The Project Gutenberg eBook, History of the Fylde of Lancashire, by John Porter

HISTORY OF THE FYLDE
OF LANCASHIRE,

BY
JOHN PORTER, M.R.C.S., L.S.A.

FLEETWOOD AND BLACKPOOL:
W. PORTER AND SONS, PUBLISHERS.
1876.

[All rights reserved.]

FLEETWOOD AND BLACKPOOL:
PRINTED BY W. PORTER AND SONS.

TO
BENJAMIN WHITWORTH, ESQUIRE, M.P.,
In admiration of his Enterprise, Generosity, and Philanthropy,
displayed in the Fylde, and elsewhere,
and as
a tribute of personal regard and esteem,
THIS VOLUME
IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED, BY
THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

A few, and only a few, words are needed to introduce the History of the Fylde to the public. In its preparation my aim has been to make the work as comprehensive in description and detail as the prescribed limits would allow, and I have endeavoured to write in a style free from any tendency to pedantry, and I hope, also, from dulness. How far these conditions have been fulfilled I must now leave to the judgment of the reader, doing so with some degree of confidence that at any rate the attempt will be generally appreciated, if the success be not universally acknowledged. In the course of my labours I have availed myself of the works of various authors, and desire to acknowledge my indebtedness, especially to Baines’s Lancashire, Fishwick’s Kirkham, Thornber’s Blackpool, and many volumes of the Cheetham and other historical societies. My thanks for valuable aid are also due to the following gentlemen, amongst others, the Ven. Archdeacon Hornby, of St. Michael’s-on-Wyre; the Rev. W. Richardson, of Poulton-le-Fylde; Col. Bourne, M.P., of Hackensall and Heathfield; John Furness, esq., of Fulwood; W. H. Poole, esq., of Fleetwood; and the Bailiffs of Kirkham.

JOHN PORTER.

Fleetwood, August, 1876.

ERRATA.

[Page 7], line 15, after the word crossing, insert the Main Dyke from. This Dyke is crossed after leaving, and not before reaching, Staining, as stated.

[Page 147], line 9 from the bottom, for Gulph, read Gulf.

[Page 183], line 2, for 1857, read 1657.

[Page 256], dele the heading Coasting.

[Page 286], line 2 from the bottom, for fortified, read forfeited.

[Page 289], line 13 from the bottom, for the first funds, read expenses.

CONTENTS.

HISTORY OF THE FYLDE.

CHAPTER I.
THE ANCIENT BRITONS, ROMANS, ANGLO-SAXONS, AND DANES.

“See! in what crowds the uncouth forms advance:

Each would outstrip the other, each prevent

Our careful search, and offer to your gaze,

Unask’d, his motley features. Wait awhile,

My curious friends! and let us first arrange

In proper order your promiscuous throng.”

The large district of western Lancashire, denominated from time immemorial the Fylde, embraces one third at least of the Hundred of Amounderness, and a line drawn from Ashton, on the Ribble, to Churchtown, on the Wyre, forms the nearest approach to an eastern boundary attainable, for although the section cut off by its means includes more land and villages than properly appertain to the Fylde, a more westerly division would exclude others which form part of it. The whole of the parishes of Bispham, Lytham, Poulton, and St. Michael’s; and the parish of Kirkham, exclusive of Goosnargh-with-Newsham and Whittingham, are comprised in the Fylde country.

The word Amounderness was formerly considered to signify the “Promontory of Agmund,” or “Edmund,” and this origin is alluded to in a treatise written some years since by Mr. Thomas Baines on the “Valley of the Mersey,” in which the following remarks occur:—“In the year 911 the Northumbrians themselves began the war, for they despised the peace which King Edward and his ‘Witan’ offered them, and overran the land of Mercia. After collecting great booty they were overtaken on their march home by the forces of the West Saxons and the Mercians, who put them to flight and slew many thousands of them. Two Danish Kings and five Earls were slain in this battle. Amongst the Earls slain was Agmund, the governor, from whom the Hundred of Agmunderness (Amounderness) was probably named.” In order that the reader may properly comprehend why Mr. Baines should surmise that Amounderness received its title from the Danish Earl, Agmund, it may be stated that the extensive province of Northumbria, then colonised by the Northmen or Danes, embraced, amongst other territory, the district afterwards called Lancashire, and, consequently, the Hundred of Amounderness would be in a great measure under Danish governance. When, however, we call to mind that the Danes did not invade England until A.D. 787, and learn that this Hundred was entered in the Ripon grant in A.D. 705, as Hacmunderness, it becomes obvious that the name cannot have been conferred upon it by that nation, and some other source must be looked to for its origin. In Gibsons’ Etymological Geography there is “Anderness” (for Ackmunderness) described as a “promontory sheltered by oaks, (ac, oak; and mund, protection).” As many large trunks of trees have been discovered beneath the layers of peat in the extensive local mosses, whilst others have been laid bare along the shore by the action of the tides, it can be readily believed that at one time the greater share of the district was clothed with forests. Leyland, who was antiquary to Henry VIII., and surveyed the Hundred during the reign of that monarch, 1509-47, says:—“Al Aundernesse for the most parte in time paste hathe been full of woods, and many of the moores replenished with hy fyrre trees; but now such part of Aundernesse as is towarde the se is sore destitute of woodde.” With such irrefutable evidences of the early woodland condition of Amounderness, there need be no hesitation in accepting the signification which Messrs. Gibson have given to the name—the Ness or Promontory protected by oaks. The word Fylde is regarded simply as a corruption of “Field.” Camden in his “Britannia” of 1590, writes:—

“Tota est campestris, unde Fild pro Field appellatur.”[1]

(The whole is champaign, whence it is called Fild for Field.)

In a subsequent edition of the same work Fild is spelt File, and the latter orthography was used in Fileplumpton, in the Duchy records, afterwards called Fylde Plumpton, and now Wood Plumpton. The Fylde section of this Hundred is a level well-watered country, highly cultivated and richly productive, especially of grain, from which circumstance it was formerly designated the corn-field of Amounderness.

Anterior to the third invasion of the Romans in A.D. 43, the inhabitants of the Fylde and other portions of Lancashire lying between the range of mountains which separates this county from Yorkshire, and the coast about the Bay of Morecambe, were called the Setantii or Segantii, “the dwellers in the country of water,” but at that date the whole tract populated by these people was included in the more extensive province of the Brigantes, comprehending what are now known as the six counties of York, Durham, Northumberland, Westmoreland, Cumberland, and Lancaster. The Fylde at that epoch would be composed chiefly of morasses and forests, interspersed with limited areas and narrow paths of more stable land, and there can be little doubt that the dwellers on such an uninviting spot must have been very few, but that it was traversed and, as far as practicable, inhabited by the ancient Setantii is evident from the several relics of them which have been discovered amongst the peat in modern days. Two or three canoes, consisting of light wooden frameworks, covered with hides, were found by a man named Jolly, about half a century ago, when cutting the “Main Dyke” of Marton Mere;[2] Celtic hammers, axes, and spears have also been taken out of the mosses in the district, all of which were doubtless originally the property of the aboriginal Britons. The bay of Morecambe and the river Wyre acquired their distinctive appellations from the Setantii, the one being derived from the Celtic gwyr, pure or fresh, and the other from mawr, great, and cam, winding or bent.

The hardihood of the native Britons of these parts is attested by Dion Cassius, who informs us that they lived on prey, hunting, and the fruits of trees, and were accustomed to brave hunger, cold, and all kinds of toil, for they would “continue several days up to their chins in water, and bear hunger many days.” In the woods their habitations were wicker shelters, formed of the branches of trees interwoven together, and, in the open grounds, clay or mud huts. They were indebted to the skins of animals slain in the chase for such scanty covering as they cared to wear, and according to Cæsar and other writers, dyed their bodies with woad, which produced a blue colour, and had long flowing hair, being cleanly shaved except the head and upper lip. That the power of endurance possessed by the Setantii, and the neighbouring Brigantes is not to be understood literally as expressed by Cassius may, we venture to think, be taken for granted. It can scarcely be credited that the human frame could ever be reduced or exalted to such an amphibious condition as to be indifferent whether it passed a number of days on dry land or under water; it seems more probable that in his description Cassius referred to the hunting and other expeditions of the inhabitants into the forests and morasses of the Fylde and similarly wooded and marshy tracts, where there is no question the followers of the chase would be more or less in a state of immersion during the whole time they were so engaged.

The religion of the Setantii was Druidical, and their deities resembled those of other heathen nations, such as the Romans and Greeks of that era, but differed in their names. Cæsar tells us that this order of priesthood was presided over by a superior, who was known as the chief Druid, and had almost unlimited authority over all the rest. The Druids were settled at various points of the island, where they erected their temples, but in addition to these principle stations, many of their order were scattered amongst the native tribes of Britain, over which they appear to have exercised the functions and power of judges, arranging both public and private disputes, and deciding all criminal cases. It was part of the creed professed by the Setantii, to vow, when they were engaged in warfare, that they would, through the agency of the Druids, immolate human victims as an atonement for slaughtered enemies, believing that unless man’s life were given for man’s life, the divine anger of the immortal Gods could not be appeased. There were other sacrifices of the same kind instituted at regularly appointed seasons and on special occasions. The Setantii also believed in an immortal soul, but seem to have had no idea of a higher state, as their priests inculcated the doctrine that after death the soul was transported to another body, “imagining that by this the men were more effectually roused to valour, the fear of death being taken away.”[3] Ornaments called “Druids’ eggs,” and worn only by these priests, have been found in the Fylde.

How Cæsar, in B.C. 54 and 55, invaded Britain a first and a second time, achieving at best an empty conquest, and how, after his death, the emperor Claudius sent over an army with a determination to exterminate the Druids, and after thirty pitched battles, subdued province after province, is beyond the limits of this work to state, but as a connecting link of the history of the country with that of our own county, and that portion of it especially under examination, it may be stated that Britain was finally conquered by the Romans under Julius Agricola, and that the best investigation of the subject leads to the opinion that the district which we call Lancashire, was brought into subjection to the Roman conqueror in A.D. 79. A vigorous resistance was for long offered to the army of invaders in the territory of the Setantii by the natives under the Brigantine chief Venutius, but the well drilled legions of the Romans, when commanded by Agricola, proved too formidable to be checked or broken by the wild, undisciplined valour of the Setantii. Tacitus, the son-in-law of the general, informs us that early in the summer of A.D. 79, Agricola personally inspected his soldiers, and marked out many of the stations, one of which, either made at that time or later by the same people, was situated at Kirkham, on the line of the Roman road running from the mouth of Wyre, which will be described hereafter. He explored the estuaries and woods along the western coast of Lancashire, and harassed the enemy by sudden and frequent incursions. When the Brigantes and Setantii had been thoroughly overawed and disheartened by the invincible Romans, Agricola stayed his operations in order to shew them the blessings of peace, and in that way many towns which had bravely held out were induced to surrender and give hostages. These places he surrounded with guards and fortifications. The following winter was passed in endeavouring, by various incentives to pleasure, to subdue the warlike nature of the Britons, thereby diminishing the danger of an outbreak, especially amongst such tribes as the Setantii, whose intrepid spirits had been so difficult to quell, and who were not likely to submit quietly to the yoke of the conqueror, unless some means were adopted to allure them by the charms of civilised luxury from their free field and forest mode of existence. Temples, courts of justice, and comfortable habitations were first erected; the sons of the petty chiefs were next instructed in the liberal arts, and Agricola professed to prefer the genius of the Britons to the attainments of the Gauls. The Roman dress became the fashion, and the toga was frequently worn. The “porch, luxurious baths, and elegant banquets” were regularly instituted, and by degrees the crafty design of the Roman general was accomplished, and the vanquished Britons had ceased to be the hardy warriors of old.

About one century after the subjugation of Britain by Agricola no less than seven important Roman stations, or garrisoned places, had risen up in the county of Lancaster, and were situated at Manchester, Colne, Warrington, Lancaster, Walton-le-dale, Ribchester, and Overborough. The minor ones, such as Kirkham, supposing their sites to have been first built upon in a season of warfare, subsequently became small settlements only, and were, in all probability, unused as military depots. The rivers which flowed in the neighbourhood of the several encampments, terminated in three estuaries, denominated by Ptolemy,[4] the ancient geographer, in his book, completed in A.D. 130, the Seteia Æstuarium, the Moricambe Æstuarium, and the Belisama Æstuarium. The first of these estuaries is generally regarded as the mouth of the Dee, the second is identified with Morecambe Bay, and the third with the Ribble by some historians and the Mersey by others. The same authority mentions also a Portus Setantiorum, which has been located on the banks of the Ribble, Lune, and Mersey, by different antiquarians, but in the opinion of the most recent writers the ancient harbour of the Setantii was situated at the mouth of the river Wyre. Further reference to the Setantian port will be made in a later page of the present chapter.

At the shore margin of the warren at Fleetwood there was visible, about forty years ago, the abrupt and broken termination of a Roman road, which could be traced across the sward, along the Naze below Burn Hall, and onward in the direction of Poulton. From that town it ran in a southerly line towards Staining, crossing Marton Mere, on its way, in the cutting of which its materials were very apparent, and lying on the low mossy lands to the depth of two yards in gravel. From Staining it proceeded to Weeton, and in a hollow near to the moss of that township, consisted of an immense stony embankment several yards in height; in the moss itself the deep beds of gravel were distinctly observable, and from there the road continued its course up the rising ground to Plumpton, the traces as usual being less obvious on the higher land. From Plumpton it travelled towards the elevated site of a windmill between Weeton moss and Kirkham, at which point it turned suddenly, and joined the public road, running in a continuous straight line towards the latter town. The greater part of the long street of Kirkham is either upon or in the immediate vicinity of the old Roman road. From Kirkham the road directed its course towards Lund church, somewhere in the neighbourhood of which it was joined by another path formed by the same people and commencing at the Neb of the Naze near Freckleton.[5] Leaving Lund it ran through Lea on to Fulwood moor, where it took the name of Watling street, and proceeded on to Ribchester. This road has always been known in the Fylde as the Danes’ Pad, from a tradition that those pirates made use of it at a later period in their incursions into our district, visiting and ransacking Kirkham, Poulton, and other towns or hamlets of the unfortunate Saxons. Numerous relics, chiefly of the Roman soldiery, have been dug or ploughed up at different times out of the soil, bordering on the road, or found amongst the pebbles of which it was composed, and amongst them may be mentioned spears, both British and Roman, horse shoes in abundance, several stone hammers, a battle axe, a broken sword, and ancient Roman coins, all of which were picked up along its line between Wyre mouth and Weeton. Several half-baked urns marked with dots, and pieces of rudely fashioned pottery were discovered in an extensive barrow or cairn near Weeton-lane Heads, which was accidentally opened, and is now pointed out as the abode of the local hairy ghost or boggart. In the neighbourhood of Kirkham there have been found many broken specimens of Roman pottery, stones prepared for building purposes, eight or ten urns, some containing ashes and beads, stone handmills for corn grinding, ancient coins, “Druids’ eggs,” axes, and horse shoes; in the fields near Dowbridge, where several of the above urns were discovered, there was found a flattened ivory needle, about five or six inches long with a large eyelet. A cuirass was also picked up on the banks of the Wyre; but the most interesting relic of antiquity is the boss or umbo of a shield, taken out of a ditch near Kirkham, which will be fully described in the chapter devoted to that township. The Romans were accustomed to make three kinds of roads, the first of which, called the Viæ Militares, were constructed during active warfare, when they were engaged in pushing their way into the territory of the enemy, and easy unobstructed communication between their various encampments became a matter of the utmost importance. The second, or public roads, were formed to facilitate commerce in time of peace; and the third were narrower paths, called private roads. The county of Lancaster was intersected by no less than four important Roman routes, two of which ran from north to south, and two traversed the land from west to east. The course of one road, and perhaps the best constructed of the whole four, we have just followed out; of the remainder, the first, commencing at Carlisle, passed near Garstang and Preston, crossed the Irwell at Old Trafford, and maintaining its southerly direction, ultimately arrived at Kinderton, in Cheshire. The second extended from Overborough to Slack, in Yorkshire, passing on its way through Ribchester, the Ribble, Radcliffe, Prestwich, and Newton Heath; whilst the third had its origin at a ford on the Mersey, in close proximity to Warrington, and from that spot could be traced through Barton, Eccles, Manchester, Moston, Chadderton, Royton, and Littleborough, thence over Rumbles Moor to Ilkley, where was located the temple of the goddess Verbeia. It is conjectured that these roads, which consisted for the most part of pavement and deep beds of gravel, were begun, or at least marked out, by Agricola during the time he was occupied in the subjugation of Lancashire, and if this very probable hypothesis be correct the course taken by that general in his exploration of the woods of the Fylde, and the estuaries of Morecambe and the Ribble is clearly indicated by the direction of the ancient path communicating with the mouth of Wyre and the Naze.

At the opening of the third century the Roman governor of Britain found it necessary to obtain the personal co-operation of Severus, in order to put an effectual check to the repeated outbreaks of the natives; in A.D. 207, that emperor having landed and established his head-quarters at York, a considerable force marched northwards under his leadership to punish the revolting tribes, and it is surmised that the curious road, running across the mosses of Rawcliffe, Stalmine, and Pilling, was constructed by the legionaries whilst on this tour. The pathway alluded to, and commonly known as Kate’s Pad, was deeply situated in the mosses, and had apparently been formed by fastening riven oak planks on to sleepers of the same material, secured and held stationary by means of pins or rivets driven into the marl a little above which they rested. Its width was about twenty inches, but in some places rather more.[6] Herodian, in describing the expedition of Severus to quell the insurrection of the Briton, says:—“He more especially endeavoured to render the marshy places stable by means of causeways, that his soldiers, treading with safety, might pass them, and having firm footing fight to advantage. In these the natives are accustomed to swim and traverse about, being immersed as high as their waists: for going naked as to the greater part of their bodies they contemn the mud. His army having passed beyond the rivers and fortresses which defended the Roman territory, there were frequent attacks and skirmishes, and retreats on the side of the barbarians. To these indeed flight was an easy matter, and they lay hidden in the thickets and marshes through their local knowledge; all which things being adverse to the Romans served to protract the war.” There can be no doubt that, when the path, which consisted in some parts of one huge tree and in others of two or more, was formed, timber must have been very plentiful in the vicinity, and at the present day numbers of tree trunks of large size are to be found in the mosses, further corroborating the conclusions arrived at by Leyland, whose words have already been quoted, and Holinshed, who wrote:—“The whole countrie of Lancaster has beene forests heretofore.” An iron fibula, a pewter wine-strainer, a wooden drinking bowl, hooped with two brass bands and having two handles, a brass stirrup, and other relics have been taken out of the moss fields; and in the same neighbourhood an anvil, several pieces of thin sheet-brass, and a pair of shears were discovered in a ditch.

