Bradshaw’s house[12] at Walton-on-Thames, a building still standing near Church Street in that pleasant little town, though now subdivided into several small tenements, and shorn of much of its ancient splendour—his own signature, of course, appearing first on that well-known document.

Now, after a lapse of more than two centuries, and when the welfare of the throne and the people are identical, we can afford to look back upon the great tragedy in which Bradshaw played so profound a part calmly and without bitterness of spirit. From the anarchy, the foulness of the tyranny of those times, the nation, the Church, and the people have emerged with a firm hold on better things. Prelacy, which had been trampled under foot, and Presbyterianism, which became to Independency much what Prelacy had been to Presbyterianism, have reappeared, but the severe asceticism and religious fervour of the Puritan, and the catholicity and breadth of view of the Churchman have commingled and become elements of the national life, fruitful for good by reason that they no longer come into violent collision with each other.

When Bradshaw had brought his Sovereign to the block, he may be said to have fulfilled the prediction of his early youth, for assuredly he had

Done that

Which all the world did wonder at.

He had accepted an office which sounder lawyers shrank from undertaking, and had entitled himself to the gratitude of those who, by compassing the death of the King, sought to accomplish their own ambitious ends; and it must be admitted that those who benefited by his daring were neither slow nor niggardly in rewarding him for his services to the “cause,” for never was a royal favourite so suddenly raised to a position of power, and wealth, and consequence, and never was monarch more lavish in the favours bestowed upon a courtier than was the newly-appointed Government in doing honour to and enriching its legal chief. The Deanery House at Westminster was given as a residence to him and his heirs, and a sum of £5,000 allowed to procure an equipage suitable to his new sphere of life, and such as the dignity of his office demanded. “The Lord President of the High Court of Justice,” writes Clarendon, “seemed to be the greatest magistrate in England. And, though it was not thought seasonable to make any such declaration, yet some of those whose opinion grew quickly into ordinances, upon several occasions declared that they believed that office was not to be looked upon as necessary pro hac vice only, but for continuance, and that he who executed it deserved to have an ample and liberal estate conferred upon him for ever.”

As his office did not expire with the King’s trial, Parliament on the 6th February allowed him to appoint a deputy to supply his place at Guildhall, where he had sat as judge, and on the 14th of the same month, when Parliament made provision for the exercise of the executive authority by the appointment of a Council of State, he was selected by the House as one of the thirty-eight members. Of this body Bradshaw was chosen president, and his kinsman, John Milton, Latin secretary. At the first meeting (March 10), if we are to believe our old friend Whitelocke, he seemed “but little versed in such business,” and spent much of the time in making long speeches. Two days afterwards he was appointed Chief Justice of Wales, but he did not go there immediately, for on the 20th of the same month he sat again as Lord President of the Council, at whose discussions it would seem he was not disposed to remain a mere passive instrument, for, as Whitelocke remarks, he “spent much of their time in urging his own long arguments, which are inconvenient in State matters.” “His part,” as he adds, “was only to have gathered the sense of the council, and to state the question, not to deliver his own opinion.”

Whatever may have been his demeanour in the council, outside, at least, the duties of his office were discharged with firmness and energy, as the townsmen of Manchester had cause to know. When, in 1642, the town was threatened with an attack by Lord Derby, the Presbyterians had entrusted its defence to Colonel Rosworm, a German engineer, who had been trained in the wars of the Low Countries, and who had agreed to give his services for six months for the modest sum of £30. A faithful and valuable servant he proved, though a provokingly ill-tempered one, for he never ceased to bewail the beggarly remuneration he had agreed to accept, or to rail at the “despicable earthworms,” as he termed those who had offered it. As he refused to sign the national covenant, that not being included in the contract, and being, as he thought, no part of a soldier’s duty, his employers took an irreconcileable hatred against him, and, when the danger was past, repudiated their share of the bargain. Unable to obtain the pittance for which he had risked his life, he left the town in disgust, and repaired to London to lay his grievances before the Government, and implore their interference. As a consequence, the following peremptory letter was addressed to the town by Bradshaw, which no doubt had a salutary effect on the “despicable earthworms,” whom the angry old soldier had charged with being “matchless in their treachery, and setting the devil himself an example of villainy”:—

For the town of Manchester, and particularly for those who contracted with Lieut.-Colonell Roseworme, these are.

Gentlemen,—The condition of the bearer being fully made known, and his former merit attested to us by honourable testimony, and very well known to yourselves, himself also being by birth a stranger, and unable to present his complaints in the ordinary legall forme, give us just occasion to recommend him to you for a thorough performance of what, by your contract and promise, is become due unto him for his speciall service done to your town and country, whereto we conceive there is good cause for you to make an addition, and that there can be no cause at all for your backwardness to pay him what is his due.

As touching that which is otherwise, due to him from the State, after some other greater businesses are over, he may expect to be put in a way to receive all just satisfaction. In the meane time we committ him and the premises to your consideration for his speedy relief, and we doe require you to give us notice of your resolutions and doings herein, within one month after the receipt thereof.

Signed in the name and by order of the Council of State appointed by authority of Parliament.

Jo. Bradshawe, Pr. Sedt. Whitehall, 7th July, 1649.

It must be confessed that the President, with all his “rare modesty” and patriotism, was not so self-denying but that he looked sharply after the main chance. On the 19th June, 1649, Parliament voted him a sum of £1,000, and on the same day ordered that it should be referred to a committee to consider how he was to be put into possession of the value of £2,000 a year, to be settled as an inheritance upon him and his heirs for ever.

Wealth and honours were literally showered upon him, and for a time the history of the Government was little else than a history of Bradshaw. On the 30th June he was re-appointed to the office of Chief Justice of Chester, Humphrey Macworth, of Shrewsbury, who afterwards acted as President of the court-martial which tried Lord Derby, being named as his deputy. On the 15th July a Bill passed through Parliament settling £2,000 a year on him and his heirs, and nine days later (July 24th) another £2,000 per annum was granted to him and them out of the sequestrated estates of the Earl of St Albans at Somerhill, in Kent, and those of Lord Cottington in Wiltshire, the latter including the famous Fonthill. This last-named grant was in all probability the one referred to in the order of June 19, when a committee was ordered to consider how an annual payment of that amount could be settled.

Four days after these grants were made, an Act was passed constituting him Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, an office that subsequently, when others were abolished, was on his account specially retained, and on the 2nd April, 1652, secured to him. His name appears on the list of Justices of the Peace for his native county in 1650; in the same year he was again named of the Council of State, and retained his office of President. The following letter, extracted from the State papers, is interesting as showing the relations existing between Bradshaw and Cromwell, and the estimation in which he was held by the Lord General:—

My Lord,—I return you my humble and heartie thanks for your late noble and friendly letter, whereby I have the comfort and assurance of your lordship’s faire interpretation of my past, and (so I dare call them) well ment actions, which I shall not desyre to account for or justify to any man lyving so soon as to yourself; of whome I shall ever have that esteeme as becomes me to have of one who daylie approves himself religion’s and his countrey’s best friend, and who may justly challenge a tribute of observance from all that syncerely wysh them well, in which number I shall hope ever to be found.

My Lord, I have (’tis true) taken the boldness to write some few letters to you since your late departure hence, and I have satisfaction enough that they were receyved, and are not dyspleasing to you. Your applycation to the gentleman, named in yours, who is of so knowne fytnesse and abylytie to procure you effectuall returnes, was an act, in my apprehension, savouring of your usuall prudence, and tending to the advantage of the publique affayres committed to your trust and care; neither can any wyse man justifie any charge of seeming neglect of others in that respect. I am sorry your lordship hath bene put to any expense of your so pretious tyme, for removing any such doubts; but these my over carefull fryends, who have created your lordship this trouble, have, I must confess, occasyonally contrybuted to my desyred contentment, which is, and ever hath been, synce I had the honour to be knowne unto you, to understand myself to be reteyned and preserved in your good opinion. And if my faithfull endeavours for the publique, and respects unto your lordship in everything wherein I may serve you, may deserve a contynuance thereof, I may not doubt still to find that happiness; and this is all the trouble I shall give your lordship as to that matter.

