William E. A. Axon.
Moss Side, Manchester.
Contents.
| PAGE | |
| The “Lancashire Plot” | [1] |
| De Quincey’s Highwayman | [15] |
| Some Lancashire Centenarians | [22] |
| What was the First Book Printed in Manchester? | [39] |
| Thomas Lurting: a Liverpool Worthy | [44] |
| Kufic Coins found in Lancashire | [56] |
| Newspapers in 1738-39 | [61] |
| A Lancashire Naturalist: Thomas Garnett | [72] |
| The Traffords of Trafford | [80] |
| A Manchester Will of the Fifteenth Century | [106] |
| A Visitor to Lancashire in 1807 | [111] |
| How the First Spinning Machinery was taken to Belgium | [119] |
| Merry Andrew of Manchester | [127] |
| A Manchester Jeanie Deans | [129] |
| Some Lancashire Giants | [130] |
| A Note on William Rowlinson | [137] |
| Literary Taste of the Eighteenth Century | [143] |
| Hugh of Manchester: a Statesman and Divine of the Thirteenth Century | [146] |
| Mrs. Fletcher in Lancashire | [157] |
| Manchester and the First Reform Agitation | [165] |
| The Folk-Lore of Lancashire | [197] |
| Manchester Grammar School Mill | [222] |
| The Rising of 1715 | [231] |
| The Fool of Lancaster | [243] |
| Alexander Barclay and Manchester | [245] |
| Index | [255] |
Echoes of Old Lancashire.
The “Lancashire Plot.”
The town of Manchester was in a state of indignant and feverish excitement on the 17th of October, 1694, being the sixth year of the reign of William the Deliverer. Everywhere groups of townspeople were discussing the all-absorbing topic of the “Lancashire Plot,” for on that day there came to the town four of their Majesties’ judges, with every circumstance of pomp and parade, to try for their lives gentlemen of the best blood of Lancashire and Cheshire; unfortunate prisoners who were accused of having conspired against the Deliverer, of having been guilty of the treason of remaining faithful to the old King, whom the rest of the nation had cast off. The prisoners were brought into town strongly guarded, amidst the sympathetic demonstrations of their neighbours, who were equally liberal of groans and hisses for the wretched informers who were about to do their endeavour to bring them to the scaffold.
Lancashire, which in the civil war struck some hearty blows for the Parliament, was now a hotbed of disaffection. The old cavalier families, in spite of bitter experience of Stuart ingratitude, remained faithful in spirit to the exile of St. Germains; and the common people would have no love for King William, who was a foreigner, nor for Queen Mary, who sat upon the throne of her royal father, whilst he wandered a weary exile in a foreign land. The accused would have been pretty certain of sympathy had the public mind been convinced of the reality of the supposed conspiracy. How much more so, then, when it was shrewdly suspected that the charge had been trumped up by a gang of villains eager for blood-money, and supported by greater rogues anxious for a share of the estates which would be forfeited upon the conviction of their victims? Nor was the suspicion altogether groundless; covetous eyes were fixed longingly on these fine Lancashire acres, and the Roman Catholic gentry ran great danger of being defrauded of their inheritances.
In 1693, a commission sat at Warrington to inquire into certain lands and property alleged to have been given to “superstitious uses,” i.e., to ascertain whether the Roman Catholic gentry had applied any portion of their estates or income to the promotion of their faith, or the sustenance of its ministers, and if they could be convicted of this heinous crime the property was confiscated, and one-third portion was to be the reward of the undertakers. So confident were these persons of their prey, that the plunder was prospectively allotted. As the result of this commission, where the defendants were not heard, the matter was carried into the Exchequer Chamber. Here it was pretended that at a meeting at the papal nuncio’s house, Lord Molyneux, William Standish, Thomas Eccleston, William Dicconson, Sir Nicholas Sherborne, Sir W. Gerard, and Thomas Gerard, had all promised money or lands for Popish uses. But the accusers had been very clumsy, for the falsehood of each separate item of the accusation was so abundantly proved, that the Government was forced to abandon all further proceedings.