THE STANLEYS—FIRST THREE HUNDRED YEARS. THEY are a strange race
these Stanleys, and not precisely the men which the popular opinion formed during the agitation for the Reform Bill would make them out to be. Strong, brave, and efficient, with marvellous luck in marriage and at Court, they have owed their prosperity in no slight degree to a less winning power, so often and so successfully exerted that we may call it political "divination." They have always foreseen before other men the side which was going to win, and on that side at it moment of supreme triumph the Stanley has usually appeared. The House, now, perhaps, the greatest among our Parliamentary families, the only one which in modern days has seated father and son at the same time in the Cabinet, now comprehends one baronetcy—Massey- Stanley of Hooton in Cheshire, representing the eldest branch—and two peerages, the Earldom of Derby of Knowsley in Lancashire, and the Barony of Stanley of Alderley in Cheshire ; besides inferior branches at Dalgarth in Cumberland, in Staffordshire, Sussex, Kent, and Hertfordshire. The history of the Knowsley branch, the wily one with which we have now to deal, commences properly with Sir John Stanley, who was born in the twenty-eighth year of Edward HI., and died in the very beginning of the reign of Henry V. He represented indirectly or claimed to represent Adam de Audley, who in the reign of Henry I. held Reveney in Cumberland, and whose grandson William ob- taining by a family arrangement the manor of Stoneleigh or Stanleigh in Staffordshire, adopted the name of Stanley. His son obtaining by marriage the manor of Stourton and bailiwick of Wyrrel Forest in Cheshire—the family were, as we shall see, as lucky in their marriages as the Hapsburgs—assumed the arms still borne by the ennobled House. Of his two grandsons, again, the younger is the ancestor of the Cumberland Stanleys, and their off- shoots in the south of England ; the elder of the Stanleys of Hooton and the Knowsley race. Sir John Stanley, founder of the latter branch, inherited the old seat of Newton in Afaccles- field, Cheshire, and marrying Isabella, heiress of Sir Thomas Lathom, whose ancestress again had been heiress of Thomas de Knowsley, became master of the estates around which his de- scendants' princely property has accreted. The rise of Sir John Stanley, a cool, shrewd, and efficient man, during the reign of Richard II. was unusually rapid. In 1385 he was Lord Deputy of Ireland, obtaining in that capacity a grant of the manor of Blake Castle, in that kingdom, in 1399 first Lord Justice and then Lord Lieutenant. Between these last two appointments occurred the revolution which seated the House of Lancaster, and the first of those political " transactions" which enriched the House of Stanley. Sir John accompanied King Richard on his return from Ireland to Wales, and was in Conway Castle with him when Bolingbroke and the Percy approached in their successful career, but foresaw the catastrophe, and at once hastened to join Henry. As his reward he returned to Ireland as Lord Lieutenant under the new king, and on his return, after two years' service, his brother Sir William remained as his deputy. In the year 1405 the revolt of the Percies gave him an opportunity of rising still further. He was commissioned with Roger Lake to secure the city of York and the Isle of Man, succeeded, and in the following year 1406 the Isle of Man, taken from the Percies, was given to him, at first for life but afterwards in perpetuity, to be held of the king by homage, and the presentation of two falcons on coronation days. By this grant the Stanleys obtained an absolute jurisdiction over the people and the soil—a hundred and eighty thousand acres —and became, with the exception of a few baronies, immediate land- lords of every estate in the island— a semi-regal position which they retained till 1765, when Charlotte Duchess of Athol and a Stanley sold the royalty to the Crown for 70,000/. The authority exercised there, and which was very different in degree if not in kind from that of an ordinary feudal lord, affected the character of the House, and perhaps justified in their own eyes their habit of making alliances with their kings rather than keeping fealty to them. Besides this magnificent grant, Sir John was custodian of endless royal palaces and parks and castles, and in the first year of Henry V. was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland for six years, with almost regal powers. He landed in Ireland once more in October, 1413, but died in the following January, having during his long life raised his family from simple country gentlemen to the head of the lesser baronage. His second son, Sir Thomas, founded the Stanleys of Pipe, in Staffordshire, and the elder, again a Sir John, was