Jane Osbaldeston

Jane Stanley

• Birth: 1500 - Lancashire, England
• Death: Aug 19 1567 - Blackburn, Lancashire, England
• Father: Sir John Stanley of Melling Knt.
• Mother: Elizabeth Harrington
• Married: 1) Thomas Halsall 2) John Osbaldeston

supporting data

• The Derby Household Books: Comprising an Account of the Household ... By William Ffarington page 143
• https://archive.org/details/derbyhouseholdb00ffargoog
• https://archive.org/stream/derbyhouseholdb00ffargoog#page/n263/mode...
• IBID. "Mr Halsoll."] Richard, son and heir of Henry and grandson of Sir Thomas Halsall of Halsall Knt., whose wife was Jane, daughter and coheiress of Sir John Stanley of Honford Knt. (base son and heir of John Stanley, brother of Thomas first Earl of Derby) and of Elizabeth his wife, daughter and coheiress of Sir John Harrington of Hornby Castle Knt. and of his wife, the daughter and heiress of Sir Robert Nevile of Hornby. In her widowhood Dame Jane Halsall married 2nd Edward VI. John Osbaldeston Esq., and in the same year her daughter Maud married Edward Osbaldeston of Osbaldeston, her husband's son by his first wife Margaret,
• https://archive.org/stream/derbyhouseholdb00ffargoog#page/n264/mode...
• daughter of George Lord Strange. The mother of Sir Thomas Halsall was Margaret, daughter of James Stanley, Clerk, and by her husband, Sir Henry Halsall of Halsall, she had issue six sons and three daughters. On the south side of the chancel of Halsall Church upon an altar tomb ornamented with escutcheons, now defaced, are the full-length figures of a knight of the Halsalls and a lady of the Stanleys. (Baines, vol. iv, p. 262.) Richard Halsall Esq. succeeded his father Henry (whose Will was proved at Chester 30th December 1574) and married before 1567 Ann, daughter of Alexander Barlow of Barlow Esq. M.P. the niece of Margaret Countess of Derby, and a lady who was a frequent visiter at Knowsley, (See p. 106, Note.) By this lady he had no surviving issue, and the name of his second wife has not been recorded in the Visit. Lanc., A° 1613, c. 5, 50 b. in Coll. Arm. She was, however, Jane, daughter of William Norres and the mother of Sir Cuthbert Halsall, mentioned page 35 and afterwards in this Diary. (Lanc. MSS., vol. iii. pp. 216-331.)
• https://archive.org/stream/derbyhouseholdb00ffargoog#page/n266/mode...
• Pg.146
• IBID. "Yong Mr Halsall and Mrs Dorothy Stanley."] Cuthbert Halsall here named was the natural son of Richard Halsall of Halsall Esq. (page 143, Note, and Visit. Lanc. anno 1613, c. 5, 50 b. in Coll. Arm.) He is described in a deposition preliminary to a divorce of his daughter and her affianced husband, "Cuthbert Halsall, alias Norris," and afterwards "Cuthbert Halsall, whose mother was Jenet Scarisbricke." He was, however, adopted by his father's family, nor is it improbable that his parents were afterwards married, as this son succeeded to the ancient patrimonial inheritance. His grandmother Ann, widow of Henry Halsall Esq. and daughter of Sir William Molyneux of Sefton Knt. and of his second wife Elizabeth, coheiress of Cuthbert Clifton Esq., made her Will 14th June 1587, and bequeathed her body to be buried in the chancel of the Parish Church of Halsall as near to the place where her husband was buried (in 1574) as might be, and that such expenses should be bestowed about her burial as she should declare to her executors and as should stand with her rank and degree. She gave to her Right Hon. and very good Lord Henry Earl of Derby the best oxe she should happen to have at her decease, and to Mrs. Anne Stanley, daughter of the said Earl, to whom she was god-mother, one tablet of gold weighing v'li by estimation. She bequeathed to her cousin Sir Richard Molyneux, to her servant Mr. Edward Halsall, to
• https://archive.org/stream/derbyhouseholdb00ffargoog#page/n267/mode...
• each of her four cousins Edward Standishe, Richard Molyneux of Cunscough Esq., John Molyneux, Thomas Woodfall, and to her sister Jane, wife of James Booth of Hollin Green, a fat oxe ; to Richard, son of Gilbert Halsall, xl's ; and all the rest of her estate, real and personal, to Cuthbert Halsall when of the age of 21, without mentioning his affinity or the nature of his consanguinity either to her or to her deceased husband. She appointed Edward Norris Esq. and Richard Duddyll her executors and trustees, and required them to render an account of their trust to Henry Earl of Derby and to the said Cuthbert Halsall when he attained his majority, and she desired the Earl to be the supervisor of her Will, which was proved at Chester July 10th 1587. The testatrix was the sister and co-heiress of her only uterine brother Thomas, eldest son of Sir William Molyneux by his second wife, the said Thomas having no issue by Cicely, daughter of Alexander Osbaldeston of Osbaldeston Esq., the sister in half blood of John Osbaldeston Esq. who married Dame Jane Halsall (see page 120, Note), and the Cliftons by frequent intermarriages were very near of kin to her ; but it would not be edifying, and it is unnecessary to attempt to unravel these startling family intricacies. "Yong Mr. Halsall," who seems at this time to have been betrothed to his future wife, married "Mrs. Dorothy," natural daughter of Henry Earl of Derby, by whom he had issue two daughters, his coheiresses, viz. Ann and Bridget. The former married her kinsman Thomas Clifton of Clifton and Weetby, and the latter was contracted in her minority to Thomas Halsall of Bickerstaff, nephew of Richard Halsall of Melling, a collateral branch of her father's family (see page 119, Note); but owing to the intrigues and interdiction of her mother Dame Dorothy Halsall, who was a lady of a petulant and vivid temperament and well disposed to proscribe all dispensations and indulgences on the score of consanguinity, the original marriage contract was cancelled, the marriage not consummated, and a divorce sued for and obtained in the Consistory Court of Chester, much to the mortification at least of the juvenile bridegroom elect, as he lugubriously stated in his deposition. The lady was afterwards the wife of Thomas, son of Sir Thomas Crompton LL.D. Chancellor of London. Her husband died in 1641, aet. 72. Cuthbert Halsall was knighted in 1604, and was Sheriff of Lancashire in 1601 and 1612. He impaled the arms of Griffith, Harington, Stanley, and Nevile ; over all a bend sinister. Gregson states, with much inaccuracy, that "in all pedigrees of this family not a second son is named, except he inherited his brother's estate." In the Lanc. Visit. of 1567 and 1665 there are several younger sons recorded, but none in that of 1613.