About the year 416 the Romans finally removed themselves from our island, taking with them many of the brave youths of Britain, and leaving the country in the hands of a people whose inactive habits, acquired under their dominion, had rendered them ignorant of the art and unfit for the hardships of warfare. According to Ethelwerd’s Chronicle, in the year 418 those few of the Roman race who were left in Britain, not being able to put up with the manifold insults of the natives, buried their treasure in pits, hoping that at some future day, when all animosity had subsided, they would be able to recover it and live peaceably, but such a fortunate consummation never arrived, and weary at length of waiting, they assembled on the coasts and “spreading their canvass to the wind, sought an exile on the shores of Gaul.” The Saxon Chronicle says:—“This year, A.D. 418, the Romans collected all the treasures that were in Britain, and some they hid in the earth so that no one since has been able to find them; and some they carried with them into Gaul.” It is far from unlikely that the silver denarii, discovered in 1840 by some brickmakers near Rossall, and amounting to four hundred coins of Trajan, Hadrian, Titus, Vespasian, Domitian, Antonius, Severus, Sabina, etc., were deposited in that spot for security by one of those much harassed Romans, previous to his departure from our coast.

A prize so easily to be obtained as Britain in its practically unprotected state appeared, was not long in attracting the covetousness of the neighbouring Picts and Scots, who came down in thousands from the north, forced their way beyond the Roman Wall erected by Hadrian, occupied the fortresses and towns, and spread ruin and devastation in their track. The northern counties were the chief sufferers from these ruthless marauders. Cumberland, Yorkshire, and Lancashire, were ravaged and plundered to such an extent that had it not been for the seasonable assistance of the Saxons, the whole country they embrace would have been utterly devastated and almost depopulated. Gildas, the earliest British historian[7], born about 500, described our land before the incursions of the Picts and Scots as abounding in pleasant hills, spreading pastures, cultivated fields, silvery streams, and snow-white sands, and spoke of the roofs of the buildings in the twenty-eight cities of the kingdom as “raised aloft with threatening hugeness.” We may readily conceive how this picture of peace and prosperity was marred and ruined, as far as the three counties above-named were concerned, by the destroying hand of the northern nation. The British towns were still surrounded by the fortified walls and embattled towers, built by the Romans, but the unfortunate inhabitants, so long unaccustomed to

“The close-wedged battle and the din of war,”

and deprived of their armed soldiers and valiant youth, were panic stricken by the fierce onslaughts of the Scottish tribes, and fled before their advancing arms. Some idea of the critical and truly pitiable condition to which they were reduced may be gleaned from the tenor of an appeal for help sent by them to their old rulers, which the author last quoted has preserved as follows:—

The Lamentation of the Britons unto Agitius, thrice Consul.

“The barbarians drive us to the sea, the sea drives us back to the barbarians. Thus of two kinds of death, one or other must be our choice, either to be swallowed up by the waves or butchered by the sword.”

The Romans were fully occupied with enemies of their own, the Goths, and consequently were unprepared to offer any assistance to the Britons, whose position was shortly afterwards rendered additionally wretched by famine and its attendant evils. At that period both the state of Lancashire itself and of its inhabitants must have been exceedingly deplorable—the country ravaged and still exposed to the depredations and barbarities of the enemy, had now become a prey to a fearful dearth. Many of the descendants of the old Setantii, unable any further to support the double contest, yielded themselves up to the Picts and Scots in the hope of obtaining food to appease the fierce cravings of hunger, whilst others, more hardy, but outnumbered and weakened by long fasts, sought refuge in the woods and such other shelters as the neighbourhood afforded. Disappointed in the Romans, the Britons applied for aid to the Saxons, or Anglo-Saxons, a mixed and piratical tribe, dwelling on the banks of the German Ocean, and composed of Jutes, Angles, and pure Saxons. The men of this race are described as determined, fearless, and of great size, with blue eyes, ruddy complexions, and yellow streaming hair. They were well practised in warfare, and armed with battle-axes, swords, spears, and maces. Their chief god was Odin, or Woden, and their heaven Valhalla. About one thousand of these warriors, under the command of Hengist and Horsa, embarked in three vessels, built of hides, and called Cyulæ or Ceols. They landed on the coast of Kent, about the year 449, and by the direction of Vortigern, king of the Island, marched northwards until they arrived near York, where an encounter of great moment took place, terminating in the utter defeat of the Picts and Scots. Inspirited by so early and signal a success the Saxons followed up their advantage with alacrity, drove the baleful marauders out of the counties of Lancaster and York, and finally compelled them to retreat across the frontier into their own territory. After having rescued the kingdom from these invaders the Saxons settled at York and Manchester, and not only evinced no sign of returning to their own country, but even despatched messengers for fresh troops. This strange and suspicious conduct on the part of their allies excited considerable alarm and anxiety amongst the Britons, who practically expressed their disapproval by refusing to make any provision for the reinforcements. After a short interval a mandate was issued to the Saxon leader ordering him to withdraw his army from the soil of Britain. Incensed and stimulated by such decisive action Hengist determined at once to carry out the object he had cherished from the first—the subjugation of the people and the seizure of the island. Having procured a further supply of men under his son Octa, he established them in the country of the Brigantes, and almost immediately invited the native nobles to a friendly conference with his chiefs on Salisbury plain. The Britons, who were far from suspecting his treacherous design, attended the assembly unarmed, and in that defenceless state fell an easy prey to their Saxon hosts, who in the midst of feasting and revelry, brutally massacred the whole of their guests. Successful in his cowardly and murderous stratagem, Hengist took possession of the southern counties, whilst his son Octa maintained his sway over the Brigantine province of Northumbria, in which the Fylde was included, as intimated at the beginning of the chapter.

The ancient warlike spirit of the Setantii, which had lain almost dormant for centuries, was once more thoroughly aroused in the natives of Lancashire, and a determined and valiant opposition offered by them to Octa and his army. Overborough capitulated only when its inhabitants were worn out by fatigue and famine, whilst Warrington and Manchester sustained severe and protracted sieges before they fell into the hands of the enemy. Nennius, another early historian, who was born towards the end of the sixth century, informs us that the famous King Arthur and his sixty Knights of the Round Table worsted the Saxons in twelve successive battles, four of which were fought on the banks of the Douglas, near Wigan. In those conflicts our county was well and effectively represented in the person of Paulinus, the commander of the right wing of the army, who after many brave and sanguinary struggles overthrew the hitherto unconquered Octa, and for a time, at least, delivered the Fylde and other parts of Northumbria from the rule of the Saxons. This gallant soldier was the offspring of a union between a Roman warrior and a British maiden, who had established themselves in Manchester. The chieftain Ella, however, compelled the Britons to submission, and assumed the government over part of Northumbria. Clusters of Saxon huts, soon growing into villages, now sprang up on the soil of the Fylde, which under the wood-levelling and marsh-draining Romans had lost much of its swampy and forest characters and been transformed into a more habitable locality. We need have little hesitation in conjecturing that the valour displayed by the inhabitants of our county was greatly increased, and often rendered almost desperate, by the knowledge that if their land were subdued and occupied by the Saxons the key, if it may so be called, to their mountainous strongholds would be lost, and the line of communication between them impassably and irretrievably obstructed; for the venerable Bede[8] tells us that a portion of the Britons fled to the hills and fells of Furness, and we are aware that a much larger share sought refuge amongst the mountains of Wales, lying to the south-west, and visible from the shores of the Fylde. Others escaped over to Armorica in France, and from them it acquired the name of Brittany. Additional evidence that Furness was peopled by the Britons, even for more than two centuries after the arrival of the Saxons, is to be found in the writings of Camden, who says:—“The Britons in Furness lived securely for a long time, relying upon those fortifications, wherewith nature had guarded them; for that the Britons lived here in the 228th year after the coming of the Saxons, is plain from hence; that at that time Egfrid, the king of the Northumbrians, gave to St. Cuthbert the land called Cartmell, and all the Britons in it; for so it is related in his life.”

The Saxons were great idolaters, and soon crowded the country with their temples and images. The deities they worshipped have furnished us with names for the different days of the week, thus Sunday is derived from Sunan the sun, Monday from Monan the moon, Tuesday from Tuisco a German god, Wednesday from Woden, Thursday from Thor or Thur, Friday from Friga, and Saturday from Seater.

When the nation was once more at peace, all the towns and castles which had been damaged during the wars were repaired, and others, which had been destroyed, rebuilt. The Britons were brought by degrees to look with less disfavour on their conquerors, and as time progressed adopted their heathenish faith and offered up prayer at the shrines of the same idols, drifting back into darkness and forgetting or ignoring those true doctrines which, it is said, had been declared and expounded to them at the very commencement of the Christian era. According to Clemens Romanus and Theodoret, the Apostle Paul was one of the earliest preachers of the Gospel in Britain, but whatever amount of truth there may be in this statement, it is certain that at the Council of Arles in A.D. 314, and ten years later at that of Nicene, three British bishops were present. All traces of their former religion quickly vanished from amongst the native population of Lancashire under the pagan influence of their rulers; and it was during that unhallowed age that Gregory, surnamed the Great, and afterwards pontiff, being attracted by the handsome appearance of some youths exposed for sale in the market-place at Rome, and finding, on inquiry, that they came from the kingdom of Deira, in Britain, determined to send over Augustine and Paulinus to Christianise the inhabitants. In 596 Augustine landed with forty missionaries on the coast of Kent, the king became a convert, and the new faith spread rapidly throughout the island. Thousands were baptised by Paulinus in the river Swale, then called the Northumbrian Jordan, and the waters of Ribble were also resorted to for the performance of similar ceremonies.

The advent of the Roman mission initiated a fresh epoch in the ecclesiastical history of the county, monasteries and religious houses sprang up in different parts, and at the consecration of the church and monastery of Ripon, lands bordering on the Ribble, in Hacmundernesse (Amounderness), in Gedene, and in Duninge were presented amongst other gifts to that foundation. Paulinus was created bishop of Northumbria in 627, and it is to his ministrations and pious example that the conversion of the inhabitants of the Fylde and vicinal territory is generally attributed. The Saxon Chronicle records, however, that in 565 Columba “came from Scotia (Ireland) to preach to the Picts.” Columba was born at Garten, a village in county Donegal, and according to Selden and other learned writers, the religion professed by him and the Culdees, as the priests of his order were called, was strictly Presbyterian. Bede writes:—“They preached only such works of charity and piety as they could learn from prophetical, evangelical, and apostolic writings.” Columba established a monastery at Iona. Dr. Giles states that “the ancient name of Iona was I or Hi, or Aoi, which was Latinised into Hyona, or Iona; the common name of it now is I-colum-kill, the Island of Colum of the Cells.” Bishop Turner affirms that “the lands in Amounderness, on the Ribble,” were first presented to a Culdee abbot, named Eata, on the erection of a monastery at Ripon, but that before the building was finished he was dismissed and St. Wilfred made abbot of Ripon, sometime before 661. If the foregoing assertion be correct there is certain evidence that the Culdee doctrines were also promulgated in Lancashire, and doubtless in our own district, at that early date. Bede seems to support such an assumption when he states that the Ripon lands were originally granted to those who professed the creed of the Picts to build a monastery upon, and did not pass to St. Wilfred, bishop of Northumbria, until afterwards, in 705, when he re-edified the monastery. Whatever discrepancies may exist as to the exact period and manner in which Christianity was introduced or revived in the bosoms of our forefathers, there is ample and reliable proof that the majority of them had embraced the true faith about the middle of the seventh century, when churches were probably erected in the hamlets of Kirkham and St. Michael’s-on-Wyre.

About the year 936 the Hundred of Amounderness was granted by Athelstan to the See of York:—“I, Athelstan, king of the Angles, etc., freely give to the Omnipotent God, and to the blessed Apostle Peter, at his church in the diocese of York, a certain section of land, not small in extent, in the place which the inhabitants call Amounderness,” etc. The Hundred of Amounderness when this grant was made must have been pretty thickly peopled, for Athelstan states that he “purchased it at no small price,” and land at that date was valued chiefly by the number of its residents. Here it will be convenient to observe that in some instances, as in that of Amounderness, the Hundreds acquired the additional titles of Wapentakes, and, in explanation of the origin of the term, we learn from “Thoresby Ducat Leodiens,” that when a person received the government of a Wapentake, he was met, at the appointed time and usual place, by the elder portion of the inhabitants, and, after dismounting from his horse, he held up his spear and took a pledge of fealty from all according to the usual custom. Whoever came touched his spear with theirs, and by such contact of arms they were confirmed in one common interest. So from wœpnu, a weapon, and tac, a touch, or taccare, to confirm, the Hundreds were called Wapentakes. Traces of the above antique ceremony are still to be met with in the peculiar form of expression used when the tenantry and others are summoned by the manorial lords of Amounderness to attend their court-barons and court-leets.

The Heptarchy, established about 550, and consisting of seven sovereign states, was finally abolished in 830, and Egbert became king over the whole island. The province of Northumbria, more especially the Fylde and tracts of adjoining territory, had at that date been the scene of irregular and intermittent warfare during the previous forty years. Lancashire had suffered cruelly from the visitations of the Northmen, or Danes, who spared neither age, sex, nor condition in their furious sallies. In the years 787, 794, and 800, these pirates invaded the soil, ravaged the country, butchered the inhabitants, and on the last occasion shot Edmund, the king of the West Saxons, to death with arrows, because he refused to renounce the Christian faith and embrace the errors of heathenism. Egbert was no sooner seated on the throne than the Danes re-appeared off the coasts, and there can be little doubt that some of their bands made their way down the western shore of the island, entered the Bay of Morecambe, and, guided by the old Roman road near the mouth of the Wyre, pushed onwards into and through the heart of the Fylde, plundering and laying waste villages, hamlets, and every trace of agriculture in their path. “The name of the Danes’ Pad,” says Mr. Thornber, “given to the Roman agger is and ever will be an everlasting memorial of their ravages and atrocities in this quarter.”[9] In addition it may be stated that many warlike relics of the Danes have been found along the road here indicated, and that the names of the Great and Little Knots in the channel of Wyre, opposite Fleetwood, were of pure Scandinavian derivation, and signified “round heaps,” probably, of stones. These mounds were, during the formation of the harbour entrance, either destroyed or disfigured beyond recognition. Several localities, also, along the sea boundary of the Fylde bear Danish denominations, which will be treated of hereafter. In 869 Lancashire was again visited by a dreadful famine, and many of the people in every part of the county fell victims either to the dearth itself or the fatal disorders following in its train. Those who were fortunate enough to escape the wholesale destruction of the scourge suffered so severely from the merciless massacres of the Danes that at the accession of Alfred the Great, in 871, our Hundred was but sparsely populated. During the reign of that illustrious monarch England was divided into counties, which again were subdivided into Hundreds. Each Hundred was composed of ten Tithings, and each Tithing of ten Freeholders and their families. When this division of the kingdom was effected the south-western portion of the old province of Northumbria was separated from the remainder, and received the name of Lonceshire, from the capital Loncaster, the castle on the Lone, or Lune. Alfred, as we are told by his biographer Asser, did much to improve the condition of his subjects both for peace and war; referring to their illiterate state, on his accession the king himself says:—“When I took the kingdom there were very few on the south side of the river Humber, the most improved portion of England, who could understand their daily prayers in English, or translate a letter from the Latin. I think they were not many beyond the Humber. There were so few that I cannot, indeed, recollect one single instance on the south of the Thames.”[10] After suffering a defeat at Wilton almost at the outset of his career, Alfred surprised and overthrew the Danish camp at Eddington; Guthrum, their leader, and the whole of his followers were taken prisoners, but afterwards liberated and permitted to colonise East Anglia, and subsequently Northumbria, an act of clemency which entailed most disastrous consequences upon the different sections of the latter province. The Fylde now became the legalised abode of numbers of the northern race, between whom and the Saxon settlers perpetual strife was carried on; in addition the restless and covetous spirit of the new colonists constantly prompted them to raids beyond the legitimate limits of their territory, rebellions amongst themselves, and conspiracies against the king; insurrection followed insurrection, and it was not until Athelstan had inflicted a decisive blow upon the Danish forces, and brought the seditious province of Northumbria under his own more immediate dominion, that a short lull of peace was obtained. In the reign of his successor, however, they broke out again, and having been once more reduced to order, agreed to take the name of Christians, abjure their false gods, and live quietly henceforth. These promises, made to appease the anger of Edmund, were only temporarily observed, and their turbulent natures were never tranquilised until Canute, the first Danish king, ascended the throne of England in 1017. The Norse line of monarchs comprised only three, and terminated in 1041. Reverting to Athelstan and the Danes we find that about ten years after the subjugation of the latter in 926, as recorded in the Saxon Chronicle, Anlaf, a noted Danish chieftain, made a vigorous attempt to regain Northumbria. The site of the glorious battle where this ambitious project was overthrown and the army of Anlaf routed and driven to seek refuge in flight from the shore, on which they had but a short time previously landed exulting in a prospect of conquest and plunder, is a matter of dispute, and nothing authentic can be discovered concerning it beyond the fact that the name of the town or district where the forces met was Brunandune or Brunanburgh, and was situated in the province of Northumbria. The former orthography is used in Ethelwerd’s Chronicle:—“A fierce battle was fought against the barbarians at Brunandune, whereof that fight is called great even to the present day; then the barbarian tribes were defeated and domineer no longer; they are driven beyond the ocean.” Burn, in Thornton township, is one of the several rival localities which claim to have witnessed the sanguinary conflict. In the Domesday Survey, Burn was written Brune, and it also comprises a rising ground or Dune, which seem to imply some connection with Brunandune. From an ancient song or poem, bearing the date 937, it is clear that the battle lasted from sunrise to sunset, and that at night-fall Anlaf and the remnant of his followers, being utterly discomfited, escaped from the coast in the manner before described. This circumstance also upholds the pretentions of Burn, as it is situated close to the banks of the Wyre, and at a very short distance both from the Irish Sea and Morecambe Bay, as well as being in the direct line of the road called Danes’ Pad, the track usually taken by the Northmen in former incursions into the Fylde and county. In addition it may be mentioned that tradition affirms that a large quantity of human bones were ploughed up in a field between Burn and Poulton about a century ago. Sharon Turner says:—“It is singular that the position of this famous battle is not yet ascertained. The Saxon song says it was at Brunanburgh; Ethelwerd, a contemporary, names the place Brunandune. These of course are the same place, but where is it?”[11] Having done our best to suggest or rather renew an answer presenting several points worthy of consideration to Mr. Turner’s query, we will, before bidding farewell to the subject, give our readers a translated extract from the old song to which allusion has been made:—

Athelstan king,

Of earls the Lord,

Of Heroes the bracelet giver,

And his brother eke,

Edmund Atheling,

Life-long glory,

In battle won,

With edges of swords,

Near Brunanburgh.

