Four years later he made proof of age, the inquiry being held at Macclesfield, and he was then put in possession of the splendid inheritance which, by their successful marriages, his progenitors had accreted. During his minority his patrimony had been greatly improved under the careful management of his stepfather, and in the critical times in which his earlier life was passed he appears to have acted with much prudence and caution, taking more interest in the development of his estate than in the fierce contests that were then being waged. It was a time when craft and subtlety had gradually superseded the old spirit of chivalry--when strength of arm was of little avail without astuteness of head in shifting from side to side in the changing fortunes of contending parties; and, living in this age of political chaos, the youthful lord of Lyme skilfully contrived to keep neutral between the factions into which the dominant party was split. Though holding no higher rank than that of esquire, his large territorial possessions gave him considerable influence in the two palatine counties; in the Cheshire records his name is of frequent occurrence, and, like many of his ancestors, he had various offices of trust in connection with the hundred and forest of Macclesfield. Though his father had received many marks of favour from, and had died in the service of, the Lancastrian King, he inherited a predilection for the house of York, from the representative of which, Richard II., his grandfather had received many substantial benefits, including the grant of the manor of Lyme. He was too shrewd and cautious, however, to allow his preferences to betray him into any act of open hostility to the reigning sovereign, though his intimate relations with a powerful Lancashire Baron, Henry Holland, Duke of Exeter, who had married the sister of Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, and who, in opposition to the wishes of Henry VI. and his intrepid wife, Margaret of Anjou, had been made regent during the King's sickness, brought him under suspicion and resulted in a letter being addressed by the King to the Sheriff of Lancashire in 1454, commanding him to deliver letters of Privy Seal to "Thomas Pilkington and Piers Legh, squires," a significant warning which had the desired effect in restraining Peter Legh, for a time at all events, from engaging in any perilous enterprise or openly espousing the cause of either party. A few years before this he had the misfortune to lose his wife, her death occurring at Bradley, May 13, 1450. She was buried at Winwick, in the chantry chapel which Sir Gilbert Haydock, her husband's maternal ancestor, had founded. In October of the following year Peter Legh again entered the marriage state, his second wife being Elizabeth, the widow of Sir John Pilkington, of Pilkington, and one of the daughters of Edmund Trafford, of Trafford, by his wife, Alice, eldest daughter and co-heir of Sir William Venables, of Bolyn.