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YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

LANCASHIRE

LANCASHIRE:

ITS PURITANISM AND NONCONFORMITY.

BY

ROBERT HALLEY, D.D.

SECOND EDITION.

MANCHESTEK :
TUBBS AND BROOK, 11, MARKET STREET.
LONDON : HODDER AND STOUGHTON.

MDCCCLXXII.

MhK53 Hal

PREFACE.

The object I proposed in writing this book was not to compose a
history of Lancashire, nor to confine my narrative to the detail of its
Puritanism and Nonconformity ; but to notice so much of its history
as might elucidate the Puritanism and Nonconformity, and as con
nected with them the religious life, of that great county. More dis
tinctly than any other English county, Lancashire has a religious
history of its own. Its Puritanism has been remarkable for many
peculiarities : its Nonconformity has been, in many respects, unlike
the Nonconformity of the other parts of England. It has had, more
than any other county, on the one hand, a strong and determined
Popish party, and on the other, a powerful and zealous Puritan party.
Under the government of Elizabeth, Puritanism was encouraged in it,
while it was persecuted in other counties. In the reign of James it
had its own 'Book of Sports,' enforced nowhere else, and in the time
of his son its own rehgious war distinct from, although simultaneous
with, the great religious war of the country. It had a Presbyterian
Church legally established within its boundaries, and a Congregation
alism unlike the Independency of the eastern and southern counties.
As the ecclesiastical history of Lancashire has so much that is
pecuhar and distinctive, it seemed to me to deserve, especially from
Protestant Dissenters, more attention than it has hitherto obtained.
I have, therefore, at the request of several Lancashire friends, made
an attempt to describe the religious life of their county to such
extent and within such limits as they have desired. To myself the
subject is of great interest, although I may not have succeeded in
making it interesting to others.
I have gratefiilly to acknowledge the assistance and encourage
ment of many friends, but especially of Joseph Thompson, Esq., of
Manchester, to whom I am indebted for the loan of many valuable
books, and for services too numerous to mention, but too generously
rendered to be forgotten. With him have been associated Sir James
Watts, of Manchester, and Samuel Rigby, Esq., of Warrington, who
have acted as a Committee in promoting the publication of the book.
My grateful acknowledgments are also due to Joshua Wilson, Esq.,

VI. PEEfACE.
for many valuable communications^ noticed in the course of the
narrative, and to Thomas Stamford Raffles, Esq., for the opportunity
of consulting his father's MSS. I have further to say that I am
greatly indebted to the Rev. William Parrer, LL.B., for assisting
me in correcting the sheets as they passed through the press, and for
undertaking the labour of preparing the index.
I must take this opportunity of acknowledging the kindness of
several Lancashire and other friends, who, in an unexpected emer
gency, have imposed on me an obhgation which, although they have
no desire to remember it, I can never forget. I would gladly
mention their names, were I not restrained by the advice of one
generous friend who took upon himself the trouble of communicating
with others, and who well knows their wishes. A reference to the
lamentable bereavement which be has recently suffered by the unex
pected death of his eldest son, beloved by all who knew him, affords
me an opportunity of expressing sympathy as well as gratitude,
while it renders any more explicit notice quite unnecessary. Robert Hallet.
New College, London : March 30, 1869.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

In preparing a Second Edition I have made some corrections and
additions, which appear to me to improve the accuracy or complete
ness of the narrative. As the book has been favourably noticed by
several reviewers who are not connected either with Nonconformity
or with Lancashire, it has obtained a wider circulation than I had
any reason to expect. On this account I have, although reluctantly,
omitted several allusions to personal friends and to incidents of
recent occurrence which, however agreeable to persons intimately
connected with the County, excite no interest in the minds of general
readers. I have also, as I think, improved the narrative by dividing
it into shorter chapters.
I have to express my gratefiil acknowledgments to James Croston,
Esq. of Cheetham Hill, for valuable communications of which I have
gladly availed myself in several instances.

New College, London : August 3, 1872.

CONTENTS. CHAPTER I.
INTEODUOTOET,
To the Passmg ofthe Act of Supremacy, 1531. PAOE
Lancashire — Ancient Divisions — Lordship of the Honour of Lancaster —
Earldom of Lancaster — Duchy of Lancaster — Palatinate — Ancient
Castles and Towns : Lancaster, Chtheroe, Preston, Manchester, War
rington, Newton, Wigan, Liverpool— Ancient Churches — Monasteries —
WhaUey Abbey, Furness Abbey — Ecclesiastical Divisions — State of the
County — Gentry — Yeomanry — Working people — Women — Clergy —
Good and evil of the Monasteries — -Else of Manufactures in the hundreds
of Salford and Blackburn — Growth of the Ports — Education — Grammar
Schools — Opposition to the claims of the Clergy — Hugh Oldham —
Henry Standish — Act of Supremacy  1 — 25
CHAPTER II.
THE EEPOEMATION.
From the Passing of the Act of Supremacy to the Accession of
Queen Mary, 1531-1553.
Slow progress of the Reformation iu Lancashire — Opposition of the Monks
— ' The Pilgrimage of Grace ' — Surrender of the Abbeys of Whalley and
Furness — Pounding of the Bishopric of Chester — George CoUyer,
Warden of Manchester — Suppression of religious Sports and Festivals — ¦
Father Traves — The King's Preachers in Lancashire — John Bradford 26 — 40
CHAPTER III.
EESTOEATION OP POPEEY.
From the Accession of Ma/ry to her Death, 1553-1558.
Restoration of Manchester College — Dr. Pendleton — Martyrdom of Brad
ford — George Marsh — Secret Meetings of Protestants — State of Religion
in Lancashire during the reigu of Mary  41 — 52
CHAPTER IV.
THE PROTESTANT ESTABLISHMENT.
From tive Accession of Elizabeth to the Death of Edward, Earl of Derhy,
1558-1573.
Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity — Lancashire men who promoted the
Reformation : Sandys, Nowell, Lever, PiEdngton — State of Religion
in Lancashire in the reign of Elizabeth — The Clergy — Conspiracies of
the Catholics  53—69
CHAPTER V.
ENCOURAGEMENT OP PURITANISM.
From the Death of Edward, Earl of Derhy, to the Death of Queen EUnaheth,
1573-1603.
Funeral of the Earl of Derby — His son Henry — Puritan preachers —
Bishop Chadderton — ' Exercises ' of the Puritans — Severe treatment of
Catholics — IU feehng of both parties — Social position of the Clergy and
their Wives — Martin Marprelate — Controversy concerning the observ
ance of the Sabbath — Henry, Earl of Derby — Ferdiuando, Earl of Derby
— Witches, Alchemists, aud Astrologers of Lancashire — Dr. Dee . 70 — 86

viii. CONTENTS. PAGE
CHAPTER VI.
REVIEW OF PURITANISM IN THE REIGN OP ELIZABETH.
Prevalence of Puritanism and Popery— Puritan Preachers : The two Midg-
leys, Richard RothweU, Ohver Carter, WilKam Leigh, John Oaldwall,
Edward Fleetwood, John Assheton, Abdias Assheton— John Bruen—
Katharine Brettargh— Nicholas Assheton— Amusements of the Lanoa-
shire Puritans  .... 87—113
CHAPTER VII.
PURITANISM UNDER JAMES I.
From the Accession of James I. to his Death, 1603-1625.
Undisputed Title— Millenary Petition— Hampton Court Conference—
Vanghan, Lloyd, and Morton, Bishops of Chester-' Progresses ' of the .
King in Lancashire— Sunday at Hoghton Tower— First Book of Sports
—Puritan Ministers: Pahn, Gellibrand, Harrison, Hubbert, Paget,
Rathbamd, Richard Mather, Robert Bolton, Henry Ainsworth . 120—140
CHAPTER Vni.
PURITANISM UNDER CHARLES I.
From his Accession to the Meeting of the Long Fa/rliament, 1625-1640.
Accession of Charles— Archbishop Laud— Bishop Bridgman — Warden
Murray — Warden Heyricke — Charles Herle  141 — 152
CHAPTER IX.
RELIGIOUS PARTIES.
1640.
Approach of the Civil War — The principal Families of Lancashire engaged
in it : The Stanleys, Ffaringtons, Tyldesleys, Standishes, Bradshaws of
the Haigh, Moores, Asshetons, Booths, Hollands, Hydes, Birches, Wors-
leys, Dufcenfields, Bradshaws of Bradshaw, Puritan Famihes of Bolton,
Shuttleworths, Starkies, Cathohc, Families, Rigbys . . . 153 — 172
CHAPTER X.
THE LONG PARLIAMENT.
From the Meeting of the Long FarUa/ment to the Commencement of
Civil War in Lancashire, 1640-1642.
Lancashire Members of the Long Parliament— Intense interest felt by the
Lancashire Puritans in the Proceedings of the Long Parhament — The
Humble Petition of the Lancashire Ministers and Gentlemen to the King
— The separation of the Great Meeting on Preston Moor into opposite
Parties — Attempts of both Parties to secure the gunpowder in Preston,
Liverpool, and Manchester — The first man killed in the Civil WS,r —
Siege of Manchester — ^Eichard Heyricke — WiUiam Bourne — Colonel
Rosworm  178 — 186
CHAPTER XI.
THE CIVIL WAR.
1642-1646.
Fighting at Whalley, Blackburn, and Preston — Occupation of Wigan —
Fighting at Chowbent — Attack on Blackburn — Siege of Preston, of
Lancaster, of Bolton — Burning of Lancaster — Second attack on Bolton
— Capture of Wigan — Attack on Warrington — Success of Colonel
Assheton at Blackburn, Preston, Wigan, and in the Fylde country —
Great rejoicings inMauchester— Capture of Warrington — All the fortified
Places except Lathom in possession of the Pariiamentarians — Heyricke
and Herle represent Lancashire in the Westminster Assembly — Solemn
League and Covenant accepted in Manchester — Siege of Lathom —
Massacre at Bolton — Siege of Liverpool— Second Siege of Lathom . 187 — 231

CONTENTS. ix.
FAGB
CHAPTER Xn.
ECCLESIASTICAL CHANGES. 1646.
Difficulties of Presbyterianism — Heyrioke's Sermon before Parhament —
Restoration of the OoUegiate Property — Debates in the Westminster
Assembly — Dissatisfaction of the Presbyterians — Rise of the Inde
pendents — Petition of Lancashire Ministers ..... 232 — 241
CHAPTER Xin.
PRESBYTERIANISM ESTABLISHED. 1646-1649.
Establishment of Presbyterianism in Lancashire — Proceedings of the
Presbyterian Courts — Practical difficulties of the Presbyterian govern
ment— ' Harmonious Consent' of the Ministers — Invasion of England
by the Scotch— Battle of Preston Moor — Execution of the King . 242—274
CHAPTER XIV.
COMPREHENSION.
F'rom the Death of Charles I. to tlie Restoration of the Monarchy, 1649-1660.
Alarm of the Lancashire Ministers — Disputes respecting the obedience
due to Usurpers — Charles the Second signs the Covenant — Battle of
Dunbar — Sequestration of the ChurCh property — Heyricke concerned in
the Presbyterian Conspiracy against the Government — Battle of Wigan
— Death of Tyldesley — Capture of the Earl of Derby — His execution —
Dissolution of the Long ParUament — Charles Worsley — Thomas Birch
— John Birch — Representation of Lancashire under the Short ParUa-
ments of Cromwell— Ecclesiastical Government under the Protectorate
— Attempts to conciUate the Episcopalians and to unite with the Inde
pendents — Henry Newcome — Independents in Lancashire — Samuel
Eaton — Death of Cromwell— Insurrection under Sir George Booth-
Battle near Northwich  275—330
CHAPTER XV.
EPISCOPACY RESTORED. 1660-1662.
Sermons of Newcome — Rejoicings in Manchester — Sermons of Heyricke
and other Presbyterian Ministers — FaU of the Presbyterian Establish
ment—Coronation of Charles II. — Rejoicings in Manchester — Sermon of
Heyricke — Restoration of Sports and Festivals — Various modes of
observing Divine Worship — Restoration of Episcopal Government, and
of the Choral Service iu Manchester — New Parliament — Fears of the
Presbyterians — Walton and HaU, Bishops of Chester . . . 331—351
CHAPTER XVI.
EXCLUSION.
The Act of TJmiformity, 1662.
The Act of Uniformity — The ejected Ministers — Number ejected from
benefices in Lancashire — Expectants — Ministers who retained their
benefices without conforming- John Angier and others — Lancashire
Ministers permanently ejected — Ofthe first 'olassis,' Newcome, Harrison,
Constantine, and others— Of the second ' olassis,' Goodwin, Park, Pen-
dlebury, Bath, Taylor, and others — Of the third ' classis,' JoUie and others
— Of the fourth ' olassis,' Mather, Bradshaw, Yates, Hotham, and others
— Of the fifth • olassis,' Bell, Heywood, Thompson, Pinch, and others —
Of the sixth 'classis,' Welch, Hyett, and Lathom — Of the seventh
'olassis,' Ambrose and Nathanael Baxter — Of the eighth 'olassis,'
Mallinson, and others — Of the ninth ' olassis,' Camelford and others 352 — 389
CHAPTER XVn.
NONCONFORMITY.
From, the Passmg of the Act of Uniformity to the Eevolution, 1662-1688.
/The ejected Ministers determined to continue their ministry — Their
private ministrations — Their itinerant preaching — The Conventicle Act

X. CONTEI^S. PAGE
—The preaching of Oliver HeywooJ^iuT/ancashire — ^His sentence of
exconununication pubUshed at Bolton — Support of the ejected Ministers
— LiberaUty of the few who had private property in assisting their poor
brethren— Teaching — ^Allowance obtained from their successors —
Arrangements with Presbyterian patrons — Donations of their friends —
Funds obtained from London and other large towns — The Royal Bounty
— PaJl of Clarendon — Charles, Earl of Derby — Declaration of Indulgence
— Perplexity of the Nonconforming Ministers — Meeting in Manchester
— Address to the King — Ministers Ucense private houses — The founders
of Lancashire Nonconformity — First Nonconformist Ordination — Support
of Ministers by their Congregations — The King rescinds the Declaration
of Indulgence — Rejoicing in Manchester — Ministers resume their
preaching — Opening of the early Dissenting Academies — Mr. Frankland
— Mr. Tiiothy JolUe — Mr. Chorlton — Death of Warden Heyricke — Dr.
Stratford — Death of Bishop Wilkins — ^Accession of James II. — Per
plexity of the Dissenters — Monmouth's Insurrection — Imprisonment of
Lancashire Ministers — Trial of Lord Delamere — Declaration of Liberty
of Conscience — Addresses of Dissenting Ministers — Landing of the
Prince of Orange — Movements of Lord Delamere .... 390 — 433
CHAPTER XVni.
TOLERATION.
The Act of Toleratio'n, 1689.
The Act of Toleration — Number of Dissenters in Lancashire — List of
Congregations — The old Meeting-houses — That of Birch; of Blackley ;
of Tockholes ; of Manchester — Death of Newcome — Meeting-house at
Bolton ; at Chowbent — James Woods— Meeting-house at St. Helen's ;
at Warrington ; in Liverpool — SmaUer Meeting-houses — Early Baptist
Church in Liverpool — Religious Services of the early Dissenters . 434  456
CHAPTER XIX.
THE OLD DISSENT.
From the Passing of the Act of Toleration wntil the Rise of MethodAsm,
1689-1760.
Riotous proceedings of the adherents of Dr. Saoheverel — Jacobite mobs 
Destruction of the Meeting-houses in Manchester, Blackley, Monton, and
Greenacres — Tom Syddall — March of the Jacobite army upon Lancaster
—Capture of Preston- Bravery of Parson Woods — Battle of Preston 
Barbarous treatment of the Prisoners — Executions in Lancashire 
Address of the Lancashire Ministers — Samuel Peploe, Warden of Man
chester— State of Parties in Lancashire — Congregation of Nonjurors 
Second RebeUion of the Jacobites — Proclamation of King James III. 
Jacobite Sunday in Manchester— Defeat of the Pretender — Orange
Sunday in Manchester— Decline of 'the Dissenting interest'— Change
in Nonconformist Theology— Dr. John Taylor— Dr. Priestley— Warring
ton Academy— Theological Academy in Manchester—' The Liverpool
^t-^ey' • • ^-  457-501
CHAPTER XX.
MODERN DISSENT.
From the Rise of Methodism, about 1760.
Revival of ReUgion in the middle of the eighteenth Century— Congregations
which preserved the old Theology in St. Helen's, Greenacres, Darwen
Whitworth, Elswick, Tockholes— Founding of Congregational Churches
m Blackburn, Bolton, Lancaster, Manchester, Liverpool Ashton
Oldham, Rochdale, Bury, Preston, Wigan, Warrington, and smaUer
places— 'Theological Academy— County Union— Baptist Churches in
Liverpool and Manchester— Growth of Methodism— Welsh Noncon
formity — Scottish Presbyterianism — Conclusion . t;n9 kaa
Appendix I  ... ou^om
Appendix II   Lo
^^^ ¦ ¦ .:::::: 549-564

THE
PURITANISM AND NONCONEORMITY
OF
LANCASHIRE. CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
Although of English counties Lancashire at the present time is
in population the first, in wealth nearly the first, and in dignity
as a royal palatinate equalled only by Cheshire, it did not become a
county until long after almost all the others were regularly constituted
and generally acknowledged. The name Lancasterscire, variously
spelt, was indeed in use among the Saxons to designate some con
siderable extent of field and forest, warren and pasture, situate around
the old castle of the Lune; just as the names Blackburnshire and
Salfordshire were used to denote respectively the hundreds of Black
burn and Salford. In the north of England not only hundreds, but
even large parishes, were sometimes called ' shires' — as 'priestshires'
or ' shriftshires' — in which the people confessed to the same priest, or
paid tithes to the same parson. At the time of the Norman conquest
the country between the Mersey and the Ribble, consisting for the
greater part of moss, moorland, forest, and sandhills, belonged to
Cestrescire, and that between the Ribble and the Lune to Eurickscire
or Yorkshire. In Doomsday Book, Cestrescire includes the hundreds
of Derbie, Neweton, Walintune, Blacheburne, Salford, and Leyland.
These six hundreds, severed from Cheshire, and formed since their
severance into four by the annexation of Newton and Warrington to
West Derby, constitute, with the hundreds of Amounderness and
Lonsdale, severed from Yorkshire, the county palatine of Lancaster.
The part of Lonsdale which lies north of Morecambe Bay has been
at times, both before and since the Conquest, accounted part of
Westmoreland. On Roger of Poictiers, the leader of the Norman vanguard in the
battle of Hastings, the Conqueror conferred 'the lordship of the
honour of Lancaster,' and granted to him the greater part of Lons
dale and Amoundemess, together with one hundred and eighty-eight
manors lying between the Ribble and the Mersey. Having erected
his castle on a green hill on the south bank of the Lune, around
which the town of Lancaster grew and flourished, he ruled in feudal
state a district of territory nearly conterminous with the present
Lancashire. Under his rule the subordinate barons of ' the honour'

2 LANCASHIRE.
castellated their mansions near the fords and passes of the boundaries
of his extensive domain, and in one or two important positions of its
central part. Of his castles, one erected on ' the Liverpoole,' an
obscure creek of the Mersey, was committed to the custody of ' his
trusty friend, Vivian Molineux,' from whom the present Earl of
Sefton derives his name and heraldry, if not his lineage.* To
strengthen and support him against the incursions of the Britons
from the opposite side of the Mersey, Godfrey, the vice- comes of
Roger, was established at West Derby. On the north bank of the
Mersey baronial houses were fortified, one on a projection opposite
Runcorn, another at Warrington to guard the Latchford, and a third
at Manchester, the Roman Mancunium, to watch the Stretford as
well as the fords of the Irwell. A castle at Newton gave succour
and strength to that of Warrington. On the eastern boundary the
mountain passes were guarded by the castle of Clitheroe, where a
Norman baron De Lacy, ' lord of the honour of Cliderow, ' was second
in the county only to the lord of the honour of Lancaster. On the
north march the castle of Thurland kept watch and ward against the
wild Soots and wilder borderers. The entrance of the Ribble was
protected by the castle of Penwortham. These castles, with some
smaller forts, constituted for some time after the Conqnest the
strength and defence of the country now called Lancashire. f
By abetting the claim of Duke Robert, the Conqueror's eldest
son, Roger incurred the forfeiture of his estates and honours, "which
remained with the crown until King Stephen created his son William
lord of the honour of Lancaster. He was succeeded by John, after
wards king of England, and he again by his grandson Edmund
Crouchback, first Earl of Lancaster. His son Thomas, by marriage
with the sole heiress of the great house of Lacy, became one of the
most_ wealthy and powerful barons of England. The story of his
heading the barons in their opposition to the Spencers, of his leading
an army against Edward II., of his defeat at Boroughbridge, disgrace
at York, and execution at Pontefract, of the veneration in which he
was held by the people of Lancashire, who believed that miracles
were wrought at his tomb, and of the attempts which were made to
induce the pope to canonize 'the good earl,' however tempting as
Lancashire story, must not be allowed to divert us from our proper
course. It may be more to our purpose to observe, in connection
with the earl, two names which will often occur in the proo-ress of our
enquiry, as representing two ofthe most prominent Purittn families
of Lancashire. Having been hereditary Hgh sheriff of the county
when summoned to attend the king on his invasion of Scotland the
earl appointed Richard de Hoghton to act as his deputy during the
time of his absence. The knight whom he chiefiy trusted iS his
* Of the families of the Norman barous settled in Lancashire, that of MoUneux
ongmally des Mohnes, 'of the town of mills,' is the only one which yet retXs
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¦Grtgtof-:lr;mri'" '""^ """"^^ '^"°^ ^-^^ ^'^^^ ^^^-- -^^ ^^ f°-^ -

INTRODUCTORY. 3
unfortunate expedition into Yorkshire was Sir Robert de Holland.
With some of the descendants of Richard and Robert, the Hoghtons
and the Hollands, we shall hereafter become intimately acquainted,
as they were among the most distinguished supporters of Lancashire
nonconformity. On the reversal of the attainder of Earl Thomas, his honours and
estates were claimed by his brother Henry, from whom they descended
to his son Henry, created the first Duke of Lancaster. As an especial
testimony of royal favour, ' with the consent of all the prelates and
peers sitting in parliament,' his dnchy was made palatinate, and
endowed with honours and privileges equal to those of the palatinate
earldom of Chester. The duke is said to have been as distinguished
for his piety as he was for his heroism; although his pious deeds, so
far as we are acquainted with them, consisted chiefly of benefactions
to monasteries,* for which the monks of Whalley had especial
reason to venerate his memory while they most devoutly prayed for
his soul. One of his bequests may illustrate the religion of his
times. He left upwards of two hundred and eighty acres of land
in the townships of Penhulton and Clideroe for the support of two
recluse women, ' in a certain place within the churchyard of Whalley,
and their successors, being recluses, there to pray for his soul for
ever.' If the value of their prayers is to be estimated in proportion
to the virtue of the ' recluses, ' it is to be feared the soul of ' the good
duke' gained little benefit from their perpetual devotions. Sad
disclosures were made in subsequent times of their immorality.
Eventually their hermitage near the abbey was confiscated by
Henry VI. , because ' divers of the wymen . . servents . . have
byn misgovernyd and gotten with chyld, withyn the seyd plase
halowyd, to the grete displeasaunce of hurt and disclander of the
abbeye.'t Henry Plantagenet left two daughters, of whom the younger.
Lady Blanche, was married to John of Gaunt, the fourth son of
Edward III. On the death of her elder sister without issue, she
became entitled to all the honours and estates of her father. Her
husband, created Duke of Lancaster, was declared to be through her
entitled to ' all the honours, liberties, and regalities' of the palatinate.
On the accession of his son, Henry of Bohngbroke, to the throne,
the honours and estates of the palatinate became inseparably annexed
to the crown.
A brief survey of the county, as it was when it became palatinate
in the reign of Edward III., may help us to understand its subsequent
ecclesiastical history.
Around the baronial castles and halls of the lords of the soil, the
older towns of the county were steadily growing and becoming places
of considerable strength and importance. As Lancaster was the
residence of the palatine court, and its castle had the regalities of a
* There is one remarkable exception. Ofl'ered the choice of many precious
things by the French king, he selected a thorn of the Saviour's crown, esteeming
it greater riches than all the treasures of France.
t Whitaker's History of Whalley, p. 77.

LANCASHIRE.

palace, and might with propriety have assumed the name it was-
readily acknowledged, in all places except ' proud Preston to be th^
capital of the county. John of Gaunt having made great additaons
to his ancient castle, its stately towers allured the husbandmen of the-
neighbourhood to build their houses around its walls, that they might
find within its ample courts protection for their movables from the
predatory incursions of the lawless Scotch and borderers. Forming
our estimate from grants which were made about that time, of lands,
meadows, and pastures, we conclude that a considerable tract of the
fertile land on the banks of the Lune had been brought under good
husbandry. The church, which in the Saxon times had been bailt
in what was called old Lancaster, was under the Normans richly
endowed with the tithe of the fishing, the tithe of poultry, calves,
lambs, goats, swine, cheese, and butter, all which, by the deeds of
the endowment, were vested in the abbey of St. Martin of Lees in
Normandy. When these tithes with the advowson were afterwards
conveyed -to the Abbess of Sion, there were added in consequence of
the advance of cultivation the tithes of flax, hemp, pigeons, apples,
hay, and the tithe of the mills of the parish. Some fishermen placed
their huts by the river under the shelter of the castle hill. Of the
little shipping which then belonged to the county the burgesses of
Lancaster Cwned the larger share. A Benedictine priory was built
on the slope of the hill. The town obtained by royal charter the
exclusive privilege of having the courts of assize for the trial of both
the civil and criminal causes of the county. In the time of the
Plantagenets it was the most important and honourable, though not
the most populous or wealthy, of the towns of Lancashire.
But CHtheroe and Preston were in some respects the rivals of
Lancaster. The former flourished under the protection of its castle,
which, conveyed to the Plantagenets by a marriage with the sole
heiress of the great family of De Lacy, was, of the baronial residences
of the county, second in strength and honour only to the castle of
John of Gaunt. For a short time, through the influence of its powerfiil
lord, the town obtained the privilege of holding the county sessions
within its boundaries, in contravention of the charter previously
granted to Lancaster. Situate in the midst of a fertile country, in
the neighbourhood of two rich monasteries, whose tenants cultivated
a wide tract of pasture and arable land, it became the home and
market of a considerable agricultural population. On the northern
side of the town was the manorial residence of the Clyderows, a
family which supplied knights of the shire to serve in several of the
earliest parliaments. Distinguished in arms as were Adam, Hugh,
and Gilbert de Clyderow, they were often disposed to assert their
independence of their great and haughty neighbours, the Planta
genets, under the shadow of whose castle they were determined to be
neither obscured nor plundered. Their ancient inheritance was con
veyed by an heiress to the knightly family of the RadclifEes, to
whom we shall have occasion hereafter to refer, as taking a prominent
part in the ecclesiastical history of the county.
Preston, occupying a position which commanded the navigation,

INTRODUCTORY. 5
the fisheries, and the lower fords of the Ribble, bscame after the
creation of the palatinate a town of considerable importance and
magnitude. The old castle of Penwortham, situate nearer the estuary
of the Ribble, a baronial residence in earlier times of the great Earls
of Chester, had, on the merging of their lands in the vast estates of
the Duchy of Lancaster, lost its ancient grandeur, strength, and
importance. No longer able to protect the village which had grown
under its shelter, it was forsaken by the neighbouring fishermen and
craftsmen, who preferred to settle in the flourishing town on the
opposite side of the river. The Benedictine priory of Penwortham,
although only a timber building of moderate dimensions, survived
its protector the stone castle until the dissolution of the religious
houses. But the rival town, the town of priests as its name denotes,
was the favourite residence of ecclesiastics. A borough by prescrip
tion, Preston boasts of the antiquity of its charters, the honours of its
guilds, and, though never the assize town, its ancient privilege of
gibbet and gaol, tumbrel and pillory.
In honour and dignity Preston proudly claimed equality with
Lancaster, and supported its claim by the greater magnificence and
splendour with which it was accustomed to entertain distinguished
visitors. Although Lancaster was the capital of the county, Preston,
as its people never forgot, was the capital of the dnchy, and all the
business ofthe duchy, at one time more considerable than that ofthe
county, was transacted in the palatine courts of Preston.
In the reign of Edward III., Manchester was undoubtedly the
most wealthy and populous town of Lancashire. It seems to have
previously consisted of two towns, the one, Aldport or the old port
on the Irwell, near the campfield, or site of the chief fortress of the
Roman Mancunium, and the other situate near the confluence of the
Irwell and the Irk. From the Conquest there had been two churches,
the one near Aldport dedicated to St. Michael, the other near the
new town dedicated to St. Mary. In no other place in Lancashire,
as far as I know, were there, at that early time, two churches so near
each other as these Manchester churches. Rude buildings of timber,
they were richly endowed by tbe Gresleys and the De la Warres, the
ancient lords of Manchester. Ample funds were provided, not only
for the support of the parochial clergy, but also for the maintenance
of a considerable service of chaplains and chantry priests. Next to
the great monasteries, the most important ecclesiastical establishment
of the county was that of Manchester, whose rector, usually called
the dean, was the first of the secular clergy resident in Lancashire.
When the bishop of the diocese resided as far away as Lichfield or
Coventry, the dean must have been a very important personage.
A stone bridge, probably the first erected in the county, crossed
the Irwell and connected the town with Salford, which had obtained
the charter of a free borough. There were therefore at that time
two boroughs in close proximity, separated only by the Irwell,
although neither of them had a mayor or corporation. On the bridge
a chapel or oratory had been erected by Thomas del Booth, and on
the opposite side of Manchester the chantry or field-kirk of Didsbury

6 LANCASHIRE.
had been built, endowed with land for the burial of the dead, and
consecrated for the observance of such religious rites as might be
required by the residents of that ancient chapelry.
On the Irk was the lord's mill, to which the burgesses and
tenants were obliged to carry their corn to be ground, and near it
was the lord's oven, in which their bread was to be baked. There
was also a fulling-mill on the Irk, a flour-mill on the Gorton brook
without the borough, and some other water-mills, as well as a wind
mill, in the parish. The fisheries ofthe streams, the property ofthe
lord, were valued at an annual rental of two shillings for the Irwell,
and of twelve pence for the Irk and the Medlock.
The industry and wealth of the town were greatly promoted in
the long and prosperous reign of Edward by the encouragement
which he gave to a number of Flemish emigrants, fullers, dyers, and
other craftsmen, who settled in Manchester aud communicated the
knowledge of their craft and mystery to the peasantry of the neigh
bouring villages.* The woollen trade thus established in Manchester
crept up the streams northwards through Rossendale, Rochdale, and
other dales of that inclement hill country. Since the Conquest
parochial churches had been erected in Ashton and Rochdale, the
former having been separated from the parish of Manchester, and the
latter from the great parish of Whalley. In the reign of Edward,
Oldham was formed into a chapelry of the ancient parish of Prest-
wich, which from that time acquired the name of Prestwich-cum-
Oldhani. These ecclesiastical changes intimate the increase of the
population and wealth of that neighbourhood, which soon afterwards.
became so remarkable as to induce the papal nuncio, in 1465, to
establish in Manchester a sale of indulgences, as profitable to the-
purchaser (and perhaps also to the seller) as if he had made the-
wearisome and expensive pilgrimage to Rome to procure those
spiritual privileges.
But the growth of Manchester at the close of the fourteenth and
beginning of the fifteenth century more distinctly appears in the-
proposals which were made and accomplished, to found and endow a
* ^""^f gi^es a curious account ofthe manner in which King Edward aUured
these craftsmen mto England. 'Emissaries were employed by our king, who-
We^hL r' 7:^ "'° famUiarity with such Dutchmen as were masters of their
trade but not of themselves, being either journeymen or apprentices These-
raTrT-r. wrl.*''^""'^^^ "''''''' P°'^ — *^ whomTer masters used
and late L bpf ^'^. Z ° Y't" '' T^' "^'^'^ ^^^ ^°'''' ^^^^ ^^^- Early up-
chfesef Zdthtn ^.^'I'^T'' a^d harder fare (a few herrings and mouldy
selves But n , L I ' ''^"/'',' **"? "" "'^"^^^' ^^*^°'i* ^^r P™fit *» tl^^m-
selves. But 0 ! how happy would they b« if they would come over to Euo-land-
brmgmg the.r mystery which would provide their welcomeTn aU placef i How
u/t Thetstma"cE:T ^^^ ^-^ -<i T"-' ^U -t^ing but their fXesVshould
bu tmmendter '''Hf°f"'t^';5'?l''^' '""^ ^°'' envioufforejgnts'c™ d

INTRODUCTOEY. 7
collegiate church with ample provision and support for its warden
and fellows. Thomas, Lord de la Warre, the lord of the manor,
convened the parishioners 'by the sound of the bell.' Among the
attendants were the ancestors of many of the historic families of
Manchester, as Sir John le Byron, Sir John de Radoliffe, Edmund
de Trafford, John de Booth, Tharstan de Holland, Robert de Hyde,
James de Strangeways, Otho de Redditch, John de Barlow, Ralph de
Prestwich, John de Hulton, James de Hulme, William de Birches,
Geoffrey de Hopwood, and others. The descendants of these men,
whose names continued for two or three centuries to grace the history
of Manchester, -will hereafter appear acting their several parts in the
narrative, no longer in concert for a good object, but sadly divided,
the Traffords and Barlows as Catholics, the Byrons and flulmes as
Churchmen, the Hollands, Hydes, Booths, Birches, and Hultons, as
Puritans. At the meeting De la Warre spoke of the increasing magnitude
and population of the town, of the deficiency of its religious instruc
tion, of the decay of its old churches, and of the non-residence of its
rectors. He proposed that, for the honour of the town and good of
its people, a collegiate establishment, consisting of a warden and his
fellows, should be founded and endowed with the estates of the
existing rectories. If the parishioners approved and a charter could
be obtained, he engaged at his own expense to erect the costly build
ings that would be required, and to secure such additional endow
ments as would liberally sustain the honour and dignity of the new
establishment.. On the obtaining of the charter and consequent
founding of the college, Manchester became in its ecclesiastical, as it
had previously been in its industrial, character the most important
town in Lancashire.
Warrington and Newton were in the reign of Edward III. consider
able towns, protected by the fortified residences of their respective
barons. The church of Warrington was the principal church in the
enlarged hundred of West Derby, which quoad sacra was often called
the deanery of Warrington.
Wigan, though not mentioned in Doomsday, had become in the
reign of Edward the most populous town in West Derby. When in
that reign writs were directed to the mayors of the most wealthy
towns of England, requiring contributions for the prosecution of the
Scottish war, the towns of Lancashire selected as the most able to
contribute were Lancaster, Preston, and Wigan. ' The parson of
Wicran,' as in old time he was always called, was entitled to all the
rights and privileges of the lord of the manor, and held his Monday
market and Easter court-leet in rivalry of the mayor's Friday market
and Michaelmas court-leet. A great man this glorious old ' parson '
must have been in the reign of Henry IV., when in his house in
London ' he feasted two kings and two queens with their attendants,
seven hundred messes of meat scarce serving for the first dinner.'
In the twenty-fourth year of Edward III. Wigan was consiiituted a
parHamentary borough, and for a short time enjoyed the privilege, or

8 , LANCASHIRE.
submitted to the burden, of sending two representatives to parlia
ment.* Liverpool was becoming at that time a place of some importance.
As early as the reign of Henry II. its fishermen and traders had been
incorporated, and in the time of Edward I. they were able to defray
the expenses of sending two representatives to parliament. In the
reign of Edward III. the ancient chapel of St: Nicholas, an appurten
ance of the vicarage of Walton, was consecrated as a sanctuary in and
around which the inhabitants of the chapelry had the privilege of
interring their dead. About that time a tower was erected, on the
site now covered by the warehouses of Water Street, by Sir Thomas
de Lathom, through whose heiress it was conveyed to the Stanleys,
and was long held by them to the grievous offence and annoyance of
their powerfnl rivals, and often bitter enemies, the Molineux of the
castle. In the deadly strife of these famihes for pre-eminence, the
burgesses prospered or suffered with their respective patrons, although
their chief family, the Mores, contrived to get something considerable
from both sides. t In the course of our history we shall find these
three families as the leaders of the three religious parties into which
Liverpool was divided. The Molineux, like many of the old nobflity,
were the leaders of the Catholics ; the Stanleys, belonging to the
comparatively new aristocracy, the leaders of the EpiscopaUans ; and
the Mores, wealthy merchants, of the Presbyterians.
The comparative importance of the port of Liverpool in the time of
Edward III. appears in the assessment which was then made, to
pro-vide a navy for the prosecution of the French war. London had
to contribute twenty-five ships and six hundred and sixty-two men ;
Bristol twenty-four ships and six hundred and sixty men ; Hull
sixteen ships and sixty-six men ; Portsmouth five ships and fifty-six
men ; and Liverpool one bark and six men.
Of the ecclesiastics residing near Liverpool the prior of Birkenhead
was the most considerable. He claimed property in the ferry for carry
ing passengers and goods across the Mersey, and the monopoly of
pro-viding accommodation for them on his own side of the water.J
In the fourteenth century Liverpool consisted of the castle of the
Molineux, the tower of the Stanleys, three or four manorial resi
dences, one-hundred and sixty-eight cottages with timber sides and
thatched roofs, a few fishing vessels in the Lyrpool, a fire beacon-
tower on Everton Hill, a water-mill, and two wind-mills, the chapel
of St. Nicholas, and a statue of that favourite saint of the sailors
standing at the edge of the water. Adjoining the town were the
park and forest of Toxteth, in which were the houses of a Stanley
* After long intermission, Wigan resumed its privilege or duty iu the reign of
Edward VI. x- o j s
t The names of the Mores appear as wealthy burgesses of Liverpool from a
very early time. In 1295, John de le More is the first name on the Ust of the
burgesses who guaranteed the payment of the wage of the members returned
for Liverpool. In the next return of which we have any record, in 1306 the
mraibers returned were John de More aud Richard de More.
^ He was charged with grievous extortion for raising his ordinary fare of a
larthmg for every passenger to a halfpenny ' on the market day at Lyverpol.'

INTRODUCTORY. 9
who was the parker, and of a Scarisbrick who was the forester, with
some cottages for their servants, and stabling for their horses and
dogs. Lancaster, Preston, Liverpool, and Wigan were the old parlia
mentary boroughs of Lancashire. Their privilege, however, through
their poverty or their parsimony was in abeyance for more than two
hundred years. During this interval the returns of the sheriff often
stated that ' none of the boroughs was able to send members by
reason of their debility and poverty.' The pay of the borough
members was usually two shillings a day besides the expense of
travelling to and from Westminster. The knights of the shire
were allowed four shillings and afterwards five shillings a day, which
_great expense on one occasion induced the careful freeholders of
Lancashire to unite with their neighbours of Cumberland in sending
one member between them, each county paying half his wages. On
the accession of Edward VI. the four ancient boroughs resumed
the exercise of their privilege : and, in the reign of Elizabeth,
Clitheroe and Newton were added to the parliamentary boroughs of
the county.
The churches of Lancashire were at the time of Edward III. few,
and for the most part small and poor buildings, as compared with
the churches of the south of England, or even of the adjoining
county of York.
In the hundred of Salford, eight parish churches existed soon
after the Conquest, though only the two which belonged to Man
chester are noticed in Doomsday. Three more were added before the
creation of the palatinate. These eleven churches, with four or five
dependent chapels and a few private chantries, were all the places of
worship then erected in that large and populous district of the
county. The hundred of Blackbnrn was nearly conterminous with
the great parish of Whalley, whose 'white church under the Leigh'
was probably the earliest Christian edifice erected in the country
afterwards called Lancashire.* Blackburn had been recently con
stituted a parish, the church of which was the property of the
abbey of Whalley. Several chapels were soon afterwards erected
in different townships of the great parish, in which the monks
solemnised divine service with more or less regularity, as they were
required or rewarded by the inhabitants. In Leyland were seven
churches. In Amounderness the . three churches mentioned in
Doomsday had increased apparently to ten. There were four
churches and four dependent chapels in the deaneries of Furness
and Cartmel. In the hundred of West Derby were fourteen
* According to a prevalent tradition, the rectors or deans of this ancient church
were a, sort of nonconformists. Li-ving iu the midst of a remote forest, they
acknowledged no other ecclesiastical authority than that which was impUed in
receiving institution from the distant Bishop of Lichfield. Left to do as they
pleased, they pleased to marry, and so to perpetuate a race of married priests,
who transmitted their office from father to son in opposition to the decrees of
the popes, until the Lateran council, not only prohibiting but disannuUing the
marriages of priests, destroyed the constitution by which the church of WhaUey
had been governed for four hundred and seventy years.

10 LANCASHIRE.
churches. These churches and chapels, with a few private or family
places of worship, constituted, so far as the secular clergy were
concerned, the reUgious estabhshment of Lancashire at the creation
of the palatinate.
But the monasteries were the more important ecclesiastical insti
tutions of the county, and especially the magnificent Cistercian
abbeys of Whalley and Furness. Although neither of them
claimed the dignity of the mitre for its abbot, they were, of the
great monasteries of the north of England, inferior in importance
only to two or three.
Near the end of the thirteenth century the Abbot of Stanlaw in
Cheshire took possession of the parsonage of Whalley, and finding,
as Whitaker says, ' the glebe fertde, the house warm, the incumbent
aged, the monks importunate, and their patron bountiful,' removed
the greater part of his establishment to this new and comfortable
home. It was the custom of the Cistercian monks to erect magnifi
cent buildings in rural situations. True to their order, these monks
resolved to build a monastery worthy of their munificent patron,
Henry of Lancaster, for the good of his soul, and possibly for the
comfort of their own bodies. Monasteries rose slowly : monks were
never in a hurry. These Cistercians had a grand idea, and were
wilhng to allow time for its becoming a reality. One hundred and
forty-two years from its commencement John Eccles, the ninth
abbot of Whalley, had the honour and satisfaction of completing
the building which had cost his eight predecessors so much care,
labour, and money.
The Cistercian establishment at Furness was older, more richly
endowed, and, from its secluded situation across the sands of More
cambe Bay, more independent of external authority, civil or ecclesi
astical, than its great rival of Whalley. In the twenty-sixth year
of Henry I., the abbot and twelve brethren laid the foundation of
their abbey in the gloomy recess of Bekansgill, the valley of night
shade. To any other than monks a less inviting situation could
scarcely be found in the county. The hUls were bleak, but the
Cistercians were fond of sheep-farming, as they knew how to find a
market for their wool among the Flemish merchants. The valley
was their own. With much of the neighbouring country they were
endowed by the Hberahty of their patron, Stephen of Boulogne.
Several of the neighbouring proprietors were wilhng for the good
of their souls to make considerable additions to the estate of the
abbey. The feUs supplied stone and the forests timber for the build
ing of such an edifice as the Cistercians loved to build. They soon
acquired the fisheries of the bay that bounded their domain, and
built two forges to work the rich iron ore of the island of Walney.
Thus flourishing as lords of the soil, they patiently and persever
ingly worked on from one generation to another in the erection of
that structure which is still grand and beautiful in its ruins.
Besides several smaller rehgious houses of various kinds, the
other monasteries of the county were the abbey of Cockersand,
reckoned the third in dignity of the Lancashhe monasteries ; the

INTRODUCTORY. 11
priory of Cartmel, richly endowed, but restricted by a provision of
its founder from ever assuming the name or honour of an abbey :
the priories of Conishead, Hornby, Penwortham, Burscough, and
Up-Holland. In the ecclesiastical arrangements of that time the four southern
deaneries, conterminous with the four southern hundreds, belonged
to the Archdeaconry of Chester in the great diocese of Lichfield,
Coventry, or Chester, as it was sometimes called.* The part of the
county situate on the north of the Ribble belonged to the Arch
deaconry of Richmond, in the diocese of York.
Lancashire at that time, as compared with the south of England,
or the adjoining county of York, was thinly peopled and ill-cultivated.
In the south-eastern parts extensive mosses and fens scarcely allowed
pathway for travellers, much less pasturage or corn-fields. A great
part of the eastern, central, and northern districts consisted of moun
tain and moorland, in which the climate was bleak and the soil bare
and unpromising. The western side, exposed to the winds of the
Atlantic, was covered to a great extent with light sand, the scanty
and unwholesome grass of which afforded shelter and sustenance for
no better animals than wild rabbits. The land, so far as it was
reclaimed from the waste, was cultivated partly by villeins bound to
the soil, and partly by men and women called natives, who might be
bought and sold as slaves. f When the proposal was made to found
the abbey at Whalley on the fertile lands of Ribblesdale, the monks
of Salley, settled six miles higher up the stream, were alarmed lest
the country should not provide sufficient food for so many new people,
and petitioned on that account against the coming into their neigh
bourhood of an abbot and thirty-four monks.
The county, however, was in the reign of Edward III. making some
advances in agriculture, commerce, and manufactures. The Cister
cians soon learnt to plough their fertile valleys and pasture their flocks
on the slopes of Pendle and the fells of Cartmel. The burgesses of
Manchester became purchasers of their wool, the spinning and
weaving of which were soon succeeded by various processes in finish
ing and preparing the cloth for distant markets. The fulling-mills
and dye-works of Salfordshire were in the fourteenth century the
auspicious beginnings of the vast manufacturing industry and wealth
of that district.
Dense forests, supplying fuel for several iron forges, covered large
tracts of the great parish of Manchester. A forest of oak, elm, birch,
and thick underwood stretched over the lands of Broughton, Cheet
ham, and Blackley, and eastward over most of Bradford, Openshaw,
and Gorton. On the edge of this forest of Arden was a village or
wick which, by its name, Axdwick, preserves a memorial of the forest
* Before the division of the diocese there was au episcopal palace, although
there was no cathedral, in Chester.
+ The last record of the sale of slaves in the county is found, I believe, in the
archives of WhaUey Abbey, where, in 1309, the abbot sold, for one hundred
shillings sterUng, ' one native -with all his family and aU his efiects. — Barnes,
Hist, of the Cownty, &c., of Lancaster, vol. iii. p. 187.

12 LANCASHIRE.
long since destroyed. Manchester people may be amused to learn
that one park in their parish, that of Blackley, was worth ' in pannage,
aijry of eagles, herons, and hawks, honey-bees, mineral earths, ashes
and other issues, fifty-three shillings and fourpence.' * A smaller
wood near Aldport was worth in ' pannage with the aijry of eagles,
herons, and hawks, honey-bees, and the like issue, six shillings and
eight pence.' Foresters were appointed in the manorial courts of
Manchester to protect the woods and to enforce against all trespassers
the strict forest laws of the time. The following curious regulation,
found in the records of Manchester, may illustrate the state of the
hundred of Salford : ' In the season of the year when the hawks begin
to prepare their nests, the villagers by forewarning of the foresters
shall assemble in Horwichley, and being sworn they shall go through
all the forest to see how many nests they have made. From the time
¦of this survey the foresters shall remain until the feast of St. Barnabas.
And on the said day of St. Barnabas, when the hawks shall have been
hatched, the said ¦villagers shall return to the forest to take the
chickens from their nests, delivering each to the foresters or other of
the lord's bailiffs then present. And if they fail in any article of
the said customs, they shall be prosecuted by the foresters in the
court of Manchester, and there be punished according to the law
and custom of ploughing, to wit, they shall plough every bovate of
land arable of old time, belonging as well to Michael de Longford
as his tenants.'
The gentry of Lancashire were almost universally addicted to
field sports, for which the forests of the eastern side afforded
abundant facilities. The old surveys of the parish of Manchester
mention ' deer leaps ' in several parks, as at Blackley, for which a
considerable rent was paid. The yeomen often had their days to
hunt the otters which infested their streams, and as some compensa
tion for devouring their salmon afforded them capital sport. The
favourite dog or hawk with his silver bells was often the companion
of the country squire in his occasional attendance at church, and
gained from the villagers quite as much notice as the priest in his
poor and soiled canonicals. The common people were devoted to
rustic sports and athletic exercises. Of merry England, Lancashire,
poor as it was, was about the merriest part. Morris-dancing, rush-
bearing, and egg-pacing, came at their appointed times to aU the
parishes of the county. Every village church had its annual wakes,
its Sunday feasts, and its church ales, sometimes for the profit of
the clerk or sexton or poor curate. Many places had their special
enjoyments : Eccles celebrated its festival with its own sweet cakes ;
Bury ate simnels on Midlent Sunday ; and almost as soon as figs
were imported into the country. Fig-pie Sunday was a grand day in
Burnley. In the large towns, as in Manchester, on festive Sundays
processions of gaudy pageantry passed through the churches under
the countenance of the lower sort of priests. Every parish had its
butts where the men assembled on Sunday to try their skill and
strength in archery, in which (although the same practice was
* History of Blackley Chapel, p. 8.

INTRODUCTORY. 13
observed in other counties) they were probably second only to th&
Kentish bowmen. Every village green had its pole for May time,
and every town its cockpit for Shrovetide and Easter. John de
Brentford says of Lancashire people — ' They are similar to those of
the neighbouring counties, save they eat with two-pronged forks.
They ride and hunt the same, but not with that grace, owing to the
whip being carried in the left hand. The women are most hand
some, their eyes brown, black, hazel, blue, or gray.' (What colour
are the eyes of other women ?) ' Their noses, if not inclined to the
aquiline, are most of the Grecian form, which gives a most beauti
ful archness to the countenance, such as is not easy to be described.'
The beauty of the Lancashire witches has been long celebrated by
grave scholars as well as by gay poets. Quaint old Fuller cannot
speak of the worthies of Lancashire without delivering himself of
a sage homily on the vanity of ' women's beauty,' which is the pride
of Lancashire and the envy of other counties.
With the exception of a few in the higher places of the Church,
as the Warden of Manchester, the parson of Wigan, and the rector of
Win wick, the secular clergy of Lancashire were poor, rude, ignorant,
and often scandalously immoral. Before the Reformation, Harrison
says : 'Many of the clergy went either in divers colours like players, or
in garments of hght hue, as yellow, red, green, with their shoes piked,
their hair crisped, their girdles armed with silver, their apparel for
the most part of silk, their caps laced and buttoned with gold ; so
that to meet a priest in those days was to behold a peacock that
spreadeth his tail when he danceth before his hens.' Very few of
these clerical peacocks spread their tails to dance before the beauti
ful hens of Lancashire, as many of their benefices were not worth
more than four or five pounds a year.*
It is, however, to be remembered that before the Reformation the
poor priests of Lancashire had many ways of eking out their small
'wage.' Besides christening and shriving, marrying and burying,
they were occasionally employed in writing the farmers' letters,
keeping the traders' accounts, making the wills of the dying and
executing the bequests of the dead, arbitrating in disputes, bearing
testimony, and sometimes making it, in law-suits.f
* According to the Book of the duchy and county palatine of Lancashire the
stipend of a clerk to serve in the chapel at Litherpool was 4Z. 17s. 5d. ; of a clerk
and schoolmaster at Manchester 41. Os, 2d,; of a clerk and schoolmaster at
Preston 21. 18s. 2d. ; while the wages of ' seven women praying in the coUege '
were 35Z. 15s.
+ A good illustration of the business of the priests in country places may be
seen in a curious document found in the muniment room of Middleton HaU,
entitled, ' Examinations touching Cockeye Moor in a dispute between tlie Lords
of the Manors of Middleton and RadcUffe.' The document, edited by the Rev.
F. R. Raines, M.A., has been pubUshed by the Chetham Society. The dispute
was brought before the attorney-general of the county and a jury of the principal
gentlemen of the neighbourhood. The -witnesses were old priests, Sir John
Barton, Sir Lawrence Smith, Sir OUver Issherwood, who swore not only what
they remembered, but what older priests had told them, and had not told them,
in their younger days, as Sir John Byndeglass, Sir Thomas Blacklaw, Sir Hugh
RadcUffe, Sk Oliver Smethurst, and ' other good priests.' This array of Bu:s

14 LANCASHIRE.
From the time of Edward IH. until the Reformation there is
little material for the ecclesiastical history of Lancashire. The two
great abbeys grew steadily, it may be said rapidly, more wealthy
and powerfnl. As their records testify, they frequently acquired
considerable additions to their estates by purchases, gifts, and
bequests, especially of advowsons, tithes, and other Church property.
Their abbots were for a considerable time the most important per
sons in the county, as it was only on the extraordinary rise of the
Stanley family that the Lords of Lathom were able to control the
power of those arrogant Churchmen. The coucher book of Whalley
shows what luxuries found their way to the larders, storerooms, and
cellars of the monks, not only from their own farms, forests, and
fisheries, but from distant towns and foreign lands. Although their
fasts were numerous, their consumption of animal food was enor
mous. Au approximate estimate of the fiesh eaten at Whalley may
be formed by an examination of two accounts of the bursars, one
belonging to the fifteenth century, the other to the time of the last
abbot. The annual consumption made at the abbot's table alone is
computed at seventy-five oxen, eighty sheep, forty calves, twenty
lambs, and four pigs ; while the refectory and other tables vrithin
the house wero supplied with fifty-seven oxen, forty sheep, twenty
calves, and ten lambs.
We may compare these accounts with the household books of
Edward and Henry, the great Earls of Derby,* who in the sixteenth
century maintained their hospitality with so much profusion and
magnificence that the admiring chroniclers of the time describe it as
unsurpassed by any nobleman in England. In the household of
Lathom the weekly consumption when the earl was in the county
was about an ox every week and twenty sheep. If the household
of the earl consumed more mutton than that of the abbot, the rever
end father provided greater abundance of beef for his estabUshment.
In both houses the supply of beer was enormous. The earl provided
about fifteen hogsheads every week; the abbot in 1621 brewed one
hundred and forty-seven quarters of malt. Both earl and abbot had
large quantities (it is not possible to say how large) of venison from
their parks, game from their woods, water-fowl and fish from their
waters. At Lathom thirteen tuns and a half of wine were drunk
in 1561. At Whalley it is computed from the average price of the
sixteenth century, that the consumption of red wine was about eight
pipes a year, besides a much larger quantity of what are called in
the coucher books the ' sweet wines.' With the delicacies of the
table the abbot seems to have been better furnished than the earl.
At Lathom the steward paid for ' spices and fruits brought from
London,' the sum of 131Z 13s. 4d. ; but the abbot is debited by his
bursars with larger payments for figs, raisins, almonds, nuts, pepper,
looks formidable, but they were very poor, some of them only chantry priests.
At that time priests, especially in the north, assumed the title of Sir, unless they
had an academical degree which entitled them to be caUed Maisters. They
swore both negatively and positively hard and fast for their patrons.
* Stanley Pa/pers, edited by Canon Raines.

INTRODUCTORY. 15
ginger, cinnamon, saffron, spice wood, nutmegs, sugar,* and other
articles of modern grocery, at that time scarcely known in the
country houses of the great nobility. A novelty of luxurious feeding
was not long in London before it found its way, by some means or
other, to the refectories of Whalley and Furness.
In the magnitude of his domestic and servile establishment the earl
unquestionably surpassed the abbot. At one time six gentlemen of the
county were the grooms of his chamber, and their servants were pro
vided with food in the great establishment. ' The Checkerowle of my
Lord of Derby's Household,' in 1587, informs us that ' Mr. Steward'
had three servants, 'Mr. Comptrowler' three, and 'Mr. Receiver
General' three. Seven 'gentlemen waiters ' had each a servant, and
the chaplain, Sir Gilbert Townly, had one. There were nineteen
' yeomen ushers,' six ' grooms of the chamber,' two ' sub-grooms,'
thirteen ' yeomen waiters,' two ' trumpeters,' and inferior servants,
making the total in daily attendance one hundred and eighteen per
sons. The last, though perhaps not the least, in the goodly catalogue
is ' Henry y' ffoole.'f The earl is also said to have kept a conjuror,
who ' cast out devils and healed diseases.'
The abbot was content with a smaller retinue. The servants
tabled in the abbey were about ninety, of which probably not one
half belonged to the personal establishment of the abbot. Of the
shepherds, herdsmen, foresters, fishermen, woodmen, turf-diggers,
slaughtermen, and other out-door labourers of the abbey, I have no
means of forming a correct estimate. Among other payments entered
in the coucher book are those made to the clock-keeper, the chimes-
keeper, and the organist.
While it appears on comparing their accounts that the establish
ment of the lay-lord surpassed in some respects that of the ecclesi
astic, it should be observed that Lord Derby was the only nobleman
who in Lancashire maintained any great state or magnificent
hospitaUty, while the Abbot of Furness lived in luxury and rude
magnificence as became the equal of his spiritual ' brother beloved
of God' of Whalley. J Besides his magnificent residence in the
* Sugar is first mentioned in 1488, when fourteen pennyworth was bought for
the use of the abbot, but whether as luxury or medicine 1 cannot say. See
Whitaker's Whalley, p. 108, and the coucher book of the abbey.
In 1530, sugar was purchased iu Lancashire at seven pence a pound, as
appears from an account of the charges of a dinner given by Sir John Neville,
on occasion of the marriage of his daughter. As four dozen of chickens cost
only six shillings, a pound of sugar was worth nearly five chickens. — Gregson's
Fragments, p. 37.
+ It may amuse the people who affect to spell their names -with a double f, to
be told that not only were the ffaringtons and the ffreuches so spelt, but also the
ffbols and every ffriday in the year. It was the old way of -writing a capital P.
+ Of these two great abbots, he of Furness was the superior iu rank and
dignity, being, of the Cistercian order in the north of England, second only to
the Abbot of Fountains. Of his manner of life in the seclusion of BekansgiU
(vale of Nightshade) we know but Uttle, but his state and consideration could
not have been small, wheu the Earl of Derby held the honourable office of his
steward, the duties of which were no doubt discharged by a deputy. The jour
neyings of the abbot to York were grand processions, in which he was lodged in
great state in his ' hall ' and ' grange,' situate at convenient distances on the road.

16 LANCASHIRE.
abbey, he had his ' spacious hall ' in Lonsdale, his ' stately grange '
in Craven, and his 'great inn,' called Furness House, in York,
where he resided during the meetings of convocation and on other
public occasions. These two great ecclesiastics certainly maintained
the dignity of the Church in Lancashire to the satisfaction of its
most devoted admirers. What the poor, ill-clad, ill-fed rural and
chantry priests thought of that spiritual dignity I need not take the
trouble to enquire. ,
But it must not be supposed that these great monasteries conferred
no advantage, or even small advantage, upon the people of Lan
cashire. No abbeys, especiaUy when built in a rude and ill-cultivated
country, were more beneficial than those of the Cistercians. The
monks, aUowed to travel only on extraordinary occasions, and seldom
visiting the populous towns, generally preserved a kindly feeling
to their poor neighbours, who shared largely in their daily benefac
tions. If these Lancashire Cistercians did little for the literature
of the county, they did much in clearing its forests, reclaiming its
bogs, cultivating its wastes, and pasturing their fiocks on its bleak
moorlands. Their farms, let on moderate terms, usuaUy afforded a
permanent home and comfortable living for the families of their
tenantry. Their cloisters provided shelter and accommodation for
pedlars and chapmen, corn-dealers and wool-staplers, as if they had
been the regular markets of the neighbourhood. Their labourers
ajid villeins were treated with more consideration than were the
people who worked upon the lands of the lay proprietors. Their
natives were not often overworked or punished severely. Their
worst punishment seems to have been in seUing them and sending
them away from their native home. WhaUey was the ' locus hene-
dictus ' to many others than the magnificent abbot and his spiritual
chUdren. The vices of monks were everywhere scandalous, but the rules of
the Cistercians provided for their peculiar immoralities wiser and
more effective restraint and discipline than those of any other order.
In their large monasteries and rural establishments useful -work was
always to be done ; while in the small or urban rehgious houses of
other orders the time was spent in praying by those who had no
devotion, in reading by those who had no learning, or in idleness
by those who had no self-government. Bad as many, probably most,
of the reUgious houses were, it is difficult to say how in the middle
ages the good done by some of them could have been done without
them. _ Let us charitably believe that with aU their faults many a
Cistercian read with a quiet conscience and a grateful heart the
motto of his house, Bonuin est nos liic esse, quia homo vivet purim,
cadet rarius, surget vehcius, incedet cauiius, quiescet securius, morietur
feUcius, jpurgahitur ciiius, prcem^iahifur copiosius.'
In the interval between the founding and the dissolution of these
monasteries, great and important changes had been produced in
Lancashu-e by the growth of manufactures and trade, especially in
its south-eastern parts. The industrious inhabitants of that district
had made the most of the knowledge and skiU which they had ac-

INTRODUCTORY. 17
quired from the Flemish immigrants. Dye-works, fulling-mills, and
other factories were placed on the waters of the Irwell and its
affluent streams. ' Manchester cottons,' as Lancashire woollens were
then called, were carried on pack-horses to London and Hull, and
from those ports frequently shipped for foreign lands. The traders
of Manchester in the beginning of the sixteenth century had their
correspondents in the Low Countries, and occasionally made a journey
of business to the great fairs of Amsterdam, Frankfort, and other
continental marts. In 1533, Leland wrote: 'Manchester on the
south side of the Irwell standeth in Salfordshire, and is the fau'est,
best-builded, quickest, and most populous town in Lancashire. . . .
On Irk be divers fair mills that serve the towne. In the towne be two
fair market-places, and almost two flyte shottes without the towne.'
Although the old timber churches had been destroyed, the magnificent
edifice dedicated to St. Mary, with its double aisles, collegiate establish
ment, and ample revenues, had more than compensated their loss. In
the interval, or very soon afterwards, chapels had been consecrated in
the dependent townships of Salford, Blackley, Denton, Newton,
Didsbury, Stretford, Chorlton, and Gorton. HoUingworth, in his
' Mancuniensis,' refers to a ' famous clothier,' one Martin Brian
(or Byrom), who, in 1520, 'kept a great number of servants at
work, as carders, spinners, weavers, fullers, dyers, shearmen, to the
great admiration of aU that came to behold them.'
In the reign of Henry VIII. the trade of Manchester had become
so important that a statute was enacted, by which it was deprived of
its pri"yUeges as one of the seven sanctuary towns. The reason
assigned for this measure is curious : ' Because the sanctuary men
are prejudicial to the wealth, credit, great occupyings, and good order
of the said town by occasioning idleness, unlawful games, unthriftl-
ness, and other enormities.' These idle sanctuary men were accord
ingly removed to Chester, which being poor could not lose much
by thieves, and therefore was made their sanctuary instead of thriving
Manchester — Cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator.
Bolton was then, in its manufacturing prosperity, rather a rival
than a dependency of Manchester. For some time it seemed doubt
ful which of the two would become the great mart of the manufac-
¦tures of the district. On the growth of its wealth, its church was
greatly enlarged and improved, and two of its townships. Dean and
Pilkington, sharing its prosperity, became distinct parishes around
their own churches. Ashton, Oldham, Rochdale and the neighbour
ing viUages contributed to the wealth of Manchester, and obtained a
share of its gainsj by purchasing their materials and selling their
productions in its markets.
The fiourishing manufactories of Salfordshire did httle to stimulate
or encourage the industry of the other divisions of the county.
There is no good evidence of any important factories, except a few
iron forges in Furness, having been established without the boundaries
of the hundred until the beginning of the seventeenth century, when

18 LANCASHIRE.
Blackburn checks and Blackburn greys were sent on pack-horses to
be dyed and printed in London, and thence distributed by the fairs
throuo-h the southern counties, or exported to the continent. From
that time the hundreds of Salford and Blackburn, associated m then-
industry and wealth, became the strength of the Puritanism and
afterwards of the Nonconformity of Lancashire.^
As these inland districts enlarged their factories, the ports of the
county began to take advantage of the demand which was made for
the exportation of their goods. In the beginning of the seventeenth
century, Lancaster had established a profitable trade with the newly-
formed settlements in the West Indies. Preston, less enterprising,
perhaps more careful, was content for a time with a less hazardous
traffic with Ireland. Liverpool was then steadily advancing. Instead
of its Uttle bark and six men, which it sent to help King Edward in
conquering France, it had in the reign of Henry VIII. twelve ships,
manned with seventy-five sailors, engaged chiefly in trading to the
Welsh coast and the wUd Irish country. It consisted, in 1565, of
one hundred and thirty-eight inhabited houses, most of them built in
seven streets between its humble chapel and its ancient castle. The
municipal authorities of the ports of Liverpool, Preston, and Lan
caster were then beginning to assume some considerable state and
importance. John More, the mayor of Liverpool, maintained with
various fortune protracted litigation for fees, market toUs, ferry dues,
and other privUeges, with the great famUy of the Molineux of the
castle, and even with the lessee of the Crown and through him with
royalty itself The thrifty manufacturers of the prosperous inland
towns, Manchester, Bolton, and Blackburn, seem to have regarded
mayors as expensive toys, and contrived to do without them, as they
did without members of parhament.
In the interval to which we have referred, whatever may have been
the advance of manufactures, commerce, wealth, and luxury, the
progress of learning was very slow in the manufacturing districts,
and in the other districts it is doubtful whether it made any progress
at all. Previously to the Reformation only three grammar schools
existed in the county, and they had been recently founded : that of
Farnworth in 1507, that of Manchester in 1515, and that of War
rington in 1526.* The common people of that time were universally
represented as UUterate, rude, boisterous, and, though the merriest
of Englishmen, as superstitious as they were merry. In no other
county were the witches and bogarts so plentiful, so frightful, or SO
mischievous. They went everywhere, intermeddUng with the
concerns of everybody, haunting every abode, from the mansion of
the Stanleys to the poorest cottage on -the mountain side. Tortured,
hanged, drowned, burnt, witches, like some better things, seem to
have grown in the midst of persecution. Witch-finding was a sort
of trade, and sometimes a gainful one. Witches were seen, as it
was attested before magistrates and ministers, carrying their imps to
Pendle-hUl, where the devil baptised them with fire. Horrible
attestations were sworn, and what was stiU more horrible, the poor
* Introduction to Cardinal Allen's Defence of Stanley, p. Ixiv.

INTRODUCTORY. 19
creatures, through terror or distraction, confessed to the commission
of incredible, impossible crimes. On such confessions many were
executed. Before the founding of the grammar schools, the only education
to be obtained by the poor was in the monasteries, and the boys there
educated were usuaUy trained for the priesthood. Even in the towns
few of the tradesmen could write. As late as the reign of Elizabeth,
of thirty chief men who exercised some sort of authority over
Kirkham, only one could write, and consequently in his absence
business had often to be postponed.
Manchester, after the establishment of its grammar school, long
continued to be reckoned the best educated town in the county.
The founder of that school, Hugh Oldham, a native of Lancashire,
had obtained the bishopric of Exeter. The good bishop, as HoUing
worth, in his 'Mancuniensis,' says, 'out of the good mind he bore
to the county of Lancaster, perceiving that the chUdren thereof,
having pregnant wits, were for the most part brought up rudely and
idly, that knowledge might be advanced, and that the children might
be better taught to love, honour, and dread God and His laws,
founded the free school of Manchester.'
Although Oldham passed the greater part of his active life in the
remote dioceses of Lincoln, Salisbury, and Exeter, he retained his
love for his native county, and spent a great part of his property in
promoting its learning, virtue, and good order. A bishop of strict
morals, severe duty, incorruptible integrity, and a dauntless spirit,
zealous for the liberties both of his country and his Church, and
firmly opposed to the vices and corruptions of the monasteries, he
prosecuted a long and vexatious controversy with the Abbot of
Tavistock, and sternly refused to submit the decision of his cause to
the arbitration of the pope. For his contempt of the papal authority
it is said that he was excommunicated, and as he died under the
sentence was excluded from burial in his own cathedral, until eventu
ally his friends obtained permission to inter him in a private chapel
built by himself.* Had he lived a few years longer, he would
probably have taken the foremost place among the leaders of the
English Reformation. No other bishop of the early years of the
* This is said by HoUingworth, and other writers. I, however, do not believe
it to be true. Oldham left directions in his will for his interment in the chapel,
which on his death was not completed. His burial seems to have been delayed
until the completion of the burial place which he had selected. A communica
tion to this effect, which I sent to the Manchster Guardian, received the foUowing
reply : — ^
The Poundek op Manohesteb Grammar School — The letter in yesterday s
Guardian from the Eev. Dr. HaUey, in respect to the story of Bishop Hugh
Oldham's excommunication, reminds us that some 12 or 14 years ago there died
in the Manchester workhouse an old woman named Kay, who was a collateral
descendant of the Bishop of Exeter ; and she told Mr. Rickards, the then chair
man of the Board of Guardians, as a tradition of the family, that the Bishop's
body remained unburied for three months after his death. Mrs. Kay onoe walked
from Manchester to Exeter to see if her ancestor had built almshouses there, in
the hope that his kin roight be favoured in the appointment to a vacancy. She
was disappointed, but saw "Maister Philpotts," the present bishop, whom she

20 LANCASHIRE.
reign of Henry VIII. seemed so likely to become a reformer, or so
fit to conduct a reformation, as Hugh Oldham.*
The school at Farnworth, as we shall see in the course of our
narrative, became a sort of nursery for Lancashire Puritans, and
educated several of the ablest divines of that persuasion who went
from the county to the University of Cambridge.
Long before the Reformation, the arrogance of the higher eccle
siastics, the corruption of the secular clergy, the scandalous immorali
ties of the monks, and the notoriously unequal laws enacted in favour
of churchmen of all degrees, were gradually producing in the hearts
of EngUshmen a deep and settled hatred of the Romish Church.
The petitions presented to parliament at different times, from the
reign of Edward HI. to that of Henry VIIL, praying for protection
from the oppression and exactions of the clergy, show the unpopu
larity into which the Church had fallen among aU classes, but
especially among the inhabitants of the cities and large towns.
Strong as that Church seemed to be in England by its vast wealth,
its territorial episcopacy, its great monasteries, its large charities, its
venerable traditions, and the influence of its priesthood upon an
ignorant and superstitious peasantry, its friends might have seen
portentous signs of its fall, which waited only the resolve of some
powerful and determined monarch Uke Henry, whose will should be
crossed by its authorities, and whose kingdom should be humUiated
by its arrogant pretensions.
In Lancashire there were fewer and less threatening signs of the
fall of the ecclesiastical power than in many other parts of England.
The gross ignorance and grosser superstition of the people afforded
some sort of screen for the negUgence and immoraUty of the clergy.
The light which emanated from the pulpit of Lutterworth seems
scarcely to have penetrated this dark and secluded county. Hardly
a single gospeller of the Lollards is seen acting his part in the
reUgious history of Lancashire.f There were enUghtened natives of
described as a " gradely old gentleman," and he paid her fare back to Manchester,
and put some money in her pocket besides. Other descendants of Hugh Oldham
are, we beUeve, stiU Uving in this citj.—Manchester Gua/rdian, June 1st, 1869.
* A grateful scholar thus commemorates his UberaUty :
' Who determined, his heart vrith benevolence fraught,
That Lancashire lads should the classics be taught ;
He founded a school into boys' heads to hammer
The eight parts of speech and a knowledge of grammar ;
And for those who a pleasure in knowledge might seek.
He further left orders to teach the boys Greek.
To support the magister he left by his wiU
A toU by the town to be paid at the miU
Where famed Sir John Barleycorn, turned into malt.
Is crushed -without mercy and bruised -without fault.
Though he gave toll of malt, yet so Uberal his hands,
He left m support of the school some good lands,
Increased so in value it is now very clear
The income's at least fifteen hundred a year.'
J .2 ^%*r^^ *'^J^.™ *^^ f^;S° °^ H^^ry '^- a proclamation was addressed to the
sheriff of Lancashire, prohibitmg him from aUowing ' certain of the new sect ol

INTRODUCTORY. 21
the county, and some of them, like Hugh Oldham and Henry
Standish, were enlightened priests, but they gained their light and
diffused it in more favoured parts of England. Hkcepting the
neighbourhood of Manchester, where the commercial spirit of the
people had promoted some intercourse with Holland and Germany,
no English county was less prepared to receive or ready to welcome
the reformation of religion -than sportive, secluded, illiterate, super
stitious Lancashire.
In the early part of the reign of Henry VIII., parliament, induced
by numerous petitions of the people, wisely determined to limit and
regulate the unjust and intolerable benefit of clergy. All who held
any sort of ecclesiastical office however mean, or professed any sort of
ecclesiastical character however low, parish clerks, sextons, sub-
deacons, vergers, choristers, beadsmen, dependents on clerical bounty
and servants of clerical persons, claimed tho benefit of clergy, and
provoked the laity by the insolent assertion of their invidious privi
leges. In London especially the opposition to the Immunities of the
clergy was vehement and persevering, and it found an able and
determined leader in a Lancashire man, himself a clergyman, and no
less a personage than provincial of the order of Franciscan monks.
Dr. Henry Standish, of the ancient and honourable family of the
Standishes of Duxbury, a priest of great learning and greater ability,
of unwearied energy, of dauntless spirit and intense zeal for liberty,
acted an extraordinary part on the approach of the EngUsh Refor
mation. The reformers had not a better friend when he was with
them, nor a worse enemy when he was against them. The only
priest of infiuence and consideration who at that time asserted and
defended the equal rights of the laity, and strove with the la-wyers
to abate the exclusive privileges of the clergy, he zealously defended
against all innovators the whole doctrine and ceremonial of the
Catholic Church. With a voice to which all London listened with
respect, he denounced the claims of the priests, and vindicated the
faith of the priesthood. As with Father Passaglla in the modern
Italian Church, there seems to have been combined in the soul of
this learned father intense reverence for antiquity with ardent love
of liberty and equality.
In 1512 parliament, after long debates, passed an Act by which
the 'benefitof clergy ' was restricted to bishops, priests, and deacons ;
all other ecclesiastics accused of capital offences were to be tried in
the secular courts, without being aUowed to ' pray their clergy.'
The priests, although left in the possession of all their privileges,
were incensed with the restriction of those pri-ylleges to themselves.
Holy Mother Church, they said, cared for her smaUer as well as for
her greater servants. The higher ecclesiastics made common cause
with their lower brethren in maintaining a common exemption from
the Lollards from holding conventicles,' as another was addressed to the chan
cellor of the duchy, denouncing a ' most cunning and subtle enemy, Sir John
Oldcastle, Lord Cobham ; ' but these proclamations may have been only precau
tionary, as they were similar to many others issued in different parts of the
kingdom.

22 LANCASHIRE.
punishment, as became those who had often been accomplices in crime.
If parUament were allowed to deprive the inferior clerics of the
privileges of the Church, what would prevent thena from attackmg
in the same manner the ancient sanctities of the priesthood, or even
of the hierarchy itself ? The prospect of bringing the clerical orders
under the jurisdiction of the civil courts, however desirable it seemed
to laymen, was intolerable to a priesthood charged, and often justly,
with the most shocking crimes. The punishment of priests by their
own authorities often brought more scandal upon the Church than
would have done the avowed tolerance of their sins. A priest con
victed of fornication purged himself by offering two wax candles of
the value of one penny, saying some prayers, and paying a fine of
six and elghtpence.
The new Act of ParUament excited so violent an opposition among-
the clergy that the king, overcome by their importunity, allowed
them to carry on a debate respecting it in the presence of the judges
of the realm. Only clergymen were to plead. The eloquent Abbot
of Winchelcomb defended the inalienable privileges of the Church.
To the mortification of his own order and the offence of all other
orders. Dr. Standish, not content with defending the Act, pleaded
for the abrogation of all the immunities of the clergy, not only in
justice to the laity, but as necessary to maintain the morality, influ
ence, and respectalDility of the clergy themselves. He satisfled the
king, and gained his cause amidst the applause of the laity, but
thenceforth he became the object of the most bitter and unrelenting-
hostility of the clergy. What their hostUity was may be inferred
from the fact that one of the first citizens who dared to sue a priest
in the court of King's Bench was murdered, and on the inquest
evidence was adduced to show that several of the clergy and even
the bishop's chancellor were implicated in the foul deed.
So much indignation was excited by the disclosures -which were
made at the inquest, that the clergy felt they must do something to
appease or divert the popular feeling. In doing what they did, they
stimulated rather than allayed the opposition of the people. They
charged the murdered man with heresy, and held an ecclesiastical
court for his trial. With becoming gravity three bishops obtained
a goodly attendance of priests, proctors, and notaries to receive the
evidence, and announced that they were ready to hear any ecclesiastic
who had anything to say in defence of the dead man before they
pronounced sentence upon him. They no doubt hoped that Standlsh
would undertake the dangerous service of defending the man who
had brought a priest into a secular court of justice, and that thus-
they might find an occasion of accusing their enemy, whose great
speech against them had been delivered under the protection of the
king's presence. Standish, though bold, was too wise and wary to
expose himself in the useless defence of a dead man. The priests
found the man guilty, and, to the annoyance and disgust of the
people, exhibited the revolting spectacle of taking the body from
its grave and burning it in Smithfield. •
The clergy, disappointed in their victim, summoned Standish to

INTRODUCTORY. 2,3
appear before convocation and to answer their accusations of heresy
which he had taught in his sermons at Paul's Cross. So deter
mined^ were the clergy on the one hand to destroy Standish, and
the laity on the other to protect him, that, finding other efforts
unavailing, the judges of the realm, the House of Commons, and
even the lords temporal petitioned the king to rescue him from the
arbitrary and vindictive proceedings of the convocation. In the
fierce contention Henry for once in his life showed signs of fear and
hesitation. Having consulted his advisers, he required Standlsh to
defend himself in his presence against the accusations. After the
advocates' of the clergy were heard, Standish, without faltering or
hesitation, defended at great length and with great power the equal
rights of the laity, and especially the authority of the civil courts
over all the king's subjects, lay or clerical. The king, after con
sulting with the judges, was about to pronounce his judgment, when
Cardinal Wolsey, anticipating the decision, fell upon his knees and
implored the king to remit the momentous question to the judgment
of his holiness the pope. Although the cardinal was supported by the
Archbishop of Canterbury, the king gave his decision in favour
of Standish, and declared his determination to maintain the authority
of his courts over all persons of all ranks and orders in the realm.
When the clergy, more ferocious than ever, would have burnt
Standish for heresy, his Ufe depended upon the good will of the king.
But to him life was not everything. Within him breathed the spirit
of the Standishes, dauntless, intrepid, unselfish, very unlike that of
their politic, accommodating, temporising neighbours, the Stanleys.
His most powerful defender must be opposed in his attempt to
oppress the feeble. Against the king, his protector, he undertook
the defence of Queen Catharine, and maintained it with all the
ability, resolution, and boldness which he had previously shown in
the defence of the liberties of the laity. He was no more intimidated
by the voice of the King's Majesty than he had been by the noise of
the clerical power which he had challenged and humiliated. No
ecclesiastic adhered more faithfully and boldly than he to the cause
of the unfortunate queen. Without conciliating the clergy, he alien
ated many of his old friends, especially those of the courtiers who
were looking favourably towards the Reformation. Ecclesiastical
supremacy would have been as loathsome to him when asserted by a
king as when asserted by a pope or his priests. Advanced in years,
he did his best for the queen, and therefore ceased to be the friend of
the king and the idol of the reformer^. Catholic in his doctrine,
strict in his ritual, severe in his life, liberal in his spirit, detested by
the clergy, opposed to the king, distrusting the courtiers, disliking
the reformers, through his long and troubled life he made his voice
to be heard in opposition to all parties, and always in favour of the
feeble against their oppressors, until he found rest and quietude be
neath his tomb in the church of the Grey Friars in London. Dr.
Henry Standish was one of the many brave men of whom Lancashire
has reason to be proud.
Standish, whether he intended it or not, did much to promote the

24 LANCASHIRE.
EngUsh Reformation. Henry, having decided in his favour against
the clergy, was soon disposed by unexpected events to do a great
deal more in the same direction. Having made his own courts
supreme, he virtually, as afterwards avowedly, estabUshed his
supremacy over the Church. Unable to brook the dUatory and
vexatious proceedings of the pope (and may we not give him some
credit for being displeased with the arrogant assumptions of the
clergy ?) he brought his dispute with the ecclesiastics to a decisive
issue by assuming spiritual authority in union with his temporal
power. This was a new thing in the world. A national Church
might have been occasionally the dream of Uberal lawyers or patriotic
statesmen, but the reality ha,d never before been seen in Christendom.
There came into being a Church separated from the community of
CathoUcism, limited by the boundaries of England,_ruled_by the king
in spirituals as well as in temporals, having its ritual, its doctrine,
and its discipline determined by the civil power, the creature, the
servant and the hireling of the State, as absolutely as the army, the
navy, or the justiciary of the kingdom. Right or wrong, it was
certainly something strange. It was indeed said, although not until
the next age, in reply to the objections of Papists and Puritans, that
the king has not power to administer the sacraments. This is true,
just as the constitution does not give the king authority to decide
suits in his own chancery, or administer criminal law at the assizes
held in his name ; but equaUy both in Church and chancery the king
appoints his officials, and enacts with the consent of pirliament how
aU things are to be done by those officials. If the king does not
pray, he, as representing the people, prescribes what his clergy shall
say or do in offering his prayers. Who, iu praying for the people, is
supreme, he who prescribes the prayers, or he who repeats them
without the Uberty of altering a single word ?
The opposition of the clergy to the supremacy of the king, although
often ignored by those who tell us that the Church of England re
formed itself, is too important to be overlooked and too well known
to require any citation of authorities. To give to a layman the supre
macy of the Church seemed to the clergy, educated in the faith of an
inalienable distinction between civil and ecclesiastical authority, an
utter subversion of the institutions of Christ. To break the CathoUc
Church into fractions and subject them severally to the domination
of the temporal authorities was in their estimation to secularise the
Church itself, not its revenues, but its priesthood, its discipline, its
essential principles and powers. To such a revolution the clergy
were compeUed to submit, and their submission was the more abject
and humiliating, because it was exacted as the price of their pardon
for acknowledging what they believed to be a capital article of the
Catholic faith, the appellant jurisdiction of the papal court.
The clergy of the convocation of Canterbury, on bsing compelled
to acknowledge the king as the supreme head of the Church of
England, appended the words, ' so far as is agreeable to the laws of
Christ; ' but neither the king nor the parliament would accept any
such restrictive clause. By the fundamental law of the English

INTRODUCTORY. 25
Church, enacted by the temporal power, aud accepted (not approved)
by the spiritual, the king is declared to be without any limitation
the supreme head of the Church of England.
The clergy of the northern convocation were more difficult to
manage than their brethren of Canterbury.* Hoping to gain some
advantage by delay, and wishing to defer as long as possible the
dreadful act of apostasy from the faith, they had recourse to verbal
criticisms until the impatient king would allow no more trifling with
words and phrases. They proposed to declare that the king was
head of the Church in all temporal matters, but Henry insisted upon
being acknowledged supreme in all things spiritual as well as tem
poral, that is, upon an absolute and undivided supremacy. Through
terror of premunlre, they yielded in 1532, in opposition to the solemn
protest of a Lancashire man against the profane acknowlelgment.
Cuthbert Tunstall, one of the ancient family of Tunstall of Thurland
Castle, then Bishop of Durham, courageously refused to assent to
the humiliating vote which the king extorted from the northern con
vocation. The good bishop is worthy of honourable notice, not only
for his honest and faithful adherence to his own convictions, but for
his tolerance of the religious convictions of others. A suff^'er for
his principles under Henry, Edward, and Elizabeth, he was under
Mary the most lenient and forbearing of the Catholic prelates.
As the Act of Supremacy is the foundation of the English Church,
it ought ever to be considered in answering the question, What is
English Nonconformity ? The meaning of the Act is clear, unam
biguous, capable of only one construction. Whatever may be said
abjut the uncertainty of Acts of Parliament, there is one of them not
chargeable with the least ambiguity. According to the only inter
pretation which the Act admits, the Church of England is in doctrine
and discipline what the king speaking through the constitutional
authorities declares it to be. He makes its laws by his court of
parliament, and interprets them by his courts of j.udicature. The
Church 1 that is the king.
The royal supremacy, I readily admit, like many other things, has
a twofold aspect. Something may be said for i-t as well as against
it. How, it may be asked, and more readily asked than answered,
could the English Reformation have been accomplished without it ?
We need not wonder that some good Protestants regarded the
supremacy as their only protection against the hateful papal domina
tion. Both aspects of the king's rule, as it in one form restrained
religious liberty, and in another protected it, were seen, though in
distinctly, by the early Puritans, and produced some wavering and
inconsistency both in their professions and their practice. But be it
good or evil, the royal supremacy was the power which formed the
English Reformation, the progress of which in the county of Lan
caster it will be my duty to trace and illustrate in the next chapter.
* At that time the clergy of Lancashire beneficed in the four deaneries south of
the Ribble, belonging to the diocese of Lichfield, were represented in the southern
convocation, and those north of the Ribble, being in the diocese of York, were
represented in the convocation of the northern province.

CHAPTER II.
THE REFORMATION.
In Lancashire the Reformation made very slow progress, in some
parts of it scarcely any, as it long continued to be, and probably stUl
is, the most CathoUc county of England. During the reigns of
Henry and Edward the greater part of its gentry adhered as firmly
as they dared to the old religion of their famUies, whUe most of the
clergy were Protestant in nothing else than in a reluctant submission
to the Act of Supremacy. The parochial clergy were few, as the
parishes were very extensive, and many of the rectories belonged
to the monasteries, whose vicars appointed to discharge parochial
duties looked for guidance and approval rather to their ecclesiastical
superiors than to the temporal authorities. As to the priests who
officiated in the chapels and field kirks which had been erected in
the outlying townships of the great parishes, they were generally too
poor and illiterate to feel any interest in the theological controversies
which were agitating the minds of many in the more instructed or
more busy parts of the country.* In the observance, or rather in
the neglect, of public worship, the new doctrine was little regarded,
whUe in private the priests were generally ready to perform all re
Ugious duties according to the ancient ritual. The tenantry were
Uke their lords, and the common people, ignorant and superstitious,
depended upon the priests to take them safe through purgatory to
heaven, as their fathers had been taken there by the wise and good
priests of the old times.
But in the south-eastern part of Lancashu'e the Reformation
speedily obtained great strength, and, from its commencement,
assumed a Puritanical form and character. The busy manufacturers
and traders of Salfordshire, having formed mercantUe connections
in Holland and Germany, became acquainted with the great changes
which had been so wonderfully wrought in the religion of those
countries. Better educated than their rustic neighbours, and having
more money to spare and more opportunity to spend it, they pur
chased books, conversed with foreigners, occasionally travelled to
continental fairs, knew more than their priests, prided themselves on
a sturdy independence of thought, and became many of them firm
and zealous adherents of the Reformation. Bolton soon obtained
the name of the Geneva of Lancashire, while in zeal for the new
doctrine Manchester and Rochdale were not far behind that ' godly
town.' It is true that even there, especiaUy in Manchester, the
Protestant party had to contend against much opposition, which was
the more difficult to overcome because it was maintained by two of
the m,ost virtuous and honourable priests the old rehgion ever pro-
* In 1531, the Archbishop of York did not know in his diocese, including at
that time the northern part of Lancashire, twelve ministers who could preach.

THE REFORMATION. 27
duced in Lancashire. EventuaUy, however, the new faith gained a
complete ascendancy. It is the contrast between its prevalence in
the south-eastern part and its feebleness in the central, western, and
northern parts of the county which gives so much interest to the
religious history of Lancashire throughout the conflicts of the six
teenth and seventeenth centuries. But we must turn to the northern
part of the county to observe the beginning of the more exciting
events of the contest between the two great parties.
As the king had contrived to accomplish his divorce without the
sanction of the pope or of any acknowledged ecclesiastical authority,
his intimacy and marriage with Anne Boleyn furnished the material
of insufferable scandal among the priests, and especially in the
monasteries of the country. When the priests at Paul's Cross
preached directly at the king's ministers and indirectly at the king
himself, we may be sure the talk of the monks in the remote parts of
the north was as free and unrestrained as the winds of their own
wild mountains. When Father Peto, in the pulpit of the royal
chapfel at Greenwich, on May 1, 1532, preached on the text ' Where
the dogs licked the blood of Naboth, even there shall they lick thy
blood, 0 king ! ' and looking directly at the royal seat began, ' Now,
O king, hear what I say to thee. I tell thee truly that thy marriage
is unlawful. Although I know that I shall eat the bread of affliction,
and drink the waters of sorrow, yet, because the Lord hath put it
into my mouth, I must speak it. There are other preachers, yea too
many, who preach and persuade thee otherwise, feeding thy folly and
fraU affections, upon hopes of their own worldly promotion, and be
tray thy soul, thy honour, and thy posterity to obtain fat benefices,
to become rich abbots and bishops. These, I say, are the four hun
dred prophets, who in the spirit of lying seek to deceive thee. Take
heed lest thou, being seduced, find Ahab's punishment, which had
his blood licked up by the dogs '* — when many such things as these
were said in the royal chapels, we need not wonder at the inflamma
tory harangues or coarse abuse of the 'lewd monks' of Whalley and
Furness. In the locutory of Furness the monks put no restraint upon their
licentious tongues, but spoke freely from the abundance of their
hearts. They called the king a heretic, a tyrant, a usurper, and
something worse ; and they called Anne Boleyn in plain English what
plain Englishmen never call any woman unless they are yery coarse
or very angry. Although Henry affected indifference to all that the
preachers publicly said of him at Greenwich or Paul's Cross, he
secured the means of discovering what was said and done in the se
clusion of the religious houses, where conspiracies and plots might
be formed, and intelligence clandestinely conveyed from one monas
tery to another. Espionage, so hateful to honest Englishmen, was
encouraged among the monks by their superiors, who found to their
dismay that their own brethren disclosed to the secular authorities
the secret sayings and doings of their fraternity. Among the depo
sitions which were forwarded to the king's council was that of Robert
* Fronde's History, vol. i. p. 355.

28 LANCASHIRE.
Legate, a friar of Furness, who deposed that ' he had often heard the
monks say that the king should die by the hand of a priest, that he
was not the right heir to the throne, that his father came in by no
law but that of the sword, that no secular knave should be head of
the Church ; and that the abbot knew of their treasonable sayings,
and made no report of them.'* The abbot Roger, as we shall here
after see, whatever may have been his indulgence of private talk, was
cautious and politic enough, instead of hanging on a gibbet like his
brother of Whalley, to secure on the dissolution of his house an
income of 33/. 6s. 8d. from the rectory of Dalton, a very respectable
Uvelihood in that time and country.
The first alarming insurrection, instigated by the northern monks
in 1536, was called ' the Pilgrimage of Grace.' Conspiring in their
several houses, and having means of communication not easily dis
covered, these spiritual men formed their plans with considerable
skill, and executed them in a manner which gave no smaU trouble to
the government. Convening their tenants, their labourers, their
beadsmen, and multitudes of ignorant rustics, they placed themselves
at the head of a numerous following, carrying huge crucifixes, and
banners emblazoned with representations of the wounded Saviour.
Many of their excited followers wrought in their garments badges
emblematic of the five wounds of Jesus, and bound themselves by
solemn oaths to support ' the Pilgrimage of Grace, for the love of
God, the preservation of the king's person and issue, the purifying
of the nobUity, and the doing away of base-born and evil counsellors,
not for any profit of their own, nor to do displeasure to any, nor to
kill any for envy, bat to take before them the cross of Christ, the
restoration of the Church, and the suppression of heretics and their
opinions.' This new army of crusaders, daily gaining accessions from the
peasantry of Lancashire and Yorkshire, marched, under the command
of Robert Aske, to Pontefract, and obtained, through the timidity or
treason of the Archbishop of York, the surrender ot the castle. They
speedily gained possession of York and Hull, and, strengthened by
the adherence of many of the higher ecclesiastics, they persuaded or
¦compelled some of the nobles and esquires to follow their consecrated
standard. Their unexp-jcted triumph speedily terminated in disaster
and defeat. Impeded and discouraged by a sudden rising of the
river near Doncaster, they had reason to complain of their want of
supplies, and to lose confidence in the vigUance or the wisdom of
their leaders. The superstitious interpreted the unexpected rise of
the waters as a disastrous omen ; the more cautious observed with
alarm the faUure of suppUes of food ; some powerful friends, expected
to join them, faded or proved false. The leaders were compeUed to
surrender to the king's forces, and to leave their foUowers to do the
best they could for themselves.
John Paslew, the last abbot of Whalley, was concerned in the
Pilgrimage of Grace, so far as his cautious and time-serving spirit
* Deposition of Robert Legate, Bolls House MMS., cited by Froude, vol. ii. p.

THE REFORMATION. 29
would allow him to be concerned in any perilous enterprise. What
ever may have been his religious principles, he was careful for the
emoluments of the Church, of which he had a goodly portion, and
for the privileges of the monastic orders, of which he had the happi
ness of being a rich and powerful abbot. Although sometimes
spoken of as bold and determined, the local traditions, with much
more appearance of truth, represent him as an energetic but cautious
man, considerate of his own interest, and distrusted by the zealots of
his party. According to those traditions he secretly encouraged the
insurrection, but hesitated to connect himself irretrievably with its
perUous fortunes, until an emissary of the insurgents, knowing his
temporizing disposition, kindled his beacon fire on Pendle-hlU, the
signal to march and join the insurgent multitude. Finding himself
thus implicated by the act of another, he considered it would be a
safer course, when neutrality was no longer possible, and his beacon
fire bore witness against him, to join the Pilgrimage of Grace, than
to make a hopeless attempt to concUiate the government.* However
that may have been, Paslew, on the approach of the royal army, for
sook the camp of the pilgrims, returned to his abbey, and immediately
executed a deed 'by y° assente and consente of y" convente,' granting
to 'Maister Thomas Cromwell, secretarie general and principal
official to our most Sovereign Lord the King an annual rent or fee of
£-vi : xiii : iv yearUe.' But the offence of the abbot was not to be
expiated by the annual payment of ten nobles. Within a few days
of his executing this humiliating deed, John Paslew was committed
to Lancaster Castle on a charge of high treason. Arraigned and
convicted, the poor old abbot (he must have been very aged at the
time, for the -prior, who is said in a letter of the Earl of Sussex to
have been nearly fourscore years old, was his junior in the convent
register) was drawn on the traitors' hurdle to the gallows, and
hanged on an eminence in front of the abbey.f
As the abbot held the lands of the monastery by the same legal
tenure as a father holds lands entaUed on his descendants, the lawyers
decided that on account of the attainder of Paslew, the abbey with
aU its lands and appurtenances became the property of the Crown
without even the formality of a surrender. The society was thus
dissolved three years before the general dissolution of the greater
monasteries. Smith, the poor old prior, probably obtained an allow
ance of six or seven pounds a year, which the commissioner who
took possession of the estate soUcited on his behalf. Two old and
feeble monks were allowed to attach themselves as chantry priests to
the church of WhaUey, and even after the Reformation were per
mitted to celebrate mass for any who sought their ser-vices. As the
survivor of them lived to the second year of EUzabeth, and continued
to gain a pittance by the chantry prayers, he was, says Whitaker, a
remarkable instance of toleration.' Another of the monks, Thomas
Holden, one of the latest on the register, became a zealous preacher
of the Reformation and obtained the curacy of HasUngden. The
* See the tale weU told in Roby's Traditions of Lancashire.
t Baines, Hist, of Lancashire, vol. iu. p. 188.

30 LANCASHIRE.
others, most of whom were concerned in the PUgrimage of Grace,
had, so far as I can discover, no provision whatever made for their
declining years. They continued, as Whitaker says, ' like bees about
a hive rifled of its honey,' to seek miserable shelter in the neglected
rooms and outhouses of the venerable abbey. The rich lands were
disposed of, no doubt on Uberal terms, to members of considerable
Lancashire famUies, John BraddyU of Braddyll, and Richard Asshe
ton of Lever, both of whom became, Uke most of the purcha,sers of
abbey lands, very sound and steady Protestants. The ecclesiastical
patronage was ceded to the See of Canterbury, and consequently the
archbishops long retained the advowsons of the great parishes of
WhaUey, Blackburn, and Rochdale.
As soon as the Earl of Sussex had finished his business at WhaUey,
he turned his attention to the estabUshment at Furness, and thought
of the good service he could do the king and himself by obtaining
possession of the lands, mines, fisheries, tolls, rectories, and other
valuable property of that richly-endowed abbey. Although the
monks of Furness had obtained the repute of being more treasonable
talkers and more inveterate conspirators than their brethren of
Whalley, they contrived in their sequestered glen to furnish a very
small amount of legal evidence avaUable on a trial for high treason.
Sussex acknowledged that there were only two monks whom he
'could prove faulty.' Whatever might have been proved against
them, the hanging of two monks would provide no sort of title to the
lands of the monastery. Having committed them to Lancaster
Castle, the earl attempted by promise and threatening to obtain evi
dence which would criminate old Roger the abbot ; but old Roger
was wary, his monks cautious, and his servants faithful and silent.
If any good could come from hanging an abbot, there would have
been in those times no great difficulty in accomplishing the purpose ;
but when the good might be as easily gained by other means, the
earl, who seems to have been a kindly disposed man, was not unwil
ling to have recourse to the gentler expedient. As the abbot set
some value upon his life, and the earl upon the abbey lands, the way
was open for a compromise to secure their several interests. The
earl wrote to the king that as he was unable to prove ' any material
thing against the abbot ... he would assay him whether he would
surrender, give, and grant unto your Highness, your heirs and
assignees, the sayd monestery.' Finding him ' very facile and ready
mynded,' the earl soon obtained the surrender of the abbey in the
handwriting of the abbot. The document, preserved in the British
Museum, begins, 'I Roger, Abbot of the Monastery of Furness,
knowing the misorder and evil Ufe both unto God and our prince of
the bredren of the sayd monasterie, in discharging of my conscience
do freelie and whollie surrender, giff, and grant unto the Kyng's
Highness all lands, rents, possessions, revenues both spiritual and
temporal, of and in all goods and cattals and all other things, what
soever they be, belonging to the sayd monasterie, in consideration of'
the evil disposition of the bredren of the sayd monasterie.' To the
formal deed of surrender, signed by the abbot, prior, and twenty-

THE REFORMATION. 31
eight monks, was appended the seal of the Blessed Lady of Furness,
and prefixed to each signature was the representation of a plant of
nightshade, which for four centuries had been the de-yice of the great
Cistercian house of the valley of Bekansgill. The seals of the house
were then broken, and the nightshade as a device exists no longer,
although it stUl grows luxuriantly among the ruins, as if claiming
its right to be the memorial of the place of which it was so long
the badge and favourite device. The lands were attached to the
Duchy of Lancaster. The abbot secured for himself the rectory
of Dalton, and the ' bredren of misorder ' small pensions for their
lives. These monasteries fell before the general dissolution of the religious
houses, and the smaUer convents did not long survive these magnifi
cent establishments. As soon as it was known that inquisition was
to be made into the state of the monasteries, many persons offered
their services, well qualified in their own esteem to detect and expose
the wickedness of the monks. In a letter addressed to Thomas
Cromwell, one Richard Layton prayed that he and Dr. Lee might be
appointed to visit the northern monasteries, on the ground that they
had such ' familiar acquayntance ' with monasteries that ' no knaverie
could be hyde from us.' These inquisitors proposed such interroga
tories as make us wonder that any decent abbot should have con
descended to answer them. The answers obtained suggest thoughts
of which it wUl not be pleasant to say more than that they ought to
sUence all complaints about the dissolution of monasteries and
nunneries too.
By the dissolution of the monasteries, many of the Lancashire
gentry acquired on easy terms very considerable additions to their
patrimonial lands. The Earl of Derby was not negligent of the
golden opportunity. The lands of the priory of Burscough ceded to
him were valuable additions to his vast estates. Edward, Earl of
Derby, grandson of the traitor of Bosworth, found the advantage of
the several changes which were made during his long Ufe in the
religion of his country. Of these earls it was said by the Jesnit
Parsons that they had three religions to use as occasion served — the
Catholic, the Protestant, and the Puritan. They were not so incon
stant, for their motto was ' Sans changer.' Earl Edward told George
Marsh, the Bolton martyr, that the true religion was that religion
which had most good luck. To this article of faith the Stanleys
consistently adhered, and through all changes were faithful to the
religion of good luck. When the king assumed the supremacy of
the Church of England, the Earl of Derby seems to have thought it
his duty to imitate so iUustrious an example ; for being king in the
Isle of Man, he declared himself supreme head of the Manx Church,
and maintained his supremacy with as much determination as his
royal master. Although, on the accession of Mary, he resumed every
article of the Catholic faith except one which required the restitution
of the Church lands, on which matter he was always a sound and
thorough Protestant, he became under Elizabeth a great persecutor
of Lancashire Cathohcs. Not only the Stanleys, but the Ffaring-

32 LANCASHIRE.
tons,* the Asshetons, the HoUands, and most of the old protestant
famiUes of Lancashire, obtained great additions to their hereditary
estates by the confiscation of the monastic property. It was a com
mon saying in the county (I hope Uke many common sayings a
falsehood) that with the exception of the Botelers of Bewsey, the
only territorial proprietors who were sound Protestants were those
who had to protect their right to the possession of Church property.
The confiscation of the monastic estates supplied the king with the
means of endowing six new bishoprics, of which one was established
in Chester, where the ancient Bishops of Lichfield occasionally
resided, and, when resident there, were sometimes called Bishops of
Chester. The diocese consisted of two archdeaconries : that of
Chester, including the southern part of Lancashire, and that of
Richmond, including the northern part of the county. It was at
first intended that the diocese should be included in the province of
Canterbury, but as the clergy complained of the inconvenience and
expense to which they would be put by this arrangement, it was
eventually determined to make the new bishop a suffragan of his
grace of York. In return for the indulgence, the king, as his manner
was, imposed upon the Lancashire rectors mortuary and other fees,
which to a small extent augmented the poor endowment of the
bishopric of Chester. Henceforth we shall have to regard the Bishop-
of Chester as the principal ecclesiastical authority, whose personal
character and official acts have considerably affected the religious
history of Lancashire.
The first appointment was neither advantageous to the cause of
the Reformation nor creditable to any of the parties immediately
concerned. John Bird, or Byrde, provincial of the order of the
Carmelites, had in the matter of the divorce rendered some ser-yice
to the king by his opposition to Standish, provincial of the Francis
cans. Having become, on the dissolution of his order, a zealous
defender of the king's supremacy, he obtained for his reward, first
the bishopric of Bangor, and afterwards that of Chester. Things
went very pleasantly with him until the accession of Queen Mary,
when, probably enlightened by the teaching of Lord Derby that the
true religion was that which had most good luck, he readUy con
formed to the restored ritual, and attempted by his conformity to
preserve his official dignity and emoluments. But unfortunately for
him he had contracted a marriage, and the CathoUc Church had
Uttle good luck for married prelates or their wives. Deprived of
his bishopric, he became a suppliant to Bishop Bonner, and stood at
the gate of Fulham palace, as we are told by Anthony Wood, with
his present of ' a dish of apples and a bottle of wine.' Being freed
from the disquaUfying incumbrance of his wife (how I cannot teU),
* Sir Henry Ffarington was the only person, so far as I know, who, on the
suppression of the chantries, resumed his own property. In his early life he en
dowed a chantry iu Leyland church ' for the soul of his father.' In his old age he
repurchased his own endowment and deprived his father of the benefit of the
masses which were to be said for the good of his soul.— Duchy Records; Warden
MiM., cited ia the Introduction to the Stanley Papers.

THE REFORMATION. 33
he eventually became vicar of Dunmow in Essex, where, happUy, we
have no further concern ¦with him.
I have referred to the advantage which the CathoUc Church gained
in Manchester from the exemplary conduct and honourable reputa
tion of two of its most distinguished clergymen. They were both
wardens of the collegiate church, and therefore occupied a dignified
position in the diocese, inferior only to that of the Bishop of Chester.
In the year in which the Act of Supremacy was passed, George
CoLLTEB was appointed Warden of Manchester. In every respect a
remarkable contrast to Bishop Bird, he was an honest and conscien
tious CathoUc, who cared nothing about the reUgion of good luck,
and whose consistency was often made the reproach of the flexible
bishop. In the many changes of circumstances about him, he was
honourably distinguished, not only by his steady adherence to his
own reUgious principles, but also by his tolerance and forbearance
towards those who professed the protestant doctrine. In those times
¦there were few men Uke him. There were intolerant Catholics and
intolerant Protestants, and some who, like Lord Derby, were intol
erant on both sides as they happened on either to be worshipping
' good luck ; ' as there were some who, ha-ying no religious convic
tions, were not earnest enough to be intolerant with either Catholics
or Protestants. But CoUyer seems to have held his own con-yictions
very tenaciously while he respected the honest convictions of others.
As strictly conscientious as either of those CathoUc martyrs to
conscience. More and Fisher, he was free from their narrow, hard,
intolerant spirit. Respected in the town, honoured by the CathoUc
families of the neighbourhood, diligent in the discharge of his official
duties, and living peaceably with his protestant parishioners, he
continued, notwithstanding his steady opposition to the measures of
the king, in the possession of his office untU the dissolution of the
college in the reign of Edward VI. When restored to his office by
Queen Mary, he showed no resentment towards those who had de
prived him of the greater part of his revenue. An old protestant
¦writer says of him : ' This Sir George CoUyer ' (' Sir ' is only his
clerical title) ' was a resolved Papist, and could not be brought to
comply with this present world, though he was held to be the most
bountiful and generous warden that had ever been in this church.'*
Good Papist, reqidescat in pace !
It may seem stran.ge that a priest for twelve years should pubUcly
deny the supremacy of the king and yet acknowledge the authority
of the bishop appointed by him, should solemnise masses for his
friends according to the old form, and preach in his turn in the
pulpit of the reformed Church ; but that age was one of strange
anomalies in reUgion. A remarkable instance of the unsettled state
of religion in Lancashire may be found in the curious provisoes of
the deed of settlement of a chapel erected in Rossendale : ' In the
thirty-second year of the reign of our most dread Sovereign Lord,
Henry VIIL, by the grace of God King of England and France,
defender of the faith, Lord of Ireland, and on earth immediately
¦* Hibbert's History of the OoUegiate Church ofjfanchester, vol. i. p. 76.
D

34 LANCASHIRE.
under God supreme head of the Church of England,' the proprietors
of the forest covenanted to ' found, edify, and buUd the chapel in
honour of God, our blessed Lady and all the Saints, for the easement
of the king's liege subjects who shall be disposed to hear mass and
other divine service.' Pro-yision is made for the support of either 'a
priest or a minister,' from whom the people might receive ' Christen
dom, Matrimony, Burial, and all Sacraments and Sacramentals, in
such manner as shall be commanded by the King.'*
One of the first Acts of ParUament passed after the concession of
the supremacy to the king, was to discourage and suppress the games
and processions, which, being held on saints' days, vigUs, and other
Church festivals, retained -with much of boisterous jollity something
of a rehgious character and mystic sanctity. Their religiousness
consisted of little else than of some shadowy recoUections of sacred
traditions, and of celebrations in the churchyard 'with some sort of
sanction of the priests, who 'by this craft had their wealth.' Ale
sold in church porches, and refreshments in booths set up in church
yards, furnished some considerable help to poor priests and clerks.
In no county oi England were the church ales and wakes celebrated
with more of festi-vity and mirth than in merry Lancashire, or the
priests more ready to turn them to advantage in support of the old
reUgion of hoUday and festival. As these festivals and sports were
intimately associated with the early history of the Puritans, especiaUy
in Lancashire, it may be desirable to take some notice of them before
we proceed.
The parliament was induced to suppress these reUgious, or quasi-
religious, sports and festivals, on account of the influence which,
through them, the friars and low priests exercised upon the common
people in favour of the old reUgion. Whatever other objections the
Puritans may haye had to the sports and festivities of their time, the
principal ground of their opposition was undoubtedly religious.
They looked upon the festivals as the life and strength of popery in
the rural parishes. The morris-dancings, the rush-bearings, the
guisings, the May-bowers, the revellings of the wakes, were aU con
nected with Church festivals and anniversaries, directed by priests,
observed in consecrated places, and intermingled with ecclesiastical
observances. On this account rather than from a dishke to amuse
ments the Puritans cried, ' Touch not, taste not, handle not.' Many
of the Lancashire Puritans, and even some of their preachers, as we
shaU hereafter see, were mighty hunters, keen anglers, fond of hawk- ,
ing, of shuffle-board, of bowls, of bUliards, and, what may surprise
their descendants, of baiting the badger, of throwing at the cock,
and even occasionaUy of private theatricals. These men going home
from a cocking or an otter hunt would be shocked at the sight of a
rush-cart or a May-pole. The reason is obvious : the objection was
not to the amusement but to the rehgious association. The notion
that the old Lancashire Puritans, many of whose preachers had their
times and places for playing at bUliards and shuffle-board, were gloomy,
austere, misanthropical people, is one of the popular errors of the day.
* Corry's History of Lancashire, part iv. p. 327.

THE REFORMATION. 35
The Scripture mysteries acted by the friars were not very common,
nor very favourite, amusements among the natives of Lancashire, as
there was not about them enough of boisterous mirth and jo-viaUty.
At the time of the Reformation no pageantry was so popular as that
belonging to the procession of Robin Hood, which the monks con
trived to make a sort of reUgious ceremony. The priests frequently
arranged the pageantry, and the churchwardens defrayed the expenses
from the church-rates.* May- day and the Sunday after were the
great days for the uproarious sport. On May-day the young men
and women brought boughs, especially of white-thorn, and buUt
bowers in the churchyard. Robin, lord of the May, came in his fuU
dress, attended by the queen of the May, the friar, the green archers,
and a great retinue of minstrels and morris-dancers. In Manchester,
where the May games were especially celebrated, the gaudy procession
— some riding on hobby-horses, some drawing them, some dancing — ¦
entered the church and acted strange performances in its venerable
aisles. The -wild merriment of the day in the church was foUowed
by the wUder merriment of the evening in the drinking and dancing
booths of the churchyard. The following description is given by a
puritan ¦writer, and if it bears any resemblance to the original, the
pageant could not have been very appropriate to the house of God :
' Then march this heathen company to the church, their pipers piping,
their drummers thundering, their stumper dancing, their bells
jingUng, their handkerchiefs fluttering about their heads, their hobby
horses and other monsters skirmishing, and in this sort they go to
the church, though the minister be at prayer or preaching, dancing
and swinging their handkerchiefs like devils incarnate, with such a
confused noise that no man can hear his own voice. . . . After this,
about the church they go again and again, and so forth into the
churchyard, where they have their summer haUs, their bowers,
arbours, and banqueting houses set up, wherein they feast, banquet,
and dance all that day, and peradventure all that night too.'t There
was long war in Lancashire between the Puritans and these ' devUs
incarnate.' While the Puritans looked upon the May-pole as the
standard of their enemies, it is no wonder that, whenever they had
the opportunity, they cut it down, and triumphed in its downfaU.
If they were mistaken in beUe^ving that by the May games and Sun
day sports the peasantry were confirmed in the CathoUc faith, they
erred in common with the parliaments of Henry, of Edward, and of
Elizabeth, which in the cause of the Reformation attempted their
suppression ; and, I may add, in common "with the Papists themselves,
who in the reign of James procured or promoted the publication of
the ' Book of Sports.'
¦* In the accounts of the churchwardens of Kingston-upon-Thames are several
curious items respecting the show of Robin Hood, as six shillings ' to Figge the
Taborer,' two shillings for ' cloth for the fool's coat,' three pence for ' a pair of
gloves for Robin Hood and Maid Maryan,' three shUlings for ' Friar Tuck's coat,'
eight shiUings for ' Little John's coat,' two pence for ' sponging and brushing
Robin Hood's coats.' — Hibbert, vol. i. p. 63.
t History of the OoUegiate Church of Manchester, vol. i. pp. 64-5. See also
Nichol's lUustraUons of Ancient Manners, p. 143.

36 LANCASHIRE.
In the last years of Henry VIII. the state of reUgious parties in
Lancashire may be briefiy stated. The Earl of Derby, having a
considerable share of the monastic property, was the most powerftil
supporter of the Reformation. Several of the large proprietors ad
hered to the same cause, induced by the same prudent regard to the
welfare of their famUies. Many of the esquires and smaUer gentry,
who gained nothing by the change, probably felt their love of the
Cathohc doctrine strengthened by their envy or jealousy of their more
fortunate neighbours. The disinherited monks in every part of the
county excited the iU-feelings of the lower orders by their tales of
injustice done to themselves, and injury to the poor, through the
suppression of the monasteries. The secular clergy, generaUy needy,
ignorant, and unable to preach, were content with lazily performing
the new services or so much of them as was necessary to enable them
to keep their situations. A few earnest reformers and a few consci
entious CathoUcs did what they could under the restraint of the time
to promote their respective creeds. In the manufacturing towns
some of the traders were enlightened Protestants ; in the rural parts
the monks and morris-dancers had undisputed sway. So things
continued until Henry the King slept with his fathers, and Edward,
his son, reigned in his stead.
In the first year of the reign of Edward, the College of Manchester,
together with the chantries and other smaU reUgious estabUshments
spared by Henry, was dissolved, its lands aUenated, and its warden
and fellows deprived of their official dignity and revenues. The
minority of the king offered a tempting opportunity to avaricious
statesmen who were ever ready to obtain, on easy terms, new acqui
sitions of Church property. Under the protectorate of Somerset,
zeal for the Reformation was often stimulated or rewarded by sales
or leases on profitable conditions of the lands of the Catholic Church.
Among these reformers, the Earl of Derby was so deserving or so
fortunate as to obtain the college house and buildings situate in
Manchester, together ¦wdth a considerable part of the valuable lands
of the coUegiate clergy. A smaU portion of the rental he was to
appropriate to the maintenance of preaching ministers whose duty
was not only to solemnise the parochial services of Manchester, but
to itinerate in the neighbourhood and preach in its several churches
and chapels the doctrines of the Reformation.* The earl, having
secured as large a share of the Church property as he could reason
ably expect, ceased to interfere with the management of public
* I mention this fact because it seems to have been the origin of the king's or
queen s preachers of Lancashire, whose duty it was to preach the doctrines of the
Reformation m the ignorant and popish parts of the county. At the commencement
of every reign until the revenues of the crown lands were subjected to the author
ity of parhament, 200/. a year were voted for the payment of four preachers, either
as Itinerant or as officiating in poor chapelries. After that time annual grants of
parliament were substituted for the royal bounty. For some time after the Earls
of Derby had ceased to make the payment, they had some share in the patronage
of the preachers. Thus Nathaniel Heywood owed his stipend as a king's preachir
to the smgular goodness of my lady, the Countess of Derby."

