 Edward
Tyldesley was the son of Thurstan
Tyldesley and
his second wife Jane Langton. It seems likely
that it is this Edward who is mentioned in the
muster for 1556 a.
LEVY OF 200 ARCHERS. — QUOTA FOR EACH HUNDRED.
The
appointmt and Taxacon of two hundred souldiers,
beinge all archers, levyed wthin the countie of
Lancaster to serve the Queenes Matie under the
conduction of Sr Robte Worsley Knight, & Edward
Tildesley Esq, 1556, et anno tertio et quarto Phi:
et Mariae.
Hundreth de
Derbie xlij
Salford xxxvj
Laylond xvij CC
Archers.?6
Amoundernes xxx
Blackbornc xxxix
Lonesdalle xxxvj
Md. That evie archer had allowed
vnto hym Xs in money over & besydes his furniture.
Sir Robert Worsley was Edward's brother-in-law, being
married to his half-sister Alice
Tyldesley.
Around 1558, Edward
married
Anne Leyland, daughter and heiress of Thomas
Leyland
of Morleys
Hall,
around
1558. Morleys Hall, since demolished and
rebuilt, was a property then surrounded by a moat..
The circumstances of the marriage are given
by
Baines:
A tradition prevails in the parish that a daughter
of Leyland's having formed an attachment to one
of the Tyldesleys, in opposition to the wishes
of her father, the young lady was shut up in her
room; but having provided herself with a rope,
she tied one end of it round her body, and threw
the other to her expecting lover, on the opposite
side of the moat, when casting herself out of the
window into the water, which was thirty feet wide,
he dragged her to land, and they were married before
the adventure was known to the family.
It is believed that Edward took Anne directly
to the chapel at Wardley Hall where they were
married. The chapel had been established in
1361 by Edward's
ancestor, Thurstan Tyldesley, after his return
from the Poitiers campaign.
Two factors may have led to the elopement. First,
Edward Tyldesley was a second son, without great
financial expectations. Second, Thomas Leyland
had a reputation as a rather irascible man -
apparently on one occasion turning his own pregnant
wife out
of the house. Whatever the reasons, Thomas Leyland
appears to have forgiven his son-in-law and Morleys
Hall passed into the possession of the Tyldesleys.
Edward and Anne had eight children, Thomas, Joan,
Thurstan, Edward, Jane, Anne, Margaret and William.
On his death in 1564, Thomas Leyland left his
grandson and namesake a gold angel.
In
1572 William Kenyon, one of Edward's friends,
and godfather to his daughter Margaret, died.
His will includes the following bequests:
Yt ys my will that myn awne mr Edwarde Tyldisley
Esquier shalhave my instrumente wch I have lente
hym so that he leave the same to his sonne Thoms
after his deathe and that Mrgarate Tildisley my
goddoughter shalhave my beste Jemewe rynge of
golde
The
elopement of Edward and Anne was later
to inspire a poem by Branwell Brontë. The
poem, never finished, was instigated by Joseph
Bentley Leyland, who in return produced a medallion
portrait of Brontë. At the end of the 90
line fragment, entitled Morley Hall, Brontë refers
to Edward Tyldesley's great-grandson, Sir
Thomas Tyldesley: |
