Sir Urian Legh stands out with marked individuality in any record of the house of Adlington. The Leghs have ever looked with pardonable pride upon the doughty deeds of their warlike ancestor, and the feeling has been nothing lessened by the romantic incident which tradition has linked with his name. He is commonly believed to have been the hero of the old legendary ballad,—“The Spanish Lady’s Love,” written by Thomas Deloney immediately after the return from Spain, and reprinted by the Percy Society from “The Garland of Goodwill”— Will you hear a Spanish lady, How she wooed an English man? The story is that, while with Essex in Spain, a captive maid, “by birth and parentage of high degree,” was so overcome by Sir Urian’s kindness that she conceived an ardent attachment towards him, and when he was about to return, the amorous and high-born beauty, flinging aside the trammels of country and kin, begged that she might be allowed to accompany him and share his lot in life—a request the gallant Cheshire man, after urging many other objections, was compelled to refuse, for the best of all reasons—he had already a wife. Courteous ladye, leave this fancy, Here comes all that breeds the strife; I in England have already A sweet woman to my wife; I will not falsify my vow for gold nor gain, Nor yet for all the fairest dames that live in Spain. To which the disappointed lady magnanimously replies— Ah! how happy is that woman That enjoys so true a friend! Many happy days God send her! Of my suit I make an end. On my knees I pardon crave for this offence, Which did from love and true affection first commence. Commend me to thy loving lady, Bear to her this chain of gold, And these bracelets for a token; Grieving that I was so bold. All my jewels in like sort bear thou with thee, For they are fitting for thy wife, but not for me.