“M.S. “George Cradock, Esq., (for his great prvdence in yᵉ common lawes well worthy to be beav-Clarke of yᵉ assizes for this Circvit), did take to wife yᵉ most amiable, most loving Dorothy, yᵉ davghter of John Savnders, Doctor of Physicke, by whom he had a Pair-royall of incomparable davghters, to wit, Dorothy, Elizabeth, and Mary. “It is easie to gvess that he lived in a splendid degree, if I shall bvt recovnt vnto you that Sʳ. Thomas Slingsby, Baronet, } { Dorothy } yᵉ Right Honᵇˡᵉ Robt. Lord Cholmondely } Maried { Elizabeth } Coheir. Sʳ. John Bridgeman, Baronet, } { Mary } “But! but! to our grief, George Cradock is assavlted by death in yᵉ meridjan of his age, not far off from his Castle of Caverswal (lately bvilt, even to beavty, by Mathew Cradock, Esq., his father, who lies inter’d near this place). “And dying of yᵉ small pox yᵉ 16th of April, 1643, he tooke himselfe to yᵉ private masion of this tombe, erected for him at yᵉ cost of Dorothy, his obseqviovs wife, where he now rests (vnder the protection of an Essoine) vntil he shall be svmmon’d to appeare at yᵉ last great and general Assizes.” The Sir Thomas Slingsby, of Scriven, Bart., who married Dorothy, the eldest of this “pair-royal,” was beheaded by Oliver Cromwell. [29] William Chetwynd, who was Gentleman Usher of the Chamber to Henry the Seventh, in the ninth year of that king’s reign was barbarously and treacherously assassinated on Tixal Heath, near Ingestre, by Sir Humphrey Stanley, of Pipe, from motives of jealousy, having inveigled him from his house by a counterfeit letter. Pennant says:--“It does not appear that justice overtook the assassin, although his widow perseveringly evoked it.” [30] The fertility and other natural advantages of “the vale,” and, we may believe, its picturesque beauties also, in remote times, determined the ancient nobility of Staffordshire to make it their chosen seat. This, and a lower portion of the river, are adorned with that graceful bird the swan. Ingestre, and the neighbouring royalties, have had “games of swans” immemorially. Amongst the distinguishing marks on the beaks of the birds used in 1785 in the several royalties adjoining the Trent, enumerated by Dr. S. Shaw, we find that of “Earl Talbot, Ingestre; two notches on the right side.” [31] Walter Chetwynd, Esq., of Ingestre, the celebrated antiquary, was the son of Walter Chetwynd, Esq., and married Ann, daughter of Sir Edward Bagot, Bart., August, 1658. He introduced the learned Dr. Plot, from Oxford, into Staffordshire, to write its Natural History. Dr. Plot exhibits in his work (1686) a Plan of Ingestre Hall, and gives an account of the rebuilding of Ingestre church by his patron.