“We ordered Colonel Thornhaugh and Colonel Twisletons regiments of horse on the right, and one regiment in reserve for the lane, and the remaining horse on the left; so that at last we came to a Hedge dispute, the greatest of the impression from the enemy being upon our left wing; and upon the battel on both sides of the lane, and upon our horse in the lane, in all which places the enemy was forced from their ground after 4 hours dispute, until we come to the town, into which our troops of my regiment first entered, and being well seconded by Colonel Harrisons regiment, charged the enemy in the town and cleared the streets…. Colonel Deans and Colonel Prides outwinging the enemy, could not come to so much share of the action…. At the last the enemy was put into disorder, many men slain, many prisoners taken, the Duke with most of the Scots horse and foot retreated over the bridge, where, after a very hot dispute betwixt the Lancashire regiments, part of my Lord Generals and them being at push of pike, they were beaten from the bridge, and our horse and foot following them, killed many and took divers prisoners, and we possessed the bridge over Darwent and a few houses there, the enemy being driven up within musquet–shot of us where we lay that night…. In this posture did the enemy and we lie the most part of that night; upon entring the town, many of the enemy’s horse fled towards Lancaster, in the chase of whom went divers of our horse, who pursued them near ten miles, and had execution of them, and took about 500 horses and many prisoners. We possessed in the fight very much of the enemy’s ammunition; I believe they lost four or five thousand arms. The number of slain we judge to be about a thousand, the prisoners we took were about four thousand.”153
During the night the Duke, with the remnant of his army, retreated towards Wigan, and though they were hotly pursued, after some fighting by the way they got into that town, where they remained for the night, and on the morrow continued their flight towards Warrington. Wigan, Cromwell describes as “a great and poore town, and very malignant,” and he adds that the Duke’s army plundered the inhabitants “almost to their skins.” Cromwell followed the retreating foe, and the two armies again engaged near Winwick, when another 1,000 of the enemy were slain, the rest being driven on to Warrington Bridge, which they found so well fortified that they faced about, and again prepared to meet their pursuers. Cromwell, considering (as he put it) “the strength of the pass,” agreed to give quarter and civil usage, on the surrender of the officers and soldiers of the town as prisoners of war; these terms being accepted, the Duke and his army marched off into Cheshire.
The account of the fight at Preston given by Sir Marmaduke Langdale does not materially differ from that of the Parliamentary leader, but he frankly admits that his forces were utterly beaten, his foot soldiers being totally lost. The inhabitants of the various districts in which these battles had taken place again suffered most acutely, so much so that the Mayor and Bailiffs of Wigan and several ministers in the county sent to London an appeal for immediate relief. This appeal refers to “the lamentable condition of the county of Lancaster, and particularly of the towns of Wigan, Ashton, and the parts adjacent,” and sets forth that these districts had borne the heat and burden of both the wars “in an especial manner above other parts of the nation”; that the plague of pestilence had been raging for three years; that there was a scarcity of all provisions, grain the most in use being six times its usual price. All trade was utterly decayed, and it “would melt any good heart to see the numerous swarms of begging poore and the many families that pine away at home not having the faces to beg.” Some of the poor, being on the point of starvation, had eaten carrion and other unwholesome food, “to the destroying of themselves and the increasing of the infection,” the plague being entirely attributed to the “contagion from the wounded souldiers left there for cure.”
Liverpool also suffered much from the wars. In July, 1648, letters were received by Parliament from the Governor of Chester, representing the sad condition of that garrison, especially as to the convenience of the harbour and the revolt of the ships. The town itself was said to be but small, “and much decayed,” by reason of the war and the loss of the Irish trade, and also by “the free quarter of the soldiers.”154 The plague, also, about this time appeared in Liverpool and Warrington. During the next month the Deputy–Lieutenants were ordered to keep some horse soldiers near Lancaster, as that town was considered of special importance from a military point of view.
In the early part of 1649 the danger of further disturbance in the north appeared to have passed, and an order was given to demolish Clitheroe Castle and to disband the forces in the county; but as some of them refused to be broken up, Major–General Lambert was despatched with orders to disband them, by force if necessary.
On January 30, 1649, the King was executed for high–treason, and the Commonwealth established, and thus the long struggle was brought to a close; but Lancashire had not yet seen the last of the Civil Wars; for in August, 1651, Charles II., the uncrowned son of the “martyr King,” passed through the county on his way to Worcester; and, as was no doubt foreseen, this passage was not effected without a struggle with the strong Commonwealth party in the county.
