XI.

THE "GREAT" DUKE OF BRIDGEWATER.*

THE canal-system of Great Britain acknowledges a duke as its parent, and its cradle was Worsley, in the vicinity of Manchester. Without Francis, third Duke of Bridgewater, our vast network of artificial water-ways would not have been produced just when it was wanted, as a prime element in the sudden growth of British industry during the second half of the eighteenth century, Without Worsley, the Duke of Bridgewater might never have been led to undertake the great enterprises which make his career conspicuous in the annals of the British noblesse. It is as owner and occupier of Worsley that he claims a place in our Gallery of Lancashire Worthies. Had not Worsley been among his possessions, he would not, probably, have given occasion for the proud boast of his "collateral descendant," the first Earl of Ellesmere, that "the history of Francis Duke of Bridgewater is engraved in intaglio on the face of the country he helped to civilise and enrich."

* Lord Campbell's Lives of the Lord Chancellors, &c. (London, 1846), vol. ii. § "Lite of Lord Ellesmere ;" Masson's Life of John Milton (London, 1859), vol. i.; Thomas Keightley's Account of the Life of John Milton (London, 1856); H. J. Todd's History of the College of Bonhommes at Ashridge (London, 1823); Horace Walpole's Letters, edited by Peter Cunningham (London, 1859); Smiles's Lives of the Engineers (London, 1861), vol. i. § "Life of James Brindley;" Earl of Ellesmere's Essays (London, 1858), § Aqueducts and Canals;" Collins's Peerage, vol. iii. § "Bridgewater, Earl of;" Ormerod's Cheshire, vol. i. § "Tatton; "Baines's Lancashire; Aikin's Country round Manchester; Pope's Works, &c., &c.

For more than two centuries and a half the manor and estate of Worsley have belonged to people of the Egerton blood, and the present Earl of Ellesmere, though properly a Gower, is Lord of Worsley through his descent from a sister of our Duke of Bridgewater, whose first canal was that from Worsley to Manchester. Worsley's earliest owner of whom there is any record belongs to legend almost as much as to history. This was a certain "Elias de Workeslegh, or Workedlegh," as the name was originally spelt, who possessed it "as early as the Conquest ;" and who is said to have been a crusading baron" of such strength and valour that he was reputed a giant, and in old scripts is often called Elias Gigas. He fought many duels, combats, &c."-his quaint old historiographer adding without any presentiment of the Peace Society, "for the love of our Saviour, Jesus Christ; and obtained many victories."1 Worsley remained with the descendants of this half-legendary Elias until the end of the third Edward's reign, when the line of heirs male expired, and, by the marriage of its inheritress, it was added to the possessions of Sir John Massey of Tatton, in Cheshire. After some three generations more had passed away, the male line of the Masseys, too, was extinguished, and Tatton in Cheshire, with Worsley in Lancashire, went by marriage to "William Stanley, Esq., of Tatton and Worsley, in right of his wife, and son and heir of Sir William Stanley of Holt, in the county of Denbigh, beheaded in the reign of Henry VII."-the first Stanley Earl of Derby's younger brother, whose story has been already told. Again, by a similar vicissitude, both estates were transferred to the Breretons of Malpas, in Cheshire. The last of the Breretons owners of Worsley and Tatton, was Richard, who died without issue in 1598. "This Richard settled all his estates on Sir Thomas Egerton, Lord Chancellor of Eng

1 Baines's Lancashire, iii. 140.

land." From Sir Thomas Egerton descend the present owner of Worsley, the Earl of Ellesmere, and the present owner of Tatton, Lord Egerton of the same.

Why did Richard Brereton "settle all his estate on Sir Thomas Egerton, Lord Chancellor of England?" Presumably because, to begin with, he much liked and esteemed. Sir Thomas, but, at the same time, between him and Queen Elizabeth's Lord Keeper, James I.'s Lord Chancellor, there was a sort of connection by marriage. Richard Brereton had taken unto himself for wife Dorothy, daughter of Sir Richard Egerton, of Ridley in Cheshire, and the famous Chancellor-progenitor of the Earls and Dukes of Bridgewater that were, and of the Earls of Ellesmere and Lords Egerton of Tatton that are-being the illegitimate son of this Sir Richard Egerton, was thus a quasi brotherin-law of that Richard Brereton. His mother was one "Alice Spark, or Sparke, or Sparks, of Bickerton," whom plain-spoken Pennant reports to have been neither more nor less than a maid-servant, at Dodleston, near Chester, where Sir Thomas appears to have been born. In a sly note to his biography of Sir Thomas Egerton, Lord Campbell2 avers that "the place where his parents met is still pointed out to travellers under the name of 'Gallantry Bank.'" From his mother he is said, in the same memoir, "to have inherited great beauty of countenance." "The

radition of the country," his Lordship adds, "is, that he was nursed by a farmer's wife at Lower Kinnerton, in the neighbourhood, and that being carried, while a child, to Dodleston Hall, which he afterwards purchased when Chancellor, he expressed an eager desire to rise in the world and become the owner of it." agreeable tradition is recorded by

1 Ormerod, i. 346.

Another and less Pennant :3—“ The

2 i. 179.

