A History of Lancashire

After the death of the Duchess of Bavaria, John of Gaunt was declared by Parliament to be Duke of Lancaster in the right of his wife – to have and to hold the title and honour to him and his lawful heirs male for ever.

John of Gaunt was born at Ghent, in Flanders (hence his surname), in March, 1340. In A.D. 1369 he was sent over to France with a considerable force, but owing to sickness in his camp he returned to England, to find that his wife had during his absence died of the plague, and been buried in great state in Westminster Abbey. In 51 Edward III. (1377), a grant of a chancery in his dukedom and all the rights appertaining to a county palatine was made to him; and he was ordered to send (when required) two knights to Parliament “for the commonality,” two burgesses for every borough in the said county. Previous to this John of Gaunt had taken to himself a second wife – Constance, one of the daughters and heiresses of Peter the Cruel, King of Castile and Leon, whose arms he impaled with his ducal coat; his attempt by force of arms to obtain a right to the kingly title, however, failed. The life of the illustrious Duke of Lancaster is written in the pages of English history: his many military exploits, his bold bearing in opposing the bishops in the Wickliffe case, the many offices which he held under the King, his unpopularity at the time of the insurrection of Wat Tyler, his doings in Scotland and in Spain, are all incidents in the career of one whose name must for ever be remembered in the county where he held such power.

For his duchy he obtained in 13 Richard II. (1390) a right to have an exchequer in the county, with barons and officers appertaining thereunto, and also the right to appoint justices itinerant for the pleas of the forests.

John, named Plantagenet King of Castile and Leon, Duke of Lancaster, Earl of Leicester, Lincoln and Derby, Lieutenant of the King in Aquitaine, and High Steward of England,89 died in the year 1399.

Under this Duke, Lancaster Castle was partly rebuilt, and a considerable portion of the gateway tower (which still bears his name) added.

Henry Bolingbroke, who was now Duke of Hereford, was the next heir to the dukedom, but as he was in exile for his supposed treason, the King (Richard II.) seized the possessions of the late John of Gaunt, and shortly afterwards proceeded to Ireland, where he learnt that during his absence Bolingbroke had returned to England, and that the whole kingdom had received him with open arms. The King’s flight to Wales, his surrender, first of his person and then of his throne, followed in rapid succession, and on September 29, 1399, the head of the House of Lancaster became King of England under the title of Henry IV.

It must be remembered that the County Palatine and Duchy of Lancaster are not identical, as the latter comprises many places which are not in Lancashire, but are scattered over fourteen counties in England and Wales. The Duchy of Lancaster was held by Henry IV. as heir to his father, but his right to the Crown of England was by no means of such an indefeasible character. To remedy this defect, the King obtained several Acts of Parliament, declaring that neither the inheritance of his Duchy of Lancaster nor its liberties should be affected in consequence of his having assumed the royal dignity; also that all ecclesiastical benefices in the county should be conferred by himself or his heirs; that the right of succession to the duchy after his death should belong to his eldest son, Henry, Prince of Wales, and his heirs, or, in default of such heirs, to his second son, Thomas.90 He also established the duchy court of Lancaster, which was held at Westminster.91 The county also held its Star Chamber, the decrees of which were certainly not in accordance with the provisions of Magna Charta. This court, with others of the same character, was abolished in 1640–41 by Act of Parliament. Henry V., who succeeded to the dukedom, confirmed all that his father had done respecting the duchy. Henry VI., being pressed for money, mortgaged the revenues of his duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall for a term of five years, and on their reverting to the Crown in 1460–61, several new officers were appointed – amongst others, a chancellor, a receiver–general, an attorney–general for the duchy, and one for the county palatine.92

In 1461 Edward IV. obtained an Act of Parliament “for incorporating and also for confiscating the Duchy of Lancaster to the Crown of England for ever,” and since then the ruling monarch has held the duchy with all its liberties and privileges. In the time of Philip and Mary, in an Act for enlarging the duchy, it is styled “one of the most Princeliest and Stateliest peeces of our Sovereigne Ladie, the Queenes, auncyent inheritance.”

