“I write under much anxiety; for I believe my husband goes the day after to-morrow to London. This is the more grievous, as the air there does not suit him; but God of His goodness will preserve him. As for our little one, he is very well, Heaven be thanked. I have already in two of my letters asked you for frocks for him, for he is very big for his age; and they are needed the more that in this country children are short-clothed at a month or six weeks old. I am considered out of my senses that he is not yet short-coated. I also asked you to send hoods. I hope that all may arrive together. “God grant that all that Parliament decides be for His glory, and for the good of the King and of the nation.” Lord Strange did not however, go to London at this time. “My husband,” writes Lady Strange a little later, “has not been summoned to London (June 1628). There are great disturbances there. One day all is confusion, the next everything goes well.” It is small wonder that, to such a state of things, Lord Strange preferred the tranquillity and domestic happiness of his ancestral home. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER IV LATHOM HOUSE. ORM THE SAXON. THE ANCESTRY OF THE EARLS OF DERBY. A FAMILY LEGEND. “SANS CHANGER.” A STATELY OLD HOME. THE ROYAL GUEST, AND THE FOOL. THE BARON’S RETAINERS. A GOODLY “CHECKROWLE.” PUBLIC TROUBLES. THE SIEGE OF ROCHELLE. “THE VILLAIN HAS KILLED ME.” NATIONAL GRIEVANCES. AN EARNEST REQUEST. The family of Stanley takes its surname from the lordship of Stonleigh or Stanleigh in the moorlands of Staffordshire. The appertaining house and estates had originally belonged to the de Lathoms. Robert Fitz-Henry appears to have been the first representative of the family of Lathom. In the reign of Richard I. this Robert founded the Priory of Burscough for Black Canons, whose scanty ruins, standing in a field near Ormskirk, still tell of the great nobility and beauty of the original structure. Burscough Priory was for a long time the burial-place of the Earls of Derby; but at a later period, many of the coffins were removed to the vault of the Stanleys in Ormskirk church, which was built by the sumptuous-minded third Earl of Derby. In the reign of Edward I. the grandson of Robert Fitz-Henry married Amicia, the sister and co-heir of the lord and baron of Alfreton and Norton. Sir Rupert, their son, married Katherine, daughter and heiress of Sir Robert de Knowsley, that magnificent estate being thus brought into the family.