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From 'Townships: Melling', in A History of the County of Lancaster: Volume 3, ed. William Farrer and J Brownbill (London, 1907), pp. 208-215. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/lancs/vol3/pp208-215 [accessed 27 August 2016].

Robert de Byron was succeeded by two daughters —Isabel, who married Robert de Nevill of Hornby, and Maud, who married William Gerard of Kingsley, father of the William Gerard above mentioned. (fn. 28) The latter thus had a double right in Melling, by his mother as well as by his wife. The Nevill share descended with Hornby to the Harringtons, and in the division of Sir John Harrington's (fn. 29) estate between his two daughters, Elizabeth and Anne, Melling went to the former. She married John Stanley, son and heir of John Stanley of Weaver, in Cheshire (a younger brother of the first earl of Derby), (fn. 30) and Jane, one of their three daughters and co-heiresses, brought it to Sir Thomas Halsall, who died in 1539. His widow afterwards married John Osbaldeston of Osbaldeston, and died at this place 19 August, 1567. (fn. 31) Inquisitions taken after the death of her son Henry state that she held the manor of Melling and ten messuages, 200 acres of land, &c., in Melling and Liverpool. The manor was held of the queen by knight's service, and was worth £4 clear. By indenture and fine in 1566 the succession was arranged to Henry Halsall and his heirs, or in default to Jane's other children, or to her right heirs. Henry Halsall accordingly succeeded to the manor, and on his death in 1575 without issue—his grandson Cuthbert being illegitimate—it passed to Maud, wife of Edward Osbaldeston, one of the daughters of Dame Jane Halsall, and to Bartholomew Hesketh as son and heir of her other daughter Joan, who had married Gabriel Hesketh, the former being thirty-six years and the latter twenty-two. (fn. 32) In 1587 Bartholomew Hesketh purchased the Osbaldeston share, (fn. 33) but no further mention is made of it after 1598 (fn. 34) in the known inquisitions or settlements of this family, nor does any claim seem to have been made to it.

• 28. De Banc. R. 251, m. 160. See also De Banc. R. 220, m. 92 d.; Nevill v. Richard son of Adam Tatlock. In August, 1313, Robert de Nevill and Isabel his wife took action against William son of Roger de Melling in a plea of the assize of mort d'ancestor. Hervey de Melling and Henry his son, as also Henry son of Roger de Melling, were concerned in the case; Assize R. 424, m. 4. In 1374 Henry de Chathirton, in right of Robert de Nevill, prosecuted Gilbert son of Otes de Halsall and others for taking cattle at Melling; De Banco R. 456, m. 408. For a claim against this Henry see Dep. Keeper's Rep. xxxii, App. 354.
• 29. Killed at Wakefield in 1460.
• 30. Visit. of 1533 (Chet. Soc.), 166. He is elsewhere described as illegitimate (Visit. of 1567); but John Stanley of Weaver certainly had a son and heir John living in 1476, though his brother Thomas succeeded to Weaver; Ormerod, Ches. (ed. Helsby), iii. 574.
• 31. See Pal. of Lanc. Feet of F. bdle. 28, m. 15.
• 32. Duchy of Lanc. Inq. p.m. xiii, n. 34; xiv, n. 81. Dame Jane's sisters were Anne, who married John Swift, and Margaret, who married Thomas Grimshaw. For the latter's claim see Add. MS. 32105, n. 813. Margaret Grimshaw, widow, died in 1549, holding the third part of 34 messuages, 1,000 acres of land, &c., 8 'oppells' of a horse-mill and a watermill in Melling, Aintree, and Liverpool. All was held of the king by the third part of a knight's fee, and 4s. 5¼d. rent. The heir was her son Richard, forty-six years of age; Duchy of Lanc. Inq. p. m. ix, n. 25.
• 33. Pal. of Lanc. Feet of F. bdle. 49, m. 168.
• 34. Ibid. bdle. 60, m. 139. Pal. of Lanc. Plea R. 245, m. 6, recites the settlement; John Pooley demanding certain messuages, &c. in 1579. It may be noticed that though the Halsalls had retained no right in it Sir Cuthbert professed to sell the manor of Melling in 1623; ibid. bdle. 102, m. 63.