Echoes of old Lancashire

“Or Westminster Meg,With her long leg,As long as a crane;And feet like a plane,With a pair of heelsAs broad as two wheels.”

Amongst the proverbs cited by quaint old Fuller is one current in the seventeenth century – “As long as Meg of Westminster.”

The most famous of the Lancashire giants is the “Childe of Hale,” who was taken to Court in 1620 and presented to James I. His patron was Sir Gilbert Ireland, who “with some of the neighbouring Lancashire gentry dizened him off with large ruffs about his neck and hands; a striped doublet of crimson and white, round his waist, a blue girdle embroidered with gold; large white plush breeches, powdered with blue flowers; green stockings; broad shoes of a light colour, having high red heels and tied with large bows of red ribbon; and just below his knees were bandages of the same colour, with large bows, and by his side a sword, suspended by a broad belt over his shoulder, and embroidered, as his girdle, with blue and gold, with the addition of a gold fringe upon the edge. We are traditionally informed that his amazing size at the time frightened away some thieves who came to rob his mother’s house.” In this costume he is said to have struggled with the King’s wrestler, whose thumb he put out. This displeased some of the courtiers, and hence the King dismissed him with a present of £20. He returned home by Brasenose College, Oxford, which was then full of Lancashire students. Here, as we learn from Harland, his portrait was taken of full life-size, and is now to be seen in the College library. There is another likeness of him preserved at High Leigh; and an original painting of the “Chylde” is kept in the gallery at Hale Hall, bearing the following inscription: – “This is the true portraiture of John Middleton, the ‘Chylde of Hale,’ who was born at Hale, 1578, and was buried at Hale, 1623.” About eighty years ago the body is said to have been taken up, and the principal bones were for some time preserved at Hale Hall. The thigh bone, it is gravely stated, reached from the hip of a common man to his feet, and the rest measured in proportion. After some time the bones were reburied in the churchyard, but whereabouts is not known. He could only stand upright in the centre of the cottage in which he resided; and tradition states that he attained his wonderful stature in one night, in consequence of some spells and incantations that were practised against him. The Rev. William Stewart, in his “Memorials of Hale,” printed in 1848, says that “the cottage is now inhabited by Mr. Thomas Johnson, and is situated near the south-west corner of the Parsonage Green. A descendant of his family, Charles Chadwick, was living in 1804, and was more than six feet high.” There is every appearance of gross exaggeration in the accounts of the wonderful “childe.”

William Hone has given a portrait in the “Every-day Book” of the “Manchester gigantic boy,” exhibited at Bartholomew Fair, who was fourteen years old and stood 5 feet 2 inches, measured 5 feet round the body, 27 inches across the shoulders, 20 inches round the arm, 24 inches round the calf, 31 inches round the thigh, and weighed 22 stone. Hone gives his name as Whitehead, but William Wilkinson Westhead appears to be his correct designation. He was christened in the Collegiate Church 12th October, 1810, but is said to have been born in Glasgow. Murphy, the Irish giant, who stood seven feet and a half, and who died of small-pox at Marseilles in the 26th year of his age, is said to have begun life as a dock labourer at Liverpool.

At the other extremity may be mentioned Boardman, the Bolton dwarf, who claimed to be thirty-four years old, and to be only 38 inches in height. The showman claims to have received the patronage of the Royal Family at Ascot in 1819. Doubtless further inquiry would greatly add to these scattered notes of the Lancashire Anakim.

A Note on William Rowlinson

A scrapbook made by William Rowlinson, first exhibited at a meeting of the Manchester Literary Club, and then liberally presented by Mr. Charles Roeder to the Manchester Free Library, is an interesting relic, and may justify a note on this now forgotten but promising young poet. It contains many newspaper cuttings, the earliest pages being devoted to his own compositions, and the remainder consisting of miscellaneous matter, chiefly poetical, that had attracted his attention.

