LEGH, Peter (1623-42), of Lyme, Prestbury, Cheshire.

The crown had granted the manor of Lyme, in south-east Cheshire, to Legh’s family in 1398, and it became their principal residence.11Earwaker, E. Cheshire, ii. 291. The Leghs emerged under the Tudors as an electoral force not only in Cheshire but also Lancashire, where they owned considerable property near Warrington in the south of the county. Legh’s ancestor Sir Peter Legh† had represented Lancashire in the Parliaments of 1491 and 1495; his grandfather, another Sir Peter Legh†, had sat for Wigan in 1586 and 1589 and Cheshire in 1601; and his great-uncle Edward Legh† had been MP for Wigan in 1597.12HP Commons 1422-1504; HP Commons 1558-1603; ‘Richard Legh’, HP Commons 1660-90.

Legh’s father died when he was still an infant, and his wardship was granted to his grandfather Sir Peter.13JRL, Legh of Lyme muns. box R, C nos. 6-7; Newton, House of Lyme, 111. Legh spent most of his early youth in Sir Peter’s household at Lyme Hall, and – upon his grandfather’s death in 1636 – he inherited the family’s extensive estates in the north-west.14DL7/28/32; Newton, House of Lyme, 112 His mother successfully petitioned the crown for his wardship, but had to pay the hefty sum of £2,000 and an annual fee of £200. 15WARD9/163, f. 68; JRL, Legh of Lyme muns. box R, C no. 19; Earwaker, E. Cheshire, ii. 299.

In the elections to the Long Parliament in the autumn of 1640, Legh, although still a minor, was returned for the Lancashire borough of Newton, where his family enjoyed a strong proprietorial interest.16Supra, ‘Newton’; Newton, House of Lyme, 165. Legh made no recorded impression upon the proceedings of the House during his lifetime other than to take the Protestation, on 3 May 1641.17CJ ii. 133a. He evidently spent much of his leisure time in the company of ‘young gallants’ – in particular, it seems, the future royalist officers Roger Mostyn and, the ‘overtly Roman Catholic’, Caryll Molyneux, second son of the Lancashire peer Richard Molyneux, 1st Viscount Molyneux of Maryborough.18Newton, House of Lyme, 171, 172, 173; ‘Caryll Molyneux’; ‘Sir Roger Mostyn’, Oxford DNB. Nevertheless, he was apparently present in the House for at least some of his time as an MP, for on 10 January 1642, he wrote a long letter to his uncle Francis Legh, describing Parliament’s fractious dealings with the king and debates in the Commons about the appointment of a lord lieutenant for Cheshire.19JRL, Legh of Lyme corresp., Lttrs. to Francis Legh, folder 10: Legh to Legh, 10 Jan. 1642; Newton, House of Lyme, 166-8. Contrary to the modern assertion that ‘no evidence remains of his personal views’, his letter suggests that he was no friend to the puritan interest in the north-west.20Keeler, Long Parl. 248. Thus he informed his uncle that he had opposed the attempt of the godly Lancashire MP Raphe Assheton II to nominate one of the county’s leading puritan divines Richard Heyricke, warden of the collegiate church of Manchester, to what would become the Westminster Assembly.21JRL, Legh of Lyme corresp., Lttrs. to Francis Legh, folder 10: Legh to Legh, 10 Jan. 1642; Newton, House of Lyme, 167; Richardson, Puritanism, 45.

A few weeks after writing to his uncle, Legh fought a duel with the son of Lincolnshire knight Sir John Browne, in which he was severely wounded. After lingering for six days – during which time he forgave and received communion with his assailant and read much from the Book of Common Prayer – he died on 2 February 1642.22Newton, House of Lyme, 170-1, 172-3. The puritan diarist Nehemiah Wallington regarded Legh’s fate as a ‘judgement of God’ and traced it to a motion made in the House (on 26 Jan.) that ‘all interludes and plays be suppressed for a season’.23PJ i. 182. According to Wallington, Legh had declared to his fellow Members that he would

spend his blood in defence for plays before they should go down. Afterwards, he being at a play, he hurled a piece of tobacco-pipe at a man, thinking he had known him, but being mistaken they fell out in words and so challenged one another, and he [Legh] was slain presently. And thus you see his being at a play was the cause of his death.24FSL, V.a.436, f. 88.

On the day before he died, Legh made what was probably a nuncupative will in which he bequeathed £100 to each of his three sisters and £100 a year to his mother; there is no evidence that this will was ever entered into probate.25Newton, House of Lyme, 170-3; Earwaker, E. Cheshire, ii. 299. He left his sword to his friend Caryll Molyneux, ‘and prayeth God he may make better use of it then he [Legh] hath done’. Among the witnesses to his will were the ill-matched pair of his friend Roger Mostyn and the godly Raphe Assheton II. He was also attended in his final days and hours by the episcopalian divine Daniel Featley – rector of the parish of Acton in which Legh died – and the family friends Peter Venables* and either the future regicide John Bradshawe* or his elder brother Henry.26Newton, House of Lyme, 171-4. In accordance with his last wishes, he was buried with his ancestors in Winwick church, Lancashire, on 14 February.27Earwaker, E. Cheshire, ii. 305.

Venables seems to have taken it upon himself to bring Legh’s assailant to book, writing grandiloquently in March 1642 that the ‘eyes of the kingdom’ were upon him to secure justice in the matter.28Greater Manchester CRO, E17/89/18/2. But the kingdom soon had many more fatalities to lament than that of some feckless ‘gallant’. After the death of his uncle Francis in 1643, the family estate passed to his cousin Richard Legh, who represented Cheshire in the second and third protectoral Parliaments and Newton in the 1660 Convention and the Cavalier Parliament.29Infra, ‘Richard Legh’.