WEST DERBY HUNDRED 



ORMSKIRK 



knight, by whom he had two sons. By his will (i 369) 

 he desired to be buried in the priory church of Bur- 

 scough.^ 



Sir Thomas de Lathom, the younger, succeeded his 

 father in i 370. He was the Sir Oskell of the Lathom 

 legend.* He made an enfeoffment of his estates in 

 1376.' He paid his quota of the aid to make the 

 duke of Lancaster's son a knight in 1378.' Two years 

 later he was pardoned certain offences committed within 

 the forest of West Derby, Joan his wife and Edward 

 their son being included in the grant.* His wife Joan 

 was daughter of Hugh Venables of Kinderton ;'' his 

 children were Thomas, Edward, Isabel, Margaret, and 

 Katherine.^ He died at the beginning of 1382, having 

 been lord of Lathom for twelve years.® 



His son and heir Thomas had a shorter tenure, 

 dying about eighteen months afterwards ; his heiress 

 was a daughter Ellen , born two months after his 

 death.^ The widow afterwards married Sir John de 



Dalton.^^ The heiress became a ward to the duke 

 of Lancaster ; she was still living in 1387, but died 

 before the end of 1 390, when the duke ordered John 

 de Audlem and Richard de Longbarrow to continue 

 in possession until further orders." 



After her death the Lathom manors reverted to 

 the younger children of Sir Thomas, and Edward 

 having died. Sir John Stanley received them in right 

 of his wife Isabel." 



The manor continued to descend in the Stanley 

 family'* until the sale about 171 7. Lathom was 

 their principal residence until its destruction in the 

 Civil Wars, after which Knowsley took its place, 

 though William, the ninth earl of Derby, had some 

 intention of rebuilding it.** 



A very complete survey of the manor is contained 

 in the compotus rolls of 13-14 Henry VIII, when 

 the family estates were in the king's hands through 

 the minority of Edward, the third earl of Derby.'* 



^ Scarisbrick D. (in Trans. Hist. Soc. 

 New Ser. xiii), n. 102. He bequeathed 

 to the prior and canons iooj, to pray for 

 him, and other sums to the friars of 

 Warrington, Preston, and Chester ; also 

 j^2o for a chaplain to celebrate divine 

 offices for him for five years. To the 

 bridge of Douglas and Calder he gave two 

 marks. After legacies to his [younger] 

 son Edward, servants, and others, he 

 desired that the residue of his goods 

 should be spent in alms for the souls of 

 himself and Eleanor his wife. 



^ Bishop Stanley's poem in Halliwell's 

 Palatine Anthology^ 217; Seacome's His- 

 tory of the Stanley Family, 46 j Harland 

 and Wilkinson, Legends and Traditions, 19. 



^ Final Cone, ii, 190. There is said 

 to have been a supplementary fine, to 

 which Sir Thomas and his wife Joan 

 were parties, providing that, failing the 

 issue of his son Thomas, their daughter 

 Isabel and her heirs male were next in 

 succession ; Lanes* Inq, (Chet. Soc), ii, 

 p. iv. Some such entail was the basis of 

 the claim by Sir John Stanley In 1385 jsee 

 below. * Harl. MS. 2085, fol. 421. 



^ Dep. Keeper's Rep. xUii, App. i, «. 3. 



^ Dods. MSS. Ixxxvii, 10, 11. 



*" Edward was probably still living in 

 1383, when his uncle Edward is called 

 * senior.' 



^ The writ of Diem clausit extr. was 

 issued 21 Mar. 1381— 2; Lanes. In^. p.m. 

 (Chet. Soc.) i, 18-20; here is described 

 his melancholy end (see the account of 

 Knowsley). In 1391 there was an in- 

 quiry as to the legitimacy of the marriage 

 of Sir Thomas and Joan ; but the bishop of 

 Lichfield decided in its favour ; Pal. of 

 Lane. Misc. bdle. i, n. 53, 54 j Lich. 

 Epis. Reg. vi, fol. 79A. 



9 He died 3 Nov. 1383, and the writ 

 of Diem clausit extr. was issued i Feb. 

 1383-4 ; Lanes. Inq. (Chet. Soc), i, 10, 

 II, 17, 20. There is certainly a mistake 

 in the date of the first cited inquest ; as 

 it stands this inquiry, alleged to be taken 

 on 3 July, 1383, is immediately followed 

 by another into the lands of John Keke- 

 wich, who died six months later. The 

 first date should be 3 July, 1384, and the 

 inquest certainly relates to the younger 

 Thomas. This clears away the alleged 

 double Lathom-Pilkington marriage. As 

 the regnal year for Richard II began on 

 22 June the error of carrying the seventh 

 year a week or so later is easily explained. 



10 On I Feb. 1384-5 a writ of de dote 

 assignanda was issued to the escheator to 

 give Isabel, the widow of Thomas de 



Lathom, her reasonable dower of the 

 manor of Lathom, except in a parcel 

 which she claimed to have held jointly 

 with her husband. She was to take 

 oath not to marry without the duke's 

 consent, but nevertheless did so marry ; 

 Pal. of Lane Chan. R. 3, 191; Lanes. 