From the time of the creation of the palatinate, all justices of assize, of gaol–delivery, and of the peace, have been made under the seal of the county palatine, as are also the sheriffs for the county; an almost complete list of the latter from A.D. 1156 to the present time has been preserved.93

One of the privileges of a county palatine was that none of its inhabitants could be summoned out of their own county except for certain offences. This exemption, it appears, was not always observed, and its non–observance led to several serious riots, and resulted in the passing of an Act of Parliament in A.D. 1449, which declared that anyone making a distress where he had no “fee, seigniory or cause” in the Duchy of Lancaster should be treated as a felon. Another Act passed in 1453 directed that, if a person was outlawed in Lancashire, only his goods and lands in that county were to be forfeited; this law was, however, repealed two years afterwards.

The population of Lancashire shortly before the Black Death in 1349 was no doubt very much greater than it was for many years subsequently, notwithstanding the very heavy levies made upon it for the various wars in which the three Edwards were engaged. For the war in Wales, in 1282, the Sheriff of Lancashire was instructed to call upon every person owning land or rents worth £30 a year to provide a horse and armour and to join the royal forces; whilst William le Boteler, of Warrington, was ordered to meet the King at Worcester, and with the assistance of others he was to raise in Lancashire 1,000 strong and able men to serve in the Welsh war. Amongst the accounts of this campaign we find an entry referring to this: “To Master William le Boteler for the wages of one constable, two hundred and six archers, with ten captains of twenties, from Saturday, January 16 [1283], to Wednesday, the 27th of the same month, for twelve days, £22 4s.”94

The Crusaders also had many followers from this county, whilst for the wars with France and Scotland writ followed writ in quick succession, all calling for men and arms. And again in the fifteenth century the drain continued to be heavy, and culminated with the War of the Roses, which began in 1455. None of the battles between the Houses of York and Lancaster were fought within this county, but during the struggle Lancashire must have sent some of her bravest sons to perish in that ignoble strife between the roses red and white.

It should also be noted that in 1422 a second visitation of the plague appeared in the north of Lancashire, which, though not so widespread as it was in 1349, appears to have been quite as deadly, for on June 24, 1422, a precept was sent to the Sheriff to make proclamation in all the market towns and elsewhere within the county, that the sessions fixed to be held at Lancaster on Tuesday, the morrow of St. Lawrence, would be adjourned to Preston, because the King had heard both by vulgar report and the credible testimony of honest men, that in certain parts of Lancashire, and especially in the town of Lancaster, there was raging so great a mortality that a large portion of the people there, from the corrupt and pestiferous air, infected with divers infirmities and deadly diseases, were dying rapidly, and the survivors quitting the place from dread of death, so that in many cases the land remained untilled, and the most grievous desolation reigned where late was plenty.95

The Parliamentary representation of Lancashire began in the thirteenth century. Previous to this the King had three times a year called together his Council, consisting of the barons, the heads of the Church, and the military chief tenants of the Crown; but in 1213 King John directed the sheriffs of counties to send four men of each shire to confer with him on national affairs.96 In 1254 the number was reduced to two for each county; in 1261 Henry III. summoned three, which was shortly afterwards again reduced to two. In 1265 Simon de Montford, Earl of Leicester, in the King’s name summoned to Westminster two knights from each shire and two burgesses from each town. The exact character of these meetings is unknown, as is the method of the selections of the knights of the shire; but in 1290 they were formally summoned to Parliament, and in 1294 became a necessary part of the national council chamber.