THE REFORMATION. 37
affairs, and retired to his native county, where, in the enjoyment of
his vast estates, he quietly observed the progress of events during
the minority of an iuvaUd king, and by cautiously abstaining from
taking any part in measures affecting reUgion, was prepared to haU
a CathoUc queen should Mary succeed her brother, or a Protestant
ruler should Providence provide such a successor.
The first preachers who had the benefit of the earl's endowment
were Dr. Pendleton and John Bradford. But before I notice then-
labours, I must refer to an earUer reformer than either, good Father
Traves, the minister of Blackley Chapel. I wish I knew more about
him. He must have been, if not the earliest,"at least one of the
earliest teachers of the reformed doctrine in Lancashire. Speed
calls him ' a learned and pious gentleman, the patron and councillor '
of Bradford. From several allusions to him in the letters of the
martyr, we learn that he had gained the full confidence of Bradford,
who acknowledged the great benefit which he had derived from the
advice and guidance of his early friend. .He speaks of Traves as
'my father,' and advises his mother to take the letters which he
wrote from prison to Father Traves for safety, and to foUow in all
things the advice of that good minister. Traves gathered around
him a company of reformers, and notwithstanding Ms fideUty to the
reformed doctrine he seems to have retained his situation untU after
the martyrdom of Bradford. Whether he was unnoticed in the
obscurity of the ¦vdUage, or was indulged for a time by the tolerance
of Warden CoUyer, or was protected by the Byron famUy, who then
resided in Blackley, and were favourable to the Reformation, it was
not untu after the death of his friend that he was compeUed to leave
his chapelry and eventuaUy his country. He joined the Protestant
exiles on the continent, and as he was then advanced in years, and is
never mentioned among those who returned, he probably died in
exUe. The infiuence, however, of his good teaching and example
long remained in the neighbourhood of his chapelry, where a con
siderable number of the inhabitants steadUy adhered to the principles
of the Reformation. Some of them were imprisoned in Manchester,
until, on the death of Queen Mary, they obtained their release, and
did much to promote the spirit of evangeUcal reformation and of
earnest Puritanism by which Blackley was long distinguished.*
¦* History of Blackley Chapel ; HoUingworth's Mancuniensis. Mr. Hunter, in
his Life of Oliver Heywood, observes, that in the neighbourhood of Bolton the
famiUes of the friends of the Protestant martyrs became iu the next generation,
and long continued, the principal supporters of Puritanism and Nonconformity.
The same may with equal justice be said of Blackley ; the friends of Traves and
Bradford were the founders, and their descendants were the supporters, of the
Puritanism and Nonconformity of that neighbourhood. In both instances the
famiUes may be traced by their names. The name of ' Traves,' disguised under
the modern spelling of ' Travis,' and ' Travers,' frequently appears in the records
of the chapelry. In the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. a succession of Puritan
ministers, Oliver Carter, Thomas Paget, and WilUam Bathband, occupied the
pulpit of Blackley Chapel. Among their most steady supporters were several
members of the Traves famUy. According to ' a platform of the chapel ' made in
16U3, George Travis occupied a bench, for which he paid six shillings a year. The
bench behind his was held by Seth Travis and John Beswioke at the same rate.

38 LANCASHIRE.
Of the two preachers appointed in the reign of Edward to preach
the doctrines of the Reformation in Lancashire, Pendleton, as
HoUingworth teUs us, ' was a Papist in the days of Henry VIII.,
who recanted and became a great preacher of the Reformation.'^ An
able man, handsome, athletic, possessed of a fine clear voice, mighty
in the management of ready speech and powerful utterance, hi
preaching was in popularity and influence second only to that of
John Bradford. Of the power of his preaching some estimate may
be formed from the fact that when in the reign of Mary he recanted
his first recantation, the Catholics could find none so well quaUfied
to preach the Lancashire people back again to popery as the man who
had preached them so far away from it. His goodly person, per
suasive address, and' powerful eloquence are noticed in a letter of
Saunders the martyr, who bitterly lamented and faithfuUy rebuked
his temporising conduct.
A greater preacher than even the eloquent Dr. Pendleton — greater
because more sincere, more earnest, more real in everything — ^was
his coUeague, John Beadeobd. He was born in the parish of Man
chester, according to some probabUities in Millgate, according to
others in the chapelry of Blackley.* Ha-ying been educated in the
grammar school recently founded by the good bishop, Hugh Oldham,
¦with whom his famUy seems to have been related through the Bes-
¦wickes, he obtained some office of trust under Sir John Harrington,
the treasurer of the king's forces at Boulogne. Ha'ying gained the
unlimited confidence of his employer, he undertook the management
of the most important business of the treasurer's office, and eventually
acted as paymaster of the English troops in France. WhUe engaged
The Beswickes were related to John Bradford. As the principal family of the
neighbourhood, the Asshetons, paid only eight shillings and sixpence, and the
seats of the Travises were next their great pew, we may infer that George Travis
was a person of some consideration as well as a liberal contributor. After the
passing of the Act of Uniformity, the Puritans of Blackley were accustomed to
meet for worship in the house of Mrs. Travis, who hospitably entertained the
ministers. In 1682 OUver Heywood preached ' to a full company at widow
Travis's house.' To the indenture by which the first Nonconformist meeting
house was conveyed to trustees, are attached the signatures of ' Thomas Travis '
and ' George Travis,' two of the four original trustees. It is pleasant to trace in
Blackley, as in Bolton, the names of the same famiUes from the Reformation
almost to our own time. This age of steam and railway is fast obliterating the
remains of these pleasant associations. As late as 1846, Mr. Thomas Travis en
deavoured by a suit in the Court of Queen's Bench to recover possession of two
pews in Blackley church, instead of the two benches occupied by his ancestors in
the old chapel. He failed, I believe, because the church was not erected on the
site of the old chapel, and therefore the place of the old benches could not be
identified. * The opinion that Bradford was born iu MiUgate is founded upon a deed of
the conveyance, in 1489, of a house, described as situate in Millgate, between the
tenement of John Bradford and Richard Platt. This John Bradford. was probably
the father of the martyr. On the other hand, the mother of Bradford resided,
when he was a prisoner, at Blackley, many of his kindred, as the Beswickes, Uved
there, and his earliest intimacies were with the folk of that viUage. The name
was common in Lancashire in early times. In the reign of Edward III. a John
Bradford was ' clerk of the peace ' to the duchy, and John Bradford and WiUiam
Bradford were clerks of the Crown with ' a wage ' of two shillings a day. — MS. in
the British Museum, cited by Baines, History, vol. i. p. 139.

THE REFORMATION. 39
in this service he became implicated in some dishonest transaction of
his principal, the exact nature of which has not been discovered.
That he was privy to some dishonourable practices, at that time not
unusual in the commissariat department of the army, and that he
was not the gainer by the fraudulent dealing, is all we know of the
business which afterwards caused him so much grief, humiliation,
and penitence.
Having returned to London, he entered as a law student in the
Temple, and there became acquainted -with Thomas Sampson, a
nephew of Bishop Latimer, and afterwards, in the reign of Elizabeth,
the celebrated Puritan preacher of Oxford. Sampson took his new
friend to hear his uncle, who on that occasion preached on the sin of
dishonesty and the duty of making restitution to the persons who
had been defrauded. WhUe Latimer was preaching as few men
could preach on such a subject, Bradford trembled as his sin was
brought to his remembrance. In great perplexity concerning his
duty, for he was unable to make restitution for the robbery which
had enriched others, not himself, he wrote to the friend of his youth,
Father Traves, and, acting under his advice, he insisted upon the
defaulter making restitution under the threat of instant exposure.
By this means he accomplished the object, and wrote to Traves in
forming him that the affair was settled. ' Therefore, I pray you to
give the gracious Lord thanks, and thanks, and thanks again, for
me a most wicked, ingrate sinner.'*
Bradford, acting under the advice of Father Traves, left the study
of the law, and entered at Katharine Hall, Cambridge. After
proceeding Master of Arts, he obtained a fellowship in Pembroke
College. For some time he was afraid to assume the respOnsibUity
of the ministerial office. When his fears were allayed by the encou
ragement of Father Traves, and of his intimate friend in the univer
sity, Martin Bucer, he was ordained by Bishop Ridley, who, highly
estimating his power of popular address, secured him an income as
a Prebendary of St. Paul's, that he might be able to travel in the
country, and preach the doctrines of the Reformation.
Bradford, like his friends Latimer, Sampson, and Bucer, was a
decided Puritan. He refused to be ordained in the habits which
Ridley desired to impose upon the reformed clergy. That he declined
to comply with the earnestly expressed wish of so kind a friend as
Ridley attests the strength of his puritan principles. That Ridley
dispensed with the habits at his ordination shows how highly the
good bishop valued his services.
Soon after his ordination Bradford was sent into his native county
to preach the great truths of the Reformation. The government of
Edward, in sending itinerant preachers into many parts of the coun
try, seems to have given especial attention to Lancashire. Besides
Bradford and Pendleton, already mentioned, there were, as we leam
* In one of Latimer's sermons he refers to a man who, on hearing a sermon on
the duty of restitution, brought him twenty pounds at Lent to be paid to the
King's CouncU for restitution, three hundred and twenty pounds the next Lent,
and one hundred and four score pounds ten shiUings the next Lent. There can
be little doubt the man was Bradford, who obtained the money from his superiors.

40 LANCASHIRE.
from ' the godly and comfortable letters ' of George Marsh, Thomas
Lever, the celebrated Puritan, James Pilkington, afterwards the
puritan bishop of Durham, and his ' most loving and gentle master '
Laurence Saunders, engaged in zealously preaching the reformed
doctrine in Lancashire.
Bradford was endowed with the bold and daring energy of Father
Latimer, and like that great preacher, plain, earnest, faithful, not
inferior to him in hortatory address, and much superior in logical
power, he was probably the most useful, and certainly the most
popular, of the first preachers of the English Reformation. The
quiet homilies of Father Traves were reproduced with tenfold effect
in the impassioned orations of his loving disciple and friend. Where-
ever in Lancashire he was announced to preach, great multitudes
crowded to hear his soul-stirring sermons. On Sundays, market
days, and fairs, in all the southern parts of the county, he was to be
heard denouncing the superstitions of popery, and the scandals of the
priests. The great church of Manchester was his favourite sanctuary,
and whenever he appeared in its pulpit the townspeople filled its
spacious nave, aisles, and newly-erected galleries. But his labours
were widely extended, as in his letters, written when he was ' ready
to be offered,' he could appeal in words of affecting solemnity not
only to the people of Manchester, but also to those of Ashton, Bolton,
Bury, Chorley, Wigan, Prescot, Liverpool, Mottram, Stockport,
Eccles, Prestwich, Middleton, Oldham, Ratcliffe, and West Chester,
in all which towns he had fully preached the gospel of Christ, and
by his preaching produced deep and permanent impressions upon
many of their inhabitants.
The preaching of Bradford was not confined to the subjects which
belong to the popish controversy. With terrible vehemence he often
denounced the -vices of the people as well as the impositions of the
priests. Frequently he preached against the revelries of the Sunday
wakes and festivals, which annoyed and obstructed him in his
preaching circuits. The Act of Henry, where the magistrates en
forced it, had protected the inside of the churches from the wild
revelries of the old processions and dances ; but Robin Hood on his
own Sunday was to be seen in the churchyard with his merry archers
dancing upon the gravestones. 'When excluded from the consecrated
building, the morris- dancers played their part, and the publicans
made their booths, close to the walls of the sanctuary. On a Sunday
festival the spirit of Bradford was moved within him. He was
preaching where he most loved to preach, in the great church of
Manchester. The building was excessively crowded, as every word
he uttered was distinctly heard through its broad aisles and spacious
gaUeries. Amidst breathless silence within and boisterous shouts
¦without, he, intensely earnest, strangely excited, denounced the pro
fanity and irreligion of the people, and threatened (HoUingworth
says as by a prophetical spirit) that ' mass should be again said in
the church, and the play of Robin Hood be again acted there.' The
prophecy was not forgotten. Many who heard the threatenings of
the excited preacher lived to see the mass restored, and with it the
desecration of the church by the rabble of Robin Hood.

CHAPTER III.
RESTORATION OF POPERY.
On the accession of Mary the restoration of popery in Lancashire
was accomplished with no great difficulty. In some parts of the
county the majority of the inhabitants had never professed to have
been converted to the Protestant faith. The monks and chantry
priests, having little else to do, had obstructed in many places and
by various means the progress of the Reformation. Many of the
parochial clergy. Papists in their hearts, had said mass privately, and
observed ¦with much irregularity the ritual prescribed by Edward's
Act of Uniformity. The landed proprietors, except those who pos
sessed the monastic property, generally returned to the religious
observances of their fathers. The Earl of Derby, who had retired
from public life, suddenly came out an orthodox Catholic in every
article except the restitution of Church property, about which he
felt some scruples, probably as not being quite consistent with his
reUgion of good luck. As, however, he was willing to do everything
else which ought to be done by a good Catholic, even to persecute
heretics, the priests were "wise enough not to annoy or alarm him by
any idle talk about restitution.*
Among the first acts of the new government were the restoration
of the collegiate establishment in Manchester, the recall of Warden
CoUyer to the office of which he had been deprived, and the restitu
tion to the college of all the lands which had been forfeited at the
dissolution, except so much of them as had been granted to the Earl
of Derby.
It was desirable to find some popular preacher who would go into
Lancashire and preach the Catholic doctrine "with the earnestness
and power of the preachers of the Reformation. But Catholic
preachers were not easUy found. Of the reformers, Bradford and
Saunders had been committed to prison, and were ready to die rather
than renounce their faith. Lever and Pilkington went into exUe.
There remained Dr. Pendleton, who at first boasted of his determi
nation to attest his faith by his martyrdom. He is reported to have
said (HoUingworth is the reporter), reproaching his friend Saunders
for some timid words, ' I will see the last drop of mine molten away,
and the last gobbet of this flesh consumed to ashes, before I will for
sake God and His truth.' A vain boast it was, Uke that of Peter,
' Though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee ; ' yet, says
¦* What he did with the supremacy of the Manx church does not appear ; but
his relative, the bishop of the island, a true Stanley, acknowledged the supremacy
of the earl in the reign of Edward, the supremacy of the pope in the reign of Mary,
and the supremacy of the queen on the accession of EUzabeth.

42 LANCASHIRE.
Fox, ' he changed his tippet, preached popery, was sent to Manchester
and other towns to recant his recantation and preach up popery.' He
found it not so easy to preach wp popery as it had been to preach it
down. To recant his recantation was humiliating work which he
had no spirit to do effectually. His sincerity was suspected, his
reputation injured, his eloquence faUed him, his power o^ver his
hearers who had heard his able defence of the opposite doctrine was
gone from him ; he had become weak as other men. The Protestants
despised him ; the Catholics, who had no respect for him, said, ' He
"will turn again with the turn of the tide.'
While Bradford was lying in Newgate under sentence of death, he
found means of writing several ' godly and comfortable letters ' to his
Lancashire friends. His writing materials were concealed, and his
letters secretly conveyed by a faithful servant from the prison to
trusty adherents, who, as they had opportunity, forwarded them to
Manchester. After they had been read they were entrusted to the
safe custody of Father Traves. But the influence of his letters could
not be concealed. The Earl of Derby declared they were doing more
harm to the Church than he had ever done by his preaching. It was,
therefore, determined that he should die. The council first resolved
that he should be committed to the Earl of Derby in order that he
might be burnt in Manchester. This he expected, as a few days
before his death he wrote to his friends that he was 'ready to resign
his life in the town where he had received it.' Why the authorities
suddenly changed their purpose and ordered him to be burnt in
Smithfield is not known ; but may we not charitably suppose that
the Earl of Derby, who had no love for burning either Protestants or
Catholics when he gained nothing by it, was un"wUUng to undertake
the work of burning the great preacher whom he had paid for preach
ing the doctrines of the Reformation ? * John Bradford suffered
martyrdom in a manner worthy of himself and his cause. He kissed
one of the faggots and called aloud, ' England, England, repent of
thy sins ! Beware of idolatry ! Beware of Antichrist ! ' Among the
burning reeds he was heard to say, ' Strait is the gate and narrow is
¦fche way which leadeth to Ufe.' Roger Beswicke, his brother-in-law,
came from Manchester to attend him at his execution, but was pre
vented from soothing his last agonies by the brutal ¦violence of one of
the officials. Lancashire reveres the memory of many of her sons,
but none of them deserves her reverence more than the greatest of the
preachers of the English Reformation.
To George Maesh, the other protestant martyr of Lancashire, has
been attributed the strong protestant feeUng of the south-eastern part
of the county, and especially of the neighbourhood of Bolton. The
marvellous traditions concerning him which prevailed among the
common people of Bolton show the deep and solemn impressions
which were produced upon the minds of many by his powerfnl min-
* It is said that Lord Derby interceded with the queen to spare the Ufe, of
Bradford, and that one of his servants proposed to assist Bradford to leave the
kingdom on conditions which the martyr declined.

RESTORATION OF POPERY. 43
istry and glorious martyrdom. An old stone delf on the steep ascent
of Rivington Pike, having some rude resemblance of seats cut in the
rock, was long venerated by the Puritans of Bolton, Dean, and
Chorley as the sanctuary where their fathers were accustomed to
meet early on Sunday mornings that they might hear the ' godly and
comfortable letters ' which Marsh wrote in his prison, read aloud by
some patriarchal Bradshaw, or Assheton, or Lever, or other elder of
his beloved flock. After his death the reading of his letters was con-
¦tinued, the affecting accounts of his martyrdom were repeated, his
last injunctions were enforced, the calamities of his persecutors were
carefully noted, and the untimely deaths of some of them regarded
as proofs of the avenging hand of the Supreme Judge.* A mark
something like the rude impression of a man's foot on one of the
stone steps that lead to the green room in Smethells Hall, where
Marsh was examined by Justice Barton and his 'mass-priest,' was
long regarded as the indelible impression of the stamp of Marsh on
asserting his innocence. Of this story I can only say, with the old
biographer of Marsh, ' I would as soon give credit to it as to the
popish sign of the indelible stain of the blood of Thomas a Becket
in Canterbury Cathedral.' The stone, we are told, was once removed,
when strange noises were heard every night untU it was restored
'with fear and reverence.'
As late as the year 1732, one John Butterworth, after sleeping in
the green chamber, was found in the moming ' exhibiting signs of a
person disordered in his mind.' He asserted that he had seen ' the
apparition of a minister in a white robe, with a band affixed to his
neck and a book in his hand.' This ' minister in a white robe ' could
not have been George Marsh, unless in the spiritual world he had
lost his puritanical dislike of the surplice.
But from tradition, which tells us what other people said of George
Marsh, let us turn to his letters and learn what he said of himself. He
was bom in the parish of Dean, near Bolton, a place hallowed by
many puritan associations, t His parents were respectable farmers,
and for several years he gained his Uvelihood by following their occu
pation. In his twenty-fifth year, he ' took to wife an honest maid of
the country.' On her death he entrusted his children to the care of
his mother, and prosecuted his studies in the University of Cambridge,
"with the intention of becoming a Protestant minister. On obtaining
orders, he became curate to the Rev. Laurence Saunders, of AU-
* In this respect the friends of Marsh were no worse than his enemies, who in
terpreted the martyrdoms of the reformers as visitations of Divine judgment.
When Marsh was examined by the Earl of Derby, ' My lord rehearsed the Ul-luck
of the Dukes of Northumberland and Suffolk, with others, because they favoured
not the true reUgion, and the good hap of the Queen's Highness, because she-
favoured the true religion, thereby gathering the one to be good aud of God, aud
the other to be wicked and of the devH.'—Life of Marsh (in a volume of misoella-
niea, printed at Bolton, without a date), p. 236.
t As late as 1521, Dean was a chapelry in the parish of Eccles, as appears from
the coucher book of WhaUey Abbey. About the time of the dissolution of the
abbey, it was made a separate parish, the advowson of which was transferred to the
Crown. — Notitia Oettriends, vol. ii. pt. 1.

44 LANCASHIRE.
hallows, Bread Street, London. He is often said to have been curate
of Dean, but I can find no e-yldence of his having fiUed that office,
although he frequently and with great acceptance preached in his
native vUlage. On his examination before the Earl of Derby he said
that he had been a curate in London, that he came into the country
to -visit his mother and chUdren, and that he intended to lea,ve Eng
land and stay in Denmark or Germany. Accused of preaching false
docfrine in the church of Dean, he surrendered himself to Justice
Barton, at SmetheUs HaU, by whom he was sent for further exami
nation to the Earl of Derby at Lathom.
The extreme tenderness of his conscience appeared in his distress
on account of an answer which he had given to a question respecting
his beUef in the Sacrament. This answer was, ' Whosoever, accord
ing to Christ's institution, receives the Holy Sacrament, doth eat and
drink Christ's body and blood with all the benefits of His deatih and
resurrection to his eternal salvation, for Christ is ever present in His
Sacrament.' On being questioned respecting the change of the sub
stance of the bread and wine, he replied that he knew no further
than he had showed already. Being commanded to write his answer,
he wrote to the same effect, and on being ordered to -write more f uUy,
he wrote, 'Further I know not.' On his second examination the
Vicar of Prescot, who had conversed with him in the interval, reported
that ' his answer was sufficient for a beginner, who did not profess a
perfect knowledge of the matter.' The earl was pleased, and said,
' He doubted not, by the help of the "vicar, that Marsh would become
more conformable.' Better treatment was given him ; a bed and fire
were provided for him ; and he was aUowed to associate "with the
servants in their hall.
On occasion of this favourable change in the manner of his judges,
the good man was sorely grieved, and bitterly reproached himself for
not having more plainly and fully confessed his faith in the doctrine of
the Eucharist. Without the smallest intention to deceive, he had ob
tained indulgence by the appearance of conformity. ' I cried more
earnestly unto God to strengthen me by His Holy Spirit "with bold
ness to confess Him.' From that hour he never swerved. In subse
quent conferences with the Vicar of Prescot he declared that ' the
whole mass offended ' him. Whenever any attempt was made to
induce hina to recant or modify his answers, he felt his safety in a
plain and courageous assertion of his unhesitating belief in the re
formed doctrine. Entreaties and threatenings were addressed to him
in vain, for he rejoiced in being counted worthy to suffer for the cause
of his Lord.
From Lathom he was removed to Lancaster Castle, where he was
ad"yised and entreated to recant, but he always repeated, as he says,
' Christ's sharp answer to Peter, Go behind me, Satan.' Priests were
sent to reason "with him, but Lancashire priests of that time were no
great reasoners. Of them he says, ' Whose mouth it was easy to
stop, for the priests are not the greatest scholars. At their departing
they either agreed with me, or had nothing to say against me.'*
* Life, &c., p. 239.

RESTORATION OF POPERY. 45
In another object they utterly failed. As it was known that the
Reformation was secretly promoted by some men of influence and
property in Bolton, many attempts were made to induce him to be
tray them. ' They sent for me the fourth time into their chamber,
where amongst other things they laid to my charge that I knew of
many good gentlemen of my opinion, and they strictly charged me
upon my aUegiance to the Queen's Grace to show who they were ;
but I denied that I had ever spoken of any such thing.'
He remained in Lancaster Castle from Easter to the autumn of
1554. In one of his letters is a description to which those who know
the picturesque building can easUy give reaUty and life. ' I and my
feUow-prisoner, Warburton, every day kneeling on our knees, read
morning and evening prayer with the English Litany, twice, before
noon and after, with other prayers, and als© read every day certain
chapters in the Bible, commonly towards night, "with so high and
loud a voice that the people "without might hear us read, and sit under
our windows.' We may imagine during, the twUight of the long
summer evenings, in the cool breezes of Morecambe Bay, the towns
people, and among them the mayor, of whom I shaU have hereafter
to speak, sitting upon the ramparts of the old castle and listening to
the prayers and praises of the prisoners. Some of these good people
contributed to supply the wants of the sufferers who, by then-
devotions, made the castle hill a ' place where prayer was wont to be
made ' — an evening Bethel to many who had no love for the restored
ser"yices of the Church.
Of the letters written by Marsh from his prison much has been
said, as they contain aUusions to the godly ancestors of many of the
Puritan famiUes of Bolton — ^the Cromptons, the Levers, the Langleys,
the Bradshaws, the Asshetons, and others — and were long preserved
as very precious treasures in the Puritan houses of the neighbourhood.
On examining them we do not wonder that, read to the people
assembled in the hoUow of Rivington Pike, copied by school-boys,
and handed about in the farm houses and cottages of the moors, they
preserved and cherished the principles of the Reformation in the
country round Bolton, and did much to give it the character of the
Geneva of Lancashire. As an iUustration, one extract from them may
be sufficient : ' Seeing, brethren, it hath pleased God to set me and
that most worthy minister of Christ, John Bradford, in the fore-front
of the battle, where for the time is the most danger, I beseech you all
in the bowels of Christ to help us and all others, our feUow-soldiers,
standing in like perUous places, with your prayers to God for us,
that we may quit ourselves hke men in the Lord, and give some
example of boldness and constancy mingled with patience, in the fear
of God, that ye and others, our brethren, through our example may
be so encouraged and strengthened to follow us, that ye also may
leave example to your weak brethren to foUow you. Salute from me
in Christ all who love us in the faith, and at your discretion make
them partakers of these letters, and pray ye all for me and others in
bonds of the Gospel, that the same God who by His grace hath called
us from wicked Papistry unto the true Christianity, and nowproveth

46 LANCASHIRE.
our patience by persecution, "wiirof His mercy and favour in the end
gloriously deliver us, either by death or by life. Amen.
' At Lancaster, the 3pth of August, 1554, by me, an unprofitable
servant of Christ, ' Geoege Maesh.'
WhUe Marsh was in Lancaster Castle, George Cotes, the new
Bishop of Chester, visited the town, in order to complete the arrange
ments for the restoration of the Catholic ser"yices in the northern part
of his diocese. On hearing of the leniency with which the prisoner
was treated, he severely rebuked the governor, and forbade him to
allow any intercourse "with the people who were accustomed to
assemble in the evening under the walls of the castle. Soon after
wards Marsh was removed to Chester, where the bishop endeavoured
by private expostulation, and by the arguments of the more learned
of his clergy, to induce him to submit to the authority of the CathoUc
Church. Disappointed in his endeavour, the bishop compeUed his
prisoner to submit to a pubUc examination in the Lady Chapel of the
Cathedral. Being sworn. Marsh was charged with having preached
'most blasphemously and heretically within the parish of Dean,
Eccles, Bolton, Bury, and other parishes "within the diocese, dfrectly
against the pope's authority, the Catholic Church, the blessed mass,
the sacrament of the altar, and many other articles.' Marsh replied
in a few words, which must have deeply impressed the hearts of his
judges : ' I have maintained the same articles as all of you now pre
sent did acknowledge in the time of Edward the Sixth.' The
confessor was remanded, and after an interval of three weeks was
again brought before the bishop and his assessors. The chancellor
began with ' an oration declaring unto the people present the bishop's
burning charity, who even like as a good shepherd doth see to his
flock that none of his sheep have the scab or other disorder for infect
ing other clean sheep : .... so his lordship had sent for George
Marsh as a scabbed sheep, and had weeded him out for corrupting
others, and done what he could in sho"sying his charitable disposition
towards the said Marsh, to reduce him from his naughty heresies ;
but all that he could do was in vain.' The chancellor closed his
pretentious oration by warning the prisoner that ' after sentence was
given, it would be too late to obtain his Ufe, though he should ever
so gladly desire it.'
_ After long examination, in which the chanceUor often interposed
with advice, warnings, and threatenings, ' the bishop put his spec
tacles upon his nose and read about four or six lines of the sentence,
when the chanceUor with a glavering and smUing countenance called
to the bishop and said, " Yet, good my lord, once again stay, for if
that next word be spoken, all is past, and no relenting "wiU then
serve." The bishop, pulUng off his spectacles, said, " I would stay
It It could be.'" Marsh solemnly refused to deny his Lord. The
bishop read the sentence through, and said, ' Now, I wUl no more
pray for thee than I wiU for a dog.' The prisoner was then by ' the
Holy Church,' wVch never puts any man to death, delivered to the

RESTORATION OF POPERY. 47
secular authorities, and by them confined to a frightful dungeon in
one of the towers of the north gate. His friends, who could com
municate with him only through a hole in the top of the wall, some
times in the night called to him to know how he was, and to throw
him some few comforts. He always repUed that he was weU, and
entreated their prayers, that he ' might have grace not to faint, but
patiently to bear his cross.' *
On the morning of AprU 24, 1665, the sheriffs of the city, with
their officials, and ' a great company of poor simple barbers with
rusty bills and pole-axes,' conducted Marsh from his miserable dun
geon to the place of execution near Spittal Broughton. It was a
custom in Chester for criminals, as they went to execution, to receive
in a Uttle bag the contributions of the charitable, in order to obtain
the means of paying a priest to say mass for their souls. Some of
the spectators ofiered money to Marsh, but he declined to receive it,
and advised his friends to give it for the relief of the poor prisoners.
Halting in sight of the pile of faggots, the chamberlain showed
Marsh a sealed packet, and assured him that it was a pardon, to be
opened if he would abjure the heresies for which he was condemned
to death. Marsh having declined the proposal was chained to a stake
in the midst of the faggots. A tar-barrel was fixed over his head,
but as the fire was made unskUfnlly his suffering was prolonged and
very grievous. The patience, meekness, and tranquiUity of the martyr
became the subject of general conversation, and confirmed the faith
of many in the religion for which so holy a man suffered so terrible
a death. Around Bolton many good men made great lamentation
for him, and cherished his memory as they read his last letters by the
gUmmering of a lamp in their nightly meetings. The bishop in his
cathedral preached a funeral sermon for him, or rather against him,
telling the people he had Uved a heretic, died a heretic, and was
burning in hell as a heretic. The preacher soon followed the martyr
to another world, lea"ying a memory dark "with frightful scandals, t
The bishop's successor was Cuthbert Scott, ' a ferocious Papist.'
His ferocity, however, was gratified in a less injurious, if not a less
offensive, manner than that of his predecessor. Long occupied in
Cambridge in remo"ying the bodies of heretics from the consecrated
burial-grounds and burning them in profane places, he neglected for
a considerable time the affairs of his diocese. J Ha'ying accompUshed
this useful service for the Catholic Church, he visited Lancashire, and
committed several men and women charged "with heresy to close
custody in a room of Manchester CoUege. Onthe death of the queen,
'* We have an account of this horrible dungeon in the ' Life of Mr. NeUd,'
inserted in the Gentleman's Magazine, 1817, pt. i. p. 305. In 1776 Mr. NeUd
visited the prison. He says, ' As I went do-wn steps to the dungeon, I almost now
feel the horror with which I was struck ... as dark as pitch . . . not
a breath of air, but what was admitted through a smaU hole . . . beyond
imagination horrid and dreadful.' See also the Memoirs of Dr. Lettsome and the
Lancashire and Cheshire Collector, vol. u. p. 83.
f Life of George Marsh, printed at Bolton.
X I am sorry to find that the most busy assistant of the bishop in burning the
bones of Martin Bucer and others was a Lancashire man, one John Christopherson.

48 LANCASHIRE.
which soon followed, the authorities of Manchester released them
without waiting for any orders from the bishop.
As I have noticed two wicked CathoUc bishops of Chester, I
cannot in fairness to aU parties pass unnoticed two good Cathohc
wardens of Manchester, who, contemporaneously with the bishops,
held their dignified office during the reign of Mary. I have ah-eady
referred to George CoUyer, who was deprived of his office on the
dissolution of the college by the ministers of King Edward, and
meekly submitted untU, with the cordial respect of all parties, he was
restored on the re-estabUshment of the college by Queen Mary. He
died in 1557, lea-ving an unstained reputation for piety, tolerance,
and charity, which even Protestant writers have gratefully acknow
ledged. Laweence Vaus succeeded to his office, and apparently to his
virtues. Of this warden, HoUingworth, who has seldom a good
word for a Papist, says, ' He was laborious, learned, and in his way
devout and conscientious.' The memory of these two men con
tributed in no smaU degree to preserve in the south-eastern part of
Lancashfre an affectionate regard for the CathoUc Church in the time
of her persecution, as probably it was owing to their tolerance that
the soil of Lancashire was never in the reign of Mary stained with
the martyr's blood, and that the Protestants of Manchester suffered
so Uttle, whUe the ' ferocious' bishops of the diocese were burning the
dead in Cambridge or the Uving in Chester. HoUingworth, referring
to that time, says, ' God did wonderfully hide His people in Lan
cashire.' Of the state of reUgion in Lancashire during the reign of Mary
it is not easy, when perplexed by the diversities and even confrasts
apparent in different parts of the county, to form a complete or
satisfactory estimate. Two particulars, however, are very obvious.
The majority of the people gladly contributed to the restoration of
the old religion, and the pious Protestants secretly maintained their
religious meetings throughout the time of persecution.
The common people gladly welcomed their old acquaintances the
preaching or talking friars. Still more welcome to them were the
old Sunday festivals and sports. Uproarious were the rejoicings
when, as John Bradford prophesied, Robin Hood and his riotous
retinue returned to act their part in the procession of May Sunday
through the aisles of the great church of Manchester. Next to the
merry sports, the people looked most pleasantly upon the restoration
of the rood lofts, the images, the pictures, the crucifixes ; the blessed
emblems of the CathoUcs, the ' idolatrous gear ' of the Protestants.
In the rural parishes especially, the rustics were delighted with seeing
again the old saints and angels come back to bless "their christenings
and marriages. As I write, the sternness of my Puritan nature
begins to relent, and I feel as if I could congratulate the Lancashire
husbandmen on the restoration of sacred images hallowed by the
earliest and fondest recollections of their childhood.
I haye already observed that Bishop Cotes was for a time in Lan
caster, making arrangements for the restoration of the popish ritual

RESTORATION OF POPERY. 49
and ornaments in the churches of the northern part of the county.
Among the most ready to comply with the orders of the queen and
the bishop were the parishioners of Cockersand, a quiet "village
pleasantly situate on Morecambe Bay. Of these "vUlagers Fox tells
an amusing story, which may iUustrate the manners of North Lan
cashire in the reign of Mary. As their old rood was desfroyed, they
bargained with the village carpenter to make and set np a new image
like to their old one. As he was not a perfect artist, he could pro
mise only to do his best for their satisfaction. On the completion of
his work, the parishioners having never before seen such a figure in
a church, refused to pay the carpenter, on which account he sum
moned the churchwardens before the mayor of Lancaster — probably
the mayor who had on summer evenings listened to the prayers of
George Marsh on the castle hiU. The churchwardens pleaded that
the carpenter had covenanted to make a rood like the old one, who
was ' a well-favoured man,' but the new one was ' the worst-favoured
man they had ever set eyes upon, gaping and gi'inning in such sort
that their children were afraid to look him in the face or go near
him.' His worship decided that ' the man had done his work as weU
as he could, that they should have sought a more skUful workman,
that they must pay the money as they had promised, that if they did
not like their god they could put a pair of horns upon him and he
might make a capital devil.' The carpenter was pleased, the
churchwardens laughed, but. Fox adds, 'Not so the Babylonish
priests.' Of the secret assembUes of the pious Protestants we have not
many particulars, but the few we have are of intense interest. After
the death of Marsh, his friends frequently assembled by stealth in
their old resort to read the Scriptures and the letters of the martyr.
Other secret meetings were held in the woods and heaths around
Manchester. Occasionally preachers of the reformed doctrine visited
these nocturnal meetings, and spent some hours in preaching and
solemnising the Lord's Supper. Nor were such meetings confined to
the neighbourhood of Manchester and Bolton. In several "villages
the Protestants knew and visited one another, arranged secret meet
ings for reading and prayer, and occasionaUy found means of obtain
ing the presence and assistance of Evangelical ministers.
Of these secret meetings there is an interesting account in a sort
of biography of ' Jefirey Hurst of Shakerley, who was preserved by
God's pro-yidence from burning in Queen Mary's time,' appended to
the ' Life of George Marsh.' '* Jeffrey Hurst was a man of humble
life, who resided in the vUlage of Shakerley, in the parish of Leigh.
By the preaching and letters of Marsh, whose sister he had married,
he was brought to a firm belief in the doctrines of the Reformation.
Ou the restoration of the popish ritual, he ceased to attend his parish
church, and spent his sabbaths in reading and devotional exercises.
Although he conducted himself quietly, and refrained from aU con
troversy and interference with the changes which were introduced in
the church, he was noticed as a heretic, and reported as such to Justice
* Printed at Bolton, without a date.

50 LANCASHIRE.
Leland, a determined persecutor of heretics. BeUeving his life to be
in danger, he left the neighbourhood and lodged in distant vUlages
where he was unknown. Finding out the residences of Protestant
ministers, he engaged them to go with him on certain nights to his
house at Shakerley, where they usually found about twenty or twenty-
four persons present to hear a sermon and unite in prayer. Occasion
ally they had a communion, ' very refreshing and comforting to their
troubled souls.' The names of four ministers are preserved : Reneses,
Best, Brodbank, and RusseU. Hurst and the minister always left
the viUage before dayUght. Their Uttle meetings were not discovered
untu the last year of Mary's reign. In that, year Justice Leland,
ha^ying some notice or suspicion that aU was not right, went ¦with
'his mass-priest, Sir Ralph Parkinson,' to the cottage of Hurst in
search of heretical books . Haying found Tyndale's Testament, which
Sir Ralph pronounced to be ' plain heresy and none worse,' and some
Latin books which neither the justice nor the mass-priest could read,
the justice, by a stretch of authority not uncommon with the justices
of those times, bound the mother and brother !of Hurst, in the penalty
of £100, to produce him within fourteen days. Hurst, fearing to
bring his mother into frouble, appeared at the appointed . day, and
then on the requirement of the justice found sureties to appear at
Lancaster witHn three weeks. Before that time the news of the
queen's death arrived in Lancashire, and Hurst's sureties were dis
charged of their bond.
The short reign of Mary has left indeUble impressions upon the
memory and heart of the EngUsh nation. Since her days the popish
controversy has been studied in the glare, it may be the delusive Ught,
of the Smithfield fires. The English judg-ment may be caUed preju
dice, and the English feeling bigotry, but for the prejudice and bigofry
the Catholics who suffer from them may blame their fathers and their
fathers' bishops. Of the tales of the Protestant martyrology, however
exaggerated some of them may be, the principal facts are too weU
attested to be refuted by any ingenious reasoning of zealous partisans.
Bonner and Gardiner, Cotes and Scott, have made popery the dread
and abhorrence of our free, great, and generous nation. Few Eng
Ushmen read the elaborate apologies of the Reformation written hy
Cranmer, Jewell, and Barrow, but all abhor the persecuting bishops
who in support of a foreign supremacy burnt their countrymen. The
unreasoning abhorrence of Romish ritual and of its EngUsh counter
feit, by which great numbers of ouf people, and of our best people too,
are distinguished, may be attributed to the old tales and stories of
the dreadful days of ' bloody Mary.' To the EngUsh mind history
speaks louder than logic. Jewell may be answered, but Fox cannot
be sUenced. How far Mary herself ought to be blamed or excused
for the cruelties which dishonoured her unfortunate reign, may
admit of considerable diversity of opinion among fair and candid
historians. Nursed in intense hatred of the reformed doctrine, irri
tated with a torturing sense of the grievous "wrongs which her mother
had suffered from the leaders of the Reformation, unable to appreciate,

RESTORATION OF POPERY. 51
or even understand, the state poUcy which in the opinion of many
¦wise men justified, or at least excused, her father's arbitrary proceed
ings, she naturaUy, insensibly, perhaps unavoidably, became the
devoted and uncompromising adherent of the papal cause. WhUe
subsequent events confirmed her early prejudices, no attempts were
made to concUiate or soothe her troubled spirit. Narrow, gloomy,
severe, vindictive, and religious, she felt, while gratifying her resent
ments, the satisfaction of doing God service, and while serving God
the pleasure of avenging her own injuries. Ha"ying passed her
younger years in an unfavourable relation to the people whom she
was destined to rule, she was unprepared to manage by any moderate
poUcy the parties from whom she had suffered so much humiliation
and wrong. NaturaUy morose, and in her unfortunate circumstances
necessarUy suspicious, she must have been rendered by Ul health less
able to control or conceal her "vindictive feeUngs. Her anomalous
relation to her father, her confidence betrayed until she could confide
in no man nor woman either, her chUdless marriage, the chUling
indifferesnce of her husband, the dishonour of her arms, the loss of
the last of England's territory on the continent, may reasonably sug
gest some extenuation ofthe evU passions and propensities which they
stimulated and strengthened. The Spanish haughtiness of her mother
became in her, under bad training and Ul-treatment, a cold, sullen,
repulsive, obstinate moroseness, amounting almost to misanthropy.
Of her father's bad quaUties she inherited a large proportion ; of his
good quaUties she had only one, his patriotism, which made her feel
so keenly the losses and dishonour of her country. As evil in the
end has always worked out good, so her reign has done much for
England in producing its indestructible aversion to papal supremacy ;
but for the time it was dishonourable in every aspect, despicable to
foreigners, and disastrous to her subjects. We pity her misfortunes,
but we haU the return to the throne of her father's great qualities
¦without his worst faults in the person of her sister, whose long and
glorious reign now opens before us. Not insensible of EUzabeth's
severity to the Puritans, we yet rejoice in her reign with something
Uke the indomitable loyalty of the Puritan lawyer, who was sentenced
to have his right hand cut off for writing against her contemplated
marriage ¦with the Duke of Anjou, and who, as soon as his hand was
severed from the arm, just as he was fainting, took off his hat with
his left hand and cried, ' God save the Queen.' The Puritans loved
her even while she oppressed them. Their traditional love appeared
in their descendants, and was often expressed by them with great
fervour, as in the words of their parliamentary leader, Pym : ' Blasted
may that tongue be that in the smaUest degree shall derogate from
the glory of those halcyon days which our fathers enjoyed during
the government of that ever-blessed, never-to-be-forgotten, royal
Ehzabeth.'* The half-sisters were in soul, as in person, very unUke. Mary,
the chUd of her mother, derived her disposition and character from
Catharine of Arragon ; EUzabeth, the daughter of her father, from
¦* Speech on the arrest of Sir Robert Berkeley.

52 LANCASHIRE.
Harry Tudor. Mary, half Spanish by birth, was more than half so
in spirit ; and where she differed from a Spaniard she seems to have
degenerated, as if the pride of Arragon had suffered dishonour by its
connection with EngUsh narrowness and self-esteem. EUzabeth was
as thoroughly English as the blood of a British Tudor, an Anjou
Plantagenet, and a Norman Boleyn could make her, a fit representa
tive of the mingled race of English people. Both loved England ;
Mary as lia"ying nothing else to love, for indeed she had Uttle reason
to love any country or any person other than the pope ; Elizabeth as
haying every reason to love it with a generosity, devotedness, and
pride appropriate to the greatest and best country in the world. I
have said Mary had one of her father's good qualities, his patriotism ;
I fear EUzabeth had one of his worst, his "yindictiveness, though she
had not the opportunity, as he had, for its unUmited indulgence.
Elizabeth, notwithstanding some doubtful expressions of recent
Nonconformist -writers, was as true a Protestant as her sister was a
Papist. She had good reason to fear popery, and she certainly hated
it. It is true that she loved ceremony ; not because it was popish,
but because it gratified her taste for magnificence and show. It is
also true that at the commencement of her reign she endeavoured to
conciUate the Catholics by some few concessions which might render
the public services of the Church more agreeable to them ; but she
did so to sfrengthen, not to injure, the Protestant establishment. In
hesitating to assume her father's title of Supreme Head of the Church,
her hesitation was rather the result of Puritan ad"yice than of Catholic
feeling.* The Papists of her reign had no faith in her Cathohc
professions. The numerous conspiracies of the EngUsh Catholics
showed that they expected no advantage from her government. The
fnlminations of the pope, the preparations, of the Spanish Armada,
proclaimed what foreign CathoUcs thought of her faith. From her
own hand no testimony could have been more expressive of her true,
loving, devoted adherence to the reformed doctrine, than her beauti
ful letter to her beloved friend Henry IV., on the sad occasion of his
a,postasy from the Protestant faith of his family ; or from her o"wn
Ups than the words spoken to the French ambassador, when, "with
perhaps too much of theatrical effect, after the massacre of St. Bar
tholomew's Day, she received him dressed in deep mourning and
surrounded with funereal emblems. As to her severity to the Pmitans,
who honoured and loved her, it is fair to remember that she could
scold bishops as weU as punish Puritans, and rebuke deans for intro
ducing unauthorised ceremonial as weU as sUence lecturers for refusing
what was authorised. With her accession to the throne commenced
the great struggle ofthe Puritans for the further reformation ofthe
EngUsh Church, which I shaU endeavour to describe, in so far as it
concerned the religious Ufe of the Lancashire people, in the succeeding
chapters. * At the time her scruple was attributed to the suggestion of Thomas Lever,
the Lancashire Puritan.

CHAPTE.E IV.
THE PROTESTANT ESTABLISHMENT.
Elizabeth, on her accession to the throne, proceeded very cautiously,
yet resolutely, to restore the Reformation in its great principles, if
not in all its details, to the place in which her brother's ministers
had left it. If she moved slowly, her firm and dignified step pre
served her from the necessity, and even the appearance, of a single
retrogressive movement. What she did was done, and in doing it
she seemed to say, it can never be undone. To the grief of many
Protestants, the mass was said at her coronation, but in a manner
which promised that never after in England would the mass be a
precursor of a royal ceremonial. "When she kissed the pyx she seemed
to give it her parting kiss ; as intimating the approach of a great
change, she commanded the Gospel of the day to be read in Enghsh
as well as in Latin.* By her proclamation she ordered that the daily
lessons, the ten commandments, the Litany, the Lord's Prayer, and
the Creed should be read in the churches, until parliament should
determine the religious services of the people. By her own. strong
hand she expeUed popery from the churches, and convened parUament
to inaugurate protestantism, as it might prefer to copy more or less
of the model of Augsburg or of Geneva.
On the meeting of parhament, all the powers and prerogatives of
the supremacy of the Church, as weU in spirituals as in temporals,
were conferred upon Elizabeth. The Act conferring them was passed
in direct opposition to the vote and protest of the Church, in so far
as the Church was represented by its bishops, for every bishop in the
House of Lords voted against i"t. On its passing, fourteen "bishops,
all who at that time occupied seats in parUament, entered their protest
against it, while only one temporal lord adhered to them. Soon
afterwards an Act of Uniformity was passed in opposition to the
protest of the bishops, all of whom excepting two were deprived of
their dignities for refusing to take the oath of supremacy. One of
the two was a Stanley, who, true to his family motto. Sans changer,
was "wilUng to sign or swear anything rather than change his place
as Bishop of Man and the Isles.
This Act of Uniformity was passed in opposition to the proposal
of convocation, as well as to the protest of the prelates in parUament.
In the second Reformation the Church was as helpless as in the first,
although, instead of bending under the strong hand of the monarch,
it had to submit to the determinate "will of the parliament. The
convocation of Canterbury proposed to submit to parliament certain
articles of religion which were in harmony with the creed of the
* Nichol's Prog, of Eliz., vol, 1. p. 62.

54 LANCASHIRE.
Catholic Church, but happUy parUament was wiser and stronger than
convocation, and in its manner of reforming the Church extinguished
the power of the clergy. A second time the Church of England was
reformed ahd fashioned in opposition to the spiritual authority by
the arbitrary will of the temporal power. Indeed, with regard to
the supremacy, the Church was (if that were possible) in a more
abject condition under Elizabeth than it had been under Henry. By
good management and evil threatening, Henry extorted from convo
cation the acknowledgment of his supremacy ; EUzabeth never cared
to obtain the acknowledgment of the Church in any other form than
that of unreserved practical submission.*
It is true that after the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity had
become the law of the land, and fifty-three ' injunctions ' had been
enforced on the sole authority of the queen, convocation was convened
to consult and advise upon ' matters as yet undetermined ' in reference
to the discipline and ser^vices of the Church. Bnt this convocation
was speciaUy convened by Elizabeth, and acted under her authority.
Its decisions had no validity untU they were accepted and approved
by the queen and her parliament. Indeed, a commission, consisting
chiefly of laymen, appointed by the queen, and authorised to ¦visit aU
the churches of the realm, to enforce the pro"yisions of the Act of
Uniformity, to suspend disorderly and disobedient clergymen, and,
in short, to do what was expedient in restoring the reformed services
of the Church, had far more authority and power in spiritual things
than the bishops and clergy in both their convocations.
In prospect of the great conflict of parties which was threatening,
and which might rend the reformed Church in pieces, the selection
of the new bishops, and especially of the Archbishop of Canterbury,
required the greatest impartiality, "wisdom, and care. The mefro-
politan of all England who should be able to guide the Church in
that emergency must be wise, moderate, conciliatory, firm, learned,
laborious, respected by all parties, belonging to neither extreme,
skilful in the management of men, able to speak easUy and to write
weU, a true Protestant who would honestly promote the Reformation,
and yet not an extreme one, for the country was not prepared for a
puritanic Church. Upon the whole (whatever some of my non
conforming friends may object) the selection of Matthew I'arker
for his -rery responsible office justified the reputation of Secre
tary CecU and Sir Nicholas Bacon for great wisdom in conduct
ing the difiacult work of peaceably restoring the reformed Church.
They had before them a choice of difficulties, arising chiefiy from
the threatening colhsion of parties. No man seemed more free than
Parker from the suspicions or partiaUties of either extreme. To
the queen his selection must have been agreeable, as he had been in
adversity as weU as in prosperity the faithful friend and favourite
chaplain of her mother. A true Protestant in maintaining that the
queen, not the pope, was the head of the Church, he did good service
* The only distinction between the two Acts of Supremacy is, that by the first
Henry is declared 'Supreme Head' of the Church, by the second EUzabeth is
declared Supreme Governess ' ; truly a distinction without a difference.

THE PROTESTANT ESTABLISHMENT. 55
by firmly asserting, in opposition to the fancy of the haughty queen,
the right of the clergy to marry. Blessed with a good wife, he was
not ashamed of her even in the presence of her Majesty ; and by the
respect and deference which he invariably paid to her he did much,
in an age when the marriage of the clergy was scarcely respectable,
to raise the social position of the "wives of clergymen.
Of those who were, in different degrees, more favourable to the
Puritans than Parker, the names of JeweU, Grindal, Nowell, Sandys,
Lever, and PUkington might be considered as, by their abUities,
education, influence, and position, the most eUgible for the highest
office of the Church, in the critical time of the second Reformation.
Yet grave objections might be alleged against every one of them,
while it is very doubtful whether any one would have done the difficult
work which Parker had to do as wisely and as successfully as he did
it. Jewell would probably have been the most eUgible of them aU,
had he not in a moment of weakness and fear recanted his faith,
although he soon repented with many tears of his recantation. UntU
he had made full proof of the sincerity of his repentance, his sad faUure
would have prevented him from appearing with advantage in the
foremost place of the reformers.
Grindal, good man as he was, was too timid and gentle for the
emergency, and, as appeared when in more settled times he succeeded
to the primacy, he was destitute ofthe faculty of managing impracti
cable men, of conciUating the queen, of avaiUng himself of opportu
nities to accompUsh good purposes, or of inducing men of influence
to co-operate with him in his difficult work. In short, he was not
what is now called a man of business. The other four were Lancashire
men, and as they were more or less puritanical in their dispositions,
were actively engaged in forming and completing the Reformation
under Elizabeth, and were especiaUy concerned in promoting its
advance in their native county, they may be allowed to occupy a
prominent place in this part of our narrative.
Edwin Sandys had acquired great reputation for learning and
abUity in the University of Cambridge, and had during his exUe
gained the respect and confidence of his feUow-sufferers, and of many
eminent foreign di"yines ; but he had been a zealous advocate of the
cause of Lady Jane Grey, and as Vice- ChanceUor of the University
had preached at her proclamation a sermon in support of her right
to the crown. As the title of Lady Jane was as much opposed to
that of Elizabeth as it was to that of Mary, it would scarcely
have been respectful to the queen to have proposed to confer upon
bim the highest ecclesiastical office at her disposal. She showed
her magnanimity by elevating him to the see of Worcester, and
eventually to that of York.
Of aU the men of the time Alexandee Nowell was, by his repu
tation, his learning, his industry, his moderation, his habits of business,
the abUity with which he had filled high office in the reign of Edward,
and the sacrifices he had made for the reformed doctrine, the ruost
admirably quaUfied to direct in the emergency the ecclesiastical
affairs of the country. WhUe he had no puritanical scruple about

56 LANCASHIRE.
conforming to the ceremonies, he would gladly have surrendered any
ceremonial, as of smaU importance, for the sake of conciUating the
Puritans, and bringing aU true Protestants into harmonious action
¦within the estabUshed Church. But to his promotion there was a
fatal objection. For some reason or other the queen disliked him.
On one occasion he "was proposed as provost of Eton, but the queen
refused to have hi-m placed so near her ; on another, Parker was com
pelled to erase his name from the list of clergymen selected to preach
before her Majesty ; on another, she gave ' Mr. Dean ' a terrible scold
ing, because he had placed a prayer book -with pictorial Ulustrations
before her in St. Paul's, which Ulustrations she denounced as popish
and idolatrous.*
Thomas Levee, not"vrithstanding his extreme puritanism, was the
favourite preacher of Queen Elizabeth. According to Sandys, it was
under his influence that the queen hesitated to assume the title of
Supreme Head of the Church. FuUer says, ' The highest preferment
of the Church was open to him ; ' that is, I suppose, if he had been
wilUng to compromise or modify his puritanism. In the reign of
Edward he had acquired great influence and reputation as the Master
of St. John's College. WeU qualified as he was in many respects for
the office, to have placed him in so prominent a position would have
been, by the opposition it would have excited, to have endangered the
objects most dear to the good man's heart.
James Pilkington, though an able and excellent man, had not at
that time acquired the reputation which would have prepared him tq
occupy the highest position in the Church. He had many powerftd
friends, but, unless he was of a very sanguine temperament, his
* The story is told sometimes of Dean Sampson, sometimes of Dean Nowell,
Speed, in his Chronicles, says it was Sampson. It must have been Nowell. The
prayer book, Ulustrated -with pictures of saints and angels, was provided for the
queen in St. Paul's. NoweU was Dean of St. Paul's, Sampson of Christ Church.
The queen enquired of the dean by whose authority the book was placed there.
Nowell, not Sampson, was accountable. Sampson, that stern, extreme Puritan,
would have been the last man in England to have placed pictures before the queen
in the time of divine service. The queen angrily shut the book, aud told the
verger to bring her a plain book. After the service she walked to the vestry and
demanded of the dean (surely the Dean of St. Paul's), ' How came it to pass that a
new prayer book was placed upon my cushion?' 'May it please your Majesty, I
caused it to be placed there.' ' Wherefore did you so ? ' 'To present your Majesty
with a New Year's gift.' ' You could never present me with a worse. You know
I ha-ve an aversion to idolatry. The cuts resemble angels, saints, nay, grosser ab.
surdities, pictures of the blessed Trinity.' ' I meant no harm, nor did I think to
offend your Majesty.' ' You must needs be ignorant, then. Have you read our
proclamation against images, pictures, and Romish relics in the churches? Was it

_ „ „  L your opinion. ' Be your
Majesty assured it was my ignorance.' ' If so, Mr. Dean, God grant you His Spirit,
and more wisdom for the future. Pray let no more of these mistakes be committed
in the churches of our realm.' On another occasion the worthy dean, perhaps con
fiding in the queen's puritanic aversion to popish pictures, in preaching befdre her
Majesty expressed his dislUse to the sign of the cross. The queen confounded him
by calling loudly from her closet window to him, ' to retire from that ungodly
digression and return to his text.'

THE PROTESTANT ESTABLISHMENT. 57
expectations must have been satisfied with obtaining the palatinate
bishopric of Durham.
These four Lancashire men, who had suffered exUe for the reformed
faith, and who acted so considerable a part in the restoration of the
reformed Church, belonged to four of the best famiUes of their native
county. Three of them, Sandys, Lever, and Pilkington, were in the
later years of King Henry fellow-collegians at St. John's, Cambridge,
at that time a sfronghold of the reformed doctrine, and a favourite
resort of Lancashire men. Nowell was of Brasenose College, Oxford.
Edwin Sandys was the third son of William Sandys, the inheritor
of the estate of the ancient family of Sandys, Saudis, or Sands, of
Hawkshead in Furness. He is said to have received his early edu
cation in the school of Furness Abbey. If he did, he was an
ungrateful scholar, for there never Uved a fiercer enemy to monks
and monasteries.
James Pilkington belonged to a family which, according to FuUer,
was ' of repute in this shire before the Conquest.' One of its branches
was planted on the lands of Rivington, in the parish of Bolton- le-
Moors, where James, third son of Richard Pilkington, was born. He
received his early education where so many Puritans were trained, in
the grammar school of Farnworth. In the same parish was Lever
HaU, the home of the ancient family of Lever. As Thomas, the
second son of John Lever, was about the same age as James Pilkington,
there can be little doubt that the two Puritan boys, so intimately
associated in subsequent years of study, labour, and exile, attended
the same school, were taught by the same master, and whipped -with
the same birch.
The three youths rose to great eminence in the university. Sandys
was distinguished for his attainments in Hebrew as weU as in di-yinity
and ecclesiastical Uterature. Being appointed Master of Katharine
Hall, he did a bold deed, as it then appeared : in defiance of public
opinion, he feU in love with a lady of his own name, and was one of
the first of the coUege dons who solaced himself with the comforts
or troubled himself with the cares of matrimony. Pilkington, by his
zeal in promoting the re-yival of Greek Uterature, gained so great a
reputation that he secured for himself the Mastership of St. John's
immediately on his retmrn from exUe. Lever, although the youngest
of the three, surpassed the other two in the prosecution of his studies,
if we may form an estimate from the preferments he speedily obtained.
He was early a FeUow, and soon afterwards the Master of St. John's.
The three were great preachers. Sandys preached eloquently ; PU
kington learnedly; Lever with wonderful power. Bishop Ridley,
describing the four great preachers of the Reformation, Latimer,
Knox, Bradford, and Lever, says : ' They ripped so deeply in the
galled backs of the great men at court to purge them of the filthy
matter festering in their hearts, that they could never abide them.'
This ' deep ripping into gaUed backs ' was characteristic of the four
preachers, but each of them had his own manner of ' ripping.' Latimer
' ripped ' as ¦with a sharp knife which cut clean, but caused much pain ;

58 LANCASHIRE.
Knox as "with a cleaver which sorely hacked his patient ; Bradford as
with a lancet used adroitly and gently, but very effectually ; Lever
could ' rip ' "with knife, cleaver, or lancet, as the occasion required,
¦with equal dexterity and power. He had the skill and the good sense
to make his sermons appropriate to his audience, whether it consisted
of the scholars of Cambridge, the nobles of the court, the merchants
of London, or the websters of Bolton.
On the death of King Edward, Lever was Master of St. John's,
Pilkington one of its Fellows, and Sandys Master of Katharine HaU
and Vice- ChanceUor. They were aU partisans of Lady Jane Grey,
and Sandys, -with his usual impetuosity, preached before the univer
sity a sermon in honour of her proclamation, from the text, 'Be
strong and of good courage.' How far Lever and Pilkington were
concerned in this bold assertion of the cause of Lady Jane does not
appear. AU that we know is that Lever engaged to take the manu
script of the sermon to London and superintend the printing of it.
Before he left home, Sandys received a message from the Duke of
Northumberland informing him that their cause had faded, and
advising him to make peace with Mary by immediately proclaiming
her Queen of England. The courage of Sandys never faded him.
He replied that his life was not dear ta him, that he had done what
his conscience dictated, and that he would not recant it. A few days
after, when a congregation was convened without consulting him, to
proclaim Queen Mary, on hearing the bell and discovering the reason
of the congregation, he boldly went to the meeting, took the chair as
Vice- Chancellor, and justified his sermon in an eloquent oration. An
attempt was made to force him from the chafr, when he drew a
dagger from his robes, and would have stabbed any who approached
him, had not his friends interfered. That evening he settled his
accounts "with the university, and calmly awaited the events of the
succeeding day. The next moming he was apprehended. Removed
to London, he was committed to the Tower, where to his great com
fort he soon afterwards had for his feUow-prisoner his Lancashire
friend, John Bradford. For twenty-nine weeks the two friends were
confined in one room, and enjoyed Christian communion together.
Their keeper readUy Ustened to their instructions, joined in their
prayers, and was to them as ' a son begotten in their bonds.' On the
Lord's day, when others were at mass, the jailor ' would bring them
a service book, a manchet of bread, and a cup of wine,' and so holy
Bradford, bold Sandys, and the converted jaUor solemnised the
sacrament after the manner of the Protestant Church. «
On the removal of Sandys to the Marshalsea, Sir Thomas Holcrofl,
the Knight Marshal, a Lancashire man, resolved to devise some
nieans of sa^ving his countryman. He obtained permission to release
his prisoner upon obtaining two sureties to be heavily bound for his
appearance when required. But Sandys, courageous as ever, would
not accept his Uberty at the risk of inflicting injury upon others. He
was able, he said, to bear his own burden. Sir Thomas eventuaUy,
at great risk to himself, aUowed Sandys to make his escape. Gar
diner, on hearing of it, spared no trouble nor expense to procure his

THE PROTESTANT ESTABLISHMENT. 59
apprehension ; but he eluded pursuit, found a vessel in the Thames
¦with several Protestants concealed in it, saUed with them, and settled
in Strasbourg. Having there lost his beloved wife, he removed to
Zurich, where he remained until he heard of the death of Queen
Mary. His friends. Lever and Pilkington, deprived of their preferments
at St. John's, soon followed hirn to the continent, and became attached
to the discipline and services of the Swiss Calvinists : Lever so much
so as to regard the ceremonial established under Elizabeth as utterly
unlawful ; PUkington, while not accepting the extreme view of his
friend, desiring by aU means in his power short of separation to
promote the further reformation of the EngUsh Church.
These friends in exUe soon met with another Lancashire man, of
the other university, but of kindred spirit, of simUar opinions, of equal
learning, of their own rank, and a sufferer for the same cause.
Alexander NoweU was the second son of John, of the ancient
femily of NoweU of Read, in the parish of WhaUey. His mother
was a Kay of Rochdale, and his famUy connections were with the
Townleys, the Heskeths, the Hopwoods, and many other of the best
famihes of Mid-Lancashire. Haying received his early education in
the newly-founded grammar school of Middleton, he was admitted at
the age of thirteen to Brasenose College, where he was ' the chamber-
feUow ' of Fox, the martyrologist. Having gained considerable re
putation in his collegiate course, he was appointed second master of
Westminster School. Distinguished by his zealous adherence to the
doctrines of the Reformation, he was elected in the first parhament
of Mary the representative of the burgesses of West Looe in CornwaU.
With what intent he assumed a trust which at that time was usually
restricted to laymen, I do not know, but his election was pronounced
invaUd on the ground that as a prebendary of Westminster he had a
voice in the convocation. Hearing soon afterwards that Bishop
Bonner intended to apprehend him, he fled to the continent, and
found a refuge in Strasbourg, where he was always ready to mediate
in the troubles between the contending parties, and to concede his
0"WTi opinion to either side for the sake of preserving unity and
peace. These four Lancashire exiles having returned to England on the
accession of Elizabeth were promoted, NoweU to be Dean of St.
Paul's, Sandys to be Bishop of Worcester, Lever Archdeacon of
Coventry, and Pilkington Master of St. John's, Cambridge, and soon
afterwards Bishop of Durham.
In January, 1562, was convened that celebrated convocation, to
which , according to the provisions of the Act of Uniformity, was en
trusted the preparation of articles of faith and offices of religion,
which, however, were to have no authority untU approved by the
queen and legalised by parUament. So far from assuming any
authority, the convocation in humiliating language ' humbly offered
their suppliant Uttle book containing their petitions.'*
* ' Supplicem libellum petitiones suas continentem humUiter offerunt.

60 LANCASHIRE.
With considerable formality and state the convocation met in St.
Paul's Cathedral. Among its members were Nowell, Sandys, and
Lever, representing three different classes of Puritans, or rather of
persons puritanically incUned.-* NoweU had no personal objection to
the ceremonies, but wished to conciliate the Puritans by dispensing
¦with many of them; Sandys had very strong objections to the cere
monies, but wished to conciliate nobody, and therefore strove to
reject them, although he would rigorously enforce them until they
were legally aboUshed; Lever regarded the ceremonies as utterly
unchristian, and would on no account conform if they were legally
established. The Articles, without the disputed clause that the Church has
power to decree rites and ceremonies, were approved by aU parties,
and signed by aU the members who were present at the meeting.
There is no truth in the common statement that they were the result
of a compromise, for there was no doctrinal difference whatever
among the members of the convocation. The Articles were Calvin
istic, because all the reformers were Calvinists, and none more so
than the highest Churchmen of the time. What articles were ever
knovyn more doctrinally Calvinistic than those of Whitgift ? But
what bishop of his time was a more determined persecutor of the
Puritans ?
The moderation of the assembly appeared in the selection of Nowell
for its prolocutor. But when the Uturgy and offices of the Church
were brought under consideration, the great difference of opinion
between the two parties soon appeared, as it also soon appeared that
in numbers they were nearly equal. Early in the discussion, Sandys
introduced a proposal that ' the cross in baptism shaU be disaUowed
as needless and superstitious.' In the lower house a paper was read,
signed with thirty-three names, of which Alexander NoweU's was
the first, recommending that organs be laid aside, that ministers be
aUowed to baptise without the sign of the cross, that kneeling at the
communion be left indifferent, that the copes and surpUoes be taken
away, and that saints' days be abrogated.
The difference between Sandys and NoweU is very apparent.
Sandys would prohibit the use of the cross in baptism, but until that
was done he would rigorously enforce the observance ; Nowell would
leave the use of it indifferent. Sandys would have a puritan uni
formity if possible, but uniformity at aU events, enforced by authority.
NoweU, personaUy less of a Puritan, would allow Uberty to Puritans
in things indifferent as well as to their opponents. EventuaUy, a
paper was introduced, evidently intended to unite the two classes of
Puritans. It proposed that ' in baptism the cross may be omitted as
tending to superstition ; ' that as some communicants ' kneel super-
stitiously, the order of kneeling may be left to the discretion of the
ordinary ; ' and that organs be removed from the churches. This
* A fourth Lancashire man was a member of the convocation, Lawrence
Nowell, a younger brother of Alexander, who, having been the companion of hia
brother in exUe, then assisted him in his endeaavours to reform the AngUoan
Church.

THE PROTESTANT ESTABLISHMENT. 61
paper was accepted as containing the proposals on which the vote of
the convocation should be taken, and the character of the Church of
England, so far as its puritanism was concerned, be determined.
After long and very warm debate, the propositions were carried by a
majority of forty-three to thirty-five, to the great deUght of the
Puritans, who were about to express their exultation, when proxies
were demanded, and could not be refused. WhUe they were being
coUected, intense interest was felt in the result. After careful scru
tiny, it was announced that fifty-eight votes were for the propositions,
and fifty-nine against them. By a majority of one, including many
who had not heard the arguments on either side, the services of the
EngUsh Church were determined in opposition to the Puritans, and
settled very much as they have been preserved to our time.
In the long interval which elapsed between the meeting of the
convocation and the legalising of its decision by parUament, the
puritan clergy, probably encouraged by this close division, continued
their ministrations with little regard to the uniformity enjoined by
the queen and her bishops. How Uttle uniformity was produced by
the queen's injunctions appears in a paper found among the manu
scripts of CecU, according to which, ' some perform divine service in
the chancel, some in the body of the church, some in a seat made in
the church, some in the pulpit -with their faces to the people. Some
say with a surplice, and others without one. In some places the
table stands in the body of the church, in others it stands in the
chancel ; in some places the table stands altarwise, distant from the
wall a yard, in others in the middle of the chancel, north and south ;
in some places the table is joined, in others it stands upon tressels ; in
some has a carpet, in others none. Some administer the communion
with surpUce and cope; others with surpUce alone; others with
none. Some with a chaUce ; others with a communion cup ; others
with a common cup : some -with unleavened bread; some with leavened.
Some receive kneeUng, others standing, others sitting. Some sign
with a cross, others sign not. Some minister "with a surplice, others
¦without ; some with a square cap ; some with a round cap ; some a
buttoned cap ; some with a hat ; some in scholars' clothes ; some in
others.' Amidst this strange diversity of usage, offensive to the
queen and to several of her bishops, let us turn to Lancashire, and
observe the state of religion in that county.
Lancashire was regarded throughout the reign of EUzabeth as the
most Catholic county of England. The majority of the gentry and
freeholders, as well as of the peasantry, continued stedfast in their
adherence to the reUgion of their fathers. On the other hand, in the
manufacturing and commercial to^wns of the hundreds of Salford and
Blackburn, a strong protestantism, amounting to puritanism, pre
vaUed and expressed itself in a fierce opposition to popish priests and
practices. The AngUcan party — that is, the party content with the
Reformation just as the queen and parUament made it — was com
paratively smaU, and not very pleasantly situated between earnest
puritanism on one side, and bigoted popery on the other.
Edward, the old Bari of Derby, king of the Isle of Man, was, on

62 LANCASHIRE.
the accession of EUzabeth, hvmg in much of the style and grandeur
of roya% in Ms mansion of Lathom. StUl adhering with remark
able consistency to the reUgion of good luck, the persecutor of George
Marsh became a commissioner for the suppression of popery m his
own county. Scott, the ' ferocious ' bishop of Chester, on his refusal
to take the oath of supremacy was deprived of his office, and compeUed
to leave the countiry. Residmg in the college of Louvam, he found
employment for his restless spirit through the remamder of his hfe,
by secretly corresponding with the Lancashire Papists, and promoting
conspiracies against the government and Ufe of the queen. His suc
cessor. Dr. WUliam Downham, seems to have been grossly neghgent
of his duties, and although he censured and even suspended noncon
forming ministers if they feU in his way, he took little trouble to
secure uniformity in his diocese. Concealed Papists and avowed
Puritans pursued their several courses without much regard to the
episcopal mandates. Bishop PiUrington, on visiting his native county,
addressed a letter to Archbishop Parker, complaining of the popery,
immorality, and scandalous ignorance of the Lancashire clergy. The
great parishes of which the Archbishop was the patron and rector,
Rochdale, Blackburn, and WhaUey, were represented as ha-roig about
the worst incumbents in the county. Within these three parishes
were the chapelries of Padiham, CUtheroe, Colne, Burnley, Church,
Altham, HasUngden, Bowland, Penhall, Rossendale, Low Walton,
Samlesbury, Butterworth, and some others, the incumbents of which
were represented as miserably poor, lamentably incompetent, sadly
ignorant, and in several instances scandalously immoral.
The "vicars of these great parishes on the accession of Ehzabeth
were John Hampson of Rochdale, James Hargreaves of Blackburn,
and George Dobson of "Whalley.
Hampson, the Vicar of Rochdale, was, when concealment was
useful to him, a concealed Papist, when it was not, an avowed Papist.
"When his negligent bishop was compeUed by the command of the
queen to make some enquiries about the clergy of his diocese, the
wary vicar thought his best course was to become non-resident.
Instiead, therefore, of answering any unpleasant questions about him
self, he deposed that, unable to do his own duties, he ' found a suffi
cient preste to serve.' What he paid his ' sufficient preste ' does not
appear ; but on another occasion he deposed that ' the preste of his
chapel at- Saddleworth was payde three pounds every half year,' and
' the preste of the chapel at Butterworth was payde his wage by the
parishioners.' In those times many of the clergy in the chapelries
Uved (I fear yery poorly) upon the voluntary principle. The poverty
of the chapel incumbents in the great parish of Rochdale was the
more discreditable, as according to the vicar there were five thousand
' houseUng people ' (communicants) in the church and its dependent
chapels.* The Papist was compeUed to resign his benefice in favour
of "the celebrated Richard Midgley, who continued for forty-eight
* These curious depositions of the ¦vicar, made in a suit between the Archbishop
of Canterbury and Sir John Bird, may be seen in Whitaker's History of Whalley,
p. 442.

THE PROTESTANT ESTABLISHMENT. 63
years the laborious, beloved, and thoroughly Puritan vicar of
Rochdale. Hargreaves, who had been instituted vicar of Blackburn in 1555,
was deprived for ' papistry ' in the third year of EUzabeth. His suc
cessor, John Hylton, was the inciim"bent of whom PUkington
complained in his letter to the archbishop. In 1580 he was induced
to resign on account of his ignorance, negUgence, and utter incompe
tence. George Dobson, the ' ill vicar ' of "Whalley, was a man of low habits,
bad morals, gross ignorance, unable to read inteUigently, and utterly
incompetent to discharge any of the duties of his office. As, how
ever, he was not a Papist, nor anything else contrary to the Act of
Uniformity, he contrived to keep his place and neglect his duties untU
his death in 1663.
The incumbents of the numerous chapehies in these large parishes
were generally such as might have been expected to serve under such
vicars. AU we know of them is from general complaint of their
ignorance, drunkenness, Ucentiousness, and ' papistry.'
La referring, however, to the chapelries of these three parishes, I do
not mean to intimate that their incumbents were worse conducted
or worse paid than the chapel ministers of the other parishes of the
county. Besides the Warden of Manchester, there were three clergy
men in Lancashire who had larger incomes than the archbishop's
vicars : the parson of Wigan, the rector of Winwick, and the rector
of Middleton. In their parishes the chapelries were as badly served,
and the chapel curates as badly paid, as they were in "Whalley or
Rochdale. We might expect to find that under the richly-endowed
collegiate clergy of Manchester the chapel incumbents would be
decently sustained ; but when, in 1581, the curate of Blackley, in the
parish of Manchester, was prosecuted for teaching ¦without a Ucence,
the poor feUow pleaded in his defence that he could not afford to pay
for 'one, as he served the cure for 21. 3s. 4d. a year.* In the same
year the curate of Stretford, in Manchester, was presented for keeping
an ale house, and was prohibited from keeping ' any ale or other
¦yictials to sell in his house.' A few years later the lector of Chorlton-
cum-Hardy, in Manchester, was prosecuted for lending money on
usui'y, and sentenced to pay two shiUings to the 'poor man's box.'t
The situation of the clergy seems to have become worse after the
Reformation, partly because they lost some of the fees usuaUy paid to
CathoUc priests for reUgious services, and partly because some of them
had to support their wives. Although for some time after the Reform
ation, ' priests' women ' in Lancashire were scarcely thought respect
able, yet, ha"7ing been legaUy married, they claimed some sort of
support from their poor husbands. The condition of the clergy was
greatly improved under the Commonwealth. Many clergymen who
say hard things of the Puritans would have better stipends, parson-
* History of the Ancient Chapel of BlacMey, p. 94. By the Rev. John Booker,
B.A. t He seems to have been a sort of pawnbroker. — History of the Ancient Chapel
of Chorlton, p. 302.

64 LANCASHIRE.
ages, and glebes, if the Puritans had been more powerful in the times
of Elizabeth and the Stuarts.
La-wrence Vaux, the CathoUc Warden of Manchester, having
refused to take the oath of supremacy on the accession of EUzabeth,
was deprived of his office, and succeeded by William Birch, a mem
ber of the Puritan family of Birch in Rusholme. He was a good man,
though not strong enough for his place. The coUege, as Birch ex
pected, as Parker intended, and as the queen promised, was to become
a weU-endowed foundation for the support of Protestant preachers,
who were to be engaged as itinerants or curates in ' expeUing the
popish darkness.' But Birch was sadly disappointed. The revenues
of the college, though partly aUenated to the Stanleys, were yet con
siderable enough to tempt the rapacity of the queen's fevourites. Like
a true Puritan, Birch resisted the spoUation, and when he found that
the spoUers under favour of the queen had more power than he could
overcome, he resigned his office, in the hope that some stronger arm
than his own would protect the collegiate estates from the sacrUegious
attempts of the courtiers. The courtiers, however, were "wise enough
to provide a successor who would be more careful of his own interests
and of theirs. The queen appointed Thomas Herle, who enriched
himself by granting long leases and alienating a part of the estates in
favour of the Earl of Derby, Sir Edmund Trafford,* and other zealous
reformers. Had not Dean Nowell interfered and secured the good
offices of Lord Burleigh, aU the college property would probably have
faUen into the hands of the Stanleys, the Traffords, the KiUigrews,
and other zealous friends of the Reformation. The scandal of these
spoliations became so intolerable that the queen was compelled to
disavow all knowledge of them, and to procure the resignation of tbe
warden upon a small pension. The coUege was established upon a
new foundation. John Walton, the new warden, had been an exUe
for the Protestant cause, as had two of the new fellows, John Mallyns
and Alexander Nowell. OUver Carter, the third fellow, was a good,
painful Puritan ; and the fourth, Thomas WUliamson, was worthy of
his associates.f
In many parts of the county, especially in the rural disfricts, the
Protestant cause seemed rather declining than advancing. Some of
the churches were closed, or opened only on occasion of some travel
hng preacher "visiting the neighbourhood. Many of the clergy cele
brated mass privately, and performed the pubUc services negligently
or with Ul-concealed dislike. Sir Ralph Parkinson, as the priest of
Shakerley was called, could say mass to the popish squire, and ad
minister the communion to the Protestants of the yUlage. Squire
Leland would go to church to escape the fines for recusancy, but
whUe there would amuse himself with his favourite spaniel, whose
collar was continually tinkling during the service. His neighbour.
Squire Barton of SmetheUs, would please himself with the music of
* The Traffords were sound Protestants in the reign of EUzabeth. We may
have hereafter to notice their relapse into the old faith of their fathers.
+ Walton was the nephew of NoweU, and Mallyns his intimate friend and
companion in e^le .—History of the OoUegiate Church of Manchester, voL 1, ch. xi.

THE PROTESTANT ESTABLISHMENT. 65
the sUver bells "with which his hawk was arrayed, as in Sunday dress
at church. What work, as of smaU carpentry or taUoring, could be
done at church was often done there by countiy people whose pastors,
if they cared anything about reUgion, preferred the old service-book
to the new Uturgy. To counteract the ignorance of the poor, NoweU
laboured to establish good schools, and to support itinerant preachers.
He generously endowed the school of Middleton, induced Parker to
found a school at Rochdale from the funds of the rectory, and obtained
the restoration of an annual grant of two hundred pounds to support
the four queen's preachers who itinerated through the benighted
districts of the county.
Nor had Pilkington, although elevated to the see of Durham,
forgotten his native county. I have already noticed his letter to
Archbishop Parker, respecting the sad state of Lancashire, which he
attributed to the negligence of the Bishop of Chester. The bishop
had compounded for his visitation, and pleaded for his doing so the
difficulty of travelhng in the "wUd parts of Lancashire. CompeUed
by a peremptory letter from the queen, he visited that county, and
found, as he says, ' the weather very hot,' ' the roads dusty,' ' proven
der for his horses very scarce,' some parts ' very wUd and dangerous,
that had it not been for the kindness of some people he would have
lost his horses.' The poor unhappy man seemed afraid of losing him
self as well as his horses. HappUy, however, he got safe to his palace
at Chester, having heard to his dismay of many conspiracies, and
ascertained that emissaries of the pope were teaching the people to
deny the supremacy of the queen ; that oaths were secretly adminis
tered, binding those wKb took them to maintain their spiritual aUe
giance to his holiness ; that Sir Richard MoUneux, his three daughters,
and several of his neighbours, had been absolved by a priest from
the oath of aUegiance ; and that one Westby, a Papist, had avowed
his wUUngness to shed his blood in the cause of his religion. Amidst
so many dreadful reports he did not think it safe to confer with the
Earl of Derby at Wigan. On the re"yiew of his labours and hard
ships, he wrote that ' he hoped he should never be troubled "with the
Uke again.' He never afterwards visited those ' inhospitable places,'
but "wisely left the Papists to be restrained by the more powerful hand
of Lord Derby, and the Puritans to do as they pleased presided they
gave him no trouble.
There was some truth in these frightful reports about the Papists.
Undoubtedly many CathoUcs were truly loyal to the queen, but many
were as undoubtedly resolved to destroy her government. The loyalty
of the one party was continually tempted by intriguing priests and
Jesuits ; the disloyalty of the other stimulated by foreign emissaries,
of whom several were concealed in the farmhouses of Lancashire.
EngUsh CathoUcs often boast of the loyalty of their ancestors to a
Protestant queen on the approach of the Spanish Armada, and they
have good reason to boast of the fidelity and valour of many warriors,
statesmen, esquires, yeomen, and even priests. But there is another
side to this question. Throughout the reign of EUzabeth, Papists
were concerned in forming conspiracies and contriving plots to deprive
F

66 LANCASHIRE.
the queen of her crown and life. A foreign prince, Mary Queen of
Scots, her son James, a CathoUc nobleman, and even the Earl of
Derby* if he would turn Catholic, were proposed as occupants of the
forfeited throne. The CathoUc Church, if the pope was its head, his
cardinals its officers, his coUeges its interpreters, was undoubtedly
with the Spanish invaders. That many EngUsh CathoUcs preferred
the Church to their country is evident from the conduct of such of
them as in England or on the Continent had an opportunity of
showing their principles and purposes. If any one doubts to what
extremes of perfidy- and treason even EngUsh soldiers can proceed
under the influence of EngUsh priests for the good of the Church, he
may be edified by reading Cardinal AUen's defence of Sir William
Stanley.t He wUl there learn that an EngUsh cardinal could, in
print, justify an English commander in surrendering Deventer to the
enemies of his country, whUe entrusted with the commission of the
queen for its defence, and contrary to his oath, because he practised
his treason and perjury solely for the good of the Church. Anything
worse than Captain Stanley's treason can scarcely be imagined, unless
it be Cardinal AUen's defence of it.
Of disloyal Papists, Lancashire had a large proportion. Two sons
of the Earl of Derby were concerned in the popish rebeUion of the
north. The earl himself was suspected, but he cleared himself of
suspicion by harassing and imprisoning the Catholics of Manchester.
Father Campion — a clever, active, intriguing Jesuit — ^was frequently
harboured in the manor houses on the Lancashire coast. By him the
priests educated in foreign seminaries were introduced to CathoUc
femUies and instructed for the work of their mission.
It appears from the correspondence of Bishop Chadderton that, in
1680, more than twenty Lancashire gentlemen of the Fylde country
had sent their sons to be educated in the EngUsh colleges of Cathohc
counti'ies.J Along the coast between the mouth of the Ribble and
Morecambe Bay, a tract of country little known to traveUers, semi
nary priests found shelter, and, by means of pupUs returning from
the colleges of Louvain or Mechlin or Rome, obtained access to the
principal families of the interior. The Heskeths of Rufford and their
kinsfolk of Aughton were desperate Papists. So were the Ashtons
of Croston, § the Andertons of Euxton, the Worthingtons of Blainscow,
* EUzabeth's commissioner for promoting the Reformation, believed by Mary
to be an adherent of her cause, would probably, had the opportunity offered, have
regarded neither Elizabeth Tudor, nor Mary Stuart, as having a better title to
the crovm than Edward Stanley. On the reliance which the Queen of Scots had
on the Earl of Derby, see Heywood's Introduction to AUen's Defence of Sir William
Stanley. + Edited for the Chetham Society by Thomas Heywood, Esq.
t Peck's Desid, Curiosa, p. 100. Allen's Defence, introd. p. Ixxv.
§ The Ashtons of Croston and Euxton were entirely distinct from the -wide
spread famUy of the Ashtons or Asshetons of the south-eastern parts of the county,
comprising the Asshetons of Middleton, the Asshetons of Lever, the Asshetons of
Downham, and other Asshetons, almost all of whom were Puritans. As they spelt
their name both ways, or rather all sorts of ways, it may prevent mistake if I speU
the popish race Ashton, comprising those of Croston, Euxton, and Hesketh, and
the puritan race Assheton.

THE PROTESTANT ESTABLISHMENT. 67
'the AUens of Rossall, and the Haydocks of Cottam. Quietly concoct
ing treason in their secluded haUs, these famUies suppUed many
worthy exhibitors on the gaUows of Tyburn. Roger Ashton of
Croston was executed for 'entertaining missioners,' the poUcy of
EUzabeth not aUowing her to assign the real cause of his execution —
liis acting as an emissary of the Queen of Scots in her communica
tions with the popish traitors of the EngUsh army in Flanders.
George Haydock of Cottam, son of the notorious conspirator, Vi^yian
Haydock, was brought to the same untimely, but not undeserved, end.
Thomas Worthington of Blainscow, the chaplain of Sir WilUam
Stanley, who incited the EngUsh soldiers to treason in Deventer,
whUe ' catechising them "with many masses and sermons,' as richly
deserved hanging as any popish -yUlain that ever mounted the scaffold.
More than one of the Andertons were impUcated in these freasonable
conspiracies. But of aU the conspirators of the Fylde country the
Aliens of RossaU,men and women, were the most active, unscrupulous,
and inveterate.
Of these Aliens the most remarkable was WilUam, who rose to the
dignity of a cardinal. Although not of the Jesuits, for he was some
times opposed to their measures, he had aU the vices which are
attributed to their society, and which, on account of his irresponsi-
biUty to their general, he could often use "with greater licence and
effect than one of their order. I have already alluded to his defence
of Sir WUUam Stanley ; but a brief account of the crime committed
by Stanley, and justified by AUen, may iUustrate the character of
that party of the Lancashire Catholics who were corrupted and
depraved by Jesuits and seminary priests.
Of the houses of Stanley the oldest was that of Hooton in Wirrall,
nearly opposite to Liverpool. These Stanleys, unlike their kinsfolk
of Lathom, had only one religion, and to that they steadUy adhered.
They were for many generations consistent CathoUcs. As their
mansion was situate near the Mersey, at that time but seldom "visited
by large ships, it was a convenient refuge for the emissaries of the
Jesuits and the adherents of the Queen of Scots. A privateer, said
to have belonged to the family, was supposed to have brought many
of the popish ' missioners ' into Lancashire. It is true that Sir
Rowland Stanley, the head of the family, proved or professed his
loyalty to the queen by contributing a hundred pounds towards the
expense of opposing the Spanish Armada ; but it is equally true that
his eldest son served the Spaniards "vrith all his heart and strength,
after shameftiUy betraying the trust committed to him by the English
government. WiUiam Stanley obtained a commission from the queen to enUst
soldiers to serve under him ¦with the EngUsh army in Flanders.
Aj-med with authority obtained by dissimulation and falsehood, he
determined on the first opportunity to serve his Church rather than
his country. The opportunity soon offered. Deventer, then in im
portance the third towm of the Netherlands, thoroughly Protestant,
was occupied by the EngUsh. Unfortunately the command of its
garrison was entrusted to Stanley, and the conscience of Stanley was

68 LANCASHIRE.
entrusted to AUen and the Jesuits. Concocting measures ¦with his-
Lancashire friend, Roger Ashton of Euxton, he left the town in the-
evening with a troop of horse, and returned before daylight with
¦ about a thousand Spanish soldiers, whom, whUe the townsfolk were
in their beds, he mustered in the market place, and made them mas
ters of the town. This horrible deed of treachery was soon imitated
by other popish officers, as by Rowland York, a creature of the
Jesuits, who on the next day treacherously surrendered the fort called
-Zutphen Sconce to the Spaniards. After this violation of everything"
which military men hold honourable and sacred, Stanley was con
stantly engaged with the Spanish government in concerting measures
for the invasion of England. In the summer of 1588 he had the
command of the English legion, as it was caUed, a trained body of
EngUsh and Irish Papists, waiting at Nieuport to join the Armada.
Prevented from accomplishing his purpose by the dispersion of the
Spanish fleet, he returned to Spain, and spent the rest of his days in
promoting a second invasion of his country, in sending emissaries
of the Jesuits into Lancashire, and in dealing with desperate men
Uke Guido Fawkes for the assassination of Queen Elizabeth, Prince-
Maurice, and other Protestants of influence and authority.
All this is unquestionable. The worst deeds I have mentioned, so
far from being denied, were avowed, honoured in Spain, rewarded in
Rome, and defended in print by Cardinal Allen. Although Stanley
was not canonised for his treacheries, his funeral at MechUn was
celebrated with as much ceremonial as the priests of the Catholic
Church could observe. They buried with great solemnity the soldier
who, having ¦violated his commission, honour, truth, and oath for the
sake of his Church, passed the gates of death in the odour of unusual
sanctity amid the prayers of aU the faithful*
But of such treachery what was the cardinal's defence ? A few of"
his own words wiU be quite enough to answer that question. ' AU
acts done by the queen's authority ever since she was by pubUc sen
tence of the Church and See ApostoUc (BuUae PU Quinti, an. 1569)
declared a heretic and an enemy of God's Church, and excommuni
cated and deposed from all royal dignity, all is void by the laws of
God. . . . For heresy maketh a man by all Christian laws infamous,
and voideth him of all degrees and titles of honour.' In a declaratory
paper issued at the time of the Armada, and signed by Allen, the
queen was declared ' a most unjust usurper and open injurer of aU
nations, an infamous, accursed, excommunicate heretic, the yery
shame of her sex and princely name, the chief spectacle of sin
and abomination in our age, the poison, calamity, and destruction
of our noble Church and country, a filthy, wicked, and illiberal
creature.' I would not insinuate that aU Lancashire CathoUcs were traitors
like Stanley, or apologists of treason like AUen. In the bitter feud
which then prevaUed between the Jesuits and the secular priests,
some of the Lancashire CathoUcs (I fear not many) belonged to the
* The order of the funeral of Sir W. Stanley is printed in the Introduction to-
AUen's Defence.

THE PROTESTANT ESTABLISHMENT. 69
English party. Nor were they without their reward. Whenever the
•queen was satisfied of the loyalty of her Catholic subjects, she was
not unwilling to mitigate the severity of the penal laws enforced
against popish recusants. Sir Richard Sherburne of Stonyhurst, .
not"withstanding his firm adherence to the Catholic faith, was allowed
to observe the ritual of his Church in his private chapel, and to keep
a priest to say mass for himself and his family.* The peasantry of
the neighbourhood gladly availed themselves of the opportunity to
observe their old ceremonial of worship in the chapel of their lord.
The place thus became a stronghold of the Catholics, and the mansion
of the Sherburnes has been transformed into the stately coUege of
the Jesuits.
* This is often said, as by Baines in his History of Lancashire, to have been a
privilege granted by the queen's authority ; but I am doubtful of its truth. Pro
bably, as it was known that Sherburne was a favourite of the queen, it was
¦understood among the magistrates that no notice was to be taken of his chapel or
-his priest.

CHAPTER V.
ENCOURAGEMENT OF PURITANISM.
On February 24, 1672-3, died Edward, the great and munificent
Earl of Derby, "with whom, in the opinion of Camden, died also the
glory and magnificence of English hospitaUty. Pew EngUsh noble
men have lived in so much state and grandeur, and the pomp and
pageantry of his funeral formed an appropriate close to his sumptuous
manner of Ufe. His relatives, his retainers, his tenantry, his servants,
and the representatives of most of the county famUies, "with their-
banners and other show of heraldry, formed such a funeral procession
as Lancashire on no other occasion has ever seen. They followed his
remains to the church of Ormskirk, where the burial service of the
reformed Church was solemnised, to the surprise of the country
people, who expected masses, oblations, incensings, and other cere
monial as appropriate to so gorgeous a funeral. "Whichever of his
' three religions ' the great earl may have preferred in his life, he was
buried as a Protestant in the Stanley chapel, which he had erected
for the sepulchre of his family, and to which he had removed the
bones of his ancestors from the ruins of the priory of Burscough.
He there slept with his fathers, and Henry his son, considering the
state which he maintained after the example of his father, may be-
almost said to have reigned in his stead, king in Man, and something
like a king in Lancashire.
Henry, the fourth earl, notwithstanding the apprehension expressed
by Camden, maintained to a great extent the magnificence and
splendour of his father's hospitaUty. If we may trust the famUy
portraits, the son was in person very like his father, and the difference
•with resemblance of the portraits seems to me to intimate the differ
ence with resemblance of the two earls. As, in the portraits, the
hard, masculine countenance of Edward is reUeved by a softer and
more gentle expression in the features of Henry, so the son had not
the fierce energy, the restless acti-ylty, or the indomitable resolution
of his father ; yet he had energy, activity, and resolution, tempered
by some degree of gentleness and kindUness, of which his father was
utterly destitute. Edward was a courtier from poUoy and prudence ;
Henry from nature and disposition. The son was a Stanley in con
sidering his own interests, but the father was pre-eminently the
Stanley, for he considered nothing else. Edward was the greater
earl, but Henry the better gentleman. Had Henry been exposed to
his father's temptations to change his reUgion, I know not how he
would have acted ; but as things were, he always appeared a decided
Protestant, and on several occasions seemed to incUne towards puri
tanism. In a kind of diary kept by his secretary, caUed the ' House-

ENCOURAGEMENT OF PURITANISM. 71
hold Book,'* we have a record of his famUy affairs, of his guests, and
of the Sunday services at Lathom. His preachers were the most
eminent Puritans of Lancashire, as Mr. Leigh of Standish, Mr. OUver
Carter of Manchester, Mr, Shaw" of Bury, Mr. Fleetwood of Wigan,
Mr. CaldwaU of Winwick, who, if we may conjecture from the entries
in the ' Household Book,' seems to have been one ofthe earl's favourite
preachers ; ' Mr. Vicker of RatchedaUe,' which ' Mr. Vicker ' was the
celebrated Puritan, Richard Midgley. Besides these chaplains, who
are said in the ' Household Book ' to have ' pretched ' before the earl,
another preacher is mentioned, Thomas Sorocold of London, the
author of the ' Supplications of the Saints,' a book which passed
through thirty-eight editions, t
How far the earl's household, edified by these Puritan preachers,
was like or unlike a Puritan family, may be best known by reading
the ' Household Book,' one or two extracts from which may serve to
iUustrate the state of reUgion at Lathom in the years 1587-90. ' Mr.
Vicker of RatchedaUe pretched. Wednesday was Christmas dale,
Mr. Leigh pretched. Thursday, Mr. Phillipps pretched. . . . Son-
daye, Jan. 4, Mr. Carter pretched, at w'' was dyvers strandgers. On
Tuesdaye, at night, a play was had in the hall. On Wednesdaye Mr.
Fleetwood pretched, and that night the plaiers played. , , . Sondaye,
Jan. 11, Mr. CaldewaU pretched, and that nyght the plaiers played.
Mondaye, my Lord Bushoppe pretched.' This was a merry Christmas
at Lathom, and a puritanical one also. There were seven sermons
' pretched ' in the fortnight, and the players played on the Sunday
evening, after the favourite Puritan, Mr. CaldwaU, had ' pretched ' in
the morning. We may be curious to know how the players pleased
the Puritan ' bushoppe ' Chadderton and the Puritan preachers — ¦
that stem Puritan, OUver Carter ; that holy Puritan, John CaldwaU ;
that zealous Puritan, Edward Fleetw"ood; that loving Puritan,
WUUam Leigh; and that 'Mr. Vicker of RatchedaUe,' who once so
effectually rebuked a clergyman for playing at bowls on a Saturday
afternoon, ' so near the Sabbath,' that he never forgot it. These
Puritans, however they Uked the players, seem to have enjoyed
their Christmas, for they stayed at Lathom until, the feasting ha"ving
come to an end, ' his lordeshippe's howse brake uppe.' Christmas,
however, was not the only season in which the preaching of Puritans
was associated with the acting of players. Sunday, September 8,
1589, was a great day at Knowsley, as Mr. Leigh, the Puritan
chaplain, preached in the morning, the queen's players played in the
afternoon, and the company of Lord Essex at night.
The ' bushoppe ' was Chadderton of Chester. On the death of Dr.
Downham in 1579, the queen accepted the poUcy of making puritan
ism in the north, much as she disUked it, the means of opposing the
advance of popery, which she had much more reason to fear. With
the advice of the Earl of Leicester, she selected to fill the vacancy
a distinguished Lancashire Puritan belonging to the ancient family
* Printed in the Stanley Papers, edited by the Rev. F. R. Raines, M.A.
t Dr. Hook has reprinted some of these beautiful suppUcations in his Prayers
fm a Week, 1852.

72 LANCASHIRE.
of Chadderton of Nuthurst. Educated at Cambridge, he had become
Regius Professor of Divinity in that university. A man of great
learning, energy, and acti-yity, he had so much of puritanism as
insured his active opposition to popery, but not so much as would
prevent him from discharging with dignity the duties of his episcopal
office. In the same year he was made "Warden of Manchester, and
held at once the two most important ecclesiastical positions in Che
shire and Lancashire. Intent upon suppressing popery, and encou
raged by the queen, he removed his residence from the palace of
Chester to the college of Manchester. To strengthen and encourage
him the Earl of Derby soon followed, having had Alport Lodge pre
pared for his residence. The two commissioners for promoting the
Reformation, acting together "with much cordiality, asserted their
authority to some purpose, and made it felt, at least in the neighbour
hood of Manchester.
In the first year of their residence they issued an ' order and
injunction against pipers and minstrels playing on the Sabbath days ;
also against superstitious ringings, wakes, and common fairs.'* In
the same year the bishop ' erected a pubUc exercise to be held in
Manchester on the second Thursday in every month, and nominated
some grave, godly, and learned ministers to preach in their courses
in the afternoon, and commanded all parsons, "vicars, curates, readers,
and schoolmasters "within the deanery of Manchester to be present at
the said exercise, and to be ready in the afternoon to be more privately
conferred with, examined, instructed, and directed by the said nomi
nated moderators, and to observe and obey their orders upon pain of
censure. 't
Some time after this exercise was ' erected,' the lords of the councU,
by command of her Majesty, wrote to the bishop : ' Forasmuch as the
good proceeding in reUgion is a matter of no small consequence,
especially in those remote parts of the realm standing dangerously
for the enemy, and where the gospel hath not yet been planted, we
have thought good, for the increase of knowledge and zeal in the
common people, as Ukewise for the estabUshment of a learned ministry,
to recommend nnto your lordship's good consideration some further
enlargement of the said ecclesiastical exercises, that order be taken
^y you upon conference with the best learned of the clergy in those
parts, to have the said exercises of religion more frequently used, and
in more places of the diocese, as may seem most convenient for fur
therance hereof in all respects.'
In obedience to this direction, simUar exercises or ' prophesyings,'
as they were commonly called, were estabUshed in several large to^wns
of the county, usually once a month on the market day. The moder
ators appointed to conduct these exercises, and to ' examine, direct,
and instruct aU persons,' were Mr. Shaw of Bury, Mr. Carter of
Manchester, Mr. Assheton of Middleton, Mr. Williamson of Man
chester, and Mr. Langley of Prestwich. These were the leading
Puritan minsters of the deanery of Manchester, who, be it observed,
constituted, under the sanction of the queen, a presbytery or council
* HoUingworth's Mancuniensis. t Ibid.

ENCOURAGEMENT OF PURITANISM. 73
of the bishop, invested with considerable power for the regulation of
the inferior clergy. This was the nearest approach to presbyterian
government "vrith which I am acquainted, established during the
reign of EUzabeth. If such councils of wise ministers, presided over
by such bishops as Chadderton, had been estabUshed in the other
deaneries of the country, the Church of England would have been
really, whatever it' might have been called, a presbyterian estabUsh
ment. How far EUzabeth, who loved episcopal dignity and state
much more than episcopal authority and rule, would have liked to
make it so, her measures, intended only for Lancashire, do not furnish
sufficient material to enable us to form a judgment.
In compliance with the request of the lord president of the north,
the bishop instituted a lecture, to commence every morning at six
o'clock, and another eyery evening at seven. Both lectures were
attended by large congregations.
The monthly exercises, however, were the most effectual means of
confirming the people in the Protestant faith and stimulating their
opposition to popish doctrine and ceremonial. Sermons preached
especially to the clergy are, for some reason or other, always popular
with the laity. It was a new thing to hear the ablest preachers of
the neighbourhood lecturing the more ignorant or idle clergy on the
proper discharge of their pastoral duties. The sermons were often
controversial, and in an age when the result ofthe strife between the
old and the new faith seemed uncertain and precarious, controversial
sermons excited great interest among all classes. On the Thursday
of the monthly exercise, many of the inhabitants of the neighbouring
towns crowded the great church of Manchester long before the com
mencement of the service. Zealous Puritans from a distance lodged
in the town the preceding night. That good man, John Bruen of
Bruen Stapleford, was usually there, although his residence was
somewhere about thirty miles distant. Frequently he remained weeks
together with his relatives at Prestwich, that he might enjoy the exer
cises, lectures, sacraments, and other precious privUeges of Manchester.
The coUegiate church on those occasions must have presented an
interesting appearance. The five reverend moderators were there in
grave and sober apparel, for the surpUce was scarcely ever worn by
the Puritan clergy of Lancashire. The bishop — ^a tall, grave, comely
person — was frequently present in his robes ; for Chadderton, Puritan
as he was in doctrine, affected episcopal dignity, and usually distin
guished himself from his clergy by wearing his canonicals. Occa
sionally the Earl of Derby attended in some state with a considerable
retinue. The Puritan magistrates generally occupied a conspicuous
place in the church. The clergymen of the deanery were in their
proper seats, wilUngly or reluctantly, to be taught their duty and
reproved for their fiiults. Of the discourses preached by the first
moderators, I can find no account ; but we are told that good William
Bourne, who succeeded OUver Carter as preacher of the exercises,
' seldom varied the manner of his preaching, which, after explication
of the text, was doctrine proof of it from Scripture, by reasoning and
answering more and more objections, and then the uses, first of

74 LANCASHIRE.
information, secondly of confutation of popery, thirdly of reprehen-
sion, fourthly of examination, fifthly of exhortation, and lastly of
consolation.' * As Mr. Bourne for many years preached after this
fashion, not only in his turn at the monthly exercise, but one sermon
every Sunday afternoon, and another every Monday morning, popery
must have been thoroughly confuted, although ferfrom exterminated,
in Manchester, Oliver Carter was also great in the popish contro
versy, with small success in converting Papists, but much in the
edification of Protestants, On one occasion, Carter becoming sud
denly iU in the pulpit, Bourne immediately took his place, and
preached wonderfully on the same text, ' a -visible and present proof,'
says HoUingworth, ' of Mr. Carter's doctrine,' But even this ' proof
did not convince the incorrigible Papists,
The bishop, although not slow himself, was continually urged hy
the queen's councU to greater activity in discovering popish recu
sants, and greater seyerity in punishing them, ' Now, my good lord,'
wrote Lord Burleigh, ' that you are entered on the way of reformation,
remember St, Paul, tempestvve, intempestime. Somewhere you must he
a father, somewhere a lord. With the meaner sort, courtesy wiU do
more than argument ; "with the higher sort, authority is a match,'
The bishop and the earl were as active as Burleigh could desire in
discovering seminary priests and the houses in which they were shel
tered, and in punishing all who resorted to their secret masses. Several
Puritan magistrates, especially Robert Worsley of the Booths,
Richard HoUand of Denton, and Sir Edmond Trafford of Trafford,
were zealous coadjutors in opposing popery and imprisoning popish
recusants. They devised a very ingenious mode of convincing
Papists of the error of their ways. As the sermons of Carter and
Bourne did them no good, because they never went to church, the
best of their con"yincing arguments were loudly read at meal times
in the refectory of the prison, so that the Papists had the alterna
tive of hearing sound arguments against popery or going "without
their dinners. To the great disappointment of Worsley, who
undertook the management of this service, it utterly faUed in con
verting a single Papist. Some of the prisoners would fast rather
than hear heretical arguments ; some are said to have put pieces of
cloth in their ears ; and others digested their dinners much better
than the theological condiments "with which they were seasoned.
Most of these obstinate CathoUcs were charged "with denying the
supremacy of the queen, whUe many of them avowed their denial in
needlessly coarse language, 'lewd speeches utterly unpardonable.'
Thus James Leybourne was accused of speaking against ' a female
papacy, unlawfully begotten, and lawfully deposed by the pope.'
Their treason, as well as their religion, they learned from Fatlier
Campion and other Jesuit priests. If popish recusants were treated
with great injustice and severity, as they undoubtedly were, abund
ant extenuation of their persecution is to be found in the conspiracies
which were formed to assassinate the queen, the threatened invasion
of the country by foreigners instigated by the pope, and the rash
* HoUingworth.

ENCOURAGEMENT OF PURITANISM. 75
conduct of many of the Lancashire CathoUcs, more Ukely to excite
suspicions of their disloyalty than to ^ concUiate the confidence of
their Protestant neighbours.
It is easy to understand, though impossible to justify, the bitter
feeUngs which in that age prevailed between Catholics and Pro
testants, especially in Lancashire, where the opposite parties had
reason to fear as well as to hate each other. Rumours of intrigues
and plots, false and true, threats of the Spanish invasion, reports of
Irish massacres, tales of the treachery of popish soldiers, the con
spiracies of the Queen of Scots against Ehzabeth and the sentence
of death passed by Elizabeth upon Mary, the treasons of Papists
and their persecutions by Protestants, produced a continued excite
ment of iU-feeling, fear, suspicion, and revenge. .Even in the
neighbourhood of Manchester, where the Protestants were numerous
and powerfnl, a popish mob could be coUected in an emergency, as
at Blackley, where they nearly killed OUver Carter, who had made
himself offensive by his zealous support of Protestant doctrine. In
1584, the storm in Manchester was hushed, and tranquilUty in some
measure restored, as the CathoUcs were frightened, and the Pro
testants gratified, by the sight of the heads of three notorious Papists
— James Bell, John Finch, and James Leybourne — placed early one
morning on the tower of the collegiate church. It was a barbarous
exhibition, but the Papists had been tried and executed, not for
Catholic doctrine, but for high treason. Severe measures in that
age seemed necessary to secure the peace of the country. These
severities, as well as -the discovery of Babington's plot, the execution
of the Queen of Scots, the destruction of the Spanish Armada, the
hanging of some Jesuits and expulsion of others from the countiy,
did much, by striking terror into the hearts of tho violent Papists
and calming the fears of loyal Catholics as weU as of Protestants, to
secure the tranquillity of the north, where, however, several popish
emissaries were harboured waiting their time, and administering
secret oaths to such members of CathoUc famiUes as they could
seduce from their aUegiance.
However the pubUc peace may have been secured by severe mea
sures, the suspicion, distrust, fear, and hatred of Protestants towards
CathoUcs and of CathoUcs towards Protestants, so far from being
subdued, were strengthened and intensified in the latter part of the
reign of EUzabeth. In no part of England did the hostiUty of the
opposite parties produce so much inconvenience as in Lancashire,
where they were more intimately connected by social and famUy
relations than in other parts of the kingdom. A minority may
make a social circle for itself, and a majority may afford or affect to
¦take no notice of its movements. But in many parts of Lancashire
Catholics and Protestants of necessity intermingled. Each party
was strong enough to annoy the other, and both suffered in many
ways from the annoyance.
A remarkable instance of this annoyance, perhaps unavoidable
under the circumstances, may occur to the observer of the manners
of this time in the social estimation in which the wives and chUdren

76 LANCASHIRie.
of Protestant clergymen were held, not only by CathoUcs, but by
society acting under the influence of CathoUc traditions.* In some
counties a clergyman's -wife seldom or never met with Papists or
papistical people ; but even there the prejudice of society, although
it soon wore away, was at first annoying and humiUating to many
honest women. Even the "wives of bishops occupied an unpleasant
position in the ranks in which their right reverend husbands were
accustomed to move. In some houses of the nobility and gentry,
they were scarcely received as welcome -yisitors, nor did they often
obtrude into the higher circles of society. "Whatever may have
been the rank or title of a bishop, his wife was absolutely of no rank
or title whatever. In English society she is still the only wife who
reflects none of the lustre of her husband's dignity, nor appropriates
even by courtesy the feminine of his masculine titles. Every other
lord expects his wife to be addressed as 'My lady.' Even the Lord
Mayor of London, who for a year and a day makes his "wife ' her
ladyship,' would keenly feel the discourtesy if in company she were
addressed as Mrs. Grocer or Mrs. Smith, The CathoUcs of Lan
cashire, and some of the Protestants who spake e"vU of dignities,
affected an unmistakable tone in gi-ring the title ' My lady ' to the
wife of my lord the Bishop, The good woman could not endure
the mortification, which was probably the more severe from ita
being understood that the queen disapproved of caUing ' bishops' .
women ' ladies.
The feeling respecting the marriage of clergymen was also the
cause of much unpleasantness and inconvenience in the settlement
of their daughters, especially among the few who formed the higher
class of the clergy, A Stanley, an Assheton, or a Chadderton might
be a bishop, or a warden, or a parson of Wigan, or a rector of Win
wick, but he could not easUy match his daughters -with Stanleys,
Asshetons, or Chaddertons, I know not how far this prejudice "will
explain the otherwise inexplicable conduct of so good and vrise a
man as Bishop Chadderton, His only daughter, Joan, whom he
dearly loved, was married to Richard Brook, a boy of good famUy, .
on October 15, 1582, According to the record, she was born on
February 20, 1574, ' early in the' morning.' The marriage of these
two children, Joan in her ninth year, Richard in his eleventh, was
solemnised in the bishop's palace ' according to the Book of Common
Prayer,' Four years afterwards the marriage was ratified by the
deposition of witnesses, in the presence of OUver Carter, the Puritan
preacher of Manchester, The boy Richard deposed that ' matrimony
was had and solemnised ' between him and Joan Brook alias Chad
derton, and that he ' -with free wiU did ratify the same marriage by
his assent and consent.' The gfrl Joan -wrote, ' 1 do accept of your
confession and consent, and take you for my lawful husband, and
pray as you have prayed, Joan Brook. 'f The paper was then at-
_ * The CathoUcs, whUe denying the validity of Protestant orders, were incon-
sistent enough to reproach the reformed clergy as ' married priests ' or ' conoubin-
arian ministers,'
t At a somewhat earlier period marriages were solemnised between little

ENCOURAGEMENT OF PURITANISM. 77
tested by Carter and the officials of the bishop's court. Many besides
Catholics scarcely regarded the poor girl as legitimate.
Another instance of the ill-feeling which then prevailed between
CathoUcs and Protestants is to be found in a curious minute in the
Lancashire MSS. vol. xiU, Bishops then granted Ucences to mid-
wives, aUowing them to practise their mystery. Jane Scarisbrick,
licensed by Chadderton, was required to attend ' any woman labour
ing with chUd, being married, and professing the reformed, faith.'
CathoUc wives, like unmarried women, could not claim her assist
ance. These midvrives were also Ucensed to baptise, on taking an
oath that they would ' use pure and clean water, not any rose-water,
nor water made of any confection or mixture.'* The e-yil working
of the sad hostUity of CathoUcs and Protestants in Lancashire admits
of numerous but requires no more iUustrations,
In 1693 died Henry, the fourth Earl of Derby, the persecutor of
Papists and the patron of Puritan preachers. He was buried at
Ormskirk, with honours almost equal to those which distinguished
the magnificent funeral of his father, Edward. Bishop Chadderton
preached what, according to the taste if not of that time yet of that
place, might be thought an eloquent sermon. It seems strange to
us that a prelate of great learning should preach to the young earl
in these words : ' You, noble earl, that not only inherit but exceed
your father's virtues, learn to keep the love of your country as your
father did. You have in your arms three legs,t signifying three
shires — Cheshire, Derbyshire, and Lancashire. Stand fast on these
legs, and you need fear none of their arms.' The young earl is re
ported to have said, "with some warmth, to his attendants, ' This
priest hopes one day to make me three courtesies, 'J Chadderton,
however, had soon to make a courtesy for higher preferment than
the earl could give him, for, in 1595, he was translated to the see
of Lincoln, having preached, it is said, more frequently — though, if
the above laudation be a specimen, I should think not more wisely
or more usefully — than any bishop of his time.
The early Lancashire reformers, whom I have already noticed as
having done so much for the reformation of the EngUsh Church,
preceded to the grave the great queen whom they had faithfuUy
served under her smUes or her fro"wns. Of the four, Pilkington,
Bishop of Durham, was the first who finished his work and entered
into his rest. Although conforming to the habits from respect to the
children. This was usually done to secure the estates of heiresses. One of the
Asshetons obtained a divorce on the ground that he was carried to church and
married when he was so young that he could not remember anything about the
solemnity. But Joan Chadderton had no estate, and her father, not her guardian,
promoted the marriage.
¦* It is strange that some clergymen should refuse to acknowledge the validity
of lay baptism, when the licences of bishops authorising women to baptise can be
produced.' One by the Bishop of Chester is inserted in Neal's History of the
Pii/ritans, vol. i. p. 413.
+ The well-known symbol of the Isle of Man.
J Hibbert's Histm~y of the Collegiate Church, vol, i, p, 128, The relator was Sir
John Harrington, who was present.

