A History of Lancashire

Parliament was not slow to perceive the importance of retaining Lancashire, and at once ordered a grant of £3,000 for the soldiers there, and provisions were made to provide pensions for widows and children of those who had been slain; but this money was not to come out of the general exchequer, but “out of the several sequestrations of papists and delinquents within the respective hundreds of Blackburn, Leyland and Amounderness, or out of the assessments provided for that purpose; and no one was to receive more than four shillings and eightpence per week.” Prince Rupert again put in an appearance in Lancashire, and engagements of a not very serious character took place at Ormskirk, Up–Holland, near Wigan, and Preston. Liverpool being in great danger of being lost to the Royalists, Lord Derby made an attempt for its relief, but was repulsed with a heavy loss, and on November 1, 1644, the town was surrendered to Sir John Meldrum.

The close of the year 1644 found the Parliamentary forces in possession of all the fortified places in the county, except Lathom House, and in the following year the Royalists were defeated at Naseby and at Rowton Heath, near Chester, the latter entirely putting to an end the King’s design, which was to march into Lancashire and attempt to regain what had there been lost. In the meantime, the Parliamentary party were determined to wrest from the Royalists their last holding in the county, and for this purpose, in July, 1645, General Egerton, with 4,000 men, began the second siege of this apparently invincible stronghold; for a long time they were unable to approach near enough to the house to enable them to use their heavy guns against it, but were content to lie behind a ditch at some distance from the walls. After withstanding this siege all the autumn, the garrison, for want of provisions, was obliged to yield, and on December 4 Lathom House, which was described as the glory of the county, was given up to the enemy. The greater portion of the house was pulled down and cast into the moat. The Earl and his Countess were now in the Isle of Man.

A little before this second siege, another of the Earl of Derby’s strongholds was taken and destroyed – Greenhaugh Castle, in Garstang parish. Though small, this was said to be “very stronge, and builded so that it was thot impregnable with any ordenance whatsoever,” and, moreover, it had only one door, and the “walls of an exceeding thickness.”150 This castle was entirely demolished. As far as Lancashire was concerned, the war for the present was over, but its effects upon the people had, as may easily be imagined, been very severe, and this fact was fully recognised by the Parliament, for on the occasion of a general fast (September 11, 1644), it was ordered that one–half of the money collected in London and Westminster was to be sent for the relief of Lancashire, “where, in some parts, the people had nothing left to cloathe them, or bread for their children to eat, in consequence of the unheard–of spoil, rapine and cruelties, lately committed by the enemie.” In this year, the Parliament took to itself the patronage of all the church livings in the duchy, and as the Royalists had forcibly taken the duchy seal from the Vice–Chancellor (Christopher Banister), a new seal was made.

The cause of the King was now considered as hopeless; nevertheless, one further attempt was made to revive the spirit of loyalty to the Crown. General Sir Marmaduke Langdale, having collected a considerable number of men in the north of Lancashire and in Westmorland, joined them to the forces raised in Scotland, and placed them under the command of the Duke of Hamilton; this united army, consisting of 15,000 foot and 6,000 horse,151 crossed the Border on July 4, 1648, and shortly afterwards marched through Kendal, en route for Lancaster and Preston, with a view of ultimately reaching Manchester. In the meantime Cromwell had started for the North, gathering forces as he went, and on August 16 he reached Stoneyhurst. The Duke of Hamilton’s army was now stationed near Walton–le–Dale, on one side the Ribble, and Sir Marmaduke Langdale’s forces on Ribbleton Moor on the other, so that the latter held a position between the two main forces. Cromwell at once advanced against Sir Marmaduke; the manner of doing so will be best told in his own words152: “There being a lane very deep and ill up to the enemies army and leading to the town, we commanded two regiments of horse, the first whereof was Colonel Harrison’s, and the next my own, to charge up that lane; on the other side of them advanced the Battel, which were Lieutenant–Colonel Reads, Colonel Deans, and Colonel Prides on the right, Colonel Brights and my Lord Generals on the left, and Colonel Ashton with the Lancashire regiments in reserve.

