The Lovel family came into possession of the township of Mottram at an early period. In the time of Edward III. Sir John Lovel held the lordship of Longdendale from the King (as Earl of Chester) by military service. Sir John was a warrior of great bravery and fame. He served through the French wars, and in 1368 is mentioned as a leader under the Duke of Clarence. Most of the Lovels figure in history, and Francis, Lord Viscount Lovel, was a great favourite with Richard III. He was the King's chief Butler and Chamberlain of the Household. Moreover, he exercised a great influence in shaping the course of English affairs of his day. He was the Lovel of the ancient couplet:--
The cat, the rat, and Lovel the dog, Rule all England under a hog.
The cat was Catesby, the rat Ratcliffe or Radcliffe, of Ordsall Hall, Salford, and the hog represented the crookbacked King.
Francis Lovel was looked upon by his tenants in Mottram as a being of almost equal importance to the King. His word was law, his favour was courted, his anger feared. There are many curious stories told concerning his connection with Mottram and its neighbourhood. It is said that he owned a hall in Mottram which was connected by a subterranean passage with the Parish Church. He is also the hero of many adventures, most of which may be set down as pure stories of imagination. Perhaps the following legend is of this class.
Now it should be stated that at the period of which we speak there were witches in Longdendale. The age was one of gross superstition, and it was universally believed that certain mortals, notably old women, were in league with the evil one, and that Satan had bestowed upon them powers of evil whereby they were enabled to work harm upon the persons of any to whom they took a dislike. What particular powers these wretched women possessed will probably never be known; it is quite possible that some of them were students of magic, for in those ages some of the most learned men professed to dabble in mystic arts; but the probability is that by far the greater part of their dreaded powers existed only in the superstitious imaginings of the day. But to the people of that time the witches and their witchcraft were real enough and terrible to boot; so much so that if a man fell ill, or if some piece of bad luck befell him, to all the suffering caused thereby was added the mental torture consequent upon the belief that all the trouble had been caused by the evil schemes of some demon-possessed witch-woman. This belief was widespread, even among the better educated classes, to such an extent, that if a person lay ill of consumption, it was supposed that his waxen image was at that moment slowly melting before some witch-woman's fire, and that every fresh pang of pain was caused by the witch thrusting her sharp bodkin into the image. In Longdendale it was asserted that at night the witches sailed across the bleak moors seated on broomsticks. Often would the peasants rush in terror to the shelter of their cots as they heard a strange rustling overhead, and, on looking up, beheld the wizened forms of old hags riding on broomsticks through the air with a speed which no horse could equal.