MEMOIR 



as in Cheshire. ToUemache, Chohnondeley, and 

 Grosvenor, Broughton, Egerton and Legh, War- 

 burton, Davenport, and Shakerley — the old names 

 stand in the rolls of George Vs reign just as they 

 did in those of the Plantagenets. And whereas in 

 Warburton's veins was blended the blood of two 

 historic Cheshire families, he needed not to go out- 

 side the county to find a bride of a lineage as ancient 

 as his own. Accordingly, on yth May 1831, he 

 married Mary, eldest daughter of Sir Richard Brooke, 

 baronet of Norton Priory, one of a race whose con- 

 nection with Cheshire runs back to the twelfth 

 century. The popular prejudice against May mar- 

 riages may draw no support from this one, for in 

 May 1 88 1 there were assembled at Arley many of 

 the family to celebrate the golden wedding of Mr. 

 and Mrs. Egerton-Warburton. They were a truly 

 devoted couple, and among the gifts made to them 

 on this occasion none was so touching as a gold 

 bracelet given by Warburton to her whom he had 

 made his bride fifty years before. It held a medallion 

 containing ten golden leaves, on each of which was 

 inscribed the record of the chief domestic event in 

 each of the ten bygone quinquennia. A fortnight 

 later Mrs. Warburton was no more, and her husband 

 never recovered from the shock of her sudden death. 

 " Happy is the country that hath no history." 

 There are but scanty records of Warburton's tranquil 

 manner of life. Summer and winter he spent in the 

 beloved " Chester's green vale." His intense love of 

 beauty — natural, literary, and artistic — his contem- 

 plative disposition and affectionate nature would 



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