“We ordered Colonel Thornhaugh and Colonel Twisletons regiments of horse on the right, and one regiment in reserve for the lane, and the remaining horse on the left; so that at last we came to a Hedge dispute, the greatest of the impression from the enemy being upon our left wing; and upon the battel on both sides of the lane, and upon our horse in the lane, in all which places the enemy was forced from their ground after 4 hours dispute, until we come to the town, into which our troops of my regiment first entered, and being well seconded by Colonel Harrisons regiment, charged the enemy in the town and cleared the streets… Colonel Deans and Colonel Prides outwinging the enemy, could not come to so much share of the action… At the last the enemy was put into disorder, many men slain, many prisoners taken, the Duke with most of the Scots horse and foot retreated over the bridge, where, after a very hot dispute betwixt the Lancashire regiments, part of my Lord Generals and them being at push of pike, they were beaten from the bridge, and our horse and foot following them, killed many and took divers prisoners, and we possessed the bridge over Darwent and a few houses there, the enemy being driven up within musquet–shot of us where we lay that night… In this posture did the enemy and we lie the most part of that night; upon entring the town, many of the enemy’s horse fled towards Lancaster, in the chase of whom went divers of our horse, who pursued them near ten miles, and had execution of them, and took about 500 horses and many prisoners. We possessed in the fight very much of the enemy’s ammunition; I believe they lost four or five thousand arms. The number of slain we judge to be about a thousand, the prisoners we took were about four thousand.”153

During the night the Duke, with the remnant of his army, retreated towards Wigan, and though they were hotly pursued, after some fighting by the way they got into that town, where they remained for the night, and on the morrow continued their flight towards Warrington. Wigan, Cromwell describes as “a great and poore town, and very malignant,” and he adds that the Duke’s army plundered the inhabitants “almost to their skins.” Cromwell followed the retreating foe, and the two armies again engaged near Winwick, when another 1,000 of the enemy were slain, the rest being driven on to Warrington Bridge, which they found so well fortified that they faced about, and again prepared to meet their pursuers. Cromwell, considering (as he put it) “the strength of the pass,” agreed to give quarter and civil usage, on the surrender of the officers and soldiers of the town as prisoners of war; these terms being accepted, the Duke and his army marched off into Cheshire.

The account of the fight at Preston given by Sir Marmaduke Langdale does not materially differ from that of the Parliamentary leader, but he frankly admits that his forces were utterly beaten, his foot soldiers being totally lost. The inhabitants of the various districts in which these battles had taken place again suffered most acutely, so much so that the Mayor and Bailiffs of Wigan and several ministers in the county sent to London an appeal for immediate relief. This appeal refers to “the lamentable condition of the county of Lancaster, and particularly of the towns of Wigan, Ashton, and the parts adjacent,” and sets forth that these districts had borne the heat and burden of both the wars “in an especial manner above other parts of the nation”; that the plague of pestilence had been raging for three years; that there was a scarcity of all provisions, grain the most in use being six times its usual price. All trade was utterly decayed, and it “would melt any good heart to see the numerous swarms of begging poore and the many families that pine away at home not having the faces to beg.” Some of the poor, being on the point of starvation, had eaten carrion and other unwholesome food, “to the destroying of themselves and the increasing of the infection,” the plague being entirely attributed to the “contagion from the wounded souldiers left there for cure.”

Liverpool also suffered much from the wars. In July, 1648, letters were received by Parliament from the Governor of Chester, representing the sad condition of that garrison, especially as to the convenience of the harbour and the revolt of the ships. The town itself was said to be but small, “and much decayed,” by reason of the war and the loss of the Irish trade, and also by “the free quarter of the soldiers.”154 The plague, also, about this time appeared in Liverpool and Warrington. During the next month the Deputy–Lieutenants were ordered to keep some horse soldiers near Lancaster, as that town was considered of special importance from a military point of view.

In the early part of 1649 the danger of further disturbance in the north appeared to have passed, and an order was given to demolish Clitheroe Castle and to disband the forces in the county; but as some of them refused to be broken up, Major–General Lambert was despatched with orders to disband them, by force if necessary.

On January 30, 1649, the King was executed for high–treason, and the Commonwealth established, and thus the long struggle was brought to a close; but Lancashire had not yet seen the last of the Civil Wars; for in August, 1651, Charles II., the uncrowned son of the “martyr King,” passed through the county on his way to Worcester; and, as was no doubt foreseen, this passage was not effected without a struggle with the strong Commonwealth party in the county.

