DERBYSHIRE OLD HALLS.

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This extract is taken from the book Old Halls of Derbyshire. Page 232.(Buxton library).

Wheston Hall.  Book mark to the mention of Marchington this page

Are there no vestiges left? Are even the spots unknown where the Tideswell residences of the Daniels, Meverells, and Foljambes stood? These families had acquired a provincial celebrity.

while this ilk was a berewick of Hope. In deed, the Daniels were Lords of the Manor (in soccage, if not in capite), before parochial dignity was attained; the Foljambes were knights of the shire, and the Meverells " were a very ancient house of gentlemen." The last of the Tideswell Foljambes had a grandfather who acquired Walton, yet there is no difficulty in tracing the actual position of his homestead; the Meverells were of Trowley, in Staffordshire, as far back as King John (1203), yet the actual spot on which their Trowley Hall stood is known, but we search Tideswell in vain (less the Church with its brasses and monuments to their memory) to find even the probable site of their Peak domicile. We are by no means satisfied that all vestiges are gone. Within this parish there are the two Manors of Wormhill and Litton. The ancestorial Peak homestead of the Foljambes was at Wormhill! its position is a myth; the Daniels were particular favourites of King John, for the Hundred Rolls say that he gave them Taddington, Buxton, and Priestcliffe " for five marks, to be paid annually at the Peak Castle," but whether these lords of Tideswell lived within their lordship cannot be dug out. With the knightly house of Lytton the case is different : Some seven or eight years ago their Hall, which they disposed of in 1597, and in which the Apostle of the Peak was born, was standing, and would be yet, but The despicable taste of these days replaced it by a structure of nondescript architecture we have long been convinced that around Tideswell there are vestiges of historic mansions once held by the Foljambes or other famous families; no doubt with every trace of their splendour gone, with every indignity heaped upon them possible, with all recognition effaced by modem additions and appearances. Among the public-houses of Tideswell our assumption may yet be verified. Not so far from the Church there is an edifice-rude and dishonoured with some slight evidence of Gothic workmanship, with traces, anyway, of an architecture prior to Elizabethan. It is still designated (although now used as a cowhouse) as the Old Hall. Tradition has it that it was the Hall of the Guild, which the Foljambes founded in the reigns of Edward 111. and Richard 11.

