page 104), and the other in the Harleian MSS.
(541). Mr Cole prefaces his transcript with the following notice:--"The
History of the family of Stanley, Earls of Derby, wrote in verse about
the reign of King Henry the Eighth from a MS. now in possession of Lady
Margaret Stanley, copied for me by a person who has made many mistakes,
and sent to me by my friend Mr Allen, Rector of Tarporley, in 1758.--W.
Cole."
The MS. formerly belonged to Sir John Crewe, of Utkinton, and was given
by Mr Ardern, in 1757, to Lady Margaret Stanley.
The commencement of this metrical history is occupied in dilating upon
the pleasure resulting from such an undertaking; and although the flow
of the verse is not of remarkable smoothness, yet it hardly furnishes an
apology for Seacome's mistake, who, in his "History of the House of
Stanley," printed the first fifty lines as prose. The reverend versifier
rehearses how Stanley sprang from Audley, and then shows the manner in
which his ancestors became possessors of Stourton and Hooton. He dwells
upon the joust betwixt the Admiral of Hainault and Sir John Stanley, the
second brother of the house of Stanley of Hooton.
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