:

A

GENEALOGICAL AND HISTORICAL

ACCOUNT OF THE

ANCIENT AND HONOURABLE

House of Stanley,

FROM THE CONQUEST

TO THE YEAR 1741.

THE illustrious house I have undertaken to describe and treat of in the course of these memoirs, is allowed, by all the historians and records I have met with, to have been a family of great antiquity and renown; having in their several ages been distinguished and promoted, by royal favour, to the highest posts of honour and trust under sovereign princes, and always advancing in the front rank of our British heroes.

. But with regard to the origin and lineal descent of this ancient house, authors are not fully agreed on that head: Mr. Cambden* makes them to spring from the same stock with the barons of Audley; and tells us that the barons of Audley built Healey castle, in the county of Stafford, upon lands given to them by Harvey de Stafford, as also Aldeleigh, by Theobald de Verdon; and from these, says he, sprung the family of the Stanleys, Earls of Derby, but gives no pedigree or lineal descent thereof.

*Mr. Camb. Brit. on Staffordshire.

And though this account from so public an author might be esteemed by some very honourable, as being related to, or descended from, a family which he assures us made one of the greatest figures in the nation for some ages; yet methinks, as the noble house of Stanley hath produced so many brave and gallant persons both in peace and war, the original thereof demands a more particular inquiry and description than Mr. Cambden had thought fit to bestow upon them, who appears to me to have taken the relation given us of this most worthy family more upon trust, and the credit of others, than any labour or acquired knowledge of his own.

Wherefore, for the honour due to so many brave and worthy persons, the satisfaction of the reader, and that all the heroic and celebrated actions performed by them may not be buried in oblivion, I have procured and inspected all the histories, records, and manuscripts, of value or esteem, I could possibly obtain either the sight or private use of, with respect to the subject before us;, and have, as I think, met with some public prints, as well as manuscripts, of equal antiquity and authority with Mr. Cambden, from whence it will manifestly appear to the reader, that the honourable house we are here treating of, is of greater antiquity and an earlier original (at least in England) than the barons of Audley can boast of; and that Mr. Cambden might, upon full inquiry, with much more reason have said, that the barons of Audley sprung from the same stock with the earls of Derby, for they were engrafted into it, and sprung from it, as hereafter, is shown.

Mr. Cambden indeed tells us, in his Survey of Staffordshire, that the family of Stanley were seated at Stoneley, situated in the northern parts of that county, called the Moorlands, near the head of the river Trent, and about a mile west of it; that the land was craggy and stony, and thinks the family might take their name from thence, but

does not acquaint us how long the family might have been seated there, nor even who resided there in his time."

But my learned and right reverend author, Bishop Rutter, in his manuscript now by me, agrees with Mr. Cambden in the situation as before, and observes further, that the original of the Stanleys was of Saxon extraction, (as indeed I find, by the best and most approved antiquaries, were all the families in England whose sirnames end in Ley, Ton, and Comb; as Bolton, Dalton, Walton, Sefton,' Singleton, &c.; also Stanley, Tyldesley, Townley, Mawdsley, Walmsley, &c. and Duncomb, Tidcomb, Jacomb, Edgcomb, &c.) and that the family now before us, was' seated at Stonely as aforesaid; and is of opinion, that the Stanleys might assume their sirname from that lordship, which is very probable with respect to the name, the soil being, as above, of a rough and stony nature; and that nothing was more common and usual in those early times, than for families to give their sifnames to their seats, or to take them from that of the seat, of which we have many instances in our own memory, as well as history.

But how long this honourable house might have been seated here before the conquest is not discoverable from history or record; but the reverend and learned_author* before assures us, that they were here long before the coming in of William duke of Normandy; and that he was attended in his expedition to England by one Adam de' Audley, or Audithley, as the French have it; and that he' was accompanied from Audithley, in Normandy, by his two sons, Lidulph and Adam; and that on the duke's obtaining the crown of England, he gave Adam the father large possessions, as indeed he did all his followers, insomuch that Mr. Cambdent observes in his notes on this family, that it is strange to read what lands King Henry III. confirmed to Henry de Audley, the son of Mrs. Stanley, (as

Bp. Rutter's M. S. 1066. + Camb. Brit.

hereafter,) and his family, which were bestowed upon them by the king, the bounty of the peers, and even of private,

persons.

And to heighten and increase the grandeur of this favour ite family, who had attended and greatly served her husband King William, Queen Maud, his wife, and daughter, of Baldwin, Earl of Flanders, commonly called Maud the Stranger, gave to Adam de Audithley, the father, the seat of Red castle in the county of Salop, with all the lands and tenements thereto belonging, and where it is probable, that family resided to their building of Healey castle, in the county of Stafford, upon lands given them by Hervey de Stafford as before; which brought them into that county, and from whence they were first styled barons of Healey: but which of them built that castle, and who first possessed it, history does not inform us.

Wherefore, having by this small digression given the reader the story of the barons of Audley's first appearance in England, and settlement there, I shall for a while suspend any further mention of them and their posterity, and return back to the house of Stanley, whose antiquity and situation are in part before described.

The first Lord of Stoneley I met with in history or re→ cord, is styled Henry Stanley de Stoneley, who lived, as near as I can compute, about forty or fifty years before the conquest, and some time after; and having issue an only daughter and child named Mabilla or Mabel, he gave her in marriage to Adam, the son of Lidulph de Audley, the elder son of the aforesaid Adam, by whom she had issue a son, named Henry, after her father, on whose decease, Adam her husband was, in her right, Lord of Stonely and Balterley, as hereafter. The said Henry the son was the person mentioned by Mr. Cambden to have had such large possessions confirmed to him by King Henry III.

Being so possessed of those manors, he some time after exchanged the manor of Stoneley and part of Balterley with

his cousin William, the son of his uncle Adam, of Thalk on the hill, as by the following deed upon record, viz.

"I, Adam, the son of Lidulph de Audithley, give and grant unto William de Audithley, the son of Adam my uncle, the town or manor of Stoneley, and half the town or manor of Balterley, in exchange for the town or manor of Thalk on the hill, &c. Testibus, Henrico Preers, Roberto de Audithley, Adam de Capell, and William de Wolve," &c.

Upon which deed in the hands of Sir Rowland Standley, of Hooton, Baronet, living in the year 1610, is reserved the yearly rent of twelvepence, payable for ever, from the town or manor of Thalk, to the aforesaid William and his heirs.

And here Mr. Speed,* in his History of Staffordshire, very aptly confirms the above account given by Bishop Rutter, of the family of Stoneley, by his discovery of another branch of the said house being seated at Stafford, which he calls Thomas Stanley, Esq.; and remarks, that he was younger brother, or uncle to the aforesaid Henry of Stoneley, and that his ancestors founded the abbey of Sandewell, in the county of Bucks, and endowed it with £38. 8s. 4d. per annum, which was esteemed a large income in those times, before the reduction of the Roman standard, when every penny was of equal value with sevenpence now. He further observes that the said Thomas Stanley, of Stafford, Esq. had one only daughter, named Joan or Joanna, and that he gave her in marriage to the aforesaid William de Audithley, the son of Adam as aforesaid, and with her, as a marriage portion, gave him the manor of Thalk, which being exchanged as by the above deed, he in honour of his lady, and the antiquity of her family, made choice of Stoneley for his seat, and called himself Stanley. From him are descended all the Stanleys

* Speed's Hist.