The field was dyed

With warriors blood,

Since the sun, up

At morning tide,

Mighty planet,

Gilded o’er grounds,

God’s candle bright,

The eternal Lord’s,

Till the noble creature

Sank to her rest.

...

West Saxons onwards

Throughout the day,

In numerous bands

Pursued the footsteps

Of the loathed nations.

They hewed the fugitives,

Behind, amain,

With swords mill-sharp.

Mercians refused not

The hard-hand play

To any heroes,

Who with Anlaf,

Over the ocean,

In the ship’s bosom,

This land sought.

...

There was made to flee

The Northmens’ chieftain,

By need constrained,

To the ships prow

With a little band.

The bark drove afloat.

The king departed.

On the fallow flood

His life he preserved.

The Northmen departed

In their nailed barks

On roaring ocean.

Athelstan, in order to encourage commerce and agriculture, enacted that any of the humbler classes, called Ceorls, who had crossed the sea thrice with their own merchandise, or who, individually, possessed five hides of land, a bell-house, a church, a kitchen, and a separate office in the king’s hall, should be raised to the privileged rank of Thane. Sometime in the interval between the death of this monarch, in 941, and the arrival of William the Conqueror, the Hundred of Amounderness had been relinquished by the See of York, probably owing to frequent wars and disturbances having so ruined the country and thinned the inhabitants that the grant had ceased to be profitable.

During the earlier part of the Saxon era the clergy claimed one tenth or tithe of the produce of the soil, and exemption for their monasteries and churches from all taxations. These demands were resisted for a considerable period, but at length were conceded by Ethelwulf “for the honour of God, and for his own everlasting salvation.”[12] In 1002, it is recorded in the Saxon Chronicle, that “the king (Ethelred) ordered all the Danish men who were in England to be slain, because it was made known to him that they would treacherously bereave him of his life, and after that have his kingdom without any gainsaying.” In accordance with the royal mandate, which was circulated in secret, the Anglo-Saxon populace of the villages and farms of the Fylde, as elsewhere, rose at the appointed day upon the unprepared and unsuspecting Northmen, barbarously massacring old and young, male and female alike. Great must have been the slaughter in districts like our own, where from the Danes having been established for so many generations and its proximity to the coast and the estuaries of Wyre and Ribble, a safe landing and a friendly soil would be insured, and attract numbers of their countrymen from Scandinavia. The vengeance of Sweyn, king of Denmark, was speedy and complete; the country of Northumbria was laid waste, towns and hamlets were pillaged and destroyed, and for four years all that fire and sword, spurred on by hatred and revenge, could effect in depopulating and devastating a land was accomplished in Lancashire, and the neighbouring counties, by the enraged Dane. Half a century later than the events just narrated, earl Tosti, the brother of Harold, who forfeited his life and kingdom to the Norman invaders on the field of Hastings, was chosen duke of Northumbria. The seat of the new ruler has not been discovered, but as far as his personal association with the Fylde is concerned it will be sufficient to state that almost on its boundaries, in the township of Preston, he held six hundred acres of cultivated soil, to which all the lands and villages of Amounderness were tributary. As a governor Tosti proved himself both brutal and oppressive. In a very limited space of time his tyrannical and merciless conduct goaded his subjects to rebellion, and with one consent they ejected him from his dukedom and elected earl Morcar in his stead, a step commended and confirmed by Harold, when the unjust severity of his brother had been made known to him. Tosti embraced the Norman cause, and fell at the head of a Norwegian force in an engagement which took place at Standford a few months before the famous and eventful battle of Hastings.

We have now traced briefly the history of the Fylde through a period of eleven hundred years, and before entering on the era which dates from the accession of William the Conqueror, it will be well to review the traces and influences of the three dissimilar races, which have at different epochs usurped and settled on the territory of the old Setantii; our reference is, of course, to the Romans, Anglo-Saxons, and Danes. Under the first, great advances were made in civilisation; clearings were effected in the woods, the marshes were trenched, and lasting lines of communication were established between the various stations and encampments. The peaceful arts were cultivated, and agriculture made considerable progress, corn even, from some parts of Britain, being exported to the continent. Remains of the Roman occupation are to be observed in the names of a few towns, as Colne and Lincoln, from Colonia, a Colony, also Chester and Lancaster, from Castra, a Camp, as well as in relics like those enumerated earlier. The word “street” is derived from Stratum, a layer, covering, or pavement. Their festival of Flora originated our May-day celebrations, and the paraphernalia of marriage, including the ring, veil, gifts, bride-cake, bridesmaids, and groomsmen, are Roman; so also are the customs of strewing flowers upon graves, and wearing black in time of mourning. That the Romans had many stations in the Fylde is improbable, but that they certainly had one in the township of Kirkham is shown by the number and character of the relics found there. This settlement would seem to have been a fairly populous one, if an opinion may be formed from the quantity of cinereal urns discovered at various times, in which had been deposited the cremated remains of Romans, who had spent their days and done good service in levelling the forests and developing the resources of the Fylde. The traffic over the Roman road through the district must have been almost continuous, to judge from the abundance of horse-shoes and other matters picked up along its route, and whether the harbour of the Setantii was on Wyre, Ribble, or elsewhere, it is evident from the course taken by the well constructed path that something of importance, say a favourable spot for embarcation or debarcation, attracted the inhabitants across the soil of the Fylde towards its north-west boundary. Now arises the question what was the boundary here denoted, and in reply we venture to suggest that the extent of this district, in both a northerly and westerly direction, was much greater in ancient days than it is in our own, and that the Lune formed its highest boundary, whilst its seaward limits, opposite Rossall, were carried out to a distance of nearly eight miles beyond the existing coast, and comprised what is now denominated Shell Wharf, a bank so shallowly covered at low water spring tides that huge boulders become visible all over it. Novel as such a theory may at first sight appear, there is much that can be advanced in support of it. From about the point in Morecambe Bay, near the foot of Wyre Lighthouse, where the stream of Wyre meets that of Lune at right angles, there is the commencement of a long deep channel, apparently continuous with the bed of the latter river as defined by its sandbanks, which extends out into the Irish Sea for rather more than seven miles west of the mouth of Morecambe Bay, at Rossall Point. This channel, called “Lune Deep,” is described on the authorised charts as being in several places twenty-seven fathoms deep, in others rather less, and at its somewhat abrupt termination twenty-three fathoms. Throughout the entire length its boundaries are well and clearly marked, and its sudden declivity is described by the local mariners as being “steep as a house side.” Regarding this curious phenomenon from every available point of view, it seems more probable to us that so long and perfect a channel was formed at an early period, when the river Lune was, as we conjecture, continued from its present mouth, at Heysham Point, through green plains, now the Bay of Lancaster, in the direction and to the distance of “Lune Deep,” than that it was excavated by the current of Lune, as it exists to-day, after mingling with the waters of Morecambe and Wyre. The course and completeness of Wyre channel from Fleetwood, between the sandbanks called Bernard’s Wharf and North Wharf, to its point of junction with the stream from Lancaster, prove satisfactorily that at one time the former river was a tributary of the Lune. Other evidence can be brought forward of the theory we are wishful to establish—that the southern portion of Morecambe Bay, from about Heysham Point, bearing the name of Lancaster Bay, as well as “Shell Wharf” was about the era of the Romans, dry or, at least, marshy land watered by the Wyre and Lune, the latter of which would open on the west coast immediately into the Irish Sea. If the reader refer to a map of Lancashire he will see at once that the smaller bay has many appearances of having been added to the larger one, and that its floor is formed by a continuous line of banks, uncovered each ebb tide and intersected only by the channels of Wyre and Lune. The Land Mark, at Rossall Point, has been removed several times owing to the incursions of the sea, and within the memory of the living generation wide tracts of soil, amounting to more than a quarter of a mile westward, have been swallowed up on that part of the coast, as the strong currents of the rising tides have swept into the bay; and in such manner would the land about the estuary of “Lune Deep,” that is the original river of Lune, be washed away. As the encroachments of the sea progressed, the channel of the river would be gradually widened and deepened to the present dimensions of the “Deep”; the stream of Wyre would by degrees be brought more immediately under the tidal influence, and in proportion as the Lune was absorbed into the bay, so would its tributary lose its shallowness and insignificance, and become expanded to a more important and navigable size. About the time that “Lune Deep” had ceased to exist as a river, and become part of the bay, the overcharged banks of the Wyre would have yielded up their super-abundance of waters over the districts now marked by Bernard’s Wharf and North Wharf, and subsequently, as the waves continued their incursions, inundations would increase, until finally the whole territory, forming the site of Lancaster Bay, would be submerged and appropriated by the rapacious hosts of Neptune. The “Shell Wharf” would be covered in a manner exactly similar to the more recently lost fields off Rossall; and as illustrations of land carried away from the west coast in that neighbourhood, may be instanced a farm called Fenny, at Rossall, which was removed back from threatened destruction by the waves at least four times within the last fifty years, when its re-building was abandoned, and its site soon swept over by the billows; also the village of Singleton Thorp, which occupied the locality marked by “Singleton Skeer” off Cleveleys until 1555, when it was destroyed by an irruption of the sea. Numerous other instances in which the coast line has been altered and driven eastward, between Rossall Point and the mouth of Ribble, during both actually and comparatively modern days might be cited, but the above are sufficient to support our view of the former connection of “Shell Wharf” with the main-land, and its gradual submersion. If on the map, the Bay of Lancaster be detached from that of Morecambe, the latter still retains a most imposing aspect, and its identity with the Moricambe Æstuarium of Ptolemy is in no way interfered with or rendered less evident. The foregoing, as our antiquarian readers will doubtless have surmised, is but a prelude to something more, for it is our purpose to endeavour to disturb the forty years of quiet repose enjoyed by the Portus Setantiorum on the banks of the Wyre and hurl it far into the Irish Sea, to the very limits of the “Lune Deep,” where, on the original estuary of the river Lune, we believe to be its legitimate home. No locality, as yet claiming to be the site of the ancient harbour, accords so well with the distances given by Ptolemy. Assuming the Dee and the Ribble to represent respectively, as now generally admitted, the Seteia Æstuarium and the Belisama Æstuarium, the Portus Setantiorum should lie about seven miles[13] to the west and twenty-five to the north of the Belisama. The position of the “Lune Deep” termination is just about seven miles to the west of the estuary of the Ribble, but is, like most other places whose stations have been mentioned by Ptolemy, defective in its latitudinal measurement according to the record left by that geographer, being only fifteen instead of twenty-five miles north of the Belisama or Ribble estuary. Rigodunum, or Ribchester, is fully thirty miles to the east of the spot where it is wished to locate the Portus, and thus approaches very nearly to the forty-mile measurement of Ptolemy, whose distances, as just hinted, were universally excessive. As an instance of such error it may be stated that the longitude, east from Ferro, of Morecambe Bay or Estuary given by Ptolemy, is 3° 40´ in excess of that marked on modern maps of ancient Britannia, and if the same over-plus be allowed in the longitude of the Portus Setantiorum a line drawn in accordance, from north to south, would pass across the west extremity of the “Lune Deep,” showing that its distance from the Bay corresponds pretty accurately with that of the Portus from the Morecambe Æstuarium as geographically fixed by Ptolemy. In describing the extent and direction of the Roman road, or Danes’ Pad, in his “History of Blackpool and Neighbourhood,” Mr. Thornber writes:—“Commencing at the terminus, we trace its course from the Warren, near the spot named the ‘Abbot’s walk’;” but that the place thus indicated was not the terminus, in the sense of end or origin, is proved by the fact that shortly after the publication of this statement, the workmen engaged in excavating for a sea-wall foundation in that vicinity came upon the road in the sand on the very margin of the Warren. Hence it would seem that the path was continued onwards over the site of the North Wharf sand bank, either towards the foot of Wyre where its channel joins that of Lune, and where would be the original mouth of the former river, or, as we think more probable, towards the Lune itself, and along its banks westward to the estuary of the stream, as now marked by the termination of “Lune Deep.” The Wyre, during the period it existed simply as a tributary of the Lune, a name very possibly compounded from the Celtic al, chief, and aun, or un, contractions of afon, a river, must have been a stream of comparatively slight utility in a navigable point of view, and even to this day its seaward channel from Fleetwood is obstructed by two shallows, denominated from time out of mind the Great and Little Fords. The Lune, or “Chief River,” on the contrary, was evidently, from its very title, whether acquired from its relative position to its tributary, or from its favourable comparison with other rivers of the neighbourhood, which is less likely, regarded by the natives as a stream of no insignificant magnitude and importance. As far as its navigability was concerned the Portus may have been placed on its banks near to the junction of Wyre, but the distances of Ptolemy, which agree pretty fairly, as shown above, with the location of the Portus on the west extremity of the present “Lune Deep,” are incompatible with such a station as this one for the same harbour. The collection of coins discovered near Rossall may imply the existence in early days of a settlement west of that shore, and many remains of the Romans may yet be mingled with the sand and shingle for centuries submerged by the water of the still encroaching Irish Sea. Leaving this long-argued question of the real site of the Portus Setantiorum, in which perhaps the patience of our readers has been rather unduly tried, and soliciting others to test more thoroughly the merits of the ideas here thrown out, we will hasten to examine the traces of the Anglo-Saxons and Danes.

Many, in fact most, of the towns and villages of the Fylde were founded by the Anglo-Saxons, and have retained the names, generally in a modified form, bestowed upon them by that race, as instance Singleton, Lytham, Mythorp, all of which have Saxon terminals signifying a dwelling, village, or enclosure. The word hearb, genitive hearges, indicates in the vocabulary of the same people a heathen temple or place of sacrifice, and as it is to be traced in the endings of Goosnargh, and Kellamergh, there need be no hesitation in surmising that the barbarous and pagan rites of the Saxons were celebrated there, before their conversion to Christianity. Ley, or lay, whether at the beginning of a name, as in Layton, or at end, as in Boonley, signifies a field, and is from the Saxon leag; whilst Hawes and Holme imply, respectively, a group of thorps or hamlets, and a river island. Breck, Warbreck, and Larbreck, derive their final syllables from the Norse brecka, a gentle rise; and from that language comes also the terminal by, in Westby, Ribby, and other places, as well as the kirk in Kirkham, all of which point out the localities occupied by the Danes, or Norsemen. Lund was doubtless the site of a sacred grove of these colonists and the scene of many a dark and cruel ceremony, its derivation being from the ancient Norse lundr, a consecrated grove, where such rites were performed.

At the present time it is difficult, if indeed possible, to determine from what races our own native population has descended, and the subject is one which has provoked more than a little controversy. Palgrave, in his “History of the Anglo-Saxons,” says:—“From the Ribble in Lancashire, or thereabouts, up to the Clyde, there existed a dense population composed of Britons, who preserved their national language and customs, agreeing in all respects with the Welsh of the present day; so that even to the tenth century the ancient Britons still inhabited the greater part of the west coast of the island, however much they had been compelled to yield to the political supremacy of the Saxon invaders.” Mr. Thornber states that he has been “frequently told by those who were reputed judges” that the manners, customs, and dialect of the Fylde partook far more of the Welsh than of the Saxon, and that this was more perceptible half a century ago than now (1837). “The pronunciation,” he adds, “of the words—laughing, toffee, haughendo, etc., the Shibboleth of the Fylde—always reminds me of the deep gutterals of the Welsh,[14] and the frequent use of a particular oath is, alas! too common to both.” Another investigator, Dr. Robson, holds an entirely different opinion, and maintains in his paper on Lancashire and Cheshire, that there is no sufficient foundation for the common belief that the inhabitants of any portion of those counties have been at any time either Welsh, or Celtic; and that the Celtic tribes at the earliest known period were confined to certain districts, which may be traced, together with the extent of their dominions, by the Celtic names of places both in Wales and Cornwall. From another source we are informed that at the date of the Roman abdication the original Celtic population would have dwindled down to an insignificant number acting as serfs and tillers of the land, and not likely to have much influence upon future generations. Mr. Hardwick, in his History of Preston, writes:—“Few women would accompany the Roman colonists, auxiliaries, and soldiers into Britain; hence it is but rational to conclude, that during the long period of their dominion, numerous intermarriages with the native population would take place.” Admitting the force of reasoning brought forward by the last authority, it can readily be conceived that the purity of the aboriginal tribes would in a great measure be destroyed at an early epoch, and that subsequent alliances with the Anglo-Saxons, Danes, and Normans, have rendered all conjectures as to the race of forefathers to which the inhabitants of the Fylde have most claim practically valueless.

The dense forests with which our district in the earliest historic periods abounded must have been well supplied with beasts of chase, whereon the Aborigines exercised their courage and craft, and from which their clothing and, in a great measure, their sustenance were derived. The large branching horns of the Wild Deer have been found in the ground at Larbrick, and during the excavations for the North Union and East Lancashire Railway Bridges over the Ribble, in 1838 and 1846 respectively, numerous remains of the huge ox, called the Bos primigenius, and the Bos longifrons, or long-faced ox, as well as of wild boars and bears, were raised from beneath the bed of the river, so that it is extremely likely that similar relics of the brute creation are lying deeply buried in our soil. Such a supposition is at least warranted by the discovery, half-a-century ago, of the skull and short upright horns of a stag and those of an ox, of a breed no longer known, at the bottom of a marl pit near Rossall. Bones and sculls, chiefly those of deer and oxen, have been taken from under the peat in all the mosses, and two osseous relics, consisting each of skull and horns, of immense specimens of the latter animal, have been dug up at Kirkham. In the “Reliquiæ Diluvianæ” of Mr. Buckland is a figure of the scull of a rhinoceros belonging to the antediluvian age, and stated to have been discovered beneath a moss in Lancashire.

CHAPTER II.
THE NORMAN CONQUEST TO JAMES THE FIRST.

When the battle of Hastings, in 1066, had terminated in favour of William the Conqueror, and placed him on the throne of England, he indulged his newly acquired power in many acts of tyranny towards the vanquished nation, subjecting the old nobility to frequent indignities, weakening the sway of the Church, and impoverishing the middle and lower classes of the community. This harsh policy spread dissatisfaction and indignation through all ranks of the people, and it was not long before rebellion broke out in the old province of Northumbria. The Lancastrians and others, under the earls Morcar and Edwin, rose up in revolt, slew the Norman Baron set over them, and were only reduced to order and submission when William appeared on the scene at the head of an overwhelming force. The two earls escaped across the frontier to Scotland, and for some inexplicable reason were permitted to retain their possessions in Lancashire and elsewhere, while the common insurgents were afterwards treated with great severity and cruelty by their Norman rulers. Numerous castles were now erected in the north of England to hold the Saxons in subjection, and guard against similar outbreaks in future. Those at Lancaster and Liverpool were built by a Norman Baron of high position, named Roger de Poictou, the third son of Robert de Montgomery, earl of Arundel and Shrewsbury. When William divided the conquered territory amongst his followers, the Honor[15] of Lancaster and the Hundred of Amounderness fell, amongst other gifts, amounting in all to three hundred and ninety-eight manors,[16] to that nobleman, and, as he resided during a large portion of his time at the castle erected on the banks of the Lune, our district would receive a greater share of attention than his more distant possessions.

