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History of the Church and Manor of Wigan.
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of Derby,[1] Sir Thomas Everard, knight, Thomas Holcrofte,[2] John Atherton[3] and Myles Gerrard,[4] Esquires;" complainant says that "altho' the town of Wigan be an ancient borough by force of some ancient charters granted by the Kings of the realm to the late parsons of Wigan, yet the said burgesses have not any grant whereby they may be enabled to have a Mayor to be head of their corporation, but that the same, with many other privileges by them challenged, are and have been for divers years used by mere usurpation, and that if any of the said honorable persons named have been, or are, aldermen it is of very late years, or done without due rite.
- ↑ Henry Stanley, fourth Earl of Derby, who succeeded in 1572 and died in 1593. His wife Margaret was the daughter of Henry Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, by Eleanor his wife, daughter of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, and Mary, sister to King Henry VIII., so that she was very nearly related to Queen Elizabeth.
- ↑ This Thomas Holcroft, Esq., was probably the son and heir of Sir Thomas Holcroft, knight, grantee of the dissolved monastery of Vale Royal in Cheshire, and younger son of John Holcroft of Holcroft, in the county of Lancaster. The younger Thomas Holcroft was afterwards knighted by King James I., in the palace gardens at York, on Sunday the 17th of April, 1603 (Ormerod's Cheshire vol. ii. p. 75; Palatine Note Book, vol. ii. p. 164). There was another Thomas Holcroft living about this time, who was a younger son of Sir John Holcroft of Holcroft, knight, but this last Thomas Holcroft was a priest (Local Gleanings relating to Lancashire and Cheshire, vol. ii. p. 122).
- ↑ John Atherton of Atherton, Esq. (son of Sir John Atherton, knight), who was sixteen years of age at the time of his father's death in 15 Eliz. By his first wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Byron, knight, he was father of another John Atherton (Dugdale's Visitation of Lancashire), who is now represented by Lord Lilford, owner of Atherton Hall.
- ↑ Myles Gerrard of Ince, Esq., was the son and heir of William Gerrard of Ince, by his wife Jane, daughter of Sir Alexander Osbaldeston, of Osbaldeston, knight, and grandson of Myles Gerrard of Ince. The squire of Ince and alderman in question had been imprisoned as a popish recusant in 1593, and accused of harbouring divers seminary priests contrary to the statute. With this he was charged by Bell (a seminary priest who had turned informer). He was examined in April, 1593, by Dr. Goodman, Dean of Westminster, and said that he had frequented the church these seven years, but he had not received the communion ; he desired respite and conference therein, hoping that he should conform himself. He had never taken the oath of allegiance, but was willing to take it if it should be tendered (Strype's Annals vol. vii. p. 262.)
