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,
Let him keep who has the power,
And let him take who can,
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.