Otewell Worsley, son of Richard Worsley, was born about 1410. He married about 1435 Rose Trevor. In the inquest post mortem on his estate the date of his death is given as March 24, 1470.
A soldier all his life, we first meet Worsley in the service of Cardinal Beaufort, a very worldly and martial prelate. He had been granted by letters patent on January 15, 1437/8, the office of keeper of the gate of the castle of Carlisle in Cumberland, and when it was confirmed for Worsley's life on May 10, 1452, he was described as "late servant of the king's uncle the cardinal." Beaufort died in 1447 but Parliament had guaranteed the wages of the office to Worsley on November 6, 1444.
On May 10, 1439, a pardon was granted for "all offenses, felonies, trespasses and murders" to Otewell Worsley, esquire, but it was vacated because of some previous order given in "the seventeenth year" (1437-1438). Pardons were couched in very inclusive terms, so it is quite possible that his sins were not as heinous as the words would seem to indicate.
Worsley may have been pressing too vigorously his claim against Sir Laurence Warren. In any event, about 1440 he proceeded in a quiet and orderly manner to present a petition to King Henry VI, setting forth his wrongs, calling himself "youre poore liege man Ottewell Worsley Esquyer." He says that the manors of Stopford [Stockport], Poynton, Bradbury, Beycome [Boystome?], Henbury, Romeley, Wodley, Wodfode and Echells [Eccleston?], all in Cheshire, were held by the "ancestors of your said Besecher," that they were duly entailed by the law of the land and that he is the rightful heir. He claims that the manors are withheld from him by many persons "of great myght" and that he will be disinherited forever unless the king tenderly shows him special grace. He asks that the king and parliament summon the occupiers of the manors and that they be examined before Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, "which is Justice of your saide shire of Chester," and two other judges "for the knowledge of the trewthe touching the said suppliaunts clayme." He then proceeds to review the disposition which Sir Laurence Warren and his ancestors had made of the manors and lands, by deed and gift, and the fees which he had paid "to Sir Rauf Radclyff and to Chauntrell, Serjeant at Law, to be of his conseile agenst the said Ottewell Worsley." Unfortunately he fails to set forth the descent on which he based his claim.
The king granted Otewell's request and ordered Warren and the other persons complained of to appear before the Lords of the Privy Council, when Worsley should also appear, for examination, and if the Council "fynde ... any matter of pitie or of conscience" they shall "make relacon to the Kyng at the next Parliament." Apparently, Worsley was not able to prove his case as Sir Laurence Warren, who died in 1444, and his descendants retained the Stockport lands undisturbed.
On February 21, 1440, Worsley and Rowland Vaux, Sir Robert Ogle of Norham, co. Northumberland, and William Stapleton of Edwyll, co. Cumberland, esq., acting as their sureties, were granted by the crown the keeping of the manor of Corkley, co. Cumberland, after the death of Katherine, widow of Richard Salkeld, who had a life estate in the manor, until Richard's kinsman and heir, Richard son of Thomas Salkeld, should come of age. Worsley also bought for £40 the wardship and the right to dispose of young Richard in marriage. Katherine Salkeld in before March 16, 1442, when the grant to Worsley and Vaux was renewed, their new sureties being Seth Worsley of Worsley, co. Lancaster, esq., and Richard Redman of Harewood, co. York, esq. Young Richard Salkeld, who grew up to be Sir Richard Salkeld, Captain of the Castle of Carlisle, was married off, probably to Worsley's profit, to Joan, sole daughter and heiress of Rowland Vaux, Worsley's colleague at Corkley.
Isabel Horton, widow, gave to Otewell Worsley and John Hauham, esquires, and many others, all her moveable chattels within the realm, and all debts due to her, at London, February 6, 1441/2, and on April 2, 1443, Peter Cleyton, of Hartynge, co. Sussex, gentleman, made a similar gift to Nicholas Husse and Ottewell de Worsley, esquires.
Cardinal Beaufort was lord of the castle and domain of Chirk, co. Denbigh in Wales, near to Rose Worsley's home, and by a charter of June 7, 1445, he granted to Worsley the offices of steward, constable and receiver of the castle and the lordship to hold himself or by deputies, with the usual fees and profits. In 1455 this grant was renewed, and on June 24, 1461, Worsley was given a life tenure of the offices and £20 annually from the issues of the castle and lordship.
After the cardinal's death Worsley entered the service of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, the "King Maker." The most important and remunerative offices in the gift of the crown of course fell to the royal dukes and the great nobles. One of the most coveted of these was the captaincy of Calais. Warwick gained this post in 1455 and it is quite likely that, as the Leigh pedigree says, Worsley was his lieutenant at the castle of Calais. The great earl was also Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and the Constable of Dover Castle from 1460 to 1471, and "Otho Worsley" acted as deputy for him at Dover in part of this term. Worsley was surely in Calais in 1469.
Worsley, although absent from his native county for many years, still retained some property there. In 1465 Ottiwell Worsley, his wife Rose and his son Rowland granted to Robert Law, vicar of Eccles, and John Reddick of the Monks' Hall, the elder, the lands called Monton, Monton Hey, the mill, the Westwood, Huntington Clough, etc., held of the Abbot and Convent of Whaley, for a term of years, at a rent of £9 10s. 8d. To the king was due 6s. and to the lord of Barton 11d.
Even if the income from his varied offices was long in arrears, which would not have been strange in the chaotic and lawless period of the Wars of the Roses, it is surprising to find that the crown owed Worsley the vast sum of £1,309 in 1468. Possibly he held some more important office of which we know nothing. In any event, on August 4, 1468, a grant was made to Otewell Worsley, esquire, in repayment of the sum of £1,309 4s. 3d., due to him from the king, Edward IV, of £654 12s. 1½d. to be paid in the year after the Nativity of St. Mary next and the same sum in the following year from the moneys arising from all wards, marriages, reliefs, escheats, forfeitures, custodies of heirs during minority, temporalities of archbishoprics and other ecclesiastical benefices pertaining to the king.
No longer a young man and, with three sons and a daughter living in Calais, Worsley possibly spent his last years in that exciting outpost. He died on March 24, 1470, and many years after his death an inquest was held at Southwark, co. Surrey, on his small estate in that county. The writ was dated November 24, 1476, but it was November 4, 1477, before William Cooke, the escheator for the county, and the jury took action. They found that "Otwelus de Worsley, armiger" held in fee four houses and their appurtenances in Southwark which he had bought from Isabel Hurton, widow, subject to certain leases which ran out at Michaelmas, 1469. After his father's death his son Rowland Worsley had entered the property and, after 1474, had granted the fee to Thomas Bledlowe, citizen and grocer of London, and William Pende, citizen and draper of London. The houses were worth 10 marks in annual income. Rowland was Otewell's son and next heir and was aged thirty-two and more at the date of the inquisition.
Otewell Worsley's belief that he was the legal heir of the Cheshire barony of Stockport must have been of immense interest and importance to him and his family. His children doubtless heard him run through the line of descent and the theory on which his claim was based many times, and it is not surprising to find that the arms of Worsley quartered with Stockport gave color to a window in the oratory in the house of one of his daughters while the same quarterings were engraved on the brass effigy on the tomb of another. In early pedigrees of both families into which these two Worsley girls married, Lee of Kent and Leigh of Surrey, pains are taken to trace their ancestry back to the Stockports and in both cases Otewell Worsley is set down as a son of Richard Worsley and Katherine Clark, his wife, through whom the Stockport blood entered the Worsley line. 1
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