The history of the descent of the Manor of Tideswell yet remains to be written, says Dr. Cox True, but will the compilers face it? Do not even the Hundred Rolls and other national records contradict each other as to its possession? At the Survey it was Royal Demesne, and afterwards given to the Peverells. " King John gave the Manor of Tiddeswell," says the Hundred Rolls ( 1274), " to Thomas de Lameley, from him it descended to Monechias, his son, who had two daughters, one of whom died without issue ; the other, Paulina, married De Paunton, who held all the manor. He afterwards sold it to Richard Daniel, and from him it descended to John Daniel, who is the present owner" Now Lysons, whose facts are taken from the Chart : Rot : and De Warranto, says " King John granted it in 12O5 to Thomas Armiger and his heirs. It is probable that it passed by female descent to the Bramptons, who had the grant of a market in 1250. The Daniels, to whom the manor was confirmed by King Edward 1.,in 1304 are stated to have been the representatives of Thomas Armiger, above mentioned." The assertions of Lysons have been recapitulated by Dr. Cox. Were Thomas Armiger and Thomas de Lameley the same person? Was the manor in moieties from the bequest of John until it came to the Meverells? The Bramptons and De Paunton could have held together, particularly if Brampton Was the husband of Paulina's sister. Whether the Daniels purchased or succeeded by heiress is of little importance, they were lords of Tideswell, The last of the Daniels had three daughters, co-heiresses, Elizabeth, the wife of Thomas Meverell; Catherine, married to Reginald de Marchington; and Johanna, who espoused John de Turvill. Some half century later we find the Stafford’s, of Eyam, in possession, for it was confirmed to them by Richard ll. in 1377. We are told they held from being the representatives of the Marchington's and Turvill's. But in spite of the confirmation of Richard ll. to the Staffords, which makes it appear that this family were the entire lords, there is no getting over the fact that the Meverells were quietly, holdling their third, and never once let it go. In the sixteenth century the Stafford’s passed way, and their moieties of Tideswell passed to the Meverells by gift or purchase. The Meverells were located at Tideswell for four hundred years. They had another residence at Trowley Staffordshire, and old Erdeswick, the historian, says of them that they were the best sort of gentlemen in the shire.' Fifth in descent from Thomas, who mated with Elizabeth Daniel, was that famous knight who fought under the Duke of Bedford, in France, taking part in eleven battles in two years, among which was the emorable defeat of this nobleman by Joan of Arc before the walls of Orleans. Particulars of this family are to be found in the history of Staffordshire, by. Erdeswick, while Mr. Sleigh has given us a pedigree in his Leek. There is a little gossip of this family of some interest in Dugdale' s Visitation: One of the girls of this old house (Dorothy), in the time of Henry Vlll., married John Barlow, of Stoke Hall; her brother Francis espoused Anne, daughter of Sir John Denham; her nephew. George married Constance Allen, of Whetstone (Wheston) Hall, and had two sons, Francis and Otwell. From the Visitation of London, by St. George, 1633-4, we learn that Otwell became a London physician, and we have to thank the Visitation for the Christian name of the physician's mother, for it is wanting where we should expect to find it. The elder brother of George Meverell was Sampson, whose second son, Robert, purchased the family estates. Of the union of, Robert with Elizabeth Heminge, daughter of the Lord Chief Justice of England, there was one daughter, who took Tideswell in her dowry to Thomas, Lord Cromwell, afterwards Earl of Ardglass. This nobleman was fourth in descent from the Chancellor of Henry V'LLI, that strange, dark, questionable man, whose father was a blacksmith, whose name is inseparabley linked with the spoliation of the monasteries; whose brain framed that diabolical statute by which a man could be found guilty. without being heard in his own defence, and very justly was the first to perish by his own enactment; whose memory is execrated by the Catholic and cherished by. the Protestant, while with his last breath he asserted his adherence to the Church he had done so much to destroy. His early. career is a mystery for in turn he beca1me soldier, clerk, fuller, lawyer, a commissioner of Wolsey's ready for the performance of any dirty work, and yet competant to become Chancellor of England. One thing, we all owe him a debt of gratitude, for the conception was his, and the law was his, that every marriage, christening, and burial should be registered. He was the combination of a great statesman and a dastardly miscreant.

Thomas, Lord Cromwell, who married the heiress of the senior Meverells, was created Viscount Lecale in 1624, and Earl of Ardglass in 1645. He wwas a Royalist of no mean order, and yet the fast friend of Essex, the Parliamentary General. The Manor of Tideswell was sold to the Eyres of Highlow. in 1654, and in 1802 became the property of the Duke of Devonshire. The junior line of the Meverells was of Tideswell long after the Restoration, for it was Cromwell Meverell of that ilk who became bail for Henry Bradshaw when tried by the House of Lords in 1661. The wife of Cromwell Meverell was Barbara Bradshaw, of Marple.

Although the Manor of Litton was with the Peverells, we believe that the family of Lytton was very early in possession. They disposed of it to John Alsop in 1597, who passed it to the Bagshawes in 1606, who sold it to the Bradshaws in 1620, who conveyed it to the Uptons in 1686, who were succeeded by the Stathams in 1707. It is now with the Curzons, Earls Scarsdale. The Lyttons, of Litton, were forest officials in the reign of Henry lV -agisters of the forest. Sir Robert was Comptroller of the Royal Household, and Receiver-General of the Queen's rent in her Manor of High Peak. His son, Robert, a Knight of the Bath, was Treasurer of the Exchequer, and purchased Knebworth from the Bourchiers. Burke makes this gentleman marry Elizabeth Andrews, of Weston, Norfolk, while the brass in Tideswell Church says quite a different thing. We believe, however, that both Burke and the brass are right, but there is an omission in the pedigree, for the Treasurer. was at the, Court of Henry VII., which could not be very well. We submit that the Comptroller was grandfather of the Treasurer. The Lyttons were Knights of the Bath, Sheriffs, and Members of Parliament for generations. The last of the Lyttons died in 1705, when the heiress married with the Strodes, whose heiress mated with the Robinsons, whose heiress espoused William Warburton, whose heiress became the wife of W. Earle Bulwer. Thus the present Earl Lytton is somewhat removed from the old lords of Litton, whose ashes lie in Tideswell Church. Among the Melbourne Papers there is a letter written by William Wright, of Longstone, to Mr. Timothy Pusey, under date of August 6, 1634, which relates to some of the Lytton families of this period .-

