Facile Captu or rather Hand Facile Capto, ie. Not Easily Caught. The late James Oldham Oldham, Esq. bore the old family arms, with the addition of the empalement of S. within a bordure per pale and fess argent and erminois; a stag at gaze argent attired or.

The family of the Oldhams, of Werneth, terminated in female heirs, one of whom, Margaret, daughter and co-heiress of Richard Oldham, Esq., conveyed the principle part of the property by marriage to John Cudworth, Esq., of the Cudworths, of Cudworth, near Barnsley, Yorkshire. This marriage probably occured either in the reign of Henry the Fourth, 1399 - 1413, or of Henrythe Fifth, 1413 - 1422. During the lifetime of John Cudworth, Esq., son of the first Cudworth, of Werneth, the Mansion House of Werneth was destroyed by fire, May 20th, 1456, and the greater part, if not all the evidences of the family unfortunately perished in the flames. It is not stated whether the hall was burnt by accident or design, but there is little doubt it would be a timber structure, which would soon be demolished by such a calamity. Ralph Cudworth, Esq., who is styled by Fuller in his Worthies, "chief lord
of Oldham," and who was grandson of Geoffrey Cudworth Esq., son of the second Cudworth of Werneth, was father of John Cudworth, Esq., who died 1652, and of Ralph Cudworth D.D., a distinguished divine. Dr. Cudworth became Fellow of Emanuel College, in Cambridge, and "was a most excellent preacher, who continued and finished some imperfect works of Mr. Perkins, and after his decease supplied his place in St. Andrew's, in Cambridge." On the presentation of Emanuel College, the Doctor was appointed Incumbent of Aller, in Somersetshire, where his son Ralph Cudworth, the celebrated author of that highly esteemed work, " The True Intellectual System of the Universe," was born in 1617. The father died in 1624. The son was educated at the college with which his father was so intimately connected, was successively Master of Clare

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