Thomas Fitton pre-deceased his father, leaving a son, also named Thomas, who succeeded as heir on the death of his grandfather in 1457, he being then 25 years of age. This Thomas inherited the martial spirit of his ancestors, and took his share in the fierce struggle of the White and Red Roses, which destroyed the flower of the English nobility, and impoverished and well-nigh exhausted the country—“that purple testament of bleeding war”— When, like a matron butcher’d of her sons, And cast aside some common way, a spectacle Of horror and affright to passers by, Our bleeding country bled at every vein! He was present in the sanguinary encounter at Bloreheath, near Drayton, on that fatal 23rd July, 1459—St. Tecla’s Day—when Lord Audley and the Lancastrians were defeated, and was knighted on the field; and there is on the Cheshire Recognizance Rolls, under date April 29th, 38-9 Henry VI. (1460), the record of a general pardon granted to Thomas Fitton and Richard Fitton, late of Gawsworth; William, son of Lawrence Fitton, late of Gawsworth; Edward, brother of Thomas Fitton, late of Gawsworth; some of their kinsmen of the Pownall stock, and other Cheshire gentry, with a long list of residents in Gawsworth, the retainers of the Fittons—names that are still familiar in the neighbourhood—“in consideration,” as it states, “of the good service of the said Thomas Fitton, Knight, and his adherents at Blore-heth.” His name also occurs under date June 10, 1463, with those of John de Davenport, of Bramhall; Hugh Davenport, of Henbury; and Christopher Davenport, of Woodford, in the appointment of collectors of a subsidy for the King (Edward IV.) in the Macclesfield Hundred. He married Ellen, daughter of Sir Peter Legh, of Lyme, but this lady, who predeceased him, bore him no issue. He died April 27, 1494, when the estates devolved upon his brother and next heir, Edward Fitton, then aged 60 years. This Edward, by his marriage with Emmota, the daughter and sole heiress of Robert Siddington, had at that time acquired possession of two parts of the manor of Siddington, which had been held by his wife’s family for many generations on the tenure of rendering a red rose yearly, and thus he added materially to the territorial wealth and influence of the Gawsworth house. Though there is no absolute evidence of the fact, there is yet good reason to believe that the south porch of Gawsworth Church was added or rebuilt by this Edward Fitton, one of the carved decorations being a rose, in the leaves of which may be discerned two heads, evidently intended to represent Henry VII. and his Queen, who, by their marriage, had united the rival houses of York and Lancaster, and so terminated the long and bitter War of the Roses.