Sir John Stanley died in the beginning of 1414, being at the time Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, " a man truly great and an honour to his country." He married Isabel, only daughter of Sir Thomas Latham, of Latham, and thence took the eagle and child for his crest. He was succeeded by his son Sir John Stanley, who came into the Isle in the yeare 1417, and in the June of the same yeare convened a meeting of the whole Island at the Tynwald Hill, on which occasion were promulgated the laws which appear first in the Statute Book of the Island. He held subsequent Tynwald Courts, either in person or by his lieutenants, in the years 1422, 1429 and 1430, in which important alterations were made in previous laws, and new ones enacted.

He married Isabel, the only daughter of Sir John, and sister of Sir William Harrington, of Hornby Castle, near Lancaster. Both these Isabellas appear to have been styled Queens of Man. His death took place in 1432, when lie was succeeded by Sir Thomas Stanley, his son, created (A.D. 1456) Baron Stanley by Henry VI.; after whom succeeded (A.D. 1460) Thomas, his son, created first Earl of Derby by Henry VII. in 1485. He married Margaret, daughter of the Duke of Somerset, and Dowager-Duchess of Riclimond, and mother of Henry VII. He is remarkable in English history as having crowned the Earl of Richmond immediately after the Battle of Bosworth Field. In 1505 he was succeeded by Thomas, his grandson, who resigned the regal title, under the conviction that " to be a great lord is more honourable than to be a petty king."

The focus of power was the Stanleys; the nearer a family stood to the Stanleys the greater was its influence there, and the more accountable its presence in the Isle of Man from 1405 onward. A large number of such names have already been mentioned; there are others which, though not duplicated in England in their present form and passing for native, may nevertheless be of extra-insular origin, both from Lancashire and elsewhere

[Thomas Stanley] And was succeeded in honour and estate, by his only son Sir Thomas Stanley, (who had been knighted some time before his father's death) and was in the same yeare he died, made lieutenant of Ireland for six years, as his grandfather had been: he called a Parliament in that kingdom, for redress of many grievances, in the yeare 1432; but being called to England by his majesty's command, left Sir Christopher Plunket, his deputy, and on his coming to court was comptroller of his majesty's household, but by his absence, the King's minority, and the absence of the military men in France, the Irish were grown very insolent, insomuch that he was obliged to return to that kingdom, which, he did in the yeare 1435; and with the power of Meath, and other assistance, he took Moyle O'Neal, prisoner, and slew great numbers of the Irish; and about Michaelmas after he came to England again, and left Richard Talbot, Archbishop of Dublin, and brother to the Earl of Shrewsbury, his deputy; and the eleventh of Henry VI. he was upon an inquisition post Mortem, his father found to hold (as heir to Sir Robert, de Latham, of Latham) of the Lord of the Manor of Widnes, in the county of Lancaster, in the time of Edward II. And the eighteenth of Henry VI. he was appointed by William de la Poole, Earl of Suffolk and sole judge of Chester for life, to be his deputy.

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In the name Maddrell the termination has varied, it was written Matherell in 1499, Maderel and Maderer in 1510, the last two appearing to refer to the same man. It is worth remarking that John Mathoren entered the Island in 1402 as servant of Percy, Earl of Northumberland; (Oliver, Monumenta, ii., 192); but there is nothing to show that he settled there. In the King's Rental for Liverpool, 1533, William Matherer pays 2d. rent for land he bought of William Moore; (Gregson's Fragments, fo. lxvi.). Randil and John Madderer of Leigh, near Wigan, deposed in a Pleading in the Duchy Court of Lancaster in 1522. A. W. Moore in his Manx Names says there is a Lancashire place-name Maddrell; but from the Devon manor of Metherell that surname and Meverell arose, and the latter was also a Staffordshire family name. Mathern, formerly Mathoren, in Monmouthshire, and Madron in Cornwall, both named from a saint, have given rise to surnames, and there is a Carnarvonshire family of Madrin. It is probable, however, that the Manx Maddrell is an occupation-name, see Bardsley, English Surnames, page 323, where he cites a Lawrence Maderer of York, 1415. Madder and indigo are the two parent dyes from which most others are obtained, and a madderer was a dyer in the former colour. It was an old English surname occurring from the 14th century onward.