William Rowlinson was born in 1805, it is believed, somewhere in the vicinity of Manchester. The family removed, for a time, to Whitby, but returned again to Manchester. He must early have developed a passion for writing, as contributions of his appear in the British Minstrel in 1824. The British Minstrel was a weekly periodical consisting of songs and recitations, old and new. The number for November 20th, 1824, contains two lyrics by Rowlinson (p. 171). The editor remarks, “We have received a letter from Mr. Rowlinson, of Manchester, and are obliged to him for the Originals enclosed. Mr. Wroe, of Ancoats’ Street, is our bookseller at Manchester; he, no doubt, will afford him every facility in communicating with us at any time he may have a packet for London.” A packet was sent, and is acknowledged in the number for December 25th, 1824. One of his lyrics appears in the last number of the British Minstrel, which came to an end January 22nd, 1825. His contributions are – “I’ll come to Thee” (p. 171). “It is not for Thine Eye of Blue” (p. 171). “Yes, Thyrsa, Yes” (p. 194). “Farewell Land of My Birth” (p. 197). “How Calm and Serene” (p. 303). “Think not when My Spirits” (p. 304). “Serenade” (p. 306). “Knowest Thou My Dearest” (p. 367). “How Sweet to Me” (p. 369). A copy of this volume has been placed in the Manchester Free Library by the present writer.

On the cessation of the British Minstrel, he began, in January, 1825, to write for Nepenthes, a Liverpool periodical. Still earlier, he is believed to have contributed to the Whitby Magazine.

From the age of eighteen to his death, at the age of twenty-four, he was a frequent and a welcome writer of prose and verse for the local periodicals. His range was by no means limited; he wrote art criticisms, essays in ethics, studies of modern poets, and verse in various styles and of varying quality. There is a musical flow about his lyrics that shows a genuine poetic impulse, but his talents had not time to ripen. His contributions to Nepenthes, British Minstrel, Phœnix, and Manchester Gazette have never been collected, and it is too late for the task to be either attempted or justified. An essay of his on Drunkenness is reprinted in the Temperance Star of May, 1890. The best of his poems is probably “Sir Gualter,” which is quoted in Procter’s “Literary Reminiscences” (p. 103). The same charming writer has devoted some pages to his memory in his “Memorials of Bygone Manchester” (p. 161). One example, “Babylon,” is given in Procter’s “Gems of Thought and Flowers of Fancy” (p. 47), and four lyrics appear in Harland’s “Lancashire Lyrics” (pp. 71-75). One of these, “The Invitation,” was printed – with another signature! – in the Crichton Annual, 1866. One of Rowlinson’s compositions – the “Autobiography of William Charles Lovell” – is said to be an account of his own experiences; this I have not seen. The story of his life is brief. He studied literature whilst earning his daily bread in a Manchester warehouse. He was a clerk in the employ of Messrs. Cardwell & Co., Newmarket Buildings, and to gratify his love of mountain scenery, he has been known to leave the town on Saturday night and walk to Castleton, in Derbyshire, and, after spending the Sunday there, walk home again through the night, to be ready for his Monday morning task. Literature did not wholly absorb him, for at twenty-four years of age he was a husband, with a son and an infant daughter. Early in 1829 he obtained a more congenial position as a traveller for the firm of Piggott, the famous compilers and publishers of directories. This gave him the opportunity of seeing Cambridge, where Kirke White is buried, and other places, whose historic and literary associations would appeal to his vivid imagination. But whilst enjoying thoroughly the beautiful scenery of the south, he pined for his northern home. Whilst bathing in the Thames he was drowned, June 22nd, 1829, and was buried in Bisham churchyard, on the 25th.9

The Manchester Free Library has copies of the exceedingly rare Phœnix and Falcon, with the contributions of Rowlinson and others, identified in MS. In the Phœnix “Bag-o-nails,” an imitation of the “Noctes Ambrosianæ,” he appears as Jeremiah Jingler. These periodicals, and the scrapbook, make as complete a collection of his scattered writings as is now possible.

John Bolton Rogerson and R. W. Procter have each borne affectionate testimony to the moral worth and literary promise of William Rowlinson. Soon after his death there appeared in the Falcon some stanzas which declared,

“The great in soul from his earthly home,In his youthful pride hath gone,Where the bards of old will proudly greetThe Muses’ honoured son.Oh, there is joy in the blessed thoughtThou art shrin’d on fame’s bright ray,Though the stranger’s step is on thy graveAnd thy friends be far away.”

