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16
A PROSPECT OF
View of the Country—Bolton—The Earl of Derby.
To the far west, where rolling Mersey bends,
In one long view the wide champaign extends.
Here might the shock of hostile armies join,
Push the deep mass, or move th' extended line;
Wrapt in the thought, to former days I turn,
And pensive weep o'er noble Derby's[1] urn.
In one long view the wide champaign extends.
Here might the shock of hostile armies join,
Push the deep mass, or move th' extended line;
Wrapt in the thought, to former days I turn,
And pensive weep o'er noble Derby's[1] urn.
- ↑ James, Earl of Derby, was beheaded at Bolton; he was an active supporter of the royal cause, against the unjust usurpations of parliament. He raised, by his personal influence, a body of thirty thousand men, in the counties of Lancashire and Cheshire, and brought them to, the support of his Sovereign. Some unfortunate prejudice, not yet cleared up by History, seems to have withheld from him the confidence of his royal master. However injurious such a prejudice was to the Earl, his actions approved him a brave, active; and loyal man. He retired to the Isle of Man, which ha held for the king a considerable time; afterwards joining his son Charles the second, he was taken prisoner after the battle of Worcester; tried by a council of war, according to Rapin; and beheaded at Bolton, October 15th. 1652. His lady, famous for her ever memorable defence of Latham House, we are informed by Hume, retained the "the glory of being the last person in the three kingdoms, and in all their dependent dominions, who submitted to the victorious commonwealth." Tindal has the following remark in a note, "What reward his son had for this famous Earl's loyalty, will appear by the following inscription, fixed by the present Earl of Derby on a building erected at Knowsley, in Lancashire—James, Earl of Derby, Lord of Man, and the Isles,
