"Sir William Bradshaighe, second son to Sir John, was a great traveller
and a souldger, and married to Mabell, daughter and sole heire of Hugh
Norris de Haghe and Blackrode, and had issue," &c.

Of this Mabel is a story by tradition of undoubted verity, "that in Sir
Wm. Bradshaghe absence (beinge 10 years away in the holy wars), she
married a Welsh knight. Sir William, returning from the wars, came in a
palmer's habitt amongst the poor to Haghe, who, when she saw and
congetringe that he favoured her former husband, wept, for which the
knight chastised her; at which Sir William went and made himself known
to his tenants; in which space the knight fled, but neare to Newton
Parke Sir William overtook him and sleu him. The said Dame Mabell was
enjoined by her confessor to doe penances by going onest every week
barefout and bare legged to a crosse ner Wigan from the Haghe, wilest
she lived, and is called Mabb ++ to this day; and ther monument lyes in
Wigan church, as you see them ther portry'd."

Sir William Bradshaigh was outlawed during the space of a year and a day
for this offence; but he and his lady, it is said, lived happily
together afterwards until their death. Their effigies on the tomb now
exist but as rude and unshapely masses; time and whitewash, the two
great destroyers of our monumental relics, having almost obliterated
their form, the one by diminishing, and the other by adding to, their
substance.

That Sir William was at the "Holy Wars," must, it is evident, be a
corruption of the story, seeing he was born about the year 1280, ten
years after the last of these unfortunate expeditions. The first
croisade was undertaken by Peter the Hermit, 1095; a second, by Louis
VII of France, 1145; a third, under Richard I of England, 1190; a