We need not cherish illusions. The stranger’s step is on Rowlinson’s grave, but he is not “shrined on fame’s bright ray,” whatever and wherever that may be. No stone marks his grave, his very resting-place is unknown; we cannot even brush aside the grass from the forgotten and moss-grown tomb of William Rowlinson, one who perished in his early prime; whose music, faint, yet melodious, passed into silence before it could be shaped into a song the world would care to hear or to remember.

Literary Taste of the Eighteenth Century

The literary tastes of our great-grandfathers may be supposed to be mirrored in a catalogue of the circulating library established in the middle of the last century at Manchester. The list of the subscribers includes the names of Mr. Edward Byrom, the Rev. Mr. Ethelston, Joseph Harrop, Titus Hibbert, Thomas Henry, Dr. Peploe, Richard Townley, and Dr. C. White. The late president of the Chetham Society had a book-loving predecessor, for the name of Mr. James Crossley is also in the list. The books are of a highly respectable character, and impress one with a favourable opinion of the pertinacity of those who could pursue knowledge tinctured with so slight a flavour of entertainment. Out of 452 books there are but twenty-two professing to be novels, and amongst these are “Don Quixote,” “Gil Blas,” “Devil upon Two Sticks,” “Sir Charles Grandison,” “Tristram Shandy,” and Sir Thomas More’s “Utopia.” The library had faith in “Fingal, an Ancient Epic Poem,” and patronised “Poet Ogden,” who wrote “The British Lion Roused.” Byrom, Deacon, and Callcott were also amongst their local authors. The readers who were tired of Mill’s “Husbandry” and of the “Principles of the Quakers Truly Represented,” might turn to Voltaire’s “Letters Concerning the English Nation,” or amuse themselves with Glanvill’s examination of “The Opinion of Eastern Sages Concerning the Pre-existence of Souls;” and if the daughter of the house obtained by chance the heterodox treatise which declares “Christianity as Old as the Creation,” she might have it changed for the “Young Misses’ Magazine,” or, still better, the “Matrimonial Preceptor.” Another fine avenue for the satisfaction of polite curiosity would be afforded by the study of the wonderful work in which Tobias Swinden discourses at large on the “Nature and Place of Hell,” and proves to his own satisfaction that “the fire of hell is not metaphorical but real,” and shows “the probability of the sun’s being the local hell.” At the end of the catalogue is an advertisement of a proposed musical circulating library, in which the neglect of church music is affirmed; “and if we continue our present fondness for things in the sing-song way, ’tis great odds but our present taste will be entirely changed, and, like some of our modern religious sects, we shall be so distressed as to rob the stage and playhouse to support and enrich our churches.” This is supported by a reference to “the Methodists, as they are call’d,” and their use of song tunes. The volume contains supplementary lists of additions down to June, 1768. These include the first edition of Chaucer and “The Vicar of Wakefield,” then in the early flush of fame. For the members not satisfied with Glanvill’s speculations, there had been added Berrow’s “Lapse of Human Souls in a State of Pre-existence,” and the studious character of the Mancunians received a delicate compliment by the purchase of Tissot’s “Treatise on the Diseases Incident to Literary Persons.” The additional subscribers included Mr. Nathaniel Philips, Rev. Mr. Dauntesey, and the Rev. John Pope. The number of works in the library in June, 1768, was 586, representing perhaps twice that number of volumes.

Hugh of Manchester:

A Statesman and Divine of the Thirteenth Century.10

“Let me be the remembrancer,” says Fuller when describing the worthies of Lancashire, “that Hugh of Manchester in this county wrote a book in the reign of King Edward the First, intituled, ‘De Fanaticorum Deliriis’ (Of the Dotages of Fanatics). At which time an impostor had almost made Eleanor the queen-mother mad, by reporting the posthume miracles done by her husband, King Henry the Third, till this our Hugh settled her judgment aright. I could wish some worthy divine (with such Lancashire doth abound) would resume this subject, and shew how ancient and modern fanatics, though differing much in their wild fancies and opinions, meet together in a mutual madness and distraction.”