After the country had been restored to peace, William determined to institute an inquiry into the condition and resources of his kingdom. The records of the survey were afterwards bound up in two volumes, which received the name of the Domesday Book, from Dome, a census, and Boc, a book.

The king’s commands to the investigators were, according to the Saxon Chronicle, to ascertain—“How many hundreds of hydes were in each shire, what lands the king himself had, and what stock there was upon the land; or what dues he ought to have by the year from each shire. Also he commissioned them to record in writing, how much land his archbishops had and his diocesan bishops, and his abbots and his earls; what or how much each man had, who was an occupier of land in England, either in land or stock, and how much money it was worth. So very narrowly, indeed, did he commission them to trace it out, that there was not one single hide, nor a yard of land; nay, moreover (it is shameful to tell, though he thought it no shame to do it), not even an ox, nor a cow, nor a swine, was there left that was not set down in his writ.” The examination was commenced in 1080, and six years afterwards the whole of the laborious task was accomplished. In this compilation the county of Lancaster is never once mentioned by name, but the northern portion is joined to the Yorkshire survey, and the southern to that of Cheshire.

The following is a translation of that part of Domesday Book relating to the Fylde:—

Agemundernesse under Evrvic—scire (Yorkshire).

Poltun (Poulton), two carucates;[17] Rushale (Rossall), two carucates; Brune (Burn), two carucates; Torentun (Thornton), six carucates; Carlentun (Carleton), four carucates; Meretun (Marton), six carucates; Staininghe (Staining), six carucates.

Biscopham (Bispham), eight carucates; Latun (Layton), six carucates.

Chicheham (Kirkham), four carucates; Salewic (Salwick), one carucate; Cliftun (Clifton), two carucates; Newtune (Newton-with-Scales), two carucates; Frecheltune (Freckleton), four carucates; Rigbi (Ribby-with-Wray), six carucates; Treueles (Treales), two carucates; Westbi (Westby), two carucates; Pluntun (Plumptons), two carucates; Widetun (Weeton), three carucates; Pres (Preese), two carucates; Midehope (Mythorp), one carucate; Wartun (Warton), four carucates; Singletun (Singleton), six carucates; Greneholf (Greenhalgh), three carucates; Hameltune (Hambleton), two carucates.

Lidun (Lytham), two carucates.

Michelescherche (St. Michael’s-on-Wyre), one carucate; Pluntun (Wood Plumpton) five carucates; Rodecliff (Upper Rawcliffe), two carucates; Rodecliff (Middle Rawcliffe), two carucates; a third Rodecliff (Out Rawcliffe), three carucates; Eglestun (Ecclestons), two carucates; Edeleswic (Elswick), three carucates; Inscip (Inskip), two carucates; Sorbi (Sowerby), one carucate.

All these vills belong to Prestune (Preston); and there are three churches (in Amounderness). In sixteen of these vills[18] there are but few inhabitants—but how many there are is not known.

The rest are waste. Roger de Poictou had [the whole].

When we read the concluding remark—“The rest are waste,” and observe the insignificant proportion of the many thousands of acres comprised in the Fylde at that time under cultivation, we are made forcibly cognizant of the truly deplorable condition to which the district had been reduced by ever-recurring warfare through a long succession of years. There is no guide to the number of the inhabitants, excepting, perhaps, the existence of only three churches in the whole Hundred of Amounderness, and this can scarcely be admitted as certain evidence of the paucity of the population, as in the harassed and unsettled state in which they lived it is not very probable that the people would be much concerned about the public observances of religious ceremonials or services. The churches alluded to were situated at Preston, Kirkham, and St. Michael’s-on-Wyre. The parish church at Poulton was the next one erected, and appears to have been standing less than ten years after the completion of the Survey, for Roger de Poictou, when he founded the priory of St. Mary, Lancaster, in 1094, endowed it with—“Pulton in Agmundernesia, and whatsoever belonged to it, and the church, with one carucate of land, and all other things belonging to it.”[19] The terminal paragraph of the foundation-charter of the monastery states that Geoffrey, the sheriff, having heard of the liberal grants of Roger de Poictou, also bestowed upon it—“the tithes of Biscopham, whatever he had in Lancaster, some houses, and an orchard.” It is difficult to determine whether a church existed in the township of Bispham at that date or not, but as no such edifice is included in the above list of benefactions, we are inclined to believe that it was not erected until later. The earliest mention of it occurs in the reign of Richard I., 1189 to 1199, when Theobald Walter quitclaimed to the abbot of Sees “all his right in the advowson of Pulton, with the church of Biscopham.”[20]

The rebellious and ungrateful conduct of Roger de Poictou ultimately led to his banishment out of the country, and the forfeiture of the whole of his extensive possessions to the crown. The Hundred of Amounderness was conveyed by the King on the 22nd of April, 1194, being the fifth year of his reign, to Theobald Walter, the son of Hervens, a Norman who had accompanied the Conqueror. “Be it known,” says the document, “that we give and confirm to Theobald Walter the whole of Amounderness with its appurtenances by the service of three Knights’ fees, namely, all the domain thereto belonging, all the services of the Knights who hold of the fee of Amounderness by Knight’s service, all the service of the Free-tenants of Amounderness, all the Forest of Amounderness, with all the Venison, and all the Pleas of the Forest.” His rights “are to be freely and quietly allowed,” continues the deed, “in wood and plain, in meadows and pastures, in highways and footpaths, in waters and mills, in mill-ponds, in fish-ponds and fishings, in peat-lands, moors and marshes, in wreck of the sea, in fairs and markets, in advowsons and chapelries, and in all liberties and free customs.” Amongst the barons of Lancashire given in the MSS. of Percival is—“Theobald Walter, baron of Weeton and Amounderness,” but, as Weeton never existed as a barony, it is clear that the former title is an error. The “Black Book of the Exchequer,” the oldest record after the “Domesday Book,” has entered in it the tenants and fees de veteri feoffamento[21] and de novo feoffamento,[22] and amongst others is a statement that Theobald Walter held Amounderness by the service of one Knight, thus the later charter, just quoted, must be regarded as a confirmation of a previous grant, and not as an original donation. He was an extensive founder of monastic houses, and amongst the abbeys established by him was that of Cockersand, which he endowed with the whole Hay of Pylin (Pilling) in Amounderness. He was appointed sheriff of the county of Lancaster by Richard I. in 1194, and retained the office until the death of that monarch five years afterwards. His son, Theobald, married Maud, sister to the celebrated Thomas à Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, and assumed the title of his office when created Chief Butler of Ireland. The family of the same name which inhabited Rawcliffe Hall until that property was confiscated through the treasonable part played by Henry Butler and his son Richard in the rebellion of 1715, was directly descended from Theobald Walter-Butler. The Butlers of Kirkland, the last of whom, Alexander Butler, died in 1811, and was succeeded by a great-nephew, were also representatives of the ancient race of Walter, and preserved the line unbroken. Theobald Walter, the elder, died in 1206, and Amounderness reverted to the crown.

Richard I. a few years before his death presented the Honor of Lancaster to his brother, the earl of Moreton, who subsequently became King John, and it is asserted that this nobleman, when residing at the castle of Lancaster, was occasionally a guest at Staining Hall, and that during one of his visits he so admired the strength and skill displayed by a person called Geoffrey, and surnamed the Crossbowman, that he induced him to join his retinue. How far truth has been embellished and disguised by fiction in this traditional statement we are unable to conjecture, but there are reasonable grounds for believing that the story is not entirely supposititious, for the earl of Moreton granted to Geoffrey l’Arbalistrier, or the Crossbowman, who is said to have been a younger brother of Theobald Walter, senior, six carucates of land in Hackinsall-with-Preesall, and a little later, the manor of Hambleton, most likely as rewards for military or other services rendered to that nobleman. John, as earl of Moreton, appears to have gained the affection and respect of the inhabitants of Lancashire by his liberal practices during his long sojourns in their midst. He granted a charter to the knights, thanes, and freeholders of the county, whereby they and their heirs, without challenge or interference from him and his heirs, were permitted to fell, sell, and give, at their pleasure, their forest woods, without being subject to the forest regulations, and to hunt and take hares, foxes, rabbits, and all kinds of wild beasts, excepting stags, hinds, roebucks, and wild hogs, in all parts within his forests beyond the desmesne hays of the county.[23] On ascending the throne, however, he soon aroused the indignation of all sections of his subjects by his meanness, pride, and utter inability to govern the kingdom. His indolent habits excited the disgust of a nobility, whose regular custom was to breakfast at five and dine at nine in the morning, as proclaimed by the following popular Norman proverb:—

Lever à cinque, dîner à neuf,

Souper à cinque, coucher à neuf,

Fait vivre d’ans nonante et neuf.[24]

Eventually his evil actions and foolish threats so incensed the nation, that the barons, headed by William, earl of Pembroke, compelled him, in 1215, to sign the Magna Charta, a code of laws embodying two important principles—the general rights of the freemen, and the limitation of the powers of both king and pope.

About that time it would have been almost, if not quite, impossible to have decided or described what was the national language of the country. The services at the churches were read in Latin, the aristocracy indulged only in Norman-French, whilst the great mass of the people spoke a language, usually denominated Saxon or English, but which had been so mutilated and altered by additions from various sources that the ancient “Settlers on the shores of the German Ocean” would scarcely have recognized it as their native tongue. Each division of the kingdom had its peculiar dialect, very much as now, and from the remarks of a southern writer, named Trevisa, it must be inferred that the patois of our own district, which he would include in the old province of Northumbria,[25] was far from either elegant or musical. “Some,” he says, “use strange gibbering, chattering, waffling, and grating; then the Northumbre’s tongue is so sharp, flitting, floyting, and unshape, that we Southron men may not understand that language.” Such a list of curious and uncomplimentary epithets inclines us at first sight to doubt the strict impartiality of their author, but when it is remembered that, in spite of the greatly increased opportunities for education and facilities for intercommunion amongst the different classes, the provincialisms of some of our own peasantry would be utterly unintelligible to many of us at the present day, we are constrained to admit that Trevisa may have had just reason for his remarks.

In 1268 the Honor of Lancaster, the Wapentake of Amounderness, and the manors of Preston, Ribby-with-Wray, and Singleton were given by Henry III. to his son Edmund Crouchback, and in addition the king published an edict forbidding the sheriffs of neighbouring counties to enter themselves, or send, or permit their bailiffs to enter or interfere with anything belonging to the Honor of Lancaster, or to the men of that Honor, unless required to do so by his son. Edmund was also created earl of Lancaster, and became the founder of that noble house, whose possessions and power afterwards attained to such magnitude as to place its representative, Henry IV., upon the throne, although nearer descendants of his grandfather Edward III. were still living.

We have now arrived at the unsettled era, comprising the reigns of the three Edwards and Richard II., and during the whole of the time these monarchs wore the crown, a period of one hundred and twenty-six years, the nation was engaged in continual wars—with the Welsh under Llewellyn, the Scotch under Bruce and Wallace, and the French under Philip. The reign of Richard II. was additionally agitated by the insurrection of Wat Tyler. Looking at that long uninterrupted season of excitement, we cease to wonder at the riotous and disorganized state into which society was thrown. The rulers, whether local and subordinate, or those of a higher grade, were too actively engaged in forwarding the efficiency of the army, to devote much attention to the welfare and proper government of the people. Crimes and disturbances were allowed to pass unpunished, and evil-doers, being thus encouraged to prosecute their unlawful purposes, carried their outrages to the very confines of open rebellion against all power and order. It was not until such a dangerous climax had been reached that a commission, consisting of the following judges, Peter de Bradbate, Edmund Deyncourt, William de Vavasour, John de Island, and Adam de Middleton, was appointed to deal summarily and severely with all offenders in the counties of Lancaster and Westmoreland. During those troublesome times Sir Adam Banastre and a number of others assaulted Ralph de Truno, prior of Lancaster, and his train of attendants at Poulton-le-Fylde, seized and carried him off to Thornton, where they brutally ill-used and finally imprisoned him. An inquiry into the disgraceful proceeding was instituted by order of Edward I., but the result has not been preserved, at least no record of it has as yet been discovered amongst any of the ancient documents concerning this county. Leyland, who was antiquary to Henry VIII., alluding to the death of the disorderly knight, says,—“Adam Banastre, a bachelar of Lancastershire, moved ryot agayne Thomas of Lancaster by kraft of kynge Edward II., but he was taken and behedid by the commandment of Thomas of Lancaster.” The first part of the quotation has reference to a quarrel between the earl of Lancaster and Sir Adam, who for his own aggrandizement and to curry favour with the king, as well as to divert the attention of that monarch from his own misdeeds, declared that Thomas of Lancaster wished to interfere with the royal prerogative in the choice of ministers; and, professedly, to punish such presumption he invaded the domains of that nobleman. An encounter took place in the valley of the Ribble, not far from Preston, in which the followers of Sir Adam were vanquished and put to flight. Their leader secreted himself in a barn on his own lands, but, being discovered by the soldiers of his opponent, was dragged forth and beheaded with a sword. Subjoined is an account of a disturbance which occurred at Kirkham during the same period, transcribed from the Vale Royal[26] register:—“A narrative of proceedings in a dispute between the abbot of Vale Royal, and Sir Will. de Clifton, knt., respecting the tithes in the manor of Clifton and Westby, in the parish of Kirkham, A.D. 1337, in the time of Peter’s abbacy. The charges alleged against Sir William state, that he had obtained twenty marks[27] due to the abbot; had forcibly obstructed the rector in the gathering of tithes within the manor of Clifton and Westby; seized his loaded wain, and brought ridicule on his palfrey: that he had also burst, with his armed retainers, into the parish church of Kirkham, and thereby deterred his clerks from the performance of divine service; had prevented the parishioners from resorting to the font for the rite of baptism; and that, having seized on Thomas, the clerk of the abbot of Vale Royal, he had inflicted on him a flagellation in the public streets of Preston. After a complaint, made to the abbot of Westminster, a conservator of the rights and privileges of the order to which Vale Royal belonged, Sir William confessed his fault and threw himself on the mercy of the abbot of the Cheshire convent, who contented himself, after receiving a compensation for his rector’s losses, with an oath from the refractory knight, that he would in future maintain and defend the privileges of the abbey, and would bind himself in forty shillings to offer no further violence to the unfortunate secretary of the abbot.”

During the reign of Edward III., Henry, earl of Lancaster, was created duke of the county with the consent of the prelates and peers assembled in parliament. This nobleman, whose pious and generous actions earned for him the title of the “Good duke of Lancaster,” received a mandate from the king during the war with France, when there were serious apprehensions of an invasion by that nation, to arm all the lancers on his estates, and to set a strict watch over the seacoasts of Lancashire. These precautions, however, proved unnecessary, as the French made no attempt to cross the channel. In his will, bearing the date 1361, (the year of his death), Duke Henry bequeathed the Wappentakes or Hundreds of Amounderness, Lonsdale, and Leyland, with other estates, to his daughter Blanche, who had married John of Gaunt, the earl of Richmond and fourth son of Edward III. John of Gaunt succeeded to the dukedom in right of his wife.

“In the ‘Testa de Nevill’,” a register extending from 1274 to 1327, and containing, amongst other matters, a list of the fees and serjeanties holden of the king and the churches in his gift, it is stated under the latter heading:—“St. Michael upon Wyre; the son of Count Salvata had it by gift of the present king, and he says, that he is elected into a bishoprick, and that the church is vacant, and worth 30 marks[28] per an. Kyrkeham; King John gave two parts of it to Simon Blundel, on account of his custody of the son and heir of Theobald Walter. Worth 80 marks[29] per an.” In another part of these records it is named that Richard de Frekelton held fees in chief in Freckleton, Newton, and Eccleston; Alan de Singilton, in Singleton, Freckleton, Newton, and Elswick; and Adam de Merton, in Marton; also that Fitz Richard held serjeanties in Singleton, by serjeanty of Amounderness.

The earliest intimation of members being returned to represent our own district, in conjunction with the other divisions of the county, is to the parliament of Edward I., assembled in 1295, when Matthew de Redmand and John de Ewyas were elected knights of the shire for Lancaster, and in his report the sheriff adds—“There is no city in the county of Lancaster.” The members of parliament in 1297 were Henricus de Kigheley and Henricus le Botyler; in 1302 Willielmus de Clifton and Gilbertus de Singleton; and in 1304 Willielmus de Clifton and Willielmus Banastre. Henricus le Botyler, or Butler, belonged to the family of the Butlers of Rawcliffe; Gilbertus de Singleton was probably connected with the Singletons whose descendants resided at Staining Hall; Willielmus de Clifton was an ancestor of the Cliftons of Lytham, and here it may be stated that Lancashire was represented in 1383 by Robt. de Clifton, of Westby, and Ric’us de Hoghton; and in 1844 by J. Wilson Patten, now Lord Winmarleigh, and Jno. Talbot Clifton, esq., of Lytham Hall. Thos. Henry Clifton, esq., son of the last gentleman, and the Hon. F. A. Stanley are the present members for North Lancashire.

During the Scottish wars of Edward III., John de Coupland, of Upper Rawcliffe, valiantly captured David II., king of Scotland, at the battle of Durham, and although that monarch dashed out Coupland’s teeth and used every means to incite the latter to slay him, the brave soldier restrained his wrath and delivered up his prisoner alive. For that signal service Edward rewarded him with a grant of £500 per annum, until he could receive an equivalent in land wherever he might choose, and created him a knight banneret.[30] “I have seen,” says Camden, “a charter of King Edward III., by which he advanced John Coupland to the state of a banneret in the following words, because in a battle fought at Durham he had taken prisoner David the Second, King of Scots:—‘Being willing to reward the said John, who took David de Bruis prisoner, and frankly delivered him unto us, for the deserts of his honest and valiant service, in such sort as others may take example by his precedent to do us faithful service in time to come, we have promoted the said John to the place and degree of a banneret; and, for the maintenance of the same state, we have granted, for us and our heirs, to the same John, five hundred pounds by the year, to be received by him and his heirs’,” etc.

