WEST DERBY HUNDRED 



hill and various lands there, John Chorley and 

 Elizabeth his wife being in possession.' This family, 

 who became attached to the Society of Friends, con- 

 tinued to hold the Rainhill 

 estate for several generations, 

 the last being John Chorley of 

 the Red Hazels in Huyton, 

 who died in 1 8 1 o, leaving two 

 daughters Mary and Sarah, 

 married respectively to John 

 Ford and John Walker.' The 

 father had been one of the 

 great West Indian merchants of 

 Liverpool, but failed in 1808, 

 when his estates were sold. 

 Dr. James Gerard of Liverpool, 

 who afterwards lived at Sand- 

 hills, Kirkdale, purchased Rain- 

 hill manor-house, and in 1824. 

 sold it to Bartholomew Bretherton of Rainhill, a 

 famous stage-coach proprietor, whose principal esta- 



B RETHER TON OF 



Rainhill. Per chevron 

 indented iable and argent, 

 in chief fwo lions passant 

 and in base a cross raguly 

 fiory counterchangcd. 



PRESCOT 



blishment was situated in the village.^ It descended 

 to his daughter and heiress, the Marchioness Stapleton- 

 Bretherton, and on her death in December 1883, 

 passed to the present owner, Mr. Frederick Annesley 

 Stapleton-Bretherton/ 



The second moiety descended from Roger and 

 Agnes de Molyneux to their son Richard ; ^ on the 

 death of the latter's son Sir John** without surviving 

 issue, it became the right of John de Lancaster, son of 

 that John de Lancaster who married Margery, one 

 of the daughters of Richard de Molyneux/ But 

 little is known of the Lancaster family,^ though they 

 held the manor for four centuries and their pedigrees 

 were recorded at the visitations." In 1628 Thomas 

 Lancaster, as a convicted recusant, paid double to 

 the subsidy ;^° but though his son John was a Royalist, 

 and as such suffered the confiscation of his property 

 by the Parliament, he does not seem to have been 

 charged with the equally serious offence of recusancy." 

 Subsequently the estate was recovered. In 1 7 1 7 

 John Lancaster and two other members of the family 



John, Hugh, Richard, and Margaret ; 

 another son Thomas ; his daughters 

 Margaret Wood (with children, Nicholas 

 and Alice) and Alice Orme, wife of 

 Edward Orme ; and his sister Elizabeth. 

 Earlier in the same year a settlement of 

 the lands of Hugh and John Ley had 

 been made } Pal. of Lane. Feet of F. 

 bdle. 54, m. loi. 



1 Pal. of Lane. Feet of F. bdle. 1 1 7, «. 2. 

 Alexander Chorley of Rainhill, and 

 Elizabeth his wife, were in 1678 indicted 

 as recusants ; Kenyan MSS, (Hist. MSS. 

 Com.), 109. Over the main entrance 

 to the manor-house, now a farm, is the 

 inscription *A. 1662, C ; probably for 

 Alexander Chorley, who was in pos- 

 session as early as 1651, as appears by 

 a recovery in the Common Pleas, Mich. 

 m. 22. 



^This account is taken from Foster's 

 Lanes. Fed. (Chorley of Chorley), and other 

 sources. 



3 Baines, Lanes, Directory (i 824), ii, 706. 



^Ex inform. Mr. F. A. Stapleton- 

 Bretherton and others. 



* In 1 301 Richard son of Roger de 

 Molyneux made complaint against Henry 

 de Lacy, earl of Lincoln, and others ; 

 Assize R. 1321, m. 8. In 1304 Alan de 

 Burahull attempted to recover certain 

 , land from Richard de Molyneux, his 

 brother Henry, and Thomas and John 

 his sons ; it appeared that this land had 

 been improved from the waste by Peter 

 de BurnhuU and Richard de Molyneux as 

 lords of Rainhill ; Assize R. 419, m. 9 ; 

 424, m. 2. 



^ Sir John de Molyneux retained the 

 manor to the end of his life ; he was 

 concerned in numerous suits concerning 

 lands there. Here, as in Scholes in Eccles- 

 ton, Henry and Agnes de Atherton laid 

 claim to the inheritance ; Assize R. 1435, 

 m. 47 d. In 1344 a claim was success- 

 fully made by Henry son of Henry de 

 Atherton, and Agnes his wife to certain 

 lands, when it appeared that Richard de 

 Molyneux had given a fourth part of the 

 manor to his brother Henry for life, and 

 had afterwards bestowed the reversion on 

 his own son John ; and that John had 

 granted part of the disputed lands to 

 Roger de Molyneux and part to William 

 the clerk of Liverpool and Nlchola his 

 wife ; Coram Rege R. 297, m, 17. Agnes 

 wife of Henry de Atherton had in 1322, 

 whilst a minor, been seized by emissaries 



of John de Molyneux and carried to Ches- 

 ter, where she was detained for eighteen 

 months, in hope of securing her inherit- 

 ance ; ibid. Rex. m. 22, 



7 John de Lancaster the father is de- 

 scribed as * of Rainhill' as early as 1313. 

