Top Myles’s small inheritance based on Ormskirk
We know about this mainly from Myles’s will, in which he named “Ormskirk, Burscough, Wrightington, Mawdesley, Newburgh, Croston and in the Isle of Man”. I seem to have written this list so often that it has become boring. I have visited all these places, particularly the buildings already there in Myles’s time (and still surviving) and have presented all my arguments in so many places to prove that Myles knew exactly which places he was writing about and was not at all confused that this small inheritance was from his “great-grandfather, being a second or younger brother from the house of Standish of Standish”, and nothing to do with his potential inheritance of Duxbury Hall and the large inheritance.
The big problem came when Rev. T. C. Porteus discovered a 16th century abstract of a document naming the first six townships owned by a Standish widow in Ormskirk, some of whose Standish relatives later departed from Lancashire to the Isle of Man in the 16th century. I have nothing but praise for Rev. Porteus, who assiduously followed up many other references, which he published (all references in my articles and titles in my bibliography). His main problem was that he was researching and writing at the beginning of the 20th century, before the foundation of the Lancashire Record Office (1949) and the deposit there or purchase by them of many of the original documents. The two most important relevant collections concerning Myles’s claims were DP397 The Standish of Duxbury Muniments and DDHe The Hesketh of Rufford Muniments. These have been available to the public for several decades, which makes it difficult to understand why they have not been consulted by others writing about Myles Standish from the 1980s onwards.
These two collections together provide answers to most of the muddles and puzzles that arose during the 19th and 20th centuries. The main muddles with Lancashire and the Isle of Man basically lie with the Earls of Derby, who were lucky (or unfortunate) enough to become virtual Kings of Lancashire, Cheshire, North Wales and the Isle of Man in the 14th and 15th centuries, only to lose much of their power by adopting the Royalist cause during the Civil War. During the 15th and 16th centuries, however, they were at the height of their power, were patrons of all the gentry families under their control, including the Standishes of Standish and Duxbury and the Heskeths of Rufford, regularly married their younger sons and daughters into these (and other local) families and regularly placed relatives on the Isle of Man as administrators.
One of these administrators was William Stopforth (Stopford[e]/ Stockport), Secretary to Henry, the 4th Earl of Derby, who served for a while in the Isle of Man, died in 1584 and whose widow Blanche married Robert Hesketh of Rufford (1560-1620), bringing many Standish lands to the Heskeths. DDHe/ 59 “Documents relating to the Stopforth family”, with 71 documents 1410-1610, provide a rather clear picture of this family, including purchases by William Stopforth of the estates in Ormskirk, etc. from Hugh Standish of Ormskirk. Other relevant documents appear under the sections devoted to the other townships, e.g. DDHe/28, Ormskirk. There is no evidence in either G. V. C. Young’s or Lawrence Hill’s books on Manx Myles that they ever saw these documents. If they did, they would have realised that Hugh Standish’s lands in Lancashire, inherited from his father Thomas and divorced mother Joan (née Stanley of Cross Hall, later Mrs Scott of Wigan, DDHe/ 59/45, 26 January, 1576), were not confined to the six townships named in Myles’s will, but also included lands elsewhere, e.g. Parbold in DDHe/ 59/26, 23 June 1569; Shevington in DDHe/ 59/33, 2 May 1572. They would also have realised that Hugh never owned or sold lands in the Isle of Man to William Stopforth, but just happened to have a couple of uncles there.
I wrote the first version of this story in my articles in the Lancashire History Quarterly and asap will place the complete Isle of Man Standish story on this web site, starting with abstracts of DDHe documents. Meanwhile, a brief summary of the documented facts. Hugh Standish of Ormskirk sold off his inherited lands piecemeal during the 1570s, mainly to William Stopforth, all legitimately, witnessed by many local dignitaries and duly signed and sealed. Needless to say, perhaps, the Earls of Derby, their chief henchmen and their lawyers were often involved, e.g. Ferdinando, Lord Strange, future 5th Earl of Derby, conducted a transaction in DDHe/ 59/61, 9 April 1589 between two sons of William Stopforthe and their mother, widow Blanche, meanwhile wife of Robert Hesketh, esq. of Rufford.
Having sold the last bit of land of his inheritance in Lancashire Hugh Standish of Ormskirk then disappeared from local records. This all happened a decade before Myles was born (c. 1587), leaving no possibility that Myles could have claimed these same lands in 1656 or his son Alexander continue to claim them in his will of 1702. We can only assume that Myles heard something from his father or grandfather about his profligate distant relative Hugh of Ormskirk. Maybe he even learnt a lesson or two from this story?
There is, quite simply, no other explanation than that the lands Myles and son Alexander claimed were coincidentally in some of the same places in Lancashire as those where Hugh Standish of Ormskirk also had lands, which brings us back to Rev. Porteus, the Standishes of Standish, the Earls of Derby and the Isle of Man. Myles claimed unequivocally in his will that these lands were his inheritance because of his great-grandfather, a “second or younger son of the house of Standish of Standish”. There seems little reason to doubt this claim and the Standish of Duxbury Muniments reveal that Sir Christopher Standish of Duxbury (died 1495) had a son Alexander by his third wife Alice, eldest daughter of Sir Alexander Standish of Standish, who is the only strong candidate for Myles’s great-grandfather.
(Settlement DP397/ 21/3, 20 November 1493, names Sir Christopher’s sons as Thomas, James, Hugh, Alexandre, Rowland, and for good measure the supervisors were “Lord Straunge, Maistre Sir Edward Stanley, kt., Maistre Jamys Stanley, Warden of Manchester”. These were younger brothers of the 1st Earl of Derby. Literature on the Earls of Derby reveals that this “Lord Straunge” was George, who had a minor offstage role in Shakespeare’s Richard III and died before his father, apparently by poisoning. “Maistre Sir Edward Stanley, kt.” went on to become the victor at the Battle of Flodden Field in 1513, was greeted by Henry VIII as “Ho, ho, my soldier” and created first Lord Mounteagle. “Maistre Jamys Stanley, Warden of Manchester”, went on to become Bishop of Ely, with many interesting consequences.)