Friday, February 14th.—Adlington House was delivered up, which was besieged about a fortnight, where was a younger son of Mr. Legh’s and 140 souldiers, which had all fair quarter and leave to depart, leaving behind them, as the report was, 700 arms and 15 barrels of powder. By an order of the Parliament, dated March 18, 1643, Sir William Brereton, of Honford, Thomas Legh’s second cousin, and then major-general of the Cheshire forces, entered upon possession and seized the family estates into his own hands, so that the owner of Adlington could hardly say of Sir William what, according to the old ballad, his kinsman Lord Brereton said when he espied him on the hill overlooking Biddulph— Yonder my uncle stands, and he will not come near, Because he’s a Roundhead and I am a Cavalier. The house was pillaged, though the fabric itself does not appear to have sustained any very serious injury considering the quantity of powder that was burned and the efforts that were expended upon it. Shortly afterwards it was retaken and held for the King, but it must have been stormed and taken a second time by the Parliamentarian soldiers, for when Colonel Legh’s widow appealed to Sir William Brereton to be allowed to occupy the hall, and to have a portion of her late husband’s estates assigned to her for the maintenance of herself and children, the request was denied, so far as the occupancy of the house was concerned, on the plea that as Adlington Hall had been garrisoned twice against the Parliament it was not judged fitting it should be ventured a third time. Colonel Legh’s active zeal in the Royalist cause made him so obnoxious to the Parliament party that in the preliminary propositions for the abortive Treaty of Uxbridge he was specially named as one of those to be excluded from the councils of his sovereign, and from holding any office or command from the crown under pain of forfeiture of his estates and the penalties attaching to high treason. The stipulation was unnecessary, for before the commissioners had assembled he had entered into his rest. It is not known with certainty when or where his death occurred; the Prestbury registers for this period are imperfect, and no entry of burial can be discovered; it is not unlikely, however, that he found an unknown grave at some place distant from his home where he may have lost his life in the service of the King.