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.

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:

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—

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.

At Kirkham a free grammar school had been, or was just about to be, founded in 1551, when Thomas Clifton, of Clifton, bequeathed “towards the grammar schole xxˢ.” And in 1585 the parish authorities took possession of the school–house in right of the whole parish. This school appears subsequently to have fallen into decay or been given up, for in 1621 Isabel Birley, who had been all her life an alehouse–keeper in Kirkham, being “moved to compassion with pore children shee saw often in that town,” went to the church (where the thirty sworn men were assembled) with £30 in her apron, which she wished to give for the building of a free school; her example fired the others with enthusiasm, and the requisite sum was soon raised. The history of this well–known school is interesting.

When Queen Elizabeth ascended the throne, besides these schools there were free grammar schools at Prescot, Lancaster, Whalley, Clitheroe, Bolton, and Liverpool, but within the next fifty years many more were added, amongst them being those at Burnley, Hawkshead, Leyland, Rochdale, Middleton, and Rivington (near Bolton). To most of these early–founded schools libraries were attached, in some of which still remain many valuable sixteenth–century books.

The belief in witchcraft and its kindred superstitions was firmly rooted amongst the people; on this subject something will be said in another chapter, but en passant it may be stated that in 1597 a pardon was granted to one Alice Brerley, of Castleton (in Rochdale), who had been condemned to death for slaying by means of witchcraft James Kershaw and Robert Scholefield.118

The condition into which Lancashire was thrown through the religious crisis consequent upon the Reformation will be treated of elsewhere, but it must here be noted that in the time of good Queen Bess churches were said to be almost emptied of their congregations, alehouses were innumerable, wakes, ales, rushbearing, bearbaits, and the like, were all exercised on the Sunday, and altogether a general lawlessness appears to have prevailed all over the county. In the reign of Henry VIII. the old commissions of array (whose duty it was to get together in each county such armed forces as were required from time to time) were done away with, and their places occupied by lord–lieutenants.

In 1547 the Earl of Shrewsbury was Lord–Lieutenant of the county of Lancaster and six other counties, but in 1569 the county had a Lord–Lieutenant of its own in the person of Earl Stanley, third Earl of Derby. The duties of these newly appointed officers of the Crown were manifold; but one of their chief services was to assemble and levy the inhabitants within their jurisdiction in the time of war, and to prescribe orders for the government of their counties; and from the proceedings of the Lancashire lieutenancy we may glean a few details relating to the civil and religious life of the period.119 For the military muster of 1553 the quota required from the respective hundreds was: West Derby 430, Salford 350, Leyland 170, Amounderness 300, Blackburn 400, Lonsdale 350.

These numbers were to be raised by each town in the hundred in proportion to the wealth or number of its inhabitants: West Derby, Wigan, and Ashton, in the parish of Winwick, had to find 11 each, whilst Liverpool only sent 5. In Leyland the greatest number (10) came from Wrightington with Parbold; in Amounderness Preston found 26, whilst the parish of Kirkham contributed over 100. Blackburn parish sent 113 men, and the parish of Whalley 175; unfortunately, the particulars for the towns and parishes of Salford are wanting. In 1559–60 the county was called upon to raise no less than 3,992 soldiers.

During all these troubled times the highest hills in the district were used as beacon stations, where a system of signalling was practised; thus, in 1588 the hundred of Salford was called upon to pay £5 9s. 4d. for watching the beacon on Rivington Pike from July 10 to September 30.

Some further details about this particular are furnished in the original “accompt” of Sir John Byron, who was a Deputy–Lieutenant of the county:

Notwithstanding the wars and rumours of wars which were then so common, and notwithstanding the religious excitement created by the persecution, first of the Roman Catholics and then of the Puritans, people seem to have prospered in the county. The towns and villages greatly increased in number, size and importance, and the time of Elizabeth especially witnessed the erection and rebuilding of some of Lancashire’s finest halls. The ancient domestic houses which had been the residences of the old feudal lords were now remodelled or entirely swept away, and the subdivision of the land brought out a new class of proprietors, who, though not descended directly from the old owners of the soil, soon took up the rank of gentry, and built for themselves those smaller though not less interesting mansions which at one time were found all over the county.