We are now beginning with a new councell another yeare. I might have hoped, either for love or something els, to have been spared from the charge, but I could not obtaine that favour; and I dare not but submyt, where it is cleare to me that God gives the call. He also will, I hope, give His poore creature some power to act according to His mynd, and to serve Him in all uprightness and syncerytie, in the way wherein He hath placed me to walk.

My Lord, I have no more, but to recommend you and all your great affaires to the guydance, mercy, and goodness of our good God, and to subscrybe myself, in all truth of affection,

Your lordship’s ever to be disposed of Jo. Bradshawe. Whytehall, 18 Feb., 1650.

The customer who wronged Sir James Lidod is ordered to restore and satisfie, and to come up to answer his charge, which, probably, will fall heavy upon him.

For his Excellency the Lord General Cromwell, These.

Bradshaw acted as President of the Council of State in 1651, and again in the year following. So far his success had been uninterrupted, and as the supreme magistrate his power and influence was second only to that of Cromwell himself. His authority was almost absolute. The amiable Evelyn, in his diary, records that he could not witness the burial of Dorislaus, “the villain,” as he writes, “who manag’d the trial against his sacred Majesty,” until “I got a passe from the rebell Bradshaw, then in great power;” and again, when he went to Paris with only “an antiquated passe, it being so difficult to procure one of the rebells without entering into oathes, which I never would do,” and he had to bribe the officials at Dover, he found “money to the searchers and officers was as authentiq as the hand and seale of Bradshawe himselfe,” “where,” he adds, “I had not so much as my trunk open’d.”

The very rapidity with which Bradshaw had attained to power made him a formidable competitor with, if not indeed a dangerous rival to, the man in whose goodwill he had said it was his “desyred contentment” “to be reteyned and preserved;” and there can be little doubt that his boldness and unflinching adherence to the principles he had espoused brought about his own undoing, for it was not long before an incident occurred which for ever alienated Cromwell’s friendship from him. The occasion was one memorable in the annals of England—the dissolution of the Long Parliament, on the 20th April, 1653. Finding the action of the “Rump,” as it was called, inimical to his designs, Cromwell, who seems to have begun to think that government by a single person was desirable, went down to Westminster with a force of 300 men, broke up the House, expelled the members, and, pointing to the mace, directed Col. Worsley—Manchester’s first Parliamentary representative—to “take away that bauble,” which having been done, he ordered the doors to be locked, and then returned to his lodgings at Whitehall. And so, without a struggle or a groan, unpitied and unregretted, the Long Parliament, which for 12 years had under a variety of forms alternately defended and invaded the liberties of the nation, fell by the parricidal hands of its own children.

Bradshaw, refusing to submit in silence to such a daring infringement of the liberties of Parliament, resolved upon taking his place as head of the Council of State the same afternoon, thinking, probably, that his presence might deter Cromwell from committing any further acts of violence; but the Lord General was not to be so easily diverted from his purpose. Taking Lambert and Major-General Harrison with him, he proceeded to the Council, and expelled its members in the same abrupt and arbitrary manner that he had dismissed the Commons. Addressing Bradshaw and those assembled with him, he said,—

Gentlemen, if you are met here as private persons, you shall not be disturbed; but if as a Council of State, this is no place for you; and, since you cannot but know what was done at the House in the morning, so take notice that the Parliament is dissolved.

To which Bradshaw replied,—

Sir, we have heard what you did at the House in the morning, and before many hours all England will hear. But, sir, you are mistaken to think that Parliament is dissolved, for no power under heaven can dissolve them but themselves; therefore, take you notice of that.

The President’s spirited reply cost him Cromwell’s friendship, who, though he continued to treat him with the outward manifestations of respect, ever afterwards regarded him with feelings of distrust. Exasperated though he was, Cromwell must have felt the justice of the rebuke, for in a conference afterwards with his brother-in-law, Desborough, he remarked that his work in clearing the House was not complete until he had got rid of the Council of State, which, he said, “I did in spite of the objection of honest Bradshaw, the President.”

The Republican leaders, indignant at the forcible expulsion of the Rump Parliament, denounced it as an illegal act, which undoubtedly it was, but Cromwell was not the man to be bound by the ordinary laws of constitutional liberty. The miserable remnant of the Parliament, it must be admitted, had become a reproach; it had become supreme through similar unconstitutional violence, and was itself violating its own contract in refusing to vote its own dissolution. The spirit manifested by Bradshaw has been likened to that of an ancient Roman; but whether in the resistance he offered he was influenced by purely patriotic and disinterested motives may be very well questioned, for it must not be forgotten that he had looked with complacency on the illegal and high-handed proceeding which had laid the Parliament at the feet of the army, when that sharp medicine, “Pride’s Purge,” was administered—an act of daring violence by virtue of which alone he held his office and had acquired his wealth.

Up to this time, as we have said, his career had been characterised by uninterrupted success; but the uniform good luck which had hitherto shown what daring could accomplish when upheld by an intelligent head and dauntless heart, now forsook him. Cromwell, who was aiming at arbitrary government in his own person, could not, on finding his authority thus openly disputed by the President of the Council, but have had misgivings that the man who had sufficient resolution to pass sentence of death upon the King might not be unwilling, should occasion arise, to perform the same office upon himself. It became necessary, therefore, for the accomplishment of his plans that Bradshaw’s power should be abridged; and though Parliament, on the 16th September, 1653, enacted that the continuance of the palatinate power of Lancaster should be vested in him, and he was also named one of the interim Council of State that was to meet relative to a settlement of the Government, he was no longer permitted to occupy an office of actual power and authority.

On the 16th December, 1653, Cromwell was inaugurated Lord Protector of the Commonwealth. Bradshaw, who was a thorough Republican, and who certainly had the courage of his convictions, was equally opposed to unlimited power, whether exercised by the King or by the Protector, at once set himself to counteract the authority of his former patron. In the first Parliament of the Protectorate he sat for his native county, but it was only for a very brief period, for scarcely had the representatives of the people assembled than they fell to questioning the Protector’s authority, when Cromwell, after surrounding the House with his guards, administered a corrective in the shape of a declaration promising allegiance to himself, which he required every member to sign, shortly after which he dismissed them unceremoniously to their homes.

For a year and nine months England was left without a Parliament, the supreme power being exercised by the Protector, and every one holding office was required to take out a commission from him. This Bradshaw refused to do, alleging that he held his office of Chief Justice of Chester by a grant from the Parliament of England to continue quamdiu se bene gesserint, and should therefore retain it, though willing to submit to a verdict of twelve Englishmen as to whether he had carried himself with that integrity which his commission exacted; and shortly after this protest he set out on the circuit without any further attempt being made to hinder him. His daring and firmness, as might be expected, widened the breach and still further provoked the anger of Cromwell, who wrote a letter to Major-General Bridge, at Middlewich, requesting that he might be opposed by every means at the approaching election at Chester. By some accident this letter fell into the hands of Bradshaw’s friends, and was publicly read in the city. In spite of this opposition he succeeded in securing his election, but, there being a double return, neither representative took his seat. The Protector had not only used his power against Bradshaw at Chester, but he also succeeded in preventing his election for London, a position he had aspired to.

Cromwell and his Independents had gone beyond the Puritan Republicans, who, joining with the Anabaptists, Fifth Monarchy men, and other fanatics, protested against any earthly sovereignty. Plots for restoring the Commonwealth were rife, and there is good reason to believe that in some of these Bradshaw was implicated; certain it is that he was in correspondence with Okey and Goodgroom, whom he assured that “the Long Parliament, though under a force, was the supreme authority in England.”

