Kitabı oku: «A History of Lancashire», sayfa 6
In 1476 further repairs were done, but the object of these appears to have been rather of a domestic than military character. At this time three towers are named: the new tower, the prison tower, and the great tower.101
Besides the castles already mentioned, there were a few others of minor importance. Hornby Castle, in the parish of Melling, may possibly date back to the time of the Edwards, and is several times referred to in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. On the western side of the peninsula of Furness, which is separated from Cumberland by the waters of the Duddon, lies the Island of Walney, which has near to it several other small islands, on one of which was built the ancient castle or peel long known as the Pile of Fouldrey. The waters near to its site formed a natural harbour capable of floating, even at low tide, the largest vessels at that early period in use, and to protect that and the adjacent country this castle was erected. It is of great antiquity; it was certainly there in the twelfth century, as appears from a precept issued on March 13, 1404 to the escheator for the county to “amove the King’s hands from the island called Wawenay [Walney], the cause of the seizure being insufficient.” The reason why the King had taken possession is then clearly stated, viz.: “That King Stephen, having granted to the Abbot and Convent of the Monastery of St. Mary of Furness certain lands and tenements in the island called Wawenay [Walney] in Furness on condition of sustaining and keeping in repair a certain castle or fortress called La Pele de Fotheray for the defence of the country there, the said castle was now prostrated by John de Bolton the Abbot and the Convent of Furness, to the great fear of all the country.”102
It was here that Lambert Simnel, the pretended son of the Duke of Clarence, landed in 1487, and was joined by Sir Thomas Broughton. The subsequent history of this stronghold is very obscure; in 1588 it is described as an old decayed castle.
In the parish of Tunstall, Sir Thomas Tunstall, in the time of Henry IV., built Thurland Castle on a rising piece of ground between the Greta and the Cant.103
Of the religious houses and churches which had sprung up since the coming of the Normans, it need only here be stated that they had now spread all over the county, and that the Christian creed had become the religion of the entire community (see Chapter IX.).
The impending final struggle between the rival Houses of York and Lancaster would probably not excite any very great interest in the minds of the people of this county, except that they had again been called upon to find men for Lord Stanley’s army, which the King had commissioned him to raise in the counties of Lancashire and Cheshire; this force is supposed to have been about 5,000 strong, and it virtually decided the battle, as Lord Stanley, on the field, turned against the King, and led his troops to the support of Richmond.
With the death of Richard III., the last Plantagenet King, on the field of Bosworth, came an end of that system of government which had existed for nearly 300 years, and the old feudal chain was soon to be broken, and Englishmen were to become more their own masters and less the blind followers of their social superiors; and, moreover, they were soon to find themselves free from the tyranny of priestcraft and superstitions, and prejudices were to be gradually dispersed by the increase of civilization and freedom.
Towards this end the introduction of printing was a powerful lever, for when John Caxton, in 1472, set up his press in London, the priest could no longer prevent the spread of knowledge, and it was not long before the printed books found their way into Lancashire.
With the spread of literature and knowledge came the spirit of adventure and enterprise, which soon raised the country to a position which it had not heretofore occupied.
CHAPTER VII
LANCASHIRE IN THE TIME OF THE TUDORS (A.D. 1485–1603)
As soon as Henry VII. was firmly seated on the throne, he proceeded to reverse the attainders which his predecessor had passed against certain of the prominent adherents of the House of Lancaster, and at the same time confiscating the estates of (amongst others) Sir Thomas Pilkington, Lord Robert Harrington and Sir James Harrington, all of whom took part in the battle of Bosworth Field, and were natives of Lancashire, their properties were nearly all at once given to Lord Stanley, who was at the same time created Earl of Derby, and elected a member of the King’s Privy Council. Not ten years after this, Sir William Stanley, brother of the Earl, became mixed up with the Perkin Warbeck rebellion, and notwithstanding the influence of the latter, he was arraigned upon a charge of high treason, and, being found guilty, was executed on February 15, 1495; his chief seat was at Holt Castle, in Denbighshire.
