Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Haydock, William
HAYDOCK, WILLIAM (d. 1537), a monk of the Cistercian abbey of Whalley in Lancashire, was a younger son of William Haydock of Cottam Hall, near Preston, Lancashire, by Joan, daughter of William Heton of Heton. He was concerned, together with his abbot, John Pasleu, and a fellow-monk, John Eastgate, in the insurrection in the north of England of 1536, commonly known as the Pilgrimage of Grace. They were tried for this offence at the assizes at Lancaster in the following spring, and were, after conviction, sent back to Whalley for execution. The abbot and Eastgate were hanged on 10 March 1537. Haydock underwent the same penalty two days later, in a field called, according to a nearly contemporary manuscript concerning Whalley, ‘Little Imps’ or ‘The Impe yard,’ that is, a plot of ground for rearing young trees, or a nursery garden. Stow says the execution took place on 13 March ‘at Whalley in the field called Pedeamguies,’ a place doubtfully identified by Dr. Whitaker with either Padiham Green or Padiham Eases, both of which are some five miles from Whalley (not at Whalley, as Stow says). Haydock's body was not quartered and set up in divers places, as those of the abbot and Eastgate were; but, after hanging some time, it was clandestinely removed by his nephew, also William Haydock, and secreted at Cottam Hall, the seat of the family, where it was discovered when the house was pulled down in the early part of this century.