“Better marry over the mixen than over the moor” has ever been a favourite proverb with the men of Cheshire; and the heads of the house of Legh evidently believed in the soundness of the advice it conveyed, for, from the time their Norman progenitor first settled in the county, they had been content to mate within their own shire. The first of the manorial lords of Adlington to depart from this long-established custom was George Legh, who, in 1523, married the daughter of a Huntingdonshire squire—Joan, daughter of Peter Larke, and a sister of that Thomas Larke on whom Cardinal Wolsey had bestowed the rich rectory of Winwick, in Lancashire—and it can hardly be said that the departure added much to the reputation of his house, the supposed antecedents of the lady having given rise to no inconsiderable amount of scandal. It is said that, previous to her marriage with Thomas Legh, Joan Larke had been the mistress (not the illegitimate daughter, as a recent writer has unnecessarily sought to disprove) of Cardinal Wolsey. The statement is evidently made on the authority of one of the “Articles of Impeachment” against Wolsey presented to Parliament by a committee of the House of Lords, December 1, 1529, and quoted in Lord Herbert of Cherbury’s “Life of Henry VIII.” The story is a curious one, and, if true, reflects little credit either upon the Cardinal or his frail companion. The accusation is embodied in the 38th article— That the sd Cardinal did call before him Sir Jno. Stanley, kt., which had taken a farm by convent seal of the Abbot and Convent of Chester; and afterwards by his power and might, contrary to right, committed the said Sir Jno. Stanley to the prison of Fleet by the space of one year, until such time as he compelled the sd Sir Jno. to release his convent seal to one Leghe, of Adlington, which married one Lark’s daughter, which woman the sd lord cardinal kept and had with her two children; whereupon the sd Sir John Stanley, upon displeasure taken in his heart, made himself monk in Westminster, and there died.