During the Tudor time were built such houses as Speke Hall, near Liverpool; Ordsall Hall, near Manchester; Little Mitton, the home of the Sherburns; Ince Hall, Cleworth Hall, Smithell’s Hall, Lostock Hall, Lydiate Hall, Rufford Hall, Belfield Hall, Rawcliffe, Rossal Grange, and a host of others far too numerous to mention. Many of these date back to very early days, and were originally built with a view to make every man’s house his castle; but with the end of the sixteenth century other views began to obtain, and an Englishman, for the first time probably in the country’s history, commenced to feel that his house was really his castle, and that it was defended for him by the strong arm of the law.

The houses of the middle and lower classes were nearly always built of wood and clay (“daub”); the richer people had houses which were usually divided on the ground–floor into a common hall, a small withdrawing room or parlour, and a kitchen, the upper stories being reached by wide staircases, often with ornately carved oak banisters. The higher class of houses or halls consisted of many chambers, and not infrequently there was a private chapel, and the rooms were wainscoted. Many views have been preserved of the exterior of most of our old halls (which were highly picturesque), but of the interior and general domestic arrangements we are left to glean such items as have been handed down to us through the medium of inventories and kindred records. These inventories, taken after the proving of wills, are often (where they exist at all) meagre and incomplete, yet they furnish particulars which we should look elsewhere for in vain. The inventory of the goods of Sir Thomas Butler, of Bewsey (near Prescot), knight, taken in 1579, will give some details of the contents of one of Lancashire’s old houses. The following are selected items:

Plate and Jewellery.—Basin and ewer, silver engraved bowls, silver salts with covers, silver spoons, a crystal cross.

Linen, etc.—Table–cloths, damask work, towels, napkins, flax sheets, bed–hangings, quilted and woollen blankets, mattresses, curtains of taffeta, curtains of darynx (a kind of damask made at Tournay), green silk coverlet, etc.

Furniture, etc.—Tables, chairs, stools, truckle beds, pair of playing tables, brass candlesticks, pewter in considerable quantities, and the usual kitchen and brewing apparatus.

Apparel.—Velvet hose, satin doublets, taffeta doublets, velvet breeches, riding–cloak lined with unshorn velvet, Spanish leather jerkins, a long gown of silk grogram (a silk material), velvet cloaks, black jersey stockings, a taffeta hat, a black felt hat.

Sundries.—Cross–bows, clock and bell, pictures of Christ and of the Queen’s majesty, drinking glasses, “a sylver toth pyke,” armour, weapons, guns, corslets, “cote of plate,” daggers, bucklers, “a black brydd and her cage, bought by Sir Thomas in London,” “the honey and wax of certen hyves,” an English Bible and other books (valued at £4), etc.

As a contrast to this house, furnished with all the luxuries of the time, take the inventory of one John Rodes, a husbandman fairly well–to–do, who lived at Inchfield, near Todmorden. By his will, which was dated November, 1564, he left his goods to his children, together with £5 apiece; his wains, carts and implements were also to go to his children; he left over £25 in legacies, and he held a lease of a farm for an unexpired term of years; yet, besides his horses and cows, hay and corn, and other farm stock, all his goods consisted of:

Bedding, £4 6s. 8d. (valued at); pans, £2 0s. 10d.; pots, 13s. 4d.; pewter, 3s. 4d.; a tub, 2d.; “in husslements” (odds and ends) belonging to the household, and in iron gear, 10s.

