Note A — Part II.

William Parker fourth Lord Mounteagle’s great-great-uncle, James Leybourne (or Labourn), of Cunswick and Skelsmergh, in the County of Westmoreland, was hanged, drawn, and quartered by Queen Elizabeth, in the year 1583. — See “The Acts of the English Martyrs,” by the Rev. J. H. Pollen, S.J. (Burns & Oates). — James Leybourne is not reckoned “a Catholic martyr” by Challoner, because he denied that Elizabeth was “his lawful Queen.” There has been a doubt as to where this gentleman suffered “a traitor’s death.” Baines says that he was executed at Lancaster, that his head was exposed on Manchester Church steeple, and that prior to his execution Leybourne was imprisoned in the New Fleet, Manchester. This is probably a correct statement of the case. Burke, however, in his “Tudor Portraits” (Hodges, London), says that Leybourne was executed at Preston. Though a minute point, it would be interesting to know what the truth of the matter is.

There is a marble tablet on the north wall of the east end of the fine old Parish Church of Kendal, to the memory of John Leybourne, Esquire, the last of his race, and formerly owners of Cunswick, Skelsmergh, and Witherslack Halls. The tablet bears the arms of the Leybournes, and shows that the last male representative of this ancient Westmoreland family died on the 9th December, 1737, aged sixty-nine years, evidently reconciled to the faith of his ancestors.