1 8 HADDON : THE HALL, THE MANOR, AND ITS LORDS. 



It appears from an Inquisition taken in 1600 (Chesh. Inq.), 

 that Sir Thomas Stanley, Knt., died at Clerkenwell on the 

 17th November, 1577, and that Margaret, his widow, married 

 secondly, on the ist Nov., 1579, at Harlaston, William Mather, 

 Esq., and that the said Margaret died at Coventry the 9th Sep., 

 1596, and that Sir Edward Stanley, Knt., was son and next heir, 

 aged thirty-five and upwards. 



There is a remarkably fine monument in Tong Church in 

 commemoration of Sir Thomas Stanley and Margaret, his wife, 

 and Sir Edward, their son, who died in 1632. 



Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, for the romantic story 

 of the elopement of Dorothy Vernon with John Manners, the 

 volume of accounts from which the foregoing extracts relating 

 to the courtship and marriage of Margaret Vernon, terminate 

 with the year of her marriage in 1558, and the accounts are not 

 resumed until 1564, within which period doubtless the marriage 

 of John Manners with Dorothy Vernon took place. Whether 

 the popular legend of the elopement in question has any founda- 

 tion or not, will probably remain an unsolved problem. It is a 

 tradition in the family that the marriage was celebrated at 

 Aylestone, near Leicester. If it was a clandestine marriage, it 

 seems rather singular it should have been celebrated at Ayle- 

 stone, as it was one of the Rutland manors, where John Manners 

 would surely be known, as the family had a residence there long 

 before that time. 



No trace of the handwriting of Dorothy has been discovered, 

 beyond Iier initials across the labels of one or two deeds at 

 Bel voir. 



It is needless to pursue the history of the lords of Haddon 

 after it passed to the family of Manners, by the marriage of 

 Dorothy Vernon with John Manners, but the early history of 

 its possessors is somewhat involved, and although many attempts 

 have been made from time to time to elucidate the family history, 

 yet, with the result of these investigations, it will be found 

 that still at the present no two authorities are agreed. One of 

 the principal difficulties in regard to the Vernon genealogy 



