Ellen Preston’s father was Sir Thomas Preston; her mother was a Thornborough, of Hampsfield Hall, Hampsfell, in the Parish of Cartmel, North Lancashire. The Thornboroughs (or Thornburghs) had held some of the following manors from the time of Edward III.:——Hampsfield Hall, Whitwell, Winfell, Fellside, Skelsmergh, Patton, Dallam Tower, Methop, Ulva, and Wilson House, all either in North Lancashire or Westmoreland. In the parish church of Windermere, at Bowness, near Lake Windermere, there is a window containing, besides royal arms (possibly those of Henry V.), the arms of Harrington, Leybourne, Fleming de Rydal, Strickland, Middleton, and Redmayne, most of which houses of gentry of “the North Countrie” were more or less allied to the fourth Lord Mounteagle. Sir Edward Stanley first Lord Mounteagle was in possession of Hornby Castle and its broad acres at the date of Flodden Field, 1513.[A] This is interestingly evidenced by the two following stanzas from the old “Ballad of Flodden Field”:—— [Footnote A: In the battle of Flodden Field, which caused such lamentation, mourning, and woe in Edinburgh, several citizens of York behaved themselves valiantly under Sir John Mounville. Among English lords in this fight were the Lords Howard (Edmund Howard), Stanley, Ogle, Clifford, Lumley, Latimer, Scroope (of Bolton), and Dacres; among knights were Gascoyne, Pickering, Stapleton, Tilney, and Markenfield; and among gentlemen were Dawney, Tempest, Dawbey, and Heron.——See Gent’s “_Ripon_,” p. 143. It is said that the gallant Northumbrian Heron knew all the “sleights of war.”] “Most lively lads in Lonsdale bred, With weapons of unwieldly weight; All such as Tatham Fells had bred, Went under Stanley’s streamers bright. From Silverdale to Kent Sand Side,[87] Whose soil is sown with cockle shells; From Cartmel eke and Connyside, With fellows fierce from Furness Fells.” Now, the fourth Lord Mounteagle would, almost certainly, know that among the many valiant knights that fought with his forbear, Sir Edward Stanley, was Sir Christopher Ward, who led the Yorkshire levies to the victorious field, and who came of the great family of Ward (or Warde), long famous in the annals of the West Hiding of Yorkshire about Guiseley, Esholt, and Ripon. For, as the grand old “Ballad of Flodden Field” again tells us, the English arms were reinforced “With many a gentleman and squire, From Rippon, Ripley, and Rydale, With them marched forth all Massamshire, With Nosterfield and Netherdale.”