Sir Thomas
Tyldesley 1612-1651
Thomas
Tyldesley was the elder son of Edward
Tyldesley of Morleys Hall, Astley, in the parish of Leigh,
Lancashire, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of
Christopher
Preston of Holker. He was baptised at Woodplumpton on 10 September
1612. In early life he adopted the military profession
and served in the wars in Germany. Around 1634
he married Frances, elder daughter of Ralph Standish,
by whom
he had three sons and seven daughters.
At
the time of the outbreak of the civil war Tyldesley was living at Myerscough
Lodge, one of the estates inherited from his father. His father was
at one time steward of the household
of Ferdinando Stanley, fifth Earl of Derby, uncle of Lord Strange.
When
war seemed unavoidable, Thomas Tyldesley was one of the
first to whom James Stanley, lord Strange (afterwards seventh
Earl of Derby) looked for help.
Father
Ambrose Barlow, a 56 year-old priest, was in receipt of a pension
left by Thomas Tyldesley's grandmother to enable him to take charge
of poor Catholics in the area. Thomas Tyldesley had allowed Barlow
to stay at Morleys Hall and there to celebrate mass.Although
Thomas Tyldesley was always firmly for the King, what happened at
his home
on Easter Sunday 25 April 1641 put his resolve beyond
question. Butler relates the events:
Then in March 1641 Charles I (1625-49), under extreme
pressure from Parliament, signed a bill which decreed that
any Roman Catholic priest who did not leave the country
would be arrested and treated as a traitor. At about the
same time Ambrose Barlow suffered a stroke, which left
him partially paralysed.
Six weeks after Charles signed the bill, the vicar of Leigh
celebrated Easter by arming his congregation and leading
them to Morleys Hall. Ambrose Barlow had just finished
celebrating Mass and was preaching to his congregation.
They seized
him, set him on a horse with a man behind him to prevent
his falling off, and took him with an escort of sixty to
a justice of the peace. The latter had imprisoned in
Lancaster Castle, where he remained without trial for four
months...
On Friday 10 September 1641 he was taken from the castle
on a hurdle to the place of execution, where he was hanged,
drawn and quartered. His skull is preserved at Wardley
Hall in Lancashire...
It has been suggested that Thomas Tyldesley was responsible
for the first bloodshed of the Civil War, with the shooting
of a linen weaver
named Richard Perceval at Manchester on 15 July 1642. Certainly proceedings
were begun against Thomas Tyldesley for the killing. However, on
11 August 1642 the House of Commons ordered the judges
in Lancashire to
cease the
action:
Respiting Trials.
Ordered, That the Judges of the County of Lancaster,
and the other Officers whom it may concern, be required to respite
the Tryal and Proceedings against Tho. Tildesley Esquire, who,
as this House is informed, slew the Man at Manchester, and
all other Proceedings concerning that Fact, until this House
shall take farther Order herein; this Case concerning the Privilege
of Parliament:
At his own
charge Tyldesley raised regiments of horse, foot, and
dragoons,
in command of
which he served with distinction at the battle
of Edgehill
on 23 October
1642. A facsimile of the
Captain's commission he granted to William Blundell
has survived. 
Thomas
Tyldesley's
next notable exploit was the storming of the town of
Burton-upon-Trent, crossing a bridge of 36
arches whilst under constant fire. For his conduct he
received
from Charles I at Greenwich the honour of
knighthood
and
was made a brigadier.
In May 1644 he commanded under the Earl of
Derby at the siege of Bolton, when, after
a hot engagement, they captured the town. He was appointed governor
of Lichfield in 1645, and surrendered the place
in obedience to the royal warrant on 10 July
1646. He was afterwards in command of a division of the army besieging
Lancaster with the expectation of a quick surrender
of the place when the royal forces were totally defeated
at Preston on 17 Aug. 1648. Obliged to retreat
to the north, Tyldesley joined others of the
royalists at Appleby. Colonel-general Ashton,
having relieved Cockermouth Castle, marched against them. Sir Philip
Musgrave, the governor, and Tyldesley, finding
defence impossible, surrendered at once
on 9 Oct 1648, on terms which required the officers to go beyond
the seas within six months, and to observe meanwhile
all orders and ordinances of parliament.
After
the king's death in the following January, Tyldesley,
unwilling to make any composition,
passed over to Ireland, joining the Marquis of Ormonde;
but
the jealousy of the Irish officers soon obliged him to retire.
He had
a hearty welcome from his old commander and
friend, Derby, in the Isle of Man late in
1649, and, after an expedition to Scotland, returned to the island
to assist in taking over the troops to join
Charles II in his advance into England. The
king sent word for them to hasten to him in August 1651, when
he was actually quartered at Myerscough Lodge,
Tyldesley's home. Ormerod cites a report made
by one of the Parliamentarians:
...upon Tuesday [12 August 1651] the Scots
King came thither and set all the prisoners
in the
Castle
at liberty. Hee was proclaimed at the Crosse,
and a general pardon to all persons except
some few. That night he lodged at Aston
Hall, three miles from Lancaster, being Col.