The young King’s forces marched over Ellel Moor to Lancaster, where he was proclaimed King at the market–cross; through Preston and Chorley, and on to Warrington bridge, where their progress was opposed by a company of foot, who were soon overwhelmed by numbers and forced to retreat, allowing the King and his followers to pass over into Cheshire. Cromwell in the meantime was in pursuit with an army of some 10,000 men, which at Preston was increased by another 6,000 under the commands of Generals Lambert and Harrison. On the other side, the Earl of Derby, having been sent for from the Isle of Man, was endeavouring, but almost in vain, to raise men in Lancashire. With such forces as he could get together (probably not more than 1,500 men), the Earl marched to Wigan, where he was met (in Wigan Lane) by Colonel Lilburne, and after a short but sanguinary battle he was slightly wounded and his followers utterly routed. The fighting was so severe that the Earl lost five colonels, the adjutant–general, and four lieutenant–colonels. With some thirty men as an escort the Earl escaped and made his way to Worcester to join the King. After the battle of Worcester the Lancashire Earl was again a fugitive, and on his way to Knowsley he was taken prisoner on the road, about half a mile from Nantwich in Cheshire, by Captain Oliver Edge, and lodged in the castle at Chester. Notwithstanding that Captain Edge, on the Earl’s surrendering, had given him a promise of quarter, he was tried by court–martial at Chester, and found guilty, the sentence being that he should be beheaded in the market–place of Bolton, which sentence was carried out on October 15 (1651), in the presence of a large crowd of people, who are said to have been “weeping and crying and giving all expressions of grief and lamentation.”155
The Civil Wars were now over, and attention was again turned to local matters. Manchester was one of the first towns to dismantle its forts, throw down its outer walls, and remove its gates; this was done in 1651. In the same year the court–leet ordered a gibbet, which had been erected in the corn market–place “for the punishment of the souldiers,” to be taken down. Manchester, as a reward for her adhesion to the Parliamentary cause, was allowed to return a member of Parliament in 1654.
One would have thought that the dire troubles through which Lancashire passed would for a time at least have removed all desire to again take part in the contest between King and Parliament; but the spirit of some of the old Royalists still remained, and on the death of Cromwell (September 3, 1658) a league was formed to restore the monarchy, in which Lancashire was to have taken a prominent part; the son of the renowned Sir Marmaduke Langdale was to command the forces of this county, and amongst his supporters were the son of the “martyr Earl,” Sir Thomas Middleton, and others. This crude attempt was frustrated by a signal defeat in a short engagement at Northwich, where the fugitives were scattered in all directions, some to Manchester and some to Liverpool, where they found no sympathy but met with hard blows.
The religious condition of the county during the Commonwealth will be dealt with hereafter (Chapter IX.). Amongst the other effects of the events of the last ten years was the lowering of the whole social tone, the retarding of anything like education, or mental or material progress. Art, science, trade, commerce, and every branch of industry, must have been almost stagnant, whilst sickness, poverty, and crime were enormously increased. It was reported in 1655 that alehouses had become the very bane of the county. In the hundred of Blackburn alone over 200 of these had “to be thrown down.”156
Manchester having been all through the Civil Wars a stronghold of the Parliament, it probably did not suffer quite as much as some of the other towns, and we are therefore not surprised to find that many improvements were made there very shortly after the close of the troubles; thus, in August, 1653, was established there the first public library, the origin of which was the gift by John Prestwich “of severall Bookes unto the inhabitants of the towne of Manchester, to be kept in some convenient place for a liberarie for the use of the said towne.”
From an indenture bearing the afore–mentioned date, it will be seen that the Pendleton or Jesus Chapel, on the south side of the collegiate church, had been selected for the repository for these books; but being now in “great ruine and decay, the roofe thereof being fallen,” the holders of the inheritance of it conveyed it to trustees, to the intent that it should be repaired and afterwards used for a library. This collection of books has now long ago been dispersed, and was probably never a large one.