For some time after a truce had been concluded with Scotland, the war, in which the incident narrated occurred, continued with little abatement, and in 1322 this county with others was called upon to raise fresh levies. These constant drains upon its resources, and the devastations committed by riotous companies of armed men, so impoverished our district that the inhabitants of Poulton forwarded a petition to the Pope, praying him to forego his claims upon their town on account of the deplorably distressed condition to which they had been reduced. The taxations of all churches in the Fylde were greatly lowered in consideration of the indigency of the people; that of Kirkham from 240 marks per annum to 120, and the others in like proportion. Further evidence of the poverty of this division may be gathered from a census taken in 1377, which states, amongst other things, that—“There is no town worthy of notice anywhere in the whole of the county”; and again, twenty years later, when a loan was raised to meet the enormous expenditure of the country, Lancashire furnished no contributors.

In 1389, during the reign of Richard II., it was enacted, with a view to the preservation and improvement of the salmon fisheries throughout the kingdom, “that no young salmon be taken or destroyed by nets, at mill-dams or other places, from the middle of April to the Nativity of St. John Baptist”; and special reference is made to this neighbourhood in the following sentence of the bill:—“It is ordained and assented, that the waters of Lone, Wyre, Mersee, Ribbyl, and all other waters in the county of Lancaster, be put in defence, as to the taking of Salmons, from Michaelmas Day to the Purification of our Lady (2nd of February), and in no other time of the year, because that salmons be not seasonable in the said waters in the time aforesaid; and in the parts where such rivers be, there shall be assigned and sworn good and sufficient conservators of this statute.” The foregoing is the earliest regulation of the kind, and the wisdom and utility of its provisions are evinced by the existence of similar measures at the present day.

From the annals of the Duchy may be learnt some interesting particulars relative to changes in ownership at that period of certain portions of the territory comprised in the Fylde. In 1380 John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, issued a “precept to the Escheator to give seisin of the Lands of William Botyler in Layton Magna, Layton Parva, Bispham, Warthebrek, and Great Merton,” etc.; and shortly afterwards gave orders to “seize the Lands of William Botyler.” In 1385 mandates were issued by the same nobleman to his Escheator to “seize into the Hands of the King and himself the Lands of Thomas Banastre, (deceased, 1384), in Ethelswyk, Frekculton, Claughton in Amoundernes, Syngleton Parva, Hamylton, Stalmyn,” etc.; also those of “Emund Banastre, (deceased, 1384), in Wodeplumpton, Preston,” etc. In the Rolls the subjoined entries also occur:—

There is nothing of interest or importance to recount affecting the Fylde from the death of Richard II. until the year 1455, when the battle of St. Albans, resulting in the defeat of Henry VI. and the royal forces by the Duke of York, initiated those lamentable struggles between the rival houses of York and Lancaster; and the inhabitants of our section shared, like the rest, in the ruin and bloodshed of civil war. Those contests, which lasted no less than thirty years, and included thirteen pitched battles, were finally terminated in 1485, by the union of Henry VII. with Catherine of York, daughter of Edward IV.

In 1485 a malady called the “Sweating Sickness” visited the different districts of Lancashire, and so rapid and fatal were the effects, that during the seven weeks it prevailed, large numbers of the populace fell victims to its virulence. Lord Verulam, describing the disease, says:—“The complaint was a pestilent fever, attended by a malign vapour, which flew to the heart and seized the vital spirits; which stirred nature to strive to send it forth by an extreme sweat.”

In 1487 the impostor Lambert Simnel, who personated Edward, earl of Warwick, the heir in rightful succession to Edward IV., landed at the Pile of Fouldrey, (Peel harbour) in Morecambe Bay, with an army raised chiefly by the aid of the Duchess of Burgundy, and marched into the country. At Stoke, near Newark, he was defeated and taken prisoner, and subsequently the adventurer was made a scullion in the king’s kitchen, from which humble sphere he rose by good conduct to the position of falconer. Henry VIII., soon after his accession in 1509, became embroiled in war with France, and whilst he was engaged in hostilities on the continent, James IV. of Scotland crossed the border, and invaded England with a force of fifty thousand men. To resist this aggression large levies were promptly raised in Lancashire and other northern counties, and on the field of Flodden, in Northumberland, a decisive battle took place in 1513, in which the Scottish monarch was slain, and his army routed. The Lancashire troops were led by Sir Edward Stanley, and their patriotism and valour are celebrated in an ancient song called the “Famous Historie or Songe of Floodan Field.” In the following extract certain localities in and near the Fylde are mentioned as having furnished their contingents of willing soldiers:—

“All Lancashire for the most parte

The lusty Standley stowte can lead,

A stock of striplings stronge of heart

Brought up from babes with beef and bread,

From Warton unto Warrington,

From Wiggen unto Wyresdale,

From Weddecon to Waddington,

From Ribchester to Rochdale,

From Poulton to Preston with pikes

They with ye Standley howte forthe went,

From Pemberton and Pilling Dikes

For Battell Billmen bould were bent

With fellowes fearce and fresh for feight

With Halton feilds did turne in foores,

With lusty ladds liver and light

From Blackborne and Bolton in ye moores.”

The office of High Sheriff is one of considerable antiquity, and in early times it was no uncommon thing for the elected person to retain the position for several years together. Annexed is a list of gentlemen connected with the Fylde who have been High Sheriffs of the county of Lancaster at different times, with their years of office:—

It may be here noticed that Edmund Dudley, so notorious in English history as the infamous agent of Henry VII. in the wholesale and scandalous extortions that monarch practised upon his subjects, held many and large territorial possessions in the county of Lancashire, the reward in all probability of his unscrupulous services to the king. After the death of his royal patron a loud outcry for the punishment of Dudley was raised by the nation, and in the first year of Henry VIII. a proclamation was issued inviting those subjects who had been injured by Dudley and his fellow commissioner, Sir Richard Empson, to come forward and state their complaints; the number of complainants who appeared was so great that it was found impossible to examine all their claims, so in order to pacify the universal indignation, the two obnoxious agents were thrown into prison on a charge of treason. From the Inquisition for the Escheat of the Duchy of Lancaster taken on the attainder of Edmund Dudley, in 1509, it is discovered that amongst his numerous estates, were lands in Elswick, Hambleton, Freckleton, Thornton, Little Singleton, Wood Plumpton, Whittingham, Goosnargh, and Claughton. Stow, writing about the circumstances alluded to, says:—“Thereupon was Sir Richard Empson, Knight, and Edmund Dudley, Esquire, by a politicke mean brought into the Tower, where they were accused of treason, and so remained there prisoners, thereby to quiet men’s minds, that made such suit to have their money restored. On the seventeenth of July Edmund Dudley was arraigned in the Guildhall of London, where he was condemned, and had judgement to be drawn, hanged, and quartered.... Henry VIII. sent commandment to the Constable of the Tower, charging him that Empson and Dudley should shortly after be put to execution. The Sheriffs of London were commanded by a special writ to see the said execution performed and done, whereupon they went to the Tower and received the prisoners on the 17th of August, 1510, and from thence brought them unto the scaffold on Tower Hill, where their heads were stricken off.”

The most conspicuous event which happened during the sovereignty of Henry VIII. was the Protestant Reformation. Henry, having quarrelled with the Supreme Head of the Church at Rome, determined to suppress all religious houses in his kingdom whose incomes amounted to less than £200 per annum. Doctors Thomas Leigh and Thomas Layton were appointed to inspect and report on those in Lancashire; and amongst the number condemned on their visit was a small Benedictine Cell at Lytham. This Cell owed its origin to Richard Fitz Roger, who towards the latter part of the reign of Richard I. granted lands at Lytham to the Durham Church, in order that a prior and Benedictine monks might be established there to the honour of St. Mary and St. Cuthbert. Its yearly revenue at the time of suppression was only £55. A little later, in 1540, the larger monastic institutions suffered the fate of the smaller ones; and amongst the chantries closed were two at St. Michael’s-on-Wyre. All Catholic places of worship were closed by a proclamation, bearing the date September 23rd, 1548, and issued by the lord protector Somerset on behalf of the young king Edward VI. On the death of that monarch in 1553 the crown descended to his sister Mary, only daughter of Catherine of Arragon; and one of her first acts was to re-establish the old faith and re-open the churches and chantries which her predecessors had closed. Mass was again celebrated in the churches of St. Michael’s-on-Wyre, Kirkham, and Singleton, as in former days, the officiating priests being:—

In the early part of this reign a grand military muster was ordered to be made in the county palatine of Lancaster, and towards the 300 men raised in the Hundred of Amounderness the Fylde townships contributed as follows:—

The commanders of the regiment were—Sir Thomas Hesketh, Sir Richard Houghton, George Browne, John Kitchen, Richard Barton, William Westby (of Mowbreck), and William Barton, Esquires.

Dodsworth, who lived in the latter part of the sixteenth and early part of the seventeenth centuries, informs us that sometime during the year 1555 “a sudden irruption of the sea” took place near Rossall grange, and a whole village, called Singleton Thorp, was washed away by the fury of the waves. “The inhabitants were driven out of their ancient home, and erected their tents at a place called Singleton to this day.” It has been surmised that Singleton Thorp was the residence of Thomas de Singleton, who opposed Edward I. in a suit to recover from that king the manors of Singleton, Thornton, and Brughton. The site formerly occupied by the ancient village is now called Singleton Skeer. Dodsworth also declares that the Horse-bank lying off the shores of Lytham was, in 1612, during the reign of James I., a pasture for cattle, and that, in 1601, a village called Waddum Thorp existed between it and the present main-land.

In January, 1559, about two months after the accession of Elizabeth, another muster took place throughout the several counties of the kingdom, and subjoined are enumerated the bodies of soldiers furnished by the different Hundreds of Lancashire:—

An epidemic, described by Hollinworth as a “sore sicknesse,” prevailed in this county during some months of 1565, and carried off many of the inhabitants.

Queen Elizabeth on her accession wrought another change in the national religion, but taking warning from the outcries and disturbances produced by the sudden and sweeping policies of Henry VIII. and Mary, proceeded to affect her purpose in a more deliberate manner. She retained some of her Catholic ministers, taking care, however, to have sufficient of the reformed faith to outvote them when occasion required, and appointed a commission to inquire into the persecutions of the last reign, with orders to liberate from prison all those who had been confined on account of their attachment to Protestant principles. In her own chapel she forbade several Popish practices, and commanded that certain portions of the services should be read in the English tongue. Shortly afterwards a proclamation was issued, ordering that all chantries should conduct their services after the model of her own chapel. This comparative moderation was succeeded at a later period of her sovereignty by sterner measures, and many Catholic recusants were placed in confinement, being subjected to heavy penalties and degradations. During the same reign the military strength of the nation was again ascertained by a general muster. The gathering took place in 1574, when six gentlemen of our neighbourhood were thus rated:—

Cuthbert Clifton, esq., to furnish:—Light horse 1, Plate-coate 1, Pyke 1, Long bows 2, Sheaves of arrows 2, Steel caps 2, Caliver 1, Morion 1.

James Massey, George Alane to furnish:—Plate-coat 1, Long bow 1, Sheaf of arrows 1, Steel cap 1, Caliver 1, Morion 1, Bill 1.

William Hesketh to furnish of good will:—Caliver 1, Morion 1.

William Singleton, John Veale to furnish:—The same as William Hesketh doth.

The whole complement raised in the Hundred of Amounderness consisted of—5 Light horse, 1 Demi-lance, 2 Corslets, 17 Plate-coats, 11 Pykes, 22 Long bows, 22 Sheaves of arrows, 27 Steel caps, 15 Calivers, 20 Morions, and 10 Bills.

Father Edmund Campion, the notorious Jesuit, was apprehended in 1581, immediately after travelling through Lancashire endeavouring to spread the doctrines of his faith, and imprisoned in the Tower. Under the cruel influence of the rack he divulged the names of several persons by whom he had been received and entertained whilst on his journey, and amongst them were Mrs. Allen of Rossall Hall, the widow of Richard Allen, and John Westby of Mowbreck and Burn Halls. Shortly before his execution Campion deplored his compulsory confession in a letter to a friend in these words:—“It grieved me much to have offended the Catholic cause so highly, as to confess the names of some gentlemen and friends in whose houses I have been entertained; yet in this I greatly cherish and comfort myself, that I never discovered any secrets there declared, and that I will not, come rack, come rope.”

The following extracts are taken from some manuscripts in the Harleian collection, and will explain themselves:—

“Names of such as are detected for receiptinge of Priests, Seminaries, etc., in the County of Lancashire.

“The said Brittain remayneth now at the house of Mr. Norrice of the Speke, as appeareth by the deposition of John Osbaldston.

“Diocese of Chester

“Amounderness Deanery

At that period it was customary to levy a tax of live stock and different articles of food on each county, for the supply of the royal larder, and Sir Richard Sherburn, of Carleton and Hambleton, and Alexander Rigby, of Middleton, near Preston,[32] ratified an agreement with the treasurer and controller of Elizabeth’s household, that Lancashire should provide annually forty great oxen, to be delivered alive at her majesty’s pasture at Crestow. Afterwards the sums to be contributed by each Hundred for the purchase of these animals was arranged, and Amounderness rated at £16 10s. 0d. per year. The latter agreement was ratified by Sir Richard Sherburne and Edward Tyldesley, of Myerscough, amongst others. Grievous complaints were made in the Fylde and other parts of the county of the desecration of the Sabbath by “Wakes, fayres, markettes, bayrebaytes, bull baits, Ales, Maygames, Resortinge to Alehouses in tyme of devyne service, pypinge and dauncinge, huntinge and all manner of unlawfull gamynge.” A letter praying that these profanations might be reformed was signed by the magistrates of the several districts, amongst whom were Edmund Fleetwood of Rossall, and R. Sherburne of Carleton, etc., and forwarded to London. A commission of inquiry was appointed, and after an investigation, the commissioners charged all mayors, bailiffs, and constables, as well as other civil officers, churchwardens, etc., to suppress by all lawful means the said disorders of the Sabbath, and to present the offenders at the quarter sessions, that they might be dealt with for the same according to law. They also directed that the minstrels, bearwards, and all such disorderly persons, should be immediately apprehended and brought before the justices of the peace, and punished at their discretion; that the churchwardens should be enjoined to present at the sessions all those that neglected to attend divine service upon the Sabbath day, that they might be indicted and fined in the penalty of twelve pence for every offence; that the number of alehouses should be abridged, that the ale-sellers should utter a full quart of ale for one penny, and none of any less size, and that they should sell no ale or other victuals in time of divine service; that none should sell ale without a license; that the magistrates should be enjoined not to grant any ale-licenses except in public sessions; that they should examine the officers of the commonwealth to learn whether they made due presentment at the quarter sessions of all bastards born or remaining within their several precincts; and that thereupon a strict course should be taken for the due punishment of the reputed parents according to the statute, as also for the convenient keeping and relief of the infants.[33]

In 1588, the year following the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, Philip of Spain, urged on by an ambition to conquer the kingdom of England and re-establish the Romish religion, equipped an immense fleet, consisting of seventy-two galliasses and galleons, forty-seven second-class ships of war, and eleven pinnaces, to which he gave the name of the “Invincible Armada.” The rumour of this invasion spread great alarm throughout the country; and the magistrates, gentry, and freeholders of Lancashire were summoned to meet Lord Strange at Preston, to consider what steps should be taken for the defence of their coast, on which, at Peel in Morecambe Bay, it was deemed probable the Spaniards would attempt a landing. So doubtful does Elizabeth appear to have been of the loyalty of her Lancashire subjects that Lord Strange was commanded to append to his summonses the words,—“Fayle not at your uttermost peril.” Nor were these suspicions on the part of the queen without good reason, for the principal landed proprietors and gentry of the county were members of the Romish Church, and it was to be feared that they would be only lukewarm in repelling, if not, indeed, active in encouraging, an enemy whose professed object was the restoration of their religion. Baines, in reviewing the Reformation, says,—“In the county of Lancashire it was retrograde. The Catholics multiplied, priests were harboured, the book of common prayer and the service of the Church, established by law, were laid aside; many of the churches were shut up, and the cures unsupplied, unless by the ejected Catholics.” Numerous crosses on the highways, as well as the names of several places, as Low-cross, High-cross, Norcross, etc., also testify to the Romish tendency of the inhabitants. Cardinal Allen, who had for many years been living on the continent at Douai and elsewhere[34] was suspected of having, in conjunction with Parsons, the Jesuit, instigated Philip to this invasion. The harbour of “Pille,” (Peel) is described in the Lansdowne manuscripts as the “very best haven for landings with great shyppes in all the west coast of England, called St. George’s Channel,” and further in the same folio we read:—“What the Spanyerd means to do the Lord knows, for all the countrie being known to Doctor Allen, who was born harde by the pyle,” (Rossall Hall was the birth-place of Allen,) “and the inhabytentes ther aboutes all ynfected with the Romish poyson, it is not unlike that his directione will be used for some landinge there.... One Thomas Prestone (a papyshe atheiste) is deputye steward, and commandes the menrede, and lands ther, wch were sometyme appertayning to the Abbeye of Fornes.”

Whilst preparations for resisting the Spaniards were being pushed forward with as much expedition as possible, the “Invincibles” appeared in the English Channel, and arranged themselves for battle in the form of a crescent. The British fleet, numbering only thirty-four ships of war, and sundry private vessels equipped for the occasion, under the command of Lord Howard, sailed out to engage them. A series of actions took place, and although nothing decisive had been effected, the advantage seemed to be leaning towards the English fleet, when eight fire-ships drifted in amongst the Armada and threw them into utter confusion. This coup de maître took place on the 29th of July, 1588. The panic-stricken Spaniards, fearing that the whole of their ships would be destroyed in a general conflagration, severed their cables, and fled. A westerly gale, however, sprang up, and wrecked many of the vessels on the coast between Ostend and Calais; the shores of Scotland and Ireland were also covered with fragments of their ships and bodies of their mariners, while tradition asserts that one of the galleons was stranded on the Point of Rossall, where it was attacked by the country people, either for the sake of pillage or in the hope of capturing it. Whether one or both of these desires actuated the rustics they were doomed to disappointment, for the Spaniards successfully resisted their first attempt, and escaped on the returning tide, before further efforts could be made by the little band on shore. Two cannon balls were formerly to be seen at Rossall Hall, and it was stated that they were the identical ones fired by this vessel, as a parting salute, when she sailed away. They were found on removing some of the walls belonging to the old mansion.

The annexed is a list of free-tenants residing in the Fylde district about the year 1585, the 27th of the reign of Queen Elizabeth:—

• Molyneux, Sir Richard, of Larbrick, knight.
• Clifton, Thomas, of Westby, esq.
• Rigby, Edward, of Layton and Burgh, esq.
• Veale, John, of Mythorp, esq.
• Butler, Henry, of Out-Rawcliffe, esq.
• Parker, William, of Bradkirk, esq.
• Westby, John, of Mowbreck, esq.
• Kirkby, William, of Upper Rawcliffe, esq.
• Singleton, George, of Staining, esq.
• Hesketh, William, of Little Poulton, esq.
• Stanley, Thomas, of Great Eccleston, esq.
• Warren, ⸺, of Plumpton, esq.
• White, Nicholas, of Great Eccleston, gent.
• Rogerly, George, of Lytham, gent.
• Banister, William, of Carleton, gent.
• Sharples, John, of Freckleton, gent.