Knight of the Shire for Lancaster, Constable of Caernarvon Castle, and Justice of Chester. He died in 1431, and his son, Thomas, after serving as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, emerged from among the country gentry as Lord Stanley. He also died in 1459, and from his third son, Sir John Stanley, who married the heiress of Sir Thomas Weever, of Weever, in Cheshire, the Stanleys of Alderley are de- scended. This first Lord Stanley was supposed to be an adherent of the House of Lancaster, but from first to last, throughout the Wars of the Roses, the House fought for its own hand, changed sides at its own discretion, and usually received an enormous reward for its farsighted adhesions. They always, however, staunchly protected their own people, and throughout that fright- ful period no battle was ever fought in Lancashire, neither side caring to make a deadly enemy of a family whom the people would always follow. Sir William, indeed, second son of the first Lord, managed to get himaelf attainted by the Lancashire Parliament called after the battle of Ludlow; but the elder- son Thomas ran a career of successful faithlessness almost without a parallel in English history. His sister's husband, Sir Richard Molyneux, of Sefton (ancestor of the Earls of Sefton), fell fighting at Bloreheath on the Lancastrian side, but Lord Stanley himself had married a daughter of the Earl of Salisbury, who commanded the Yorkists in that battle, and sister of Warwick the KingmakeiLand fell, therefore, under sus- picion of the Lancastrians. The Comnions framed articles against him in the Parliament of 1459, which record a line of conduct so precisely like that he afterwards pursued that the accusations may be accepted as substantially true. He seems to have declined summoning his tenantry till the last moment, sending excuses of every kind. - When at last he took the field, he halted his men- 2,000 in number (he increased that by and bye) six miles short of Bloreheath, where he remained during the engagement and three- days afterwards, and then excusing himself to Margaret, marched home again with unbroken array. The night after the battle he wrote to the Earl of Salisbly (commander-in-chief of the enemy),. "thanking God for the good speed of the said Earl," which wan natural to his father-in-law, "trusting in God he should be with the Earl. in another place to stand him in as good stead as- he should have done had he been there," i. e., at Bloreheath, which was treasdn!' He appears, moreover, to have givers Salisbury private assurance of his friendly feeling, and coun- tenanced his tenants ins.rng under his brother on the Yorkist side. Still, so powerful was Lord Stanley, or so open did he seem to both parties, that the King ....Was advised to reject the Commons impeachment with "Le Roy s'avisera." The battle- of Northampton which followed in July restored the Yorkist fortunes, and we read that Queen Margaret and her son were nearly taken near Chester in their flight by a retainer of Knowsley.. Lord Stanley accordingly appeared as a Yorkist when Edward ascended the throne in 1461, but contrived to keep neutral between the factions into which the dominant party split. He married his son George to the heiress of Lord Strange, of Knockyn, Salop, whose wife was a sister of Elizabeth Woodville, but held aloof from the Woodville party, the new people Edward was trying to build up.. When Warwick and Clarence revolted they had strong hope of Stanley's aid, and when Lord Welles was defeated and Warwick compelled to fall back, the applications became urgent. The wily chief, however, looked to his own interest, and never struck a blow either for Warwick or Edward, tic& no share in hastening- Edward's flight to the Continent, brought o aid to his gallant return, but on the re-accession of Edward in 1471 re-appeared at Court as the sovereign's right hand. He then struck the- boldest and most adroit stroke of his whole life. Still nominally a Yorkist, he married as second wife the Countess of Rich- mond, mother of Henry Tudor, the new Lancastrian chief,. and thus guaranteed himself on both sides. On the fall of the Woodvilles, he formed a sort of alliance with Lord Hastings, and with him the two Archbishops and Bishop Morton formed a kind of neutral junta, apart from Richard of Glou- cester's, at Crosby Hall. Nothing, however, ever deceived hig scent. He divined that Richard would strike Hastings, warned him of his danger by relating a dream of a boar who had grazed both their shoulders ; and in the violent scene when Hastings was arrested and hurried to execution, Lord Stanley also. was arrested and committed to the Tower. Here he was visited by Richard, who freed him and made him Lord Steward and Con- stable of England for life—and when the revolt of