The legend of the Eagle & Child

Many legends exist about the origin of the eagle and child crest of the Stanleys which was probably taken from the crest of the Lathoms.

One account tells of a Sir Thomas Lathom who greatly desired a male heir, but his wife was advanced in years and their only child was a daughter. One day, he and his wife were walking in Tarlescough Woods, a wild section of his estate when they heard an infant crying. Servants were sent to investigate and they returned with a young male child which they had found lying in the grass below an eagle's eyre. In another version, it was discovered in an eagle's nest. The child was well dressed, and Sir Thomas and his wife decided to bring it up as their own son, naming him 'Oskatel'.

The tradition of a child being found unharmed in an eagle's nest is very old and exists in folklore in many parts of Europe, notably in Norway and France. King Pepin was said to have discovered a child in similar circumstances, and another tale exists that King Alfred the Great found a child after hearing it crying while he was out hunting. When his servants investigated, they discovered a male child in an eagle's eyre, dressed in purple with gold bracelets on its arms (the mark of Saxon nobility).

The King named it 'Nestingium' and had it baptized and educated. It has been suggested that these old tales gave Sir Thomas Lathom the idea in the first place, when despairing of a son by his wife, he is said to have had an intrigue with a young gentlewoman whom he kept in a house nearby. She gave him a son, and his problem was to get it recognized and accepted by his wife in such a way that her mind would be free of jealousy. He thereupon arranged the whole thing, and the child was brought up as her adopted son and made heir to part of his estate. However, on his deathbed, Sir Thomas confessed that Oskatel was his bastard, and his daughter, being his only heir, inherited the whole estate. However, he made provision for his natural son by settling upon him and his heirs, the Manors of Islem and Urmston near Manchester, and Oskatel is said to have been the founder of the Lathoms of Earlham. There is a stained glass window in St Wilfred's Church at Northenden bearing the name of Oskatel de Lathom and his crest.

The original Lathom crest was an eagle, head turned back as though looking for its prey. Sir Oskatel adopted a similar crest of an eagle looking away from a child as if it was defying all that might harm it. The only daughter was said to have been Isabel de Lathom who married Sir John Stanley. However, Isabel's father had three sons and had no need to resort to a device to adopt an illegitimate son in order to keep his estate together.