Transcriber's Notes: Italic text is marked _thus_. The original
accentuation, punctuation, spelling and hyphenation has been retained.
See further Transcriber's Notes at the end of the book.
_HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE._
[Illustration]
_POPULAR COUNTY HISTORIES._
A
HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE.
BY
LIEUT.-COLONEL HENRY FISHWICK, F.S.A.,
_Author of
"The Lancashire Library," "The History of Kirkham,"
"The History of Rochdale," etc._
LONDON:
ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
1894.
[Illustration]
PREFACE.
The enormous amount of material, printed and in manuscript, which is
available for a History of Lancashire, makes the writing of a popular
work on that subject by no means an easy task; indeed, when first
mentioned to me, I thought it was almost impossible, by any process of
selection, to produce within the compass of an ordinary octavo volume
such a book as would be a popular history, and yet not fail to present
a faithful picture of the county.
However, I have made the attempt, and in accomplishing the task I
must have necessarily left out much which many readers would prefer
should have been inserted; but I trust that I have not inserted what
some would wish I had omitted. I have endeavoured to confine myself as
far as possible to the history of the county as a whole, and have not
allowed myself to go into personal or local details except when such
were required to illustrate the subject in hand. Of the large army of
Lancashire authors and celebrities I have said nothing, as strictly
speaking personal notices belong rather to biography than history; and
if it were not so, I may, I think, stand excused, as to have merely
given their names would have well-nigh filled the volume.
In making my selection of materials from the almost inexhaustible
stores at my disposal, I have rejected everything which in my opinion
is not capable of being well authenticated. In a work of this character
it is not desirable to encumber the text with the very large number
of references to authorities which otherwise might be required. The
reader, however, may rest assured that I have in no case drawn on
my imagination for my facts, neither have I accepted the statements
of others without first satisfying myself that those statements are
trustworthy and reliable.
HENRY FISHWICK.
THE HEIGHTS,
ROCHDALE.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
PREFACE v
I. INTRODUCTORY 1
II. PRE-ROMAN LANCASHIRE 5
III. THE ROMANS AS CONQUERORS AND RULERS 13
IV. ROMAN REMAINS 20
V. THE SAXON AND THE DANE 41
VI. THE NORMANS AND THE PLANTAGENETS (A.D. 1066-1485) 52
VII. LANCASHIRE IN THE TIME OF THE TUDORS (A.D. 1485-1603) 88
VIII. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 113
IX. RELIGION 176
X. THE REBELLIONS 241
XI. PROGRESS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 253
XII. THE DAWN OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 278
XIII. MISCELLANY 285
INDEX 293
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
Lancashire, on its south and south-east, is bounded by the county
of Chester, the division for about 50 miles, _i.e._, from Stockport
to Liverpool, being the river Mersey; on the west is the Irish Sea;
on the east, up to Graygarth Fell, in the parish of Tunstall, lies
Yorkshire; from thence to the waters of Morecambe Bay the boundary
is formed by Yorkshire and Westmorland; across the bay is a portion
of Lonsdale hundred (north of the Sands), which is almost surrounded
by the counties of Westmorland and Cumberland, the extreme eastern
boundary being formed by a portion of Windermere Lake. Lancashire from
north-west to south-east measures 86 miles, and it is 45 miles across
at its widest part; it contains 1,219,221 acres. It has within it 69
parishes (exclusive of 9 extra-parochial districts), 446 townships,
and 16 Parliamentary cities and boroughs, which return 35 members, the
county divisions adding 23 to this number.
The great divisions of the county are the six hundreds of Lonsdale
(north and south of the Sands), Amounderness, Leyland, Blackburn,
Salford, and West Derby.
Lonsdale north of the Sands is situate in the extreme north of
Lancashire, and is the most picturesque portion of the county, as
it embraces a portion of the well-known Lake District; its highest
mountain is the Old Man, near Coniston Water, which is 2,577 feet above
the sea-level.
The two subdivisions of Lonsdale north of the Sands are Furness and
Cartmel. The former is the larger district: its chief towns are Barrow,
Ulverston, and Dalton; in the latter there is not a single town of any
considerable size or importance. Barrow-in-Furness is one of those
towns which the enterprise of the latter half of the present century
has suddenly created. A few years ago it was scarcely a village; it
is now an incorporated borough, and not only does a large business in
iron, but is a port of some importance. With this exception, and a few
iron mines, almost the whole district is agricultural in its character.
Furness Abbey, Coniston Priory, and Cartmel Priory were all located in
the southern end of this part of the county.
Lonsdale south of the Sands is also chiefly an agricultural district,
and is, compared with some other parts of the county, but thinly
populated; here and there tall factory chimneys may be seen, but,
except in the neighbourhood of Lancaster, they are few and far between.
Time-honoured Lancaster, with its castle and priory, form the
central historic point of interest in this part of the hundred; here
also were five of the largest forests in Lancashire--Wyersdale,
Quernmoor, Bleasdale, Myerscough, and Fulwood. Coming south of
Lonsdale, the county is much wider, and is divided longitudinally;
the western portion, as far as the river Ribble, forming the hundred
of Amounderness, which, like the more northern parts, is inhabited
by people engaged in the cultivation of the soil, except in and
immediately around the town of Preston, which is now one of the great
centres of the cotton trade. The parishes of Kirkham, Garstang, St.
Michael's-on-Wyre, Lytham, Bispham and Poulton are all in a district
long known as the Fylde, and their respective churches are all of
antiquarian interest. Preston is now by far the largest town in the
division; the manufacture of cotton was introduced here in 1777, and
the trade has since developed to very large proportions. Here were
two religious houses, one a convent of Grey Friars, and the other a
hospital for lepers. The Ribble, in its course from Mitton to Preston,
intersects the county. To the east of Amounderness is the hundred of
Blackburn, which, although it is twenty-four miles in length, only
contains five parishes; its north-western extremity is more or less
agricultural, but the rest of it is densely populated, and has become a
great manufacturing district.
Blackburn, Burnley, Accrington, and several other towns in the
district, are all engaged in the staple trade of the county. Clitheroe
Castle, Whalley Abbey, and Ribchester are in this hundred.
The south bank of the Ribble forms the western boundary of the hundred
of Leyland. The only market-town in the division is Chorley, which
until 1793 formed a part of the parish of Croston; like so many other
towns of Lancashire, it rose out of obscurity through the introduction
of spinning mills towards the end of the last century, and it is
now a town of considerable size and importance; in addition to its
cotton-mills, coal, stone, and iron are found and worked in the
neighbourhood. At Penwortham, on the bank of the Ribble, was a priory
dedicated to St. Mary.
The ancient parish churches of Croston, Leyland, Eccleston, and
Standish are all of historic interest.
The hundred of Salford has now an enormous population, and the very
names of its principal towns call up a vision of tall factory chimneys,
dense smoke, and the noise of machinery; manufactories of every kind
abound, and it is not saying too much to add that few industries
are unrepresented, coal, stone, iron, cotton and woollens, however,
constituting the chief trade.
The city of Manchester and the boroughs of Salford, Oldham, Bolton,
Rochdale, and Bury are all well-known names in the textile or
mechanical world.
West Derby hundred completes the county. This was in Saxon times called
Derbei, and was a recognised division; the river Mersey on the one
side, and the Irish Sea on the other, have not a little contributed to
render this one of the most important districts in England. Liverpool,
with its miles of docks and its connection with every part of the
world, has become the recognised second port in the country. In the
north-east corner of West Derby are the extensive coalfields of Wigan.
A considerable portion of the hundred is as yet untainted with the
smoke of the manufactory. Many of the parish churches are of great
antiquity; amongst them may be named Ormskirk, Leigh, Wigan, Winwick,
Warrington, Childwall, Walton-on-the-Hill, Prescot, Sephton and Huyton.
Burscough Priory was in the parish of Ormskirk, and Liverpool had its
ancient castle.
Having thus briefly (but at as great a length and in as much detail
as the nature and scope of the series of County Histories will allow)
described the County Palatine, we may at once proceed to deal with its
history as a not unimportant section of the United Kingdom.
[Footnote 1: "Recent Results of the Investigation into Local [Rochdale]
Erratic Blocks," by S. S. Platt.]
[Footnote 2: H. Colley March, F.S.A., "The Early Neolithic Floor of
East Lancashire," p. 7.]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER II.
PRE-ROMAN LANCASHIRE.
Notwithstanding what has been written upon the so-called "glacial
nightmare," it still remains an undisputed fact that at some
far-distant period the whole of Lancashire was sunk beneath a sea, the
waters of which carried along with them huge masses of ice, which, in
their passage southward, deposited boulders which they had borne in
their chill embrace for hundreds of miles. The hills which rose above
the sea were covered with perpetual snow, and the valleys between them
were filled with glaciers, which in many instances left a terminal
moraine.
The direction which these icebergs took was invariably from north-west
to south-east, or north-north-west to south-south-east, that being
sufficiently indicated by the polished and striated rocks frequently
discovered in all parts of the county. A careful investigation of
the erratic blocks which have been discovered in one small district
alone[1] shows nearly 400 of these rocks, some of which have travelled
from Scotland, but by far the larger number have come from the Lake
District; these are occasionally found in the valleys, but are
generally located on the sides and tops of hills at an elevation of
from 600 to 1,200 feet above the sea-level. Geology furnishes abundant
proofs that at this period the level of the land in what is now known
as Lancashire was fifty or sixty feet higher than it is at the present
day; this is very apparent along the coast-line, where the remains of
submarine forests are frequently met with. It is more than probable
that, from the mouth of the Mersey to the estuary of the Dudden, what
are now sand banks were in prehistoric times dry land on which grew
forests of the oak, the birch, the ash, the yew, and Scotch firs.
All along the coast-line from Liverpool to Preston have been found at
low water the roots and trunks of trees.
Near Fleetwood and Blackpool frequent traces of these forests have
been met with below the high-tide level, the trunks of the trees all
pointing eastward, with their torn-up roots to the west; stumps of
Scotch firs were found near Rossall, and near to them the cones which
had fallen from their branches; trunks of oak and yew trees were also
discovered at Martin Mere (in Poulton).
In these forests the brown bear, the wild boar, roes and stags, the
wolf and the reindeer, and a host of other wild animals, would all be
discovered by the neolithic man when he first made his appearance in
the district.
Whence came this earlier settler? and at what exact period did he
come? are questions which modern scientific research has failed to
satisfactorily answer.
It has been suggested--and with some show of reason--that the early
neolithic man in Lancashire had been driven from the Yorkshire coast by
the victorious invader, who came armed with a war-spear and polished
stone axe.[2] Be this as it may, the evidence of such a race of men
having for some time lived in parts of the county is of the most
conclusive character. Although odd specimens of flint instruments
have been unearthed, in various districts, it is only in the eastern
portion of the county that distinct traces of a neolithic floor have
been discovered--that is to say that, on removing the top soil, beneath
it has been found a surface so profusely sprinkled with flint chippings
and implements as to leave no room for doubt but that at some very
early period there was settled upon it a race of men whose weapons of
offence and defence, as well as the few instruments required for their
simple personal wants, were made out of the flints collected from this
drift.
This neolithic floor is found on both sides of Blackstone edge, and
is generally at least 1,300 feet above the sea-level, but on the
Lancashire side its area is not very large, as it does not reach
Burnley on the north, nor Bolton on the west. The depth of the soil or
peat above this floor varies from one to ten feet. The flints consist
of knives, scrapers, arrow-heads, spear-tips, and minute instruments,
probably used to bore holes in bone needles; they are none of them
polished or ornamented.
In the parish of Rochdale alone there are twenty-five places where
these implements have been found; in fact, there is scarcely a hill-top
in the district where traces of them have not been unearthed. The
great number of chippings met with in small areas of these high lands
indicate that these are the sites of the primitive man's workshop--here
he sat and laboriously fashioned the weapon or the instrument which
he required. Barbed arrow-heads are extremely rare, but a beautiful
specimen was lately found on Trough Edge, a hill near Rochdale.[3]
These men have left no traces of their dwelling-place, and they do not
appear to have made pottery; probably they lived in earth dwellings or
caves in the hillsides. The single fact of their inhabiting only the
high ground indicates that the fear of an enemy was ever before them,
and it may well be that the foe which drove them from Yorkshire may
have ultimately expelled them from their hillside settlements.
At some later period the district became inhabited, though probably
only sparsely, by Celtic races and people of Celtic extraction; of the
latter were the numerous tribes of the Brigantes, one of which was
the Setanii or Segantii (the dwellers in the water country), which is
said to have been chiefly located between Morecambe Bay and the ridge
of hills which divide Lancashire from Yorkshire. Another tribe also
located here was the Voluntii.
At this date Lancashire contained many extensive forests, and in every
direction were trackless morasses. As these almost savage tribes lived
in tents or huts, and spent their time in hunting or fighting, it
is not surprising that the traces of their existence are faint and
unsatisfactory, and that it is often impossible to decide whether
particular remains belong to the early Celtic or the late British.
The geographical nomenclature of the county furnishes some examples
of Celtic origin, but for the most part it clearly points to a later
period. That these Celtic settlers were well spread over the entire
district is certain, as traces of them have been discovered in almost
every parish.
Stone hammers, stone axes, spear-heads, socketed celts, cinerary urns,
and remains of that class, have been unearthed in many places, amongst
which are Aldringham, Cartmel, Tatham, Penwortham, Garstang, Preston,
Pilling Moss, Silverdale, Kirkham, Bolton, Cuerden, Flixton, Liverpool,
Winwick, Lancaster, Manchester, Royton, Rochdale, and Burnley; this
list is alone sufficient to demonstrate that the early settlers had
penetrated into all parts of the county.[4]
In the Furness district remains of entrenchments, ramparts, stone
rings, and other evidences of these early settlers are abundant; they
have been unearthed at Hawkshead, Hall Park, Bleaberry Haws Torver,
Holme Bank, Urswick, Heathwaite Fell, Coniston, and other places in
the neighbourhood, proving beyond a doubt that here was an extensive
British settlement. Beside these there are several cairns, and portions
of stone wall attributable to the same period.
One of the most extensive of the latter group is the one at Heathwaite
Fell, where on the top of an elevated piece of moorland is a site
near half a mile long by 700 yards wide, which has been encompassed
by a stone wall originally 2 feet thick. This enclosed space has been
subdivided into five or more smaller enclosures by cross walls, and
each of these divisions had its own water-supply. The apex of the
ground has been cut by a wall, and this encloses the north elevation
of the site. About midway along the west side another wall leaves the
outer one and crosses the summit, and cuts off the west angle. On the
centre of this wall are situated the "homesteads" or headquarters of
the settlement. The homesteads are situated upon the south-east slope
of the hill, and upon the cross wall dividing off the western ward.
They consist of seven walled courts or yards, three smaller chambers,
and two very small mural huts and chambers. The walls of these are
usually of dry-built masonry, and are in some places 3 feet thick and
in others from 6 to 7 feet.
The main entrance to these enclosures is on the south. The mural huts
are placed at the north-west angle of the west court and the south-west
angle of the south court. The first is the most interesting; it is
contained in a small rectangular block of masonry filling up the angle,
and the plan of the chamber itself is that of a joiner's square. There
is no trace left of any covering to these huts, but they were probably
covered with stone flags or branches of trees. Within and without
the enclosures are cairns of all sizes, one of which is known as The
Giant's Grave. It is remarkable that all the settlements in the Furness
district are found on the fells, and never in the dales, some of them
being 300 feet above the sea-level. Of any actual defensive structure
there is no trace. The settlers here evidently buried their dead close
to their homes, and from the calcined bones found it is clear that the
bodies were burnt.