"As I went by Chatsworth I heard that Joseph Tracy and Ralph Atkinson had some speeches with one Robert Naule, a blacksmith in Litton, concerning the tumult of the miners . . . John Mutchell told him (Naule) that Thomas Allsopp writ that Mutchell and R Sellers should acquaint all the miners that they should make themselves ready to go meet the Kings Majesty on Thursday following. Naule writ letters to several towns and Mutchell sent them away to those places. . . . This day I have spoken with Mr. Mellor, minister of Taddington . .I certainly suppose the beginning was with Mr. Allsopp. . . Let Mutchell be deeply questioned. . . Now I hear that they have retained one Mr. Noble, and that he adviseth them to send back all the miners from Nottinghanm but two or three, and he will prefer their petition to the Kings Majesty. Others report the miners' wives that are imprisoned will petition the Queen's Majesty. . . . They would come by my Lord D’Eyncourt and agree with him for the tithe of fourpence the load. . . William Bagshawe, upon his imprisonment, writ a letter from Derby of the causes thereof, which letter was openly read upon Sunday last after evening prayer at the Cross, in Tideswell, and thereupon the miners came forward upon Monday towards Nottingham. . . . All is hurly burly here, and few or none of the miners work, but come up and down about these matters. God send it once settled in a good way."

The Stathams of Tideswell and Wheston are said to have been a branch of the Stathams of Miorley'. The assertion is on the monument to Thomas Statham in Tideswell Church, which is to be hoped is more accurate than others that follow. Three of the family-, says the monument-Sir John, Sir Nicholas, and Sir Robert-were judges. There is only record of Nicholas, and he had simply a judgeship in reversion, to which he never succeeded. he was of Lincoln's Inn, however, and apparently the first man to attempt to report the law cases. Thomas, of Tideswell, married Barbara Meverell, and was the son of the loyalist of Tansley. England is justly proud of those old cavaliers, whose loyalty and sacrifice lend to the history of the Great Rebellion its features of chivalry, and among those cavaliers the Stathams were conspicuous for their fidelity and military exploits. Lodge, in his Illustrations of British History, gives us a peep into an episode of the Foljambes which he gathered from the Talbot Papers, and is exceedingly pathetic, as it shews poor Lady. Constance being cruelly persecuted for religious belief for a period of more than thirty years. She was a Littleton, of Pillaton, in Staffordshire, and espoused Sir James Foljambe in 1540. The knight's first wife was Alice, heiress of William Fitzwilliam, Earl of Southampton, who brought him Steeton and Aldwick. He died, however, in 1558, leaving Lady Constance a widow in the very year that Elizabeth came to the Throne. She was numbered among the Derbyshire recusants, and eventually all her property was appropriated; she became utterly destitute, without any means of living, or goods or chattels, and only owing to the Earl of Shrewsbury (which is certainly a good mark to him) was she allowed her liberty. Ties of blood at this time apparently went for nothing, as to wit, Francis Leake, who was her relative, wrote to the Earl, February 2nd, 1587 :-

"I was likewise this day at Tupton, where I found the Lady Constance Foljambe. . . I did impart to Lady Foljambe my comnmission to commit her to the charge of my cousin Foljambe. Her answer was that she was by age and sickness of the stone not able to travel, either on horse or foot, and so desired me to let your lordship know; whereupon she as yet remaineth at Tupton, till your pleasure be further known."

A fortnight afterwards this cousin Foljambe (Sir Geoffrey, the old lady's own step-grandson) addressed the Earl :-

" Having received your Honour's letters, directed unto me and my cousin Leake, for the apprehension and committing divers Papist recusants mentioned in the same letter, 1 have accordingly apprehended the Lady Constance Foljammbe, my grandmother, and now have her in my custody, whom by Gods help I shall safely keep and have forthcoming when she shall be called for by your good lordship, or any other that shall be in such behalf by Her Highness authorised and appointed."