It seems strange that, in the same year that this tragedy was enacted, the King came in state to pay a visit to his mother, who was now the second wife of the Earl of Derby. To entertain their Majesties (for the Queen came also) with becoming dignity, the Earl spared no expense, even erecting a new bridge across the Mersey, near Warrington, for his special use, which bridge has since been used by the public. The expenses incurred by the royal journey from Chester to Knowsley were duly recorded, and are of interest:
July 18 [1495]. At Winwick, 20th at Latham: To Sir Richard Pole for 200 jucquetts, price of every pece, 1s. 6d., £15. 100 horsemen for fourteen days, every of them 9d. by day, £52 10s. For their conduyt for 3 days, every of them 9d. by day, £11 5s. For the wages of 100 footmen for fourteen days, every of them 6d. by day, £35. For their conduyt for four days, every of them 6d. by day, £10. For shipping, vitailling and setting over the see the foresaid 200 men, with an 100 horses, £13 6s. 8d. To the shirif awayting upon Sʳ Sampson for the safe conduyt of the foresaid souldeours, 2s.
Aug. 2. To Picard a herrald of Fraunce in reward, £6 13s. 4d. To the women that songe before the Kinge and the Queene in rewarde, 6s. 8d.
3rd. At Knowsley. 4th At Warrington. 5. At Manchester.
Lancashire, in 1485, is said to have suffered considerably from the “sweating sickness” which was at this time very prevalent in many parts of the kingdom; but in the absence of contemporary notices of it, it may be assumed not to have appeared here in its severest form.
Towards the £40,000 granted by the Parliament of 1504 to the King, Lancashire’s share was a trifle over £318; and the commissioners appointed to collect it in the county were Thomas Boteler, John Bothe, Pears Lee, Richard Bold, John Sowthworth, and Thomas Lawrence, knights, and William Thornborough and Cuthbert Clifton, esquires.
We have now seen the close of the fifteenth century, which has been described as “a blustering, quarrelsome fellow, who lived in a house with strong barricades all round it, his walls pierced with narrow holes, through which he could shoot his visitors if he did not think they were approaching him in a friendly manner,” and we are entering on the sixteenth century, which “improved a little on this, but still planted his house with turrets which commanded the entrance door, and had an immense gate studded with iron nails, and unsurmountable walls round his courtyard.”
The days of building castles and strongly fortified houses was indeed over, but still everyone looked with some suspicion on his neighbour, and the old English saying, was not quite forgotten.
Let him keep who has the power,
And let him take who can,
Of the class of fortified houses erected about this date, a good example is afforded by Greenhalgh Castle. By a royal license granted to Thomas, Earl of Derby, in 1490, he was authorized to erect in Greenhalgh (in the parish of Garstang) a building or buildings with stone or other materials, and to “embattle, turrellate or crenelate, machiolatte,” or otherwise fortify the same; authority was at the same time given to enclose a park, and to have in it free warren and chase. Camden says that the Earl built this to protect himself from certain of the nobility of the county whose estates had been forfeited to the Crown and bestowed upon himself. This account of the origin of this castle is probably correct.
The great religious changes in Lancashire, brought about by what has been called the anti–Papal revolt, and the subsequent Reformation, will be reserved for a future page (see Chapter IX.).
The old strife between England and Scotland had now again been renewed, and the conflict culminated in the battle of Flodden, where the Lancashire archers, led by Sir Edward Stanley, almost totally destroyed the Highlanders who composed the right wing of the Scottish army. The other Lancashire leaders were Sir William Mollineux of Sefton, Sir William Norris of Speke, and Sir Ralph Ashton of Middleton.
No wonder that this decisive victory should become a favourite theme of the poet and the minstrel. There are several old poems referring to the Lancashire men and the field of Flodden; one of these, which is certainly 300 years old, has been printed by the Chetham Society;104 it consists of nearly 700 lines, of which the following will serve as a sample:
Lancashire, like lyons
layden them aboute!
All had been lost by our Lorde!
had not these leddes [lads] bene.
For the care of the Scottes
increased full sore
For their King was downe knocked
and killed in their sight,
Under the banner of a bishop
that was the bold Standley!
Ther they fetilde105 them to fly
As fast as they might.