78 LANCASHIRE.
authority which imposed them, he expressed to the end of his hfe
his undiminished disUke of them, and his earnest desire to obtain
Uberty for his nonconforming brethren. Like an honest Puritan, he
fearlessly asserted the right of the Church to retain her ancient
patrimony, and courageously maintained, by a law-suit with the
queen herself, the claim of the palatinate bishopric to the forfeited
estates of the Earl of Westmoreland, Although Elizabeth could
unfrock bishops, she could not frighten Pilkington, nor obtain pos
session of the episcopal property without the assistance of Parliament.
The good bishop, who cared little for the_ property, felt that he had
done his duty in resisting the unconstitutional power of the queen,
and readUy submitted to the decision of the supreme authority. He
died in 1676.
His early friend in school, in college, and in exile, Thomas Lever,
survived him only two years. The Master of Sherborne Hospital,
near Durham, had spent much time in conference -with his friend on
the best means of promoting a ftirther reformation. Although in
faUing health and energy, he lost no opportunity of pleading -with the
queen, who retained her regard for him, and most urgently vrith his
friends Lord Leicester and Sir WilUam CecU, on behalf of the per
secuted Nonconformists. By his intercessions the sufferings of many
were alleviated, and the fines of others remitted. He died in 1677,
Edwin Sandys retained his acti"ylty to the last, but, Uke many
active old men, contracted an irritable and litigious disposition, "When
Archbishop of York, he was always in strife -with the queen, or her
ministers, or his clergy, or his suffragan bishops ; "with the Papists,
his irreconcUable enemies ; or with the Puritans, his old friends, A
Puritan to the last, he nevertheless quarrelled "with Puritans, and
especially •with "Whittingham, the Puritan Dean of Durham, who,
haying no other orders than those of Geneva, refused to be reordained
by his Grace,* The old man of many great qualities and many
infirmities fell into sad scandal in an inn at Doncaster — a victim, as
his friends said, to a ¦yUe Papist conspiracy ; as his enemies said, to
his own evil propensity. Acquitted by an ecclesiastical councU, he,
I hope, was innocent, although I do not like to impute the malice and
wickedness by which innocence was so frightfully injured to the re
spectable CathoUcs of Doncaster, Let the matter remain a mystery.
It effectually quenched his restless activity, and prepared liim for his
grave in the coUegiate church of SouthweU, where he was interred iu
July 1688,
Alexander Nowell survived aU his early friends. Honours and
preferments had gathered around him. The preacher on great
occasions, he was appointed to preach before the court in St, Paul's,
* The dean offended his Grace by denying his right to interfere -with the
Cathedral of Durham, which was said to be independent of archiepiscopal rule.
But this was not the only instance in which Sandys troubled his Puritan brethren
who would not submit to his authority. He, acting under the direction of Arch
bishop Whitgift, behaved ill, and even Bishop Chadderton did not behave well,
to Giles Wigginton, the Puritan vicar of Sedbergh, who was deprived of his vicar
age and imprisoned in Lancaster Castle for nonconformity to a ceremomal of which
both Sandys and Chadderton had disapproved, — Neal, vol, i. p, 316.

ENCOURAGEMENT OF PURITANISM, 79
on perhaps the greatest occasion of thanksgi"ying in EngUsh history —
the destruction of the Spanish Armada. In his ninetieth year, the
old man. Dean of St. Paul's, Fellow of Manchester CoUege, Canon of
Windsor — never allowed by the queen to be a bishop — was elected
Master of Brasenose College. Let us hope the duties of that office
were not very burdensome. What changes had passed over the
university, as well as' over the country, since he matriculated some
seventy-five years before, when the reading men of his college were
wondering what would come to Germany from the preaching of
Martin Luther, and the unreading men had scarcely heard of that
name ! In his ninety-fifth year, when his memory is said to have
been stUl retentive, he could take a review of hfe from almost the
first year of Henry VIII. to the last but one of Elizabeth, -with the
satisfaction that, in all the marvellous changes of that interval, he had
served his country as wisely, as honourably, and as usefully as any
man of his time. He died on February 13, 1601-2, and was buried
behind the altar of his o-wn cathedral.
As early as February 1588-9, Martin Marprelate had set up his
printing-press in Ne-wton Lane, Manchester. Who he was has never
been discovered. The reason of his acti-yity is easUy explained. The
Puritans were forbidden to print vrithout licence ; and, often unable
to obtain a Ucence for any book written in their own defence, they
had recourse to a secret press and a clandestine issue of pamphlets.
Had sUence been imposed on both parties, the Puritans might have
quietly submitted to the imposition; but flesh and blood — at least
their flesh and blood — could not be silent when false and malicious
charges were freely published by their oppressors. Under such pro
vocations, some ofthe extreme Puritans pro-yided a press and engaged
itinerant printers, who, Uke stroUing players, went from one place to
another to practise their art and mystery. They began at Kingston
in Surrey, removed to Fawsley in Northamptonshire, and were
discovered in Manchester,
Whether Martin and his sons were the proprietors of the press, or
only employed it, as other Puritans did, for their own purpose, is not
certainly known. It is, however, certain that several books were
printed at the secret press, whose authors had no knowledge of the
Marprelates. Two Puritan ministers of good learning, estimable
character, and unimpeachable loyalty, have been accused of ha-ying
written the objectionable tracts ; but there is not a shadow of e"yidence
that either of them knew anything of Marprelate, although they
might have had access to' the secret press. On its discovery, some of
the printers fled from the country ; one was imprisoned and threat
ened with death, but he either could or would give no information of
the author.
The tracts, although written vrith much ¦vigour and abiUty, are
coarse, personal, and abusive. Their good and bad quaUties contri
buted to their popularity. AU who could read them would under
stand them ; and all who understood them would certainly remember
them. The excuse for their faults is that they are the cry of oppressed

go LANCASHIRE.
men who had not Uberty to plead their cause openly and fably.
They contain many hard sayings, but hard sayings m return for
harder deeds. A man beaten when his hands are bound may be ex
cused for making the most of his tongue. The prelates fined and
imprisoned, and the Marprelates retaUated -with angry words, biting
sarcasm, and rough abuse. The Puritan controversy, however,
assumed a new character in these tracts. Hitherto the Puritans had
objected chiefly, if not exclusively, to the ceremonies of the Church,
as popish, superstitious, or unscriptural. Marprelate spoke agamst
bishops, whom the earUer Puritans had acknowledged or spared. A
new question was rising. The bishops were unpopular, very much
through their own arbitrary proceedings ; and Martin took advantage
of those proceedings to increase their unpopularity. As they became
the patrons of the ceremoiual, the Puritans began to controvert not
only the reasons of the ceremonial but the authority of its patrons.
The government ofthe Episcopal Church rather than its circumstan
tials, its essential principles rather than its modes, became exposed to
new and fierce attacks. Puritanism was changing its character : it
was tending towards Presbyterianism, and in some respects towards
Independency. The Marprelate tracts were greatly disliked and loudly condemned
by the moderate Puritans. Cartwright, who at that time was
elaborating a defence of presbyterian discipline, expressed his decided
disapproval of them. Sarcasm is scarcely appropriate to religious
confroversy ; but, be it good or bad, the Puritans had not the mono
poly of it. ' Pappe with a Hatchett,' and ' An Almond for a Parrot,'
tracts written on the side of the bishops, are quite as scurrUous, if
not as clever, as ' Ha' ye any Work for the Cooper ? ' or any other of
Martin's pamphlets. As, however, it does not appear that' any of the
Lancashire Puritans knew anything about the printers who sought a
temporary shelter in their county, I need not -trouble myself or my
readers "with any further enquiry about the mysterious Marprelates,
although at the time they excited so much general interest as to make
it worth somebody's money to exhibit them on the stage.
In the private correspondence of Lancashire people during the last
twenty years of the reign of Elizabeth, we find many indications of
"the growth of popery under the severe treatment, and of puritanista
under the mUd treatment of the government. In Baker's MSS. is
preserved a letter -written from Bolton by James Gosnell, a Puritan
minister, who says : ' I have no news to "write out of this county.
Here are great store of Jesuits, seminaries, masses, and plenty of
whoredom. The first sort our sheriff courseth pretty well. Other
good news is, that the Bishop of Canterbury has not yet, God be
thanked, stung us ¦with his articles, which in the south have so great
power that, by report, they have quenched the Lord's Ughts nearly to
the number of two hundred.' *
* Baker's MSS ., preserved in the University Library at Cambridge, vol. xii. p. 211,
as cited by Brook, Idves of the Puritans, vol. iii. p. 509. The sheriff who coursed
Papists instead of hares was either Richard HoUaud of Denton, or Sir Edmond
Trafford, both of whom when sheriffs were distinguished by their severities with

ENCOURAGEMENT OF PURITANISM. 81
In the administration of the Lord's Supper, among other diversities
of opinion and practice, angry disputes arose in Lancashire, as indeed
in other places, respecting the use of bread — whether it should be
broken from a loaf, or formed into wafers. On reference to the lords
of the council, they allowed the use of either untU parUament might
see fit to determine the dispute. In many parishes the people could
not agree with the incumbent, or ¦with one another. The bishop
evidently preferred the use of common bread, and did all he could to
promote uniformity in his diocese. "When compelled to aUow the use
of wafers, he did it as an indulgence to ' babes in Christ who were to
be fed "with milk, not with strong meat.' He is said, however, to
have regarded with no friendly feeling any clergyman who did not
encourage his people to receive the bread in the ordinary form.*
We now approach a subject of considerable interest, and of some
perplexity, in the history of puritanism — the opinions of the Puritans
respecting the Sabbath, and the manner in which they sought to en
force its reUgious observance. The perplexity is, that while in all
other things the Puritans wished to obtain a nearer conformity to the
usages of foreign Protestants, in this matter they had neither the
example nor the support of either Lutherans or Calvinists. In care
fully obser^ring the growth of Puritan opinions, we may discover
some of the causes of this perplexing divergency.
In the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth, the Puritan clergy and
gentry of Lancashire complained of the great annoyance and scandal
which were produced by the pubUc desecration of the Sabbath, espe
cially by ' wakes, fairs, markets, bear-baits, bull-baits, church-ales,
May-games, piping and dancing, hunting, and all manner of unlawful
gaming.' Sixteen magistrates, of influence and authority, sent
directions to the mayors, bailiffs, constables, and churchwardens, to
suppress, by all lawful means, these disorderly proceedings, and to
punish all minstrels, bearwards, and other such disorderly persons.
The first reformers had not enforced so strict an observance of the
Sabbath as these magistrates desired, nor had the Puritan exUes on
their return from Frankfort or Geneva. Rigid Sabbatarianism has
been often represented as sour Calvinism ; but whatever it was, it was
certainly not Cal"vinistic. Probably the strict Sabbatarianism of the
early Puritans, as it was not derived from their oracles of Geneva,
was a reaction occasioned by the gross immoralities and scandalous
disorders of the old EngUsh Sunday, and especiaUy the old Lanca
shire Sunday. In the interests of moraUty and reUgion, no Sunday
at all would have been far better than the Lancashire Sunday of the
time of EUzabeth, "with its fierce and cruel sports, its buU-baiting,
cock-fighting, ring fighting, gambling, boisterous revelry, obscene
regard to CathoUcs. Father Campion calls Holland ' a rigid Puritan,' - and Traf
ford ' a most bitter enemy of the Catholics.' The articles mentioned were ¦Whit-
gift's three articles, to which in many dioceses the subscription of all ministers was
required. The Puritans objected to the second article, which declared that 'the
Book of Common Prayer, and of ordaining bishops, priests, and deacons, oontaineth
in it nothing contrary to the Word of God.'
* History of the Collegiate Church of Manchester, vol. i. ch. xiii.
G

82 LANCASHIRE.
songs, drunken frays, noisy ale-houses, fnU prisons, and miserable
homes. Had the people kept to their OTdinary work on Sundays,
they would have been happier and healthier, and their families would
have been better fed, better clothed, and better trained. But neither
Papist nor Puritan was prepared to say, No sacred day at ail-
neither festival nor fast, neither Sunday nor Sabbath. The alter
native, in Lancashire especiaUy, seemed to be, a day of boisterous
immoraUty or a day of religious austerity, a vanity fair or a holy con
vocation, a day given to folly or a day consecrated to devotion. Had
a middle course been proposed — as the appropriating of the morning
to devotion and the evening to amusement — it would have been
regarded as a compromise founded on no principle, and acceptable to
neither party. In the prevalent feeling of the time, everything
venerable and sacred seemed to depend upon the solution of the
question, how the reUgious observance of Sunday should be main-
¦tained and enforced. In 1695, whUe great doubt and anxiety pre
vaUed among devout people on the subject, one Dr. Bound pubhshed
a book, in which he contended that the Lord's day should be as
strictly observed by Christians as the Sabbath was observed by the
Jews ; that, in fact, all the old laws of the Sabbath were transferred
to the first day of the week. The book was extensively read, and
produced a very decided impression upon devout readers. It taught
an extreme "view, but by far the safer and better of the two extremes.
When there was no one to show a more exceUent way, it is not sur
prising that the Puritans generally accepted its doctrine. Whatever
may have been the austerities of a Puritan Sabbath (which have been
greatly exaggerated by their enemies), I know not what would haye
become of the reUgion of their country if the Puritans had not
rescued the Lord's day from the f olUes and immoraUties "with which
it was lamentably desecrated. Nor was the Puritan Sabbath always
a day of austerity and gloom. I hope, in the course of this narrative,
to come upon many a Puritan Sabbath in Lancashire, as pleasant, as
cheerful, as beautiful, as blessed, as like to Paradise, as any festive
day that ever smUed upon a happy Christian household.
This letter of the Lancashire magistrates was the beginning of a
confUct respecting the religious observance of Sunday which troubled
aU parties for more than a centniry. The exercise of unconstitutional
authority by the Puritan magistrates, the reaction which it produced
in the equally unconstitutional and more arbitrary proceedings of
their opponents in the issuing of the two books of sports, the contro
versy which was excited among the clergy respecting the proper
observance of sacred days of any kind, and the complaints of the
working people on account of the restriction of their amusements on
the only day on which they were reUeved from toU, are subjects
which, for three or four reigns, -wiU continually obtrude upon the
course of our enquiry. A correct understanding of the origin of this
controversy "wUl enable us to estimate the faults and "virtues, the op
pressions and sufferings of both parties in the long and bitter war&re.
From this time a new element was introduced into the Puritan con
troversy.

ENCOURAGEMENT OF PURITANISM. 83
On the death of Henry, the fourth Earl of Derby, his son Ferdiu
ando succeeded to.his estates and honours, but enjoyed them only for
a short time. His death was inexpUcable by his medical ad^yisers ;
and in those days, whatever was inexpUcable was regarded as super
natural. Portentous signs were observed at Lathom and at Knows
ley. In the month of April, the earl and several of his attendants
were sadly froubled "with strange dreams, or, as a report careftiUy
drawn up at the time calls them, ' di-yinations.' According to that
report, the figure of a tall man, vrith a ghastly countenance, crossed
his path as a shadow, and immediately the earl was stricken with
mortal sickness. At night was found in his sick chamber ' a figure
of wax, "with hair Uke unto the hair of his honour,' which ' Mr. Hal-
sail ignorantly cast into the fire.' Had Mr. Halsall understood
demonology, he would have known that, as the image melted in the
fire, his honour would consume and die. ' A homelie woman was
heard mumbUng in a corner of the chamber, but what she said God
only knoweth.' Throughout his sickness the earl cried that the
doctors could do him no good, as he was certainly bewitched. ' In
•the end, he cried out against aU witches, reposing his only hope of
salvation upon the merits of Christ Jesus, his Sa"viour.' It seems to
us very strange that, in the great house of KJiowsley Park, where the
Earl of Derby was dying in the presence of his countess, his attend
ants, his physicians, his chaplains, and his friends, these things, and
many Uke them, should have been said, generaUy beUeved, and related
in a sort of official report of his death.*
Strange as this account is, it is not the strangest of the tales of the
Lancashire "witches. These tales, generaUy beUeved at the time by
aU classes, from the earl's physicians and chaplains to the ignorant
cotters on the moorside, are among the most humiUating recoUections
of the reign of EUzabeth. Wretched old women were, in popular
estimation, sold and sworn to do the deril's service, and endowed by
their master ¦with marveUous powers to work destruction upon
doomed men and women. They had their places of midnight feast
ing and diaboUcal revelry, whither they went vrith incredible speed
from great distances. Pendle HiU was their favourite resort, but
other wUd moors were occasionaUy visited for such purposes. Poor
women were convicted upon the testimony of "witch-finders, often
young boys, who swore to the most monstrous fictions. Such boys,
taken to church, were directed to declare the "witches, and their
testimony was adduced before magisfrates as e^vidence against the
¦wretched creatures. On such evidence many poor imbecile women
were condemned and executed. It is more fearful to know that some,
crazed -with terror or wearied of life, confessed themselves guilty
* The death of Ferdiuando has in later times been attributed to slow poison.
Dr. Ormerod, iu his prefatory memoirs to the Tracts relating to the Military Pro
ceedings of Lancashire, says, ' It is well known that Jesuitical intrigue led to his
death by poison.' This may be ' weU known,' but I do not know it. The Jesuits
were -wicked enough to do many wicked things in the cause of their Church, but I
see no object they could attain by poisoning the poor earl. If the crime lie
between witches and Jesuits, I wUl not venture to say who were the criminals.

84 LANCASHIRE.
of crimes which no woman ever could have committed, and suffered
death, as the covenanted servants, or something worse, of the deril.
For belie"ying in such abominations, the Puritan ministers of
Lancashire have had to bear a large proportion of the blame. They
were blameable, but neither more nor less so than other people.
When the Earl of Derby kept a conjuror, and his countess consulted
a witch, a Puritan minister may have beUeved in witchcraft. So did
bishops, and so did even the judges of the land. Bishop Jewell
preached before the queen upon the terrible power and 'marvel
lous increase ' of vritches ' in the last four years.' In a later and
more enUghtened age. Judge Hale tried old women on the charge of
witchcraft, and believed them to be justly found gmlty. B^t it is
said some Puritan ministers in Lancashire pretended to cast out
devils. I know they attempted to do so. Let him that is without
sin cast the first stone. The bishops gave authority and a form of
licensing to their clergy to cast out de"yils.* CathoUc priests claimed
a monopoly of power to bind or to loose the devils. AU I say in de
fence of the Puritan ministers of the reign of Elizabeth is, that while
they were no vriser than bishops and judges, Protestant parsons or
CathoUc priests, they never sought to gain any personal advantage
by pretending to heal the possessed. In a few instances which may
come in our way (I -wish I could say in many), the Puritan minister
was the only friend who would speak a few kind words to a con
demned "witch, as she trembled in the cold shadow of death.
It is true there was one clergyman in Lancashire who would have
nothing to do "with casting out devils, and he was the famous Dr.
Dee, recently appointed the Warden of Manchester. A great astro
loger and alchemist, he seems to have regarded vritches as practising
in magic a contraband sort of trade. He had no faith in them or no
power over them. Instead of destroying life by incantation, he was
engaged in the more useful and honourable mystery of making the
elixir of life, the medicine of immortaUty. He had very nearly,
though not quite, discovered how to obtain it and how to use it.
Instead of blighting other people's com or kiUing their cattle, hke
the -witches, he was engaged in casting horoscopes and ta-ansmuting
baser metals into gold. In the latter art his neighbours beUeved him
to have succeeded ; but if he had, it is hard to explain why he lived
and died miserably poor and in debt to all his friends. However
that may have been, the warden who practised alchemy and despised
¦witchcraft, and the Puritan feUows of his coUege who counted his
art no better, if not worse, than ¦vritchcraft, brought much sCandal
upon the Church by their implacable hatred and interminable
quarrels.f * In the articles of enquiiy which were presented by Archbishop 'Whitgift to the
churchwardens of every parish, and which they had to answer upon oath, one was
— ' Whether they knew of any of their neighbours , , . that were . . . ¦witches,
conjurors, heretics ; any man that had two ¦wives, or woman that had two hus
bands ; . . . any that went to conventicles or meetings for saying prayers in private
houses 1. '—Neal, vol. i. p. 339.
t Lancashire seems to have been nearly as celebrated for its alchemists as for
its witches. As early as 1446 there was granted to Sir Edmund Trafford and Sir

ENCOURAGEMENT OF PURITANISM. 85
Dr. Chadderton, on his translation to the see of Lincoln, resigned
the Wardenship of Manchester, and this John Dee, 'Doctor of
Physicke,' was appointed his successor. He could not have been
promoted to the office on pubUo grounds ; for, whatever at that time
may have been the poUcy of the queen with regard either to her old
enemies the Papists, or her more recent troublers the Puritans, Dr.
Dee, absorbed in studies far remote from popish or puritan theology,
was not likely to restrain or intimidate any parties, poUtical or reU
gious. He had been induced by Lord Robert Dudley, on the accession
of Elizabeth, to ' cast a horoscope,' in order to discover a fortunate day
for her coronation. If the prosperity of her reign depended upon
the day of her coronation, John Dee was a master of his science, as
the long and prosperous reign of Elizabeth clearly and indisputably
testified. The queen was pleased, and promised him Church prefer
ment. The preferment was long in coming, but the value of his
horoscope could only be ascertained by the efflux of time. Nearly
forty years after the coronation the doctor was made Warden of
Manchester, and an extraordinary warden he certainly was.
He lived in the midst of strife. He had obtained, as he professed,
great knowledge of the occult sciences, and had been employed by
the Earl of Leicester, on behalf of the queen, to discover the thoughts
and purposes of her enemies in foreign courts. At times he was very
unpopular with the people, and his Puritan colleagues took advantage
of his unpopularity to make him miserable. Having the power of
casting out devils, as the people believed, he would grant no relief to
the possessed. When poor crazed Margaret Byron, of Salford, was
brought to him for deUverance from the e^yU spirits which cruelly
tormented her, he peremptorUy refused, and told her friends he would
practise no such unlawful arts as they desired. With the power of
making gold, he would not pay his debts, nor give anything to the
poor. The urgency of his creditors became at last so oppressive, that
the unhappy man was obUged to satisfy the sherifi's officers by selling
his books, pictures, powders, stones, and coloured glass, the imple
ments of his power. Oliver Carter he regarded as his worst enemy,
but William Bourne bitterly persecuted him. Manchester tradesmen,
as they commonly do, disliked a parson who did not pay his debts ;
and probably the more so, as they believed he really could, if he
would venture a Uttle more of his chance of the future life by deaUng
more freely with e"yU spirits. Worst of aU, his enemies, the fellows,
in opposition to his "wishes, elected a rival asfrologer, one Dr. Cogan,
to a vacancy in the feUowship, Unable any longer to endure the
Thomas Ashton — two Lancashire alchemists who had discovered au eUxir for
restoring youth to old people — a patent for transmuting base metals ipto sUver
and gold. The royal Ucense was necessary, as in the reigu of Henry IV. an Act
of ParUament had passed prohibiting the king's subjects from transmuting baser
metals into gold. It is said to have been the only Act which was never
violated. One of the alchemists is aUeged to have transmuted a piece of the
bottom of an iron pot, about ' an inch in bigness,' into gold and sent it to the
king. "Why, ^hen he was about it, he did not ' transmute ' the whole pot, does
not distinctly appear. See the king's patent in Raines's History of Lancashire,
vol. i. p. 406.

86 . LANCASHIRE.
troubles of Manchester, he left the to"wn and resided at Mortlake.
His revenues being sequesfrated, he Uved in abject poverty, and
instead of looking for consolation where a clergyman in the infirmities
of age should look for it, to the promises of immortality, he sought
miserable comforters, in holding communications by his occult science
¦with the world of spirits. On the death of the queen, he appUed for
relief to King James, who detested his mysteries, and left him to
perish in his poverty, sickness, and desolation,*
Hibbert's History of the OoUegiate Church, vol, i. ch. xiv.

CHAPTER VI.
RE'VIEW OF PURITANISM IN THE REIGN OP ELIZABETH.
In 1603 died Queen Elizabeth, often the persecutor, seldom the friend,
always the idol of the Puritans. As her rule had been exercised with
less severity over the Puritans of the north than it had been over
their brethren in the south, there was no part of her kingdom in
which 'the setting of that bright occidental ster' was more grievously
lamented than it was among the Puritans of Lancashire. Before
we proceed further, it may be desfrable to advert to the state of
puritanism in the county during the latter part of her reign, and
to notice the more eminent Puritan ministers by whom it was pro
moted. I have already noticed the prevalence of both popery and puritanism
in Lancashire in the early part of Elizabeth's reign. Towards its
close both parties had become more powerful, more defined, and more
resolutely opposed to each other. The Catholics had been induced,
by Jesuits and other emissaries from Rome, to withdraw from the
services of the Church, and privately to observe the ritual of their
own religion. Although the Puritans had not separated from the
English Church, they had become a powerful party within its pale,
holding definite views with a tenacity which foreboded either a separ
ation from its communion or a further reformation of its public ser
vices. The Catholics increased and became strong under the secret
instructions and guidance of concealed priests ; the Puritans, under
the zealous ministrations of popular preachers. Both parties were
persecuted : the CathoUcs severely, as many were driven out of the
country, and some suffered death ; the Puritans less severely, although
the fines and imprisonment to which some of them were subjected
for nonconformity to the ceremonies seemed a precursor of evU days
to come.
The intermediate party of sound Churchmen appeared too feeble
or too indifferent to do much in determining the issues of the contro
versy. Opposite influences were gradually drawing them to one
extreme or the other. It was said that, between the Puritans of the
south-east parts and the Papists of the north and west, Lathom was
a sort of border fort to keep the peace, and the Earl of Derby the
only sound Churchman in the county. If by the Earl of Derby be
meant the Stanleys, the Ffaringtons, and two or three other great
famiUes under his influence, it might be said with almost Uteral truth
that the earl was the only friend in Lancashire of the institutions,
discipline, and services of the Church as by law estabUshed. What
was said of Herle, Warden of Manchester, might with as much truth

88 LANCASHIRE,
be said of his Church — it was dying between two malefactors, popery
and puritanism.
The Puritans of Lancashire were at that time professedly Church
men, and really much more so thjin many of thefr brethren in the
south of England. They adhered to the doctrines of the Church,
from which, however, no Protestants in Lancashire, and scarcely any
in the south of England, had then swerved. In their controversy,
so far, no doctrine had become a subject of dispute.* As to the
government of the Church, presbyterianism, although obtaining
advocates and supporters in Cambridge and London, had not been
avowed by any Puritans in Lancashire, They, like their fathers, the
reformers, regarded episcopacy as an ordinance of the secular govern
ment, to which they were bound to submit so long as nothing unlawfal
was imposed. Neither jus divinum episcopacy nor jus divinum pres
byterianism was then known in the county. The Lancashire Puritans
disUked the surpUce, and would not wear it. They disapproved of
the sign of the cross in baptism, and their ministers would not use
it ; or if they did, their people would often carry away the babes as
soon as they were sprinkled. They would not kneel at the sacrament.
They were beginning to protest against all ceremonial unauthorised
by Scripture, as either unlawful or tending to superstition, ' Painted
puppets ' of saints and angels in church ¦windows were regarded as
reUcs of popery. Organs were not then common in the county ; and
where introduced, as in the collegiate church of Manchester, they
were looked upon with suspicion, if not with abhorrence. In few of
the churches were the authorised services solemnised vrith exact
uniformity. Some ministers carelessly, some conscientiously, de
parted from the canonical order ; many, as they were inclined to
Catholicism or to puritanism, did that which was right in their own
eyes, * It has been said that the Puritans were stricter Cal-vinists than their perse-
cutors iu the reign of EUzabeth, as untruly as it has been said that the doctrinal
articles of the ^ Church were intended as a compromise between Calvinists and
Arminians. Like the reformers, the prelates of EUzabeth were of one opinion
about grace, predestination, and free wiU, that is, they were all adherents of the
Augustinian theology. In 1595, one Mr. Barret—' a bold, corrupt, and unlearned
young fellow,' as the heads of the Cambridge colleges called him— in a sermon
before the university, expressed some opinion unfavourable to Calvin's doctrine of
predestination. The authorities of the university were unanimous in their con
demnation of the preacher. On the matter being brought before Archbishop
Whitgift, the bitter enemy of Puritans, he proved himself as determined a Calvinist
as any Puritan in the land. He sent down to Cambridge nine propositions, com
monly caUed the Lambeth articles, approved by the Archbishop of York and
several bishops. The first four were : 1. ' God from eternity has predestinated
some persons to life and reprobated others to death.' 2. ' The moving or efficient
cause of predestmation to Ufe is not foreseen faith or good works, or any other
commendable quality in the persons predestinated, but the good wiU and pleasure
of God.' _3. ' The number of the predestinated is fixed, aud cannot be lessened or
increased, 4. ' They who are not predestinated to salvation shaU be necessarily
condemned for their sins.'— Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. i. p. 388. What
could have been sterner Calvinism than that of these articles, to which the scholars
and the university 'were strictly enjoined to conform their judgments,' I cannot
imagme. We must wait for Archbishop Laud before we find Arminianism allowed
m the EngUsh Church.

PURITANISM IN THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH. 89
Puritanism had, during the reign of EUzabeth, gained the ascend
ency in the more important positions of the Church. Under the
patronage of the Puritan bishop of Chester and the Puritan Earl of
Derby, the collegiate church of Manchester, and the three rich rec
tories of the county — Winvrick, Wigan, and Middleton — were held
by Puritans ; as were the three great vicarages, Rochdale, Blackburn,
and "WTialley. In these parishes were many chapelries, occupied by
Puritan ministers. The promoters of the Manchester exercises were
all zealous Puritans. Puritanism had no opposition which it regarded,
so long as it was not troubled by the interference of distant authori
ties Uke the Archbishop of York, the Archbishop of Canterbury, or
the lords of the council. '
Of the Puritan mirusters settled in Lancashire, among the earUest
was Richaed Midgley, a member of a respectable family which
derived its name from Midgley, in the parish of HaUfax. He was
born in the home of his ancestors about the year 1630, and is said to
have been educated in that favourite college of the northern Puritans,
St. John's, Cambridge. Of his education and early life we know
Uttle, but he must have attained some eminence both as a sound
Protestant and an able preacher, or, under the circumstances. Arch
bishop Parker would not have appointed him to the important vicar
age of Rochdale. His predecessor, as we have already observed, was
said to have been a concealed Papist, and, with more certainty, an
incompetent man, of little learning and of low character. On account
of the representations made of him, the archbishop ejected the Papist,
and sought for his successor an able preacher, on whose zeal and
dihgence he could firmly rely. He selected Midgley for the difficult
position. Rochdale, under the teaching and guidance of its new
¦vicar, soon became another place. The deserted church was crowded
every Sunday by an attentive and devout congregation. The preach
ing of Midgley was plain, earnest, direct, coUoquial, affectionate, and
well adapted to the minds and hearts of the country people, who
came from great distances to hear him. Throughout every week he
was unwearied in -risiting his parishioners, and promoting their
present and future welfare. Nor did he neglect the education of the
young. He induced the archbishop to found a grammar school ; and
although his glebe was smaU, and the archbishop's tithes large, he
gave the site, and persuaded his friends to contribute to the erection
of the building, that the archbishop's endowment might, without
any abatement, be settled in perpetuity for the maintenance and
encouragement of the school.
He was soon troubled for his nonconformity, and so discouraged
that, after serving his vicarage only three years, he contemplated his
resignation. By some persuasion, probably that of his friend Bishop
Pilkington, who was then using his influence with the queen's
government to obtain permission for scrupulous ministers to officiate
vrithout the objectionable vestments, he was induced to waive his
scruples and consent to the use of the surplice. On January 4, 1564,
' the vicar, with the three ministers of the chapels and the master of

90 LANCASHIRE.
the school, subscribed in the Church their promise to use the vest
ments.' In 1573, he was again cited for nonconformity, and, strange
as it may seem, considering his promise and subscription, for officiat
ing in "the church without a surplice. His answer, however, was a
good one. It was to the effect that there was no surplice in Rochdale
for him to wear. He had interpreted his promise to wear a surpHoe
as not including the obligation to purchase one, which to him would
be dear at any price. In many parishes the churchwardens refused
to pro"ride surplices for the clergy ; and in this instance we may
suppose the "ricar was not very urgent in exhorting his wardens to
discharge this part of their duty.* Bishop Chadderton was not dis
posed to deal severely vrith his friend ; and Midgley seems to have been
rather pUable when kindly treated, although uncommonly obstinate
when exposed to hard usage. He therefore repeated his subscription,
and in 1585 was appointed one of the moderators of the monthly
exercises in Manchester. He thus acquired considerable influence as
the bishop's ad"riser, and soon afterwards was invested with the.
authority of a commissioner, ' to amend and reform schisms, offences,
abuses, and contempts ecclesiastical.' The reformer of schisms and
offences was soon afterwards summoned to appear before the Chan
cellor of Chester to answer for several offences ; and among others, for
' neglecting to observe the hoUdays.' He either resigned his ricarage
or was deprived of it, and his son, though as incorrigible a Puritan
as himself, succeeded him.f
After his resignation he lived fourteen years, and during the greater
part of that time travelled over the country as a licensed preacher ;
or, as Mr. Raines says, 'not improbably one of the four queen's
preachers.' In his itinerant preaching, although he would be present
at the reading of the Common Prayer, he would take no part in it ;
but after it had been read he preached, by authority of his Ucense,
the doctrines of the Reformation. His preaching was, to the last,
earnest and powerful, and produced important results. Although,
in the evening of his prolonged Ufe, his great satisfaction must have
been in revie"wing the marvellous reformation which his faithful
preaching had produced in Rochdale, he was often cheered by the
assurance that his itinerating labours had proved no unworthy sup
plement of his pastoral ministrations. He died in 1609, and was
buried, amidst many of his lo-ying converts, in the churchyard of
Rochdale. The "ricarage in his time, "vrith an augmentation from
the Byron famUy, was valued at 261. 13s. M. a year. It is recorded
of Archbishop Whitgift, who held the impropriated rectory, of great
* In Liverpool, in 1612, the corporation resolved to provide a surpUce for their
clergyman and request him to wear it.— Moor's Rental, Introduction, p. xUx.
t Brook says he was ' sUenced and deprived of his living.' Mr. Raines, in his
notes to the Stanley Papers, cites Archbishop Whitgift in refutation of this state
ment, who nommated the sou ' per liberam et spontaueam resignationem Ricardi
Midgley. On the contrary, in the Notitia Oestmnsis, it is said the archbishop
presented Joseph Midgley ' per depriv. Ric. Midgley.' The probabiUty is that the
friendly bishop found it impossible to screen Midgley any longer, and so induced
him to resign in favour of his son. The resignation in that form would be partly
tree and partly forced.

PURITANISM IN THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH. ' 91
value, that he UberaUy granted, for the use of the "ricar and his suc
cessors in perpetuity, ' the herbage of the churchyard ' !
Joseph Midglet, M.A., the son of Richard, received the rudiments
of his education in the grammar school which his father had induced
Archbishop Parker to found in Rochdale. He proceeded thence to
Emanuel College, Cambridge, which, under the auspices of its founder.
Sir Walter MUdmay, had become distinguished as the Puritan college
of the university.* Confirmed in the principles he had learnt at home
by his college associates, he returned to Rochdale, where he became
curate, and eventuaUy, as we have already noticed, successor to his
father. Soon after he became "ricar, he was presented before the
chancellor of the diocese for refusing to wear the surpUce and for
other irregularities. As Dr. Chadderton, the master of his coUege,
was nominated to attend the Hampton Court Conference, he took
that opportunity of entreating King James to allow Midgley to min
ister vrithout the surpUce. Archbishop Whitgift, who well knew
both the father and the son, hastUy interposed by obser-ving that
entreaty could not be made for a worse man than Midgley, since,
' by his frreverent use of the eucharist, in deaUng the bread out of a
basket, everyone putting in his hand and taking out a piece, he
made many loathe the communion, and refuse to come to church.f
It appeared from an inquisition made in 1606 that he celebrated
the communion sitting, that he did not wear the surpUce, nor even
' a cloke "vrith sleeves,' that he did not use the cross in baptism, that
he did not have his parish perambulated, and that his churchwardens
'had eaten flesh in Lent.' Joseph, although probably not more
frregular than his father, seems to have been more honest or more
obstinate in his irregularities. The father might be persuaded into
some show of submission and promise of amendment, but the son
defied informers, bishops, and ecclesiastical courts. He even refused
to acknowledge the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury, when
Bancroft had recently attained that office, and Bancroft was not
likely to concede any part of his dignity to a Puritan vicar. Midgley
was soon brought to "the alternative of humble submission or imme
diate resignation. Refusing to submit, he was deprived of his church,
parsonage, and glebe. Defeated after doing his utmost to resist
* Several Lancashire men entered at Emanuel, and were among its most dis
tinguished members. Its first Master was La-wrence Chadderton, of Chadderton
near Manchester. The elder branch of the Chaddertons continued their allegiance
to the Catholic Church through the reign of EUzabeth. Lawrence, whUe studying
the law in London, became a Protestant, in consequence of which his father dis
owned him. Admitted to Christ College, Cambridge, he pursued his studies with
so much success, that after three years he obtained a feUowship. Distinguished
by his zeal for Protestantism and opposition to the Arminian theology, then be
ginning to appear in the university, he was selected by Sir Walter as the first
Master of Emanuel, and for many years retained his office, greatly to the advan
tage and reputation of the coUege. The senior feUow of Emanuel was also a
Lancashire Puritan, Charles Chad-wick, of the Chadwicks of Healy Hall, with whom
Mr. Midgley was connected by marriage. He received his early education in the
grammar school of Rochdale.
+ Strype's Annals, Appendix, p. 75. The account is given of the father, who
had then ceased to be vicar of Rochdale. It undoubtedly refers to the son.

92 LANCASHIRE.
ecclesiastical authority of all kinds, he retired from the ministry,
and applied himself to the practice of physic in Halifax. Although
he lived as a layman, he was not exempted from episcopal intoler
ance, for after his deprivation he was prosecuted and fined for not
kneeUng when he partook of the sacrament.* He died in 1637,
In connection with the Midgleys occurs the name of RiCHABD
RoTHWELL, one of the many converts of the elder Midgley.f He waa
born near Bolton in the year 1663. Prom the grammar school of
Farnworth, he went to Cambridge, and obtained the reputation of an
exact Greek and Hebrew scholar. He obtained ordination from
Archbishop Whitgift, who, by some strange assumption of authority,
forbade him to preach from the Canticles, Daniel, or the Revelation,
As at that time he cared little about the responsibiUty of preaching,
he felt no scruple in promising to observe the prohibition. Instead
of singing the Canticles or interpreting the Revelation, ha^ring great
physical strength and activity, he gave a larger proportion of Hs time
to athletic sports than some of his neighbours thought quite consistent
¦with his clerical duties. He was sometimes heard to swear ' faith
and troth,' which unseemly asseveration was carefuUy eschewed by
all grave Puritans. His biographer says that he had heard from the
reverend man himself, that of two knights in Lancashire, one had a
park vrithout any deer, and the other a pond without any fish, and
that the young clergyman amused himself at night by remoring some
of the deer to the grounds of the knight who had no venison, and
some of the fish to th^ pond of the owner of the deer. Being one
night surprised by the keeper of the deer park, RothweU tied the
poor man by his thumbs to a tree, so that he could touch the ground
with only the ends of his toes, I do not suppose the Reverend
Stanley Gower told an untruth of his friend, but as this seems strange
amusement for a clergyman even of those times, I iipagine the
biographer must have mistaken the youthful follies of RothweU, pro
bably his vacation exercises when an undergraduate, for his exploits
after his ordination.
Be this as it^may, Mr, RothweU, after his acquaintance with good
old Father Midgley, became quite another minister, and indeed
another man. He was, as his biographer teUs us, playing at bowla
near Rochdale with ' some vain gentlemen upon a Saturday afternoon,'
Mr. Midgley, on observing him so employed, ' took him aside, fell
into great commendation of him, and at length told him what a pity
it was that such a man as he should keep company vrith such, and
upon a Saturday, when he should be preparing for the Sabbath.'
Midgley, having vrisely tempered his rebuke with pleasant words,
retired, and offered fervent prayer for his clerical acquaintance.
RothweU, probably soothed by the remembrance of the 'pleasant
BI* v/^^^"® *° ^^ Defence of Nonconformity, by Thomas Paget, minister of
t The life of RothweU was printed by the Rev. Stanley Gower of Dorchester,
New England, and reprinted in Clark's Uves appended to his Martyrology. An
edition of Gower s book was printed at Bolton without a date, and may be
occasionally met with, bound with the Uves of John Bradford and George Marsh.

PURITANISM IN THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH. 93
words,' went the next morning to hear his reprover preach in Roch
dale church. He seems to have been prepared by the reproof of the
previous evening to listen with attention and interest to the discourse,
which was delivered with an impassioned earnestness to which he
had not been accustomed. Much affected, he waited upon the ricar,
acknowledged the justice of his rebuke, and earnestly sought further
guidance and insfruction. From that time he became a Puritan, and
ever afterwards spoke with veneration of Mr. Midgley, whom in
Puritan dialect he called his spiritual father. His preaching became,
like that of his ' spiritual father,' earnest, evangelical, and very
popular ; and if it was not so insinuating and persuasive, it was more
direct, forcible, mighty in its appeal, and terrible in its denunciations
of sin. So impressive, searching, heartrending was his preaching
that frequently his hearers, stricken ¦vrith a conviction of sin, cried
out in the church, reproaching themselves, or praying for mercy. The
rough-hewer, as the people caUed him, the Boanerges of Lancashire,
was well fitted by his physical strength, powerful voice, dauntless
spirit, and plain, popular eloquence, to do a great work among the
ignorant and irreUgious peasantry of the wUd moors in the south
eastern part of the county.
RothweU became a more decided Nonconformist than his friend
Midgley. He never could be induced to promise compliance -with
the requirements of the bishops, who in the latter part of Elizabeth's
reign began, even in the north, to harass and deprive Puritan minis
ters for thefr nonconformity. When offered good preferment by his
influential friends, he declined their offers, and bluntly told them
'his head was too big to get into a church door.' Content with a
poor chapelry, where in the faithful discharge of his duty he thought
nobody would trouble him for his nonconformity, he acqufred the
reputation of extraordinary power and success as a preacher of the
gospel. In an obscure -rillage he could not be hidden. He became
chaplain to a regiment under the Earl of Essex, and astonished the
soldiers by his athletic feats on the week days and his mighty preach
ing on Sundays. He was afterwards appointed the domestic chaplain
of the Earl of Devonshire. He was thence in-rited by ' that honour
able and elect lady,' as Stanley Gower calls the Lady Bowes, to preach
to the farmers and labourers of her estates about Barnard Castle.
The people of that neighbourhood were so unruly that she had great
difficulty in inducing any minister to Uve among them. Her own
chaplain ' dared not venture among so surly a people.' She made
the proposal to the Rev. the 'rough-hewer,' who replied that he was
' -wiUing to go where the devU was,' who was sure to be found in
Barnard Castle. On her ladyship expressing some fear of the ' fierce
disposition ' of the people, he said that ' if he thought he should not
meet the devil there, he would not go.' He went, and soon found
his old enemy, with whom he fought a very hard battle. He gained
the day, and drove all the demons out of their favourite region. The
people, under his teaching, became ci-ril, decent, orderly, respectable,
and many of them new creatures in Christ Jesus. The violent oppo
sition which they at first showed was soon and thoroughly subdued.

94 LANCASHIRE.
For a little whUe they feared him. He never struck one of them,
but if he Ufted up his arm the stoutest of them was awed into sUence.
Their hatred and thefr fear soon melted into love. They became
ready to do anything to show their affectionate regard for their he-
loved pastor. On occasion of his absence for a short time, the people,
who had never before thought of doing a kindness to a parson,
collected thirty pounds, and entrusted it to Sir Talbot Bowes, to be
given to him on his return. On hearing of it, he requested that the
money might be restored to the donors, as he sought not theirs but
them. His courage was as remarkable as his godliness. On one occasion,
when the officers of the bishop came to apprehend him, he drew hia
sword— which unclerical weapon he always carried, although he
could not endure a surpUce — and peremptorily ordered them to keep
their distance. They retired, stricken vrith terror. His biographer
tells a strange tale of his encounter with a de-ril in Nottinghamshire,
who took possession of a poor man and made him swear dreadful
oaths, tell horrible lies, and utter abominable abuse. After many
godly ministers had prayed over the possessed to no purpose, Mr.
RothweU undertook his deUverance, and although the process was
very long and troublesome, eventually healed the demoniac. As this
wonderful work was done, not in Lancashire, but in Nottinghamshire,
I am not concerned to make any further enquiries respecting it, or to
ascertain whether he went to work vrith or -without the bishop's
license. As the rough-hewer had left his native county when he
practised the healing of demoniacs, I am glad to leave him to the
Nonconformist historian of Nottinghamshire or Durham. According
to his biographer, he left ' a book written vrith his own hand ' about
the assaults of the deril upon this poor man, and the answers of
' divers godly and reverend ministers ' respecting them. In the ciril
wars, some CavaUers got possession of the book, and ' utterly desfroyed
it:' 'very profanely,' says his New England biographer; very
properly, say I, who love the Cavaliers no better than did the New
Englander. Olivee Caetee, B.D. of Cambridge, was appointed in 1670 one of
the fellows of the coUegiate church in Manchester. He was, says
HoUingworth, ' a learned man who wrote a book in answer to
Bristow's " Motives." ' He must have had a good repute for learning
and abiUty, or he would not have been requested by influentiaJ
scholars to answer the work of Richard Bristow, who was considered
the ablest and most eloquent defender of the CathoUc cause in the
reign of EUzabeth. A zealous Protestant and a controversial
preacher, Carter was especiaUy obnoxious to as many of his
parishioners as adhered to the CathoUc doctrine of thefr fathers.
They denounced him as a ' concubinarian clergyman,' excited the
violence of the mob against him, and more than once endangered his
Ufe, In 1678, when puritanism in Lancashfre was for poUtical reasons
favoured by the queen's government, he was appointed one of
the five moderators of the Manchester exercises, and so obtained

PURITANISM IN THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH, 95
considerable influence in governing the clergy who were placed
under his instruction and discipUne, In that exalted position, he
became the protector and patron ofthe Puritan clergy, and the avowed
opponent of all approaches in doctrine or ritual to the Catholic Church,
His determinate energy sometimes brought him into collision even
"vrith Bishop Chadderton, whom he accused of unchristian severity,
when that prelate found it necessary to enforce, however mildly, some
Uttle submission to the ecclesiastical law. His contentions with the
most Puritan bishop on the bench led him, in the latter part of his
life, to speak vrith very little respect of the bishops who, as he thought,
were becoming ' lords over God's heritage,' As the Presbyterian
form of church order had been established in Scotland, Carter began
to suggest that it might with some advantage be introduced into
England, In him may be observed the earliest indication, so far as
I know, among the Puritan clergy of Lancashfre of any inclination
towards the presbyterianism of Scotland,
I have had occasion to observe how much the EngUsh Church is
indebted to the Puritans for the preservation of its property from the
rapacity of Queen Elizabeth's courtiers. In this respect Carter did
good service. When Warden Herle was aUenating the estates of the
coUegiate church, and even the queen was thought to be concerned
for her favourites, if not for herself. Carter wrote an importeinate
letter of remonstrance to Burleigh and W^rlsingham, and entreated
them to protect the Church from the spoUation of the courtiers vrith
whom Herle was making sacrUegious confracts. He alone of the
feUows had the courage to institute a law-suit by which the aUenation
was prevented and a favourable settlement obtained for the coUegiate
church. The ecclesiastical commissioners of the present day have but
Uttle knowledge of the amount of property which has been preserved
for them by the fidelity of the old Puritans.
"When Dr. Dee was warden. Carter seems to have been incessantly
engaged in resisting, obstructing, and annoying him. The fellow
had no respect for the astrology or alchemy of the warden, and the
warden cared quite as Uttle for the theology or policy of the feUow.
Carter had no faith in occult science, and Dee no interest in declam
atory preaching. Carter regarded Dee as a court spy, and Dee freated
Carter as a disorderly intruder. There arose between them a fierce
dispute about the introduction of an organ into the coUegiate church,
which dispute seems to have been arranged by a sort of compromise.
' The organs upon condition were admitted.'
Towards the close of thfrty-five years' hard service in Manchester,
he was anxious to secure an effective preacher who would continue
the good work in which with all his heart he had been so long en
gaged. With the approval of his coUeagues he consulted Lawrence
Chadderton and WiUiam Whitaker, leaders of the Puritans in Cam
bridge, who recommended William Bouene as a preacher weU fitted
to promote the good cause in Manchester. Bourne on his arrival was
received "with delight by the great majority of the parishioners. His
preaching, more loving, pathetic, and insinuating than that of Carter,
although he was far from being so able a man, produced a marvellous

96 LANCASHIRE.
impression upon the hearts of the people, who crowded the church
whenever he was expected to preach. Since the days of John Brad
ford no such preaching had been heard in Manchester, Carter, who
loved the gospel as well as preached it, so far from sho"wing any
jealousy of the young evangelist, rejoiced in his success, and observed
vrith delight the growth of the Puritan spirit under his affectionate
preaching. Mr. Carter died in March 1604-6, and his friend Bourne succeeded
to his fellowship. Of the successor, HoUingworth says : ' He was
learned in the tongues, sound in his judgment, zealous against every
error, especially against popery. Seldom or never did he ascend the
pulpit but he sfruck at some popish doctrine before he came down.
He dissented little or nothing from the discipUne used in Scotland,
but vehemently propagated it, yet in a prudent and peaceable way,
save that he held the feast of the natirity of Christ, of His circum
cision, and other holy days, might lawfnUy, yea ought to be duly
kept. He was much in ordinary and extraordinary duties of piety,
prayer, fasting, thanksgiving, both in his own house and elsewhere.
He usually did pray and sing psalms in his bed when he awaked,
that he might be without disturbance of those that lay in his chamber
vrith him. He was a frequent preacher. His preaching was plain,
yet profitable to the conversion of many souls, and the reformation of
the town from several abuses.'
As he continued a popular preacher and an influential minister in
Manchester untU the breaking out of the civU war, we may, haying
been thus introduced to him by a, friend who knew him well, leave
him for the present, with the expectation of frequently meeting him in
the course of our narrative and hearing him tell his own story.
William Leigh, B.D., rector of Standish, was, says Dr. "Whitaker,
' a man memorable in his day.' * On account of his famUy connec
tions, his social position, his dignified bearing, his exemplary character,
his sound learning, his literary taste, and his regular habits of busi
ness, he was probably the most respectable of the Puritan clergy of
Lancashfre. Bom in 1550, and belonging to one of the best families
of the county, he was elected a scholar of Brasenose CoUege in 1571,
and a fellow in 1673. Having obtained orders, he became ' a painful
preacher in the university and the parts adjacent.' Employed in
that vocation for thirteen years, he gained great and deserved repu
tation both as a scholar and a preacher. In 1686 he was presented
by Bishop Chadderton to the rectory of Standish, where, says Anthony
Wood, ' he was held in great esteem for his learning and godliness.'
He soon afterwards became a justice of the peace, and one of the
chaplains of the Earl of Derby. If we may judge from the frequency
of his preaching before the earl, we should regard him as the favourite
preacher. In the household books his preaching at Lathom and
Knowsley is mentioned more frequently than that of any other chap
lain, no less than sixteen times in three years. After the accession of
King James he was invited to preach before the court, and gave so
much satisfaction as to be appointed one of the tutors of Prince
* Notes to Nicholas Assheton's Journal, in The Histwy of Whalley.

PURITANISM IN THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH. 97
Henry. How far the careful insfruction and gentle influence of the
Puritan tutor formed the character of his iUustrious and accomplished
pupil, it is vain to conjecture ; but we know that the amiable prince,
so much better in every respect than his fether and his brother, was
decidedly favourable to the -riews of the Puritans. Neal calls him
' the darUng of the Puritans.' His premature death was grievously
lamented by the Puritan ministers, many of whom did thefr best to
perpetuate the memory of his vfrtues in funeral sermons which were
soon forgotten. In the estimation of Mr. Leigh, his death was an
frreparable calamity to the nation.
As a preacher Leigh was very superior both in thought and lan
guage to the clergymen of his time. In reading the sermons which
he pubUshed, were it not for the occurrence of a few quaint expres
sions and a Uttle of the fanciful prettiness of his age, we should
scarcely recognise a preacher of the reign of EUzabeth or James in
the Lancashfre rector. Of his pubUshed sermons, the most popular,
although not the best, were "three which he preached on the sad
occasion of the death of the queen, entitled ' Queen Eliaabeth paral
leled in her princely ¦yfrtue vrith Darid, Josiah, and Hezekiah,'
A sermon which he preached in ChUdweU church on occasion of
the death of Mrs. Katharine Brettargh, and pubUshed ¦with the title
of ' The Soul's Solace against Sorrow,' has been held in much
greater estimation by the admirers of Mr. Leigh. Mr, Raines says :
' There is great beauty and simplicity of style in many parts, and the
concluding sentences rise much above the ordinary level of the
Puritan writers of the day,'* They certainly rise much above the
level of his patron, the Puritan bishop of the diocese, ' Well, she is
gone, and now her seat is empty and her grave is fuU, and methinks
for the present we feel her want on earth, whom God hath found in
heaven, our prayers less powerful, our preaching less precious, and
our psalms less melodious on her behalf. You all know that there
she sat and there she sang, there she read and there she prayed, there
she heard the word, there she received the sacrament, there lately she
Uved and there now she is dead. Therefore I may say with the
prophet. All flesh is grass, and all the grace thereof as the flowers of the
field. But comfort yourselves in the hope of a joyful resurrection ;
as also in respect of her holy Ufe, blessed end, and most happy state
in glory ; and sith she is gone, let it be remembered as a sacrament
of her rest, that she went upon a day of rest, one of the chief of Sab
baths and high feast of Pentecost,t even then that she should ascend
when the Holy Spfrit did descend, by which Spfrit she was sealed to
the da'y of redemption. WorshipfuUy was she descended, but more
honourably (may I say) is she ascended. Yet, behold, the husband
mourneth that he has lost a -wife, the mother moumeth that she hath
lost a daughter, the brothermourneththat he hath lost a sister; which
is, methinks, not much unUke the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the
valley of Megiddon, Yet this is not aU, for we preachers may mourn,
* Notes to Assheton's Journal.
+ Mr. Leigh, Uke WUliam Bourne and other Lancashire Puritans, made no
objection to the festivals of the Church.
H

98 LANCASHIRE,
for that we have lost an auditor who heard with reverence, felt with
passion, and followed with perseverance. But, beloved, what we
have lost heaven hath found, and the holy angels rejoice in thefr gain.
In the meantime, the Lord of heaven supply the want upon earth,
and increase the number of the faithful professors im, Siords gaudium
et Anglo-papistorum hoctum. Amen. Amen.'
This is not quite to our taste, but it is a pleasing illustration of the
spirit and manner of an affectionate preacher when good sermons
were scarce in Lancashire. The earnest preaching of a gentleman
and a scholar in the churches of Childwell, Sladeburn, and other
-rillages which he often risited, was not only agreeable to the few
intelligent famUies who resided there, but very useful to the Uhterate
cottagers. Zealous for the promotion of learning, he granted lands for the
endowment of the grammar school in Standish, founded by his friend
Mrs. Mary Langton.* Having continued for fifty- three years the
rector of Standish, and haying aU that time maintained the highest
character as a preacher and a magisfrate, he died at the age of eighty-
nine, and was buried in the chancel of Standish church, I hope he
died in charity with aU mankind, but in making his wUl he could not
forget his old enemies the Papists. In one clause he expressly forbad
that 'any dole' should be given at his funeral, as such doles 'have
caused much superstition in praying for the dead. ' When the matter
of the Samlesbury witches was referred to him and another magistrate
for examination, he was in some perplexity, for although he was sure
the Papists were somehow concerned, he could not determine whether
the seminary priests had instigated the witches to do diaboUcal deeds,
or had induced the informers to accuse them felsely. He seems to
have thought that the Papists were wUling to commit either crime,
or both crimes, or any crime possible to human nature,
Mr. Leigh, learned, judicious, and considerate as he was, was not
free from the prejudices of his age, "WTien Ferdiuando Earl of Derby
died, Mr. Leigh, as his chaplain, attended him in his last moments.
When everybody beUeved he was either consumed by the vritches or
poisoned by the Papists, Mr. Leigh was e-ridently inclined to acquit
the -witches for the sake of an opportunity of accusing the Papists.
He has passed before a tribunal from which he has received a more
merciful judgment than he ever pronounced upon either -witches or
Papists. We may associate vrith Mr. Leigh, John Caldwall, B.A., like him
a gentleman, a scholar, a rich rector, an earnest preacher, and a con
sistent Puritan. He appears to have been the son of Richard Cald
waU, M.D., President of the CoUege of Physicians, and to have
obtained soon after his ordination the rectory of Mobberley in Cheshire.
In that position he secured the respect of the Puritan gentry of hia
neighbourhood, and obtained the reputation of being ' a painM
* Several in,stanoes occur of Pm:dtan endowments for schools in Lancashire, and
some for the benefit of poor clergymen. The parsonage and glebe of Hawkshead
m Furness were given by Dr. Walker, a member of the assembly of divines, and,
accordmg to Wood, ' a severe Puritan,'

PURITANISM IN THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH. 99
preacher.' When Henry Earl of Derby dispensed his patronage
almost exclusively among the Puritan clergy, he was especially favour
able to Mr. Caldwall, whom he appointed one of his chaplains, and
presented to the richest rectory in his possession, and indeed in the
north of England, that of Winvrick near Warrington.* In this dig
nified position he was esteemed the most considerable personage, as
undoubtedly he was the most influential, in the neighbourhood of
Warrington. He was assessed at the sum of £50, a higher assess
ment than that of any other parochial clergyman of the north, to raise
soldiers for the service of the queen in the defence of the Netherlands.
He was also required, as were two other rich rectors of the county,
the parson of Wigan and the rector of Middleton, to proride and
equip a light horseman ' to resist certain foreign forces sent by the
pope and his confederates.' Although he maintained in Winvrick
the high reputation which he had gained in Mobberley for the exem
plary discharge of his parochial duties, the ' painful preacher ' does
not seem to have unduly neglected the husbandry of his valuable
glebe, for, as Canon Raines teUs us, ' his cattle and husbandry for
number and extent were worthy of an old patriarch.' He could weU
afford to live in a style far above most of the parochial clergy of his
time, and it is erident he did so, for at his death, his books, maps,
silver plate, rings, 'armour, as caUvers, pistolate, haulbert,' &c.,
were valued at 314Z. 18s. 6d., a sum which probably would have pur
chased the furniture of (with the exception ofthe three great rectories)
half the parsonages of Lancashire. He died in 1599, suddenly, on a
journey, near Tamworth, in the fifty-first year of his age, greatly
lamented by his parishioners and by the Puritan clergy of his neigh
bourhood. Edwaed Fleetwood, B.D,, the incumbent of the second great
rectory of Lancashfre, or, as he was called, the Parson of Wigan, was
required Uke the rector of Winwick to furnish a horseman for the
queen's serrice against the pope. If we may judge from his avowed
hostiUty to the Papists, he would gladly have contributed anything re-
qufred for that sort of service. Towards the expense ofthe war in the
Netherlands he was assessed at only half the sum imposed upon his
rich neighbour of Winwick, that is 25Z., a large assessment in those
days. A member of one of the best families of the county, he was
instituted ' Parson of Wigan ' in 1571, and retained, untU his death
in 1600, the reputation of an able, diligent, and most respectable
clergyman. He was also an active magistrate, an eloquent preacher,
one of the Earl of Derby's chaplains and a member of his council,
and in every office unwearied in denouncing and punishing Papists
and in promoting the puritanical observance of the Lord's day. As
a magistrate of the county he signed the injunctions which were sent,
¦without the authority of queen or parliament, to all churchwardens
and constables, commanding them to suppress all ' wakes, fairs, bull.
baitings, pipings, and huntings,' on the Lord's day. In his zeal for
the suppression of popery, he thought that measures more stringent
* Camden says, ' This place has the reputation of being the richest rectory in
the kingdom.'

100 LANCASHIRE.
than even those adopted by Lord Derby and Bishop Chadderton were
necessary, and by his mfluence vrith Lord Burleigh he obtamed the
appomtment of several new commissioners, with whom, however,
neither the bishop nor the earl acted cordially, as the appomtment
seemed Uke a reflection upon thefr proceedings. Fleetwood might
console himself under the displeasure of his superiors m Lancashire
by the approval of Lord Burleigh, who, probably at his instigation,
wrote both to the bishop and to the earl urging them to enforce more
severely the laws against popish recusants and emissaries. _
The thfrd Lancashire rector reputed rich enough to furnish a hght
horseman for the queen's serrice was John Assheton, rector of Mid
dleton. The great famUy of the Asshetons, at that time second in
importance of the Lancashire famUies only to the Stanleys, was in its
numerous branches decidedly and almost exclusively Puritan. Several
of them held the rich famUy rectory of Middleton ; three in succes
sion — John, Edward, and Abdias. Of John little more is known
than that he was a quiet sort of Puritan, the father of Abdias.
Edward, who belonged to another branch of the family, is chiefly re
markable for his marriage vrith EUzabeth, the co-heiress of Ralph
Belfield. She and her sister Ann had been carried to churchin their
chUdhood by thefr guardian and married to two little boys. Both
the marriages were unpropitious. The husband of Elizabeth was the
person already mentioned who deposed on oath that he was so young
at the solemnisation of his marriage that he could not remember it.
The parties had not lived together, although the Uttle gfrl when at
school usually wore at her gfrdle a knife which her boyish husband
had given her for a love-token. The profane marriage was dissolved
by an authority which the bishop of the diocese then assumed, and
EUzabeth became the good wife of the rector of Middleton.
His successor, Abdias Assheton, B.D. of St. John's, Cambridge,
is better known to us by his acquaintance, when rector of Sladeburn,
-with his neighbour and relative, Nicholas Assheton, Esq., of Down
ham. He belonged to a class of Puritan clergymen who seldom
appear in Puritan history, and are not often to be found in the south
of England, or even outside of the county of Lancaster. Of his early
life Uttle is known, although he had probably been chaplain to the
Earl of Essex, to whom he faithfully adhered when the earl was
executed for high treason. This may be inferred from a clause in
his wUl, in which he bequeathed ' my watch or pocket clock, given
unto me by my most honourable Lord of Essex, the morning before
his death.'
Abdias, or Abdie,* as he was often called, was as good a Puritan
as his pious father or any of his famUy in the matter ofthe ceremonies,
as also in his abhorrence of the Papists ; but he was a merry sort of'
parson, excessively fond of field sports and athletic exercises. When
rector of Sladeburn, he was the frequent companion of that ' royster
ing, merry, jovial Puritan,' as Harrison Ainsworth f calls Nicholas
¦* He is called Abdie Assheton, B.D., in the burial register of Middleton.
t The Lancashire Witches. The novelist falls into two mistakes in reference to
the ' roystering Puritan,' in saying that when his parson was not present he would

PURITANISM IN THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH, 101
Assheton, in hunting, coursing, and ' fishing -with great nets.' Al
though the rector would on no account appear in a surpUce, he was
very wUling to ride the counfry in his hunting coat, and if he could
not endure the music of an organ in church, yery pleasant to him was
the bark of the dogs with which he hunted the otters that infested
his fishing stream and devoured his salmon.* It might have height
ened the interest of the noveUst's picture of the otter hunt on the
Hodder or the Ribble, if he had introduced the Puritan rector with
his spiked pole foUovring the dogs down the stream in company with
the Puritan squire. The people of Downham and Sladeburn, who in
the beginning of the seventeenth century knew the originals, could
they live again and read such an amended edition of the tale, would
as easily recognise the one figure as the other, f
From his- translation, in 1618, to the rich liring of Middleton,
Abdias continued faithful to the fraditions of his family in eschewing
all papistical ceremonies, until his death in 1633 at the age of seventy-
five. Like other Lancashire Puritans he preached on saints' days,
and always, after the Gunpowder Plot, on the fifth of November.
Peter Shaw, M.A., rector of Bury, Thomas Williamson, ricar of
Eccles, and John Langley, M. A., rector of Prestwich, were moderators
of the monthly exercises in Manchester. They had the reputation of
' grave, godly, and learned men.' They were moderate Puritans,
who gained a salutary influence over the inferior clergy, and after
thefr Puritan bishop had left the diocese they preserved in their part
of the county a respect for Puritan doctrine which long continued
among ¦ the gentry and traders of Manchester and the neighbouring
towns. Such were the principal Puritan clergymen of Lancashfre at the
close of the reign of Elizabeth and the beginning of that of James.
Of the Puritan gentlemen of that time, a more beautiful example
cannot be selected than John Bruen, of Bruen Stapleford, Esq., or of
the Puritan ladies than his sister Katharine, ' wife of Master "WiUiam
Brettargh of Brettarghoult in the countie of Lancaster, gentleman.'
Although Bruen Stapleford, thefr native place and famUy seat, is
in Cheshire, yet as the brother was intimately connected with the
Puritan famiUes of Lancashfre, spent much of his time and did much
good in that county, and as the sister on her marriage settled in it,
their biography may iUustrate the habits and character of the Puritan
families of the better class in Lancashfre quite as much as of those of
the adjoining county,
let out an oath, and enjoy a game of sport ; for, first, Nicholas had no great fear of
parson Abdie, and secondly, if he had, as to the sport, Abdie was ever ready to join
him, and as to the oath, Nicholas was a sort of Puritan who never swore, although
he was sadly addicted to tippling.
* One of his parishioners, Mrs, Sherborne, ' was said to be so popishly inclined
that the Rector Abdias refused to stand sponsor for her child.' Her popish inclin
ation appeared, so far as I can find, only in wishing the curate would wear a sur
pUce when he officiated at the sacrament.
+ We find the two Puritans, rector and squire, on one occasion making ' merrie
at a pigg-eating,' whatever that may have been, — Journal of Nicholas Assheton,
¦edited for Chetham Society,

102 LANCASHIRE.
John Beuen was the eldest son of the proprietor of Bruen Staple
ford, Although he was heir to the estate, he had not the prospect
of great wealth, as he was one of fourteen children, aU of whom had
some claim upon the famUy estate upon the death of their father.
John, as his biographer tells us, ' was brought upciviUy and, as thoae
times were, reUgiously, and the Lord preserved him in chUdhood and
youth from the poison of popish superstition,'*
He received his early education from a tutor in the family of his
uncle, the head of the respectable house of Dutton of Dutton, where
he learnt 'something of grammar, a Uttle of civil education, but
nothing at all for nurture and information in true religion,' Not-
¦vrithstanding this deficiency in his education, he seems to have been
in his childhood subject to reUgious impressions, as he would, es
peciaUy after correction, go into his father's chapel and pray, as well
as he could, for pardon and comfort. When he was fourteen years
old, he entered as a gentleman commoner in St. Alban's Hall, Oxford,
where he became intimate with John Brerewood, a son of a Chester
alderman, who was grieved to observe in him ' some popish notiona
about refraining from meats on Fridays, and disappro-ving of the
marriage of ministers.' As this was the worst popery discovered in
him, we may suppose that he was a scrupulous youth to whom the-
ascetic piety of some clergymen appeared eminently Christian and
saintly. His new acquaintance set upon him with so much zeal,
and overwhelmed him with so many arguments, that he renounced
his ' popish notions,' and wrote in his diary, ' This when I saw and
considered was a doctrine of de-yUs, taught and deUvered by
seducing spfrits and such as speak Ues in hypocrisy ; I was inflamed
with zeal agauist the profane beast of Rome and aU popery, both
persons and things, vrith all their monuments, rites, and ceremoniea.'
When he was nineteen years of age ' his provident father, consider
ing that he was the first born of has strength, pro^rided for him the
daughter of a worthy and wise gentleman, to whom he was married
and Uved very comfortably.'
In his twenty-seventh year his father died and left him the care of
twelve brothers and sisters, for whose benefit the family estate was
hearily burdened. At the same time, he had also a young family of
his own ' growing,' his biographer says, ' as oUve plants around his
table,' but consuming more expensive food than the earth and water
on which oUve plants grow.t
* A Faithful Remo'nstrance of the Holy Ufe and Happy Death of Jolm
Bruen, of Bruen Stapleford, Esquire, by the late Reverend Divine WilUam
Hinde, sometime Fellow of Queen's CoUege, Oxon, and Preacher of God's Word
at Bunbury in Cheshire. ' Life of John Bruen,' iu Clark's Lives. ' Lite of Mrs.
Katharine Brettargh,' in Clark's Uves, appended to his Marrow of Ecclesiastical

+ Mr. Bruen had eight children by his first wife, nine by his second, and two
by his third, and although two or three of his olive plants faded before others
had grown, his nursery must have been a costly one. He managed, however,
greatly to his deUght, to satisfy to the last farthing all the claims of his brother*
and sisters. Notwithstanding the heavy demands of his family, his liberality
to the poor was extraordinary. Besides the destitute of his own parish, who-

PURITANISM m THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH. 103
To avoid pecuniary embarrassment, and to fulfil to the uttermost
the intentions of his father respecting the settlement of his brothers
and sisters, he resolutely reduced his expenditure in several ways, as
by relinquishing hawking and hunting, and destioying his kennels
and cockpits. From prudential considerations he converted his deer
park into pasturage, and repafred by care and economy the injury
which his estate had suffered through his father's exfravagance. His
economy has been misunderstood, and attributed to Puritan objec
tions to the field sports to which the Puritan gentry (and some of
the Puritan clergy) of Lancashfre and Cheshire were quite as much
attached as thefr AngUcan or CathoUc neighbours. I do not repre
sent the selling of his hawks and dogs as an act of self-denial, for
field sports were probably not very agreeable to the taste and dis
position of so quiet, gentle, contemplative, and studious a man as
John Bruen of Stapleford. I wish, however, to make it understood
that it was not on account of any reUgious scruples that he desfroyed
his dog kennels and disposed of his deer. As, however, we have
before us the life of a Puritan country gentleman, whose habits were
in dfrect confrast vrith those of the ' roystering Puritan ' squire of
Downham, vrith whose journal we can compare it, we may be able to
form an accurate estimate of the opinions of the Puritan gentry of
the north in the matter of amusements. No other works ¦will help
us so much as that 'Life' and that 'Journal,' especiaUy as we
may illusfrate them by many references to amusements in other
Puritan Uves and diaries of the seventeenth centniry. But before
we consider thefr amusements, we had better finish what we have
to say of other matters that belong to the Ufe of Bruen and his
sister. The Life of Mr, Bruen suppUes a remarkable Ulusfration of the
antipathy vrith which even moderate Puritans of gentility and culture
regarded stained glass and other ornamentation of churches. The
coloured figures were looked upon as reUcs of popery, as unquestion
ably they were symboUc representations of sacred things which admit
of no simiUtude, The sensuous pleasure excited by them is entfrely
distinct from the pure and devout worship of the inrisible, although
easUy mistaken for it to the injury of the worshipper. In the chapel
of his ancestors, reputed the property of the famUy, Mr, Bruen ob
served ' many superstitious images in the windows, so thick and dark
that there was scarce the breadth of a groat of white glass among
them. Knowing by the truth of God that, though the Papists ¦wiU
have images to be laymen's books, yet they teach no other lessons but
of Ues, nor any doctrine but of vanities ; and considering that these
dumb and dark images by thefr painted coats and colours did both
darken the Ught of the church, and obscure the brightness of the
gospel, he presently took order to pull down aU the painted puppets
and popish idols, in a warrantable and peaceable manner, and of hia
own cost and charge repafred the breaches and beautified the windows
were maintained at his expense, the poor of the neighbourhood, and even of
Chester, were once a week hospitably entertained in the great haU of Bruen
Stapleford,

104 LANCASHIRE.
vrith clear white and bright glass again." To a true Puritan, as
to a true Mahomedan, aU colour was profanation m a sanctuary of
God, whose Ught ought to be the pure, candid, unstained, unsoiled
Ught which comes direct and unrefracted from heaven. Other Puri
tans showed, as he did, thefr love of the pure Ught of heaven by
desfroying the ' painted puppets ' which obscured and stained it in
the -windows of their churches. Some of them, Uke the mother bf
OUver Heywood a few years later, did thefr work in ' a warrantable
and peaceable manner,' for she 'obtained leave of the officers' to
break the windows of the churches near Bolton, The greater part,
I fear, did it in an unwarrantable and unpeaceable manner.
The biographer of Mr. Bruen presents us vrith a beautiful picture
of a Puritan Sabbath, ' His house was distant about a mUe from
the church, the way fair and large, so that he usually went afoot,
caUing aU his famUy about him, leaving neither cook nor butler
behind, nor any of his servants but two or three to make the doors
and tend the house. Then taking his tenants and neighbours, as
they lay in the way, along with him, he marched on vrith a joyful
and cheerful heart towards the house of God, as a leader of the
Lord's host, according to the Psalmist, I went with the multitude to
ihe house of God, with the voice of joy amd praise, with a mMltitude that
kept holy day. And so it was his ordinary manner to call his com
pany near about him, and to join together in one heart and voice, to
sing praises as they went along, and that psalm especially, Eow
pleasant is thy dwellvng-place, which they performed with such a
melodious harmony, that the Uke may be said of them as it was of
the Jews, God made them to rejoice with great joy. Their vrives
also and the children rejoiced, so that their joy was heard even afar
off.' , , . . 'His coming to church vrith all his femily, attendants,
and followers, was constantly before the beginning of prayers or any
part of divine serrice, that he might join more comfortably vrith
God's minister and people in confession of sins, in prayer and praise,
reading and hearing of the word, singing of psalms, and partaking of
the sacraments, aU which he did perform -with such a reverent
attention and gracious affection, -vrith so holy a carriage and good
conscience, that, as hereby he did much increase his o"wn comfort, so
was his good example a great encouragement to many others, yea, a
very spur and goad unto prayer, to be more reUgious and conscien
tious in God's worship and service. After prayers and sermon he
seldom went to dinner, but abode in the church to bestow himself at
this interim in God's serrice, vrith such good people as were "willing
to stay vrith him. This he did by repeating the sermon, which he
had taken very exactly with his own hand, and by singing of psabna,
and by wholesome conference in and about good things. And so
waiting for the evening sacrifice, after he had with Uke care and
conscience performed the public duties of the Sabbath, he returned
homeward with his company, -with much comfort and joy in their
hearts, endeavouring as they went along to increase their knowledge,
faith, and obedience, by repeating and conferring of the evening ser
mon, and to enlarge their hearts of God's praise, by singing of psalms

PURITANISM IN THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH. 105
afresh, considering what great things God had done for them. And
if any among them were afflicted, they would be ready to counsel
him, comfort him, and pray for him. He himself, especially, if he
heard of any such as were troubled in conscience upon the hearing of
the word, would be ever most ready and vrilUng, like the good Sama
ritan, to pour wine and oil into the troubled spirit, wine that he might
search it, and oU that he might supple and heal it. After this
manner did he frequent the house of God, sanctify the Lord's day,
and refresh his own soul "vrith heavenly manna and other spiritual
repast, so long as he could either walk or ride unto it.'
The domestic life of Mr. Bruen was such as might have been
expected of one who in the moderation, not extravagance, of puritan
ism made the Sabbath a day of quiet enjoyment, as well as of holy
solemnity. His biographer tells us, ' It was his ordinary custom to
rise early in the morning, betwixt three and four of the clock in
summer, and at five in the -winter, so that by his rigilance and indus
try he gained the liberty and opportunity of an hour or two before
he rang the bell to awake the rest of the famUy ; which time he be
stowed most graciously, first in private prayer for himself and for
every soul in his family, making mention of some more particularly
by name, as their occasions or afflictions might move him thereunto,
and gi-ring thanks to God for such mercies and comforts as both he
and they had received that night past, and formerly also, from His
hand. Secondly, in meditation upon some part of God's word and
works, wherevrith he did season his mind and refresh his heart, as to
set the watch right in the morning that the clock might go the better
aU the day after. Thirdly, he did, as he had occasion, write out fafr
some part of such sermons as he had by a running hand taken from
the mouth of the preacher, for renewing and increasing of the benefit
and comfort which he had reaped and received by the same. Thus
did he watch over his family whUe they were at rest, and commend
them unto God by his prayers, before they could open thefr Ups to
speak with Him by their own words. Thus did he awake with God
in the morning that he might the better awake unto righteousness,
and walk before God in hoUness and uprightness all the day after,
even until the evening. This he did by way of preparation.
' Now for execution. In the performance of his famUy exercises
he did discharge himself after this manner. After they were come
together upon the ringing of the bell, they did aU very reverently
frame and compose themselves to stand in God's presence, and then
he himself, lifting up his heart vrith his hands unto God in the
heavens, began his moming exercise after this manner, " Blessed Lord
God and our Most Mercifnl Father in Christ Jesus, we Thy poor
children do humbly beseech Thee graciously to assist us by Thy Holy
Spfrit in this our morning exercise, that we may faithfuUy perform
the same to Thy praise and our comfort, and that for Christ's sake,
our only Sa"riour and Redeemer, Amen." This set form of short
prayer before his morning and evening exercise, I do the more "wU-
lingly set down, that they may see how far they were deceived, and
what wrong they did him, who held him to be an utter adversary to

106 LANCASHIRE.
all set forms of prayer, who might also have received thefr answer,
if they had but observed his ordinary practice every Lord's day, in
the pubhc assembly, where he did reverently accommodate himself
to the pubUc prayers of the church, and reUgiously join together with
minister and people in the celebration of God's service. Certainly
he was not ignorant that when the Sariour Christ taught His disci
ples to pray. He gave them liberty- to call upon the name of God
thefr Father, in that set form of prayer which He prescribed, and in
the same words : "When you pray, say. Our Father," &c. Yet for
aU that,_ he knew well enough that He gave the spirit of prayer unto
them, and unto all believers, children of the same Father, that they
might enlarge themselves according to those grounds, and frame all
their suits after that form. Therefore He gave this direction unto
them, "After this manner pray ye." Yea, Christ hath left His own
blessed example, when in His agony He prayed three times, saying
the same words ; and when after His farewell sermon to His dis
ciples, He prayed for Himself, His disciples, and all true behevers
unto the world's end, in great variety of words, and for many gifts
and graces in particular, which yet are not aU mentioned, but are aU
for substance contained in that pattern of true prayer.'
On the public exercises of reUgion in Lancashfre and Cheshfre, Mr,
Bruen attended with much care and frequency, even when they were
at a considerable distance from his home. His biographer says he
took ' many long and sore journeys, with much toU and travail of his
body, and no small cost and charge of his purse, riding early and
late, in heat and cold, short days and foul ways, sometimes ten, some
times twenty, and sometimes thirty miles, as the distance of the
place and season of the year requfred, to the end that he might gather
manna where he knew that it would be rained down, and glean after
the reapers in the Lord's harvest, and buy gold and white raiment,
wine and milk, without money and -without price, of the Lord's mer
chants, upon the Lord's mart and market days,' To make the most
of these exercises he was accustomed to write from the lips of the
preachers ' the whole substance and matter of thefr notes, observa
tions, and sermons, in his book borne -with him, which he would
carefully repeat on his journey, to the refreshing of such good people
as went along vrith him ; and when he came home he did write over
again, m a more legible hand, all that he had gathered, and so make
better use of it for himself and his family, and set aU on record for
the benefit of his friends and his posterity,' What benefit his pos
terity have gained from the precious treasures which he was thirty
and SIX years in accumulating I do not presume to conjecture, but
his biographer says, ' It is scarce credible to report the multitude of
volumes of manuscripts set np in order in his Ubrary,'
His must have been a happy home, sanctified by the purest influ
ence of domestic piety, but its happiness was disturbed by a sad
intrusion. The shadow of death darkened it ; his -wife was, in early
hfe, taken from him and his little chUdren. He found his best relief
rn the consolations of religion, and more frequently than before he
had recourse to rehgious exercises, and remaUied a considerable time

PURITANISM JS THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH. 107
from his home. His chief solace in mourning, and favourite resort
for the strengthening of his faith, seems to have been the monthly
exercise at Manchester. There he deUghted to hear the most learned
presbyters of Lancashfre instruct the inferior clergy in the great
doctrines of the Reformation. There he listened vrith pleasure to
the wise discussions of the moderators, and especiaUy to the discourses
of good Mr. Bourne, who seldom concluded his lecture, whatever
may have been the text, without ' making some use of the Scripture
in confutation of popery ; ' there he conferred -vrith many of his Lan
cashfre relations who, Uke himself, were zealously affected in the
puritan cause ; and there, as his biographer teUs us, ' he cast his eye
upon a very beautiful young gentlewoman that frequented that exer
cise.' Even when attending to the learned confutation of popery,
' the thought arose in his heart, lo ! this may be the woman that the
Lord hath intended for my wife.' Puritan sanctuaries, even on
occasion of high confroversy, were not entirely free from such
thoughts. Mr. Doolittle's meeting-house in London, as described by
Matthew Henry, -with its dark pews, hea-vy galleries, and huge pulpit,
may seem a strange place for such infrusions, but even in its gloomy
solemnity, as Mr. Raines tells us, ' honest John Dunton was almost
charmed dead by a look of the beautiful Rachel Seaton.'* Squfre
Bruen, though considerably charmed, was not so nearly dead as to
be incapable of taking measures to bring the matter to a favourable
issue. 'As Abraham consulted Eliezer on a like business, so that he
might not only please his eye, but deal vrisely and adrisedly touching
her vfrtues and graces, he acquainted one of his most trusty and re
Ugious servants with his thoughts, and set him presently at work to
enqufre after her.' The EUezer of Bruen Stapleford discharged his
duty as faithfuUy as the Eliezer of Damascus. Of ' the beautiful
young gentlewoman ' he soon discovered that ' her name is Misfris
Anne Foxe, sister to Master Foxe of the Rhodes, well descended both
by father and mother ; her father a gentleman of good estimation and
account (while he Uved) with that honourable personage, Henry,
Earl of Derby, being confroUer of his house, and one of the special
gentiemen that attended upon his honour when he was sent by Queen
EUzabeth ambassador into France. Her mother, yet li-ring, a very
godly and gracious mafron, descended of the ancient and worshipful
families of the Andertons and Lelands in Lancashfre, Herself a
vfrtuous and reUgious young woman, beautiful by grace vrithin as
well as by nature vrithout, well respected in the church of God,
and weU esteemed and accepted of the people of God, and such an
one as might be a comfortable match and marriage for him.'
The steward having brought so good a report of the ' beautiful
young gentlewoman,' the master made proposal of marriage, which
proved satisfactory to aU parties concerned, and Anne Foxe became
* In Memoirs of the mother of John Wesley a similar ' charming ' is mentioned
as occurring in Dr. Annesley's meeting-house, in Little St. Helens. The good
Doctor was usuaUy foUowed to his meeting-house by some twelve remarkably beauti
ful daughters, one of whom ' charmed ' the father of John Wesley, then a student
for the Dissenting ministry, and became his wife.

108 LANCASHIRE,
Misfress Bruen, Anne's mother was so pleased vrith her son-in-law,
that she gave the newly-married couple thefr ' tabling in her house
at Rhodes for a whole year,' Mr. and Mrs. Bruen then commenced
thefr residence at Stapleford, where they estabUshed a sort of puri
tanical convent. ' Tablers ' as they were called (that is, boarders)
resided -with them for the benefit of the reUgious pri"rileges enjoyed
in thefr famUy. Pious ladies were glad to obtain a peaceful seclusion
from the world. Some young people who were not pious were placed
by their parents or guardians under the care of a gentleman and lady
who were able to make reUgious discipUne pleasant as weU as profit
able. One or two of this class occasionally gave the famUy a Uttle
-frouble. One young gentleman was not so puritanical in his observ-
ance of the Sabbath as would have been agreeable to Mr. Bruen ; but
he was , reclaimed by a very ingenious, if not agreeable, confrivanoe
of the better members of the family. ' Ten members did conspfre to
do him good, speaking one after another, and myself last, for the
sanctifying of the Lord's day.' The young gentleman was completely
subdued by so much talk, and ' did yield himself, blessed be God.'
Upon the whole the ' tablers ' seem to have been very happy, and
many of them gained so much good from the discipUne of the house,
that it was with regret Mr. Bruen was compeUed by some pecuniary
mismanagement to break up his puritan convent.
His sister Katharine, who seems to have been in her meek and
gentle disposition, as well as in her religious feeUngs, very hke
her brother, became, in her twentieth year, the wife of Mr. WilUam
Brettargh, of Brettarghaugh, near Liverpool. Among ' the lives '
appended by Samuel Clark to his ' Marrow of Ecclesiastical History,'
is a biography compiled from ' two exceUent sermons preached at her
funeral by two eminent and godly divines,' -with a portrait which,
from respect to the fradition of her beauty, is, I hope, not an accurate
likeness. Both of the ' godly divines ' who preached at her funeral,
and her biographer also, speak of the great injuries which her husband
sustained ' by the malicious Papists who hated him for his reUgion's
sake.' They are said to have 'kUled his horses and cattle at divers
times in the night.' It seems a strange accusation, but the sufferers
and their friends evidently believed it. Mrs. Brettargh not only
' bore the great affliction with admirable patience,' but ' even rejoiced
in it,' and extracted comfort from the beUef that ' popery would be
disgraced when the world should see such "vrickedness flow from it.
She had, however, so much of her Sa"riour's spfrit that she prayed
for those who had done the injury, entreated her husband to pray for
them also, and made it her especial prayer that God would prevent
him from seeking revenge for his loss.
She spent much of her time in devotional reading, taking for her
daUy lesson at least eight chapters of the Bible. Like many of the
Puritans of her time, she made the ' Book of Martyrs ' her frequent
study, and often wept over the sufferings of the true witnesses for
God. ' She was so blameless in her whole course that the Papists
had nothing to say against her.' This remark seems as honourable
to the Papists as to good Mrs. Brettargh, although her biographer

PURITANISM IN THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH. 109
meant not to do them honour. If they were so malicious as to kUl
her husband's horses, it is pleasing to learn they did not calumniate
his wife. So far as calumny is concerned, the Papists seem to have
been the less blamable of the two parties.
Her married life soon closed. After residing in Brettarghaugh
about two years, she was attacked with fever from which she never
recovered. Under the depressing influence of her disease, she was
in great frouble on account of her sins, of which she accused herself
vrith words of exfraordinary aggravation. She reproached herself
vrith having been proud of her beauty, of her accomplishments, and
even of her reUgion. ' She would cast her Bible from her,' as,
although it was the book of life, it ' had become the book of death to
her.' She wished she had never been born, that ' she had been made
any other creature than a woman.' Ofttimes she cried out, 'Woe,
woe, woe ! a weak, a woeful, a wretched woman ! ' But after a few
days she recovered her confidence, dismissed her fears, and rejoiced
in her Sa"riour. In a season of severe temptation she found strength
and comfort in saying, ' Satan, reason not with me, I am but a weak
woman. If thou hast anything to say, say it to my Christ, my Ad
vocate, my Strength, and my Redeemer, and He shall plead for me.'
She died rejoicing. After exhorting her husband to beware of
popery — of which, however, he was in no great danger — she spent
most of her last evening on- earth in singing psalms. Among her
exclamations were, ' Blessed, blessed, blessed be the Lord, who hath
not left me comfortless, but like a good shepherd hath brought me
to a place of rest, even to the sweet waters of life. Blessed, blessed
be the Lord that hath comforted me, and . brought me to a place
sweeter than the garden of Eden. Oh ! the joy, the joy, the delight
some joy that I feel ! How wonderful ! how wonderful ! how won
derful is this joy ! Oh ! praise the Lord for His mercy, and for this
joy that I feel.' She enfreated that her Uttle gfrl might be brought
up in the true fear of God, and, as her sfrength was faUing, said in
a low voice, ' My warfare is accompUshed, and mine iniquities are
pardoned. My fiesh faileth, and my heart also, but God is the
sfrength of my heart, and my portion for ever.' So she passed away
in peace in the twenty-second year of her age. A young and beau
tiful woman, in the midst of many things to make Ufe desfrable, in
dying so happily must have had something real and true in her
faith, which enabled her, like many a Puritan, to die rejoicing in the
Lord.* I have afready referred to a Puritan of a very different sort,
Nicholas Assheton, Esq., of Downham. Although puritanical in his
religious opinions and observances, he would, on account of his gaiety
and excessive love of amusement, have been considered as carnal in
the puritanical cfrcles outside the Umits of merry Lancashfre, and
even within them the stricter Puritans must have been grieved not
only vrith his jorial habits, but vrith his excessive devotedness to
'* As Mr. Bruen spent his last years in Cheshire, there is no reason for a
Lancashire historian to obtrude further upon his quiet seclusion.

110 LANCASHIRE.
athletic sports and amusements, which encroached sadly upon the time
which ought to have been reserved for domestic duties, pecuniary
arrangements, and reUgious exercises.
A member of the great famUy of the Asshetons, educated in their
traditions, and accustomed from chUdhood to the instructions of
Puritan clergymen, he could scarcely have been any other than a
Puritan. The proprietor of the estate of Downham, although he
represented a younger branch of the family, Uved on the most friendly
terms with his great kinsfolk, the Asshetons of Whalley and of Mid
dleton. Had he been brought under the rule of a rigid pastor, he
would probably have renounced Puritanism, or have been excluded
from its associations. But his cousin Abdias Assheton was, in his
younger days, the rector of Sladeburn, and Abdie, of whom we have
afready taken notice, was not only a 'painful minister,' but a mighty
hunter, a dexterous angler, a pleasant companion, and merry on all
proper occasions, especially on the fifth of November, when there was
no possibility of mistaking his merriment for a popish celebration.
In short, Abdie was exactly the man to keep Nicholas sound in the
faith, in opposition to the surpUce and all papistical habits, the sign
of the cross and all papistical ceremonies.
Harrison Ainsworth, in his tale of ' The Lancashfre Witches,' has
thus sketched his portrait : 'A very different person from Sir Ralph'
(Assheton of Whalley) ' was his cousin Nicholas Assheton of Down
ham, who, except as regards his puritanism, may be regarded as the
type of the Lancashire esquire of his day,
'A precisian in reUgious notions, and constant in attendance at
church and lecture, he put no sort of restraint upon himself, but
mixed up fox hunting, otter hunting, shooting at the mark, and per
haps shooting with the long-bow, foot racing, horse racing, and ia
fact every other kind of country diversion, not forgetting tippUng,
dicing, and singing, vrith daily devotion, discourses, and psalm-singing
in the oddest way imaginable. A thorough sportsman was Squire
Nicholas Assheton, weU versed in aU the arts and mysteries of hunt
ing and hawking. Not a man in the counfry could ride harder, hunt
deer, unkennel fox, unearth badger, or spear otter better than he.
And then as to tippUng, he would sit you a whole afternoon at the
ale-house and be the merriest man there, and drink a bout with every
farmer present. And, if the parson chanced to be out of hearing, he
would never make a mouth of a round oath, nor choose a second ex
pression when the first would serve his turn. Then who so constant
at church or lecture as Squfre Nicholas ? though he did sometimes
snore at the long sermons of his cousin, the rector of Middleton,* A
great man was he at aU weddings, christenings, churchings, and
funerals, and never neglected his bottle at these ceremonies, nor any
sport indoors or out of doors meanwhUe, In short, such a roystering
Puritan was never known, A good-lookmg young man was the
bqume of Downham, possessed of a very athletic form, and a most
* Nicholas Assheton attended the church of Sladeburn, of which his cousin
SerteX' m ' °°* °' '^''^^*''°- ''"""^'^"^"S Ws fear of parson Abdie.

PURITANISM IN TIIE REIGN OF ELIZABETH. Ill
vigorous constitution, which helped him, together with the prodigious
exercise he took, through any excess. He had a sanguine complexion,
with a broad, good-natured visage, which he could lengthen at wUl
in a surprising manner. His hair was cropped close to his head, and
the razor did daily duty over his cheek and chin, giring him the
Roundhead look some years later characteristic of the puritanical
party,' Nicholas, merry feUow as he was, kept a sort of diary, in which
¦vrith much candour and impartiaUty he entered his experiences both
in church and ale-house, his disputes about the surplice and his pur
suits of the otter. This diary, or a part of it, was in the possession
of Dr, Whitaker, who, in his ' History of WhaUey,' has printed it
with some useful illustrations. The original cannot now be found,
but a reprint has been pubUshed by the Chetham Society, under the
able editorship of the Rev. F. R. Raines, M.A. The journal belongs
to a part of the years 1617 and 1618, Dr, Whitaker concludes lus
annotations with the foUovring summary : —
' Thus ends the journal of Nicholas Assheton, then a young and
active man, engaged in aU the business and enjoying all the amuse
ments of the country. What he might, in a rainy day and a serious
mood, have done for himself, I vriU now do for him, or rather for his
readers — analyse this curious fragment, and assign every portion of
time accounted for to its proper occupation : premising, however, that
there are great chasms in the journal, one of three months at least :
and that the days which are marked "home," &c., are passed over
as blanks, though, perhaps, better spent than many which are more
strongly characterised. In this period, then, he accounts for the
hearing of forty sermons, three of them by as many bishops, and for
one communion. On the other hand, he records sixteen fox-chases,
ten stag hunts, two of the buck, as many of the otter and hare, one
of the badger, four days of grouse shooting, the same of fishing in
Ribble and Hodder, and two of hawking. Shooting with the long
ajnd cross-bow, horse matches and foot races, were other means of
consuming time vrithout doors ; and dancing, masking, shovegroat
(once all night long), and dice, within doors. Stage-plays and cards
are never mentioned. As a scale by which the writer measured the
degrees of his own intemperance, and a catalogue of his excesses, let
the reader attend to the follo"wing ,- "merrie" eleven times, "verie
merrie " once, " more than merrie " once, " merrie as Robin Hood"
once, "plaid the bacchanalian" once, "somewhat too busie with
drink " once, " sicke vrith drinke " once, " foolish " once, and lastly
" fooled this day worse," once. With all these confessions we hear
of neither resolutions nor attempts of amendment,
' In this short period he saw four deaths of the Asshetons ; he
attended the king at Hoghton Tower; assisted in quelling a private
war in Wensleydale ; attended the king's commissioners in the great
cause of the copyholds of Blackburn Hundred ; and took two journeys
to London on business with the Court of Wards and Star Oha,mber,
A man more largely connected, or extensively acquainted in his
county, there probably never was. In South Lancashire we find him

112 LANCASHIRE.
familiarly conversing vrith the Earl of Derby, Sir Cuthbert Halsal,
Mr. Standish, &c. ; on the side of Craven, with the Pudsays,
Tempests, Listers, Westbys, and Lamberts. Within the honour of
CUtheroe itself, the dramatis personce in this lively scene are, among
the clergy, the rectors of Bury, Middleton, Sladeburn, and the ricars
of Whalley, Blackburn, and Rochdale ; and among the laity, no fewer
¦than twenty-seven of the principal families, which constitute the
genealogical part of the " History of Whalley." '
In addition to what Dr. "Wliitaker says, it is only fair to the
memory of Nicholas to notice the expressions of pious feeUng which
occur in his diary, and which, as they were written only for his 0"wn
reading, we may presume were undoubtedly sincere. . He wrote
under date February 16 : ' My vrife in labour of chUdbirth. Her
deUvery was "vrith such riolence as the child died within half an hour,
and, but for God's wonderful mercy, more than human reason could
expect, she had died. But He spared her a whUe longer to me and
took the child to His mercy, for which, as for one of His great mer
cies bestowed on me, I render all submission, hearty thanks and
prayer, to the only good and gracious God of Israel.'
My principal reason for noticing Nicholas Assheton in connection
with his reverend cousin Abdie and his more distant relative John
Bruen, is to obtain some Ulustration of the amusements which were
aUowed or avoided by the early Puritans of Lancashfre. I have
already intimated an opinion that the Lancashire Puritans were far
from being as rigid in their notions as were some of their southern
brethren, although respecting even the latter there has been a great
deal of misrepresentation. My remarks on this subject belong exclu
sively to the north of England and chiefly to Lancashire.
As to field sports, I have observed that Mr. Bruen disposed of his
hounds and hawks, and desfroyed his dog-kennels and cock-pita
chiefly, if not solely, from prudential considerations. Sporting might
not have been, cock-flghting could not have been, congenial with his
quiet tastes and gentle spirit. His dogs, as his biographer tells as,
vvere ' wide-mouthed ' dogs, and his hawks very voracious, probably
Uke the dogs and hawks of some other gentlemen of limited income,
both puritan and papistical. The expense of their maintenance would
have prevented him from honourably defraying the claims of his
brothers. His biographer, the Rev. W. Hinde, who was respected as
the leader of the Cheshire Puritans, while expressing his cordial
approval of the exemplary conduct of Mr. Bruen, nowhere shows any
disapproval of the sports to which so many of the Lancashfre Puritans
were passionately addicted.
Considering the authority of Mr. Hinde, as a Puritan minister
too studious, qydet, and sedate to take any personal interest in field
sports, it is satisfactory to have his opinions carefuUy expressed on
the subject of hunting, hawking, and fishing. We may consider him
as fairly representing the more intelUgent of the northern Puritans.
Mr. Hinde begins by expressing some disapproval of Mr. Bruen
for keeping in his younger days six couple of ' great-mouthed dogs,'
because the food bestowed upon ' the base and brutish creatures '

PURITANISM IN THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH. 113
might have been better bestowed upon his fanuly and upon the poor.
He further condemns the conduct of some esquires, who although well
able to feed their o"wn hounds quarter them upon thefr poor tenants.
After noticing some other improprieties connected vrith hunting, he
answers the question whether ' hunting and hawking are sinful and
unlawful.' In his opinion, as I suppose in the opinion of all other
people, it is ' unlawful to take pleasure in the pain and torture of any
creature.' He gives instances of excessive cruelty practised by some
sportsmen who eridently found pleasure in infficting pain upon the
creatures in their power. Although he condemned a sportsman who
deUghted in torturing a pigeon "with which he fed his hawks, he
declared it ' lawful for him to have taken the Ufe of the pigeon and
given its warm flesh to his hawke for her supper,' if he had done so
by a speedy and not a lingering death. Sportsmen in our time would
desire no greater concession from a Puritan divine. He further con
cludes that we may lawfuUy use the powers which God has given to
various animals in order to obtain other animals for our food or
clothing, as weU as for the desfruction of noxious animals like foxes
and otters. We may do so not only for our profit but for our plea
sure, ' so it be vrith Christian discretion and moderation ' ; that is, if
our delight be in obserring the qualities which God has given to His
creatures. Thus we may use for pleasure 'the swiftness of the grey
hound to course the hare, the sight and flight of the hawke to take
"the partridge, the scent and sagacity of the hound to hunt the deer,
the nimbleness and subtilty of the tumbler to snatch up and catch
the cony.' These ' helps we may use for our refreshing and delight,
yet stiU vrith this caution and condition, that we take no pleasure
either in the enmity of the creatures one against another, or in thefr
cruelty in tearing one another.' Here was surely Ucence enough
granted to the gentry of Mr. Hinde's parish, to take ' refreshment
and delight ' in sporting, for none of them would find pleasure in the
Buffering inflicted upon the feebler creatures, whatever they might
have done in the power and dexterity by which it was inflicted. He
further Ulustrates his opinion by saying, ' It is lawful to kill a bfrd
with a bolt, to strike a deer vrith a bow, to take fish vrith hooks, to
set snares for foxes, but to peck out thefr eyes, to pierce thefr breasts
•with bodkins, and so to lend them a Uttle use of Ufe, only to linger
and lengthen out the pains of death, is a brutish cruelty to a brute
creature.' His summary is : —
1. It is lawful to hunt or hawk for the taking of such creatures as
are useful or may be hurtful.
2. It is lawful to take pleasure in the natural qualities of such
creatures as are used in hunting and hawking.
8. It is lawful in hunting or hawking to use natural and artificial
instruments to take away the Uves of the creatures, not only for our
profit but for our pleasure also.
4. It is lawful to hunt and hawk for recreation, but not to be a
hunter or falconer making it our daUy occupation.
5. It is not lawful to take pleasure in the enmity of the creatures,
nor to make thefr vexation our recreation.

114 LANCASHIRE.
6. It is not lav^fnl to spend more time in these recreations than in
our honest and lawful callings.
7. It is not lawful in these exercises intended for our recreation
to overtoil and unfit ourselves for honest labour and work.
8. It is not lawful to overcharge our estates and ruin ourselves
or damage our neighbours by the expense of horses and hounds.
9. Xenophon, Plato, Aristotle, PUnius Secundus, and others, have
approved of hunting, as fitted to inure and train up youth for feats
of arms.
With this authoritative deUverance of a Puritan minister of great
influence, given after careful examination and balancing of argumenta
on both sides, we may safely conclude that the Puritans of the north
who could afford to keep hounds and hawks might, so fer as their
teachers were concerned, take pleasure in the moderate use of them.
Few could have objected to the reasonable restraints which Mr. Hinde
imposed upon the recreations of sporting Puritans.
Cockfighting is sp barbarous a sport that we may weU wonder how
any humane people, puritan or popish, could have encouraged it.
Yet, barbarous as it is, every town in Lancashfre, at the time of which
we are speaking, had its cock-pit, and almost every Lancashfre squire
had his fighting cocks, and men to tend and train them. Any man
who objected to the sport would have been accounted an extraordi
nary precisian, and although the more strict Puritans may have dis
approved of the practice, thefr looser brethren were not ashamed to
countenance it. Squire Bruen destroyed his cock-pits, but Squire
Assheton ' went to Prescot to a cocking,' with what seems to have
been a Puritan party — his cousin Sfr Richard Assheton, his cousin
Braddyll, and other relatives. This sport would seem to be con
demned "by Mr. Hinde's fifth Puritan canon, ' It is not la"wful to take
pleasure in the enmity of the creatures, nor to make thefr vexation
our recreation,' for the pleasure of "the spectators is derived chiefly
from the ' vexation ' which ' the enmity of the creatures ' causes them
to inflict upon each other. But some of the mildest of men, as Roger
Ascham, have been sfrangely addicted to it. Burton, in his 'Anatomy
of Melancholy,' offers a strange reason for the practice : ' In fowle
weather we use cockfighting to avoide idlenesse.'
In the time of the Commonwealth cockfighting became disreputable
among the Puritans. Of the growing disapproval of the sport by
thefr ministers, we have an Ulusfration in the diary of Henry New-
come. 'Mr. Stopford' (a young Puritan minister) 'had spoken
largely against a cocking that was to be at Manchester, and I resolved
to second him. . . . Mr. Heyricke ' (an old and influential minister)
' would not say one word, but I could not but speak, and it pleased God
that what I said was comparatively well received.' Mr. Stopford,
however, got into frouble the next Sunday for ' unad^risedly speaking'
in the pulpit against cockfighting, which unadvised speech ' caused
the justices ' (Presbyterian justices, I suppose) ' to bind him to his
good behaviour.' Newcome resolved to preach against cockfighting
for this reason among others : ' It vriU prevent the excuse that it is
only forbidden by the younger ministers,' aUuding probably to the

PURITANISM IN THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH. 115
aUence of Mr. Heyricke, and to the practice having prevaUed in
puritan Manchester without any expressions of disapproval down to
that time.
The throwing or shooting at cocks was a sport quite as barbarous
and cruel as setting them to fight, although it did not encourage
' their natural enmity.' The grand day for its practice, especially
with school boys, was Shrove Tuesday. That such Puritans as
Nicholas Assheton should enjoy the sport may not be surprising, but
it does seem sfrange that so good and gentle a minister as Henry
Newcome should allow his boys to ' shoot at the cock.' As regularly
as Shrove Tuesday retumed, he indulged them in this sport, and like
a pious father prayed to God to protect them from the danger. ' I
was much afraid of the children going to the shooting for the cock,
lest they had any hurt, and prayed that God would preserve them,
and the Lord hath done it for me.'* These barbarous sports became
after the Commonwealth unpuritanical even in Lancashire, one of the
many benefits which that county gained from the brief estabUshment
of presbyterianism.
Games of chance, as cards and dice, especiaUy when played for
money, were loudly condemned by all sound Puritans. Even Nicholas
Assheton, although often froubled to know what to do with himself
on a wet day, never mentions cards as one of his many expedients for
pleasantly occupying his time. The nearest approach to such amuse
ment seems to have been ' tables slurring almost aU night.' At another
time he 'tabled all night.' By 'tables slurring,' is meant either
backgammon, or, as Dr. "Wlutaker says, 'shuffleboard.' It may be ob
served that on both occasions Nicholas was from home, and he was not
the man to decUne any sort of amusement offered him in a house of his
friends. On the former occasion he was at Portfield, vrith that sound
churchman and notorious gambler, Alexander NoweU, Jun., of Read;t
on the latter, at ' a cocking ' at Prescot, vrith nobody knows what sort
of company. If ' shuffleboard ' be intended, that waa a favourite sport
of orthodox Puritans, and, if we may conjecture from the practice of
Henry Newcome and his friends, especially of their best ministers.
But be the game what it may, at which Assheton played when
from home, there can be no doubt that games of chance, especially of
cards and dice, were grievous abominations in the sight of aU sound
Puritans. John Bruen's reasons against them, as he ' set them
down in writing,' are curious, and may be regarded, as they evi
dently were by his biographer, as expressing the prevalent opinions
of his reUgious associates. I insert them in an abbreriated form.
1. All games of hazard are to be eschewed.
2. The prince of de"yils invented cards.
3. Gamesters were in old times accounted infamous and unworthy
of any benefit of law.
4. Dicers, thieves, and harlots belong to one haU and corporation.
¦* Newoombe's Diary, February 4, 1661-2. On one occasion an arrow, instead
of striking the cock, went through the hat of his son.
t Young NoweU's gambUng propensities are said to have been the beginning of
the ruin into which that ancient house has fallen.

116 LANCASHIRE.
5. All gain by gaming is turpe lucrvm.
6. All playing at dice is plain lottery, which to use Ughtly is a
breach of the thfrd commandment.*
7. There is no recreation of body or mind in these games.
8. Cards seem less evU than tables, but there is ' neither a barrel
better herring.'
9. They are mixed games, partly of lottery, partly of wit, and
often of knavery.
10. The coat cards were tho images of idols.f
11, We should abstain from them : (1) Because they were never
of good repute in the church. J (2) Because there is_ appearance of
eril about them, (3) Because the magistrate forbids them, (4)
Because they tend not to the glory of God, (6) Because they lead
to many sins and sorrows. They have reduced ' many a castle into
a capcase, a lordship into a cottage, and a fee-simple into a fee-
single. '§
How Mr. Bruen sustained his theory by his practice, he himself
tells us : ' Finding in the chamber of my cousin ' (his cousin, Mr.
Done, then boarded vrith him), ' over the manteltree, a pack of new
cards, nobody being there, I opened them and took out the four
knaves and burnt them, and laid them together again. || So for want'
of such knaves his gaming was marred, and never did he play in my
house any more.' On another occasion he found in his Ubrary ' a
pair of tables,' of which he says, ' I took them with the thirty men
and the dice, and put them into a burning oven which was then heat
ing to bake pies.' His biographer supposed (rightly, I have no
doubt), ' This he did, not to honour them as martyrs, but to p^iinish
them as malefactors.'^
Bowls and bUUards were aUowable. In Manchester, Henry New-
come continuaUy refers to his playing at balls or bUliards as an
afternoon recreation. In this amusement he often joined Mr, Heyricke
and other ministers. When, after the Act of Uniformity, several
ejected ministers resided in Manchester because ' it was a godly town
vrithout a corporation,' they seem to have formed a sort of club for
playing bilUards and shuffleboard in a quiet public house, "What:
ever comfort they found in the amusement, it sounds to us somewhat
strange to hear Newcome, the ejected minister, the intimate friend of
Richard Baxter, expressing his regret that he had spent so much
time over the baUs as to be tempted to abbreviate his famUy duties, '
* See a curious distinction between lottery ' used Ughtly ' and lottery used
reUgiously in a note iu chapter xvi,
+ This seems to have been a common notion.
+ Mr. Hinde marshals such an array of fathers against them, as makes their
cause desperate : Augustine and Jerome, TertulUan and Cyprian, Ambrose and
Hilary, Lactantius and Amobius, the Gregories and BasU, Cassiodore and Isidore,
and many more. Chrysostom, he says, ' hews them iu pieces as Samuel did Agag,
and grinds them to powder as Moses did the golden calf.'
§ Ufe, ch. xxxix.
II To prevent his cousin breaking the third commandment, he seems to have
broken the eighth.
IT Life, ch, xxxviii.

PURITANISM IN THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH, 117
Of dancing, the stricter Puritans of the north disapproved, although
their disapproval was not so decided nor so general as that of the
Puritan cfrcles of the south of England, Bruen, who in his younger
days danced ¦with so much agUity and grace as to win the admiration
of his associates, afterwards abandoned the practice, and delivered
his own soul by this strange declaration : ' Sober and single dancing
of men apart and women apart hath had its use and praise, not only
among the heathen, but among the people of God, when by the
nimble motions and gestures of the body they have expressed the
great joy of thefr hearts for some good of thefr own, or to set forth
God's glory. But mixed dancing of men and women hath ever been
held, both of the ancient fathers ¦vrithin the Church and of the best
authors among the heathen vrithout, to have been utterly unlawful,
sinful, shameful, carnal, sensual, and deviUsh, hateful to God and
hurtful to men.' This ' sober and single dancing ' seems never to have
been fashionable among Puritans, or Papists, or sound Church-folk.
The only dancing of men alone was the morris-dancing, and that was
a vile abomination in the sight of all the Puritans of the county.
In many famUies of wealthy Puritans dancing was not disallowed.
Nicholas Assheton spent five days of Christmastide with his Puritan
oousin, Sfr Ralph Assheton, of Whalley Abbey, and a merry time he
seems to have had vrith his relatives. ' Dec. 30. Staid all night at
Abbey ; very merry all vrith dancing. Dec. 31. To the shooting.
Jan. 1. Parson Abdy Assheton preached. Jan. 2. A foul rainy
day, no stfrring. Jan. 3. A-hunting with cousin Assheton, Richard
Sherborne, &c. With cousin Braddyl to Portfield, drunk ¦wine and
was merry, and to the field again. Walbank and Adam shot in the
florentine.* Rush-bearings, very common in Lancashfre, and aU anniversary
sports, as wakes, associated ¦vrith Church festivals, were condemned
by aU sfrict Puritans, as popish commemorations. Even the looser
brethren who, like Nicholas Assheton, occasionaUy joined in the mer
riment, were careful to give no countenance to the quasi religious
part of the festival. Nicholas was at a rush-bearing at "Wlalley,
but he seemed pleased that there was 'much less solemnity than
formerly,' and considered his part of the ceremony accompUshed by
spending twelve pence in wine to make hitnself ' somewhat pleasant '
vrith a friend.t
Mr. Hinde, in his ' Life of Bruen,' gives nine reasons against rush-
bearings and such celebrations : 1. They are destitute of aU warrant
of God's Word. 2. They are ' the base brood of the man of sin, be
gotten of Satan upon the harlot of Babylon in the dark night of
popish superstition.' 3. They lead to the adoration of the reUcs of
* The florentine was a sort of crossbow with which deer were sometimes shot.
+ The rushbearing at WhaUey on August 5, the eve of St. James, was a great
¦festival. The rushes were brought to the north gate of the church, and -with
proper ceremonial spread over its floor. Garlands were hung on the steeple,
and other rustic decorations were introduced. Booths were erected in the church
yard, morris-dancers played their part, and St. James was honoured -with various
kinds of athletic sports.— Notes to Assheton's Journal, Whitaker's History of
WhaUey.

118 LANCASHIRE.
saints. 4. They are ' wit- worship, and wiU-worship.' 5. They are
often commemorations of wicked men canonised by the popish Church,
honoured as saints, whUe ' thefr souls are frying in heU.'* 6. They
have feUowship vrith devUs. 7. They bring together crowds of
vricked people. 8. They produce scandalous immoraUties. 9. They
are confrary to the holy examples of good men.f
Of Mr. Bruen his biographer observes, ' Because popery and pro-
faneness, two sisters in evU, had consulted and conspfred in his parish,
as in many other places, to advance thefr idols against the ark of
God, and to celebrate the feasts of their popish saints, as being the
dii tutelares, the special patrons and protectors of thefr churches, by
their wakes and vigUs, kept in commemoration and honour of them,
this godly gentleman, being stfrred in his spirit at these gross super
stitions, and grieved in heart at thefr misdemeanours and disorders,
knowing weU that the customs of the people are vain, yea and "vile
also, poisoning their minds with error, and corrupting their hearts
and Uves vrith base lusts and the bitter fruits thereof, and fearing that
their carnal joys and delights in thefr fleshly and earthly things might
make the heavenly manna seem as Ught bread unto them, and the
wholesome food of life more unsavoury than othervrise it would have
been ; this gentleman, I say, to prevent these mischiefs did usually at
these times bring in and set up the ark of God, to bring down and
break in pieces thefr Dagon. Against St. Andrew's Day, which is
the time of Tarum wakes, he observed many years together to inrite
two or three of the best-affected preachers in the diocese, that spent
most part of those days in preaching and praying in the church, so
as the pipers, and the fiddlers, and the bearwards, and players, and
gamesters had no time left them for thefr vanities, but went away
with great fretting ; and multitudes of weU-affected people fiUed the
town and the church with much rejoicing, blesssed be God! ' J
' O, what comfort did this godly man take in .discountenancing and
suppressing, so far as he could, all popery and profaneness, together
with aU the instruments, maintainors, and abettors of the same ! 0,
how great was his rejoicing and solace, when, by any care, cost, or
labour, he might refresh the bodies and rejoice the souls of God's
people, either by corporal or spiritual repast provided for them ! To
which end, as it is well known, besides other pro"risions, there was
spent in his house a fat beife and a half, within the space of three
days, upon godly and well-affected people, as his cook did then relate
unto him. How well did he herein imitate the example of Christ,
who, at the feast of the dedication of the temple (though it was no
divine but a human constitution), took occasion notwithstanding,
upon the frequent concourse of the people, to profit and do good to
their souls ! Neither do I speak this to justify or approve thefr festi
val solemnities, for the anniversary commemorations of saints and
martyrs, and dedication of churches, savour rank of the cask, and
* The tutelary saint of Mr. Hinde's own parish, St. Boniface, seems to have been
in his estimation one of these wicked saints.
+ Life of Bruen, ch. xxx.
J Ufe of Bruen, ch. xxix.