The feeling of jealousy and distrust entertained by Cromwell and Bradshaw for each other, though not openly avowed, became evident to all, and Whitelocke says that in November, 1657, “the dislike between them was perceived to increase.” These mutual jealousies were not, however, to be of long continuance, for in less than a year the grave had closed over the object of Bradshaw’s distrust. On the 3rd September, 1658, the anniversary of his victories over the Scots at Dunbar, and the Royalists at Worcester—his “Fortunate Day” as he was wont to call it, Cromwell passed away, and his son and successor, even had he been so disposed, was too weak to continue any very energetic resistance.

On Richard Cromwell’s accession, a new Parliament was called, when Bradshaw was again returned to the House of Commons for Chester. Though he did not scruple to take the oath of fidelity to the new Protector, he, nevertheless, entered into active co-operation with Haslerig, Vane, and other Republicans, in their opposition to the Government. This Parliament came to an end on the 22nd April, 1659, the dissolution having been forced by the officers of the army, and with it Richard Cromwell’s power and authority were gone, and the Protectorate was at an end.

It is about this time that we discover the first indications of Bradshaw’s health failing him. At the Easter assizes, in 1659, he was lying sick in London, and unable to attend the Welsh circuit; and as Thomas Fell, who had been associated with him—the Judge Fell, of Swarthmoor in Furness, whose widow George Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends, afterwards married—had died in September of the previous year, John Ratcliffe, Recorder of Chester, was appointed to act as his deputy pro hac vice tantum.

That anomalous authority, the “Rump,” which the elder Cromwell had so ignominiously expelled from the House of Commons, was, on the 17th May, restored by the same power of the army that, six years previously, it had been dismissed. Six days after, a Council of State was appointed, in which Bradshaw obtained a seat, and was elected president; and on the 3rd June following he was named, with Serjeants Fountain and Tyrrel, a Commissioner of the Great Seal. His health, however, had now seriously given way, and as he had been for some months suffering from “aguish dystemper,” he asked to be relieved of the duties of the office. For the following copy of a letter written at this time, while he was lying sick at Fonthill—one of the few of Bradshaw’s which have escaped destruction—the author is indebted to the courtesy of that industrious labourer in the field of literature, the late Mr. John Timbs, F.S.A., by whom it was transcribed from the original in the possession of Mr. F. Kyffin-Lenthall, a descendant of “Speaker” Lenthall, to whom it was addressed:—

Honourable Sir,—I have, by Mr. Love, a member of this happie P’liament, receyved the Howse’s pleasure touching myself in relation to ye Great Seale, wherein, as I desire wth all humble thankfulnes to acknowledge ye respect and favour done me in honouring me with such a trust, so I should reckon it a great happiness if I were able immediately to answer ye call and personallie attend ye service wch at present I am not, laboring under an aguish dystemper of about 8 months’ continuance; for removing whereof (after much Physicke in vaine) according to advyce on all hands, I have betaken myself to the fresh ayre, and hope (though my fitts have not yet left me) to receive benefit and advantage thereby. And for this I humbly begge ye Parliamts leave and permission, if upon this just occasion they shall not in their wysdome think fit otherwise to dyspence with me. In ye meane time it hath been and is noe small addition to my other afflictions that for want of health it hath not bene in my power according to my Heart’s earnest desire to be serviceable in my poor measure to the publiq. But by ye helpe of God when through his goodnes my strength shal be restored (of wch I despayre not) I shal be most free and willing to serve ye Parliment and Commonwealth in anie capacity and that through dyvine assistance wth all diligence, constancy and faithfulness, and to ye utmost of my power.

Sir, I judged it my dutie to give this account of myself to ye House, and humbly desyre by your hand it may be tendered to them; for whom I daylie praye that God would blesse all their counsels and consultations, and succeede all their unwearyed endevors for ye happie setling and establishment of this latelie languyshing and now revived Commonwealth upon sure and lasting foundations.

Sir, I rest and am Your humble Servant Jo. Bradshawe.
(Fonthi) "ll in Wyltshire
... in 1659
... scentis Respublica, Primo.
(Read June 9, 1659)
For the Right Honble William Lenthall, Speaker
of ye Parliament of the Commonwealth of England. These.

Consider what it is we ask, and consider whether it be not the same thing we have asserted with our lives and fortunes—a Free Parliament. And what a slavery is it to our understandings, that these men that now call themselves a Parliament, should declare it an act of illegality and violence in the late aspiring General Cromwell to dissolve their body in 1653, and not make it the like in the garbling of the whole body of the Parliament from four hundred to forty in 1648? What is this but to act what they condemn in others? A new free Parliament! This is our cry.

On the 1st of August, Sir George Booth appeared in arms, and in a few days was at the head of several thousand men. Through the influence of Mr. Cook, a Presbyterian minister in Chester, he and his troops gained admission to the city. Colonel Lambert, with a well-disciplined force, was sent by the Parliament after them, and an engagement took place at Winnington Bridge, near Northwich, when Sir George and his army—which Adam Martindale likened to “Mahomet’s Angellical Cockes, made up of fire and snow”—were completely routed.

On the return of the victorious army to London a schism broke out between the officers and the Parliament, which was followed by one of those outrages upon the liberties of the Parliament with which the country had become only too painfully familiar. Lambert and his troops surrounded the House, which Lenthall, the Speaker, and the other members were prevented by the soldiery from entering. Bradshaw felt the insult, and, anticipating that the break-up of the House would be followed by the dissolution of the Council of State, went the same day, ill as he was, to the meeting, in the hope that he might serve the cause of the Republic, and when Colonel Sydenham, the member for Dorsetshire, and one of the Committee of Safety, in attempting to justify the arbitrary act of the army by affirming, in the canting phraseology of the day, that “a particular call of the Divine Providence” had necessitated its having recourse to this last remedy, Bradshaw, says Ludlow, “weak and attenuated as he was, yet animated by his ardent zeal and constant affection to the common cause, stood up, and, interrupting him, declared his abhorrence of that detestable action, and told the Council that, being now going to his God, he had not patience to sit there to hear His great name so openly blasphemed.”

This was his last public act—the last office he was permitted to render to the Commonwealth he had so long served, as he said, “with all diligence,” for he passed out of the world a few days after, his death occurring on the 22nd November, 1659, in his 57th year. His remains were deposited with great pomp in the Sanctuary of Kings, from which, however, they were soon to be ignominiously ejected. His funeral sermon was preached by Mr. Row, who took for his text Isaiah lvii., 1. His Republican spirit animated him to the last, for Whitelocke says that, so little did he repent of his conduct towards his Sovereign, that “he declared a little before he left the world, that if the King were to be tried and condemned again, he would be the first man that should do it.”

John Bradshaw married Mary, the daughter of Thomas Marbury, of Marbury, Cheshire, by his first wife Eleanor, daughter of Peter Warburton, of Arley, and he thus connected himself with some of the best families in the county. This lady, who was some years his senior, predeceased him without having borne any issue; and when the President died he had not a child to continue his name or inherit the vast wealth he had accumulated. The closing years of his life were for the most part spent at his pleasant retreat at Walton-on-Thames, of which mention has already been made; and there is very little doubt but that within the wainscotted rooms of that quaint old mansion many and frequent were the consultations touching the fate of England. A popular writer, who visited the house some years ago, in describing it, says that an aged woman, who then occupied a portion of the building, summed up her account of it with the remark that “it was a great house once, but full of wickedness; and no wonder the spirits of its inhabitants troubled the earth to this day.” Though we are not of those who “see visions and dream dreams,” and hold familiar converse with visitants from the world of shadows, we may yet echo the remark of the writer referred to: “It is trite enough to say what tales these walls could tell, but it is impossible to look into them without wishing ‘these walls had tongues.’”

