Clitheroe.
Ralph Assheton, Esq.
Richard Shuttleworth, Gent.
Wigan.
Orlando Bridgeman, Esq.
Alexander Rigby, Esq.
Newton.
William Ashhurst, Esq.
Roger Palmer, Knight.
Liverpool.
John Moore, Esq.
Richard Wyn, Knight and Baronet.
Of the above, Kirkby, Fanshaw, Harrison, Bridgeman, Palmer and Wyn were nominally royalists, but three of them took no part in the war at all, and only Kirkby had anything to do with it in Lancashire. Roger Kirkby of Kirkby Lonsdale was a member of the royalist County Committee, and one of their collectors for Lonsdale Hundred; he was concerned in the capture of Lancaster in 1643, and in the attempt to raise the siege of Thurland Castle later on the same year, but his name does not afterwards appear.[36]
Sir John Harrison was a native of Beaumont, near Lancaster, but he lived in London, where he had acquired considerable wealth as an official in the Customs. At the outbreak of the war he was arrested, but he escaped and joined the King at Oxford. Harrison outlived the Restoration by ten years, and died at the age of eighty. His daughter was Anne Lady Fanshawe, the wife of Sir Richard Fanshawe.[37]
Bridgeman was the son of the Bishop of Chester of that name, and a lawyer. On the day on which Lord Strange's impeachment was moved Bridgeman was disabled from sitting any longer, it having been reported to the House that he had raised fourteen men to assist Lord Strange and had been active in persuading others to do so. Bridgeman came into some prominence after the Restoration, being created a Baronet in 1660, and in 1667 Lord Keeper. He was the ancestor of the Earls of Bradford.[38]
Ralph Assheton of Middleton, one of the members for the County, was head of that branch of the ancient family. In the seventeenth century the three principal branches were that at Middleton, Whalley, and Downham near Clitheroe, the last being now the only one which remains. He was the son of Richard Assheton, and his wife Mary, daughter of Thomas Venables, Baron of Kinderton in Cheshire, and he married Elizabeth, only daughter of John Kay of Woodsome in Yorkshire. Born on March 31, 1606, Assheton was quite a young man at the beginning of the Civil War, but he at once came to the front, and was first Colonel and afterwards Major-General in command of all the forces in Lancashire. He was a man of great energy and ability and of moderate views. He fought in nearly every engagement of the first war, and on January 2, 1644‑5, was specially thanked by the House of Commons for his services to the public. This vote was repeated after the Battle of Preston in 1648. But no one was safe in such troublous times. In 1644 Assheton was committed to the Tower for a fortnight on refusing to obey an order of Parliament about the payment of some money; and in May, 1650, a warrant was issued by the Council of State for him to be brought before the Council on a charge of high treason. Whether the warrant was executed or not does not appear. Assheton died early in 1651, and was buried in Middleton Parish Church on February 25, 1650‑1.[39]
He must be distinguished from two other Ralph Asshetons, both of them on the Parliamentary side. These were Ralph Assheton, eldest son of Sir Ralph Assheton of Whalley, who was M.P. for Clitheroe in the Long Parliament, and Ralph Assheton of Downham who was a Deputy-Lieutenant and a sequestrator of delinquents' estates. The latter of these, however, died in 1643.
Richard Shuttleworth of Gawthorpe near Padiham, ancestor of the present Lord Shuttleworth, was born in 1587, and had been Sheriff of Lancashire in 1618. His experience and standing in the county, as well as his ability made him of great value to his party. He was a moderate man of Presbyterian views, and became a lay elder of the third Lancashire Classis. He was the only one, however, of the original Lancashire leaders who had an interview with Lilburne in the campaign of 1651. Four of his sons took part in the war, three of them becoming colonels, while one of them was killed at Lancaster in 1643 while still a captain.[40]