Cheshire, which plumes itself on being "the seedplot of nobility," and of possessing a greater number of old county families than any other English shire, boasts no worthier or more ancient stock than the Leghs; their history is closely interwoven with the history of the palatinate, and they claim a high antiquity, tracing their descent in this country back to the time of the Conquest, when an ancestor came over in the retinue of Duke William, the Norman invader. The Leghs of Adlington, of which house was Piers Legh, the founder of the house of Lyme, were descended from Gilbert or le Galliard, the younger son of Eudo or Eules, the second of that name, Earl of Blois, Byre, and Chartres, and the ancestor of Stephen, Earl of Blois, who, on the death of Henry I., usurped the English crown. This Gilbert, who from the patronymic he adopted, Venables (_venator abilis_), we may assume to have been a mighty hunter, was in the retinue of William of Normandy, and for his bravery at Hastings was knighted by the Conqueror upon the battle-field. Afterwards, he had considerable estates bestowed upon him out of the newly-conquered country in requital of his services against Edgar Atheling and the Welsh, and when that singular compound of sensuality and ferocity, Hugh D'Avranches, more generally known as Hugh Lupus, the Conqueror's nephew, was made Earl Palatine of Chester, he conferred upon Gilbert Venables the barony of Kinderton. Sir William Venables, the sixth in descent from this Gilbert, had a younger son, also named William, to whom he gave the manor of Bradwell, near Sandbach. William Venables, the younger, was twice married, his second wife being Agnes, the daughter and heir of Richard de Legh, of the West Hall, in High Legh, and the widow of Richard de Limme or Lymm, the common ancestress of the Leghs of Adlington and the D'Anyers of Bradley. Their son, John de Venables, adopted the name of Legh, the maiden name of his mother, as well as of the place where he was born. He married Ellen de Corona, the great-aunt of Thomas de Corona, the last of the family of that name, who owned the extensive manor of Adlington, and about the year 1299 he purchased the estate of Norbury Booths, near Knutsford, where he fixed his residence. Thomas de Corona does not appear ever to have married; certainly he had no issue, and before his death he settled his estates, when, by an agreement made at Chester, October 7th, 1315, and another dated at "le Bouthes" in the following year, he granted all his lands at Adlington, after his death, to his grand-niece Ellen and her husband, John Legh, for their lives, with remainder to their son, Robert de Legh. Thomas de Corona died about the year 1323, and John Legh must have pre-deceased him, for at the time Ellen de Corona was a widow, and obtained the grant of a pardon from Isabella, queen of Edward II., who styled herself "Lady of Macclesfield," and who had claimed Adlington that it was held of her as