From the earliest returns extant, we find that Lancashire only sent two knights to Parliament. The first Lancashire returns extant are for the Parliament of 1259, when the county was represented by Mathew de Redman (who a year before had been the Member for Cumberland) and John de Evyas, the lord of the manor of Samlesbury, in the parish of Blackburn. For 1296 there are no returns, but in the following year the knights of the shire were Henry de Kighley (probably one of the ancestors of the Kighley of Inskip, in St. Michael’s–on–Wyre) and Henry de Boteler, eldest son of William de Boteler, Baron of Warrington. From this time to the present a fairly complete list has been preserved.97 To the Parliament of 1295 were also summoned two burgesses from the boroughs of Lancaster, Preston, Wigan and Liverpool; and the Sheriff in making his returns volunteered the statement that there was no city in the county. The first recorded members for these four enfranchised boroughs were, respectively, for Lancaster, William le Despencer and William le Chaunter; Preston, William FitzPaul and Adam Russell; Wigan, William le Teinterer and Henry le Bocher; Liverpool, Adam FitzRichards and Robert Pynklowe. The sending of representatives to Westminster was at this time not always looked upon as a coveted honour, but rather as a binding obligation to be got rid of at the first opportunity. True, the members were paid for the whole time they were absent from home, a knight getting four shillings a day, and a burgess two shillings; but this amount and the long journey to and from London, with the danger and difficulties to be encountered on the way, did not offer a strong inducement for a burgess or a knight to leave his own home for sometimes a considerable period. The fact that these early members were selected from a class comprising the dispencer, the dyer, the butcher and the “chaunter,” shows that the title of “M.P.” was rather at a discount than a premium in this county, at all events. Lancaster and Preston sent members until 1331, and did not again do so until 21 Henry VIII. (1529). Liverpool and Wigan ceased to return to Parliament after 1307, and the privilege was not renewed until 1547; in the interval the Sheriff’s returns were to the effect that there “was no city or burgh from which any citizen or burgess can be sent by reason of their low condition and poverty.” From this practical disenfranchisement it may be inferred that after the visitation of the plague (see p. 74) the towns of Lancashire were slow to recover their former position, and that such trade as there had been in the early part of the fourteenth century had not returned.

It has been frequently stated that soon after the Act passed by Edward III. (in 1337), by which Flemish weavers and others were invited to settle in England, a large number of them came to Lancashire and established their trades in Bolton, Rochdale and other towns. This statement is not borne out by facts; the trade of these districts did not at, or soon after, this time rapidly develop, neither is there any marked influx of foreign names, such as would naturally have followed such an invasion,98 and which are very noticeable in some of the more southern parts of the country. In Lancashire were found now, as in “The Vision of William concerning Piers Plowman,” in 1362:

Bakers, Bochers, and Breusters monye,Wollene websteris: and weveris of lynen,Taillours, tanneris, tolleres in marketes,Masons, minours, and mony other craftes,Dykers and Delvers.

and “Cokes [cooks] and knaves crieden, ‘hote pies hote.’” There were also drapers, needle–sellers, ropers, and various other traders, and ale–houses in plenty.

The food of the poorer classes consisted of cheese, curds, therf–cake (oat cake), beans, flavoured with leeks, parsley or cabbages, with occasionally a little bacon or pork, and less frequently fish. The more well–to–do classes fared much more sumptuously, as flesh, game and fish were all obtainable. Lancashire had yet no seaport of any great importance; the only two worth recording were Liverpool and Preston. In 1338 all the ports in the country were required to furnish ships according to their size and commerce. Liverpool could only send a single barque with a crew of six men, and 200 years later this port had only twelve vessels, carrying 177 tons and navigated by 75 men;99 yet in 1382 the port was important enough to warrant the issue of a precept to the Mayor and Bailiffs of the town prohibiting them from exporting corn.100

The ships which went to the port of Preston in the middle of the fourteenth century (see p. 66) could not have been of large dimensions.

Though Liverpool as a town had not in the fifteenth century grown much in size or importance, yet its castle, seated upon the rocky knoll commanding the entrance to the Mersey, was of some importance; built probably in the time of the Conqueror, it had ever since been kept available for purposes of defence. In 1351 Henry, Duke of Lancaster, appointed Janekyn Baret, his esquire, to be Constable of Liverpool Castle, with an annuity of ten marks sterling for the term of his life, and in 22 Henry VI. (1442–43) the duchy receiver accounted for £46 13s. 10¼d. which had been expended on repairs to this castle; it was about this time that a new south–east tower was erected. During the reigns of Henry V. and Henry VI. considerable sums were spent in keeping this stronghold in repair, yet in a report made on its state in 1476 it is described as being in a somewhat ruinous condition; the east tower wanted repairing, for which purpose the walls of the bakehouse were to be taken down, and the elder–trees growing on the walls within and without the castle were to be cut away.