These earthen burial-mounds are, however, very scarce in the district;
rude-stone cists have been unearthed, but no trace of metals or
ornamental workmanship except a few pieces of rude pottery.
At Holme Bank, Urswick, the rampart of earthed stones encloses a
five-sided figure, within which are traces of cross walls, the general
plan of which points to the site of an early settlement. The rampart or
entrenchment discovered at Hawkeshead Park is of a similar character.
At Scrow Moss, near the foot of Coniston Old Man, is another of these
enclosures, a drawing of which is given in _Archæologia_ (vol. liii.,
part 2). At Dunnerdale Fell is an enclosure very similar to that found
at Heathwaite, though much smaller, the central homestead being formed
by a single wall, near to which are several cairns and remains of
walls. On Birkrigg Common, at a place called Appleby Slack, is another
of these small enclosures, consisting of a single rampart or vallum of
earth, enclosing a pear-shaped area, not far from which is a tumulus,
and about half a mile to the south-east is a double concentric stone
circle. Concerning these various remains in the Furness district, the
writer of the exhaustive article in _Archæologia_[5] just referred to
is of opinion that their elevated position is due to the fact that
the lower ground was at that period such a dense mass of scrub and
jungle that it was utterly untenable for residential purposes. These
various enclosures do not appear to have been forts, as the homesteads
themselves were all on the sloping sides of the hills, but were rather
the dwelling-places of a very early tribe of settlers, who were living
at peace with their neighbours, and had, therefore, no need of a system
of defence, such as we find traces of in other parts of the county.
The plan of these settlements was simple--the smaller courts were the
living apartments, and were no doubt covered with some kind of roof;
the larger enclosures were for the cattle, or possibly for the lower
orders of the tribes who held the place.
Many tumuli belonging to the early British settlers have been opened,
as at Briercliffe, near Burnley, where the covering of earth had been
partly wasted away, leaving a rudely-marked circle of stone, near
to which in 1885 was found a sun-baked hand-made urn of pre-Roman
origin, containing the remains of an adult and a child. At Wavertree,
near Liverpool, in 1867, a large tumulus, since called Urn Mound,
was opened, and six urns containing partly-calcined human bones were
discovered, all of which were early British. Near to these were found a
flint arrow-point and several "scrapers."[6]
Canoes assigned to this period have not infrequently been dug out of
peat which once formed the bottom of lakes, such as Marton Mere, in
Poulton-le-Fylde, and at the estuary of the Ribble, near Penwortham.
A very remarkable bronze beaded torque of the late Celtic period was
found by some workmen in 1832 at Mowroad, in the parish of Rochdale.
This ornament had probably been worn round the neck of some person of
rank; it weighed one pound five ounces, was made of bronze, and was
of superior workmanship and ornamentation.[7] The British tribes did
not congregate in such numbers as to establish anything like a town,
or even a large village, in these Northern parts; but no doubt when
the Romans took possession they found here and there clusters of hut
dwellings, which the geographer Ptolemy afterwards described as British
settlements. One of these was Regodunum, which was somewhere near
the mouth of the Ribble, perhaps at Walton-le-Dale. The author just
referred to (who lived about A.D. 140) mentions the estuaries
on the west coast, three of which, from the latitude and longitude
given, clearly refer to Lancashire rivers; they are named as the
Estuary Moricambe, the Haven of the Setantii, and the Estuary Belisama.
Belisama was the old name for the Mersey; the Haven of the Setantii was
at or near the mouth of the Ribble; and the other estuary was at the
conflux of the Kent with the waters of Morecambe Bay.[8]
At Walton-le-Dale and at Lancaster the Romans are believed to have
founded their stations on the sites of British settlements, as in both
these places have been found celts, arrow-heads, cinerary urns, and
other signs of the earlier race.
[Illustration]
[Footnote 3: Engraved, with other flints, in "History of Rochdale," p.
4.]
[Footnote 4: A complete list, up to date, will be found in Rev. William
Harrison's "Archæological Survey of Lancashire," which will appear in
the next volume of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society.]
[Footnote 5: H. Swainson Cowper, Esq., F.S.A.]
[Footnote 6: _Hist. Soc. of Lanc. and Ches._, xx. 131.]
[Footnote 7: Engraved in "History of Rochdale," p. 5. See also
_Archæologia_, xxv. 595.]
[Footnote 8: See _Transactions of Hist. Soc. of Lanc. and Ches._, xxx.
81.]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER III.
THE ROMANS AS CONQUERORS AND RULERS.
The coming of Julius Cæsar in August, B.C. 55, with his
legions of Roman soldiers to punish the men of Kent for having sent
assistance to one of the Gallic tribes, the _Veneti_, then at war
with Rome, was what led on to the subsequent subjugation of the whole
of Britain. This did not, however, take place for nearly a century
afterwards, as, on the Britons undertaking to pay tribute, the invaders
withdrew. In A.D. 43 the Emperor Claudius appears to have
looked at this country with an envious eye, and finally decided to
annex it to Rome; and with this view he sent his General, Aulus
Plautius, with an army of some 48,000 men, to subdue the natives, who
were, however, found to be a race not easily conquered. After severe
fighting, he entrenched himself on the bank of the Thames, where he
was joined by the Emperor himself in the following year. Step by step,
slowly but steadily, the invaders made their way northwards.
The building of a line of forts by the Imperial Legate from the Severn
to the Nene, thus dividing the country, led to a rebellion of the
tribe of Cenimagni (or Iceni), the dwellers in what is now Norfolk or
Cambridgeshire. In this case the natives were again unsuccessful; and
in recording their defeat Tacitus[9] first mentions the Brigantes in
terms which clearly indicate that even before this time they had given
the Romans some trouble. The passage runs: "He (Ostorius Scapula) now
approached the sea which washes the coast of Ireland, when commotions,
begun amongst the Brigantes, obliged the General to return thither,
as he had formed a settled determination not to prosecute any new
enterprise till his former were completed and secure. The Brigantes,
indeed, soon returned to their homes, a few who raised the revolt
having been slain and the rest pardoned."
The _Silures_, inhabiting the western part of Wales, under their King
Caractacus, maintained a fierce resistance to Ostorius, but were
ultimately compelled to bear the Roman yoke. At this period the Queen
of the Brigantes was Cartismandua, whose betrayal of Caractacus has
preserved her name from oblivion. She afterwards married a leader of
the Silures named Venusius, who, according to Tacitus, was for some
time under the protection of the Romans; but having been divorced from
Cartismandua, she again took up arms against the invaders.
In A.D. 58 in the eastern district of Britain reigned Queen
Boadicea, who, taking advantage of the Roman Governor, with many of
his soldiers, being engaged in the country of the Brigantes, attacked
the towns of St. Albans, Colchester and London, with victorious
results, the legion being destroyed and many thousand settlers slain.
This probably led to a withdrawal of the Romans for a time from the
north-west, and thus left Lancashire in peace. The whole of South
Britain in A.D. 62 was finally conquered by the Romans; but
it was left to the Roman Governor, Petilius Cerealis, to fight out the
battle with the Brigantes, who were reputed to be the most populous
state in the whole province. Many engagements took place, attended
with much bloodshed, and the greater part of the tribe were either
subjugated or slain.[10]
Although there is no positive evidence that any of the men of
Lancashire were engaged in these struggles, it seems scarcely
possible that it could have been otherwise. Cerealis was Governor
from A.D. 71 to 75, and during that time he was constantly
fighting battles with these hardy North-country men; but neither he
nor his successor, Julius Frontinus, could effectually subdue them,
and it was not until A.D. 79 that the final conquest was made
by Julius Agricola, the father-in-law of Tacitus, who relates that
in the spring of that year Agricola reassembled his army, and having
personally carefully examined "the estuaries and woods," he allowed
the enemy no respite, but harassed them with sudden incursions and
ravages, the result being that several communities, which had not
before yielded their independence, submitted to the foe, gave hostages,
and allowed fortresses to be erected.[11] There are many reasons which
make it almost a certainty that these estuaries include those of the
Dee, the Mersey, the Ribble, the Wyre, the Lune and Morecambe (the
Kent). Very difficult indeed must have been the task of overcoming the
fierce and determined resistance offered by the natives. Much of the
country was covered with timber, particularly to the west, and on every
side were large tracts of moss and fen, the pathways through which
were treacherous, and known only to those who used them; and Agricola
was acting like a wise and experienced general when he directed his
first attention to the mouths of the rivers and to the almost pathless
forests.
Agricola is allowed by all historians to have been a judicious
governor, and to have made efforts to accustom the conquered race to
the comforts and luxuries of Roman citizens. He also taught them to
build temples, houses and baths; to many of them the Roman language
was taught, and they were encouraged to live together in towns
and villages. Probably in his time arose the forts at Mancunium
(Manchester), Bremetonacæ (Ribchester), and Galacum (Overborough).
After the middle of the second century, the Brigantes as a tribe
disappear from the page of history; henceforth they are Britons.
The Hadrian Wall, which stretches for seventy miles from the Solway
Firth to the Tyne, nowhere touches Lancashire, but the frequent battles
which raged in its vicinity were near enough to have an effect upon
the district, and no doubt occasionally the invading forces from the
North penetrated into the county. The Caledonians, in A.D.
180, broke through the wall, and for some time remained masters of a
considerable portion of the North of England.[12] In A.D.
208 the Emperor Severus, with his sons Caracalla and Geta, visited
Britain, and sent some of his soldiers to the North, as he found that
the inhabitants of what is now Lancashire, Yorkshire and Cumberland had
not yet become reconciled to the Roman government, and, to add to the
difficulty, the people on the other side of the Hadrian Wall--the Picts
and Scots--required repression.
Severus died at York in 211, and for the next fifty years little is
known of the Roman rule in Britain beyond the fact that the names of
several legates, who acted as its governors, are on record. Between
A.D. 258 and 282 the historians are also silent about this
district, yet coins of Posthumus, Victorinus and Tetricus (three
of the usurpers known as the "Thirty Tyrants") have been found in
various parts of Northumbria which are now known as Lancashire. In
A.D. 282 the Emperor Carus gave the island of Britain to his
son Carinus, who was murdered in the year following. Passing over the
next two Emperors, we find Carausius has the government of Britain
ceded to him, and whilst on a visit to the Brigantes' district he was
assassinated at York, A.D. 293, by his minister, Allectus, who
at once usurped the purple in Britain; but not being acknowledged, a
powerful force was sent against him from Rome, which met him not far
from London, and in the engagement which followed he was slain and
his army defeated. In the beginning of the next century, the Emperor
Constantius Chlorus undertook an expedition against the Scots, and for
that purpose appears to have made York his headquarters; he died in
that city on July 25, A.D. 306, and his son Constantine was
at once proclaimed Emperor by the garrison there stationed. The exact
date of the introduction of the Christian religion into Lancashire is
unknown, but we know that in 303 the Emperor Diocletian persecuted
the followers of the new religion in Britain, and that the first
recorded British martyr, St. Alban, died in 304 near the city which
bears his name. Great must have been the change in the aspect of
religious thought which, in 311, led to the conversion of Constantine
the Great. This illustrious Emperor had no doubt a powerful influence
over spiritual affairs in Lancashire, although the latter part of
his life was not spent in Britain; he died in A.D. 337. The
latter half of the century witnessed the beginning of the decline of
the Roman power; the supposed unpassable Hadrian Wall was not enough to
keep back the Northern warlike tribes, who, making their way through
it, soon became masters of the district near its southern side, and by
A.D. 368 the invaders had even reached the metropolis.
At this time was sent to Britain a great general, Theodosius, who,
with a large army, drove back the Picts and Scots to the north of the
Clyde; he also restored and rebuilt many of the towns and fortresses,
and to him is attributed the naming of the province of Valentia, which
is comprised between Solway Firth and the Tyne, and the Clyde and the
Firth of Forth. All this, however, did not prevent the Picts, Scots,
and Saxon pirates from re-entering the country as soon as the Roman
legions were withdrawn, their services being required elsewhere. Rome,
in fact, at this time was fast declining in power, and by the year 410
she had been obliged to call all her troops away from Britain, and
Honorius had proclaimed Britain to be an independent state--in other
words, the Romans left the country either because they could not any
longer retain it, or they did not consider it worth the great drain
upon their resources which it must have been.
The so-called independence which followed was so disastrous that the
Britons found the last state worse than the first, and entreated their
former rulers to assist them in repelling the foes they themselves were
unable to overcome. They wrote: "The barbarians chase us into the sea,
the sea flings us back on the barbarians; the only choice left us is to
die by the sword or by the waves."
The appeal was in vain, and the wretched Britons were left to their
own resources. That they were disorganized and without leaders will
easily be understood, and to this must be added that for years the
best of the youths had been trained as recruits and drafted off to
the Continent, from whence very few returned; and then, again, the
inhabitants, especially in the North (including Lancashire), must have
been dreadfully reduced by the ravages continually made by the Picts
and Scots. Thus it was that Lancashire, with the rest of the country,
became an easy prey, first to the marauding foes from the North, and
afterwards to those races which ultimately became the makers of England.
It is curious to notice the Roman influence on traditions still common
in modern Lancashire--the beating of parish bounds recalls the Roman
_Terminalia_ in honour of the god of limits and boundaries; May Day
is the festival of Flora; the marriage-ring, the veil, the wedding
gifts, and even the cake, are all Roman. Our funeral customs are also
Roman--the cypress and the yew, the sprinkling of dust on the coffin,
the flowers on the grave, and the black clothes.[13]
[Illustration]
[Footnote 9: "Annals," xii. 31.]
[Footnote 10: Tacitus, "Hist.," book iii., ch. lix.]
[Footnote 11: Tacitus, "Vita Agricolæ," cap. xx.]
[Footnote 12: Xiphiline's abridgment of Dion Cassius. It may be well
here to state my general indebtedness to the late W. Thompson Watkin's
"Roman Lancashire"; Liverpool, 1883.]
[Footnote 13: E. Sanderson, "Hist. of England," p. 19.]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IV.
ROMAN REMAINS.
The history of Roman Lancashire has so recently been published[14]
that, even if our space would allow (which it will not), it would be
unnecessary, in a work of this description, either to furnish too much
detail, or to dwell too long on the vexed questions of the subject
which have not even yet been settled.
When the Romans invaded Lancashire, one of their chief difficulties
was the want of roads, which rendered many parts of the district
almost untenable, and to remedy this state of things, one of their
first acts after conquest must have been to construct a way by which
access could easily be gained to the newly-acquired territory. As
everyone knows, the Romans were skilful in all kinds of engineering
work, and as road-makers they have never been excelled; so durable
were their pavements that we find remains of them still in all parts
of the country. Up hill and down dale they went, from point to point,
nearly always in a straight line--if a bog was in the way it was filled
up; if a mountain, it was crossed. Taking these roads as they are now
acknowledged by antiquaries to have run, and following alone their
route, we shall come across the chief remains which time has left of
our conquerors and rulers.
The main Roman roads in Lancashire are all believed to have been
constructed during the Higher Empire; that is, at or before the time
of Hadrian (A.D. 117-128). The minor roads are of later and
uncertain date.
Of the nine towns which became Roman _coloniæ_, the nearest to
Lancashire were Eboracum (_York_), and Deva (_Chester_), but Mancunium
(_Manchester_) was also a great military centre, and from it there were
five Roman roads.[15] Two of these came from the Cheshire side of the
Mersey, one passing through Stretford, and the other through Stockport
to Buxton.
