Liskeard (Liscarret) was at the time of the Domesday Survey an important manor with a mill rendering 12d. yearly and a market rendering 4s. By the Conqueror it had been given to the count of Mortain by whom it was held in demesne. Ever since that time it has passed with the earldom or duchy of Cornwall. The fertility of its soil and the river Looe probably led to early settlement at Liskeard. Richard, king of the Romans, recognized its natural advantages and built the manor house or castle and resided there occasionally. In 1240 he constituted Liskeard a free borough and its burgesses freemen with all the liberties enjoyed by the burgesses of Launceston and Helston. In 1266 he granted fairs at the Feasts of the Assumption and St Matthew. His son Edmund earl of Cornwall in 1275 granted to the burgesses for a yearly rent of £18 (sold by William III. to Lord Somers) the borough in fee farm with its mills, tolls, fines and pleas, pleas of the crown excepted. Liskeard was made a coinage town for tin in 1304. Edward the Black Prince secured to the burgesses in 1355 immunity from pleas outside their franchise for trespass done within the borough. Queen Elizabeth granted a charter of incorporation in 1580 under which there were to be a mayor, recorder and eight councillors. This charter was surrendered to Charles II. in 1680 and a new one granted by his brother under which the corporation became a self-elected body. From 1295 to 1832 Liskeard sent two members to the House of Commons. The parliamentary franchise, at first exercised by the burgesses, was vested by James’ charter in the corporation and freemen. By determining to admit no new freemen the voters became reduced to between 30 and 60. Sir Edward Coke was returned for this borough in 1620, and Edward Gibbon the historian in 1774. In 1832 Liskeard was deprived of one of its members and in 1885 it became merged in the county.
Besides the fairs already mentioned a third was added by Elizabeth’s charter to be held on Ascension Day. These are still among the most considerable cattle fairs in the county. The same charter ratified a market on Mondays and provided for another on Saturdays. The latter is now held weekly, the former twice a month. The flour mill at Lamellion mentioned in the charter of 1275, and probably identical with the mill of the Domesday Survey, is still driven by water.
LISLE, ALICE (c. 1614-1685), commonly known as Lady Alice Lisle, was born about 1614. Her father, Sir White Beckenshaw, was descended from an old Hampshire family; her husband, John Lisle (d. 1664), had been one of the judges at the trial of Charles I., and was subsequently a member of Cromwell’s House of Lords—hence his wife’s courtesy title. Lady Lisle seems to have leaned to Royalism, but with this attitude she combined a decided sympathy with religious dissent. On the 20th of July 1685, a fortnight after the battle of Sedgemoor, the old lady consented to shelter John Hickes, a well-known Nonconformist minister, at her residence, Moyles Court, near Ringwood. Hickes, who was a fugitive from Monmouth’s army, brought with him Richard Nelthorpe, also a partizan of Monmouth, and under sentence of outlawry. The two men passed the night at Moyles Court, and on the following morning were arrested, and their hostess, who had denied their presence in the house, was charged with harbouring traitors. Her case was tried by Judge Jeffreys at the opening of the “Bloody Assizes” at Winchester. She pleaded that she had no knowledge that Hickes’s offence was anything more serious than illegal preaching, that she had known nothing previously of Nelthorpe (whose name was not included in the indictment, but was, nevertheless, mentioned to strengthen the case for the Crown), and that she had no sympathy with the rebellion. The jury reluctantly found her guilty, and, the law recognizing no distinction between principals and accessories in treason, she was sentenced to be burned. Jeffreys ordered that the sentence should be carried out that same afternoon, but a few days’ respite was subsequently granted, and James II. allowed beheading to be substituted for burning. Lady Lisle was executed in Winchester market-place on the 2nd of September 1685. By many writers her death has been termed a judicial murder, and one of the first acts of parliament of William and Mary reversed the attainder on the ground that the prosecution was irregular and the verdict injuriously extorted by “the menaces and violences and other illegal practices” of Jeffreys. It is, however, extremely doubtful whether Jeffreys, for all his gross brutality, exceeded the strict letter of the existing law.
See Howell, State Trials; H. B. Irving, Life of Judge Jeffreys; Stephen, History of the Criminal Law of England.
LISMORE, an island in the entrance to Loch Linnhe, Argyllshire, Scotland, 5 m. N.W. of Oban. Pop. (1901) 500. It lies S.W. and N.E., is 9½ m. long and 1¾ m. broad, and has an area of 9600 acres. It divides the lower end of the loch into two channels, the Lynn of Morvern on the W. and the Lynn of Lome on the E. The name is derived from the Gaelic lios mòr, “great garden.” Several ruined castles stand on the coast, and the highest point of the island is 500 ft. above the sea. The inhabitants raise potatoes, oats, cattle and horses, and these, with dairy produce, form the bulk of the trade. Steamers call at Auchnacrosan. A Columban monastery was founded in Lismore by St Moluag about 592. About 1200 the see of Argyll was separated from Dunkeld by Bishop John, “the Englishman,” and Lismore soon afterwards became the seat of the bishop of Argyll, sometimes called “Episcopus Lismoriensis,” quite distinct from the bishop of the Isles (Sudreys and Isle of Man), called “Episcopus Sodoriensis” or “Insularum,” whose see was divided in the 14th century into the English bishopric of Sodor and Man and the Scottish bishopric of the Isles. The Rev. John Macaulay (d. 1789), grandfather of Lord Macaulay, the historian, and the Rev. Donald M’Nicol (1735-1802), who took up the defence of the Highlands against Dr Johnson, were ministers of Lismore.
For the Book of the Dean of Lismore see [Celt]: Scottish Gaelic Literature.
LISMORE, a town of Rous county, New South Wales, Australia, 320 m. direct N. by E. of Sydney. Pop. (1901) 4378. It is the principal town of the north coast district, and the seat of a Roman Catholic bishop. The surrounding country is partly pastoral, and partly agricultural, the soil being very fertile. The town has a cathedral, school of art, and other public buildings, while its industrial establishments include saw-mills, sugar-mills, butter factories and an iron foundry. Standing at the head of navigation of the Richmond river, Lismore has a large export trade in dairy produce, poultry, pigs, and pine and cedar timber.