PURITANISM IN THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH. 119
smeU hugely of the vessels of Judaism, paganism, and papism, whence
they were first drawn and derived.'
The drinking of the health of absent persons, as the king or queen,
can scarcely be caUed an amusement. It was, however, a practice
which the Lancashire Puritans, like thefr brethren elsewhere, steadUy
and consistently opposed. In the great rejoicing at Manchester on
account of the restoration of the monarchy no men were more hearty
than the presbyterian ministers ; yet Heyrick and Newcome, who in
their boundless exultation forgot Puritan moderation, were grieved
and offended, not vrith the quantity of wine drunk in the streets, but
¦with its being drunk to the health of the king, for whose health, how
ever, they devoutly prayed. We have an amusing iUusfration of the
perplexity of a good Puritan in this matter, and of the ingenuity
vrith which he contrived to extricate himself, in the ' Life of Bruen.'
He was once present at the high sheriff's feast, where, among lords
spiritual and temporal, a health to the prince ' was entertained and
maintained ¦with a great deal of ceremonial solemnity.' Msiny of the
company observed with some curiosity what Mr. Bruen would do in
this matter. The mUd and gentle Puritan merely said, ' You may
drink to his health ; I will pray for it, and drink for my own, and so
I vrish you may do for yours.' What difference there is in the mo
raUty or religion of drinking to another's health, and wishing he
may drink for his 0"wn, is a curious question for puritan casuistry.
The biographer of Bruen had a Uttle more to say about this health-
drinking : ' Had I not been well prevented by the godly labours of
my ancient and faithful friend, Mr. Bolton, who hath spoken much
out of the fathers against this drinking of healths, I had taken a little
more pains to provide some rods of rebuke for this sin, purposing to
whip and scourge it round about the table.'
The notices of several puritan preachers, the ' Life of John Bruen,'
and the ' Journal ' of Nicholas Assheton, have brought us into the
reign of James I. As on the accession of a Scottish king who had
caUed the Church of Scotland ' the purest and best reformed kfrk in
the world,' the EngUsh Puritans became more favourable to the pres
byterian discipUne, and began to cherish some hope of its introduction
into England, we may from this date regard them as graduaUy
adopting the principles, if they did not assume the name, of Presby
terians. Although at the death of the great queen there might have
been no avowed Presbyterians in Lancashfre, yet the writings of
Cartwright, the arbifrary measures of Whitgift and other bishops,
and the persecutions of good preachers by the ecclesiastical courts,
had aUenated the minds of many, both ministers and laymen, from
the episcopal form of Church government. Opposition to the surpUce,
to the sign of the cross in baptism, and to kneeling at the communion,
was passing into opposition to the authority which enforced these
offensive things, and punished severely aU who were nonconformists
in such matters. Although the fransition from Puritan to Presbyte
rian was gradual, yet from this time it steadUy proceeded in Lanca
shire, where many of the preachers were beginning to look to the
Kirk of Scotland as a model of ecclesiastical order and government.

CHAPTER VIL
PURITANISM UNDER JAMES I.
In March 1603 James Stuart ascended the throne of England. How
in perfect franquiUity he canceUed fourteen titles to the crown, which
in the prerious reign had been discovered for as many rivals, may
probably be explained by the feebleness of the hands which held them,
and also by the apprehensions of the great reUgious parties, eyery
one of which had more to fear than to hope from a disputed succes
sion, or from' a determined opposition to the claims of the house of
Stuart. Of that house HaUam says : ,' No private man could have
recovered an acre of land without proving a better right to it than
they could make out to the crown of England.'* James was, how
ever, through the wisdom and firmness of the councU, proclaimed
vrith as little resistance or complaint as was ever known on the suc
cession of any English sovereign, however good his title, to the inher
itance of his father's throne. It affords a remarkable Ulusfration of
the elasticity of the EngUsh constitution, to observe that on the
accession of the house of Stuart the right of primogeniture prevailed
over the statutory title ; and that on the accession of the house of
Hanover the statutory title .prevailed over the right of primogeniture.
The Puritans — that is to say, such of them as were poUticians—
might have preferred the hefr of the house of Suffolk, in favour of
whom they might have pleaded the will of Henry VIIL, and probar
bly would have done so, had James not avowed himself a Protestant;
but they had to fear the intrigues of the CathoUcs, the more riolent:
of whom were ready to assert and defend the right of a member of
the Spanish family, or of the pope's candidate, ArabeUa Stuart,
cousin of King James.t While the Puritans acquiesced in the acces
sion of a presbyterian king, and the moderate CathoUcs were wUling
to submit to the son of their martyred Mary, whose title they had so
earnestly defended, the prelatical party saw no successor so Ukely to
maintain thefr principles as the King of the Scots. Everything about
him, except his words, promised fair as seen from the episcopal point
of view, and the words of a Stuart were presumed to conceal
rather than to express his thoughts. All parties approving, or at
least acquiescing, the councU, by thefr prompt and energetic
* Constitutional History, ch. vi., vol. i. p. 392.
f Some Lancashire CathoUcs iu the reign of Elizabeth proposed the son of the
Earl of Derby as the best successor to the queen, and had he been a CathoUc they
would probably have worked more zealously to establish his title. After the death
of the Queen of Soots, the Lancashire CathoUcs could never agree about a successor
to EUzabeth.

PURITANISM UNDER JAMES I. 121
measures, seated a puny king upon a high throne, and in doing so
probably spared thefr coimtry many years of war and streams of
blood. "Whatever may have been the validity of his title, any one who
looks on his porfrait may weU wonder how such a man could
have belonged to the glorious lineage of EngUsh kings. He
had no resemblance to the Plantagenets, the Tudors, or the
Stuarts. Whatever may have been his parentage, his Ul-constructed
countenance was the appropriate expression of his Ul-conditioned
soul. Mean, cowardly, suspicious, false, spiteful, ambitious in small
matters, vain of smaU advantages, boasting of smaU deeds, temperate
in early years because he did not Uke stimulants, yet often in his
soberness acting as fooUshly as ever he did in the intemperance of his
later years, the successor of EUzabeth was as despicable as his like
ness appears when exhibited by the side of the porfrait of his prede
cessor, his mother, or any of his race. England purchased her
tranquiUity at some cost by putting bim upon her throne ; but after
the last of the Tudors, royalty in England was becoming pageantry,
and the tranquilUty of the realm was weU worth the endurance of a
fooUsh and fentastical pageant.
The Puritans were the first to annoy the new king, the CathoUcs
to frighten him. On his ostentatious journey to London, the Puritan
clergy presented the MUlenary petition, as it was called, from the
presumed number of a thousand signatures.* They objected among
other things to the surpUce, the cross in baptism, the rite of con
firmation, the ring in marriage, the reading of the Apocryphal lessons,
and the bovring at the name of Jesus. James, having had enough of
presbyterian annoyance in Scotland, hastUy committed ten of the
petitioners to prison, and found in the Star Chamber judges obse
quious enough to declare that thefr offence was near to freason, and
punishable at his discretion. The prelates were poUtic enough to
flatter and concUiate, whUe the Puritans were prematurely asking for
a redress of thefr grievances.
The king was weU prepared for the Hampton Court Conference.
He acted throughout like a weak man, who had been annoyed vrith
the demands of the Puritans and gratified by the obsequiousness of the
prelates. By opposing the bishops in two or three things, he vrished
to show that ' tie Lord's anointed ' was greater even in spirituals
than aU the ecclesiastics of the reahn. "When he opposed them, the
bishops humbly enfreated him ; when he scolded the Puritans, they
thought he spoke by the inspiration of God. The king, pleased
vrith his bishops, and vain of his logic, refuted aU the arguments
of the Puritans, and declared that "with very sUght alterations the
Church of England should continue what it had been in the reign
of Elizabeth.
Lancashfre was especially mentioned on account of its decided
puritanism. Lawrence Chadderton,* the learned master of Emanuel
* The precise number was eight hundred and twenty five. — Neal, vol. i, p. 408,
Fuller, part ii. p. 22,
t He belonged to the Chaddertons of Chadderton near Manchester, who were

122 LANCASHIRE,
CoUege, upon his knees enfreated the king, whatever he might do
in other counties, not to force the use of the surpUce upon the
clergy of Lancashire, who could not endure it. The enfreaty was
vain, Lancashfre must be in spirituals Uke the rest of England,
perfectly submissive to the inspfred wisdom of the head of the
Church. But the Puritans were not vrithout friends who could make them
selves heard, and even felt, through the country. Their voice, which
had been heard in the later parUaments of EUzabeth, grew louder
and bolder in the first parUament of James, who could not keep it
under control as it had been kept by the sfronger wiU and wiser
poUcy of his predecessor. Observing the rising influence of the
reforming party, able statesmen and lawyers began vrith more or less
boldness to assert the necessity or expediency of making some
concession to the demands of the Puritan clergy and thefr powerfnl
adherents. In the first year of the new reign. Bacon wrote a tract, in which,
after haying calmly objected to the surpUce, the use of organs, the
form of absolution, and other parts of the ritual, he proposed an
enquiry which no Churchman ventured to answer, 'why the civil
state should be purged and restored by good and wholesome laws
made every three or four years by parUament assembled, derising
remedies as fast as time breedeth mischief; and contrariwise, the
ecclesiastical state should stiU continue upon the dregs of time, and
receive no alteration now for these forty- five years or more ? ' Bacon's
great rival, Sfr Edward Coke, having obtained the chief seat in the
King's Bench, when nothing more could be gained by subserriency,
opposed "with great firmness and decision the unconstitutional attempts
of the bishops to make thefr jurisdiction independent of the confrol
or revision of the secular courts, and effectuaUy sUenced Bancroft by
the peremptory voice vrith which he asserted that only an Act of
ParUament could invest the bishops vrith the authority which was
claimed by that haughty prelate. From the death of Elizabeth
puritanism rapidly gathered sfrength from various sources, but espe
ciaUy from its intimate association vrith the assertors of constitutional
freedom in opposition to the arbitrary proceedings of the king and
his intolerant prelates.
In the Gunpowder Plot several Lancashfre CathoUcs were un
doubtedly concerned. Many others, had they the opportunity, would
have opposed as sfrenuously as their Protestant neighbours the
horrible conspiracy by which king, lords, and commons were to be
involved in indiscriminate massacre and destruction. The connection
of Lord Monteagle with the Stanley Family saved -the government,
as there can be Uttle doubt that his sister was the writer of the letter
which led to the discovery of the plot, and that she obtained her
information from her CathoUc relatives in Lancashire. How far the
fraitor Sfr WUliam Stanley was impUcated it is not easy to determine.
but remotely connected with the Chaddertons of Nuthurst, to which the Puritan
bishop of Chester belonged. Notwithstanding his puritanism, Lawrence Chadder
ton was one of the translators of the authorised version of the Bible.

PURITANISM UNDER JAMES I. 123
Steeped in freason all over, he entered into thefoulest conspfracies of
the Jesuits, and baring already conspfred to murder Queen Eliza
beth, Prince Maurice, and others, he would have had no scruple in
blowing up the English throne and parUament if he could have estab
lished his Church upon thefr ruins. Of the desperate men whose
names were enroUed among his invaders of the country was Guy
Fawkes, who was ever in the hands of Stanley a willing instrument
for the commission of any crime. The conspfrators who, near St.
Clement's church in the Strand, sealed their oath of secrecy by the
Holy Sacrament, sent Fawkes to the Netherlands to consult Stanley
about thefr conspfracy. While he was on his way, Stanley had gone
to Spain to induce the king to promote another invasion of England,
so that if he were left in ignorance of the freason, it was not on
account of any want of confidence on the part of the conspfrators in
his approval or his audacity. The failure of the plot caused much
consternation among his Lancashfre friends, in whose haUs and manor-
houses there had prevaUed a general expectation of some sudden
overthrow of the Protestant government.
On the accession of James, the see of Chester was held by Richard
Vaughan, who, instead of preserving the mild discipline of Chadder
ton, enforced a rigorous exaction of conformity to which his diocese
had been long unaccustomed. Having cited many of the Lancashfra
ministers before him, he peremptorUy requfred thefr subscription to
the canons and articles of Whitgift, which, unauthorised by parUa
ment, had been denounced by some of the ablest statesmen and
lawyers of the time. In his diocese, twenty-one ministers of Lanca
shfre and twelve of Cheshfre were sUenced, when there was through
out both counties just complaint of the great want of Protestant
preachers. Being a zealous supporter of the royal prerogative, he
was selected by the king to succeed Bancroft in the bishopric of
London, His place in Chester was filled by George Lloyd, a prelate
of a far better spirit, who ruled the nonconforming clergy vrith much
leniency, and as far as he could protected them from persecution and
annoyance. His successor, Dr, Thomas Morton, a man of consider
able abiUty, learning, and actirity, wiU again come before us as the
composer of the famous ' Book of Sports,' and as a severe persecutor
of his nonconforming clergy.
Queen Elizabeth's favourite asfrologer, poor old Dr. Dee, died, as
we have afready observed, at Mortlake in poverty and great disfress.
The Puritans waited for his death in the hope that thefr favourite
preacher, WUUam Bourne, one of the feUows of ihe coUege, would be
promoted to the vacant office. He was very popular vrith the people,
was sfrongly recommended by aU his coUeagues, and baring married
a relative of Lord Burleigh was on terms of intimate friendship "with
several influential courtiers. But the time had passed in which
Puritans were promoted to oppose Papists, To James the puritanism
of Bourne was no recommendation. Moreover, a Scotchman was a
competitor, and the king was not so unpatriotic as to overlook the
claims of his counfryman, Dr, Murray desfred the place, and the

124 LANCASHIRE.
place was exactly suitable for Dr. Murray. It was a dignified position
in the Church, and Murray was a dignified Churchman of the noble
famUy of the Earl of Athole. There was little to do, and Murray had
neither the abUity nor the inclination to do much. The warden was
expected to preach but seldom, and Murray did not intend to preach
at all. Murray was a gentleman in holy orders, and had nothing
else to qualify him for either a preacher or a bishop. He once, it is
said, preached before the king from the text, ' I am not ashamed of
the gospel of Christ,' to which James uttered the response, spiced
vrith an oath, ' But the gospel may weU be ashamed of thee.' A
wardenship was his proper office, and therefore the sapient king made
him Warden of Manchester, For state and dignity, self-importance
and ostentation, Manchester had never seen such a warden, and vriU
never see such another. He demanded the chief seat in the church,
even when the bishop was present, and as on one occasion the bishop
refused to vacate it, he was careful to be early enough in the after
noon to take possession and to keep it. He gave the puritan preachers
very Uttle trouble, as he seldom resided in so ungenteel a place as
Manchester, Much to his credit, he refused to take the customary
oath of residence, which he never intended to observe. It is, there
fore, doubtful whether he was or was not legally the warden. Al
though he retained his offlce, or at least its emoluments, during the
reign of his pafron, we shaU have very Uttle more to say about him,
as he had very Uttle to say, good or e"vU, of his puritan coUeagues or
parishioners. In the summer of 1617, the king on his return from Scotland made
his ' progresses,' as they were called, in Lancashire. As in conse
quence of this visit the first ' Book of Sports ' was issued by royal
authority, we must regard it with great interest, as the beginning of a
course of events which led through the ci-ril War and temporary subver
sion of the throne and Church to the eventual expulsion of the Stuarts,
and adjustment of the differences between Prelatists and Puritans by
the revolutionary, or rather constitutional, settlement of 1688.
The ' progresses ' of the king from one mansion to another were
conducted "vrith great parade and magnificence, while aU classes did
thefr best to show their loyalty and admfration of thefr sovereign,
who, however awkward in the expression of his approval, was not
insensible to the flattery and applause of his subjects. The interest
of the ' progresses ' centres in Hoghton Tower, to which he ' pro
gressed ' from Myerscough, and from which, after doing many extra
ordinary things, he 'progressed' to Lathom. The traditions and
legends still popular in the county are all associated with Hoghton.
Whatever wise or foolish things the king said and did in Lancashire
are reported, truly or falsely, to have been said or done there. There,
if anywhere, he knighted the sirloin of beef ; there, if anywhere, he
ordered his attendants to turn over a huge stone that he might
decipher the mysterious ' scripture,' which proved to be —
' Hot porritch softens hard butter cakes,
So turn me o'er again.'

PURITANISM UNDER JAMES L 125
Be these tales as true as the Lancashfre people beUeve them, or as
false as other people consider them, there he made the fatal conces
sion which contributed to the ruin of his family — the concession to
the Lancashfre petitioners who prayed that, as in old times, they
might enjoy after the performance of dirine service on Sundays the
sports and diversions which the puritan magistrates had attempted
to suppress.* This he did, as we shall hereafter see, in a manner
most offensive to the Puritans, as he not only disalloweid the prohibi
tions which the magisfrates under Henry VlII., Edward Vl., and
Elizabeth had published against the sports, but made it imperative
upon aU the ministers of the county to announce in the churches his
proclamation in favour of tiiem, and that avowedly to conciUate the
Papists. The king's visit to Hoghton is therefore a subject of great
interest to all concerned in the puritan confroversy.
Hoghton Tower, now in ruins, was at that time an imposing
structure and strong forfress. It was buUt in the reign of EUzabeth,
when the Hoghton family removed from tiiefr ancient residence at
Walton-le-dale to the conical hUl which rises abruptly in the midst
of thefr hereditary estate. It is accesible to a carriage only on its
western side, and even there the ascent is difficult, and may easUy be
prevented. On the other sides the rocks are precipitous, and men on
foot could cUmb the precipice only by vrinding paths through the
tangled briars and brushwood. Along the base of the northern side
flows the Darwen, in the old time a clear sfream abounding in salmon,
as both Nicholas Assheton and his sporting pastor, Abdie, knew very
well. The casteUated front of the mansion on the west side consisted of
three stately towers and connecting walls, the approach to which
was through an avenue of frees terminating at the foot of the ascent.
The grand enfrance through the cenfral tower led to the lower court,
of which two sides consisted of domestic offices and dwellings of the
numerous servants and officials of the family. A noble range of
buUdings opposite the enfrance, and separating the two courts, con
sisted of the great haU and chapel, between which an ascent of steps
led from the lower to the upper court, situate on the summit of the
hUl. On one side of the upper, or inner, court was a spacious
gaUery, reached by a broad oaken stafrcase ; on the other two
were the apartments reserved .for the famUy and thefr visitors.
In the reign of James it was the most stately mansion in Lanca
shire. As soon as it was known that the king intended to honour the
tower "with a visit, great interest was excited among the gentry of
the neighbourhood, who determined to make as loyal and as magnifi
cent a display as possible. Many of them agreed to attend the king
on this occasion, dressed in the Uvery of the Hoghton famUy. Among
them was Nicholas Assheton, who made in Hs journal the entry :
¦* It has been said that the petition was presented at Myerscough ; but whatever
may have been done there, the king committed himself irrevocably at Hoghton
Tower in favour of Sunday sports, to the great mortification of the puritan magis
trates and ministers.

126 LANCASHIRE.
'Aug, 11. My brother Sherborne's taylor brought him a suit of
apparel, and us two others, and a livery cloak from Sir Richard
Hoghton, that we should attend him at the king's coming, rather for
his grace and reputation than any exacting of mean service.' With
a retinue thus collected of Asshetons, Sherbornes, Townleys, and
other representatives of the best families of Blackburnshfre and Ley-
land, Sir Richard Hoghton went to escort the king from Myerscough
Lodge, where his majesty made his first speech in favour of ' piping
and honest recreation on the Sunday.' 'Progressing' through
Preston, where the king attended a grand banquet, he was conducted
in great state by Sfr Richard's magnificent retinue to Hoghton Tower.
Among the officers of the king were his cup-bearer, the Duke of
Buckingham ; his master of the household, the Duke of Richmond ;
his chamberlain, the Earl of Pembroke ; his lord high admiral, the
Earl of Nottingham ; his lord high steward. Lord Howard of Effing
ham ; the Bishop of Chester ; the Judges of the King's Bench ; and
about a hundred of the chief gentlemen of the county. The servants
of aU these courtiers and gentlemen are not to be enumerated, and
what they cost for board and lodging is not to be estimated. It waa
long before the Hoghton famUy recovered, if ever they recovered,
from the inconvenience entaUed upon them by the enormous expense
of the royal risit.
The famUy was not at that time connected with the Puritans. In
the reign of Elizabeth its members had professed the CathoUc faith,
and the tower had afforded concealment and protection to seminary
priests and emissaries of the pope. Sfr WUliam Stanley in the
Netherlands, and Cardinal, AUen at Rome, knew by thefr intercourse
with their friends at Hoghton whatever of importance was done in
that neighbourhood. Sfr Richard, who entertained the king, avowed
himself the first Protestant of the famUy ;* but, as we may suppose
from the sort of hospitality vrith which he received his royal guest,
he had nothing of the Puritan in his character. It was not untU the
breaking out of the ciril war, when the father and his son were
ranged on opposite sides, that puritanism was associated vrith the
baronets of Hoghton. This should be observed, because it is difficult
for those who have walked in the hanging woods where Isaac Ambrose
meditated, or in the ruined gallery where John Howe studied, to
divest the tower of puritanical associations. But Hoghton Tower on
the risit of the king presented a scene of which the puritan descend
ants of Sfr Richard must have thought "with disgust and shame, as
they had reason to lament its extravagance.
In the great avenue of stately frees which led to the ascent of the
hill, the king was received, as was due to his sacred Majesty, by the
di"rinities of the place. ' Two, conceived to be the household gods,
attyred in a purple taffeta mantle,' welcomed ' the great king for
government admired.' The first, with a sufficiency of absurd
flattery tolerable only to such a king as James, got through his
* The father of Sir Richard was, in 1586, returned to the councU of EUzabeth
as ' a harbourer of priests and recusants ' and as ' a Papist iU-affeoted to the state.'
— Stanley Papers, p. 7.

PURITANISM UNDER JAMES I. 127
address pretty well ; ' but the second tutelary god ' could only
say, ' Thou greatest of mortals,' when he was ' nonplust ' and
' gloppened,' untU his brother god reUeved him by addressing the
king — ' Dread Lord I the splendour and the glorious rays
Of thy high majesty hath strucke dumb
His weaker godhead.'
But enough of this absurdity; worse appears on the next day,
which was Sunday, August 17.
On that day a petition was presented to the king, signed by great
numbers of Lancashfre peasants, tradesmen and servants — ^that is, as
few of them could "write, signed by some other persons on their be
half. It prayed that they might be no longer debarred from their
'la"wful recreations and honest exercises ' after evening prayers on
Sundays. The king condemned the resfrictions of the preceding
reign, and promised indulgence to ' his good people "within the county
of Lancaster.' An auspicious sign of the liberty or Ucence to be
granted to the merry county might be seen on that fine summer
Sunday when ' his sacred Majesty" ' was entertained at Hoghton. We
have an account of what was done in the ' Journal ' of Nicholas
Assheton, -with abundant illustrations in the ' Notes of the Diet at
Hoghton,' printed in ' The Progresses of King James.' Assheton
says : —
'August 17. We served the lords vrith biskett, wyne, and jelUe.
The Bushopp of Chester pretched before the king. To dinner. At
four o'clock there was a rushbearing and piping afore the king in
the middle court. Then to sup. Then about ten o'clock a maske of
noblemen, knights, courtiers, and gentlemen, afore the king in the
garden. Some speeches of the rest, dancing the HucHer, Tom Bedlo,
and the cowp justice ofthe peace.'
These brief notes of the Sunday may be iUustrated by the account
of ' The Diet of the Visit,' printed by Nichols in ' The Progresses,'
and by some lingering traditions of a day which will never be for
gotten in Lancashfre.*
'The Bushopp of Chester pretched.' The 'bushopp' was Dr.
Morton, the author of the ' Book of Sports,' This discourse must
have been very pleasant to his Majesty, and very edifying to his
subjects, for it enforced the duty of obedience to the king as ' the
representive and vicegerent of God,' The preacher adduced an
argument sufficient, if it were sound, to refute all puritanical
objections to the ' Book of Sports : ' God himself had repealed the
old law of the Sabbath by the work of His ' earthly representa
tive and vicegerent,' So it seemed, at least for the remainder of that
day. ' To dinner,' If the reader has any curiosity to know the provision
for 'the Sunday's dinner,' he may look over the appended note,
which refers to one table only, where the king and his lords were
* A story of that day is well told in Roby's Traditions of Lancashire.

128

LANCASHIRE.

seated.* The supper was as sumptuous a board for gluttony as the
dinner. 'A rush-bearing and piping.' , , , ' A maske of noblemen, knights,
courtiers, and gentlemen,' Ai exfraordinary masque it was! Lawful
recreations and honest exercises indeed ! The queen of beauty was
in her bower, A man was enclosed, as the learned author of ' The
History of Preston ' tells us, ' in a dendrological foUage of fronds,
' Men attired Uke Uons and bears were wonderfully amusing,' and
' an ape boy leaped upon them, to the deUght of the company,'
' Speeches were made wittily pleasant,' and all kinds of ' frolics were
carried on by Robin GoodfeUow, BUI Huokler, Tom Bedloe, Old
Crambe, Jim Tospot, Dolly Wango, and the ' Cowp or ' Cap Justice,'!
Archy Armsfrong, the king's fool, was at Hoghton with his royal
master, but, as if his services were superfluous amidst such fooleries,
he was yery quiet during the festival.
So passed a Sunday long memorable in Lancashfre for its disasfrous
consequences to Puritans, Prelatists, Papists, — all classes of society.
The king, having promised to ' indulge his good people within the
county of Lancaster,' and to restrain ' the Puritans and precise
» Printed from a MS. in the possession of the family, communicated by Sir
Henry Bold Hoghton to Mr. Nichols for his ' Progresses.'

PuUets
Boiled capon
Mutton boiled
BoUed chickens
Shoulder of mutton roast
Ducks boiled
Loin of veal roast
Pullets Haunch of venison roast
Burred capon
Pastry of venison hot

First course.
Roast turkey
"Veal burred
Swan roast, one, and one
for to-morrow
Chicken pye hot
Goose roasted
Rabbits cold
Jiggits of mutton boiled
Snipe pye
Breast of veal boiled
Capons roast

PuUet
Beef roast [sirloin]
Tongue pye cold
Sprod boiled
Herons roast cold
Curlew pye cold
Mince pye hot
Custards
Pig roast

Second course.

Hot pheasant, one, and one for the
Quails, six for the king
PartridgePoults
Artichoke pye
ChickensCurlews roast
Peas buttered
RabbitsDuckPlovers Red deer pye
Pig burred
Hot herons roast, three of a dish

Lamb roast
Gammon of bacon
Pigeons roast
Made dish
Chicken burred
Pear tart
Pullets and grease
Dryed tongues
Turkey pye
Pheasant pye
Pheasant tart
Hog's cheek dryed
Turkey chicks cold

t The three judges, among whom was Sir John Doddridge, an ancestor of the
nonconforming minister of Northampton, assured the king that ' the cap justice
was acted to the very Ufe.' The Tom Bedloes were poor creatures released from
Bedlam, who were licensed to beg. They usually carried a horn, which, when
empty, they blew and got it filled with ale.

PURITANISM UNDER JAMES I. 129
people,' commanded Bishop Morton to prepare the ' Book of Sports,'
which work, if he beUeved his own sermon, he could execute vrith a
good conscience, having received his order from ' the representative
and vicegerent of God.'
The ' book ' was a proclamation of the king to the effect that ' for
his good people's recreation, they should not be disturbed, letted, or
discouraged, after dirine serrice on Sundays, from any lawful recre
ations, such as dancing either of men or women, archery for men,
leaping, vaulting, nor from haring May games, "Whitsun ales, or morris-
dancers, or setting up of May-poles, or other sports therevrith used, and
that women shaU have leave to carry rushes to church for the decoring
of it, according to thefr old customs, "withal prohibiting unlawful
games to be used on Sundays, as bear-baiting, bull -baiting, interludes,
and at all times to the meaner sort of the people prohibited, bowling,'
From these lawful recreations three classes were excluded : popish
recusants, such as did not attend the whole of divine service, and
such as did not adhere to thefr own parish churches. The two latter
clauses were intended to exclude Puritans, who often went to church
after the reading of the Liturgy, and often to distant churches to
hear their favourite preachers. It must have been amusing for
puritan ladies to find "that they were prohibited from dancing round
the village May-pole and ' decoring ' the rillage church with rushes.
This proclamation was dated Green^wich, May 24, 1616. It was
originally intended to enforce the reading of it in all the churches in
the kingdom, but as Archbishop Abbot boldly forbade its being read
in his church at Croydon, the first reading was confined to Lancashfre,
the county of Papists and Puritans. To the Papists it could have
afforded small comfort, as they could obtain the privUege of evening
dances only by attending morning serrices which to them were
heretical and profane. To the Puritans it was a snare or a scandal,
as they beUeved the whole of the Lord's day to be equally sacred,
and regarded amusements as a desecration of its divine sanctity.
As the puritan ministers of the later years of Elizabeth followed
one another to thefr rest, thefr successors occupied a position more
decidedly opposed to the ecclesiastical authorities. Partly through
the severe and arbitrary measures of the bishop, partly through the
scandal of the ' Book of Sports,' and partly through a growing desfre
for a presbyterian discipline, a considerable number of preachers in
Lancashire began to be regarded, and perhaps to regard themselves,
as a distinct party of ' nonconforming Puritans.' The sectarian
feeUng was growing so strong between the two parties, that con
forming parents objected to the marriage of thefr daughters vrith
nonconforming ministers ; and, on the other hand, nonconforming
ministers adrised thefr chUdren to form affimities vrith famiUes of
their own persuasion. The distinction became, in various ways, and
through various causes, more vride and manifest towards the close of
the reign of James,
Against some of these ministers proceedings were commenced by
Bishop Morton in the Ecclesiastical Court of Chester, So highly
K

130 LANCASHIRE,
were they esteemed, that several magisfrates and gentlemen of the
diocese addressed the following letter on thefr behalf to the bishop
when he was on his "risitation at Stockport : —
' Right Revbeend, — Whereas we understand that divers of our
painful and discreet ministers are lately by letters missive from your
lordship, and others of His Majesty's Commission for Causes Eccle
siastical, enjoined to appear before you to answer to such matters aa
shall be objected against them, we whose names are subscribed have
thought fit to acquaint you with our opinion of those ministers, for the
preventing of much sinister and malicious information, which is
frequently stfrred up against men of thefr sort and quality, sometimes
by lewd and profane persons, and many times by disguised, subtle,
and superstitious Romanists and church-papists, whose hearts are
against us while their faces are seemingly for us. We have observed
in these our ministers integrity of Ufe and conversation, orthodox
soundness of doctrine, dUigence and painfulness in their places,
sobriety and peaceableness in their dispositions, and freedom from
faction; also the great good and profit which our congregations,
where they live, have abundantly received from thefr ministry.
Therefore we are emboldened to en^treat your favour.'*
The bishop, on receiving this letter, had the bad taste, or
something worse, to reply : ' They whom this letter concerns are the
worse to be liked for the testimony here given to them.'
The Puritan ministers who have been mentioned as belonging to
the reign of Elizabeth were in many instances succeeded by young
men who Uved to take an active part in the conflict of the next reign,
when they wUl come more distinctly before us, Mr, WUUam Bourne
continued the favourite preacher of the Lancashire Puritans until the
beginning of the ciril war, when we shall again meet with the old
man ' heartening '' the parliamentary soldiers in the defence of
Manchester. There were, however, some nonconforming preachers
who commenced their minisfry in Lancashfre in the reign of James,
and rested from thefr labours or left the county before the appeal
was made to arms, and who on that account should be noticed before
we proceed to the more exciting events of the subsequent reign.
Of these, one of the most impressive preachers was Mr. PaUn of
Leigh, of whose sermons, heard by Richard Mather when a chUd, the
remembrance was ' most comforta'ble and honourable in his thoughts,'
when, in his old age and on the other side of the Atlantic, he comforted
himself vrith 'the thoughts of the plain, powerful, and piercing
efficacy of Mr. Palin's ministry, such as was not to be found in the
common preachers.'
Another ' famous minister ' of that time was Mr. GelUbrand, of
Warrington, remarkable for his fervent wrestUng prayers, his clear
* Preface to Mr. John Paget's Defence of Chv/rch Governments, 1641, The
preface was written by Mr. Thomas Paget, one of the nonconforming ministers on
whose behalf the letter of the magistrates was addressed to the bishop. What
relation there was between Mr. John Paget, the author of the Defence, and Mr.
Thomas Paget the writer of the preface, I have not been able to ascertain.

PURITANISM UNDER JAMES L 131
expositions of Scripture, and his powerful appeals to the consciences
of his hearers — ' the more famous,' says Samuel Clark, ' for that
though he did much stammer in his ordinary discourse, yet would he
pray and preach very fluently,'
Another was Mr. Harrison of Huyton, celebrated for the extra
ordinary impressions which his preaching often produced on the
minds of the young and thoughtless, especially on occasion of his
lecturing at markets and fafrs. To announce at a fafr that he was
about to preach in a neighbouring church, was quite enough to bring
together a crowded congregation of attentive listeners who seldom
Ustened attentively to any other preacher.
Mr. Hubbert was the puritan minister of the chapelry of
Ainsworth, near Bolton, on whose faithful preaching the grandmother
- of OUver Heywood (one of the puritan family of the Hultons)
attended with great interest, and whose counsel and prayers she
sought on behalf of her husband, because he, being carnal, as the
Puritans called him, exercised himself on Sunday afternoons in
shooting at the butts on Lomas Moor. Although the kindly advice
of Mr. Hubbert and the earnest remonsfrance of Mrs. Heywood seem
to have been unavaiUng, thefr prayers were heard, and his conversion
was effected in a very unexpected manner. The old gentleman
being at Bury fair, and finding the church, as was not unusual at
that time, open for lecturing on the fair day, heard the lecture of that
eminent preacher Mr. Paget, whose earnest appeal reached his
conscience and his heart, 'and from that time he set his face
heavenward,' to the great comfort of his wife and spiritual weKare of
his children.
This Mr. Thomas Paget was one of the nonconforming preachers
on behalf of whom the letter I have afready cited was addressed by
the magistrates of Lancashfre to the Bishop of Chester. Of a
Leicestershfre family, to which belonged several nonconforming
ministers, he was induced by the earnest persuasion of Mr. Bourne
— ^who, as HoUingworth says, ' laboured much and succeeded well in
procuring ministers in every chapel in the parish of Manchester ' — •
to become minister of Blackley. He had accepted the appointment
before 1603, as his name is inserted as the minister in ' a platform,' or
ground plan, of the chapel of that date. In 1617 he was cited to
appear before the bishop and answer for his nonconformity. Paget
appeared before a Court of Commissioners at Chester with several of
his nonconforming brethren, when the bishop requfred them to state
thefr arguments against the use of the cross in baptism, adding his
assurance that he would speedUy confute them. The ministers at
first declined to answer, assigning as their reason that they might
expose themselves to punishment by expressing thefr disapproval of
the prescribed ritual. The bishop however, confident of his own
abUity and never unvrilUng to make some display of it, urged them
to state candidly and defend fearlessly their objections in the presence
of several persons of importance. Mr. Paget spoke on behalf of his
brethren. The bishop listened with great attention, and either from
candour or from fear of exposing his ignorance, acknowledged that

132 LANCASHIRE.
Mr. Paget had defended his cause vrith more learning than he had
expected, and that as he had not studied the controversy he must
reserve his refutation for a more convenient opportunity.
But Paget did not so easily escape his persecutors. He was
ordered by the commissioners to produce his arguments in writing
before the end of another month. Three times he was compelled to
travel to Chester, and as the convenient opportunity for the bishop's
refutation had not come, he had to endure the insolent and abusive
language of the officials and servants of the ecclesiastical court.
"When the convenient opportunity at length came, the bishop, instead
of refuting the arguments of Paget, remonsfrated with him on his
obstinacy, and intimated that he himself, through his leniency towards
the nonconformists, had lost the appointment to the bishopric of
Lincoln, There might have been some fruth in this intimation, for
Morton's deeds were not always as bad as his threatenings. On this
occasion, for instance, the bishop threatened to suspend Paget, to
degrade him, to excommunicate him, to drive him out of the
country ; but he did none of these things. He only scolded, called
the poor man ' a blasphemer of his mother, the Church,' and left him
to go home as soon as he had paid the customary fees to the officers
of the court. An order, however, was sent to the chapel- wardens
of Blackley, directing them to pro-ride a book of homUies for the
desk, and to permit no one to preach vrithout a Ucense from the
bishop. Whatever Morton may have lost by his leniency to the noncon
formists, he gained the bishopric of Lichfield by writing the ' Book
of Sports.' His successor, Dr. Bridgman, was at first quite as
lenient, and much more quiet, in his dealings -with nonconforming
ministers. His leniency and quietness were so offensive to the eccle
siastical authorities, that his metropolitan sent commissioners to
enqufre and report upon the state of his diocese. Charged vrith
negUgence, he was compeUed to become a persecutor, and persecutors
from compulsion sometimes do their work more severely than
persecutors from choice. Morton loved to threaten when he was
unwilUngto strike ; Bridgman loved neither to threaten nor to sfrike,
but when he did strike he did it as effectually as if he loved to do it.
Bridgman, although inferior to Morton in logical power, would
argue where Morton felt that he could not, but his arguments were
often of a very peculiar kind, Paget, on being cited to appear again
at Chester, was required to assign his reason for refusing to kneel at
the Sacrament. He cited the words of our Lord, ' In vain do they
worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.'
The bishop repUed that he expected a more learned argument founded
on the recUning posture of our Lord and His'disciples at the institution
of the Sacrament. As this was the usual argument of the Puritans,
Bridgman seems to have been prepared for it, and unwilling to lose
the opportunity of refuting the Puritans, he stretched himself upon
a bench by the side of the table, leaning upon his elbow, and
enquired whether it would be decent and proper for a congregation
in that recumbent position to partake of the Sacrament. Poor

PURITANISM UNDER JAMES L 133
Mr. Paget was not only refuted in argument, but punished by
suspension from his ministry for two years.
Soon after his suspension, writs of attachment were issued from
the Court at York to imprison him untU he paid the heavy fines
which were imposed by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. To
escape thefr officers hs fled to Holland, and became minister of an
EngUsh congregation in Amsterdam. While he was resident there,
he wrote the preface to John Paget's ' Defence of Church Govern
ment,' in which these incidents of his life are related. Brook, in his
life of Thomas Paget, says, 'He most probably spent the remainder of
his days there.' It seems, however, that after nine years' residence in
Holland, he returned to England, became rector of St. Chad's,
Shrewsbury, and in extreme old age died rector of Stockport.*
Henry Newcome in his autobiography mentions ' a remarkable
proridence,' which Mr. Paget, who was probably more cautious in
interpreting ' proridences,' does not notice. 'An apparitor,' ha-ring
discovered the irregularities of Mr. Paget's administration of the
Lord's Supper, rudely interrupted the serrice in Blackley Chapel, by
taking down the names of the communicants who received the
* Brook's Uves of the Puritans, vol. ii. pp. 291-294. History of the Andent
Chapel of Blackley, pp. 67-69.
It is pleasant to find an opportunity of connecting Milton with the noncon
formity of Lancashire. Mr. Paget requested his cousin Thomas MinshuU of
Manchester, apothecary, to be the supervisor of his will. This apothecary was very
kind aud attentive to the nonconforming ministers of Manchester, His gratuitous
services are gratefuUy acknowledged in Newoome's diary. He was the third son of
Richard MinshuU, of Wistaston, in Cheshire, to which family Elizabeth MinshuU,
the third wife of MUton, belonged. What relation was she to the nonconforming
apothecary, the cousin of the nonconforming minister Paget ? PhiUps tells us that
MUton married the 'kinswoman' of his friend Dr. Paget. Nathan Paget, the
eldest son of the minister, settled as a physician in Coleman Street, London, and
became an intimate friend of John Milton. In his wUl he left a bequest ' to his
cousin Elizabeth Milton.' As the minister Paget was cousin to the apothecary
MinshuU, of course the physician Paget was second cousin to the daughters of the
apothecary, mentioned in his wUl, Dorothy, EUzabeth, and Mary. Was EUzabeth
the wife of MUton ? So it would seem. Bnt there is other evidence of the fact.
In a pedigree of the MinshuU family, formerly in the possession of the Rev.
WUUam Hadfield of Chester, it is stated that Thomas MinshuU (the apothecary)
had four sons, that his son John was buried in Manchester, and that letters of
administratio.n were granted to John's sister, the -widow of John Milton. The
undesigned coincidence is remarkable. Dr. Paget calls Mrs. MUton his cousin,
and she undoubtedly was so, if she was the daughter of the apothecary.
Mr. Marsh of Warrington, to whose valuable tract, entitled Papers connected
¦with Milton and his Family, I am indebted for many of these particulars, thinks
that Mrs Milton belonged to another branch of the MinshuU family, because, if she
was the apothecary's daughter, she was only sixteen years old when she married
the blind old poet. This, at first sight, seems improbable, although the improba-
bUity scarcely outweighs the evidence. But is it really improbable ? Mrs. MUton
¦executed her o-wn -svill in 1727, and died soon afterwards. She was married to tho
poet in 1664, that is, sixty-three years before her death. She must, therefore,
have been married at a very early age. Were she then only sixteen, she died in
her eightieth year. So I wrote in the first edition. Since writing it I find that
there is some evidence of the early death of Elizabeth, the daughter of Mr. Thomas
MinshuU. Mrs. Milton was certainly the kinswoman of Dr. Paget. If I cannot
caU the good nonconforming apothecary the step-father of John Milton, I can
regard him as the step-uncle, or in some way the step-kinsman of the poet.

134 LANCASHIRE.
communion in a sitting posture, and by threatening to present them
at the next risitation. But ' on the Sabbath morning, when he was
getting up, something gave him a dust in the neck ; he fell immedi
ately sick, and died within two hours.'
Mr. Paget was succeeded in Blackley Chapel by William Rathband,
a puritan preacher of considerable eminence in his day. He had
been for nineteen years the minister of the chapelry of Ainsworth,
near Bolton. Being there suspended for nonconformity, he obtained
his UveUhood by teaching the children of the many puritan families
of that neighbourhood. Among his pupils was the celebrated OUver
Heywood, Notvrithstanding his suspension, he preached privately
as often as he had opportunity, untU in 1632 he was appointed
minister of Blackley. How he obtained the consent of the bishop I
do not know ; but they seem to have been reconcUed, for his name
occurs in the Ust of commissioners appointed by the bishop to aUot
the benches in the newly-restored chapel. That Rathband made no
compromise of his principles is certain, for he was as notorious for
his nonconformity at Blackley as he had been at Ainsworth. The
explanation is probably to be found in the names of the influential
families who resided in the chapelry and paid for their benches. The
chief seat in that synagogue was occupied by Mr. Assheton of
Blackley Hall, of puritan connections and habits. The squfre paid
eight shiUings a quarter for his bench. According to the ' platform '
of the chapel, the benches immediately behind his were occupied by
a Mr. Booth and Mr. George Tra"ris, assessed at six shillings each.
Tra"rises, Beswickes, and other puritan names are appended to
benches let for smaller sums. The chapel had a puritan congregation,
and therefore the bishop apparently allowed them a nonconforming
minister. Nonconformist as he was, he was zealously opposed to the
Brownists, against whom he wrote a somewhat abusive book, which
was afterwards commended by Bishop StUlingfleet as of great
authority among the Puritans. Rathband removed to Northumber
land, where, being suspended for nonconformity, he Uved as a
domestic chaplain in a private famUy.
I cannot leave the old chapel of Blackley without noticing the
goodly successsion of puritan families who, according to the copies of
two 'platforms,' one dated 1603, the other made a few years after
wards,* occupied its benches, and paid thefr ' chapel wage.' The
names of Traris and Beswicke occurring among the contributors,
seem tc connect the first reformers with the later nonconformists.
The Travises belonged to the famUy of Father Traves, and the
Beswickes were the relatives of John Bradford, at whose martyrdom
in Smithfield his brother-in-law Beswicke attended to cheer him in
his last moments. Their descendants were among the first to raise
and support a presbyterian meeting-house in thefr native "rillage.
The Ught of Father Traves and martyr Bradford long iUumined the
neighbourhood of Blackley, So we have seen the spfrit of the other
* In the second platform the communion table is represented as not being close
to the end of the chancel, but as leaving an intervening space, occupied by two
benches. (See note on p. 37.)

PURITANISM UNDER JAMES I. 135
Lancashfre martyr, George Marsh, long perpetuated in Bolton and
its neighbouring "rillages, among the Levers, the Pilkingtons, the
Hultons, the Critchlaws, the Bradshaws, the Cromptons, the
Heywoods, the hardy yeomanry of that moorland country, who were
ever ready to resist oppression, when it attempted to coerce their
consciences or silence their favourite preachers.
We meet with another group of Puritans, although their puritanism
seems to have been of a milder type than that of the moorlands, in
and about Toxteth Park near Liverpool. They erected a chapel in
which they could hear the evangeUcal doctrines sf the Reformation
preached in their purity, and Uft up a standard against the popery
abounding in their neighbourhood. They invited Richard Mather
when a boy to teach thefr children, and, when only a youth, to teach
themselves. Time has spared the name of one of them (I wish it had
spared more), Edward Aspinwall, the intimate friend of the sainted
Mrs. Brettargh, and her comforter in her last hours of mortal
sickness. The Church of Christ has some reason to venerate his
memory, for by the influence of his holy conversation, his beautiful
example, and his domestic piety, the young schoolmaster, Richard
Mather, was won over to the puritan cause, and prepared for the
great work which he did so well in New England. "What the
Mathers, father and four sons and many grandsons, did for New
England may, under God, be attributed in no smaU degree to
the holy life of Edward Aspinwall. It is pleasant to trace a wide
flovring stream of good to its source in the unostentatious labours of
some humble and almost forgotten servant of God.
Of Toxteth Park Chapel, in the reign of James, Richard Mather
was the minister, and continued there until in the early part of the
reign of Charles he was driven by persecution across the Atlantic.
He was bom at Lowton, a hamlet in the parish of Winwick, of
respectable parents, who during his childhood were struggling with
adverse for^tune, and compelled to mortgage thefr hereditary estate.
At an early age he was sent to the grammar school of Winwick,
where, in common with many of his school-fellows, he had to endure
much severe and undeserved chastisement from an frritable though
able and learned schoolmaster. His grandson. Cotton Mather, and
his biographer, Samuel Clark, tell a strange story of ' some Welsh
Papists ' who fraveUed through those parts, ' in search of boys of
pregnant wits,' and selected Richard as very suitable for thefr pur
pose. They proposed to take charge of his education, and his father
was induced by pecuniary embarrassment to think favourably of thefr
proposal. What the ' Welsh Papists ' wished to do vrith him does
not distinctly appear, but had they intended to kUl him, or even to
make him a pope, his biographers could not have expressed greater
admiration than they did of the good Providence which preserved
him from their wicked derices . Deliverance oame from an unexpected
quarter. His schoolmaster, who had never before said a kind word
to him, either reaUy Uking the boy, or supposing his ' pregnant vrits '
would do credit to the school, immediately made arrangements by
which Richard might continue his education without putting his

136 LANCASHIRE.
father to any further expense. When only fifteen years old he was,
on the recommendation of his master, invited to take charge of a
school recently established at Toxteth Park. Being there brought
under the influence of reUgion, chiefly by the example and encourage
ment of Mr. Aspinwall,* he was induced to prepare for the work of
the Christian ministry. Assisted by the good people of Toxteth he
entered at Brasenose College, Oxford ; but before he had completed
his coUegiate course, the importunity of his friends, who knew the
worth of the young schoolmaster, induced him, young as he was, to
become the minister of thefr chapel. So great was the pleasure -with
which he was received at Toxteth, that a great crowd assembled to
hear his first sermon, and assure him of a cordial welcome. The
nonconforming minister of a puritan congregation who preached
without a surplice had reason to apprehend some difficulty in obtain
ing ordination fi-om so strict a Churchman as Bishop Morton. The
bishop, however, readily assented to his appointment, and expressed
a desfre to see him alone immediately after the ordination. Instead
of being rebuked, as he expected, for not conforming to the ceremo
nies, he was surprised to hear the bishop earnestly entreating to be
remembered in his prayers, because ' the prayer of a good man
avaUeth much.' Mather returned to Toxteth vrith all the authority
which the bishop's hands could give him, praying no doubt very
earnestly for his lordship. As the chapel was considered in some
respects private property, neither Morton nor his successor Bridgman
gave him much trouble for his nonconformity. On one occasion he
was suspended on the complaint of some Utigious neighbours, but on
the intercession of several influential gentlemen he was aUowed quietly
to resume his ministrations. Soon afterwards the Archbishop of
Yorkjt a ' popish Arminian prelate,' as Prynne called him, hearing
of the prevalence of nonconformity in the diocese of Chester, sent his
commissioners into Lancashfre armed vrith archiepiscopal authority.
They held their court with considerable state and formality to over
awe the clergy and thefr lenient bishop, and summoned several of the
neighbouring ministers to appear before them, and answer to accusa
tions of nonconformity. Mather was not overlooked, nor protected
by the peculiarity of his chapel. Besides, whatever may have been
the pri-vUeges of Toxteth Chapel, Richard Mather was not the sort of
man to confine his ministry to a -rillage congregation. He was a
frequent preacher in many of the neighbouring churches and chapels, J
* 'That more thorough and real conversion in him was occasioned by ob-
serving a difference between his own walk and the exact, watchful, faithful,
and prayerful conversation of some in the family of the learned and pious Mr.
AspinwaU of Toxteth, where he sojourned. The exemplary waUc of that holy
man caused many sad fears to arise in his own soul that he was himself out
of the way,'— it/e by Cotton Mather iu his History of New England, book iii.
ch. XX.
t Dr. NeUe, to whose iU conduct King James referring, ¦wittUy said, 'he
promoted popery by inducing people to pray for his predecessor.' Brook, in
his Life of Mather, seems to have mistaken this little piece of pleasantry for
a grave complaint against the archbishop, as if he had encouraged prayers for
the dead.
+ He was a great preacher of funeral sermons, which practice his grandson

PURITANISM UNDER JAMES I. 137
and regularly lectured every other Tuesday morning in Prescot
church. As he never wore the surpUce in any of these places, his
nonconformity to the habits was regarded as eridence of his noncon
formity to the ceremonies. It was weU known that at Toxteth he
never made the sign of the cross in baptism, nor administered the
sacrament to the communicants kneeling, but whether he baptised or
administered the communion in any other place could not be ascer
tained. Before the commissioners he was scolded in the most gross
and offensive manner for not wearing the snrpUce. The unrestrained
coarseness of thefr language was in sfrange contrast vrith the formal
parade and pomp of thefr officials. Mather was calm, as he teUs us :
' The terror of their threatening words, of thefr pursuivants, and the
rest of thefr pomp, did not terrify my mind. 1 could stand before
them -without being daunted in the least measure, but answered for
myself such words of truth and soberness as the Lord put into my
mouth, not being afraid of their faces at all, which supporting and
comforting presence of the Lord 1 count not much less mercy than if
I had been altogether preserved out of their hands.' He was, how
ever, sUenced, and threatened -with fine and imprisonment if he offi
ciated again vrithout gi-ving satisfaction to the commissioners for his
future conformity.
Such satisfaction Mather would not give. The popish livery he
would not wear, nor betray the simplicity of the gospel by any ap
proval of ceremonial worship. Come what would, he resolved to
stand fast in the liberty wherevrith Christ had made him free, and
not to touch the things defiled -vrith popery. When his influential
friends who had previously prevailed vrith the bishop to aUow him to
resume his ministry interceded for him with the commissioners, they
obtained nothing better than coarse insult and peremptory orders to
desist from troubling the court.
The good man saw no prospect of again exercising his ministry in
England. The times were dark and threatening. Charles had suc
ceeded to his father's throne, and Laud, instaUed at Canterbury,
mled the Church vrith a rod of fron. Although the Puritans of the
northern province were at first disposed to congratulate one another
on their being exempt from his jurisdiction, they soon learned that
Laud could make his fron rod felt in the north by means of thefr
0"wn authorities, who either courted his favour or feared his displea
sure. Mather saw the cloud gathering over his country, and his
gentle spfrit longed to escape from the threatening storm. Looking
one summer evening over the sea, he repeated the words of the
Psalmist, ' O that I had wings Uke a dove ! Lo ! then would I wan
der far off, and remain in the wilderness. I would hasten my escape
from the vrindy storm and tempest.' Possibly the sight of a white
sail on the distant sea, looking in the evening twiUght Uke the
Cotton Mather learnedly vindicated in opposition to some Puritans who
regarded funeral sermons as countenancing the popish practice of celebrating
reUgious services for the dead. Cotton Mather was the earUest Puritan, so
far as I know, who ventured to say, ' In some matters the Papists are wiser
than we are.'

138 LANCASHIR.E.
wing of a dove, suggested the desfre, which soon grew into a purpose,
of leaving his country and dwelling with the Puritans of New England,
But he did not act without due consideration. He consulted his
friends at Toxteth, submitted the subject to the consideration of the
wisest of the Lancashire ministers, and corresponded with several of
the pUgrims of New England. Having thus obtained ample materials
for careful thought and deliberation, he committed to paper the prin
cipal reasons for and against his removal, and earnestly prayed for
dirine guidance in coming to a conclusion. After prolonged consi
deration and many prayers, his decision was to exercise his minisfry
in the settlements of the puritan emigrants. With many tears he
took leave of his Lancashire friends, and in the disguise of strange
apparel, fearing he might be apprehended on his journey, he traveUed
on foot to Bristol, where he expected to find, what in those days
could not be found at Liverpool, a ship fit to saU across the Atlantic.
In May 1635, he saUed, and after a stormy and perUous passage
arrived at Boston. His subsequent labours, however, do not belong
to our history. If they did, I should be glad to give some account
of the great success of his ministry at Dorchester, and especially of
the influence which he had, and the judicious use he made of it, in so
modifying the discipline of the puritan churches of New England as
to induce them to maintain unimpaired the freedom of independency,
and yet to submit to the order of presbyterianism ; a discipline of in
dependency vrithout anarchy, and presbyterianism without tyranny,
in which the authority of the people was restrained, not destroyed,
by the responsibiUty of popularly elected officers. We leave
Richard Mather doing God's work in New England, although we
shall be hereafter reminded of him when we find in his native county
congregationaUsm formed after his model, distinct both from the
independency of the eastern counties and from the presbyterianism
of the north.*
The departure of Richard Mather has brought us to the reign of
Charles ; but before we leave that of James, I would notice, as natives
of Lancashfre, two learned and eminent ministers, whose biography
has only a slight connection vrith the religious history of their native
county, and of whom, therefore, my notice must be very brief I
refer to Robert Bolton and Henry Ainsworth.
Robert Bolton was born at Blackburn, in the reign of EUzabeth,
and while very young was sent to complete his education at Oxford,
Subsequently distinguished in the university by his lectures on
philosophy, mathematics, and dirinity, he was selected on the occa
sion of a royal risit as best qualified to exhibit to the king a specimen
of the learning and philosophy of that ' famous seat of the Muses,'
At that tune, he disced the Puritans quite as much as the royal
visitor whom he entertained. Soon after this fooUsh exhibition, he
was affected vrith distressing and terrible convictions of the eril of
his sms, through which conrictions, after many months of deep hu-
mUiation and anguish, even to the loss of his health, he attained fnU
assurance of pardon and perfect peace with God, In the thfrty-fifth
* Mather's History of New England, book iU. ch. xx.

PURITANISM UNDER JAMES L 139
year of his age he was presented to the Uving of Broughton, in
Northamptonshire ; on which presentation King James, who had not
forgotten his entertainment at Oxford, and probably had never heard
of Bolton's conversion, said the patron had robbed the university of
its brightest ornament. The king had some reason to say so, for
even Anthony Wood, the bitter enemy of aU other Puritans, caUs
him : ' A most reUgious and learned Puritan, a painful and constant
preacher, of great zeal for God, charitable and bountiful, and so
famous for reliering afflicted consciences, that many foreigners, as
well as persons at home, resorted to him and found reUef. He was
so expert in the Greek language, that he could write and dispute
in it with as much ease as in EngUsh or Latin.'* When thefr vener
able pastor died, his weeping parishioners said, referring to his
white locks of flowing hair, ' Now the snow melts there comes a
great flood.' His memory is still venerated by the admfrers of Puri
tan literature, on account of his ' Four Last Things,' his ' Dfrections
for Walking with God,' and his 'Instructions for Comforting
Afflicted Consciences.' f
Not inferior to Robert Bolton in sacred literature, and in some
departments of it far superior, was Henry Ainsworth, the second son
of Lawrence Ainsworth, Esq., whose family was of considerable an
tiquity and good repute in Blackburnshfre. He was born in 1560,
in the mansion of his ancestors at Plessington, and educated in the
University of Cambridge. Becoming attached to the early Indepen
dents, he suffered much persecution, until, in the latter part of the
reign of Elizabeth, he found a refuge in Holland, and settled at Am
sterdam with others of his own persuasion. These poor exiles, haring
formed, in 1592, a Congregational Church, pubUshed, in 1598, a
' Confession of thefr Faith,' dedicated to the Universities of Leyden,
Heidelberg, Geneva, and St. Andrews. As it is writen in good clean
Latin, it is undoubtedly the production of their learned teacher.
Like most of his brethren in Amsterdam, who, as they said of them
selves, ' were almost consumed with deep poverty,' he suffered much
privation and distress. According to Roger "WUliams, ' he Uved
upon ninepence a week and some boiled roots.' It is not so well
known that this poor scholar had been brought up in the comforts
of a wealthy Lancashire famUy. WhUe he was a porter to a book
seller, his master discovered his extensive knowledge of the Hebrew
language, and helped him to some improvement of his cfrcumstances.
Ainsworth is now kno^wn chiefly as the author of ' Annotations on
the Five Books of Moses, the Psalms, and the Song of Solomon,' He
is said to have been poisoned by a Jew, but as in those times any story
of the wickedness of Jews, Papists, or Puritans, readUy obtained wide
cfrculation, I am not disposed to give much credit to the tale.
In the later years of James I., as Neal observes, both puritanism
and popery increased prodigiously in England. They did so espe
cially in Lancashfre. "We have afready seen that in the reign of
EUzabeth the two extreme parties prevailed, almost to the exclusion
* Athence Oxon. vol. i. p. 479.
t Brook's Lives ; Doddridge's Lectures on Preaching.

140 LANCASHIRE.
of the friends of the English Church. Nothing that occurred in the
reign of James strengthened the position of the intermediate party.
The Puritans and the Papists were so fiercely opposed, and so vrilling
to engage in the confiict, that moderate men found it difficult to
maintain neufraUty without becoming, or appearing to become, in
different to the great principles of a momentous confroversy, which
was about soon to affect the liberty and best interests of the nation.
In these cfrcumstances earnest men could not be content to aUow the
Church to remain as Elizabeth had left it. So far as Lancashire was
concerned, to make any change in the Church was to displease nearly
half of the county, whUe to do nothing was to leave almost the whole
dissatisfied. It was, however, e^rident that puritanism was gathering
strength in all parts of the country. Its spirit pervaded the religious
Uterature ot the land, for, as Neal observes, almost all the practical
writers of the age were puritan. The arbifrary measures of the
bishops, and thefr notorious subserriency to the king, offended the
liberal statesmen of the time, and contributed to sfrengthen the union
which was sUently forming between the Puritans and the pafriots.
The traders of the cities and boroughs were to a large extent brought
under the infiuence of the puritan clergy, who made that influence
apparent in the parliamentary elections. Nor were the CathoUcs idle
or indifferent to politics. It may seem sfrange at first sight, but it
shows the energetic action of both parties, that in the CathoUc towns
of Lancashfre, as in Liverpool and Wigan, a stem Puritan and a
zealous CathoUc were returned on several occasions, to the exclusion
of Churchmen supported by the great influence of the Stanley famUy,
The spirit of puritanism, strong in the later parUaments of King
James, afforded many presentiments of the great conflict of the next
reign, while so far as the representation of Lancashfre was concerned,
it became e^rident that although its puritanism had many and power
ful opponents, there were very few who would moderate between the
conflicting parties.
We leave King James to the admiration of the courtiers of his
day. We cherish no respect for the memory of the meanest, the
vainest, the most despicable of EngUsh monarchs. Following in
imagination his funeral procession, we are ready to haU the fine
opportunity his successor had to restore the faded glory of the Eng
lish crown. But when we. look on his son, who had hitherto proved
fickle, uncertain, deceitful, the instrument of poUtical profligates,
the victim of scandalous intrigues, we cannot but regret the death of
Prince Henry, the promising pupil of a Lancashfre Puritan. Had
he Uved and taken the advice of his tutor, Leigh, rather than hia
brother's favourite. Laud, he would have saved his father's throne
from disgrace and destruction. As it was, the succession placed
upon the throne a gentleman instead of a pedant, but a gentleman
without energy, without vrisdom, without generosity, vrithout perse
verance, vrithout patriotism, vrithout veracity, vrithout independence,
vrithout anything better than good manners, graceful appearance,
and fafr speech, vrith which to rule a great people hating tyranny,
conscious of oppression, and resolved to assert their freedom.

CHAPTER VIII.
PURITANISM UNDER CHARLES I.
On March 27, 1625, Charles succeeded to the throne of his father,
George Abbot, at that time Archbishop of Canterbury, was too de
cided a Puritan and patriot to have much influence at court in the
government of either the Church or the State, A firm Protestant, a
strict Calvinist, a stern moralist, he had disapproved of the ' Book of
Sports,' remonstrated against the articles of the proposed Spanish
marriage, and resisted vrith uncompromising resolution the policy,
management, and growing influence of Laud, then Bishop of London,
Haring committed a casual homicide, he had retfred from court, and
Uved in seclusion at his country residence near Croydon, Soon after
the accession of Charles he peremptorily refused to license a sermon
dedicated to his Majesty, in which the preacher, Dr. Sibthorpe,
asserted that the Idng was not himself bound to observe the laws of
the realm, but that his subjects were bound to obey him in whatever
might be his commands. For this refusal the archbishop was sus
pended from the discharge of all his archiepiscopal functions, and
ordered to retfre to the neighbourhood of Canterbury, Laud, who
not only Ucensed, but recommended the objectionable sermon, became
ostensibly, as he had long been rirtually, the chief authority in Eng
land in ecclesiastical affafrs. On the death of Abbot he was elevated
to the see of Canterbury, and had the pleasure of flnding most of
his sufiragans either imbued with his spirit or subserrient to his
purpose. But what were the spfrit and purpose of Laud ? He was certainly
not a Papist ; there was not a man in England who would more
stoutly have resisted any attempt to subordinate the English Church
to the Romish hierarchy, A High Churchman, fond of splendour
and pomp in reUgious services, because they promote the reverence
of the people for thefr clergy, he would have made the EngUsh
Church a rival in magnificence to that of Rome, and invested her
priesthood with an authority inferior to that of no priesthood upon
earth. Gladly would he have promoted the arbitrary rule of the
secular power, that he might by its assistance establish the domination
of the spfritual authority.
Although Laud had gained the confidence of the king, he could
not obtain that of the people. Puritans were alarmed by what
seemed the restoration of popery ; Catholics were annoyed by what
seemed the exaltation of a rival Church. Laud's restless energy
roused indomitable opposition in all parts of England, and nowhere
was the opposition which he roused more fierce and indomitable than
ia Lancashire,

142 LANCASHIRE.
Before I notice this opposition, 1 have to observe that a new ele
ment, or at least a new word, was introduced by the fiHlends or the
enemies of Laud into the puritan controversy. Arminianism became
first a terror and afterwards a war-cry among the Puritans. In the
time of Elizabeth, High Churchmen were doctrinally as Calrinistic
as Puritans, Whitgift as much so as Cartwright. In the reign of
James, some of the High Church clergy began to think favourably
of the doctrinal views of the Dutch Remonstrants, and among them
Laud was regarded as a zealous and powerful leader. Under his
influence, although there seemed to be theoretically no connection
between free will and prelatical government, or between unconditional
election and abhorrence of ritual, the connection became practically
so established as scarcely ever to be interrupted. A preacher vrithout
a surplice was invariably a Calvinist ; a preacher in fuU canonicals
was almost as invariably an Arminian. Although the people knew
but little of the docfrine of Arminius, they knew that something
called Calrinism was the tradition of the English reformers. The
doctrine of Cranmer and Ridley, as weU as of Latimer and Hooper,
of the Smithfield martyrs and of the returning exiles, it had been
associated with every advance of the English Church towards reform
ation, and sanctioned by every name of authority amongst the Enghsh
reformers. Revolt from the doctrine of Calvin seemed to the people
renunciation of the reformed religion, and as their notion was con
firmed by the proceedings of Laud in associating the new docfrine
vrith ostentatious ceremony and arbitrary government, the popular
cry of the Puritans and the patriots, of Presbyterian preachers and
liberal statesmen, was for Uberty in temporals against tyranny, and
in spirituals against Arminianism, popery, and prelacy.
The king had offended or grieved his Protestant subjects by his
marriage with Henrietta Maria of France. Of the daughter of the
great Henry IV. I would speak respectfully, as she deserves respect
on account of many good quaUties, and especially her unwearied
devotedness to the cause of her husband, bad as may have been both
her husband and his cause. But with indecent haste Charles had
the marriage celebrated before he had solemnised the funeral of his
father. The marriage serrice was performed first by proxy, accord
ing to the ritual of the Catholic Church, and afterwards according to
the order of the Church of England. The queen, on her arrival in
England, was attended by an ostentatious procession of CathoUc
priests, and received in much state by the papal nuncio. A chapel,
appropriated to her service, was prepared and furnished for the cere
monial of Catholic worship. The articles of marriage were nearly
the same as those which had given so much offence to the Protestant
feeling of England m the proposed Spanish aUiance. AU this was
very offensive, not only to Puritans, but to many sound and even
High Churchmen. Laud himself probably envied the splendour of
the rival Church, although he was too politic to express his dishke,
however deeply he may have felt it.
In La,ncashire the Protestant feeling was grievously offended. To
the Puritans of that county there seemed Uttle difference between the

PUKITANISM UNDER CHARLES I. 143
popery of Henrietta and the Churchism of Laud. The queen and
the archbishop were aUke dreaded and often represented as acting in
harmony. Popery and prelacy were words commonly associated,
and the association was confirmed by the conduct of many of the
prelates. Professions of loyalty to ¦the king were freely made, but
they were becoming unmeaning or insincere vrith many who had lost
thefr confidence in the king through thefr fear of the queen and their
dislike of the archbishop, by whom he was supposed to be adrised or
managed. I have already observed that the Puritan ministers of Lancashfre
were, on the elevation of Laud, disposed to congratulate one another
that they did not belong to the pro"rince of Canterbury. The arch
bishop, however, made his strong arm to be felt in the northern as
well as in the southern pro"rince. Bridgman, Bishop of Chester, who,
as I have said, was at first disposed to be lenient towards the noncon
forming clergy of his diocese, was forced into persecution, and a
forced persecutor, Uke a conscript soldier, soon learns to fight as
fiercely as a volunteer. In the ' Life of John Angier,' written by his
son-in-law, Oliver Heywood, there is a notice of the good bishop,
who, although not a suffragan of Canterbury, was terribly afraid of
the archbishop, who took care to let Lancashfre know that he was
Primate of all England. Bridgman resided at Great Lever near
Bolton, whUe Angier was minister of the neighbouring chapel of
Ringley. ' The visits of the good minister had proved very edifying
and consolatory to the afflicted wife of the bishop. His lordship
occasionaUy expostulated with the puritan minister for his noncon
formity, but as his expostulations were usually foUowed by a request
to pray with his wife, we may suppose they were not very peremp
tory, as they certainly were not very effectual. On one occasion the
bishop, grieved rather than angry, said, ' Mr. Angier, I have a good
vrill to indulge you, but cannot, for my lord's grace of Canterbury
hath rebuked me for permitting two nonconforming ministers, the
one vrithin a mile on one hand, Mr. Horrocks of Dean, on the other
yourself, and I am likely to come into disfavour on this behalf. As
for Mr. Horrocks, my hands are bound, I cannot meddle with him '
(it is thought by some promise made to his wife) ; ' but as for you,
Mr. Angier, you are a young man, and may doubtless get another
place ; and if you were anywhere at a little further distance 1 could
better look away from you, for I do study to do you a kindness, but
cannot as long as you are thus near me.' It was difficult for a
bishop who had a kindly disposition, a puritan vrife, and a sense of
personal obligation, to persecute a puritan neighbour ; but Bridgman
did suspend Angier, or rather Laud did it by the reluctant hand
of Bridgman. The Archbishop of Canterbury made his power to
be respected in Lancashfre as easily as in his own diocese of East
Kent. The fear of Laud, felt in every part of the kingdom, not only com
pelled kindly disposed prelates like Bridgman to persecute thefr
neighbours, but excited to sorhething like action inert, indolent, gen
tlemanly ecclesiastics like Murray, Warden of Manchester, who, in

144 LANCASHIRE.
1634, exhibited ' a Ubel ' before Archbishop Laud aga,iast Richard
Johnson, one of the feUows of the, coUege, for not wearing a surpUce
when he conducted dirine serrice at Gorton chapel. As this seems
to have been about the only duty which Murray discharged in the
twenty-eight years during which he was Warden of Manchester, it
shows the power of Laud which could excite such a man, at so great
a distance, and without the Umits of the province of Canterbury,
to make so great an effort as to ' exhibit a Ubel ' against anybody.
The effort, however, seems to have been too much for him, for soon
afterwards he resigned his office, the duties or the dangers of which
had become too formidable for him to encounter, Johnson, in reply
to the Ubel, said that he preached at Gorton without a surpUce,
because there was no surplice in the place for him to wear. He
petitioned the archbishop, that as he did not act from any disrespect
to the authority of his grace, he might be pardoned for the offence.
Whether his grace, thus propitiated, pardoned the delinquent, or
whether the warden had no energy to prosecute the matter any
further, does not appear from the records of Gorton chapel, in
which there is no further entay upon the subject. Johnson, at aU
events, continued in the discharge of his duties as a feUow of Man
chester College. It was not an uncommon artifice for puritan
ministers to appoint churchwardens who would not proride a
surpUce.* Laud was thus -virtually the supreme head of the Church of
England, although the supremacy was still nominally vested in the
king. That shrUl and piercing voice which Charles heard in the
midst of the ceremonial of his coronation, to the unutterable astonish
ment of all present, had, as long as the speaker lived, a mighty .spell
for e"ril upon the will and heart of the king. Laud was a bold man
to address his sovereign whUe sitting crowned on the throne to receive
the homage, of his nobles : ' Stand and hold fast, henceforth, the
place to which you have been hefr by the succession of your forefathers,
being now deUvered to you by the authority of Almighty God, and
by the hands of us the bishops and servants of God. As you see the
clergy come nearer the altar than others, so remember that in aU
places convenient you give them the greater honour, that the Medi
ator of God and man may estabUsh you in the kingly throne to be a
mediator between the clergy and the laity, and that you may reign
for ever with Jesus Christ. Amen.' The spirit of that cry haunted
Charles wherever he went, until its author expiated his temerity on
the scaffold.
In 1633, the king, on occasion of his visit to Scotland, passed
through Lancashire. As his father's proclamation in favour of Sun
day sports and recreations had become, in the parts of the county
* The two fellows, Richard Johnson and William Bourne, had a long and angry
dispute whether sin was a ' privative ' thing or a ' positive ' thing. HoUingworth
says a Papist priest wrote a tract showing the sad state of the Protestants in not
being able to decide such a question. He found comfort in knowing that neither
could the Papists, for ' this very controversy was first fathered and hatched amongst
the Papists. — Mamcvmiensis,

PURITANISM UNDER CHARLES I. 145
where puritanism prevaUed, inoperative and almost forgotten, he
publicly expressed his firm disapproval of the strictness and severity
vrith which the Lancashfre sabbath was observed, and especially in
the suppression of Sunday wakes and festivals, in which, to the infi
nite horror of the Puritans, religion and pleasure were strangely
blended. He, therefore, for ' the ease and comfort of his loyal sub
jects,' ratified and repubUshed the declaration of his ' blessed father,'
and commanded the judges of assize and the clergy ' to make kno"wn
to the people his gracious vrill and intention.' The Puritans were
indignant, and the more so as it was generally beUeved that Laud had
instigated and promoted this harsh and indiscreet measure. The
second ' Book of Sports ' was not, like the first, confined to Lancashfre,
but enforced over the whole kingdom. Of its opponents, no one
deserves more respectful notice than that good Lancashfre magistrate,
Henry Ashurst, of Ashurst, Esq., who boldly, but peaceably, denied
the legality of the king's injunction, and resolved to resist proceed
ings which were instituted against him, and to test the authority of
the king to enforce the book upon the magistrates and clergy. In
this affair, Henry Ashurst stood before the public in defence of the
people as nobly and fearlessly as John Hampden did in the matter of
the ship-money. Although the case was never decided, Baxter
says, in his funeral sermon for this good man's son (I know not
on what authority), that his conduct received the approval of the
judges. In 1636, Dr. Murray, the Scotch gentleman who, by the especial
favour of King James, was made Warden of Manchester, resigned
his office. During the twenty-eight years in which he retained its
emoluments, he is said to have preached only twice. As the feUows
were puritanically incUned, and as he was promoted over thefr can
didate, William Bourne, it is sfrange that he was allowed to retain
office so long without perfecting his legal title by taking the custom
ary oath of residence. His undisturbed possession may be explained
by his easy, inoffensive disposition ; he did not trouble the Puritans
so long as they refrained fe'om troubling him. The parishioners
again made some effort to obtain the succession for thefr favourite
preacher. They stiU loved old WilUam Bourne. They could not
forget that in the time of the great sickness, when the people in the
town were forbidden to leave it and those in the counfry to enter it,
he would stand on one side of Shooter's Brook, the boundary which
might not be crossed, and preach upon one of the plague-stones
(stones on which the counfry people placed food, and on thefr retfring
the townspeople took it away) to the crowd listening with intense
interest on the other side of the Uttle stream. But Bourne had
grown too old to desfre the office or to discharge its duties. It was
also kno"wn that a young clergyman to whose father the king was
under pecuniary obUgations was likely to obtain the office, and that
he was a Puritan, a pafriot, and a bitter enemy of all Arminians and
Papists. The people were content ; Bourne was pleased vrith the
appointment. A new charter was granted to the coUege, in which
Richard Heyricke was designated as the first warden on the new
L

146 LANCASHIRE.
foundation ; an appointment of which the king had soon and longreason
to repent, for he had given to the Lancashfre Puritans an able, active,
and intrepid leader, who never rested until he became the head of
an organised presbyterianism estabUshed throughout the county,
Richaed Heteicke was the thfrd son of Sfr WUUam Heyricke,
who, ha"ring been a teUer of the Exchequer in the reign of James,
advanced the sum of 8,000Z. for the king, and obtained in return the
promise, but not the payment, of an annual pension. The unfortunate
teller, having been unable to obtain any money from James, bethought
himself, on the accession of Charles, of an expedient by which he
could obtain payment vrithout taking anything from the exhausted
coffers of the king. As his son Richard was qualified for church pre
ferment, and no doubt deserring of it, Sfr WUliam ' humbly petitioned
his most exceUent Majesty' that, as there was due to him a great sum
of money, the reversion of the wardenship of Manchester CoUege
might be granted to his son. ' His most exceUent Majesty was gra
ciously pleased ' to grant his prayer, and accordingly, on the resig
nation of Dr. Murray, his promising son ' of many pregnant parts '
became Warden of Manchester.
Richard Heyricke, M.A, and FeUow of AU Souls' CoUege, Oxon,
was thirty- six years old when he came into possession of his influen
tial and dignified office. A man of wayward impetuosity, untiring
energy, unyielding resolution, and dauntless courage, in aU things
the opposite of his quiet predecessor, he acknowledged small obliga
tion to the king or to anyone else for his lucrative preferment. He
had purchased his office, and therefore considered it as his own
property, the infiuence of which he might use, ¦vrithout incurring any
charge of ingratitude, against the king's most excellent Majesty, if his
most exceUent Majesty did not please Warden Heyricke,
At a critical time he became resident in Manchester. Although a
sfranger m the county, he never found it in his nature to act as a
sfranger in the exciting circumstances in which he was unexpectedly
placed. The times were grovring stormy, and amidst the presages of
storm he would make his voice heard for the guidance of his friends
and the dismay of his foes. The king Uttle knew how bad a bargain
he had made in seUing an office of influence and power to so deter
mined a Puritan and patriot as Heyricke, without whose exertions it
is doubtful whether the presbyterian gentry and yeomanry of Lanca
shfre would have gathered as numerously and resolutely as they did
around the parUamentary standard,
_ The frritation which had been excited in Lancashfre by the repub-
Ucation of the ' Book of Sports ' had been aggravated by the im
position of ship-money, which was being collected amidst much
opposition when Heyricke settled in the county. Although Humph
rey Chetham, respected by aU parties, was high sheriff in 1636, and
discharged his difficult duty of coUecting the tax •with singular pru
dence and moderation, he could not aUay the excitement, nor do more
than prevent any immediate and riotous outbreak of popular indig
nation.* But worse than the ship-money, worse even than the ' Book
* The assessment of the ship-money affords good illustration of the comparative

PURITANISM UNDER CHARLES I, 147
of Sports ' in the estimation of Heyricke, whose puritanism was not
of the austere sort, were the encouragement and growth of popery in
the neighbourhood of Manchester, Severe as were the laws which
prohibited the services of the Catholic Church, the Catholics promul
gated thefr doctrines by thefr private meetings, thefr secret confer
ences, thefr missionary priests, and their clandestine pubUcations,
HoUingworth mentions three noted converts, whose conversion had
been effected just before the arrival of the new warden, Francis
Downes, of Wardley, Esq., ' revolted from the reformed reUgion,'
His relative Sfr Cecyll Trafford, who had been a cruel persecutor of
Papists, resolved, before he resorted to harsher measures, to attempt
the reconversion of his friend by the force of argument. In reasoning,
however, the Catholic was too clever for the Protestant, and thor
oughly argued Sfr CecyU out of the reformed faith. From that time,
the Traffords of Trafford, who had been among the earUest adherents
of the Reformation in Lancashfre, have been steady and consistent
CathoUcs. WUUam Malhoone, ' a scholar of a pregnant wit,' was in
duced by some Irish merchants to go beyond sea, where he was con
verted to popery. He became one of the ablest controversialists of
his Church, wrote vrith great abiUty in reply to Archbishop Usher,
became Master of the Irish CoUege in Rome, and eventually Rector
ofthe CoUege of Serille, where he died in 1654. These and other
apostasies almost drove the warden mad. He denounced the apos
tates from the pulpit, and published his sermon, full of bitter denun
ciations. ' The man of sin,' he exclaimed, ' hath of late years revived
among us. It may be a lightning before death. The mass hath out
faced our Christian meetings, Jesuits have jeered our ministers, and
confuted and abused thefr authority. Manchester, the Goshen
accounted of this Egypt, is of late years darkened with the blackness
of it. Some of our prime men in dignity, authority, and power, have
revolted to them. Thefr example commands many. Great men have
foUowers of their rices as of thefr persons, and when they please to
be idolaters, their children, servants, tenants, poor kindred, and idol
ising neighbours, "wUl go to mass with them.'
But in the war vrith the Papists, the fifth of November was Hey
rioke's grand field-day ; a day, he says in one of his published ser
mons, ' that ought to be celebrated vrith preaching, feasting and send-
wealth of different places and parties at the time. In 1634 Lancashire was assessed
at 3,500!., of which the share of the clergy was 521. 2s. If the assessment was
fairly made (and the fairness of the sheriff was universally acknowledged), the clergy
must have been miserably poor. When the proportion due from the warden and
iellows of Manchester, and from the rich rectors of Winwick, Wigan, aud Middle-
ton, is deducted, the average of the remaining incumbencies is pitiably small. Of
the towns, Liverpool was assessed at 251., Lancaster at 301., Preston at iOl., and
Wigan at 501. In the preceding year Liverpool had been assessed at 151. when
Chester paid 100?. Humphrey Chetham wrote, ' Liverpool, being very poor, goes
as it were a-begging, and can pay very little.' The assessment in 1633 seems to
have been duly paid by the people of Liverpool, but that in 1634 was not coUected,
probably through the growing influence of the Presbyterians, who, in that year,
raised Mr. Williamson, one of themselves, to the dignity of Mayor.— See letter
and papers of Humphrey Chetham in the Appendix to Whatton's History of the
Chetham Hospital.

148 LANCASHIRE.
ing gifts to one another, with ringing of beUs, making bonfires, and
sounding trumpets, with thunderings of ordnance and vrith aU out
ward expressions of joy, that so God may see our thankfulness, that
people may hear from the pulpit of our deUverance, that children in
the streets may understand the salvation of the Lord, that strangers
abroad may know the barbarousness of the plot, the reUgion of the
traitors, and the bloodthirstiness of the Papists. Horret awimus !
Believe me, I cannot think of the horror of the treason, but my spirit
is moved within me, my indignation is stfrred as often as the mention
of the name Papist is made, of such Papists as adhere to the Pope
of Rome, Italian, Spanish, Jesuit, gunpowder Papists. I could be
angry and sin not. I could stamp, knock, bend my brow, and thun
der. I could take up the execration of David, " Let Tny tongue cleave
to the roof of my mouth, and my right Jiand forget her cunning, if I for
get the deliverance of this day." ' After a great deal more of ' stamp
ing,' 'knocking,' 'bending the brow,' and 'thundering,' Heyricke
utters a terrible denunciation : ' Papists, in that sense in that I say
Papists, are sure of eternal damnation. I may not speak peace, where
God speaks no peace. "What peace can I speak to Rome while their
whoredoms and witchcrafts remain amongst them ? Saul lost his
kingdom for sparing Agag, and God may damn me, for aught I know,
if I refuse to damn them. "When God preaches damnation to them,
I may not preach salvation. Antichrist, the man of sin, is called the
son of perdition, and so he is, actively and passively. He is damned
himself, and is the cause of damnation to others.' , , , ' It is
confessed of all that an English apostate Papist cannot be saved.
God has preached damnation to him ; so must we. Now, you see the
danger of being Papists. They are fraitors to their king, heretics,
infidels, atheists, in continual danger of temporal destruction and at
last of eternal damnation.' He concluded hj.s ferocious declamation
vrith the very appropriate peroration, ' Why is it that popery so much
increases among us ? I beseech you that are armed with authority,
go to the utmost of your authority. You that have power to punish
¦ — punish ; to indite — ^indite ; to present — present. Let no Papist
rest in peace or security. You that keep back the sword from doing
justice, when God calls for it, may yourselves die by the sword of
God, and the blood of all that perish through your neglect shall Ue
upon your hearts. Crudelitas pro Christo pietas est : cruelty for Christ
is godUness.'* On another anniversary of his great day, he says : ' Let the fifth of
November be ever kept holy by the English nation. O let the heavens
echo our praises to God ! Let there be aU outward signs of joy. Let
our beUs ring to drown the noise of the thundering skies. Let fires
flame to darken the Ught of the sun. Let our organs and singers lift
* In the Westminster Assembly there was, on Nov. 8, 1643, a debate respecting
the duties of pastors. iVfter it had been decided that the pastor was to teach, to
pray with and for the people, to bless them, and so on, " Mr. Heyricke urged that
it was the pastor's office also to curse." " But this," says Lightfoot, "was waved
for the present." See Journal of the Proceedings of the Assembly of Divines, Light-
foot's Works, edited by Pitman, vol. xui. p, 45.

PURITANISM UNDER CHARLES I. 149
up their voice, that it may be heard and echoed by angels and saints.
Let all that hath a tongue and breath praise the Lord.'
Other puritan preachers, though not so fierce as Heyricke, were in
their several modes and places contributing to excite the Protestant
feeling of the county. The feUows of the collegiate church zealously
seconded the efforts of thefr warden to produce in Manchester an in
flexible resolution to resist all who in Church or State favoured
popery or popish ceremonial. Charles Herle, the incumbent of the
rich rectory of Winwick, engaged in learned refutation of the errors
of the Papists. Peaceable ministers, as John Angier of Ainsworth,
and Isaac Ambrose of Preston, in thefr quiet, gentle manner instiUed
into the minds of their hearers a dread of popery, probably quite as
effectual in promoting opposition as the arguments of Herle or the
denunciations of Heyricke. A great conflict was threatening. Many
were preparing to take their place in the ranks of Protestants or
Papists, Puritans or Prelatists. In Lancashfre, more than in any
other county, the hatred or the fear of popery was a potent element
in the war, and made it more fierce and desperate.
Of the puritan clergy who took an active part in the great conflict
with prelacy and in the estabUshment of the presbyterian discipline in
Lancashire, the next in importance to Richard Heyricke, and perhaps
his equal in influence, was Chaelbs Heele, of Winvrick. Unlike in
almost every respect, they were united in promoting the same cause,
and sat together as the two representatives of Lancashire in the West
minster assembly. Both were gentlemen, well born, well bred, of
good reputation in their University of Oxford.* But Heyricke was
a gentleman of dignified and lofty bearing ; Herle of graceful and
courteous manners. Heyricke was proud and generous, never forget
ful of what was due to himself; Herle mild and gentle, ever mindful
of what was due to others.
He had been promoted to his valuable rectory on account of the
servicd he had rendered as the college tutor of James, Lord Strange,
afterwards the seventh Earl of Derby. It is to the credit of both
parties that, opposed as they became in the riolence of the ciril war,
they retained mutual esteem and sought several opportunities of doing
each other kindly serrice. f Herle obtained his preferment in 1626,
and the following presentments registered in the early part of his
ministry, most of them in 1632, curiously illustrate the state of his
parish. William Clare was presented for bowling in service time ;
Oliver Robie for going forth from the church before the sacrament of
baptism was ended, he being bidden to stay. The wife of James
Starkie and others were presented for haring a candle burning in a
superstitious manner and kneeUng by the corpse of Matthew Hull set
down at a cross ; as were several persons for sending a blessing to
* Herle was of the ancient famUy of the Herles of Prideaux Herle in Cornwalh
and educated at Exeter College, Oxon.
+ There are in Dr. Williams's library three large folio volumes of MSS. entitled
Chronology of Eminent Persons, referred to by Brook in his Lives of the Puritans.
According to this authority, the Earl of Derby, after the disastrous battle of War
rington Bridge, was sheltered and nursed in the house of Mr. Herle at Winwick. —
See Brook, vol. iu. p. 325,

150 LANCASHIRE,
bless cattle that were sick, and for using invocations upon the bodies
of men and beasts ; Robert Downing for receiving the cup sitting
and refusing the bread save at another man's hands, and not at the
minister's ; Margaret Otevrill for dipping a child in the font after it
had been baptised. The register book contains some other curious
entries, as of a certificate granted to entitle a parishioner to be intro
duced to the king and ' touched for the eril.' If the above present
ments were made with the approval of Herle, some of his parishioners
must have become more puritanical than thefr pastor, whUe others
were more papistical. The burning of candles near the dead and the
blessing of sick cattle, occasionaUy noticed in the records of other
parishes, were regarded by the Puritans as remains of popish super
stition. But Herle as weU as Heyricke will continually come across our
path, and therefore I leave him for the present vrith the commenda
tion of old FuUer : ' He was so much the Christian, the scholar, and
the gentleman, that he could agree in affection vrith those who differed
from him in judgment.' I fear that in those times there were few
such Christians, scholars, or gentlemen in Lancashire.
The events of 1640 confributed greatly to increase the excitement
and perplexity of the Puritans. The unfortunate war -with the Scoteh
placed them in a very difficult and perilous position, especially when a
day of fasting was appointed on account ofthe surrender of Newcastle.
Thefr reUgious sympathies were with the Scottish Presbyterians, al
though in Lancashire, however it may have been in London, their
patriotism could not refuse to mourn for the disasters and humiUation
of their country. They observed the fast very devoutly, but for
what to pray, save for peace, they knew not. Victory on the side of
the Scotch would bring dishonour upon thefr own counfry ; while on
the side of the EngUsh it would estabUsh the arbitrary power of the
king and his prelates. On the fast- day, July 8, Heyricke preached
in the collegiate church, and, for once in his life, preached temperately,
as if he were overawed by the solemnity of the occasion, and the peril-
ous consequences of rictory pr defeat, to whichever nation God might
send it. He disapproved of the war, but he showed by his moderate
language that he still retained a lingering respect for the king. Hey
ricke, though a Presbyterian, was not a Scotchman ; and though a
patriot was not a repubUcan. He was disposed to excuse the king by
attributing his measures to the influence of Laud, Strafford, and other
courtiers. His text was "¦ Pray for the peace of Jerusalem,' and his
sermon an earnest exhortation to pray for and to promote- the peace
of the two nations. He spoke kindly of all parties except Arminians
and Papists. Even on that solemn occasion he could not forget them,
and when he remembered them the fire that for a time had been sup
pressed flamed up furiously. ' Pray that the foreigners and strangers
that are in the city, the malcontents and desperate herd, the Canaan
ites that dwell among them, the French, the Papists, may not disturb
our peace. Pray that there be no heresy, no heretical docfrine, no
erroneous articles of reUgion, no Trent determinations, no Socinian
blasphemies, no Arminian quiddities, no Antinomian vrickedness.

PURITANISM UNDER CHARLES L 151
Pray that there be no schism, no separation, no waU of partition, no
heathenish customs, no Samaritan rites, no idolafrous superstitions,
no Popish ceremonies, no canons to batter and terrify the consciences
of God's people.' Returning to a calmer mood he said, ' War is only
sweet to them who are ignorant of it. Our kingdom has enjoyed a
long time of peace. Our age has not been roused by the barking of
uncouth wolves. The midnight drum has not disturbed our sleep ;
the sounding trumpet has not deafened our ears ; our beacons have
not been fired, our ships arrested, or our walls manned ; our towns
have not been ransacked, our houses ruined, our women ravished, or
our infants dashed against the stones. We have not sowed and the
sfranger reaped. We have not buUt and the enemy possessed. We
have not been confounded vrith strange languages. Peace has been
vrithin our waUs and plenteousness vrithin our dwellings ; peace, the
daughter of the gospel of peace, and plenty, the daughter of peace ;
peace, the glory of Heaven, the joy of the whole world.'
There came soon afterwards into Lancashfre sad rumours of the
massacre of the Irish Protestants. The rumours were speedUy fol
lowed by sorrowful reaUties. The fugitives, destitute, naked, starv
ing, driven from thefr homes, found thefr way to Liverpool, and told
thefr pitiable tales of robbery and murder. Widows, orphans, old
men, and young children landed in sad destitution, and sought hos
pitaUty or charity in the neighbouring counfry. Excited by thefr
tales of woe, the Puritans of Lancashfre were alarmed lest the Catho
lics of thefr o-wn county should conspire to perpefrate the barbarities
of the Irish Papists. There undoubtedly were desperate viUains
among the Lancashire CathoUcs, but there were many more of them
who would have denounced the massacre of thefr Protestant neigh
bours as earnestly, if not as furiously, as Heyricke himself. But in
those sad times men had no confidence in any of another faith. Lan
cashfre was fearfuUy excited. The Papists were beUeved to be every
where conspfring and arming : the Protestants were everywhere in
dignant and alarmed. Heyricke preached on the occasion, as aU
Manchester expected he would, a sermon which breathed throughout
a furious and frantic spfrit. His sentences were terrible execrations ;
his teaching, if his ravings could be said to teach anything, the ne
cessity and duty of utterly exterminating the Papists of Lancashfre.
The puritan ministers in other parts of the county took advantage
of the excitement to preach to thefr people, if not as furiously as Hey
ricke, yet furiously enough, on the duty of avenging the wrongs of
the Irish Protestants, and of preparing to defend themselves from the
danger to which they were exposed of popish conspiracy and insur
rection. Everywhere a cry was raised for charity to the frish suffer
ers, justice to thefr cruel oppressors, protection from threatening evils,
and arms for English Protestants. In the midst of this agitation and
alarm there came the unwelcome intelligence, which was rapidly dif
fused and greatly exaggerated, of the employment and promotion of
Catholic officers in the king's army. Many who had hitherto refrained
from acting vrith the Puritans professed thefr -vrilUngness to unite in
petition, remonsfrance, measures of defence, or punishment of traitors.

152 LANCASHIRE.
A requisition was presented to the lord-Ueutenant of the county to
pro"ride arms and ammunition, the expense of which was to be sup
pUed by levies on the property of the county. Lord Strange, who,
however loyal to his sovereign, was a true Protestant, readily formed
magazines in Warrington, Liverpool, Preston, and Manchester. The
gunpowder and match deposited in these towns, and looked upon
with covetous eyes by both parties, precipitated, as we shaU hereafter
find, the early and unexpected outbreak of the civU war in Lancashfre.
In the meanwhile a cry arose from all parts of the counfry for a free
parUament, and in that cry the voice of the Protestants of Lancashfre
was raised with extraordinary unanimity and resolution. The elec
tions of 1640 seconded the demand, and furnished an answer to the
enquiry how Protestant England was to be governed.

CHAPTER IX.
RELIGIOUS PARTIES.
In approaching that great and awful conflict in which many of the
dearest interests of England were involved, and much of its precious
blood was shed, it becomes necessary for a clear understanding of it,
as it was carried on in Lancashire, to notice the political and reUgious
principles of the chief families of the county, or at least of so many of
them as took an active part in the war. The members of the same
famUy generaUy adhered to the same party, so that the name will
usually indicate the side on which the man who bore it may be found.
With scarcely an exception we find on one side the Stanleys, the
Ffaringtons, and the Tyldesleys, and on the other the Asshetons, the
Booths, and the Bfrches. Of the few families that were dirided, like
the Standishes and the Hoghtons, it may be necessary to specify the
more prominent members on each side, as it may be to mention the few
indiriduals who acted in opposition to their family connections. Ofthe
Rigbys found among the leaders of both sides it should be observed
that they belonged to different families, who, although they might
have sprung from one root, had nothing left in common but thefr
name. A few families maintained their neutraUty, and contrived to
secure the respect, or more frequently incurred the suspicion, of both
sides. Humphrey Chetham, first receiver of ship-money, after
wards freasurer of the parUamentary commissioners, was the only in
fluential person, so far as I know, who gained the confidence, as he
saw and lamented the faults, of both Parliamentarians and Royalists.
The Stanleys, although deprived of a large and valuable part of
their hereditary estates, were still the most powerful family of Lanca
shire. On the death of Ferdiuando, the fifth Earl of Derby, although
a great part of the vast possessions which had been accumulating
amidst aU changes through several generations was carried by his
three daughters into other famUies, the property which remained
inalienable from the earldom was sufficient to make his brother
WilUam the greatest man of the county. Earl WiUiam, haring
become very aged and infirm before the breaking out of the ci-ril
war, retired from pubUo Ufe, and left the management of his
affafrs and property to his son, Lord Strange,* who became the
honest, zealous, and inde&tigable, though unfortunate, leader of the
RoyaUsts. Of all the Stanleys, Protestant and Catholic, only two were on the
parUamentary side, one of whom was as fierce and determined an
¦* The title of Lord Strange has been occasionally assumed by the heir to the
Earldom of Derby, although, on the division of the estates, the barony of Strange
passed to the family of jAthole.

154 LANCASHIRE.
enemy of the RoyaUsts as any man in the county. Sir Thomas
Stanley of Bickerstaffe was engaged in the first skfrmish that occurred
between the two parties, and is said by the RoyaUsts to have fired
the first shot of the many that were fired in that lamentable war.*
Sfr Thomas is represented by the RoyaUst accounts as bankrupt
and desperate at the time. If he was, he was very unlike Ms
race, and certainly his descendants have not been unfaithful to the
acquisitiveness which has been a sort of hereditary reUgion in their
family. Intimately associated vrith the Stanleys from the Reformation to
the Revolution, were the Fpaeingtons of Worden. From the reigu
of Henry VIIL, when the head of this family held a high appoint
ment in the household of Edward, the great Earl of Derby, acting as
his secretary, accountant, and auditor, his descendants retained thefr
fiiendship and connection vrith the successive earls. The famUy had
a considerable share of the lands of the monasteries and other Church
property confiscated by the government, and like most persons who
held that sort of property, they were sound Protestants. Their
protestantism, however sound, was not extreme, as they showed no
inclination to support the measures of the Puritans, Like their
pateons, while not approring of the arbitrary proceedings of the
court, when the appeal was made to arms they steadily adhered to
the cause of the monarchy.f
The ancient and honourable famUy of Ttldesiet, of Tyldesley and
Myerscough, unanimously and invariably RoyaUsts, furnished the
ablest soldier who fought for the king in Lancashire, and probably
the most active, resolute, and uncompromising partisan. If Lord
Sfrange was the head of the king's forces in Lancashfre, Sir Thomas
Tyldesley was their right hand, or rather thefr heart and soul and
Uving power. A soldier by temperament as well as by profession,
early trained in the wars ofthe Low Countries, brave, proud, generous,
enthusiastically loyal, he raised and equipped troops at the expense
of his family, and commanded them at the battle of Edge Hill. With
indomitable zeal and courage he served at the sieges of Bolton and
Lancaster. After the execution of the king, he raUied the RoyaUsts
in support of the cause of Prince Charles, and persevered amidst
¦* The Parliamentarian accounts attribute the first shot to Lord Strange,
¦Whichever statement be true, the actual fighting began with the Stanleys, one or
other of whom provoked the first skirmish. For reasons to be afterwards assigned,
I prefer the RoyaUst account, confirmed by the borough-reeve and constables of
Manchester and twenty-four respectable inhabitants ; according to which Lord
Strange, whUe waUdng in the street, ' was shot at with two pistols out of a window
by Sir Thomas Stanley and another by him, as wiU be deposed, but, God be
thanked, they both missed.' — A True and Credible Selatimi of the several Passages
at Manchester, July 15, 1642.
It may not be generaUy known that the late noble leader of the Conservative
party was descended, not from the Royalist Earl James and his magnanimous
countess, the defender of Lathom, but from the Roundhead of the race, whose
rashness and precipitancy led to the shedding of the first blood that stained the
conflict. t We are indebted to the ffarington papers, edited by Miss ffarington, for much
valuable information respecting the civil war in Lancashire.

RELIGIOUS PARTIES, 155
many discouragements, untU, fighting at the head of his soldiers in
the battle of Wigan Lane, he was shot by one of LUburn's Round
heads. On the spot where he feU, a column was raised to the memory
of the bravest, and in some respects the best, of the Lancashire de
fenders of royalty.
The Standishes were distinguished in Lancashfre as early as the
reign of Edward I. To them belonged Ralph Standish, who was
with the Lord Mayor of London when Wat Tyler was killed, and
assisted in dispersing the rebels. From him descended two famiUes
bearing his name and arms, the Standishes of Standish, and the
Standishes of Duxbury. Almost aU the members of the older family
have quietly and consistently adhered to the Catholic Church, and
have been known in the history of Lancashfre chiefly as recusants
and compounders for thefr estates.
Of the Duxbury family, Thomas Standish the elder was a member
of the Long ParUament, and a zealous supporter of its cause, whUe
his son Thomas, the heir to the estate, was quite as zealous a RoyaUst.
The son, fighting under Lord Strange, was killed at the siege of
Manchester. The adherence of the father to the parUament was so
opposed to the feelings and opinions of his famUy connections
and Catholic tenanfry, that we may estimate the influence of the
Standishes of both houses as decidedly on the Royalist side.*
The Beadshaws of the Haigh, in Wigan, unlike the numerous
branches of thefr family planted on the eastern side of the county,
were steady and decided RoyaUsts. As we shall have frequent occa
sion to refer to the Puritans of this name, it may be sufficient at
present to observe that they all derive thefr descent from John Brad
shaw, who, although a Saxon, was so clever, or so fortunate, as to
recover his hereditary estates from the Norman conquerors. Of his
descendants, WilUam the Crusader obtained by his marriage vrith a
rich heiress the lordship of Haigh, and of several other manors
in the neighbourhood. Although no one of these Bradshaws took
so prominent a part in the civil war as did several of thefr
relatives who were on the Parliamentary side, their numerous
tenantry formed no inconsiderable part of the sfrength of the
Royalists, On the confines of the hundred of Leyland, and looking as if ¦vrith
defiance upon the Puritans of Blackburnshfre, stood on its precipitous
hUl the fortified tower and residence of the Hoghtons. At the com
mencement of the war, the chief of this powerful famUy, Sir GUbert
Hoghton, was a fierce and determined RoyaUst, and his tower was
probably the strongest and most defensible house in the county in
the possession of the king's forces. A brother of Sfr GUbert, and his
youngest son, zealously served in the royal army. Richard, the
* Captain Miles Standish, the fighting man of the pilgrim fathers, belonged
to the Duxbury branch, as I infer from his giving his estate in New England
the name of Duxbury. An officer in the army sent by Queen Elizabeth
into the Low Countries, he came under the influence of John Robinson, the
independent pastor, and undertook to escort the pilgrims then preparing to sail
for America.

156 LANCASHIRE.
eldest son, adhered to the opposite side, and even before the death of
his father 'became an active member ofthe parliamentary committee.
Notwithstanding the grievous apostasy of the hefr, as the old man
regarded it, the power of the Hoghtons was almost entfrely on the
side of the king untU the death of Sir Gilbert in 1647, when Sfr
Richard came into possession of his inheritance. From that time
until the middle of the last century, the Hoghtons were the most
influential supporters of the Presbyterian interest in Lancashire.
If anyone wUl look over a map of the county in which the manor
houses are designated, he may observe that Lathom, Knowsley,
Worden, the Haigh, Standish, Duxbury, and Hoghton Tower, the
residences of the great families I have mentioned, are situate in the
two western hundreds of South Lancashfre. Of those hundreds of
West Derby and Leyland, and especially of the eastern side near the
puritan districts, these famUies, with thefr numerous tenantry and
connections, had the principal — almost the entfre — government and
control. "W'estward of these great houses, that is between them and
the sea, a considerable number of the genfry were CathoUcs, whUe
those who were Protestant, subject to the influence of the Stanleys,
were, for the most part, as decided Royalists as thefr Catholic neigh
bours. In the reign of Elizabeth, we have seen that independent of
the earl the only Protestant family of importance in the hundred of
West Derby was that of the Butlers of Bewsey, often called the
barons of "Warrington. But, before the puritan conflict divided the
county, this old family had sadly declined and ceased to be of much
consideration to any party. The Protestant family of the Irelands,
into whose possession a considerable part of the Bewsey estates had
come, were in the ciril war partly Royalist and partly Puritan.*
The Gerards of Bryn, the Blundels of Crosby, the Blundels of Ince,
the Norrises of Speke, the Scarisbricks of Scarisbrick, the Molineux
of Sefton, the Harringtons, the Fazakerleys, almost aU the proprietors
of the estates along the coast between the Mersey and the Ribble,
were more or less devotedly attached to the CathoUc faith.f Many
of the principal famiUes of the hundred of Leyland were also CathoUc,
as the Bannisters of Bank, the Heskeths of Rufford, the Andertons
of Euxton, the Andertons of Lostock, and the Charnocks of Heath
Charnock. Many of these were loyal and peaceable, ha^ving preserved
their allegiance inviolate through the reigns of Elizabeth and James;
but among them were some desperate conspfrators, as Sir Robert
MoUneux, Sir William Norris, and Robert Blundel of Ince, who were
charged with having sworn allegiance to the pope before emissary
priests, commissioned to receive thefr oaths and to absolve them
from thefr allegiance to a Protestant monarch. John Charnock
was concerned in Babington's plot, and sworn to murder Queen
Elizabeth. Although CathoUcs of this kind cared much more for
the pope than for either king or parliament, they united with thefr
moderate brethren in defence of the arbitrary measures of Charles.
* Sir Gilbert Ireland, under the Protectorate and the government of Richard
Cromwell, was the representative of Liverpool in the Presbyterian interest.
t ' The gentry of the sea-coast are almost whoUy Papist.' — Adam Martindale

RELIGIOUS PARTIES. 157
But puritanism had some sfrength even in West Derby and
Leyland. A few of the landed gentry were supporters of the parlia
mentary cause, of whom the most active and infiuential were the
MooEES of Moore and Bank Hall. In every one of the parliamentary
boroughs of West Derby — Liverpool, "Wigan, and Newton — the
puritan party was strong enough, or active and energetic enough to
share the representation, and make its voice heard in the Long Par
Uament. In whatever considerable village there was a puritan
preacher, as at Winvrick, at Huyton, and at Toxteth, he found or
made adherente to the parliamentary cause among the yeomanry and
traders of his neighbourhood. The party, although small, was re
markable for its energy, actirity, and resolution. Its -wise and
effective organisation appears in its carrying the election in the three
boroughs, notvrithstanding the powerful opposition which it had to
encounter. In Liverpool the MooEES were the leaders of the puritan party.
In the early history of that town, they were distinguished by the
sagacity -with which they managed thefr own interests amidst the
rivalries and quarrels of the great houses of Molineux and Stanley.
Acting sometimes "vrith the Molineux of the Castle and sometimes
-with the Stanleys of the Tower, occasionally opposing both, and
more frequently mediating between them, the Moores not only made
considerable additions to thefr own property, but gained the good
feeling of the burgesses as neither of the great famiUes had ever
gained it.
In the reign of Charles the three parties di-rided the political influ
ence of Liverpool : the Catholics under Lord Molineux, the Protestant
Royalists under the Earl of Derby, and the Puritans under John
Moore. In the first parliament of Charles two Catholics were
returned. In the next the Protestants seem to have united, as they
rejected the CathoUcs and returned one of each party, Lord Strange
and Edward Moore. In 1628 the Stanleys secured the return of both
members. In 1640 Moore's party returned two decided opponents
of the king's policy ; but, on the dissolution of the same year, the
Stanleys recovered one seat for the king and John Moore secured the
other. In so critical a time as 1640, the puritan party must have
been well organised and well managed to have returned a represent
ative in opposition to the other two parties, then united in the cause
of royalty. A bitterer enemy, a more unrelenting persecutor, neither
king nor prelate ever had than John Moore the regicide, and the only
regicide Lancashire sent to parUament.
The election of a ppritan representative for Wigan was still more
extraordinary. Surrounded by CathoUc gentry, and subject to the
influence of the Bradshaws of the Haigh, "#igan was reckoned by the
Puritans the most maUgnant town of Lancashfre. Bridgman, bishop
of Chester, was parson of Wigan at the time, and his eldest son
Orlando was, in 1640, one of the candidates. There seems not to
have been a good understanding between his party and the CathoUcs;
whUe the Presbyterians, with the promptitude and energy which
distinguished them in the elections of that year, took advantage of

158 LANCASHIRE,
the opportunity and carried the return of their able and active par
Uamentary leader, Alexander Rigby, as the colleague in one sense,
the opponent in another, of Orlando Bridgman. So fiir as ability
was concerned, no town of Lancashire was so weU represented in the
Long Parliament as Wigan, although its representatives, both of them
lawyers, were on opposite sides in the great conflict of thefr time.
Like Liverpool and Wigan the only other parUamentary borough
in the hundred returned a Presbyterian to the Long Parliament,
WUliam Ashurst, the eldest son of the magistrate who nobly risked
his property in resisting the imposition of the ' Book of Sports,' The
puritan burgesses of Newton attended the church of Winvrick, and
were probably encouraged by Mr, Herle, the rector, to do thefr
utmost to secure the return of Ashurst. As these three boroughs of
West Derby returned each a Presbyterian as well as a Royalist, it is
erident that a considerable party in the towns was zealously opposed
to the arbifrary measures of the king and his prelates. While the
two western hundreds of the county. West Derby and Leyland, were
chiefly royalist, the puritan minority consisted of a few landed pro
prietors, a considerable party in the towns, and many of the yeomen
and traders in the viUages in which puritan preachers officiated.
We now turn eastward to the opposite district of South Lancashire,
consisting also of two hundreds — those of Salford and Blackburn,
The Puritans were strong and the Royalists weak in the east of the
county, in about the same proportion as the Royalists were sfrong
and the Puritans weak in the west.
The most influential famUy in this disfrict was that of the
Asshetons, of which several branches flourished in different parts
of the hundreds of Salford and Blackburn, They aU descended,
or professed to have descended, from Orme, who was Lord o£
Assheton under Lyne soon after the Norman conquest. The
great estate of the elder branch has been carried by hefresses to the
Booths of Barton and Dunham Massey, and is stUl held by thefr
representative. Although the lands of the elder branch were thus conveyed to
people of another name, several junior members of the famUy, by
their own industry, by marriage with heiresses, or by speculating in
Church property, acqufred considerable wealth and territorial dignity
in several parts of the county. Raphe Assheton married, in 1438,
the rich hefress of the Bartons of Middleton, and settUng upon the
great inheritance of his wife founded the historic famUy of the Asshe
tons of Middleton, In the Wars of the Roses they were devoted
adherents of the house of York, Raphe of Middleton obtained grants
of several confiscated estates of the Lancastrian partisans. Known
as the Black Knight, he was not a pleasant neighbour to the good
people of Ashton, as we may suppose from a traditional verse with
which, in the ceremonies of Easter Monday, they long execrated his
memory — 'Sweet Jesus, for Thy mercy's sake,
And for Thy bitter passion.
Save us from the axe of the Tower,
And from Sir Raphe of Ashton.'

RELIGIOUS PARTIES. 159
A grandson of the Black Knight gained honour and renown on
the Field of Flodden,* and a descendant of the Flodden hero, Ralph,
Lord of Middleton, represented the presbyterian interest of the county
in the Long ParUament, commanded the Parliamentary forces on the
breaking out of the war, and was regarded as the leader of his party
in Lancashfre, t
A younger son of the Black Knight, imitating his father's prudent
example, married a rich hefress, the daughter of Adam de Lever, and
founded upon her inheritance the house of Assheton of Great Lever,
near Bolton,
Richard, a grandson of Raphe of Lever, being appointed by Lord
Burleigh Receiver- General of the Duchy of Lancaster, ' improved
his good opportunities ' of purchasing monastic property in Lanca
shire. In connection with his nephew Thomas Crompton, Auditor
of the Crown Revenue (a suspicious connection), he purchased the
lands of WhaUey Abbey, became, as might have been expected, a very
sound Protestant, and founded the famUy of Asshetons of WhaUey,
as sound as himself in the Protestant faith,
Haring purchased the manor of Downham, he derised it to a
younger son of his nephew. Raphe of Lever, who thus became the
founder of the Asshetons of Downham,
Another family of Asshetons traced thefr descent from the
celebrated alchemist, Sfr Thomas of Ashton, His son Edmund
discovered a shorter, if not a better, way of making gold than that
which his father practised, by marrying the hefress of RadcUffe of
Chadderton, near Oldham, His descendants were known as the
Asshetons of Chadderton.
There were other offshoots of this vridely spread fanUly, as the
Asshetons of Cuerdale, and the Asshetons of Clegg near Rochdale,
With few exceptionsj aU these clans were moderate Presbyterians,
adhering in all changes to an intermediate course between prelacy and
independency, and opposing vrith equal decision the arbitrary rule of
King Charles, and the usurpation of CromweU,
Closely connected with the Asshetons by many marriages, as weU
as by common interests of poUcy and religion, were the Booths of
Barton and Dunham Massey, They fraced thefr descent from the
hero of Flodden Field ; ' Sir John Booth of Barton
Was borne from his lite ;
A more bolder burne
Was never borne of woman.'
¦* This Sir Richard Assheton is represented on a window o£ Middleton church
leading his bowmen to the Scottish war.
+ A son of the ParUamentary leader was bewitched to death. The evidence of
the fact is, ' one Utley was tried for bewitching Richard Assheton at the assizes at
Lancaster. His guilt was proved and he was executed.'
t Some of the Asshetons of Chadderton, unlike their relatives, were CathoUcs,
James Assheton of Chadderton was a ParUamentarian, and was nominated by an
ordinance of parUament one of the committee for the county of Lancaster; The
Ashtons of Penketh, near Warrington, belonged to a different race, and, Uke most
of their neighbours in West Derby, were Royalists.