All trace of the road from Manchester to Stretford has disappeared, but
its course ran through Cornbrook (near which it was cut through by the
Bridgewater Canal) and by the botanical gardens to Crossford Bridge, on
the Mersey. A few small remains have from time to time been found at
Stretford, but scarcely sufficient to justify the idea that here was a
Roman camp.[16] On the Stockport side of the Mersey we have traces of
the road to Buxton, but on the Lancashire side its site is covered by
the modern highway, part of which is still known as High Street.
Another of the approaches to Manchester was from the east. This
also only for a short distance was on Lancashire soil. It came from
Yorkshire, and, passing through Glodwick and Hollinwood, in the parish
of Oldham, skirts the township of Failsworth, where at the end of the
last century it was visible for upwards of a mile, and was commonly
known as the "Street," or "Street Lane."[17] At Newton Heath traces of
it were seen in 1857, and Whitaker saw remains of it in Ancoats and
Ardwick.
In making the Oldham Park, a number of copper coins from the period of
Antoninus Pius (A.D. 135) to Victorinus (A.D. 218) were found, and
in 1887, during the excavations made for Chamber Mill, near the site
of the road, a box was unearthed which contained 300 bronze and brass
coins. The following were verified: Antoninus Pius (A.D. 135-161),
Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 161-180), Commodus (A.D. 180-193), Septimius
Severus (A.D. 193-211), Caracalla (A.D. 211-217), Julia Mamica (A.D.
222-235).[18]
Before referring to the other roads from Manchester to the North and to
the West, it will be well to glance at the Mancunium of the Romans, and
it is needless, perhaps, here to remark that the building of the modern
Manchester and Salford must of necessity have almost obliterated every
material trace of this ancient stronghold.
Somewhere about the time of Agricola (A.D. 78-85), or possibly a little
earlier, the Romans erected a _castrum_ on a tongue of land made by a
bend of the river Medlock. Whitaker, the Manchester historian,[19] thus
describes what remained of this in 1773:
The eastern side, like the western, is an hundred and forty [yards]
in length, and for eighty yards from the northern termination the
nearly perpendicular rampart carries a crest of more than two
[yards] in height. It is then lowered to form the great entrance,
the _porta prætoria_, of the camp: the earth there running in
a ridge, and mounting up to the top of the bank, about ten in
breadth. Then, rising gradually as the wall falls away, it carries
an height of more than three for as many at the south-eastern
angle. And the whole of this wall bears a broken line of thorns
above, shews the mortar peeping here and there under the coat of
turf, and near the south-eastern corner has a large buttress of
earth continued for several yards along it. The southern side, like
the northern, is an hundred and seventy-five [yards] in length;
and the rampart, sinking immediately from its elevation at the
eastern end, successively declines, till, about fifty yards off, it
is reduced to the inconsiderable height of less than one [yard].
And about seventeen [yards] further there appears to have been a
second gateway, the ground rising up to the crest of the bank for
four or five at the point....
One on the south side was particularly requisite ... in order to
afford a passage to the river; but about fifty-three yards beyond
the gate, the ground betwixt both falling away briskly to the west,
the rampart, which continues in a right line along the ridge,
necessarily rises till it has a sharp slope of twenty [yards] in
length at the south-western angle. And all this side of the wall,
which was from the beginning probably not much higher than it is
at present, as it was sufficiently secured by the river and its
banks before it, appears crested at first with an hedge of thorns,
a young oak rising from the ridge and rearing its head considerably
over the rest, and runs afterwards in a smooth line nearly level
for several yards with the ground about it, and just perceptible to
the eye, in a rounded eminence of turf.
As to the south-western point of the camp, the ground slopes away
on the west towards the south, as well as on the south towards the
west. On the third side still runs from it nearly as at first,
having an even crest about seven feet in height, an even slope
of turf for its whole extent, and the wall in all its original
condition below. About an hundred yards beyond the angle was the
_Porta Decumana_ of the station, the ground visibly rising up
the ascent of the bank in a large shelve of gravel, and running
in a slight but perceivable ridge from it. And beyond a level of
forty-five yards, that still stretches on for the whole length of
the side, it was bounded by the western boundary of the British
city, the sharp slope of fifty to the morass below it. On the
northern and the remaining side are several chasms in the original
course of the ramparts. And in one of them, about an hundred and
twenty-seven yards from its commencement, was another gateway,
opening into the station directly from the road to Ribchester. The
rest of the wall still rises about five and four feet in height,
planted all the way with thorns above, and exhibiting a curious
view of the rampart below. Various parts of it have been fleeced of
their facing of turf and stone, and now show the inner structure
of the whole, presenting to the eye the undressed stone of the
quarry, the angular pieces of rock, and the round boulders of the
river, all bedded in the mortar, and compacted by it into one. And
the white and brown patches of mortar and stone on a general view
of the wall stand strikingly contrasted with the green turf that
entirely conceals the level line, and with the green moss that half
reveals the projecting points of the rampart. The great foss of the
British city, the Romans preserved along their northern side for
more than thirty yards beyond the eastern end of it, and for the
whole beyond the western. And as the present appearances of the
ground intimate, they closed the eastern point of it with a high
bank, which was raised upon one part of the ditch, and sloped away
into the other.
Many inscribed stones have been found on the site of this _castrum_,
which originally were built into the wall; one is noticed by Camden,
which read:
Ↄ. CANDIDI
PEDES XX
IIII
_i.e._, Centuria Candidi, Pedes xxiiii.
Another bore the inscription:
COHO. I. FRISIN.[20]
Ↄ. MASAVONIS.
P.XXIII.
--which may be translated into, "The century of Masavo of the first
cohort of the Frisians [built] 23 feet."
The Frisii were inhabitants of Gaul, who were frequently at war with
the Romans, but towards the end of the first century, though they were
not actually under Roman rule, they had agreed to contribute men for
the imperial army; hence their presence in Lancashire.
There have been other centurial stones found near the Manchester
settlement which are of considerable interest. One was discovered
in 1760 on the south side of the Medlock, near Knott Mill; all that
remains of the inscription is:
.... ** QPOB
XVAR ** CHOR. I.
RIS. P. *****
The other centurial stone was found in 1796. It measures 15 inches by
11. It had inscribed upon it:
COHR. I.
FRISIAVO
> QVINTIANI
€ P. XXIII.
The translation would be, "The century of Quintianus, of the first
cohort of the Frisians, [built] 24 feet." This stone was found near
to one of the gateways to the _castrum_. A tile inscribed to "The
twentieth legion, valiant and victorious," was found in 1829, and two
others, bearing the words (when extended) _Cohortis III. Bracarum_. A
small portion of the wall of a building within the _castrum_ is still
preserved; a great portion of it consists of fragments of unhewn red
sandstone.
In 1612, under the roots of an oak-tree, near to the Roman side, was
found part of an inscribed altar. It was much mutilated, and had
probably been built into a wall after the departure of the Romans. It
is 27½ inches in height, 15½ inches in breadth, and nearly 11 inches
thick. This altar passed through many hands, and its whereabouts is now
unknown, but a copy of the inscription on its face has been preserved.
It was dedicated to "Fortune the preserver, Lucius Senecianius Martius,
a centurion of the Sixth Legion, (surnamed) the Victorious." This
legion was stationed at Eboracum (York), A.D. 120.
Another altar (or, rather, a part of one) was found in Castlefield. It
was of red sandstone, and was 2 feet 5 inches high. It is now preserved
at Worsley New Hall. Its inscription may be rendered as, "To the god
... Præpositus of the Vexillation of Rhætii and Norici performs his
vow cheerfully and willingly to a deserving object." This inscription
therefore informs us that part of the garrison of Mancunium consisted
of a body of soldiers belonging to the Rhætii and Norici; the former
came from Switzerland, and the latter were Tyrolese. This is remarkable
as the only description yet discovered in Britain which thus refers to
these troops. The amount of pottery discovered has not been large, but
amongst it were some fragments of Samian ware, on one of which is a
representation of a hunting scene. Samples from the Roman potteries of
Upchurch have also been dug up, but none of them bear the maker's name.
About two miles from the _castrum_, in the bed of the river Irwell,
was found in 1772 a golden ornament for the neck (a bulla), which was
richly ornamented; along its upper border was a hollow tube through
which to pass the cord by which it was suspended round the neck of
the wearer. Only one other specimen of this kind of ornament in
gold has been found in England, and that also was in Lancashire (in
Overborough). Within the area of the _castrum_ various minor remains
have from time to time been discovered, including a massive gold ring,
coins, urns, tiles, spear-heads, household gods, and Roman pottery.[21]
Amongst the coins were many of the reigns of Trajanus (A.D.
53-117), Hadrianus, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius;[22] they were
all found in or near what is still known as Castlefield.
Around this Roman stronghold something approaching a town was no
doubt built, if, indeed, the conquering forces did not find some such
settlement existing on their arrival. From the evidence of the remains
found, this suburban quarter was mostly on the north of the _castrum_.
In Tonman Street, in 1839, was discovered a bronze statuette of Jupiter
Stator. Remains of domestic building have frequently been met with, and
the site of the cemetery lying on the south-east side of the station
is indicated by the numerous sepulchral urns discovered there, as
well as human bones and lachrymatory vessels of black glass. Judging
solely from the remains which are known to have been found here, the
conclusion we must arrive at is that, important as Mancunium was as a
military centre, the village or town around its _castrum_ was not as
important as that of Ribchester.
The dates of the various coins recorded (many more have been found but
not recorded) clearly show that the Romans were settled at Mancunium
from about A.D. 80 to the time when they left the country.
Traces of a road have been found between Manchester and Wigan, and the
latter place was certainly a Roman station, though it has not been
satisfactorily proved to be identical with the _Coccium_ named in the
tenth Iter of Antoninus. In 1836 the ditch and agger by which the
station was fortified were still visible near the crown of the hill
on which part of Wigan now stands.[23] Many Roman coins and urns have
been found near the station, and a stone built into the present parish
church is considered to have been a portion of a Roman altar. From
Wigan the road went north and south.
Returning to Manchester: from this centre issued another road going in
a straight line to Ribchester; it passed across Campfield and the site
of what is now the Victoria railway-station; it went on to Prestwick,
Lower Darwen, Blackburn, and finally to the bank of the Ribble near
Ribchester; the remains of the road have been seen nearly over the
whole of its length. It is not thought to be quite so ancient as the
other roads out of Mancunium;[24] however this may be, at Bremetonacum
(Ribchester) was erected the largest _castrum_ in the whole county.
Roman Ribchester was probably founded by the Emperor Agricola or by
Hadrian.
Like nearly all the large stations, it was placed near to a river,
and in this case the Ribble served as the fosse on the south-eastern
side; its other boundaries have been clearly defined, the outline of
fosse and vallum being still quite apparent, and within its limits are
included the parish yard and Vicarage garden: its total area covers
about ten statute acres. Its dimensions are: from the vallum on the
north-west to the bed of the river 615 feet, and from the vallum on the
south-east to that on the opposite side 611 feet. The corners on the
north and north-east are rounded off, the southern ones being lost in
the bed of the river, which has considerably altered its course.
At the angle pointing north, in 1888, a gateway was discovered.[25]
It was 14 feet wide, the end of the wall at each side being carefully
rounded.
The construction of the vallum was at the same time exposed, and showed
that it was formed of boulder stones put together with cement. It lies
6 feet below the present surface, and is about 5 feet wide.
Upon this base was raised the rampart of earth well beaten down.
Outside the vallum on the south-western side is a fosse (or dyke), of
which the outer limit is about 43 feet from the vallum.
In 1888-89 this rampart was cut through in seven places. At one of
these cuttings on the south-western side the vallum was found to be
4 feet 6 inches wide at the base, and inside it, at a distance of 4
feet, and level with the base, was found a layer of oak shingles--that
is, pieces of split oak--each about 4 to 5 feet long, 2 or 3 inches
thick, and 3 to 4 inches wide; these were placed at right angles to
the vallum, and at about 7 inches apart, with their widest sides lying
horizontally.
These shingles are pointed at the end next the vallum, and broader and
squarer at the other end. In the second cutting near the western angle
the vallum was found to be 6 feet wide, and below the base there was
a layer of imported clay; below this was a layer of red sand 2 feet
thick, and under that a quantity of gravel. Here again were found the
shingles, of which there were three rows, all lying at right angles to
the vallum.
The longest of these shingles were from 9 to 14 feet, and were those at
the greatest distance from the vallum. Two other cuttings exposed two
jambs of a gateway, and the layer of shingles was found to extend from
the inside through the gateway to the length of 7 or 8 feet outside;
they were larger and longer than any of the others. Under them was a
layer of gravel 9 inches thick, and below this, again, a floor of oak
planks, smooth and tightly jointed, and stretching across the gateway.
Beneath this was another layer of gravel, under which were four
large shingles about 14 feet long, 1 foot wide, and 6 inches thick,
which were laid at right angles to the shingles above them. On the
north-eastern side of the vallum was a strong oak post found standing
upright, which appeared to have been a gate-post. In 1725 Dr. Stukeley,
the antiquary, visited Ribchester at a time when a portion of the
south-eastern boundary was exposed through the action of the river, and
he mentions having seen "the floor along the whole bank," which was no
doubt made up of similar shingles. The use to which these oak shingles
were put has not yet been satisfactorily settled, but the most probable
theory is that they were intended to make sure the foundation of the
path behind the rampart. They have not been discovered at any other
Roman station in Britain. Another peculiarity of the Ribchester camp is
the gates being placed in an angle of the quadrilateral instead of in
the centre of one of the sides.
Outside the camp at Ribchester there was a settlement of considerable
size and importance. There were at least two temples, the largest of
which was probably over 100 feet long; it had sixteen pillars in front,
and others around it, forming a peristyle. The inscription over the
entrance (which was found some years ago) shows that it was dedicated
"To the Deity: for the safety of the Emperor ... and of Julia ...
the mother of our Lord [the Emperor], and the camps under the care
of Valerius Crescens Fulvianus, his Legate [and] Pro-Prætor. Titus
Floridius Natalis, Legate, our Præpositus and Governor, from the reply
[of the oracle] restored the temple from the ground, and inaugurated it
at his own expense." The mention of the Empress Julia fixes the date to
between A.D. 211 and A.D. 235. The four pillars forming the entrance
to the Bull Inn at Ribchester were from the ruins of one of the two
temples. The bases of some of the columns of the larger building are
preserved at the Rectory; they are of rude workmanship, but appear to
be in the Doric style.
This temple is believed to have been destroyed by fire. From the
inscription just quoted it would appear that it was then rebuilt,
and it is at least possible that the original building may have been
destroyed by the Scots, who at this time waged fierce war with the
Romans.
The evidence as to the existence of the smaller temple is not so
conclusive, although several stone cylindrical columns, each with a
foliated capital, said to have belonged to it, are still preserved.
Beside the "finds" of coins, rings, querns, amphoræ, etc., there have
been from time to time sculptured stones brought to light which tell
their own history. A few only of these can here be mentioned: a walling
stone inscribed LEG[IO] VICESIMA V[ALARIA] V[ICTRIX] FECIT
(The Twentieth Legion, Valiant and Victorious, made [it]); a large
sculptured altar which bore an inscription "To the holy god Apollo
Maponus for the welfare of our lord [the Emperor], and of the Numerus
of Sarmatian horse Bremetennacum [styled] the Gordian, Antoninus of
the Sixth Legion, [styled the] Victorious. [His] birthplace [was]
Melitene." The date of this is believed to be between A.D.
238 and A.D. 244.[26] In 1603 Camden saw at Ribchester an
altar which he describes as the largest and fairest that he had ever
seen; this is now at Stonyhurst College. It was dedicated "To the
goddess mothers, Marcus Ingenuius Asiaticus, a decurion of the cavalry
regiment of the Astures, performs his vow willingly [and] dutifully to
a deserving object."
