Sir Ralph Ashton

Events

Date of Birth: about 1425.

Place of Birth: unknown.

The estimated date is given by Horrox.

Date of Death: 10 April, about 1485 or a bit later.

Place of Death: unknown.

The estimated date is given by the VCH of Lancashire (Vol 5, sub Middleton, fn 45). Horrox gives between 1487 and 1490.

Relationships

Father: Sir John Ashton.

This relationship is given by Horrox.

Mother: Margaret Gray.

This relationship is given by Horrox.

Spouse: Margery Barton.

This relationship is given by the Visitation of Lancashire taken in 1567 (p. 28). The marriage was contracted in 1439 (VCH, citing Dods. MSS. cxlii, fol. 132, 133). The relationship is given by Horrox, who notes that the marriage was arranged by Ralph’s half-brother Thomas (the alchemist).

Children:

(Complete source citations for facts about the children on this page are currently outside of the scope of this project. Most information below comes from Butterworth p. 19. I am not sure where Butterworth got his information.)

Mary Ashton married John Nasfield.

Sir Richard Ashton (born about 1461 - died 28 April 1507) married Isabel Talbot.

Ralph Ashton married Margaret Lever.

Thomas Ashton, a priest.

William Ashton died young.

Edmund Ashton died young.

John Ashton died young.

Phillipa Ashton married Thomas Cauton.

Anne Ashton married John Talbot in about 1451.

Lucy Ashton married Richard Westhorpe.

Elizabeth Ashton died young.

Johanna Ashton died young.

Agnes Ashton died young.

Evidence

Horrox, after relating Ralph’s planning of a murder: “The episode suggests Ralph Ashton to have been a violent and unscrupulous man, and he passed into folklore in the north-west, where stories variously have him being shot dead by a woman he had raped, or carried off by the devil. Nineteenth-century antiquaries recorded the rhyme:

Sweet Jesu, for thy mercy sake

And for thy bitter passion

Save us from the axe of the Tower

And from Sir Ralph of Ashton.”

In 1471, Ralph was imprisoned for debt (National Archives catalogue ref. no. C 131/246/12.)

from the Victoria County History of Lancashire:

Sir Ralph Ashton, brought up at court and made a knight before 1464 and a banneret by Richard Duke of Gloucester at Hutton field in Scotland, 1482, held various public offices and was by Richard III appointed Vice Constable of England. In his native place he acquired an evil reputation, the custom of ‘riding the Black Lad’ at Ashton commemorating (according to the general opinion) the popular detestation of his conduct. Early in 1484 he made a lease to Richard his son for twenty years of the manor of Middleton, and probably died shortly afterwards.

from Lancashire FInes (Edward IV., A.D. 1461-1470, 1471-1483):

20. At Lancaster, before John Nedham and Guy Fairfax, knight, on Monday in the fourth week of Lent, 20 Edward IV. [13th March, 1480].

Between John Barton, clerk, William Dode, chaplain, John Anderton, esquire, and Edmund Ashton, clerk, plaintiffs, and Ralph Ashton, knight, and Margery, his wife, deforciants of 27 messuages, 1000 acres of land, 500 acres of meadow, 1000 acres of pasture, 600 acres of wood, and 1000 acres of moor in Middleton [in Salford Hundred].

Ralph and Margery released all right in the said tenements to the plaintiffs, [who granted them to the said Ralph and Margery]. Moreover 8 messuages, 300 acres of land, 100 acres of meadow, 300 acres of pasture, 200 acres of wood, and 300 acres of moor, which Alice Barton, widow, holds for the term of her life, after the decease of the said Alice shall remain to the plaintiffs, and 11 messuages, 200 acres of land, 100 acres of meadow, 200 acres of pasture, 100 acres of wood, and 300 acres of moor, parcel of the said premises, which Margaret Barton, widow, holds for the term of her life, and 2 messuages, 100 acres of land, 100 acres of meadow, 200 acres of pasture, 40 acres of wood, and 100 acres of moor, which Richard Barton holds for the term of his life of the inheritance of the said Margery, and 6 messuages, 40 acres of land, 200 acres of meadow, 300 acres of pasture, 160 acres of wood, and 300 acres of moor (the residue of the said tenements), which Ralph Barton holds for the term of his life shall, after the decease of the said Margaret, Richard, and Ralph, remain to the said plaintiffs

References

Axon, W.E.A. “Ashton, Sir Ralph” in Dictionary of National Biography (Leslie Stephen ed.) (1885).

Butterworth, James. History and Description of the Town and Parish of Ashton-under-Lyne in the County of Lancaster and the Village of Dukinfield. (Ashton, 1823).

"Custom Roll and Rental of the Manor of Ashton-under-Lyne, 1422" in Chetham Society Vol. LXXIV (1868).

Final Concords for Lancashire, Part 3, 1377-1509. (1905). Digital images on British History Online.

Flower’s Visitation of the County Palatine of Lancaster in 1567. (Chetham Society Vol. LXXXI, 1870).

A History of the County of Lancaster: Volume 5 (London, 1911).

Horrox, Rosemary. “Ashton, Sir Ralph (c. 1425 - 1487x90)” in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004).

The Visitation of Lancashire and a part of Cheshire A.D. 1533, part II (Chetham Society Vol. CX, 1897).