In 1656 the first town–hall was built; previous to that date the old wooden booths were used for the court–leet, etc. In these days, when football has become such a popular game as to render it one of the great national sports, it is interesting to find that in 1655 the Manchester Jury ordered all persons to be prosecuted who were found playing football in the streets. Nearly fifty years before this it had been found necessary to have “officers for yᵉ football” regularly appointed. This playing in the streets was not confined to Manchester; indeed, at Kirkham on Christmas Day, until quite a recent date, the streets were entirely given up to the followers of this popular pastime.
At the Restoration Manchester was prepared to welcome the newly–crowned King, and on April 22, 1661, the train–bands, under John Byrom, and the auxiliary band of Nicholas Mosley, together some 360 men, assembled in the field “in great gallantrie and rich scarffes, expressing themselves with many great acclamations of joy.” They afterwards marched to the collegiate church, preceded by forty boys, “all cloathed in white stuffe, plumes of feathers in their hats, blew scarffes, armed with little swords hanging in black bells and short pikes shouldered.” In the church was a large concourse of people, who, says the chronicler,157 “civilly and soberly demeaned themselves all the whole day, the like never seen in this nor the like place.” A sermon was preached by the Warden, Richard Heyrick, and a civic procession afterwards paraded the town. On arriving at the conduit which supplied the town with water, there was a long halt, in order that the “gentlemen and officers” might drink his Majesty’s health “in claret running in three streams from the conduit.” This stream afterwards ran for the public use until after sunset. Lancaster celebrated the event by presenting to the King “their small mite as a token of their joy by surrender of their fee farm rents of £13 6s. 6d., which they purchased of the late powers.”
On October 7 following, 582 of the inhabitants took the oath of allegiance. In 1688 an assessment for the town gives the names of 500 ratepayers, who lived in seventeen streets or lanes; eighteen years later (in 1679), when the oath of allegiance was again taken, there were about 800 attestors. These figures give some idea of the population of Manchester at this period. The trade of the town was now very much extended, a considerable business being done with Ireland and London. From the former yarn was purchased, which was woven and returned; and from the Metropolis cotton wool was purchased, which came from Cyprus and Smyrna, and was manufactured into fustians, dimities and other fabrics. The appearance of the town towards the end of the century underwent a great change; its old narrow streets and lanes were somewhat widened, and the time–worn houses of wood and plaster gave place to more substantial erections of stone and brick. There had also been established, by the bequest of one of Manchester’s merchants, Humphery Chetham, of Clayton Hall and Turton Tower, the Chetham Hospital and Chetham Library, the latter being the first really free library opened in England.
Preston had now greatly increased, and was a prosperous town of about 6,000 inhabitants. In 1682 Kuerden describes it as being “adorned with a large square or market–place,” and its streets as being “so spacious from one end thereof to the other, that few of the corporations of England” exceeded it. In the centre of the town was “an ample, antient and well–beautifyed gylde hall,” under which were “ranged two rows of butchers’ shops”, and here once a week was a market for linen cloth, yarn, fish, and general agricultural produce, as well as cattle, sheep and pigs, and here and there were the houses of the wealthy, mostly built of brick and “extraordinarily addorning the streets.” Preston had also its workhouse, public almshouse and school, and the old building formerly occupied by the Grey Friars served as a kind of reformatory for “vagabonds, sturdy beggars, and other people wanting good behaviour.”
During the reign of Charles II. two guilds were celebrated at Preston, to which people came from all parts of the county. Liverpool towards the end of the reign of Charles II. began rapidly to develop. Blome, writing in 1673, states that Liverpool was a bold and safe harbour, in which ships at low water could ride at 4 fathoms, and at high water 10 fathoms, and that amongst the inhabitants were many eminent merchants and tradesmen, whose commerce with the West Indies made it famous. Emulating Manchester, it had then recently erected a town–hall, which was “placed on pillars and arches of hewn stone,” having under it an exchange for merchants. This hall was built on the site where the old market cross had stood for a very long period. In the middle of this century (1650) the town consisted of Water Street, near to which was the tower, owned by the Stanley family, the Custom–house, Dale Street, Castle Street, Chapel Street, Tithebarn Street, Oldhall Street, and Jaggler’s Street, and on its rocky eminence, looking down upon the town, still stood the castle. In 1654 the first attempt to light the streets was made, the order given by the authorities being that “two lanthorns with two candles burning every night in the dark moon [i.e., when there was no moon] be set out at the High Cross and at the White Cross, and places prepared to set them in every night till eight of the clock.”