160 LANCASHIRE.
He, dying without male issue, left his lands to three daughters,
who carried them by marriage to the families of Trafford of Trafford,
Leigh of High Leigh, and MoUneux of Sefton. Although the great
inheritance, including a moiety of the estates of the older branch of
the Asshetons, was thus aUenated to men of other names, the other
moiety passed by an hefress to the Booths of Dunham Massey.
Resident in Cheshire, they were so intimately connected with Lanca
shfre, to which county they originally belonged, and in which a large
proportion of thefr tenantry resided, that they wiU occupy a promi
nent place in our narrative. At the commencement of the ci-vU war
the head of the family, Sir George Booth, notwithstanding his great
age and infirmities, tookia decided part in defence of the parliamentary
cause. After the death of Colonel Assheton, Sfr George Booth the
younger, grandson of the old baronet, became the acknowledged
leader of the presbyterian interest in both counties. This old puritan
family is now represented by the Earl of Stamford and Warrington,
who probably inherits more presbyterian property than any other
EngUsh nobleman.
In the great parish of Manchester were settled several puritan
families of considerable estates and influence, as the HoUands of
Denton, the Hydes of Denton, the Bfrches of Bfrch, and the
Worsleys of Platt. Around these old houses, and on lands purchased
from them, other Puritans who had obtained their wealth from
the prosperity of manufacturing industry, had in the seventeenth
century established their families in good reputation, and. brought
considerable accession of strength and influence to the parliamentary
cause. The Hollands were known in Lancashire as early as the reign of
John. Originally settled, as thefr name intimates, at Up-HoUand,
in the hundred of West Derby, several of them were distinguished
by their military renown, as especially Robert de Holland, who
founded the priory of Black Monks in his native ¦rillage. An uncle
of the pious soldier (the Black Monks commemorated his great piety)
married the heiress of Sfr Alexander Denton, and established hia
famUy upon her lands. From the Reformation this famUy had been
inclined to puritanism. In the reign of Elizabeth, Richard HoUand,
vvhen high sheriff of the county, received the thanks of the queen for
his serrices in prosecuting popish recusants and zealously promoting
the Protestant reUgion. To persecuted Puritans under Tudor or
Stuart, Denton House afforded a safe and hospitable asylum. This
family was among the earUest to avow itself on the side of the par
liament. A great-nephew of the persecutor of the Papists took the
command of Manchester when it was besieged by the Royalists. Of
this ancient and honourable family, long distinguished in the annals
of the county, the name has passed away, and the estate has descended
through an heiress to the Earl of Wilton, the present representative
of two great puritan families of Lancashfre.*
* The last of the Hollands born at Denton took orders, renounced the poUtical
and religious principles of his fathers, and complied with the requisitions of the
Act of Uniformity. As rector of the lower moiety of Malpas, in which parish

RELIGIOUS PARTIES. 161
The Htdbs of Hyde HaU were the near neighbours, and, from
their acting together in support of the same poUtical and reUgious
interests, the good friends, of the HoUands. The heq,ds of the two
houses, being the chief proprietors of the township, had, at thefr joint
expense, erected the chapel of Denton, of which the northern half
was appropriated to the HoUands and thefr tenantry, the southern to
the Hydes and thefr tenantry, Robert Hyde, the proprietor of the
estate at the commencement of the war, armed his tenants, and, vrith
Colonel HoUand, marched to the defence of Manchester against the
attack of the Royalists. So resolute and determined was he, that,
when several of his puritan neighbours adrised the surrender of the
town, by his indignant remonsfrance and his assertion that if forsaken
he would stand alone against the Royalists, he induced his friends to
maintain thefr position untU assistance came from Bolton. The name
of this ancien^t famUy is gone from Lancashfre, and their lands
strangers inhabit.
The BiECHES were estabUshed as early as the reign of John upon
the estate of Hindley Birch, or, as it has more recently been called,
Bfrch HaU. The members of this famUy, zealously protestant from
the time of Bradford's ministry, were Puritans under EUzabeth,
Presbyterians under the Long Parliament, and Independents under
the government of CromweU. To them belonged WiUiam Bfrch,
whom I have already noticed as a chaplain of Edward VL, and as
the honest Warden of Manchester. Thomas Birch fought for the
parliamentary cause flrst as captain under Lord Wharton, afterwards
as colonel under Lord Fairfax. Unlike the Puritans of Denton, he
zealously supported the measures of CromweU in opposition to the
Presbyterians of the county, and uniformly acted -with the extreme
party in subverting the monarchy. On him, and on Robert Bradshaw
and Alexander Rigby, lay the heavy responsibiUty of the execution
of the Earl of Derby.
A younger branch of the Bfrch family was settled at Ardvrick in
Manchester. To them belonged Colonel John Bfrch, who has been
often mistaken for his kinsman. Colonel Thomas Bfrch of Bfrch HaU.
They were both members of the Long ParUament, and both colonels
in the parliamentary army. They were, however, very different men.
Thomas was an adherent of Cromwell, and a decided friend of Inde
pendency ; John acted vrith the Presbyterians, refused the engage
ment, and became one of the most active members of the councU of
state in negotiating the restoration of royalty. In the many changes
of his poUtical Ufe, John maintained an honourable consistency,
whUe under Charles I., the Protectorate, Charles IL, James IL, and
King WilUam, he represented the borough of Weobley, an avowed
Presbyterian and a rigUant defender of constitutional, not repubUcan
Hberty. A monument in Weobley church commemorates the
Broad Oak was supposed to be situate, he baptised Matthew Henry. Good PhUip
Henry, on presenting the babe, entreated Mr. HoUand to omit the signing of the
cross. Ou the rector's refusal, he submitted, saying, 'Then, sir, let it lie at
your door.' There were, however, no sponsors provided. — Life of Henry, by Sir
J. B. Wmiams. M

162 LANCASHIRE,
courage, energy, vrisdom, and fideUty of the old patriot in asserting
and defending, through his long life, the freedom of his country.
The near neighbours of the Bfrches of Bfrch were the Woeslbts
of Platt. The two famiUes were intimately connected by several
intermarriages, as weU as by thefr poUtical and religious sympathies.
The Worsleys claim their descent from EUas, Lord of Worsley, an
adherent of Robert, Duke of Normandy. Of this ancient and honour
able famUy, proud of its knights, crusaders, and noble affinities, one
unfortunate member soiled the escutcheon of his house, but greatly
augmented his wealth, by engaging in trade, and exfracting money
from the factories and markets of Manchester. In the beginning of
the seventeenth century, Charles Worsley, haring become by frade
much richer than his proud relatives, left his property to his son
Ralph, who continued in his father's business untU he was able to
purchase the lands of Platt, and to Uve like a Worsley, instead of
being, Uke some of his race, a poor soldier or a poorer gentleman.
Greatly respected by his neighbours for his integrity, energy, and
faculty for business, he was regarded as one of the most powerfnl
supporters of the parUamentary cause in Lancashire, A kind of
diary kept by him, partly in French and partly in EngUsh, shows
him to have been a man of very decided puritan principles and of
intense devotedness to the parUamentary cause. His son Charles,
inheriting his spfrit, so gained the confidence of CromweU as to be
entrusted vrith the command of the Protector's ' own regiment of
foot,' Elected member for Manchester in the parUament of 1664,
he was appointed one of the ten generals who governed the several
dirisions of the counfry. Dying at the early age of thfrty-five, he
was buried in Westminster Abbey, -with the miUtary pomp which
became, says Heath, ' a prince of the modern creation and
OUver's great and rising favourite,' I shaU in the course of the
narrative have occasion to refer more minutely to him, as weU as
to the two Birches, on account of the very important part which
they took in the civil war and the estabUshment of presbyterianism
in Lancashfre,
Two other puritan famiUes of less consideration than the Birches
and the Worsleys, yet of some local importance, were settled in the
township of Rusholme, the Siddals of Slade, and the Edges of Bfrch-
HaU-Houses. Like their infiuential neighbours they were zealously
devoted to the parliamentary interest. Captain OUver Edge was the
officer who, after the battle of Worcester, captured the Earl of Derby,
and treated him with so much kindness and consideration that the
unfortunate earl wrote in a letter addressed to his countess, ' Lord
Lauderdale and I, falling into the hands of "the enemy, were not
thought worth killing, but had quarter given us by Captain Edge, a
Lancashfre man, and one that was so ci-yil to me that I and aU who
love me are beholden to him.'
On the boundary of the parish of Manchester, on the Cheshfre side
of the sfream that separates the counties, was the mansion of a family
of ancient and historical renown, the Dukbnpields of Dukenfield.
DweUing ¦vrithin a few yards of Lancashfre, and ha-ring large property

RELIGIOUS PARTIES. 163
in that county, many of them were so intimately connected vrith its
reUgious history, that they wiU frequently appear acting an important
part as soldiers and statesmen. The ivy-covered walls of the old
famUy chapel are the oldest architectural memorials which can now be
identified of EngUsh congregationaUsm, In that chapel, encouraged
by Colonel Robert Dukenfield, a distinguished officer of CromweU's
army, the Rev. Samuel Eaton gathered the first congregational
church in the north of England, and for many years continued its
recognised teacher, though not its pastor.* Colonel Dukenfield was
nominated one of the high court for the frial of King Charles, but,
being that year sheriff of Cheshfre, he did not occupy the place
assigned to him, and so escaped, the peril ofthe regicides. CromweU
afterwards appUed to bim for assistance, and received in reply one of
the most plain and honest letters which his highness ever read. He
told the Protector : ' I firmly believe the root of the free of piety is
aUve in you, though the leaves thereof, through the abundance of
temptation and flatterers, seem to be much vrithered of late, yet I
hope time and experience wUl have a good influence on your lordship.'
On account of some act of disobedience to the Protector, he was sus
pected of being concerned in an infrigue for the restoration of the
king. Nothing was more opposed to his intentions, as appeared
afterwards, when he armed his tenanfry against Sfr George Booth,
and did more than any one else in Lancashire or Cheshfre to oppose
the restoration of royalty. Although he never flattered Cromwell, he
never loved the Stuarts, and, after thefr restoration, he suffered im
prisonment on the charge of disloyalty. In many respects he was a
patriot of the type of Algernon Sydney. He Uved to rejoice in the
accession of King WiUiam, died the year after the Revolution, and
was buried, where many good Puritans of the old times Ue around
him, in the chapel of Denton.
When we consider the influence of these great puritan famiUes,
dwelling near Manchester in the midst of thefr numerous tenantry,
and observe further that the smaUer genfry and yeomanry of thefr
neighbourhood held the same poUtical and religious principles, that
the coUegiate clergy of Manchester were zealous and active in pro
moting the same cause, that they were exceedingly popular vrith
thefr parishioners, and that vrith few exceptions the to"wnspeople
were as devoted to the Protestant Church as the gentry and clergy of
the district, we cannot hesitate in acknowledging Manchester as the
head and sfrength of the parUamentary cause in Lancashire. But in
sustaining that cause Manchester was mightUy supported by the
populous towns of the hundred of Salford.
Bolton and its neighbourhood were quite as devoted to the parUa
mentary cause as Manchester itself; or even more so, for in Manchester
there was a minority of decided Royalists, whUe in the parishes of
Bolton and Dean, and in thefr dependent chapelries, almost the whole
population was thoroughly Protestant, and extremely Puritan, In
deed Bolton, the Geneva of Lancashire, was, in the opinion of the
* The chapel recently restored is again occupied by Congregational worship
pers.

164 LANCASHIRE.
RoyaUsts, what Wigan was in the opinion of the Parliamentarians,
' the most malignant town of the north,'
In the parish of Bolton was Bradshaw HaU, the residence of a
younger branch of the Saxon famUy of the Beadshaws, Although
not so distinguished for their wealth and territorial power as thefr
great kinsfolk, the lords of Haigh in Wigan, they have gained a more
prominent place in the poUtical and reUgious history of thefr county.
Two of thefr family, Lawrence and James Bradshaw, the faithftd
friends of George Marsh, have been justly reckoned among the
founders of the puritanical protestantism by which Bolton was
long distinguished. For several generations thefr descendants
zealously maintained the cause of puritanism, as dear to them as
it had been to their fathers and thefr fathers' friends, the friends
of the martyrs Bradford and Marsh. Among them was Captain
Robert Bradshaw, who wUl presently come before us as the
heroic defender of Manchester when it was besieged by the
RoyaUsts.* To this family also belonged several Puritan clergy.
men, of whom three were ejected from thefr livings by the Act of
Uniformity, t
Although the Puritans of the neighbourhood of Bolton were not so
powerful in territorial influence, nor so elevated in social position, as
several of those resident in the parish of Manchester, they were sub
stantial yeomen and manufacturers, cultivating thefr own lands,
managing their own mills, and many of them possessed of consider
able wealth. Such were the Holmes, the Levees, the Ceito"hlaws,
the Whittals, the Ceomptons, the Andeews, the Geegs, the Boltons,
the Hultons, and the Heywoods. Intimately connected by numerous
intermarriages, employing almost aU the labourers of the district,
and unitedly quite as powerful as if they constituted one great terri
torial family of the neighbourhood, they were of one heart and one
mind in cherishing and defending the faith which had been ratffied
by the blood of George Marsh, whose memory they had been taught
from thefr infancy to venerate. How great was the interest which
these Puritans of Bolton Moors felt in the proceedings of the king
and parliament, is apparent from a fact mentioned by OUver Hey
wood, who was a little boy at the time : ' Many days of prayer have
I known my father keep among God's people ; yea, 1 remember a
whole night wherein he, Dr. Bradshaw, Adam Fearniside, Thomas
Crompton, and several more did pray all night in a parlour at Ralph
"Whittal's, upon occasion of King Charles demanding the five members
of the House of Commons, Such a night of prayers, tears, and groans,
* His elder brother John was at that time proprietor of Bradshaw HaU. Although
not a fighting man, he was a decided adherent of the parliamentary cause. The
mother of these Bradshaws was an Assheton,
+ The Lord President Bradshaw was a scion of this famUy. His grandfather
removed from the family home and settled at Marple iu Cheshire, where, or at
Wyberslegh Hall, his father's residence in the neighbourhood during his grand
father's Ufe, the president was born. His elder brother Henry, the proprietor of
Marple, although a Cheshire man, served the parUament as Ueutenant-colonel of
Assheton's Lancashire regiment, and was appointed one of the court-martial which
tried the Earl of Derby.

RELIGIOUS PARTIES. 165
I was never present at in all my Ufe. The case was extraordinary,
and the work extraordinary.' *
Many such praying yeomen cultivated their lands, and worked
their mills, in the neighbourhood of Rochdale, Bury, and Ashton.
Rochdale, from the time of its puritan "ricars, the two Midgeleys, had
continued largely Puritan, although it contained a Catholic minority
of some importance. Mr. Bath, at that time the vicar, although a
nephew of Archbishop Laud, was a decided Puritan, and a zealous
opponent of his uncle. Bury, vrith many puritan inhabitants, was
probably more di"rided in its political feeUng than any other town of
East Lancashire, as the Earl of Derby had many friends and retainers
in its neighbourhood. Ashton, under the infiuence of its proprietor,
Sfr George Booth, was thoroughly, almost exclusively, devoted to the
parUamentary cause.
The hundred of Blackburn was closely united vrith that of Salford
in its steadfast adherence to puritan doctrine and constitutional
liberty. Next to the Asshetons of "WhaUey afready noticed, the
most influential of the puritan families in that dirision of the
county were the Shuttleworths of Gawthorp, and the Starkies of
Huntroyd. The Shuttlewoeths, who had settled at Gawthorp as early as the
reign of Richard II., were accounted among the yeomanry or inferior
genfry, untU, in the reign of EUzabeth, the head of the family, by his
abiUty and actirity as a lawyer, acquired wealth, reputation, and
knighthood. His son was the puritan member for Preston in the
Long Parliament. Of his grandsons, five were distinguished officers
in the parUamentary army. Richard, the eldest, member for CUtheroe,
was among the first of the Lancashire gentry who armed his tenantry
in opposition to the arbifrary proceedings of the king. He died
young, exhausted with the fatigue and anxiety of parliamentary and
military service. His brothers Nicholas and Oughfred were colonels
in Lambert's army, the former of cavafry, the latter of infantry.
William, the youngest, was kdUed in defending Lancaster against the
assault of Lord Derby's forces.
The Staekies were quite as devoted to the parUamentary cause as
their neighbours of Gawthorp. One of them, Nicholas, a young
officer of great energy and promise, was killed by a freacherous or
accidental explosion at Hoghton Tower.
Of the smaller genfry and yeomanry, the greater part were
decidedly puritan and parUamentary in their principles, feeUngs,
and associations. Blackburn was considered, next to Bolton
and Manchester, the most puritan town of Lancashfre. CUtheroe
* Life of Oliver Heywood, by Hunter, p. 33. Some of the Bolton Puritans
had curious notions of the war. OUver's uncle, WilUam Critchlaw, would not
join the ranks of the ParUamentary army, but ' when he heard,' says his
nephew, ' of a fight nigh at hand, or a town to be taken by the Parliamentary
army, he used to take his musket, and run to the army and join in any hazardous
expedition.' This privateer sort of fighting cost him his lite. He was carried
from the siege of Wigan to his daughter at Bolton, ' shot through the shoulder
and with another buUet in his thigh.' He died ' uttering many gracious
expressions.'

166 LANCASHIRE.
(the only borough in the hundred) returned to the Long Parlia
ment, in opposition to the power of its castle, two influential
Puritans, Ralph Assheton of Whalley and Richard Shuttleworth
of Gawthorp.
Such was the strength of the puritan party in the two hundreds
which constitute the eastern division of South Lancashire.
But as in the western parts of South Lancashire there was an
important minority of decided ParUamentarians, so in the eastern
parts there was an important minority of decided RoyaUsts. The
sfrength of this minority was CathoUc, although some influential
Protestants adhered to the royal cause, and others strove to main
tain neutraUty, or, come what would, to keep themselves out of the
fray. In the neighbourhood of Manchester the most important Cathohc
famUy was that of Teaffoed of Trafford. Protestant in the reign
of EUzabeth, and even like their kindred the Asshetons and the
Booths incUned to puritanism, they had, much to the vexation of
Warden Heyricke, become Catholic, and, vrith thefr co-rehgionists,
avowed and steadUy maintained their adherence to the cause of the
king. In thefr neighbourhood resided an ancient and honourable famUy,
which, in aU changes from the Reformation to the Revolution,
remained consistent, quiet, peaceable, and loyal CathoUcs — the
Baelows of Barlow, in Chorlton. They maintained a spotless repu
tation, a reUgious consistency, and a saintly character, a sort of
CathoUc puritanism, unsurpassed in its fervent devotion and charity
by any protestant puritanism in the county. Their puritan neigh-;
hours, even in those uncharitable times, respected them as upright,
peaceable, kind, and vfrtuous men, although they were so, as HoUing
worth says, 'in their o-wn way.' Suffering severely by the frequent
confiscations of their property, they adhered with exemplary devotion
to the Church of their fathers. Their estate was registered, and the
fines exacted were cruelly exorbitant. Being persecuted, they be
haved with extraordinary moderation, and Uved, as far as they
were allowed, in peace and charity with thefr protestant neighbours.
To this family belonged that saintly man, that meek and godly
priest, Edward Barlow, called in reUgion Father Ambrose, whose
holy life and labours are well worthy of comparison vrith those of
OUver Heywood or Isaac Ambrose, and whose death for his reUgion
may be compared vrith the martyrdom of John Bradford or of George
Marsh. Other CathoUc famUies of the neighbourhood of Manchester, as the
Chaddertons of Chadderton, and the RadcUffes of OrdsaU,* were,
like the Traffords and the Barlows, attached to the moderate or
English party of their Church, in opposition to the Spanish party of
Jesuitical traitors and assassins. They steadfastiy maintained thefr
* The RadcUffes of RadcUffe HaU, in Manchester, were Parliamentarians. Sir
Alexander RadcUffe of OrdsaU was one of the assailants of Manchester, when
Captain Robert RadcUffe of the HaU was one of its bravest defenders. The two
famiUes were only remotely connected.

RELIGIOUS PARTIES. 167
loyalty, as under EUzabeth, in opposition to popish plots, so under
Charles, in opposition to puritan insurrections.
In the neighbourhood of Rochdale, some influential famiUes
adhered to the party of the king, as especiaUy the Byrons of Clayton,
and the Crossleys of ScaitcUffe.
The Bteons had a great name and reputation in the early history
of the county. Inheriting the estates of the Claytons and the
SaviUes, they were connected by several affinities vrith most of the
great families of South Lancashire. In the Ciril War, the first Lord
Byron gained the reputation among the RoyaUsts of in"rincible
courage, among the ParUamentarians of implacable cruelty. So bad
was his conduct in the estimation of parUament, that he was one
of seven excepted from the general amnesty which was granted
immediately after the execution of the king.*
Of the Ceosslets of ScaitoUffe, one of the famUy commanded the
Todmorden men under the royal standard in the battle of Marston
Moor ; another was the governor of Liverpool when that town was
m the possession of the RoyaUsts.
In the hundred of Blackburn the CathoUcs were numerous and
powerful. The great and influential family of the Townleys, who
frace thefr descent (a scandal, some may think, in a Catholic Uneage)
from the married Priests of WhaUey, have been from the Reformation
distinguished by thefr faithful adherence to the Church of thefr
ancestors. Charles Townley, the head of the famUy in 1644, died
bravely fighting for his king on Marston Moor, where many Lanca
shfre CathoUcs fell by his side.f
The SoDTHWOETHS of Samlesbury, and the Sheebuenes of Stony
hurst, moderate Catholics rather than Papists, were steady and
powerfnl adherents of the cause of royalty.
Between the Puritans on one hand and the CathoUcs on the
other there were in the hundred of Blackburn a few Protestant
fanuUes, as the Nowells of Read, who adhered to the cause of
the king, and acted, although not cordiaUy, vrith thefr Catholic
neighbours. From this estimate of the comparative sfrength of the opposing
parties in South Lancashfre, they appear to have been very equaUy
balanced, the preponderance of the king's party in the western
* Sir Robert Byron, a younger brother of the lord, was the RoyaUst governor
of Liverpool when it was besieged by the parUamentary forces. Henry Byron, of
the same family, was kiUed fighting for the king in the battle of Edge HiU.
f " Mary, daughter of Sir Francis Trapper, married Charles Townley, who was
HUed at the battle of Marston Moor. During the engagement she was with her
father at Knaresborough, where she heard of her husband's fate, and came upon
the field the next morning in order to search for his body, while the attendants of
the camp were stripping and burying the dead. Here she was accosted by a
general officer, to whom she told her melancholy tale. He heard her with great
tenderness, but earnestly desired her to leave a place where, besides the distress of
witnessing such a scene, she might probably be insulted. She complied, and he
called a trooper, who took her en crcmp. On her way to Knaresborough she
inquired the name of the officer to whose civUity she had been indebted, and
learned that it was Lieutenant-General CromweU." Sandford's Illustrations,
p. 610, cited in Stoughton's Ecclesiastical History of England, vol. I., p. 426,

168 LANCASHIRE.
hundreds having been proportionate to that of the parliament in the
eastern. In the hundreds of Amounderness and Lonsdale, forming the
northern division ofthe county, the party ofthe king seemed, at the
beginning of the war, to be much stronger than that of the parlia
ment. In the fertile district known as the Fylde counfry, between
the Ribble and the Wyre, several Catholic proprietors had great
influence over the tenantry of their own persuasion. Of these the
Cliftons were the most powerful, as the lords, not only of Clifton,
but of Fairsnape, Westby, Lytham, and several other manors of the
Fylde. Undutiful sons of the Church these Cliftons had often been
in the middle ages ; as, for instance, in the reign of Edward III.,
when WilUam de Clifton prohibited the rector of Kfrkham from
solemnising di"vtne serrice, publicly whipped the abbot's clerk, as
deputy for his master, through the streets, and forbade his tenantry
to have thefr children baptised. After the Reformation they seemed
wUling to compound for their past sins by thefr steady, faithful, and
unresisting submission to the claims of their Church. They were,
from the outbreak of the ciril war, flrm supporters of the royal pre
rogative. With them were associated several other Catholic families,
as the Butlers of RawcUffe, the Westbys of Mowbrick, and the
Butlers of Kirkland, who were all represented among the dead of
Marston Moor. The Fleetwoods of Poulton were as to their rehgion
dirided or indifferent, as they had intermarried vrith Protestant
families ofthe south ; but as to their politics they were steady and
consistent, if not very active, adherents of the king.
Farther north, in the hundred of Lonsdale, the most powerful
family was that of the Daltons of Thurnham. Although they were
intimately connected with the principal Catholic famUies of the north
of England, their possession of the lands of the Abbey of Cockersand
had made them unwilling to disturb the ecclesiastical arrangements
of Henry, Edward, and EUzabeth. Thomas Dalton, the proprietor
of the estate, although very old and feeble, raised and equipped a
regiment of cavalry for the serrice of the king. Not content, like
many of the Lancashire gentry, to fight for his principles in his own
county, he marched southward at the head of his tenantry, and died
of the wounds he received in the second battle of Newbury, which
was fatal to many Lancashire Royalists.
The Tunstalls of Thurland Castie, one of the most distinguished
famiUes of North Lancashire, had suffered so much from fines,
sequestrations, and lawsuits on account of thefr steady adherence to
the Catholic Church, that they had been compelled to aUenate the
greater part of thefr hereditary estates. Thurland Castle," the
strongest forfress in that part of the county, had come into the
possession of Sir John Girlington, who, being a CathoUc, held it for
the king, and resolutely defended it against the parUamentary forces.
To the rashness of Sfr John, when high sheriff, the early outbreak of
the war in this county is, as we shaU hereafter see, in a considerable
degree to be attributed. The TunstaUs and thefr retainers foUowed
the standard of the lord of thefr ancestors' castle.

RELIGIOUS PARTIES. 169
On crossing the sands of Morecambe Bay, we naturally enqufre
for the purchasers or lessees of the estates of the two great religious
houses, the abbey of Furness and the priory of Cartmell. The
greater part of the lordship and Uberty of Furness was at that time
annexed to the duchy of Lancaster, and the tenanfry, holding thefr
farms on easy terms, were generally supposed to maintain the
sovereignty of thefr liege lord and superior, vrithout considering the
merits or caring much for the results of the conflict. The ruined
abbey and the property lying immediately around it, as weU as a
considerable part of the lands of Cartmell priory, belonged to the old
femily of the Peestons, who, Uke most of their neighbours, vrished
weU to the king, but seem to have been content vrith good vrishes,
probably unwiUing to strengthen the Catholics, who had not aban
doned the hope of recovering the monastic property. Of the other
proprietors of the romantic fells and glens of Lonsdale over the sands,
as the Biglands of Bigland, and the Sandyses of Graithwaite, it
may be sufficient to say that most of them were Royalists, some of
them Catholics, none of them disposed to make any sacrifices for
either thefr king or thefr Church.
It is erident from this cursory glance over the northern parts of
the county that the Royalists there far exceeded the Parliamentarians
in numbers, wealth, and influence. Of the landed proprietors only a
few, whose estates were smaU and situated chiefly near the banks of
the Ribble or among the hUls bordering on Yorkshfre, adhered to the
cause of the parliament. In the towns of Preston, Kfrkham, and
Garstang, the earnest, loving, persuasive preaching of Isaac Ambrose
had found or made many admirers, who, cordiaUy attached to his
doctrine and discipline, were prepared to defend them against the
hostiUty of the country people.* In Preston, as we may infer from
the assistance and resistance which both parties found in the sieges
and assaults of that to-wn, they must have been nearly equal in
numbers and strength. The Puritans, however, were strong enough
to return two zealous members of their own party to the Long
Parliament, although probably thefr successes may be attributed
rather to thefr better organisation than to thefr preponderating
numbers. Lancaster was caUed a royaUst town, and probably the majority of
its inhabitants were Royalists. It must, however, have contained a
considerable party opposed to that majority, or the town and castle
would not so easily have surrendered to the smaU body of soldiers
who, under Major Birch of Manchester, demanded and obtained
possession of it for the parUament.
In estimating the proportionate sfrength of the parties engaged in
the ci^ril war, I have not taken any notice of a large and powerful
* It appears from a letter of Ambrose found among the Ffarington papers, that
he was once taken prisoner by the Royalists. In that letter he bears testimony to
the kindness with which, when a prisoner, he had been treated by Mr. Ffarington,
and recommends his benefactor to the kind consideration of the victorious
Parliamentarians, I cannot ascertain when or how Isaac was taken prisoner, but
no words in his writings sound Uke the words of a man of war.

170 LANCASHIRE.
famUy, whose several branches were estabUshed in different parts of
the county, and whose name appears more frequently and more
prominently than any other in the records of that terrible conflict. I
refer to the Rigbys, who were so numerous, in many instances so
distantly related, and so opposed in thefr purposes and parties, as to
occasion much confusion and great danger of mistaking the identity,
the difference, the party connections or the famUy relations of the
several persons who bore a common and vridely prevalent name.
There were Puritan Rigbys and CathoUc Rigbys, Republican Rigbys
and RoyaUst Rigbys, flghting in almost every battie, and making
thefr voices heard in almost every assembly. As if to increase the
confusion, there were four Alexander Rigbys, aU colonels, two of
each party ; besides Joseph Rigbys, Edward Rigbys, Nicholas Rigbys,
and many other Rigbys, soldiers, statesmen, lawyers, magisfrates,
writers, preachers, acting thefr part in almost every scene of this
lamentable fragedy. The two principal families of the name were
the Rigbys of Middleton in Goosnargh near Preston, and those of
Burgh and Layton in the Fylde, the former chiefly puritan, the latter
royaUst. Both famUies belonged to the northern dirision, but in the
course of events from the meeting of the Long Parliament to the
restoration of royalty they may be found fighting, or negotiating, or
infriguing in aU parts of the county and even beyond its boundaries,
Alexander Rigby of Goosnargh was one of the most active members
of the Long ParUament, as well as one of the most zealous defenders
of the puritan interest in Lancashire, Although his estate was not
large, he was connected by birth and marriage with many of the best
famUies of the county, and his uncommon abUities gave him great
influence over them all His activity was unwearied, his energy
irrepressible. Scarcely a man in those exciting times did as much
work as this untiring lawyer, statesman, magisfrate, and colonel.
Although Ralph Assheton was the acknowledged commander of the
parliamentary army in Lancashfre, Alexander Rigby was head and
heart and hand and almost everything else of importance. There
was no borough in Lancashire of which it was more difficult for a
Puritan to gain the representation than 'maUgnant Wigan,' yet
^ig^y> leaving the easier work of representing the neighbouring
borough of Preston to less daring or less energetic men, defied aU the
maUgnancy of Wigan, won its representation in the Long ParUament,
and never forgot in the unexpected triumph of his friends the maUg
nancy of the other half of his constituents. It is said of him, that he
sat on more committees than any other member of the Long Parha
ment. Busy as he was in the House of Commons, he was engaged in
e^very important action in Lancashfre. I doubt whether any man of
his time had so often traveUed the long, rough, wearisome road from
London to Manchester. He commanded at the siege of Lathom, the
fight in Furness, the capture of Thurland Castle, and the defence of
Bolton. Nominated one of the king's judges, he decUned to act,
why, I know not, for it was probably the only occasion in his Ufe
on which he decUned to do his worst against royalty. Such was one
side of his character. On turning to the other, we see him rash,

RELIGIOUS PARTIES. 171
impetuous, rude, haughty, severe, implacable. Although admfred by
many, he was esteemed by few, loved by none. Some very bad
things are said of him, which I fear are frue ; but the worst is so bad
that I hope it is not true, although the evidence against him is very
strong. He is said to have contrived a scheme and bargain by which
the royaUst masters of three Cambridge Colleges, St. John's, Queen's,
and Jesus, were to be sold for slaves to the -Algerines. When a judge
on cfrcuit, he caught the gaol fever of the prisoners at Croydon, and
died in 1660.
His son Alexander was a Ueutenant-colonel in the parUamentary
army, and subsequently the representative of Lancaster. He had many
of the great quaUties of his father, and few of the bad ones. He
consistently maintained the same policy, and after the Restoration
continued steadily to act under discouraging circumstances vrith the
patriotic party, who resisted the unconstitutional measures of
Charles II. and his brotiier James.
Edward, a younger son, gained little credit either for himself or
his father. Careless, dissipated, embarrassed with debt, he evaded
the demands of his creditors by calUng himself the servant of his
father, who claimed on his behalf the privUege of freedom from
arrest, on the ground of his being in attendance on a member of
parUament. Being thus protected from imprisonment, the embar
rassed debtor was proposed for the lucrative office of clerk of the
crown in Lancashfre ; but the House of Commons, much as they
admfred his father, seem to have thought this proposal rather too bad,
as they appointed a much better Puritan, William Ashurst, to fiU the
vacant office. After the Restoration, Edward made his peace vrith
the RoyaUsts, and became a magisfrate in his native county, where
he is said to have administered justice severely and mercy sparingly
to the members of the party with which he had been long associated.
ServUe as he had become, he found the popery of King James too
much for his approval, and was sent to prison on suspicion of con
spfring with his brother against the government.*
Alexander Rigby of the Burgh was as decided, if not as able, a
RoyaUst as his namesake of Goosnargh was a Republican. The
Rigbys of the Burgh, aU Royalists, possessed large estates in Layton-
vrith-Warbreck, on which now stands the flourishing watering-place
of Blackpool. As there were many other gentlemen of that neigh
bourhood able to lead the RoyaUsts of the Fylde, he crossed
Morecambe Bay for the purpose of arming and training in the serrice
ofthe king the hardy mountaineers of Furness and Cartmell. He
found, however, more difficulty than he expected in inducing that
people to submit to mUitary discipline. The parliamentary Alexander,
who was at the time laying siege to Thurland Castle, hearing of the
doings of his namesake, vrith his usual promptitude and energy led
some five hundred infantry and three troops of cavalry across the
* Nicholas Rigby of Harrock, one of the committee nominated by an ordinance
of parUament for the cormty of Lancaster, was an offshoot of this famUy. In that
committee of sequestration and assessment, consisting of thirtyijpersons, were four
Eigbys.

172 LANCASHIRE.
sands of Morecambe, and came unexpectedly upon those ill-trained
Eoyalists. The Parliamentarians, 'the next moming being the
Lord's day, began thefr work vrith pubUc prayer,' and then raised a
shout, which (or was it the psalm-singing ?) so frightened the
mountaineers that they 'ran clean away,' and left their ammunition
for the benefit of thefr enemies.*
Alexander Rigby, junior, of the Burgh, inheriting the spirit of his
father, fought in the battle of Wigan Lane, where the gallant leader
of the Royalists, Sfr Thomas Tyldesley, was kUled. He was the
'grateful cornet,' as he designated himself, who erected after the
Restoration a column on the spot where his brave commander feU.
Colonel Creson Rigby, a member of the same fanuly, was one of the
numerous prisoners taken by the ParUamentarians in that battle
which was so disastrous to the cause of the Royalists in Lancashire,
Major Joseph Rigby, author of the ' Drunkard's Perspective or
Burning Glass,' and his brother George, may occasionaUy appear in
the war, on the side of the parliament.
These notices may be sufficient to enable the reader to discriminate
the party and family connections of the principal persons who will
appear as acting an important part in that reUgious conflict which,
helonging especially to Lancashfre and carried on by Lancashire
people, has a history of its own distinguished from, although simul
taneous with, that of the great ci"ril war waged between the king and
the parUament of England.
Before the commencement of the war most of the old castles and
towers had faUen into decay and become nearly useless as places of
military serrice or defence. The only forfresses which were defen?
sible against an attack of superior forces were the castles of Lancaster,
Thurland, Hornby, Clitheroe, and Greenhaugh, the tower of Hoghton,
and the house of Lathom, which were all in the possession of the
RoyaUsts, Of the towns, Wigan was the best fortified, MUitary
works — chiefly mud waUs, posts and chains, and timber gates at the
entrances — were made for the defence of Manchester, Liverpool,
Warrington, Preston, and Lancaster, These works, except those of
Manchester, were at the^comm m encement of the war in the possession
of the king's party,
* Letter of Alexander Rigby to '.Speaker LenthaU in Tracts relating to the
Military Affairs in Lcmcashire.

CHAPTER X,
THE LONG PARLIAMENT,
Such was the state of Lancashfre in that memorable year, 1640,
when the king and his council, having long ruled England vrithout
a parUament, ventured, depending for thefr success on the interest
excited by the Scottish war, to convene one in order to obtain the
necessary suppUes for its rigorous prosecution. The Scottish war,
however, was not so popular vrith the EngUsh constituencies as the
king and his ministers had hastUy supposed. EngUshmen do not
like to be beaten even in a bad cause ; but if they know their cause
is bad before they begin to fight, they are occasionaUy at least honest
enough to keep out of the fray. ParUament met in AprU 1640, and
evidently not Uking the business for which it was convened, instead
of granting suppUes appointed committees to consider the grievances
of the people. Within a month the king dissolved it, and in doing
so deprived himself of the power of dissolving its more froublesome
successor. This short parUament was the precursor of the longest
that England ever knew.
If parliament did nothing, convocation did a great deal, and a
great deal that was mischievous to itself and its pafrons. Opened
vrith unusual formaUty, show, and ostentation, it claimed a right to
sit, by the king's authority, after the parhament was dissolved. It
appointed committees, granted subsidies, made new canons, and con
ceded exfraordinary power to Archbishop Laud, "Wliat more it
would have done it is not easy to say ; but as the people threatened
to puU down the convocation house, the king was vrise enough, or
timid enough, to dissolve it by a special mandate. The evil done to
the Church by this unconstitutional sitting of its representatives was
never undone, as it undoubtedly influenced the elections and the pro
ceedings of the next parUament. The arbitrary canons which it
enacted roused the opposition of the puritan clergy, whUe its exfra-
vagant exaltation of the royal prerogative alarmed the pafriotic laity
in aU parts of the country, but in none more than in Lancashfre.
The king was soon compelled by the urgency of his wants and
encouraged by the hopes of his friends to issue writs for the meeting
of a new parUament. The elections occurred in the autumn of 1640.
There was in many places a flerce contest. Probably the opponents
of the court never before exerted themselves as they did in that
election, whUe the courtiers feared that, without the most sfrenuous
efforts, they would lose aU in the approaching conflict. Unconstitu
tional influence was said to have been used by the court party in
Lancashire, but if it were, it was used to Uttle purpose, for Lancashfre
sent to Westminster a formidable majority of sturdy patriots, decided

174 LANCASHIRE.
Puritans, and active partisans. The members returned to the Long
ParUament were for — Lancashire,
Ralph Assheton, Esq, Roger Kirby, Esq.
Clithbeob. Newton.
Ralph Assheton, Esq. WilUam Ashurst, Esq.
Richard Shuttleworth, Gent. Roger Pahner, Knight.
Lanoastee. Pebston.
John Harrison, Knight. Eichard Shuttleworth, Esq.
Thomas Fanshawe, Esq. Thomas Standish, Esq.
Liverpool. Wioan.
John Moore, Esq. Orlando Bridgman, Esq.
Richard Wynn, Bart. Alexander Rigby, Esq.
A glance over these names vriU discover the superiority of the
party which was opposed to the arbifrary measures of the king and
his prelates. The advantage to the Puritans was not only in their
majority, but pre-eminently in the abiUty and energy of their repre
sentatives. With the exception of Orlando Bridgman, the sonof
the bishop of Chester, an able lawyer, a fluent speaker, and a useful
partisan, there was not a man returned by the RoyaUsts who could
render any serrice to his party beyond the value of his silent vote.
Roger Kfrby, one of the representatives of the county, was too
undecided, and yet too hasty, often hesitating when he ought to act,
and often acting when he ought to hesitate, to be trusted or feared
by either party. In the beginning of the great conflict it was not
easy to determine what part he would eventuaUy take, as he seemed
to be trimming and temporising, and striving to concUiate friends on
both sides. On his election he was supported by moderate men of
both parties, as he was disposed to give a quaUfied approval to some
of the measures which they severally desfred to secure, but as the
contest became too decided to allow of his neufraUty, he avowed
himself a RoyaUst, and armed his tenantry in defence of the king.
Sfr Richard Wynn, retumed for Liverpool, appeared at first a very
decided supporter of royalty, prelacy, and all the prerogatives of the
king and his bishops. It was, however, observed that his zeal waned
as the king's party grew weak, untU he ceased to appear on the losing
side. He had sufficient resolution to support the desperate cause of
Lord Sfrafford, but his vote on the memorable occasion of the
impeachment of his friend seems to have been the last exhausting
effort of his courage, for afterwards his Welsh blood cooled wonder-
fuUy and he never moved his tongue or his hand in defence of his
party. He became negUgent of his duties, for he had to make his
appearance 'in the house' to prevent the imposition of a heavy
penalty 'for the neglect of the pubUc ser"rice.' CompeUed to be
present, he contrived to busy himself in Welsh committees, and was
lost in the obscurity of bUls about roads, bridges, and fisheries. As
to the other royaUst representatives, they are not worth the labour of
bringing thefr small doings to the light.
Very different were the representatives of the opposite party. The

THE LONG PARLLA.MENT. 175
two Ralph Asshetons were active, energetic, able men, thoroughly in
earnest, devoted to thefr cause, working for it in London, fighting
for it in Lancashfre. The knight of the shire was the head of the
Middleton famUy, who became colonel-general of the ParUamentary
forces of the county, and never spared his time, his health, his money,
or his friends in defending the cause of constitutional Ulierty. His
incessant and exhausting labours probably hastened his premature
death in the fifty-fourth year of his age.
His namesake, the member for CUtheroe, was the eldest son of Sfr
Ralph Assheton of Great Lever and "WTialley, an able and active
supporter, both in debate and arms, of his cousin of Middleton.
The two Richard Shuttleworths, of Ga"wthorp, father and son, the
former member for Preston, the latter for Clitheroe, as I have afready
observed, were among the ablest defenders of the puritan cause in the
county. Having done thefr utmost to secure the Uberty of thefr
country by thefr voice in parliament, they returned to Lancashfre to
arm thefr tenanfry and to prepare, by personal serrice, for the
threatening war,
WilUam Ashurst of Ashurst, the representative of Newton, was an
earnest Presbyterian, who took an active part in all measures intended
to Umit the royal prerogative vrithout desfroying the monarchy. He
was a major in the ParUamentary army, and indefatigable in its
serrice, untU the execution of the king, after which he coalesced with
"the RoyaUsts in support of Charles II,, was discovered negotiating
vrith the leading Presbyterians of Lancashfre for the restoration of
royalty, fled for safety to the Earl of Derby in the Isle of Man,
retumed to Lancashfre as a colonel of Charles II. in his unfortunate
march through the county in 1651, and associated, good Presby
terian as he was, vrith people whom General Harrison calls ' bloody
Papists ' and ' subtle jesuited maUgnants.' Notvrithstanding these
self-denying serrices, he was reproached by the king and the earl for
not inducing more of the Presbyterians to support thefr cause,* whUe
at the same time he incurred the displeasure of many of his presby
terian friends for not taking more decisive measures in protosting
against the Papist associations of the Earl of Derby, Like many
other members of his family, he was a man of eminent piety and
devotion,t Thomas Standish of Duxbury, the representative of Preston, was
greatly respected by the leaders of his party, both as a statesman and
as a soldier. Acting, as I have afready observed, in opposition to
most of his relations, he commanded one of the Lancashire regiments
on the side of the parUament, and even after the death of his eldest
son, who was shot when fighting for the RoyaUsts, he had spirit
enough in his old age, much as he deplored his bereavemen-t, to
continue faithful to his frust in command of his regiment, and did
¦* Letter from Major-General ""Harrison in Tracts relating to the Military
Proceedings in Lancashire, p, 286. Gary's Memorials, vol. U. p. 333.
t Baxter, in a funeral sermon, commemorates the piety and good works of his
younger brother Henry, one of the^founders of the Society for the Propagation of
the Gospel in Foreign Parts.

176 LANCASHIRE.
good serrice in opposing the invasion of the Scotch under the Duke
of HamUton.
Of that desperate regicide, John Moore, and that indefatigable
la-wyer, Alexander Rigby, I have already said enough to show, that
two more active or energetic men were not to be found, either
debating in the committees of Westminster or fighting in the battles
of Lancashire. Although not very agreeable, perhaps not very good
men, they were especiaUy fitted for the work which was given them
to do.
Such was the representation of Lancashfre in the Long ParUament,
That great parliament, to which, more than to any other, England
is indebted for the maintenance of her constitutional liberty, was
opened on November 3, 1640, as all parUaments are opened, vrith 'a
most gracious speech from his Majesty.'
It may be desirable, before we consider the particulars which
especiaUy refer to Lancashire, to notice the religious character of this
parUament. It has been described by party writers as a convention
of sectaries and fanatics, bitterly opposed to the doctrine and
discipUne of the Episcopal Church, and it has been represented by
more liberal writers, especially of late years, as an assembly of good
Churchmen, sincerely attached to the episcopal government and
formularies of the ecclesiastical estabUshment. Like most general
statements of party writers, both seem to be inaccurate, and the
latter, though nearer the truth than the former, can be accepted only
•vrith considerable limitation.
It is true that the leaders of the pafriotic party had not separated
from the communion of the EngUsh Church, They were not
Brownists, they were not sectaries, nor do 1 think that many of them,
when they first assembled, would be called Presbyterians. But they
were Puritans, intent upon the further reformation of the Church,
and beginning to look to the kirk of Scotland as an incentive and
example in the good work of reforming thefr own. They were
Episcopalians who did not love bishops, and Churchmen who did not
approve of the formularies of thefr Church. It is true that the
Commons resolved none should sit in thefr house who would not
receive the communion according to the usage of the Church of
England, but it is also frue that on the Sunday after thefr assembling,
they received the sacrament not at the raUs of the altar, but at a table
placed, 'by order of the house,' in the middle of the church, Thefr
theological propensities were soon apparent in thefr selection of
preachers, for on thefr first day of fasting, they appointed to preach
before them Stephen MarshaU and CorneUus Burgess, preachers as
far gone towards puritanism as any they could have found competent
to preach on such an occasion. If, as some Uberal writers say, they
were all in favour of episcopacy when they assembled in November,
many of them must have been very apt scholars in learning a more
exceUent way, for in December a petition was presented, praying that
episcopacy 'vrith all its dependencies, root and branch, may be
aboUshed,' and in the following spring Sir Harry Vane, Sergeant
Thomas, Mr, Bagshaw, Mr, White, Alexander Rigby, John Moore,

THE LONG PARLIAMENT, 177
and many others, supported the petition, and were ready to aboUsh
episcopacy ' root and branch.'
Provoked by the unconstitutional proceedings of the last convoca
tion, the new parliament gave its early attention to ecclesiastical
affafrs. It condemned the recently made canons, declared the pro
ceedings of the late convocation to be iUegal, sent Laud to the Tower,
aboUshed the court of High Commission and the Star Chamber,
impeached thirteen bishops at once, released Prynne, Burton,
Bastwick, and Leighton, sent commissioners through the land to
demoUsh and remove ' altars or tables turned altarvrise, crucifixes,
pictures, and other reUcs of idolafry,' passed the grand remonstrance,
and did a great many other things which proved that Charles^
hectoring, fawning, threatening, cringing, now resisting, now
yielding, doing neither at the right time, meanly sacrificing Went-
worth, and grieving for his cowardice — ^was the hefr only of the throne,
not of the firm hand, the strong wiU, or the dauntless soul of Harry
or EUzabeth Tudor.
In these proceedings the Puritans of Lancashire felt intense interest.
The representatives wrote to thefr constituents, and the constituents
watched the conduct of thefr representatives. Especially were Rigby
and Moore active and unwearied in sending early and regular
information to their friends in Wigan and Liverpool. Then were the
whole nights of prayer, to which I have afready referred as among
the boyish recollections of OUver Heywood, spent in tears and groans
upon the bleak moors of Lancashire ; such prayers, and such nights,
as Oliver Heywood never afterwards knew. Then the Puritans in
their intense excitement saw sfrange signs in the heavens. When
Heywood's ' uncle Francis was at prayer and wonderfully carried out
in affection and sfrong wrestUngs, all on a sudden a bright shining
Ught, far brighter than the sun, shone in the room. It dazzled and
astonished them. My uncle gave over. They rose off their knees ;
were amazed ; said nothing, but looked upon one another : heard no
voice. It continued about a quarter of an hour, as long as one might
have gone to the further side of the Little Meadow and back again,
as Luke Hoyle hath told me, who was then present. This was a
Uttle before the wars, in the heat and height of the bishops' tyranny
over godly ministers.'* Neither Luke Hoyle nor Oliver Heyw^ood
ever saw such portents in quiet times, as neither their imaginations
nor thefr feelings were sufficiently excited to behold them. Sfrange
diseases were believed to trouble men and cattle ; demoniacal
possessions were thought to be unusually frequent and violent.
Notice was taken of the strange and mysterious sayings of lunatics
and of dying people. Some years after, when OUver Heywood saw
'a strange flaming northvrind,' which I suppose was the aurora
borealis, he was greatly alarmed, as it reminded him of the portents
of his chUdhood. A woman said, ' it was just hke that sfreaming
that she saw above twenty years ago, immediately before the Scotch
wars. It shone in at the windows, and was very formidable to
* Hunter's Ufe of Oliver Heywood, pp. 34, 85.

178 LANCASHIRE.
behold.'* "Whatever may now be thought of such portentous signs, the
men who in that age had faith in them were prepared to do desperate
deeds of valour. The Puritans of Lancashfre were in earnest, and
thefr earnestness often Ulumined the imagination with Ught which
dazzled and bewUdered the judgment.
Tbe fatal separation having been made between the king and his
parUament, they both sfrove to obtain the command of the mUitia.
In order to accompUsh this great object, they knew the importance
of securing the assistance of the lords-Ueutenant of the counties and
thefr deputies. The king at York by his ' commands,' the parUament
at Westminster by its ' ordinances,' elevated to these offices different
persons, on whom they could severally depend.
In Lancashire, on the retfrement of the Earl of Derby from active
Ufe on account of the infirmities of age, his eldest son, James Lord
Strange, was made lord-Ueutenant by the king. A devoted RoyaUst,
he would have done more serrice to his party, had the king been
vrise enough to follow his counsel and trust his fideUty. He was,
however, a Protestant as well as a RoyaUst, and although prepared
at aU costs to defend the prerogative of the crown, he desfred to
preserve some measure of consti^tutional liberty. The courtiers who
at that time managed the king's affafrs disliked him, and even
Clarendon faUed to do him justice. It was suggested at one time
that the king should raise his standard in the county of the Stanleys,
and Warrington was proposed as the appropriate town for the pur
pose. Good reasons there undoubtedly were to induce Charles not
to venture into Lancashfre, but the reasons which prevaUed seem to
have been suggested by the jealousy of the court favourites. But no
jealousies of the courtiers, no suspicions of the Royalists, no sUghts
of the king or queen could shake the enthusiastic loyalty of James
Stanley, lord-Ueutenant of Lancashfre.
The parliament vrith good reason, notvrithstanding his protestant
ism, disteusted Lord Strange. On February 12, 1641-2, they
nominated Lord Wharton to occupy his place. On the refusal of the
king to confirm thefr nomination, they appointed Lord Wharton by
thefr own ' ordinance ' to be lord-Ueutenant of Lancashfre, and
dfrected him to submit for their approval the names of ' persons of
quaUty ' to be his deputy-lieutenants, especially recommending Sfr
George Booth, Mr. John Moore, Sir Thomas Stanley of Bickerstaffe,
and Alexander Rigby of Preston. There were thus two lords-Ueu
tenant, -with thefr respective deputies, acknowledged only by thefr
own parties. It may prevent confusion to observe that the royalist
officers were usuaUy caUed ' commissioners of array,' and the parUa
mentary officers ' deputy-Ueutcnants ' or ' commanders of. the mUitia.'
The terms are not exactly appropriate, as on both sides were many
volunteers from the yeomanry ofthe county, but vrith this explanation
the use of the terms 'the array' and the 'miUtia' wUl prevent
mistake and readily suggest the party intended.
On March 12, only one week after the appointment of Lord Wharton,
'divers gentlemen ofthe county palatinate of Lancaster were at the
* Life of Heywood, p. 35.

THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 179
door of the house who desfred to present a petition.' They were
caUed in by the commons, and after their petition had been read they
were again caUed in, and told by ' Mr. Speaker tha,t the house had
read thefr petition, and found in it many weighty considerations and
great expressions of their care and affection to the Commonwealth,
and to this house in particular, and for the particulars mentioned they
wiU take them into consideration.' *
This ' humble petition of divers knights, esquires, ministers, gentle
men, and freeholders of the county palatine of Lancaster,' began vrith
"• the gratitude of thankful hearts for the fidelity, patience, and inde
fatigable industry of the honourable house.' It thanked the house
for ' expunging the innovations in reUgion.' It acknowledged Lord
Wharton as the lord-Ueutenant of the county, and promised ' ready
and wiUing obedience to the power with which he may be trusted.'
It prayed that popish recusants might be disarmed, that the distrac
tions of the Church might be settled by a national synod, that the
number of ministers might be augmented, that the revenues of the
Church might be fairly distributed, and that a fleet of smaU ships
might be appointed to guard the coast from Irish Papists.
A few weeks afterwards the same persons presented a petition to
the king at York, earnestly beseeching him to return ' to his great
councU in whom the nation has confided,' and professing the utmost
affection for his ' Majesty's person far more worth than ten thousand of
US,' in danger from the ' popish and malignant party.' These two
petitions represented the opinions and feelings of the great majority
of the people residing in the eastern hundreds of the county.
These Lancashfre people, haring begun a great work, prosecuted it
with unfaUing acti"rity and resolution. Somehow or other they con-
"trived to move about from Manchester to London, home again to
Manchester, then to York, and a second time to York in the same
month. The second petition to the king, drawn up by Warden Hey
ricke, who had become the leader of the Lancashfre Puritans, meant,
or at all events said, a great deal more than the first. His dauntless
spfrit breathed in every line of the address from 'divers of his
Majesty's faithful subjects of the true protestant reUgion of the county
palatine of Lancaster,' It was subscribed by sixty-four knights and
esqufres, fifty-five dirines, seven hundred and forty gentlemen, and
' of freeholders and others above seven thousand.' It was presented
to the king by the Warden of Manchester, attended by ' very many
gentlemen of the county,' who expressed ' the inmost and closest
thoughts of thefr souls' esteem, and prized His Majesty's most right
eous intentions of governing his hege people according to the whole
some laws of the kingdom ; ' thanked the king for his ' manifold and
e"rident manifestations to the world that he affected not an arbitrary
government,' and for his executing the laws against Papists, for relin
quishing the power of le"vying taxes without the consent of parUament,
for abolishing the Star Chamber and the Court of High Commission,
* Proceedings of the House of Commons, 17 Car. Die Sabbati, 12 MartU 16-il-2.
The petition is preserved among the broadsides iu the British Museum, and pub
lished in the Tracts relating to the Military Proceedings in Lancashire.

180 LANCASHIRE.
and for doing other things which parhament either compelled him to
do, or did in his name vrithout his approval. The petitioners then
entreated the king ' to continue in his most Christian and pious reso
lution of mUng according to the laws of the land,' and ' to confirm
whatever your parliament shall offer to your royal -riew.' They con
cluded vrith a protestation of vrilUngness to ' tender their Uves and
fortunes for the preservation ofthe royal person, crown, and dignity,.
according to thefr duty and aUegiance.' *
It was not easy for the king to answer such an address. It thanked
him for what he had done, although he was very sorry for having
done it ; and prayed him to continue in the good course'which he had
resolved to abandon. The king, intimating that the petition, being
from only one party in the county, would soon be foUowed by another
of a different kind, promised to send his answer in a short time. On
June 6, his Majesty sent his gracious answer, in which ' he was glad
to find such real acknowledgement of the great graces which he had
bountifully bestowed upon his kingdom of England,' and assured his
' loyal and true subjects ' of ' his zeal and constancy for the mainten
ance of the true protestant religion, both against popish superstition
on the one hand, and schismatic innovation and confusion on the
other.' The royal answer was sent to Sir John GfrUngton of Thurland
Castle, at that time high sheriff of the county, a CathoUc and Royal
ist, ready to take any opportunity which bis official position might
afford of promoting the interests of the king. He convened a meet
ing of the county on Preston Moor to hear the answer of his Majesty
to the petition of the freeholders. Having read the petition and the
answer, he proceeded to read two royal proclamations announcing a
commission of array, which was authorised and required to arm the
loyal inhabitants in defence of the king and his prerogatives. Proceed
ing amidst the acclamations of the Royalists, he was interrupted by
the loud and angry remonsfrances of the friends of the parllanient.
The sheriff, caUing out ' You that are for the king, follow us,' rode
across the moor towards Preston, accompanied by Lord Strange,
Lord MoUneux, and about four hundred others, ' whereof the most
part were popish recusants.' Thefr cry was ' For the king ! ' ' For
the king ! ' as they gathered round the commissioners of array author
ised to arm the people. Others collected round the friends of the
parliament on the opposite side of the moor, and raised the cry, ' For
the king and parliament ! ' ' For the king and parUament ! '
This meeting, in which for the first time the men of Lancashire
were arranged on opposite sides, was followed by great and memor
able consequences. Considerable quantities of gunpowder and match
were stored in Preston, Liverpool, and Manchester, The sheriff at
once secured the magazine of Preston.f Lord Strange had taken
* Warden Heyricke could not restrain himself from complaining in the address
not only of ' popish impieties and idolatries,' but also of ' the growing danger of
Anabaptists, Brovraists, and other noveUists.'
+ ' William Sampson, a servant to Master Farriugton, who had placed in a pri
vate house iu Preston about thirteen barrels of gunpowder and some quantity of

THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 181
precautions to obtain thfrty barrels of powder which had been
deposited in Liverpool, Sfr Alexander RadcUffe and Mr, Prestwich,
two of the commissioners of array nominated in the king's proclama
tion, attended by the under-sheriff, proceeded to Manchester in order
to seize ten barrels of powder and several bundles of match, which
were stored in a room of the college, belonging to the Earl of Derby.
Alexander Rigby, ever rigUant and active, on hearing of the capture
of the ammunition in Preston and Liverpool, immediately , sent the
intelUgence to Mr. Assheton of Middleton, who hastened to Manches
ter, and arrived there in time to remove the powder and match from
the college before the appearance of the commissioners of array.
Several of the townsmen offered their houses, and the deputy-lieuten
ants mustered the train bands to protect them. Lord Strange, with
a, considerable body of armed men collected in the neighbourhood of
Bury, marched upon Manchester and demanded the miUtary stores.
Finding, however, that the townsmen, who vrith exfraordinary zeal
and resolution had put themselves under training in the use of the
musket and pike, were determined to resist his entrance into the town,
he proposed that the stores should be placed in the custody of magis
trates selected from both parties, and so he would ' atone the offence.'
The compromise faded. The commissioners of array shouted ' For
the king ! ' the train bands repUed ' For the king and parliament ! '
Lord Strange, distrusting the strength or the courage of his men,
retired, and the deputy -Ueutenants kept possession of the gunpowder.*
Some days of anxiety and hesitation elapsed, during which the
commissioners of array demanded for the king the surrender of the
gunpowder which was concealed in Manchester, and the deputy-
lieutenants, on the other hand, required for the parUament the restor
ation of that which had been removed from the magazines of Preston
and Liverpool. Neither |)arty would yield to the demands of the
other, while both were unwUUng to proceed to the extremity of fight
ing vrith thefr counfrymen. In the interval, some of the townsmen
who wore favourable to the Royalists invited Lord Strange to a ban
quet, with what object does not distinctly .appear in the conflicting
accounts of the time. Possibly they expected by some freachery or
sudden movement to enable Lord Strange to obtain possession of the
gunpowder, probably they hoped to suggest some means of reconciling
the parties, or they may have intended nothing more than a friendly
entertainment in which, as a contemporaneous writer says. Lord
Sfrange 'accepted the loves of the town,'t The- conduct of the
parliamentarian party may be explained by supposing that they were
match, did secretly convey away about six barrels thereof, in pack-cloths upon
pack-horses, aud the next morning about six of the clock, before we had notice in
whose house the powder and match were lodged, the sheriff did convey away the
residue of the said powder and match.' — Alexander Rigby's Letter to the Speaker,
printed in Raines's Lancashire, vol. iv. p, 312,
¦* Letter to Speaker LenthaJl, signed by Raphe Assheton, John Moore, and Alex
ander Rigby, printed by order of parUament. Printed also in the Tracts relating
to the MUitary Proceedings in Lancashire.
•)¦ A very true and credible Relation of the several Passages at Manchester on July
15, 1642, printed in the Oiinl War Tracts.

182 LANCASHIRE,
at first not unwiUing that Lord Strange should be peaceably enter
tained by his friends, but that when they saw the number of ' maUg
nants ' who accompanied him they were alarmed, and the more zealous
of them called out the mUitia, Lord Strange was accompanied by
the high sheriff. Lord MoUneux, Sir GUbert Hoghton, Sfr Alexander
RadcUffe, and other leaders of his party, and was followed by a froop
of horse one hundred and twenty strong. The miUtary, as weU as
the large retinue, excited the displeasure of some and the alarm of
'others. Sir Thomas Stanley of Bickerstaffe, and Captain Birch of
Bfrch, who happened to be in the town at the time, beat up the train
bands by the sound of drum, and led them to the front of the house
where the RoyaUsts were feasting. The accounts differ as to the party
which actuaUy began the fray. The Royalists say that the attack
was commenced by Sfr Thonias Stanley, who fired a pistol-shot at his
relative. Lord Strange. The Parliamentarians say that Lord Sfrange
ordered his horsemen to attack the train bands who were preserring
order in the street. On the one side or the other a Stanley seems to
have begun the fight, in which Richard Percival, a weaver, was shot
by the Royalists, the first person in Lancashire, and probably in Eng
land, who was killed in the civil war.*
On the next moming some of the townsmen of Manchester sent a
deputation to Lord Sfrange to disavow the quarrel and to lay the blame
upon Sir Thomas Stanley and Captain Holcroft. On examining the
signatures to a document presented on this occasion, I conclude that
the deputation represented only the RoyaUsts ofthe town, for of the
twenty-five names not one is known as in any way connected with the
ParUamentarians. Two weeks afterwards Lord Strange was im
peached in parliament for ' le-vying war against the king, parUament,
and kingdom,' and that ' he entered Manchester maliciously and
treacherously, with force and arms, and in a hostile and warlike man
ner, and that he did kill, murder, and destroy, Richard Percival,
Unen webster.' f The publication of this impeachment was ordered
to be made in all the churches of Lancashire and Cheshire by the
curates and churchwardens. This ordinance of parliament was as
¦• ' In a window at Mr. Green's ' (the house in which the Royalists were feast
ing) ' some of them hearing a poor man give out some words in favour of the par
Uament, one of them discharged at him and killed him.' — A Discowrse dn the War
in Lancashire, preserved in the Ubrary of Knowsley, and edited by Mr. WiUiam'
Beamont of Warrington.
There is iu the Civil War Tracts a paper entitled The Beginning of the Civil Wa/rs
in England, or Terrible News from the North, in which it is said that on July 5
there was a fight between the Manchester people and the armed bands of Lord
Strange, iu which twenty-seven persons were killed. Although this account was
printed by authority of parliament, it is impossible to reconcile it with the other
accounts of the time. 'The only reference to this pamphlet is in another paper also-
printed by parUament : ' If fame be true and we may give credit to a pamphlet this
day come forth.' I believe fame was not true, and the pamphlet printed ' by order
of parliament ' not to be credited, as ' parliament ' itself seems soon afterwards to-
have suspected. The author of Lancashire's Valley of Achor, undoubtedly John
Angier/ knew nothing of this fight.
t The mention of Percival as the individual kUled, seems as if the parUament
did not beUeve that twenty-seven persons had been killed a few days before by the-
forces of Lord Strange.

THE LONG PARLLA.MENT. 183
oppressive to the royaUst clergy as the ' Book of Sports ' had been
to the Puritans. It was observed, 1 doubt not, very generally in the
hundreds of Salford and Blackburn, but very Uttle regarded in the
other parts of the county.
Reports soon afterwards prevailed that Lord Strange and the com
missioners of array were coUecting troops in different parts of the
county, and concerting measures for taking possession of Manchester,
in the name of the king. WhUe Strange was arming and training
his forces, the men of Manchester were not idle, nor slow in preparing
thefr defence. Warden Heyricke, resolute, angry, excited, appeared
in the emergency to rouse, encourage, and lead his parishioners. He
felt, and he made them feel, the danger and the greatness of the
occasion. Every Sunday he addressed crowds from the pulpit of the
collegiate church on the necessity of immediate, united, and strenuous
exertion. Every report, frue or false, of the vricked doings of the
maUgnants was announced by the excited preacher on his ' drum
ecclesiastic' ' The papists are arming,' was ¦the cry of the warden,
and that cry, reiterated by the inferior clergy, penetrated the hearts
of the Manchester people. A venerator of kings and of kingly govern
ment, Heyricke persuaded himself, and endeavoured to persuade his
hearers, that they were called to resist, not his most sacred Majesty,
the Lord's anointed, but the eril counsellors, the papistical maUgnants,
the Jesuitical traitors, the prelatical apostates who had gained posses
sion of the king and treasonably used his sacred name for thefr vricked
purposes. Old Mr. Bourne, the popular preacher of bygone days, the
venerated friend of thefr fathers and teacher of thefr childhood, op
pressed vrith the infirmities of exfreme age, and seldom seen in pubUc,
was brought into the church by the warden, and induced with trem
ulous voice to exhort the people and encourage them to come to the
help of the Lord against the mighty. Heyricke cursed Meroz :
Bourne blessed Israel. Although the voice which all Manchester
once loved to hear had become very feeble, it was enough for Man
chester to know, as Heyricke gave the interpretation, that the feeble
voice was raised on behalf of the parliament. The testimony of a
dying preacher, and such a preacher as William Bourne, did wonders
in stimulating and encouraging the people to prepare for their defence.
It was beUeved that he had received unwonted sfrength in answer to
prayer, that he might bear his last testimony for the truth of God,
John Angier says : ' God kept up the soldiering spfrit by prayers
and psalms, and the blast of the silver trumpets.' ... 'A reverend
and grave dirine, who had long been a blessing to the town, and had
seen its resurrection from the plague nigh forty years before, was
lifted up from the gates of death and raised in spfrit to promote the
work, A spfrit of devotion in prayers and singing of psalms rested
generaUy upon persons and famiUes, yea upon taverns and inns where
it might not put ite head formerly,' * Manchester was roused by
* Valley of Achor. ' Manchester was*mueh heartened and encouraged by the
prayers and godly exhortations of the grave and reverend divine, old Mr. Bourne,
who took smaU rest aU that week, but was stiU at hand on all occasions to keep up
the spirits of the people.' — Discourse on the War in Lancashire.

184 LANCASHIRE.
such stimulants to a wUd but generous fanaticism in defence of her
religion and freedom.
But Heyricke was something else than a fanatic. He could be
cool as well as hot, careful as well as impetuous, quiet as well as noisy,
and could keep his powder dry as weU as trust in God. It was Hey
rioke's Sunday work to pray to God to defend the town ; but it was
his work day and night through the week to secure the gunpowder,
to provide match for the firelocks, to raise and repafr the mud walls,
to fortify Salford Bridge, to stretch chains across the streets, to plant
the cannon on the high ground near the church, to frain the appren
tices, to obtain subscriptions for the purchase of ammunition, to open
communication "vyith the deputy-lieutenants of the parliament, and to
engage a German engineer to superintend the fortification.
At that time several professional soldiers, frained in the long wars
ofthe Low Countries, as if ' smeUing the battle afar off,' came to
England, willing to fight on either side. Whatever may now be
thought of the morality of kUling men for money, they were then
accounted honourable gentlemen, of whom it is fair to say they faith
fully adhered to the party in whose serrice they were engaged.
One of these foreigners, Lieutenant-Colonel John Rosworm, hap
pened to be in Manchester at the time. Why he went there does not
distinctly appear. The author of the ' Valley of Achor ' says : ' God,
to show us His salvation, sent a skilful and faitiiful engineer to be
ready to concur vrith our necessity and to take course for our de
fence.' With this opinion agrees 'the godly minister,' who wrote
' A frue and faithful Relation' : ' God by His providence sent amongst
us a German engineer, to whose skill, indusfry, faithfulness, and
valour we owe under God most of our preservation.' The Papists
and maUgnants, on the confrary, said that the devil had sent him to
Manchester. In his own account the engineer makes no reference to
spiritual impulse either from above or from below. ' I came into
England and particularly to Manchester, where I fastened my
stranger's home. I had not lived there three months before the dif
ferences of the kingdom were heightened into a war.' *
Heyricke engaged the serrices of the foreigner for six months at
the moderate price of thirty pounds. On the next morning, two gen
tlemen from Lord Sfrange offered him one hundred and fifty pounds,
Rosworm was faithful, but very angry vrith himself and vrith Hey
ricke, He dismissed the gentlemen vrith ' thanks to the earl's noble
ness,' and comforted himself vrith the thought that 'honesty is more
worth than gold.' A most valuable servant he proved and also a
most iU-tempered one. Always bitterly lamenting the great loss he
had sustained, and the poor remuneration he received, he worked
lUght and day for his employers, and often engaged in very hazardous
enterprises. He revUed Manchester, cursed Manchester, and yet he
Good Service hitherto ill Rewarded, by John Rosworm. This extremely rare
tract, of which only two copies were known to be in existence, has been recently
tvrice printed, first from a MS. of Mr. William Yates, edited by Mr. Palmer, author
of the Siege of Manchester, and, secondly, from a copy belonging to Mr. James
Crossley, edited by Dr. Ormerod for the Chetham Society.

THE LONG PARLIAMENT, 185
carefully fortified it, exposed his life in its defence, and would allow
nobody to injure the place which he abhorred. Having once made
his engagement, he felt it a point of honour to continue in the same
service as long as the same money was paid. He had a laborious
Ufe for sixty pounds a year, and although ever grumbling at the
pittance and abusing the ' miserly earthworms ' who paid it, he
refused liberal offers from Lord Strange, Prince Rupert, Lord Byron,
and other leaders of the RoyaUsts. As a soldier he was scrupulously
faithful to his paymasters, but only as a soldier ; for when Heyricke
requfred him to sign the covenant he refused, because the signing of
covenants, being no part of a soldier's duty, could not have been in
cluded in his contract. He afterwards ' exposed to immortarinfamy '
(that is the infamy of book worms) the names of thirty-two covenant
makers and covenant breakers, men zealous in thefr national covenant
with God, but mean and base in thefr personal covenant vrith John
Rosworm. The first name on his black Ust is Richard Heyricke and
the last Thomas MynshuU (the father or uncle, as I believe, of John
MUton's last wife), who were charged -with being 'matchless in thefr
treachery, and setting the devU himself a copy of vUlainy.' He says,
' I was angry with myself that I ever hazarded my blood for such
despicable earthworms.'* With aU his anger he served ' the earth
worms ' to the last bravely and faithfuUy. In these references I have
anticipated the events of some years to exhibit the strange character
of a man to whom the great interests of the Puritans were entrusted
in some of the most critical emergencies of the civil war.
Manchester had need of the energy of Heyricke, the skill of Ros
worm, the assistance of the neighbouring gentry, and the bravery of
its train bands, for Lord Strange could not forget the insult he had
received in the town, nor the arrogance of its inhabitants in resisting
the king's Ueutenant, under the pretext of defending the interest of
the king and parUament. No town in England had then made so
decided a stand in opposition to the royal authority, Hull had shut
its gates against the king, but Manchester had expeUed his repre
sentative, and fought with his troops in the sfreets. The town stood
committed to the cause of the parliament, and parUament ordered
prayers and thanksgi-rings for Manchester to be offered to Almighty
God, in all the churches and chapels of Lancashire, Manchester
felt the pressure of the emergency, and rose tp the greatness of the
occasion. Both parties were arming. Lord Strange convened in Preston
the commissioners of array, who assessed the several hundreds of the
county in thefr proportionate expenses for the suppression of the re
beUion, appointed treasurers and coUectors for every district, and
gave orders for arming and training the people in the king's name.
On the other hand, commissions were granted by the parliament to
its friends to raise froops for thefr own defence and the pubUc good.
The parliamentary commanders were Colonel Assheton of Middle-
ton and Colonel HoUand of Denton for the hundred of Salford,
* Good Service hitherto ill Rewarded.

186 LANCASHIRE.
Colonel Shuttleworth and Colonel Starkie for that of Blackburn,
Colonel Rigby for Leyland and Amounderness, Colonel Moore and
Colonel Egerton for West Derby, and Colonel Dodding for Lonsdale,
In Manchester, under Colonel Holland, Captain Bfrch, Captain
Bradshaw, Captain Venables, and Captain Radoliffe, undertook the
training and exercising of the people, Every_ daytheir bands were
convened by the sound of the drum and exercised in the use of the
musket and the pike. In addition to theiE,mud walls, they erected
sconces and forts according to the plans of Rosworm, who was quite
as busy as if he were hearty in their cause, which he heartUy detested.
The old soldier showed them how to make match, and some of them
began to make gunpowder, and in gaining experience blew off the
roof of thefr building. It was thought desfrable to give them some
practice in offensive war, and therefore Captain Bfrch would occa
sionaUy lead out his men against some maUgnant's farm, let us hope
not for the sake of plunder, although they would bring in ' at the
least twenty young cattle in one night.'* The only town in thefr
hundred which they reckoned maUgnant was Bury, where the parson
preached in a ' surplysse.' They plundered that town belonging to
the Earl of Derby, and ' fi'om the church they took the surplysse,
and put it upon the back of a soldier, and caused him to ride iu a
cart, to be matter of sport and laughter to the beholders. 't The
pious author of the ' Discourse on the War in Lancashfre,' himself a
ParUamentary officer, observed that those ' who first put themselves
into arms were men of the best affection to religion, and it may be
thought that God pointed them out to effect that reformation in some
things that eighty years of the gospel did not, which was the pulling
do"wn of crosses in the high ways and in some market towns, taking
out of churches the Book of Common Prayer, surplysses, fonts, and
breaking down of organs.'
* Discourse on the War in Lancashire
+ Discourse, &c. Much of this sort of thing was practised on both sides. The
soldiers on one side made sport of the Prayer book, on the other of the Bible. Mr.
Beamont suggests vrith much probability that the author of the Discowrst was
Major Edward Robinson of Kirkham.

CHAPTER XI,
THE CIVIL WAR,
In the beginning of September 1642, Lord Strange, having completed
his arrangements vrith the commissioners of array, appointed War
rington as the place where they should meet, vrith such forces as they
could train, in order that they might make their great assault upon
Manchester, He appeared in Warrington at the head of a grand and
imposing array of Lancashire men. There met him with thefr ten
antry, armed and trained, Sfr John Girlington the high sheriff, Lord
MoUneux of Sefton, Sfr Gilbert Hoghton,* Sir Alexander RadcUffe,
Sfr Gilbert Gerard, Tyldesley of Myerscough, Townley of Townley,
Ashton of Penketh, Downes of Wardley, Byrom of Byrom, NoweU
of Read, Standish of Standish, the eldest son of Standish of Duxbury
(his father was a ParUamentarian), Charnock of Charnock, Ffaring
ton of Worden, Holt of Ashurst, Rosthern of New-HaU, Torbock of
Torbock, vrith many other members of the principal county famUies.
"What could Manchester do against such a host of Lancashire chief
tains ? We shall see. Puritan Manchester had some good friends,
if it had many terrible enemies. Warden Heyricke was a host in
himself, and he had the support of many brave men.
Lord Sfrange had carefully prepared his plans ; the commissioners
of array were unanimous ; their deUberations were very short, and
thefr men ready for action. In order to surprise Manchester, they
resolved to march immediately upon the town. The way was open.
By marching on the north side of the Mersey, they could advance
upon Salford vrithout coming into colUsion vrith the puritan gentle
men, whose residences were chiefly on the south, east, and north sides
of Manchester, learing the west accessible to the Royalists. As many
of the Salford people were RoyaUsts, Lord Sfrange expected to find
there shelter and hospitaUty, The number of men who marched
under l^i"m has been variously estimated, from two to five thousand.
The ' Perfect Diurnal ' of September 19, 1642, suppUes a moderate
estimate with which we may be content — ' about two thousand foot,
three hundred horse, and six pieces of ordnance,' On reaching the
IrweU, a dirision under the command of Tyldesley crossed and
marched on the east bank of the river as far as Alport, at the
southern extremity of Deansgate, where they found shelter in the
house of Sfr Edward Mosley, The main di^rision, keeping on the
western side of the river, occupied Salford vrithout resistance.
To understand the defence of Manchester, the reader, if he has not
* Printed Laughton in the parUamentary paper. The misprint" has been per
petuated in every account I have seen of the siege of Manchester.

188 LANCASHIRE,
a map of the town as it was in the seventeenth century, should re
member that the old town was situate at the confluence of two rivers,
haring the Irk on the north and the IrweU separating it from Salford
on the west. On two sides, therefore, it was easUy defended. It was
also a considerable advantage to its defenders that the ground on the
Manchester bank of the Irwell was much higher, especiaUy near the
only bridge which at that time crossed it, than that on the Salford
bank. The townsmen stationed in the church-yard could fire down
upon thefr assailants in Salford. On the other two sides, the waters
of the Medlock and the Tib afforded some protection. The Tib,
although an inconsiderable stream — ^now turned into a drain — at that
time often overflowed the low grounds on the east of the present
Mosley Sfreet. Almost enclosed by these several streams, the town
consisted of a number of narrow sfreets near the collegiate church, a
smaller collection of houses at Alport, and the sfreet called Deans-
gate, which joined what may be called the two towns. Market Sted
Lane opened into the country. South of it and east of Deansgate
were a few detached buUdings, some farm-houses, barns, and one
•or two ale-houses. There was water round Pool-fold, beyond which
lioys and girls sat upon the stiles and gates to see the fighting.
The points of attack and defence were Salford Bridge and the
south end of Deansgate, at which points the two divisions of the
Royalists were placed. It was also possible that the RoyaUsts at the
Alport end of Deansgate might cross the Medlock and the marshes
of the Tib, and enter the town by Market Sted Lane. The great
mistake in the strategy of Lord Strange seems to have been the
bringing of the chief part of his troops to the west side of the
Irwell, The friendship of Salford and the freedom of that side from
the influence of the puritan gentlemen were probably the fetal
inducements. Rosworm had done his work weU. Mud waUs and frenches had
been quickly made on the sides of the town that needed such protec
tion. Posts and chains had been placed across Salford Bridge,
Deansgate, and Market Sted Lane. To obsfruct the horse, barricades
had been thrown up in several streets. The only piece of ordnance
in the town had been put in position upon the high ground near the
church. Plans of communication and signals of alarm had been
carefully arranged. To call in the country people on an emergency,
the bells were to be rung backwards, and scouts on hearing them
were to announce the alarm in the neighbouring vUlages. The
to"wnsmen, daily exercised, were ready vrith their weapons to faU into
thefr proper positions, under the command of Captain RadcUffe. One
hundredand fifty tenants of Assheton of Middleton, weU armed and
well trained, were quartered in the town under the command of
Captain Robert Bradshaw.
On Sunday moming, September 25, whUe the people were in
church, about nine o'clock, the bells rang backward. Morning prayer
was over. One of the feUows — I know not which — was preaching.
We may be sure there was a sudden pause, a dead sUence, a moment
ary shudder. We read of no screaming, no noise, no fainting. Many

THE CFFIL WAR. 189
a silent prayer went up to heaven. In a few minutes the drums beat
in the church porch. The men left thefr seats, found their weapons,
and each took the place previously assigned him under Rosworm at
the bridge, or under Bradshaw at Deansgate, or under RadcUffe in
Market Sted Lane. Messengers hastened to the neighbouring rillages
and announced the threatened assault of the town. Many country
men came in on the Sunday ; others followed on Monday morning.
HoUand of Denton, Hyde of Denton, Egerton of Shaw, Dukenfield
of Dukenfield, Master Booth second son of Sir George Booth of
Dunham Massey, were among the first who arrived in the to-wn.
EventuaUy they mustered about two thousand rustics armed vrith
guns, pikes, clubs, scythes, pitchforks — weapons which Rosworm had
never seen before, in the hands of people whom he looked upon vrith
contempt, and probably vrith some jealousy of their commanders.
The train bands of the town and Assheton's men, who had been
exercised under his eye for some weeks, were the only soldiers on
whom he could rely. When Lord Sfrange's troops were seen march
ing into Salford vrith thefr drums beating, thefr colours flying, and
thefr multitude shouting ' For the king,' good old Mr. Bourne was
brought out and 'heartened the people,' who heard exaggerated
reports of the numbers of the enemy, by frequently repeating the
words, ' God can save by few as weU as by many.' Rosworm,
looking at the rustics, probably thought the old gentleman might
have said ' and a great deal better.' Colonel HoUand, who assumed
the command of these auxiUaries, was especiaUy the object of the
German's dislike, according to whose account HoUand would have
betrayed or ruined the town if he had been aUowed to have his own
way.* Rosworm reserved for himself the defence of Salford Bridge, as
being ' the place of manifest danger, greatest action, and least defence.'
With fifty trusty men, afterwards reduced to thirty, he engaged to
defend that important position against the larger dirision of Lord
Sfrange's forces. The defence of the Deansgate enfrance was en
trusted to Assheton's men under the command of Bradshaw. Captain
RadcUffe -with the train bands occupied Market Sted Lane to prevent
an enfrance by that thoroughfare. Captain Booth -with the Dunham
tenantry took up his position in MUlgate, prepared to support either
Rosworm or Bradshaw, as either might requfre assistance. ShudehUl
was defended ' by a company of resolute soldiers, vrithout any com
mander. 'f Of the other auxUiaries Rosworm says nothing, as
probably he cared nothing about them, although they fought much
better than he was wUUng to acknowledge. That evening a furious
assault was made upon Rosworm's Uttle band of 'muskettiers,' who
repulsed and drove back the RoyaUsts on the bridge vrithout the loss
of a man.
On that Sunday the old Earl of Derby died at Chester. The
intelligence reaching his son the next morning probably induced him
to make friendly proposals to the townsmen. Although Lord Sfrange,
now seventh Earl of Derby, was so devoted to the royal cause that
* Good Semce, &c. t Good Service, &c.

190 LANCASHIRE.
he would not leave the camp even to go to the house of mourning, he
became very soUcitous to obtain, a speedy settlement of the disasfrous
quarrel. On Monday moming the great cannons of the RoyaUsts ' made a
sfrange noise and terror to the raw men, and frightened away sixteen
of Rosworm's muskettiers.' The German raised his sword, and swore
he would kUl the first man that dared to leave his place. He insinu
ates in his narrative that the noise frightened Colonel Holland into
Ustening to the terms of armistice which Lord Strange sent into the
town. The author of the ' VaUey of Achor ' calls them ' roaring,
thundering, terrifying cannons, whose vride mouths shot forth great
bullets weighing between four and six pounds.' 'We heard the
report of them and our hands waxed feeble.'
The most terrible things become familiar by use, and famiUarity
breeds contempt. The ' feeble hands ' of the men, who observed that
the ' great bullets ' did very Uttle harm, soon waxed strong again.
As they killed only one little urchin sitting upon a stUe to see the
fray, who, as the Puritans said, must have been ' timely prepared by
his vrickedness for such a stroke,' they began to indulge thefr vritty
propensities in making jokes upon the terrible but unfortunate
engines of destruction. The great cannons played upon the town.
' Yes,' says the Reverend Nehemiah Barnet, in a sermon preached on
the thanksgi-ring day, ' they did but play, and did no work, having
only killed a wicked boy.' * ' It was wonderful,' says another
preacher, ' to see when the balls came into a house what haste they
made to get out again, as afraid there to stay, amidst the psahn-
singing of the soldiers. 't Strange music, a maUgnant might reply,
to frighten cannon baUs !
On Monday the RoyaUsts under Tyldesley made a fierce assault
upon the Deansgate entrance of the to-wn. They pressed upon Brad
shaw so courageously and impetuously that they gained a considerable
advantage, set . fire to a barn and some thatched houses, and in the
confusion rushed on shouting ' The town is our own ! ' Bradshaw,
however, kept his men together untU Rosworm sent twenty of his
Uttle band to support the captain. The RoyaUsts were then com
peUed to retreat. Lord Strange, observing the diminution of
Rosworm's men, then reduced to ¦twenty-eight, made a desperate
assault on the bridge, but was soon compeUed to retire, haring never
before seen such terrible obstinacy of resistance. A^fc neither post
was a single ParUamentarian killed, although several Royalists fell
in each of the fights.
On Tuesday the fight was renewed by the RoyaUsts with fierce
resolution, but ¦with no greater success. Towards evening Lord
Strange, disappointed by the stubborn and successful resistance of
the townsmen, and probably desfring to return home on account of
his father's death, ordered the drum to beat for a parley and sent a
God's lift wp Hand for Lancashire, a sermon preached before the
Honourable Committee of the county of Lancaster on the solemn day of thanks
giving. t John Angier, in the VaUey of Achor.

THE CIVIL WAR. 191
written message into the town, in which he promised that if the
people would surrender, they should be protected from plunder and
exonerated from the consequences of thefr rebellion. The gentlemen
of Manchester requested to have untU ten o'clock the next morning
to consider the proposal. Lord Sfrange gave them until seven. The
gentlemen refused to surrender thefr arms. Some hours later in the
day Lord Sfrange proposed that a part of thefr arms should be given
up. Rosworm intimates that if they would have surrendered the
town, his lordship would have been content vrith a nominal surrender
of arms. Colonel Holland was 'inclined to condescend.' Booth and
Egerton supported him. Rosworm and Heyricke determined to
resist to the uttermost ; Hyde and Bradshaw supported them.
HoUand urged that thefr powder and match must be nearly expended.
Rosworm knew that very weU, for at the time he had only six pounds
of powder and eighteen fathoms of match, but he took good care
¦that no one else should know it. HoUand grew angry. Rosworm,
having confidence in his men, proposed to leave the decision to the
soldiers. The old minister. Bourne, hearing how matters stood,
went among the soldiers and ' used his best encouragement to prop
up their hearts.' They resolved ' not to yield so long as they had an
inch of match or a shot of powder.' The proposal of Lord Strange
was rejected, but the wearied soldiers obtained a good night's repose
during the deUberations, and returned the next morning to thefr
positions with invincible resolution.
Thursday was a sad day for the RoyaUsts. Captain Standish of
Duxbury, whUe ' vehemently urging his men to force thefr way over
Salford Bridge, was shot by one of Rosworm's men stationed on the
church tower.' * On his death the Duxbury men, kno^wing that
thefr old master was on the side of the parUament, left the army, and
returned to thefr own rillage. On the other side of the town Brad
shaw and RadcUffe joined thefr forces, and fought so fiercely as to
leave more than a hundred men dead or dying on the field, f whUe
they lost only four of thefr own. On Friday night Lord Sfrange
removed his cannon, and on Saturday morning sent a proposal for
the exchange of prisoners. When he had obtained the release of his
men, he marched with his army, and as soon as his departure was
known in the town, there went up to heaven ' such a shout of joy
and psalm-singing from the townsmen and haUelujahs of the women
as could never be forgotten.' Next day was one of the great sabbaths
of Manchester. We may easUy imagine the contrast of feeUng in the
hearts of the townsmen as they left the church the preceding Sunday
at the sound of the alarm bells and as they returned that morning
with thanksgivings for their great deliverance. ' Thus we leave
Manchester,' says the author of the 'Valley of Achor,' 'compassed
¦* The MS. supposed to be written by. Major Robinson says, ' washing his
hands in the moming at a door he was slain by a buUet shot from the top of the
)le.'

+ This is the parliamentary estimate. A RoyaUst acknowledges that the Earl
of Derby had bad success at Manchester and lost about two hundred men. — See
Civil War Tracts, p. 384.

192 LANCASHIRE.
about vrith songs of deUverance, keeping a gladsome Sabbath more
than of many years before, compassing the throne of grace with high
sounding praises, when our drums and muskets, that had formerly
sounded terror to our enemies, kept sUence in the church whUe
the saints sang the song of Moses. "When the time came for them to
utter thefr voice in the open afr, with a loud voice and one consent
and clapping thefr hands, they reported God, fearful in praises, doing
wonders.' On the inteUigence, which fraveUed rapidly for those times,
reaching London on October 6 (only four days after the refreat of
Lord Derby), the parliament offered thefr commendations to the
people of Manchester, ordered that the neighbouring gentlemen who
had assisted the town should have 'allowance made of all thefr
charges and expenses,' and appointed a day of thanksgiving to be
observed in aU the churches and chapels of Lancashfre.
As it was expected that another attack would soon be made
upon Manchester, Rosworm, without the loss of a day, began
repafring the breaches and strengthening the mud walls, dug new
trenches, erected new fortifications, advanced the outposts, and as he
says, ' left nothing unprepared to make the enemy a strong work to
attempt.' During the months of October and November proposals of
pacification were made by the Earl of Derby to the inhabitants of
Manchester. To these several proposals the to^wnspeople, acting on
the adrice of their ministers, had but one reply, that they were
-willing to submit whatever propositions the earl might choose to
make to the ad-rice of the parUament. As might be expected from
the temper of both parties, all attempts at reconciliation utterly
failed. Rosworm was not pleased with these parleyings about pacification.
War, not peace, was his trade. He ' declared his judgment,' that
something more decided should be done to prevent the earl from
' getting a head again.' Reports prevaUed that the Papists had
obtained licence from the king to arm, and were everywhere exer
cising themselves in the use of thefr arms, and especially that ' the
great Papists ' were concerting measures vrith the earl to make an
attack upon Bolton. Heyricke was furious. Bourne prayerful, Ros
worm active, the townspeople prepared to march wherever their
services might be needed. Again they had recourse to the making
of match, the casting of buUets, and the purchase of gunpowder.
' The archpapist ' of thefr neighbourhood. Sir Cecil Trafford, was
secured and committed to prison.
The spirit of Manchester rapidly spread through the puritan towns
and villages of the county. The troops of the Earl of Derby were
reported to be marching near Chowbent on their way to Bolton, as
' the people were going to church on a sabbath morning.' Messengers
were sent through the neighbourhood. Before one o'clock, it is said,
'above three thousand young men,' farmers, smiths, wheelwrights,
weavers, the naU-makers of Chowbent, and other rustics, attacked
the Royalists, and drove them back as far as Leigh. The mounted

THE CJNIL WAR. 193
farmers, more bold than cautious, oufriding thefr foot, sustained a
temporary loss on Lowton Common, until the foot coming up kiUed
or took prisoners about two hundred RoyaUsts, and plundered
their village of Leigh. The whole of that country was thoroughly
roused. The vUlagers resolved to disarm aU the ' malignant Papists,'
and send them into Manchester. The nailers of Chowbent, ' instead
of making naUs, were busy in making pikes, bUls, and battle-axes.'
The excitement spread eastward and northward, and ' the stnirdy
churls of the two forests of Pendle and Rossendale resolved to
fight it out, rather than thefr beef and fat bacon should be eaten by
Papists.'* Hearing of these movements. Sir GUbert Hoghton kindled his
beacon fire on the top of his tower, a signal understood by aU ' the
Papists and maUgnants ' in Leyland hundred and the Fylde country.
The RoyaUsts were at that signal to assemble vrith bim at Preston.
The commissioners of array, having collected a considerable force in
that town, resolved to surprise puritan Blackburn. Finding the town
unprepared, they occupied it with about ' three hundred armed men,
besides clubmen, and sent a party to disarm WhaUey.' t The two
staunch ParUamentarians of that hundred, Shuttleworth of Gawthorp
and Starkie of Hunfroyd, sent out messengers in all directions, and
collected the people from Clitheroe, Burnley, Colne, and the forests.
They assembled, a strange army, with aU sorts of arms, on Henfield
Moor, and immediately marched, or rather ran, singing and shouting,
towards Blackburn, where, arriving at night, they were discovered
partly by thefr noise and partly by the moonlight. Suffering se
verely and thrown into some confusion by the weU-dfrected fire of the
RoyaUsts stationed on the church and the higher buildings of the
town, they were vrith difficulty reduced to order by their two captains,
and conducted to the less exposed sides of the place. While they
were attempting to overcome the formidable resistance of the Royal
ists and enter the town, the puritan inhabitants, discovering them and
their purpose, came out of -thefr houses armed "with clubs, axes, ham
mers, and other desfructive tools, and joining their friends drove out the
intruders, aud recovered the spoils which had been taken from the
people of "Whalley.
"With the early Ught of the wintry morning the Royalists,
sfrengthened by some fresh men of Sir GUbert Hoghton, made a
stand on the moor, and for a moment faced thefr enemies, but the
townsmen and their rustic auxiUaries rushed upon them vrith so much
desperate force that they broke, and made their escape as best they
could in the twilight. Sir Gilbert, vrith many of his attendants, fled
to Preston, pursued by the Blackburn men, who, when stopped by
the chains thrown across the bridge of the Ribble, chafed and raged
and ' swore they would have him out vrith all his papistical maUgnants
quick or dead.'
So far the ParUamentarians had succeeded, but their success had
¦* True and Full Relation of the Troubles in Lancashire, &c., in Civil War
Tracts. t VaUey of Achor.
0

194 LANCASHIRE.
¦left them in a position of great perplexity and perU. They had pre
served Manchester, but it was the only fortified town they possessed.
The Earl of Derby collected a considerable force in Wigan, the
strongest miUtary position in the county. While Wigan was the
head quarters of the RoyaUsts, the ParUamentarians determined to
make Manchester their chief place of stores and defence. General
Assheton procured four large pieces of ordnance which, under the
dfrection of Rosworm, were put into position on the high ground
near the church. Alport Lodge, which had sheltered Tyldesley's
men during the siege, was demolished, and several other buildings of
which an enemy might take advantage were desfroyed. Although
the Long Parliament was engaged in momentous deliberations, the
Lancashfre members were in the country preparing for war. The
two Asshetons, the two Shuttleworths, Moore, Standish, mourning
for his son but supporting the men who kUled him, and Alexander
Rigby, so far as he could be said to be in any one place, were aU in
the county arming and fraining their tenantry. Such was the
state of Lancashire in the month of December, 1642, when both
king and parliament were anxiously waiting the issue of the
conflict between the Royalists of Wigan and the patriots of Man
chester. Issuing from Wigan, the foraging parties of the RoyaUsts
plundered the viUages and ferms which, on their eastern side, were
inhabited chiefly by Puritans, and carried large quantities of corn
and cattle into their own quarters. The villagers, associating and
arming in their own defence, solicited the help of thefr friends in
Manchester. They had good reason for doing so. The Cavaliers
not only captured their stores, but lost no opportunity of harassing,
insulting, and provoking them. ' The carriage,' says the writer of a
letter dated Manchester, December 17, 1642,* ' of the Cavaliers about
Wigan was most insolent, yea blasphemous, for after they had pulled
down the pulpit in Hendon chapel ' (it should be Hindley chapel)
' and played at cards in the pews and upon the desk, they surprised
the Holy Bible, took it away, and afterwards tore it to pieces, and
then stuck the leaves of it upon the posts in several places in Wigan,
saying, This is the Roundheads' Bible.' f In retaliation, when some
time afterwards the Puritans took Wigan, they made rough music
with the sacramental plate, which they called 'popish idols.' The
war spfrit, I fear, makes blasphemers and barbarians of both Prelatists
and Puritans,
In compUance with the urgent entreaty of the people of Hindley
and other rillages in the neighbourhood, the Captains Bradshaw and
Venables marched towards "Wigan with about two hundred and fifty
well trained men, determined to protect thefr friends, and — what
they thought equaUy meritorious — to plunder 'the great Papists.'
¦* Printed in a pamphlet entitled Tlie latest printed News from Chichester,
Windsor, Winchester, Chester, Manchester, and York. London, printed at the Bible
in Wood Street, 1642.
f A companion picture to that of the Puritans dressing a soldier in the surpUoe
of the clergyman of Buiy.

THE CIVIL WAR, 1'95
IU informed of the number of the enemy, or too confident in the
power of his own men, Bradshaw ' going to plunder a Papist's house ''*
with about eighty musketeers, was surrounded by ' about a thousand
horse and foot' on Houghton common. Although the Uttle company
fought bravely for three hours, the few surrivors, "vrith thefr captain,
were reduced to the sad necessity of surrendering on the promise of
thefr Uves being spared. Angier intimates they would not even then
have surrendered, but would have fought to the last man, had not
their store of gunpowder exploded and left them helpless. Bradshaw
was sent prisoner to Lathom House. This was the first defeat of
the Puritans, and Angier caUs it ' the foulest blow God gave us in
the country, an humbling blow and lasting warning.' f As soon as
the sorrowful news reached Manchester, the inhabitants vowed ven
geance, and in words not very puritanical swore that malignant and
papistical Wigan should be utterly destroyed.
Bolton and Warrington had remained hitherto without any serrice-
able works of defence, but as they were situated conveniently, the
former for Manchester and the latter for Wigan, the parties in
possession resolved to make them defensible garrisons, the Parlia
mentarians occupying Bolton and the Royalists Warrington. With
Bolton there was no difficulty. The townspeople were unanimous
and hearty in thefr cause. The indefatigable Rosworm was there
dfrecting aU that was to be done, untU Bolton, in the estimation of
ite inha'bitants, was secure against sudden assaults, and strong enough
to sustain a prolonged siege. In Warrington tbe Royalists met with
more difficulty, as there was in it a considerable party opposed to
thefr measures, and watching every opportunity for obstructing them.
They, however, raised mud walls around the town, set up strong
gates, stretched chains across the roads, consfructed ' engines of
timber to impede the cavafry,' secured the bridge, and made War
rington their second garrison.
On Christmas eve there was severe fighting in several places.
Rosworm, having finished his defensive works in Bolton, 'gathered,'
as he says, ' some forces together, went out, and shattered the enemy
at Chowbent, and the same day we took Leigh by assault, returning
within three days. 'J The account of this serrice given in the
' Valley of Achor ' is curious : ' The clearing of Chowbent made it
high Christmas eve ere our men could faU on (an unfortunate time
for us as the Papists would judge), but it quickened resolution and
speeded action. The enemy suffered them to come within half
musket shot ere they discharged, and then played desperately upon
our men in a full body, to the present loss of only one. Our men
divided themselves that they might clasp hands at a distance and
compass the town (God intending to shut the enemy in thefr inclosure),
which done they parted again, and marching up several places to the
call of the drum, met at the market-place to receive from the
¦* Valley of Achor.
t Valley of Achor. Discourse tm the CivU War. True and full Relation of the
Troubles. Seacome's House of Stanley.
f Good Service, &c.

196 LANCASHIRE.
bounty of God the repair of thefr lost arms, and the price of
redemption for thefr captains and soldiers, Thia victory founded
in humUiation was completed in thanksgiving,' The manoeuvre
betrays the hand of Rosworm, the description the pen of Angier,
On the same Christmas eve, the RoyaUsts made a second and more
formidable attack upon Blackburn, when they brought (as their
opponents said) ' five thousand men and three field-pieces against the
town,' Blackburn had, besides its inhabitants armed -with clubs and
other unsoldierly weapons, only four hundred militia men. The
RoyaUsts commenced their assault early in the moming with firing
thefr cannon, and shouting as they fired, 'Take heed, you Round
heads,' The cannons did no more harm than the shouts ; as the
combined noise of both merely frightened the woinen. The townsfolk
shouted in reply to the Royalists, ' Come vrithin musket shot,' In
the middle of the day the Royalists beat a parley, and offered, on the
surrender of the town, to mediate with the kmg for the pardon of
the inhabitants, Angier says,. 'We know not the meaning of a
pardon. When we would have no pardon, they laboured to
punish us, having set up thefr idol god ' (the great cannon)
' nearer by the coimsel of four or five priests and other great Papists,
whom they had at hand in a tithe-barn,' The counsel of these priests
and great Papists was unavaUing; they vrithdrew, and took thefr
' idol god ' with them.
The year 1643, reckoning according to the new style, opened
auspiciously for the Puritans, In the early part of January, Sir
Thomas Fairfax arrived in Manchester and conferred with the puritan
leaders on the further prosecution of the war, Rosworm, partly to
gratify his ceaseless demands for reward, and partly to separate him
from Colonel Holland whom he detested, was promoted to be
Ueutenant-colonel of General Assheton's reginient of infantry, having
still the charge of all the engineering works. He, however, soon
showed the same detestation of Assheton as he had shown of Holland,
and as it is erident he would have shown of any man appointed to
command or control him.
The first object proposed by Fairfax was to gain possession of
Preston, Sir John Seaton was, on the departure of the general, left
to command the froops collected for that enterprise. "When the
arrangements were completed, two days were appointed for humilia
tion, fasting, and prayer, and they were days of extraordinary
solemnity. The ministers in the collegiate church committed the
men who were going on the expedition to the protection and care of
Almighty God, and the people crowded the spacious sanctuary to
join in their fervent intercessions. On February 8, amidst the prayers
of the clergy, the cheers of the townsmen, and the blessings of the
women, the troops left Manchester on the road to Preston, Sfr John
Seaton commanded the horse. Captain Holland and Captain Booth
companies of foot coUected from thefr own tenantry and dependents,
and Major Bfrch a troop consisting chiefiy of Manchester train bands.
From Bolton and Blackburn they received considerable additions of
weU-trained men, and from the riUages and forests about sis hundred

THE CIVIL WAR, 197-
rustics armed with clubs, bills, mattocks, and scythes, Arriring at
Preston in the night, they easUy gained possession of the bridge,
and ha-ring thus secured the approach across the river, they made
a bold attack, in the early morning tvrilight, upon the walls and
gates of the town. All accounts agree that the Manchester com
panies were the first and bravest- in the assault, many of them
rushing upon the walls, reaching the loop-holes, and clinging to
the protruding muskets while their comrades were preparing to scale
the works.
Young Booth was the first to reach the top of the outer wall
Standing a moment, he called to his men to follow him or leave him
to the enemy, and then leaped from the wall. His men in the emer
gency would not leave him. They were soon followed over the waU
by the troops of Holland and Bfrch, But Preston was protected by
two waUs, and the Royalists vrith thefr pikes stoutly defended the
interior. In that enclosure the Manchester men must conquer or
die, as retreat was perilous if not impossible. They succeeded with
great labour in making a breach in the inner wall, and the companies
of Booth, Holland, and Birch strove who should be the first to enter
the town. The Bolton and the Blackburn men soon followed, and
•vrithin two hours of sunrise proud Preston was taken, its stores feU
into the hands of the assailants, and several RoyaUsts of distinction
were made prisoners.
The different accounts of the capture of Preston suggest some very
sad reflections to those who venerate the memory of the old Puritans.
It is painful to observe the strange, almost barbarous, satisfaction
with which they describe the killing of several Papists. John TUsley,
the pious vicar of Dean, usuaUy gentle, kind, and loving, wrote to
'* an eminent divine in London : ' ' As if men must have been singled
out for slaughter, we could scarce have picked out better, Sfr Gilbert
Hoghton's brother, a desperate Papist, Mr. Westby, physician and
desperate Papist, a sergeant lately come out of Ireland, a most vricked
wretch, were of the number of the slain.'*
The RoyaUsts, stricken vrith terror, fled from the town. The
Parliamentary soldiers were mustered in the market-place. The
puritan inhabitants, who had been disarmed, came from their houses
to congratulate their deliverers ; the ricar of Dean appeared as chap
lain of the troops ; the sun on that February day shone pleasantly as
if smiUng upon their assembly, when the psalm of praise rose from
the soldiery, and the men, women, and chUdren crowding round them
joined in the loud hosannas. As soon as the good news reached
Manchester a day of thanksgiving was appointed, and again the aisles
of the collegiate church resounded vrith the voice of Puritan melody
and song.
Encouraged by thefr extraordinary success, the ParUamentary
officers in Preston determined to make the most of thefr unexpected
advantage. Without the loss of a day they sent a detachment of
Manchester men, under the command of Major Bfrch, to ascertain
* The True Relation, kc, (by au eye-witness), printed for Luke Fawn, February
14, 1642 (1643) ; in Civil War Tracts,

198 LANCASHIRE.
the sfrength of the RoyaUst garrison and defences of Lancaster.
Finding the Royalists unprepared for the assault, and being encour
aged by the puritan inhabitante, Bfrch resolved to do something
more than ascertain the strength of the enemy, for he marched at
once into the town, and readily obtained refreshment for his wearied
soldiers from the generous hospitaUty of his friends. The RoyaUste,
having just before heard of the loss of Preston from the fugitives,
who brought terrible accounts of the fury of the Manchester men,
retreated to the castle, which they were not able to hold against the
combined force of the townspeople and the Manchester froops.
Birch, amidst the cheers of the people, stormed the grand old castle,
and took possession of it in the name of the king and parUament,
which meant nominaUy for the king, but really for the parliament.
The Royalists fled to Thurland Castle, and established themselves
there under the command of Sir John Girlington, the high sheriff,
and Roger Kfrby, the member for the county, who, on finding
he could trim and temporise no longer without offending both
parties, had committed himself to the cause and fortunes of the
king. The officers in Preston, vrithout waiting to hear the result of Bfrch'a
adventure, sent the Blackburn men to attack Hoghton Tower, the
strongest fortified house in that neighbourhood. On the precipitous
hill of his fortress Sfr GUbert Hoghton had mounted ' three great
pieces of ordnance,' which his men seem to have been unable to
manage. They 'looked very terrible,' apparently to friends as well
as to foes, as they were lying at the gates Uke watch-dogs that would
not bark, nor bite either. The invaders demanded the tower and aU
its stores. The garrison obtained half an hour for consideration, and
at its close surrendered everything upon the condition of being
allowed quietly to depart. Young Starkie, son of Colonel Starkie of
Hunfroyd, was the first to enter at the head of his company, and
soon afterwards was kUled by a terrible explosion which da^maged a
considerable part of the building. The explosion was attributed to
different causes by the party writers of the time. The Parliamenta
rians charged it upon the treachery of their enemies, who owed their
Uves to the clemency of Starkie, The RoyaUsts attributed it to
accident, A Puritan writer calls it ' the lamentable tragedy of those
perfidious creatures whose religion wUl allow them to make no con
sequence of dealing treacherously vrith Protestants,' * The author
of the ' VaUey of Achor ' ascribes it to ' that great soldiers' idol,
tobacco,' that is, to a spark from ' the swearing, drunken, smoking '
soldiers, "Whether the explosion be attributed to treachery,
accident, tobacco, or an attempt to fire the cannon, the capture
of the tower was a great triumph to the Puritans, gained by a sad
loss in the death of so young and promising an officer.
Another considerable advantage, as the Puritan writers reckoned
it, was obtained from a Spanish ship of war getting into frouble
among the sands of Morecambe Bay, Lancaster Castle, when gained
* A punctual Relation of Passages in Lancashire, this weeke, February 14, 1642,
in Oiinl War Tracts.

THE CIVIL WAR. 199
by the Puritans, was destitute of artillery for its defence. ' Twenty-
one great pieces of ordnance ' were obtained from the foreign ship,
and thus the Castle was ' enriched, honoured, and secured by the
God of the sea.' Such cannon had never before been seen in the
county. The Puritans of Lancaster, more daring than the Papists
of Hoghton Tower, bravely fired them off, and made so great a noise
as to astonish the neighbourhood, ' Many came from far to hear the
sound.' But amidst these triumphs of the Puritans, Lord Derby was neither
idle nor desponding. He resolved to strike some sudden blow which
should intimidate his enemies and restore the confidence of his
friends. Nothing seemed so hkely to accomplish these purposes as
a successful attack upon Bolton, To take that puriten town would
more than compensate for the loss of Preston and Lancaster. Next
to Manchester, which was impregnable by any forces he could
obtain, Bolton waa the most valuable prize which he could win,
and he resolved to win it at whatever perU or cost of money or
men. On Thursday moming, February 18, the soldiers of the earl
marched from Wigan, and were first observed by the country people
on the ridge of the bills westward of Bolton, The countrymen of
that neighbourhood, being Puritans, hastened to give information of
their approach, while the earl expected to be at the gates before pre
paration could be made for thefr defence. The few townsmen on the
waUs were stricken with terror as they observed the mUitary array,
eleven colours unfurled, three troops of horse, several cannons, and
about a thousand well-armed infanfry marching in good order. The
puritan soldiers of the town were then at prayers in the church.
Had the Royaliste been as prompt and decisive as were the Puritans
at Lancaster, they would have entered the town before its defenders
had got into order and secured thefr ammunition. Not perceiving
their opportunity, they spent thefr time in posting guards to prevent
the counfry people from bringing reUef, in surveying the walls in
order to determine the most advantegeous place of attack, and then
in marching to the opposite side of the town, where they eventuaUy
resolved to make the assault. While these preparations were causing
great loss of valuable time, the alarm spread through the town. The
sound of the drum summoned the aoldiera from church. Colonel
Assheton, who was in command of the garrison, soon coUected about
five hundred men, posted them in advantageous positions, and placed
a brave company, under the command of Captain Ashurst, at the
Bradshaw gate, on which the Royaliste were eridentiy advancing.
The force and impetuosity of the RoyaUsts soon destroyed some feeble
defences vrithout the gate, when Aahurst, with twenty-five musketeers,
took up a position vrithin a mud barricade * and a chain sfretched
across the entrance of the town. This was the critical point. If the
chain were forced and the barricade thrown down, the royalist cavalry
would occupy the streets. Both parties knew it. The assault was
• The mud or clay barricade was about two yards thick at the top, much wider
below, skilfuUy constructed by Rosworm.

200 LANCASHIRE.
terrible. The defence was desperate. The Royalists, far exceeding
the pafriote in number, pressed with aU thefr force against the barri
cade stoutly defended "by Ashurst's men, who were compelled to use
thefr muskets aa clubs. The assailants, gaining possession of some
houses without the barricade, broke their way through the walls from
house to house, untU they got vrithin the chain. All seemed lost,
when Ashurst, seeing the danger, posted his musketeers in the houses
opposite to that from, which the Royalists were issuing, and ordered
them to fire from the windows upon the enemy collecting before
them. Every shot told. The RoyaUsts knew not whence the bullets
came. While they were considering what to do,, a second volley, more
deadly than the first, sfruck the li-ring vrith terror as their comrades
feU by thefr •side. Rushing back upon the barricade, they saw
crowds of country people, armed vrith pitchforks and mattocks,
rushing vrith frightful shouts and yells to the help of the town.
Assheton, assured that the attack of the enemy was confined to the
Bradshaw gate, led the rest of his troops to that scene of action. The
RoyaUsts, intimidated by the fall of thefr comrades, and seeing
enemies on both sides of them, within and without the town, fled
through the breaches which they had themselves made, leaving many
of thefr dead and wounded in the works which, for a short time, they
had called their own. About a hundred were found dead or dying
in the town, and three cart-loads of bodies were, as the puritan writers
say, removed by the Royalists to Wigan, This was the most fatal
battle which had hitherto been fought. The courage of the Puritans
was becoming inrincible. Under the excitement of the war, as one
of their own writers says, ' they raged and fought Uke lions.' The
hero of that day was Captain Ashurst.
The Earl of Derby, bitterly disappointed by his ignominious faUure,
resolved upon the recovery of Lancaster, The Spanish cannons were
tempting objects to a soldier of his enterprise and audacity. His men
were eager to avenge themselves on the Manchester Roundheads in
Lancaster Castle, who were not very strong while they were removed
from thefr comrades. Sir John GirUngton, who had kept together
the fugitive Royalists in Thurland Castle, and Colonel Tyldesley, who
had collected a considerable force in the Fylde, were both prepared
to join him in the attack.*
On Monday, March 13, the earl left Wigan with some sis hundred
infantry and four hundred horsemen. Resting the flrst night at
Kirkham, he was joined by a great number of the country people,
who in that neighbourhood were almost aU CathoUcs. They were
mustered in companies, armed with clubs, placed under responsible
officers, threatened vrith instent death if they disobeyed orders,
and promised unresfrained plunder of the puritan towns. They
¦* Of the attack on Lancaster and recovery of Preston we have accounts from
both sides : the RoyaUst Account of the bu/ming of Lancaster and storming of Preston
from Mereurius Aulicus, April 2, 1643, and the Puritan Lancaster's Massacre, or a
New Way of advancing the Protestant Religion, related by a Gentleman of great Note
in Lancashire. With these somewhat contradictory accounts we may compare the
notices in the Valley of Achor, the Discourse of the War in Lancashire, and God's
Iif t up Hand for Lancashire.