Another long poem on the same subject is preserved in the Record Office;106 it gives also a glowing account of how the “lusty lads,” led by the “lusty Stanley stout,” went forth “in armour bold for battle drest,” and how —
From Warton unto Warrington,
From Wigan unto Wiresdale,
From Weddecon [Wedacre] to Waddington,
From Ribchester to Rochdale,
From Poulton to Preston, with pikes,
They with Stanley out went forth.
From Pemberton and Pilling dikes,
For battle billmen bold were bent.
In Middleton Church there was a brass to the memory of Sir Ralph Assheton and his bowmen, and a painted window still remains to commemorate the event. Of the general state of some of the larger towns of the county, we have a brief record from the pen of that careful antiquary John Leland, who went through Lancashire in 1533. Manchester he says was “the fairest, best built, quickest [i. e., liveliest] and most populous town in Lancashire; well set a worke in makinge of clothes as well of lynnen as of woollen, whereby they have obtained, gotten and come vnto riches and welthy lyuings, and have kepte and set manye artificers and poor folkes to work;” and in “consequence of their honesty and true dealing, many strangers, as wel of Ireland as of other places within this realme, have resorted to the said towne with lynnen yarne, woollen, and other wares for makinge clothes.” So great a name had Manchester now got for the making of woollen cloth that in an Act passed in 1552 Manchester “rugs and frizes” are specially named; and in 1566 it became necessary to pass another Act to regulate the fees of the queen’s aulneger (measurer), who was to have his deputies at Bolton, Blackburn and Bury. The duty of these officers was to prevent “cottons, frizes and rugs” being sold unsealed. Cottons were not what is now meant by this term, but were all of woollen.107 Cotton manufacture did not begin until a century later. Manchester at this time probably consisted of some ten or a dozen narrow streets108 and lanes, all radiating from the old church; its water was from a single spring rising in what is now Fountain Street, and which flowed down Market Street to Smithy Door. The town business was conducted in a building called the “Booths,” where the court of the lord of the manor was held, and near to which stood the stocks, the pillory and whipping–post, and not far distant was the cucking–stool pool. These streets were narrow, ill–paved, or not paved at all; the houses were of wood and plaster, with the upper stories projecting and mostly roofed with thatching. The only church in Manchester was the collegiate or parish church, which stood on the site of the present cathedral in the time of Edward VI.; the lord of the manor of Manchester was Sir Thomas West, Knight, ninth Baron de la Ware. The early records of the Manchester court leet109 have been preserved, and furnish some interesting details of the life of the dwellers in the town at this period.
In 1522, amongst the officers of the court, were two ale–founders (or, as they are generally called, ale–tasters or conners), two byrlamen (lawmen) to overlook the “market stede,” two for Deynsgate and four for the mylne gate, wething greve, hengynge dyche, fenell street, and on to Irkes brydge, and a score of people were named as “skevengers,” whose duty it was to see that the streets were kept clean. At the same court an order was made that persons were not to allow their ducks and geese to wander into the market–place, and certain other regulations were enforced, showing that even at that date the sanitary arrangements of the place were to some extent attended to.
In 1554 we have, beside the other officers, market overlookers for fish and flesh, leathersellers, and men to see that no ox, cow, nor horse goes through the churchyard; and it was ordered that all the middens standing in the streets, between the conduit (which supplied the town with water) and the market–cross, and all swinecotes in the High Street, should be removed. The authorities appear to have had some trouble to persuade the people that the street, or the front of their own houses, was not the place for dunghills or middens, as the orders to remove them appear at almost every court, in some cases the order only being to erect a pale or hedge round, so that there be no “noyance nor evil sight in the street.”
In 1556 warning was to be given in the church that the inhabitants were to bring their corn and grain to be ground at the Free School Mill.
Ale and bread in 1558 were to be sold only by the regulation measures and weights. Archery had long been one of the recreations of the people, so we are surprised to find that in 1560 the inhabitants were ordered to have put up before the Feast of St. John the Baptist (June 24) a pair of butts in Marketstede Lane, and another pair upon Colyhurst Common; in the same year it was ordered that no person should allow any carding or bowling in his house or garden, fields or shop, “whereto any poore or handiecrafts men shall come or resort.”