Altars dedicated to these Deæ Matres are not uncommon in Britain; they
are often represented by female figures each bearing a basket of fruit.
Another altar was dug up in the churchyard; its inscription refers to
Caracalla and his mother Julia Domna (the widow of Septimius).
In 1796 a boy playing near the road leading to the church accidentally
discovered a helmet, which its subsequent owner[27] thus described:
"The superior style of workmanship of the mask to that of the headpiece
is also remarkable. It measures ten inches and a half from its
junction to the skull-piece at the top of the forehead to its bottom
under the chin. A row of small detached locks of hair surrounds the
forehead a little above the eyes, reaching to the ears, which are well
delineated. Upon these locks of hair rests the bottom of a diadem, or
_tutulus_, which at the centre in front is two inches and a quarter
in height, diminishing at the extremities to one inch and an eighth
of an inch, and it is divided horizontally into two parts, bearing
the proportionate height just mentioned. The lower part projects
before the higher, and represents a bastion wall, separated into seven
divisions by projecting turrets, with pyramidal tops, exceeding a
little the height of the wall. These apertures for missile weapons of
defence are marked in each of the turrets. Two arched doors appear
in the middle division of this wall, and one arched door in each of
the extreme divisions. The upper part of the diadem, which recedes a
little so as to clear the top of the wall and of the turrets, was
ornamented with seven embossed figures placed under the seven arches,
the abutments of which are heads of genii. The central arch and the
figure that was within it are destroyed, but the other six arches are
filled with a repetition of the following three groups: a Venus sitting
upon a marine monster; before her a draped figure with wings, bearing
a wreath and palm-branch, and behind her a triton, whose lower parts
terminate in tails of fish. Two serpents are represented on each side
of the face near the ears, from whence the bodies of these reptiles
surround each cheek and are joined under the chin. From the general
form of the diadem being usually appropriated to female deities, and
the circumstance of the lower division being composed of a wall and
turrets in the same manner as the heads of Isis, Cybele, and the
Ephesian Diana are decorated, added to the effeminacy and delicacy
of the features of the mask, one may conclude that it alludes to
these goddesses; but the manner in which the face is accompanied with
serpents strongly indicates that it also comprises the character of
Medusa...." The head portion of the helmet is ornamented with soldiers
on horse and on foot. This is considered one of the finest specimens of
a Roman helmet yet discovered. In 1875, in the bed of the Ribble, was
found a sepulchral slab representing a horse-soldier spearing a fallen
foe. The stone is 5 feet long and 2½ feet in breadth.[28] Several
other tombstones have been discovered here, the inscription on one
of which, being translated, records that "In this earth is held that
which was at one time Ælia Matrona; she lived twenty-eight years, two
months, and eight days: and Marcus Julius Maximus her son; he lived six
years, three months and twenty days: and Campania Dubitata her mother;
she lived fifty years. Julius Maximus, a sigularis consularis of the
Polish cavalry, the husband of an incomparable wife, and to a son most
dutiful to his father and to a mother-in-law of very dear memory, has
placed this."
The number of miscellaneous Roman articles which have been found at
Ribchester is considerable. In 1884, just outside one of the gateways
leading to the camp, a massive gold brooch was found; its weight is 373
grains, and it is in the shape of a harp, measuring 2 inches in length.
Roman brooches of gold are very rarely met with.
In making graves in the churchyard from time to time small articles
have been found; and in the Vicarage garden, almost every time the soil
is turned, fragments of Samian pottery, etc., are brought to light.
These various _finds_ have, perhaps, given rise to the local tradition
that:
It is written upon a wall in Rome:
Ribchester is as rich as any town in Christendom.
But much of old Ribchester is lost through the shifting of the bed of
the river, which formed one side of the _castrum_.
From Ribchester issued five roads: (i.) To Yorkshire through Chadburn;
(ii.) to Manchester; (iii.) to Morecambe Bay through the Fylde; (iv.)
to Lancaster, joining the main road at Galgate; (v.) to Westmorland
_viâ_ Overborough.
The road to Yorkshire passed through Langho, crossed the Calder near
a place called "Potter's Ford," and leaving Clitheroe on the east,
went over the rising ground to Chadburn and over the Yorkshire border
to Skipton. Roman coins have been found at Langho,[29] and also the
remains of a rectangular building 70 feet square, which is believed to
have been a small camp; its site is still known as "Castle Holme."[30]
Between Chadburn and Worsthorne, in 1788, nearly 1,000 silver _denarii_
of the Higher Empire were found in an urn dug up by some workmen.[31]
The road through the Fylde district was no doubt made to connect
Ribchester with the Portus Sestantiorum (the Haven of the Sestantii),
the exact site of which has never been satisfactorily proved, but it
was probably near the mouth of the Wyre. The agger is only traceable
along bits of the route from Ribchester, but it appears at "Stubbin
Nook," and, after passing Pedder House, becomes identical with what is
still called Watling Street; it then crosses Fulwood Moor near Preston,
and goes on to Kirkham, Marton Mere, and Poulton-le-Fylde. The late
John Just, in 1850, made a careful survey of that portion of the road;
he thus describes it: "Within a mile of the town of Poulton are seen
the first indications of a Roman road.... But having got on to the high
ground and to a part of the flats of the Fylde district we meet with
striking remains of a road on the turfy ground where it has been piled
up in an immense agger.... Across this the line is very distinct....
On the higher ground the whole of the line has been obliterated ...
until we again detect it in a low hollow towards Weeton Moss.... Here
is an immense embankment of several yards in height, its base standing
in the water.... The line hence directs itself up the rising ground
to Plumpton; ... from hence it directs its course to the windmill on
the high ground between Weeton Moss and Kirkham, which there opens to
the view. Near the windmill the road forms an angle, and thence joins
the public road in a long-continuous straight line forwards towards
Kirkham.... About midway, within the long town of Kirkham, the line
of the Roman roads falls in with Main Street, and continues up to the
windmill at the top of the town. Nearly the whole length of the long
street of Kirkham is upon the Roman road."[32]
At Kirkham the Romans left many traces: amulets, axes, ivory needles,
urns filled with calcined bones, lachrymatory urns, and coins, have all
at various times been discovered, but the finest relic was the umbo
of a shield found at Mill Hill; it is now in the British Museum. It
is about 8 inches in diameter, and in its centre is a figure of a man
seated, his limbs naked, but wearing on his head a crested helmet.[33]
In what was once the bed of Marton Mere, in 1850, the old road was
clearly defined; its gravel was 12 yards wide and 2 yards thick; and
at Fleetwood, in 1835, at some depth below the sand, a portion of the
pavement was found intact. Between Fenny and Rossall Point, on the
Wyre Estuary, upwards of four hundred Roman coins were found; their
dates varied from A.D. 353 to A.D. 408. Many parts of the Roman road in
this district were known as Danes' Pad.[34] The road from Ribchester
to Galgate passed through places called Preston Wives, Writton Stone,
Stoney Lane, Windy Arbour, Street Farm, and a little to the north-east
of Shireshead joined the road from Walton to Lancaster. Westmorland
was approached by a road which, after leaving Ribchester, has not
been very clearly traced, but for a great portion of its route it ran
through Yorkshire, passing through Slaidburn; it came into Lancashire
a few miles south of Ivah, but soon again crossed the border line and
re-entered Lancashire, and passed through Tatham to Overborough, the
Roman _Galacum_. Of this place Camden (writing about 1580) says, "that
it was formerly a great city upon a large plot of ground, between the
Lac and the Lone, and being besieged, was forced to surrender by famine
is what the inhabitants told me, who have it by tradition from their
ancestors; and certain it is that the place makes proof of its own
antiquity by many ancient monuments, inscriptions, chequered pavements,
and Roman coins, as also by this modern name, which signifies a
burrow." Although nearly every trace of the Roman occupation has been
cleared away, discoveries made since Camden's time abundantly prove
that here was a Roman stronghold. Overborough is in the parish of
Tunstall.
There now remains to describe the other Roman road, passing right
through Lancashire, in almost a straight line for Warrington, passing
Wigan, Preston, and Lancaster on its route to Natland in Westmorland.
This road began at Wilderspool, on the Cheshire side of the Mersey.
The exact spot where it crossed the river is unknown, but traces of it
are found near Warrington, at Winwick, Haydock, Ashton in Makerfield,
and Wigan; from the latter place it continued to Standish, Whittle
and Bamber Green, crossed the Ribble at Walton, then passed through
some fields formerly known as Great Pathway Fields, Causeway Meadow
and Pathway Meadow. From Walton the road went on to Lancaster, through
Broughton, Barton Lodge, Brook, Claughton (where was formerly a road
called Fleet Street) and Galgate; between Lancaster and Natland all
trace of the road has disappeared, and its route is undefined. The
remains found on the line of road from Warrington to Wigan are neither
numerous nor of special interest.
At Standish many coins have been found, as well as gold rings, of
undoubted Roman origin.
At Walton-le-Dale we find clear evidence of the existence of a minor
station, between the bends of the Ribble and the Darwen. Here, in
1855, in excavating in a large mound called the Plump, were found the
remains of a probably British foundation, upon which was a layer of
large boulders, mixed with gravel a foot thick, near to which were
lying coins of Antoninus Pius, Domitian, and Vespasian, together with
querns, fragments of Samian ware, bricks, tiles, fragments of amphoræ,
etc.[35] In the immediate neighbourhood subsequent excavations brought
to light other remains in large quantities, as well as portions of
Roman masonry. All the coins found were of the Higher Empire.
At Lancaster was another station, and probably a very early one, as it
is certain that in the time of Trajan (A.D. 98-117) there were
Roman buildings of some kind here; the proof of this is the discovery,
about twenty years ago, beneath the floor of the parish church, of a
triangular-shaped stone upon which was inscribed in letters 2 inches
high, IMP. NER. TRAIAN, AVG. C.; this being completed would
read, "Imperatori Nervae Trajano Augusto cohors."[36]
On the site of, or within the area of the _castrum_ have been erected
the castle, the priory, and the church, so that it is not to be
wondered at that its original boundaries are indefinable. Without
placing too much reliance upon the statements of such writers as Leland
and Camden, sufficient fragments of the Roman walls have from time to
time been exhumed to afford ample proof that such a station existed;
and from inscriptions found, together with the discovery of large
quantities of horses' teeth, it may be assumed to have been occupied by
cavalry troops only.
The remains found within the walls and in the immediate neighbourhood
have been very numerous and varied. Amongst the altars was one
dedicated "to the holy god Mars Cocidius," the latter word referring
to a British god, which shows the accommodating spirit of "Vibinius
Lucius," the pensioner of the Consul who thus "performed his vows."
From the fact that over many parts of the station uncovered there was
found to be a thick layer of ashes, it is conjectured that Roman
Lancaster was destroyed by fire. Many milestones have also been
found, and two burial-places. There was also a road from Lancaster to
Overborough; its route was over Quernmore and through Caton, where a
milestone of the time of Hadrian was discovered. In Lonsdale north of
the Sands we have no distinct trace of Roman occupation.
There were, of course, several other Roman roads of later date and of
minor importance; one only of these is it necessary to refer to, that
is, the road which is supposed to have run from Manchester, through
Chadderton, Royton, Rochdale, Littleborough, and over Blackstone Edge
to Aldborough in Yorkshire. John Ogilby, the King's cosmographer in
1675, states that this road was 8 yards wide and paved with stone all
the way. Warburton, the Somerset Herald, shows it as a Roman road in
his map drawn in 1753; later writers, however, do not agree as to its
exact course, and nearly all trace of it has long ago disappeared,
except for a short distance on the steep side of Blackstone Edge, where
its course can be fairly traced from Windy Bank, near Littleborough,
to the division line between Lancashire and Yorkshire. The portion
best preserved is that which ascends the hill in a perfectly straight
line, commencing about 1,600 yards from the summit. The parts which
have been recently cleared from the overgrowth of heath show a road 15
feet wide, exclusive of curbstone, paved with square blocks of stone,
and slightly arched to throw the water into a trench which runs on
either side. In the centre of this road, where it ascends the hill at
a steep gradient (in some parts one in four and a third), is a course
of hard millstone grit stones, which have been carefully tooled and set
together so as to form a continuous line from the top to the bottom.
These blocks are of stone, are 3 feet 8 inches wide, and in them has
been cut (or as some think worn) a trough about 17 inches wide at the
top, and a little over a foot at the bottom, and of a depth of some
4 inches. The bottom of this trough is found to be slightly curved.
The question as to the use and age of these central stones has been
the subject of much discussion. The author of Roman Lancashire gives
them a Roman origin, and thinks the groove was to steady the central
wheel of a three-wheeled vehicle. An easy explanation would be that
the stones were worn hollow by the feet of packhorses, but the reply
to this is, that on a well-paved road up a steep hill, a footway of
smooth stones would not only be useless, but dangerous. Another theory
is that the Romans placed them there to help the drivers of chariots to
"skid" the wheels of their vehicles, whilst some have urged that the
central trough is of much more recent date, and was used in working the
quarries at the top of the hill.[37]
Roman coins and tiles have been found near Littleborough and at
Underwood, near Rochdale; and at Tunshill in Butterworth, in the same
parish, in 1793, was discovered the right arm of a silver statue of
Victory, to which was attached an amulet with an inscription to the
Sixth Legion.[38]
From this rapid survey of the Roman roads, stations, and settlements,
with the evidence of the vestiges which time has preserved for our
inspection, it must at once be seen that through the length and breadth
of Lancashire (except, perhaps, Lonsdale north of the Sands) the
all-conquering Roman was found, and that for nearly four centuries he
held possession. That he did much to educate and civilize the conquered
tribes cannot be doubted, and the Lancashire people at the close of
the Roman occupation must have been a very different race to those
half-naked barbarians who fought so desperately to defend their soil
against the invading legions. Although the ancient Briton was not
quite an untutored savage, still, the influence of the higher cultured
Romans had a very material effect upon his character and surroundings,
and led to the acquirement of many arts and industries, which produced
corresponding results of prosperity and comfort. The culture of the
land was improved, the people were shown how to make roads and build
houses of stone, mines were opened, iron was smelted, and ships were
built.
[Illustration]
[Footnote 14: "Roman Lancashire," W. Thompson Watkin; Liverpool, 1883.]
[Footnote 15: There are also traces of two other supposed Roman roads.]
[Footnote 16: _Lanc. and Ches. Ant. Soc._, iii. 262.]
[Footnote 17: Whitaker's "History of Manchester," 1771.]
[Footnote 18: _Lanc. and Ches. Ant. Soc._, viii. 156.]
[Footnote 19: Whitaker as an authority is good where he is describing
things which he saw himself, but otherwise many of his theories border
upon romance. (Vol. i., p. 49, 1773 edition.)]
[Footnote 20: The late Mr. Thompson Watkin maintains that the
N at end of the first line should be AV.]
[Footnote 21: "Palatine Note-Book," iii. 67.]
[Footnote 22: For full details of these see Watkin's "Roman
Lancashire."]
[Footnote 23: _Archæological Journal_, xxviii., p. 114, and xxx., p.
153.]
[Footnote 24: Watkin's "Roman Lancashire," p. 55.]
[Footnote 25: Through the influence of the Rev. J. Shortt, Vicar of
Hoghton, whose description of the find is here followed.]
[Footnote 26: Watkin's "Roman Lancashire," p. 133.]
[Footnote 27: Mr. Townley. See "Vetusta Monumenta," iv. 5.]
[Footnote 28: Abram's "History of Blackburn," p. 159.]
[Footnote 29: _Lanc. and Ches. Hist. Soc._, xxv. 161.]
