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 painting by Sir —St. Michael binding Satan. The living is a curacy in the archdeaconry of Stafford and diocese of Lichfield and Coventry, C.V. £4 13s. Endowed with £200 by the Crown, and £13 per annum by private benefaction. Patron, the Lord Chancellor. The reputed origin of the town is curious. , king of Mercia, embraced Christianity after the death of his father, but relapsed to paganism; in which religion he educated his two sons, who, however, were converted, and became disciples of, a zealous Christian ecclesiastic, Bishop of Lichfield, (afterwards canonized), which so incensed the king that he put them to death. The Saxons, as usual, formed a caern, by heaping stones over the bodies of the two princes, in commemoration of the dreadful act. Wolferus, after some time, was reconverted to Christianity, when he founded a monastery to expiate his crime; and his queen,, the mother of the murdered princes, created a nunnery over their tomb; a town gradually arose in the neighbourhood, which, in commemoration of the event, was called Stone; the female votaries were some time after removed, from the nunnery, which was then converted into a priory, by filling it with canons from Kenilworth Abbey. Stone was the birth-place of the celebrated Earl St. Vincent, and his remains were interred in its church-yard.

CHEADLE is a small market town and parish in the south division of the hundred of Totmonslow, county of Stafford, pleasantly