The character of Bradshaw has been variously estimated and depicted in every hue, though it would seem to have been little understood, for his admirers have refused to see any defects in him, while those who abhor his principles have denounced him as a “monster of men.” It does not come within our province to offer any critical opinion on his life and actions—to pronounce upon the purity of his motives or the sincerity of his doings. His cousin Milton, who, however, can hardly be accepted as an impartial witness, has written his eulogy in an eloquent passage in the “Second Defence of the People of England;” and Godwin, in his “History of the Commonwealth,” thus speaks of him:—

An individual who was rising into eminence at this time was John Bradshaw, the kinsman of Milton. He was bred to the profession of the law, and his eloquence is praised by Lilburn. Milton, who seems to have known him thoroughly, speaks of him in the highest terms, as at once a professed lawyer and an admirable speaker, an uncorrupt patriot, a man of firm and entrepid cast of temper, a pleasant companion, most hospitable to his friends, most generous to all who were in need, most peaceable to such as repented of their errors.

The same writer adds: “In December, 1644, he was appointed high sheriff of his native county of Lancashire.” This last statement is an error which has gained currency by frequent repetition. Bradshaw was not a Lancashire man; and his namesake, who held the shrievalty of that county by virtue of the ordinance of the 10th February, 1644, when Parliament, exercising the Royal functions, assumed the powers of the Duke of Lancaster, and who, in contravention of the Act of 28 Edward III., retained it for four successive years, was the head of the line of Bradshaw, in the parish of Bolton, and, therefore, only remotely connected with the Marple stock.

After the Restoration both Houses of Parliament decreed (4th December, 1660) that his body, with those of Cromwell and Ireton, should be exhumed and drawn to the gallows at Tyburn, and there hanged and buried beneath it. Evelyn, in his “Diary,” thus describes the revolting spectacle he saw on the 30th January, the anniversary of the King’s execution, and the “first solemn fast and day of humiliation to deplore the sinns which so long had provok’d God against His afflicted Church and people”:—

This day (O the stupendous and inscrutable judgments of God!) were the carcases of those arch rebells Cromwell, Bradshaw the Judge who condemned his Majestie, and Ireton, sonn-in-law to the Usurper, dragg’d out of their superb tombs in Westminster among the Kings, to Tyburne, and hang’d on the gallows there from nine in the morning till six at night, and then buried under that fatal and ignominious monument in a deepe pitt; thousands of people who had seene them in all their pride being spectators. Looke back at Nov. 22, 1658 (Cromwell’s funeral) and be astonish’d! and feare God and honour the King; but meddle not with them who are given to change.

It has been asserted, though without any apparent authority, that Bradshaw was buried at Annapolis, in America, and Mr. St. John says the following inscription was engraved on a cannon placed at the head of his supposed grave:—

Stranger! ere thou pass, contemplate this cannon, nor regardless behold that near its base lies deposited the dust of John Bradshaw, who, nobly superior to selfish regards, despising alike the pageantry of courtly splendour, the blast of calumny, and the terror of regal vengeance, presided in the illustrious band of heroes and patriots who firmly and openly adjudged Charles Stuart, tyrant of England, to a public and exemplary death, thereby presenting to the amazed world, and transmitting down to applauding ages, the most glorious example of unshaken virtue, love of freedom, and impartial justice ever exhibited in the blood-stained theatre of human action. Oh! reader, pass not on till thou hast blessed his memory, and never, never forget that rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God!

The heads of the three regicides were undoubtedly placed upon Westminster Hall, and Bradshaw’s and Cromwell’s remained fixed on the spikes in 1684, when Sir Thomas Armstrong’s[13] was placed between them.

Among the papers still preserved at Marple is the probate copy of the President’s will, a lengthy abstract of which has been given by Ormerod in his “History of Cheshire.” It bears date March 22, 1653, and there are two codicils appended, dated respectively March 23, 1653, and September 10, 1655. By it he bequeaths to his wife, Mary Bradshaw, all his manors, lands, and hereditaments in Kent and Middlesex for her life, as jointure in lieu of dower; and devises to her, and her executors in case of her decease, his manors, &c., in Kent, for the term of five years, to commence immediately after her decease, with liberty in her lifetime to dispark the park at Somerhill, for her subsistence, and for making provision for her kindred, “God not havinge vouchsafed me issue.” He further devises his manors, &c., in the counties of Berks, Southampton, Wilts, and Somerset, with his reversions in Middlesex, in trust to his friend Peter Brereton, his nephew Peter Newton (the son of his sister Dorothy), and his trustie servant, Thomas Parnell, and their heirs, for the payment of his debts, &c., for the payment of £100 per annum, for ten years after his decease, to his nephew Henry Bradshaw, and £20 per annum to his cousin Katherine Leigh, for life, with further trust to pay £300 per annum to his brother Henry Bradshaw, until the estates settled by the will descend to him; and also to expend £700 in purchasing an annuity for “manteyning a free schoole in Marple, in Cheshire; £500 for increasing the wages of the master and usher of Bunbury schoole; and £500 for amending the wages of the schoolmaster and usher of Midleton schoole, in Lanc’r (in which twoe schooles of Bunb’rie and Midleton I had part of my educac’on, and return this as part of my thanfull acknowledgement for the same). These two sums of £500 to be laid out in purchaseing annuities.” Then follow a number of small bequests—an annuity of £40 for seven years to Samuel Roe, his secretary, for maintaining him at Gray’s Inn, and remunerating his assistance to his executors; £250 to the poor of Fonthill, Stopp, Westminster, and Feltham; a bequest of the impropriation of Feltham, for the use of a proper minister to be established there; an annuity of £20 for providing a minister at Hatch, in Wiltshire, charged on his estate there; legacies to his chaplain, Mr. Parr, Mr. Strong, the preacher at the Abbey, and Mr. Clyve, a Scottish minister; his houses and lodgings at Westminster to the governors of the almshouses and school there; and the residue of the estate to his brother Henry, excepting £100 to his niece Meverell and her sister of the whole blood. The first codicil directs his executors to sell the Hampshire estates and to fell timber not exceeding the value of £2,000 on his estates in the county of Kent for payment of his debts; and the sum of £50 “to my cozen Kath. Leigh who now liveth with me;” and he further bequeaths all his law books, and such divinity, history, and other books as his wife shall judge fit, “to his nephew Harrie Bradshawe.” It may be mentioned that the library thus bequeathed remained at Marple until the close of the last century, when, after having been augmented by later generations of the family, it was sold to Mr. Edwards, of Halifax. Subsequently it was offered for sale by Messrs. Edwards, of Pall Mall, being then catalogued with the library of Mr. N. Wilson, of Pontefract, and those of two deceased antiquaries, the entire collection, according to a writer in the Gentleman’s Magazine (v. lxxxvi., part 1), being more splendid and truly valuable than any which had been previously presented to the curious, and such as “astonished not only the opulent purchasers, but the most experienced and intelligent booksellers of the metropolis.” The second codicil gives to his wife’s assignees seven years’ interest in his Kentish estates after her death, confirms her right to dispark Somerhill, dispose of the deer, and convert the same to the uses of husbandry. It further confirms the Middlesex estates to her for life, and gives her his house at Westminster, held on lease from the governors of the school there, and directs that £1,000 due from the State on account of his office of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and Chief Justice of Chester, Flint, Denbigh, and Montgomery, be applied to discharge his debts. It annuls several legacies, and bequeaths others, among them one of £10 to John Milton; appoints a legacy of £5 each to all his servants living at the time of his decease; and makes several additional legal provisions. The will was proved in London, December 16, 1659, by Henry Bradshaw, the nephew—Mary Bradshaw, the late wife and sole executrix of the testator, being then dead, and Henry Bradshaw, the brother, having renounced execution.

