Robert Tatton was the High Sheriff

High Sheriff

A high sheriff is, or was, a law enforcement officer in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States.In England and Wales, the office is unpaid and partly ceremonial, appointed by the Crown through a warrant from the Privy Council. In Cornwall, the High Sheriff is appointed by the Duke of...

 of Chester

Chester

Chester is a city in Cheshire, England. Lying on the River Dee, close to the border with Wales, it is home to 77,040 inhabitants, and is the largest and most populous settlement of the wider unitary authority area of Cheshire West and Chester, which had a population of 328,100 according to the...

 between 1645 and 1646. A supporter of King Charles I

Charles I of England

Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...

 in the English Civil War

English Civil War

The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...

, Robert is perhaps best known for the ultimately unsuccessful defence of his family home, Wythenshawe Hall

Wythenshawe Hall

Wythenshawe Hall is a 16th-century medieval timber-framed historic house and former stately home in Wythenshawe, Manchester, England. It is east of Altrincham and south of Stretford, five miles south of Manchester city centre, in Wythenshawe Park.-History:The half-timbered Tudor house was the home...

, during its three-month siege by a Parliamentary

Roundhead

"Roundhead" was the nickname given to the supporters of the Parliament during the English Civil War. Also known as Parliamentarians, they fought against King Charles I and his supporters, the Cavaliers , who claimed absolute power and the divine right of kings...

 force in the winter of 1643/44.

Robert was heavily fined by Parliament for fighting on the side of the king, but he was subsequently rewarded for his loyalty by Charles II

Charles II of England

Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...

 following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. He and his wife Anne had six children the eldest of whom, William, inherited Robert's Wythenshawe

Wythenshawe

Wythenshawe is a district in the south of the city of Manchester, England.Formerly part of the administrative county of Cheshire, in 1931 Wythenshawe was transferred to the City of Manchester, which had begun building a massive housing estate there in the 1920s to resolve the problem of its inner...

 estate after his death in 1669.

Early life

Robert's father, William Tatton, drowned in the River Mersey

River Mersey

The River Mersey is a river in North West England. It is around long, stretching from Stockport, Greater Manchester, and ending at Liverpool Bay, Merseyside. For centuries, it formed part of the ancient county divide between Lancashire and Cheshire....

 when Robert was 10 years old. As the only male heir Robert inherited his father's estate in Wythenshawe, but as a minor he was made a ward of the king, Charles I, until he came of age. On 9 January 1628, Robert married Anne Brereton, the third daughter of William Brereton of Ashley

Ashley, Cheshire

Ashley is a village and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 261. The village is at a crossroads close to the border of Cheshire with Greater Manchester, and is just to the south...

. The couple went on to have four sons and two daughters.

Robert's father-in-law William Brereton was a close relative of his namesake Sir William Brereton

Sir William Brereton, 1st Baronet

Sir William Brereton, 1st Baronet was an English writer and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1628 and 1659. He was a commander in the Parliamentary army in the English Civil War....

, who the year after Robert's marriage was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Parliamentary troops in Cheshire following the outbreak of the English Civil War. The first pitched battle of the war was fought at Edgehill

Battle of Edgehill

The Battle of Edgehill was the first pitched battle of the First English Civil War. It was fought near Edge Hill and Kineton in southern Warwickshire on Sunday, 23 October 1642....

 on 23 October 1642, and Robert decided to join the Royalist

Cavalier

Cavalier was the name used by Parliamentarians for a Royalist supporter of King Charles I and son Charles II during the English Civil War, the Interregnum, and the Restoration...

 side.

Siege of Wythenshawe Hall

Towards the end of 1643 the commander of the local Parliamentary forces in Cheshire, Colonel Robert Duckenfield

Robert Duckenfield

Lieutenant Colonel Robert Duckenfield was a Parliamentarian commander during the English Civil War.-Family history:Robert Duckenfield came from Dukinfield in Cheshire and was born to Robert and Frances Duckenfield in 1619. The Duckenfields were a noted local family and their history in Cheshire...

, was ordered to seize Wythenshawe Hall and to remove anything of value that could be found. Forewarned, Robert Tatton recruited a group of more than 50 defenders from among his staff and Royalist friends. After ransacking the nearby village of Northenden

Northenden

Northenden is a suburban area and electoral ward of the city of Manchester in North West England. It lies on the south side of both the River Mersey and the M60 motorway, west of Stockport and south of Manchester city centre. Northenden is bounded by the districts of Didsbury, Gatley and...

 the Roundheads arrived at Wythenshawe Hall on 21 November 1643, but they did not find the task of taking it as easy as they had imagined. At one point during the siege the attackers almost took possession of the house in a struggle during which six of the defenders were killed. The Parliamentarians refused a truce to allow the bodies to be taken to the local church for proper services to be held, necessitating their burial in the garden behind the house. One of those killed was the fiancé of Mary Webb, a young woman who had been brought up by the Tattons and had remained in the house with the defenders. Towards the end of the siege Mary saw the man who had led the attack, Duckinfield's second-in-command Captain Adams, sitting on a wall near the house. Borrowing a musket from one of the defenders, she shot him dead.

The siege ended on 27 February 1644 after the Parliamentarians brought two cannons from nearby Manchester

Manchester

Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

, with which they "reduced" the hall. By then the defenders had exhausted their ammunition and had very little food left. The hall was confiscated; an inventory taken after the surrender valued its contents at almost £1650, equivalent to about £ as of .

Later life

Robert escaped and made his way to Chester

Chester

Chester is a city in Cheshire, England. Lying on the River Dee, close to the border with Wales, it is home to 77,040 inhabitants, and is the largest and most populous settlement of the wider unitary authority area of Cheshire West and Chester, which had a population of 328,100 according to the...

, where in 1645 he was made High Sheriff

High Sheriff

A high sheriff is, or was, a law enforcement officer in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States.In England and Wales, the office is unpaid and partly ceremonial, appointed by the Crown through a warrant from the Privy Council. In Cornwall, the High Sheriff is appointed by the Duke of...

 of the county of Cheshire. But he was forced to flee from the city early the following year when it too was besieged by Parliamentary forces. This time he made for Oxford, where King Charles I was in residence, but it fell only a few months later on 24 June 1646, effectively ending the war.

In the aftermath of the conflict Wythenshawe was included in a list of estates owned by Royalists that were to be forfeited to the new government. Robert's entry is as follows:
Parliament allowed Robert to keep his estate on payment of a fine of £804 10s

Shilling

The shilling is a unit of currency used in some current and former British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. The word is thought to derive...

, reduced to £707 13s 4d

Penny (British pre-decimal coin)

The penny of the Kingdom of Great Britain and later of the United Kingdom, was in circulation from the early 18th century until February 1971, Decimal Day....

 in December 1646, and Wythenshawe Hall was returned to him two years after its confiscation. Following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 King Charles II

Charles II of England

Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...

 rewarded Robert's loyalty to the Crown by presenting him with a silver snuff box.

Robert Tatton died on 19 August 1669 and was buried at St Wilfrid's

Church of St Wilfrid, Northenden

The Church of St Wilfrid in Ford Lane, Northenden, Manchester, England, is an Anglican church of late medieval origins which was substantially re-built in the 19th century by J. S. Crowther...

parish church in Northenden, which contains a wall monument in his memory. His eldest son William (born 1636) inherited the Wythenshawe estate.