Page:History of the Fylde of Lancashire (IA historyoffyldeof00portiala).pdf/298

 when required. Somewhere about 1200 William de Merton, a descendant of Sir Adam, was one of the witnesses to a charter, concerning a local marsh, between Cecilia de Laton and the abbot of Stanlawe. In 1207-8 the sheriff of Lancashire received orders to give Matilda, widow of Theobald Walter, her third of the lands at Mereton, which her late husband had held up to the time of his death in 1206, at first for 12s. per annum, and subsequently for one hawk each year. According to the Testa de Nevill, Henry III. held three carucates of the soil of Mereton for a few years, as guardian of the heir of Theobald Walter, and in 1249, during the thirty-third year of the reign of that monarch, Merton cum Linholme was in the possession of Theobald Walter, or le Botiler as he was afterwards called, the heir here mentioned. Marton descended in the Botiler, or Butler, family until the time of Henry VIII., when it was sold by Sir Thomas Butler to John Brown, a merchant of London, in company with Great Layton, of which manor it had for long been regarded as a parcel, although in 1323, Great Marton was alluded to as a distinct and separate manor held by Richard le Botiler. Marton was purchased from John Brown by Thomas Fleetwood, esq., of Vach, in the county of Buckingham, whose descendants and heirs resided at Rossall Hall; and after remaining in the Fleetwood family for many generations the manor of Layton, with its dependency Marton, was again sold, and this time became the property of Thomas Clifton, esq., of Lytham Hall, Sir P. H. Fleetwood, bart., being the vendor.

Little Marton was held in trust by William de Cokerham, in 1330, for the abbot and convent of Furness, but eight years afterwards, the manor of Weeton and Little Marton, were held by James, the son of Edmund le Botiler, earl of Ormond. What claim James Botiler had to include Little Marton amongst his possessions in 1338, cannot now be ascertained, but it is certain that later, at the dissolution of monasteries, it passed to the crown as part of the fortified lands of Furness Abbey. Subsequently Little Marton passed to the Holcrofts, and from them, in 1505, to