Some time about the year 1560 the Henry Bradshaw here named, who was a younger son of William Bradshaw, of Bradshaw Hall, near Chapel-en-le-Frith, the representative of an old Lancashire family of Saxon origin, seated at Bradshaw, near Bolton, from a time anterior to the Conquest, and which had been dispossessed and repossessed of its estates by the Norman invaders, married Dorothy, one of the daughters and co-heirs of George Bagshawe, of the Ridge, in the parish of Chapel-en-le-Frith, a family that in a later generation numbered amongst its members the eminent Nonconformist divine, William Bagshawe, better known as the “Apostle of the Peak,” and became tenant of a house in Marple called The Place, still existing, and forming part of the Marple estate. By this marriage he had a son bearing his own baptismal name, and, in addition, two daughters, Elizabeth, who became the wife of Thomas Hibbert as already stated, and Sarah, who is said by some genealogists—though on what authority is not clear—to have been the wife of John Milton, the wealthy scrivener, of Bread Street, London, and the mother of England’s great epic poet, whom John Bradshaw in his will spoke of as his “kinsman John Milton.” In 1606, as appears by a deed among the Marple muniments, dated 7th July, 4 James, Henry Bradshaw the elder, therein styled a “yoman,” purchased from Sir Edward Stanley, for the sum of £270, certain premises in Marple and Wyberslegh, comprising a messuage and tenement, with its appurtenances, another tenement situate in Marple or Wibersley, and a close commonly called The Place, the said premises being at the time, as is stated, partly occupied by Henry Bradshaw the elder and partly by Henry Bradshaw the younger, his son and heir-apparent. The estate at that time must have been comparatively small. Two years later (30th June, 1608), as appears by the Calendar of Recognizance Rolls of the Palatinate of Chester, now deposited in the Record Office, London, Henry Bradshaw, to further secure his title, obtained an enrolment of the charter of Randal Earl of Chester, granting in free-forestry Merple and Wibreslega, as they are there called, with lands in Upton and Macclesfield, to Robert, son of Robert de Stockport; and another enrolment of the charter of Robert de Stockport, granting to William Vernon, and Margery his wife, the lands of Marple and Wybersley, from which William and Margery the property passed, as we have said, by successive descents to Sir Edward Stanley, from whom Bradshaw acquired it.