The Stanleys were one of the two great families that dominated the north of England in the sixteenth century, the other being the Percys. In Lancashire, Cheshire and the Isle of Man the Stanleys ruled almost as minor monarchs. As early as the twelfth century, various Stanleys held positions of consequence in the Midlands, but in 1385 the family took a major step upward when Sir John Stanley (1350?–1415), a Cheshire knight who had fought in Aquitaine and later served Robert de Vere, earl of Oxford, married Isabel, ‘five years later heiress of Sir Thomas Lathom, owner of considerable estates centred upon Lathom and Knowsley in Lancashire’. Here history and legend begin to merge, for Sir John's dashing career forms the starting point for the long family verse-history, The Stanley Poem. The poem makes no mention of Sir John's less successful moments – he was removed from the lieutenancy of Ireland after his alleged mishandling of the 1390 campaign and needed to be given protection from his creditors in 1401 – but instead presents a dashing story of jousts with French knights, journeys overseas and trysts with the sultan's daughter. It also repeats the story that Stanley's father-in-law, whom it names Oskell, was found in an eagle's nest and rescued by the old and childless Lathom.