A very large portion of the land on which Liverpool stood at this time belonged to Edward Moore (afterwards Sir Edward), of Bankhall, and from his “rental”158 we may gather much curious detail as to the tenure and character of the various lessees; the rent appears to have been paid partly in cash and partly in kind or service—thus, one tenant paid £1 a year, three hens, and three days’ shearing; another, £1 6s. 8d. and the same boon hens and service. The pool from which the town took its name is frequently mentioned, and a note singularly foreshadows a branch of trade which subsequently became very advantageous to Liverpool. Moore called one of his tenements Sugar House Close, because a great sugar merchant from London came to treat with him for it; and it was agreed that he was to build up to the front street a goodly house four stories high, and at the back a house for boiling sugar.
At a little later period the establishment of extensive potteries in Liverpool introduced a new trade, but as early as 1665 a coarse kind of earthenware was made at Prescot, and the carting of it through the town was said so to “oppresse and cut out the streets,” that the Corporation levied a toll of 4d. for every cartload. The Liverpool potteries are said to have been the earliest works of the kind in England.
The question of what to do with the wandering beggars appears to have met with a rough–and–ready answer from the Liverpool authorities, and in 1686 they sent round the bellman to warn the inhabitants not to relieve any foreign poor, and, to prevent any mistake, they ordered that all those on the relief list should wear a pewter badge; and so strictly were these regulations enforced, that a burgess was fined 6s. 8d. for harbouring his own father and mother without giving due notice to the officials.
The first regular post–stages between the various parts of Lancashire and the rest of England were slow in developing, as we may infer from the fact that in 1653 three merchants (two Londoners and a Cornishman) made a proposal to the Government to work the inland and foreign letter office, and to establish a stage between Lancaster and Carlisle. This arrangement was probably not carried out. The roads all over the county were at this period in a dreadful state, and were not materially improved until the establishment of the turnpike system.
The educational advantages had now somewhat improved, the increase in public schools towards the close of the century being considerable. The experience of one boy will serve as a sample of how, no doubt, fared others. William Stout, the son of a well–to–do farmer, who lived at Bolton Holmes, near Lancaster (where his ancestors had lived for generations), records159 that he was first sent to a dame school, and afterwards to the Free School at Bolton (about the year 1674), but when he was between ten and twelve years of age he was, especially in the spring and summer season, taken away for the “plough time, turf time, hay time and harvest, in looking after the sheep, helping at plough, going to the moss with carts, making hay and shearing in harvest;” so that he made small progress in Latin, and what he learnt in winter he forgot in summer; as for writing, he depended upon a writing–master who came to Bolton during the winter.160 One of the earliest recollections of the writer just quoted was of his sister being sent up to London to be touched by Charles II., on which occasion she received a gold token worth about 10s., which she afterwards wore round her neck, “as the custom then was.” The royal touch was not in this case efficacious. William Stout afterwards settled in Lancaster as a kind of general dealer and merchant, especially in groceries and ironmongery, and from his diary may be gleaned several interesting details of the state and trade of Lancaster, which at that time (end of seventeenth century) did a considerable shipping business to London, Ireland, Virginia, Barbadoes, and other ports.
In 1689 the war with France much interfered with this trade, and the cheese from Cheshire and Lancashire, which required twenty ships yearly to carry it to London, had all to be taken by land. The rate for the carriage in this way was from 3s. to 5s. a hundredweight in summer. Iron was obtained in the crude state from the bloomeries of Cartmel and Furness. Tobacco was largely imported into Lancaster directly from Virginia, the trade being carried on partly by exchange of goods; thus, one John Hodgson, of Lancaster, sent out £200 value of English goods, for which he obtained in Virginia 200 hogsheads of tobacco, and made by the barter a net profit of £1,500, tobacco then selling at 1s. a pound. Sugar bought at Bristol and Liverpool was refined at Lancaster, but none seems to have been imported at this time. Our diarist in 1695 was collector of the land–tax of Lancaster, which was 4s. in the pound, and amounted to £120, so that the rateable value was only about £600.
