Page:Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, Etc., with an Appendix Containing a Rare Tract.djvu/89

 [Haigh] and Blackrode, and had issue, &c. Of this Mabel is a story by tradition of undoubted verity, that in Sir William Bradshaigh's absence (being ten years away in the holy wars) she married a Welsh knight. Sir William, returning from the wars, came in a palmer's habit amongst the poor to Haghe; who when she saw and congetringe [conjecturing] that he favoured [resembled] her former husband, wept—for which the knight [her second husband] chastised her; at which Sir William went and made himself known to his tenants; in which space the knight fled, but near to Newton Park, Sir William overtook and slew him. The said Dame Mabel was enjoined by her confessor to do penance by going once every week, barefooted and barelegged, to a cross near Wigan from the Haghe, whilst she lived, and [it is] called Mabb's to this day; and their monument lies in Wigan Church, as you see them there pourtrayed." Sir William Bradshaigh was outlawed during the space of a year and a day for killing the Welsh knight; but he and his lady, it is said, lived happily together afterwards until their death. The remains of the effigies on their tomb have been decayed by time, perhaps further injured by iconoclasts, and finally have suffered from the embellishing hands of whitewashing churchwardens. The tradition trips in stating that Sir William was in the Holy Wars, as he was not born till about ten years after the sixth and last of the Crusades. It is probable that he was in the disastrous campaign of Edward II. against the Scots; and his long absence from home is accounted for by the supposition that he was for the greater part of the time a captive. The most ancient and interesting monument in Wigan parish church is placed under the stairs leading to the