In 1476 further repairs were done, but the object of these appears to have been rather of a domestic than military character. At this time three towers are named: the new tower, the prison tower, and the great tower.101

Besides the castles already mentioned, there were a few others of minor importance. Hornby Castle, in the parish of Melling, may possibly date back to the time of the Edwards, and is several times referred to in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. On the western side of the peninsula of Furness, which is separated from Cumberland by the waters of the Duddon, lies the Island of Walney, which has near to it several other small islands, on one of which was built the ancient castle or peel long known as the Pile of Fouldrey. The waters near to its site formed a natural harbour capable of floating, even at low tide, the largest vessels at that early period in use, and to protect that and the adjacent country this castle was erected. It is of great antiquity; it was certainly there in the twelfth century, as appears from a precept issued on March 13, 1404 to the escheator for the county to “amove the King’s hands from the island called Wawenay [Walney], the cause of the seizure being insufficient.” The reason why the King had taken possession is then clearly stated, viz.: “That King Stephen, having granted to the Abbot and Convent of the Monastery of St. Mary of Furness certain lands and tenements in the island called Wawenay [Walney] in Furness on condition of sustaining and keeping in repair a certain castle or fortress called La Pele de Fotheray for the defence of the country there, the said castle was now prostrated by John de Bolton the Abbot and the Convent of Furness, to the great fear of all the country.”102

It was here that Lambert Simnel, the pretended son of the Duke of Clarence, landed in 1487, and was joined by Sir Thomas Broughton. The subsequent history of this stronghold is very obscure; in 1588 it is described as an old decayed castle.

In the parish of Tunstall, Sir Thomas Tunstall, in the time of Henry IV., built Thurland Castle on a rising piece of ground between the Greta and the Cant.103

Of the religious houses and churches which had sprung up since the coming of the Normans, it need only here be stated that they had now spread all over the county, and that the Christian creed had become the religion of the entire community (see Chapter IX.).

The impending final struggle between the rival Houses of York and Lancaster would probably not excite any very great interest in the minds of the people of this county, except that they had again been called upon to find men for Lord Stanley’s army, which the King had commissioned him to raise in the counties of Lancashire and Cheshire; this force is supposed to have been about 5,000 strong, and it virtually decided the battle, as Lord Stanley, on the field, turned against the King, and led his troops to the support of Richmond.

With the death of Richard III., the last Plantagenet King, on the field of Bosworth, came an end of that system of government which had existed for nearly 300 years, and the old feudal chain was soon to be broken, and Englishmen were to become more their own masters and less the blind followers of their social superiors; and, moreover, they were soon to find themselves free from the tyranny of priestcraft and superstitions, and prejudices were to be gradually dispersed by the increase of civilization and freedom.

Towards this end the introduction of printing was a powerful lever, for when John Caxton, in 1472, set up his press in London, the priest could no longer prevent the spread of knowledge, and it was not long before the printed books found their way into Lancashire.

With the spread of literature and knowledge came the spirit of adventure and enterprise, which soon raised the country to a position which it had not heretofore occupied.

CHAPTER VII

LANCASHIRE IN THE TIME OF THE TUDORS (A.D. 1485–1603)

As soon as Henry VII. was firmly seated on the throne, he proceeded to reverse the attainders which his predecessor had passed against certain of the prominent adherents of the House of Lancaster, and at the same time confiscating the estates of (amongst others) Sir Thomas Pilkington, Lord Robert Harrington and Sir James Harrington, all of whom took part in the battle of Bosworth Field, and were natives of Lancashire, their properties were nearly all at once given to Lord Stanley, who was at the same time created Earl of Derby, and elected a member of the King’s Privy Council. Not ten years after this, Sir William Stanley, brother of the Earl, became mixed up with the Perkin Warbeck rebellion, and notwithstanding the influence of the latter, he was arraigned upon a charge of high treason, and, being found guilty, was executed on February 15, 1495; his chief seat was at Holt Castle, in Denbighshire.

