year, the siege was renewed by Colonel Egerton at the head of four thousand men, who took up their quarters at Ormskirk. The garrison made a gallant and successful stand for some time; but being at length reduced to extremities for want of the munitions of war, and disappointed in the expectation of a reinforcement from the king, who was in the month of September in that year at Chester, the commander was obliged to surrender his charge into the hands of the Parliamentary forces upon bare terms of mercy, on the 2d of December. The besiegers soon converted the most valuable effects of the house into booty. The towers, from whence so many fatal shots had been fired, were thrown down, the military works were destroyed, and the sun of Lathom seemed for ever to have set.

In the fruitless enterprise of 1651 the Earl of Derby again raised the royal standard; but being defeated by Lilburne at Wigan Lane, and subsequently taken, he was executed at Bolton. The Countess and her children were for a time rigorously imprisoned, and actually subsisting on the alms of their impoverished friends. Thus she languished till the Restoration, when the family estates returned into the possession of her eldest son. She passed the short remainder of her days at Knowsley Hall, and, dying there on 21st March 1663, was buried at Ormskirk. Lord Derby has the famous Vandyke portrait of the Countess, and another of her painted when she was advanced in life, both of which were sent to the National Portrait Exhibition at South Kensington. James Stanley, the seventh Earl of

Derby, met with the lady at the Hague, upon his return from his travels; and though she was very young, they were married June 25, 1626. After their marriage they appear to have participated in the gaieties of the Court of Charles I. Bassompierre mentions his house being the resort of foreigners of distinction; and the name of the Countess is found frequently with those who, with the Queen Henrietta Maria, took part in the masques and other diversions of the palace. At Shrovetide 1630 was presented at Court Ben Jonson's masque Chloridia; and Charlotte de la Tremouille was one of the fourteen nymphs who sat round the goddess Choris (the Queen) in the bower their apparel white, embroidered with silver, trimmed at the shoulders with great leaves of green, embroidered with gold, falling one under the other.'

Of the ancient house at Lathom, that stood such stout sieges, not a vestige now remains. The ramparts,' says Mr. Heywood, along whose banks knights and ladies. have a thousand times made resort, hearkening to stories as varied as those of Boccaccio; the Maudlin Well, where the pilgrim and the lazar devoutly cooled their parched lips; the mewing-house; the training-ground; every appendage to antique baronial state,-all now are changed, and a modern mansion and a new possessor fill the place.'

The siege of Lathom House is so full of chivalrous and dramatic effect, from the intrepid valour and heroic spirit displayed by the Countess, that it has been fully chronicled. In Seacombe's History of the House of Stanley, is an

T

account attributed to Samuel Butler, Bishop of Sodor and Man. The мs. of Captain Edward Halsall's account of the siege is among the A. Wood MSS. in the Ashmolean Museum, and has been twice printed in accessible books. Sir Walter Scott has set his own impress upon the great subject in his popular novel of Peveril of the Peak.

There are some traditional stories of Lathom which are interesting. Sir Bernard Burke mentions a tradition little. known that when Henry VIII., subsequently to the execution of Sir William Stanley, visited Lathom, the Earl, after his royal guest had viewed the whole house, conducted him up to the leads for a prospect of the country. The Earl's fool, who was among the company, observing the king draw near to the edge, not guarded by a balustrade, stepped up to the Earl, and pointing down to the precipice, said, 'Tom, remember Will.' The king understood the meaning, and made all haste down-stairs out of the house; and the fool long after seemed mightily concerned that his lord had not courage to take the opportunity of avenging himself for the death of his brother (Seats of Great Britain, vol. i.).

A curious instance of the retention of a proverbial saying, long after the occasion of it has passed away, is, that it is a very common expression in Lancashire to say of a person having two houses, even if temporarily, that he has Lathom and Knowsley.' Formerly, the Earl of Derby had two splendid residences in Lancashire, both which passed as already described. Though separate pos

sessions for above 150 years, the expression 'Lathom and Knowsley' still survives.

Another Lancashire proverb is, 'There's been worse stirs than that at Lathom,' alluding, no doubt, to the havoc made there when the Parliamentary forces took it in 1645. This saying comes in when a 'flitting' or whitewashing, or any other occurrence of an unpleasant nature makes an apology needful on the score of untidiness and confusion.

The legend of a Child being borne away by an Eagle, and thus having greatness thrust upon it, is common to many lands. It is associated with the De Lathom family; but Baines, in his History of Lancaster, gives the following passage respecting King Alfred the Great, quoting from a Saxon chronicle:

"Of the many humane traits in his character, one is mentioned which serves to show that our popular Lancashire tradition of the Eagle and Child is of the date of several centuries earlier than the time of the De Lathoms : "One day, as Alfred was hunting in a wood, he heard the cry of a little infant in a tree, and ordered his huntsmen to examine the place. They ascended the branches, and found at the top, in an eagle's nest, a beautiful child dressed in purple, with golden bracelets, the marks of nobility, on his arms. The king had him brought down, and baptized and well educated; from the accident he named the foundling Nestingum.""

In a poem written by Bishop Thomas Stanley 200 years

after the supposed event, this marvellous tale, in its episcopal form, may be condensed thus: Once upon a time there was a certain Lord Lathom dwelling at Lathom House, who had attained the patriarchal age of fourscore years without having had children. All hope had long been past, for his wife was as old as himself. Without Providence interposed by a miracle, he was destined to go down to the grave childless, and be buried by the unloving hands of strangers in blood and affection. With his mind filled with these bitter reflections, the spring months of his eightieth year passed slowly onward,-the last spring, as he thought, that Lathom House and its fair domain should belong to one of his name. He was, however, destined to a happy surprise; for one day an eagle which had built its nest in Terleslowe wood-a portion of the Lathom domain-was seen to have something uncommon in its nest. An examination was made; and the wonder of the simple-minded serfs may be imagined when, as well as the ordinary inmates. of an eagle's nest, they found a male infant clad in a red mantle. The Lord of Lathom was at once informed of this strange discovery, and he concluded without hesitation that his prayers had been answered, and that to him, as to the patriarch of old, an infant heir had been sent for the solace of his declining years. The child, men thought, was unbaptized, for salt was found bound around its neck in a linen cloth; so a solemn christening was had, and no doubt the good old man feasted his neighbours as joyously as if the little stranger' had indeed been of his own lineage.