[Footnote 30: Whitaker's "History of Whalley," ii. 19.]
[Footnote 31: Baines' "History of Lancashire" (second edition), ii. 24.]
[Footnote 32: _Lanc. and Ches. Hist. Soc._, iii. 3.]
[Footnote 33: _Hist. Soc. of Lanc. and Ches._, iii. 60; also Fishwick's
"History of Kirkham," _Chetham Soc._, xcii. 5.]
[Footnote 34: Fishwick's "History of Poulton-le-Fylde," _Chetham Soc._,
new series, viii. 4; also civ. 2.]
[Footnote 35: Watkin's "Roman Lancashire," p. 203.]
[Footnote 36: "The Palatine Note-book," iv. 201.]
[Footnote 37: Fishwick's "History of Rochdale," p. 7; also _Lanc. and
Ches. Arch. Soc._, p. 73 _et seq._]
[Footnote 38: _Ibid._, p. 12.]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER V.
THE SAXON AND THE DANE.
If it is true--as generally supposed--that the Britons, after being
grievously oppressed by the Picts and Scots, called in the German
tribes to assist them, then it naturally followed that, after driving
back the Northern invaders, they themselves took possession of the land
they had been fighting for.
In Lancashire, the desertion of the Romans probably led to a
considerable part of the county being again laid waste, and the
inhabitants scattered.
All authorities agree that for some forty years after the departure
of the Romans the Britons were in continual strife, and that their
independence brought to them only war and misery. The three Teutonic
tribes known to the Romans as the Jutes, the Saxons and the Angles, in
A.D. 449 appear to have called themselves Englishmen, and in
that year they won their first battle against the Britons at Aylesford,
in Kent. After this it took nearly 150 years to acquire the land from
the South to the Forth. The Northern parts were for the most part taken
possession of by the Angles, and divided into kingdoms, the boundaries
of which are not known; some authorities place part of Lancashire in
the kingdom of Deira, which had York for its centre, whilst others
maintain that the kingdom of Strathclyde extended southward to the
banks of the Dee; be this as it may, towards the close of the sixth
century Lancashire formed part of the kingdom of Northumbria, which
was held by the Angles. The inhabitants of these Northern parts, in
their contests with the invaders, had the great advantage of having
possession of the Roman strongholds, and no doubt offered a stubborn
resistance. With the new rulers came new names, new language, and
new customs, and many things that had been established by the former
invaders were swept away.
We now come to the introduction of Christianity into Northumbria, which
arose through the marriage of Æthelbert, King of Kent, at the close of
the sixth century, with Bertha, daughter of King Charibert of Paris,
who, being a convert to the Christian religion, made it a condition
of her marriage that she should be allowed to worship in a small
Roman-built church near Canterbury. Early in the next century Edwin,
King of Northumbria, married Æthelburga, the daughter of Æthelbert,
who, also being a Christian, took with her Paulinus, a follower of St.
Augustine (see Chapter IX.).
It was not so easy, however, to make a convert of her husband,
but after some delay he called together his Council, who declared
themselves in favour of the new religion, and many of them were
baptized at York, A.D. 627. This conversion led to a war
between Edwin and the King of Mercia, who still held to his faith in
Woden and Thor, when the King of Northumbria was killed at the battle
of Hatfield in 633.
Shortly after this, Cædwallon, King of the Welsh, became ruler over
Northumbria, but only for a short time, as he was defeated and slain in
battle by Oswald, who, afterwards succeeding to the thrones of Bernicia
and Deira, again united Northumbria, and re-established the Christian
creed. But Penda was determined to maintain the pagan religion, and,
defeating Oswald at the battle of Maserfeld in 642, again held
Northumbria. Subsequently another division appears to have taken place,
and Lancashire became part of the kingdom of Deira, its ruler being
Oswine, and continued so for some six years, when Oswi, who reigned in
Bernicia (the other portion of Northumbria), caused Oswine to be slain,
and again united the two kingdoms. Alcfrid, the son of Oswi, having
married Cyneburga, daughter of Penda, was about this time appointed
Regent over Deira, and afterwards a further fusion of the two families
was brought about by the marriage of Alcfrid's sister to Peada, son of
Penda.
Oswi in 655 had a pitched battle with Penda at Winwæd in Yorkshire,[39]
where the latter was defeated and slain. To celebrate this victory
Oswi established twelve religious houses, six of which were in Deira
(see Chapter IX.). Oswi died in 670, and his son Egfrid (or Ecgfrith)
succeeded to the throne of Northumbria, which was now become a
Christian and powerful kingdom. His short reign was marked by several
military victories, the chief being his defeat of the King of Mercia,
by which he gained the province of Lindiswards, or Lincolnshire; but
in A.D. 685 Egfrid went across the Forth to repress a rising
of the Picts, and in a great battle at Nectansmere in Yorkshire he
and many of his nobles were slain, and with them fell the supremacy
of ancient Northumbria. From this date to the establishment of the
Heptarchy, Northumbria, though allowed to elect tributary rulers, was,
except for a very short period, under the overlords of first Mercia
and then Wessex. Green, in his "History of the English People,"[40]
says that Northumbria was "the literary centre of the Christian
world in Western Europe. The whole learning of the age seemed to be
summed up in a Northumbrian scholar, Bæda--the Venerable Bede, later
times styled him." The same writer adds: "From the death of Bæda the
history of Northumbria is in fact only a wild story of lawlessness
and bloodshed. King after king [tributary kings] was swept away by
treason and revolt, the country fell into the hands of its turbulent
nobles, the very fields lay waste, and the land was swept by famine
and plague." In A.D. 827 Egbert found no difficulty, after
subduing the rest of England, in coming to peaceful terms with the
Northumbrian nobles, and reducing the whole country from the British
Channel to the Forth into one kingdom. For some time before the close
of the eighth century Northumbria had been subject to frequent attacks
from the Northmen, or Danes, who mostly came from Denmark and Norway,
who have been frequently described as sea-pirates, distinguished for
courage and ferocity and a strong hatred to the Christian religion,
they themselves being worshippers of Woden and the other pagan gods.
Soon after the middle of the tenth century the Danes were no longer
content to make marauding expeditions, but aspired to become owners of
the soil, and in 867, after a great victory near the city of York, they
practically took possession of Northumbria, and a few years later the
whole of England north of the Thames was in their hands. The subsequent
wars between Alfred the Great and the Danes belong more to the general
history of England; it will suffice here to state that in 878 was
concluded the treaty of peace known as "Alfred and Guthrum's Peace,"
whereby the Danish settlers were recognised and the land on the east
and north of Watling Street given up to them, that is, nearly all the
east side of England from the Thames to the Tweed, where they were to
be independent dwellers, with their own laws and institutions.[41]
Thus, almost the whole of Lancashire was left to the Danish invaders;
but not, however, for a long period, as Edward the Elder, the son and
successor of Alfred, having wrested Mercia from the Danes, marched
against Northumbria, where a contest was avoided by the submission of
the inhabitants, and, according to the Saxon Chronicle,[42] having
taken possession of Manchester, which he found almost in ruins, he
refortified and garrisoned it in the year 923. Athelstan, the son of
Edward the Elder, had frequent disturbances from the Northern Danes,
who in 937, having united the Scots and the Welsh, met the King's
forces at Bruanburgh (supposed to be in Northumberland), where they
were defeated; only, however, for a time, as they were not finally
suppressed until the year 954, when Northumbria was placed under a
governor with the title of Earl.
The beginning of the next century found the country in a very unsettled
state in consequence of fresh invasions by the King of Denmark and
Norway, and on the death of Ethelred, in April, 1016, London proclaimed
Edmund King, whilst a council at Southampton accepted Canute the Dane;
ultimately the English nobles compelled a division, and Northumbria,
Mercia, and East Anglia fell to Canute, who a month later, on the death
of Edmund, became King of England. Canute (or Cnut) during his reign
did much to remove the hatred felt towards the Danes, but the tyranny
and oppression exercised by his two sons, who succeeded him,[43]
revived the old feelings, and on the death of Harthacnut in 1043, after
five-and-twenty years of Danish rule, the people elected one of the old
English stock as the King, and Edward the Confessor ascended the throne.
During these six centuries Lancashire had many rulers, and must have
been the scene of many a pitched battle. Its people were never long at
peace, but rebellions, invasions, and wars of every kind fast followed
each other. At one time they were governed by kings of Northumbria,
at another by kings of England; at one time they were ruled by only
tributary kings, or even only by tributary earls; sometimes the
Christian religion was upheld, and sometimes they were referred back
to Woden and Thor and Oden. Nevertheless, churches were built (see
Chapter IX.), religious houses endowed, and castles erected. Many of
its parishes were now formed, and its hundreds and tithings were meted
out. Many of the parish and township names in Lancashire are suggestive
of Saxon or Danish origin. Thus, Winwick, Elswick, Fishwick, Chadwick,
Poulton, Walton, Sephton, Middleton, Eccleston, Broughton, Preston,
Kirkham, Penwortham, Bispham, Cockerham, Oldham, Sowerby, Westby,
Ribby, Formby, and a host of others, all point to their having once
been held by the early settlers, as do also the terminative "rods"
and "shaws" so common in the south of the county. In the old maps
of the county a tract of land on the west side of the Wyre, between
Shard and Fleetwood, is called Bergerode, which is a combination of
the Anglo-Saxon words "Beor grade"--a shallow harbour. No doubt many
of these places were held by Saxon Thanes, of which there were three
classes; the highest of these held their lands and manors of the King,
and probably had some kind of a castle or fortification erected on
the manors, as well as in many cases a church, though probably only
built of wood. To many places in the county have been assigned Saxon
castles; Baines, in his "History of Lancashire,"[44] has enumerated no
less than twelve of these south of the Ribble, but for only two of them
is there any absolute authority for the assumption, viz., Penwortham
and Rochdale. At Penwortham William the Conqueror found a castle, and
around it were six burgesses, three radmen (a class of freemen who
served on horseback), only eight villeins (who were literally servants
of the lords of the soil), and four neat-herds, or cattle-keepers; and
amongst other possessions its owner had a moiety of the river-fishing,
a wood, and aeries of hawks. The castle was occupied in the time of
Henry III., when Randle de Blundeville, the Earl of Chester and Baron
of Lancaster, held his court within its walls.[45] All trace of it has
now disappeared, but Castle Hill is its traditional site.
In the time of Edward the Confessor (A.D. 1041-1066) most of
the land in Rochdale was held of the King by Gamel the Thane; part of
this land was free from all duties except danegeld.[46] There can be
little doubt but that a Saxon Thane of this order had both his castle
and its accompanying church. As to the existence of the former, it
is placed beyond dispute by the name Castleton, which occurs in many
very early deeds, and by the fact that in a charter, without date (but
early in the thirteenth century), reference is made to "the land lying
between" a field "and the ditch of the castle" (_fossatum castelli_),
and the right of way is reserved for "ingoing and exit to the place
of the castle" (_locus castelli_), and the right of footway to lands
"in Castleton in the north part of Smythecumbesrode and an _assartum_
called Sethe." The boundaries detailed in the charter show that this
castle, probably then in ruins, stood on the elevated ground still
known as Castle Hill.[47]
There is a local tradition that at Bury, on the site called Castle
Croft, once stood a Saxon castle; but there is no evidence to support
this, and from the character of a portion of the foundations
discovered in 1865, it seems more probable that the building which gave
its name to the place was of much more recent date.
Winwick, near Warrington, has also its traditional Saxon castle,
and also lays claim to having within its parish the site of the
battle-field where Oswald, King of Northumbria, fell on August 5,
A.D. 642. Bede[48] records that the Christian King was slain
in a great battle against the pagan ruler over the Mercians at a place
called Maserfield, and adds that such was his faith in God that ever
since his death infirm men and cattle are healed by visiting the spot
where he was killed; some, taking the dust from the soil and putting it
in water, were able to heal their sick friends; by this means the earth
had been by degrees carried away, so that a hole remained as deep as
the height of a man.
This Maserfield, or Maserfeld, was by Camden and others supposed to
be near Oswestry, in Shropshire, but there are many good reasons for
assuming that the engagement took place in Makerfield, near Winwick;
the very ancient parish church is dedicated to St. Oswald, and half a
mile to the north of it is St. Oswald's Well, which is at the present
day in a deep ditch, and until within quite recent times was in the
charge of a paid custodian, whose duty it was to keep the water from
contamination;[49] an ancient inscription on the wall of the south side
of the church also appears to confirm the opinion.
In Aldingham Moat Hill (in Furness) we have an example of the moated
mound or "burh" of a Saxon lord, which probably dates from the tenth
century.[50] The earthwork consists of three divisions. The rectangular
camp, is surrounded by a ditch nearly 40 feet wide, and 4 or 5 feet
deep, the space thus enclosed being about 100 feet square. About 100
yards south of this there is a straight piece of ditch which runs
almost at right angles to the sea-cliff for some 250 feet. South again
of this ditch, but separated from it by about 40 yards, stands the
moated "burh" itself, on the very edge of the cliff; the ditch and part
of the mound have been washed away by the sea. The "burh" is about
30 feet high, and 96 feet above the sea-level. The ditch is about 10
feet deep, and between 15 and 20 feet broad at the bottom. This was
the fortified home of the Anglo-Saxon clan settled in this place. The
rectangular enclosure may have been the meeting-place of the folk-moot
of the settlement. Pennington Castle Hill is a somewhat similar mound,
but some of the characteristics of a "burh" are wanting; nevertheless,
it was doubtless the fortified _ton_ of the Pennings. Near to it is a
place called Ellabarrow, which takes its name from a large tumulus 400
feet in circumference, known as Coninger or Coninsher.
The remains which from time to time have been discovered, and which can
with certainty be classed as Danish or Anglo-Saxon, are not nearly so
numerous as one would have expected. Saxon stone crosses (or portions
of them) have been found at Bolton, Whalley, Burnley, Halton, Heysham,
Lancaster, and Winwick, and the ornamentation of several of them is
beautiful and interesting. The so called "hog-backed" stone in Heysham
churchyard has given rise to much controversy, and is undoubtedly of
very great antiquity.[51] Saxon tumuli have been opened at Langho,
Winwick, and some few other places, and coins belonging to this period
have occasionally been exhumed; notably at Cuerdale, where nearly 2,000
coins were found which were believed to have been struck by one of the
Danish rulers of Northumbria, and large numbers of very similar coins
have been dug up at Harkirke, in the parish of Sefton. Some of these
coins were of King Alfred's time, others were of Guthred, or Gulfrith
(son of Ivan), who was King of Northumbria A.D. 883 to 894,
who was supposed to have on embracing Christianity taken the name of
_Cnvt_, which is engraved on the coins.[52]
It is believed that at Billington, near Whalley, in A.D. 798,
King Ethelred met the conspirator Wada, and defeated him in a battle in
which on both sides great numbers were slain.[53] Near to this place
is a large tumulus known as the "Lowe," which has never been properly
explored; but at Brockhole Eses (which is quite near to Billington) a
tumulus was found to contain human bones and iron spear-heads.