Wainman's bouse, where Hamilton lodged two
days before the battail at Preston, whose fate
we hope attends this young man that traces
him in the same steps of Invasion. Upon Wednesday
[13 August 1651] he lodged at Myerscoe, Sir
Thomas Tildesley's house, and from thence marched
through Preston.
Although delayed by contrary
winds, Derby, with Tyldesley as his major-general, landed at Wyre
Water in Lancashire on 15 August, and called upon their
friends, including both Catholics and presbyterians,
to meet them at Preston. Before they could gather and equip an efficient
force,
Colonel Robert Lilburne, one of the parliament's officers, advanced
against them with some well-trained troops and
brought them to an engagement at Wigan Lane
in Lancashire on 25 Aug. 1651. In that desperate struggle the royal
army, which lost nearly half its officers and
men,
was totally defeated and Tyldesley was
killed.
Tyldesley was buried in his own chapel of St. Nicholas in the church
of Leigh. A monument covered his remains.. The
Earl of Derby, who grieved much at the
loss of his old companion-in-arms when himself on his way to his execution
at Bolton two months later, requested in vain to be allowed to go into
the church
as he passed by Leigh to look upon his friend's grave. By 1869, when
the church was rebuilt, the monument had long been removed. When
the restoration of the church was completed a subscription
was raised, and by it a brass plate was inserted in the
north wall of the chapel. The arms in the
margin of the brass are Tyldesley quartering Worsley,
brought in by the marriage of Thurston de Tyldesley with
Margaret, daughter and heiress of Jordan de Workedeslegh
or Worsley, and Leyland of Morleys,
brought in by the marriage of Edward Tyldesley with Ann,
daughter and sole heiress of Thomas Leyland. The inscription reads:
At
the east
end of the north aisle, formerly the Tyldesley chantry of
St. Nicholas, within this ancient parish church, rested the
body of Sir Thomas Tyldesley, of Tyldesley, Morleys, and
Myerscough, in this county, knight, a major-general in his
Majesty's army, and governor of Lichfield, who was slain fighting
gallantly for his royal master under James, seventh Earl of Derby,
in the battle
of Wigan-lane near this place, on the twenty-fifth day of August,
1651.
No
forfeiture is known to have followed Tyldesley's decease
as far as related to
his Astley and Tyldesley
estates.
A
monument was erected in the hedge by the roadside half a mile
from Wigan,
where Tyldesley
fell, by Alexander Rigby, high sheriff of the county, who had served
under him as a cornet. The inscription reads:
An high Act of Gratitude
which conveys the
memory of
Sir Thomas Tyldesley
to posterity.
Who served King Charles the First
as Lieutenant Colonel at
Edge Hill Battle,
after raising Regiments of Horse, Foot
and
Dragoons, and of the desperate
storming of Burton-on-Trent
over a bridge of 36 arches,
received the honour of Knighthood.
He afterwards served in
all the Wars in great command,
was Governor of Litchfield
and followed the fortune of the Crown
through the three Kingdoms and never
compounded with the Rebels,
though strongly
invested. And on the 25th August, A.D. 1651
was here slain,
commanding as Major General
under the Earl of Derby.
To whom the grateful Erector
Alexander
Rigby Esq.
was Cornet when he was
High Sheriff of this County
A.D. 1679
Placed this high obligation on
the whole of the family
of the Tyldesleys,
to follow the noble example of their
Loyal
Ancestor.
Fishwick states that Mary Rigby, daughter of Alexander,
married Thomas Tyldesley, son of the Cavalier.
Lady Frances Tyldesley survived her husband for many years.
On 30 May 1663 she was granted a pension of £200 per
annum.She
died at Ince
Blundell and was buried in the Tyldesley chantry at Leigh on
11 September 1691. The
register entry
reads "Madam
Frances Leddy to Sir Thomas Tyldesley."
In
1713, Thomas Tyldesley, grandson
of the Cavalier, recorded in his diary that he had spent
2s 6d on the repair of the
monument at Wigan Lane.
Sir
Thomas Tyldesley's Regiment of Foote is part of The
King's Army of The English Civil War Society
References
1. Dictionary of National Biography.
2. History of the Tyldesleys of Lancashire, John
Lunn, Altrincham 1966.
3. Butler's Lives of the Saints,
Alban Butler and Paul
Burnsm, 2000
4. House of Commons
Journal Volume 2,
11 August 1642.
5. Crosby Records - A Cavalier's
Note Book, William
Blundell (ed. The Revd. T Ellison Gibson), 1880
6. The Great Civil War in Lancashire, Ernest Broxap,
1973.
7. The Finest Knight in England, Stuart Reid, 1987
8. Tracts Relating to Military Proceedings in Lancashire
during the Great Civil War, George Ormerod (Editor),
1844
9. The History of the Parish of Bispham in the County
of Lancaster, Henry Fishwick, 1887