It seems strange that, in the same year that this tragedy was enacted, the King came in state to pay a visit to his mother, who was now the second wife of the Earl of Derby. To entertain their Majesties (for the Queen came also) with becoming dignity, the Earl spared no expense, even erecting a new bridge across the Mersey, near Warrington, for his special use, which bridge has since been used by the public. The expenses incurred by the royal journey from Chester to Knowsley were duly recorded, and are of interest:

July 18 [1495]. At Winwick, 20th at Latham: To Sir Richard Pole for 200 jucquetts, price of every pece, 1s. 6d., £15. 100 horsemen for fourteen days, every of them 9d. by day, £52 10s. For their conduyt for 3 days, every of them 9d. by day, £11 5s. For the wages of 100 footmen for fourteen days, every of them 6d. by day, £35. For their conduyt for four days, every of them 6d. by day, £10. For shipping, vitailling and setting over the see the foresaid 200 men, with an 100 horses, £13 6s. 8d. To the shirif awayting upon Sʳ Sampson for the safe conduyt of the foresaid souldeours, 2s.

Aug. 2. To Picard a herrald of Fraunce in reward, £6 13s. 4d. To the women that songe before the Kinge and the Queene in rewarde, 6s. 8d.

3rd. At Knowsley. 4th At Warrington. 5. At Manchester.

Lancashire, in 1485, is said to have suffered considerably from the “sweating sickness” which was at this time very prevalent in many parts of the kingdom; but in the absence of contemporary notices of it, it may be assumed not to have appeared here in its severest form.

Towards the £40,000 granted by the Parliament of 1504 to the King, Lancashire’s share was a trifle over £318; and the commissioners appointed to collect it in the county were Thomas Boteler, John Bothe, Pears Lee, Richard Bold, John Sowthworth, and Thomas Lawrence, knights, and William Thornborough and Cuthbert Clifton, esquires.

We have now seen the close of the fifteenth century, which has been described as “a blustering, quarrelsome fellow, who lived in a house with strong barricades all round it, his walls pierced with narrow holes, through which he could shoot his visitors if he did not think they were approaching him in a friendly manner,” and we are entering on the sixteenth century, which “improved a little on this, but still planted his house with turrets which commanded the entrance door, and had an immense gate studded with iron nails, and unsurmountable walls round his courtyard.”

The days of building castles and strongly fortified houses was indeed over, but still everyone looked with some suspicion on his neighbour, and the old English saying, was not quite forgotten.

Let him keep who has the power,And let him take who can,

Of the class of fortified houses erected about this date, a good example is afforded by Greenhalgh Castle. By a royal license granted to Thomas, Earl of Derby, in 1490, he was authorized to erect in Greenhalgh (in the parish of Garstang) a building or buildings with stone or other materials, and to “embattle, turrellate or crenelate, machiolatte,” or otherwise fortify the same; authority was at the same time given to enclose a park, and to have in it free warren and chase. Camden says that the Earl built this to protect himself from certain of the nobility of the county whose estates had been forfeited to the Crown and bestowed upon himself. This account of the origin of this castle is probably correct.

The great religious changes in Lancashire, brought about by what has been called the anti–Papal revolt, and the subsequent Reformation, will be reserved for a future page (see Chapter IX.).

The old strife between England and Scotland had now again been renewed, and the conflict culminated in the battle of Flodden, where the Lancashire archers, led by Sir Edward Stanley, almost totally destroyed the Highlanders who composed the right wing of the Scottish army. The other Lancashire leaders were Sir William Mollineux of Sefton, Sir William Norris of Speke, and Sir Ralph Ashton of Middleton.

No wonder that this decisive victory should become a favourite theme of the poet and the minstrel. There are several old poems referring to the Lancashire men and the field of Flodden; one of these, which is certainly 300 years old, has been printed by the Chetham Society;104 it consists of nearly 700 lines, of which the following will serve as a sample:

Lancashire, like lyonslayden them aboute!All had been lost by our Lorde!had not these leddes [lads] bene.For the care of the Scottesincreased full soreFor their King was downe knockedand killed in their sight,Under the banner of a bishopthat was the bold Standley!Ther they fetilde105 them to flyAs fast as they might.

Another long poem on the same subject is preserved in the Record Office;106 it gives also a glowing account of how the “lusty lads,” led by the “lusty Stanley stout,” went forth “in armour bold for battle drest,” and how —