The Rise of the Stanley family.

In the late 14th Century, the Stanleys were a gentry family, their power base lying chiefly in Cheshire, notably in the Wirral. Their ancestry might fairly be described as ‘provincial’. There were certainly no kings in their quarterings. This is not to say they were unimportant, but their influence was of a local rather than…

You’ll never guess what Ranulf Racket was up to….!

In an excellent paper entitled ‘The Last Week in the Life of Edward the Black Prince‘, by Paul Booth, I have just come upon this medieval gem: “ . . . Stanley [yes, one of them] and Lascelles had been shown in 1353 to be at the heart of what contemporaries called a ‘covin’, a…

My, my, some families really do not change their spots….!

While researching fourteenth-century Northamptonshire, I happened upon Sir John Stanley (1350-1414). “Stanley’s father was Master-Forester of the Forest of Wirral, notorious for his repressive activities. Both Stanley and his older brother, William (who succeeded their father as Master-Forester), were involved in criminal cases which charged them with a forced entry in 1369 and in the…