The MS. formerly belonged to Sir John Crewe, of Utkinton, and was given by Mr Ardern, in 1757, to Lady Margaret Stanley.

The commencement of this metrical history is occupied in dilating upon the pleasure resulting from such an undertaking; and although the flow of the verse is not of remarkable smoothness, yet it hardly furnishes an apology for Seacome’s mistake, who, in his “History of the House of Stanley,” printed the first fifty lines as prose.  The reverend versifier rehearses how Stanley sprang from Audley, and then shows the manner in which his ancestors became possessors of Stourton and Hooton.  He dwells upon the joust betwixt the Admiral of Hainault and Sir John Stanley, the second brother of the house of Stanley of Hooton.[13] Then follows the account, more particularly developed in our own story, of the adventures and moving accidents which have been liberally used to adorn the “Garland” of his descendant William, Earl of Derby.  “For many generations this was the recognised chronicle of the family, until, in the time of James the First, a clergyman of Chester translated the rhymes of the Bishop into English, carefully retaining the mistakes of the original, and adding long and dull disquisitions of his own.”

In the days of our valiant King Edward, while the fame of Cressy and Poictiers was fresh and stirring in all true and loyal hearts, while the monarchs of two powerful kingdoms were held captive in these realms, lived a worthy knight, of whom we had a brief notice in the preceding narrative.  Sir Thomas Lathom of Lathom was a nobleman of great wealth and possessions.  According to the Calendarium Rotulorum from the Charter Rolls in the Tower, he held lands, besides, in Knouselegh, Childewall, Roby, and Aulusargh.  In Liverpool, he was proprietor of the tower, a structure of but little note until rebuilt and fortified by Sir John Stanley during his government in Ireland, of which we shall have more to say anon.

Sir Thomas married, in the year 1343, the youngest daughter of Sir Hamon Massey of Dunham Massey, in the adjoining county of Chester.  Twelve years had since that period elapsed at the time when our story begins; and though earnestly desiring male issue, that his name and race might be perpetuated, yet was the sole fruit of their union hitherto a daughter, named Isabel, then just entering on her tenth year.  Her winning and surpassing comeliness proved no solace to his disappointment.  He grew moodish and melancholy in the midst of his vast wealth; apprehending the utter extinction of his name, and the intrusion of a stranger on his birthright.  Hopeless of other issue by his own lady, he had recourse to unlawful means for this purpose, which procured for him a sore chastisement in the end, as our narrative will show.