The dress of the priests previous to the Protestant Reformation is thus described by Harrison:—“They went either in divers colours like plaiers, or in garments of light hew, as yellow, red, greene, etc., with their shoes piked, their haire crisped, and their girdles armed with silver; their shoes, spurs, bridles, etc., buckled with like mettall; their apparell chiefly of silke, and richlie furred, their cappes laced and buttoned with gold; so that to meet a priest in those days, was to beholde a peacocke that spreadeth his taile when he danseth before the henne.” “The manners and customs of the inhabitants of Lancashire,” writes John de Brentford, “are similar to those of the neighbouring counties except that the people eat with two pronged forks[35]; the men are masculine, and in general well made, they ride and hunt the same as in the most southern parts, but not with that grace, owing to the whip being carried in the left hand; the women are most handsome, their eyes brown, black, hazel, blue, or grey; their noses, if not inclined to the aquiline, are mostly of the Grecian form, which gives a most beautiful archness to the countenance, such indeed as is not easy to be described, their fascinating manners have long procured them the name of Lancashire witches.” Leyland in his “Itinerary” says:—“The dress of the men chiefly consists of woollen garments, while the women wear those of silk, linen, or stuff. Their usual colours are those of green, blue, black, and sometimes brown. The military are dressed in red, which is vulgarly called scarlet.” In the time of Henry VIII. the custom of placing chimneys on the tops of the houses was first introduced amongst the English; before that period the smoke usually found its way through an opening in the roof or out of the doorway. The houses of the middle classes were for the most part formed of wood, whilst those of the peasantry were built of wattles plastered over with a thick coating of clay. The few stone mansions existing in Lancashire were the residences of the nobility or of the most opulent gentry. Harrison, referring to the improvements in accommodation gradually gaining ground, remarks:—“There was a great, although not general, amendment of lodging; for our fathers, yea, and we ourselves also, have lien full oft upon straw pallets, on rough mats, onelie covered with a sheet under coverlets made of dagswam or hopparlots, and a good round log under the head instead of a bolster or pillow, which was thought meet onelie for women in childbed; as for servants, if they had anie sheets above them, it was well, for seldome had they anie under their bodies to keep them from the prickly straws that ran oft through the canvas of the pallet, and raised their hardened hides.” Holinshed, also, notices the better style of entertainment at the inns of Lancaster, Preston, etc.; at which he tells us the guests were well provided with “napierie, bedding, and tapisserie,” and each was sure of resting “in cleane sheets wherein no man had been lodged since they came from the laundress.” Camden, writing of our more immediate neighbourhood a little later than the period we are now discussing, says:—“The goodly and fresh complexion of the natives does sufficiently evince the goodness of the county; nay and the cattle too, if you will; for in the oxen, which have huge horns and proportionate bodies, you will find nothing of that perfection wanting that Mago, the Carthagenian, in Columella required. This soil (Amounderness) bears oats pretty well, but is not so good for barley; it makes excellent pasture especially towards the sea, where it is partly Champain; whence a great part of it is called the File, probably for the Field. But being in other places Fenny ’tis reckoned less wholesome. In many places along the coast there are heaps of sand, upon which the natives now and then pour water, till it grows saltish, and then with turf boyl it into white salt.” Several of these salt manufacturies were located near Lytham, and it is very likely that the two brass pans and an ancient measure, discovered about forty years since deeply imbedded in the peat not far from Fox Hall, were used in the production of salt somewhere in that vicinity.

CHAPTER III.
JAMES THE FIRST TO QUEEN VICTORIA.

On the accession of James I., in 1603, the crowns of England and Scotland became legally united, although it was not until a considerable time afterwards that they could be regarded as practically so. This monarch was the first to assume the title of King of Great Britain.

A custom prevailed in former days of relieving the secular portion of the community by imposing exclusive taxes on the clergy, and hence it is seen, that in 1608 a rate was levied upon the latter by the Right Reverend George Lloyd, D.D., the eighth bishop of Chester. The following is a copy of the impost so far as the Hundred of Amounderness was concerned:—

“Archid. Decanatus Cestrie in Com. Lancastrie

A Rayte imposed by me George Bushoppe of Chestʳ upon the Clergie within the Countye of Chesshyre and Lancashyre within the Dyoces of Chest,ʳ By vertue of Ires from the lordes grace of Yorke grounded upon + from the lordes and others of his maᵗᵉˢ most honorable privye counsell for the fyndinge of horses, armes, and other furniture, the XXVIIIth of October 1608.

Amounderness Decanatus Archid. Richm.

George Cestriensis.”[36]

Here it may be mentioned that, although about 636, Honorus, archbishop of Canterbury, attempted to divide the kingdom into parishes, it was not until many years later, in the reign of Henry VIII., that the diocese to which Lancashire belonged was clearly defined. At that date Chester was created a distinct bishopric, and the southern part of our county included in the archdeaconry of Chester, whilst the northern portion was attached to the archdeaconry of Richmond.

In 1617 James I., on his return journey from Scotland to London, was entertained at Myerscough Lodge, near Garstang, by Edward Tyldesley, the grandfather of the gentleman who erected Fox Hall, at Blackpool. Thomas Tyldesley, a cousin of the owner of Myerscough Lodge, and attorney-general of the county of Lancaster, had been knighted by the monarch at Wimbleton in the previous year. From Myerscough the King proceeded to Hoghton Tower, where a petition was presented to him by the agricultural labourers, petty tradesmen, and ordinary servants in this and other districts lying near Preston, praying that the edict of the late queen, whereby sports and games had been prohibited on the Sabbath, might be repealed. The prayer of the petitioners found favour with James, and shortly afterwards he caused it to be proclaimed—“that his majesty’s pleasure was, that the bishops of the diocese should take strict order with all the puritans and precisians within the county of Lancaster, and either constrain them to conform themselves, or to leave the countrie, according to the laws of this kingdom and the canons of the church; and for his good people’s recreation his pleasure was, that after the end of divine service, they be not disturbed, letted, or discouraged from any lawful recreation, such as dancing, either men or women; archery for men, leaping, vaulting, or any such harmless recreation; nor having of May-games, Whitson-ales, and Morice-dances, and the setting up of May-poles, and other sports therewith used; so as the same be had in due and convenient time, without impediment or neglect of divine service; and that women should have leave to carry rushes to the church, for decorating of it according to the old custom; but withal his majesty did here account still as prohibited, all unlawful games to be used on Sundays only, as bear and bull-baitings, interludes, and, at all times, in the meaner sort of people, by law prohibited, bowling.” A few months after this concession to the wishes of a portion of his subjects, James issued a publication designated the “Book of Sports,” in which he explained what were to be considered lawful sports to be indulged in on “Sundays and Festivals.”

The gentlemen enumerated below were free-tenants, residing in the Fylde, during his reign:—

• Clifton, Sir Cuthbert, of Westby, knight.
• Banister, Sir Robert, of Plumpton, knight.
• Fleetwood, Edward, of Rossall, esq.
• Westby, Thomas, of Mowbreck, esq.
• Kirkby, William, of Upper Rawcliffe, esq.
• Veale, Edward, of Whinney Heys, esq.
• Burgh, Richard, of Larbrick, esq.
• Leckonby, John, of Great Eccleston, esq.
• Longworth, Richard, of St. Michael’s, esq.
• Parker, John, of Bradkirk, esq.
• Hesketh, William, of Mains, esq.
• Singleton, Thomas, of Staining, esq.
• Brown, James, of Singleton, gent.
• Leigh, Robert, of Plumpton, gent.
• Smith, John, of Kirkham, gent.
• Sharples, Henry, of Kirkham, gent,
• ffrance, John, of Eccleston, gent.
• Thompson Wm., of Little Eccleston, gent.
• Dobson, William, of Bispham, gent.
• Hornby, Henry, of Bankfield, gent.
• Bradley, James, of Bryning, gent.
• Taylor, James, of Poulton, gent.
• Bamber, Thomas, of Poulton, gent.
• Bailey, Lawrence, of Layton, gent.
• Bonny, Robert, of Kirkham, gent.
• Whiteside, Robt., of Thornton, gent.

In the Registers of Kirkham is the annexed statement, from which it appears that a few years from the death of James I. the Fylde, or at least a considerable tract of it, was visited by some fatal epidemic, but its peculiar nature cannot be ascertained:—“A.D. 1630. This year was a great plague in Kirkham, in which the more part of the people of the town died thereof. It began about the 25th of July and continued vehemently until Martinmas, but was not clear of it before Lent; and divers towns of the parish was infected with it, and many died thereof out of them, as Treales, Newton, Greenall, Estbrick, Thistleton. N.B.—The great mortality was in the year 1631; 304 died that year, and were buried at Kirkham, of whom 193 in the months of August and September”. Charles I. soon after ascending the throne in 1626, provoked a breach with his parliament by endeavouring to enforce subsidies, with which to carry on his foreign wars, and further, he alienated the affections and respect of the Puritan section of his subjects by confirming the regulations of the “Book of Sports.” Dissatisfaction and murmurings were quickly fermented into rebellion, and the closing of the gates of Hull against the king in 1642 initiated those fearful wars, which desolated and disorganised the country for so many years. In 1641, Alexander Rigby,[37] esq., of Layton Hall, Sir Gilbert de Hoghton, with eight other gentlemen, were removed from the commission of the peace, by order of parliament, on suspicion of being favourably disposed towards the royal party. The chief supporters of the king in the ensuing conflicts were the nobility, in great numbers; the higher orders of the gentry, and a considerable portion of their tenantry; all the High-churchmen; and a large majority of the Catholics. The parliamentarian army, on the other hand, was mainly composed of freeholders, traders, manufacturers, Puritans, Presbyterians, and Independents. An engagement near Wigan roused up the people in our vicinity to a sense of the dangers menacing them, and a public meeting of royalists was called at Preston under the presidency of the earl of Derby. Amongst other gentlemen who took a prominent part in the assembly were Thomas Clifton, esq., of Lytham, and Alexander Rigby, esq., of Layton. Several resolutions were adopted, the most important being that a sum of money, amounting to £8,700, should be raised and devoted to the payment of a regiment, consisting of 2,000 foot and 400 horse, in the following scale of remuneration:—

Parliamentary commissioners were sent this year, 1642, into all parts of Lancashire to visit the churches and chapels and to remove therefrom all images, superstitious pictures, and idolatrous relics, which any of them might contain.

Preston and Lancaster were amongst the earliest towns to fall into the hands of the Roundheads, and about ten days after the surrender of the former place, when the people of this district were labouring under the excitement of war on their very frontier, Alexander Rigby, of Layton Hall, accompanied by Captain Thomas Singleton, of Staining, and other officers, appeared near Poulton at the head of a number of horsemen, and threw the inhabitants into a state of great consternation and alarm, fortunately proving unnecessary, for the cavalcade had other designs than that of bringing devastation and bloodshed to their own doors, and continued their journey peaceably northward. A few weeks later a Spanish vessel was seen at the entrance of Morecambe Bay, off Rossall Point, and as it evinced no signs of movement, either towards the harbour of Lancaster or out to sea, the yeomen and farm servants of that neighbourhood at once surmised that some sort of an invasive attack was meditated on their coast, nor were these fears in any way allayed by the constant firing of a piece of cannon from the deck of the ship, and it was not until the discharges had been repeated through several days that they realised that distress and not bombardment was intended to be indicated. On boarding the vessel they found that she contained a number of passengers, all of whom, together with the crew, were reduced to a pitiable and enfeebled condition through exposure and scarcity of provisions, for, having lost their way in the heavy weather which prevailed, they had been detained much over the time expected for the voyage, blindly cruising about in the hope of discovering some friendly haven or guide. The craft was piloted round into the mouth of the river Wyre, opposite the Warren, and relief afforded to the sufferers. Rumour of the presence of the ship was not long in reaching the ears of the earl of Derby, who, with promptitude determined to march down and seize it in the king’s name. On the Saturday he arrived at Lytham Hall with a small troop of cavalry, where he sojourned for the night, with the intention of completing his journey and effecting his purpose the following day before the parliamentarians had got word of the matter; but here his calculations were at fault, for the parliamentary leader had already dispatched four companies of infantry, under Major Sparrow, to take possession of the prize, and on the same Saturday evening they took up their quarters at Poulton and Singleton, having arrived by a different route to the earl, who had forded the river at Hesketh Bank. On the Sunday Major Sparrow, who throughout showed a lively horror of risking an encounter with the renowned nobleman, posted scouts with orders to watch the direction taken by the latter, and convey the information without delay to the chief station at Poulton, where the soldiers were in readiness, not for action, as it subsequently turned out, but to put a safe barrier between themselves and the enemy, for no sooner was it ascertained that the earl, “all his company having their swords drawn,” was marching along Layton Hawes towards Rossall, than Sparrow conducted his force across the Wyre, at the Shard, and followed the course of the stream towards its outlet “until he came over against where the shipp lay, being as feared of the earle as the earle was of him.”[38] The earl of Derby advanced along the shore line and across the Warren to the mouth of the river without the naked weapons of his followers being called into service, but finding when he boarded the ship that two parliamentary gentlemen had forestalled his intention by seizing her for the powers they recognized, he unhesitatingly took them prisoners, and set fire to the vessel, whilst Sparrow and his men stood helplessly by, on the opposite side of the water, where the gallant major perhaps congratulated himself on his caution in having avoided a collision with so prompt and vigorous a foe. Some of the Spaniards attached themselves to the train of the earl, whilst others were scattered over the neighbourhood, depending for subsistence upon the charity of the cottagers and farmers, but their final destiny is unknown. The noble general, enraged at the unlooked for frustration of the main object of his journey, determined that it should not be altogether fruitless, and on his return forced admittance into the mansion of the Fleetwoods, at Rossall, and bore off all the arms he could lay hands upon. Resuming his march he re-passed through Lytham, forded the Ribble, and finally made his way to Lathom House, his famous residence.

Inactivity, however temporary, was ill suited to the temperament of the earl, and on receiving the news that the solitary piece of artillery belonging to the luckless Spanish vessel had been appropriated by the parliamentary officials before he appeared upon the scene, and transferred to their stronghold at Lancaster, he conceived the idea of reducing the ancient castle on the Lune, and so taking vengeance on those who had anticipated him in the Wyre affair, as well as removing a formidable obstacle to the success of the royal arms. Before entering on an undertaking of such importance it was necessary that his small body of troops should be materially increased, and after exhausting the districts south of the Ribble, he crossed it, in search of recruits amongst the yeomanry and peasantry of the Fylde. The earl lodged his soldiers in and about Kirkham, and fixed his own quarters at Lytham Hall. Dreadful stories are related by the old historian, from whose work we have already quoted, of the doings of the troops for the short time they remained in the neighbourhood, but it is only fair to state that their rapacity was directed exclusively against the property of those whose sympathies were with their opponents, whose houses and farms they plundered most mercilessly, driving off their horses, and carrying away ornaments, bedding, and everything which could either be turned to immediate use or offered a prospect of future gain. Warrants were issued on the first day of their arrival, from the head quarters at Lytham, over the whole of our section, calling upon every male above sixteen years of age and under sixty, “upon payne of death to appear before his Honor at Kirkham the next morning by eight of the clock, in their best weapons, to attend the King’s service.”[39] The officers to whom fell the task of heralding the mandate over the large area in the brief interval allowed, fulfilled their duties with energy, and a goodly company responded to the arbitrary summons of the commander. After having seen that the fresh levies were as suitably equipped for warfare as means would permit, the earl appointed John Hoole, of Singleton, and John Ambrose, of Wood Plumpton, as captains over them, and gave the order to march. On reaching Lancaster Lord Derby summoned the mayor and burgesses to surrender the town and castle into his hands, to which the chief magistrate replied that the inhabitants had already been deprived of their arms and were unresisting, but that the fortress, now garrisoned by parliamentary troops, was out of his keeping, an answer so far unsatisfactory to the besieger that he set fire to the buildings, about one hundred and seventy of which were destroyed, and inflicted other injury on the place. Colonel Ashton, of Middleton, who had been sent to relieve the castle, arrived too late, when the earl was some distance on his return towards Preston, from which town he dislodged the enemy. A little later the tide of fortune turned against the royalists, and the earl of Derby was one of the earliest to suffer defeat. Colonel Thomas Tyldesley, a staunch partizan of the king, and the father of Edward Tyldesley, of Fox Hall, Blackpool, retreated before Colonel Ashton, from Wigan to Lathom, and afterwards to Liverpool, where he was besieged and forced again to fly by his indefatigable opponent. (Later he distinguished himself at Burton-on-Trent, by the desperate heroism with which he led a cavalry charge over a bridge of thirty-six arches, and for that display of valour as well as his faithful adherence to Charles, he received the honour of knighthood.) Driven from Liverpool, Tyldesley, in company with Lord Molyneux, withdrew the remnant of his regiment towards the Ribble, crossed that stream, and quartered his men in Kirkham, whilst Molyneux occupied the village of Clifton. In these places they rested a night and a day, keeping a vigilant look out for their pursuer, Ashton, from the old windmill, situated at the east end of Kirkham. About one o’clock on the day succeeding the evening of their arrival the soldiers, acting under orders, repaired to their several lodgings to further refresh themselves after their prolonged fatigues, but before four hours had elapsed, a report came from the outpost that the enemy was approaching. An alarm spread through the camp, and with difficulty Lord Molyneux and Colonel Tyldesley assembled their forces in the town of Kirkham, where they elected once more to make a stand against the victorious Ashton. Command was given that all the women and children should confine themselves within doors, and preparations were hurried forward to offer the parliamentarians a vigorous resistance; but as daylight waned and the besiegers were momentarily expected, the courage of the royal troops seems to have oozed away, and they precipitately vacated the town, fording the Wyre, and flying towards Stalmine, whence they continued their retreat to Cockerham, and so on northwards. When Colonel Ashton entered Kirkham he found the enemy gone and the inhabitants in a state of extreme trepidation, but their fears were soon dismissed by the action of the gallant soldier who, on learning the course taken by Tyldesley and Molyneux, pushed on without delay. Ashton followed up the pursuit as far as the boundaries of Lancashire, without overtaking any of the royalists, and then returned to Preston. The rear of his troops diverged from the main road at Garstang, unknown to their leader, and marched into the Fylde for plunder. They passed through St. Michael’s, and visiting the residence and estate of Christopher Parker, of Bradkirk, drove away many of his cattle, and stripped his house of everything of value. In Kirkham they laid the people under heavy toll, and even spared not those who were notoriously well affected towards parliament. At Clifton they found more herds of cattle, which were joined to those already with them; but at Preston they fell to quarrelling over the booty, and it is questionable whether their ill-gotten stores did not prove rather a curse than a blessing to them.