The young King’s forces marched over Ellel Moor to Lancaster, where he was proclaimed King at the market–cross; through Preston and Chorley, and on to Warrington bridge, where their progress was opposed by a company of foot, who were soon overwhelmed by numbers and forced to retreat, allowing the King and his followers to pass over into Cheshire. Cromwell in the meantime was in pursuit with an army of some 10,000 men, which at Preston was increased by another 6,000 under the commands of Generals Lambert and Harrison. On the other side, the Earl of Derby, having been sent for from the Isle of Man, was endeavouring, but almost in vain, to raise men in Lancashire. With such forces as he could get together (probably not more than 1,500 men), the Earl marched to Wigan, where he was met (in Wigan Lane) by Colonel Lilburne, and after a short but sanguinary battle he was slightly wounded and his followers utterly routed. The fighting was so severe that the Earl lost five colonels, the adjutant–general, and four lieutenant–colonels. With some thirty men as an escort the Earl escaped and made his way to Worcester to join the King. After the battle of Worcester the Lancashire Earl was again a fugitive, and on his way to Knowsley he was taken prisoner on the road, about half a mile from Nantwich in Cheshire, by Captain Oliver Edge, and lodged in the castle at Chester. Notwithstanding that Captain Edge, on the Earl’s surrendering, had given him a promise of quarter, he was tried by court–martial at Chester, and found guilty, the sentence being that he should be beheaded in the market–place of Bolton, which sentence was carried out on October 15 (1651), in the presence of a large crowd of people, who are said to have been “weeping and crying and giving all expressions of grief and lamentation.”155

The Civil Wars were now over, and attention was again turned to local matters. Manchester was one of the first towns to dismantle its forts, throw down its outer walls, and remove its gates; this was done in 1651. In the same year the court–leet ordered a gibbet, which had been erected in the corn market–place “for the punishment of the souldiers,” to be taken down. Manchester, as a reward for her adhesion to the Parliamentary cause, was allowed to return a member of Parliament in 1654.

One would have thought that the dire troubles through which Lancashire passed would for a time at least have removed all desire to again take part in the contest between King and Parliament; but the spirit of some of the old Royalists still remained, and on the death of Cromwell (September 3, 1658) a league was formed to restore the monarchy, in which Lancashire was to have taken a prominent part; the son of the renowned Sir Marmaduke Langdale was to command the forces of this county, and amongst his supporters were the son of the “martyr Earl,” Sir Thomas Middleton, and others. This crude attempt was frustrated by a signal defeat in a short engagement at Northwich, where the fugitives were scattered in all directions, some to Manchester and some to Liverpool, where they found no sympathy but met with hard blows.

The religious condition of the county during the Commonwealth will be dealt with hereafter (Chapter IX.). Amongst the other effects of the events of the last ten years was the lowering of the whole social tone, the retarding of anything like education, or mental or material progress. Art, science, trade, commerce, and every branch of industry, must have been almost stagnant, whilst sickness, poverty, and crime were enormously increased. It was reported in 1655 that alehouses had become the very bane of the county. In the hundred of Blackburn alone over 200 of these had “to be thrown down.”156

Manchester having been all through the Civil Wars a stronghold of the Parliament, it probably did not suffer quite as much as some of the other towns, and we are therefore not surprised to find that many improvements were made there very shortly after the close of the troubles; thus, in August, 1653, was established there the first public library, the origin of which was the gift by John Prestwich “of severall Bookes unto the inhabitants of the towne of Manchester, to be kept in some convenient place for a liberarie for the use of the said towne.”

From an indenture bearing the afore–mentioned date, it will be seen that the Pendleton or Jesus Chapel, on the south side of the collegiate church, had been selected for the repository for these books; but being now in “great ruine and decay, the roofe thereof being fallen,” the holders of the inheritance of it conveyed it to trustees, to the intent that it should be repaired and afterwards used for a library. This collection of books has now long ago been dispersed, and was probably never a large one.