 He was certainly married to Margery 

 daughter of Richard de Molyneux In or 

 before 1314 ; Final Cone, II, 19. He had 

 a moiety of the manor at once con- 

 ferred upon him, and in 1318 demanded 

 a partition, the other lords being Alan de 

 WIndle (or BurnhuU) and John son of 

 Richard de Molyneux. All then held 

 jointly 1,000 acres of pasture, part of the 

 Inheritance of Alan de Windle from Alan 

 le Styward, his great-grandfather ; De 

 Banc. R. 230, m. 172 d. j 235, m. 

 124^/. 



A claim for a third part by Roger son 

 of Alan de Molyneux in 1 3 34 shows that 

 at that time John de Molyneux and 

 Richard his son, John de Lancaster and 

 John his son held moieties of the Moly- 

 neux part of the manor by gift of Richard 

 de Molyneux (brother of the Alan named 

 above). Robert de Beblngton and Beatrice 

 his wife, Henry de Atherton and Agnes 

 his wife, Nicholas Banastre, Philip de 

 Penwortham and Agnes his wife, and 

 Philip his son also had lands. Agnes 

 widow of Alan de BurnhuU had married 

 Sir Geoffrey de Warburton ; Coram Rege 

 R. 297, m. 107. John son of John de 

 Lancaster frequently appears as plaintiff 

 or defendant from 1346 onwards; e.g. 

 Assize R. 1435, m. 15 ; 1444, m. ^ d. 



^ Early In 1396 John son of Richard de 

 Lancaster was engaged to marry Margery 

 sister of John de Bold ; Joan, the mother 

 of Richard, was still living ; Dods. MSS. 

 cxlii, fol. 214^, «. 151. The provision 

 included two parts of Holbrookfield In the 

 township of WIdnes. John de Lancaster 

 was a juror at the Widnes court about 

 1430, and Thomas in 1476 ; Dods. MSS. 

 cxlii, fol. 240. The latter was excused 

 from serving on assizes in 1498, being 

 seventy years of age ; Towneley MS. CC. 

 «.653. 



Richard Lancaster, son and heir of 

 Thomas, in 1526 joined with Thomas 

 Gerard, lord of the other portion of Rain- 

 hill, in renouncing a claim to a pasture 

 called the Copped Holt, which they 

 acknowledged to be within Whiston, not 

 in Rainhill. Richard was then fifty years 

 of age, and * calling to his remembrance 



369 



the short time of this transitory life, and 

 fearing the eternal damnation of his soul,* 

 he repudiated the ' feigned and false title ' 

 which had been set up ^ Ogle R. 



He died In 1535, and the subsequent 

 inquest shows that he had held the moiety 

 of the manor of John Eccleston by fealty 

 and a rent of iSd. ; a messuage In Rain- 

 hill of the king, by a rent of %d. paid to 

 the bailiff of West Derby ; also lands In 

 Euxton and in Appleton ; his son and 

 heir Richard Lancaster, married to Alice 

 daughter of Bartholomew Hesketh In 

 153O) was seventeen years of age in 

 1538 ; Duchy of Lane. Inq. p.m. vii, 

 «. 1 1. Licence of entry, without proof of 

 age, was granted to Richard son and heir 

 of Richard Lancaster, 20 Nov. 1543 ; 

 Dep, Keeper's Rep. xxxix, App. 555. 



9 Printed by the Chet, Soc. ; Fisit. of 

 '^5^7f ?• 118, where the pedigree starts 

 from John de Lancaster, apparently the 

 one living In 1430 ; yisit. of 161 3, p. 18 ; 

 Fisit. of 1664, p. 172. This last ends 

 with Thomas Lancaster, aged twenty- 

 seven, and his infant sons John and 

 William. 



*" Norris D. (B.M,). At the Inquisition 

 after his death, 10 May, 1629, It was 

 found that he had held the hall of Rain- 

 hill of the heirs of Hugh Lee. His 

 widow Margery was living, and the heir 

 was his son John, aged eighteen on 17 

 March preceding ; Duchy of Lane. Inq, 

 p.m. XXV, «. 43. 



Nathaniel Lancaster, a strong Puritan^ 

 rector of Tarporley, is said to have beerk 

 a half-brother of Thomas ; Ormerod, 

 Ches. (ed. Helsby), ill, 898. Thomasi 

 Lancaster, their grandfather, was in 15 90 

 one of those in ' some degree of con- 

 formity' to Elizabeth's laws concerning: 

 religion, but *in general evil note' andl 

 a non-conmmunicant ; Gibson, Lydiate 

 Hai/f 245 (quoting S.P, Dom. Eliz. 



CCXXXV, B, 4), 



^^ Royalist Composition Papers (Rec. Soc. 

 Lanes, and Ches.), Iv, 53. It appears that 

 Ralnhill Hall and other lands of John Lan- 

 caster had been sold in 1653 to John: 

 Sumner, the purchaser of Allerton. The- 

 estate was *much encumbered.' See alsd 

 Index of Royalists (Index Soc), 43. 



Elizabeth wife of John Lancaster was ai 

 recusant in 1641; Trans. Hist. Soc. (New 

 Ser,), xiv, 241. 



For another sequestration for religion^ 

 see Royalist Com, P, iv, 72. 



47 



