ward IV he held various offices. He was sheriff of Yorkshire, and for his courage at the battle of Huttonfield he was made a knight banneret. When his commander, the Duke of Gloucester, became Richard III, he rewarded Sir Ralph's adhesion to the Yorkist cause by extensive grants of land. In 1483 he was appointed vice-constable of England and lieutenant of the Tower. The date of his death is unknown, but he is traditionally said to have been shot at Ashton-under-Lyne, and the yearly ceremony known as the 'Riding of the Black Lad' is regarded as a commemoration of that event. There is a very full rent-roll or custumal of the manor of Ashton in 1422, in which the various names and obligations of the tenants are set forth. Ralph Ashton is mentioned in a passage which Dr. Hibbert-Ware has explained with much ingenuity, though not with absolute certainty. According to this, corn marigold (Chrysanthemun segetum) grew so extensively in the low wet land about Ashton as to be inimical to the crops, and the lord of the manor had an annual inspection and levied fines on those tenants on whose lands it was seen. This power, delegated to Ralph Ashton and his brother Robert, is said to have been made the pretext of such tyrannical exactions that on one of these visitations the tenants rose in desperation and the 'Black Knight' was slain. Others hold that it was whilst exercising in the northern parts his despotic powers as vice-constable that he excited the terror expressed in the legendary rhyme:—
Sweet Jesu, for thy mercy's sake
And for thy bitter passion,
Save us from the axe of the Tower,
And from Sir Ralph of Ashton.
The effigy of the Black Knight is still paraded through the town of Ashton on Easter Monday.
[Hibbert-Ware's Customs of a Manor in the North of England, Edinburgh, 1822, and again by the Chetham Society, vol. lxxiv.; Rymer's Fœdera, xi. 715, xii. 118, 205, 268; Axon's Lancashire Gleanings.]
ASHTON, Sir ROBERT de (d. 1385), civil, military, and naval officer under Edward III, was of the great northern family of Ashton or Assheton, of Ashton-under-Lyne, in the county of Lancaster. The house claims descent from Emma, the daughter of Albert de Gresley, the first baron of Manchester; she married Orm, the son of Ailward, and received from her father as a dowry a portion of the lands he had received from Roger of Poictou. From this union, probably of Norman heiress and Saxon thane, descended Sir John Ashton, who was twice married. The date of the birth of his son Robert is not known, nor are there records of his career until we find him, in 1324, a member of the parliament of Westminster, and afterwards occupying positions of great importance and trust. In 1359 he was governor of 'Guynes' near Calais; in 1362 he was lord treasurer of England; in 1368 he had the custody of the castle of Sandgate near Calais with the lands and revenue thereto belonging; in 1369 he was admiral of the Narrow Seas; in 1372 he was justiciary of Ireland; and in 1373 again lord treasurer of England and king's chamberlain. In 1375 he became chancellor of the exchequer, and held that office until the death of Edward III in 1377, when he was succeeded by Simon de Bureley. The new king did not discard his father's old servant, and in 1380 Ashton was appointed constable of Dover and warden of the Cinque Ports. He died at Dover Castle 9 Jan. 1384-5, and was buried in the church there, to which he had previously presented a large bell. He was twice married. By his first wife, Elizabeth, whose surname is not known, he left a son, Thomas, and a daughter, Eleanor. His second wife was the widow of Lord Matthew de Gomey, and after Ashton's death married Sir John Tiptoft, knt., and died in 1417. Such are the scanty details of the career of a man who, going from a then remote and little-known district, achieved distinction alike in court and camp, by land and by sea.
[Rymer's Fœdera, 3rd edit. 752, 820, 822, 824, 844, 845, 862, 924, 930, 942, 977, 978, 979, 990, 1010, 1052, 1062, 1069, 1076, 1077; Baines's Hist. of Lancashire; Axon's Lancashire Gleanings.]
ASHTON, THOMAS de (fl. 1346), warrior, was the son and heir of Sir Robert de Ashton, and it is remarkable that, although the chief recorded event of his life shows him to have been a man of conspicuous military courage, he does not appear to have received the honour of knighthood, or to have been employed in any of the offices in which his father had distinguished himself. Whilst Edward III was fighting in France, David, king of Scotland, entered Northumberland with a force estimated at 50,000 men, and wasted and pillaged the country as far as Durham. Queen Philippa, the heroic wife of Edward III, marched against the invaders with a force of about 12,000, whom she encouraged to the unequal conflict. Battle was joined at Neville's Cross, near Durham, 17 Oct. 1346, and the result was a decisive victory for the English. Thomas de Ashton, who fought under Lord Neville, captured the royal stan-