Provisions were also made for the traveller whose business brought him to Manchester, for no man was allowed (in 1560) to brew or sell ale unless he was able to “make two honest beddis [beds],” and he was also to “put furth the syne of a hand.” Later on it was ordered that this sign was only to be used when the innkeeper had ale to sell. It is curious to find an old Act passed in 1390 still enforced, viz., that no one not being a forty–shilling freeholder shall keep a greyhound nor any hound.
Ale was not to be sold to be drunk on the premises at more than 6d. a gallon; for outdoor consumption the price was not to exceed 4d. a gallon.
A singular order appears in the next year’s record, to the effect that no one shall sell bread which has any butter in it, although he was permitted to bake it for his own use or to give to his friends.
About this time it appears to have been the custom at weddings and other festive occasions to invite people to the feast – which was held at an alehouse – and then collect from them a sum of money to defray the expenses, and to stop this practice the court ordered that no one should be called upon to pay more than 4d. for such entertainment.
No doubt the fairs of Manchester were now resorted to by considerable numbers, hence the order made in 1565 that every burgess was to find an able–bodied man, furnished with a bill (or axe) or a halberd, to wait upon the steward of the manor at these gatherings. At this time fruits, particularly apples, were sufficiently an article of commerce as to necessitate the appointment an overseer to regulate their sale. The manufacturers of “rugs” (a kind of coarse woollen cloth) were now forbidden to wet their good “openly in the stretes,” but to do it either within their respective houses or behind the same.
Alehouses were frequently the subject of the court’s regulation, gaming, selling of ale during “tyme of morning prayer,” and the like offences being severely dealt with, whilst drunken men found abroad in the streets at night were not only imprisoned in the “dungeon,” but had to pay 6d. to the constable for the poor, and the unfortunate ale–house keeper, if found in a state of intoxication, was “discharged from ale–house keeping.”
The wearing of daggers and other weapons was found to lead to disorder, and forbidden, and the law forbidding the wearing of hats110 on Sundays and holidays was enforced. Apprentices and male and female servants were to be fined if found in the streets after nine o’clock at night in the summer and eight o’clock in the winter.
The practice of archery towards the end of the century began to fall off, and notwithstanding the Acts of Parliament passed to encourage it here in Manchester, officers had to be appointed to see the burgesses “exceryse [exercise] shootinge accordinge to the statute.”
Although Manchester was not at the time a borough, yet it is evident that the court leet was alive to many of the requirements of a growing town, and that, although its industries were now only in infancy, it had become a commercial centre, and was beginning to emerge from the obscurity to which it had been relegated during the feudal system.
The plague of 1565 was succeeded in the year following by a great dearth, when a penny white loaf only weighed 6 or 8 ounces.
Even at this date the Manchester church was often selected as the place to be married at, although neither the bride nor the bridegroom lived in the town, and on these occasions they were accompanied by “strange pipers or other minstrels,” who played up to the church doors and after the ceremony at the ale–house. This raised the jealousy of the “town waytes,” who persuaded the court to order that they should come no more.
After Manchester, the next largest town was Preston, which was the capital of the duchy and one of the oldest incorporated towns in the county. Before the time of Elizabeth it had had no less than ten royal charters, and within it were two religious houses and its very ancient parish church; moreover, its “guild merchant” had been held every twentieth year for centuries. The guild roll of 1542 contains the names of over 200 burgesses, that of 1562 exceeds 350, and the one of 1602 gives 537 in burgesses, and 561 foreign or out burgesses. In the lists for 1562 and 1582 we find enumerated drapers, pewterers, cordwainers, glovers, masons, websters (weavers), tailors, mercers, butchers, carpenters, barbers, tanners, saddlers, flaxmen, leadbeaters, cutlers, schoolmasters, and other occupations which accompanied a well–to–do town of this period. The sale of woollen cloth and fustians was at this time a branch of Preston trade. Here also strict regulations were enforced as to the accommodation at inns, no one being allowed to retail ale unless he could lodge four men and find stabling for four horses. It was such regulations as these that enabled Holinshead (in 1577) to record that “the inns in Lancaster, Preston, Wigan and Warrington” are so much improved “that each comer” is “sure to lie in clean sheets wherein no man hath lodged; if the traveller be on horseback his bed–cloth cost him nothing, but if he go on foot he hath a penny to pay.” Preston was one of the four Lancashire towns which in 1547 recommenced to send members to Parliament. Toward the end of the sixteenth century Preston had a population of something like 3,000.