Buckingham ex- posed the treason of the Countess of Richmond, remitted the death penalty on her for her husband's sake, and specially ordered that the forfeiture ordered of her property should not be allowed to damage the interests of the Lord Stanley. Even in Ya.nuary, 1485, when Richmond's invasion was expected, Richard appointed Lord Stanley with his brother William and his son George to the command of the forces raised in Cheshire to oppose the invaders.. Yet at this very moment Lord Stanley was pledged to Richmond's cause, and as Steward of the Household was sending him informa- tion of all Richard's plans. As the time drew near, how- ever, he shrank from the charge of the Wild Boar, and retired to Cheshire, leaving his son George, created Lord Strange, as. his hostage. When Richmond landed Richard summoned Lord Stanley to his side, but he pleaded sweating sickness, and his son made an unsuccessful effort to escape. He was captured, and confessed his father's treason, and prayed for mercy, pledging him-
self that the Stanleys should abandon their designs, and Richard, who did not want to make the father an inveterate enemy, con- tented himself with placing the son under ward. At last the oppos- ing parties arrived at Bosworth, Richard with 23,000 men, Rich- mond with only 5,000. Of the 23,000 no less than 8,000 obeyed the Stanleys, 5,000 under the noble on the right and 3,000 under Sir William on the left flank of the army. Lord Stanley, as Rich- mond's men dashed to their first great charge, threw off his dis- guise and charged boldly against his master on his stepson's side. The royal army recoiled, but a desperate charge, headed by Richard himself, who, hunchback or none, was the first general of that age, restored the day, and Richmond might have been lost, when Sir William Stanley on the left also threw off his disguise, and with a final assault of his fresh troops left Richard dead on the field. The crown was hewn from his helmet, and Sir William, amidst the shouts of the army, placed it upon the victor's head, ending in the act, though he knew it not, the Wars of the Roses, the Plantagenet line, and the power of the feudal barons. Henry was not ungrate- ful. On the 27th October in the same year Lord Stanley was created Earl of Derby, confirmed Lord Steward and Lord High Constable for life, and died in 1504, the one baron who survived the Wars of the Roses with added power and splendour. His otig,inally great possessions had been swollen throughout his life by enormous royal grants. Early in his reign Henry VII. gave him almost all the estates forfeited in the north, and thus he acquired (after the battle of Stoke, in 1487), the estates of Sir Thomas Broughton of Brough- ton, of Sir James Harrington of Ilornby, of Francis Viscount Love!, of Sir Thomas Pilkington, and what Sir Thomas had in right of his lady, the heiress of Chetham. From this Sir Thomas Pilkington came all the Stanley property in Salford hundred. The Earl had also the estates of Pooton of Pooton, Bythom of Bythom, and Newby of Kirkby, in Lancashire, "with at least twenty gentlemen's estates more." A record in the Duchy Office, in enumerating these estates, mentions Holland, Nether Kelleth, Haleswood, Samlesbury, Pilkington, Bury, Chetham, Chetewood, Halliwall, Broughton in Fumes, Boulton in Furness, Underworth, Shuttleworth, Shippelbotham, Middleton, Overesfield, Smithells, Selbethwaite, Tottington, Elleslake, Urswick, and many others for- feited by attainder. He had also a grant from the King, in 1489, of Burford St. Martyn in Wiltshire. Before, hoer, the Earl terminated his prosperous career he had to witness in silence a tragedy in his family which must have shaken even his equanimity. The career of his brother Sir William Stanley, whose chief estates were Holt Castle in Denbighshire and Ridley in Cheshire, had been, except in one point, as prosperous as his own. At the com- mencement of the reign of Edward IV.—as a reward for espousing openly the Yorkist side—he was made Chamberlain of Cheshire, and by Richard III. Justice of North Wales. During the reign of the latter King he received from the royal demesne lands an immense grant in Cheshire and Wales, stretching to Shropshire, chiefly as a royal bounty, but partly in exchange for money and other manors, and in the fourth of Henry VII. this grant was confirmed by act of Parliament to him and his heirs. He was also made Chancellor of the Exchequer and a Knight of the Garter. Lord Bacon says, he was "the richest subject for value in the kingdom," having in his castle of Holt "40,000 marks in ready money and plate, besides jewels, household stuff, stocks upon the ground, and other personal estate exceeding great. And for his revenue in land and fee it was 3,000/. a year old rent, a great matter in those times."
