bishop thereof, but when, I cannot justly say; because he seems to have been bishop in the beginning of King Edward VI., and was really bishop of that place before the death of Dr Man, whom I have before mentioned under the year 1556.  This Thomas Stanley paid his last debt to nature in the latter end of 1570, having had the character when young of a tolerable poet of his time.”—­Wood’s Athenae Oxonienses.

[13] This extract is from an interesting pamphlet, printed for private circulation only, by Thomas Heywood, Esq. of Manchester, entitled, “The Earls of Derby, and the Verse Writers and Poets of the 16th and 17th Centuries.” 1825.

[Illustration:  THE BLACK KNIGHT OF ASHTON.]

THE BLACK KNIGHT OF ASHTON.

    “O Jesu I for Thy mercies’ sake,
      And for Thy bitter passion,
    Save us from the axe of the Tower,
      And from Sir Ralph of Assheton!”

It would be a curious inquiry to trace the origin of services and other customs, paid by tenants to their feudal sovereign.  Connected as the subject is with the following tradition, it may be worth while if we attempt to throw together a few notices on that head.  A rose was not a very unfrequent acknowledgment.  Near to the scene of our story, the tenant of a certain farm called Lime Hurst was compelled to bring a rose at the feast of St John Baptist.  He held other lands; but they were subject only to the customary rules of the lordship, such as ploughing, harrowing, carting turves from Ashton-moss to the lord’s house, leading his corn in harvest, &c.  This species of service was called boon-work; and hence the old adage, “I am served like a boon-shearer.”  It, however, seems that some trifling present was made in return.  In a MS. of receipts and disbursements belonging to the Cheethams, kept in the time of Charles II., there is an item for moneys paid for gloves to the boon-shearers at Clayton Hall, where Humphrey Cheetham, founder of the college at Manchester, then resided.  The acknowledgment of a rose before mentioned might seem to have some allusion to the Knights Hospitallers.  The estate of Lime Hurst was called John of Jerusalem’s land, and the tithes and rent, in all probability, once went to the support of that order.

In the Ashton pedigree we find a Nicholas Assheton, as it was then spelt, who enrolled himself amongst these warrior-monks.  It seems not improbable that the profits of this estate belonged to him.

The custom of heriotship, however, was the most oppressive, being paid and exacted from the parties at a time when they were least able to render it.  Our tradition will best illustrate this remnant of barbarism, to which, even in the customs of the most savage tribes, we should scarcely find a parallel.