The will is interesting, as showing the extent to which the Lord President had contrived to enrich himself out of the sequestrated estates of obnoxious Royalists during the period of the usurpation. Shortly before the Restoration his nephew Henry was ejected from Fonthill by the heir of Lord Cottington, who recovered possession of his ancestral home; and though he managed to secure a large proportion of the property bequeathed by the will, the benevolent intentions of the testator were in a great measure frustrated by the changes made in the disposition of the estate after the return of Charles II. through the operation of the Act of Confiscation.

Bradshaw makes allusion in his will to the fact that “God had not vouchsafed him issue.” Though no children were born to him by his wife, he is said to have had “an illegitimate son, whose last descendant, Sarah Bradshaw, married, in 1757, Sir Henry Cavendish, ancestor of Lord Waterpark.” In the absence, however, of any substantial evidence, the accuracy of this statement may well be questioned, for we can hardly suppose the testator would have bequeathed so large a property to his nephew, and have made no provision for his own offspring, while permitting him to bear and perpetuate his name. Though the bar sinister was the reverse of an honourable augmentation, the stigma of illegitimacy did not attach so much in those days as now. Sir Henry Cavendish, the ancestor of Lord Waterpark, who was himself descended from an illegitimate son of Henry, the eldest son of Sir William Cavendish, of Chatsworth, by his third wife, the renowned “Bess of Hardwick,” married, August 5, 1757, Sarah (or, according to some authorities, Mary) only child and heiress of Richard Bradshaw, who, during her husband’s lifetime, was, in her own right, created (15th June, 1792) Baroness Waterpark, of Waterpark, in Ireland; and the supposition that John Bradshaw left an illegitimate son seems to rest upon the statement made by Playfair, in his “British Family Antiquities,” and reiterated by Burke, and still more recently in the “Peerage” of Forster, that this lady was “lineally descended from the Lord President Bradshaw.”

Another member of the family employed in the public service during the Commonwealth period was Richard Bradshaw. His name does not appear in any of the pedigrees of the Marple line, nor has his identity been established, though it is very probable he was a nephew of the Lord President’s, and he was certainly present as one of the mourners at his funeral. He held the office for some time of Receiver of the Crown Revenues in Cheshire and North Wales, and was subsequently appointed to the post of English Resident at Hamburg, whence he was transferred to Russia, and other of the northern Courts. A great number of his letters are given in Thurloe’s “State Papers,” and they are especially interesting as showing the care taken to watch the movements of Charles II., and the actions of the European Powers likely to render him assistance in any attempt to recover the throne. In one of these letters addressed on his return to England to Secretary Thurloe, and dated from Axeyard, 1st November, 1658, requesting that the sum of £2,188 0s. 9d. then due to him from the Government might be paid, some curious circumstances are related in connection with his previous official life. He says:—

I am necessitated to acquaint your lordship, that in the yeare 1648, I beinge then receiver of the crowne-revenue in North-wales and Cheshire for the state, and cominge to London to passe accomts, and pay in some money to Mr. Fauconberg the receiver generall, my lodgings in Kinge Street, Westminster, was broake into by theeves the very same day the apprentises riss in London and came down to Whitehall; and £430 was taken fourthe of a trunke in the chamber where I lay. Though it was a tyme of great distraction, yet I used such meanes with the warrants and assistants of Mr. Fauconbridge, as that I found out and apprehended the fellows the next day, in which the messenger, Captain Compton, was assistinge to me, whoe were tryed and condemned at the sessions in the Old Bailey as Compton very well knowes, being the sonnes of persons of note in Covent Garden. The prosecution of them cost me above £100, besides the greatest trouble that ever I had in my life aboute any businesse. But before my accompte could be declared by the commissioners for the revenue, whereon I expected allowance for that money, I was commanded to Hamburg; and now being to settle these accompts in the exchequer, to have out my ultimate discharge thence, I am told that it is not in the power of the lords commissioners for the treasury to give allowance thereof in the way of the exchequer, without a privy seale to pardon that sume. Therefore I humbly request that the £430 so taken may be included in the privy seal with the £3,461 5s. 10d., and then the whole will be £3,891 5s. 10d., which, if your lordship be satisfied with the accompts, I pray that Mr. Milbey or Mr. Moreland may have your lordship’s order to make ready for the seale.

The riot referred to was no doubt that of the 9th of April, when, in disregard of the strict Puritan orders in relation to religious observances, the apprentices were found playing at bowls in Moorfields during church time. They were ordered by the militia guard to disperse, but refused, fought the guard, and held their ground. Being soon after routed by cavalry, they raised the cry of “clubs,” when they were joined by the watermen. The fight lasted through the night, and in the morning they had got possession of Ludgate and Newgate, and had stretched chains across all the great thoroughfares, their cry being “God and King Charles.” The tumult lasted for forty hours, and was not put an end to until they were ridden down by a body of cavalry from Westminster.

In his petition to the Council of State, praying to be paid the full sum of £2,188 11s. 4d., Richard Bradshaw states that he had “suffered the loss of £5,000 in the late wars of this nation, without any reparation for the same, and for above seventeen years freely exposed his life at home and abroad in the service of the State; that the same was disbursed out of his affection to his country, whilst he resided as public minister in foreign parts, and, if not paid, he should be now, at his return, rent from his small estate, it being more than he hath got in the service of the Commonwealth.”

On the 9th March, 1659–60, the Council directed the amount to be paid, and on the 12th his accounts were ordered for that purpose to be laid before Parliament. It does not appear, however, to have been received, for on the 23rd and 31st he is again found petitioning Thurloe on the matter, and in the changes that were then taking place it is doubtful if he ever got anything. Whether, as he feared, he was “rent from his small estate” or not is not recorded, but it is evident that in a pecuniary sense he was not so successful as his kinsman, the Lord President; yet he was a man of much energy and ability, and his letters give an interesting account of the political affairs of foreign Courts at the time. He appears to have been continually short of money through the Government remaining indebted to him, and this fact rather suggests the idea that Cromwell, who had already broken with John Bradshaw, desired to hold him as a kind of hostage, and keep him wherever he chose to place him.

With a portion of the wealth acquired under John Bradshaw’s will, Henry, his nephew, in 1693, purchased Bradshaw Hall, in Lancashire, which, as previously stated, had for many generations been the residence of another branch of the family, that had then become extinct in the male line. It is a singular fact that within a comparatively short period, nearly all, if not all, the branches of the Bradshaw family became extinct in the male line—the Bradshaws of Haigh, of Bradshaw, and of Aspull, in Lancashire; of Bradshaw Edge, and of Barton, in Derbyshire; and finally, as we shall see, of Marple, in Cheshire, the latter by the death of the Lord President’s grand-nephew in 1743.

The subsequent history of the Bradshaws is soon told. Henry, who inherited the patrimonial estates as well as the bulk of his uncle’s property, married Elizabeth (erroneously called Magdalene in Ormerod’s, Forster’s, and Burke’s pedigrees), one of the daughters and co-heirs of Thomas Barcroft, by whom, on the death of her father in 1688, he acquired the demesne of Barcroft, in Whalley parish, Lancashire, with the hall, an ancient mansion dating from the time of Henry VIII. This Henry made considerable additions to Marple, and erected a great portion of the outbuildings, as evidenced by the frequent repetitions of his and his wife’s initials

B
H E
1669

upon the hall and the stables. By his marriage he had three sons, Henry, High Sheriff of Derbyshire in 1701, who had to wife Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Legh, of the East Hall, in High Legh, and died in 1724, without issue; Thomas, who died unmarried in 1743; and John, who predeceased his brother, being also issueless; the estates, on the death of Thomas, devolving upon the only daughter, Mary, who married William Pimlot, and by him had two sons, the eldest of whom, John, succeeded to the estates under a settlement made by his uncle, Thomas Bradshaw, and had issue a daughter and only child, Elizabeth, married to Lindon Evelyn, of Keynsham Court, county Hereford, Esq., M.P. for Dundalk, whose only daughter and heir, Elizabeth, married, December 29th, 1838, Randall Edward Plunkett, Baron Dunsany, elder brother of the present holder of that title.

