Patronage, Performance and Memory at Lathom and Knowsley: Curated Artworks, Books and Archives relating to Shakespeare and the Earls of Derby

Knowsley Hall with its surrounding park, which is strategically situated on rising ground seven miles east of Liverpool and immediately to the north and west of the southern Lancashire market town of Prescot, has been the principal seat of the powerful regional magnates, the Earls of Derby, since 1645, and one of the two main northern homes of this pre-eminent branch of the Stanley family since 1385 [Fig. 1]. Originally a large hunting lodge surrounded by a private deer park, now consisting of 2,500 acres and a safari park, it was secondary to the family's principal seat at Lathom House or Hall, eleven miles north of Knowsley. That great fortified residence, known as the home to what was, in effect, a northern court with its exceptionally large household, was located three miles east of the market town of Ormskirk. It also enjoyed a strategic view over the fertile plain of south-western Lancashire and the Irish Sea. Both houses were used as territorial powerbases by the founder of the family dynasty, Sir John Stanley (c.1350–1414), who had supported both King Richard II (reigned 1377–99) and Henry IV (reigned 1399–1413). Sir John was also rewarded with titles and estates in east Cheshire as Steward of the Forest of Macclesfield; north-eastern Wales with the Lordships of Mold and Hope; as well as the Isle of Man, with the titular Lord of Mann and the Isles to be held of the Crown by lieu homage. A Knight of the Garter and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, he was granted free warren of the Manors of Lathom and Knowsley in his wife's right, she being the heiress Isabel de Lathom. He adopted the heraldic device and motto of the Lathom family, namely the crest of the eagle and child and the French

Fig 1.

A View of Knowsley Hall from the East by an unknown artist, oil on canvas, c. 1700. Reproduced by kind permission of the Rt Hon. the Earl of Derby, 2020.

epithet "Sans Changer" used by the Earls of Derby on their coat of arms to this day (Coward; Bagley; Lloyd 2016, 289–97).

The most notable of Sir John's great-grandsons was Thomas, 2nd Baron Stanley, who was made 1st Earl of Derby in 1485 after the Battle of Bosworth by the victor Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, later King Henry VII. Thomas was appointed by the new king as Constable of England and High Steward. He was also rewarded with further estates across England, which had been confiscated from supporters of the late king Richard. Derby set about rebuilding both Lathom and Knowsley. In 1495 Henry VII and his queen, Elizabeth of York, stayed with his mother Lady Margaret Beaufort and her husband Lord Derby at Lathom and Knowsley. There, a massive stone structure known as the King's Chambers had been built for them to stay in, known to this day as the Royal Lodgings, the north facade and basement of which are still extant. Throughout the sixteenth century and up until the outbreak of the Civil War in the early 1640s, the direct descendants of Earl Thomas in the main line of descent—namely the 2nd to the 7th Earls of Derby—continued to live with their large households with which they entertained the Lancashire gentry at both the great castle of Lathom and the hunting lodge of Knowsley (Lewis). Edward, 3rd Earl (1509–72) was well known for the magnificence and liberality of his hospitality, maintaining a household of over 150 servants, which was one of the largest aristocratic households in England after that of the monarch. The 3rd Earl is said to have fed over sixty of the poor every day, and 2,700 people on Good Friday each year. A schedule or list of the 4th Earl's household servants at Lathom and Knowsley, drawn up on 12 May 1590 by the comptroller William Farington of Worden, totalled 117...