is found purchasing from Sir Thomas Brereton the old manor-house of Handforth, which one of his progenitors, Urian Brereton, erected in 1557, and subsequently (1681) he became the owner, also by purchase, of lands in Newton, adjoining Butley, that have since descended with the other Adlington properties. Thomas Legh survived all his brothers, and died in December, 1687, being then in his seventy-third year. In accordance with his expressed desire, his remains were “decently buried amongst his Ancestors in the Chancell of the parish church of Prestbury.” [Illustration] Thomas Legh, the third of that name, was in his forty-fourth year when he succeeded to the Adlington estates—those in Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire passing under his father’s will to his two surviving brothers, Edward and Richard. Shortly after the Restoration (1666) he chose himself a wife from the historic house of Maynard—Johanna, the daughter, and eventually heir, of the distinguished statesman and lawyer, Sir John Maynard—a match that must have brought him considerable wealth, and have added to his social influence. Sir John had been an active member of the Long Parliament, in which he distinguished himself as one of the prosecutors of Strafford and Laud, but afterwards, for his opposition to the violent acts of the army and the unconstitutional proceedings of Cromwell, he was twice committed to the Tower. At the conference between the Lords and Commons at the time of the Revolution he displayed considerable ability, and warmly advocated the abdication of James II. He was appointed one of the Commissioners of the Great Seal in 1689, being then eighty-seven years of age. He had frequently to submit to the coarseness of Jeffries’ ribald tongue. On one occasion, when addressing the court, that unjust dispenser of justice interrupted him with the rude remark, “Mr. Serjeant, you’ve lost your knowledge of law; your memory is failing you through age.” “It may be so,” responded Maynard, “but I am sure I have forgotten more law than your lordship ever knew.” And it is said of him that when William III., alluding to his great age, remarked that he must have outlived all the lawyers of his time, he happily replied, “Yes, and if your highness had not come over to our assistance I should have outlived the law itself.” Political prudence was not always a distinguishing characteristic of the lords of Adlington, and Thomas Legh does not seem to have profited greatly by his father’s and grandfather’s experiences of political partisanship, for he contrived to get himself involved in the troubles which fell upon Cheshire in 1683, the year of the notorious Rye House Plot, when he was suspected of conspiring with others to place the Duke of Monmouth upon the throne.