Mary Pimlot, surviving her husband, again entered the marriage state, her second husband being Nathaniel Isherwood, of Bolton, by whom she had two sons, Nathaniel, who, under his uncle’s settlement, succeeded as heir to the Marple and Bradshaw estates on the death of John Pimlot. He married Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Henry Brabin, of Brabin’s Hall, in Marple, but died without issue in 1765, when the property passed to his younger brother, Thomas Isherwood, who married Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Attercroft, of Gillibrand House, near Blackburn, and by her had a son, who died in infancy, and six daughters. She predeceased her husband; when he married for his second wife Mary, daughter and heir of Thomas Orrell, of Saltersley, in Cheshire. This lady, who died 18th May, 1797, bore him four sons and five daughters. Thomas Bradshaw-Isherwood, the eldest son, succeeded, but died unmarried 5th January, 1791, when the estates passed to Henry Bradshaw-Isherwood, the second son, who also died unmarried January 26, 1801, the Marple and Bradshaw properties then devolving upon his younger brother, John Bradshaw-Isherwood, born 19th June, 1776, who married, at Bolton, October 19, 1812, Elizabeth, eldest daughter and co-heir of the Rev. Thomas Bancroft, M.A., vicar of Bolton. In 1815 he filled the office of Sheriff of Cheshire, and by his wife, who survived him and died 1st April, 1856, he left, in addition to six daughters, a son, Thomas Bradshaw-Isherwood, Esq., the present owner of Marple and Bradshaw, born 10th February, 1820. Mr. Bradshaw-Isherwood, who is a J.P. and D.L. for Cheshire, married 22nd July, 1840, Mary Ellen, eldest surviving daughter of the late Rev. Henry Bellairs, M.A., rector of Bedworth, in Warwickshire, and Hon. Canon of Worcester, one of the heroes of Trafalgar, by his wife Dorothy Parker, daughter and co-heir (with Mary, first wife of John, Earl of Strafford, distinguished for his brilliant services in the battles of the Peninsula and at Waterloo, and Sarah, wife of Captain Carmichael) of Peter Mackenzie, of Grove House, Middlesex, descended from the Mackenzies, barons of Kintail. The issue of this marriage is two sons, John Henry Bradshaw-Isherwood, born 27th August, 1841, who married, in 1864, Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Luce, Esq., formerly member for Malmesbury, and Arthur Salusbury Bradshaw-Isherwood, born 21st May, 1843.

We have said sufficient to establish the claim of Marple to rank among the most interesting of the historic homes of the Palatinate. The building, which is a good example of the early Jacobean period, with considerable additions of late seventeenth century work, has undergone comparatively few changes, having happily escaped those coarse assaults to which so many of our old mansions have been subjected by modern renovators. So little is it altered that it would require no great effort of the imagination to picture the momentous conferences of the chiefs of Cheshire Nonconformity that were held within its walls, or to re-people its sombre apartments with the buff-jerkined, jack-booted, and heavily-accoutred troopers who followed Henry Bradshaw to the field; indeed, we might almost fancy that the very chairs and tables have remained undisturbed during the whole two centuries and more that have elapsed since those eventful days. Of modern furniture there is comparatively little, almost everything the house contains being of an age gone by, and in keeping with its ancient character.

As anything like a detailed description of the interior is beyond the purpose and the limits of this sketch, we shall content ourselves with pointing out the principal apartments and some of the more notable objects they contain. The principal front is on the south side, from which a porch, supported by stone columns, forming the central projection from the house, gives admission to the entrance hall, an apartment 40 feet long and 20 feet wide, lighted at each end by long low mullioned windows. The floor is laid with alternate squares of white stone and black marble, and the ceiling, which is flat, is crossed by massive oaken beams. The want of elevation gives a somewhat gloomy and depressing effect, and this is heightened by the coloured glass in the windows, which further subdues the light. The furniture is of black oak, bright with the rubbings of many generations; and against the walls are disposed suits of mail, morions, corslets, and implements of war that have no doubt done duty in many a well-fought field. On the left of the entrance, leading from the hall, is the library, twenty feet square, lighted on the south side by a mullioned window, filled with stained glass, and having the armorial ensigns of the Bradshaws and their alliances carved upon the wainscot. On the same floor, and adjoining the library, is the dining-room, a spacious apartment, thirty feet by twenty feet, with an oriel window at the north end, commanding an extensive view of the valley of the Goyt and the surrounding country. The walls of this room are hung with portraits, and include several that are said to have been brought from Harden Hall, and to have once belonged to the Alvanley family. Among them is one of Queen Elizabeth, and others representing the Earls of Essex and Leicester, Lord Keeper Coventry, Sir Roger Ascham, and General Monk; there is also a portrait of one of the Dones of Utkinton, hereditary chief foresters of Delamere, and of his wife, who stands by his side. Close by the door, on the right of the entrance hall, is a broad oaken staircase, with decorated balustrades, leading to the upper chambers. The walls are hung with portraits, views, &c., and in one corner we noticed an antique spinning-wheel, the property apparently of some former spinster of the house. The first chamber we enter is a small ante-room, wainscotted, with a fireplace composed of ancient Dutch tiles, above which is a shield, with the arms of the Bradshaws carved in relief, with the date 1665. A flight of circular steps leads from this chamber to the drawing-room, which is immediately over the dining-room, and corresponding with it in dimensions. The walls of this apartment are hung with tapestry of Gobelins manufacture, the subjects being Diana and her Nymphs, and Time and Pleasure. On the same floor is another chamber, now occupied as a bedroom, which is interesting from the circumstance that the black and white timber gable, the only fragment apparently of the original structure remaining, is exposed to view, showing where the projecting bay has been added when the house was enlarged by Henry Bradshaw, the Lord President’s nephew, shortly after the Restoration. Opposite the wainscotted ante-room before referred to is a small tapestried bed-chamber, where tradition says the Lord President first saw the light; and here is the very bed on which, according to the same reputable authority, he slept—an antiquated four-poster, very substantial and very elaborately ornamented, with a cornice round the top, with the following admonitory sentences,[14] in raised capitals, carved on three sides of it, though it is to be feared the Lord President did not study them with much advantage:—

He that is unmerciful, mercy shall miss;

But he shall have mercy that merciful is.

And on the inside:—

Love God and not gold,

Sleep not until U consider how U have spent the time;

If well, thank God; if not, repent.

There were formerly in this room, and may be now, a helmet, breastplate, and pair of spurs that were supposed to have belonged to John Bradshaw, but which are more likely to have been worn by his elder brother Henry, the Parliamentarian soldier. On the window of the same chamber is inscribed the well-known prophetic lines that John is said to have written when a lad attending the Macclesfield Grammar School. On the right of the entrance hall are two small chambers, of comparatively little interest; and adjoining them is the servants’ hall, the most noticeable feature in which is a moulding in stucco, and here also is repeated the family arms—argent, two bendlets sable, between as many martlets of the second; with the crest, a stag at gaze under a vine tree fructed ppr., and the motto, “Bona Benemerenti Benedictio.” A passage in the rear of the house communicates with a door on the north or terrace front, on the lintel of which is carved the date 1658. The outbuildings are extensive. They are partly of stone and partly of brick, and with their quaint gables, pinnacles, and clock tower form a very picturesque grouping. They are commonly supposed to have been erected by “Colonel” Henry Bradshaw, for the accommodation of his Roundhead troopers; but the idea is dispelled by the initials

B
H E

and the date, 1669, which may still be discerned—an evidence that they were erected in more peaceable times by Henry, the Colonel’s son and successor, who, as we have seen, married Elizabeth Barcroft, and became heir to much of his uncle’s wealth. Altogether, the old place is a deeply-interesting memorial of times now happily gone by. Its history is especially instructive, and it is impossible to wander through its antiquated chambers without recalling some of the momentous scenes and incidents in the country’s annals. Happily, evil hands have not fallen upon it. It is preserved with jealous care; and from the few changes it has undergone we gather the idea—always a pleasant one—that here antiquity is reverenced for its worth.

