omits all mention of the fifth, Robert, who is known to have been living in 1527. It will thus be seen that Sir Peter Legh outlived both his son and his son's widow. After his death in 1478 an Inquisition was taken in accordance with custom, when it was found that Piers Legh, his grandson, then twenty-three years of age, was his next heir. This Piers or Peter, who was the fifth in direct succession bearing the same name, had succeeded to his mother's estates on her death in 1474. Seven years previously, and when he could only have been about twelve years of age, he had, with the consent of his father, been united in marriage, with Ellen, the daughter of Sir John Savage, of Clifton, an alliance that brought him in close connection with the Stanleys, his wife's mother being Katherine, daughter of Thomas Lord Stanley, of Lathom, and sister of the first Earl of Derby. They were in close kinship, and hence it was necessary, to make the marriage valid, to obtain a Papal dispensation, which was accordingly done. In mediæval times mercenary considerations entered rather largely into matrimonial arrangements, and marriages were frequently contracted at a very early age, the parties most directly concerned being rarely consulted as to the choice of their respective partners, a practice that the then state of the law almost necessitated. Indeed, a prudent father generally deemed it a parental duty to seek out a suitable match for his heir and marry him in his lifetime, lest, in the event of his dying and leaving him unmarried, he might fall into the hands of some greedy courtier, who under pretence of taking care of his lands, but in reality to enrich himself, might obtain his wardship and dispose of him in marriage to the highest bidder without any regard to inclination or mutual liking. This state of things will sufficiently account for Piers Legh, the heir apparent to so large an estate, being married at such an early age. The name of this Piers is unpleasantly associated with a tragic act alleged to have been committed at Bewsey Hall, near Warrington, the recollection of which tradition, that delights in passion and revenge, has preserved. Much mystery hangs about this terrible deed, and the versions that have come down to us through succeeding ages are manifestly untrue in many particulars, though the main facts are doubtless correct. In the Dodsworth MSS., in the Bodleian Library, the story is told as follows:--