3 Tour in Wales (London 1784), i. 107.

mother had been so much neglected by Sir Richard Egerton, of Ridley, the father of the boy, that she was reduced to beg for support. A neighbouring gentleman, a friend of Sir Richard, saw her asking alms, followed by her child. He admired its beauty, and saw in it the evident features of the Knight. He immediately went to Sir Richard, and laid before him the disgrace of suffering his own offspring, illegitimate as it was, to wander from door to door. He was affected with the reproof, adopted the child, and by a proper education, laid the foundation of his future fortune."1

' Dr Ormerod bestirs himself (ubi suprà), to discredit Pennant's story. "His mother's family," says the historian of Cheshire, speaking of Sir Thomas Egerton, " were respectable yeomen, and a near relative of Alice Sparke was at this time wife of Ralph Catheral, a younger brother of the ancient house of Horton. This circumstance is mentioned as being, in a great degree, a refutation of what local tradition has asserted, and a most respectable writer "-Pennant-" reported with reference to the infantine distresses of the future Chancellor. There is no reason for supposing that Sir Richard Egerton did, at any time, neglec the education of his son, or if he had neglected it, that his mother's family would have been unable to supply the deficiency." Dr Ormerod adds in a note: "Alice Sparke had another son by Sir Richard, George Egerton, who married Margaret, daughter of Robert Fitton, of Carden, and was ancestor of a branch of the Egertons settled at Whitchurch." The following note on the genealogy of the Sparkes is due to the courtesy of T. Helsby, Esq., the editor of a forthcoming "Chronicle of Frodsham," in which parish the township and manor of Norley are situated :

"The Sparkes were indeed of very ancient descent, as appears from Randle Holme's MSS., Harl. Coll. They were descended paternally from the Norleys of Norley, in Frodsham parish. Roger Sparke, temp. Edw. I. and II., was the son of Adam, the son of Ambrose de Norley, of which family a branch settled in Wettenall, near Northwich, whose descendant, Henry Sparke, was of Nantwich temp. Hen. VII., and married Jane, daughter and heiress of Tho. Bulkeley of Westanwood (his collateral ancestor, de Bulkeley, married, temp. Edw. II., Ellen, daughter and heiress of William de Bickerton). The issue of this Henry was Roger Sparke, of Nantwich, 7 Hen. VIII., and most probably he was the direct ancestor of Alice Sparke, of Bickerton, near

R

Whatever the truth of this story, a

proper education" was bestowed on the offspring of the fair and frail handmaiden of Dodleston. "Well grounded in Latin and Greek," young Thomas Egerton was sent in his sixteenth year to Brasenose College, Oxford, where he distinguished himself greatly. Leaving the University, he was admitted at Lincoln's Inn; and when called to the bar, made steady progress to an excellent practice. To his early forensic career belongs the story, that after a vigorous conduct of a case against the Crown, in the Court of Exchequer, Queen Elizabeth, who watched all such causes vigilantly, exclaimed, "On my troth, he shall never plead against me again," and immediately made him one of her counsel, a Q.C. in days when the distinction would have had more significance than now. A good deal of business flowed in which place Nantwich, Bulkeley, and Westan, or Westonwood, are situated. Her family connection, moreover, with the Catteralls, of Horton (who also held lands near Norley), favours this supposition. The fact, too, of Sir Thomas Egerton being sent to Brasenose College would seem to favour the hypothesis that he went as 'Founder's kin' to a priest named Williamson, who, in Henry VII.'s time, was of Weaver. ham (in which parish part of the township of Norley is situated), and founded a scholarship in Brasenose, afterwards held by many distinguished students."

With reference to Pennant's description of Alice Sparke as a “maidservant," the same obliging correspondent puts-in the reminder that even so late as her time young ladies continued occasionally to be sent to the houses of their neighbours to learn household work," and that "servant' was a word of much wider signification then than now."

Finally, respecting Richard Brereton, Mr Helsby mentions a report that "he bore the cost of Sir Thomas Egerton's education ;" and states that his and his wife's monument (an altar-tomb) is still in the church of Eccles, between Worsley and Manchester.

1 That Elizabeth made this speech is, however, doubted by Mr Foss (Judges of England, v. 138, London, 1857), and he adds: "There is no authority for Lord Campbell's assertion that the Queen, before he,” Egerton, "became Solicitor-General, 'made him one of her counsel,' nor