CHAPTER III.
OVER SANDS BY THE CARTMEL SHORE—WRAYSHOLME TOWER—THE LEGEND OF THE LAST WOLF.

In that sequestered tract of country that stretches away from the mountain to the main—from the mouth of the Kent to where the Duddon flows down to join the sea, and extending from the majestic barrier of the Lake country to the silvery shores of Morecambe Bay—the wide estuary that divides the Hundred of Lonsdale and separates the districts of Cartmel and Furness from the other parts of Lancashire—there is a wealth of natural beauty and many an interesting nook undreamt of by the ordinary tourist, who, following in the steps of imitative sight-seers, rushes along the great iron highway to the North, forgetting that the fairest spots in the world are reserved for those who have the wisdom to seek out and earn their pleasures for themselves. In that pleasant corner of Lancashire, mountain and valley, moor and fell, blend together in happy relationship, presenting a panorama of swelling hills, wood-clad knolls, and quiet secluded hamlets within the bright setting of the shimmering sea. It is, as poor John Critchley Prince was wont to sing:—

A realm of mountain, forest-haunt, and fell,

And fertile valleys beautifully lone,

Where fresh and far romantic waters roam,

Singing a song of peace by many a cottage home.

And where—

Only the sound of the distant sea,

As a far-off voice in a dream may be,

Mingles its tale with the woodland tones,

As the sea waves wash o’er the tidal stones.

But it is not for the lover of the picturesque alone that the district offers more than ordinary attractions. There are few localities so rich in records of the past, or surrounded by so many traditional associations. In addition to the magnificent ruins of Furness, there is the scarcely less interesting pile of Cartmel, one of the few priory churches that England now possesses, and which only escaped destruction in the stormy times of the Reformation by the inhabitants literally buying off the King’s Commissioners. On Swarthmoor, “the German baron, bold Martin Swart,” mustered “his merry men” when Lambert Simnel, the pretender to the Crown, landed at Piel, in 1486, an escapade in which we fear “Our Lady of Furness” was not altogether free from implication. Here, too, is Swarthmoor Hall, once the home of Judge Fell; and close by is the modest Quakers’ Chapel, the first built by George Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends. Holker Hall has been for a century and more the home of the Cavendishes, as it was previously of the Lowthers and the Prestons. The little hamlet of Lindale has been made the scene of one of the most charming of Mrs. Gaskell’s stories, and almost within bow-shot is Buck Crag, sheltering beneath which is the humble dwelling that for many a long year was the abode of Edmund Law, the curate and schoolmaster of Staveley, the spot where the younger Edmund Law, Bishop of Carlisle, and father of Lord Ellenborough, first saw the light.

Before the enterprise and skill of Brogden and Brunlees had bridged the estuaries of the Kent and the Leven, and carried the railway from Carnforth to Ulverston, the journey to Whitehaven and the western lakes had to be made across the broad expanse of sand left by each receding tide, and a perilous journey it was. In bygone days the monks of Cartmel maintained a guide, paid him out of “Peter’s Pence,” and, in addition, gave him the benefit of their prayers, which in truth he often needed; and when their house was dissolved, “Bluff King Hal” charged the expenses of the office upon the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster, so that the “Carter,” as he is now called, is an old-established institution. There is no beaten pathway “Over Sands,” for every tide removes the traces of those who have gone before, and the channels are so constantly shifting that what yesterday might be firm and solid to the tread, to-day may be only soft and treacherous pulp. The locality has been oftentimes the scene of mourning and sorrow, and many are the tales that are told of the “hair-breadth ’scapes” of those who have been overtaken by the “cruel crawling tide” while journeying over the perilous waste. The old adage tells us that

The Kent and the Keer

Have parted many a good man and his meear (mare).

GRANGE-OVER-SANDS.

And the registers of Cartmel bear testimony to the fact that, of those who now sleep peacefully in its “God’s Acre,” a hundred and twenty or more have met their fate while crossing the shifty channels of this treacherous shore. The poet Gray, writing in 1767 to Dr. Wharton, relates a pathetic story of a family who were overtaken by a mist when half way across and lost their way; and Edwin Waugh, in his pleasant, gossiping way, tells how an ancient mariner, when asked if the guides were ever lost on the sands, answered with grim naïveté: “I never knew any lost. There’s one or two drowned now and then, but they’re generally found somewhere i’th bed when th’ tide goes out.” When the subjects of the Cæsars had established themselves here, the old Roman General Agricola made a journey “Over Sands,” and the difficulties he encountered are related by Tacitus the historian. Mrs. Hemans braved the dangers, for in one of her letters she says: “I must not omit to tell you that Mr. Wordsworth not only admired our exploit in crossing the Ulverston Sands as a deed of ‘derring do,’ but as a decided proof of taste. The Lake scenery, he says, is never seen to such advantage as after the passage of what he calls its ‘majestic barrier.’” In the old coaching days the journey began at Hest Bank, about three miles from Lancaster, where the guide was usually in waiting to conduct the travellers across, when a mixed cavalcade of horsemen, pedestrians, and vehicles of various kinds was formed, which, following the coach, and headed by the browned and weather-beaten “Carter,” slowly traversed the trackless waste, the incongruous grouping suggesting the idea of an Eastern caravan on its passage across the desert. If nothing else, the journey had the charm of novelty and adventure, which in some degree compensated for the hazard incurred; and the scenes of danger and disaster witnessed have furnished the theme for more than one exciting story, as “Carlyon’s Year” and the “Sexton’s Hero” bear witness. But the romance of the sands is fast passing away. The guides have now comparatively little to do, the perilous path is traversed less and less frequently every year, so that ere long we shall probably only hear of it as a traditional feature of the times when the name of Stephenson was unknown and railways were only in the womb of time.

On the western side of the Milnthorpe Sands, nestling at the foot of the green slopes of Yewbarrow, with its whitened dwellings peeping from their garniture of leaves, and its rock-strewn beach lipped by the capricious sea, is the slowly-rising village of Grange, with its sands and its sea, its pleasant walks and cheerful drives, all sheltered from the north winds by the great Cartmel fells clustering at its back. A place that lures you by the peaceful quietude that prevails, for here Ethiopian serenaders and blind bag-pipers are unknown, and youthful lazzaroni with white mice and pink-eyed guinea pigs are beings the people wot not of. It is not “dressy,” nor is it fashionable in the sense that Scarborough is, so that you can take your ease in your inn without risk of being chilled by the freezing presence of Lord Shingleton or my Lady Marina. The wandering creature who calls himself a tourist, and is always in search of some new sensation, passes it by as slow and unexciting, and the herd of holiday-makers who delight to perform aquatic poses plastiques once a year prefer to do so in such over-crammed places as Southport, or that marine Babylon—Blackpool. Nevertheless, it is a pleasant place to stay at when you have nothing to do, and all the day to do it in; a retreat where you can shake off those fancies associated with everyday life that cloud the brow and spoil the digestion, and get rid of that

Army of phantoms vast and wan

That beleaguer the human soul.

But our present purpose is not to write a description of Grange, for though it is a pleasant place to stay at it is also a pleasant place to go away from—a convenient spot from whence little excursions can be made to neighbouring places of interest and attraction, and this time it is Wraysholme Tower, the ruined home of the once powerful Harringtons, and the rocky promontory of Humphrey Head, where tradition says the last wolf “in England’s spacious realm” was hunted down, that attracts our wandering steps.

