he younger branch, descended from William, the son
of Richard Leveson, of Willenhall, produced the Sir Thomas Leveson who
was the Royalist governor of Dudley Castle during the great Civil War
(1643).

The elder line were "of Prestwood" because Nicholas Leveson, in the time
of Henry VI. married Maud, heiress of John de Prestwood. The Lilleshall
and other properties were fat church lands, purchased by the wealthy
Levesons at the Dissolution of the Monasteries. It was a Richard Leveson
of the Prestwood branch who acquired the Haling Estate in Kent by
marriage with a Lord Mayor's daughter, and died in 1539 after being
himself Lord Mayor of London.

Also from this branch came the famous Vice-Admiral of England in Queen
Elizabeth's days. This gallant sea-dog, whose romance with the "Spanish
Lady" has been retold by the present writer in his "Staffordshire
Stories" (pp. 22-35), took part in that daring attack upon Cadiz which
has been sung by Henry John Newbolt in his "Admirals All"--

Essex was fretting in Cadiz Bay
With the galleons fair in sight;
Howard at last must give him his way,
And the word was passed to fight.
Never was schoolboy gayer than he,
Since holidays first began:
He tossed his bonnet to wind and sea,
And under the guns he ran.

Admiral Leveson's effigy in Wolverhampton Church stamps him as one of the
heroes of old romance--his career was indeed remarkable, as may be read
in the work alluded to.

The present-day representatives of the family are the Leveson-Gowers, the
head of whom is the Duke of Sutherland. The Gowers were an Anglo-Saxon
family seated in Yorkshire, and the union of the two occurred about the
time of Charles I., when Sir Thomas Gower, then Sheriff of Yorkshire,
married Frances, daughter and co-heir of Sir John Leveson, of Haling and
Lilleshall.

At the time Richard Leveson was sailing the seas with Essex and Drake,
there was a John Leveson living in Willenhall as lord of the manor, the
site of his residence being still marked by the position of Levison
Street and Moat Street.

In Wolverhampton "Turton's Old Hall" was originally known as Leveson's
Hall; this massive old mansion, surrounded by its once deep and wide
moat, is believed to have been erected by John Leveson, a wool merchant,
who was High Sheriff of Staffordshire in 1561.

Truly the local record of the Levesons is a long and notable one; and it
is interesting to note that