The historians of Lancashire have generally followed Fuller in regarding Hugh of Manchester as a native of the county, but there is nothing to identify him with certainty, for his name may be referred alike to Lancashire or to Warwickshire, and the tests that can now be applied are not decisive. The pedigree in Dugdale’s “Warwickshire” does not show our churchman, though there is a Hugh de Mancestre who was one of the justices of Warwickshire 29, 30, 31, and 32 of Henry III. In the thirty-sixth year of that King he had a grant of free warren. He was then coroner for the county and next year escheator. He died 37 Henry III., leaving two sons, Simon and Walter. There is no place assigned to Hugh in this genealogy, but even if he belonged to the stock he may have been a collateral relative or he may have been omitted as a member of a religious order having theoretically no further interest in worldly affairs.

The date of his birth is unknown. Fuller, following the authority of Pits, says that he was, “when Adolescens [a youth], a Dominican; but when Juvenis [a young man] he changed his copy, and turned a Franciscan. Say not he degraded himself, choosing a later order then he left; for it seems that amongst them the last is counted the best, as of a more refined perfection. He was a great scholar, and highly esteemed in that age for his severity and discretion.” He was a Doctor of Divinity and Professor of Theology, and afterwards Provincial of the Franciscan Order in England. The most interesting incident in his life is that already named, and which led to the production of that one of his works which is most frequently named. The death of Henry III., in 1272, removed a good man but an incompetent monarch from a world where moral excellence does not supply the deficiency of administrative ability. But the rule of not speaking evil of the dead led some after Henry’s death to invest his memory with a sanctity that approached to a popular canonization. We may again quote Fuller, who is relying upon the authority of Bale: “An impostor happened at this time, pretending himself first blind, then cured at the tomb of King Henry the Third, so to get coin to himself, and credit to the dead King. But our Hugh discovered the cheat; and, writing a book, ‘De Fanaticorum Deliriis,’ dedicated it to King Edward the First, who kindly accepted thereof, preferring that his father’s memory should appear to posterity with his true face, than painted with such false miracles.” It is a matter of regret that this book has not survived; since it is creditable to an age when superstition too often conceded an unwarranted belief in baseless claims. That Hugh of Manchester had the skill to detect the imposture is honourable to his intellect, and Edward I. must be commended for the candour that rewarded the scholar who had dispersed from the kingly father some of that odour of sanctity with which ignorance had surrounded his memory.

There is an interesting reference to Hugh of Manchester in a letter sent by Archbishop John Romanus to Friar William de Hotham, who was afterwards Bishop of Dublin. This epistle is dated 10th December, 1293, and is printed in “Historical Papers and Letters, from the Northern Registers,” edited by James Raine (London, 1873, p. 102): —

“Suo suus salutem, gratiam et benedictionem. Quoniam in recessu nostro apud Wixebrigg dixistis quod cum fratre Hugone de Maincestre, colloquium habituri nobis aliqua significaretis, dilectioni vestræ per experientiam multiplicem approbatæ notum facimus per præsentes quod vobis, sicut diximus viva voce, de illa cedula missa apud Schardeburgh occasione aliquorum falsorum nobis a Fratribus et Minoribus impositorum, quicquid cum honestate poterimus, dictante conscientia faciemus; verum quia, secundum quod nostis, ad observationem canonum in professione nostra sumus firmiter obligati, contra Constitutionem Generalem nihil ausi erimus attemptare. Et quia, argumento nostro ipso inaudito, hec etiam semiplene dicto respondere voluistis, ipsum argumentum vobis scribimus, ut super illo, literatorie nobis satisfacere valeatis. Et est argumentum tale. Supponamus quod curati teneantur curare modo sic. Quicunque tenetur curare, tenetur vultum pecoris sui cognoscere; sed vultum pecoris sui sufficienter cognoscere non potest nisi confessionem subditi audiendo; ergo, quicunque tenetur curare, tenetur confessionem sui subditi audire; et, ideo, credimus quod omnis utriusque sexus constitutio facta fuit. Sed vos dicitis quod qui confitentur Fratribus vestris et Minoribus non tenentur confiteri proprio sacerdoti; ergo proprius sacerdos non tenetur audire confessionem suam; sed, si non tenetur audire confessionem, non tenetur cognoscere vultum suum. Ergo ad destructionem consequentis non tenetur curare. Sed ex hypothesi in principio argumenti curare tenetur. Ergo tenetur curare et non tenetur curare; quæ sunt contradictorie opposita. Et, ut utamur verbis doctoris nostri venerabilis Augustini, primo libro de Trinitate, ‘Non pigebit me,’ inquit ‘sic ubi hæsito quærere, nec pudebit sic ubi erro discere. Quisquis ergo hæc audit vel legit, ubi pariter certus est, purgat mecum; ubi pariter hæsitat quærat mecum; ubi errorem suum cognoscit, redeat ad me; ubi mecum revocat me ad se, ita ingrediamur simul caritatis viam, tendentes ad Eum de Quo dictum est quærite faciem Ejus semper.’ Et quia in Constitutione Martini continentur hæc verba, ‘Volumus autem quod hi qui Fratribus confitebuntur, iidem parochialibus presbyteris confiteri semel in anno, prout generale concilium statuit, nihilominus teneantur; et quod Fratres eos diligenter et efficaciter secundum datam eis a Domino gratiam exhortentur,’ ac nos diximus in cedula quod secundum naturam privilegii sui ipsi Fratres sibi confitentibus injungant, seu eos moneant et inducant quod semel in anno confiteantur proprio sacerdoti. Quatenus a privilegio discrepat dictum nostrum parati erimus, si vobis, placeat, revocare. Bene valete. Data apud Wycomb, iiij idus Decembris, pontificatus nostri anno octavo.”