At Claughton, in the parish of Garstang, a tumulus of this period was
opened in 1822, and found to contain, in addition to charred human
bones, large convex brooches of white metal, beads of coloured paste,
iron and stone axes, spear-heads and a sword;[54] remains very similar
in character to these were also dug up at Crossmoor, in Inskip, in
1889.[55]
In the time which immediately preceded the coming of the Norman
Conqueror, Lancashire must have been very sparsely populated; in every
part of it there were vast forests, and great stretches of moss and
fern; agriculture was everywhere neglected; towns, in the modern sense,
there were none; but here and there, clustering as if for protection
round some Saxon Thane's castle or fortified dwelling-place, were
groups of wooden houses and rude huts, and scattered sparsely over
the county were the clearings (_assarts_ or _rods_) and the _tons_
of the primitive settlers, with, in some districts, a wooden building
doing duty as a church. Except where the old Roman roads were still
in use, the means of passage from one place to another was difficult
and dangerous; the people were of many tribes and nations--remnants
of ancient British families, Angles, Saxons, Danes, Scandinavians,
and even Normans contributed to the general stock--and as there were
many tribes, so were there various religions, although Christianity
had now become the general accepted faith. But for all this, much had
been accomplished by time and experience to prepare the mind of the
people to accept the tenet that union is strength, and that only by an
undivided kingdom could come peace, wealth, and prosperity.
[Illustration]
[Footnote 39: Authorities differ as to this locality: one writer places
it on the Firth of Forth, another in Worcestershire.]
[Footnote 40: Pp. 36, 39.]
[Footnote 41: Sanderson's "History of England," p. 44.]
[Footnote 42: A.D. 923.]
[Footnote 43: After the death of Cnut, in 1035, the kingdom was again
divided, and Mercia and Northumbria fell to Harold. Harthacnut was (in
1039), however, King of all England.]
[Footnote 44: Vol. i., p. 12, 2nd edit.]
[Footnote 45: Coucher Book, Duchy Office, No. 78.]
[Footnote 46: Originally a tax paid to the Danes, but afterwards
appropriated to the King. It was always a very unpopular tax.]
[Footnote 47: Plan of this in Fishwick's "History of Rochdale," p. 66.]
[Footnote 48: "Eccles. Hist.," lib. iii., cap. 8.]
[Footnote 49: Baines' "Hist. of Lanc.," ii. 205, 2nd edit.]
[Footnote 50: The following account of it is compiled from an article
in _Archæologia_, vol. liii., part iii., by H. Swainson Cowper, Esq.,
F.S.A.]
[Footnote 51: See _Lanc. and Ches. Arch. Soc._, v. 1 _et seq._]
[Footnote 52: See _Lanc. and Ches. Arch. Soc._, v. 227.]
[Footnote 53: Saxon Chronicle and the Chronicle of Simon of Durham.]
[Footnote 54: _Arch. Journal_, vi. 74; and "History of Garstang,"
_Chetham Soc._, civ. 5.]
[Footnote 55: Fishwick's "History of St. Michael's-on-Wyre," _Chetham
Soc._, xxv. (new series), p. 2.]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VI.
THE NORMANS AND THE PLANTAGENETS (A.D. 1066-1485).
The stirring events which led up to the battle of Hastings, which took
place on October 14, 1066, and the subsequent complete conquest of
England by William of Normandy, did not perhaps immediately affect the
Northern part of the kingdom so much as they did those counties lying
nearer the scene of action.
We have now arrived at a period when we have more definite and reliable
evidence as to the actual position of Lancashire.
At the end of the year 1084 the King summoned his Great Council to meet
at Gloucester, with the object of devising means whereby a full account
could be obtained as to the state of the country, especially as to the
land--how much was cultivated, and by whom and on what authority it was
held. This is not the place more fully to describe the _modus operandi_
of preparing the Domesday Book, but it may be mentioned that by some
singular arrangement Lancashire as a county is not named, the southern
portion being included in Cheshire, the hundred of Amounderness in
Yorkshire, and the two northern hundreds in Westmorland, Cumberland,
and Yorkshire. The value of the information contained in the return
is threefold, as it records the state of the country in Edward the
Confessor's time, the way each manor, etc., was dealt with by William
on his taking possession, and the rateable value on the taking of the
Survey.
Unfortunately, we do not get from it anything like a census of the
whole country, but it will be useful for comparison to note that
Yorkshire had about 10,000 inhabitants, London some 30,000, and that of
the other counties Lincoln and Norfolk had the largest population. The
Survey was taken in A.D. 1085.
In West Derby Hundred the following places are named[56] as places
where there was land under such cultivation or occupation as to render
it rateable: Roby, Knowsley, Kirkby, Maghull, Aughton, Huyton, Torbock,
Toxteth, Sefton, Kirkdale, Walton-on-the-Hill, Litherland, Ince
Blundell, Thornton, Meols, Little Woolton, Smithdown (now Liverpool),
Allerton, Speke, Childwall,[57] Windle, Much Woolton, Wavertree,
Bootle, Formby, Ainsley, Down Hollard, Dalton, Skelmersdale, Raven's
Meols, Orrell, Lathom, Hurleston (in Scarisbrick), Melling, Lydiate,
Altcar,[58] Barton, Halsall. At this time Lancashire between the Ribble
and the Mersey was divided into six hundreds, viz., West Derby, Newton,
Walintone (_i.e._, Warrington), Blackburn, Salford, and Leyland. The
places just named, with the addition of Newton and Warrington, are all
that were recognised in the Great Survey, and many of these were manors
held in the time of Edward by Thanes whose names are not given; others
were doubtless in the hands of Saxons, Danes or Anglo-Saxons, who had
stuck to their holdings through all changes. Some of the surnames at
once suggest this; for example, we find Godiva, the widow of Leofric,
Earl of Mercia, returned as having three carucates of land in Melling.
Amongst the other tenants _in capite_ are Dot, Uetred, Chetel, Wibert,
etc. Edward the Confessor had in West Derby one manor and six berewicks
(sub-manors), a forest 3 miles long and 1½ miles wide,[59] and an aerie
of hawks. The whole of the land between the Ribble and the Mersey had
been given to Roger de Poictou as a reward for his services to the
Conqueror, but was forfeited to the Crown shortly before this date.
All the manors were rateable to the danegeld, but fifteen of them paid
nothing to the royal exchequer except that geld. The customary tribute
for the manors was two hora or ores of pennies for each carucate of
land;[60] the owners of the manors had also to assist in making and
keeping up the King's houses, fisheries, hays, and stations in the
forest; they were also to find mowers to reap the King's corn, to
attend the hundred court, and do other small services, under certain
fixed penalties for omission.
Roger de Poictou had granted land here to eight men, whose holding was
twenty-four carucates, and they had forty-six villeins, one radman,
and sixty-two _bordarii_, two serfs, and three maids. Their wood was
4½ miles long. The _bordarii_ at this time formed about thirty per
cent. of the entire population; their exact status has never been very
clearly defined. They were probably identical with the _cotarii_,
and were a class somewhat above the _villeins_ and _servi_, and were
allowed a _bord_ or cottage, and rendered occasional service to the
demesne lord.
In Newton fifteen berewicks were held by as many men, who were
described as _drenchs_ or _drings_, who were a kind of military
vassals, holding allotments as minor or sub-manors. The service they
gave was known as _drengage_. The manor had a church (Wigan), and St.
Oswald's (Winwick) had two carucates of land. Some of the manors had
curious exemptions from penalties; for example, Orrel, Halsall, and
Tarleton were not liable to forfeiture through their owners committing
murder or rape. The Warrington manor had been held by King Edward, who
had allotted land to thirty-four _drenchs_. St. Elfin (Warrington) was
free from custom except geld. In the whole of this division of the
county we have no towns, cities, or castles, and five churches are
mentioned in Childwall, Walton-on-the-Hill, Winwick (Newton), Wigan,
and St. Elfin (Warrington).
Concerning the hundred of Blackburn, the information given in the
Domesday Book is comparatively meagre. This portion of Roger de
Poictou's vast possession had, before he fell into royal disfavour,
been given by him to Roger de Busli and Albert Greslet. Edward
the Confessor held Blackburn, where there were two hides and two
carucates[61] of land; there was a wood 1½ miles long, and the usual
aerie of hawks. To this "hundred or manor" were attached twenty-eight
freemen, who held land for twenty-eight manors, and there was a
forest 9 miles long. In the same hundred King Edward held Huncote and
Walton-le-Dale. The church of Blackburn and St. Mary's, Whalley, also
held land. The whole manor with the hundred yielded the King a farm
rent of £32 2s. Leyland Hundred Edward the Confessor found to consist
of Leyland Manor, which contained a hide and two carucates of land, and
a wood 3 miles long, 1½ miles broad, with the customary aerie of hawks;
to it belonged twelve other manors, with woods 9 miles long and over 4
miles wide. The men of this manor were not bound to work at the King's
manor-house, or to mow for him in August. They only made hay in the
wood.[62] The whole manor paid to the King a farm rent of £19 18s. 2d.
The tenants named are Hirard, Robert, Radulph, Roger, and Walter, and
there were four radmen, a priest, fourteen villeins, six _bordarii_,
and two neat-herds. Part of the hundred was waste. Edward also had in
this hundred Penwortham (_Peneverdant_), where for two carucates of
land 10d. was paid, and it is briefly recorded that there was a castle
there (see p. 47).
In Salford Hundred the manor of Salford belonged to Edward, and in his
time it consisted of three hides and twelve carucates of waste land, a
forest over 4 miles long and the same breadth; the Confessor also owned
at Radcliffe a manor containing one hide of land. To Salford Hundred
belonged twenty-one berewicks, which were held as manors by as many
Thanes, whose land was put down as eleven and a half hides and ten and
a half carucates; the woods were said to be over 12 miles in length.
The only thane named is Gamel, who held Rochdale (see p. 47). Two
churches are mentioned, St. Mary's and St. Michael's, both as holding
land in Mamecestre, this being the only mention of this great city of
the North. The whole of the hundred paid £37 4s.
Certain land of this hundred had been given by Roger de Poictou to the
following knights: Nigel, Warin, another Warin, Goisfrid and Gamel.[63]
Living on these lands were three thanes, thirty villeins, nine
_bordarii_, one priest, and ten serfs.
In the six hundreds of Derby, Newton, Warrington, Blackburn, Salford,
and Leyland there were 180 manors, in which were 79 hides rateable to
the danegeld. In King Edward's time the whole was worth £145 2s. 2d. At
the taking of the Survey it was held by William the Conqueror, and he
appears to have granted certain lands in fee to nine knights.
Amounderness had also been part of the estate of Roger de Poictou,
and had been held by Earl Tosti, who at Preston had six carucates of
land rateable to the geld, along with which he had the following vills
in the hundred: Ashton, Lea, Salwick, Clifton, Newton-with-Seales,
Freckleton, Ribby-with-Wray, Kirkham, Treales, Westby, Little
Plumpton, Weeton, Preise, Warton, Lytham, Marton (in Poulton),
Layton-with-Warbrick, Staining, Carleton, Bispham, Rossall, Brining,
Thornton, Poulton in the Fylde, Singleton, Greenhalgh, Eccleston,
Eccleston (Great and Little), Elswick, Inskip, Sowerby, Nateby, St.
Michael's-le-Wyre (_Michelscherche_), Catterall, Claughton, Newsham,
Great Plumpton, Broughton, Whittingham, Barton (in Preston), Goosnargh,
Haighton, Wheatley, Chipping, Alston, Fishwick, Grimsargh, Ribchester,
Billsborough, Swainsett, Forton, Chrimbles, Garstang, Rawcliffe (Upper,
Middle, and Out), Hambleton, Stalmine, Preesall, Mythorp or Mythop.
There were, then, in this hundred sixty-two vills or manors, in sixteen
of which the Survey reports there were "but few inhabitants, but how
many there are is unknown," and the rest were waste. There were three
churches then in existence; the names of these are not given, but they
undoubtedly were Preston, St. Michael's, and Kirkham. Other churches
there probably had been, but they had shared in the general ruin (see
Chapter V.).
The names of places thus supplied give some clue to the early history
of the district. Out of sixty-two vills, over one-third are "tons";
there are also found the Anglo-Saxon and the Danish equivalent in the
"bys" and "hams." But the most significant fact recorded by the Survey
is that out of sixty-two settlements all except sixteen were deserted
and the land lying waste; this must be accounted for by the ravages of
constant intestine wars and revolutions, which were accentuated by the
downfall of Roger de Poictou.
The Lancashire part of Lonsdale is not in the Survey found alone,
but is mixed up with portions of Westmorland, Cumberland, and
Yorkshire; the same proprietors appear as in Amounderness, Roger de
Poictou and the Earl Tosti. The places named are Halton, Aldcliff,
Thornham, Millham, Lancaster, Church Lancaster (_Chercaloncastre_),
Hutton, Newton, Overton, Middleton, Heaton, Heysham, Oxcliffe,
Poulton-le-Sands, Torrisholme, Skerton, Bare, Slyne, Bolton, Kellet,
Stapleton-Terne, Newsome, Carnforth--all these vills belonged to
Halton; Whittington, Newton, Arkholme, Gressingham, Cantsfield,
Ireby, Barrow Leek--these and several others not in Lancashire
belonged to Whittington; Warton, Claughton, Wennington, Tatham,
Farleton, and Tunstall,[64] Killerwick, Huncoat, Sowerby, Heaton,
Dalton, Swarth, Newton, Walton, Leece, Santon, Roose, Hert, Glaston,
Stainton, Cliverton, Orgreave,[65] Marton (or Martin), Pennington,
Kirkby-Ireleth, Burrow, Bardsey, Willingham, Walney, Aldingham (in
Furness), Ulverston, Ashton, and Urswick; Melling, Hornby, and
Wennington, Cockerham, Ellet, Scotforth, Yealand-Conyers, and Berwick.
It would be interesting to know how much land in the entire county was
at this time under some kind of cultivation, but owing to uncertainty
as to the exact area included by several of the measurements given in
the Survey, and the absence of details, any calculation based upon
them would at best be uncertain, and might be misleading. With some
of the parishes, however, it is possible to come at something more
reliable; in the parish of St. Michael's-on-Wyre, Domesday gives twenty
carucates of land as rateable, the rest being waste; estimating a
carucate[66] at 100 acres, we have 2,000 acres accounted for out of an
area of 18,888 acres; upon the same basis, Kirkham, with 31,000 acres,
had a little over 5,000 acres under culture; whilst Garstang, out of
28,881, has only 1,400 acres.[67]
The amount of land usually held with these vills varied from two or
three hides to half a carucate, the general figure being one or two
carucates, so that it is quite clear that all over the county the great
bulk of the land was waste.
One of the immediate effects of the completion of the Conquest was
the introduction into England of Norman feudalism. By this system the
whole country (except what was given to the Church) was handed over to
tenants in chief or great vassals, who held their lands in fee and in
perpetuity direct from the Crown, in return rendering what was known
as knight's service, every estate of £20 a year being considered a
knight's fee, and liable to furnish for the King one mounted soldier;
the vassals or under-tenants of these barons, or _tenants in capite_,
were bound by an oath of allegiance not only to the King, but also to
the owner of the fee. These sub-tenants would in many cases consist
of such of the Saxon settlers as had not been expelled by the Norman
ruler; doubtless many of the great Saxon Thanes on losing their land
were expelled from or of their own will left the country. A detailed
account of the various changes in the ownership of the soil would
here be out of place, but it should be noticed that all the land
in private holdings shortly after the Conquest passed into fresh
hands--that is, as far as regards the tenure in fee direct from the
Crown. After the final defection and consequent banishment of Roger de
Poictou in 2 Henry I. (1101-2), West Derby Hundred went to the King,
and remained in royal hands until Stephen granted it to Henry, Duke
of Normandy; Leyland passed to King John (1199-1200); Blackburn had
been bestowed by the Conqueror on Ilbert de Lacy, who came over with
him from Normandy; Salford passed through several hands to the Earl of
Chester; Amounderness went to the Crown, and was by Henry I. or Stephen
presented to Theobald Walter, son of Herveus, another Norman chief,
but in 17 John (1215-16) it again fell to the Crown, and was granted
to Edmund Crouchback, Earl of Lancaster; and in Lonsdale we find that
in 1126 Stephen, Earl of Bologne (before he became King), made over a
large portion of the northern part to the monks of Furness, but the
history of the early grantees of this district is not very clear. From
these few chief lords were granted out various manors subject to rent,
suit, and service, some portions in each district being retained in the
King's possession.
