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:
| 1589. | |||
| £ | s. | d. | |
Paid for erecting a beacon | 20 | 0 | 0 |
„ „ powder at Ormskirk for the trayninge | 4 | 0 | 0 |
„ „ two days trayninge of 300 soldiers | 20 | 0 | 0 |
„ „ 18 rowles of matches | 0 | 10 | 8 |
„ to Robert Pilkington at two severall tymes for repayringe and kepinge the beacon at Ryvington Pyke | 5 | 7 | 4 |
„ for 210 pounds of powder for the saide two dayes trayninge | 14 | 0 | 0 |