In 1656 the first town–hall was built; previous to that date the old wooden booths were used for the court–leet, etc. In these days, when football has become such a popular game as to render it one of the great national sports, it is interesting to find that in 1655 the Manchester Jury ordered all persons to be prosecuted who were found playing football in the streets. Nearly fifty years before this it had been found necessary to have “officers for ye football” regularly appointed. This playing in the streets was not confined to Manchester; indeed, at Kirkham on Christmas Day, until quite a recent date, the streets were entirely given up to the followers of this popular pastime.

At the Restoration Manchester was prepared to welcome the newly–crowned King, and on April 22, 1661, the train–bands, under John Byrom, and the auxiliary band of Nicholas Mosley, together some 360 men, assembled in the field “in great gallantrie and rich scarffes, expressing themselves with many great acclamations of joy.” They afterwards marched to the collegiate church, preceded by forty boys, “all cloathed in white stuffe, plumes of feathers in their hats, blew scarffes, armed with little swords hanging in black bells and short pikes shouldered.” In the church was a large concourse of people, who, says the chronicler,157 “civilly and soberly demeaned themselves all the whole day, the like never seen in this nor the like place.” A sermon was preached by the Warden, Richard Heyrick, and a civic procession afterwards paraded the town. On arriving at the conduit which supplied the town with water, there was a long halt, in order that the “gentlemen and officers” might drink his Majesty’s health “in claret running in three streams from the conduit.” This stream afterwards ran for the public use until after sunset. Lancaster celebrated the event by presenting to the King “their small mite as a token of their joy by surrender of their fee farm rents of £13 6s. 6d., which they purchased of the late powers.”

On October 7 following, 582 of the inhabitants took the oath of allegiance. In 1688 an assessment for the town gives the names of 500 ratepayers, who lived in seventeen streets or lanes; eighteen years later (in 1679), when the oath of allegiance was again taken, there were about 800 attestors. These figures give some idea of the population of Manchester at this period. The trade of the town was now very much extended, a considerable business being done with Ireland and London. From the former yarn was purchased, which was woven and returned; and from the Metropolis cotton wool was purchased, which came from Cyprus and Smyrna, and was manufactured into fustians, dimities and other fabrics. The appearance of the town towards the end of the century underwent a great change; its old narrow streets and lanes were somewhat widened, and the time–worn houses of wood and plaster gave place to more substantial erections of stone and brick. There had also been established, by the bequest of one of Manchester’s merchants, Humphery Chetham, of Clayton Hall and Turton Tower, the Chetham Hospital and Chetham Library, the latter being the first really free library opened in England.

Preston had now greatly increased, and was a prosperous town of about 6,000 inhabitants. In 1682 Kuerden describes it as being “adorned with a large square or market–place,” and its streets as being “so spacious from one end thereof to the other, that few of the corporations of England” exceeded it. In the centre of the town was “an ample, antient and well–beautifyed gylde hall,” under which were “ranged two rows of butchers’ shops”, and here once a week was a market for linen cloth, yarn, fish, and general agricultural produce, as well as cattle, sheep and pigs, and here and there were the houses of the wealthy, mostly built of brick and “extraordinarily addorning the streets.” Preston had also its workhouse, public almshouse and school, and the old building formerly occupied by the Grey Friars served as a kind of reformatory for “vagabonds, sturdy beggars, and other people wanting good behaviour.”

During the reign of Charles II. two guilds were celebrated at Preston, to which people came from all parts of the county. Liverpool towards the end of the reign of Charles II. began rapidly to develop. Blome, writing in 1673, states that Liverpool was a bold and safe harbour, in which ships at low water could ride at 4 fathoms, and at high water 10 fathoms, and that amongst the inhabitants were many eminent merchants and tradesmen, whose commerce with the West Indies made it famous. Emulating Manchester, it had then recently erected a town–hall, which was “placed on pillars and arches of hewn stone,” having under it an exchange for merchants. This hall was built on the site where the old market cross had stood for a very long period. In the middle of this century (1650) the town consisted of Water Street, near to which was the tower, owned by the Stanley family, the Custom–house, Dale Street, Castle Street, Chapel Street, Tithebarn Street, Oldhall Street, and Jaggler’s Street, and on its rocky eminence, looking down upon the town, still stood the castle. In 1654 the first attempt to light the streets was made, the order given by the authorities being that “two lanthorns with two candles burning every night in the dark moon [i. e., when there was no moon] be set out at the High Cross and at the White Cross, and places prepared to set them in every night till eight of the clock.”