But he was not like his elder brother made a peer, and it was said he had solicited and been refused the great Earldom of Chester. Some said that Henry coveted his great wealth—but be the excuse what it may, during the Perkin-Warbeck affair, Sir Robert Clifford, who had turned informer against the adherents of Warbeck, accused Sir William Stanley of being in league with the pretender, and instanced his saying to him, "That if he were sure that Perkin Warbeck was King Edward's son he would never bear arms against him." The King appeared astonished at the accusation, and cautioned Sir Robert, who, however, persisted in his charge. The next day Sir William was himself examined before the Lords of the Council, when it is said he neither denied nor attempted to extenuate his guilt. Henry probably seized the opportunity of striking a blow at the Stanleys, which would intimidate the Earl from following his brother's example, without the awkwardness and danger of a direct attack on the husband of his own mother and the powerful head of the county of Lancaster. No intercession availed to save Sir William, and six weeks after the time when the accusation was preferred he was arraigned of high treason, found guilty, and on the 16th of February, 1495, was beheaded as a traitor. His granddaughter
carried his blood into the family of the Breretons of Malpas in Cheshire, whose head during the Civil Wars of Charles L's time took the lead in those parts against the Stanleys. It was, perhaps, to ascertain by personal observation how the Earl bore the death of his brother, that King Henry in the summer of the same year "did make his progress into Lancashire, there to make merry with his mother the Countess of Derby, who then lay at Lathom in the country." And Kennett tells us "a notable tradition, still believed, how Henry, after a view of Lathom, was conducted by the Earl to the top of the leads for a prospect of the country. The Earl's fool was in company, who, observ- ing the King draw near to the edge of the leads not guarded with banisters, he stepped up to the Earl, and point- ing down the precipice said, Tom, remember Will ! ' The King understood the meaning, and made all haste downstairs and out of the house, and the fool long after seemed mightily concerned that his lord had not courage to take the opportunity of revenging himself for the death of his brother." This was, then, the old splendid Lathom House as built by the Lathoms. The Earl's eldest son, Lord Strange, preceded him to the grave. His principal act of historical interest after his narrow escape from Richard's heavy bands, and before his death in 1497, was his gallantry at the battle of Stoke, where he was one of the commanders under Henry VII. against De la Pole, Earl of Lincoln. This led to his grants of some of the forfeited lands which we have enumerated to his father the Earl. Lord Strange himself had also a grant in the fourth of Henry VII. of the manors of Hasilbeare, West Ludford, and Blackdon in Somersetshire. His younger brother, Sir Edward Stanley, who lived at Hornby Castle, in Lancashire, won great glory for the House of Stanley at Flodden Field (September 9, 1513), harassing the Scots so much, it is said, by his archers, that they abandoned their advantageous position on the hill, and breaking their ranks in descending, exposed themselves to the disastrous defeat which followed. This is the Stanley of "On, Stanley, on !" The story is that it was in reference to this hill exploit and to the crest of the Stanleys that Sir Edward was created by Henry VIII. Baron Monteagle. His grandson the third Lord Monteagle left an only child, a daughter, who married Edward Parker Lord Morley, and their son William Lord Morley and Monteagle was the lord to whom the celebrated Gunpowder Plot letter was addressed in the beginning of the reign of James I.
George, fi rst Lord Strange, left three sons, of the youngest of whom, Sir James Stanley of Croshall, Lancashire, the present Earl of Derby isthe lineal descendant, tracing thus an unbroken matedescent back to a man who was great under Henry 1.—a rare pedigree of seven hundred and eighty years, surpassed in England by scarcely any noble of the first class, and in Europe by very few. This, however, is anticipating. In three hundred years the family had reached by fortunate alliances, rare policy, and great tact in conciliating all under their power, a position which brought them close in blood and in power to the Royal House itself, and but for the great qualities of the new line, one with which no noble contended successfully for a month, they might have gone even higher.
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