This was no doubt a fair sample of the contents of the house of a labouring farmer in these times; his household furniture was not worth £10. In some of the moorland districts sheep were kept in large quantities, and in some houses websters’ looms were common enough pieces of furniture, as many of the clothes worn were now home–made, which also accounts for the presence of spinning–wheels and wool–cards. In many of the wills of this period, even where no inventory has been preserved, the bequests are often very numerous and defined, and consist of every imaginable kind of household goods, so that from them we are enabled to get a glimpse at the contents of the houses of the testators. Articles of plate, amongst the wealthier classes, were much prized, and often made the subject of special bequests, as was frequently the case with gold rings and other jewellery. There often occur such items as silver goblets, parcel–gilt goblets, salt–cellars with and without covers, silver spoons “with the image of the twelve apostles” and the like; and hanging in the hall were nearly always old swords, old calverts, pistols, cross–bows and quivers with arrows, and not infrequently more or less complete suits of armour.

From the very rare mention of books in either the wills or inventories, it is evident that very few were among the possessions of the sixteenth–century Lancashire householders. In the few instances where books are named, they are referred to in a manner showing that they were considered valuable and rare. The Rev. Richard Jones, Rector of Bury, by his will, dated June 15, 1568, directed that his “four bokes of Crysostum be chened [chained] in the churche, there to remayne for ever.” Another testator, in 1574,120 left “one litle bible,” which he enjoined his son to see used every Sabbath day when there were no sermons nor sacraments; and during the week–day this precious volume was to be lent to his “poorest kinsfolk.” Pictures were also very uncommon, and those which adorned the walls of the rich were nearly always sacred subjects; one article of furniture appears in nearly every case—the old oak chest; sometimes it is simply called “a chist,” at other times the “carven oak chest,” and it was used invariably as a store place for sheets and linen.

The representation of Lancashire in Parliament was slightly increased in 1559 by the addition of two members—one for Clitheroe and another for Newton–in–the–Willows; the latter was not a borough even by prescriptive right, and the selection of its representative rested almost exclusively with the lord of the manor as late as 1797, when a contested election resulted in a poll of only 66 votes. Except some slight alterations during the Commonwealth, the representation of the county remained unchanged until the passing of the Reform Act in 1832. As illustrating the everyday life in Lancashire in the time of Elizabeth, the following list of prices and wages is interesting. It is taken from the steward’s accounts of the Shuttleworths, of Gawthorp Hall (near Burnley).

Provisions.—A salt salmon, a fresh salmon, a salt fish and two salt eels, 2s.; red herring and a hundred sprats, 1s.; a quart of vinegar, 4d.; a quart of wine, 6d.; a pound of figs, 4d.; a quarter of veal, 12d.; a quarter of mutton, 1s. 6d.; 10¾ gallons of claret wine, 14s. 4d.; for three quarters of sack, 2s.; five chickens, 6d.; a pound of pepper, 4s.; thirty–two snipes, 22d.; four lapwings and two plovers, 8d.; half a fat lamb, 2s. 6d.; three geese, 15d.; half a peck of pears, 6d.; white wine, 2s. a gallon; ten woodcocks, 22d.; fine couple of rabbits, 3s. 9d.; a peck of cockles, 4d.; a pike and a bream, 3s. 8d.; two dozen dace and a perch, 5d.; a peck of apples, 2s. 4d.; a peck of oysters, 6d.; a fat pig, 2s.; five eggs, 1d.; eight gosling, 20d.; a stone of butter, 3s. 4d.

Wages.—A smith, per day, 6d.; a day’s mowing, 6d.; for ditching, 4d. a rood; working in the delph (stone quarry) six days, 15d.; for blending and spinning 5½ stone of wool, 13s. 9d.; for weaving and colouring part of the said wool, 3s. 8d.; for fulling and dressing the said cloth, 4s. 10d.; soleing a pair of shoes, 5d.; spinning wool for blankets, 2s. a stone; weaving pieces of blankets, ¾d. a yard; whitewashing, 2d. to 4d. a day; a stonemason, 4d. a day; weaving 24 yards of canvas, 22d.