Towards the end of 1643, the year in which the events just narrated occurred, Thurland Castle, the seat of Sir John Girlington, was captured by the parliamentary colonel, Alexander Rigby, of Middleton, near Preston. In the engagement the Lancashire troops were under the command of Alexander Rigby, of Layton, who allowed his small regiment to be surprised and routed by his namesake. After his success at Thurland, Colonel Rigby, of Middleton, proceeded to raise fresh levies in Amounderness. Mr. Clayton, of Fulwood Moor, was appointed to superintend the whole of the recruiting and directed to place himself at the head of the new regiment. Mr. Patteson, of Ribby, and Mr. Wilding, of Kirkham, were each apportioned half of the parish bearing the latter name, in which they were respectively ordered to raise a company. In the parishes of Poulton and Bispham, Mr. Robert Jolly, of Warbreck, Mr. William Hull, of Bispham, Mr. Richard Davis, of Newton, and Mr. Rowland Amon, of Thornton, were made captains, and had similar duties imposed upon them. In Lytham parish, Mr. George Sharples, of Freckleton, received a commission, but was unable to muster more than a very few followers, as the people of that neighbourhood reflected the loyal sentiments of the lord of the manor, and could neither be coerced nor seduced from their allegiance to the king. Captains Richard Smith and George Carter, of Hambleton, raised companies in Stalmine, Hambleton, and the adjacent townships and villages. Mr. William Swarbrick recruited a company in his native parish of St. Michael’s, and Mr. Duddell obtained another in Wood Plumpton.

At the siege of Bolton, in May, 1644, when the town was stormed and surrendered after a valiant resistance, to Prince Rupert, with an army of over nine thousand royalists, Duddell and Davis were amongst the officers slain, whilst their companies were literally cut to pieces. Captain George Sharples, of Freckleton, was taken prisoner, and dragged, almost naked and barefooted, through the miry and blood-stained streets to the spot where Cuthbert, the eldest son of Thomas Clifton, of Lytham, was standing after the carnage, in which he had led a party of the besiegers. Captain Clifton and others near him were in a mood for a somewhat rude and ungenerous entertainment, and placed the hapless Sharples, in his dilapidated attire, in a prominent position and, thrusting a Psalter into his hand, compelled him to sing a Psalm for their delectation. After they had amused themselves in such fashion for some time the prisoner was handed over to the guard, from whom he ultimately made his escape. Captain Cuthbert Clifton was elevated to the rank of colonel as an acknowledgment of his gallant services at Bolton, after which he returned for a few days into the Fylde, where he engaged himself in procuring a fresh detachment of soldiers, who readily flocked to his standard. For their provision and comfort he did not hesitate or scruple to appropriate a number of cattle on Layton Hawes, and to relieve some of the Puritans of Kirkham, Bispham, and Poulton, of their bedding, etc. Having fully supplied his commissariat department by these means, he marched to Liverpool, and joining Prince Rupert, was present at the sacking of that town.

The Civil War had proved most disastrous to Lancashire, where the constant movements and frequent collisions of the contending parties had ruined the towns, destroyed almost all attempts at agriculture, and reduced the inhabitants to a state of wretchedness and poverty, in many instances to the verge of starvation; and notwithstanding the fact that in not one single instance had the Fylde been the scene of an encounter, the people of this section were in as lamentable a condition of penury and suffering as those of the less fortunate districts, a circumstance not to be wondered at when the incessant plunderings are taken into consideration, and when it is remembered that the youth and strength of the neighbourhood were serving as volunteers or recruits, either under the banner of parliament or that of the king. The 12th of September, 1644, was appointed by the Puritans as a day of solemn prayer and fasting throughout the country, and parliament decreed that half of the money collected “in all the churches within the cities of London and Westminster and within the lines of communication,” should be devoted to the relief of the distressed and impoverished in this county.

Sir Thomas Tyldesley accompanied the army of Prince Rupert to York, near to where the sanguinary and famous battle of Marston Moor, in which no less than sixty thousand men were engaged on both sides, was fought on the 2nd of July, 1644. Oliver Cromwell commanded the parliamentarians in person, and after a fierce struggle discomfited the troops of Prince Rupert and drove them in confusion from the field. Sir Thomas Tyldesley retreated with his shattered regiment in hot haste towards Amounderness, where he made diligent search for arms and ammunition, but hearing that the enemy, under Sir John Meldrum, was marching in quest of him he hurried to the banks of the Ribble, and crossed the ford into the Fylde. This latter incident happened towards the end of the week, and on Saturday he was joined in his ambush by the immense royalist force of Colonel Goring, so great indeed that “before the last companies had marched over the bridge at St. Michael’s Church the first company was judged to be at Kirkham.”[40] There is probably some little exaggeration in the quoted statement, but even allowing it to be verbally correct, there can be no doubt that it is unintentionally misleading, as the extreme length of road covered would be due more to the wide intervals between the companies and the straggling manner in which they proceeded than to their actual numerical strength. Nevertheless the detachment, chiefly composed of cavalry, was enormous, and completely inundated the towns and villages in the parishes of Poulton, Kirkham, and Lytham. The men were lodged twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, and even sixty in a house, and on the Sunday morning they set out on an errand of pilfering without respect to persons, pillaging those who were friendly with as much eagerness and apparent satisfaction as others who were inimical to their cause, an impartiality so little appreciated by the inhabitants that they are said to have blessed the Roundheads by comparison with these insatiate freebooters. Horses, money, clothes, sheets, everything that was portable or could be driven, was greedily seized upon, and, in spite of threats and entreaties, remorselessly borne away. Hundreds of households were stripped not only of their ornaments, bedding, etc., but even of the very implements on which the family depended for subsistence. It is in truth no figure of speech to state that by far the larger share of the people were reduced to utter and seemingly hopeless destitution, and grateful indeed were they when their portion of the parliamentary grant of collections in the metropolis, before mentioned, was distributed amongst them, coming like manna from the heavens to comfort their desolated homes. To add insult to injury the graceless troopers compelled their entertainers to employ the Sabbath in winnowing corn in the fields for their chargers, and even refused to allow them to erect the usual curtains to protect the grain from being carried away by the high wind, so that the loss and waste amounted to barely less than the quantity utilised as fodder, and completely exhausted the fruits of their harvest. Sir Thomas Tyldesley, Lord Molyneux, and others of the leaders, fixed their lodgment near the residence of a gentleman named Richard Harrison, and were supplied with necessaries from Mowbreck Hall. Freckleton marsh was the rendezvous, and there the entire forces assembled on the morning of Monday, but were compelled to remain until one o’clock at noon before the Ribble was fordable, when they took their departure, to the intense joy of all those who had trembled for their lives and suffered ruin in their small properties during their brief sojourn. Sir John Meldrum appeared in the district only a few hours after the royalists had left, and thus the Fylde had again a narrow escape of adding one more to the long list of unnatural battles, most truly described as suicidal massacres of the nation, where men ignoring the ties of friendship or kinship imbrued their swords in the blood of each other with a relentless and inhuman savagery, reviving as it seemed the horrid butcheries of the dark ages. Sir John Meldrum hastened in the direction of the retreating foe, but failed to overtake them.

“In 1645,” writes Rushworth, “there remained of unreduced garrisons belonging to the king in Lancashire only Lathom House and Greenhalgh Castle.”[41] This castle was erected about half a mile eastward of Garstang, overlooking the Wyre, by Thomas, the first earl of Derby, in 1490, after the victory of Bosworth Field, as a protection from certain of the outlawed nobles, whose estates in that vicinity had rewarded the services of the earl to Henry VII. The castle was built in a rectangular form almost approaching to a square, with a tower at each angle. The edifice was surrounded and protected by a wide moat. The garrison occupying the small fortress at the date under consideration held out until the death of the governor, when a capitulation was made, and, about 1649, the castle was dismantled. In 1772 Penant spoke of the “poor remains of Greenhalgh Castle.”[42]

The fall of Lathom House and other strongholds of the king and the surrender of Charles himself to the Scotch army of Puritans, brought the contests for a time to a close in 1647, and Sir Thomas Tyldesley, with several more, received instructions to disband the troops under his command. During the foregoing struggles parliament, in order to provide the necessary funds for the increased expenditure, had allowed “delinquents, papists, spies, and intelligencers” to compound for their sequestered estates, and amongst those connected with this locality who had taken advantage of the permission were:—

Presbyterianism became the national, or at least, the state religion, and for the regulation of ecclesiastical matters the Assembly of Divines, at Westminster, suggested that the country should be divided into provinces, whose representatives should hold annual conferences at the larger towns. The county of Lancaster was divided into nine Classical Presbyteries, and the seventh Classis, embracing the parishes of Preston, Kirkham, Garstang, and Poulton, consisted of—

• Mr. Isaac Ambrose, of Preston, minister.
• Mr. Robert Yates, of Preston, minister.
• Mr. Ed. Fleetwood, of Kirkham, minister.
• Mr. Thos. Cranage, of Goosnargh, minister.
• Mr. Chr. Edmondson, of Garstang, minister.
• Mr. John Sumner, of Poulton, minister.

Laymen.

• Alexander Rigby, of Preston, Esq.
• William Langton, Esq.
• Alderman Matt. Addison, of Preston, gent.
• Alderman Wm. Sudall, of Preston, gent.
• Alderman Wm. Cottam, of Preston, gent.
• Edward Downes, of Wesham, gent.
• Edmund Turner, of Goosnargh, yeoman.
• Thomas Nickson, of Plumpton, gent.
• Robt. Crane, of Layton, gent.
• Wm. Latewise, of Catterall, gent.
• Wm. Whitehead, of Garstang, gent.
• Edward Veale, of Layton, Esq.
• Rd. Wilkins, of Kirkham, yeoman.

One of the duties of these Classes was to examine, ordain, and appoint ministers, or presbyters, as they were called, whenever vacancies occurred in the district over which, respectively, they had jurisdiction; subjoined is the certificate given in the case of Cuthbert Harrison, B.A., when selected and appointed presbyter of Singleton chapel:—

“Whereas Cuthbert Harrison, B.A., aged 30 years, hath addressed himself to us, authorised by ordinance of parliament of 22 Aug. 1646, for ordination of ministers, desiring to be ordained a presbyter, being chosen by the inhabitants within the chapelry of Singleton to officiate there; and having been examined by us the ministers of the Seventh Classis, and found sufficiently qualified for the ministerial functions, according to the rules preserved in the said ordinance, and thereupon approved—we have this day solemnly set him apart to the office of presbyter and work of the ministry of the gospel, by laying on of hands by us present, with fasting and prayer, by virtue whereof we declare him to be a lawful and sufficiently authorised minister of Jesus Christ. In testimony whereof we have hereunto put our hands the 27th Nov., 1651.”

(Here follow the signatures.)

In 1648 General Langdale, a royalist officer, appealed to the loyalty of the northern counties to attempt a rescue of the imprisoned monarch from the hands of his enemies. Many rushed to his standard, and the parliamentarians of the Fylde shared the general consternation which pervaded Lancashire at the success of his effort to rekindle the still smouldering embers of civil war. There is no necessity to trace the steps of this ill-judged enterprise to its disastrous issue, but suffice it to say that the defeat and routing of the little army was followed at a very short interval by the execution of Charles I., after a formal trial in which he disclaimed the jurisdiction of the court.

On the 22nd of June, 1650, a meeting of Commissioners under the Great Seal of England was held at Preston—“for inquiring into and certeifying of the certeine numbers and true yearely value of all parsonages and vicariges presentative, of all and every the sp’uall and eccli’call benefices, livings, and donatives within the said countye”; and after examining the good and lawful men of Kirkham and Lytham, it was recommended by the assembly that Goosnargh and Whittingham should be formed into a separate parish on account of their great distance from the church at Kirkham. At this inquiry it was also stated that—“the inhabitants of Newsham desired to be annexed to Woodplumpton; the inhabitants of Clifton and Salwick, together with the inhabitants of Newton-cum-Scales, and the upper end of Treales, desired to be united in one parish. Singleton chappell, newly erected, desired that it might be made a parish. The inhabitants of Weeton-cum-Preese desired that that township might be made a parish, and the inhabitants of Rawcliffe desired to be annexed to it. The townships of Rigby-cum-Wraye, and of Warton, and of Kellamore-cum-Bryning, and Westbye-cum-Plumpton, all humbly desired to be made a parish. The several townships of Eccleston Parva-cum-Labrecke, and the inhabitants of Medlar and Thistleton, and the inhabitants of Rossaker-cum-Wharles, desired to be annexed to Elswick, and that it might be made a parish.” Although at that time these petitions failed in obtaining their objects, much the same thing has been accomplished in more recent years by Lord Blandford’s Act, by which separate parochial districts, as far as ecclesiastical matters are concerned, have been appropriated to each church, thus rendering it independent of the mother-church of the ancient parish in which it might happen to be situated.

In 1651 the son of the unfortunate monarch, who had been proclaimed king by the Scotch under the title of Charles II., crossed the frontier and invaded England with a force of fourteen thousand men. That year the earl of Derby, Sir Thomas Tyldesley, and several other officers, sailed from the Isle of Man, whither they had retired, in obedience to the call of the young prince, and landed either on the Warren, at the mouth of the river Wyre, or at Skippool higher up the stream, with a regiment of two hundred and fifty infantry and sixty cavalry. Two of the vessels grounded during the operation of disembarking the horses, and in the heavy winds that ensued were reduced to total wrecks. As soon as the news of the earl of Derby’s arrival on the banks of the Wyre was rumoured abroad, “all the ships,” says the Perfect Diurnall, “were wafted out of the rivers of Liverpool, and set sail with a fair wind fore Wirewater, where the Frigots rid that brought the Lord Derby over with his company, to surprise them and prevent his Lordship escaping any way by water.” The earl marched through the Fylde, but the martial ardour of the inhabitants was not so readily excited as on former occasions, for the recollection of their abusive and piratical treatment by the troopers of Colonel Goring, in 1644, was still fresh in their minds, and effectually checked any feelings of enthusiasm at seeing the royal banners once again unfurled in their midst. A scattered few, however, there were who were willing to forget the misdeeds of the agents in their eagerness for the success of the cause, and with such meagre additions to his strength the earl hastened on. At Preston he raised six hundred horse, and shortly afterwards encountered the parliamentarians, under Colonel Lilburne, at Wigan-lane, where the royalists were defeated with great slaughter. Sir Thomas Tyldesley was slain, and the gallant earl escaped from the field only to be taken prisoner in Cheshire and suffer the fate of his late regal master, Charles I. Alexander Rigby, the grandson of the Alexander Rigby, of Layton, before mentioned, and only seventeen years of age, also took part in this eventful engagement, and twenty-eight years subsequently, when High Sheriff of the county of Lancaster, erected a monument to the memory of Major-General Sir Thomas Tyldesley near the spot where he fell. So universally esteemed was the valiant knight for his bravery and honourable conduct that the title of “Chevalier sans peur et sans reproche” was conferred upon him alike by friends and enemies. Charles II., after the overthrow of his army by Cromwell, adopted the disguise of a peasant, and having narrowly escaped detection by hiding himself amidst the foliage of an oak tree, fled at the first opportunity over to France. Cromwell was now installed in the chief seat of authority and held the reins of government under the style of Lord Protector.

In 1660, two years after the death of Cromwell, Charles II. was recalled and placed upon the throne; and in 1662 a law was passed by which it was enacted that before St. Bartholomew’s Day of that year, all ministers should arrange their services according to the rules contained in the new book of Common Prayer, under pain of dismissal from their preferments. The following letter was received by the churchwardens of Garstang, ordering the ejectment of the Rev. Isaac Ambrose, who was a member of the family of Ambrose of Ambrose Hall, in Wood Plumpton, from his benefice on account of his refusal to conform to the arbitrary regulation:—

“Whereas in a late act of Parliament for uniformitie, it is enacted that every parson, vicar, curate, lecturer, or other ecclesiasticall person, neglecting or refusing, before the Feast Day of St. Bartholomew, 1662, to declare openly before their respective congregations, his assent and consent to all things contained in the book of common prayer established by the said act, ipso facto, be deposed, and that every person not being in holy orders by episcopall ordination, and every parson, vicar, curate, lecturer, or other ecclesiasticall person, failing in his subscription to a declaration mentioned in the said act to be subscribed before the Feast Day of St. Bartholomew, 1662, shall be utterly disabled, and ipso facto deprived, and his place be void, as if the person so failing be naturally dead. And whereas Isaac Ambrose, late Vicar of Garstang, in the county of Lancaster, hath neglected to declare and subscribe according to the tenor of the said act, I doe therefore declare the church of Garstang to be now void, and doe strictly charge the said Isaac Ambrose, late vicar of the said church, to forbear preaching, lecturing, or officiating in the said church, or elsewhere in the diocese of Chester. And the churchwardens of the said parish of Garstang are hereby required (as by duty they are bound) to secure and preserve the said parish church of Garstang from any invasion or intrusion of the said Isaac Ambrose, disabled and deprived as above said by the said act, and the churchwardens are also required upon sight hereof to show this order to the said Isaac Ambrose, and cause the same to be published next Sunday after in the Parish Church of Garstang, before the congregation, as they will answer the contrary.—Given under my hand this 29th day of August, 1662.

“Geo. Cestriens.

“To the Churchwardens of Garstang, in the County Palatine of Lancaster.”

In this county sixty-seven ministers refused to submit to the mandate, and were removed from their churches by the authority of documents similar to the above, and prohibited from officiating in their priestly capacity anywhere within the diocese. Amongst the number, so interdicted, were the Rev. W. Bullock, of Hambleton, the Rev. Joseph Harrison, of Lund chapel, and the Rev. Nathaniel Baxter, M.A., of St. Michael’s-on-Wyre. The Nonconformists were subsequently subjected to even greater harshness and injustice by an act which decreed that no clergyman, belonging to any of their sects, should reside within five miles of the town or place at which he had last preached, unless he took an oath as under:—

“I do swear that it is not lawful, upon any pretence whatsoever, to take arms against the king, and that I do abhor the traitorous position of taking arms against his authority; against his person; or against those that are commissioned by him, in pursuance of such commissions; and that I will not at any time endeavour any alteration of government either in church or state.”

The sufferings experienced by those ministers who had been deprived of their benefices are described as having been extreme, nay, almost intolerable, and it was doubtless owing to the great severity practised towards the body of Nonconformists that the old creed gained such little popularity for some time after its re-establishment.