The chief town of the county for many centuries was Lancaster, though in size and importance it had now been excelled by several other towns. The old castle was the county gaol, and in this town until quite recently the assizes were held, and, moreover, it was the oldest corporate borough, dating back to the twelfth century; yet for all this, in an Act of Parliament passed in 1544, it is reported as to Lancaster that though there were many “beautiful houses” there, they were all “falling into ruin,” and in 1586 Camden reported that “it was thinly peopled and all the inhabitants farmers, the country round it being cultivated, open, flourishing, and not bare of wood.” As a town it consisted of only eight or nine streets, but there was a school, fishmarket, pinfold, etc.111 Lancaster returned two members in 1529, and from 1547 continued to send that number.
Liverpool in the time of Henry VII. had begun to fall off in importance, and we find that that monarch made a grant of the “Town and Lordship of Litherpoole” at a rental of £14 a year; this was renewed in 1528.
Henry VIII., always on the look–out for royal revenues, ordered in 1533 a return to be made of the King’s rental in Liverpool, when it was found only to amount to £10 1s. 4d., a sum equal to something like £150 of the present money;112 this was exclusive of Church property. The streets of Liverpool were Water Street, Castle Street, Dale Street, Moore Street, Chapel Street, Jugler Street and Mylne Street. The Act of Parliament of 1544 reports of Liverpool as it had done of Lancaster (p. 97), both towns being put down as having fallen into decay; and yet both towns in 1547 returned two representatives to Parliament. Why had these two ancient boroughs so decayed? One reason probably, in the case of Liverpool, was its comparative isolation, as until centuries after this there was no road to it for wheeled carriages, all inland travellers having to go on horseback, and goods on packhorses, or by barges on the Mersey, from Warrington.
All these ancient boroughs, provided they paid the dues to the national exchequer, and to some extent carried out the statutes of the realm, were at liberty to make their own laws for self–government, and it is but natural to suppose that this arbitrary rule in some cases resulted in success, whilst in others it led to results disastrous to the community. Again, the visitations of the plague in some towns carried away a large percentage of the population, whilst in others their effects were slight. Either or both of these causes would be sufficient to materially reduce the prosperity of one of these small boroughs. In 1540 Liverpool is said to have been nearly depopulated by the plague; and in 1556 there were only 151 householders left, which could not represent a population of much over 1,000;113 and in 1558 the visitation of this scourge was so severe that all who were attacked were ordered “to make their cabins on the heath,” and to remain there for nearly three months, and after that (until they had permission to do otherwise) to keep on “the back side of their houses, and to keep their doors and windows shut on the street side.” This plague carried off upwards of 240 of the already reduced inhabitants. At this time we find warehouses for merchants named, and the Corporation had a ferry boat to carry people and goods across the river. The port of Liverpool was now claimed to be a dependency of the port of Chester, and so indignant were the Corporation at this that they sent their Mayor to London to represent to the Chancellor of the duchy that to call Liverpool “the creeke of Chester” was not only to punish its inhabitants, but was against the jurisdiction and regal authority of the county palatine and duchy; and they also stated that Liverpool had heretofore been reputed the best port and harbour from Milford to Scotland, and had always proved so with all manner of ships and barks. From the return made in consequence of this appeal, it appears that Liverpool had only twelve vessels, the largest of forty tons burden.
The close of the sixteenth century did not find the town in a much better position, for even the keeper of the “Common Warehouse of the Town” was only to have £1 2s. 8d. for his wages, because of “the small trade and trafique” that there then was, and a pious ejaculation is added, “until God send us better traffique.” The principal trade now carried on was with Ireland and Spain or Portugal; to the latter herrings and salmon were exported and wine brought back. Wool, coatings (cottons), and tallow were exported in small quantities. Many regulations referring to the sanitary arrangements of the town and the suppression of drunkenness and gaming were almost identical with those enforced by the court–leet of Manchester. A “handsome cockpit” was made by the Corporation in 1567, and horse–racing was patronized ten years later.
The only other town in Lancashire which in 1547 returned representatives to Parliament was Wigan.