Sundries.—A load of wheat, 10s.; a cow, 26s.; twinters (calves two winters old), 22s.; an ox, £2 8s.; 100 bricks, 1s.; two sheepskins for arrow–case, 10d.; a quire of paper, 4d.; six chaldrons (of 36 bushels each) of sea coal121 at the ship, £4 16s.; for bringing the same to the house, 12s.; and for watching them one night, 1s.; three pairs of shoes for the children, 3s. 10d.

In considering the rate of wages, it must be borne in mind that at this period the labourer often had board as well as wages.

As bearing upon the social condition of the people, it may be noted that at the Herald’s visitation of Lancashire in 1533 only forty–seven families entered their descent, and even these furnished very meagre genealogical particulars. This may in a great measure be accounted for by the fact that the visitation was made at a time when the King was struggling with the Pope for religious supremacy, and that the growing feeling in favour of the Reformers had not yet made much progress in this county, and consequently the Herald, though armed with a royal warrant, was received with coldness, some families point–blank refusing even to speak with him, whilst others, having granted an audience, dismissed him “with the utmost rudeness.”122 The Herald appears to have taken his revenge in full, and recorded of one well–known knight (Sir Richard Houghton) that he “hath putt away his lady and wife, and kepeth a concobyne in his house”; and he adds, “he gave me nothing nor made me no good chere, but gave me proude woordes”; of another gentleman (Robert Holt of Stubley) he reported “that he married an olde woman, by whom he hedd no yssue, & therefore he wold not have her name entered”; as for Sir John Townley of Townley, near Burnley, he “sogt hym all day rydinge in the wylde countrey, & his reward was ijˢ of wʰ the guyde hedde the most p’te,” and he winds up with, “I hed as evill a jorney as evʳ I hedd”; in addition to all this, Sir John refused to tell him the name of his first wife, and asserted that there were no gentlemen in Lancashire but Lord Derby and Lord Monteagle.

The next visitation was in 1567, when Elizabeth had been nearly ten years on the throne, and the Roman Catholics and Puritans in this county had become specially marked for persecution (see Chapter IX.); notwithstanding this, 129 families entered their pedigrees, and most of them claimed the right to bear arms. The marked increase between 1533 and 1567 bears evidence to the growing wealth and importance of Lancashire. Arising from a desire to add “field to field” and found county families, a custom had obtained a footing in Lancashire at this time to marry children when of tender age. Many examples might be quoted to illustrate this, but one will suffice. In 1562 two sisters, Elizabeth and Anne, co–heiresses of Ralph Belfield, of Clegg Hall, were married, at Middleton Church, respectively to Alexander Barlow of Barlow and Richard Leigh of Highleigh; twenty–two years afterwards both the couples applied for divorce, Barlow testifying that he did not remember any marriage having taken place, and Anne Leigh, née Belfield, declaring that at the time of her marriage she was only seven years old, and that after it was celebrated she went to live with her grandmother, whilst her youthful husband was sent to Shrewsbury School, and whilst he was there she sent him a “gilt book,” and he sent her a knife, which she wore at her girdle: both marriages were dissolved.123 There were, however, many other instances where divorce was neither obtained nor applied for.

The close of the Tudor age found Lancashire in a very different state to that which marked its advent. Commerce with other countries across the seas was beginning to show effects, and the wool and other products of the county found a ready market. The population had greatly increased, yet still there was no large town in the modern sense of the word, and the manufactures of the day were mostly carried on in the houses of the manufacturers, and the new fabrics composed of silk and wool, introduced by the Flemish exiles at Norwich, had not yet been added to any great extent to the trade of this district.

The social position was everywhere improved: a better class of domestic architecture had supplanted the old order, and now the people lived in fairly comfortable houses, built frequently of stone or brick, which, though internally not furnished with the luxurious appliances of a nineteenth–century villa, were yet princely palaces compared with the wretched dwelling–places which had preceded them.

The glorious literature which distinguished the reign of the Virgin Queen, and which embraced alike history, poetry, and the drama, must have had some effect upon the Lancashire people, although as yet we find no printing–press in any of her towns.