As we slowly wend our way towards the upper end of the village, pausing now and then to gaze across the broad expanse of Morecambe Bay to the wooded shores on the Lancaster side, and the great fells that stretch away in rear to join the pale blue hills of Yorkshire, we get sight of an antiquated building with mullioned windows, now half buried in the ground, which in former times served as a granary for the storage of the rich harvests gathered by the fraternity of Cartmel, and hence the name of “Grange” which has been given to the place. At an angle of the road, near the higher end, is the church, erected some twenty years ago through the persevering efforts of a lady resident. Keeping along the level way, we come presently to a cross-road, and, turning sharply to the left, pass the farmhouse where, for generations, the “Carters” have resided. A few minutes’ walk along the railway line brings us to a pleasant indentation in the shore, where Kent’s Bank, a tiny watering place, with a trim hotel and cosy-looking villas, bright with flowers and creeping plants, is striving to rival its more famous neighbour. In a green nook by the sea is a pleasant mansion that occupies the site of a more ancient structure, Abbot Hall, once the abode, as tradition affirms, of the abbots of Cartmel, but, as there were no “abbots” of that house, it is more likely to have belonged to the fraternity of Furness, who, as we know, had lands here granted to them as far back as 1135. Mr. Stockdale, in his Annales Caermoelensis, suggests that it was built for the convenience of the abbot when journeying from Furness to his possessions in Yorkshire. He says:—

No doubt the puisne monarch (the abbot) and his cavalcade would travel, in making these journeys, in a stately, lordly, and ostentatious way, and would pass along the narrow tracks from the (Furness) Abbey to the Red Lane end, at Conishead Bank, with more or less difficulty, and then, entering upon the sea sands, would, in a short time, reach “the Chapel Island,” where, in the little homely chapel, prayers would be earnestly offered up for the safe passage of the remainder of the dangerous, though much the smaller, Morecambe estuary. This needful duty having been performed, the long cavalcade would slowly wend its way over the creeks, gullies, and quicksands, till the opposite bank of the estuary was gained, and then by the old Roman road called now the Back Lane, to the town of Flookborough, and from thence to Allithwaite, and by the very old road up and over the precipitous hill to the abbot’s own comfortable and well-sheltered residence, Abbot Hall.... As there has always been a tradition that there was a chapel near Kirkhead and Abbot Hall—some remains of which, even graves, it is said, existed in the last century—there can but be little doubt that the abbot and his numerous suite would, after their night’s rest at Abbot Hall, resort to this chapel and again pray for a safe passage over the wild and dangerous Lancaster estuary, eight or nine miles in width, not passed at this day, even in the presence of a guide, with entire safety.[15]

A pleasant rural lane leads up from the station at Kent’s Bank to Allithwaite, a little straggling village, the inhabitants of which contrive to earn a scanty livelihood by fishing and “cockling” upon the sands. Steep banks rise on each side, festooned with plumy ferns and wild flowers, crested with spiked thorn-bushes, scrubby hazels, and spreading ash-trees, that wave their shadowy branches overhead. The honeysuckle spreads its delicious perfume around, and as we saunter leisurely along the sunlight glints through the leafy openings, shooting down long arrowy rays, that here brighten with golden touches the gnarled and knotted stem of a sturdy oak, and there light up a churlish bramble, like a woman’s radiant smile reflecting its cheeriness upon some worthless Caliban. On the left is Kirkhead, a lofty knoll, crowned with a prospect tower—Barrow’s summer-house, as it is called—from the summit of which there is a view that well repays the labour of ascent. Wraysholme’s ruined tower, whither we are wending our way, is but a short mile distant, and as we have a long summer afternoon before us, we may wander at our will. Having mounted the breezy hill, we lie down on a cushion of soft grass at the foot of the building to gaze upon the scene, listening the while to the wild bird’s song and the hoarse melody of the fitful sea.

The wide expanse of Morecambe Bay lies before us like an out-stretched panorama, in which every jutting headland, every indentation, and every crease in the green hills can be distinctly traced. Far below us a long stretch of shore runs out; an old boat lies upon its side, chained to a miniature anchor; children are disporting themselves round it, and a few bare-legged fishermen are busy arranging their long nets, for the tide is not yet in, though we can see where the crafty silent sea comes stealing up from the south, each delicate wavelet, as it breaks upon the yellow sand in a white line of surge, creeping nearer and nearer to the beach. The softest of summer breezes plays upon the water, breaking it into innumerable ripples that dance and glitter in the mellow light. Here and there a few cloud shadows fleck the surface. A soft summer haze, like an ocean of white mist, hangs in mid distance, and where it lifts, shows little patches of the blue of heaven beyond. A broad streak of light marks the line of the horizon where sea and sky blend together. A solitary white sail glints in the blaze of sunlight, one or two fishing boats with red-brown sails spot the sea with colour, and far away a long line of black smoke shows where a steamer is rapidly ploughing its way towards the Irish coast. Sheltering in quiet beauty in the little cove below is Kent’s Bank, its buildings, dwarfed by the intervening space, looking like a group of children’s toys. Grange is hidden behind the projecting ridge of rock; but Holme Island, with its pretty little marine temple, stands well out from the shore, like an emerald gem in the flashing waters. Sheltering it from the northern blasts, a range of rugged limestone rocks, all channelled and weather-worn, and fringed with over-lapping trees, is seen; and there, where a few puffs of white smoke gleam brightly against the deep blue of space, a train is bearing its living freight across the broad Milnthorpe Sands. Arnside Knott, with its shady background of wood, thrusts up its huge form as a foil to quiet Silverdale, reposing by its side; then, sweeping round in an irregular circle towards the east, we have an ever-varying shore and an amphitheatre of intersecting hills, now dark with shadow and now gay with the tints of the many-hued vegetation, with Ingleborough and the great Dent Fells far, far beyond, yet, in the pure atmosphere, seeming so near and so clear that we may almost fancy we can see the purple heather blooming upon their sides. Further south, bathed in a flood of sunshine, the battlemented keep of Lancaster Castle comes full in sight, with its frowning gate-tower, through which many an ill-starred wretch has doubtless trembled as he passed, and where, upon its threshold, may be said yet to linger the solemn footprints of mingled innocence and guilt—a stony relic that calls to remembrance “Old John o’ Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster,” and turns back the pages of the Book of Time to the turbulent days which witnessed the fierce forays of the Northern hordes and the still fiercer struggles of the rival Roses; and beyond the Castle, the green knolls rising above the water-line in the direction of Heysham and Sunderland—Cape Famine, as the people call it—looking like so many islands in a sea of silver.

Carrying the eye round to the west, a picture scarcely less beautiful meets the gaze. The low-lying plain on the right—the Wyke,[16] as it is called—has, within living memory, been reclaimed from the hungry sea; and where was once old ocean’s bed there are now lush pastures, and fields of waving grain that give promise of an abundant harvest. Below us, peeping up from a clump of trees, are seen the ruined walls of Wraysholme Tower, where the lordly Harringtons held sway, and with which we shall make more intimate acquaintance by-and-by; and near thereto Humphrey Head, looking like a monster couchant, thrusts its huge form far out from the shore. The little village beyond is Flookborough, and within half a mile is Cark, contiguous to which, half hidden among the umbraged woods, is Holker, the favourite seat of the Duke of Devonshire. Across the Leven sands we get a glimpse of Chapel Island, a little sea-girt solitude, with the crumbling ruins of its ancient sanctuary peeping through the gloom of the overshadowing trees, where, in days of yore, the monks of Furness “their orisons and vespers sung,” and offered prayers “for the safety of the souls of such as crossed the sands with the morning tide.” Almost within bow-shot are the rich woods and glades of Conishead; and further on, the old town of Ulverston can be discerned, with the great rounded hill—the Hoad—in the rear, on which the monument to the memory of its distinguished son, the late Sir John Barrow, stands—