ASHTON (ASSHETON), William II (1589-1659), of Mawdesley, Croston, Lancs.

As the son of the former steward of Newton, Ashton was elected in 1614 for the same borough his father had twice represented. However, he made no impression upon the records of that brief and troubled Parliament. His marriage in 1619 to Elizabeth Chamberlyn, whose background is unknown, took place at St. James, Clerkenwell. Little else can be discovered of his life. His nearest kinsmen, the Ashtons of Croston, were severely punished as royalist delinquents and recusants following the Civil War, but Ashton himself seems to have avoided the same fate. Royalist Comp. Pprs. ed. J.H. Stanning (Lancs. and Cheshire Rec. Soc. xxiv), 109. He died in February 1659, leaving apparently neither will nor heir, and was buried at Croston.