 Inq. (Chet. Soc), i, 20. The excepted 

 tenements, which she afterwards ob- 

 tained, were Horscar, Deep meadow by 

 Rufford, Robinficld in Horscar, Calver- 

 hey, and Walton Riding, and a yearly 

 rent of 8 marks of the freeholders of 

 Newburgh ; Journ. Arch. Assoc, vi, 416. 

 Sir John de Dalton and Isabel, having 

 knowingly contracted matrimony within 

 the fourth degree, incurred excommuni- 

 cation, and after separation and licence to 

 re-marry they were dispensed by Boni- 

 face IX in 1391, their issue to be 

 legitimate ; Cal. Papal Letters, iv, 412. 



^^ Lanes. Inq. (Chet. Soc), i, 20, 21. 



^2 He had put in a claim in 1385, 

 probably on his marriage with her j ibid. 

 21. She had previously been the wife of 

 Sir Geoffrey de Worsley, but the union 

 was declared unlawful ; see the account 

 of Worsley. 



^8 See the account of Knowsley. 



^** Seacome, House of Stanley, 405 (ed. 

 1793). Leland, who visited the place 

 about 1540, writes thus : ' Lathom, most 

 part of stone. The chiefest house of the 

 earl of Derby. Two miles from Orms- 

 kirk'; Itin. vii, 47. Several events in the 

 history of Lathom, such as the visit of 

 Henry VII, are noticed in the account of 

 Knowsley. 



^* In Lathom proper the assized rents 

 of the free tenants, according to a 

 rental made in 1464, amounted to 

 £6 181. %^d. ; increments of rents, due 

 partly to natural increase of value and 

 partly to the improvements of the wastes, 

 and the erection of cottages, amounted to 

 2ij. id.; and rents of tenants at will to 

 ^^56 1 8i. yd., with an increment (from 

 10 acres in Greetby) of 45. %d. Demesne 

 lands outside the park yielded 175J. ?>d. j 

 the herbage of Horscar meadow, ^15 i8j.; 

 the dovecote, which formerly brought in 

 13J. ^d., had fallen to the ground many 

 years before, and its stones had been used 

 to build the external walls of the manor 

 house ; from turbary on Horscar moor, 

 Scarth moor, and Lathom moss, 245. 6d. 

 was received. 



More interesting are the values of the 

 * averages * or works of the tenants, which 

 had long since been commuted for money 

 payments. Sixpence each was paid for 



251 



the works of 69 ploughs ploughing for 

 one day on the lord's land ; and zd. was 

 the price of each workman and his food 

 for the 70 days' work to be done — one 

 man giving one day. The money value 

 was 461. zd, in all. No courts had been 

 held during the year for Lathom or New- 

 burgh, so that no profits had to be 

 accounted for. There were no swarms 

 of bees, and no * casuals ' for gressums, 

 wardships, marriages, or reliefs. The fair 

 at Newburgh at the feast of St. Barnabas 

 showed a profit to the lord of 31. zd., but 

 the expenses of the bailiff and two under- 

 bailiffs, collecting tolls and keeping order, 

 amounted to 35. ^d. ; there was thus a 

 net loss of id. 



The various ancient rents paid are also 

 of interest. To the king, for the lordship 

 of Lathom, 20j. was duly paid j also 8j. 

 for Scarisbrook and Hurleton \ to the 

 abbot of Cockersand for Birkinshaw Place 

 izd. ; to the prior of Burscough for 

 Edgeacre 35., for Cross Hall y., and for 

 Walmer's lands in Lathom 6d, 



The rents which showed a decrease 

 were next considered. The fulling mill, 

 formerly yielding 261. %d., had been in 

 ruins for many years past ; and the fishery 

 in the Douglas, which should have brought 

 in izd., showed no result for default of 

 conduit. The new almshouses had taken 

 3^ acres, from which, of course, no rent 

 was now derived. A newly-erected bo~ 

 spitium, with its land, and Wolton shaw 

 (most of which had been included in the 

 New Park) had also to be allowed for j as 

 also the fees of the accountant and the 

 moss-looker. Various expenses were in- 

 curred, as for mowing and carting hay to 

 the deer-houses, for repairing the rails of 

 the park, and mending the head of the 

 new dam within the Great Park. 



Another account was rendered by Sir 

 William Stanley and Andrew Barton con- 

 cerning the demesne lands within the 

 park, they being farmers of the agistment 

 of the Great Park, the New (or Lady's) 

 Park, the Horscar, &c. The terms of 

 the lease forbade any hunting or waste of 

 the lord's deer or wild beasts, or any cut- 

 ting down of timber or underwood. The 

 fields occupied with the lord's deer and 

 cattle were called Overton, Bromefield, 

 the Launde, Tillington, Taldford field, 

 &c ; a close in the Old Park was known 

 as Laithwaite Place. These particulars 

 have been taken from a roll in the posses- 

 sion of the earl of Lathom ; other rolls 

 are among the records of the Court of 

 Augmentation. 