THE CIVIL WAR, 201
foUowed the regular army in the march to Lancaster, Within
four miles of the town GfrUngton and Tyldesley joined the earl vrith
six hundred men, of whom the greater part were well trained and
armed with muskete.
On Saturday morning, March 18,* Lord Derby summoned the
town ¦with promise of ' fafr usage,' and two hours to consider the
answer. The commander of the garrison referred the summons to
the townspeople, assuring them of his determination, whatever they
might do vrith the town, to defend the castle to the last extremity.
In the castle was a puritan minister, Nehemiah Barnet, a great
preacher, who exhorted and encouraged both soldiers and townsmen
to resist the Papists and to return the answer which they did, that
both castle and town would be held ' by God's blessing' for the king
and parUament.'
On recei'ring this answer. Lord Derby made a furious assault, and
after two hours' hard fighting forced his way over the moat, and set
fire to some buUdings which were attached to the walls. The con
flagration passed rapidly along the Unes of thatched houses, and
compelled the Parliamentary soldiers to refreat within the castle.
In dfrecting the retreat Captain Shuttleworth, son of the pgtriot,
Richard Shuttleworth of Gawthorp, was killed by a musket ball
on the steps of the castle. For a time the town was at the mercy,
or rather at the rage, of the Royalists, who, according to the author
of ' Lancaster's Massacre,' killed indiscriminately men, women, and
children, ' vrith all barbarous cruelty, cutting their throats vrith
butchers' knives.' I hope this is not true, although I do not see
much more cruelty in the ' barbarous ' method of killing vrith
' butchers' knives ' than in the civiUzed method of kUling ¦with
swords. The burning of the town brought not only great distress upon the
inhabitants but great disorder among the invaders. The country
people, gorged with plunder, resolved to go home vrith thefr spoUs,
The Royalist army, ordered to besiege the castle, could not in the
general confusion be kept under good discipline. On the other hand,
the ParUamentary soldiers, finding thefr opportunity in the prevalent
disorder, brought into the castle large stores of food and water,
Nehemiah Barnet was among them "with advice and encouragement,
as the author of the ' Valley of Achor ' says, ' The mighty God, by
the assistance of a minister, doubled the spirit of the hearty soldiers
to maintain with utmost hazard so great a trust,'
As soon as intelUgence of the attack on Lancaster reached the
Parliamentary commanders they collected thefr forces and hastened
to the relief of thefr friends. General Assheton marched from Man
chester and Sir John Seaton from Preston, Lord Derby, troubled
by the disorder of his soldiery, and hearing of the powerful force
which was advancing against him, suddenly left Lancaster to its
fate, avoiding by a cfrcuitous road the notice of the ParUamentary
army, came unexpectedly upon Preston, and finding it left vrith
¦* Different dates are given by different writers. ' March 18, eight on clock,' is
the date on Lord Derby's own paper as given iu the Valley of Achor.

202 LANCASHIRE,
Uttle protection, cleverly took possession, and made an easy prey
of the stores of food, arms, and ammunition, FaUing in his attack
on Lancaster, he rewarded his wearied soldiers vrith the spoils of
Preston, Having, vrith this unexpected good fortune, refreshed and
sfrengthened his troops, the earl resolved to make a second attack
on the stubborn Puritans of Bolton, Of this attack the only account
preserved is by the author of the ' VaUey of Achor.'* The RoyaUsts,
according to this "writer, were always unfortunate in the time of
their sieges and battles. They omitted to take into account the pray
ing times of thefr enemies. So they marched against Manchester in
a week of general fasting, when ' legions of prayers were coming to
the help of the town : ' and on this occasion they made thefr atteck
upon Bolton on March 28, ' the day after the solemn fast and humi
Uation for the loss of Preston, and the day before the national fast
appointed by parliament,' This, saya the puritan authority, was ' in
an unhappy season ' between two such days of prayer. Had the earl
been afraid of the puritan prayers, he might have thought that the
best day for his attack waa that in which there was to be an inter
mission of these terrible pleadings. Had he succeeded on that
day, probably the author of the ' Valley of Achor ' would have
attributed his success to the intermission of prayer. Aa it was, the
good Puritan had the more agreeable duty of accounting for the
earl's faUure.
About three o'clock the earl brought his cannon into a croft near
the clay walls of the town. After firing untU evening and doing no
more execution than wounding an idle boy, supposed to be the son
of 'a maUgnant,' the earl sent a messenger to demand the surrender
of the town, and received the answer that the town waa held for the
king and parUament. In the evening twUight the miniatera went to
the works and sfrengthened the soldiers by spfritual converse and
fervent prayers. ' The end of prayer,' says Angier, ' waa the begin
ning of fight.' The invaders cUmbed upon the walls, the defenders
met them there. Both parties fought desperately, untU vrith consid
erable loss the assailants were driven from the works. FaiUng on
the east side they attempted the south, and afterwards the west, but
•with no better success. In the darkness a company of men from
Bury, bringing reUef to their neighbours, were recognised and hailed
froni the waUs and brought safely into the town. Discouraged by
the intelUgence of this rehef, and hearing that additional assistance
waa approaching, the Royalists early next moming made a hasty
retreat and left twenty-three bodies of thefr comrades under the
walls. Our authority says, ' Bolton lost not a single man,' and as
I have no other account of this fierce assault, I cannot confradict
Mm.
The ParUamentarian leaders resolved to avenge the injuries done
• Although this attack is mentioned by no other writer, it was certainly made.
As Dr. Ormerod, the editor of the tract, observes : ' It is necessary to complete tha
number of assaults ' [mentioned] ' on Okey's grave-stone in Bolton churchyard—
"This town, thrice stormed, was taken and plundered." '

THE CIVIL WAR. 203
to puritan Bolton by an attack upon popish Wigan. The Bolton
men were ready and eager to march in front of the army. The
Manchester train bands speedily joined them. The mUitia of the
neighbourhood, about two thousand infantry, were mustered in com
panies and armed vrith muskete. To them were atteched some two
hundred horsemen and eight pieces of ordnance. Colonel Holland
was the commander.
To his great annoyance the colonel had to take Rosworm with
him, for the soldiers, so at least Rosworm says,* would not go with
out the engineer, who, never very pleasant to his superiors, was just
at that time in an unusually bad temper. He had recently engaged
by a second contract to serve the parUament for sixty pounds a-year,
and immediately after he had made this hard bargain he received
most munificent proposals from the RoyaUsts. Faithful to his en
gagement, he was ready to do any miUtary service for his employers,
but he lost no opportunity of reUeving his Ul-humour by abusing ' the
earthUness, meanness, and baseness ' of those whom he served. Of
letters of approval and thanks, which would have smoothed the rough
points of many disagreeable people, he says very truly, ' he coiUd not
feed his cat upon them, much less his horse.'
On the eve of Easter Sunday the ParUamentary froops approached
the walls of Wigan. The town was generaUy believed to be impreg
nable, and any attempt to take it by assault utterly hopeless. But
the assault was fearlessly made, and to the surprise of both parties
the to-wn was gained in a short time and vrith little loss of the assaU-
ants. As soon as the artillery had made a breach in the walls, the
Bolton men, in the bitterness of thefr revenge, were the first to rush
through the breach into the town, overpowering all resistance. The
Manchester frain bands immediately foUowed, and the RoyaUsts re
treated in disorder. In less than an hour the patriots had possession
of all the town, except the church, in which a company of soldiers
had found protection and prepared a defence. Mounting the roof
and steeple, they fired upon the ParUamentarians and did consider
able execution. Before they were dislodged a report prevaUed that
the Earl of Derby was coming with great force to succour the town.
According to Rosworm, Colonel Holland ' was in a shocking agony
of fear,' and determined to abandon the town and to return vrith his
troops to Manchester, Rosworm remonstrated in vain, ' almost
tearing his flesh vrith passion,' and obtained nothing more than per
mission to fight untu he oould drive the enemy out of the church.
As soon as he had made them prisoners, whUe they were laying down
thefr arms, the colonel marched away, and left the engineer in the
malignant town with more prisoners than comrades. Being thus
forsaken, he was compeUed to save his little company by foUowing
his commander, whom he never forgave, and never forgot to criminate
when he had an opportunity of doing so.
It is not easy to explain the unexpected retreat of a victorious
army. I do not beUeve that HoUand was the coward that Rosworm
waa pleased to represent him. Angier says, ' The work was under-
* Good Service, &c.

204 LANCASHIRE.
taken in unbeUef, and so, although we got the day, we lost the honour.'
As in the plunder of the town the soldiers obtained ' goods of Papists
to the value of 2O,O00Z.,' they probably vrished to get safe home with
thefr enormous booty, and induced the colonel to allow them to march.
Or, as the Puritans were in their enemies' country, where the neigh
bouring gentry were arming thefr men, it might have been better
policy to abandon the town spoiled of its treasures than to attempt to
hold it against the forces which were being coUected for its recovery.
Or the retreat may be attributed to the devices of a spy in the
camp, Peter Heywood, whose father is said to have been the bold
man that seized Guy Fawkes, and was afterwards murdered by the
Jesuits. This Peter, unworthy son of such a father, being at the
time in the confidence of the colonel, may, by some misrepresentations,
have been the cause of the inexplicable re^treat of the ParUamentary
army. However that may have been, the Puritans were sadly dis
couraged in losing possession of the malignant town, although they
must have found some consolation in acqufring ' so great abundance
of papistical freasures.'
The Manchester troops, or a considerable part of them, ha^ving
either recovered thefr courage or secured thefr booty, ilistead of re
turning dfrectly home, marched to Warrington, ' taking with them,'
says Vicars, ' thefr valued and faithful engineer.' * In connection
with some Cheshfre troops they made an attack upon the to"wn. The
result was unfortunate. The accounts of the two parties are conflict
ing, but it is certain that the Parliamentary forces left Warrington
as they found it, in the possession of the Royalists. According to
the contemporary diary of BurghaU, the Parliamentarians would
have taken the town had not the Royalists threatened to set it on
fire. Aa there were many Puritana residing in it, thefr friends
kindly retfred ' to save them from utter desolation. ' f In Manchester
a day was appointed (April 11) of ' thanksgiving for Wigan mercy,'
and another (AprU 13) of ' humiliation under Warrington displea
sure.' J
The retreat from Wigan excited ao much dissatisfaction that a
parliamentary committee was appointed to investigate the conduct of
Colonel HoUand. Rosworm was the chief accuser, and appeared
before the committee to tell all he knew, and possibly a great deal
more, of ' the ill doings of his commander.' He ' justified to the
colonel's fece his perfidious dealings at Wigan, his actions touching
Peter Heywood, his eagerness in urging me to deliver up Manchester,
and divers things more. ' § The colonel was honourably acquitted, but
Rosworm wrote, ' If I had been guilty of the like, they would have
condemned and executed me for bad serrice who am now famished
for good,'
A day or two after the attack upon Wigan, the Earl of Derby,
* Parliamentary Chronicle, vol, i. p. 297.
t Burghall's tract — of, which a MS. copy is preserved in the British Museum,
Cole's CoUections — has the curious title. Providence Improved. See the extract in
Civil War Tracts, p. 95.
J Valley of Achor. § Good Service, &c.

THE CIVIL WAR. 205
ha-ring collected an army, said, to consist of ' eleven troops of horse,
seven hundred foot, and infinite of clubmen,' marched from Preston,
crossed the Ribble at Ribchester, and took possession of "WliaUey
abbey and church. As the hundred of Blackburn was unprepared
for invasion, the soldiers gained immense plunder. The two ParUa
mentary colonels of the district, Shuttleworth and Starkie, brave old
soldiers, each of whom had recently lost a son in the war, with ex
traordinary activity coUected in a short time about five hundred men,
and marched to WhaUey against the 'five thousand' RoyaUsts.
Being there joined by Colonel Assheton, the men were so eager for
an immediate attack upon the forces of the earl, that thefr com
manders had the greatest difficulty to resfrain their impetuosity, and
prevent them from rushing upon certain desfruction. Although
restrained, whUe waiting for reinforcements they were not inactive,
for instead of forming in line, they fired upon the enemy from behind
hedges and waUs, and, concealed in barns and sheds, kUled many of
the foraging parties which the earl was compelled to send into the
viUages to obtain necessary suppUes. The earl brought out his
cannon and fired among the bushes, but missed the Puritans, who
seemed to be everywhere except in the way of his shot. Fighting in
that fashion was harmless to the dispersed patriots, but desfructive
to the RoyaUsts, whose compact body was a central mark for the fire
pf a wide circle of practised musketeers. The Uon was raging among
hornets. On the arrival of thefr reinforcements, the patriots formed
a,nd closed upon the RoyaUsts, who broke and fled by the vyay. they
came, through Samlesbury and Ribchester. The hundred of Black
burn was thus cleared of ite enemies, and a joyful day of thanksgiring
was observed in Bolton, Manchester, and throughout the two puritan
hundreds.* Assheton determined to make the most of the advantage he had
unexpectedly gained, and pursued the Royalists into their own quar
ters. While his troops, although weary, were hopeful and daring,
and the enemy daunted and discouraged, he marched upon Wigan,
where Tyldesley had ralUed the fugitive RoyaUsts, and persuaded
them to forni for the defence of the town. But as soon as they saw
the Roundheads, who had driven them Uke sheep from Whalley to
Ribchester, from Ribchester to Preston, from Preston to Wigan, they
broke thefr ranks and fled to Lathom. Assheton, haring plundered
Wigan, burnt its gates and demoUshed its fortifications, followed
the Royalists to Lathom, and occupied Prescot, Ormskfrk, and the
neighbouring vUlages. The earl was so surprised by the rapid march
of Assheton, and so discouraged by the panic which spread through
his own country, that he wheeled round and returned to Preston,
¦where he hoped to find refuge behind the fortifications then in the
possession of the RoyaUsts. Assheton followed him, plundering the
country inhabited by Papists or Prelatists as he went, until, arriring
at Preston, he apparently vrith very Uttle frouble drove the RoyaUsts
out of the town.f
* A True Relation of a Great and Wonderful Victory. London, 1643. Extracts
from Diu'mals in Civil War Tracts, p. 98.
t I say 'apparently with very Uttle trouble,' because contemporary ¦writers

206 LANCASHIRE.
Assheton, allowing his army very Uttle rest in Preston, on hearing
that Tyldesley and a considerable number of Royaliste were quartered
about Kfrkham, determined at once to march upon them. Before
he had proceeded far in that direction, he heard that the Royalists
were hastening northward, apparently making for Lancaster.
Changing his course, he marched directly for that town, while the
RoyaUsts hastened past it towards Hornby castle. Halting upon the
ridge of a hUl in the neighbourhood, the fugitives aaw Assheton's
troops stUl in pursuit, and immediately fled in disorder to Kfrkby
Lonsdale. The colonel, haring driven the RoyaUsts out of the county,
left them wandering among the feUs of Westmoreland, or finding
thefr way, as well as they could, to the army which was gathering
around the queen at York.
Assheton, on his return, rested a few days at Lancaster, where he
was able to afford some reUef to the disfressed inhabitants, whose
houses and goods had been destroyed by the late conflagration.
Committing to the charge of his troops twelve of the great Spanish
cannons which had been secured in the castle, he ordered them to
follow him to Preston. The march of his victorious army, no longer
under his vigilant eye and strong hand, brought sad scandal and dis
honour on the parliamentary cause. The plundering in the Fylde
country was excessive and inexcusable. Papists were accounted fafr
game for the Ucentious soldiery, but good Protestants suffered se
verely, and even some Puritans were not spared. One of thefr own
officers says of them : ' It was a sadness to thefr friends, and
"vriU be an infemy to their reputation in future generations, when
pretending conscience to be the motive for thefr taking up arms, they
did bring odium upon themselves by thefr base covetousness, riolence,
and oppression.' *
On thefr arrival at Preston, the consequences of thefr disorderly
march appeared in their quarrels about the distribution of the booty,
and their disputes vrith their officera, who attempted to arrange and
settle thefr discordant claims. Some of them insisted upon going
home vrith their apoila, and others proposed to melt down the papist
ical cannons, as if the metel, reflned by the fire, would be free from
its papisfry, Assheton acted firmly and wisely, dismissed some,
punished others, intimidated many, and brought all, by his personal
infiuence and cautious proceedings, under tolerable discipline. He
then marched for Manchester and made a sort of friumphant entry
into the town. He was welcomed vrith shouts of applause. The
great cannons, such as Manchester had never seen before, were espe
ciaUy the objects of universal admfration. A day of thanksgiving
and praise was appointed, and a glorious day it proved. The soldiers
marched in military array to church, I would hope ¦vrith some con
trition for thefr violence and robberies in the Fylde country. The
give uo account of the siege, and therefore it could have excited no great interest.
In The Discowrse of the Civil War it is said they 'marched to Preston,' and in
the Valley of Achor, ' our forces passed safely through Preston, that recovered
Preston.' * Discourse of the Lancashire War.

THE CIVIL WAR. 207
to-vmsfolk joined in the jubilant psalm-singing. The fellows prayed.
The warden preached. The bells rang. The officers were feasted.
The fountains were made to pour forth wine. The great cannons
were fired, and they made such a marvellous noise that in the rhetor
ical language of "Warden Heyricke, ' they drowned the noise of the
thundering skies,' Never before had there been such a joyful day in
that town, nor has there been since, until that twenty -ninth of May,
when Presbyterian Manchester and its warden became even more
frantic vrith deUght on the restoration of the king, whose father they
drove from his throne,
Assheton, aUowing himself or his men little time for repose, deter
mined speedUy to complete his work. Within ten days of his return
from Lancaster he marched against Warrington, which was then tho
only fortified town in the county left in possession of the enemy.
The twenty-thfrd of May was observed in Manchester as a solemn
day of fasting and humiliation on behalf of the soldiers engaged for
the siege of Warrington. Their first fighting was at Winwick,
where the Royalists had selected an advantageous position in the
church and in an adjacent hall, from which they were soon expelled
¦with considerable loss. Some of them who were stationed on the
tower and battlements of the church were not disposed to yield, until
(to cite the puritan language) ' God sent a deadly messenger ont of
a fbwUng-piece to one of them.' * The ' deadly messenger ' not only
kiUed ' one of them,' but frightened his companions away from the
church. Having taken this outpost, Assheton's troops immediately
commenced operations for the reduction of the to-wn. AU things
proceeded favourably. The men laboured cheerfully at night in the
trenches and on the embankments. They had learnt by exercise and
practice to work effectually thefr great artillery. The Royalists were
discouraged. Unable to manage their cannon, they spoiled thefr
largest piece on its second discharge. The Puritans -vrithin the town,
annoyed by ill-freatment, had become unmanageable, and found
many opportunities of assisting the besiegers. Besides these human
advantages, the Puritans trusted in a divine hand which worked
wonders for them. The stars in thefr courses fought for them, the
weather marvellously helped them. As they were requfred to work
under the walls in the stUlness of night, there was danger of the
noise of thefr mattocks betraying thefr presence to the guards in the
fortifications. But ' when some went to work, others went to prayer,
and God raised a great wind that took away the noise.' t In a few
days the church was taken, and soon afterwards the town was surren
dered upon the condition of its being exempted from plunder. June
¦* Valley of Achor.
t Valley of Achor. The author says : ' This was a providence not unUke what
I have heard in Boston. The chancellor gave organs to Boston church. Before
they breathe in the new world the godly pray. After their prayer a mighty -wind
f orceth its passage into the church, blows down the organs, and stops their breath.'
The sons of the Puritans, if we may judge from the ' Babylonish music ' iu their
meeting houses, have lost their fathers' power of stopping the breath of organs by
the breath of prayer.

208 LANCASHIRE.
the first was another thanksgiving day in Manchester, when ' this
return of prayers called in our vows.' *
In this conflict we have hitherto heard Uttle of Liverpool. Although
its ' castle ' belonged to Lord Molineux, and its ' tower ' to the Earl
of Derby, a considerable part of its inhabitants were decidedly
Puritan. Overawed by the castle and the tower, the town had
hitherto professed allegiance to the king, but having no walls it was
not considered by either party a position of much importance.
Assheton, however, who never thought anything done until all was
done, resolved to occupy it for ' the king and parliament.' As he
was mustering his froops before the town, a ship of war from the
parUamentery fleet entered the Mersey. The Royalists were alarmed,
the Puritans of the town readUy negotiated both with the ship and
vrith the army, and Liverpool without opposition was occupied by
the parliamentary froops.
From Liverpool Assheton marched northwards vrith the determina
tion of attacking the castles of Hornby and Thurland. Suffering a
severe and unexpected loss by falUng into an ambuscade in the
northern part of the county, he hesitated, as doubtful of the issue,
and consulted hia officers about the propriety of returning to their
own district. But a puritan preacher was in the camp (as puritan
preachers seem ever to have been in emergencies and dangers), and
he encouraged the colonel and stimulated the soldiers to proceed
fearlessly in thefr enterprise, t The attempt on Homby Castle was
perUous, but Assheton resolved to proceed, and his men, excited by
the exhortations of the preacher, were ready to dare any perils and
to die rather than leave it in possession of the enemy. Having found
a deserter, the officers learnt from him the best method of entering
the castle with good hope of holding it. The castle, rock was preci
pitous and deemed inaccessible on three sides, while on the fourth
strong works protected the ascent. The greater part of the army
was ordered to make an attack upon the works, which they did with
as much display and noise as possible. Embankments were thrown
up, rope ladders were attached to the walls, large quantities of com
bustible materials were heaped against the gates. The RoyaUstfi
came to the defence of the fortifications exposed to this exfraordinary
attack, and for some time the attack and defence were prosecuted
vrith equal activity and resolution. But Assheton's purpose was to
engage the attention of the Royaliste, while a party of his best men,
cond.ucted by the deserter, found a concealed way of climbing the
precipice on the opposite side, and entered the castle by some un
guarded windows. Their comrades foUowed them unobserved,
until a considerable body of men formed in the castle-yard, and
rashed down the sloping side upon the defenders of the lower works.
Surprised and terrified on thus unexpectedly finding themselves
* Valley of Achor. Manchester's Joy for Derbie's Overthrow. Vicars's Parlia.
mentary Chronicle, part i. p. 297.
+ VaUey of Achor. 'Encouraged by a weighty and seasonable word ot a
present divme.' I do not know who he was, but probably Nehemiah Barnet was
the man.

THE CIVIL WAR. 209
between two assailing forces, and not knovring how many more were
coming do-wn upon them from the castle, the Royalists surrendered
npon the condition of being aUowed to depart uninjured. It was a
brave action, and brought immense applause to the men who man
aged it with so much dexterity and valour.
On the day after thia daring exploit, Thurland Castle, the sfrong
house of Sfr John GfrUngton, surrendered on the summons of Colonel
Assheton. In it were captured, according to the ' Certain Informa
tions ' of the time, ' much money and plate, with many disaffected
ladies and gentlemen.' * The war spirit had become ao fierce and
cruel that on both sides even women were made prisoners, and, I fear,
in many instances unkindly freated.
By Midsummer of 1648 aU the fortified towns and houses of Lan
cashire, except Lathom, were in the possession of the ParUamentar
ians. Thefr general, Ralph Assheton, had worked wonders in thefr
cause. He was everywhere triumphant. The Royalists in every
part of the county were subdued, restrained, and disheartened. Thefr
leaders, Tyldesley, MoUneux, Hoghton, GfrUngton, and others, driven
from -their homes, were concealed by thefr friends, or compeUed to
leave the county. For some time no one could teU what had become
of the Earl of Derby. Some said he had taken refuge in Lathom
House, others that he had joined the queen's army in Yorkshfre,
others (and these were right) that he had fied to the Isle of Man.
On hearing of the success of Assheton he hastened northward, and
sailed from "Whitehaven to his hereditary island. Puritan ministers
were in almost every to-wn of Lancashfre offering praise and thanks
givings to the God of thefr armies for thefr wonderful success.
Papists were terrified, maUgnants were sUent. But the RoyaUst
leaders had not abandoned aU hope of the county. Tyldesley was
not the man to be unduly discouraged, or hopelessly defeated. Lord
Derby, deprived of his property, separated from his fainily, ashamed
of his soldiery, sUghted by the king whom he served, waa stUl acru-
pulously loyal, and peraeveringly devoted to the interests of the
throne. In Man he was concerting measures to retrieve the fortunes
of his party, and to rally his friends who would work and fight and
die -with bim in defence of what seemed the cause of right, of order,
of reUgion, and of England's stabiUty and glory. The war was not
then over. The calm of that summer was treacherous. Lancashire
was doomed to see worse calamities than she had yet seen, her fields
devastated, her towns ruined, her vUlages plundered, her churches
desecrated, her best men, sometimes near kinsmen, bearing the same
honoured names, and even sons of the same mother, arrayed on op
posite sides, impelled by deadly hostUity, and intent upon mutual
slaughter. With a feeling of reUef I turn away for a Uttle whUe from the
horrors of ci-ril war to notice some other events which iUustrate the
reUgious history of Lancashfre. In the summer of 1643 was con
vened the Westminster Assembly of di-rines. It is not my intention
* No 23 of Certain Informations, 1643, printed in Civil War Tracts of Lanca
shire.

210 LANCASHIRE.
to take any other notice of that celebrated assembly than may be
necessary to understand its connection vrith the establishment of the
presbyterian discipline in Lancashire. In no other county was that
discipline so regularly and firmly established, as in no other county
were the decisions of the assembly more reverently esteemed or more
carefuUy observed. In a few years presbyterian opinions had made
great progress. Although Catholics were numerous, they had ceased
to be powerful, and Protestant EpiscopaUans were diminishing, dis
united, and discouraged, some favourable to compromise vrith the
Presbyterians, and others with the CathoUcs, Of sectaries, Brovvn-
ists or Baptists, there were none. Throughout the county the calUng
of the Westminster Assembly was regarded vrith satisfaction, confi
dence, and hope.
Much as Scottish Presbyterians abhor Erastianism, there never
was convened on the face of the earth an ecclesiastical assembly more
thoroughly Erastian in its constituti'nn, whatever may have been the
opinions of its constituent parts, than was that which all orthodox
Scotchmen regard vrith so much veneration, and to whose authority
they concede so great respect. Although the avowed Erastians in
the assembly were very few, the assembly itself was the creature and
the servant of the parliament. It was convened by ' an ordinance of
the lords and commons in parUament ; ' its members were nominated
by parUament ; lay assessors, both lords and commoners, were author
ised by parUament to debate and vote vrith the di-rines ; the prolo
cutor was appointed by parliament, which reserved to itself the power
of appointing his successor ; the subordinate officials, assessors and
scribes, were selected by parUament ; regulations of business were
made, and subjects for consideration were prescribed, by parUament ;
vacancies in its number were suppUed by parUament ; and its decisions
became valid only as they were ratified by parliament. If the mem
bers desired a fast day, they humbly petitioned parliament to grant it
' in the name of Jesus Christ, your Lord and ours.' Doing the work
ofthe state, they were paid by parUament four shUlings a day for every
member in attendance.
The knights of the shfre presented lists of quaUfied persons, from
which, vrith few exceptions, two were selected to represent each
county. The representatives of Lancashfre were Richard Heyricke,
A.M., Warden of Manchester, and Charles Herle, A.M., rector of
Winwick. Richard Heyricke has afready appeared distinctly before us as a
preacher, a patriot, and a Protestant, Aa a theologian he waa a mo
derate Presbyterian, that is, moderate in hia opinions, although im
moderate in his expression of them. He abhorred arbitrary power,
whether of Laud, of Charles, or of Cromwell, Puriten he was in
doctrine, for he clamorously denounced aU ' Arminian quiddities,' but
he did not share the puritanic aversion to the English Uturgy, He
had no objection to read the Book of Common Prayer, and occasion
ally, to the scandal of his brethren, he would read it in a surpUce.
He loved to hear the jubUant notes of the organ, especially on the
fifth of November ; nor did he feel the objection which many of his

THE CIVIL WAR, 211
friends felt to stained windows or carved oak or chiselled stone. For
the Solemn League and Covenant he was very zealous, and in its
words he swore to ' endeavour the extirpation of popery and prelacy,
that is, the government of the Church by archbishops, bishops, thefr
chancellors and commissioners, deans and chapters, archdeacons, &c.'
"WTiatever he meant by extfrpating deans, he certeinly spared thefr
relatives the wardens, for he always contended he was, and ought to
be, and ever would be the Warden of Manchester. He was for ' the
extfrpation ' of all ecclesiastical officers above wardens, but descend
ing to their level he saw reasons to desist from proceeding any fur
ther with the extfrpating process. As a member of the assembly he
did not occupy the influential position which his friends expected him
to attain by his great ability and energy. Too rash to lead others,
too impetuous to be led by them, he had no prominent place in the
esteem or confidence of his brethren, and seems to have taken very
little interest in the detail of business which was under thefr con
sideration. But although he had smaU influence in conference, he
was often chosen to preach on special occasions, and he preached be
fore parUament such sermons as few of the assembly could have
preached if they would, or would have preached if they could. In
preaching he feared no man, neither the criticism of Selden, nor the
frown of CromweU, nor the displeasure of parUament, nor the clamours
of the populace, nor the menaces of 'treacherous, assassinating,
malignant Papists.'
Unlike him in many particulars, as I have afready observed, was
his colleague Charles Herle ; and nowhere more unlike him than in
the management of ecclesiastical business. This soon appeared when
they met for the consideration of the grave matters submitted to the
convention. In the conferences of the assembly Herle was said to be
perfect. Regular in attendance, punctual to the moment, courteous
to every man, attentive to his opponents, never negligent but never
obtrusive, a good speaker, a better listener, he was with the unani
mous and cordial approval of the assembly appointed prolocutor on
the death of Dr. Twiss. As a Presbyterian he was more decided
and consistent in his opinions than Heyricke, but in the expression of
them he was far more cautious and moderate. Heyricke abused the
Independents, Herle reasoned with them. Heyricke caUed them bad
names, Herle wrote a book against them, of which the worst thing
was the offensive title, ' The Independency upon Scripture of the
Independency of Churches.' He could, however, to accomplish a
purpose, preach after the manner of Heyricke. Preaching before
parliament he said, ' Do justice to the greatest, Saul's sons were
not spared, nor Agag, nor Benhadad, though themselves kings,
Zimri and Cozbi, though princes of the people, must be pursued to
their tents. What a calendar of traitors has God given to the gallows
for our preservation ! ' *
Although in the summer of 1643 the Parliamentary cause had been
* Besides his controversial and practical pisces he published several sermons,
preached before parUament, one having the quaint title, A pair of Compasses for
Church and State.

212 LANCASHIRE.
triumphantly sustained in Lancashire, it had suffered grievous dis
asters in many other parts of the kingdom. In the midst of these
disasters, the parliament resolved upon soliciting help from the Scot
tish convention of states. The negotiations between these parties re
sulted in the proposal of the solemn covenant, by which both nations
were bound to support ' the true reformed reUgion according to the
practice of the best reformed churches.' The English would have
preferred a league binding the two nations in ci-ril matters ; the
Scotch insisted upon a covenant binding in sacred things. Sfr Harry
Vane suggested the use of both words, ' league and covenant,' which
words were accepted by both parties, although what the Scotch
conceded or the BngUah gained by the insertion of the word ' league '
doea not very diatinctly appear. However that may have been, ' the
Solemn League and Covenant,' on being submitted to the two houses
of parUament, was by them referred to the assembly of dirines. After
some feeble opposition it passed the assembly, and with sUght verbal
alteration was accepted by parUament and published by its authority.
The day appointed for the ratification was a great day in London.
After pubUc prayer and exhortation, Philip Nye read the covenant in
the pulpit of St. Margaret's, Westminster, whUe the audience stood
uncovered, every man raising his right hand, as after the reading of
each article all swore to the observance of it. After a solemn prayer,
the members of parliament subscribed a roll of parchment on which
it was engrossed, and the divines of the assembly another copy. On
the next Sunday it was read in all the churches of London, when the
inhabitants were requested or requfred to append thefr signatures. In
Lancashire it was read in most of the churches, and was gladly ac
cepted and largely signed in the puritan hundreds. A few of the
clergy suffered for refusing to read or sign it, most of whom were of
the prelatical party, although in some instances puritan ministers Uke
Richard Baxter decUned to acknowledge it. It must not be hastUy
concluded that aU clergymen who were suspended for not signing
the covenant were Royalists or even Episcopalians. There were some
who were ejected tvrice, and even three times, first for not signing the
covenant, secondly for not taking the engagement to Cromwell, and
thfrdly for not professing assent and consent to all and everything
in the Book of Common Prayer.*
In Manchester the Solemn League and Covenant was very gener
aUy accepted, and signed by the clergy and townspeople. The only
soldier who refused to subscribe was Rosworm, the engineer. He
had little respect for bishops or deans, but he would not swear to ex
tirpate their authority. The ministers were angry, but the RoyaUsts,
successful in Yorkshire, were threatening to march upon Manchester.
What could be done ? Many of the clergy scarcely thought it safe
to intrust the defence of the town to an nncovenanting engineer ;
many of the laity scarcely thought it safe to attempt the defence of
_ •* The clergymen in Lancashire who lost their livings for refusing the covenant
did not amount to more than eight or ten, of whom one was Dr. Fairfax, rector of
Ashton imder Lyne, and brother of the parliamentary general, The sequestrators
certainly acted without respect of persons.

THE CIVIL WAR. 213
the town •vrithout him. Heyricke importuned and threatened. Colonel
Holland de^rised the sfrange expedient of fining the German for his
obstinacy. His pay as a captein was stopped as a punishment, but
his salary as an engineer waa continued in order to keep him to hia
engagement. Rosworm, although bitterly resenting the injury, held
himself bound by his contract to fight Uke a lion and work like a
slave for the covenant-breaking Covenanters. If it be asked why he
did not leave the Covenanters and join the Royaliste, the answer may
be given in his own angry words : ' I should then have been a Man
chester man, for never should a promise-breaker have another name.'
In the summer of 1643 died good old WUliam Bourne, who for
forty years had been a fellow of the Manchester college, and had pre
viously served for a considerable time as an assistent minister. From
the day that he unexpectedly entered the pulpit of the collegiate
church, and vrith extraordinary facUity finished the sermon which
OUver Carter was deUvering when the hand of death sUenced him,
he had been the favourite preacher and beloved pastor of the Man
chester Puritans. He had faithfuUy adhered to them in all thefr
troubles, preached to them through the time of the destructive pes
tUence, and encouraged them in the fearful conflict in which they
were engaged against the royal authority. He scarcely ever left
Manchester, even for short journeys in the neighbourhood, and
thought of little else than its welfare in all the exciting changes he
had known through the reigns of EUzabeth, James, and Charles, down
to the fall of Prelacy and the rise of Presbyterianism.
He had served under three wardens. Dee the astrologer, Murray
the quiet gentleman, and Heyricke the noisy confroversiaUst, and,
linder them aU, he maintained the character of a peaceable, loving,
gentle, but earnest and active preacher of evangeUcal docfrine. The
people heard of hia death vrith inexpressible sorrow, made great lamen-
tetions over him, and buried him vrith exfraordinary honours.*
We have seen that in the summer of 1643 the Earl of Derby had
been compelled to leave aU the strong places of Lancashire, whether
castles or waUed towns, in the possession of the Parliamenterians,
vrith the exception of his own fortified house of Lathom. In York
shire, on the confrary, the RoyaUsts, having been more successftd, re
solved to march into Lancashfre and humble the pride of puritanism
in Manchester and Bolton. Thefr commander, the Earl of Newcastle,
summoned the townsmen of Manchester to lay down their arms and
submit to the clemency of the king. To this summons the men of
Manchester sent a firm and spirited reply, which concluded vrith these
words : ' Sfr, we are nothing dismayed at your force, but hope tiiat
God, who hath been our protector hitherto, wUl so dfrect our just
army that we shall be able to return the violence unto thefr bosoms
that shall assay the prosecution of it, which shaU be the endeavour of
his Majesty's most humble and obedient subjects.'
The men of Manchester did more than send a spirited reply. Within
three or four days they placed twelve thousand men in Rochdale on
¦* HoUingworth's Mancuniensis. The preachers at his funeral were Mr. Jehnson
of EUenbrook and Mr, Horrocks of Dean,

214 LANCASHIRE.
the Yorkshfre road, vrith orders to accept no terms of submission
whatever, but to keep thefr position, for support if needed would be
sent them to the last man that could be armed. Eight hundred more
were posted in the passes of Blackstone Edge, the boundary hUl of
the two counties, to fortify which Rosworm laboured with extraor
dinary skUl and promptitude. According to hia own account, he
' quickly helped nature with art, strengthening Blackstone Edge, and
manning it vrith soldiers to prevent the earl's dangerous approach, by
which means being diverted, like an angry storm vrith a gust of "wind,
the earl went to the siege of Hull.' *
In the summer in which Thurland Castle had surrendered to Colonel
Assheton, Sfr John GirUngton, its owner, ' the great Papist,' on learn
ing that the colonel and his men had retfred from that part of the
country, resumed possession, contrary, as the puritan writers say, to
the conditions of ite surrender. Restoring its fortifications and es
tablishing a garrison -within ita waUs, he began, according to one
account, ' to draw supplies from the neighbouring villages,' accord
ing to another, ' to commit robberies and murders over the country,'
This brought the indefatigable member of parUament, Alexander
Rigby, into the county, where he spent seven weeks in the siege of
the castle. While so engaged, he heard that the RoyaUsts, haring
collected a large force in "Westmoreland, were preparing to surprise
the castles of Lancaster and Homby, and with augmented forces to
march upon his army. Resolring to anticipate thefr movement and
prevent the surprise of Lancaster, marching vrith ' four hundred mus
keteers, two drakes, and three small troops of horse,' across the sands
of Morecambe Bay and over the mountains of Cartmell, he came upon
the enemy, amounting to sixteen hundred men, drawn up in array to
oppose him. The battle was soon over, if battle it can be caUed, when
the Parliamentarians, -vrithout the loss of a man, captured four hun
dred of the RoyaUsts, their commander, their magazine, and thefr
stendards. In one quarter of an hour Rigby gained this great ric
tory. Returning in triumph to Thurland, he found the garrison
ready to surrender the castle, which, determining not to be deceived
a second time, he ordered hia soldiers utterly to desfroy, "with its
magarine and all its stores that could not be removed.
During the vrinter of 1643-44, both parties were diUgently prepar
ing for strenuous and decided action in the ensuing spring. The
presbyterian gentry were training thefr tenants and labourers in the
use of firearms. The defences of Manchester, Bolton, Blackburn, and
Warrington were carefully repaired and strengthened. Rigby was
busy at Preston in securing that important position for his party. The
garrison of Lancaster was largely reinforced. Colonel Moore, the
puritan member for Liverpool, was engaged in raising waUs in front
of that town, making barricades and setting up strong gatea at the
several entrances, placing cannon on commanding positions, and
¦* Although the Earl of Newcastle, perplexed by Rosworm's obstructions, retired
from the borders of Lancashire, there were several skirmishes vrith his troops on
the hills about Colne and Burnley. — See Curious Informations, No. 30, August 14,.
printed in Oiinl War Tiacts.

THE CIVIL WAR. 215
drawing soldiers from the enemy's country, about Sephton, Knows
ley, and Lathom, Rosworm was all over the county, superintending
the fortifications of Blackstone Edge, inspecting the defences of
Liverpool, consulting vrith Rigby at Preston, going out "with the
foraging parties to plunder the farms of ' g^eat Papists and maUg-
nante,' and withal taking especial care to protect Manchester, where,
he says, ' I have, vrith my utmost skUl, nourished a company of
¦ripers, who in recompense vrill eat my bowels.'* For the garrison
abundant suppUes were coUected from the sequestered estates of
' delinquente and Papists,' whose cattle furnished ' plenty of good
beef ' for the presbyterian soldiers during the weeks of thefr winter
exercise.f We are now brought in the course of our narrative to the celebrated
siege and more celebrated defence of Lathom HoUse, the fortified
mansion of the Earl of Derby, and the only defensible position re-
teined by the RoyaUsts of the county. Of ¦the siege, or rather sieges,
we have good information from both parties, and by comparing them
we can speak vrith confidence of the facts, respecting which there is
happUy very Uttle contradiction. The most complete account of the
first siege is found in a manuscript written by one of the defenders,
who, although disposed to atfribute all good quaUties to his friends,
and aU evU ones to his enemies, betrays no disposition to falsify or
even misrepresent the proceedings of either party. J
The Lathom of the siege had been erected on the site of the ancient
house of the Lathoms about the year 1496. Inhabited by the great
Earls of Derby before the aUenation of their vast estates, it was cele
brated for its extravagant hospiteUty and magnificence. A fortress
in war, in time of peace ' the bright bower of Lathom was often the
scene of gay festivities and splendid tournaments. The gates were
open to aU fraveUers, who found provender and lodging according to
thefr degree.' The gentry of Lancashire regarded it almost as thefr
home in festive seasons, and the poor of the neighbourhood looked to
it as an unfaUing storehouse of comforts. In its great dining-haU the
¦• Rosworm's Good Service hitherto III Rewarded.
"t* A Presbyterian minister thus spiritualises the vineyard on a fruitful hUl : —
' This vineyard you have endeavoured to fence by a settled militia, to gather out
maUgnants as stones, to plant it with choice vines, to build the tower of a powerful
ministry, and also to make a 'wine-press therein for the squeezing of delinquents. ' —
Arrowsmith's Sermons, 1643. The wine-press did its ' squeezing ' very effectually
upon the estates of the fine old CathoUc families of Lancashire.
J This manuscript, preserved among the Harl. MSS., has been several times
transcribed. Some differences appear in the copies, as woU as in two printed edi
tions, one in a Liverpool periodical called The Kaleidoscope, the other edited ¦with
great care by Dr. Ormerod in the Civil War Tracts. Baines, in his History of Lan
cashire, attributes the manuscript to Major Halsall, but as he was only seventeen
years old at the time, the author is more probably either the CathoUc historian
Chisenhale or the Chaplain Bridecake, both of whom were in the house during the
siege. The manuscript is attributed to HalsaU, on account of a note in the Oxford
copy, ' wherein I was wounded, Edward Halsall ; ' but that note is not in the ori
ginal manuscript. HalsaU, a few years later, was arrested at Madrid on suspicion
of being concerned in the murder of Anthony Ascham, CromweU's minister iu that
city.

216 LANCASHIRE,
toast was drunk often by scores of guests, ' God save the Earl of
Derby and the king.'
The pictorial representation of the buUding in the ' Popular Tra
ditions of Lancaslnre ' is the creation of the artist's fancy. We know
it only from the descriptions of contemporaneous writers, poetical
and prosaic. According to its poet, it had nine towers on high, and
nine on the outer walls. Other writers make them seven, which, ac
cording to the puriten preacher of Wigan, were the seven heads of
the beast. Probably the two strong towers of the gate-house * not
having been so high as the other seven, may explain the discrepancy.
The outer walls enclosed a space sufficiently large for the lodging of
several hundred soldiers. Of the castellated buSding in the centre,
one of the towers, caUed the Eagle, commanded an extensive view of
the surrounding country. On that height the beacon-fire of the Sten-
leys had in the old times been often Ughted, and thefr sentinels
stationed to indicate by signals the approach of friend or foe.
The capture of Lathom was an object of considerable importance
to the ParUamentary leaders. Its prestige was valuable. It was a
fortress from which foraging parties plundered the farms of their
friends, a prison in which their men surprised by the predatory bands of
Royalists were confined, a safe place of conference and intrigue
whence messengers might be sent to the partisans of the king in all
parts of the county.
In a conference of Parliamentary officers held in Manchester on
February 24, 1643-44, it was resolved to make an immediate attack
upon Lathom House. Sir Thomas Fafrfax undertook the command,
and the three most zealous Parliamentary colonels of the county,
Assheton, Rigby, and Moore, speedUy found quarters for thefr several
regiments in the houses and farm buUdings of Ormskfrk and its
neighbourhood. Other companies soon joined them, and they
arranged to draw their supplies of provender from the districts to
which they respectively belonged.
The expedition was at ite commencement sanctified by humiUation
and fasting, as the siege was prosecuted amidst much preaching and
prayer. On Sundays there was usuaUy some intermission of the works,
when the besiegers frequented the neighbouring churches, and Ustened
to the encouraging and ' fruitful ' discourses of puritan ministers.
Wigan church was a favourite sanctuary of the soldiers, as James
Bradshaw, then a young preacher, ministered there under the pro
tection of the Parliamentarian officers. He is described by Calamy as
'a man of incomparable abiUties, ready elocution, soUd learning, a
good preacher, a ready disputant, and every way well accompUshed
for the minisfry.' The author of the ' Brief Journal,' on the contrary,
calls him ' the dishonour of his college ' (Brasenose) ' and the disgrace
of his pulpit.' Whether his preaching were good or bad, it was very
encouraging to the ' leaguers,' especiaUy in proving to their satisfec-
tion that ' the seven-towered Lathom ' was the seven-headed beast of
prophecy, and Lady Derby the scarlet- clad woman of the Apocalypse.
* This gate-house is supposed to be represented by the carved work ot the stall
of James Stanley, Bishop of Bly, in the coUegiate church of Manchester.

THE CIVIL WAR. 217
The account of his famous sermon, or rather series of aermona,
founded on Jeremiah xv. 14, is probably caricature made by the
RoyaUsta; but the caricature seems to have been suggested by
exfravagant harangues, into which the best of preachers were often
allured by the exciting emergencies of those times.
The army of the besiegers consisted of between two and three
thousand men, divided into three parties, of which one was prosecu
ting the siege whUe the other two were resting in their lodgings, or
foraging in the neighbouring country. By this arrangement, the
works ofthe siege were carried on day and night -without intermission.
Fafrfax, having made these arrangements, as he waa urgently
requfred in Yorkahfre, entrusted the chief corhmand to Colonel Eger
ton of Shaw. Rigby, however, a man of much more energy and
abiUty, reaUy directed the proceedings. Thefr chief engineer was
Colonel Morgan, a ' Welsh hireUng, a Uttle man short and peremp
tory.'* He had the management of ' six pieces of artillery, a demi-
cannon, a culverine, three sacres, and a great Spanish mortar.' The
mortar was regarded as their most potent engine of death, in the
management of which, thefr partisans asserted, they acquired so much
dexterity as to fire it off many times in a day.
The Lathom was defended in the absence of her husband by that
noble lady, Charlotte de la Tremouille, Countess of Derby. Her
father, Claude, Duke of TremouUle, had been a firm Huguenot, and
a brave adherent of Henry of Navarre. Her mother was of the
Ulusfrious house of Nassau. By all her family associations a true
Protestent, and by her loving fealty to her husband a steady adherent
of the EngUsh Church, she was never thoroughly trusted by the
queen, and was probably the cause of the mistrust which was some
times shown by the court to her loyal husband. In all her personal
quaUties she well became her illustrious birth, her brave ancestry,
and her chivafrous connections. The fine open countenance of her
portrait attests the truth of all we are told of her great and noble
character. She was a woman whom Vandyke might love to perpet
uate in painting and Clarendon in history. As we look upon the
picture of the famUy group and observe the earl, whose portrait has
sadly degenerated from the noble effigies of the earls Thomas,
Edward, and Henry, his countess, of extraordinary dignity and
beauty, seems the woman to recover for the Stanleys forma and
countenances worthy of their ancestors. Honoured by her friends,
trusted by her adherente, beloved by her dependente, she commanded
during the siege more vrisely, more discreetly, and more -rigUantly
than her brave and impetuous husband would have done, had he been
present to undertake that service of loyalty.
The countess had vrithin her waUs about three hundred soldiers,
formed into six companies and commanded by six gentlemen of good
* Rosworm, as he himseU tells us, was there, but he seems to have been ex
tinguished by the ' peremptory little Welshman,' who afterwards contrived to gain
the confidence of Cromwell, Monk, and Charles II, It must have been amusing to
hear these two ' Uttle peremptory ' engineers quarrelUng about the management of
the Spanish mortar.

218 LANCASHIRE. .
Lancashire families. Her principal adviser was William Ffarington,
Esq., of Worden, whose family had suppUed secretaries to the house
of Derby from the time of the great earls. Three companies kept
guard every night, when their captains drew lota to determine whose
company should serve for the saUy of the night. Six pieces of
ordnance called ' sacres ' were put in position upon the walls, and on
the towers were pieces called by the expressive name of ' murtherers,'
The best marksmen were stationed on the towers, and they did good
serrice by shooting many a puritan officer who exposed himself within
thefr range. Mr. Brown, the earl's ateward, laid up as large a stock of
food as the few days of preparation for the siege aUowed hun to collect.
For ammunition, of which the need, was urgent, the officers had to
depend upon t^e bravery and skill with which thefr saUying parties
could plunder the camp of the besiegers.
The countess, Uke her puritan foes, had chaplains to conduct
reUgious exercises. The author of the ' Journal of the Siege ' says :
' Her ladyship's first care was the serrice of God, which in sermons
and solemn prayers she duly saw performed ; four times a day vvas
she_ commonly present in public prayers, attended with two Uttle
ladies her children,'
Of her chaplains two, who afterwards became bishops, are noticed
in the chronicles of the times.
The Reverend Ralph Brideoake, who attended her ladyship during
the siege, is said by Anthony Wood ' to have done good serrice,'
He was a man of versatile powers, and, if we may judge from his use
of them, of versatile principles also. Whatever ' good service ' he
did for the countess, he did better service for himself. When the
earl was condemned to death, this chaplain was requested to apply to
LenthaU, the Speaker of the Commons, in order to obtain the pardon
of his lordship. He persevered, saya Wood, ' vrith so much more
than ordinary reason and appUcation,' that he obtained not the
pardon of his master, but the appointment of himself to be the
speaker's chaplain. Like some other clergymen of those changing
times, he had a remarkable gift of ' improving opportunities.' After
faithfully serving the Countess of Derby by preaching loyalty to her
soldiers, and Speaker LenthaU by preaching puritenism to the Long
Parliament, he found after the Restoration another ' opportunity to
improve.' Ha-ring obtained, I know not by what sort of preaching,
the favour of the Duchess of Portsmouth, he became through her
influence Bishop of Chichester.
The Reverend Samuel Rutter, another of the earl's chaplains, was,
on account of his reputation for wise poUcy and clever contrivance,
considered ' a great addition to the garrison.' At the request of the
earl he attended the countess during the siege, that she ' might be
guided by hisgreat skill and prudence.' Brideoake, I suppose, took
care of her spiritual interests, while his reverend colleague contrived
schemes to surprise, annoy, and deceive the enemy. As an instance
of his policy, it is said that in the beginning of the siege, when the
garrison wanted time to strengthen thefr defences, Rutter contrived
by a wUy scheme to have the assault deferred untU they were able to

THE CIVIL WAR, 219
offer more effective resistence. Among Rigby's officers the chaplain
discovered an old schoolfeUow, vrith whom, being fertile in resources,
he found means of communication. His friend, as he well knew, was
one of those people who have an irresistible propensity to tell all
persons concerned whatever is confidentially intrusted to them.
Rutter told his friend, in the strictest confidence, that the prorisions
of the house were weU lUgh exhausted, that the soldiers, reduced to
great disfress, would soon be compeUed to surrender, unless in the
threatened assault they could rush out and plunder the camp of the
besiegers. As Rutter expected, the secret was soon known to Rigby,
who, by delaying the assault, afforded the garrison time to strengthen
thefr works and make adequate preparation for their defence.
Afterwards, when the RoyaUsts were reaUy destitute and vrished to
conceal their destitution from the besiegers, the ingenuity of the
parson contrived to make a poor tortured pig utter every evening its
piercing cries as if it were in the agony of death, by which contriv
ance he gained credit for the report that the supplies of the forfress
were so abundant as to afford a pig every night for the soldiers'
supper, I do not vouch for the fruth of these current tales, which,
if frue, would only show that the worthy chaplain trusted a great
deal to the creduUty of the Puritens,
There were several other expedients which issued from the fertile
brain of the same cunning confriver, and befrayed the same contempt
of the enemy's understanding, Aa they are gravely related in the
' Journal ofthe Siege,' written by one of the persons present, there
can be no doubt of the fruth of the relation. The words of the
relator should be cited. ' Sometimes in the night we would steal a
cord about some tree near the enemy, and bringing the end round
would make it terrible vrith many ranks and files of light matches.
Sometimes dogs, and once a forlorn horse, handsomely starred vrith
match, turned out of the gate, appeared in the dark night Uke young
constellations, and the enemy so diseased and beaten both in jest and
earnest, many of them quit thefr charge.' This was an ingenious way
of fighting, for which Rutter may have gained some credit vrith the
countess, but I do not beUeve many of the puritan soldiers ' quitted
their charge ' in terror of the gyrations of the flaming ropea or the
apparitions of the 'young consteUations.' Someone — tradition says
Rigby himself — shot the ' young consteUation ' of the fiery horse.
Rutter lived to see his ingenuity rewarded by preferment to the
Bishopric of Sodor and Man,
After some vain attempts at negotiation, the ParUamentary colonels
determined to proceed with resolution and rigour. Morgan soon
marked out the Unes, The country labourers were impressed, and
compeUed to dig the trenches and to throw up the embankments.
An attempt was made to draw off the water from the moat, but it
proved unsuccessful. Musketmen were stationed in the frenches to
fire upon the marksmen on the towers, by whom in return they were
grievously annoyed. Many were kUled on both sides. As the moat
rendered an assault impracticable, and as the garrison had obteined
considerable suppliea, the besiegers reUed chiefiy on thefr artiUery,

220 LANCASHIRE,
and raised sconces, — mounds of earth protected by strong paUsades
— on which they planted their great guns.
Although the Royalists affected to laugh at the management of
thefr enemies' artUlery, they regarded the great Spanish mortar with
much anxiety and fear. ' They played their mor ter,' says the taunt
ing journalist, ' to please the women that came to see the spectacle.'
. . . ' On Easter Monday they must needs show the people some
pastime, and therefore they gave ua the noise of nine cannon to hear
the people shout.' But it was not aU ' pastime ' -within the house.
Balls of stone, sent from the mortar ' so high in the afr that almost a
man could not see them,' fell vrith crushing weight upon the inner
house and disturbed the tranquil dignity of her ladyship, ' One of
themjbrake to pieces a brave clock,' which, we are gravely assured by
a Parliamentary officer, ' was not heard to sfrike afterwards.' Some
of the towers were damaged, and Rigby's men boasted they would
soon ' knock off the seven heads of the beast.'
The besieged in their distress determined to make a night attack
upon the enemy's works, and they bravely accomplished thefr desper-
a^te determination. In the night of April 11, Captaia Parmer and
Captain Radoliffe issued from the postern gate ¦with about one
hundred and forty men, stealthily entered the frenches, got upon the
mounds of the besiegers, kiUed about fifty of their soldiers, feU
vrith hammers upon thefr great mortar, and ' so beat it about the
mouth that they hoped it would never be able to speak to them
again,' Before daylight they retired within their o-wn walls. The
honour of this brave sally was sadly tarnished by the slaughter of
several men who had surrendered to the Royalists, on the pretext
that they were not able to feed prisoners.
The great mortar, though sadly bruised about the lips, was stiU
able to speak, and was made to speak louder than it had spoken
before. It frightened the ladies. Even ' the stoutest soldiers had no
stomach to swaUow its grenadoes.' ' Something must be done, and
now was the nick and joint of time.' So the soldiers talked, and
thefr telking led to the resolution of making another sally more
desperate that the former. Early in the morning of April 26, Captain
ChisnaU and Captain Foxe with their companies issued from the saUy
port. ChisnaU led his men quietly and quickly before day-break to
the sconce on which the great mortar was placed. He soon kUled
the sentinels and took possession of the morter, Foxe with equal
promptitude and bravery led his men into the trench, fought his way
over the guards, and joined ChisnaU on the mound. While some of
his men remained in the french to intercept the communications of
the enemy's scouts, others obtained a horse and sledge and dragged
the great mortar over the drawbridge into the courtyard of Lathom,
Great were the rejoicings of the RoyaUste. ' There,' says thefr
journalist, ' the grand terror of our soldiers, which had frightened
'em from meat and drink, waa like a dead Uon quietly lying before
them ; every one had hia eye and his foot on it, shouting and rejoic
ing as merrUy as they use to do with thefr ale and bagpipes,' The
countess, ' according to her pious disposition, commands her chaplains
to a pubUc thanksgiring,'

THE CIVIL WAR. 221
The loss was felt by the besiegers as a greater dishonour than
misfortune. Assheton and Moore, who had sent ' to all ministers and
parsona in Lancashfre,' requesting pubUc prayer for the success of
the enterprise, must have felt discouraged by such an answer to thefr
prayers. Rigby was terribly angry vrith hia men, and charged them
sometimea vrith cowardice, aometimes vrith treachery. Fearing
mutiny or desertion he proposed to the countess more favourable
terms of surrender, which she peremptorUy and indignantiy refused.
She had good reason for her refusal. One of her spies had entered
the house the prerious night and brought intelUgence of the march
of Prince Rupert to the borders of the county, A day or two after,
the parUamentary colonels received the account of the defeat of
Colonel Dukenfield at Stockport, and of the triumphant march of the
prince towards Bolton, which he threatened utterly to destroy.
Immediately they raised the siege, Moore marched to Liverpool,
Assheton and HoUand to Manchester, Rigby, instead of returning to
Preston, resolved like a brave and patriotic man to throw himself
into Bolton, and attempt the defence of that almost indefensible town
against Rupert's •rictorious army. Great were the rejoicings of the
RoyaUsts for the deUverance of Lathom, and terrible the vengeance
which they vowed against the Puritana of Bolton,
According to the ' Perfect Diurnal ' of June 3, 1644, the prince
crossed the Mersey at Stockport, vrith eight thousand men, and
marched dfrectly upon Bolton, where there was no force able to resist
so large an army. On his arrival, he was joined by the Earl of Derby,
who had brought a considerable force from the Isle of Man, and who
was breathing vengeance for the insults offered to his countess and
family at Lathom. The cry was, Bolton must be destroyed, and its
destruction wUl strike terror into the hearts of the Puritans of Man
chester and Blackburn,
Rigby was just in time to throw himself into Bolton before the
arrival of the enemy. On the morning of May 28 he entered the
town, and about two o'clock in the afternoon the army of Rupert
appeared on tiie moors. According to both Royalists and Parlia
mentarians,* Rigby had about t;wo thousand soldiers, and five
hundred townsmen armed chiefly with clubs.
The ParUamentery general had Uttle time to arrange the defence
of the town, none to strengthen its dUapidated works. But he made
a brave resistance, and his men as bravely stood by him. For half an
hour, as thefr historian teUs ua, the Bolton men maintained thefr
position, whUe thefr enemies ' fell Uke leaves from a free on a winter
morning.' Thefr bravery, however, was unavailing against the masses of
cavafry who forced thefr way upon them, ' before, behind, on the
right, and on the left,' and entered the town at every opening,
shouting, ' KiU them dead 1 Kill them dead 1 ' Rigby'a men retreated
¦within the town, endeavouring to afford some protection to the
helpless inhabitents. They fearlessly did all they could amidst the
* Seacome's House 'of Stanley, p. 109, An Exact Relation of the bloody and
larbarons Massacre of Bolton, published according to order, August 22, 1644,

222 LANCASHIRE.
indiscriminate slaughter of the townspeople, women, chUdren, old
men, and maidens, untU most of them were kUled by enemies who
gave no quarter, and who were asked for none.
The Bolton massacre was a horrible affafr. The puritan accounte
are undoubtedly exaggerated, but even according to the royalist
accounts, nothing worse, probably nothing so bad, has ever been per
petrated upon an EngUsh town by EngUshmen, in any of the civil
wars by which England has been distracted. It is certain that
Rupert, having an immense superiority of numbers, and sure of
victory, issued an order forbidding his soldiers to give quarter to any
man found in arms. Under this order, as the RoyaUsts acknowledge,
many of Rigby'a two thousand men were kUled, The general
slaughter of unarmed people is undeniable. So far from denying it,
recent advocates of the RoyaUsts say, ' It can excite Uttle surprise,'
I can only reply, It excites no Uttle surprise that any respectable
writer should say ao. Be it that Bolton was abhorred by all good
Churchmen as a nest of vUe Puritans, be it that Rupert was an
implacable foreigner, and Lord Derby indignant on account of the
injuries he had received, these are miserable extenuations of the in
discriminate slaughter of unarmed people. Women belonging to the
best famUies of the town were wantonly killed.* Helpless men in
the open counfry and neighbouring vUlages were shot and barbarously
mangled. The soldiers boasted of their slaughter of the conquered,
let us hope to a greater extent than the murders they actuaUy per-
pefrated would have justified. With frightful oaths they denounced
the ministers, especially the venerable pastor of Dean, enqufring, as
they went about the town, ' Where is the old rogue Horrocks, that
preaches in a grey cloak?'
Unhappily the Earl of Derby, leading a forlorn hope, was among
the first who entered the town, and aUowed his froops to engage in
the horrible slaughter. He is charged by contemporaneous writers
with kilUng a disarmed officer brought into his presence as a prisoner.
I should hope the charge is not true, although it is supported by
writers of both sides. Major Edward Robinson says : ' The earl
drew upon him and ran him through vrith his sword, two men
holding the prisoner by each arm, a cruel and butcherly act.' The
royalist chronicler thus sfrangely defends the earl : ' The earl did
him the honour of too good a death, to die by his lord's hand.' The
earl's chaplain offers some extenuation, as he tells us the earl said, ' I
will not kill thee, but I cannot save thee from others,' who then
killed him. Be this as it may, the guUt of the murder was in Bolton
universally attributed to the earl, and the vengeance of the town
was not appeased untU, on the same spot, his lordship was beheaded.
Long afterwards the memory of the Stanleys was execrated in
Bolton, Rigby, seeing in the emergency that aU was lost, conducted him-
* Three women of good family are mentioned in the Exact Relation as kUled or
abused : EUzabeth Horrocks, a relative of the puritan minister of Dean ; Katharine
Seddon; a member of the respectable puritan family of that name ; and Alice
Gregg, widow of Robert Gregg, minister of Bolton,

THE CIVIL WAR. 223
self with wonderful coolness and fortitude. When his own men were
dispersed or slain, being personally unknown to Rupert's soldiers, he
boldly rode among them as if he were a RoyaUst, discovered their
pass-word, fell into their rear under the pretence of rallying thefr
loiterers, and, watching his opportunity, galloped from the town, and
was soon beyond the reach of his enemies.
Many brave men feU that day in Bolton. The massacre of the
townspeople was frightful, but the distress was not confined to the
town or immediate neighbourhood. Rigby's officers were members
of the principal puritan famUies of Amounderness, who bitterly
lamented thefr sad bereavements. The towns of Preston, Kfrkham,
and Garstang mourned the loss of some of thefr most valued inha
bitants. The sorrow and indignation of the bereaved famiUes were
intensified by the tales that were told of the tortures which many
endured, the insults which many received, and the brutaUty vrith
which many were compelled to sing psalms and say prayers for the
sport of a drunken soldiery. Much of this talk, I hope, was exagge
ration, but much was undoubtedly true, and all was believed through
out the county. Then went up to heaven a cry for vengeance from
Bolton in its distress, and from many puritan families of Lancashfre
who were bereaved of husbands, fathers, brothers, or sons, or who
sympathised with their affiicted friends ; a cry which found expres
sion in words like those of the author of the ' Exact Relation : ' ' 0
England ! 0 heaven ! 0 earth ! bear -witness of our calamity. O
London ! and all ye places yet free from our sorrows, think of the
day of your peace with thankfulness, of our trembUng and trouble
vrith compassion. And 0 all ye Christians and people of the Lord,
let bleeding, dying Bolton bespeak one thing at your hands. Take
heed of security and your own dirisions, lay aside your 0"wn ends,
interests, and distractions, and labour to carry on God's work in the
subduing of these cursed Edomites and Amalekites, devoted to
destruction by the hand of heaven ; or else look -with Bolton to taste
of the same cup of trembUng which may the Lord of Hosts, in His
due time, take out of our hands, and fiU up vrith the measure of our
bloody enemies' sins, the measure of thefr plagues, which the just
God -will in due time return upon them for this and aU thefr cruelty,
that king, parliament, and people may once more rejoice in the
settlement of truth and peace in our days, and glory may dwell in
our land, which God grant for Christ's sake. Amen.'
This was the breathing of revenge ; but the revenge of bitter grief,
caused by terrible injustice and cruelty. I do not justify it. 1 turn
from it vrith pleasure, to notice the spfrit of charity for su.ffering
Bolton, which appeared in the liberal contributions made to reUeve
its urgent distress. A day of humiliation and prayer for Bolton was
observed in all the puritan parts of the county. CoUections were
made in many of the churches. An instance of UberaUty is specified
in Vicars's ' Chronicle.'* At the chapel of Salford, then a smaU
place, the sum of 1402. was coUected, and several additions vvere
afterwards made to the pubhc collection. A much larger coUection,
* Part n. p. 258.

224 LANCASHIRE.
I doubt not, was made in Manchester church, where the multitude
went to hear Warden Heyricke. I vrish I could recover the sermon
he preached on that occasion. It was, I have no doubt, a marveUous
specimen of impassioned, angry, indignant, yet tender, pathetic
eloquence, as in parts he raved -with fierce invective and terrible
denunciation of papistical rulers, and in parts he pleaded the cause
of poor vridows and orphans, who, in the cause dear to him and his
congregation, had suffered the loss of aU things. The day of humi
Uation was one of extraordinary solemnity in Preston, where the
great church was crowded, as it always was when Isaac Ambrose
preached, and where many bereaved and mourning families were
lamenting the loss of thefr members who had served under Rigby in
the defence of Bolton, and faUen in the service. Many of them were
the personal friends of the gentle, lo"ring, pathetic preacher. In that
town and neighbourhood the day was felt to be especiaUy one of
affectionate mourning for the dead, sympathy with the bereaved, and
reUef for the sufferers. I have not been able to ascertain how much
was contributed for the reUef of Bolton, but as the sympathy was
very general in the county, and the contributions very liberal so far
as they can be ascertained, the amount of the whole must have been
very large.
"WhUe the Puritans mourned before the Lord, the Royalists rejoiced
vrith joy very disproportionate to the advantage of thefr success.
Bolton to them was of no use, as they could not make it a defensible
position, nor retain' it, except at a cost far surpassing its value. But
they gloried in humbUng the pride and punishing the rebeUion of
the Puritans' Geneva. 1 would not say thefr rejoicing was vrithout
any religious emotion, or their glorying vrithout any thought of
honouring God. The CavaUers after thefr fashion, or at least some
of them, were as reUgious as the Puritans were after thefrs. They
had thanksgivings for thefr victories, while the Puritans had humi-
Uations for thefr defeats. The Earl of Derby sent the puritan fiags
that were found in Bolton to his countess, that they might be hung
in Lathom chapel, ' as a happy remembrance of God's mercy and
goodness to her and to her chUdren.' The memorial was received
as ' a singular honour,' and dedicated ' in grateful acknowledginent
of God's gracious appearance for thefr deliverance.'* Probably her
eloquent chaplain Brideoake preached the dedication sermon. If he
did, we may be sure it was appropriate to the occasion, as he pos
sessed an inexhaustible versatUity in preaching agreeably to his
patrons, prelatical, puritanic, or popish.
The unexpected appearance of Rupert's army in Lancashfre, and
the exfraordinary promptitude of his movements, produced great
consternation among the Puritans of the county. The parliamentary
officers, not knowing whither he would march from Bolton, knew
not where to concentrate thefr forces. In the news-letters of the
time, Manchester, Warrington, Lancaster, and Liverpool, are men
tioned as places upon which he would probably make his next assault,
and repeat the horrible massacre of Bolton. After a few days' deli-
* Account of the Siege and Taking of Bolton. Seacome's Memoirs.

THE CIVIL WAR. 225
beration, during which his soldiers vrith scarcely any restraint were
aUowed to plunder the country round Bolton, the prince determined
to march upon Liverpool. It was desfrable to hold that port, by
which Welsh and Irish soldiers, or rather savages, could be brought
into the county, and of which it would be easy to keep possession as
it was situated in the midst of a popish neighbourhood.
Colonel Moore, of Bank HaU, the representative of Liverpool and
acknowledged leader of the parUamentary adherents on that side of
the county, had, on abandoning the seige of Lathom, led his regiment
to his own town and assumed the command of the garrison. With
his usual energy and "rigour he immediately prepared his measures
of defence. He had the old works carefully repafred and greatly
strengthened. Dale street was the chief thoroughfare on the land
side. At its exfremity he erected strong works defended by cannon
which he procured from the ships of the harbour. From that bar
ricade a mud waU mounted vrith artiUery was raised northward as
far as the Mersey, and faced by a ditch twelve yards vride and three
deep. South of Dale street the land was low and covered at high
tides vrith water, which was kept from ebbing away by a strong
embankment.* Along the edge of this marsh batteries were erected
to obstruct any advance that might be made through the shaUow
water. The castle was mounted vrith cannon which commanded
both the wprks and the harbour. A covered way was constructed
from the river to the castle, by wtich ammunition and stores could
be brought from the ships. The old fort of the Stanleys was strength
ened, and upon it were planted eight cannons which commanded the
shore and protected the town from any attack that might be made
when the tide was low. The protestant refugees from Ireland had
brought -vrith them large stores of wool, packs of which were placed
upon the walls to afford protection to the marksmen stationed behind
them. The ships were deteined in the harbour to provide refuge for
the men, should they be compeUed to retreat from the town. The
women and chUdren were removed to the opposite aide of the Mersey.
All this was done so speedUy that I fear Colonel Moore, Puritan as
he was, must have worked on the Sabbath. Well prepared, he calmly
waited the approach of a terrible enemy.
In the beginning of June, Prince Rupert estabUshed his camp upon
the high ground near the beacon bill, rather more than a mUe from
the town. Looking upon Liverpool from that height, he called it ' a
crow's nest which schoolboys might take.' Before he had taken it
he acknowledged it was ' a nest of eagles ' or ' a den of lions.' f To
face the defensive works of the town he erected a line of batteries,
and raised embankments for the protection of his soldiers. Day after
day he maintained the fire of his batteries, and kept hia frenches fiUed
* A plan of Liverpool may be seen prefixed to The Moore Rental. Frog Lane
(undoubtedly then an appropriate name), now honoured with the title of Paradise
street, was its boundary on the side of the marsh. The extremity of Dale street
was no further from the harbour than that boundary. The population could not
have exceeded four thousand.
t In Seacome's Memoirs of the Home of Stanley these words are reported, not
by a Puritan, but by one of Rupert's own party.
Q

226 LANCASHIRE.
vrith men ready for the assault, whenever a breach might be made in
the waUs of the town. Several assaults were bravely made, and as
bravely repulsed. For three weeks the garrison mainteined an obsti
nate resistence, and if the ' Mereurius Britannicus ' is to be credited,
desfroyed fifteen hundred of thefr assaUants.* Eventually the prince
brought his batteries to act so effectively upon the northern end of
the waU that it was no longer defensible. The brave defenders were
slain or driven from that part of the defence, and the prince, by a
-rigorous and weU-conducted assault, entered the town.
Moore had taken care to convey the greater part of his ammunition
and stores on board the ships which were in the harbour. Rupert,
as his manner was, or probably provoked by the removal of the pro
perty, killed aU that came in his way, armed or unarmed, resisting
or unresisting, as he advanced to the high cross. One regiment of
puritan soldiers having formed to protect the embarkation of the
remainder of the stores, and having accomplished thefr purpose, sur
rendered as prisoners, and were barbarously plundered, dragged into
miserable dungeons, or murdered in the streets. The prince took
possession of the old castle of the MoUneux, over which for a short
time the royal stendard waved in the midst of disfress, desolation,
and ruin, f
Rupert made only a short stay in Liverpool. Having risited
Lathom, he urged, ahnost compeUed, it is not easy to say why, the
Earl of Derby to return to the Isle of Man. Marching thence to
join the Earl of Newcastle at York, he had some sharp encounters
"vrith the parUamentary troops in the neighbourhood of Blackburn.
But the triumph of the prince was near ita close. He left Lancashire
exulting in his victories, or his cruelties, and retumed vrithin five
days humUiated by the terrible defeat of Marston Moor. The terror
of his name as 'the wolf,' 'the "riper,' 'the butcher of women' spread
over the county, and 'the Lancashfre lads,' whom he dared not
meet again, were in aU dfrections rising to resist him.
Sfr John Meldrum had been sent by the parUament with rein
forcements to assist' thefr friends in Lancashire. Rupert soon left
the county "with his broken and dispfrited army; but his brave
assistant. Colonel Tyldesley, collected a sfrong body of troops, and
determined to make a stand in the Fylde country. Meldrum marched
to Preston, where some reinforcements joined him, and among them,
says the author of the ' Discourse on the Lancashire War,' who was
in the neighbourhood, ' one regiment carried aU black colours.' J I
* No. 39, June 17, 1644.
t Sir Edward Moore, the son of the colonel, says in the Moore Rental: ' Prince
Rupert took Liverpool Whitsuntide 1644, putting aU to the sword for many hours.
Good Lord deUver us from the cruelty of bloodthirsty Papists ! ' So great was the
distress brought upon Lancashire by the devastation of Rupert's army, that col
lections were made in London for the reUef of ' some parts where the people had
nothing left to clothe them, nor bread for their chUdren, iu consequence of the
spoil, rapine, and cruelty committed by the enemy.' — Perfect Occurrences, Sept. 11,
1644. 'The money was distributed under the direction of Mr, Heyricke, Warden
of Manchester ; Mr. Harper, minister of Bolton ; Mr. Ward, minister of War-
rington ; Mr. Lethem, minister of Douglas ; Mr. Ambrose, minister of Preston ;
Mr. Shaw, minister of Adliugton, and Mr. Hepworth, minister of WhaUey.
J Discourse on the Civil War in Lancashire, p. 55,

THE CIVIL WAR. 227
find no other notice of this black-coloured regiment, but I have no
doubt they were Bolton men, who raised their ensigns of mourning
for a memorial of the terrible massacre of thefr friends, and pro
claimed by their stendards -rictory or death.
The first encounter was on Freckleton Marsh. The Royalists
broke and fied on a fierce attack being made upon thefr Unes by a
body of Parliamentarians under the command of Colonel Booth.
Tyldesley rallied and reformed his men wherever he could find
opportunity, but his unwearied efforts were unavaUing. Victory
followed -rictory wherever the ParUamentarians encountered the
Royalists. One position after another was forced, and one detach
ment of Tyldesley's men after another was broken and dispersed.
More than a thousand prisoners were taken, and among them several
officers of consideration. The greater part of the Royalists fied into
Yorkshfre ; many of them found shelter in the farm-houses of the
Catholics of the Fylde, among whom Lords Byron and MoUneux
were concealed. There remained no other forces in the county to
support the royal cause than the garrisons of Greenhaigh, Lathom,
and Liverpool, which Sfr John Meldrum determined speedily to
attack. The garrison of Greenhaigh, under the command of Anderton of
Euxton, a staunch CathoUc, made a gallant defence, often saUying in
the night, kUling the sentinels of the besiegers, and obtaining by
plunder a sufficient quantity of provisions to support themselves
"through a long vrinter. At last, dispfrited by the death of the brave
old Papist, the garrison surrendered the castle in 1646.*
Sfr John marched upon Liverpool in the beginning of September
1644, and occupied the high ground on which Prince Rupert had
fixed his camp the preceding year. Colonel Moore, haring kept pos
session of the ships in the harbour, effectuaUy established a blockade
on the side of the Mersey, and reduced the garrison to extreme
scarcity and distress. On September 22 he gained possession of the
fort of Bfrkenhead, and effectually prevented aU communication
-with the harbour. Unless relief were speedUy afforded, the surrender
of the town was ineritable. The Earl of Derby, vrith what force he
could hastUy collect, made the attempt, but completely faUed, as
Sfr WUUam Brereton, leading against him the parliamentary troops
of Cheshfre, obtained a decisive victory. Towards the end of October
some fifty soldiers, who had the charge of the few cattle left about
the walls, deserted, and took thefr cattle as a peace-offering to the
besiegers. The rest of the garrison, mostly Irish, partly in anger
and partly in despafr, mutinied, and gave up both the town and thefr
officers to the enemy, November the fifth was proclaimed through
Lancashire a thanksgiving day for the capture of ^Liverpool. War
den Heyricke, who never forgot to celebrate that anniversary of the
popish plot, had a fine opportunity for bis annual display of pro
testant zeal and indignation. The people ' made bonfires for joy,
and sung praises to God,'t
* It was demolished by ordinance of parUament, dated March 27, 1649.
t Discourse on the Civil War in Lancashire, p. 69.

228 LANCASHIRE.
In this siege of Liverpool, Rosworm, as he himself teUs us, ' served
as master of the ordnance, and gave dfrections for divers works.'
For these good services, as for many others, he bitterly complained
of the miserable scantiness of the remuneration which he received
from the ' basilico-proof ' people of Manchester, charitably vrishing
that he might be 'the last fool that their heUish dissimulations
would ever abuse,' and that no man after him might ' ever hazard
his blood for such despicable earthworms.' *
Lathom, having been thoroughly repafred and strengthened, had
become a refuge for the Cavaliers of South Lancashire, who found
within its walls safe protection by day, whUe in the night they
committed robberies upon the quiet farmers and vUlagers who resided
vrithin a few mUes of the fortress. Avowedly plundering the Round
heads, they were not very discriminating, for they occasionaUy plun
dered the neighbouring CathoUcs of thefr own party. As the stores
of the immediate neighbourhood became scarce, they extended the
range of thefr operations, and "risited the fertUe country on the north
of the Ribble. The plan on which they acted in these distant forays
was to travel by night to some remote house of a Royalist, to gather
from its neighbourhood whatever could be found, and before any
sufficient force could be collected to intercept thefr return, to carry
thefr booty by night to Lathom. The peace of the county could be
secured only by dispersing these desperate feUows.
The garrison of Lathom was distributed in three divisions. The
principal division was stetioned in Lathom House, a smaller party
in a house under the protection of its cannon, and a third in Lathom
lodge, converted into a sfrong fort or barbican. These last were
chiefly the Irishmen who had mutiiUed at Liverpool, and who on
receiving thefr Uberty resumed thefr allegiance to the king.
The second siege of Lathom is without the romantic interest of
the first, as the heroic countess was no longer entrusted "vrith the
command of the garrison. But the assault was vigorous, the resist
ance was obstinate, and in a conflict of six months' duration extraor
dinary feats of valour were done by both parties. Colonel Egerton
of Shaw, as in the former siege, nominaUy commanded the besieging
force, but after a short time Alexander Rigby, -vrith hia spirit
unbroken by his late disasters, and his energy unimpafred by his
oppressive labour, arrived, nominaUy to assist, but reaUy to adrise,
direct, and command.
For some months Uttle was done. The sallies of the garrison
were so "rigorous and weU conducted that the works of the assaUants
went on slowly, and suffered almost as much in the night as they
advanced in the day. The first serriceable thing done by them was
to dig a deep trench round the fortress, and make the crossing of it
so difficult as to obstruct the men who issued at night to commit
depredations upon the neigbouring country. Strong bodies of guards
were placed every night to watch the passages whence egress was
practicable. The first assault was made upon the lodge where the vrild Irish
¦* Good Service hitherto ill Rewarded.

THE CIVIL WAR. 229
were stationed. Short though sharp work was made with them.
After making some breaches in the walls with thefr artiUery, the
ParUamentarians .marched boldly to the fort and encountered the
Irish in close combat. The Irish fought Uke men fighting for thefr
Uves, and so did the Puritans. After many had faUen on both sides,
the Irish, greatly reduced, surrendered the fort and themselves. The
in"ventory of the spoUs is a curious document. It includes ' sixty
prisoners, a supposed popish priest, two barrels of gunpowder, some
skeans of match, and divers popish books, beads, and crucifixes.'
Ha-ring demoUshed the lodge, the ParUamentarians more closely
invested the Lathom, and raised thefr batteries in positions from
which they made frightful breaches in its walls. "WhUe Egerton
and Rigby were reducing it to extremity. Major Ashurst was pressing
closely vrith his artiUery upon the neighbouring house. But the
colonels and the major found that they were fighting vrith enemies
whose spfrit was very different from that of the vvild Irishmen who had
surrendered the lodge. The besiegers were ever -vigUant, and yet in
the dark nights the besieged were often successful in obtaining large
supplies. By some means communications were maintained betjween
the two houses, and arrangements were concerted for united action.
The besiegers were perplexed in obserring how the breaches effected
by thefr cannon in the day were repafred in the night, and how
speedUy the inju.ry done to the works was foUowed by additional
strength given to the dUapidated parts.* The garrison, although
enfeebled and disfressed, would Usten to no proposal of surrender,
and the besiegers had few opportunities afforded them of making
any. Even when the Earl of Derby sent two of his gentlemen from
the Isle of Man to adrise the surrender of the house, and they were
perinitted to pass the lines of the besiegers -with a promise of safety
from the parUamentery commanders if the garrison would lay do"wn
thefr arms, the cry of the soldiers was ' No surrender ! ' not even on
the advice of thefr lord. They would not beUeve his officers ; they
hinted treachery. They panted for revenge. They were sure,
whatever the earl might ad"rise, his noble countess would not wish
them to surrender. They had learned from her example to resist to
the utmost extremity. "When they could hold the works no longer,
they would fight thefr way through the enemy. They preferred
death to dishonour. In that spirit they bade farewell to "the earl's
messengers, who were permitted by the besiegers to return to the
Isle of Man.
Por some months the distressed garrison showed no sign of sur
render. As "winter approached thefr wants became urgent, and the
difficulty of obtaining suppUes insuperable. The corn and cattle of
the neighbouring farms were removed, and the surrounding country
became a desert. Towards Christmas the officers of the garrison
perceived that, as the sources of thefr supplies had faUed them, and
no opportunity of fighting for plunder was afforded them, they must
make some terms of surrender, or die in the fortress. They solicited
a parley, which was granted. The terms they proposed were rejected,
* Perfect Occurrences, July 4-11, 1645.

230 LANCASHIRE,
while the terms proposed by the besiegers were such as induced
them to re-assert thefr determination to die rather than surrender.
Rigby was determinately opposed to the compromise which Egerton
and Ashurst were disposed to aUow. His keen eye observed the
expression of pining hunger and feverish disease which appeared in
the countenances of the officers as weU as of the men. Thefr faces,
thefr hands, thefr clothes told a tale of exfreme want as weU as of
desperate valour and romantic fideUty, ' They could not hold out
long, for the smell and taste of their garmente bewrayed them,'
Rigby was right. On December 4, 1645, they surrendered Lathom
and all that was in it, on condition of being aUowed to retfre to their
homes vrith their personal property. Many of them were unable to
walk to the neighbouring villages. The faU of Lathom was cele
brated with great rejoicings and thanksgirings in the puritan towns
of Lancashfre. The horns of the great beast were all broken. The
whole county was reduced to submission, vrilling or hopeless, to the
parUament.* Although the RoyaUsts were entirely subdued, the peace and good
order of the county were far from being eatebUshed. In many parts
armed ruffians Uved upon the indiscriminate robbery and plunder of
Puritans and Royalists. Large tracts of country were desolated by
the trampling of soldiery. "Welsh and Irish savages, reUcs of the
defeated armies, wandered over the county in search of food, and
were not very scrupulous in the mode of obtaining it. Many of the
gentry had been driven from their homes, and many more were re
duced to poverty by fines, compositions, and sequesfrations. Puritan
Bolton, malignant Wigan, Liverpool, Warrington, Preston, Lancaster,
most of the principal towns, had been assailed, captured, plundered,
by one party or the other ; and some, like Liverpool and Preston, by
both parties. Although Manchester had not "been captured by ita
enemies, ite distress was not less, perhaps it was greater, than that
ofthe captured towns. In the autumn of 1646 a terrible pestUence
ravaged that town (to cite the words of Warden Heyricke), ' the
only town untouched by the enemy, and the only town stricken of
God.' After many had forsaken it, the terror of the neighbouring
country was so great that no more were permitted to leave, and
none were permitted to enter it. The boundaries were marked
by large stones, on which the country people placed prorisions
for the townsfolk, who took them away, and left money for the
payment. In the distress of Manchester Rosworm did good service — or at
least he says so — to ' the adamants,' ' matchless in their treachery, *¦
who ' set the devU himself a copy of ingratitude.' The warden en
freated him not to leave the town, as his serrices were needed to
quell the insurrection of a perishing populace. He boldly resolved
to remain, and face the pestilence aa calmly as he had faced the
enemy's cannon. A conspfracy was formed amongst the worst of
the people, who obtained arms, elected the German for their com-
* Discowrse on the CivU War in Lancashire. Seacome's Memoirs. Civil War
Tracts, pp. 211-213.

THE CIVIL WAR. 231
mander, and proposed, in the general plunder of the town, to reward
him for his past services, and to punish his ungrateful employers.
Rosworm, when the propoaal waa made to him, ' waa taking physic,'
and perhaps had cleared away some of his black bUe. He would
never be unfaithful to his frust. He was not a Manchester man,
and would not dishonour himself by acting like one. Having
the command of twelve faithful men, he placed them within the
sound of his voice ; and ha"ving sent for the leaders of the con
spfracy, he commanded his armed men to seize them. ' The
conspfracy vanished into smoke,' and he saved ' the ripers that
devoured him.'
The great distress excited much sympathy and compassion in
many parts of the country. On December 14, collections were
made in all the churches of London and Westminster for the
reUef of the sufferers in Manchester. The "vrinter of 1645-1646
was a sad vrinter throughout Lancashfre ; but, cheered by the liberal
assistance of friends, and assured of tranquillity through the complete
triumph of the parliamentary arms, the people diUgently appUed
themselves to thefr proper occupations, and hopefully looked for
better times.

CHAPTER XIL
' ECCLESIASTICAL CHANGES.
In the prosperity of their cause, the puritan ministers of Lancashfre
were not without thefr troubles. They could not, as they fondly
expected, confrol the parUament of England, and they were not
disposed quietly to be confroUed by it. The House of Commons
wanted money, and found it more profiteble, if not more pleasant, to
compound vrith CathoUcs for thefr estetes than to drive them out of
the country. Against compounding vrith Antichrist, Heyricke and
the preachers of hia sort loudly protested, as against frafficking and
bargaining vrith the enemies of God, Worse than this unholy traffic,
in some parishes the parliamentary commissioners interfered vrith
the ecclesiastical property, and insisted upon regulating ita expendi
ture. The contention became bitter and exaaperating ; so much so
in Manchester, that aU the ministers, except the warden and one
assistent, resigned their offices. Heyricke was as indignant as any
of them ; but his indignation, however fierce, could not induce him to
resign the wardenship. He was not eager for Church preferment ;
he wanted no better ; he would accept no other ; but he loved Man
chester, and, through good report and eril report, wealth and poverty,
whatever the commissioners did vrith the property, he was determined
to live and die the Warden of Manchester,
But worse enemies of the presbyterian ministers than parliamentary
commissioners were making a noise among the soldiery of the victo
rious party, WhUe ParUament would wisely control the presbyterian
clergy, the officers of the army would subvert thefr rule. Sectaries
of aU sorts were clamouring for toleration, equal rights, unrestrained
Uberty, words never before heard in the Church, where, in the eyes
of zealous Presbyterians, toleration of sectaries was as bad as com
pounding vrith Papists, Both were contrary to the national covenant
and the presbyterian fraditions, Heyricke and his friends resolved
to make a great demonsfration against the toleration of both Papists
and aectariea. They were well supported by a strong and united
party in the county, John TUsley, the young and zealous ricar of
Dean, drew up a ' humble petition of the clergy, magistrates, gentry,
freeholders, and others of Lancashfre,' which was signed by twelve
thousand persons, and presented to the Houses of ParUament. Any
thing more intolerant has never been presented to the parliament of
England. In these circumstances, Heyricke was appointed to preach before
parUament. It was a great occasion ; and everybody knew that
Heyricke would take advantage of it to testify against these eril

ECCLESIASTICAL CHANGES. 233
practices, and deliver his own soul. A more fearless preacher
England could not have produced. His friends were alarmed, and
endeavoured to dissuade him from preaching. But their remon
strance was vain. Preach he would, and preach he did, without
the sUghtest hesitetion or iear, a sermon which no man that heard it
ever forgot. It was preached on the monthly fast. May 27, 1646,
The congregation was very large. The members of the assembly
and many of the London clergy were present. The expectations of
his friends and his foes were greatly excited. Amidst profound
silence and eager attention, the warden opened his Bible and read
his text : ' Go, gather together all the Jews that are present in Shushan,
and fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or
day ; I also and my maidens wUl fast likevrise ; and so will I go in
unto the king, which is not according to the law : and if I perish, I
perish.'* Mr. Heyricke soon exposed the purpose he had in riew when
he selected his text. Many a Haman as bad as ' the son of Hamme-
datha, the Agagite, the enemy of Israel, was plotting the destruction
of God's people.' The preacher was resolved not to hold his peace,
lest ' enlargement and deliverance should arise from another place.'
He would speak ' unto the king,' or unto the parliament, that
' which is not according to the law,' and ' if he perished, he
perished.' Heyricke, allowing extraordinary license to his excited imagination,
brought before his audience another parUament, higher than thefr
own, the great council of a greater King than the greatest of the
kings of the earth. ' Be pleased to conceive a parliament at this
time convened in heaven, and God on His throne asking this ques
tion, " Shall I destroy England ? " And so some answer after this
manner, and some after that : " Great cry of injustice, of oppression,
of wrong, of injury." " Blood toucheth blood ; courte of justice and
committees are courts of robbery and spoil : the poor sheep flies to
the bush for shelter and loseth his fleece ! " " Papists and malig-
nante compound, and they oppress their poor tenants that have
engaged themselves in the public cause for the Lord against thefr
lords." A fourth conflrms and concludes with the other three :
" England must be desfroyed ! They have falsified the oath of God:
oaths and covenante are like Samson's cords — everyone makes use of
them to his o-wn interests ! " To these agreed many more, so that
there waa a great cry heard in the house — " Down vrith it ! Down
with it, even to the ground ! "
' God looked from His throne, and wondered there was not one
found, not one to stand in the gap, to make an atonement, to speak
in the behalf of England. After a short silence, one arose from his
seat and said : " Lord, wilt Thou desfroy England — England for
whom Thou hast done so great things ? Wilt Thou destroy what
Thine hand hath done ? What vrill the Atheists, the Papists, the
maUgnants say ? Surely God was not able to save them. Save
them then for Thy great name's sake ! " A second ariseth and
* Esther, iv. 16.

234 LANCASHIRE.
saith : " England must not be desfroyed ! Lord, wilt Thou destroy
a righteous nation if there be fifty, forty, thirty, twenty, ten righteous
there ? ShaU not the Judge of all the earth do that which is right ?
There are seven thousand at least that have not bowed thefr knees to
Baal ! Th^re are sixty thousand, and more, yea, than sixty hundred
thousand, that cannot discern betvrixt the right hand and the left !
Thou never didst desfroy a praying, a reforming people. Wilt Thou
now do what was never in Thy thoughts before ? " A thfrd ariseth
after the second and pleadeth the same cause : " England must not
be destroyed ! There is a parUament in the midst of them ; physicians
of great value, God hath been amongst them, and in the nudst of
them ; and they are still acting for God and the kingdom's safety !
Did ever parUament perish before ? " After all these, the fourth
ariseth, that there might not appear fewer to speak for than there
were to speak against England : " England muat not be desfroyed !
They cannot die alone ; the three kingdoms must die with them ! yea,
the Protestant Churches throughout the world. Hast Thou not said
that hell- gates shall not prevaU against Thy people ? " To these
many more joined in heart and vote, ao that there waa a considerable
party of both sides ; nor coxdd it be determined whether had more
voices, those that spake for the destruction, or they that spake for
the salvation of England. And having said, they were silent.
' And, behold, as we read in the Revelation, there was in heaven
great silence for half an hour, both sides waiting for God's deter
mination, ' At last, God in His glorious majesty raised Himself from His
throne, and effectuaUy cried out, " How shall I give thee up, Eng
land ; how shall I give thee up ? " And so, without conclusion and
final determination. He dissolved the session, to the admiration and
astonishment of both parties,' *
"When the preacher had brought his audience to think of the pros
perity and ruin of England as wavering in the balance, he appealed
to parUament, as the supreme authority, to save the country by doing
those things which would induce God to save it, and by undoing
those things which would induce God to destroy it. As yet God's
purpose was not declared, and might be influenced for good or for
e^ril. The future was uncertain, Ul-boding, threatening, but it might
become promising, propitious, glorious. The awful aUence of heaven
was still unbroken, but the irrevocable word once apoken would for
ever determine the destiny of England. To their patriotism as Eng
Ushmen, thefr reUgion as Protestants, thefr responsibility as legislators,
on this great opportunity, it might be the last, in this crisis of their
country, he made an earnest, impassioned, vrild appeal. To deep
humiUation and earnest prayer he charged them immediately to
apply themselves. Reformation of morals and of lawa he zealously
and boldly enforced. Evil-doers he denounced. There were Hamans
* This sermon was printed with the title, Queen Esther's Resolve, London,
Fawn, 1646. It is extremely scarce, but the extracts I have given may be found
in Hibbert's History of the College trad Collegiate Church of Manchester, vol. i.
pp. 238-241.

ECCLESIASTICAL CHANGES. 235
to be hanged, Agagites to be destroyed. The audacity of the pres
byterian preacher in the presence of parliament impelled him to
exclaim : ' Let not maUgnants rest quiet among you. There can be
no safety to our reUgion while such miscreants lurk in our dwelling.
Little know we what gunpowder plots are now hatching, and how
near they are to thefr birth. "WliUe the pope remains at Rome, and
the deril in hell, and thefr agents in England, the sons of darkness
wiU be stUl working in the vault of darkness to ruin the chUdren of
Ught, Show not the least countenance to the detestable neufraUty
that is practised by many. God writes in His books, write you in
yours — All neuters are enemies ; aU that are not for you are against
you!' , , ,
The preacher then infroduced a comparison which, according to
o^or manner of thinking, must have disturbed such impressions as his
vrild eloquence had produced ; but perhaps it was less offensive to a
congregation of that age than it would be to a fashionable assembly
of our time. ' The hedgehog, the hieroglyphic of the neuter, hath
two holes, the one toward the south, the other toward the north ;
when the south wind blows she stops up that hole that is toward the
north, and when the north wind blows she stops that towards the
south : such urchins are all temporizers that halt betwixt two opiniona !
And as for apostates, that are false to their covenant and to your
state, let not your eye pity them ; let not your hand spare them !
Execute justice to the enemies of the Commonwealth — show mercy
¦vrith favour to your friends ! '
The warden did not forget the sorrows of Manchester. On behalf
of that suffering town he made the foUowing earnest and affecting
appeal : ' It was a commendable custom in the courts of Persia to
have the good acts of thefr subjects chronicled, Mordecai was found
in the history, and the king highly advanced him for it. Would
you then be pleased to peruse your own records, you might find some
places that now, like Mordecai, lie sad and desolate in the gate, yet
did you admirable service, whereof you did rejoice and glory ; pardon
my zeal if I name the town of Manchester unto you, a town famous
for reUgion ever since the Reformation, Believe me, it hath been a
Goshen, a place of Ught, when most places of the land have been
places of darkness. It hath been a hiding-place, a place of refuge
and sanctuary against the tyranny of prelacy, and the storms and
tempest of persecution. They were vrith the first that jeoparded
themselves in the high places of the earth, that ventured the perish
ing in the cause of God and the kingdom. They offered themselves
"wUUngly among the people, and they laid out themselves and what
they had for the public serrice. Yea, I know there were that, Uke
the widow, threw in all thefr freasure into the public freasury. God
did great things by them and for them. I fear not to say they
preserved the north.
' Mancheater was the pubUc magazine, the sanctuary to poor exUea,
the prison to proud enemies, the bulwark to the county. But now
she sits Uke a widow desolate. The hand of God hath lately gone
out against her. The only town untouched by the enemy, and the

236 LANCASHIRE.
only town in aU the county stricken of God ! The priests, the min
isters of the Lord that did bear the ark of God upon thefr shoulders
(there were sixteen of them in that parish), and now I know but one
— one alone as EUjah — left to do the serrice of the Lord, and he,
through the vrickedness of the times, the great revenues of the
Church being unjustly vrithheld from him, ia now upon tiptoe,
ready to take flight, scarce having bread to put into his chUdren's
mouth. The waUs of the garrison they moulder away — time hath
made wide breaches in thefr works — ^which the enemy could never
do — and there is not at this time, that I know of, five soldiers to keep
the garrison. These things in a petition they have lately laid at
your feet.
' Give me leave, then, in their and others' behalf, to say, let not so
great a labour of love be forgotten. Let the blessing of them that
are ready to perish be upon you. Comfort them, yea, comfort them
according to the time wherein they have been afflicted, yea, give tliem
double for what they have done.'
However deep and solemn may have been the impressions which
were produced by this extrao:5^Unary sermon, the parUament could
not be persuaded by such eloquence to restore the county mUitia, or
to re-establish the garrison of Manchester. It was not their poUcy,
when thefr cause had triumphed, to maintain a strong mUitery force
in the county, nor would they have aUowed the regular regimente of
the army to continue their serrice if they had the power to enforce a
general disarming of the troops. Neither were they disposed to
gratify the vrishes of the presbyterian clergy by expelUng CathoUcs
from the counfry, or by losing the pecuniary advantegea of com
pounding for the estates of the maUgnants. It waa a vricked
traffic, aaid the Presbyterians. Probably, in a quiet way, the
Papists said so too, as they had better reason to say it. It was,
however, a profitable traffic, when parUament was in great want of
money. One favour Heyricke did obtain. They restored the collegiate
funds, and reinstated the clergy in the enjoyment of them, upon the
condition that they would subscribe the covenant, which the warden
and two chaplains, HoUingworth and Walker, had done afready, and
were quite wilUng to do over again. Two of the feUows subscribed
and resumed their places.* The other fellow, Mr. Johnson, refused,
and was arrested on suspicion of adherence to the Royaliste. Walker,
in his ' Sufferings of the Clergy,' gives a sad account of the cruelty
with which he was treated by the officers who arrested him, and the
insults he received from the people in the streets of Manchester. I
have no wish to deny the unsupported assertions of Walker, or to
excuse the insolence of the Manchester people ; but I do not under-
* Dr. Hibbert, in his History of the Collegiate Chwrch of Manchester, says Mr.
Bourne was associated with the warden and chaplains in resuming his of&ce, but,
as appears from the Collegiate Register of Burials, printed in the Appendix, he was
buried three years before. ' 1643, August 26, Mr. WilUam Bourne, Bachelor of
Divinity, preacher of the Worde of God at Manchester, and one of the ffeUowes of
Xste CoUedge.'

ECCLESIASTICAL CHANGES. 237
stand why Mr. Johnson, who had hitherto acted in concert with the
Presbyterians, then deserted them, or by what means he who had
preriously been respected by the ministers and people of the town at
that time incurred their displeasure.
But in the day of thefr prosperity the Lancashire Presbyterians
saw the foreboding shadows of coming erils in the movements of a
power which, although they contributed to its rise, they could not
resfrain. The Westminster assembly of dirines, deriring its authority
from parliament, was, as I have said, constitutionally an Erastian
assembly, although its clerical members were, with few exceptions,
determined opponents of Erastianism. As its constitution and its
constituents were irreconcUably opposed, it could not work othervrise
than ill, and its iU working soon became very apparent. The Eras
tians in the assembly, although few, were very able, as Selden,
Lightfoot, Whitelock, and Coleman. The Independente were also
few, but very determined, as Nye, Goodwin, Bridge, and Burroughs.
These two parties when united formed only a small minority ; and
when separated could do nothing but reason, although reasoning
avaUed Uttle vrith the Presbyterians. Both parties, however, were
sfronger in the parUament than in the assembly, and had there the
support of several moderate men, who, while approving of the
presbyterian discipline, were not vrilling to establish an arbifrary and
intolerant presbyterianism in the place of an arbitrary and intolerant
prelacy. In the assembly three questions were agitated, which threatened
to produce dissension and discord among those who until that
time had acted harmoniously for the subversion of the Episcopal
Church. These related to the jus dimnum of a particular form of
Church government, the power of the keys or authority to admit
to the sacraments and exclude from them, and the toleration of
dissidents. Of these the most important, as on it the other two very much
depended, was the jus divinum. Was there for any form of Church
government dirine authority ? Or might the particular form be left
to the determination of the ciril power ? On this question the Pres
byterians and Independente were unanimous. Goodwin and Nye
agreed -vrith Marshall and Calamy in the assertion of di-vine
authority for some form of Church government, greatly as they
differed on the question respecting the particular form in favour
of which it might be adduced. The Erastians . were the only
dissentients. The question, however it might be determined in the assembly,
was not so easUy settled in parliament. There were among its mem
bers several wise and moderate men who were vrilling to establish
the presbyterian form of Church discipUne, but not jure divino, lest
they should estabUsh an authority which they could not control.
As to 'the power of the keys,' the Presbyterians claimed for thefr
ecclesiastical courte authority to prescribe the terms of admission to
the communion of thefr Church and to decide upon the excommuni
cation of offenders. In an estabUshed Church such an authority

238 LANCASHIRE.
entrusted to its courts would make the ciril power, which could
punish only for grave offences on legal evidence, subordinate to the
ecclesiastical. It was reasonably asked, what excomnaunicated man
could with authority or even respect discharge the duties of any civU
office or trust ? The parUament could not concede this claim of the
assembly, without restoring in another form the spiritual domination
which they had overthrown.
On the question of toleration the resistance to the claims of the
presbyterian clergy was made chiefly by the Independents. In the
assembly, finding it impossible to obtain such an estabUshment as
they could approve, the Independents were content to requfre a legal
toleration. The Presbyterians, in some perplexity, seemed more
willing by some sort of compromise to include the Independents
•vrithin the estabUshment than to tolerate them as a separate sect.
Besides, if Independents were tolerated in thefr separation from the
Church, all sorts of rising secte, of which there was no small number,
would claim equal toleration, and the community would be broken
into innumerable schisms. The Independents had no scruples about
a religious estebUshment ; but such an establishment aa would com
prehend them with the Presbyterians seemed utterly hopeless to
many of both parties.
The debate on the first question, the dirine right of the presbyterian
discipline, was conducted in parliament with much earnestness and
with some demonstration of temper. The high Presbyterians mus
tered in great numbers in the early part of the day, in the hope of
carrying the vote in their favour. The Erastians and the moderate
men, knovring the momentoua consequences of the decision,
prolonged the discussion untU thefr friends could be summoned.
Glyn spoke for an hour (a long speech in those times), and White-
lock enlarged upon the arguments of Glyn. When the house was
filled, the proposition of the assembly was amended, and it was
resolved that ' It is lawful and agreeable to the word of God that
the Church be governed by congregational, classical, and aynodical
asaembUes.' For all practical purposes this resolution might have been satis-
fectory to the Presbyterians, aa it prorided a baais on which thefr
discipUne could be established in all parts of the counfry ; but as
-thefr ministers claimed to officiate by dirine right, no considerations
of lawfulness or agreement vrith God's word would satisfy them.
They applied in vain to the lords to help them. With more success
they sought the assistance of the city of London. The court of alder
men petitioned parliament for ' a settlement of Church government
according to the covenant.' But parUament firmly adhered to its
resolution, and recommended the clergy to attend to the charges of
their several congregations. It is very clear that if the sectaries of
the army had not controlled the Long Parliament, the presbyterian
ministers would soon have quarreUed with it, even while it was
estabUshing their own discipline.
On the question of admission to the sacraments and exclusion from
them, the presbyterian mimsters were equally disappoiated and angry.

ECCLESIASTICAL CHANGES. 239
The assembly was required to define the knowledge which was ne
cessary for admission to the sacrament, and the offences for which
they would pronounce a sentence of excommunication, A catalogue
of such offences was supplied, and a very curious catelogue it was,
as it placed in juxtaposition the keeping of a brothel and the aUovring
of a daughter to marry a Papist, The Long ParUament was too -wise
to liberate the reUgion of these Presbyterians from aU stete pafronage
and control. It aUowed in all cases an appeal to parUament, and
thus made the decision of the spiritual courts subordinate to the
judgment of the civU authority.
About toleration nothing was determined. It was resolved that
the presbyterian government should be estabUshed, and that 'if
upon trial it was not found acceptable, it should be reversed or
amended,' This pleased no party, least of all the assembly. The Scotch
commissioners remonsfrated ; the citizens of London threatened ; the
clergy petitioned : but parliament would not yield. The wisdom
vrith which parUament resisted the dominancy of presbyterianism is
a worthy counterpart to the wisdom with which it resisted the
dominancy of prelacy. The Long Parliament has had scanty praise
from aU parties, because, as long as it had the power, it would not
aUow the EngUsh people to be subject to the unlimited authority of
any. So much it is necessary to say of the movements of several parties
in London, in order to explain the proceedings of the ministers who
organised and estebUshed the presbyterian discipUne in Lancashfre
more completely and firmly than it was established in any other
county of England.
The faculties, in 1646, for estabUshing presbyterianism in Lanca
shfre were many, and the difficulties less than in other parts of
England, The Presbyterians were numerous and powerful ; the
Prelati'sts feeble and dispirited ; the CathoUcs restrained and pro
scribed ; the secteries preriously to that time scarcely known.* The
ministers were united and active ; their people, who had fought hard
and suffered much for puritanism, were very willing to submit to a
yoke which then seemed easy, although by some of them it was after
wards felt to he insufferably grievous. In doing this work the hand
of no man was so sfrong and vigorous as that of Richard Heyricke,
trusted and sfrengthened aa he waa by HoUingworth, Tilaley of Dean,
Angier of Denton, Harrison of Ashton, and other ministers of his
neighbourhood, Heyricke shared the dissatisfaction of the London clergy with the
measures of the parliament, Natnirally lofty and imperious, he felt
the rebuke of his order as an indignity done to himself. His sympa
thies were aU clerical. To whatever Church he might have belonged,
he would certeinly have been a High Churchman, so far as clerical
privUege and dignity were concerned.
But as he was not patient in debate, nor much interested in theo-
* HoUingworth speaks of ' a gathered church ' meeting in a room of Manchester
College, but it must have been very small and inconsiderable.

240 LANCASHIRE,
logical discussions, he thought he could better serve the presbyterian
cause by working in Lancashire than by sitting in Westminster.
Undistinguished among his equals in London, he would be chief
among his brethren in Manchester, He retumed to Lancashire
resolved to promote in that county the regular and uniform establish
ment of the presbyterian discipUne.
Although, as I have observed, preriously to 1646 the sectaries,
whom Heyricke detested almost as much as he did the Papists and
Prelatists, were scarcely known in Lancashfre, in that year the Inde
pendents began to excite some attention in the neighbourhood of
Manchester. Samuel Eaton, a young clergyman, whose father had
been ricar of Great Budworth in Cheshfre, had left his native coun
try, persecuted for nonconformity, and found a home in New England.
A puritan minister, on hia arrrival he accepted and soon cordiaUy
Uked the congregational discipline which he found estebUshed in the
colonies. On the breaking out of the civil war, he retumed to
England vrith the persuasion that God had a work for him to do in
promulgating the principles which he had learned to love in a strange
land. A pamphlet, written by ' Maater Samuel Eaton and Master ,
Timothy Taylor,' in defence of congregational discipUne, appeared in
Manchester, and excited ' no small stir ' among the presbyterian
clergy. To this pamphlet HolUngworth pubUshed a reply, entitled,
' Certain Questions, modestly though plainly propounded to such as
affect the congregational way, and especiaUy to Master Samuel Eaton.'
I have not seen this reply, but if its questions are ' modestly pro
pounded,' they deserve notice as the only questions which the Man
chester Presbyterians ever ' modestly propounded to such as affect
the congregational way.' Heyricke, not disposed to frust to the
'modest propounding of questions,' found a more effectual way of
opposing the new principles, and in connection vrith John TUsley,
the vicar of Dean, prepared a petition, or rather as it has been some
times called a remonstrance, to parUament against these terrible
sectaries. The petition showed that ' in consequence of the unsettled
condition of Church government, all sorts of errors, schisms,
heresies, blasphemies prevailed in the country, that separate and
unauthorised congregations had been formed, and that, to the aston
ishment of the orthodox nobility, gentry, and ministers, a toleration
was demanded for these sfrange and secterian proceedings.' The
prayer of the document was that ' a uniform discipUne and govern
ment might be established with all possible speed, and that the
frequenters of separate conventicles might be discountenanced and
punished.' Presbyterian gentlemen in several parts of the county undertook
the charge of obteining signatures to this petition. Heyricke, to his
great surprise, found that his old enemies the Prelatists and maUg
nants, obserring in the petition no recognition of any particular form
of Church government, had in several places subscribed thefr names
to its prayer in favour of ' a uniform discipline.' To find the names
of Prelatists subscribed in juxtaposition vrith the names of such
Presbyterians as Assheton, Booth, Rigby, Hyde, Holland, was intoler-

ECCLESIASTICAL CHANGES. 241
able to thefr pastors, if not to themselves. ' Avouchers ' were there
fore entrusted with the care of the rolls, and directed to prevent the
Prelatists from appending thefr names. Eventually eight thousand
five hundred and seventy-eight names were subscribed to thia ' humble
petition of the weU-affected gentlemen, ministers, freeholders, and
other inhabitants of the county palatine of Lancaster,' Of these
signatures no less than six thousand represented residents in the
hundred of Salford,
Published under the care of John TUsley, minister of Dean, accom
panied vrith ' a Parsenetick to Lancashfre,' it excited great interest
among various parties. The Independents were greatly alarmed.
In a pamphlet entitled, 'A New Birth of the City Remonstrance,'
they severely criticised the petition, and the claims of its promoters.
HoUingworth preached, and TUsley wrote, in its defence, the former
declaring in the pulpit that only maUgnants and covenant-breakers
had refused to subscribe it. Heyricke left his friends to preach and
"write, whUe he worked incessantly in exhorting, enfreating, promis
ing, threatening, and inducing by all sorts of influence tlie parUament
to estabUsh the presbyterian discipline, at least within the limits of
the county of Lancaster.
To a great extent he was auccessftil. Although he could not pro
cure a pubUc acknowledgment of the divine right of presbyterianism,
nor Uberate the Church from the control of the ciril power, nor per
secute the sectaries, he obtained an ordinance of parUament by which
Lancashfre was constituted an ecclesiastical prorince governed by a
synod, and divided into nine classical districts, each subject to its
own classis, consisting of delegates from the elders of every congre
gation within its boundaries.
As this change was the most important which has been made in
the religious institutions of Lancashire since the Reformation, it may
be desfrable to explain it more carefully and minutely.

CHAPTER XIII.
PRESBYTERLANISM ESTABLISHED.
According to the ordinance of parliament passed in 1646, every
congregation in Lancashfre waa governed primarily and immediately
by its congregational assembly, consisting of its minister and lay
elders. The ky elders, or, as they were often oaUed to distinguish
them from the teachers, the mUng elders, were appointed vrith some
formaUty to thefr office, on election by the members of the congrega
tion convened expressly for that purpose. It was customary on such
occasions for the ministers to preach on the duties of the elders
and the qualifications for thefr office. The number of the elders
varied according to the magnitude and wants of the congregation.
In the first instance four ruling elders were elected by the congrega
tion of Manchester, but the number waa aoon afterwards considerably
enlarged. Several neighbouring congregations were united in a classical
dirision, which was subject to the government of its classis or pres
bytery, consisting of the ministers of the several congregations, and
a part of thefr lay elders, representing the whole number. The pro
portion was usuaUy two lay members to one minister. The county
was divided into nine classical districte.
Class 1. Including the parishes of Manchester, Prestvrich, Oldham,
Flixton, Eccles, and Ashton under Lyne.
Class 2. Bolton, Middleton, Bury, Rochdale, Dean, and RadcUffe.
Class 3. Blackburn, WhaUey, Chipping, and Ribchester.
Class 4. Warrington, Leigh, Winvrick, Wigan, Holland, and
Prescot. Class 5. Walton (including Liverpool), Huyton, ChUdweU, Seph
ton, Altear, North-Meols, Halsall, Ormskfrk, and Aughton.
Class 6. Croston, Leyland, Stendish, Eccleston, Penwortham,
Hoole, and Brindle.
Class 7. Preston, Kfrkham, Garstang, and Poulton.
Class 8, Lancaster, Cockerham, Claughton, Melling, Tatham, Tun
stall, "Whittington, "Warton, Bolton, Halton, and Husom,
Class 9, Aldingham, Ursvrick, Ulverston, Hawkshead, Coulton,
Dalton, CartmeU, Kfrkby, and Wennington.
The Ust of classes, vrith the names of thefr ministors and elders,
was submitted to ' the lords and commons assembled in parUament,'
and approved on October 2, 1646,*
* The members of the first and second classes were —
MANCHESTER CLASSIS,
MtUISTERS,
Mr, Richard Heyrick, and Mr, Toby Fumes, of Prestwich
Mr. Richard HolUngworth, of Manchester Mr. Humph. Barnet, of Oldham
Mr, John Angier, of Denton Mr. John Jones, of Eccles
Mr. WUliam Walker, of Newton Mr. John Harrison, of Ashton

PRESBYTERIANISM ESTABLISHED. 243
As many of the parishes in the preceding Ust included several
chapelries, the congregations represented in the several classes con
siderably exceeded in number the parishes enumerated.
The highest ecclesiastical court of the county was the provincial
assembly, consisting of clerical and lay delegates from the nine classes.
The members were appointed with great care by each classis, at a
meeting specially convened for the purpoae, Noticea of the special
meeting were given in all the churches of the district, and a day of
fasting and prayer was appointed previously to the election. The
pro-rincial assembly held its meetings tvrice every year, usuaUy in
the great church of Preston,* Every meeting was opened with
solemn prayers, and a sermon was preached by one of the principal
ministers of the county.
On comparing this presbyterian estabUshment in Lancashfre vrith
the kirk of Scotland, the general agreement is obrious. The con
gregational assembly corresponds vrith the kfrk session, the classis
with the presbytery, and the provincial assembly with the synod.
Had the system been estebUshed in the other counties of England,
lATMEN.
Robert Hyde, of Denton, esq. Rob. Leech, of Ashton parish, gent.
Rich. Howarth, of Manchester, esq. John Wright, of Bradford, yeoman
Robert Ashton, of Shipley, esq. Wm. Peak, of Worsley, yeoman
Thos. Straugways, of Gorton, esq. Thomas Taylor, of FUxton parish,
WilUam Booth, of Reddish, gent. yeoman
John Gaskel, of Manchester, gent. Thomas Barlow, of Eccles parish,
Edw. Sandiforth, of Oldham, gent. yeoman
John Birch, of Openshaw, gent. Peter Seddon, of Pilkington, yeoman
Thos. Smith, ot Manchester, gent. James JoUie, of DroUsden, gent.
Peter Serjeant, of Pilkington, gent.
BOLTON CLASSIS.
iMnnSTEES.
Mr. John Harpur, of Bolton Mr. Robert Bathe, of Rochdale
Mr. WilUam Ashton, of Middleton Mr. Alexander Horrocks
Mr. WiUiam Alte Mr. John TUdesley
Mr. Andrew Latham Mr. James Walton, of Dean
Mr. Jonathan Soolfield, of Bury Mr. Thomas Pyke, of RadcUffe
LAYMEN.
Ralph Ashton, of Middleton, esq. Sam. Wylde, of Rochdale, mercer
John Bradshaw, of Bradshaw, esq. James Stot, of Healey, gent.
Edm. Hopwood, of Hopwood, esq. Robert Pares, of Rochdale, gent.
Robert Lever, of Darcy Lever, esq. Rob. Worthington, of Smithel, esq.
John Andrews, of Little Lever, gent, GUes Green, of West Houghton, yeo-
Rob. Heywood, of Heywood, gent, man
Peter Holt, of Heap, gent. Henry Molyneux, of West Houghton,
Arthur Smethurst, of Heap, gent. gent.
Thomas Eccarsal, of Bury, gent. Hen. Seddon, of Heaton, yeoman
Edward Butterworth, of Belfield, esq. Robert Hardman, of RadcUffe, yeoman
John Scolfield, of Castleton, yeoman John Bradshaw, of Darcy Lever, gent.
Emanuel Thompson, of Rochdale, Richard Dickenson, of Aynsworth, yeo-
clothier man
* The meetings of the Provincial Assembly were held seventeen times in Preston,
twice in Wigan, twice in Bolton, and once in Blackburn. The first meeting was
held in Preston in August 1648, when Isaac Ambrose preached and Mr. James
Hyett was appointed moderator. — Minutes of the Manchester Classis.