The following is a translation: —

“For his (son, Romanus, Archbishop) wisheth safety, grace, and blessing. Since in our recess at Wilebrigg you said that, being about to hold converse with Brother Hugh of Manchester, you would point out to us some matters for consideration, we, for your love proved by manifold experience, make known to you by means of this writing, that, just as we said by living voice, about that document sent from Schardeburgh on the occasion of certain falsehoods imposed upon us by the Friars and Minors, whatsoever we can with honesty, and under the dictates of conscience, we will do for you. But because, as you know, we are in our profession firmly bound to the observation of the canons, nothing dare we attempt against the general constitution. And because our argument itself has not been heard, and because you have not wished to respond to what had been only half stated; we write for you the argument itself, in order that you may be able to satisfy us by letter. And the argument is this. Let us suppose that parish priests are bound to administer their cure of souls thus. Whoever is bound to administer a cure of souls is bound to know the face11 of his flock. But he cannot thoroughly know the face of his flock unless by hearing the confession of him under his care. Therefore, he who is bound to administer a cure of souls is bound to hear the confession of him who is under his care; and we believe it was for that reason that to every body, of either sex, a peculiar constitution was given. But you say that they who confess to your Friars and Minors are not bound to confess to their own proper priest. Therefore their own priest is not bound to hear their confession. But if he is not bound to hear their confession, he is not bound to know their face. Therefore, to the destruction of the conclusion of the argument, he is not bound to administer his cure of souls. But according to the hypothesis in the beginning of the argument he is bound to administer his cure of souls. Therefore he is bound, and he is not bound, to administer his cure of souls. But these things are contradictory. And, if I may use the words of our venerable teacher Augustine, which occur in the first book concerning the Trinity: ‘It will not,’ he says, ‘be irksome to me thus to inquire wherever I hesitate, nor shame me thus to learn wherever I err. Whoever, therefore, hears or reads these words, let him, when he is equally certain, cleanse himself as I do; when he is equally doubtful, let him go with me and ask; when he knows his error, let him return to me; when he recalls me to himself let us walk together the way of charity, leading towards Him of Whom it has been written, ‘Seek ye always His face.’ And because in the constitution of [Pope] Martin these words are contained, ‘And we wish that these people who confess to the Friars, the same may be bound nevertheless to confess to their own parish priests, once in the year, according to the statute of the general council; and that the Friars diligently and efficaciously exhort them, according to the grace given them by the Lord,’ so we said in the afore-mentioned attestation that the Friars can, according to the nature of their privilege, enjoin upon those confessing to them, or advise and persuade them, that once in a year they confess to their own priest. In so far as what we have said differs from the privilege, we shall be prepared, if it please you, to revoke it. Fare ye well. Dated at Wycomb, IIII Ides of December in the 8th year of our pontificate.”