Charles II., soon after the restoration of monarchy at his coronation, determined to create a new order of knighthood, to be called the “Royal Oak,” as a reward to some of the more distinguished of his faithful adherents, and amongst the number selected for the honour were Col. Kirkby, of Upper Rawcliffe, Richard Butler, of Out Rawcliffe, and Edward Tyldesley, of Fox Hall, Blackpool.[43] The design was shortly abandoned by the advice of the crown ministers, who foresaw that the necessarily limited distribution of the distinction would give rise to jealousy and animosity amongst those who had been active in the late wars.

In 30 Charles II. a statute was passed entitled “An act for lessening the importation of linen from beyond the seas, and the encouragement of the woollen and paper manufactories of the kingdom”; and by it was provided, under a penalty of £5, half of which was to be distributed to the poor of the parish, that at every interment throughout the country a certificate should be presented to the officiating minister stating that the winding sheet of the deceased person was composed of woollen material and not of linen, as heretofore. The certificate ordered to be used at every burial ran thus:—

“A, of the parish of B, in the county of C, maketh Oath that D, of the parish of B, in the county of C, lately deceased, was not put in, wrapt or wound up or Buried, in any Shirt, Shift, Sheet, or Shroud, made or mingled with Flax, Hemp, Silk, Hair, Gold, or Silver, or other than that which is made of Sheep’s Wool only. Nor in any Coffin lined or faced with any cloth, stuff, or anything whatsoever, made or mingled with Flax, Hemp, Silk, Hair, Gold, or Silver, or any other material but Sheep’s Wool only.

“Dated the ... day of ... in the xxxth year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord, Charles the second, king of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, etc.

“Sealed and Subscribed by us, who were present and witnesses to the Swearing of the above said affidavit

(Signatures of two witnesses.)

“I, ..., esq., one of the King’s Majesties Justices of the Peace for the County above said, do hereby certify that the day and year above said A came before me and made such affidavit as is above specified according to the late Act of Parliament, entitled An Act for burying in Woollen.

(Signature.)”

The foregoing statute was amended two years later, and the modified enactment continued in force for some time, when it was repealed. In the registers of old churches, such as Bispham, Poulton, Kirkham, and St. Michael’s-on-Wyre, where they have been preserved, notices of burials according to this regulation during the two years it was in operation, may be seen; and amongst the records of the Thirty-men, or governing body of Kirkham, is an entry of expenses incurred when they went “to justice Stanley” to obtain his authority to “demand 50s. for Tomlinson’s wife buried in linen,” contrary to the law.

Three years from the accession of James II., his repeated attempts to curtail the civil and religious liberties of his subjects had so far incensed them against him that William, Prince of Orange, was invited over to free them from his rule. In 1688 James abdicated the throne, and the following year William and Mary were crowned at Westminster. Annexed is a list of the gentry residing in the Fylde from the reign of Henry VIII., to their accession, as prepared from original records and private manuscripts:—

• Allen of Rossall Hall.
• Ambrose of Ambrose Hall.
• Bradley of Bryning.
• Bradshaw of Preese and Scales.
• Butler of Rawcliffe Hall.
• Butler of Layton and Hackensall.
• Clifton of Westby.
• Eccleston of Great Eccleston Hall.
• Fleetwood of Plumpton.
• Fleetwood of Rossall Hall.
• Hesketh of Mains Hall.
• Kirkby of Upper Rawcliffe.
• Kirkby of Mowbreck.
• Leigh of Singleton.
• Longworth of St. Michael’s Hall.
• Lowde of Kirkham.
• Massey of Carleton.
• Molyneux of Larbrick Hall.
• Parker of Bradkirk Hall.
• Rigby of Layton Hall.
• Sharples of Freckleton.
• Shuttleworth of Larbrick.
• Singleton of Singleton.
• Singleton of Staining Hall.
• Stanley of Great Eccleston Hall.
• Tyldesley of Fox Hall, Blackpool.
• Veale of Whinney Heys.
• Westby of Rawcliffe.
• Westby of Mowbreack and Burn Halls.

James II., when force of circumstances had driven him into exile, left a considerable number of supporters behind him, chiefly amongst the Roman Catholics, who were not dilatory in devising schemes for his re-establishment. On the 16th of May, 1690, Robert Dodsworth deposed upon oath, before Lord Chief Justice Holt, that the following Popish gentry of the Fylde, amongst others, had entered into a conspiracy to restore James, and that they had received commissions as indicated for the purpose of raising troops to carry out the enterprise:—Colonel Thomas Tyldesley, son of the late Sir Thomas; Captains Ralph Tyldesley, son of the late Sir Thomas; Thomas Tyldesley, of Fox Hall, nephew to the two preceding; Richard Butler, of Rawcliffe Hall, and Henry, his eldest son; Thomas Westby, of Mowbreck Hall, and William, his third son, who was designated a lieutenant; and Lieutenant Richard Stanley, of Great Eccleston Hall. Nothing is recorded as to the result of the above information, but in 1694 Sir Thomas Clifton, brother to Cuthbert Clifton, of Lytham, was arraigned, with several more, on a charge of treason in connection with a reported Jacobite plot, but was acquitted, as also were those with him. During the course of the trial, Thomas Patten, of Preston, as witness to the loyalty of Sir Thomas Clifton to the existing government, stated that “in 1689 he received orders from the Lord Lieutenant to secure several Popish gentlemen, and that amongst them Sir Thomas Clifton was one who was taken and brought prisoner to Preston upon the 16th day of June in that year; that Sir Thomas being a very infirm man and unfit to be carried so far as Manchester, which was the place where the rest of the Popish gentlemen then made prisoners were secured, he undertook for Sir Thomas, and prevailed to have him kept at his (Patten’s) own house in Preston, where he continued prisoner, and was not discharged until the January following, at which time all the gentlemen were set at liberty; that during Sir Thomas Clifton’s confinement he expressed to him much zeal and affection to the present government, saying how much the persons of his religion ought to be satisfied with their usage, as putting no difference betwixt them and other subjects save the public exercise of their religion, so long as they themselves would be quiet, and protested for himself that he could never endure to think of practising any change.” Further Mr. Patten affirmed “that he knew Sir Thomas’s disposition to have always been peaceful and quiet.” During the time that James II. was engaged in inciting the Irish nation to espouse his cause and furnish him with an army to invade England and regain his throne, Thomas Tyldesley, of Fox Hall, prepared a secret chamber in that mansion for his reception. The disastrous battle of the Boyne, however, in which James was vanquished by William, Prince of Orange, and King of England, crushed all hope of future success in the fallen monarch, and at the earliest opportunity he escaped to France. In 1715, during the reign of George I., his son, the Chevalier de St. George was proclaimed king in Scotland under the title of James III. The earl of Mar and several other influential supporters of the Stuarts assembled a large force and marched southwards; on arriving at the border five hundred of the Highlanders refused to proceed further, but the remainder passed through the northern counties as far as Preston. Here they were besieged by the loyal troops under Generals Carpenter and Wills, who stormed the town and forced the rebels to an unconditional surrender. Many of the leaders were executed, whilst others were incarcerated for various terms; the general treatment of their unfortunate followers may be gleaned from the journal of William Stout, of Lancaster, in which it is written:—“After the rebellion was suppressed about 400 of the rebels were brought to Lancaster Castle, and a regiment of Dragoons was quartered in the town to guard them. The king allowed them each 4d. a day for maintenance, viz., 2d. in bread, 1d. in cheese, and 1d. in small beer. And they laid on straw in stables most of them, and in a month’s time about 100 of them were conveyed to Liverpool to be tried, where they were convicted and near 40 of them hanged at Preston, Garstang, Lancaster, etc.; and about 200 of them continued a year, and about 50 of them died, and the rest were transported to America.” Thomas Tyldesley, of Fox Hall, died in 1715, just before the outbreak of the rebellion, but his son Edward, who succeeded him, joined the rebels. For this act of treason he was put on his trial, but escaped conviction and punishment through the favour of the jury, by whom he was acquitted in spite of clear and reliable evidence that he had entered Preston at the head of a company of insurgents with a drawn sword in his hand. After the capitulation, when the king’s troops had entered the town and were marching along the streets, many men from our district, who had congregated on Spiral’s Moss, armed with fowling pieces and implements of husbandry, joined their ranks, and a huge duck-gun belonging to a yeoman named Jolly, from Mythorp, near Blackpool, was instrumental in doing good service to the besiegers by slaying one Mayfield, of the Ashes, Goosnargh. The rebel had secreted himself behind a chimney on one of the houses, and was engaged in picking off the loyal soldiers as they made their way along the thoroughfare below. His murderous fire was at length put an end to by a charge from the famed gun of Jolly, whose keen eye had detected the assassin in his hiding place. Jolly himself appears to have had an aversion to causing the death of a fellow-creature in cold blood, even though a rebel, and the credit of the shot is due to a soldier, whose own weapon failed in reaching the object. The Rev. W. Thornber tells us in his History of Blackpool, that the family of the Jollys, for many years, treasured up the wonderful gun, and that the tale of its exploit was circulated far and wide in the neighbourhood of their home. From the remarks of the Rev.—Patten, who accompanied the army of the Chevalier, as chaplain to General Forster, we learn that those who joined the insurgents in Lancashire were chiefly Papists, and that the members of the High-church party held aloof, much to the disappointment and chagrin of General Forster, who, in his anger, declared “that for the time to come he would never again believe a drunken tory.” Edward Tyldesley, Henry Butler, of Rawcliffe Hall, and his son Richard Butler, were the most distinguished personages amongst the small body of men belonging to this section who openly espoused the cause of the Pretender. The paucity of the recruits attracted by the insurgent standard from our neighbourhood is easily to be accounted for, when it is remembered that for many years the county of Lancashire had enjoyed an immunity from strifes and disturbances, so that the inhabitants of the rural districts, such as the Fylde, had settled down to the cultivation of the soil, and would care little to assist in a work which as far as they were privately concerned, could only terminate in the devastation of their fields, and, probably, in the ruin of many of their households. Especially, in 1715, would the people be disinclined to take part in or encourage insurrectionary and warlike proceedings, for in that year extraordinarily bountiful harvests had rewarded their labours, and general prosperity had taught them the blessings of peace.[44] After the rebellion of 1715 many Papists registered their estates and the respective yearly values thereof, according to an Act of Parliament passed in the reign of George I., and amongst the number may be observed the names of sundry local personages as:—

Prince Charles Edward, the son of the former Pretender, landed in the Hebrides, in 1745, with a well-officered force of two thousand men, and after defeating Sir John Cope, seized the city of Edinburgh and commenced his march southwards. Crossing the border, he passed through Lancashire, and arrived at Preston with an army barely six thousand strong. At Preston he met with an enthusiastic welcome, the church bells were rung, and loud cheers greeted the proclamation of his father, the Chevalier, as king of Great Britain and Ireland. His sojourn in the town was brief, and on the 27th of November the rebel troops set out for Manchester, inspirited by the lively strains of “The King shall have his own again.” Arriving at that city, they continued their march towards Derby, where, on receiving the news that the Duke of Cumberland was at Lichfield on his way to intercept them, Prince Charles Edward hastened to beat a retreat, and on the 12th of December re-passed through the streets of Preston, the wearied feet of his followers keeping time to the doleful but appropriate air of “Hie the Charlie home again.”

The battle on the moor of Culloden, in which the rebel army was defeated by the Duke of Cumberland, finally decided the fate of the House of Stuart, and after experiencing many hardships, Prince Charles Edward escaped across the channel into France. James, the son of Edward Tyldesley who took part in the insurrection of 1715, served in the army of the Young Pretender. During the excitement and alarm produced by these rebellions, silver spoons, tankards, and other household treasures, were deposited for safety in a farm house at Marton; cattle and other farm-stock were driven to Boonley, near Blackpool, whilst money and articles of jewelry were buried in the soil of Hound Hill in that town. The Scots who accompanied Prince Charles were so renowned for their voracious appetites that the householders of the Fylde prepared for their expected visit by laying in an abundant supply of eatables, hoping that a good repast, like a soft answer, would turn away wrath. Mr. Physic, of Poulton, was an exception to the general rule, and having barricaded his house, determined vigorously to resist any attack of the rebels either on his larder or his purse. Hotly pursued by the Duke of Cumberland in their retreat towards Scotland, the insurgents were quickly hurried through the country, but some of the stragglers found their way to Mains Hall, where they were liberally provided with food by Mrs. Hesketh. It is probable that these rebels formed part of the number of Highlanders, who were afterwards captured at Garstang, and that one of them was the bare-footed Scot who seized the boots of John Miller, of Layton, dragging them from his feet with the cool remark—“Hout mon, but I mon tak’ thy brogues.” William Hesketh, of Mains, had considered it prudent to secrete himself on the warren at Rossall until the excitement had subsided, as in some way or other he had been mixed up with the former outbreak, and wished to avoid any suspicion of having been implicated in this one also. At the sanguinary and decisive battle of Culloden, two notorious characters from Layton and Staining were present; one of them, named Leonard Warbreck, served in the capacity of hangman at the executions following the rebellion, whilst the other, James Kirkham, generally known as Black Kirkham, was a gallant soldier, remarkable for his giant-like size and immense strength. The country people near his home were wont to declare that, for a small wager, this warrior carried his horse and accoutrements round the cross at Wigan to the astonishment and admiration of the by-standers. One incident of these times, reflecting little credit on this neighbourhood, but which, as faithful recorders, we are bound to relate, was the journey of Henry Hardicar, of Little Poulton, to London, a distance of two hundred and thirty-three miles, all of which he travelled on foot, solely to gratify a morbid taste by witnessing the legal tragedies performed on Tower Hill. “I saw the lords heided” was his invariable answer to all inquiries as to the wonders he had seen in the metropolis. In this rising, as in the earlier one, the inhabitants of the Fylde evinced their prudence and good sense by remaining as nearly neutral as their allegiance to the reigning monarch would permit them. Those insurgents who found their way into the district were treated with kindness, but no encouragement was given them to prolong their stay, either by professions of sympathy or offers of assistance in their insurrectionary enterprise.

We have at last come to the end of the long chain of wars and disturbances which from the period of the struggles between the Houses of York and Lancaster, had exercised their baneful influence on the territory and population of the Fylde, and are now entering on an era of peace and unbroken prosperity. The small water-side hamlets of Blackpool and Lytham put forth their rival claims to the patronage of the inland residents,—

“And had their claims allow’d.”

In 1788, Mr. Hutton described the former place as consisting of about fifty houses and containing four hundred visitors in the height of the season. This historian also informs us, that the inhabitants were remarkable for their great longevity, and relates the anecdote of a woman who, forming one of a group of sympathising friends around the couch of a dying man, exclaimed—“Poor John! I knew him a clever young fellow four score years ago.” Lytham, also, attracted a considerable number of visitors during the summer, and for many years was a more popular resort than Blackpool. In Mr. Baines’s account of Lytham, published in 1825, we read as follows:—“This is one of the most popular sea-bathing places in the county of Lancashire; and if the company is less fashionable than at Blackpool, it is generally more numerous, and usually very respectable.”

A list of the Catholic Chapels and Chaplains, together with the number of their respective congregations, in the county of Lancaster, was collected in 1819, and subjoined are enumerated those situated in the Hundred of Amounderness:—

In 1836 the first house of Fleetwood was erected, and in a few years the desolate warren at the mouth of the Wyre was converted into a rising and prosperous town. The rapidity of its early growth may be inferred from the following paragraph, extracted from a volume on Lancashire, published during the infancy of this new offspring of the Fylde:—“As a bathing place, it possesses very superior attractions: hot water baths, inns, and habitations of all kinds have sprung as if by magic on one of the most agreeable sites it is possible to imagine, very superior to any other in Lancashire, admitting, as from a central point, excursions by land and water in all directions, amongst some of the most beautiful scenery in the empire. A couple of hours steaming takes the tourist across Morecambe Bay to the Furness capital, and into the heart of a district of surpassing interest. Charming indeed is Fleetwood in the height of the summer, with its cool sands, northern aspect, and delightful prospects. First there is a noble bay in front, an ocean of itself when the tide is in; and when it is out offering firm sands of vast extent, for riding or walking.” Sir Peter Hesketh Fleetwood, bart., of Rossall Hall, lord of the manor, and founder of the town to which he gave his name, was returned on four occasions as one of the parliamentary representatives of Preston:—

MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT FOR PRESTON.

• 1832.—Peter Hesketh Fleetwood, and the Hon. Henry Thos. Stanley.
• 1835.—Peter Hesketh Fleetwood, and the Hon. Henry Thos. Stanley.
• 1837.—Peter Hesketh Fleetwood, and Robert Townley Parker.
• 1841.—Sir Peter Hesketh Fleetwood, Bart., and Sir Geo. Strickland, Bart.

The year 1840 was an auspicious one in the history of the Fylde. On the 25th of July, the Preston and Wyre Railway, running through the heart of this district, was completed and declared open for traffic. By its means the farmer became enabled to convey his produce to the extensive market of Preston; and Kirkham, Poulton, and Garstang were no longer the only towns accessible to our agriculturists for the sale of their crops. The early appreciation of the utility and benefit of the line is apparent from the rapid increase of its traffic, as shown by the annexed tables, in which the official returns of passengers and goods for the week ending Dec. 14th, 1842, and the corresponding weeks of the four succeeding years are stated:—

At the present date, 1876, the average weekly traffic on this railway and its branches to Lytham and Blackpool, amounts in round numbers to £1,200 for passengers, and £800 for goods.

The Preston and Wyre Railway was amongst the earliest formed, and the impression made on the natives of this district, who had been accustomed to the slow-going coaches, must have been one of no little amazement, when, for the first time, they beheld the “iron horse” steaming along the rails at a speed which their past experience of travelling would make them regard as impossible. The following lines were written by a gentleman named Henry Anderton, a resident in the Fylde, on the opening of the railway:

“Some fifty years since and a coach had no power,

To move faster forward than six miles an hour,

Till Sawney McAdam made highways as good,

As paving-stones crushed into little bits could.

The coachee quite proud of his horse-flesh and trip,

Cried, ‘Go it, ye cripples!’ and gave them the whip,

And ten miles an hour, by the help of the thong,

They put forth their mettle and scampered along.

The Present has taken great strides of the Past,

For carriages run without horses at last!

And what is more strange,—yet it’s truth I avow,

Hack-horses themselves have turned passengers now!

These coaches alive go in sixes and twelves,

And once set in motion they travel themselves!

They’ll run thirty miles while I’m cracking this joke,

And need no provisions but pump-milk and coke!

And with their long chimneys they skim o’er the rails,

With two thousand hundred-weight tied to their tails!

While Jarvey in stupid astonishment stands,

Upturning both eyes and uplifting both hands,

‘My nags,’ he exclaims, betwixt laughing and crying,

‘Are good ’uns to go, but yon devils are flying.’”

The fares on the Preston and Wyre Railway at its commencement were:—