One curious funeral custom is worth recording. “I went” (writes Stout) “to Preston fair to buy cheese,” the market for cheese being mostly at Garstang and Preston fairs. “At this time we sold much cheese to funerals in the country, from 30 lbs. to 100 lbs. weight, as the deceased was of ability; which was shrived into two or three” (slices or pieces) “in the lb., and one with a penny manchet given to all attendants. And it was customary at Lancaster to give one or two long biscuits, called Naples biscuits, to each attendant, by which from 20 to 100 lbs. was given.” The providing of the penny manchet at the funeral often formed a paragraph in the deceased person’s will, and the doles given to the poor on these occasions were often considerable.
The last Herald’s visitation to the county was made in 1664–65 by Sir William Dugdale, and from it we discover that many old families of the last century have entirely died out, whilst others of more humble origin have succeeded them. The incompleteness of the pedigrees (to say nothing of their glaring inaccuracies) is striking, and one is surprised to find how many families, undoubtedly entitled to bear arms, neglected to enter their descents. The seventeenth century saw the birth of a new order of men in Lancashire, who in many cases rose to opulence and became the founders of what developed into county families; there were the clothiers—they in many instances sprang from the lowest social grade, but by industry and thrift acquired their positions. The clothier purchased the wool (or kept large quantities of sheep), and delivered it to persons who took it to their own homes, and having there made it into cloth, returned it then to their employers. This business was usually carried on in the towns of the county, which were now rapidly springing up, and the demand for the kind of labour required quickly drew workmen from the surrounding agricultural districts. Amongst the most prominent centres for this trade were Manchester, Oldham, Bolton, Rochdale, Ashton, Bury, and Blackburn. In the manorial and other records of this period we find frequent references to “loomhouses,” “bleachouses,” “woolmen,” and “clothmakers.” These pioneers of the wool trade, the clothiers, often lived in large town–houses, adjacent to and communicating with which were their warehouses for the wool and manufactured goods. The contents of one of these establishments is furnished by the inventory attached to the will of Anthony Mosley, of Manchester, clothier, proved at Chester, April 30, 1607. The will itself, after providing for the family of the testator and bestowing several hundred pounds for charitable purposes, concludes with a clause to the effect that the testator’s “walke millers” (i.e., fullers) shall each have a cloak of 10 or 11 shillings a yard; that every one of his servants shall have 40s. each; that at the funeral a dinner shall be provided, and “a dealing to the poor of 2d. a piece”; and finally that the parson who shall make the funeral sermon is to be rewarded with 20s. for his pains. The dwelling–house consisted of the hall, the parlour, and the kitchen, with chambers over them; also a chamber over the warehouse, a brewhouse, a “bolting–chamber,”161 an upper loft, and cellars. The stock of cloth in the warehouse was valued at £255, and the stock at various fulling–mills was estimated at another £740, whilst the various trade debts owing to the deceased amounted to £1,260. The household effects are not given in detail, but are given as “household stuffe and cloth,” and valued at nearly £600, beside £22 of plate. In 1613 there was a heavy decline in the wool trade, to remedy which a Royal Commission was appointed, and subsequently Acts of Parliament passed to remove the impost on cloth, which had been put on by the Merchant Adventurers’ Company, who for some years had an almost complete monopoly of dyeing cloth. The establishment of a free trade in dyeing once more revived the trade, and dyers were found in all our Lancashire towns where woollen cloth was manufactured, and alongside them were found fulling, or, as they were then called, walk mills. Coal, ironstone, and flags where obtainable also now began to find a ready market. Towards the close of the century the making of fustian and other so–called cotton162 goods, which had almost been confined to Manchester, began rapidly to be taken up by the surrounding towns, one of the first of these being Bolton.
Lancashire had not yet established a printing–press,163 though booksellers and stationers were not unknown in the larger towns; and a fair number of authors from this county had furnished materials for the printers of the Metropolis, amongst whom were Isaac Ambrose, Vicar of Preston and Garstang; John Angier, pastor of Denton; Nehemiah Barnet, minister of Lancaster; William Bell, minister at Huyton; Seth Bushell, Vicar of Preston; Henry Pigott, Vicar of Rochdale; Charles Earl, of Derby; Edward Gee, minister at Eccleston; John Harrison, minister of Ashton–under–Lyne; William Leigh, Vicar of Standish; Charles Herle, Vicar of Winwick; Richard Hollingworth, a Fellow of Manchester College; and Richard Wroe, Warden of Manchester; Joseph Rigby; Alexander Rigby; William Moore, Vicar of Whalley; Jeremiah Horrox, the astronomer; Nathaniel Heywood, Vicar of Ormskirk; and a number of writers for and against Quakers (see Chapter IX.). One reason, perhaps, of this absence of the printing–press was that not until 1695 was the censorship of printed matter swept away.