244 LANCASHIRE,
the provincial assembly of Lancashfre would have been represented
in a general assembly of the kingdom.
The most remarkable difference between the Lancashire and the
Scottish estabUshment of presbyterianism was in the preponderance
of lay elders in the Lancashfre courts. In every classis two-thfrda
of the members were laymen. The same arrangement was made in
the less complete estabUshment of presbyterianism in London, where
in every Church court, and indeed in every committee, the lay elders
were tvrice as many as the ministers. This pro"rision shows the
wisdom and "rigUance of the Long ParUament in restraining by thefr
new arrangements the growth of clerical domination.
The lowest Church court, consisting of the minister and elders,
took charge of the spiritual interests of a single parish or chapelry.
No person resident within ite boundaries was exempt from its juris
diction. This court certified after due examination that candidates
for holy communion were quaUfied by competent knowledge and
moral character. To it was entrusted the authority of suspending
or excluding offenders from reUgious ordinances, so that they could
obtain neither baptism for their chUdren nor the Eucharist for them
selves. In this matter, however, the excluded persons were allowed,
sorely to the annoyance of thefr ministers, an appeal to the ciril
courts. To prepare the young for thefr first communion and to enforce a
godly discipline upon the communicants were important duties of
the elders. For scandalous immoralities, satisfaction was required
to be made to the Church by professions of repentance, and some
times by a pubUc penance imposed upon such as had dishonoured
their religious profession. The scandal brought upon the Church
waa condoned when the penance enforced by the eldera was pro
nounced satisfactory. The offenders were then restored to communion.
In no other way did the congregational assembly claim any power of
absolution. Offenders who refused to give satisfaction to the Church, when
other means of bringing them to penitence had faUed, were pubUcly
suspended and eventually excluded from the communion. The man
ner of proceeding in such instances appears in a formulary which was
drawn up by Mr. HoUingworth, and used to notify the exclusion of
an impenitent sinner from the sacrament,
_' Forasmuch as A. B. hath been convicted, before the eldership of
this congregation, to stand guUty of (adultery, fornication, or the
Uke), they having considered the heinousness and scandalousness of
the sin in itself (here let some pertinent scriptures be produced), and
the several aggravating cfrcumstances (here let the aggravations be
mentioned), and having used aU Christian and loving means to bring
him to the sight of, and godly sorrow for, his grievous sin (here let
the means used by the eldership be stated), by which God is greatly
dishonoured, his soul endangered, the Church grieved and offended,
and occasion given to others to speak eril of the ways of God ; yet
not perceiring that godly sorrow which worketh repentence, and a
readuiess and vrilUngness to give pubUc satisfaction, have in the

PRESBYTERIANISM ESTABLISHED. 245
name and power of the Lord Jesus Christ, according to thefr duty
and the merit of his sin and carriage, judiciaUy suspended him from
the high ordinance of the Lord's Supper. Waiting, moreover, and
praying that God would open his eyes, teach his heart, mightUy con
vince and humble him, and renew repentence in him, we earnestly
desire you, in the bowels of our Lord Jesus Christ, to help forward
the work of God, to pity him, and pray for him, that if it be possible
there be no necessity of proceeding to a further and hea"rier censure
against him.'
If this sentence faUed to procure satisfaction, after some consider
able time had been granted to observe its effects, the sentence of ex
communication was pronounced by the elders and pubUcly notified
"by the minister. The impenitent sinner was then regarded ' as a
heathen man and pubUcan,' and his salvation, whUe he continued in
that state, was considered as utterly hopeless.
In aU cases of discipline an appeal might be made from the censure
of the congregational eldership to the- judgment of the classical
meeting. The classical meetings were held once in every month, usuaUy in
the principal town of the classical district. A moderator was ap
pointed for each meeting, and a scribe who retained his office so long
as he was competent and vrilling to discharge its duties. Every
meeting was opened vrith devotional exercises. Its business consisted
partly of appeals from the congregational courts, and partly of
matters affecting the whole district.
The sacrament of the Lord's Supper was administered much more
frequently, though vrith less formaUty, than was customary in the
Scottish Church. It was usually celebrated on one Sunday in every
month. On a preceding fast day, a public exercise was observed, and
the communicants were earnestly exhorted to make careful prepara
tion for the approaching solemnities. Any who were conscious of
living in sin were solemnly warned not to desecrate the holy service;
and aU who knew of immoraUties practised by communicante were
earnestly charged to give information to the elders.
The minutes of the Manchester classis, preserved in the Chetham
Library,* may Ulusfrate the action and influence of the classical assem
bUes, which, as the provincial assembly met only once a quarter, were
probably the most importent, although not the highest, ecclesiastical
courte of the Lancashfre Presbyterians ,t
¦* This seems to be only a copy, of which the original is in the possession of the
Trustees of Cross Street Meeting House, Manchester, Of the accuracy of the copy
I am assured by a gentleman who has been favoured with an opportunity of con
sulting the original.
¦I" There is also in the Bodleian Library, among the Walker MSS., A copy of
¦the Minutes of the Second Classis usually meeting in Bolton. This belonged to
John Walker, and is cited by him as an authority in his Sufferi'ngs of the Clergy,
part i. p. 39. He received it from the Rev. Mr. Gipps, a Rector of Bury. How
perfectly or correctly it has been described I cannot teU, but I suspect its accuracy,
chiefly because it contains accounts of some proceedings which must have belonged
to other classes. As, however, I have Uttle doubt of its general correctness in what
properly belonged to the Bolton classis, I have adduced from it some of these
particulars.

246 LANCASHIRE.
The first meeting of the Manchester classia waa convened on Tues
day, February 16, 1646-7, and waa held, as is generally said (I know
not on whose authority), in the refectory of the coUege. Mr. Hey
ricke was chosen moderator, Mr. Gee scribe. The roU was carefiiUy
settied, and notice taken of the absent members. The orders agreed
upon for future meetings were : '1. That a moderator be chosen for
the next meeting. 2. That he begin and end vrith prayer. '3. That
none shall apeak but to the moderator, vrith his hat off. 4. That none
shaU begin to speak till he who spoke before be set down. 5. That
he who first atanda up to speak shaU first speak. 6. That he who
hath not spoken shaU speak, if he desfre it, before any that hath for
merly spoken. 7. That the present business be f uUy determined before
the following be begun.'
It was the duty of the classical assembly to hear any complaints
that might be made affecting the character or competency of the elders
of the several congregations belonging to its jurisdiction. The Man
chester classis at ite first meeting was engaged in considering some
grave charges aUeged against an elder of the congregation of Chorl-
ton-cum- Hardy. He waa accuaed of alander, of throvring a flagon in
the face of an honeat neighbour, of swearing by hia faith, of acandal-
ously indecent conduct towards a widow, of having a daughter be
fore his marriage, and a son born twenty-seven weeks after it. The
classis pronounced him unflt to be a ruling elder. It is sfrange that
a man suspected of such scandals should have been elected to this re
sponsible office.
The Manchester classis seems to have had a great deal of trouble
vrith the Chorlton people. The minister in posaeasion when the pres
bytery waa estabUshed, ' one Pollete,' refused to conform to the new
order of discipUne, After causing the classis much annoyance, he
was ejected in 1647. Hia successor, a Mr, Benson, summoned hia
elders to appear before the classis, and answer for ' raiUng words '
addressed to himself. One of them, James Charlton, caUed the min
ister ' a Uar, whUe he waa in the pulpit.' The classia requfred Charl
ton to make an apology, and on hia doing so proceeded no further in
the matter. The next minister, John Adcroft, waa quite as trouble
some aa hia predecessors. He was charged vrith celebrating clandes
tine marriages, and with irregularly baptiaing chUdren. As he treated
the classis vrith contempt, its members, confrary to their own expressed
opinions, appealed to the ciril power for assistance. It waa resolved
at the meeting held July 8, 1661, that ' Mr. Warden be desired to
request the assistance of a justice of the peace, concerning Mr. Ad-
croft's contempt ofthe classia.'
The classia had some trouble through the negUgent and frregular
attendance of its own members. The elders elected to represent the
congregation of Didsbury refiised to attend, and a deputation was ap
pointed to confer "vrith them, but apparently without success. Soon
afterwards ' Mr. Clayton, the minister of Didsbury, did vrithdraw
from the classis, and departed out of the classia wi"thout any order
from the classia.' The presbyterian rule certainly did not work weU
in these petty disputes, which continuaUy occupied the time of th©
Church courts.

PRESBYTERIANISM ESTABLISHED. 247
A very commendable service was rendered to some worthy men by
the classical assembUes in obteining comfortable provision for the
ministers of "village congregations.
When Mr. Clayton, who afterwards behaved so badly to his classis,
was ordained minister of Didsbury, arrangements were made to secure
for him a more comfortable stipend than the curates of the chapelry
had previously enjoyed. To accompUsh this laudable object, a meet
ing of the congregation was convened, when it was represented to
them that the money coUected for the minister ' was not competent
for the maintenance of ao deserving a man.' The meeting resolved
that the stipend should be augmented to forty pounds per ammnmi.
One reason assigned for the augmentation ia curious, as showing that
ministers' wives were then less costly or more managing than they
are in our time : ' considering that Mr. Clayton is a single man, and
so cannot husband it to ad-cantege.'
The stipend of the curate of Chorlton had been lamentebly insuf
ficient for hia support, and consequentiy the chapelry had been left
for long intervals vrithout a minister. In 1666, the Mancheater classia
ordained Mr. Jamea Jackson minister of the chapel, and discovered
that the miserable pittance kno"wn aa ' the chapel wage ' waa inauffi-
cient for hia decent maintenance. A deputetion of the claasis was
appointed to. confer with the people of Chorlton, and a meeting for
that purpose was convened in the chapel. Mr. Harrison preached on
ministerial support. Mr. Heyricke, Mr. Angier, and Mr. Newcome
addressed the people. They resolved to secure for Mr. Jackson a
stipend of 50Z. instead of 35?., and to ' do what they could to obtain
five pounds more.' In these and in other iostences, after the restor
ation of prelacy, the incomes of the clergy were reduced to the old
standard, and even below it. For several yeara after the restoration,
Chorlton had no curate ' for want of an endowment.' As late aa
1717, the curate of that chapelry had only ten pounds a year for hia
maintenance. In the minutes of the claasis, references are made to cases inwhich
the congregational elderships were dfrected to excommunicate offend
ers, as weU as to instences in which thefr sentences of exclusion were
revoked. At Ashton under Lyne, a man and woman, having been
guilty of fornication, attempted to evade censure by obtaiiung the
solemnisation of matrimony. The congregational assembly, not know
ing what to do, referred the matter to the classical meeting. The
claasis, considering the marriage before satisfection had been made to
-the Church a grievous aggravation of the sin, ordered the eldership
' to excommunicate George Morland, and Ann his vrife, and to hold
an exercise on Wednesday, February 23, to proceed vrith the business. '
Several months afterwards, the parties, manifesting much sorrow,
expressed publicly thefr penitence for thefr great vrickedness. As
thefr sentence had been pronounced by order of the classis, it could
be revoked only by the same authority. It waa therefore ordered by
the classis, on the report of the congregational assembly that the
offenders had made public satisfaction for ' thefr foul and scandalous
sin,' that the sentence of excommunication be revoked, 'and that pub-

248 LANCASHIRE.
Ucation thereof be made by the elders.' It was a sfrange spectecle,
that of a man and hia vrife standing before the congregation and con-
fesaing thefr sin, committed many months before thefr marriage. The
exhibition of such scandala must have weakened rather than strength
ened a proper sense of decency and moral obUgation.
Appeals were frequently made to the classis respecting the tokens,
or tickets of admission, given by the eldera to persons applying for
communion. Any person refused his token by the elders' court might
appeal to the classis. A curious instance is mentioned in the minutes
of the Bolton classis. The elders of Bolton had refused the token to
Mr. Bradshaw, because he had admitted 'a scandalous minister,' pro
bably an Episcopalian, to preach in his pri-vate chapel. The classis
was perplexed : although ita members did not Uke to encourage
' scandalous ministers,' they respected Mr. Bradshaw aa a thoroughly
good Presbyterian. They therefore compromised the matter. The
elders ought, they said, to have admonished Mr. Bradahaw, and then,
if he had not given satisfaction by penitential acknowledgment of sin,
to have suspended him from the communion. As they had not given
him an opportunity to make confession of his sin and satisfaction for
it, the classis reversed the decision of the elders' court, Bradshaw
thus escaped vrithout receiving admonition, making confession, giving
satisfaction, or suffering suspension.
No proceedings of the classical assembUes were regarded aa more
importent or arranged with greater care than the ordinationa of can-
didatea for the ministry. In this respect there was a remarkable
difference betrjveen the practice of the Lancashfre and the London
classes. As the presbyterian discipline was regularly estebUshed only
in these two districts, the ordinations in them were very numerous.
In London, the Weatminster aaaembly aa well as the classical assem
bUes conferred ordination, and in Lancashfre every classis was author
ised by parliament to ordain ministers for the counties in which the
preabyterian discipline was not organised.* From aU parts of the
north of England candidates for the ministry resorted for ordination
to the Lancashire classical assembUes.
When an ' expectent,' as he was caUed, or in Scottish phraseology
a ' Ucentiate,' obteined ' a caU ' to a vacant church, he had generally
to obtain the approval of the pafron, especially in Lancashfre, where,
as is evident from the minutes of proceedings, the righta of pafronage
were more respected than they were in London. Thua in the minutes
of the Mancheater claaais it is stated : ' Mr, Anthony Allen desfred
ordination ; he showed a request and desfre from the people of Ouston
in Lincolnshfre that he might be their minister. It is enjoined on
him that he bring to the next classia a certificate that he hath the
consent of the patron,' Expectants were also required to produce
testimonials from the associate ministers of the counties to which they
belonged, or in which they were called to officiate. Thua ' Henry
¦* Previously to this arrangement the ParUament passed an ordinance authorising
the Rev. Charles Herle, Mr. Richard Heyricke, Mr. Hyett, Mr. Bradshaw, Mr.
Isaac Ambrose and others, to the number of twenty-one, pro tempore, to ordain in
the county of Lancaster, Neal, vol. ii. p. 165.

PRESBYTERIANISM ESTABLISHED, 249
Vaughan brought a full certificate from the committee of Salop, an
other full certificate from the ministers of Salop, deafred and freely
elected by the people of Morton Sey, in the aaid county.' ' Mr. John
Bridge brought a teatimonial of hia holiness of Ufe from the York
shfre ministers.' 'Mr. Thomas Clayton, aged about twenty- four,
brought a certificate of his good conversation from Blackburn, where
he was bom.'
An ' expectent ' could not receive ordination, untU he had com
pleted the tTwenty-thfrd year of his age.* Proof of competent learn
ing was requfred, and obtained partly from testimonials and partly
from personal examination. ' Mr. Hugh Taylor, aged about twenty-
eight, brought certificates of his being M.A. of Edinburgh, and of
his large progress and abiUty in divinity from St. Andrews in Scot
land. He hath been examined according to the rules for examination,
according to the ordinances of parUament, aiid thereupon approved.'
' Mr. Ralph Worsley presented himself for ordination, being B.A. of
Pembroke Hall in Cambridge ; hath been examined iu the languages,
in Hebrew, Greek, logic, phUosophy, ethics, physics, metaphysics,
dirinity, ecclesiastical history, and chronology, and waa approved.'
The ' expectant ' had to show that he had subscribed the national
covenant, by which he was solemnly engaged to labour for the extfr
pation of popery, prelacy, heresy, and profaneness. He was dfrected
to write a Latin thesis on some theological question proposed at the
time, which thesis was to be produced at a future meeting of the
classis. The questions usually referred to subjects of passing contro
versy ¦vrith Papists, Prelatists, Arminians, or Anabaptists. The
foUowing are specimens : ' An detur peccatum originate inhcerens ? '
' An detur liherum ariitrium in spvrituaUbus ? ' ' An fides sola justi-
ficet ? ' ' An inf Antes sint haptinandi ? '
The ' expectant ' was requfred to preach before the classis, on a
text previously selected for him. On gi"ring satisfaction in these
particulars, he received his ' si quis,' as it was called, that is a notice
to be appended to the door of the church of which he was invited
to become the minister, announcing the proposed ordination, and
requfring that if any one (si quis) had any objections, he should
state them before the next meeting of the classis. ' Mr. Drury
returned his si quis, testifying that the instrument had been published
in the church of Gorton, and that nothing at aU was objected against
his proceeding to ordination.'
These preliminaries having been completed, a day of reUgious
exercises was appointed, and the expectant was ordained "with fasting,
prayers, imposition of hands, and other solemnities, ' Just satisfaction
being given to the classis of the age of Mr, Baxter, his degree in the
university, good Ufe, and call to the ministry of the Gospel in the
congregation of Michael's upon Wyre ' (not St, Michaels, no saints
* ' I was then advanced into my twenty-third year about five months, and so
vrithin view of my ordination age ; for a day above twenty-three was then called
twenty-four current, and allowed suflScient for matter of age, if other things
concurred for the admission of young scholars to ordination,' — Life of Adam
Martindale, ch, iv. § 6,

250 LANCASHIRE.
being then acknowledged in Lancashfre), ' as also he being upon due
examination for his abUities and fitness for the work approved, upon
the thfrtieth day of March (it being a day of solemn fasting appointed
for the business), at Manchester, Mr. Constentine began vrith prayer,
Mr. Walker preached, Mr. Leigh continued the duty of prayer after
sermon, Mr. Angier propounded the questions to the said Mr. Baxter,
who did before the congregation make pubUc confession of his faith,
and such declaration as was requisite according to the ordinance
aforesaid, vrith earnest prayer by Mr. Angier, he was solemnly set
apart to the work of the ministry by the imposition of the hands of
the presbytery ; exhortation was also given to him. touching his duty
by Mr. Angier, and the action ended vrith prayer. The congregation
was then dismissed.'
Frequently several ' expectants ' were ordained at the same time.
It was not unusual for young men, after completing thefr aca
demical course, to spend one or two years pre"riously to ordination
vrith an approved minister, rendering such assistance as ' expectente'
could render, and receiving instruction in the duties of the pastoral
office. They frequently took sOme part of the pubUc service, aa
reading the scriptures and offering prayer, and occasionaUy preached
on one part of the Sunday, Mr, Angier was in great ;repute as a
loving instructor vrith whom ' expectants ' resided that they ' might
have the benefit of his grave exainple, pious instruction, and useful
conversation,' John Worthington, B.A, of Katharine HaU, Cam
bridge, having been with bim about a year, and obtained a caU from
Oldham, presented his testimonials, signed the covenant, defended
his thesis on the question, ' An sola fides justificet,' and was ordained
by the Manchester classis, Ralph Seddon, B,A, of Christ's CoUege,
Cambridge, after assisting Mr, Angier trwo years, was ordained on a
call from the chapelry of Gorton.
Ordination was on some occasions deferred, and on some refused,
on account of the inabUity of the expectants to satisfy the classis
vrith respect to thefr examinations. ' Mr, Scoales waa examined in
logic, phUosophy, ethics, metaphysics, and Greek, but not approved,'
A son of good John Angier appUed for ordination, when it appeared
that he had led an irregular course of Ufe, and he was ordered to
give satisfaction by making a public confession of his sins at the
time of morning service. This exposure must have been a strange
preparation for hia ordination, but after it had been made, ' he was
appointed to be ordained.'
I have noticed the confrast between the difficulty of obteining
ordination in Lancashfre, and the facUity of obteining it in London.
The Ufe of Adam Martindale supplies a remarkable iUustration,
Adam was a good, but a self-teught acholar. With exemplary
diUgence he had made considerable progress in languages, logic,
phUosophy, and especiaUy mathematics, ' Within vievy of ordination
age,' he worked hard and anxiously to supply the deficiencies of his
early education, and^ to satisfy the demands of the presbyterian
examiners. Having obtained a call to the chapelry of Gorton, he
seems to have had some fear of hia examination, for he delayed in

PRESBYTERIANISM ESTABLISHED. 251
applying for ordination, whUe as ' an expectant ' he could preach in
the chapel, and the communicants might receive the communion at
Didsbury, Denton, or some other chapel in the neighbourhood. As
to the few chUdren for whom baptism might be requfred, he could
secure the serrices of an ordained minister. Some of the elders
insisted upon immediate trial for ordination ; but kind John Angier
pleaded for some longer time to be aUowed to a modest young man,
working hard ¦with Ms preparations. Heyricke, to whom the matter
was referred, said ' Let the boy tarry at Jericho untU his beard be
grown.' Adam resolved to make the most of his opportunity, but he pro
longed it beyond the expectation of the classis. Nearly a year and
a half after his appUcation, ' July 8, 1647, Mr, Angier is desfred to
speak to Mr, Martindale to know the reason of his not coming.'
' September 1, 1647. Mr. Martindale to be warned to appear at the
next meeting.' He had in the meanwhUe excited some prejudice in
the minds of the ministers, by expressing a favourable opinion of the
' new-fangled notions of the Independents.'
With this delay of his ordination, Adam saw no reason to connect
a simulteneous delay of his marriage. It was easier for a young
man to please a young woman than a class of elderly ministers.
Soon after his marriage he received ' a brisk caU ' to Rosthern in
Cheshfre, and renewed his appUcation to be ordained by the Man
chester classis. He passed his examinations creditably. His thesis
was ' An liceat m,ere privatis vn, ecclesia constitutd concionari 1 ' The
question was probably suggested by the favourable opinion which
the ' expectant ' was supposed to have expressed of some practices
of the Independents. Adam, however, having Uke most seK-taught
men a great contempt for ignorance, defended the negative, and
obtained his ' si quis,' which was affixed to the door of Rosthern
church. But new difficulties troubled him. The ' si quis ' waa
returned vrith several objections signed by eleven parishioners, of
whom, however, two were ' vricked,' three ' addicted to vicious
courses,' one ' miserably poor through debauchery,' two ' unfit for
any business that requfred reason,' and one ' had faUen off from aU
pubUo worship.' Further, the patron would not give his consent.
It was resolved, ' Nov. 21, 1648. Not to proceed to ordain the said
Martindale to Rosthern, until the titie he had to the place were
created.' In these new difficulties, and after his long delay, Adam went to
London, and the day after his arrival waited on ' Mr. Caryl of
Magnus at the bridge foot, and Dr. Younge of Blackfriars,' who told
biTn to 'make haste to Andrew Undershaft,' in which church the
classis waa sitting, and soon about to adjourn. The clerk, on hearing
of the distence the young man had come, persuaded the ministera
to stay a Uttle longer. Although 'Dr. Spurstow the moderator
was somewhat discontented,' the examinations were aUowed
and soon finished, and the next day Martindale was ordained,
when 'Dr. Manton preached an exceUent sermon.' Adam re
turned the ordained and legal minister of Rosthern, caring

252 LANCASHIRE.
Httle for the patron, the signers of the 'si quis,' or the Manchester
classis.* The rule of worship in the Presbyterian Church was ' The Direc
tory for Public Prayer, Reading the Holy Scripture, Singing of
Psalms, Preaching of the Word, Administering of the Sacramente,
and other parts of the public worship of God, ordinary and extra
ordinary.' It was composed by the Westminster Assembly, and
enjoined by an ordinance of parliament. f
According to the Dfrectory the people were to enter the assembly
' not frreverently, but in a grave and seemly manner, taking thefr
places vrithout adoration, or bowing themselves towards one place or
another.' This dfrection is worthy of notice, as opposed to the scan
dalous indecency vrith which Scotch Presbyterians are accustomed
to enter and leave thefr churches. The minister 'after solemn calUng
npon the great name of God,' was to begin •vrith prayer, 'in all
reverence and humiUty acknowledging the incomparable greatness
and majesty of the Lord, in whose presence they do then in a spiri-
¦tual sense appear.' The prayer, including ' confession of sin, and
supplication for pardon, assistence, and acceptance of the whole
service,' was to be foUowed by ' the reading of the scriptures in an
orderly manner, to the exclusion of the apocrypha.' An exceUent
dfrection ia appended, which it would be desfrable for miiUsters in
our time to observe : ' When the minister shaU judge it necessary to
expound any part of what is read, let it not be done untU the whole
chapter or psalm be ended.' After reading the scripture and singing
a psalm, the minister was to endeavour to excite devout feeling in
his own heart and in the hearts of the people, by ' calling upon the
Lord to this effect.' A form is given, but only as a guide, and an
exceUent form it is, unequalled, I think, by any formulary in the
Book of Common Prayer. The sermon [was foUowed by an appro
priate prayer, for which the Dfrectory contains an exceUent 'method,'
not prescribed, but only recommended. After singing another psalm,
' let the minister dismiss the congregation vrith a solemn blessing.'
I cannot imagine any reUgious service more solemn, more appro
priate, or more edifying than one conducted by an able, judicious,
and devout minister, according to the rules and in the spirit of the
Dfrectory. Among the many fooUsh things which have been said of the Pres
byterians, one is that they neglected the Lord's Prayer in thefr
pubUc services. Thefr Dfrectory instructed them, ' Because the
prayer which Christ taught His disciples is not only a pattern of
prayer, but in itself a most comprehensive prayer, we recommend it
to be also used in the prayers of the Church.'
The dfrections for the administration of baptism and the Lord's
Supper would be in almost every particular appropriate to those
sacraments as they are now generally administered by Protestant
dissenters. In baptism the sign of the cross was prohibited, not
expressly but by implication, in the words, ' by pouring or sprinkUng
* Life of Martindale, ch. iv. § 20.
t Dated, Die Veneris, 3 Januarii, 1644.

PRESBYTERLANISM ESTABLISHED. 253
of water on the face of the chUd, -without adding any other cere
mony.' The dfrectory for solemnising matrimony is, I think, quite as good
as any, and much better than many, which have been pubUshed
since that time. The use of the ring is not mentioned, although
many of the Puritans objected to it as a reUc of superstition. It has
been often said that marriage was celebrated by the English Presby
terians with Uttle solemnity or impressiveness, but said only by those
who do not understand them. In this respect, as in some others, the
Presbyterian Church estabUshed in Lancashire contrasted favourably
vrith its sister church in Scotland. The contracting and the ratify
ing of marriage were two great solemnities in the puritan famiUes of
Lancashfre. No sooner were young people ' engaged,' as we caU it,
than the engagement was notified "with reUgious formaUty. A
domestic service was observed, friends were invited, prayers were
offered by a minister, and a sermon appropriate to the occasion was
often preached. This serrice was called 'the handfasting.' 'We
were married,' says Adam Martindale, 'very solemnly (about a
month after Mr. Angier had confracted us) by Mr. Heyricke in
Manchester church.* Similar notices often occur in the puritan
biographies of the time.f
Such waa the presbyterian poUty established in Lancashfre in
1646. Ite adminisfration was conducted by very able men, as
Heyricke, HoUingworth, Herle, Harrison, Angier, TUsley, Gee, and
Isaac Ambrose. On its completion, these and other ministers of the
county ' congratulated the eldership that Christ, the Head of the
Church, had stfrred up and stood by the honourable and pious parlia
ment in its endeavours to wrest the government of the Church from
the hands of usurpers, and to deUver it purged from its former
depravements unto Hia servants, unto whom by His "wiU He had
assigned it, and though the reformation had proceeded "with slow
steps, yet that eventuaUy the hand of God had been exalted in the
redemption of thefr Uves, thefr Uberties, and their estetes, from the
common enemy, and in the estabUshment of thefr ecclesiastical
government, the progress of which in Lancashfre they had so much
cause to admfre.' J
* Ufe of Martindale, ch. iv. § 11.
f During the Commonwealth, marriages were frequently contracted before
magistrates authorised to ratify and register the contract, but these civil contracts
were looked upon with no more favour by the Presbyterian mimsters than they
were by the EpiscopaUans. Magistrates appointed for the purpose proclaimed the
banns of marriage in markets and other places of pubUc resort. Edward Hopwood,
Esq., a puritan magistrate, seems to have been especiaUy engaged in this service.
Baines, vol. iu. p. 65, calls him ' the general ParUamentary High Priest of these
parts.' According to the parish register, he proclaimed the banns of marriage in
1669 at the market cross of Bolton ; in 1655 he had done the same service at
RadcUffe. According to the register of WhaUey ' the agreement of marriage be
tween Roger Kenyon, Gent, and Mrs, AUce Rigby was duly published at the
market town of CUtheroe on three market days.'
% The deliberate Resolution of the Ministers of the Gospel within the cownty palatine
of Lancaster vnth the Grounds and Cautions according to which they put into

254 LANCASHIRE.
Presbyterianism thus estabUshed in Lancashfre did not work so
smoothly or pleasantly as its zealous friends had expected. Although
Prelatiste were sUenced and Papists subdued, new enemies, armed
vrith strange weapons, appeared to frouble them. Instead of Laud
and his suffragans in their canonicals of silk and fine Unen, claiming
authority over the consciences of Christians, were George Fox and
his quaking men in their leathern coats, denying the authority of
pres"byteries and synods and all ecclesiastical officers. The Indepen
dente, although not numerous in Lancashfre, were becoming formid
able from the ability and energy of two or -three of their preachers,
and from the encouragement they received from Colonel Thomas
Birch, Sfr Robert Dukenfield, and other officers of the Republican
army, who, having retfred from the service, were in their several
¦rillages ready to protect the principles they had learnt and professed
in the camp. With them came a sfrange people whose name was
legion, Anabaptists, Arians, Arminians, Antiuomians, Bro"wnists, and
so on through all the letters ofthe alphabet. Ha-ring formed a reUgious
estebUshment, the Presbyterians became an object of envy to many,
and atfracted to their Church many more, who, having no respect for
thefr discipline, yet desired to obtain some share of ite social advan
tages. In excluding such men the ministers came into coUiaion vritii
the magistrates ; in admitting them, they admitted some who in thefr
self-sufficiency and obstinacy became very froublesome to the
ecclesiastical courts. Presbyterianism, somewhat proud of its newly-
acqufred position, and haughty in the use of its pri^rileges, had no
smaU share of the troubles and inconveniences which the officials of
every reUgious establishment must feel, unless it be Uke the papacy
in its strength, able to control the civU power, or Uke prelacy in state
Uvery willing to obey its commands. Presbyterianism was Uke
neither. It assumed an authority which it could not regulate, and
was therefore compeUed to submit to the control of the, state to
prevent the abuse of that assumed authority. Its assumption waa
arrogant, and its submission humUiating. "While in other respects it
worked exceedingly weU, in its connection and collisions ¦vrith the
ciril power it worked exceedingly iU.
A few instances, and they are few selected from many, vriU expose
the evils of the relations which were eatebUahed between presby
terianism and the civil power in Lancashfre.
One of the earUest sources of embarrassment to the presbyterian
authorities was found in the official position of such ministers as,
reteining their preference for the older forms of worship, were yet
•wUUng to observe the formularies of the new estebUshment, so far as
they were requfred by the laws and ordinances of parliament. A
worthy minister belonging to the classical dirision of Bolton waa
cited before the classis for kneeling in private prayer, when he entered
the pulpit, before the commencement of the pubUc serrice. Although
the performance of private devotion in pubUc was contrary to pres
byterian custom, it was not a riolation of any estabUshed rule. As
execution the Presbyterian Government. London, 1647. A very scarce tract,
quoted in Hibbert's History of the Collegiate Church of Manchester.

PRESBYTERIANISM ESTABLISHED. 255
the good man might quite as weU have prayed in the privacy of his
vestry, it may not be easy to say why he should have chosen for hia
private devotion the preciae moment when it would become apparent
to aU the congregation ; juat as it is not easy to dirine the motive of
some good ministers who in these times make an ostentetioua per
formance of thefr private prayers in thefr pulpits. But the accuaed
minister conducted the pubUc worship in exact conformity vrith the
authorised dfrectory. The classis, therefore, unwilling to allow the
practice, but unable to condemn it, prolonged the proceedings, and
eventuaUy left the matter undetermined, very much to their own
humiliation and the annoyance of the people. Another minister in
the same district continued to wear the surpUce, which, even under
the rule of prelacy, had been generally disused in that part of Lan
cashfre. The ministers had so often pleaded for Uberty in the use of
vestments that they could not gracef nUy refuse to others what they
had demanded for themselves. Refuse it, however, they did, and the
offending minister sUently or suUenly submitted to their decision. But
the poor man was not so easily deUvered from his enemies. He was
accused of having ' frequented maUgnants' company,' of ' not publicly
manifesting any sorrow for his maUgnancy,' of ' alleging scripture for
the king,' of ' going to an ale-feast when the parliament forces were
fighting against Warrington,' of ' not singing psalms,' of ' going to a
horse-race on Barlow Moor,' and of some other naughty things. As
the result of these proceedings does not appear in the minutes, either
they were prolonged beyond the time there specified, or the good ^
man, Mr. Pollit, satisfied the classis vrithout any further investigation.
In another instance, however, Mr, Gilbody, minister of Holcombe
chapel, who had been moderator of the classis, was suspended because
he ' did go to a horse race,' because he ' did sit tipUng in an ale
house, where waa fiddUng,' and because ' he was present at a bowUng
on a common ale-house bowling-green,'* Had the Manchester
classis been as sfrict as the Bolton, both Heyricke and Newcome
would have been suspended for bowUng,
A curious case came before the Bolton classis. At the examination
of two candidates for ordination, it appeared that one ' had married
the other,' that is, had aolemnised the marriage. As the former had
not been ordained, he had done very wrong, and both candidates
had to ' give satiafaction ' for being concerned in ' a clandestine
marriage.' t
The new method of solemnising matrimony was offensive to many
people who were compeUed to submit to the presbyterial rule aa
obligatory upon the authorised clergy. In some instences, the people
who preferred the old formulary were married by ejected clergymen,
or by unauthorised persons, as clerks and schoolmasters. Not content
with leaving the legitimacy of such marriages to the judgment of the
ciril courts, the presbyteries, prematurely declared them to be unlaw-
ftd, and requfred aU persons who had been so married since the
passing of the ordinance of parliament to be re-married in the regular
* Minutes of the Second Classis, cited by Walker.
f Minutes of the Second Classis, Walker, i. p. 40.

256 LANCASHIRE,
manner, or to be excluded from the communion of the Church, Aa
thefr 0"wn ministers were prohibited from solemnising matrimony in
the prelatical manner, Mr. Jones, minister of Eccles, had to make a
very humble submission before the Manchester classis, for ha"ring,
before the prohibition was published, made use of the old formulary.
After prohibiting such marriages, the classis requfred all persons who
had been married by any other than thefr own ministers to inform the
elders how, where, and by whom they had been married, in order to
' free themselves from the suspicion of Uring in fornication,' Several
couples were cited to appear before the classis, by whom they were
reproved for their immorality, and ordered to have thefr marriage
solemnised in the regular manner. One woman of Ashton under
Lyne boldly refused to abnegate her marriage. To submit to a
repetition of the marriage solemnity would be to confess that she, a
chaste and honourable woman, had Uved in dishonour and sin. She
refused to submit as positively as any of the presbyterian ministers
afterwards refused to submit to reordination. Her husband was
more pliable, or more timid. The minute of the classis is, 'Agreed
that "WUUam Hardy and his reputed wife are bound to consummate
thefr marriage. She absolutely refuseth ever to marry him. Noted,
that they are guilty of fornication. He acknowledgeth that it is a
great sin, but asserts that she is his wife before God,'
In many instences parents refused to have thefr chUdren baptised
in the presbyterian manner. Had the ministers allowed to others the
Uberty which they had in earlier times claimed for themselves, they
would have avoided much perplexity, division, and Ul-feeUng, Some
of them, if Uberty had been allowed, would have baptised according
to the old formulary, but the use of it was prohibited in the churches.
Many parents, therefore, resorted for the baptism of thefr children to
ejected ministers, or to unauthorised persons. The schoolmaster of
Prestwich was in great request to baptise children in the manner
formerly used. To escape observation or punishment, he usuaUy
performed the serrice after sunset, when in those time's very few
people went abroad.
But the most proUfic source of presbyterian difficulties was the
authority of the eldership in admitting to the communion of the
Church, and especiaUy in excluding from it. In voluntary societies
this power, if vrisely used, is very seldom the cause of perplexity or
trouble to either ministers or people. But in an estebUshed Church,
exclusion from its communion is exclusion from a position of credit
and respectabUity, to which all subjecte of the realm have equal
claim, unless they incur its forfeiture by some offence, proved by legal
evidence, and punished by magisterial authority.
The elders of every congregation had the authority of a parUa
mentary ordinance to exclude from thefr communion the ' ignorant '
and the ' scandalous,' Botli these words could be construed vrith
much latitude of interpretation. It was not easy to say what degree
of ignorance disqualified a man as ' ignorant,' or what amount of
scandal disqualified him as ' scandalous,' As an appeal was aUowed
from one Church court to another, through three gradations, and

PRESBYTERIANISM ESTABLISHED. 257
eventuaUy to the civil magistrate, these two words suppUed material
for interminable Utigation.
So far as ' ignorance ' was concerned, the elders were armed with
inquisitorial power to ascertain the degree of reUgious knowledge
which was possessed by candidates for the communion of the Church,
Even acknowledged communicants might at any time be chaUenged for
' ignorance,' and compeUed to prove their competent knowledge before
the court of elders. By a Uberal consfruction of the term ' ignorance,'
it was made to include heresy and opposition to the discipline of the
Church. If a man did not approve of the doctrine of the Westmin
ster confession, it was charitable to attribute his disapproval to his
ignorance, and thus charity was made to do the work of persecution
by excluding him, not from a voluntary society, but from a national
Church. StiU more comprehensive in the judgment of the presbyterian
courts was the word ' scandalous.' It would excite no surprise to
find drunkards, gamesters, and adulterers branded as ' scandalous,'
but the Lancashire elders discovered a much wider interpretation for
the word. AU who had fought in defence of the king, although they
were able to plead the amnesty of parliament, were declared to be
' scandalous,' unless they had given satisfaction to the Church by
publicly acknowledging ¦their great sin in defending prelacy and false
reUgion. ' CavaUerism ' was a charge sometimes brought against
ministers, elders, and even private members of the Church. House
holders were declared ' scandalous ' for hfring papistical servants, or
employing papistical tailors.* An elder was charged with scandal
for neglecting to sing in his family (probably the good man had no
musical abiUty) ; another for ' swearing by his faith ' ; another for
' going to an ale feast ' ; another for saying the ' parliament was a
body without a head. ' ParUamentarians brought charges of ' scandal '
against RoyaUste, Royalists against Parliamentarians, and retfred
soldiers against men of both parties. The disputes of families, and
idle tales of villages, were often brought before the Church courts,
which, embarrassed with endless complaints and appeals, found great
difficulty in making thefr discipline produce anything better than
suspicions, jealousies, quarrels, and lawsuits.f
* TaUors, in those times, like the ' dirzies ' in India, commonly went from one
house to another to work for families,
f Oliver Heywood gives an account of a curious dispute between his father
Richard Heywood and the ministers and elders of the congregation of Bolton.
Richard, a shrewd, clever man of business, liked to have his own way in his religion
as weU as in his trade, while he wisely left his good "vrife to rule his family. The
ministers and elders gave ' little tickets,' as they called them, made of lead, to the
approved candidates for the communion, and expected theni to be produced on admis
sion to the sacrament. Richard did not approve of these ' Uttle tickets,' ' partly
because he looked upon them as an innovation and a snare, partly because it was
cumbersome to the communicants, partly because no other church in the county
had any such practice.' So he refused to take and shew his ' ticket,' As after
admonition ' he was still resolute, persisting in his schism, they suspended him
from the Lord's Supper.' Still worse, 'they did also excommunicate him for
contempt, because, as they said, he laughed them to scorn ; for having naturally a,
smiling countenance, he might sometimes smile in his discourse with them.' This

258 LANCASHIRE.
There was, however, a better aide of Presbyterianism, which, had it
not been connected with the civil power, would have secured the con
fidence and respect of aU Protestant Englishmen. Public worship
was observed -with more order and solemnity than had been preriously
known in the county. The salutary influence of religious principles
was observed diffusing itself among all grades of social life, and ele
vating the morals of the people. Although the rules of ecclesiastical
discipline were in many instances too rigorously and inquisitorially
enforced, the presbyterian government of the Church in Lancashfre
never assumed, or never was able to maintain, the harsh and oppres
sive rule which, justly or unjustly, has been attributed to it in
Scotland. Subject to the lenient but effectual resfraint of the ci-ril
power, it secured a general respect for the clerical character, a
becoming regard for the solemnities of religion, and a regular ad
minisfration of its ordinances, such as had never been enforced in the
county under episcopal authority.
Of the troublers of the Presbyterian Israel, not the least annoying
were the wild and fanatical sects brought into life by the intense excite
ment ofthe civU war. Discussions upon all sorts of religious subjects
prevailed in markets, fafrs, pubUc houses, wherever men and women
came together. These discussions, conducted by persons preriously
unaccustomed to think about religion, brought suddenly as to the
Ught of a new day, or the use of a new faculty, and disturbed by
strange apprehensions of mystic communings vrith spiritual powers,
produced a countless variety of conflicting opinions among enthusias
tic people, all of whom beUeved they had a mission to promulgate
thefr opimona, wherever they could find or make an opportunity,
Ha-ring little respect for Church order, ministerial authority, or ecclesi
astical sanctities, they gave endless frouble and annoyance to the
grave, formal, reverend ministers of the estabUshed order.
Many of these sects were short-Uved. The most remarkable of
them stUl remains, and although gradually declining, it retains aU
that was good in its founders, whUe it has outgrown almost all that
was eril, I am not disposed to chronicle the doings or the sufferings
of the early Quakers, although they may almost be caUed a Lancashfre
sect, as the earUest and most successful labours of thefr founder were
in that county and its neighbourhood. Their sufferings were cruelly
severe, although it must be acknowledged by those who respsct their
seems to have been just what smiling Richard wished. Notwithstanding the
entreaties of his wife he would not yield and conform, but appealed to the ' Classis'
which met at that time, as it did occasionaUy, at Bury. The Classis disappro-ring
of the severity of ' the eldership ' attempted to mediate and induce the elders
peaceably to admit the offender to the sacrament. But Richard did not approve
of mediation nor desire peace. He was determined to have a triumph over the
elders. He, therefore, appealed to the Pro-vincial Assembly at Preston, who deci
ded that the elders should revoke their sentence and receive the offender again to
their feUowship. TJnwUling as they were to restore him without some expressions
of contrition, they were compelled to obey the order of the Assembly. In doing
so they ' made some hints as though he had submitted.' Displeased with this
attempt to disguise their defeat, he would not 'join with them in the Lord's
Supper afterwards, but was entertained at Cockey'and all places about.' Hunter's
Ufe of Oliver Heywood, pp. 65-67.

PRESBYTERIANISM ESTABLISHED. 259
principles and admire thefr honesty and fortitude, that they provoked
much of tbe persecution which they so patiently endured, and re-
peUed the assistence which good men of other parties would have
been ready to afford them. A modern ' friend,' mild, pleasant, neatly
dressed, carefully educated, perfected in proprieties, is as unlike as
possible, except in a few ' principles,' to the obtrusive, intolerant,
rude, coarse, disputetious Quaker of the early days of their sect.
"While I honour those rude men for the testimony which they faith-
folly bore to great principles, I do not wonder at the bad treatment
they often received from the presbyterian clergy. Thefr chief feuds,
however, in the days of the Commonwealth, were not vrith the Pres-
liyterians, but -with the Independents and Baptists, who were more
ready to accept their chaUenges, and engage in thefr profracted dis
putes. As I proceed, they may occasionally cross my path, and if
they do 1 shall endeavour to speak of them vrith the esteem which
they deserve for their unfaltering testimony to important truths, but -
I shaU not go out of my way either to praise or to censure thefr doings.
No sooner were the Presbyterians estabUshed in Lancashire than
they began to be froubled by the Independents and to trouble them
in return. The Independent sect was not at that time so young as
some -writers have represented it. It was not, as is often said, born
in the camp of Fafrfax or of CromweU, Its adherents, of a better
sort than the republican soldiers, previously existed in Norfolk, in
Lincolnshfre, in London, in Holland, in New England, in both uni
versities, in many parts of the kingdom, although scarcely in Lanca
shfre. Even when thefr prinOiples, or some of them, prevailed in the
republican camp, the Independent soldiers, or most of them, were
very different religionists from the friends of John Robinson or the
dissenting brethren of the Westminster assembly. Such Independent
ministers as Dr. Goodwin and Mr. Burroughs, grave, orderly, scholarly
men, had Uttle in common vrith the preaching colonels of the repub
Ucan army. The best of the Independent soldiers would have been
Ul at ease under the discipUne of the pastor and deacons of a congre
gational church, or of a congregational consociation of New England.
In one particular the Independents were generally agreed, and in
that particular the Presbyterians, with even more unanimity, were
directly and -riolently opposed to them. The Independente
were for toleration, their regular pastors with some Umitetions, thefr
preaching soldiers to an unUmited extent. Their best educated and
orderly ministers, Uke Samuel Eaton, however intolerant they may
have been in controversy, contended for a legal toleration of opinions
which were not practically injurious to society, or not opposed to the
great verities of Christian doctrine. The Independents of the army
claimed toleration for all sorts of people, except perhaps the prelatical
and presbyterian clergy.
The Presbyterians vrith one voice denounced toleration, both in its
modified and in its unmitigated form. When toleration was a new
thing upon the earth, a firm opposition to it may excite no surprise,
but we may well wonder at the fierce and unrelenting opposition
which prevailed among the Lancashire clergy. Their fiery denunoia-

260 LANCASHIRE,
tions of the new opinions were more Uke the cries of maniacs than
the remonstrances of clergymen. Their brethren in London could
say hard things of secteries, but I cannot believe that even the Lon
don clergy, under the guidance of such men as Dr. Manton, would
have approved of ' The Harmonious Consent of the Ministers of the
Province within the County Palatine of Lancaster, with their Reverend
Brethren the Ministers of the Prorince of London, in thefr late
Testimony to the Truth of Jesus Christ, and to our Solemn League
and Covenant, as also against the Errors, Heresies, and Blasphemies
of the time, and the Toleration thereof.' This fierce remonsfrance,
drawn up by Heyricke vrith the assistance of TUsley, is the appro
priate expression of the frantic spfrit which prevailed among the
consenting ministers of the county. While Heyricke and TUsley
thus furiously denounced toleration, HolUngworth reasoned against.
it, Angier warned his friends of its eril, Harrison preached it down,
even Charles Herle forgot his moderation, and Isaac Ambrose his
charity. ' The Harmonious Consent ' of the ministers of Lancashire ' vrith
their reverend brethren the ministers of the Pro-vince of London'
suggests the enquiry, How far did ' the Harmonious Consent '
correctly represent the agreement of the Lancashire and the London
clergy ? Among the Presbyterians of London much alarm had been
excited by the rise of strange sects in the army, by the growing
influence of the Independents, by the rigorous, not to say unconsti
tutional, measures of the republican leaders, and by the scarcely-
concealed determination to abolish the regal government. Hugh
Peters had been employed to conciliate the ministers and gain thefr
countenance to the violent proceedings of the exfreme party ; but he
had no success with the Presbyterians and very little with the Inde
pendents. From a meeting of the London clergy, convened in Sion
College, a paper issued, ' A Serious and Faithful Representation of
the Judgment of the Ministers of the Gospel -within the Prorince of
London whose Names are subscribed, contained in a Letter to the
General and his Council of War, delivered to his Excellency by some
of the Subscribers, January 18, 1648.' This representation, caUn,
earnest, respectful, but very firm, was creditable to the understandings
and the hearts ofthe London clergy.*
'The Harmonious Consent,' published soon afterwards, of the
Lancashire ministers, was very unlike the ' Representation ' of the
London clergy. It was in temper and spirit less firm but more
violent, less directly opposed to the measures of the republicans, but
far more vehement in its denunciations of all kinds of sectaries. On
the subject of toleration, then slowly making way among some of
the London clergy, nothing more horrible was ever put upon paper-
by religionists of any sort, Heyricke and his brethren say : ' "We
are here led to express -with what astonishment and horror we are
sfruck, when we seriously weigh what endeavours are used for the
establishing of an universal toleration of all the pernicious errors,
* London. Printed by J. Meacock for Luke Fawne, at the sign of the Parrot,
in St. Paul's Churchyard. 1648.

PRESBYTERIANISM ESTABLISHED. 261
blasphemous and heretical doctrines broached in these times, as if
men would not sin fast enough except they were bidden ; or as if God
were not already enough dishonoured except the throne of iniquity
were set up, framing mischief by a law ; or as if men were afraid
that error (a goodly plant to be cherished) would not grow fast
enough except it were made much of ; or as if it might as justly lay
claim to the privUege of being defended as truth itself; or as if there
were any danger that Saten would not destroy souls enough, except
he might do the same vrithout aU resfraint. For our own parts, as
we can never sufficiently admire and wonder that any who have
taken the Solemn League and Covenant should either have so quickly
forgotten it, or else imagine that the esteblishing a toleration of
heresy and schism by a law should be the way to extirpate them ; so
also here we shall teke occasion to declare what our apprehensions
are concerning such a toleration.
' Besides, what else would this be but a setting up the image of
jealousy that provokes to jealousy, and a putting upon God (who
knows how many) co-rivals ? It would be a giving Satan free Uberty
to set up his thresholds by God's thresholds, and his posts by God's
posts, his Dagon by God's ark, which how dishonourable it would
be to God and Jesus Christ His only Son we leave all men to judge.
They that search diUgently cannot find in it love to God, or love to
His truth, or love to men's precious souls. Nay, it strongly savours
of leaving of first love, which Christ hates ; of lukewarmness and
want of zeal, for which Christ threatens to spue out of His mouth ;
of love to error, and an apprehension of some amiableness and worth
therein for which it were to be desfred, or else why should there be
a special pleading to have it tenderly dealt with and indulged ?
Even as it argued a love to Baal in them that pleaded for him against
Gideon, because he had cast down his altar and cut down the grove
that was by it. It would be no part of England's thankfulness unto
God, after so many deliverances and mercies received from Him, to
grant men open Uberty to blaspheme God at their pleasure, wrest the
scriptures to their own destruction, frample upon His holy ordinances,
slight and contemn all minisfry, despise His messengers, commit all
manner of abomination, and for every one to go a-whoring after his
own inventions, which yet would be the effects of a lawless toleration.
Add yet further, that a toleration would be the putting of a sword
into a madman's hand ; a cup of poison into the hand of a child ; a
letting loose of madmen vrith firebrands in their hands ; an appoint
ing a city of refuge in men's consciences for the devil to fly to ; a
laying of the stumbUng-block before the bUnd ; a proclaiming Uberty
to the wolves to come into Christ's fold to prey upon His lambs ; a
toleration of soul-murther (the greatest murther of all other), and for
the establishing whereof damned souls in hell would accuse men on
earth. Neither would it be to pro"ride for tender consciences, but to
take away aU conscience ; if eril be suffered, it vrill not suffer good ;
if error be not forcibly kept under, it wiU be superior ; which we here
the rather speak of, to undeceive those weak ones who, under the
specious pretext of liberty of conscience (though falsely so caUed, and

262 LANCASHIRE,
being indeed, as is weU observed by the general assembly of the
Church of Scotland, liberty of error, scandal, schism, heresy, dishon
ouring God, opposing the truth, hindering reformation, and seducing
others), are charmed by Satan into a better liking of an unconscien
tious toleration. We also dread to think what horrid blasphemies
would be belched out against God ; what vile abominations would be
committed ; how the duties of nearest relations would be violated ;
what differences and divisions there would be in famiUes and congre
gations ; what heart-burnings would be caused ; what disobedience to
the ciril magisfrate that might be palliated over with a pretence of
conscience, as well as other opinions and practices ; what disturbance
of the ciril peace, and dissolution of aU humane society, and of aU
government in the Church and Cpmmonwealth, if once Uberty were
given by a law (which God forbid) for men to profess and practise
what opinions they pleased ; yea, sin would be then committed
without any restraint or shame, although the more Uberty to sin the
greater bondage. The esteblishing of a toleration would make us
become the abhorring and loathing of all nations, and being so pal
pable a breach of our covenant would be the high-road way to lay
England's glory for ever in the dust, and awaken against us the
Lord of Hosts to bring a sword upon us, to avenge the quarrel of
His covenant. A toleration added to our sins would make us to God
an intolerable burthen ; He would doubtless think of easing Himself,
He would be weary of repenting. And when Jesus Christ shall come
to judge both the quick and the dead, the very lukewarm prelates
whom Christ hath spued out of His mouth (who in their times would
never consent to such a toleration) would rise up in judgment against
us and condemn us. And therefore, however some may conceive
that in things of the mind the sword is not put into the hands of the
civU magistrate for the terror of evil doers, yet because we judge the
toleration of all kinds of opinions and professions in matters of faith
(errors therein being in the number of those evU works to which the
magisfrate is to be a terror), to be impious and wicked, and would
be a tender nurse to give suck to and cherish the foul, ugly, mon
strous, and misshapen bfrths of our times, aa it would be also destruc
tive to the common wealth, .... we do here profess . , , , that
we do detest the fore-mentioned toleration. And whatever others
may expect to the contrary, yet we hope that God vrill never suffer
the parliament of England to be so unmindful of either their Solemn
League and Covenant, or of their own former declarations and re
monstrances, protestetions and professions, as once to give a listening
ear to such as might move for such a thing ; and that they may be
kept from being guilty of so great a sin shall be our earnest prayer
for them unto God continuaUy night and day.' *
¦* To this ' Harmonious Consent ' the foUo-wing names were subscribed : —
Richard Heyricke, warden of Christ Robert Yates, pastor of the Church at
CoUedg in Manchester Warrington
Richard HolUngworth, FeUow of Christ Bradley Hayhurst, preacher of the Word
CoUedg in Manchester at Leigh

PRESBYTERIANISM ESTABLISHED,

263

That thia extraordinary document waa subscribed by nearly all the
presbyterian ministers of Lancashire can be explained only by
supposing that they were frightened out of calm thought and vrise
consideration by the monstrous apparitions, which were rising on all
sides and threatening thefr newly-established Church. The signs of
the times were disasfrous ; the portents were such as neither they nor
thefr fathers had ever seen before. History is said to repeat itself.

Alexander Horrocks, minister of the
Gospel at Deane
John 'Tilsley, pastor of Dean
John Harper, pastor of Bolton
Richard Goodwyn, minister of the gospel
at Bolton
Richard Benson, minister of ChoUerton
WiUiam Alt, min. of Bury
Robert Bath, pastor of Rachdal
WUUam Assheton, pastor of Middleton
John Harrison, pastor of Ashton-under-
Une
Thomas Pyke, pastor of Radcliff
John Angier, pastor of Denton
WUliam Walker, minister of the Gospel
at Newton-Heath chapel
Toby Furnesse, minister of the Gospel
John Joanes, min. of Eccles
Edward Woolmer, min. of Flixton
Robert Gilbody, preacher at Holcome
Jonathan Scholefield, min. at Heywood
Thomas HoUand, min. of Ringley
Thomas Clayton, min . of Didsbury
Robert Constantino, min. of Ouldham
Peter Bradshaw, min. of Cockey
John Brierley, preacher at Salford
Thomas Johnson, min. of the Gospel at
Halsal
WilUam BeU, pastor of Hyton
William Dun, min. of the Gospel at
Ormeskirk
James WorraU, pastor of Aughton
WilUam Aspiuwal, preacher of God's
Word at MayhaU
John MaUison, min. of God's Word at
MelUng
Robert Seddon, min. of God's Word at
AJker
WUl. Norcot, minister of West Derby
WiU. Ward, min. of the Gospel at
Walton
Nevil Kay, pastor at Walton
Henry Boulton, preacher at Hale
John Fogge, pastor of Liverpoole
Joseph Tompson, min. of Sephton
Jo. Kyd, min. of Much- Crosby
James Bradsha"w, pastor of the Church
at Wigan
James Starkey, pastor of North-meoles
James Wood, preacher of the Word at
Ashetou in Makerfield

Thomas Norman, pastor of Newton
Timothy Smith, preacher of the Word
at Raiuforth
John Wright, pastor of BilUnge
Henry Shaw, pastor at Holland
Thomas Crompton, min. of the Gospel
at Astley
William Bagaley, min. of the Gospel at
Burtonwood
William Leigh, preacher of the Word at
Newchuroh
Richard Mawdesley, pastor of Ellins
James Hyet, pastor of Croston
Thomas Cranage, pastor of Brindle
Edward Gee, minister of the Gospel at
Eccleston
Paul Latham, pastor of Standish
Samuel Joanes, pastor of Hoole
Henry Welch, min. at Chorley
Wil. Browusword, preacher at Dugglas
James Crichely, preacher at Penwor
tham
Edward Fleetwood, pastor at Kirkham
Isaac Ambrose, pastor of Preston
WUliam Addison, lecturer at Preston
WUliam Ingham, minist. at Goosen-
arghe
Matthew Moore, minister at Broughton
Christopher Edmuudson, pastor at Gar-

Thomas Smith, preacher at Garstang
Chapel
John Breres, minister at Padiam
Richard Jackson, pastor at Whittington
Nicolas Smith, pastor of Tatham
Robert Shaw, pastor at Cockeram
James Scholecroft, minister at Caton
Thomas Whitehead, pastor at Halton
Peter Atkinson, minister of EUel
John Jaques, minister of Bolton
Richard Walker, minister of Warton
Philip Bennet, minister of Ulverston
WilUam Smith, minister of Over-
KeUet
Brian Willan, minister of Coulton
Peter Smith, minister of Shireshead
Edward Aston, minister of Claughton
Thomas Deury, minister of WiresdaUe
Thomas Fawcet, minister at Overton
Will. Garner, Preacher of the Gospel
John Smith, minister of Mailing

264 LANCASHIRE,
but no history was ever like the ecclesiastical history of England in
the ciril war. The position of the presbyterian clergy was new and
sfrange to them. They had suddenly become rulers of the Church
in which they had been oppressed, and they felt both their elevation
and their responsibility. They saw that the cause for which they
had contended so long and suffered so much was exposed to new
perils and unexpected disasters. They acted as if they had been
stricken with panic in a great emergency, when thefr most sacred
intereste were exposed to imminent hazards of which they had Uttle
knowledge and no experience.*
But more terrible things than the phantoms of heresy were
threatening the Presbyterians of Lancashfre. The Scottish army,
under the command of the Duke of HamUton, waa marching from
the north, through Cumberland and Westmoreland, in support of
the cause of royalty ; whUe Lambert from the south and CromweU
from Wales were hastening to combine their forces in order to resist
its progress. The opposing armies were expected to meet in Lanca
shfre, and the Presbyterians of the county were in great perplexity
as to the part they should take in the terrible conflict which they
could neither prevent nor avoid. They had good reason to fear the
friumph of either army.
As Presbyterians they might have been expected to look favourably
upon the progress of their co-religionists ; but they knew that the
commissioners of the kirk had not cordially approved of the invasion
of England. Many of the Scotch ministers were afraid of Hamilton,
lest he should restore the king vrithout conditions, and allow him to
re-establish prelacy. The Scotch parliament consented to the inva
sion only upon the condition that Hamilton would admit none of the
English to join his army, unless they would subscribe the Solemn
League and Covenant. Had this condition been faithfuUy observed,
the Lancashire Presbyterians might probably have received the Scotch
army as friends, and produced a very different result of the war.
Hamilton kept his engagement in its letter, but utterly disregarded
its spirit. Under the pretence of observing it, he would not allow
the uncovenanted Cavaliers to unite with hia soldiery, but dfrected
them to march as a distinct army, under the command of Sir Mar-
maduke Langdale, some few miles distant from his own. Heyricke,
although favourably disposed to the restoration of the king if he
would only subscribe the covenant, looked vrith suspicion upon
those 'great maUgnants and Papists,' and refused to support
Hamilton, unless he would dismiss and utterly disown all his
English auxUiaries who would not sign the Solemn League and
Covenant. On the other side the danger to the presbyterian estabUshment
was quite as obrious, and its subversion by the republicans, should
it be subverted, would be quite as disastrous to its friends. The
* The presbyterian ministers of some other counties, as Devonshire, Somerset
shire, and Gloucestershire, pubUshed their ' Consent' to the Representation of the
London Ministers, but so far as I can find, none in terms so outrageous as those of
the Lancashire ministers. — See Neal, vol. ii. p. 263.

PRESBYTERIANISM ESTABLISHED. 265
ministers heard with dismay that thefr favourite general, Fairfax,
had refused to lead the army against the Scotch. They had little
reason to regard with satisfaction the rising authority of either Lam
bert or Cromwell. Placed between the abhorred prelacy and popery
which were arrayed in front of the Scottish army, and the dreaded
Independency and sectarianism which were inarching to resist them,
the ministers of Lancashire knew not what was best to be done,
and therefore, acting under the ad-rice of Heyricke, resolved to do
nothing. The old Lancashire soldiers, however, were more disposed to fight
"with some enemy whom they hoped to find on the one side or on the
other. Some of them had old grievances to redress, old injuries to
avenge on the Scotch, or the sectaries, or on both. Some were con
sidering on which side the spoils of war were more promising. Some
of their officers, as Sir Robert Dukenfield, Colonel Worsley of Platt,
and Colonel Bfrch of Bfrch, had become favourably disposed to the
Independents, and were ready to support the interests of Cromwell
and, the RepubUcans. Others, as Sfr George Booth and Colonel
Holland of Denton, were as much disposed to defend the presbyte
rian interest against the Republicans as they had been to defend it
against the RoyaUsts ; and probably, had it not been for thefr dislike
of Langdale's maUgnants, they would have fought under HamUton
against Lambert and Cromwell. As cfrcumstances were, they acted
vrith the same indecision as thefr ministers, and waited with much
anxiety and doubt the issues of the conflict. Others, although retain
ing thefr old love for the presbyterian discipUne, resolved to resist
the restoration of an uncovenanted king, and to leave all questions
of government, civil and ecclesiastical, to be solved as best they might
by parliament, after the Scotch army was driven across the border.
Sir Ralph Assheton again took the command of the Lancashfre
militia,^ and "with him, Alexander Rigby, Standish of Duxbury,
Colonel Dodding, and the two sur"riving sons of old Colonel Shuttle-
worth, were ready with four regiments of infanfry and two of cavalry
to join the army of Lambert, as soon as he should arrive in the
county. The difficult position in which the presbyterian soldiers of Lanca
shfre were placed induced thefr commanders to compose ' The
Declaration of the Officers and Soldiers of the County Palatine of
Lancaster.' In this ' Declaration,' which was generally subscribed
by the officers and men of the six regiments, they rindicated them-
aelvea from the charge, on the one hand, of being ' maUgnants '
opposed to the just authority of the parUament, and, on the other,
of being rebels against the lawful power of the king's majesty. They
renewed thefr profession of adherence to the Solemn League and
Covenant, and asserted thefr determination to oppose to the utmost
' Papists, popish persons, and maUgnants,' as well as to resist the
' toleration of heresy, schism, profaneness, and whateoever is contrary
to sound docfrine, so plainly covenanted against by thefr ministers.'
They finaUy expressed thefr resolution ' not to be commanded by any
gentlemen or other officers who declined from these honest and just

266 LANCASHIRE.
principles,' In short, the six regiments adhered, though late, to the
old war-cry ' For the king and parliament.' They sent their ' De
claration ' to the ministers of the several hundreds of the county,
with a request that it might be read in thefr churches on the first
convenient opportunity.
This declaration was so agreeable and satisfactory to the ministers
as to prevent them from accepting the propoaala of HamUton, who
addressed them as ' Reverend Gentlemen,' and assured them he had
come for the ' settUng of presbyterian government according to the
covenant.' * Many of them with thefr famiUes had sought protection
within the waUs of Lancaster from the poor and predatory Scots,
who, making free quarters in the viUages, had ' taken forth of divers
famiUes aU the very racker crocks and pot-hooka, and driven away
all the beasts, sheep, and horses, aU without redemption.' f In reply
to a letter of HamUton, assuring these ministers that they might
return without fear of molestetion to thefr several dwellings, they
wrote : —
' We acknowledge ourselves but weak men, and therefore subject
to mistakes, but are not satisfied of any in haring our present abode
in Lancaster, it being incredible to us how we should have safety and
freedom with your army, kno"wing our old enemies of religion, and
the kingdom's peace, are with your exceUency. We have all taken
the covenant, and are zealous for re-establishing his Majesty, and '
doubt not the reality of the intentions of the two Houses of Parlia
ment, according to their late declarations, nor yet of the settling
presbyterian government, whereof we have lately had good assurance
in this county, and how much we shall own it (unto the death) is
known to all the world in our late " Testimony to the Truth of Jesus
Christ," subscribed by us, together with the rest of our brethren of
this prorince, unto which truth we pray nothing may be acted preju-
diciaUy by your excellency, and rest, Your humble servants. J
Lancaster, August 10. 1648,
On August 16, CromweU entered the county, and passed the night
at Stonyhurst, Having effected a junction with Lambert, he
marched the next morning with nine thousand men, and found
* Letter of HamUton, in CivU War Tracts.
t The last News from the two Armies of England and Scotland. Letter from
Henry Porter and W. West to the Committee of the County, Lancaster, August
17, 1648, in Civil War Tracts.
J The names of these good ministers, whose testimony was ' known to aU the
world,' would now be irrecoverably lost, had not the letter been published by
authority and printed by Edward Husband, printer to the H, H, of C, August
25, 1648. They were—
Tho. Whitehead Edw. Ashton
James Sohoulcroft Tho. Denny
Jo. Jaques Jo. Smith
Pet. Atkinson Sam. Elwood
Jo. SyU Tho. Fawcet
They all belonged to the northern parishes of the county.

PRESBYTERIANISM ESTABLISHED, 267
nearly twice as many RoyaUsts encamped on Ribbleston Moor,
about five miles from Preston, The division in front of him con
sisted of EngUsh Royalists, commanded by Langdale, ' the great
Papist,' The Scotch kept thefr distence from the maUgnants chiefiy
on the south side of the Ribble, and in the valley of the Darwen,
With both armies were difficulties and dissensions which would have
embarrassed ordinary commanders. The keen eye of CromweU saw
at a glance the road to rictory, while the energy and skUl of HamU
ton utterly failed him. CromweU observed that the Lancashfre
regiments were not wUUng to contend against their covenanting
brethren, while they were eager in revenge of former injuries to fight
their old foes, the prelatical and papistical CavaUers. The Scotch
had as littie goodwill to these Cavaliers as had the Lancashfre Pres
byterians, and would not be very ready in an emergency to assist the
maUgnants near whom they refused to encamp. CromweU saga
ciously placed the Lancashire regiments on the moor with orders to
attack the English RoyaUsts, and assigned to his own men, many of
whom had diso"wned the covenant, the duty of making the attack
upon the Scotch in the vaUey of the Darwen. Assheton's regiment
was stationed at WhaUey to intercept the Cavaliers, who were
expected to refreat in that dfrection, whUe a party of CromweU's
own soldiers were ordered to pursue the Scotch, who even
before the battle were disposed to inarch southward and occupy
Wigan. The battle began on the moor by ' the forlorn ' of CromweU's army
attacking the outposts of the Royalists, in which attack the advan
tage was so decidedly -with the ParUamentarians that CromweU was
able to bring on the field and arrange without molestation the whole
of his forces. The fight then became terrible. Sfr Marmaduke
kept his position vrith desperate resolution for six hours, ' in all which
time,' he says, ' the Scot sent me no relief.' Cromwell had seldom
if ever encountered such a foe as this terrible malignant, who,
although unsupported by the Scotch, gained at times upon the
' Ironsides.' At last some Scotch cavalry appeared, but they were
soon compelled to retfre. Sfr Marmaduke declared that if only a
thousand Scoteh infanfry had come earlier and stood firm, ' the day
had been ours.' "When they did come they were too late, for the
CavaUers had expended thefr ammunition.
Hamilton has been blamed for the delay, but it was probably hia
misfortune more than his fault. He seems to have had great diffi
culty to induce the covenanting Scotch to render any assistance to
the uncovenanted English. Many of the former, vrithout facing the
enemy, except in a feeble attempt to cover the refreat, fied to Preston,
pursued by the regiments of Cromwell and Harrison, who entered
the town cloae upon their rear, and charged on them in the sfreeta.
After aome desperate fighting, the Scotch retreated upon the bridge,
where Assheton's regiment, knowing the country, and ha-ving
marched rapidly on the south bank of the Ribble, ' encountered
them with puah of pike and made them to recoU,' * The blood of
¦* Cromwell's Letter to LenthaU.

268 LANCASHIRE,
the Lancashire men was up, and in thefr excitement they forgot the
difference between Cavaliers and Covenanters, Papists and Presby
terians. The RoyaUsts and the Scotch, mingled in the confusion
of defeat, fled in one crowd, whUe the English_ Presbyterians and
sectaries, forgetting their dissensions in the excitement of rictory,
united in the fierce and indiscriminate slaughter of thefr enemies.
The RoyaUsts lost most of thefr ammunition, a great part of their
arms, and about five thousand men killed, disabled, or captured.*
After a terrible day of continuous fighting and incessant rain, the
two armies, wet, weary, and exhausted, vrith poor shelter and small
supply of food, passed the night in the fields south of Preston. Early
in the morning the Scotch retreated upon Wigan before the ParUamen
tarians observed thefr movement. Superior in numbers, although
dispirited by defeat, they occupied the to-wn, and found in it one
night's lodging, whUe CromweU's soldiers, ' being very dirty and
weary,' passed another comfortless night in the fields. It was a sad
time for the people of Wigan, ' plundered almost to thefr skins.'
Being ' a maUgnant town,' Wigan seems to have been reckoned fafr
game and honest booty for both parties, or rather for aU three : for
the Parliamentarians "because it was RoyaUst, for the Scotch because
it was papistical, for the CavaUers because they plundered everybody
that came in thefr way. The distress of the inhabitants was so
nrgent and oppressive, that many had to beg for food in the neigh
bouring country, and many perished of hunger and disease.
The next morning (August 19), the Scotch evacuated^ Wigan_ in
more senses than one, leaving the poor maUgnants ' with nothing
but thefr skins,' and retreated towards Warrington, pursued by
CromweU and Lambert. It was a sad day for both victors . and
vanquished. Cromwell says he ' never rode such a twelve mUes in
aU his life.'t For three days and nights both armies, exposed to
* It is not easy to harmonise the several accounts of the battle of Preston,
although the materials are suppUed by the commanders and officers who were en
gaged. I have carefully compared the letters of Cromwell addressed to the Lanca
shire Committee and to Speaker LenthaU, The Impartial Relation of Sir Marmaduke
Langdale, and the Narrative of Captain Hodgson, printed in the Original Memoriak
of the Oi-eat Civil War.
The foUowing account of the service done by the Lancashire men may be
gratifying to their countrymen : —
' I met Major-General Lambert, and coming to him I told him where his danger
lay, on his left wing chiefly. He ordered me to fetch up the Lancashire regiment,
and God brought me off, both horse and myself. The buUets flew freely ; then
was the heat of the battle that day,
' I came down to the muir, where I met -with Major Jackson, that belonged to
Assheton's regiment, and about three hundred men were come up, and I ordered
him to march ; but he said he would not till his men were come up. A sergeant
belonging to them asked me where they should march. I showed him the party
he was to fight, and he, Uke a true-born Englishman, marched, and I caused the
soldiers to foUow him, which presently fell upon the enemy, and losing that wing
the whole army gave ground and fled.
' The Lancashire men were as stout men as were in the world and as brave fire
men. I have often told them they were as good fighters and as great plunderers
as ever went to a field.' — Captain Hodgson's Narrative, printed in Original Memo
rials of the Great Civil War.
+ Letter to Spealeer LenthaU, August 20, 1648,

PRESBYTERIANISM ESTABLISHED. 269
terrible storms, had been marching and fighting in wet clothes, and
sleeping for the most part on the damp ground "vrith no better shelter
than that of hedges and trees. Along the sides of the road the sick
and the starving were lying, forsaken by thefr comrades, and Presby
terians, Prelatists, Papists, and sectaries were dying in promiscuous
groups. At Winwick the Scotch turned upon thefr pursuers vrith
terrible resolution, and maintained thefr position vrith desperate
courage. CromweU says, ' They coming to push of pike, and very
close charges, forced us to give ground.' Terribly, indeed, they
must have fought to have forced CromweU's men ' to give ground'
in the presence of thefr general. But more of his men coming up
the general ' recovered the ground, and charging home upon them
beat them from the standing, and killed about a thousand of them.'*
The Scotch refreated upon Warrington, where thefr infantry, utterly
exhausted, surrendered upon promise of ' ciril usage,' and whence
thefr cavalry fled into Cheshfre.
In this narrative of desperate flghting we miss the old Lancashire
Cavaliers, and feel disappointed on not finding them vrith the York
shfre and Northumberland Royalists under the command of Sfr
Marmaduke Langdale. Many of them had been driven fr'om their
estates. Some had compounded for their lands, and were bound to
neutrality by the terms of thefr composition. The Earl of Derby
was confined to the Isle of Man.
Sfr Thomas Tyldesley, however, impatient of restraint, chafing
under the conditions of inactirity imposed npon him, coUected his
tenantry and neighbours, and at all hazards marched upon Lancaster.
It seems difficult to account for his marching northward rather than
southward to support HamUton in his conflict "with CromweU. He
was certeinly no coward. Rash, impetuous, eager for fighting,
insensible of danger, ever in front of the battle, he was wayward and
self-wUled, and, as I suppose, disliked Hamilton's Covenanters as
much as they disliked him and his maUgnants. Nor would Tyldesley
submit to be freated as Langdale had been, kept at a distance from
the Scotch, and protected or deserted by them as might suit thefr
purpose. Tyldesley would fight for a free king, but not for a cove
nanted king, who in his estimation would be nothing better than a
presbyterian pope. He therefore fought in his own way, and sacri
ficed for the cause of royalty as he loved it, not as Scotchmen would
make it, his estates, his friends, and his life.
"WTUle he was investing Lancaster Castle, the news reached him of
the defeat of the Scotch, whose defeat as RoyaUsts probably appeared
to him not more disastrous than would have appeared thefr "rictory
as Covenanters. Immediately he determined to march against
Cromwell, whose army was wearied by long and severe fighting.
CoUecting as many as he could of the fiagitives of Langdale's army,
he proposed to Sfr George Munro, who had brought over a consi
derable number of wUd Irish, to hasten to Warrington, and make a
desperate attack upon the ParUamentarians, whUe they were
exhausted, fatigued, and unprepared for a battle. With these Irish
* Letter to Speaker LenthaU.

.270 LANCASHIRE.
savages, many of whom are said to have been ' women armed with
knives,' Tyldesley was much more "willing to fraternise than vrith
the fanatical Covenanters of the north. But he was bitterly disap
pointed vrith the caution of Sfr George, who would wait for more
troops and more information. Tyldesley importuned and threatened
in vain. He insisted upon the importance of promptitude and the
danger of hesitation. The march was delayed, and the delay was
fatal. Had Tyldesley overtaken the enfeebled and wasting army of
CromweU at "Winvrick or at Warrington, the great general, never in
his life exposed to so much perU, would probably have been defeated,
and the result of the war completely reversed.
Tyldesley's appearance, however, was perilous to his own cause.
The Presbyterians of Lancashfre hated him more than they feared
CromweU, and they had good reason for doing so. To Sfr Ralph
Assheton was entrusted the duty of opposing Tyldesley, and recov
ering the northern parts of the county to the aUegiance of the Par
Uament. At the head of the Lancashfre regiments, "vrith the assis
tance of a considerable detachment from Lambert's army, he marched
northward, compeUed the Royalists to raise the siege of Lancaster,
pursued them into Westmoreland, and forced them to surrender, on
the conditions that the soldiers and inferior officers should lay down
their arms, and that Tyldesley and the superior officers should
engage to leave the country "vrithin six months, which were allowed
for the settlement of thefr private affairs.
Thus a second time, although with great cost and suffering, the
county was freed from the forces of the Royalists. Large districts
were (^devastated by the marches and encampments of opposing
armies. in the midst of harvest. Famine and pestUence followed in
the footprints of war, and pestUence appeared even in the to"wna
which had escaped the ravages of the soldiery. CavaUers plundered
Roundheads ; Roundheads Cavaliers ; the Scotch aU who had any
thing, and the Irish those who had nothing. ' In this county the
plague of pestUence hath been raging these three years and upwards,
occasioned by the wars. There is very great scarcity and dearth of
all provision, which is fuUy sixfold the price that it hath of late been.
AU trade is utterly decayed. It would melt any good heart to see
the numerous swarms of begging poor, and the many families that
pine away at home, not ha"ving faces to beg.' . . . ' There is no
setting bounds to keep in the infected, hunger-starved poor, whose
breaking out jeopardeth all thefr neighbourhood; some of them being
at the point to perish through famine, have fetched in and eaten
carrion and other unwholesome food, to the destroying of themselves
and increasing the infection ; and the more to provoke pity and
mercy, it may be considered that this fatal contagion had its rise
evidently from the wounded soldiers left there ' (in Wigan) ' for
cure.' This affecting statement was attested by the mayor, baUiffs,
and minister of Wigan, and by four preachers in other parts of the
cou.nty.* The glory of -rictory in Lancashire, as it has been every-
¦* A True Representation of ihe present sad aiid lamentable Condition of the
County of Lancaster. May 24, 1649. Printed in Civil War Tracts.

PRESBYTERIANISM ESTABLISHED. 271
where else, was nothing better than a gorgeous fris refiected from
the maUgn exhalations which rose from the blood and tears of the
battle-field. By an ordinance of parUament, September 7, 1648 was observed
throughout England and Wales, as a day of public thanksgiving for
these rictories, and contributions were to be recommended in all
churches and chapels for the 'maimed soldiers, and poor risited
people of Lancashire.'* The Lancashfre Presbyterians rejoiced with
frembUng. They rejoiced at the defeat of the maUgnants and Cava
Uers, but they would gladly have heard of the safe retreat of the
Scotch into thefr o-wn country. They exulted on hearing of the
glorious victories of thefr own General Assheton and his six regi
ments, but they dreaded the growing power of CromweU and his
"sectarian army. They kept the thanksgiving day vrith deep and
unfeigned solemnity ; but thefr preachers had lost the fiery energy
¦with which they had been accustomed to preach on great occasions at
the commencement of the ci"vU war. Their aUusions to poUtical
events were few, moderate, and confined to professions of loyalty to
a covenanted king, could they only obtain him, and of obedience to
a covenanted parliament, which seemed to be silently but surely losing
its authority. Thefr earnestness was expended chiefly in recom
mending contributions for the present distress, although many of
them were addressing congregations who had little or nothing to
contribute. In the review of that sad time of war, famine, and pestUence, it is
pleasant to observe the kindness and care vrith which the presby
terian clergy ministered to the consolation and relief of their suffering
people. Intimations of thefr devoted attention to the wants of the
sick and destitute, in the midst of personal danger, continually appear
in all accounts of the terrible distress of the county. In this respect
their conduct may be honourably compared -with that of the non
conforming ministers of London, who, some years later, amidst the
contegion of the plague and the ruins of the fire, were found in thefr
temporary sanctuaries offering to the bereaved and destitute the
blessed consolations of the Christian faith. In Lancashire the
ministers, as Dr. John Taylor says, ' kept close to thefr people in the
worst of times,' carrying help to the destitute, soUciting food for the
hungry and medicine for the sick, and speaking words of peace and
comfort to the suffering and bereaved. If we find any of them at that
time away from their homes, we may look for them in more disfressed
parishes, helping their brethren in the burden of more oppressive
labours. In malignant Wigan, which would seem to have less claim
upon the kindness of Presbyterians, save the claim of greater distress,
than any other town of Lancashire, the good minister, James Brad
shaw, was assisted in the emergency by Richard HoUingworth of
* The money collected was to be forwarded to ' Mr. Henry Ashurst of WatUng
Street iu the City of London, who undertook the distribution of it under the
direction of the magistrates.' I have elsewhere referred to the Ashursts, a highly
respectable presbyterian family of Lancashire, -with some of whose members New-
come. Heywood, and Baxter were on terms of intimate friendship.

272 LANCASHIRE.
Manchester, Isaac Ambrose of Preston, John TUsey of Dean, and
James Hyett of Crosby,* in coUecting and distributing relief for the
destitute of that cruelly affiicted town.
As the year 1648 was drawing to its close, the Presbyterians of
Lancashfre were becoming more anxious about the future, and more
doubtful about their present duty. The army was gaining mastery
over the civil authorities of the counfry. The intentions of its leaders
were every day coming more distinctly into riew. Republican prin
ciples were, to the horror of the ministers, openly avowed and
defended. Texts of holy scripture were cited against kings as well
as for them. The taciturnity and reserve of some generals were as
alarming to the Presbyterians as the rash and unrestrained telk of
others. Even in the pre-eminently presbyterian county of Lancashfre
some of the officers were suspected of subserriency to Cromwell, and
the miUtia were beginning to be infected with the wUd notions of
the levellers and sectaries. Some troublesome soldiers, who had
fought against HamUton, and learned from their comrades in Lam
bert's army to dislike the presbyterian government, interrupted the
prorincial assembly while it was sitting in Preston, and audaciously
asserted that the ordinance of parliament, by the authority of which
the reverend assembly was constituted, was to have been enforced for
only three years. Parliament, however, confirmed the ordinance,
and made it perpetual.
In the general embarrassment, the Lancashire ministers knew not
what to do nor whither to look for protection. They professed
unabated respect for constitutional and covenanted royalty, but the
king, as they feared, if he recovered his liberty, would be again
directed by uncovenanted and maUgnant adrisers. The parliament
had been thefr best protector, but they were losing thefr confidence
in the ignominious extremity of that great parliament which in the
days of its sfrength had estabhshed thefr authority. From the army
they had everything to fear. Even the six regiments of Assheton
were beginning to waver, Thefr co-reUgionists in Scotland were
becoming a broken staff which pierced the side of him who leaned
upon it. Not knowing what to do, they did the very worst thing
they could have done — -they obtained for thefr principal ministers a
concession of civil power, by which they could enforce their ecclesi
astical authority. Heyricke, HoUingworth, Angier, Harrison, and
other ecclesiastics obtained the authority of a sort of hybrid judges,
or imperfect justices in their several parishes. Having secured this
anomalous position, they began with strange inconsistency to ques
tion the authority of the government by which they were appointed,
and to preach against the domination of usurpers, without distinctly
defining whether the usurpers were the remains of an exhausted
parUament or the commanders of an unconstitutional army.
Among the Lancashire ministers there was very little difference in
their estimate of the legitimacy of the rule to which the counfry was
subjected, while the king was imprisoned, and the parliament dimi-
¦* A minister who, 'having a considerable estate, was much given to hospitality.'
— Calamy.

PRESBYTERIANISM ESTABLISHED, 273
nished and intimidated. They did not hesitate to declare it a usur
pation. But disputes arose about the kind and degree of submission
which they ought to render to the existing government, so long as
no other was possible, William Prynne, who had suffered the loss
of his ears and his property by the cruelty of the king and prelates,
appeared as a zealous defender of the prerogatives of royalty, and the
duty of resisting usurpation, Hia book was generally read by the
ministers, and the disinterested pleading of the martyr for his perse
cutors had probably more influence than the authority of hia learning
or the force of hia logic, although neither in learning nor in logic was
Prynne deficient. Of the Lancashfre ministera aome contended that
they ought not to acknowledge usurpers at all, some that thefr
obedience should be sfrictly passive, some that in obeying usurpers
a distinction should be made between doing what was lawful when
commanded and doing what was not lawful because commanded, and
some that, as a bad government was better than anarchy, it ought to
be acknowledged untU a better could be obtained.* Ministerial
meetings were convened; authorities were cited in abundance;
examples from the Old and New Testement were plentifuUy adduced ;
Gee of Eccleston, and HolUngworth of Manchester, the great logi
cians of Lancashfre, were engaged to write on the subject. The chief
text of the disputants, their articulus causae, was Rom. xiii. 1 : ' Let
every soul be subject to the higher powers. For there is no power
but of God : the powers that be are ordained of God.' Hours, days,
were spent in criticising and interpreting these words. Were ' the
powers that be ' the Roman emperors ? Were they usurpers ? Some
thought that Claudius was a usurper, but that Nero was not. Was
Claudius or Nero emperor at the time ? If Claudius was a usurper,
how could Nero be anything better ? The military power of Rome
seemed to be acknowledged in the text, but there was nothing, save
prelacy and papistry, so abhorrent to the Presbyterians as the miUtary
ascendancy. WhUe they were learnedly or angrily disputing, news
came from London which smote the disputants ¦vrith terror and
astonishment, and seemed to make aU authorities civil and ecclesi
astical to reel and tremble around them. The king was to be tried
by a High Court of Justiciary, for the constitution of which they
could find no authority in the EngUsh constitution, the light of
nature, the law of Moses, or the Christian scriptures. Completely
'gloppened,' to use an expressive word of their own county dialect,
before they recovered from thefr amazement they heard, although
they could scarcely beUeve the unparalleled vrickedness, that the king
was beheaded at Whitehall. At once they boldly avowed thefr
abhorrence of the barbarous, sacrUegious murder. Whoever was
impUcated in the execution of Charles, the ministera of Lancashfre
¦* See a curious account of these dispntes in the Life of Adam Martindale
ch. iv. § 22; At a meeting at Warrington Martindale found ' a great number of
able men met together, and among the rest three great knockers for disputation,
Mr. Harrison, Mr. HoUingworth, and Mr. Gee.' These ' great knockers ' faUed to
produce unanimity, as they could not agree among themselves in anything else
than the propriety of more disputation.
T

274 LANCASHIRE.
never hesitated to express thefr reprobation of the impious deed, and
to assert on every opportunity thefr freedom from ' the blood-stain
of the Lord's anointed.'
We have now to turn over another page of thia eventful history,
and to observe under the new government the decline of the presby
terian power, which in Lancashfre feU almost as rapidly as it had
risen, although it has left some reUcs of great interest to every
rehgioua enqufrer.

CHAPTER XIV.
COMPREHENSION.
I HAVE so entitled this chapter, not because a comprehension was
accomplished, either by the Presbyterians becoming amicably united
with the Independents, or the Episcopalians with either, but because
in the struggle of parties no one of them was able to maintain an
acknowledged superiority over the others in the religious estabUsh
ment of the county. From the death of Charles to the passing of
the Act of Uniformity, ministers of various parties shared in a greater
or less degree the benefits of the ecclesiastical revenues, and were
equally eligible to the vacant offices of the Church. In Lancashire
Presbyterians sti'uggled hard, but in vain, to maintain their ascen
dancy unimpafred against both Episcopalians and Independents untU
the restoration of royalty, and afterwards to keep their official position
secure within the estebUshment. As, therefore, during the interval
from 1649 to 1660, neither Presbyterians, EpiscopaUans, nor Inde
pendents obtained an acknowledged predominance in the government
of the Church, I have designated that time as one of ' comprehension.'
The designation may not be accurate, as a comprehension, although
practically existing in Lancashire to a considerable extent, was neither
authoritatively defined nor avowedly recognised. For a time, an
incoherent mixture of churchism, voluntaryism, and Erastianism
practically existed in strange connection with a religious establish
ment, until, on the restoration of Episcopacy, the Presbyterians and
some of the Independente were comprehended under its government,
before High Churchmen obtained the enactment of strict and abso
lute uniformity. For want of a better designation I caU this state
of things ' the comprehension.' It was more like a comprehension
of various sects than anything which has ever before or since existed
in England.
The Presbyterian ministers of Lancashfre, I have said, were guilt
less of the execution of King Charles. I may with equal justice
exonerate the Independent ministers, not of Lancashfre only, but of
the whole country, of any participation by approval or othervrise in
the criminality of that unfortunate deed. By Independent ministers,
however, I mean not the preaching sectaries of the army, Arians,
Anabaptists, Fifth-Monarchy-men, officers suddenly impelled by the
excitement of the times to preach whatever sort of gospel gained the
ascendancy in their unrestrained imagination, but the disciples of
John Robinson, the adherents of the dissenting brethren of the West
minster Assembly, or the Puritans who, during thefr flight from

LANCASHIRE.
persecution, had received the congregational discipline from the
churches of New England, and had at the beginning of the ci-ril war
retumed to promulgate or to practise it in thefr native country. This
distinction between the two kinds of Independent preachers ought to
be carefuUy remembered, aa vrithout obserring it the conduct of
Presbyterians and Independents, both in thefr oonfroversiea and in
their harmonies, may hereafter appear strangely inconsistent and
contradictory. The educated Independent ministers were more
favourably disposed to a repubUcan government than thefr presby
terian brethren ; they had no faith in a covenanted king, and hoped
to find Cromwell a protector from covenanted intolerance ; but such
ministers as Samuel Eaton and Henry Roote, who were then teaching
' the congregational way ' in Lancashfre, were as far from approring
the beheading of Charles, whatever they may have thought of hia
deposition, as any of their presbyterian brethren. In some counties,
aa in Northamptonshire and Oxfordshfre, the Independent ministers
united with the Presbyterians in protesting against the execution of
the king, Eachard, Bates, and Neal assert that many of the Indepen
dent ministers in thefr public serrices protested against the violent
proceedings of the army,* The only ministers that Neal could find
as approving of the execution were Hugh Peters and John Goodwin
who had certainly no claim to represent the opinions of the Indepen-'
dents. Hugh Peters was too ¦riolent, impetuous, and intemperate to-
be trusted by his brethren. John Goodwin, although he firmly
adhered to the discipUne of Independency, was an avowed Arminian,
and therefore was disowned by the Independents, who regarded
Arminianism as among the worst errors of prelacy or popery. MUton,
in his 'Defence of the People of England,' had little reason to defend
any other ministers than the preaching soldiers.
Of the Lancashire members of ParUament, the only one who signed
the death warrant of the king was John Moore of Liverpool. He
seems to have been ashamed of his signature, or, as ia much more
likely, afraid of its consequences. Noble says he did not sign, but
Mr. Heywood, the editor of the ' Moore Rentel,' says he did. It
seems strange that, with the document to be consulted, there should
be any dispute. In some copies of the deed his name does not appear,
but in the original there is an Ulegible scrawl which is said to be the
signature of John Moore, It was so interpreted when produced after
the Restoration in the Old BaUey ; as indeed, if it be the signature
of any one, it can be that of no one else.
The only other Lancashfre member likely to be impUcated was
Alexander Rigby, the representative of Wigan ; but although he
opposed the king to the last, and protested against making any freaty
vrith him, he refused to serve in the High Court of Justiciary or to
take any part in promoting the execution of the sovereign.
* History of the Puritans, vol. u. ch. x. Dr. Lewis Du MouUn, Professor of
History in the University of Oxford, wrote An Answer to those who accuse the
Independents for having an immediate hand in the death of King Charles I,, but his
friends, on account of the dangers of the times, dissuaded him from pubUshing it.
Neal, as above.

COMPREHENSION. 277
The consternation of the Lancashire ministers was greatly increased
when, within six weeks of the king' a death, intelUgence arrived of
the beheading of two presbyterian noblemen, the Duke of Hamilton
and the Earl of HoUand. Their execution (especiaUy that of the
Scottish peer commissioned by the government of his own country),
attended aa they both were on the scaffold by presbyterian ministers,
probably did more to aUenate the Presbyterians from the new govern
ment than even the death of the king himself.
The ministers of Lancashfre, after observing many days of fasting
and prayer, met in thefr provincial assembly and agreed to issue a
pastoral address, in which, vrith much earnestness tempered by
moderation, they exhorted their people to adhere steadfastly to thefr
faith, and to prepare for suffering in its defence. They carefuUy
avoided the use of words which would imply dfrect and active oppo
sition to the existing government. Some of them were quite prepared
for such opposition, but they waited for the proper time of avowing
it ; whUe others were -wiUing to Uve quiet and peaceable Uves under
any government which Providence might estebUsh. The spirit of
¦thefr address may be understood from its concluding words : ' Seeing
most perUous times are come upon us, wherein our churches' peace
is opposed and assaulted by aU ways both of subtUty and power, we
earnestly exhort and warn you aU, that, vrith exquisite heed and
resolute ateadfaatness, ye diacern and resist all those who would seek
to seduce you either into errors or division, contrary to that sound
doctrine and safe fellowship which ye have embraced in your own
churches ; that vrith accurate cfrcumspection you keep yourselves
from the common and reigning sins of these times ; that ye stand
fast to our Solemn League and Covenant in all the branches of it,
and speciaUy in those that contein the great and much hazarded
public intereste of religion, civil government, and brotherly union,
not suffering yourselves to be drawn aside to any new inventions to
the subverting of any of them ; and that ye walk in the old path and
good way.'
The moderation of thefr addreaa soon ceased to resfrain many of
the ministers from active interference in the exciting events of the
time. The unpropitious season, the deficient harvest, the pestilential
diseases, the faUure of trade, and the disfress of the working people,
which cast a gloom over the year of the king's execution, were inter
preted by several preachers as the judgment of God upon the nation
for the usurpation of ita government. They asserted that the wrath
of God was revealed against the people who had broken thefr cove
nant and renounced di-rine as weU as royal supremacy. ' Sudden
and terrible rains on the Lord's day,' ' three parhelions observed by
hundreds of people in the market-place of Manchester about ten on
the clock before noon,' ' corn bleeding when it was cut in John Pen
dleton's ground,' are mentioned by HoUingworth as disasfrous signs
of the terrible times.* They suppUed the preachers ¦vrith abundant
iUustrations for thefr discourses on pubUc affafrs. A notice waa
ordered by the assembly to be read in all the churches and chapels of
* Mancuniensis, 1650.

278 LANCASHIRE.
Lancashire, that ' in consideration of the heavy judgments of God
lying upon the country by famine and pestUence, and in regard to
other troubles and dangers upon us, it is judged necessary, and
accordingly ordered, that a public fast be observed in every congre
gation within the prorince, "with solemn and earnest seeking unto
God for the averting of the said judgments and e"rils.'
In this state of uncertainty and alarm, the unsettled disputes of
the ministers respecting the obedience due to the government of
usurpers unexpectedly assumed practical and urgent importance.
Before the ' great knockers for disputation ' had conrinced thefr
brethren, or one another, what ought to be done, they were required
pubUcly before thefr congregations to take the engagement to be
'frue and faithful to the government established "without king or
house of peers.' By refusing to take this engagement, they would
incur the forfeiture of thefr benefices, and become disqualified for any
public serrice. It was an arbitrary and tyrannical ordinance, and
those who resisted it from patriotic motives deserve to be honoured
as much as the opponente of the ship money. UnhappUy there was
no court in which a second Hampden could try the case.
On thia subject two books, written by Lancashfre ministers, excited
considerable attention. One, entitled ' The Divine Right and Ori
ginal of Ci-ril Magistrates Ulusfrated and vindicated,' was written by
Mr. Edward Gee of Eccleston. The other, 'An Exercitation con
cerning Usurped Powers,' waa generaUy attributed to HoUingworth
of Manchester. Several meetings of ministers were again held for
conference, and the disputants had to determine a more definite and
practical question than that which had been pre-riously submitted to
' the great knockers.' The opinion of ' that pretious, peaceable man,.
John Angier,' seems to have prevailed, that they might act in lawful
things under usurpers until a legitimate government could be obtained.
But the enquiry still remained. Was ' the taking of the engagement'
a lawful thing ? At a meeting of the ministers of the counties of
Lancashfre and Cheshfre, the majority resolved that it was not lawful,
because ' the Solemn League and Covenant was stUl binding,' and
because ' it was a prejudice to the right hefr to the crown.' Some
of them, however, as Adam Martindale, took the engagement in the
faith that it bound them only to submit quietly to the existing
government so long as it might continue, although they were after
wards sorely grieved that they had done so.
Of the Presbyterian ministers who lost their benefices for refusing
to take the engagement, several are included in Walker's ' Sufferings
of the Clergy,' as if they had been regular orthodox EpiscopaUans
ejected from thefr livings for thefr adherence to the old discipline.
In his Lancashfre lists, some who suffered for their consistent adhe
rence to presbyterianism are paraded as if they had suffered for thefr
adherence to prelacy. Aa Baxter truly says, ' the moderate Presby
terians generally refused the engagement, but the CavaUers and
Becteries generally swallowed it.'
In thefr perplexity, the Lancashfre ministers were stricken with
dismay by an order of parUament requiring them to observe a day

COMPREHENSION. 279
of humiUation and prayer for the success of the army about to march
against Scotiand. Doubtful of the conduct they should pursue, they
heard of the daring conduct of a young minister in Worcestershfre,
untu that time little known in the north, who was preaching against
the engagement and especially against the invasion of Scotland.
This bold, persistent man was Richard Baxter. Induced by his
example, thej[Lancashire ministers refused to observe the parUa
mentery fast, preached against the Scottish war, and prayed for the
umon of the two nations in the good work of preserring inriolate the
national covenant. With an audacious loyalty unequaUed in any
other county, they appointed the bfrthday of Charles II. to be
observed vrith public reUgious solemnities. May 29, 1660 must
have been an extraordinary day in Manchester, when the ministers
who would not on any account observe the nati"rity of Christ kept
vrith reUgious solemnities the nativity of the hefr to the throne, "with
whose father they had made war, and did it openly, in the presence
of a large congregation, and in defiance of a sfrong government,
which was not slow to assert and vindicate its authority.*
Within a month of this solemn obaervance, inteUigence reached
Lancashfre of the landing of Charles in Scotland, and of his sub
scribing the Solemn League and Covenant. Heyricke and his
brethren were unable to restrain thefr exultation. Their prayers
were surely answered. The son had wiUingly done what the father
never could be induced to do by either promise or threatening. He
had become a Presbyterian ! He had disowned the EngUsh prayer
book ! He had approved of the directory ! He had learned the
assembly's catechism ! He had dismissed his popish and prelatical
ad'risers ! He would certainly do whatever the Presbyterians desfred,
and establish thefr godly discipUne upon the ruins of both prelacy
and sectarianism ! "What better could the ministers desire than a
covenanted king sworn to estabUsh the Presbyterian discipUne in
both hia kingdoma ?
Of these fond hopes the battle of Dunbar produced a sad reversal.
But though cast do"wn the ministers were not in despafr. Again
they resorted to humiUation and prayer, and again they thought
¦they heard a wonderful answer to thefr prayers. "Wlien, a few
months afterwards, the news arrived of the coronation of Charles at
Scone, thefr joy and gratitude re^rived, because the correction of the
king had been ' sanctified,' and aU they desfred had been readUy
conceded. ' I . . . declare,' said he, ' by my solemn oath, in the
preaence of Almighty God, the searcher of all hearts, my aUowance
and approbation of the national covenant, . . . and faithfuUy obUge
myself to prosecute the ends thereof.' He swore that he would
' folly establish presbyterian government, the dfrectory of worship,
the confession of faith, and the catechiama, approved by the general
aasembly of the kfrk.' He subscribed his solemn oath, written upon
parchment and annexed to a copy of the covenant, to be preserved
* History of the OoUegiate Chwrch of Manchester, part i. ch, xix. The younger
Lancashire Puritans of this time, unUke the older men who had observed festivals
if not fasts, renounced the observance of ' pasch and yule.'

280 LANCASHIRE,
as a vritness of his ' fidelity ' (or perfidy) ' in the archives of the
kingdom.' More than aU this, he acknowledged vrith teara the sin
of hia father in marrying a Papist, and imputed to his parents the
blood shed in the ci"ril war ! He professed himself senaible of the
evU education he had received in hia chUdhood ! He confesaed his
great sins in tolerating popery and prelacy, and in making peace
vrith Irish rebels ! In his repentance and resolution no longer to
tolerate false reUgion, he looked to the mercy of God to support and
countenance him in the new and better courae which he waa deter
mined, by God's grace, to pursue. WeU might presbyterian Lan
cashfre observe vrith great joy its thanksgiring day, and sing in ita
churches ' "What hath God "wrought ! He hath done great things
for us whereof we are glad ! ' The army of CromweU was mighty,
but mightier was the arm of God. By the battie of Dunbar the
king had lost many good soldiers, but his heart had been converted,
and he had made his peace with God.
When, in 1650, a plentiful harveat succeeded an unpropitious
season, the pestilence already noticed decUned, and the frade of the
county revived, the ministers of Lancashfre, in thefr day of thanks
giving, found or ' improved ' the opportunity of intimating that these
signs of the returning favour of God had been granted since the king
had humbly acknowledged the sins of his famUy, and proved the
sincerity of hia repentance by subscribing the covenant.
The dissatisfaction with the existing government felt by the
ministers of Lancashfre was greatly increased, although, aa wiU
hereafter appear, with very Uttle reaaon, by the appointment of the
committee of aequestrators, consisting of twelve magistrates, to regu
late and manage the Church property of the county. The causea of
their increased dissatisfaction were very apparent and very difficult
to remove. With the people or the patron (the conflicting interests
of these parties were never harmoniously arranged in Lancashire)
was the right of appointment to a beneflce. If the presbyteries were
not satisfied "with the appointment of the people or of the pafron,
they could refnse ordination. But when the presbyteries had
approved of the appointment and ordained an ' expectant,' he was
etiU compeUed to apply to the sequestrators, aU of whom were lay
men, to grant a title to the revenues. Although it doea not appear
that they ever vrithheld the revenues capriciously or unreasonably,
their decisions were strictly if not suspiciously scrutinised by the
presbyterian courts, who thought they could best manage what they
caUed thefr o^wn property.
The Ma,nchester clergy had, or thought they had, especial reason
to complain of the committee of sequestrators. The endowments of
the coUegiate church had been regarded partly as private, partly as
ecclesiastical property. Although they were consecrated to reUgious
purposes, they belonged to a corporation which had, and used, the
povyer of perpetuating itself by ite own elections. With the exception
of its warden, who received his appointment from the government,
the coUegiate body filled up its own vacancies in accordance •with the
prorisions of its charter. The sequestrators, having found on inqui-

COMPREHENSION. 281
sition that the property of the coUegiate church was no more personal
nor private than any other Church property, determined to claim
possession of the whole, and make such aUowance as they thought
reasonable to the ministera in present occupation of the benefice. The
clergy denounced the spoliation. HolUngworth, alarmed and angry,
appealed to influential friends in London; Heyricke, who feared
nothing, determined to resist the usurped authority. He had opposed
the king, he was not afraid of the protector. The chest containing
the charters, titles, and other muniments of the collegiate church,
was demanded in order that the sequesfrators might make a valuation
of the property : Heyricke positively refused to surrender the chest,
to give up the key, or even to allow the perusal of a single deed.
Unfortunately he had to deal vrith a sequestrator as bold and perti
nacious aa himself, and armed vrith a power which it was hopeless to
resist, although he resisted to the uttermost.
Colonel Thomas Birch was one of the few Lancashfre magistrates
who were favourable to the proceedings of the Republicans. Un^vriU-
ing to submit to the arbitrary and intolerant rule of the presbyterian
classes, he was one of the earUest and firmest supporters of independent
principles in the county. Ha-ring been appointed governor of Liver
pool, he had the command of the garrison, in which were many soldiers
who having served in the army of Lambert and CromweU, had been
infected vrith the religious fanaticism of thefr comrades. Heyricke
and Bfrch had co-operated with indomitable perseverance, as friends
to the same cause of puritanism and constitutional Uberty, through
several years of varied fortune. They had congratulated each other
on many -rictories, and condoled with eaeh other on some defeats.
They had together in Manchester church offered grateful praises on
many days of thanksgi"ring, and afflicted their souls on many days of
humUiation. Of the bold and fervid declamations of the warden the
colonel had been an enthusiastic admirer, and so long as the war
raged between prelacy and presbyteriaiusm, arbifrary sovereignty
and constitutional government, these two men were among the most
cordial and active leaders of the same great party. But after the
execution of Charles the two friends came into unpleasant colUsion.
Heyricke was for a covenanted king, Bfrch for a commonwealth ;
Heyricke for a presbyterian estabUshment, Birch for unlimited tole
ration. The colonel, hearing of the dissatisfaction of the Presby
terians, marched vrith a frusty body of repubUcan soldiers upon
Manchester, disarmed the to"wn, and having authority from parUa
ment demanded the surrender of the deeds and revenues of the
coUegiate church. The warden, maintaining the authority of ancient
charters and the inviolable sanctity of ecclesiastical property, abso
lutely refused to make the surrender, locked the door of the chapter
house where the deeds were kept, and stoutly charged with robbery
any man who ahould attempt to take the key from him, Bfrch drew
up his soldiers in front of the chapter house ; Heyricke, standing at
the door, forbade them to enter, Bfrch commanded hia men to force
open the door, and finding the muniment chest sfrongly bound "with
fron, ordered it to be removed and sent unopened to London. The

282 LANCASHIRE,
fanatical soldiers being thus excited, proceeded to deface the costly
architecture of the church, to break its painted -windows, and to
demolish its carved screens and sculptured monuments. The most
beautiful ecclesiastical edifice in Lancashfre, which by the prudence
and high character of its Catholic wardens, CoUyer and Vaux, had
been protected through the perils of the Reformation, and afterwards
by the influence of its presbyterian warden Heyricke through the
perils of the oi-vU war, was bereaved of its rich ornaments and time-
hallowed memorials by the fanaticism of an ignorant and preaching
soldiery. Those richly-stained windows, representing scriptural
narrative, or commemorating national events, had often, indeed, dis
turbed the devotion of many a puritan worshipper, and probably
scarcely a presbyterian minister condoled with Heyricke on their
demolition. But Heyricke, seeing no intimate connection between
presbyterianism and barbarism, grieved bitterly for the injury done
to the beauty of the church which he dearly loved and regarded aa
precious and inviolable as his own life.*
Heyricke, however, had something else to lament than the loss of
carved angels, stone saints, and stained glass. The sequestrators,
approring of the act of Birch, took possession of the collegiate lands,
and granted the miserable pittance of lOOZ. a-year to the- warden, and
SOL to each of the two miiusters whose ser-rices were retained, Hol
Ungworth and Walker, Heyricke was not the man to grieve quietly
under a sense of wrong, Learing HolUngworth to his tears, he set
his heart upon redressing his grievances by overturning the govern
ment of usurpers, sectaries, and apostates. His restless spirit, either
stimulated by zeal for religious truth, or chafed by a sense of personal
injury, found its only relief in conspiracy and intrigue, and drove
him into desperate opposition to the miserable remnant of a parlia
ment and the usurped commission of mUitary despots. Protesting
against the spoUation of the college, he retired for a time from Man
chester, and found in London covenanted ministers and discontented
officers who felt vrith him unabated attachment to the presbyterian
discipline, unswer-ving devotion to the cause of a covenanted king,
and unmitigated abhorrence of all republicans, sectaries, and abettors
of universal toleration.
The principal ministers engaged in the conspfracy in which Hey
ricke was impUcated were Mr. Case, Mr. Watson, Mr, Jenkins,
Mr, Jackson and Christopher Love, They were accustomed to meet
with thefr friends in several places, and frequently in the house of
Mr. Love, where they received communications from many of the
Scottish clergy and noblemen in the confidence of the king. One of
the conspfrators, Major Adams, being arrested upon suspicion, con
fessed his guilt and impeached his associates. Several were arrested;
some escaped. The government, desfring to conciUate the moderate
Presbyterians vrith an appearance of clemency, were content with
making a pubUc example of only two of the conspfrators. Love and
Gibbons, Christopher Love, bearing his testimony vrith undaunted
* HoUingworth's Mancuniensis, 1650, Hibbert's History of the Collegiate
Church of Manchester, vol, i, oh, xix.

COMPREHENSION, 283
courage to the cause of the national covenant, and dying with the
spfrit of an old martyr, has been canonised in the affections, although
not in the calendars, of all frue Presbyterians. The feeling of that
great party may be inferred from the fact that Dr. Manton preached
his funeral sermon before an immense congregation, extolled hia
"rirtues, lamented his execution, and published the sermon vrith the
title of ' The Saints' Triumph over Death.'
Heyricke was arrested and imprisoned. It is said (I know not on
what authority) that had it not been for the great interest made in
his behalf by some powerful supporters of the government, he would
have followed his friend Love to the scaffold. He, however, found
unexpected reason for hesiteting to commit himself to the cause of
Prince Charles vrithout incurring any imputation on his honour or
personal bravery.
By hia association vrith the more moderate party in Scotland,
Charles had offended Argyll and the more rigorous of the Covenant
ers. Most of the English Presbyterians keenly felt the offence given
to thefr Scottish brethren. When, in August, 1651, Charles was
proclaimed at the cross of Lancaster king of England, Scotland, and
Ireland, the presbyterian leaders, instead of rallying, as was expected,
round the royal standard fiying on the old tower of John of Gaunt,
hesitated and denounced the ' maUgnants ' to whom had been en
trusted the person and interests of their royal master. The Cavaliers
were commanded by noblemen whom the Presbyterians regarded aa
thefr inveterate enemies. Of all the Royalists the most abhorred in
Lancashire since the Bolton massacre was the Earl of Derby, who
was then bringing a considerable force from the Isle of Man to sup
port the cause of Charles. All the old Papists and maUgnants were
rallying round the throne. Sir Thomas Tyldesley, false to his en-
gagemente, was arming hia tenants and collecting auxiUaries. The
king spent a night in his mansion at Myerscough, and the next night,
to the horror of the Presbyterians, in the house of Anderton of Eux
ton, ' a bloody Papist,' ' up to hia elbows,' as the preachers said, ' in
the blood of Bolton saints.' The foUowing night he was lodged in
the house of Sfr WilUam Gerard, ' a subtle, Jesuitical Papist.' These
. papistical halls were strange places of hospitaUty for a covenanted
king professing contrition on account of the papistry of his father
and mother. The Presbyterians were perplexed and dirided. Some
were neufral or indifferent ; some, having promised assistance, were
ready to redeem thefr promise, of whom Major Ashurst was the
principal ; and some resolved to resist the Papists even when they
were fighting for a covenanted king. The latter did as they had
done before, fought for the king against the men who foUowed hia
standard, to rescue him from the eril counseUors who would involve
him in the ruin of his kingdom,
Charles was sadly disappointed. He had reason to expect from
the information of Ashurst and others that the Presbyterians would
¦unanimously support hia cause. They were preparing to do so, when
thefr hafred of his papistical friends prevented them from continuing
thefr preparations. Even puritan Manchester, of which Lilburne

284 LANCASHIRE.
said, it had ' become very maUgnant,' had agreed to send five hundred
well-frained and well-armed men to follow the royal standard.* Had
Charles acted in England the farce of a covenanted king as well as
he had done in Scotland, Cromwell might have had to fight a stout
force of Lancashfre Puritans instead of Prelatists and Papiste, and
the result might have been something very different from that of the
battle of Worcester.
Major-General Harrison, "with a strong force of cavalry, waa
dfrected to watoh the progress of Charles through Lancashfre. Re
treating as Charles advanced, he avoided an engagement until, joined
by General Lambert, he disputed the passage of the Royalists at
"W"arrington bridge. The result was unfavourable to the RepubUcans,
ovring, as they said, to thefr inabUity to bring thefr horse into action
in an enclosed country. Charles showed more courage than he had
been accustomed to show, or at least than he had gained credit for
showing. Lambert says, ' the king in the van, if not in the forlorn,
with his o^wn life-guard pressed hard upon our rear.'t Lambert
drew off towards Knutsford and left the London road open to the
king, who marched towards Shrewsbury.
In the meantime, the Earl of Derby, having arrived in the Wyre
water from the Isle of Man vrith a few hundred men, hastened to
meet the king at Warrington. On hia way, or on his return, he had
an interview vrith several of the leading Presbyterians. To neither
party was the interriew satisfactory. The Presbyterians, before they
would do anything, requfred that the earl should subscribe the Cove
nant, and that he should remove all Papists from hia camp. The
Stenley had not the insincerity of some of his ancestors, for sooner
than subscribe the Covenant he would die in opposing it. Nor could
he dismiss the Papists, who constituted the sfrength of his Uttle army,
and whose aUenation would have proved the ruin of his cause. Dis
appointed by thefr unreasonable demanda, the earl resolved to spend
no more time in freating -with the impracticable Presbyterians, but
as soon as possible to join the king vrith such force aa he could raise
in his own country.
Colonel Bfrch, the active Governor of Liverpool, had obtained
early information of the arrival of the earl in Wyre water, and imme
diately took measures to defeat the object of the expedition. He
sent ships from the Mersey into the Wyre to intercept the arrival
of suppUes, and to prevent the return of the earl's troops. He com
municated with LUbnrne, who marched upon Prescot, vrithin a few
mUes of the earl'a quarters at Ormskfrk. He speedUy collected
the parliamentary froops which were in the neighbourhood of
Chester, and sent them to the camp of Lilburne. He despatched
orders to his own regiment in Mancheater to haaten to Prescot,
although few arrived in time to be of serrice in the approaching
fight. The force of LUburne conaiated of his own regiment of horse and
about as many footmen, whom Bfrch had sent him. The froops of
* LUburne's Letter to Speaker LenthaU, August 30, 1651.
t Perfect Diurnal, No. 89. Tuesday, August 19, 1661.

