The next holder of the estate, Sir John de Trafford, “belonged to the great Earl of Warwick,” and with his retainers fought for the Red Rose of Lancashire under the banner of the King-maker. His allowance was twenty marks yearly, in addition to the wages usual for one of his degree. For some reason now difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain, he resigned his estates to his son Edmund, the offspring of a marriage with the daughter of Sir Thomas Ashton, of Ashton-under-Lyne. One of his sisters married Sir John Ashton. Sir John Trafford transferred his estates in 1484, and died in 1488. Edmund Trafford married the young widow of John Honford, and had the guardianship of her first husband’s only son and heir. This was granted to him in a document which is worth quoting as an example alike of the customs and language of the time:—“Be hit knowen to all men wher now of late the Warde and marriage of the landez and Body of William Honford son and heir of John Honford esquier perteynet and langet to me John Savage th’ elder knight by cause ye sayd William at that tyme beinge tendur of age that is to witte under ye age of xxi yerez. I the said John Savage giffe and graunte the seid Warde and Mariage of the Body and landez of ye seid Willm during all his seid nonage to my Son in lagh Edmund Trafford esquier and my doghter Margaret his wife they to have all the seid Wardez and to marye hym at their pleasurez, worshipfullye, they takinge the profetez of all the seide Wardez and mariage during his seid nonage to their owne usez. And this is my Will and grawnte without any manner interrupcon or lett of me, myn herez, or of any other by our makyng, procuringe counsaile or assente. In wythence whereof to this my writinge I the saide Sir John Savage have sette my seall Theressez witnessez Thomas Leversege, John Sutton, William Savage the elder, Thomas ffaloghys.”
The boy became a bold soldier, and was slain at Flodden Field in 1515, and with him ended the male line of the ancient family of Honford. His daughter Margaret married, before she was twelve, Sir John Stanley, the stout knight, whose life forms a curious episode in mediæval biography. He was the son of James Stanley, the warlike Bishop of Ely, and Warden of Manchester, who was blamed by Fuller for “living all the winter at Somersham, in Huntingdonshire, with one who was not his sister, and who wanted nothing to make her his wife save marriage.” Young Stanley took part in the battle of Flodden, and is thought to have been knighted in the field. Notwithstanding his prowess he appears to have been “sicklied o’er with a pale cast of thought,” his favourite mottos being those of the preacher who declares _vanitas vanitatum omnia vanitas_. In 1523, he became engaged in a dispute with one of the Leghs, of Adlington, who had married the daughter of a reputed mistress of Cardinal Wolsey. That haughty prelate summoned Sir John to London, and committed him to the Fleet until he surrendered his lease. Sir John founded a chantry in the church of Manchester, and arranged his estates for the benefit of his wife and child. Then by mutual consent a divorce was pronounced between him and Dame Margaret, and he became a monk of the Order of St. Benedict in the abbey of Westminster. His wife, when the divorce was arranged, intended to enter a nunnery, but anticipating the sentiment of a once popular song, she altered her mind, and married Sir Urian Brereton. When Stanley settled his property he directed that his son was not to be married until he was twenty-one, and then he was to choose his own wife by the advice of the Abbot of Westminster and Edmund Trafford.