At the Dissolution, the Monastery had only seven religious, and was granted by King Henry VIII. in 1539, to Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk. It afterwards came into the possession of the Levesons, a Staffordshire family of great antiquity, seated at Willenhall. Nicholas Leveson, lord-mayor of London, died in the year that Trentham was granted to the Duke of Suffolk. His great-grandson, Sir John Leveson, left two daughters only, co-heiresses; one of whom, Frances, by marrying Sir Thomas Gower of Sittenham, carried Trentham and other extensive possessions into this ancient Yorkshire family, which dates from the Conquest. Sir John Leveson-Gower was elevated to the peerage in 1702-3, as Baron Gower of Sittenham. His son John, the second Baron, was constituted Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, and was repeatedly one of the Lords of the Regency during the absences of George II. on the Continent. In 1746 he was created Viscount Trentham of Trentham, and Earl Gower. He died in 1755, and was buried at Trentham. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Granville, the second Earl, who was Member of Parliament for the city of Westminster. On the occasion of his appointment as one of the Lords of the Admiralty, his re-election was strongly opposed by Sir George Vanderput, who was defeated by a small majority. In consequence, a scrutiny ensued; and there occurred several riotous proceedings recorded in the journals of the time. He filled the high offices of Lord Privy Seal, Lord Chamberlain, and Lord President of the Council. He was installed Knight of the Garter, and created Marquis of Stafford in 1786. His eldest son, George Granville, also a Knight of the Garter, married the late estimable Countess of Sutherland in her own right, and was created Duke of Sutherland in 1833. This peerage, according to some of the Scottish writers, is the most ancient of any in North Britain. The Duke did not long survive to enjoy his new dignity, but died in the same year, carrying with him the sincere regret of his numerous tenantry. The latter, to testify their respect for His Grace’s memory, commissioned Sir Francis Chantrey to execute a colossal statue of their noble landlord, which occupies a neighbouring height of great elevation, immediately in front of Trentham Hall across the lake, and forms a very conspicuous object in the surrounding scenery. Of the present noble possessor of the title, George-Granville-Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, the second Duke of his family, it will not be necessary to add much. After sitting in the Commons for Staffordshire, he was summoned to the House of Peers in the lifetime of his father, as Earl Gower, and is distinguished for the gracious dignity with which, during the whole of his career, he has sustained the honours of so many ancient and noble families, concentrated, as it were, in his own person.