Thomas Litherland orders the earlier enquests; - in later impeachments a Thomas Litherland is described as ' Constable and Steward of the Peel' (his counterpart at Castle Rushen was Rys), as such he was in charge of the Military force at the Peel and as Steward reponsible for the good running of what appears to be a fairly extensive household. However he would be junior to John Fasakerly etc and it seems strange that he is named as ordering the enquest - possibly the Thomas of Litherland who made the order was another member of the same family as John Litherland ? Litherland is some 5 miles west of Knowsley and thus intimately linked to the Stanley's. John Litherland is noted in 1405 as one of those ordered to proceed to the Island to take possession for the Stanleys, a John Litherland is noted as Lieutanant of Mann (Governor) in 1417. Though by 1422 John Walton is described as Lieutenant in the indictment of Howlac Mackissacke.

As pre-Stanley records containing personal names are few and scanty, we have little means of ascertaining when the earlier English settlers entered the Island, but it may safely be assumed that the Stanley lordship was responsible for the presence of most of them. For reasons basically geographical, the people of West Lancashire up to the 18th century formed a comparatively isolated community; on one side the sea, on the other side marshes and moors, were obstacles to travel; the great families tended to marry among themselves, and their pedigrees are more closely interwoven than those of most English districts.

On his decease in 1521, Edward, his son, was only fourteen years of age, and the Island was, therefore, during his minority, under a commission, consisting of the Bishop, the Lieutenant-Governor, and Cardinal Wolsey, Archbishop of York and Chancellor of England. After his accession to the Lordship of the Isle, lie lived forty-four years, in the reign of Henry VIII., Edward VI Tudor., Mary and Elizabeth Tudor, and saw through the eventful period of the Reformation. He died October 24, 1572.

Henry, his son, succeeded him as fourth Earl of Derby. He married Margaret, only daughter of Henry Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, by his wife Eleanor, daughter of the Duke of Suffolk, by Mary, younger sister of Henry VIII. His wife was thus first cousin, once removed, to Queen Elizabeth. He appears in all his acts to have been a strenuous supporter of the Reformation, which hardly was carried out in the Isle of Man during the life of his father. He died September 25, 1594, leaving two sons, Ferdinand and William, of whom the latter had been Governor of the Isle the yeare before his father’s death.

Ferdinand, the elder son, succeeding to the Lordship of Man in 1594, was poisoned by his servant in the beginning of the following year. Seacome hints that he was put out of the way at the suggestion of Queen Elizabeth, as having too close pretensions to the crown of England. He appears to have been a literary character and a poet.

Queen Elizabeth appointed a commission to determine the question; in the meantime taking the Island under her own protection, and appointing Sir Thomas Gerrard Governor. When James I. came to the throne, he seems to have taken advantage of the doubts created as to the rightful heirs to make grants of the Island at different times to other parties not connected with the Derby family, as the Earls of Northampton and Salisbury, and their heirs, then on lease to Robert, Earl of Salisbury, and Thomas, Earl of Suffolk, for twenty-one years. Perhaps he may have been led to this from a consideration of the feeling shown towards his unfortunate mother by Earl Henry.

After years of litigation the result was given in favour of the female succession, but a compromise being entered into between the daughters of Ferdinand and their uncle, an Act was passed in 1610, assuring and establishing the Isle of Man in the name and blood of William, Earl of Derby, who then entered upon possession. Towards the close of his life, being desirous of retiring from public business, he, by deed of gift (A.D. 1637) to his son James, Lord Strange, placed in his power the Isle of Man, and all his other estates, on condition of the payment to himself of an annuity therefrom of £1000. Earl William died in 1642.

