The most famous of the Lancashire giants is the “Childe of Hale,” who was taken to Court in 1620 and presented to James I. His patron was Sir Gilbert Ireland, who “with some of the neighbouring Lancashire gentry dizened him off with large ruffs about his neck and hands; a striped doublet of crimson and white, round his waist, a blue girdle embroidered with gold; large white plush breeches, powdered with blue flowers; green stockings; broad shoes of a light colour, having high red heels and tied with large bows of red ribbon; and just below his knees were bandages of the same colour, with large bows, and by his side a sword, suspended by a broad belt over his shoulder, and embroidered, as his girdle, with blue and gold, with the addition of a gold fringe upon the edge. We are traditionally informed that his amazing size at the time frightened away some thieves who came to rob his mother’s house.” In this costume he is said to have struggled with the King’s wrestler, whose thumb he put out. This displeased some of the courtiers, and hence the King dismissed him with a present of £20. He returned home by Brasenose College, Oxford, which was then full of Lancashire students. Here, as we learn from Harland, his portrait was taken of full life-size, and is now to be seen in the College library. There is another likeness of him preserved at High Leigh; and an original painting of the “Chylde” is kept in the gallery at Hale Hall, bearing the following inscription:—“This is the true portraiture of John Middleton, the ‘Chylde of Hale,’ who was born at Hale, 1578, and was buried at Hale, 1623.” About eighty years ago the body is said to have been taken up, and the principal bones were for some time preserved at Hale Hall. The thigh bone, it is gravely stated, reached from the hip of a common man to his feet, and the rest measured in proportion. After some time the bones were reburied in the churchyard, but whereabouts is not known. He could only stand upright in the centre of the cottage in which he resided; and tradition states that he attained his wonderful stature in one night, in consequence of some spells and incantations that were practised against him. The Rev. William Stewart, in his “Memorials of Hale,” printed in 1848, says that “the cottage is now inhabited by Mr. Thomas Johnson, and is situated near the south-west corner of the Parsonage Green. A descendant of his family, Charles Chadwick, was living in 1804, and was more than six feet high.” There is every appearance of gross exaggeration in the accounts of the wonderful “childe.”