Leland, who paid a visit to Wigan about the year 1540, thus describes the town: “Wigan pavid as bigge as Warington and better buildid. There is one paroch chirch amidde the Towne, summe Marchauntes, sum Artificers, sum Fermers. Mr. Bradeshaw hath a place called Hawe a myle from Wigan; he hath founde moche Canel like se Coole in his ground very profitable to hym.” The vast underground wealth, which was in the future to be of such importance to this county, would appear at this time to be unworked, if even its existence was known. Wigan was one of the few towns in the county with its Mayor and Corporation. The population of Wigan would scarcely be as great as Warrington (which was now about 2,000114), as in 1625 the number of burgesses entitled to vote at the election was only 138. Warrington was not incorporated, but was under the manor court. Its chief industry was the manufacture of sail–cloth. Clitheroe, though a borough, was still (except for its connection with the castle) a place of small importance, as was also Blackburn; at neither place had as yet any textile industry been introduced. At Bolton–le–Moors Leland found cottons and coarse yarns manufactured, and here also they were accustomed to use “se cole, of which the pittes be not far off.” At Bury also yarns were made.
Rochdale was “a market of no small resort,” says Leland, but he is silent as to its commercial doings; nevertheless, if manufacture was not carried on there, its inhabitants were doing a good business in the sale of wool and coatings, as is proved by the fact that several cases of dispute as to the non–delivery of goods of this kind were heard in the duchy court. In the reign of Elizabeth the manufacture of these articles soon followed, and before the end of the century this industry was well established here. Some of the coal in this district lying near the surface was now worked, and cutlery was also made in this wide parish, as were also hats. Foot–racing was a favourite pastime in Lancashire in the sixteenth century, and sometimes the stakes ran high, as in the case of a race run near Whitworth (Rochdale) on August 24, 1576, when the match was for twenty nobles a side.115
Before the introduction of the woollen and cotton manufacture, and the consequent rapid increase of population and buildings, this county was very far from being amongst the least beautiful of England’s shires. Large unbroken forests, where still lingered the lordly stag, surrounded with game of varied kinds, were yet to be seen; and the dense smoke from the tall factory chimney was not there to blast and wither with its poisonous breath the tender foliage of the stripling oak. Its rivers then meandered through miles of pleasant lands, where the lowing of cattle and the melodious songs of birds formed the only accompaniment to the gentle rippling of the waters; no contaminating dyeworks, chemical works, or other followers in the train of commerce, had yet planted themselves along the banks; and the salmon, the grayling and the trout, and other small fry, held undisputed possession, unless they were molested by the otters, which were then abundant.116 In the northern parts of the county things still remained much as they had been for centuries, except, of course, in some districts a slight increase in population, and in all an improved state of civilization and culture. Amongst these towns in the north may be mentioned Kirkham, which claims to have been incorporated in the time of Edward I., by the name of “the bailiffs and burgesses.” This claim was ratified by James I. They had a market and fair, but did not send representatives to Parliament.
In the days when the monasteries and abbeys were young, no doubt the education of the people was one of their recognised duties, but when these religious houses became (as they often did) the homes of luxury and licence, this duty was unfulfilled; and it was only after the Reformation, when the religious excitement abated, that anything like an attempt at national education was made, and at this time schools of any kind were almost unknown in the county, and the mass of the people were alike ignorant, untaught, and superstitious.
Preston was probably the first town in Lancashire which had a free school regularly endowed; it is said to have been established in the fourteenth century, but was certainly there in the time of Henry VI., as in 1554 a plaintiff in the duchy court spoke of it as having then been in existence for “the space of 100 years,”117 and the incumbent of the chantry in the parish church, founded by Helen Houghton (about 1480), was required to “be sufficiently lerned in grammar” to teach the scholars. Manchester was indebted to Hugh Oldham, the Bishop of Exeter (a native of Lancashire), for its first free school. In 1515 the Bishop conveyed certain lands to the Wardens of Manchester for the purpose of paying a master and usher to teach the youth of the district, who had, as the indenture sets forth, “for a long time been in want of instruction, as well on account of the poverty of their parents as for want of some person who should instruct them in learning and virtue.” Before his death, in 1519, he had built the school which has for so long done honour to its founder.
