During his visit he knighted William Massy, Robert Bindloes, Gilbert Clifton, John Talbot, Gilbert Ireland, and Edward Olbaldeston. Frederick, the son–in–law of James, was crowned King of Bohemia in October, 1619, but after a very brief tenure he was dethroned in 1620, and after the battle of Prague fled to Holland. The Puritan party in this county had strong sympathy with the ejected “winter–king” as he was styled, and James seized the opportunity to urge Parliament to grant him two subsidies, one involving an assessment of 4s. in the pound on land, and 2s. 8d. on goods and chattels; and when the new Parliament met in 1624 a grant of £300,000 was made to recover the palatinate lost by Frederick. For the war with the Roman Catholic Powers which followed the Puritans were responsible.
Half the army raised for this service perished from sickness, and altogether the result was disastrous; and just when the feeling of discontent was beginning to manifest itself, the King died.
Charles I. was not slow to follow in the steps of his father in his manner of rule: subsidy followed subsidy, sometimes with the authority of Parliament, and sometimes without. And thus came about the contest between the King and the Commons, which led to the attempt to rule England without a Parliament. In 1635 the attempt was made to levy the tax known as Ship–money, for the equipment of a naval force. Humphrey Chetham was at that time High Sheriff of Lancashire, and to him was sent the writ for the collection within the county; on the back of this writ he wrote: “If you shall tax & assesse men according [to] their estate, then Liverpool, being poore and now goes as it were a beginge, must pay very little: letters patent are now forth for the same towne.”[132] The whole county was assessed at £475, of which Liverpool had to find £15. In the same tax for 1636, Lancashire was put down to find one ship of 400 tons burden, 160 men, and £1,000; towards this, Preston was to raise £40, Lancaster £30, Liverpool £25, Wigan £50, Clitheroe and Newton £7 10s. each. Comparing these figures with some of those for the Yorkshire towns, it would appear that in this county there was no borough as rich as either Hull, which paid £140, or Leeds, which was called on for £200. In this same year (1636) Lancashire was ordered to find 420 foot soldiers and 50 dragoons.
After eleven years’ interval a Parliament was again summoned to meet, on April 13, 1640, which only sat for three weeks; but on November 3 following the Long Parliament was convened, when Lancashire was represented for the county by Ralph Ashton (Parliamentarian) and Roger Kirby (Royalist); Lancaster, John Harrison and Thomas Fanshaw (both Royalists); Preston, Richard Shuttleworth and Thomas Standish (both Parliamentarians); Newton, Peter Leigh and Sir Roger Palmer (Royalists); Wigan, Orlando Bridgeman (Royalist) and Alexander Rigby (Parliamentarian); Clitheroe, Ralph Ashton and Richard Shuttleworth (both Parliamentarians); Liverpool, John Moore (Parliamentarian) and Sir Richard Wynn, Bart. (Royalist). If its members of Parliament represented the county, parties here must have been equally divided, as there were seven Parliamentarians and seven Royalists.
Amongst the first enactments of this Parliament which concerned this county was the abolition of the Duchy Court of Star Chamber and the repeal of the forest laws. The knights, squires, merchants, gentlemen and freeholders of Lancashire at this time presented a petition to Parliament representing that undue influence had been brought to bear at the election of knights of the shire, and they prayed that those who had been instrumental in bringing on arbitrary government should be dismissed from office. The next step was taken in 1641, when Parliament resolved to take command of the militia, and with this in view Lord Strange was removed from his office of Lord–Lieutenant of the county and Lord Wharton put in his place; at the same time a considerable number of justices of the peace known not to be well affected to the Parliament were struck off the commission and others appointed in their stead; and Mr. Ashton, Mr. Shuttleworth, Mr. Rigby and Mr. Moore, members of Parliament (all Parliamentarians), were despatched to Lancashire to see that the ordinance of the militia was put into force. We now find ourselves on the eve of those domestic struggles which ever since have been known as the Civil Wars, and in which Lancashire was destined to play no small part. At this time most of the old castles and fortresses had long ago been allowed to fall into disuse and ruin, but there still remained tenable the castles at Lancaster, Clitheroe, Greenhaugh and Liverpool, and the smaller fortified houses of Thurland, Hoghton, Latham and Greenhaugh, all of which were utilized to the utmost. In 1641 the revolt in Ireland was causing considerable anxiety in the minds of the Lancashire people, insomuch that they entreated Parliament to appoint a fleet of small ships to guard their coast, to prevent the Papists giving intelligence to the rebels, and to act as a defence for the “petitioners and other Protestants who inhabited the maritime parts opposite to Ireland.”
The breach between the King and his Parliament gradually became widened, and early in 1642 Charles removed his Court to York, where he received a petition from Lancashire signed by 64 knights, 55 divines, 740 gentlemen, and about 7,000 freeholders, in which they express their satisfaction that the measures taken by the King had “weakened the hopes of the sacrilegious devourers of the churches patrimonie, and provided against all Popish impieties and idolatries and the growing danger of Anabaptists, Brownists, and other novellists,” and then proceed to say that there is one thing which “sads our hearts,” which is “the distance and misunderstanding between Your Majesty and Your Parliament.”
To check the strong party of Royalists in the county, orders were issued to levy fines on the estates of the so–called “malignants,” and other means adopted to, if possible, render them powerless when the struggle actually began. These precautions, however, were taken too late to be really effective.
On January 20, 1642, the King made a last attempt to come to terms with the House of Commons, and failing to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion, Parliament ceased to seek for the royal assent to their Bills, and by an “ordinance” of their own took the entire control of the militia. In the meantime the King went to Yorkshire, but was refused admission to Hull. Both parties were now making active preparation for an appeal to arms, and when the King on June 2 indignantly refused to hand over all his powers to Parliament and become a King in name only, the negotiations between the two came to an end, and practically the Civil War began. On August 22, 1642, Charles reared his standard on the walls of Nottingham Castle, and his herald made the proclamation of war. Parliament now appealed to the King to lower his standard, but it was of no avail, and on September 9 the Commons published a declaration setting forth their view of the causes of the war.
The great civil strife which followed was not one war, but many wars. In Lancashire these were for the most part carried on by officers and troops raised in the various districts, assisted sometimes by the local militia; sometimes they besieged a town, and at other times only attacked a private house, but in every case the issue was one and the same—the King or the Parliament. Some time before actual war was declared at Nottingham and London, the troubles had begun in Lancashire.
The first outburst appears to have taken place at Preston, on June 20, 1642, when Sir John Girlington, the High Sheriff of the county, had convened a meeting at which to read the King’s declarations and his answers to the Lancashire petition. The number of people attending this meeting was so great that it was adjourned to Preston Moor (just outside the town), and amongst those present were Lord Strange, Lord Molineux, Sir George Middleton, and Sir Edward Fitton. The meeting broke up in confusion; the High Sheriff and some 400 others rode up and down the moor crying, “For the King, for the King!” whilst the greater number rallied round the opposition party, and remained to pray for the uniting of King and Parliament.