On the restoration of Charles II., as a reward for faithful services to the House of Stuart during the Civil War, it was intended to establish a new order of knighthood; this intention was ultimately abandoned, but those in Lancashire who were to have been honoured were Thomas Holt, Thomas Greenhalgh, Colonel Kirby, Robert Holt, Edmund Asheton, Christopher Banastre, Francis Anderton, Colonel James Anderton, Roger Nowell, Henry Norris, Thomas Preston,—Farrington,—Fleetwood, John Girlington, William Stanley, Edward Tildesley, Thomas Stanley, Richard Boteler, John Ingleton, and C. Walmesley, all of whom had an estate of the value of at least £1,000.
William III., on his way to Ireland, before the battle of the Boyne, embarked from Liverpool on June 14, 1690, and he probably met with but a poor reception from the Lancashire people, as everywhere in the county the Roman Catholics were dissatisfied at the expulsion of the Stuarts by the House of Orange. The unpopularity of the King gave rise to many plots against him, the last of which was known as the “Lancashire Plot,” which, according to one authority,164 was not only the parent but the companion of all the other conspiracies, and its origin was owing to the politics of James II., who, hoping to regain the crown, concerted with his friends, before his departure for France, that they should raise a ferment in England, and that some trusty person should be commissioned to carry out this scheme.
The person selected for this commission was Dr. Bromfield, who, to suit his purpose, passed himself off as a Quaker,165 and passed rapidly through the North of England to Scotland, sowing the seeds of discontent as he went along. From Scotland he proceeded to Ireland, and then returned to Lancashire, intending to make that county the centre of action. Caryl, Lord Molyneux, had, in 1687, been appointed Lord–Lieutenant of Lancashire in the place of Lord Derby; and it was to his house at Croxteth that Dr. Bromfield first proceeded on his return from Ireland; and here he found at all events a sympathizer, if not an active partisan.
From Croxteth he went to an inn at Rhuddlan, in Flintshire, where he stayed for some time, and soon had a considerable number of visitors. From this place he made frequent visits to Ireland, by this means keeping up a safer communication with the exiled King and his friends in Lancashire. Suspicion having fallen on him, the vessel in which he crossed to Ireland was seized, but with the assistance of the landlord of the inn at Rhuddlan he made his escape and repaired to Ireland, where King James made him a Commissioner of the Mint. The Lancashire Plot included the murder of the King, and Colonel Parker, according to De la Rue, was the person who first propounded this portion of the plot to Lord Melford. Dr. Bromfield now found it absolutely necessary to have an active agent, who was to be at once unscrupulous and trustworthy. Such a man he thought he had secured in John Lunt, an Irishman by birth, but who was successively a labourer at Highgate, a coachman, a licensed victualler at Westminster, and one of King James’s Guards, with a promise of a captaincy. Moreover, he was not a man of good character, as he had been tried for bigamy.
This Lunt, having followed the King to France soon after his abdication, was sent from thence with the rest of the guards to Ireland in May, 1689, and there renewed his acquaintance with Bromfield. Being assured that the people in Lancashire only waited the King’s commission to rise in arms on his behalf and restore him to the throne, he at once undertook to be the bearer of the commission. Meanwhile the conspirators in Lancashire, evidently being eager for the rising, sent over to Ireland Edmund Threlfall, of Ashes, in Goosnargh, to fetch the needful commissions, and accordingly he and two others embarked in a “pink” (i.e., a small ship) called the Lion of Lancaster, and sailed down the Lune by night without any Custom–house certificate. This vessel had been used to fetch cattle from the Isle of Man for the Earl of Derby, and the sailors were led to believe that this was again their destination on this occasion; but Threlfall induced the captain to make for Dublin, where they duly arrived, and having received the commission and obtained a passport from Lord Melford, they re–embarked on board the pink, which, to prevent suspicion, was laden with iron pots and bars and other commodities, and they anchored in the Lune near to Cockerham on the morning of June 13, 1689. Whilst in Dublin, Threlfall and Lunt had met, and had now returned together in the pink, and as soon as she was anchored in the Lune they were put ashore, before the arrival of the Custom–house officers, whose practice and duty it was to go on board every vessel as she entered the harbour. Lunt, with that carelessness which so often distinguishes conspirators, left on board his saddle–bags, which contained some of the commissions, and finding out after he got ashore that he had done so, he asked one of the sailors who was returning with the cock–boat to the ship to bring them after him to Cockerham; but before this could be done the officers came on board, and discovering the papers, set off in pursuit of their owners; but not finding them, they handed the documents over to the authorities.