James, some time before this deed of gift, had visited the Isle of Man, and took order for the settling the government. His name appears connected with the acts of Tynwald passed in 1629 and 1636. The conduct of this noble earl during the civil war, and the particulars of his execution at Bolton in 1651, are matters of history well known; but it may be well to give here a brief sketch of some of the latter years of his life, and which more immediately connected with the Isle of Man, and his occupation of this ancient castle of Rushen. After raising the siege of Latham House in 1644, the Earl of Derby retired with his noble and heroic Countess Charlotte (daughter of Claude de Tremouille, Duke of Thouars, and grand-daughter of William I., Prince of Orange) to his dearly-valued Ellan Vannin and Rushen Castle. A threatened invasion of the Island by the Parliamentary forces, and rumours of disaffection amongst the Manx, made him the more anxious to be upon the spot.

Taubman does not appear in the Manorial Rolls of 1510-13 or in the Abbey Computus of 1541, unless a single " Thorman " in the latter is to be connected with it; but Taubman is a comparatively modern spelling and pronunciation, except for an isolated specimen among the Keys in 1637, probably due to the printer of the Statutes. Among the Abbey tenants in Malew in 1611 are five Tubmans, and in German two, all significantly spelt alike, and three of them bearing the Christian names, distinctively English at that time, of Charles and Humphrey. There is also a Sylvester Tumman, tenant of Ballakilmurray in German in 1593 and part-tenant in 1598, as recorded in the Bishop's Book; and a Charles Tubman, signatory to an Agreement in 1601. Tunman was a 17th century variant. They were probably a family of English extraction who entered the Isle of Man during the 16th century. Tubman is found at various dates in the Ulverston Parish Registers, and it occurs in England so early as the Valor Ecclesiasticus; it is a trade-name signifying a cooper.

In 1651, with the Earl of Derby, and 300 Manxmen, he left the Isle of Man, and hurried to the support of Charles II. He was present, with his noble master, in the battles of Wigan Lane and Worcester. After securing the retreat of King Charles, who, with the Earl of Derby, Father Huddleston, and some others, made their way, after the battle and defeat, to Boscobel and the White Ladies; he died of the wounds which he received in that encounter with Major Edge, to which allusion has before been made, in which the Earl of Derby was himself made prisoner, surrendering under promise of quarter. The portrait of this remarkable man is still preserved to us in the family of Thomas Sutcliffe, Esq., one of his descendants, of Ashton-under-Lyne, and it exhibits the characteristics of honesty, with sternness of purpose. It is recorded by Sacheverell that, in 1313, the redoubted Robert Bruce himself sat down before this castle of Rushen for six months, whilst it was obstinately defended by one Dingay Dowyll, or Dugal Macdougall, " though in whose name we do not find."

In the Lex Scripta and Statute Books of the Isle of Man, ranging from the beginning of the fifteenth century to the close of the seventeenth, we have various singular ordinances relative to the garrison of Castle Rushen, and the supply of provisions to it and the castle at Peel.

Lace and Leece do not occur thus before the 17th century — John Lace was one of four Andreas men chosen to confer with the Keys in 1643, vide Statutes — and I have seen no spelling which suggests a transition from any older native name, except Mcyleese in 1746 and McLees in 1758. The date seems rather late for a survival of the Manx mac, and they were probably incomers, but as the latter name occurs on a tombstone in Kirk Patrick it may possibly be a forerunner of some of the modern Leeces in that parish. Lace, a name belonging to the Northern parishes, does not appear ever to have prefixed the mac. If Lace and Leece are related to these, they must have taken their present forms — subject to the possible exception of the McLees mentioned above — before reaching the Island. The absence of mac or its "c" renders unlikely a derivation from laighis, a physician, and an English source for Lace, at any rate, is the most feasible.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 , English