Page:Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, Etc., with an Appendix Containing a Rare Tract.djvu/115

 Charles II. Upon the wall of Wigan Church is a tablet to the memory of this same Roger Downes, with the inscription:—"Rogerus Downes de Wardley, armiger, filius Johannis Downes, hujus comitatis, armigeri, obiit 27 Junii 1676, ætatis suæ 28"—(Roger Downes of Wardley, Esq., son of John Downes of this county, Esq., died 27th June 1676, aged twenty-eight years).

Thomas Barritt, the antiquary, besides the story he has given relating to the skull in his "MS. Pedigrees," offers the following explanation:—"Thomas Stockport told me that the skull belonged to a Romish priest, who was executed at Lancaster for seditious practices in the time of William III. He was most likely the priest at Wardley, to which place his head being sent, might be preserved as a relic of his martyrdom. ... The late Rev. Mr Kenyon of Peel, and librarian at the College in this town [Chetham's Library, Manchester], told me, about the year 1779, that the family vault of the Downeses in Wigan Church had been opened about that time, and a coffin discovered, on which was an inscription to the memory of the above young Downes. Curiosity led to the opening of it, and the skeleton, head and all, was there; but, whatever was the cause of his death, the upper part of the skull had been sawed off, a little above the eyes, by a surgeon, perhaps by order of his friends, to be satisfied of the nature of his disease. His shroud was in tolerable preservation; and Mr Kenyon showed me some of the ribbon that tied his suit at the arms, wrists, and ankles; it was of a brown colour—what it was at first could not be ascertained." Penelope, sister and heiress of Roger Downes, conveyed the estate by marriage to Richard Savage, fourth Earl Rivers, who died in 1712, leaving an only daughter, Elizabeth, married to James, fourth Earl of Barry more, the