• General Notes

      24 April 1412 had a court action with Sir Thomas Grosvenor preciding, over his wife's estate going to Joanna's son.
  
      Robert Legh of Adlington, Knight. He was Sheriff of Cheshire 17th and 22nd of Richard II, 1394 and 1399. He was still living 13th of Henry IV, 1412. He was older brother of Piers de Legh, who received Lyme and was ancestor of Leghs of Lyme. Robert de Legh was heir to his father of the Manor of Adlington, and also lands juxta Lyme, Northwich, Stokeport and Hyde. He married Isabel, daughter of Sir Thomas Belgrave, of Pulford, and Joan de Pulford. This marriage of Joan de Pulford with her first husband, Thomas de Belgrave, took place in her minority, when she was a ward of the Earl, in consequence of her lands in Dunham Massy being held from the earldom by military service. The marriage took place without the license of the Earl, and for this breach of feudal privileges Thomas de Belgrave was fined 400 marks. The fine appears to have been paid by installments of 50 marks each, one of which was paid 35th of Edward III, 1361, and the third payment occurs in the ministers accounts, 37th and 38th of Edward III, œ166-13s-4d being then due. The inquisition taken 35th of Edward III states Joan to be 14 years of age. It has been stated in the accounts of Pulford that the estates of this family name were settled 40th of Edward III, on the issue of this marriage, namely, Maud, Elizabeth or Isabel and Joan. Joan, wife of Thomas, de Belgrade, died before 1397. She married 2nd, before 1289, Sir Robert Grosvenor. It is proved that one of the heirs of Thomas Belgrave did marry and have issue, in the following record: Robert Legh of Adlington was asked, as the principal agent in a singular and impressive ceremony, to relinquish his claims to Joan's estate in favor of his half-brother, Sir Thomas Grosvenor, Joan's son by her 2nd husband. This relinquishment was made with very unusual circumstances, devised probably from a wish to add to its impressiveness and notoriety, it was then agreed that Sir Thomas Grosvenor should take a solemn oath on the body of Christ, in the presence of 24 gentlemen or as many as he wished. Accordingly, the Chaplain celebrated a mass of the Holy Trinity, and Thomas Grosvenor swore on the Lord's body that he believed in the truth of these charters. (This was in 1412, when England was all Catholic; in fact, this was before the Reformation. E. E. W.) On April 24, 1412, Grosvenor, Robert Legh and Henry de Birtheles, counsel for Grosvenor, read in the Macclesfield Chapel a series of deeds relating to successive settlements by the Pulford family of their several manors. Then Robert Legh acknowledged the right of all said lands to be vested in Grosvenor and his heirs and an instrument to that effect was drawn by the notary, in the presence of the clergy, and attested by the seals and signatures of 58 knights and gentlemen. Seldom will the reader find a more goodly group collected together, nor will he devise a ceremony which would assory better with the romantic spirit of the times, and which turned a dry legal conveyance into an exhibition of chivalrous pageantry. (Among the names of those 58 signers were many of your ancestors, William Stanley, Hugh Venables, Hugh Dutton, Randle Maynwaringe, Lawrence Warren, Robert Winnington, John Legh and Robert Davenport. E. E. W.) Belgrave's paternal estates remained in the Legh of Adlington family until the reign of Elizabeth, when they were sold in parcels, the Manor of Belgrave being sold and conveyed to the Grosvenors. Pulford at the time of the Domesday survey was divided into unequal shares, between the secular canons of St. Werburg, the former possessors, and Hugh FitzOsborne, who had ejected the Saxon proprietor. There is strong reason for believing the Pulfords to be descended from Hugh FitzOsborne, the Norman grantee.
      (Kin of Mellcene Thurman Smith, page 661-662)

Details of Robert's family with Isabel Belgrave