In the case of the transfer of the honour of Lancaster to Edmund
Crouchback, it appears that the King had previously granted the custody
of the county of Lancaster to Roger de Lancaster, to whom, therefore,
letters patent were addressed, promising to indemnify him.[68]
The close of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth century
witnessed a considerable increase in the population of the county,
and the consequent advance in the importance of its now growing towns.
Lancaster in 1199 had become a borough, having granted to it the same
liberties as the burgesses of Northampton. Preston, a little before
this, had been by royal charter created a free borough, in which the
burgesses were empowered to have a free guild merchant, and exemption
from tolls, together with many other privileges that King John
confirmed in 1199, and granting the additional right to hold a fair of
eight days' duration. Cartmel is reputed to have had its market before
the time of Richard I. (A.D. 1189-1199). King John in 1205
granted to Roger de Lacy the right to hold a fair at Clitheroe,[69]
and also, in 1207, gave to the burgesses in the town of Liverpool all
the liberties and customs usually enjoyed by free boroughs on the
sea-coast. Henry III. granted further charters to both Preston and
Liverpool in 1227.
In or about the year 1230, Randle de Blundeville, Earl of Chester and
Lincoln, granted that the town of Salford should be a free borough, and
that the burgesses, amongst other privileges, should each have an acre
of land to his burgage, the rent for which was to be 3d. at Christmas,
and a like sum at Mid-Lent, the Feast of St. John Baptist and the Feast
of St. Michael. The barony of Manchester was at this time in the hands
of the Greslet family, one of whom, in 1301, gave a somewhat similar
grant to Manchester, save that the clause providing the acre of land
was omitted. From these two charters several items may be extracted,
as showing the position of burgesses in those days, and their relation
to the lord of the barony or manor. At Salford, no burgess was to bake
bread for sale except at the oven provided by the lord, and a certain
proportion of his corn was to be ground at the manorial mill. The
burgesses were to have common free pasture in wood or plain, in all
pasture belonging to the town of Salford, and not be liable to pay
pannage;[70] they were also allowed to cut and use timber for building
and burning.
A burgess dying was at liberty to leave his burgage and chattels to
whomsoever he pleased, reserving to the lord the customary fee of 4d.
On the death of a burgess, his heir was to find the lord a sword, or a
bow, or a spear.
The burgesses of Manchester were to pay 12d. a year in lieu of all
service. In both charters power is given to the burgesses to elect a
reeve from amongst themselves. The social difference between the free
burgess and the _villein_ is pointedly referred to in a clause which
provides that "if any villein shall make claim of anything belonging to
a burgess, he ought not to make answer to him unless he shall have the
suit from burgesses or other lawful [or law worthy?] men."
In Lonsdale, the monks of Furness obtained a charter dated July 20,
1246, authorizing the holding of an annual fair at Dalton, where a
market had previously been established. Edmund de Lacy, in 25 Henry
III. (A.D. 1240-41), obtained a royal charter for a market
and fair at Rochdale, and a little later (in 1246) Wigan became a
free borough, with right to hold a guild. Warrington,[71] Ormskirk,
Bolton-le-Moors, and Burnley, had each its established market before
the close of the century; whilst on the north of the Ribble we find
that Kirkham, which had as early as 54 Henry III. (1269-70) obtained
a royal charter for both a fair and a market, was in 1296 made into a
free borough with a free guild, the burgesses having the right to elect
bailiffs, who were to be presented and sworn: this right subsequently
fell into disuse. At Garstang, very early in the next century, the
abbots of Cockersand were authorized to hold both a market and fair.
Possibly some few other towns may have received similar privileges,
and the record thereof been lost; but we have clear evidence that
before the end of the reign of Edward I. (A.D. 1307) there
were not far short of a score of Lancashire market towns, each of
which doubtless formed the centre of a not inconsiderable number of
inhabitants, some of whom were free men, whilst others were little
better than villeins or serfs, their condition varying somewhat in the
different manorial holdings into which the district was divided.
Churches and monasteries had sprung up (see Chap. IX.), and a few
castles probably kept watch over the insecure places. The houses,
such as they were, timber being plentiful, were built of wood; the
occupation of the people was chiefly agricultural, and in the forests
were fed large herds of swine, the flesh of which formed a large
portion of the food of the inhabitants; but in each of the towns there
were small traders and artisans, among whom, in many cases, were formed
trade or craft guilds. The power of the great barons appears now to
have become somewhat less, and the land through various processes began
to be more divided, and we find in the owners of the newly acquired
tenures the ancestors of the gentry and yeomen of a later date.
The forests of Lancashire at this date were of immense extent; they may
be enumerated as these: Lonsdale, Wyresdale, Quernmore, Amounderness,
Bleasdale, Fullwood, Blackburnshire, Pendle, Trawden, Accrington, and
Rossendale. The law respecting forests dates back to Saxon times;
Canute, whilst he was King, issued a Charter and Constitution of
Forests. By this charter verderers were to be appointed in every
province in the kingdom, and under these were other officers known as
regarders and foresters.
If any freeman offered violence to one of the verderers he lost his
freedom and all that he was possessed of, whilst for the same offence a
villein had his right hand cut off, and for a second offence either a
freeman or a villein was put to death. For chasing or killing any beast
of the forest the penalties were at best very severe: the freeman for a
first offence got off with a fine, but a bondsman was to lose his skin.
Freemen were allowed to keep greyhounds, but unless they were kept at
least ten miles from a royal forest their knees were to be cut.
King John, whilst Earl of Morton, held the prerogatives of the
Lancashire forests, and he granted a charter (which, when he became
King, he confirmed) to the knights and freeholders, whereby they were
permitted to hunt and take foxes, hares and rabbits, and all kind of
wild beasts except the stag, hind and roebuck, and wild hogs in all
parts of his forests, beyond the demesne boundaries.
In the succeeding reign, however, the freemen were again troubled by
the arbitrary and harsh treatment of the royal foresters, and in vain
appealed to the King for relief. Edward I. to some extent relaxed the
rigour of the laws, but still assizes of forests were regularly held at
Lancaster, and presentments made for killing and taking deer, and the
like offences, but the penalties were not nearly so severe as formerly.
Many cases might be quoted. At the forest assize at Lancaster on
the Monday after Easter in 1286, Adam de Carlton, Roger the son of
Roger of Midde Routhelyne, and Richard his brother, were charged with
having killed three stags in the moss of Pelyn (Pilling in Garstang),
which was part of the royal forest of Wyresdale.[72] About the same
date, Nicholas de Werdhyll having slain a fat buck in the forest of
Rochdale,[73] the keepers of the Earl of Lincoln's forest came by
night, seized him, and dragged him to Clitheroe Castle, where he was
imprisoned until he paid a fine of four marks.[74]
Sometimes it was not the individual who was the offender, but the
whole of the inhabitants. Thus, in 34 Edward III. (1360-61) a sum of
520 marks was levied upon the men and freeholders within the forest
of Quernmore and the natives of Lonsdale, being their portion of a
fine of £1,000 incurred for their trespass against the assize of the
forest.[75] No doubt this was a convenient way of raising money.
The number of writs of pardon for trespasses against the forest laws,
which are still preserved amongst the duchy records belonging to the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, suggest that the offender had to
purchase his pardon. The religious men, as they were called, and the
clergy often had granted to them the right to hunt in the forests, as
well as other privileges. As an example of the latter may be named the
grant made in 1271 by Edmund Crouchback to the Prior and monks of St.
Mary's of Lancaster, to the effect that they might for ever take from
the forests in Lancaster,[76] except in Wyresdale, two cartloads of
dead wood for their fuel every day in the year, and have free ingress
and egress into the forest with one cart for two horses, or with two
carts for four horses, to seek for and carry such wood away. Gradually,
as the population increased, and as the personal interest of the Dukes
of Lancaster in the forests themselves became less, many of these old
forest laws fell gradually into disuse; but as late as 1697 a royal
warrant was issued to the foresters and other officers of the forests,
parks, and chases of Lancashire, calling upon them to give annually an
account of all the King's deer within the same, and also to report how
many were slain, by whom, and by whose authority.
The regulations as to fishing in the rivers of the county were not so
comprehensive as the forest laws; but the value of various fisheries
was fully recognised, and they became a source of revenue. In 1359 Adam
de Skyllicorne had a six years' lease of the fishing in the Ribble
at Penwortham, with the demesne lands, for which he paid six marks a
year, and in the succeeding year justices were assigned to inquire
into the stoppages of the passages in the same river, by which the
Duke's fishery of Penwortham was destroyed and ships impeded on their
way to the port of Preston. Fishing in the sea as a trade also met
with encouragement, for in A.D. 1382 a precept was issued to
the Sheriff to publish the King's mandate, prohibiting any person in
the duchy who held lands on the coast from preventing fishermen from
setting their nets in the sea and catching fish for their livelihood;
and in 13 Richard II. (1389-90) an Act was passed appointing a close
time for salmon in the Lune, Wyre, Mersey and Ribble.
Notwithstanding that the fishing rights on both sides the Ribble had
been leased or sold with the demesne lands, nearly 200 years later the
King still claimed all manner of wrecks and fish royal which were cast
upon the shore. On this point a suit in the duchy court appeared in
1536, in which the King's bailiff charged one Christopher Bone with
having taken away sturgeon and porpoises which had been washed ashore
at Warton, in the parish of Kirkham, whereas they of right belonged to
his Majesty.[77] It may be noted that at this time the porpoise was
considered "a dainty dish to set before the King."
The Normans did not, as has been frequently stated, introduce that
dreadful disease, leprosy, into England, as there were hospitals set
apart for leprosy at Ripon, Exeter, and Colchester some time before
their advent. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries leprosy was
very prevalent in the northern parts of Lancashire; and to meet the
requirements a hospital was founded at Preston in the time of Henry
III. How the lepers who were not in the hospitals were dealt with
we have no evidence to show, but that they were harshly, not to say
cruelly, treated, and were in a measure outcasts, may be safely assumed.
Shortly before April 10, A.D. 1220, Henry III. addressed a
letter to Hubert de Burgh, instructing him to order the Sheriff and
forester of Lancaster to desist from annoying the lepers there;[78]
and this not proving efficient, a royal writ was issued to the Sheriff
(dated April 10) directing that officer to see that they were no longer
molested by Roger Garnet and others, and that henceforth they were
to have their beasts and herds in the forest without exaction of ox
or cow, and also to be allowed to take wood for fuel and timber for
building.
From this it appears clear that these lepers lived apart from the rest
of the community, in houses or huts erected by themselves, and were
not allowed to enter even a church; hence the use of what are known as
leper windows, one of which still remains in the north chancel wall of
Garstang Church. Leprosy continued with great severity for upwards of
a couple of centuries, but towards the time of Henry VIII. it appears
to have gradually decreased, and in the days of his immediate successor
had almost died out.
The various Crusades of the twelfth century found many followers from
Lancashire, and even when the Christians were fast losing their Asiatic
possession it was thought worth while to appeal to this county for
help, as we find, in June, 1291, the Archbishop of York instructing the
Friars there to send three Friars to preach on behalf of the Crusades;
one was to address the people at or near Lancaster, another at some
place convenient for the Lonsdale inhabitants, and a third at Preston,
in such a locality as it was believed the greatest congregation could
be got together.[79]
The history of the wars between England and Scotland is a page of
the general history, but it will be necessary here to state that in
1290 there were thirteen claimants to the Scottish crown, and this
led to the beginning of the "Border warfare" between the people on
the two sides of the Solway Firth, the Cheviots and the Tweed. Edward
I., taking advantage of the position, put in a claim to the Scottish
throne, and afterwards took possession as suzerain of the disputed
feudal holding.
In 1292 Baliol was appointed King of Scotland with the consent of
Edward I., to whom, however, homage had to be done, and out of this
right of appeal, thus claimed by the King of England, arose that long
series of wars between the two kingdoms which began in the early part
of the year 1296, when Edward crossed the Tweed with an army of 12,000
men.
These wars were a great tax upon Lancashire, as, besides being subject
to constant invasions, and bearing its share of the subsidies, from
it were drawn from time to time large numbers of its bravest and best
men. In 1297 Lancashire raised 3,000 men, and at the battle of Falkirk,
in the vanguard, led by Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, there were
1,000 soldiers from this county. Another 1,000 foot soldiers were
raised in 1306, and this constant drain continued for many years.
After the battle of Bannockburn in 1314, the victorious Bruce besieged
Carlisle, but after a long struggle he was obliged to retire, the
commander of the castle, Sir Andrew de Harcla, as a recognition of his
gallant services, receiving from the King the custody of Cumberland,
Westmorland and Lancashire.[80] Within a very few years, on a charge
of treason, he was hung, drawn and quartered at Carlisle, one of the
pleas raised against him being that he had allowed Bruce to pass into
Cumberland and Lancashire, where his army had plundered and marauded in
every direction; this was in July, 1322.
In the second half of this century we find several levies made upon
Lancashire for soldiers to march against the Scots, but after this
the county was not subjected to the frequent invasions with which its
inhabitants had been too long familiar. The most serious of these
invasions was the one in July, 1322, and of the effects of this and
other raids we have an authentic record in the _Nonarum Inquisitiones_,
taken (for North Lancashire) in 15 Edward III. (A.D. 1341).
The commission appointed to levy this tax on the corn, wool, lambs, and
other tithable commodities and glebe lands, were specially instructed
to ascertain the value in 1292 (Pope Nicholas' Taxation), and the
then value, and where there was a material difference between the
two, they were to ascertain the reason of such increase or decrease.
They reported that at Lancaster much of the land was now sterile and
uncultivated through the invasions of the Scots, that Ribchester and
Preston had almost been destroyed by them, and that at the following
places the value of the tithes was very seriously reduced through
the same agency, viz., Cockerham, Halton, Tunstall, Melling, Tatham,
Claughton, Walton, Whytington, Dalton, Ulverston, Aldingham, Urswick,
Pennington, Cartmel, Kirkham, St. Michael's-on-Wyre, Lytham, Garstang,
Poulton, Ribchester and Chipping; except the two latter, all these are
in Amounderness, and north of the Ribble; into none of the other parts
of the county do the Scots appear to have penetrated. In some cases
the reduction amounted to something like fifty per cent.; in fact, the
invaders must have set fire to buildings and laid waste the land all
along their line of march.
Clitheroe Castle, though perhaps never a very extensive fortification,
is one of the oldest foundations in the county, probably dating back
to Saxon times. It stands in a commanding situation on the summit of
a rock rising out of the plain, about a mile from Pendle Hill; in
Domesday Book it is described as the Castle of Roger (Roger de Lacy).
Of the original building nothing is now left but the keep, a square
tower of small dimensions. The honour dependent upon this castle
extended over a very large area, part only of which is in Lancashire;
it included Whalley, Blackburn, Chipping, Ribchester, Tottington (in
Salford Hundred), and Rochdale, and consequently the manors of all
these places were at one time held of the castle of Clitheroe. Henry
de Lacy, second Earl of Lincoln and great-grandson of Roger de Lacy,
was born in 1250, and, like his ancestor, he made this castle his
Lancashire stronghold and residence, and here each year his tenants
and the stewards of the various manors attended his courts to render
in their accounts and offer the suit and service required. The town
of Clitheroe must, on the occasions when the Earl was at the castle,
have put on a festive appearance, as the lord of the honour is said
to have assumed an almost regal state. Several of the accounts of the
stewards, parkers, and other servants of the Earl have fortunately been
preserved, and we are by them enabled to get a glimpse at the social
life of the Lancashire people between the years 1295 and 1305.[81] We
find that, besides the forests of Pendle, Accrington, Rossendale and
Trawden, there were parks at Ightenhill and Musbury, well stocked with
deer. There were over twenty vaccaries, or breeding farms, all of which
added to the Earl's income. On the estates were iron forges, and iron
smelting was practised, and of course coal was dug up from the seams
lying near the surface.