The discovery of these papers caused considerable excitement, and they were carefully examined by the Earl of Devonshire, the Earl of Macclesfield, the Earl of Scarborough and Lord Wharton, who were all in Manchester on army business, and they recommended that warrants should be issued to apprehend Lunt and Threlfall. In the meantime the two conspirators had taken shelter at Myerscough Lodge, near Preston, where lived Thomas Tyldesley, who was one of the foremost supporters of their cause. Here they divided such of the commissions as they had brought with them, Lunt setting off to deliver those for Lancashire, Cheshire and Staffordshire, whilst Threlfall took those for Yorkshire and Durham.
Lunt afterwards went to London to buy arms and enlist men to be sent to Lancashire. At this time Irishmen came into the county in such numbers as to rouse suspicion, and in October the justices of the peace at the adjourned quarter sessions at Manchester sent a letter to the Secretary of State, in which it was stated that the gaols were full of Irish Roman Catholics, that many others were staying at Popish houses, and that boxes with scarlet cloaks, pistols and swords had been sent from London to Roman Catholic gentlemen now absent from home.
The warrants against Lunt and Threlfall were, no doubt, issued, but it was not until August that an arrest was made, when Lunt and Mr. Abbot, the steward of Lord Molyneux, were apprehended at Coventry when they were returning from London. They were cast into prison as enemies to the King, and soon afterward Charles Cawson, the master of the ship which brought Lunt and Threlfall from Ireland, was arrested on a similar charge. Cawson was taken from Coventry to London, where he gave evidence before the Privy Council as to his taking Threlfall to Ireland, and bringing him and Lunt back, also as to the papers left in the pink at Cockerham. Meanwhile Threlfall, having despatched his business in Yorkshire and Durham, where he assumed the name and title of Captain Brown, and probably not knowing that a warrant had been issued against him, returned home to Goosnargh, where he remained for some time concealed, waiting for a chance to get away to Ireland. Ashes, which had been the home of this family for several generations, was well adapted for a place of concealment, not only from its retired situation, but from its peculiar structure, its centre wall being at least 4 feet thick, and containing two cavities large enough to hide half a dozen men in; add to these advantages that the house was surrounded by a moat, and on every side were sympathizing neighbours.
All things considered, perhaps Threlfall was as safe here as anywhere had he used ordinary caution, but on August 20 (1690) he was surprised near his house by a party of militia, and as he offered to resist, he was killed by a corporal who was one of the party. At the trial in Manchester in 1694, one John Wilson, of Chipping, made a deposition that Threlfall had told him that he had twenty Irishmen ready for his troop, who had been at his house and in the county waiting for several months.
In the February following a deposition was made before the Mayor of Evesham, in Worcestershire, that divers persons in that neighbourhood had received commissions from King James to raise two regiments of horse, two of dragoons, and three of foot for Lancashire, and that in various places were hidden arms, etc., especially in the houses of Mr. Blundell, of Ince, and John Holland, of Prescot; and further, that the deponent had seen and heard read a letter from the late Queen in the hand of Lord Molyneux’s son, which gave assurance from the French King of assistance in arms and men. This information led to the imprisonment of several leading Lancashire Roman Catholics.
In the May following, Mr. Robert Dodsworth declared on oath to the Lord Chief Justice Holt that the troops in Lancashire were to be joined by the late King’s forces for Ireland, while the French were to land in Cornwall, and the Duke of Berwick was to cause a diversion in Scotland, but that no rising was to take place until the late King landed in Lancashire, which he had promised to do within a month.
