Roby's "TRADITIONS OF LANCASHIRE" having long been out of print--stray
copies commanding high prices--it has been determined to republish the
whole in a more compact and less costly form. This, the fourth and the
_only complete edition_, includes the _First_ Series of twenty tales,
published in two volumes (1829, demy 8vo, £2, 2s.; royal 8vo, with
proofs and etchings, £4, 4s.); the _Second_ Series, also of twenty
tales, in two volumes (1831, 8vo, £2, 2s., &c.); and three additional
stories from his _Legendary and Poetical Remains_, first published after
his death (1854, post 8vo, 10s. 6d.)[1] In the two volumes now presented
the reader will possess not only the whole of the contents of both
series, in four volumes, at one-fourth of the price of the original
publication, but also three additional stories from the posthumous
volume, with a memoir, a portrait, &c.
From deference to a strongly-expressed feeling that the work should be
printed without any abridgment, omission, or alteration, and the text
preserved in its full integrity, it has been decided to reprint it
entire; and consequently various inaccuracies in the original editions
have been left untouched. Two or three of the most important may be
corrected here.
In the tale of "The Dead Man's Hand," Mr Roby seems to have been led by
false information into some errors reflecting on the character and
memory of a devout and devoted Roman Catholic priest, known as Father
Arrowsmith. Mr Roby states that he was executed at Lancaster "in the
reign of William III.;" that "when about to suffer he desired his right
hand might be cut off, assuring the bystanders that it would have power
to work miraculous cures on those who had faith to believe in its
efficacy," and, denying that Father Arrowsmith suffered on account of
religion, Mr Roby adds that "having been found guilty of a misdemeanour,
in all probability this story of his martyrdom and miraculous
attestation to the truth of the cause for which he suffered, was
contrived for the purpose of preventing any scandal that might have
come upon the Church through the delinquency of an unworthy member."
What, then, are the facts, as far as they have been investigated? The
Father Edmund Arrowsmith who suffered death at Lancaster was born at
Haydock in Lancashire[2] in 1585, and he suffered death in August 1628
(4th Charles I.), sixty years before William III. ascended the English
throne. The mode of execution was not that of capital punishment for the
offence committed, but rather that imposed by the laws for treason and
for exercising the functions of a Roman Catholic priest. He was hanged,
drawn, and quartered, and his head and quarters were fixed upon poles on
Lancaster Castle. It was in this dismemberment that the hand became
separated, and it was secretly carried away by some sorrowing member of
his communion, and its supposed curative power was afterwards discovered
and made known.[3] Mr Roby cites no authority for this contradiction of
the original tradition. The judge who presided at the trial was Sir
Henry Yelverton of the Common Pleas, who died on the 24th January 1629.
In the Tradition of "The Dule upo' Dun," Mr Roby states that a
public-house having that sign stood at the entrance of a small village
on the right of the highway to Gisburn, and barely three miles from
Clitheroe. When Mr Roby wrote the public-house had been long pulled
down; it had ceased to be an inn at a period beyond living memory;
though the ancient house, converted into two mean, thatched cottages,
stood until about forty years ago. But the site of the house is in
Clitheroe itself, little more than half a mile from the centre of the
town, and on the road, not to Gisburn, but to Waddington.[4]
It only remains to add that the illustrations to the present edition
comprise not only all the beautiful plates (engraved by Edward Finden,
from drawings by George Pickering) of the original edition, which have
been much admired as picturesque works of art, but also all the
wood-engravings (by Williams, after designs by Frank Howard) which have
appeared in any former edition, and which constituted the sole
embellishments of the three-volume editions. To these is now first added
the fine portrait of Mr Roby from the posthumous volume.