The following extracts from these rolls will serve to illustrate the
historical value of the details furnished.[82] Full allowance must be
made by the reader for the difference in value of money between the
thirteenth and the nineteenth centuries;[83] and it must be remembered
that labourers in addition to their wages generally received rations,
and were sometimes housed.
£ _s._ _d._
82½ stone of cheese and 27½ stone of butter 2 10 2
2 wagons, etc., and 2 axes 0 3 9½
Food and wages for a man leading the wagons and
cart during one year, and carrying hay and fencing 1 5 5½
Mowing 11½ acres of meadow 0 5 9
Threshing and winnowing 53 quarters 0 3 10½
Rebuilding and roofing a house 0 19 0¾
Rent of Colne and Walfred Mill, less tithe 12 16 0
„ „ fulling Mill 1 13 4½
80 cattle of the Abbot of Whalley agisted[84] in
Rossendale Forest 0 13 4
A forge for iron, framed out in Rossendale[85] 3 0 0
Tolls of fairs, markets, and stallage at Rochdale
(1 year) 2 13 8
Old brushwood for a forge (for 13 weeks) 0 13 0
Winter herbage on Pendle Hill 2 13 0
Summer herbage there 2 5 0
17 ash-trees 0 10 0
A stray mare 0 3 0
80 wild boars 3 6 1
Rent of Burnley Mill (deducting tithe) 10 0 0
Fishery of Northmeols 1 6 8
Rent (in lieu of ½ lb. of pepper) 0 0 6
„ ( „ „ one pair of gloves) 0 0 1½
„ 52 acres 1 rood of land at Accrington 1 11 9
Accrington Hall, Kitchen and Grange (rent) 0 4 0
3 vaccaries at Accrington (rent) 5 3 1½
Brushwood and ore sold to a forge at Accrington
for 27 weeks 1 14 6
Herbage of Clitherow Castle ditches 0 1 6
„ „ the garden and loft adjoining 0 3 0
Toll of the Fair and Market of Clitheroe 8 0 6
Produce of 27 vaccaries let out 81 0 0
Goods of Elias Thayn, a felon beheaded 6 10 0
Haymaking a three-acre meadow 0 2 4½
Wages of the parker of Ightenhill Forest 2 5 6
The Abbot of Salley for finding a lamp for the soul of
Earl John [de Lacy] 0 6 8
Fulling Mill at Burnley, built anew 2 12 6½
For merchat[86] of 2 women 0 13 4
3 oxen 1 16 0
Hides of 9 mares, 2 foals of the 3rd year, and 7 foals of
the 2nd year 0 4 9
4 quarters of oates 0 9 0
Mowing 60½ acres of meadow 0 17 7¾
Making and stacking the hay 0 12 7
Reaping, gathering and binding 16 acres of oats 0 6 10½
Making anew 2 waggons 0 2 8
Food and wages of one harrower in seedtime 0 3 4
Wages of 109 men reaping corn as if on one day 0 17 7½
Wheat sold, 1 qr. 5 bus. 0 13 9
213 oxen sold 105 13 2
168 cows, 5 bulls and 2 calves sold 67 8 4
Wages for the porter of Clitheroe Castle ½ a year 1 2 9
2 pairs of gloves and 1 pair of spurs (for rent) 0 0 5
Iron ore (in Clivacher) for 10 weeks (sold) 0 6 8
Expenses of 16 hawks at Clitheroe, and of grooms carrying
them to London, with cocks bought for them 1 0 5½
Carrying the Earl's bed to Denbigh 0 1 8
Making and planting nine hundred five score and six
perches of paling round Musbury Park, with the
carriage of the said palings in part from Tollington
Wood 60 10 5¼
18 oxen bought for the carriage of the paling 8 17 9
91 loads 6½ dishes of ore bought of the miners: 9 dishes
make a load; price per load, 22d. 8 8 1½
9½ fothers 7 pieces 1 stone of lead brought from the
same (of which 6 stone make a piece, and 25 pieces
make a fother) 13 13 3
Cutting down and cutting up wood for burning the said
ore 0 7 5
Making a pair of bellows anew for burning the said ore 0 7 8
Making and binding with iron a pair of scales for
weighing the lead, and making other necessary utensils 0 2 6
Making a shed for the lead and an enclosure for the ore 0 5 8
From these references to smelting of lead it is quite clear that the
operation was being performed here for the first time--probably as an
experiment; but where did the ore come from? A reference is made to
carrying ore from Baxenden (near Accrington) to Bradford (in Salford),
but there is no evidence that lead was ever worked or discovered there,
so probably the ore was imported from some lead-mining district.
Sea-coal (_carbones maris_) is thrice mentioned as being paid for in
the Cliviger and Colne district, where it had no doubt been dug up.
The Compotus of the Earl of Lincoln contains many details referring to
the various vaccaries in his holding; each of these was looked after
by an _instaurator_, or bailiff, who lived generally at the Grange,
whilst his various assistants occupied the humbler "booths." Accrington
vaccary may be accepted as a sample; there were there when the stock
was taken on January 26, 1297, 106 cows, 3 bulls, 24 steers, 24
heifers, 31 yearlings, and 46 calves.
In this, as in all the other vaccaries, many cattle died from murrain,
and some fell victims to the wolves which infested all the forests.
Toward the end of the year 1349 Lancashire was visited with the
pestilence known as the Black Death, which about this time broke
out again and again in almost every part of the civilized world. By
a fortunate accident a record of the dreadful ravages made by this
disease in the Hundred of Amounderness has been preserved.
It appears that the Archdeacon of Richmond (in whose jurisdiction was
the whole of Lancashire north of the Ribble) and Adam de Kirkham, Dean
of Amounderness, his Proctor, had a dispute relative to the fees for
the probate of wills and the administration of the effects of persons
dying intestate; the matter was referred to a jury of laymen, whose
report furnishes a return of the number of deaths from the plague, and
other details which may be accepted as at all events fairly correct,
although the district must have been at the time in such a state of
panic as to render the collection of statistical facts extremely
difficult.
In ten parishes in Amounderness, 13,180 died between September 8, 1349,
and January 11, 1349-50, and nine benefices were vacant in consequence.
The chapel of the hospital of St. Mary Magdalen at Preston was without
a priest for eight weeks, and in that town 3,000 men and women
perished; of these, 300 had goods worth £5, and left wills, but 200
others with the like property made no wills. At Poulton-le-Fylde the
deaths amounted to 800; at Lancaster 3,000 died, at Garstang 2,000, and
at Kirkham 3,000, whilst the other less thickly populated places each
lost more or less of its inhabitants.[87] How the rest of Lancashire
fared under this dreadful visitation is uncertain, but Manchester and a
few other places in the south of the county are said to have suffered
very heavily.
We have already seen that Edmund Crouchback, the favourite son of the
King, had given to him the honour of Lancaster, which was confirmed
by Henry III., who granted (in 1267) to him the castle of Kenilworth,
the castle and manor of Monmouth, and other territories in various
parts of the kingdom. The founder of the house of Lancaster died at
Bayonne in May, 1296, and Thomas, his eldest son, succeeded to his
vast possessions in Lancashire and elsewhere; and in 1297-98 he passed
through the county in company with his royal master on his way to
Scotland; in 1310 he married Alice, the sole daughter of Henry de Lacy,
Earl of Lincoln, and then got possession of the great estates in the
county which had for several generations belonged to the De Lacy family.
In 1316-17 one of the followers of the Earl of Lancaster, in order,
it is said, to ingratiate himself with the King, invaded some of the
possessions of the Earl, and the result was a pitched battle, which
took place near Preston, in which Banastre and his army were completely
defeated.
The subsequent quarrel between this celebrated Earl of Lancaster
and the King is well known, and need not be repeated here; finding
himself unable to meet the royal forces, he retired to his castle at
Pontefract, where he was ultimately retained as a prisoner, and near
to which town, after suffering great indignities and insults, he was
executed as a traitor, March 22, 1321-22. Thomas, Earl of Lancaster,
was succeeded by Henry his brother, who, on the reversion of the
attainder of the latter, had granted to him, in A.D. 1327,
the issues and arrearages of the lands, etc., which had belonged to
the earldom of Lancaster and Leicester. On the death of Henry, Earl
of Lancaster, the title went to his son Henry (called Grismond), who
became Earl of Lancaster, Derby, and Lincoln, and was, as a crowning
honour, for his distinguished military services, created in 1353 the
first Duke of Lancaster, for his life, having his title confirmed by
the prelates and peers assembled in Parliament at Westminster. He
was empowered to hold a chancery court for Lancaster, and to issue
writs there under his own seal, and to enjoy the same liberties and
regalities as belonged to a county palatine,[88] in as ample manner as
the Earl of Chester had within that county. Henry, who for his deeds
of piety was styled "the Good Duke of Lancaster," obtained a license
to go to Syracuse to fight against the infidels there; but being taken
prisoner in Germany, he only regained his liberty by the payment of a
heavy fine. Towards the close of his life he lived in great state in
his palace of Savoy, and became a great patron to several religious
houses, one of which was Whalley Abbey (see Chapter IX.). He died March
24, 1360-61, leaving two daughters, one of whom (Blanch) was married
to John of Gaunt, Earl of Richmond, fourth son of Edward III.; and to
her he bequeathed his Lancashire possessions, and on the death of her
sister Maud, the widow of the Duke of Bavaria, in A.D. 1362,
without issue, she became entitled to the remainder of the vast estates
of her late father.
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.
[Illustration]
[Footnote 56: In the original document the names are often very
different to the ones now in use, but they have all been identified as
referring to the localities above given.]
[Footnote 57: "There is a priest there having half a carucate of land
in frank amoign."]
[Footnote 58: Said to be waste.]
[Footnote 59: Other forests are named at Latham, Aughton, Milling,
Lydiate, and other places.]
[Footnote 60: The hora was not a coin, but an equivalent for about 1s.
6d. or 1s. 8d.]
[Footnote 61: In South Lancashire it is believed that six carucates
made a hide. A carucate was about 100 acres, but was a variable term.]
[Footnote 62: This will serve as a proof that _foresta_ (= a wood or
forest) was not necessarily a dense mass of trees, but rather a place
where game of every kind abounded.]
[Footnote 63: Their individual holdings are 3 hides and half a
carucate, 2 carucates, 1½ carucates, 1 carucate and 2 carucates =
3 hides and 7 carucates. Their united holding is put down as 22
carucates, so that a hide in this case equals 5 carucates.]
[Footnote 64: Bentham (in Yorkshire), Wennington, Tatham, and Tunstall
are described as four manors, where there were three churches.]
[Footnote 65: Now Titeup.]
[Footnote 66: Authorities differ on the exact area, but probably the
above is not far from the figure.]
[Footnote 67: Fishwick's "History of St. Michael's-on-Wyre," _Chetham
Soc._, xxv. 3 (new series).]
[Footnote 68: Honour of Lancaster granted to him June 30, 1267, and
letters patent issued to the tenants of the honour to do their homage
and be obedient to him as their lord, February 16, 1268. In 1269 a
similar letter was sent to William le Boteler, and in 1270 to Henry de
Lacy, Robert de Stockfort, and the Abbot of Furness.]
[Footnote 69: Charters of duchy. See 31st Report of the Deputy-Keeper
of the Public Records, p. 6.]
[Footnote 70: Toll for swine feeding in the woods.]
[Footnote 71: A fair in 1255.]
[Footnote 72: Carta de Foresta: Record Office.]
[Footnote 73: Rossendale Forest adjoins this parish.]
[Footnote 74: Plac. de Quo War., Edw. I.: Record Office.]
[Footnote 75: Duchy Chancery Rolls, chap. xxv., A 2ᵇ.]
[Footnote 76: The honour of Lancaster.]
[Footnote 77: See Fishwick's "History of Kirkham," _Chetham Soc._,
xcii.]
[Footnote 78: Royal Letters, Henry III., No. 185.]
[Footnote 79: "Letters from _Northern Register_," p. 97.]
[Footnote 80: See "Popular History of Cumberland," p. 231.]
[Footnote 81: The original rolls are in the Record Office. They have
been printed by the Chetham Society, vol. cxii.]
[Footnote 82: All the extracts refer to the Lancashire part of the
honour, and to the years between 1295 and 1305.]
[Footnote 83: Authorities differ on this point, but all agree that
money in the thirteenth century was worth many times its present
equivalent coin. At the very least, it requires to be multiplied by
ten.]
[Footnote 84: _Agisted_ = allowed to graze in the forest.]
[Footnote 85: In 1338 the Abbot of Whalley charged certain persons
armed "with swords and bows and arrows" with having taken away his
goods, and, _inter alia_, 300 pieces of iron, and from the evidence
adduced it appears that near Whitworth (in Rochdale parish), which is
adjoining Rossendale, the Abbot and others were accustomed to dig up
the ironstone and smelt it. (See Fishwick's "History of Rochdale," p.
84.)]
[Footnote 86: _Merchats_ = fines paid to the lord for marriage of a
daughter. The above sum was the sum returned to the tenant because it
was found that the women were not daughters of villeins.]
[Footnote 87: Treasury Receipts, 21a/3 Record Office; also _English
Hist. Review_, 1890.]
[Footnote 88: Lancashire is said to have enjoyed the privilege of a
palatinate in the time of Roger de Poictou, but the evidence is not
convincing.]
[Footnote 89: So described on his tomb in Westminster Abbey.]
[Footnote 90: Baines' "History of Lancashire," i. 45 (second edition).]
[Footnote 91: The records of this court are preserved in the Record
Office.]
[Footnote 92: In 1850 the revenue account of the duchy shows a very
long list of estates in many counties. One half of the whole yearly
income was, however, derived from Salford, the largest rent being £285
for land in Pendleton. The Corporation of Salford still pay in lieu of
tolls a fixed rent of £5 a year. In 1850 the payments from the duchy to
the Queen amounted to £12,000, which in 1893 had increased to £48,000.]
[Footnote 93: See Baines' "History of Lancashire," i. 57 (second
edition).]
[Footnote 94: Meyrick's "Ancient Armour," i. 137.]
[Footnote 95: Report of Deputy-Keeper of Public Records, xxxiii. 21.]
[Footnote 96: Stubbs's "Select Charters," p. 40.]
[Footnote 97: See "The Parliamentary Representation of Lancashire," by
W. J. Pink.]
[Footnote 98: See "History of Rochdale," p. 33.]
[Footnote 99: Baines' "History of Lancashire," ii. 359 (second
edition).]
[Footnote 100: Report of Deputy-Keeper of Public Records, xxxii. 354.]
[Footnote 101: See detailed account of the plan of this castle in
_Lanc. and Ches. Hist. Soc._, vol. vi., new series.]
[Footnote 102: Record Office, Roll of Fines, etc., chap. xxv., A 7, No.
14; also Coucher Book of Furness.]
[Footnote 103: Turton Tower, near Bolton, claims to be a very ancient
foundation, but as its name never occurs in the ancient charters
heretofore discovered, it appears doubtful if it dates back beyond the
fifteenth century.]
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