John Lunt in November was committed to Newgate, where he was kept for twenty weeks, and then bailed out to appear at the Lancaster Assizes, where he appeared in August, 1690, and was then committed to Lancaster Castle on a charge of high–treason. Here he remained until April, 1691, when he was brought to trial and acquitted, partly because the Custom–house officers were unable to swear to the papers, and partly because Charles Cawson, the master of the ship, had in the meantime fallen sick and died. Lunt, notwithstanding his long imprisonment and narrow escape from the scaffold, appears almost immediately to have set about raising men and collecting arms for the proposed insurrection. The destruction of the French fleet off the Hague on May 20, 1692, dispersed all thoughts of an invasion and for awhile partially arrested the designs of the conspirators.
The progress of the conspiracy was now slow and spasmodic, and was seriously checked in May, 1694, by the arrest and committal to the Tower of Walter Crosby, on whom were found papers containing many details of the proposed insurrection; but more fatal even than this was that Lunt turned traitor, and on June 15, 1694, made a full confession of all he knew to one of the Secretaries of State. This, then, is the Lancashire Plot as given by the Court advocates, who, if they erred at all, would certainly not do so in favour of the conspirators. As far as Lancashire is concerned, the whole matter was at an end, except that the following gentlemen were all tried at Manchester in 1694, viz.: Caryl, Lord Molyneux, Sir William Gerard, Sir Rowland Stanley, Sir Thomas Clifton, William Dicconson, Esq., Philip Langton, Esq., Bartholomew Walmsley, Esq., and Mr. William Blundell.166
It is but fair to add that the various accounts published regarding this so–called Lancashire Plot contain many variations and inconsistencies, and it is no easy matter to decide which of these various writers is correct; a full account of the trials is now, however, in print, to which the curious reader is referred.167 The result of these trials was that the prisoners were acquitted, the witnesses not being considered worthy of credit; but subsequently the House of Commons, by a vote of 133 to 37, resolved that there were grounds for the prosecution of the gentlemen at Manchester, as it appeared that there was a dangerous plot carried on against the King and his Government; this resolution was also confirmed by the House of Lords.
The Lancashire gentlemen at the next assizes prosecuted Lunt and two others, who were the chief witnesses against them, and they were all three convicted of perjury.
During the reigns of James I. and Charles II. several towns applied for and got fresh powers by royal charter; this was the case with Preston and Liverpool and several smaller towns—amongst the latter were Kirkham and Garstang. At a very early period a market was held at Garstang, but it was not incorporated until 1680, when Charles II. granted a charter whereby the inhabitants were declared to be a “body corporate by the name of the Bailiff and burgesses of the Borough of Garstang.” From 1680 to the present time the Bailiff has regularly been elected.
The birth of many new trades in Lancashire dates from the seventeenth century, although many of the national industries were followed here at a much earlier period. We now find numerous references to various trades on the tokens, which were somewhat extensively issued in Lancashire in consequence of the great scarcity of small change shortly after the execution of Charles I. Some of these local tokens were of superior workmanship, and of material calculated to stand the wear to which they were subjected. They represented pennies, half–pennies and farthings.
About 150 varieties of these Lancashire tokens were issued before the close of the seventeenth century,168 some of which indicate the trade followed by the issuer, and thus furnish some clue to the spread of certain industries within the county. A study of them gives the following results:
Amongst the unclassified several tokens bore religious emblems, such as “the bleeding heart” and the “dove and olive branch”; and the “eagle and child” was a favourite design. Crests or family arms were also often used, but in these cases there is nothing to indicate the occupation of the person who issued the token.
During the century to which the Lancashire plot just recorded formed a fitting close, Lancashire had witnessed many stirring events—the monarchy had been destroyed, the Commonwealth set up, and the rule of kings again established; Roman Catholics had persecuted Protestants, and Puritans had tried their best to repress Roman Catholicism; and in each and every case this county had done its share: if battles were to be fought, the Lancashire lads were in the thick of them; if religious creeds had to be repressed, in their mistaken zeal, there again were the people of this county to the fore. But, notwithstanding wars, plagues, persecutions, insurrections, and a host of minor evils, Lancashire still progressed, her towns increased in number and in size, and her sons were leading the van in all matters of trade, commerce and enterprise. Manchester, Liverpool, Preston, and other large towns were attracting to them men, not only from the surrounding districts, but from all civilized countries; whilst the woollen and other goods manufactured in the county had already obtained a world–wide fame. Amongst other industries introduced during this century was bell–founding, which trade was carried on in Wigan with considerable success as early as 1647, and many church bells in the surrounding districts came from this foundry.