Since the
Middle Ages various spellings of this ancient surname have been used : Legh, a Lee, Leghe, Leigh and Leyghe; there were also variations on Peter, eg. Piers and Peers, the family's most oft-used given name.[1] The first Sir Piers Legh, of
Lyme, was
knighted in 1397 and assumed as a
coat of arms those of his mother, Matilda de Norley, in lieu of his ancient patrilineal
Leigharms.[2]
For ease of distinguishing between the earlier
generations, it became customary to append a
Roman numeral to the various
Leghs' names; in this case the numbering system is as used in The National Trust Handbook for
Lyme Park.
List of the Leghs of Lyme
Sir Piers Legh (beheaded 1399) was the second son of Robert Legh of
Adlington by his second wife, Matilda, daughter and heiress of Sir Thurstan de Norley of
Norley in
Lancashire. In 1388, Piers married Margaret d'Anyers, the granddaughter of Sir Thomas d'Anyers, who fought with the
Black Prince at the
Battle of Crécy (Sir Thomas had recovered the Black Prince's Standard and was rewarded with an annuity of 40 Marks a year drawn on the Black Prince's
Cheshire estates, his
Royal Manor of Frodsham, which could be redeemed for land of an equivalent value). Sir Thomas's son (also Sir Thomas Danyers aka Daniell) died in 1353, a year before his father, so his young daughter, Margaret d'Anyers, became sole heiress of the
Cheadle Hulmemanor; as an orphan heiress she was married first to Sir John Radclyffe (who died without issue), then to Sir John Savage of
Clifton with whom she had a son, John, and two daughters, Elizabeth and Blanche. After being widowed in 1386 for a second time, she married Piers de Legh on 4 January 1388; he was 28 years of age whilst his bride Dame Margaret Savage (née d'Anyers) was almost 40 as she was said to be 80 at her death in 1428. Dame Margaret Legh and her husband eventually claimed her grandfather's reward from
Richard II in 1398 receiving about 1,400 acres at
Lyme Handley near
Disley in
Cheshire; Sir Piers Legh, having been
knighted in 1397 by Richard II, was executed at
Chester in 1399 after
Henry Bolingbroke's coup,[2] later being buried at
St Michael's Church, Macclesfield.[1][3]
Peter Legh (1623–1642), elected MP for
Newton 1640 and was killed in a duel in 1642.[1][2]
Francis Legh (died 2 February 1643), married in 1630 Anne Fenner before succeeding his nephew to
Lyme Park in 1642, but died without issue the following year[2] and was buried at Winwick.[1]
Peter Legh (died 1744) was imprisoned in the
Tower of London in 1694 and charged with
high treason twice but acquitted on both occasions.[2] He then employed the Italian architect
Giacomo Leoni to carry out a major restoration of the
hall.[8] He was buried at Winwick.[1]
Peter Legh (1706 – 20 May 1792) was a nephew of the above. He was born at
Bank Hall, Bretherton and married Martha Bennet of
Salthrop House, Wiltshire. They lived at Lyme. They had two sons (both died young) and two daughters, who were unable to inherit the Lyme estates. Peter and Martha are both buried at
St Mary's Church, Disley.[1]
ColonelThomas Peter Legh (1754 – 7 August 1797), MP for
Newton 1780, Colonel of the
Lancashire Light Dragoons 1794,[9] succeeded his uncle as
lord of the manors of Newton-in-Makerfield, Haydock, Dalton and Bradley in
Lancashire and of Cheadle and Lyme Handley in
Cheshire. Colonel Legh, who was appointed a
KJ just before his death at
Leith Fort near
Edinburgh, died unmarried 1797, leaving three sons and four daughters by seven different ladies, and was buried at St Oswald's Church, Winwick.[1]
^
abcdefghijklmnopqOrmerod, George (1882), Thomas Helsby (ed.), The History of the County Palatine and City of Chester (2nd ed.), London: George Routledge and Sons, pp. iii:676–678
^Harrington, Peter, "Colonel Thomas Peter Legh, Lancashire Light Dragoons, c. 1795," Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, Vol. LXV, No. 261, Spring 1987, pp. 1–4
^Lyme Park, The Heritage Trail, archived from
the original on 28 August 2008, retrieved 2 November 2008