Ralph de Ashton

In his seventeenth year, he was one of the pages of honour to Henry VI, and at the same early age, he married Margaret, the heiress of the Bartons of Middleton, and became the founder of the family that held the lordship there until the 18th century, when it passed by the female line to the holders of the Suffield peerage.

The date of his death is unknown, but he is traditionally said to have been shot at Ashton-under-Lyne, and the yearly ceremony known as the "Riding of the Black Lad" is regarded as a commemoration of that event.

According to this, corn marigold (Chrysanthemun segetum) grew so extensively in the low wetland about Ashton as to be inimical to the crops, and the lord of the manor had an annual inspection and levied fines on those tenants on whose lands it was seen.

This power, delegated to Ralph Ashton and his brother Robert, is said to have been made the pretext of such tyrannical exactions that on one of these visitations the tenants rose in desperation and the "Black Knight" was slain.

[1] Others hold that it was whilst exercising in the northern parts his despotic powers as vice-constable that he excited the terror expressed in the legendary rhyme:— The effigy of the Black Knight is still[citation needed] paraded through the town of Ashton on Easter Monday.