The latest mention we have of Hugh of Manchester is in connection with his work as an ambassador. He was sent in 1294, in company with William of Gainsburgh, to demand on behalf of Edward III. the restitution of the lands claimed by the English King, but retained by force in the hands of Philip of France. On this appointment Fuller quaintly remarks: “Such who object, that fitter men than friars might have been found for that service, consider not how in that age such mortified men were presumed the most proper persons peaceably to compromise differences between the greatest princes.” There is a graphic account of the embassy in Robert of Brunne’s “Chronicle”: —

“Edward sendis his sond, to France messengers,Frere Hugh of Malmcestre was a Jacobyn,& William of Gaynesburgh was a Cordelyn.Alle þise passid þe se, so com þe erle of ArtoysIn prison did þam be a seuenyght in Caleys.To Paris siþen þei cam, & þer fond þei þe kyng,þei letter forth þei nam, to trowe þer saying.þis letter of credence þei schewed in his present,Here no þe accordance, what þer sayng ment,Sir Hugh was a man of state, he said as I salle rede,‘To Prince & to prelate men salle loute & drede,& for lorde dere his biddyng salle men do,To lesse & more in fere haf fayth & treuth also,& for our lord Edward, þat God him saue & se,We toke þis trauaile hard, his bode to bere to þe.He settes þe terme & stage bi vs, whan& why þat he has don homage for Gascoyn plenerley,In forward formed in pes, as was þer acordance,As ȝour ancestres ches of Inglond & of Franceþei mad a pes final after þer contek,þou has broken it alle, & don him many ille chek.Now at his last goyng, when he to Gascoyn went,Ȝe cette a certeyn þing, at ȝour boþe assent,& þat suld holden be, euer withouten ende,þou brak þat certeynte wickkedly & vnhendeȜit he biddes þe se, how wrong þou wilt him lede,Bituex him & þe was mad a priue dede,Of Gascoyn certeyn was þat feffement,Forto feffe him ageyn in þat tenement.þi seisyn is well knowen þe days has þou plenere,To restore him his owen, he sent to þe duzepersAs lawe wild & right, and couenant was in scrite.Ȝeld it, þou has no right, with wrong holdes it in lite,Ageyn alle maner skille, & ȝit þon ert so grefe.For whilom þon wrote him tille, & cald him in þi brefe,þi kynde, faythfulle & leale of Gascoyn noble duke,þerto þou set þi seal, þat right wilt þou rebuke.Neuer siþen hiderward suilk speche vnte him touched,Werfore our kyng Edward n þouht fulle well has souched.þou holdes him not þi man, no þing holdand of þe,Ne þe þinkes neuer for þan, to mak þe more feaute.Ne hopes to wynne þat land with dynt of douhty knyghtOf God he claymes holdand & neuer of no right.At þis tyme is not els of Sir Edward to seye,Bot of Edmunde þat duellis with him als breþer tueyeForbi any oþer with him will hold & be,He is lord & broþer, he certifies þat to þe.þat no man in þis werlde he hifes so mykelle no dredis,Ne with him is none herd so mykelle may help at nedis,For he sees so well ȝour grete controued gile,Ageyn his broþer ilk dele compassed in a while,Reft him his heritage, sais on him felonie,He ȝeldes vp his homage, forsakis þi companie,& þerto alle þe londes, þat he held of þe,& ȝeldes vp alle þe lordes of homage & feaute,Saue þe right þat may falle of our ancestres olde,Vnto þer heires alle to haf and to holde.We er pouer freres, þat haf nought on to lyue,In stede of messengeres, saue condite vs gyue,þorgh þi lond to go in þin auowrie,þat non vs robbe or slo, for þi curteysse.’”– “Robert of Brunne,” vol. ii., 258, 9, 60.On receiving the King’s reply and safe conduct,“þei had redy wending, at Douer þei toke lond& sped þam to þe kyng, at London þei him fond.”

After the conclusion of this embassy we hear no more of Hugh of Manchester. The only additional fact concerning him that is known is that he wrote a “Compendium Theologiæ” and some other works, of which not even the titles have survived.