A very large portion of the land on which Liverpool stood at this time belonged to Edward Moore (afterwards Sir Edward), of Bankhall, and from his “rental”158 we may gather much curious detail as to the tenure and character of the various lessees; the rent appears to have been paid partly in cash and partly in kind or service – thus, one tenant paid £1 a year, three hens, and three days’ shearing; another, £1 6s. 8d. and the same boon hens and service. The pool from which the town took its name is frequently mentioned, and a note singularly foreshadows a branch of trade which subsequently became very advantageous to Liverpool. Moore called one of his tenements Sugar House Close, because a great sugar merchant from London came to treat with him for it; and it was agreed that he was to build up to the front street a goodly house four stories high, and at the back a house for boiling sugar.

At a little later period the establishment of extensive potteries in Liverpool introduced a new trade, but as early as 1665 a coarse kind of earthenware was made at Prescot, and the carting of it through the town was said so to “oppresse and cut out the streets,” that the Corporation levied a toll of 4d. for every cartload. The Liverpool potteries are said to have been the earliest works of the kind in England.

The question of what to do with the wandering beggars appears to have met with a rough–and–ready answer from the Liverpool authorities, and in 1686 they sent round the bellman to warn the inhabitants not to relieve any foreign poor, and, to prevent any mistake, they ordered that all those on the relief list should wear a pewter badge; and so strictly were these regulations enforced, that a burgess was fined 6s. 8d. for harbouring his own father and mother without giving due notice to the officials.

The first regular post–stages between the various parts of Lancashire and the rest of England were slow in developing, as we may infer from the fact that in 1653 three merchants (two Londoners and a Cornishman) made a proposal to the Government to work the inland and foreign letter office, and to establish a stage between Lancaster and Carlisle. This arrangement was probably not carried out. The roads all over the county were at this period in a dreadful state, and were not materially improved until the establishment of the turnpike system.

The educational advantages had now somewhat improved, the increase in public schools towards the close of the century being considerable. The experience of one boy will serve as a sample of how, no doubt, fared others. William Stout, the son of a well–to–do farmer, who lived at Bolton Holmes, near Lancaster (where his ancestors had lived for generations), records159 that he was first sent to a dame school, and afterwards to the Free School at Bolton (about the year 1674), but when he was between ten and twelve years of age he was, especially in the spring and summer season, taken away for the “plough time, turf time, hay time and harvest, in looking after the sheep, helping at plough, going to the moss with carts, making hay and shearing in harvest;” so that he made small progress in Latin, and what he learnt in winter he forgot in summer; as for writing, he depended upon a writing–master who came to Bolton during the winter.160 One of the earliest recollections of the writer just quoted was of his sister being sent up to London to be touched by Charles II., on which occasion she received a gold token worth about 10s., which she afterwards wore round her neck, “as the custom then was.” The royal touch was not in this case efficacious. William Stout afterwards settled in Lancaster as a kind of general dealer and merchant, especially in groceries and ironmongery, and from his diary may be gleaned several interesting details of the state and trade of Lancaster, which at that time (end of seventeenth century) did a considerable shipping business to London, Ireland, Virginia, Barbadoes, and other ports.

In 1689 the war with France much interfered with this trade, and the cheese from Cheshire and Lancashire, which required twenty ships yearly to carry it to London, had all to be taken by land. The rate for the carriage in this way was from 3s. to 5s. a hundredweight in summer. Iron was obtained in the crude state from the bloomeries of Cartmel and Furness. Tobacco was largely imported into Lancaster directly from Virginia, the trade being carried on partly by exchange of goods; thus, one John Hodgson, of Lancaster, sent out £200 value of English goods, for which he obtained in Virginia 200 hogsheads of tobacco, and made by the barter a net profit of £1,500, tobacco then selling at 1s. a pound. Sugar bought at Bristol and Liverpool was refined at Lancaster, but none seems to have been imported at this time. Our diarist in 1695 was collector of the land–tax of Lancaster, which was 4s. in the pound, and amounted to £120, so that the rateable value was only about £600.