Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 02.djvu/225

 Sir Thomas and his friends set about the preparation of a counter-petition or remonstrance. Sir Thomas was attacked as the framer of the document in an 'answer' which he denounces as the work of 'some brain-sick anabaptist,' and this appears to have provoked him to the hasty compilation of a quarto which is sufficiently described on its title- page: 'A Remonstrance against Presbytery, exhibited by divers of the nobilitie, gentrie, ministers, and inhabitants of the County Palatine of Chester, with the motives of that Remonstrance, together with a short survey of the Presbyterian discipline, showing the inconveniences of it, and the inconsistency thereof with the constitution of this state, being in its principles destructive to the laws and liberties of the people. With a briefe review of the institution, succession, jurisdiction of the ancient and venerable order of bishops found to be instituted by the Apostles, continued ever since, grounded on the lawes of God and most agreeable to the law of the land. By Sir Thomas Aston, Baronet. . . . Printed for John Aston, 1641' (B.M.), 4to. Sir Thomas includes in his book the petition to which it is an answer, and also 'certain positions' maintained by Samuel Eaton in his sermons at Chester and Knutsford. Eaton had been resident in New England, and had brought thence a keen appreciation of the congregational form of church government. Aston also made 'A Collection of Sundry Petitions presented to the King's most excellent Majesty, as also to the two Houses now assembled in Parliament. And others already signed by most of the gentry, ministers, and freeholders of several counties,' 1642 (Bodleian). When the war broke out between the king and parliament. Sir Thomas took part with the royalists, and was in command at Middlewich in March 1642-3, when he was defeated by Sir William Brereton. The royalists lost their two cannons and five hundred stand of arms. Few were slain, but the prisoners included many of the principal cavaliers engaged, and the town suffered at the hands of the roundheads, who made free with the property of burgesses and the plate of the church. Sir Thomas escaped, but when a few days later he returned to Chester he was placed under arrest at Pulford, where he wrote a defence of his conduct which furnishes a very minute account of the affair and is an interesting picture of the civil war. Sir Thomas apparently freed himself from censure and rejoined the king's army, and indeed is said to have suffered a second defeat from Brereton at Macclesfield in 1643. He was afterwards captured in a skirmish in Staffordshire. When in prison at Stafford he endeavoured to escape, but the attempted evasion was discovered by a soldier who struck him on the head. This and other wounds received in the war brought on a fever, of which he died at Stafford on 24 March 1645. He was buried at Aston chapel, and is fairly entitled, as Wood says, 'to the character of a stout and learned man.'

[Ormerod's History of Cheshire, ed. Helsby, 1882, ii. 82-3; Earwaker's East Cheshire, 1880, i. 470, ii. 657; Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses; Axon's Cheshire Gleanings.]  ASTON, WALTER, (1584–1639), ambassador, was the eldest son of Sir Edward Aston, of Tixall in Staffordshire, whose rental has been estimated at 10,000l., so that he must have been one of the richest men in England. Walter was one of the knights of the Bath, created at the coronation of James I, and was one of the first baronets. He was sent as ambassador to Spain in 1620, where he remained till diplomatic relations between Spain and England were broken off at the beginning of 1625. James I did not, however, repose sufficient confidence in him to entrust him with the delicate negotiations relating to the Palatinate and the marriage treaty, and in 1622 he was overshadowed by Lord Digby, who at the end of that year became Earl of Bristol, and was appointed extraordinary ambassador to conduct those negotiations. When Prince Charles and Buckingham were in Spain, he gained their confidence by expressing a strong opinion, in opposition to Bristol, against the Spanish proposals for securing the Palatinate to the family of the elector palatine by educating the two eldest sons at the emperor's court. Charles took a liking to him probably on this ground, and in his subsequent letters always addressed him as 'Honest Wat.' In 1627 he created him Lord Aston of Forfar, in the Scottish peerage. From 1635 to 1638 he again served as ambassador in Spain. Shortly after his return he died, on Aug. 13, 1639. He is well known in literary history as the patron of Drayton. His wife was Gertrude Sadler, granddaughter of the Sir Ralph Sadler who played a part in politics in the reign of Henry VIII and his successors.

[Douglas, Peerage of Scotland; MSS., Despatches; State Papers, Spain.]  ASTON, WILLIAM (1735–1800), a Jesuit, whom Dr. Oliver believed to be the son of Edward Aston, by Ann Bayley his wife, was born in London 22 April, 1735. He made his early studies in the college at St. Omer, and at the age of sixteen he joined