A History of Lancashire

by Henry Fishwick

Toward the end of the year 1349 Lancashire was visited with the pestilence known as the Black Death, which about this time broke out again and again in almost every part of the civilized world. By a fortunate accident a record of the dreadful ravages made by this disease in the Hundred of Amounderness has been preserved.

It appears that the Archdeacon of Richmond (in whose jurisdiction was the whole of Lancashire north of the Ribble) and Adam de Kirkham, Dean of Amounderness, his Proctor, had a dispute relative to the fees for the probate of wills and the administration of the effects of persons dying intestate; the matter was referred to a jury of laymen, whose report furnishes a return of the number of deaths from the plague, and other details which may be accepted as at all events fairly correct, although the district must have been at the time in such a state of panic as to render the collection of statistical facts extremely difficult.

In ten parishes in Amounderness, 13,180 died between September 8, 1349, and January 11, 1349–50, and nine benefices were vacant in consequence. The chapel of the hospital of St. Mary Magdalen at Preston was without a priest for eight weeks, and in that town 3,000 men and women perished; of these, 300 had goods worth £5, and left wills, but 200 others with the like property made no wills. At Poulton–le–Fylde the deaths amounted to 800; at Lancaster 3,000 died, at Garstang 2,000, and at Kirkham 3,000, whilst the other less thickly populated places each lost more or less of its inhabitants.[87] How the rest of Lancashire fared under this dreadful visitation is uncertain, but Manchester and a few other places in the south of the county are said to have suffered very heavily.

We have already seen that Edmund Crouchback, the favourite son of the King, had given to him the honour of Lancaster, which was confirmed by Henry III., who granted (in 1267) to him the castle of Kenilworth, the castle and manor of Monmouth, and other territories in various parts of the kingdom. The founder of the house of Lancaster died at Bayonne in May, 1296, and Thomas, his eldest son, succeeded to his vast possessions in Lancashire and elsewhere; and in 1297–98 he passed through the county in company with his royal master on his way to Scotland; in 1310 he married Alice, the sole daughter of Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, and then got possession of the great estates in the county which had for several generations belonged to the De Lacy family.

In 1316–17 one of the followers of the Earl of Lancaster, in order, it is said, to ingratiate himself with the King, invaded some of the possessions of the Earl, and the result was a pitched battle, which took place near Preston, in which Banastre and his army were completely defeated.

The subsequent quarrel between this celebrated Earl of Lancaster and the King is well known, and need not be repeated here; finding himself unable to meet the royal forces, he retired to his castle at Pontefract, where he was ultimately retained as a prisoner, and near to which town, after suffering great indignities and insults, he was executed as a traitor, March 22, 1321–22. Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, was succeeded by Henry his brother, who, on the reversion of the attainder of the latter, had granted to him, in A.D. 1327, the issues and arrearages of the lands, etc., which had belonged to the earldom of Lancaster and Leicester. On the death of Henry, Earl of Lancaster, the title went to his son Henry (called Grismond), who became Earl of Lancaster, Derby, and Lincoln, and was, as a crowning honour, for his distinguished military services, created in 1353 the first Duke of Lancaster, for his life, having his title confirmed by the prelates and peers assembled in Parliament at Westminster. He was empowered to hold a chancery court for Lancaster, and to issue writs there under his own seal, and to enjoy the same liberties and regalities as belonged to a county palatine,[88] in as ample manner as the Earl of Chester had within that county. Henry, who for his deeds of piety was styled “the Good Duke of Lancaster,” obtained a license to go to Syracuse to fight against the infidels there; but being taken prisoner in Germany, he only regained his liberty by the payment of a heavy fine. Towards the close of his life he lived in great state in his palace of Savoy, and became a great patron to several religious houses, one of which was Whalley Abbey (see [Chapter IX.]). He died March 24, 1360–61, leaving two daughters, one of whom (Blanch) was married to John of Gaunt, Earl of Richmond, fourth son of Edward III.; and to her he bequeathed his Lancashire possessions, and on the death of her sister Maud, the widow of the Duke of Bavaria, in A.D. 1362, without issue, she became entitled to the remainder of the vast estates of her late father.

After the death of the Duchess of Bavaria, John of Gaunt was declared by Parliament to be Duke of Lancaster in the right of his wife—to have and to hold the title and honour to him and his lawful heirs male for ever.

John of Gaunt was born at Ghent, in Flanders (hence his surname), in March, 1340. In A.D. 1369 he was sent over to France with a considerable force, but owing to sickness in his camp he returned to England, to find that his wife had during his absence died of the plague, and been buried in great state in Westminster Abbey. In 51 Edward III. (1377), a grant of a chancery in his dukedom and all the rights appertaining to a county palatine was made to him; and he was ordered to send (when required) two knights to Parliament “for the commonality,” two burgesses for every borough in the said county. Previous to this John of Gaunt had taken to himself a second wife—Constance, one of the daughters and heiresses of Peter the Cruel, King of Castile and Leon, whose arms he impaled with his ducal coat; his attempt by force of arms to obtain a right to the kingly title, however, failed. The life of the illustrious Duke of Lancaster is written in the pages of English history: his many military exploits, his bold bearing in opposing the bishops in the Wickliffe case, the many offices which he held under the King, his unpopularity at the time of the insurrection of Wat Tyler, his doings in Scotland and in Spain, are all incidents in the career of one whose name must for ever be remembered in the county where he held such power.

For his duchy he obtained in 13 Richard II. (1390) a right to have an exchequer in the county, with barons and officers appertaining thereunto, and also the right to appoint justices itinerant for the pleas of the forests.

John, named Plantagenet King of Castile and Leon, Duke of Lancaster, Earl of Leicester, Lincoln and Derby, Lieutenant of the King in Aquitaine, and High Steward of England,[89] died in the year 1399.