Though wealth and honours were not lavished on Sir Peter Legh in the way they had been on the Stanleys, yet the services he had rendered at Stokefield and elsewhere were not allowed to go entirely unrequited, though it must be admitted that his reward came somewhat late. By letters patent, dated at Lancaster, 3rd March, 20 Henry VII. (1505), he was, in consideration of services he had rendered to the King, as the grant states, appointed successor to the Earl of Derby in the important and lucrative office of seneschal or steward of Blackburnshire, including Tottington, Rochdale, and Clitheroe, within the county of Lancaster--a vast tract of country embracing within its limits the forests of Blackburnshire and Bowland. These forests or chases were extensive wastes inhabited by the roe, the stag, and the wolf, and also the wild ox, which latter is said to have been imported into these northern wilds from the Forest of Blackley, on the confines of Manchester. According to popular tradition, the wild cattle which still constitute one of the peculiarities of Lyme date their existence there from the time that Sir Peter Legh held the seneschalship of Blackburnshire, having, it is said, been conveyed by him from the Lancashire forests to his chase at Lyme. Sir Peter continued in his office for a period of six years, and with the exception of an occasional lawsuit, when he was supposed to have exceeded his powers, he appears to have discharged the duties of his office to the general satisfaction of both sovereign and subject. In 1511 he resigned his post, the reason for which will hereafter appear. He was then verging upon sixty, and had been a widower twenty years; his sons had all attained to man's estate, and his only daughter had been suitably mated, her husband being Lawrence, son and heir of Sir John Warren, of Poynton. He seems, therefore, to have had a desire to withdraw from the more active duties of life, and to spend his few remaining years in peaceful quietude. The year which followed his wife's death was that in which her brother, Thomas Savage, was made Bishop of Rochester, from which see he was subsequently translated to London, whence he was elevated to the Archbishopric of York, and doubtless his brother-in-law's advice and counsel would be sought. Be that as it may, Sir Peter Legh determined upon entering the Church, and took orders, thenceforward describing himself as "knight and priest," and about the same time he set about the foundation of a chantry chapel upon his estate at Lyme--the present church at Disley. The time was one of much religious energy and life, notwithstanding that the faith might be in a dim lantern and obscured by not a few superstitions and scandals, but it must not be assumed that the only object of Sir Peter Legh's foundation was that prayers might be offered for the dead by the officiating priest. The place was removed from the mother church,