Hugh Willoughby, who, on the death of his father in 1691-2, succeeded as twelfth baron, was then 65 years of age, having been born in 1627. He had married in early life Anne, daughter of Lawrence Halliwell, of Tockholes, in Blackburn parish, and by her had a son, Thomas, who died in infancy; she died in 1690, at the age of 52, and shortly after his accession to the barony he again entered the marriage state, taking for his second wife the youthful widow of Sir William Egerton, K.B., of Worsley, brother of John, third Earl of Bridgewater--the Lady Honora, daughter of Sir Thomas Leigh, son and heir of Thomas Lord Leigh, of Stoneleigh, and the great-granddaughter of Sir Thomas Egerton, the renowned Lord Chancellor--the lady numbering 19 summers, while Lord Willoughby had attained the mature age of 55. His lordship was an uncompromising, and, it is to be feared, not over scrupulous Presbyterian. Sir Henry Ashurst, in a Dedication of the Life of Nathaniel Heywood, the Puritan Vicar of Ormskirk, written by his brother Oliver, to this Lord Hugh, speaks of his "exemplary piety and zeal for our holy religion in such a degenerate and licentious age, and the countenance he gave to serious piety, wherever he found it, among all the different parties into which we are so unhappily broken," but the occasional references to him in Henry Newcome's autobiography, leads us to doubt the justness of the Presbyterian writer's panegyric. Under date Thursday, September 7, 1693, Newcome writes:-- We went with several others to welcome the Lord Willoughby to house, and stayed till after eight, in much freedom; and parted with a psalm and prayer. The occasion would probably be that of his lordship's first coming to his wife's house--the old hall of Worsley, in Eccles parish, where he spent a good deal of his time--but it was not long before the old Puritan divine had occasion to speak in a less cheerful tone. Thus, he writes:-- May 5 (1694). The Lord Willoughby was with me, and the Lord helped me, to deal plainly with him, and he took it as I could desire. And a few months later:-- Aug. 4. I was troubled about Lord Willoughby and went out to have spoken with him, but though he was not at home, he called on me on his return, and I eased myself by speaking freely to him; and he seemed to take it well, and I hope it may do him good. This greatly revived me.