Читать книгу History of the Fylde of Lancashire - John Porter - Страница 10

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

“This appeareth by the presentment of the Vicar of Garstang.	One named little Richard receipted at Mr. Rigmaden’s of Weddicar by report.
“This appeareth by the presentment of the Vicar of Kirkham.	Ricard Cadocke, a seminary priest, also Deiv. Tytmouse conversant in the Company of two widows—viz. Mistress Alice Clyfton and Mistress Jane Clyfton, about the first of October last, 1580, by the report of James Burie.
“This also appeareth by the presentment of the Vicar of Kirkham.	Richard Brittain, a priest receipted in the house of William Bennett of Westby, about the beginning of June last, from whence young Mr. Norrice of Speke conveyed the said Brittain to the Speke, as the said Bennett hath reported.

“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

Cuthb. Clifton, Esq.	Obstinate.
Will. Hesketh, gent.	Obstinate.
John Singleton, gent.	Obstinate.”

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.