COMPREHENSION. 285
Lord Derby amounted to some 1,500 men, considerably exceeding iu
number the parliamentary army. After several skirmishes, conducted
with equal bravery and various success, the two armies met in a lane
on the north of Wigan, Sir Thomaa Tyldesley took the place he
ever loved to take, at the head of his friends, in front of his foes.
LUburne's horae made a fierce and impetuoua attack upon Tyldesley's
infanfry, who met it vrith a stubborn and desperate resistance. The
fight was courageously sustained on both sides, and for more than
an hour was undecided. So well contested a battle had not before
occurred in the war. The unbroken firmness of Tyldesley's foot waa
evidently gaining the advantage over the impetuous activity of LU
burne's horse, who were compelled to refreat, disputing every inch of
the ground ahnost to the end of the lane. At thia critical moment
aome of LUburne's infantry took thefr poaitiona unobaerved behind
the hedges on both sides of the lane, and being capital marksmen,
shot many of the royaUst officers and threw their froops into confu
sion, Lnmediately the reserve of LUburne's horse dashed upon the
weary soldiers of the earl, who was himself wounded in the face. In
the confusion, the Manx men were the first to retreat, leaving many
dead and wounded in the lane. Among the dead was found the body
of Sir Thomas Tyldesley.*
Thus feU the most active, the bravest and in many respects the
best of the Lancashfre friends of royalty. Never daunted, never
weary in consultation, marching, or fighting, he was engaged in
every infrigue, present in every conference, ready for every emer
gency, and unreservedly devoting all he had to the cause of royalty,
and, as he understood it, of the true reUgion. Beloved and trusted
by aU the members of his own party, he was respected by his enemies,
and treated by them more leniently than the other maUgnants whom
the fortune of war brought under thefr power. Three times he was
taken prisoner, and as often released and allowed to retain his lands,
when those of many of his frienda were confiscated. Memorials
of him remain in the eloquent eulogy of Clarendon, in the fine
porfrait at Hulton Hall, and in the column erected to his memory
on the spot where he feU, by hia ' grateftil cornet, Alexander
Rigby.' The royaUat famiUes of Lancashire long remembered with grief
the battle of Wigan, in which many of thefr promising young men
were kiUed or taken prisonera. Lord Derby, although severely
wounded, made hia escape. Knowing the country weU, and finding
friends in every -village, he eluded the -rigilance of Lilburne, and made
his escape into Cheshfre. At Boscobel, in Shropshfre, he found a re
fuge not only for himself, but afterwards for his sovereign. Although
suffering from his wounds, he contrived to reach the royal camp on
¦" To understand the battle of Wigan Lane, compare two letters dated Chester,
August 26, 1651, printed by order of Parliament ; a letter of LUburne to Colonel
Birch, August 25, 1651 ; a letter of Birch to Speaker LenthaU, dated Liverpool,
August 26, 1651 ; and two letters of LUburne, one to LenthaU dated August 25,
and one to CromweU August 25. See also Seacome's Memoirs, Gary's Memorials,
and an interesting account in the Discourse of the War in Lancashire.

286 LANCASHIRE.
the eve of the battle of Worcester. After the fatal defeat, he adhered
with singular fideUty to Charles, at the riak of his own Ufe ; untU,
reaching Boscobel, he committed his sovereign to his own protector,
WUliam Penderel, with the charge, ' This ia the king : thou must
have a care of him, and preserve him as thou didst me.' Fearing
suspicions might arise in the neighbourhood from the number of
sfrangers sheltered in the house, he induced other noblemen vrith
himself to leave the place for thefr several homes. Of his capture
we have his own account, written in Chester Castle to his countess :
' I escaped a great danger at Wigan, and met -with a worse at
Worcester, being not so fortunate as to meet any that would kiU me,
and thereby put me out of the reach qf en-vy and maUce. Lord
Lauderdale and I having escaped, hired horses, and faUing into the
enemies' hands, were thought not worth killing, but had quarter
given us by one Captain Edge, a Lancashire man, and one that
was so ci-ril to me, that I and aU that love me are beholden to
hun,'* A more particular account is given by a parUamenterian officer,
Captain Hodgson of Coley, who was present.f A Lancashfre regi
ment on its return to Manchester had reached Namptvrich. ' Oliver
Edge, one of our captains, had a mind to see what had become of the
forlorn, hearing such a great firing ; .... he spies a party of horse
behind him in the fields, and having no order to be there, he refreata
towards the regiment, but they caUed upon him, and asked if he was
an officer; and drawing towards them, about eighteen or twenty
horsemen Ughted, and told him they would surrender themselves
prisoners ; there was the Earl of Derby, the Earl of Lauderdale, Sin-
clafr, and a fourth. These became prisoners to one single captain,
but the soldiers feU in with him immediately.' J
The earl was confined in Chester Castle, and soon brought to trial,
on a charge of high treason in contravention of an Act passed only
a few weeks before, ' prohibiting correspondence vrith Charles Stuart.'
A court-martial was convened at Chester, under authority of a com
mission from Cromwell. The earl pleaded, as he weU might, ignor
ance of so recent an Act of ParUament, passed after he was committed
to the war. He, however, chiefly insisted upon the quarter given to
him by the parUamentary officer to whom he had surrendered. He
urged that, as his Ufe had been granted on his surrender, it was by
* Seacome's Memoirs, p. 133. For the closing scenes in the life of the earl, see
Hughes's Diary in Boscobel Tracts, and extracts from the Derby MSS. made by
Seacome, ColUns, and Peck.
+ Original Memoirs during the Great Civil War, by Captain Hodgson. Although
Hodgson was ' a thorough RepubUcan and Independent,' he maintained an intimate
friendship -with his presbyterian neighbour, Oliver Heywood. See Hunter's Life
of Oliver Heywood, p. 87.
t Oliver Edge belonged, as I have before intimate^, to a famUy of second
class gentiUty, resident in Rusholme. The Edges of Birch-HaU Houses, like their
grander neighbours the Birches and the Worsleys, were among the earUest sup
porters of 'the Congregational way,' In the 'Chapel Book' of Birch Chapel the
, name- occurs in a Ust of subscribers for the support of the minister, of which I
shall have occasion hereafter to take notice. — History of the Ancient Chanel of
Birch, p. 148.

COMPREHENSION, 287
the law of civUised nations to be held sacred. He was, however,
pronounced guilty, and sentenced to ' be put to death by severing hia
head from his body in the market-place of the town of Bolton, upon
Wednesday the 15th of this instent October, about the hour of one
on the clock of the same day.' *
It was a horrible sentence, which his Lancashire friends beUeved
-would never be executed. Great and persevering efforts were made
in all dfrections to obtain its remission. The earl himself wrote to
Cromwell, pleading that he had surrendered himself prisoner of war,
npon the impUed condition of his life being sacred. Colonel Brad
shaw of Marple, one of his judges, earnestly entreated his brother,
the lord-president, to obtain a commutation of the punishment. The
countess sent her clever chaplain, Brideoake, to plead with LenthaU,
' which he did with so much more than ordinary reason and appUca
tion ' as to obtain for himself the place of chaplain to the speaker and
preacher at the Rolls ; an unexpected preferment, which seems to
have consoled him in the failure of the primary object of his mission.
The earl's son is said to have ridden in one day and night from
Leigh to London, a distance of one hundred and ninety miles, by
relays of horses, ' with incredible speed,' to have a petition to parlia
ment presented in time to stay the execution. All was done which
could be done, but it was done in vain. The government was de
termined to make an example, which by its severity should deter the
RoyaUsts from taking any active measures to accomplish the purpose
which they were secretly cherishing in the northern counties.f
Had the republican rulers been able to choose thefr rictim, they
could not have selected one more suited for thefr purpose of striking
the hearts of thefr enemies -vrith confusion and dismay. They had
in thefr hands the head of the most powerful famUy of the northern
counties, an avowed and consistent Protestant, the acknowledged
leader of the more constitutional Royalists, who had never approved
of the extreme measures of Laud and Strafford, If he were not
spared, who could expect to resist the government with impunity ?
The rulers of that day had more reason to fear the Presbyterians than
the Prelatists. The execution of the earl in their stronghold of Lan
cashfre would do much to quiet thefr restless spfrits, whUe the memory
of the Bolton massacre would cause many of them to regard his death
as the just refribution of his crimes.
The earl petitioned the House of Commons for a respite, and wrote
to Speaker LenthaU : ' It is a greater affliction to me than death itself,
that I am sentenced to die at Bolton, so that the nation wUl look
upon me as a sacriflce for that blood which some have unjustly laid
upon me,'; J Bolton, however, was the place where his death would
¦* The Perfect Trial and Confession of the Earl of Derby, at a court-martial held
at Chester, the first day of October, 1651,
f Seacome attributes the death of the earl to the ' inveterate maUce ' of Bradshaw,
Rigby, and Birch, ' these three assisted by Sir Richard Hoghton.'
J Letter to LenthaU, dated Chester, October 11, 1651, printed iu Gary's
Memorials, and in a more perfect form in the Civil War Tracts. According to the
information of the sub-Ubrarian of the Bodleian, communicated to the editor, it is
written throughout by the hand of the earl.

288 LANCASHIRE.
produce the greatest impression, especiaUy upon the Presbyterians,
and therefore in Bolton he must die. He enfreated that the petition
of a dying man might be read in the House. Inhuman as it seems,
the extreme party attempted to negative the proposal The House
divided, twenty-two for reading the petition, sixteen against it. I
am grieved to find General Harrison one of the teUers for the nega
tive, and as pleased to find the earl's old antegomst. Sir WilUam
Brereton, a teller for the aflBrmative,*
On the Sunday before his execution the earl -wrote hia tender and
loving lettera to his countess and to thefr two daughtera. On Wed
nesday, October 15, he was conducted to Bolton by a guard of eighty
horse and sixty foot soldiers. On the way he passionately entreated
to be aUowed to -risit the grave of his friend, Sfr Thomas Tyldesley,
but his enfreaty could not be granted. On his arrival at Bolton, the
scaffold was ready for him at the market cross, erected (it is said)
¦with timber brought from Lathom House,
We have several accounts of his death, in some particulars confra-
dictory, and three veraions of hia last address, one in Somers'a 'Tracts,'
one in the ' Black Tribunal,' and one in Seacome's ' Memoirs,' The
first, although reprinted by Sfr Walter Scott, ia beUeved to be
spurious ; the last seems to be the most correct. Of the foUowing
particulars there can be no reasonable doubt.
About two o'clock the earl ascended the ladder, and standing in
the front of the scaffold, after ' submitting to the mercy of God,' he
asserted his innocence of encouraging the Bolton massacre, ' Now
it hath pleased God to take my life, I am glad to say that in this
town, where some were made to beUeve I was a man of blood, I waa
slandered to be the death of many. It was my desfre the last time I
came into this country to come hither as to a people that ought to re
ceive thefr king, as I conceive upon good grounds. It was said that
I was accustomed to be a man of blood ; but it shaU not Ue upon my
conscience, for I was wrongfully belied. I thank God I die in peace.
I was born in honour, and I hope I shaU die in honour, I had a
fair estate, and did not need to mend it. I had good friends, and
was respected, and did respect. They were ready to do for me,
and I was ready to do for them. I have done nothing but, as
my ancestors, to do you good. It was the king that called me
in, and I thought it my duty to wait upon his highness, to do him
serrice,' The earl waa not an eloquent man, WhUe he was speaking, some
confusion arose from the people not hearing or not understanding
him. He continued : ' I cannot say much more of my goodwill to
this town of Bolton, and I can say no more but the Lord bless you !
I forgive you all, and desfre to be forgiven by you aU. I put my
trust in Jesus Christ.' Walking along the scaffold he repeated,
' The Lord bless you all of the town of Bolton, Mancheater, and
Lancashfre ! God send you a king again ! I die Uke a Christian,
a soldier, and Christ'a aoldier,' Then looking towards the crowd, he
said, ' There is no man that revUeth me, God be thanked ! '
¦' Journal of the House of Commons, October 14, 1651,

COMPREHENSION. 289
His coffin was brought upon the scaffold. He desired it might be
opened, and having said a few words to an attendant, he spoke to
the executioner about striking bim rightly, and added, ' The Lord
help thee, and forgive thee ! '
He was not allowed to have the comfort of a chaplain. Probably,
m puritan Bolton, the presence of an episcopalian chaplain would
have excited painful opposition. Two clergymen were present as
private friends, one of whom wrote the words he spoke. Kneeling
down he offered his last prayer, ' The Lord of heaven bless my vrife
and poor chUdren ! The Lord bless the people and my good king ! '
He calmly laid his head upon the block, and gave the death signal
by raising his hand. By one sfroke his head was severed from his
body. Thua died James, the aeventh Earl of Derby. In his earUer years
he was favourably disposed to the Puritans, and promoted several of
thefr ministera to the best benefices in his patronage. At the begin
ning of the ciril war he endeavoured to concUiate the opposing
parties. "When the means of concUiation faUed, he was among the
most moderate and constitutional adherents of the king. Aa the
conflict proceeded, he became thoroughly imbued vrith the apfrit of
his party, and aa the royal cauae grew desperate he grew more devoted
to it. Possessing great personal courage and indefatigable energy,
he was not endowed with much inteUectual power or commanding
abUity, In Bolton his execution was vritnessed in profound sUence
by the inhabitents, who on the one hand could not forget the bar
barities associated vrith his name, nor on the other rejoice in the
¦triumph of the sectarian army, A few months earUer hia presence
in Bolton would have met vrith bitter execrations ; a few montha
later he might have received the honoura of martyrdom. As it was,
the people probably regarded hia execution as a righteoua judgment
of God, vrithout approring of it aa an act of the government which
they dreaded. The mangled remaina were placed in the cof&n and
removed by a few feithfnl friends to Ormskfrk, where he waa laid
vrith hia fathers in the sepulchre of the Stanleya. His Ulusfrious
counteaa surrived him twelve years, and during -that time, although
steadUy adhering to the royal cause for which she had suffered so
severely, she, faithful to the Protestant principles of her parentage,
presented as she had opportunity the benefices in her pafronage to
loyal and deserving presbyterian ministers.*
Another victory deUvered Lancashfre from aU fear of the RoyaUsts.
A considerable number of the Scotch soldiers, who did very little for
thefr covenanted king in the battle of Worcester, on their retreat
* Romanists have perpetuated a strange notion that the earl was reconciled
to their Church before his death. A detaUed account of his conversion, vmtten
in Latin, is preserved among the MSS. of Stonyhurst CoUege. The story is so
improbable, and so contradictory to aU that we know of the last days of his
Ufe, as to render it, notwithstanding the attestation in its favour, utterly un
worthy of credit. His countess waa vrith no better reason _ announced as a
convert to popery at this time in the Legenda Lignea, in which her name was
printed in red letters as that of an illustrious person. — Neal, vol. u. pt. U. ch. ii.
p. 413.

290 LANCASHIRE.
halted near Morecambe Bay, and formed in military order, under the
command of General Lesley. The parliamentary troops under Har
rison and LUburne soon marched upon them, kUled many of thefr
officers, made about six hundred prisonera, and drove the rest out of
the county. Although the peace of the county waa restored, the
Presbyterian Church was sadly troubled by the results of the war.
Heyricke we left a prisoner in London. Herle of Winvrick, Angier
of Denton, HolUngworth of Manchester, Harrison of Ashton, Gee of
Eccleston, and several other influential ministera, were arrested on
the charge of corresponding vrith the Scotch, and exciting dissatisfac
tion vrith the existing government. After being confined for several
weeks, they were released vrithout obtaining an opportunity of
answering the charges brought against them.
The dissolution of the Long ParUament, which had for some time
been nigh unto death, atill more seriously affected the presbyterian
interest. Although the Presbyterians could not have felt much
respect for the inglorious age of the parUament which in ita youth
and maturity had done so much for thefr Uberty and welfare, its
sudden dissolution seemed to them to forebode ineriteble and
disastrous changes. It had outlived its time and strength. Its
dissolution, if it could be constitutionaUy dissolved, would be
regretted by few others than the old gentlemen who acted the
formaUties of a parliament around the venerable chafr of Speaker
LenthaU. But who was to dissolve it ? No other than CromweU could do it.
The authority which he assumed was undoubtedly arbitrary and un
constitutional. But what could be done ? Was the Long ParUament
to sit for ever ? Or was it to die out, and the parUamentery history
of England to terminate vrith the life of its last surviving member ?
Or was it to dissolve itself ? By what authority could it commit
suicide ? CromweU did an unconstitutional deed, which somebody
must have done if the machinery of government was to work any
longer. Ha-ritng resolved to do it, CromweU did it Uke himself,
promptly, resolutely, effectuaUy. If he had no hea^rier burden upon
his conscience than that unconstitutional deed, he had a much Ughter
weight of responsibiUty than must be borne by most rulers, royal or
repubUcan, who Uke him have had the misfortune to rule in troublous
times. On that memorable occasion, the protector went to the House,
accompanied by his trusty Lancashire friend, Colonel Worsley, who,
on the signal being given, led the soldiers into the House. The
speaker left the chafr, but Algernon Sidney, who occupied the next
seat, boldly refused to retfre. ' Put him out,' said CromweU, and
immediately Worsley and Harrison led bim towards the door, ' Take
away that bauble,' aaid the protector, pointing to the mace. To whom
he spoke we are not told, but from the journals of the next parlia
ment we learn that a message was sent to Colonel Worsley requesting
him to restore the mace. There can, therefore, be no doubt that he
took it away, and had the custody of it until the assembling of the
new parliament.

COMPREHENSION. 291
On leaving the civU war of Lancashfre, ao disastrous to many of
ita noble famUiea, Catholic, Episcopalian, and Presbyterian, we may
find some iUusfration of the religious life and character of the time
in the memoirs of a few of the parliamentary officers. The township
of Rusholme supplies as many as we require, Charles Worsley, Thomas
Bfrch, and hia cousin John Birch, very different men, but each a
good representative of a class of Puritans.
Chaeles Wobslet, the eldest son of Ralph Worsley of Platt and
Isabel Massey his wife, was baptised in the collegiate church of Man
chester June 30, 1622. WhUe he was a young man, that is to say,
in 1646, the Rev. John Wigan was minister of Bfrch chapel, ' where
he set up the congregational way.' About that time the principal
families of Rusholme, the Worsleys, the Birches, the Edges, and the
Siddala, professed and maintained congregational principles. "WUether
they had been converted to this profession by Mr. Wigan, or whether
Mr. Wigan, who had preriously attempted to infroduce ' the congre
gational way ' into Gorton was on that account invited to minister
in Bfrch chapel, I have not been able to ascertain. As, however, it
is not easy to account for so many respectable Congregationalists
residing in the same rillage, when the neighbouring towns were
almost exclusively presbyterian, I have little doubt that their opinions
were to some extent formed under the influence of the earnest ministry
of Mr. Wigan.
Ralph "Worsley, who, like several of the traders of Manchester,
carried on a profitable traffic with the Low Countries, kept a sort of
diary* in which, partly in French and partly in EngUsh, he inserted
brief notices of passing events. As the manuscript preserved among
the famUy papers extends from 1645 to 1668, it contains valuable
notices of the times with which we are concerned. It appears that
his eldest son, Charles, when a boy, entered the parUamentary army,
became a captain at the age of twenty-two and a Ueutenant-colonel
when he was twenty- eight.
It seems strange that at the same time in Manchester a regiment
should be in the course of training to assist the Scotch in their
invasion of England (if arrangements could be made -with them
satisfactory to the presbyterian ministers), and another to assist
CromweU in his invasion of Scotland. But such was the fact, and the
opposite parties acted -without interfering with each other, although
it was scarcely possible that thefr different purposes could have been
concealed. ' July 19, 1650. Friday. — At Cheetham HiU was the first muster
of Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Worsley's soldiers. The second in
the same place August 2, 1650.'t This regiment was raised, equipped,
and supported, at least in part, by the Independents of Rusholme
and its neighbourhood, who were all inspfred by the miUtary spfrit.
* See the previous reference to this diary, p. 162; also the extracts from
it in the History of the Ancient Chapel of Birch, pp. 35-39. There are some
entries, chiefly in French, earher than 1645, but they afford no Ulustration of our
history. t Diary of Ralph Worsley.

292 LANCASHIRE.
OUver Edge, the captor of the Earl of Derby, was one of its
officers. Ralph Worsley, too old for active serrice, was represented
in the regiment by a hfreling, fed and clothed by him.* His
neighbour, Colonel Bfrch, raised another regiment, and even the inde
pendent minister of Bfrch chapel served as a soldier in the repubUcan
army. Colonel Woraley left Manchester with his regiment on August 19,
1660, to join Cromwell in Scotland. Ha-ring arrived too late to
share the honour of the field of Dunbar, he served under the lord
general during the remainder of the campaign. No soldier rose so
rapidly aa he in the estimation and confidence of CromweU. "WTiile
he waa under thirty years of age he was promoted to the honourable
position of ' Commander of the lord general's regiment of foot.' On
great occasions, as on that I have already noticed, the dissolution of
the Long Parliament, he was usuaUy selected for the most difiGLcult
and confidential serrice. In the parUament of 1664 he was nomina
ted the member for Manchester, and several of the inhabitante
went through the formaUty of electing the unopposed favourite of
Cromwell.f In this parliament he took a very active part, as his name is
found on several committees, especiaUy that for ejecting scandalous
ministera, and that for ' recognising and maintaining the rule of the
lord protector over the three kingdoms.' On ite dissolution he was
appointed one of the ten generals who represented the protector in
their several districts, and was invested with almost unUmited au
thority for the government of the counties of Lancaster, Chester, and
Stefford. Having undertaken this responsible serrice, he discharged its
duties with extraordinary dUigence, some may think vrith undue
severity and puritanical rigour. It may be a curious enquiry why
the young soldier should enforce a more rigorous restraint upon the
amusements of the people than the old puritan ministers of his county
had hitherto requfred. "Whether he regarded the suggestions of the
severe puritanism of London rather than the spirit of the sportive
puritanism of Lancashfre, or whether the puritaniam of the preaching
colonela had become more rigorous than that of the preaching clergy
men, he endeavoured to suppress ' aU horse races and cock matches,'
although many a puritan squfre in Lancashfre boasted of the achieve
ments of his favourite horae, and many a puritan minister gave his
boys thefr cockpennies to spend at the cocking of Shrovetide or
Easter. It appears from his letters, which are preserved among the state
papers, that Worsley had an especial dislike of Papists and of pubU-
* 'November 2, 1650. — I agreed with John BurdseU of the MiUgate in Manchester
to carry my arms during the service ; and for his pains I have given him 30s., one
green coat, and am to pay him daily one shiUing, when he with the rest of his
company is trained ; aud when he is to go forth of the county upon service I am
to pay him thirty shUlings more.' — Diary of Ralph Worsley.
\ Of the twenty-nine names attached to the indenture of his election, not one
reminds us of the great presbyterian famUies of the town.

COMPREHENSION, 293
cans. Papists he disarmed, fined, and turned to some good use by
making them confribute from thefr registered estates to the impover
ished exchequer. But the publicans froubled bim sorely. They
were, he says, ' the ban of the county,' although he found it ' a
difficult thing to stop thefr trade and not weaken the revenue,' In
the hundred of Blackburn he ordered ' two hundred ale-houses to be
thrown down,' and then found that the exchequer could get no more
revenue out of them. In great perplexity he craved further insfruc-
tions. He was also froubled vrith scandalous ministera and with vexatious
Quakera. The ' scandalous ministers ' were scandalous indeed : some
of them ' drunkards, swearers, gamblers, unchaste, dishonest,' These
he ejected from thefr benefices or curacies. Some of them, quite as
many Presbyterians as EpiscopaUans, appear in Walker's Uste as
' suffering clergy,' With the Quakers he had more frouble than vrith
the pubUcans or the preachers, A pubUcan, of no other earthly use,
might help the exchequer, but there was no getting money from
Quakers, Uving or dead, A preacher he could silence, but there was
no sUencing the Quakers, They disturbed the churches, denounced
the ministers, defied the magistiates, exhorted in the markets, spake
evU of dignitaries, went to prison as if they Uked it, and came out as
if they -wished soon to return. Of them he could promise nothing
better than ' I shall take what course I can.'
The religious spfrit which breathes in aU his letters is very remark
able. Everywhere he sees the hand of God. A man of prayer, he
feels greatly encouraged by the prayers of others, and confidently
expects answers to his own. In this respect, many of his letters
resemble those of the protector. ' I find in them ' (the officers of
Lancashfre) ' a spirit extraordinarUy bent to the work, and 1 plainly
discern the finger of God going along -vrith it, which ia indeed no
smaU encouragement to me. The sense of the work and my unwor
thiness and insufficiency for the right management of it are my only
present discouragement. Yet this is the ground of my hope and
comfort, that the Lord ia able to supply my wants, and wiU appear
in weak instruments for His glory to the perfecting of His work.
I shall, through the grace of God, discharge my trust in faithfulness
to those who have employed me, and I omit no opportunity nor
avoid pains wherein my weak endeavours may be usefiil.' * ' I have
set a day apart to sit upon the ordinance for the ejecting of ignorant
and scandalous ministers and subordinates. I am daily more and
more encouraged that God -vriU carry on thia good work. I have
been in divera towng and corporations, and have acquainted them
¦vrith something I have in charge, and vrith the good people who
doth no Uttle rejoice, and seem to be abundantly affected therevrith,
and promise to set heart and hand to thia good work. And indeed 1
hope it wUl make itself, by the blessing of God, a reconciUng work.'f
* Dated, Manchester, November 3, 1655, quoted in History of the Ancient Chapel
of Birch. State Papers, vol. iv. p. 149,
+ Preston, November 9, 1655. Addressed to Secretary Thurloe ; State Papers,
vol. iv, p. 149.

294 LANCASHIRE,
' I have been in some corporations vrith the mayor and aldermen,
and the best of the people, to stir up and quicken the putting in
effectual execution the laws against drunkenness, swearing, profaning
the Lord's day, and other wickedness, and I indeed find a very great
seeming readiness, and I am hopeful it is very much upon their
heart to do so. But surely that which is none of the least encourag
ing is that God hath already put into His people a praying spfrit for
this great and good work, and indeed I find it afready in good men
of different principles.' *
Young as he was, and strong as he seemed, the incessant activity
of hia mind and daUy fatigue of his body were too much for the
endurance of his nervous and excitable nature. Invited to London
by CromweU, he wrote intimating his purpose, if his health would
allow, and ' if the Lord "wiU,' to ' take post ' as soon as possible. He
had apartments assigned to him in St. James's, or, as his puritan
father always called it, ' James's House,' where he arrived feeble,
exhausted, and nigh unto death. On the evening of June 12, 1656,
he breathed his last at the early age of thfrty-five.
His death was felt painfully by all the members of the govern
ment, by no one more than by the protector himself, ' He was
buried with the dirges of bell, book, and candle, and the peals of
muskefry, in no less a repository than Henry VII,'s chapel, as became
a prince of the modern creation and Oliver's great and rising
favourite.' f
If the portrait which is preserved aa an heir-loom in the famUy
resembled him, as it surely must have done, his countenance waa
remarkably beautiful and expressive, for every feature seems formed
to engage confidence and love. There is much gentleness in the
expression, and yet the decision and magnanimity of the warrior are
not weakened by the sweetness and blandness of the gentleman. He
looks Uke himself, endowed "with many great and good quaUties
seldom combined in the same person. J His premature death was an
irreparable loss to the Commonwealth, Of aU the great officers of
Cromwell, he had more than any other the unerring foresight, the
calm judgment, the quiet decision, the dauntless courage, the decisive
movement, the unwearied energy, and the unswerring perseverance
of his great commander ; and withal he had what Ha commander
had not, a most gentle, insinuating, gracious, and conciUatory spfrit
and manner, like CromweU he firmly trusted in God ; so far as
man was concerned he trusted in himself, and he had the mysterious
power of inducing others to trust him. Of the miUtery cfrcle around
the protector's chair, no one appeared so fit to succeed to the pro-
* Preston, November 12, 1655.J | Addressed to Thurloe. See as above. State
Papers, vol. iv. p. 179.
t Heath's Chronicle, p. 381.
J Of this portrait Mrs. Carill Worsley, the present possessor, a descendant of
President Bradshaw, kindly aUowed a photograph to be taken for the embeUishment
of the first edition of this work. General Worsley's sword is also preserved by the
family. On its blade are engraven several moral and religious maxims, of which,
perhaps, the most appropriate to his character is ' Fide," sed cui vide.'

COMPREHENSION. 295
tectorate as Major-General Worsley. We are ready to say if the
Commonwealth of England was to have been preserved, his Ufe
would have been prolonged for its preservation. The only repub
lican officer equal to him in quaUties appropriate to a ruler was
Ireton, but Ireton was then sleeping in the sanctuary of royalty at
Westminster. His eldest son Ralph succeeded to the family estates, as weU as to
the poUtical and reUgious principles of his father and grandfather.
After the Restoration he continued the faithful friend and protector
of the nonconformist interest at Rusholme through all the vicissitudes
of fortune to which it was subjected.
Adjoining the lands of Platt in Rusholme Ues the estate of Hindley
Bfrch, of which Thomas Biech was the proprietor at the commence
ment of the civU war. Like his neighbour Ralph Worsley he was
among the earUest supporters of ' the congregational way ' in that
neighbourhood. Haring offered his serrices to the parUament, he
obtained a commission as captain in a regiment of foot raised for the
defence of Manchester. On occasion of the "visit of Lord Strange in
1642, he led his troop marching to the sound of the drum, and
ordered them, it ia said upon authority that I have already considered,
to fire upon the party of Royalists. If it were so, as that was the
first skfrmish in the great ciril war, it must have been a painful
reflection to him in later life, when he thought of the streams of
blood and tears which had foUowed the fight so hastUy provoked in
the streets of Manchester.
In the course of the foUo"wing vrinter he served as Major in Colonel
Assheton's regiment vrith distinguished valour in the assault on
Preston, and in the capture of Lancaster. In 1644 he became
Governor of Liverpool, and there acted as a steady supporter of the
rehgious principles of the Independenta. In October 1649, on
account of a vacancy occasioned by the death of Sir Richard Wynn,
he was elected a representative of Liverpool in the Long Parliament.
In the little parliament of 1653, he was returned the sole member for
Liverpool, as he was also in the parUament of 1664, but in that of
1666 he was not allowed to take his seat. Independent in poUtics
and reUgion, he was supposed to be unfavourable to the later mea
sures of CromweU, who aasumed, in the opinion of stern republicans,
too many of the prerogatives of royalty. He might well enquire by
what constitutional authority the protector could forbid any man
legaUy returned by his constituents to teke his seat, "Wlule in hia
politica he seems to have agreed with Sidney, NevQle, Harrington,
and Martin, whom Cromwell called ' heathens,' his reUgious feeUngs
prevented him from forming any intimate relations with those men.
In the parUament elected on the Restoration, in which his old enemies
¦the Presbyterians were powerful, he was charged, 1 hope unjustly,
by Sfr Ralph Assheton with taking bribes for doing parliamentary
serrice. Instead of boldly meeting the charge, he retfred to hia
estate and there contented himself vrith supporting the nonconformist
interest in Rusholme, For some time after the passing of the Act of
Uniformity, non-subscribing ministers were susteined in Bfrch chapel

296 LANCASHIRE.
by the leading famiUes of Rusholme, When the authorities inter
fered, the Bfrches, Worsleys, and others vrithdrew thefr contributions,
and the ' chapel wage ' was inadequate to the support of a conforming
minister. As late as 1670, according to Anthony Wood, two young
men of this famUy, adhering to their nonconforming principles,
studied in Oxford, that is, procured the pri-vilege of consulting
the univeraity Ubrary and engag^g a private tutor, although,
like sound Puritens, they refused to wear go-wns, or to conform
in any particular to the ecclesiastical costume and practices of the
university, A branch of the Birch family was in the reign of Charles I, settled
in Ardvrick, John Biech of that branch entered on the great con
flict of the times with as much ardour and energy as his cousin
Thomas. Although the cousins were engaged on the same side, they
differed vridely in respect to the poUtical and reUgious controversies
which dirided the ParUamentarians, John Bfrch was as flrm and
decided a Presbyterian aa Thomas was an Independent. John de
fended constitutional monarchy, Thomaa repubhcanism ; John opposed
the measures of CromweU, Thomas for a time adhered to him, John
disliked Cromwell for desfroying the king, Thomas for making
himself too much like a king, John supported the interest of the
presbyterian ministers, Thomas enforced the sequestration of thefr
property. John promoted the restoration of Charles II. , Thomas
had no faith in any of the Stuarts. John was moderate in all his
measures, Thomas determined and exfreme in whatever cause he
supported. Unlike in everything, except in their steady adherence
to nonconformity, the cousins, whUe supporting the cause of liberty,
seldom acted together, and never vrithout exhibiting much difference
in thefr opinions and in the fnanner of attaining thefr common
object, John Birch was the eldest son of godly parents, Samuel and Mary
Birch, in whose house, first at Ardwick, afterwards at OrdsaU, John
Angier, William Bourne, Richard HolUngworth, and other ministers,
kept many ' pretious days,' He was baptised in the coUegiate church
of Manchester, April 7, 1616. On the breaking out of the civil war,
he entered the parliamentary army, probably induced by the example
and encouragement of his cousin, who was a few years older thsm.
himself His promotion was rapid. He did not, like his cousin,
confine his serrices to his native county, or even to the Lancashfre
regiments, as in 1645 he commanded a Kentish regiment in Plymouth,
and afterwards was appointed by parliament Governor of Bridgewater.
Engaged in many sieges and battles in the west of England, he gained
the reputetion of a careful, cautious, far-seeing officer, who could
wait his opportunity, and when it came act "with singular promptitude
and vigour. In the winter of 1645, he took the city of Hereford by
sfrategem. Having disguised six of his best soldiers as labouring
men, he sent them separately into the city on a dark evening, and
dfrected them at a gi-v;en signal to surprise the sentinels and secure
the gates. At the exact time previously determined. Colonel Bfrch
led the infanfry into the city, who in a stormy winter's night secured

COMPREHENSION. 297
the important positions, and, the next morning, on the arrival of
thefr horse, captured the miUtary stores, and made prisoners of forty
knights and gentlemen of consideration. For this service pubUc
thanksgiving was ordered by parUament, and the colonel was
appointed governor of the city, A story is told much to the credit
of the moderation of the colonel and the courage of the Bishop of
Hereford, The bishop, preaching in the cathedral before the new
governor, took the opportunity of inveighing against the disloyalty
of the times in language provokingly bitter and insulting. A guard
of soldiers at the porch levelled their muskets, and threatened to fire
upon him. Bfrch, who had been quietly Ustening, immediately rose,
not to sUence the preacher, but to command the soldiers to retire
until the conclusion of the service. It was weU for the bishop that
the colonel was John Birch, not Thomas, who would probably have
turned him out of the pulpit or commanded the soldiers to fire upon
him. After captniring Hereford and Ludlow, he was employed in ser-
¦rices which requfred especial prudence, sagacity and discretion, as
in arranging the differences with the Scottish authorities, and in
conciUating the disaffected repubUcan soldiery. But difficulties too
great even for his wisdom to overcome obsfructed his further pro
gress. He had subscribed the covenant and he would not renounce
it. He adhered firmly to his early presbyterianism and to the cause
of constitutional monarchy. He desfred, in opposition to the army,
to make further overtures to the unfortunate king. Few of the
Presbyterians were more feared by the RepubUcans than John Bfrch.
A soldier, he was trusted and beloved by the men who had served
under him. He was not to be frightened, he was not to be bought.
Though cautious, he was not timid, as he never hesitated to do what
he believed to be his duty. But he must be sUenced. Elected the
representative in parUament of Weobley, he was excluded by the
operation of ' Pride's Purge,' and was afterwards confined as a pri
soner by Major-General Berry. In the confusion which foUowed
the death of Cromwell he regained his position, and became one of
the councU of stete. With his presbyterian associates he was most
active in concerting measures for the restoration of the monarchy.
He prepared the instructions for the commissioners who negotiated
"vrith the king the terms of his restoration. Little did he expect to
see the weakness and duplicity of Charles, or the sad consequences
of his return to the throne of his ancestors, Biit he could do little
else than grieve and protest. Remarkable for his steadfast adherence
to the poUtical and religious principles of his youth in those changing
times, he remained a constitutional Presbyterian through a long life,
in which he resisted vrith unfaltering courage the tyranny of Charles
the elder, the despotism of CromweU, the treachery of Charles the
younger, the popery of James, and in his old age joined heart and
hand in securing the revolution of 1688, Constant as he was to his
principles, the Uttle town of Weobley was quite as constant to him,
and in all changes invariably returned bim as its representative until
his death. His last votes were for the estabUshment of the EngUsh

298 . LANCASHIRE.
monarchy on a Protestant basis, in the persons of WiUiam and Mary,
and for the passing of the Act of Toleration. The vvork of his long
Ufe seemed then appropriately to terminate. He died in 1691, and
was buried in the chancel of Weobley church. His grateful consti
tuents erected a monument of his worth, and inscribed upon it : —
In hope of resurrection to eternal life. Here is deposited the body of Colonel
John Birch, descended of a worthy family in Lancashire. As the dignities he
arrived at in the field and the esteem universally yielded him iu the Senate House
exceeded the attainments of most, so they were but the moderate and just rewards
of his courage, conduct, wisdom, and fidelity. None who knew him denied him
the character of asserting and vindicating the laws and Uberties of his country in
war and promoting its welfare and prosperity in peace. He was born on Sep
tember 7, 1626, and died a member of the honourable House of Commons, being
burgess for Weobley, May 10, 1691.*
I return to the event from which I digressed, the dissolution of
the Long Parliament. The convention which CromweU summoned
for immediate consultation has been contemptuously treated by his
torians, who have caUed it ' the Uttle parUament,' ' the Barebones
parUament,' and other opprobrious names. It should, however, be
observed, that it was not a parUament and never assumed the autho
rity of one. The members were nominated by Cromwell; they
amounted only to one hundred and fifty ; they were selected almost
exclusively from the counties ; they received the authority which the
protector placed in thefr hands ; they were to resign thefr trust to
thefr successors appointed to rerise the form of government which
they were to prepare. It was an arbitrary arrangement prorided in
a great emergency, and it is unjust to complain of it as if it were a
parUament, or a substitute for a parUament, and not a convention in
tended to secure parliamentary government in futrare.
The members chosen for Lancashire were WUUam West, John
Sa"wry, and Robert Cunliss, Why they were selected to assist
Mr, Barebones it is not easy to discover, as no one of them ever did
a single deed by which he has been distinguished.
In the next year, 1654, when a more complete representetion of
the counties and large towns was secured, Lancashire had four repre
sentatives, and its chief towns, Liverpool, Manchester, Preston, ajud
Lancaster, had each one representative. They were all weU known
men of puritan families, Richard Holland, Gilbert Ireland, Richard
Stendish, and WilUam Ashurst represented the county. Colonel
Thomas Bfrch was member for Liverpool, General Charles Worsley
for Manchester, Richard Shuttleworth for Preston, and Henry
Porter for Lancaster.
It may cause less interruption to the narrative if I here observe
that in CromweU's next parUament of 1656 the representation of
Lancashire continued "with little variation. The only changes were
that Sfr Richard Hoghton (whose family about this time began to
* Monumental inscriptions are not always to be trusted. Colonel Birch was
baptised in 1616, 'and therefore was not born in 1626, as stated on his tomb.
According to Anthony Wood (no bad authority for the bad deeds of a bishop), the
bishop of the diocese with the minister of the parish defaced this harmless inscrip
tion, because it contained ' words not right for the church institution.'

COMPREHENSION, 299
take the lead of the Lancashfre Presbyterians) waa returned for the
county in the place of Mr, Ashurst, and Richard RadcUffe for Man
chester in the place of General Worsley, who died a few weeks before
the election. It would seem from the signatures appended to the in
denture that the Presbyterians promoted the election of Mr. RadcUffe.
The names of their leaders, ' conspicuous by their absence ' from the
indenture in favour of General "Worsley, are prominent on that in
fevour of Mr. RadcUffe.
From the dissolution of the Long ParUament until the death of
the protector, it is not easy to say what was the legal state of pres
byterianism in Lancashire. Its adherents claimed for it an exalted
position which both Episcopalians and Independents refused to
acknowledge. The chief ecclesiastical authority in reality, if not in
name, was the committee of sequestration, as on thefr recommendation
depended to a great extent the stipends of the clergy. They had, as
I have already observed, procured a survey of the ecclesiastical pro
perty, and with it a great amount of useful information respecting
the several churches, chapels, and incumbents of the county. They
had made a valuation of the tithes, and taken an account of ' the
chapel wages.' They ascertained the distances of the chapels from
their parish churches and specified such as ought to be made paro
chial. They further noticed the character and ser"rices of many of
the incumbents, and recommended augmentation of the poorer
benefices and diminution of the richer. By their services the condi
tion of the more indigent and deserring clergy was considerably
improved, and would have been much more improved if all thefr
recommendations had been observed. Whoever might complain, the
working clergy of the poor chapelries of Lancashire had reason to be
thankful for the appointment of the committee of sequestration.*
But on several accounts, the power of the sequestrators was offen
sive to the presbyterian synods and assembUes. Ha"ring the manage-
* The following extracts will !afford a fair specimen of' the survey. ' To the
parish church of Manchester belong several messuages in Manchester, and in
Newton, and in Kirkmanshulme. Valued per annum fifty-six pounds to the warden
and feUows, beside increase of fines and tithes of the parish five hundred pounds
per annum. Mr. Richard Heyricke, warden, Mr. HoUingworth and Mr. ¦WUliam
Walker, masters of the church.' . , . Nine chapels belong to Manchester, namely,
Salford, Stretford, Chorlton, Didsbury, Birch, Gorton, Denton, Newton, and
Blakely.' . . , ' Stretford Chapel, Mr. John Odcroft, preacher. Tithes from Sir
Edmund Trafford, sis pounds thirteen shiUings and four pence ; worth in kind
twenty -six pounds thirteen shUlings and four pence. Second part taken from Sir
Edmund Trafford for recusancy, Is distant four short mUes [from Manchester] ;
one half mile from Chorlton ; three miles from FUxton. Fit to be a parish church.'
. , , 'Salford Chapel, late erected. Twenty pounds by free gift from Mr,
Humphry Booth out of lands partly in Manchester, part in Pendleton, part in
Eccles. Mr. William Meek, preacher. Fit to be a parish church. Tithes worth
sixteen pounds.' . . . ' Newton chapel. Distant three mUes from Blakely ; from
Gorton . . , mUfcs. Lands in Newton and Kirkmanshulme, thirty-one pounds
two shilUngs and threepence, paid to the warden and fellows. Tithe in Newton
eight pounds. Kirkmanshulme forty shiUings.' . . . ' Bradford, FaUsworth greater
part. Droylsden, Moston, nearer than to any other. Fit to be a parish church.
Mr. John Walker, preacher. Late forty pounds by inhabitants, and dwelling-house
as stable by inhabitants,'

300 LANCASHIRE,
ment of the temporaUties of the Church, they were able to a large ,
extent to control the movements of the eccleaiastical authorities.
Although they do not appear to have used thefr power in an offensive
manner, it was humiliating to the spirits of a dominant clergy to
submit thefr stipends to the regulation of a committee of laymen,
and especiaUy to refer to ita authority the claims of every newly
appointed miniater to the income of the church, to the ministry of
which the presbytery by an ordinance of God had solemnly ordained
him. They knew too well that in any appeal to parUament, in which
they had lost thefr best friends, the sequestrators would certainly
obtain whatever support they desfred. High churchmen like Richard
Heyricke, who, Presbyterian as he was, would quite as soon submit
to "black prelacy as acknowledge the Erastian domination of lawyers
and soldiers, chafed and fretted under the resfraint of the lay ' lords
over God's heritage,'
This restraint, so vexatious and frritating to the influential clergy,
exposed many of thefr ecclesiastical proceedings to the uncertainties
of legal controversy. Was thefr ordination indispensable for obtain
ing a legal title to the stipend of an authorised minister ? Was a
minister already in possession of his stipend bound to submit to thefr
discipUne and comply vrith thefr ordinances ? In other words, could
none but a Presbyterian, sound in his faith and orderly in his prac
tice, receive or retain the position and stipend of a parochial minister?
These questions brought the Presbyterians into troublesome contro
versies, on the one side with the EpiscopaUans, and on the other
vrith the Independents.
We have seen how by an ordinance of the Long Parliament the
Presbyterian Church was estabUshed in Lancashfre. "Wlien that
parliament had taken ' The Purge of Colonel Pride,' and some other
mUd cathartics, it was relieved of its presbyterian exuberance. By
an ordinance of September 27, 1660, -without directly subverting the
presbyterian estabUshment, it assured to aU ministers professing the
frue protestant religion, though of different judgment in matters of
worship and discipline, equal Uberty and protection in their public
ministrations, and it repealed every statute which was confrary to
thefr Uberty, What was the legal effect of this ordinance in Lan
cashfre ? In what position did it place ministers who would not
submit to the presbyterian establishment ? There was no toleration
for Papists. It was admitted that prelacy waa contrary to the con
stitutional government of the country. But there were in Lancashfre
moderate Episcopalians who disowned the prelatical hierarchy, and
there were Independents as sound Protestants, and, I fear, as intole
rant, as the Presbyterians themselves. How were these Protestant
ministers to enjoy equal Uberty and protection with the ministers of
the presbyterian estabUshment ? Of this enquiry it was not easy to
find a solution.
No attempt was made by either of the dissentient parties to sub
vert the ecclesiastical government previously estabUshed. The regular
ecclesiastical authorities might continue to rule those ministers who
¦chose to submit to thefr discipline. But it was contended that on

COMPREHENSION. 301
the occurrence of a vacancy in a parish or chapelry, if the congre
gation with the approval of the pafron elected a minister who was in
the judgment of the secular power competent to the duties of his
office and deserving of its income, the presbyterian courts had no right
to exclude him, or to insist upon a profession of conformity vrith
their discipUne. If they had, what became of the equal liberty and
protection which had been secured to aU protestant ministers by the
ordinance of parUament ? But, on the other hand, if they had not,
it was evident to the clerical authorities that presbyterianism was
estabUshed only where the people were presbyterian, and in no other
sense than, in other places, episcopacy, or independency, or anabaptism,
or anything else except popery and prelacy, might be estabUshed,
The presbyterian ministers determined to resist, but like prudent
men they began by making some concessions that they might more
effectually oppose the demands which would soon be made upon them
in matters of greater moment, Martin Firth, an expectant of orders,
declined to subscribe the covenant ; but as he appeared in conver
sation to think favourably of its contents, and promised to weigh its
obligation, he was ordained on the ground that ' he had given satis
faction concerning the covenant,' To conciliate the moderate Epis
copaUans the repetition of the Apostles' Creed and the Ten Com
mandments was introduced in the celebration of pubUc worship, and
considerable parts of the old office for the solemnising of the Lord's
Supper were restored where the people desired it. Kneeling at the
communion was, however, strictly forbidden aa superstitious, if not
idolatrous. These concessions were too inconsiderable to satisfy the
discontented, whUe they encouraged or provoked the demand for
greater changes. Heyricke and his friends had to prepare for long
and harassing controversy, the more difficult and perplexing,
because the argumenta adduced in opposition to one class of oppo
nents often suppUed advantage to another, Presbyterianism had to
fight warily in order to defend its position between the extremes of
Episcopacy and Congregationalism,
With the Episcopalians the confroversy began upon the subject of
lay elders. In all the courts of the Presbyterian Church, lay elders
had equal authority with thefr clerical brethren, and in Lancashire
they always constituted the majority. In the Episcopal Church lay
authority waa inadmissible in spiritual matters, and was, as in the
instance of churchwardens, strictly confined to the temporaUties of
the building or the benefice.
On this subject the EpiscopaUans soon found occasion of troubling
the congregations, even in the hundred of Salford, where presbyte
rianism, being more powerful than elsewhere in the county, was
probably not less haughty and defiant. In Prestvrich, in Oldham,
in Middleton, in Bury, and in Salford, attempts were made to exclude
lay elders from the government of the congregations, that is in effect
to exclude the congregations from being represented in the classes
. and synods to which they severaUy belonged.
The presbyterian ministers were sorely exasperated. Thefr kindly
concessions, instead of conciliating dissidente, had promoted dis-

302 LANCASHIRE.
sension. Heyricke, the author of the concessions, was especiaUy
angry, and acknowledged that he had advised his brethren to concede
too much and too hastily. Harrison, Tilsley, Gee, and others who
had not cordiaUy supported the concessions, were determined to
adopt rigorous measures to restrain the innovating spirit of the
episcopal party. Complaints were made to the classes that on
account of the contempt into which the elders had fallen through
the disparagement of them by the episcopalian clergy, they had lost
their authority in exercising discipline, in reproring "sin, in examining
candidates for communion, and in discharging other duties of thefr
office. A general neglect of religious ordinances was observed
wherever the elders were obstructed in the discharge of thefr
important duties. Congregations evidently inclined to the resto
ration of Episcopacy became, under the circumstances, practically
Independents. The Lancashfre presbyteries felt, and generaUy expressed the
feeling, that decisive measures ought to be immediately adopted to
restore to their Church the godly order and discipUne by which it
had fiourished in its better days. Among other proposals, it was
ordered that notice should be taken of all persons who, not reputed
ignorant or scandalous, neglected the ' observance of the Lord'a
Supper,' that they should first be privately admonished, that admo
nition faUing their names should be published in the congregation,
and that if they continued obstinate they should be publicly excom
municated. The point and meaning of these proposals may be
understood by observing that all persons were admitted to the Lord's
Supper through the mediation of the ruling elders. The orders of
the classes were published in the churches, and, as might have been
expected, provoked a vast amount of ill-feeling, opposition, and
controversy. Under the toleration granted by parliament, the disaffected persons
might, if they so pleased, have formed thefr own religious commu
nities, and observed thefr own forms of worship, provided they did
not read the Book of Common Prayer. How much they might have
used with impunity is uncertain, but, as Heyricke and other presby
terian ministers used several parts of it, it is probable that under
the growing liberality of the government they would have been
allowed to use the greater part. They could not have constructed
a hierarchy, but they would not have been compelled to elect ruUng
elders, nor to adopt any particular usages of the Presbyterians. The
question to be decided was, whether ministers and congregations
who renounced the presbyterian discipUne and usage could retain
possession of the churches and chapels in which they had been
accustomed to worship.
Several congregations were determined to assert their freedom
from the rule of lay elders, and to resist the authority of the presby
teries. Attempts to do so were made with various success, as
appears from the minutes of the first and of the second classical
assemblies. In the first district, that of Manchester, the most formidable

COMPREHENSION, 303
opposition to the eldership arose in Prestwich. Mr. Isaac AUen,
the minister, determined to retain or restore as much pf the form
and usage of the Episcopal Church as he could, vrithout violating
the existing laws. In his determination he was supported by the
majority of his congregation. He privately solemnised matrimony
according to the old ordinal. He used large parts of the EngUsh
Uturgy interwoven vrith his own serrice. He would not acknowledge
the authority of a lay court, nor recognise the office of ruUng elder.
When the Manchester classis requfred him to correct his irregular
proceedings, he refused, and in reply to a threat of deposition plainly
denied the right of the classis to rule the minister and free people of
Prestvrich. He propounded questions which it was not very easy
for the ministers of the presbytery to answer. "What Church, he
asked, did they mean which had authority to excommunicate
offenders ? Was it the church in Manchester where the classis
assembled ? By the recent ordinance of parUament the church at
Prestwich was as free as that of Manchester, and would claim pro
tection in the exercise of its freedom. Or did they mean the Pres
byterian Church of England ? If they did, why did they not first
excommunicate the great offender, Oliver CromweU, who observed
presbyterian usages no better than the humble minister of Prest-
•vrich ?
Heyricke, although very angry, was not quite prepared to propose
the excommunication of Oliver CromweU, the mention of whose
name seems to have frightened the rest of the classis. They began
to fear lest the ordinance of parUament by which presbyterian
government was established in Lancashfre should on frial prove to
have been repealed by the subsequent ordinance, which secured the
universal toleration of Protestants. Or more probably they feared
that if the question were agitated the parliament would soon put an
end to thefr local establishment, even if it had not already done so.
They, therefore, vrith more of the vrisdom of HolUngworth than of
the courage of Heyricke, instead of boldly asserting thefr authority
turned aside to a smaUer question which incidentally arose in the
debate, ' How far was it lawful to hear an unordained minister ? '
As vrith this question neither Isaac AUen nor OUver Cromwell had
much concern, the former kept possession of his church, and, frritated
by the impotent attempt to silence him, became a vexatious thorn in
the side of the Manchester presbytery.
Allen soon grew bold enough to assume the offensive, and to attack
the proceedings of the presbytery. "When the classis ordered that
persons competent for communion refusing to communicate should
be publicly notified for excommunication, he advised aU who were
so exposed to obloquy to apply for protection to a magistrate, or to
commence an action for defamation of character. In the unsettled
relations which then existed between Church and State, it was diffi
cult to say what would be the result of such legal proceedings.
Allen, grovring bolder by impunity, wrote an indignant remon
strance against the threatenings of the presbytery. He vvanted to
know by what authority or process they could excommunicate any

304 LANCASHIRE.
who did not, and would not, belong to them. Such an excommuni
cation was nothing more than noise and bluster. As to thefr acts
and instruments of confession, humiliation, and mourning for the
sins of the nation, beUe"ring it to be not very humiliating to mourn
for other people's sins, he told them, ' These are so many waste
papers, wherein presbytery is wrapped to look more handsomely and
pass more covertly. But beware we must, for latet anguis in herhd.'
This remonatrance, to which AUen had procured the signaturea of
many EpiscopaUans, as well as of persons who, being indifferent
about Church government, objected to aU intolerance, waa, vrith as
much formaUty as its author could secure, presented to the classical
assembly. The members of the classis aeem to have been much
perplexed about the best manner of answering the offensive document.
They made bold assertions which they were not bold enough to
maintain. They asserted that no one could renounce the presbyterian
government of his district without also renouncing his baptism into
"the Presbyterian Church. They declared that excommunication was
an ordinance of God, for the adminisfration of which the Church
was responsible only to the Lord Jesus. They referred the remon-
sfrants to the example of thefr own bishops, who had excommunicated
many good ministers. Allen laughed at them. They vrisely entrusted
thefr formal answer to Mr. Harrison of Ashton, one of thefr moderate
brethren, who drew up the reply in terms so conciUatory and cautious
as to show how much of its haughty spirit the presbytery had either
corrected or concealed, and how in the midst of new perils it had
learned to speak vrith unwonted fairness and moderation.
This vrise and "temperate reply produced so favourable an impres
sion that moderate EpiscopaUans began to express thefr hope of the
reconciliation of the two parties by a fair and honourable adjustment
of thefr differences. But provocation, not concUiation, was the pur
pose of Isaac AUen. He would acknowledge no concession aa of any
value, no reconciliation as possible, so long as laymen were aUowed
to exercise any authority in the Church. This he knew was, vrith
the Presbyterians, a rital element, which could not be conceded
vrithout the subversion of their recognised poUty and discipline. He
would be satisfied vrith nothing less than an acknowledgment that
the Presbyterians were wrong, and therefore ought to unite in re
storing the Church which they had destroyed. So humbled was the
presbytery that it appointed a committee to confer vrith the disaffected
Episcopalians, and so haughty were the EpiscopaUans that, acting
under the adrice of Allen, they, "vrith only one exception, refused to
meet the presbyterian committee. The one EpiscopaUan who met
them was good Mr. Mosley, and he laboured hard to arrange terms
of peace, if not of union and co-operation. Mosley could do Uttle
alone, and Allen was determined he should do nothing. The latter
pubUshed the whole correspondence, vrith a most bitter and intem
perate preface, under the title of ' Excommunicatio Exoommtinicata.'
The spirit of his preface may be seen in the foUovring extract :
' "Wliat Darid said of GoUath's sword, surely they say of the Holy
Sacrament, " There's none Uke unto that ! " no engine so Ukely to

COMPREHENSION. 305
teach us obedience and to give them the sovereignty as that. They
impale the supper of Christ to thefr own enclosures, and as absolute
judges of all communicants, keep back all persons that have not thefr
shi"bboleth ready; that wUl not fall down and worship that idol
which they have set up. The Egyptians were hard taskmasters to
expect the children of Israel should make bricks and make straw
too ; to requfre the same number of bricks without materials to
make them of. This is something Uke the severity of our new
masters. They censure for not doing that which they render to us
impossible. If we come not to the Lord's Supper we must be
excommunicate ; and they wiU not permit us to come because we are
ignorant, or scandalous, or profane. And 'tis proof enough we are
so, because we are too stout to faU down and worship thefr imagi
nations.' To these intemperate censures of presbyterian usages, Mr. Har
rison of Ashton published a temperate reply entitled, ' The Censures
of the Church rerived in the defence of a short Paper pubUshed by
the First Classis in the Pro"rince of Lancaster.' In the dedication,
addressed to the Pro"vinoial Assembly of London, the author refers
"with much anxiety to the spfritual state of the churches. ' When
you, my reverend brethren, had first been shined upon and made so
fruitful, the dirine grace caused a second enlivening beam of civU
authority to f aU upon this remote and despised county ; to constitute
in it also several classes, and afterwards a pro"vincial assembly ; since
which time such heavenly influence hath been stayed. As our lot
hath happUy faUen to follow you in the favour of God and civil
authority, so we have unhappily fallen, into your lot, especially this
class is to be followed vrith the anger, opposition, reproaches, and
contradiction of men of contrary minds ; which, though hid in the
ashes in great measure formerly, and but sparkUng now and then,
here and there, in a private house or congregation, yet when we
would conscientiously and tenderly have improved the government
for the insfruction of the ignorant, and information of the profane, it
brake out into a flame. And no way but that flame must be hasted to
such a beacon that it might not be quenched till the whole nation
had seen and taken notice.'
The temperate character of this defence, •written in circumstances
of great provocation, as weU aa the moderate and conciliatory pro
ceedings which the leaders of the party had recently adopted, suggest
the enqufry. What could have humbled the lofty spirit of the presby
terian ministers, and induced them to do so much to conciUate the
more moderate Episcopalians P We may attribute the change in
thefr conduct partly to the difficulties which they found in practicaUy
maintaining the discipUne which in theory had appeared to them
easy to be worked, and partly to the growing desfre among them of
subverting the repubUcan govemnient and restoring the monarchy.
The difficulties of thefr position increased vrith every change in the
national affafrs, while the restoration of the monarchy, to which they
were beginning to look for rehef, could be expected only through a
good understanding vrith the moderate EpiscopaUans.

306 LANCASHIRE.
Thefr difficulties, as we have already seen, were with thefr ruUng
elders and their restrictive communion. In these matters, AUen and
his party determined to aUow them no peace, and found many oppor
tunities of making them unpopular. The officiouaneaa of the lay
elders in claiming ministerial authority, and excluding thefr neigh
bours from communion, was the aubject of popular complaint in
many parta of the county.
On the occurrence of a vacancy in the chapel of Salford through
the death of a godly minister, Mr. Meek, the profane party, as they
were called by the rigid disciplinarians, zealously supported the
claims of the Rev. James Brown to become the successor of the late
pastor. "WhUe he was preaching on probation, having obtained the
approval of the pafron, he somehow incurred the displeasure of the
ruling elders. The ' profane ' party united vrith the patron against
the ' pious,' who adhered to the eldera. The candidate resolved to
keep possession of the chapel on the plea that the majority of the
people, together with Mr. Booth, the patron, supported him, and
that under the recent ordinance of toleration he had a right to claim
•the protection of the magistrate. The elders, encouraged by the pres
bytery, endeavoured to eject him. He defied both elders and pres
bytery, and took the extreme course of announcing that, although
not ordained by the classis, he would, on his own responsibility,
administer the Lord's Supper to all who wished to communicate.
This was inflicting a fatal wound upon the power of the presbytery.
To tolerate such a rebel would be to resign their authority ; to eject
him, supported as he was by the patron, would oblige them to appeal
to a court of law, the result of which proceeding was uncertain and
might be humiUating and vexatious. In their perplexity, the mem
bers of the classis descended from thefr elevation, and conceded to
arbifration a case of which, according to thefr own principles, they
were the only competent judges. The Utigation was prolonged,
perhaps advisedly, until greater changes prevented either party from
obtaining a decision.
Similar froubles disturbed the congregations of Oldham and
Sfretford, where the ministers had refused to acknowledge the rules
of the preabyteries. Mr. Lake of Oldham, on being threatened vrith
a prosecution, made some concessions to the classis respecting the
eldership, and the prosecution was abandoned, probably more through
fear of ite faUure than through regard to the offender. He was not
allowed to take his seat in the classical assembly without giring
satisfaction for his irregularities, which satisfaction he never did
give. _ Mr. Odcroft of Stretford, haring conducted his serrices
according to the Book of Common Prayer whUe it was prohibited
by parliament, challenged the classis to resort to a magistrate to
support theni in remoring the offender from the chapel. But neither
in Oldham nor in Sfretford could decisive measures be completed,
belore presbyterianism was deprived of the power which it then held
¦vrith a feeble and irresolute hand.
In the second classis, that of Bolton, the people of Bury and of
Middleton refused to acknowledge the authority of the lay-eldera.

COMPREHENSION. 30
Throughout the long conflict. Bury contained a large proportion of
influential residents who vrished to retain the order and usages of the
Episcopal Church. The classis was compeUed to bear vrith their
irregularities, although vrith much reluctance and inconvenience.
The case of Middleton brought great scandal upon aU parties who
were so unfortunate as to be concerned in it.
Mr. Symmonds was elected by the people to be the minister of
Middleton. As he did not produce a certificate of ordination accord
ing to the regular formularies of the Presbyterian Church, the second
classia refused to induct him. Chargeable vrith several other -riola-
tions of presbyterian order, he was prohibited from preaching in
Middleton or anywhere else within the bounds of the classis. The
parishioners, who seem to have been cordially attached to him,
petitioned the presbytery to allow him to continue his minisfry
among them until they were provided with a competent successor.
The presbytery refused, probably suspecting that as the people were
much pleased vrith his services they would not very speedUy proride
hia successor. After some months, during which the parish was
¦vrithout a minister, the classia ' sadly resented the defect of prorision
of the means of grace in that congregation,' and claimed, in the pro
longed vacancy, the right to appoint Mr. Folgate to discharge aU
ministerial duties. But Folgate was regarded as an intruder, and
truly or falsely represented by the parishioners as whoUy incompetent.
They petitioned against him ; they repeated their petition ; they
followed it vrith an angry remonstrance. Being requfred ' to con
descend to particulars,' the worst they could say about him was that
he waa an Irishman, and acted Uke one. For some months the
presbytery supported him against the opposition of the people, untU
that opposition was observed graduaUy to subside. The members of
the presbytery, at first pleased vrith thefr apparent success, were in
the end bitterly disappointed. WhUe the Irishman publicly observed
the presbyterian regulations, he concihated the people by privately
obserring the old usages, and solemnising marriages according to the
formulary of the Prayer Book. The presbytery, indignant with
thefr favourite, who in thefr own court was zealous for thefr discipUne
whUe in his congregation he evaded thefr rules, prohibited him from
preaching in thefr bounds. "What became of him I do not know, nor
could Walker discover. Had he known any good of the Irishman,
he would, I have no doubt, have glorified him, as he has done Sym
monds hia predeceasor, as ' a most excellent and extraordinary '
martyr for episcopacy.
This second classis was remarkably unfortunate, for within its
Umits, including only six parishes, in the short interval of three
years of presbyterian rule, eleven ministers were silenced or suspended,
and ten more were subjected to censure or trial* Had we the
minutes of the other seven classes, I have no doubt we should find
¦* See in Walker extracts from the copy of the Minutes of the Bolton Olassis,
preserved in the Bodleian. Walker gives some curious particulars, which, how
ever, I have not verified, as of ministers charged with working on fast days,
tippling in ale-houses, swearing by faith, and kneeling doivn in the desk at church.

308 LANCASHIRE,
they had their froubles vrith refractory ministers as weU aa the
classes of Manchester and Bolton,
WhUe the Presbyterians were engaged in these vexatious oonfro
versiea vrith the EpiscopaUans, they were involved in others quite aa
vexatious and much more formidable vrith the Independents. Although
the Independents were favourably disposed to lay elders, they made
other objections to the estabUshed discipUne. They would not
acknowledge the authority of classical, synodical, or provincial
assembUes. They respected no boundaries within which the action
of a Church should be confined. They maintained the independency
of every Church, that is, ite competence to manage its own affafrs,
although they were vrilUng to accept adrice and assistance from
ministerial associations. The congregationaUsm of Lancashfre, as it
was to some extent modified by Mr. Baton, its most influential sup
porter, upon the New England model, more nearly approximated to
presbyterianism than the sterner independency of London and the
eastern counties. With regard to the pafronage and support which
the Church received from the ci^vU power there waa no great differ
ence between them. The independent minister received hia stipend
from the sequestrators, ploughed his glebe, enforced his dues, and
exacted his ' chapel wage,' as readUy and as strictly as his presbyte
rian or episcopaUan neighbour. With regard to the interference of
government, the Independents were often less scrupulous than the
Presbyterians, whose High Church principles were ever inducing
them to protest against the action of the civU power in Church
poUtics, The independent ministers returning from Massachusetts
or Connecticut, would have been glad to have formed such relations
¦vrith CromweU and his parliament as the fransatlantic consociations
had formed with the governors and representative assembUes of the
puritan states. Although such relations were impracticable in Eng
land, Samuel Mather, and other Lancashire Independents would not
have objected to them, as is evident from Mather's ecclesiastical
connection vrith Henry CromweU in Ireland. In matters of ceremo
nial, the Independents were as severe and anti-popish as thefr
presbyterian neighbours.
These new reUgionists gave much trouble to the Presbyterians by
their preaching members, ' gifted brethren ' aa they caUed them.
Frequent were the disputes whether unordained men, not expectents,
ought to be aUowed to preach. HolUngworth, Harrison, Gee, aU the
presbyterian controversiaUsts, exhausted their stores of logic and
learning in proving the negative of this question. Thefr argumenta,
however logical and learned, produced little impression upon the
Independents. The reply was always ready ^ "Why are brethren
gifted, if they are not to use thefr gifts ? Many a lay brother could
preach quite as long and as loud as a presbyterian parson. Why
should he not use the gift of the Spirit ? Why should he quench the
Holy Ghost?
(Compare the instances aheady mentioned in pp. 255, 257.) He says, but I suppose
he did not leam it from the minutes, that Mr. Symmonds ' was not aUowed to go
to the funeral of his wife, who died during his confinement ' [in prison].

COMPREHENSION. 309
Had these ' gifted brethren ' been content vrith exercising thefr
gifts in thefr own community, they might have been allowed to preach
-vrithout disturbance for the edification of thefr own brethren. But
they had a mission which was Umited by no parochial boundaries,
nor even by the extent of the societies to which they belonged. They
felt an frresistible impulse to preach everywhere the gospel which
they had received from the Lord Jesus, They formed 'gathered
churches,' ' entered into other men's labours,' and drew away fol
lowers from the minisfrations of the presbyterian clergy. If they
did not, like the Quakers, disturb congregations by bearing thefr
testimony in the churches, they held conventicles of thefr own, and
exhorted men of every party who would come to hear thefr ' utter
ances of the Spfrit.' Adam Martindale, who had many a fierce dis
pute "with them, always managed to restrict the dispute to the one
question, whether the ' gifted brethren ' might preach, "without his
consent, to the members of his own congregation, for whose souls he
would have to give account at the tribunal of God. By avoiding the
wider question of the propriety of thefr preaching at all, he thought
he gained an advantege over them, as probably he did in the estima
tion of people who cherished the beUef that thefr ministers were
responsible for their souls.
But after a while these ' gifted brethren ' became troublesome to
thefr own ministers, and impatient of the restraint of thefr o"wn
churches. They invaded the pulpit, exhorted from the benches,
assumed autiiority over the ungifted brethren, and contradicted the
teaching of thefr ministers. Some of them taught sfrange docfrines.
They upheld free vriU, denied the divine nature of Christ and the
personaUty of the Holy Ghost. Arminianism, Arianism, Socinianism,
all sorts of crotchety isms grew out of thefr Uberty of prophesying,
Samuel Baton, the most influential teacher of the northern Indepen
dents, and the other leading ministers, were zealously orthodox, and
were, in thefr perplexity with thefr unmanageable adherents, prepared
to consider proposals of union which were made to them by the more
moderate of the presbyterian ministers.
Before we notice these proposals, it is desirable to refer to the
introduction of Henry Newcome to the minisfry of the coUegiate
church of Manchester, as he wiU henceforth occupy a prominent
position in the progress of Lancashfre nonconformity.
Richard HolUngworth, feUow of the collegiate church, died
November 3, 1656, having been elected in 1643 on the death of old
WiUiam Bourne, tn many respecte he was well fitted to act a subor
dinate part ¦with Warden Heyricke, for they cordially agreed in thefr
poUtical and reUgious opinions, while they differed in thefr disposi
tions just so far aa difference of disposition is desfrable between
colleagues co-operating to promote the same objects. Both were true
Presbyterians, resolutely opposed on the one side to popery and
prelacy, on the other to independency and all sorts of sectarianism.
Both were constitutional Royaliste, resolved to defend to the utter
most in the even balance of the English government the rightful
prerogatives of the king and the ancient privileges of the parliament.

310 LANCASHIRE.
Heyricke was haughty and imperious, HolUngworth pliable and sub
missive ; Heyricke would not be crossed or confradicted, HolUng
worth was not disposed to cross or contradict him. Heyricke loved
the dignity of hia office and the power which it gave him to rule in
the parish or the presbytery ; HoUingworth waa content to let the
warden rule, while he secured the emoluments of his feUowahip, or,
as the warden said of him, ' weU lined his pocket.' Both advocated
the presbyterian parity of ministers, save that Heyncke always de
fended the dignity of a warden and HoUingworth the revenue of his
fellowship. Heyricke could work, and talk, and preach, and protest,
and fight, and move men mightily, but he was not good at logic nor
patient enough to write a book ; HoUingworth was fond of his pen,
and was ever ready to reason and write in defence of the cauae which
waa dear to them both. When the coUege was dissolved, and the
sequesfrators aUowed the warden only 1001. a year, and each of the
feUows 80?,: Heyricke, content to retain his dignity and influence,
seemed to care little about the money ; HoUingworth vexed his soul
about the leases of ecclesiastical lands which he had granted, and the
great fines which he might have secured had he known that the hand
of the spoiler was speedUy coming upon the Church, They had
united to resist the armies of Charles ; they had stood together in the
siege of Manchester ; they had signed together the Solemn League
and Covenant ; they had kept fast and humUiation together on the
murder of the king ; they had together conspfred and suffered for
the restoration of royalty ; they had in classis and provincial assembly
acted thefr different parts vrith uninterrupted harmony ; and when
death divided them, the generous •warden mourned for what he
thought an irreparable loss to the Church, aa it waa undoubtedly an
frreparable losa to himself
His regret was shared by the ministers of the district. According
to the minutes of the classical meeting, it was agreed that ' a fast .
be observed in Manchester on Wednesday, the thfrd of December
next, and that Mr, Gee and Mr, TUdsley be sought unto to preach
upon the occasion of the sad breach made in the congregation by
the death of Mr. HolUngworth, late minister there, and to desfre the
Lord's guidance and assistance in an election of a minister to succeed
him,' Thia minute suggests a notice of the great change which had
occurred since the appointment of HoUingworth to his coUegiate
charge. According to the charter of the coUege, the warden and
surviving feUows were, on occasion of a vacancy, to choose a suc
cessor. At this time the charter was disregarded and the election
was vested in the people. The warden had not the privilege even of
a patron. The sequestrators were the persons to whom the newly-
elected minister would have to apply for the temporaUties of the
benefice. There was Uttle fear of thefr interposing any difficulty in
the way of a competent preacher, and the congregation was so guided
by its ministers and elders that there was as little fear of thefr
choosing an incompetent or objectionable candidate.
Among the younger ministers who had preached in Manchester

COMPREHENSION, 311
during the sickness of Mr, HolUngworth was Henry Newcome, from
Gawsworth in Cheshfre, Like some other ministers under both
presbyterian aud episcopaUan government, he had to equaUse the
wants of a growing family and the suppliea of a smaU stipend. Hia
preaching in Manchester for only one Sunday brought him consider
able reUef from the generosity of a town where generosity has been
an exemplary virtue for more than two hundred yeara. The reUef
thua obteined produced an effect which the confributors did not intend,
as it induced him, when contemplating his removal, to remain in
Gawsworth, where Providence had so unexpectedly reUeved him of
his anxieties by thefr UberaUty. He painted his Uttle parsonage,
parted off a Uttle study from his Uttle parlour, and spent what he
could spare of his friends' bounty in making his Uttle home nice and
comfortable. But in tiiose times, when good preaching was in great
request, he was not the man to be aUowed to repose undist;urbed in
his smaU incumbency.
His sermon preached at Manchester in August must have left a
deep impression upon his audience, for only two days after the death
of Mr. HolUngworth in November, he received a letter signed by
several of the congregation, enquiring if he were free to come, should
he be invited to accept the vacant charge. But other people had
heard of the wonderftd young preacher, and had requested him to
preach in several large towns. Wherever he preached every hearer
wished to hear him again, and having heard him again to hear him
every Sunday, He had spent a Sunday in Shrewsbury, a town at
that time of nearly as much importance and quite as much gentiUty
as Manchester, He had preached at ' Alkmond's, and the people of
JuUan's * set thefr affections ' upon him whUe preaching in the neigh
bouring church. The matter was referred to 'pretious Mr. Baxter,'
who was quite certain that it was both his duty and his interest to
settle in Shrewsbury,
The Manchester people were not disposed to lose any time in
accomplishing a desirable object, A meeting was held on November
7, only four days after HoUingworth's death, when three persona
were mentioned aa suiteble to supply the vacancy ; but the feeling
was so strong and unanimous in favour of Newcome that nothing
more was said about the other two. The classis appointed Friday,
December 6, for the election, but ' so evenly did they strike,' that on
the day that Newcome heard of this arrangement he received letters
from the people of ' JuUan's,' from the Mayor of Shrewsbury, and
from three of ite ministers, enfreating him to accept their in"ritation.
On November. 30, the Sunday before the election, he preached in
Manchester, where 'the women were so pleased that they would
needs send tokens,' which amounted to seven pounds. On his
recei"ring these tokens the Shrewsbury people ' gave him a very un
handsome lash ' for having been drawn away from them by ' women'a
fJEbvours.' The proud Salopians were eridentiy afraid of the fascina
tion of the Lancashfre witches. On the day before the election, Mr,
* The saints were iu those days expeUed from Shrewsbury as ignominiously as
from London,

312 LANCASHIRE,
Newcome sent Baxter's letter to Manchester, that the good people
might see the reasons of that eminent minister in &vour of his settle
ment in Shrewsbury. The people were not disposed to acquiesce in
¦the recommendation even Of Richard Baxter, but gave Newcome a
unanimous invitation to become one of thefr ministers, Aa Warden
Heyricke expressed hia fear that a young miniater would not Uke to
act contrary to the adrice of Mr, Baxter, they proposed that each of
the competing congregations should select three ministers, and that
Mr. Newcome should decide according to the adrice of the six
referees, Newcome was pleased ¦vrith this proposal, and cordially
agreed to act upon it. The Salopians, making sure of success, would
agree to no arbitration. They would be content with nothing less
than the unbiassed decision of Newcome. At one of their meetings
for prayer a good man prayed that Mr. Newcome might be dfrected
to go where he would do most service for Christ ; which prayer was
resented as Ukely to deprive Shrewsbury of a great blessing. The
good pastor of Gawsworth was not pleased vrith these intemperate
proceedings. To his cautious, timid spfrit, the decision by referees
would have been a great relief. Disappointed of the reference by
the conduct of the Shrewsbury people, he ventured to act contrary
to the adrice of Richard Baxter, and accepted the invitation to
Manchester. It was a sorrowful time in Gawsworth when Henry Newcome left
his Uttle parsonage and rustic congregation. The last Sunday he
spent vrith them was a sacramental day, always with him a day of
much solemnity, but in all the great occasions of hia Ufe never was
one more solemn than that memorable Sabbath, Writing in hia
diary after his ejectment from Manchester, he says, 'Driven from
my people, and family, and work too, it was no such trouble aa that
was,' meaning his removal from Gawsworth. He 'never was so
broken in duty ' as at that time. The sight of the waggons sent to
remove his furniture overwhelmed him with solicitude and grief.
He prayed earnestly for the forgiveness of the faults of his seven
years' ministry. ' May we take a pardon "vrith ua, and leave the
sins behind.' 'I am fnU of shame, and sorrow, and dejection. I
could wish myself invisible untU this transaction was overpast,'
At Manchester he was welcomed ¦vrith exfraordinary m.anif estations
of friendship and pleasure, ' Many of the to"wn met us at Stockport,
and on the way, I was kept down by sadness on many accounts,
whereby I was kept out of the pomp and ceremony of the meeting.
The Lord knows how much sin this sickness did prevent.' Man
chester has been favoured "with many great preachers, from John
Bradford to Robert McAU, but no one of them was welcomed with
so much deUght, heard with so much attention, or lamented vrith so
much sorrow as Henry Newcome.*
* In his Autobiography Newcome says, 'I came to Mr. MinshuU's tiU the
Monday sevennight after.' This MinshuU, either father or uncle of MUton's last
wife, was, as I have said, an apothecary of great repute among the Nonconformists.
In the account of the funeral expenses of Mr. Samuel Worsley of Platt the entry
occurs : ' Paid Mr. Thomas MinshuU for spices 31. 5s.,' which would have purchased
a considerable quantity according to the prices of that time.

COMPREHENSION. 313
Unanimously elected by the people, he waa approved by ' the
triers,' accepted by the classis, and entitled to 94Z. per annum from
the augmentation fund, which the people cheerfully engaged to sup
plement sufficiently to secure 1201., a large income, which enabled him,
in those days, to Uve Uke a gentleman.
Newcome became to Heyricke all that HolUngworth had been, and
a great deal more. If not so obsequious as his predecessor, he was
gentle, respectful, obliging, doing his own work well, and ever vrilling
to do the work of others. In one respect only was he inferior to
HolUngworth. He was not what in modern speech is caUed ' a man
of business,' on whom Heyricke could rely in the Church courts ;
but other ministers were ready to do the warden that sort of
Ber"rice, and Newcome never wished to interfere vrith the arrange
ment. At first some Uttle jealousy seems to have been excited by the
unexampled popularity of the new preacher, but he bore his honoura
so meekly that the haughty yet generous spfrit of Heyricke ceased
to be troubled and eventuaUy became pleased "with the immense
congregations of his coUeague, to whom when he faUed as a rival he
acted as a patron. Newcome was vrise enough to acknowledge the
patronage, and Heyricke was vain enough to be gratified with the
acknowledgment. As in thefr political and reUgious opinions they
agreed, being constitutional Royalists, zealous Protestants, and firm
Presbyterians, they worked pleasantly and weU together through the
eventful changes of thefr time.
So happily passed the tfrst year of Newcome's ministry, in Man
chester that on the anniversary of his election, December 3 1657, a
day of thanksgiving was observed, and a vast congregation crowded
the church to bless God for the prosperity and success of his minis
terial labours. His friends Angier of Denton and Harrison of Ashton
preached on the joyful occasion.
His preaching made very deep impressions upon the hearts of hia
hearers, many of whom had never before felt the power of evangeUcal
truth. Private faste were kept in several houses on account of ' the
great work on foot amongst souls.' In all parta of the town people
affected vrith concern for their spiritual interests met together for
prayer and devout conversation. As thefr religious feeUngs had
been excited by Newcome's preaching, they invariably appUed to him
for guidance and help in thefr spfritual anxieties. He was ever
accessible and ever ready to visit them in thefr homes and on thefr
private fast-days.
In the part of his diary which belongs to his early ministry in
Mancheater are several noticea which iUusfrate the life and manners
of a presbyterian minister in Lancashfre in the time of the protecto
rate. I have afready, in describing the recreations of, the Puritens,
referred to his amusemente. One or two extracts may further iUus
frate his social life, as weU as surprise, if they do not please, those
who know the portraits of the Puritans only as they are seen in the
caricatures of Samuel Butler.
' January 30 [1658], Saturday. I was much ^ed to go to Zachaiy

314 LANCASHIRE.
Taylor's at an evening to play at shuffleboard. I was oft checked
for this, but I was too much concerned in it, as afterwards about
going to Mr. MinshuU's of an evening. I thought this a rational
resolution of the case ; not to go forth for this recreation unless I had
been close at serious business aU day, nor to go forth if I had been
diverted from business other ways. And for mfrth, of which I was
afraid of taking too great a latitude, I thought it was my duty to let
some savory thing fall where I had spoken merrily, or to count my
self in debt for as much serious discourse as every jest I had told.' I
know not what his friend Richard Baxter would have thought of hia
casuistry, but I should fear his ' savory things ' were poor antidotes
for jests that needed any antidote at all.
'January 31. The chUdren at school shot at thefr cocks this
day, and I was much moved vrith fear about them. I had
cauae, for Daniel'a hat on hia head waa shot through with an
arrow.' 'February 13. It waa shooting day at the cocks. We prayed
that God would keep our children from doing or receiving any
hurt.' In some matters he was more scrupulous than the warden.
' February 2. A horse did strange things for such a creature to
do,' It was therefore exhibited in Manchester, Heyricke proposed
to go and see the performance ; but Newcome ' considered the thing,
and resolved not to go,' for fo^ur reasons: 1, He ' was not satisfied
that a showman's calling was lawful.' 2. ' At the best it is but
curiosity.' 3. ' If I was satisfied to go, for others' sake I ought not.'
4. ' To go might be a sin, not to go I knew was no sin.' Armed
vrith these reasons he remonstrated with Heyricke, and ' the Lord
made the resolution easy, and neither went.' His fourth reason
might be thought as appropriate to his favourite gamea of bUUarda
and shuffleboard. Not to play was certeinly no sin, and yet he
played at shuffleboard ahnost 'every lawful day,' when he had
opportunity. Both casuiste and logicians sometimes make not
only distinctions without difference, but differences without dis
tinction. I have afready noticed the puritan practice of preaching sermons
appropriate to the several occurrences of social and domestic life,
sermons on account of births and baptisms, and young people learing
home, and going to new houses, and betrothals, and marriages, and
recoveries from sickness, and funerals. In Newcome's diary are
some curious entries respecting the sort of persons for whom such
serrices were occasionally requested.
' Deceniber 2 [1657]. I preached at the fnneral on one they oaUed
Justice Hibbert of DroUsden. He was a very drunken feUow. He
had buried his vrife, and rejoiced mightily at it, and bought a new
horse to ride about upon. Last Saturday night he was very late in
the town, and was in drink. He sfrangely miaaed his way, and
turned do-wn another lane to the water, and so was drowned. His
-vrife waa an orderly woman, and oft in her Ufetime feared this very
thing, it being hia constant practice to come home at such hours.'

COMPREHENSION. 315
Although Justice Hibbert was not a very promising subject for a
funeral sermon, Newcome consented, at the request of the relatives,
to preach one on the occasion, on condition that he might ' im
prove the providence,' and not praise the dead. He selected a
remarkable text, Eccles. rii. 17: 'Be not overmuch wicked,
neither be thou foolish : why shouldst thou die before thy time ? '
"What comfort Justice Hibbert's relatives got from the sermon I do
not know.
Among the Presbyterians of that time some dissension and dis
pute arose respecting the propriety of speaking over the graves of
their frienda. Some pronounced it a vain and superstitious practice ;
others regarded it as an expression of affectionate remembrance or
of becoming solemnity. Mr. Newcome, while he remained at Gaws
worth, was accustomed to say a few words at the grave when any
of his frienda were interred. At Mancheater the ministers had dis-
discouraged the practice, and Heyricke, although no longer warden,
assuming the authority of the chief minister, prohibited it. As it
was known that Newcome had observed the usage in Cheshire, he
was frequently requested to ' speak at the grave,' He, however,
declined, partly because he was not quite satisfied of the propriety of
the practice, partly because in so large a parish he could not always
comply vrith the request and would not make a distinction among
the appUcanta, and partly because he respected the authority of the
elder minister. People who wished to have a reUgious service at
the grave were compelled to resort for the interment of thefr friends
to Salford, where the minister conducted such a serrice, to the
annoyance of Heyricke and the trouble of Newcome, Throughout
the county the practice of speaking at the grave seems to have varied
•with the opinion and taste of the minister. In subsequent times the
Scotch Presbyterians universally maintained sUence, whUe thefr
EngUsh brethren usuaUy observed some reUgious exercises.*
* Although at this time puritan ministers had generaUy ceased to concern them
selves with casting out de^vils, Newcome gives us, in his Autobiography, an account
of some very curious proceedings respecting a poor girl who had sold herself to the
de"ril. Although she Uved as far away as Cambridge, and so far as appears from
the narrative had no acquaintances in Manchester, letters arrived on June 13, 1659,
requesting prayers for her before July 25, the night on which the devU was ' to
meet her.' Newcome writes : ' The next day was classical day, but I got a few
together in the morning by six, and we kept to prayer untU after nine on her be
half. We after that kept a private day on purpose for her, and stiU remembered
her on occasions.' As July 25 was the fatal day, ' we kept it on her account chiefly
at Mr. WoUen's.' In the evening, after the whole day had been spent in prayer,
Mr. Newcome on coming home found a letter telUng him ' the sad time is between
nine and ten.' Enquiring the hour, he was told ' it had just struck nine. Where
upon,' he says, ' I called my cousin Davenport, and "with our vrives we spent that part
of the hourin prayer.' In Cambridge, as might have been expected, more general con
cern was excited on behalf of the poor girl, ' Mr. Kenyon wrote word that they
resolved to sit up with her,"and to keep in prayer all the night, which they did.'
. . . ' It was a university then, when so many masters of arts and feUows of col
leges could be found to keep a night for such a purpose,' , , . ' She would have
gone very fain from them, but they would not suffer her, and they were not dis
turbed by anything but her. Satan did not prevail in this gross contrivance upon
her.' Newcome appends the remark, ' Yet it proved in the end a kind of drawn

316 LANCASHIRE.
I have afready noticed the attempta which were made to include
in the established presbyterianism of Lancashfre some moderate
EpiscopaUans, and the failure of those attempts, chiefly on account
of the impossibility of compromise or concession between those who
maintained that the government of the Church ought to be exclu
sively restricted to the priesthood, and those who asserted that it
belonged to the community, acting by representatives, lay and
clerical. Finding union in that dfrection impracticable, the Uberal
Presbyterians began to consider the possibUity of harmonious action,
if not of professed union, vrith the moderate CongregationaUsts. In
effecting such a union the lay eldera would give occaaion for no great
difficulty. The government of the laity, although existing in another
form, was a vital principle in the independent churches. But Hey
ricke, TUsley, Harrison, and other presbyterian ministers had said
some very hard and contemptuous things about the Independents,
thefr gifted brethren, thefr heretical opinions, thefr idol toleration,
and thefr fierce repubhcanism. These hard sayings, when they came
to a better understanding vrith the leading Independents, they were
disposed to modify or even to retract. Adam Martindale says in his
' Diary ' that Heyricke had so far modified his old theology that
when reminded of his assertion of the ' divine right ' of presbyte
rianism, he repUed that Presbyterianism, Episcopacy, and Indepen
dency were aU of ' divine right ; ' by which he must have meant — ^if
he meant any more than to explain away his own words — that God
had appointed for His Church some government which might be
modified according to any one of the three forms. His new associate
Henry Newcome was eminently a man of peace, who had lived on
friendly terms vrith Samuel Eaton, the leader of the Independents of
the neighbourhood. Eaton was not very careful to promote the in
fluence of his ' gifted brethren,' for they had given bim a great deal
of trouble. As to the idol toleration, he was not one of its blind
devotees, Uke the preaching colonels of CromweU's army. Strange
heresies had prevaUed among the early Independents, but if we may
judge from his sermon on the Trinity * he could denounce heretics
as fiercely as any presbyter or priest. And as to republicanism, he
seems to have cared Uttle about it, so long as he was allowed to
preach and practise his own principles. Newcome and Eaton, be-
battle.' She must have been left in a sad state when ' the masters of arts and
feUows of coUeges ' were doubtful about [the benefit done to her, ' though she
seemed deUvered in this thing according to their prayers.' The explanation of
the drawn battle is given by Newcome : ' She proved melancholy, idle, would
follow no business, and whether she inclined to the Quakers or no I know not.'
It is evident the good man feared the Quakers would have her, and so to save her
from the devU was only ' a kind of drawn battle.'
Newcome long Uved in great fear of Quakers. ' Was much affected to consider
the danger "we may soon be in from Quakers ; what a woeful plague God may make
them. Latimer said Stephen Gardiner was reserved in the Tower to burn him.
God knows what Quakers maybe reserved ior.' —Autobiography, January 15, 1654.
* The Mystery of God Incarnate. This sermon was foUowed by a Vindicatim
of it against Knowles, an independent preacher who denied the divinity of Christ.
The early Unitarians among the Nonconformists were not Presbyterians, as com
monly supposed, but Independents or Baptists.

COMPREHENSION. 317
tween whom there existed some family relation, were Ukely to exert
a good influence in any attempte to reconcUe the parties to which
they respectively belonged.
Some kind of united action between these parties was rendered
necessary by the ecclfesiastical arrangements which had been made
by the government. The parUamentary commissioners recognised
no distinction between the two denominations. A presbyterian
minister, elected according to the usage of his party, and accepted
by the classis, might be sent for approval to independent ' friers,' or
an independent minister to presbyterian ' triers,' or more frequently
to a commission including 'triers' of both persuasions, vrithout
whose approval neither could obtain the temporaUties of the benefice.
In the instance of Newcome himself, the ' triers ' nominated in the
commission to fry him were Richard Heyricke, Samuel Eaton, John
Angier, and John Harrison, three Presbyterians and one Inde
pendent.* Independency had begun to obtain some notice in Lancashfre aa
early as the year 1646, which Adam Martindale in hia autobiography
caUs ' that bustling year wherein the presbyterial and congregational
governments were Uke Jacob and Esau struggling in the womb.'
Poor Adam was sadly froubled, as between two fires. Congrega
tionaUsm, ' not waiting for a ci-vil sanction ' as its elder brother had
done, ' had got into possession of Dukenfield, vrithin two mUes and
a half of us.' He was then at Gorton. It was bad enough to be within
a ' Sabbath day's journey ' of one set of gifted brethren, to hear
whose discourses his o-wn people might roam so far, whUe he ' held
himself responsible for thefr souls.' But they were then getting up
a Uke church vrithout ' ciril sanction ' at Bfrch, no farther from him
on the other side, and worst of aU his predecessor, who had turned
Independent, was preaching there.
These were the two earUest, so fe,r as I know, of the independent
churches of Lancashfre and Cheshfre whose progress it wUl be neces
sary to notice prior to the attempt to comprehend them in the reU
gious estabUshment vrith the authority of a ' ci-vil sanction.'
The presbyters of Manchester were as angry as Martindale was
alarmed at tie portentous appearance of churches ' not waiting for
a ci-ril sanction.' They cfrculated a petition for the suppression of
gathered churches vrith so much diUgence and success as to obtain
in the course of that ' bustUng year ' 12,678 signatures.
According to HoUingworth, under date 1649, ' the Independente
set up a meeting in the coUege.' This was probably the third in the
neighbourhood. How it came into the college would be inexpUcable
were it not for the explanation which Adam Martindale gives of the
difficulty : ' The coUege lands being sold -with the coUege to Mr.
Wigan' (the Independent minister at Bfrch), 'who made a bam
there into a chapel, where he and many of his persuasion preached
doctrines diametrically opposite to the ministers under thefr very
* This interesting document, with several others relating to Newcome's settle
ment, is printed in the Addenda to] his Autobiography. See Appendix to this
volume.

318 LANCASHIRE.
nose.' "WTiether Wigan, who had been a soldier in the repubUcan
army, obtained money enough from pillage and plunder to purchase
the coUege I do not know : but there were soldiers, both royalist
and repubUcan, who got much gain from fighting in the ci-ril war.
In 1651 there were two other independent churches in the hundred
of Salford, one at Walmealey, under the pastorate of Michael Briscoe,
the other at Altham under that of Thomas JoUie. The last-named
pastor, educated at Trinity CoUege, Cambridge, waa a son of Major
JoUie, Provoat-Marahal of the ParUamentary army in Lancashfre.*
Although these gathered churches often included republican soldiers,
we must not suppose they came exclusively from the republican
camp. The older and better element had never been in the army,
and in Lancashire especially thefr ministers had been trained both
in persecution and in scholarly discipUne. WhUe some of the old
soldiers among them were troublesome and turbulent, many were
eminently pious and devout. To thefr piety we have the testimony
of several presbyterian ministers who were not disposed to regard
them favourably. Under date May 1651, Newcome, being at that
time at Gawsworth^ writes : ' Captain Merriman lay at Sutton, and
several of the soldiers being at church on the Lord'a day, the captein
on the Monday came to see me, and after that I went to see him.
The truth is they were so spfritual and inward, that it is a mercy
I was not ensnared by them, for they were high Independents.' t
As Samuel Eaton was the principal director, and in some respects
the founder of the Lancashire and Cheshfre congregationaUsm, it is
desfrable that we should briefiy notice his biography. He was a
son of Richard Eaton, the puritan vicar. of Great Budworth in
Cheshfre. He was probably related to TheophUus Eaton, the cele
brated governor of New Haven, as, on his crossing the Atlantic he
went directly to that settlement, and was hospitably enterteined by
the govemor.J Educated at Oxford, he obtained a benefice in
Wfrral, in Cheshfre. For a time he conformed, 'although very
rarely,' to the ceremonies of the Church. How bitterly he lamented
his occasional conformity appears from several references in his
writings, as in a passage in which he refers to a neighbouring clergy
man, Mr. Murcot, who, like himself, afterwards became an Indepen
dent : ' We have bewailed and pubUcly testified our repentence, both
before and since the times of this present parliament,'§ Having
* The major was a zealous Independent, and several of his descendants inhe
riting his spirit occupied important positions in the independent ministry of the
north of England. Adam Martindale must have known the major well, whose
step-daughter he married, but Adam seldom mentions his independent con
nections. ¦j" ' I remember Mr. TUsley said that the episcopal principles he could rather
accommodate -with than theirs ' (the Independents), ' but -with their persons and
Uves rather than the others ' (the EpiscopaUans). This testimony to the character
of the early Independents is valuable as given by a man zealously opposed to their
principles.' — Newoome's Autobiography, July 13, 1659.
J Palmer and others say they were brothers, but Theophilus was son of a
minister in Coventry.
§ Defence of Sundry Positions and Scriptures alleged to justify the Congre
gational Way. 1645.

COMPREHENSION. 319
become known as a nonconformist to the ceremonies, he was, in
1631, suspended by Bishop Bridgman, and compeUed to leave the
country that he might escape prosecution in the ecclesiastical court.
After spending some time in Holland, he removed to New England,
found a home in the settlement of New Haven, and there became
associated in the ministry vrith Mr. Davenport, the pastor of the
congregational church. A man of Uberal principles, he waa much
disturbed by the resfraint imposed on his church by ita connection
vrith the ciril power. As on that subject his opinions were very
different from those of his coUeague, he left New Haven, and even
tuaUy New England, assured that God had some work for him to do
in his native country. Although a decided Congregationalist, hia
Congregationalism was in everything, except its relation to the ci-ril
power, of the New England type. He had observed how beneficially
the independent discipline of the PUgrim Fathers had been modified,
without injury to its principles, by the influence of presbyterian
emigrants. He had learnt how churches, reaUy and inflexibly inde
pendent, might become united and helpful to one another by minis
terial unions and ecclesiastical consociations. He had cordially
approved, and to some extent promoted, the measures by which the
independency of the flrst settlers and the presbyterianism of the later
emigrants had been united in a common congregationaUsm. Such a
man found work to do in Lancashire and Cheshfre, where the dis
banded soldiers of the repubUcan army held thefr assemblies for
mutual exhortation with Uttle regard to ecclesiastical order. He was
weU qualifled to gather these scattered aectariea into churches, to
confirm thefr principles and correct the prevalent abuse of them, to
restrain the excesses of their Uberty, and guard them against the
fanaticism which was covering thefr good principles -with dishonour.
These things might appear exceedingly difficult ; but he did them to
a considerable extent, and induced moderate Presbyterians and Inde
pendents to think better of each other than they had ever before
thought in the north of England. Newcome, Angier, Harrison,
many other Presbyterians of thefr spirit, and even old Heyricke of
another spfrit, although at first they regarded him as a froubler of
thefr Israel, eventually learned to co-operate very pleasantly with
Samuel Eaton,
Soon after his return to England he became acquainted vrith Colonel
Dukenfield, a soldier of stem republican principles. Under his aus
pices, Eaton gathered a church in the family chapel of Dukenfield, and
formed it upon the basis of a Uberal congregationaUsm. He would
gladly have seen it united vrith other churches, after the inanner of
an American consociation, and if the Presbyterians would have
allowed him liberty of action, he would readily have co-operated vrith
them vrithout interfering vrith the exercise of thefr discipline. But
the spirit neither of presbyterianism nor of independency was pre
pared for free and united action.
In the year 1645 was pubUshed the ' Defence of Sundry Positions
and Scriptures, aUeged to justify the Congregational Way,' by
Samuel Eaton, teacher, and Timothy Taylor, pastor, of the Church
of Dukenfield.

320 LANCASHIRE.
WhUe Mr. Eaton was the recognised teacher of the Church in
Dukenfield, he received the appointment of chaplain to the garrison
of Chester, where he seems to have gathered a church of soldiers.
Being frequently absent from his flock, and occasionaUy for some^
weeks together, he encouraged the ' gifted brethren ' to preach in his
* absence, under the mUd superrision of thefr pastor, Seine of these
brethren were, I doubt not, exceUent men, who did good serrice in
thefr way to the cause of frue reUgion ; but others were ill-qualified
for thefr work, and made themaelves very disagreeable to thefr prea
byterian neighbours, WhUe Martindale speaks very kindly of the
great abUity of Mr, Eaton, and the ' moderate spfrit ' of Mr. Taylor,
he calls these lay preachers ' bitter presumptuous feUows.'
An incident mentioned in the 'Autobiography' of Newcome shows
how much the ' gifted brethren ' were disUked by the moderate
presbyterian ministera, and how injudiciously Mr. Eaton sometimea
encouraged them to 'exercise their gifts,' even where they were not
wanted. Mr. Stringer, the presbyterian minister of Macclesfield,
•wishing to show his fraternal regard for Mr. Eaton, invited him to
preach at ' an exercise ' which was held in his church. Eaton not
only went himself to preach one sermon, but took vrith him WiUiam
Barret, ' a gifted brother,' to preach a second. Sfringer, who seema
to have been a good-natured sort of man, very reluctantly assented
to the proposal of hia friend. The appearance of a 'gifted brother' in
the mystic sanctity of a presbyterian pulpit produced no small
excitement through the town and neighbourhood. ' Great boasting,'
says Newcome, ' there was of it by the unsettled hankering party,
and great expectation of aome great acquest by it. The Lord helped
me to declare my dislike to Mr. Stringer about it.' Newcome and
Mr. Langley, a venerable minister of great wisdom, conferred about
this grave and serious matter. They, however, in these distressing
circumstances, when profane hands had touched the ark, were exceed
ingly comforted on finding that ' the Lord was pleased to defeat the
design, for his preaching was nothing taking.' HappUy the 'gifted
brother ' had not the grace of pleasing or expressive action, for the
people said if he preached again he must 'have a curtain before him.'
Although Barret was not a graceful orator, he must have been a
man of some position and property, as he was one of the sequesfra
tors for the county.
As a considerable part of the Dukenfield church resided in and
near Stockport, the pubUc ministrations of the teacher were often
conducted in that town, and eventuaUy the church usuaUy assembled
there and became known as the gathered church in Stockport. For
a time there seem to have been two recognised branches of the
church, for the ministry of which the teacher, the pastor, the ruling
elder, and the gifted brethren were quite adequate,
Eaton was sorely froubled with the diversities of doctrine which
sprang up among hia people, and especiaUy with the rank and noxioua
heresies which grew among the soldiers of Chester, Some were
MUlennarians, some Fifth Monarchy men, some Arminians, some
Antiuomians, some Sociniana, and some strange compounds of these

COMPREHENSION. 321
heretics in different proportions. As Eaton was fervently orthodox,
he regarded the denial of the doctrine of the Trinity as the renun
ciation of the Christian faith. To his annoyance and grief, one John
Knowles, who held the opinions of Socinus respecting the divine
nature of Christ, was chosen to occupy hia place in the garrison of
Chester. This grievous choice gave him the occasion of writing his
book, entitled ' The Mystery of God Incarnate, or the Word made
Flesh cleared up : or a Vindication of certain Scriptures from the
corrupt glosses, false Interpretations, and sophistical Argumentations
of Mr. John Knowles, who denieth the Dirinity of Christ. By
Samuel Eaton, teacher of the Church of Christ in Dukenfield. Lon
don, 1650.' The controversy was conducted with much anger and
acerbity, utterly unworthy of the character of moderation and
urbanity which Eaton had acquired in prerious discussions. These
froublesome and frritating contentions probably disposed him to
regard favourably any proposals which might be made for union with
the Presbyterians.
Timothy Taylor, the pastor of the gathered church in Dukenfield,
had been educated at Queen's College, Cambridge, and had taken
orders in 1634. WhUe vicar of Almeley, in Herefordshire, he was
froubled by the severity with which the bishop enforced conformity
with the ceremonies. According to his own account this induced
him to ' study more attentively and industriously the second com
mandment, when, through the rich mercy and grace of God, he not
only saw the evUs of Episcopacy and of the ceremonials imposed, but
also repented of the use of them, and publicly in the parish of Almeley
preached against them, and for aU the substantiaJs of that way of
congregational government which ever since, and at this day, he hath
and doth judge to be at most conformity with the word of fruth.'
Afterwards being harassed in the Ecclesiastical Court, and ' haring
no hope of Uberty, he did by consent leave Almeley, and Uved about
three years in a smaU pecuUar, exempt from episcopal jurisdiction,
-riz., Longton-upon-Trent.'* By meditation and prayer in his retire
ment, he was prepared to teke the oversight of a congregational
church. Finding Samuel Eaton a man after his own heart, he
became pastor of the church of which Eaton was the appointed
teacher. After the removal of Mr. Wigan from Bfrch, Mr, Robert Birch,
probably one of the chief famUy of the place, became the minister of
the chapel, and appears to have united in himself the two offices of
pastor and teacher of its gathered church.
Both parties having been in some degree prepared for union— the
Presbyterians by the bitter humiliations which they had suffered, the
Independente by the angry disputes which had prevaUed among
themselves — several of thefr ministers held frequent conferences in
Manchester to ascertain how nearly they could co-operate in thefr
ecclesiastical arrangemente. With such men as John Angier and
Henry Newcome on one side, and Samuel Eaton and Timothy Taylor
¦* Defence of Sundry Positions and Saiptures aUeged to justify the Congrega
tional Way, By Samuel Eaton and Timothy Taylor. London, 1645.
T

322 LANCASHIRE,
on the other, their conferences could scarcely faU to produce some
happy results, even if they did not secure an acknowledged umon,
Newcome, however unlike himself he may appear in this, did not
cordiaUy accept the proposals of his peace-making friends. In his
' Autobiography ' he . says, under date July 13, 1659 : ' We had a
meeting with the ministers of the congregational way at the coUege,
and we agreed upon certain heads of accommodation.' He concurred,
but strangely apologised for his concurrence : ' I am the meanest
concurrent instrument in the thing ; they cannot look upon me as a
leader.' There is more here than Newcome chose to express. He
was at the time deeply concerned in the revolutionary measures which
his intimate friend, Sfr George Booth, was then engaged in pro
moting. He distrusted, as well he might, the advantage of a union,
the consenting parties to which would soon be in arms on the opposite
sides of a great political contest.
At the meeting held on July 13, the following propositions were
agreed upon, and signed by fourteen presbyterian and seven inde
pendent ministers. As they are the earUest propositions of agree
ment which were ever made between the ministers of the two
denominations, it may be useful to give them at length.*
' I. We agree that all persons that are admitted to the Lord's
Supper shaU have these qualifications : —
' 1. They shall have a competent knowledge of the principles of
religion, and be sound in the faith,
'2, They shaU live without scandal,
' 3. They shaU maintain the exercises of Christianity : viz., prayer
and instruction in thefr families, reading the Word, careful suppU
cation on the Lord's day, and the like known duties of Scripture,
' II, It is further agreed that we hold Communion in the Sacra
ment of the Lord's Supper in each other's congregations, as there
may be occasion, upon the recommendation or personal knowledge
of such members as may desfre it.
' III, It is agreed that if there be any deviating or shall be in
futnire from the character above mentioned, the persons thereat
offended ha"ring discharged their own duties shall give notice to the
churches, that there may be orderly proceeding against the parties
offending. ' IV. It is agreed that such persona as are quaUfied "with suitable
gifts and graces for the ministry, and have had due frial and appro
bation by preaching elders, shall be aUowed amongst us. And for
the future, after like trial, there shall be an imposition of hands upon
such as are to undertake a pastoral charge.
' V, That none shaU preach among us but such as are approved by
preaching officers (expectante excepted), and that we shall not dis-
¦* Adam Martindale obtained a copy, which may be found in his Ufe, ch. vi.
sec. 2. Another copy, substantially agreeing with it, is given in Hibbert's History
of the Collegiate Ghmch, <fcc., vol. i. p. 326. It is strange that Hibbert represents
these heads of agreement as between the Presbyterians and EpiscopaUans. There
is not appended to them the signature of a single EpiscopaUan. The great amount
of information which Dr. Hibbert possessed renders his many inaccuracies quite
inexpUcable.

COMPREHENSION. 323
turb each other's congregations by imposing on them preachers unor
dained, and that we "vrill use our endeavour that no offence be given
by the preaching of mere gifted brethren.
' VI. We also agree to preach in each other's congregations, and
to meet together for adrice as occasion shall requfre.
' VII, In cases of offence it is agreed that such matters be heard
and determined by a meeting of delegates chosen on both sides.
' VIII. We also agree that we vrill lay to heart all our unnecessary
distances and unbrotherly carriages, engage in this accommodation in
all unfeigned love and steadfast resolution, and lay aside, to our
utmost, all words and carriages that may violate or prejudice our
Christian communion.
' IX. We, concurring in these things ourselves, do promise to com
municate the same to othera, and so after our next meeting, which is
to be the fourth Thursday in September, there may be an acting ac
cording to this agreement.'
The Presbyterians who appended thefr names to these heads of
agreement were Richard Heyricke, John Angier, John Harrison,
John Tilsley, Henry Newcome, Richard Baton, John Jaques, Joshua
Stockport, James Jackson, WilUam Colburn, Edward Richardson,
Robert Hyde, James Johnson, and Thomas Hammond. The Inde
pendents were Henry Roote, Samuel Eaton, Thomas SmaUwood,
Michael Briscoe, Jeremie Marsden, John JoUie, and Robert Birch.*
Of the Independents, Thomas SmaUwood had been chaplain to
Lord Fairfax, and was at that time discharging the duties of the same
office to General Lambert. Although a decided CongregationaUst, he
contrived to hold the aequeatered U"ving of Batley in Yorkshfre.
Henry Roote, educated at Magdalen College, Cambridge, was a very
early CongregationaUst, who wrote a ' Just Defence of the Church in
Dukenfield.' Settled at Sowerby, he was ejected by the Act of Uni-
formity.f Jeremie Marsden, a native of Manchester, was educated
in its grammar school. He Uved a wandering life, of which he left
an account in a manuscript entitled ' Contemplatio Vitte MiserabiUs,'
from which Calamy is said to have compiled his biography. The
other four were so intimately connected "with the history of Lanca
shfre that they vriU frequently appear in the course 6f our narrative.
Newcome's apprehensions were correct. Before the coming of the
fourth Thursday in September, the day appointed for the final ar
rangements, aU prospect of harmonious co-operation was brought to
a sad conclusion by poUtical agitation, which disturbed the peaceful
conferences of the ministers and separated thefr congregations more
widely than they were before. Since the death of the great protector,
whose vigorous intellect and strong arm had restrained the excesses
of all reUgious parties, a year of anxiety to many, of hope to some, of
* Most of these independent ministers, notwithstanding their independency,
held ' cure of souls ' in connection with the reUgious estabUshment of their time.
They had no objection to any control which the state would exercise over High
Church Prelatists or Presbyterians,
t The father of Archbishop TUlotson was a member of his gathered church, and
the archbishop himself is said to have retained a very kindly feeUng towards the
instructor of his youth.

324 LANCASHIRE.
uncertainty to all, had passed over the counfry. The EpiscopaUans
were anxiously waiting, in the faUure of other arrangements, for the
restoration of thefr Church to ite former elevated position under the
patronage of a restored monarchy. The Presbyterians hopefully
looked to a free parUament for a settlement of the religious agitation
which had assumed a form so contrary to the expectations they had
cherished at the commencement of thefr conflict with prelacy and
arbifrary power. The Independents, or the greater part of them,
were in favour of a repubUcan government, if only they could find
frustworthy governors. Of the other sectaries, some would have no
government at aU ; some would govern themselves ; some would be
governed by 'the Spirit,' by 'King Jesus,' or by 'the Uon of the
tribe of Judah,' Sfrange as it may seem, some of the more exfrava
gant secteries were in favour of the restoration of royalty.* In the
confusion of poUtical parties, the name of CromweU had lost its
charm : his sons retained no authority. The misfortunes of his
famUy were regarded by many devout ministera aa the punishments
of his sins.t The reassembling of the rump of the Long ParUament
excited general disgust and indignation. The exfreme repubUcans
were too feeble and too distrustful of one another to take the reins of
government. Of soldiers and statesmen no one rose prominently
among his rivals to command the respect or attract the confidence of
the people. Ireton, Worsley, and, soon after the resignation of
Richard, Bradshaw were sleeping in the sanctuary of deceased kings,
from which they were soon to be ignominiously ejected as desecrators
of the sacred dust of royalty. In so much uncertainty some looked
for anarchy, some for miUtery despotism, some for a reign of terror,.
and some for the end of the world.
The power would undoubtedly have been vrith the army if there
had been more agreement among its commanders, or more confidence
in the character and poUcy of any one of them. Lambert, Fleetwood,
and Monk were the most powerful generals. Lambert was Uttle
trusted by the Presbyterians, Fleetwood less so ; and Monk, intent on
securing the fideUty of his own soldiers, made no sign by which any
party could conjecture what schemes he might be secretly derising.
Of the reUgious parties the Presbyterians were the most powerful,
being not only the most numerous, but the most united, and most
easUy guided and confroUed by thefr leaders. In Lancashire they
were especiaUy influential and subservient to thefr ministers. They
• Clarendon refers to a party of Anabaptists who during the Protectorate carried
on a secret correspondence with Charles. Possibly, however, as they asked for two
thousand pounds to promote the royal cause, they cared more for the king's money
than for his restoration.
t On hearing of the fall of Richard Cromwell, Newcome vrrote in his Diary, ' I
was much affected at it, to see how God had reckoned with CromweU's famUy for
his atheistical carriages.' Nothing in the conduct of Cromwell was, in the estima
tion of the Presbyterians, more impious than his calling his first parUament on a
Sunday, or his refusing to postpone its meeting because that sabbath was a high
day with him, the anniversary of great victories, "When he died on that anniver
sary, the Lancashire ministers did not forget to notice the coincidence, and some of
them indirectly reminded their hearers of ' the manifest judgment,'

COMPREHENSION. 325
caUed for a free parliament, and what call could have been more just
and reasonable ? They desired a limited monarchy, but the degree
of Umitation they were vrilling to leave to a freely chosen parUament.
This counfry is under great obUgation to the English Presbyterians
for maintaining its old constitutional liberty at great cost and suffering,
while they resisted the tyranny of Charles I., the military rule which
waa threatening on the death of CromweU, and the iUegal assertion of
prerogative by James II. "WlUle to no reUgious party of that time is
England so much indebted as to the Presbyterians, to no Presbyterian
family is it more indebted than to the Booths of Dunham Massey.
In many parta of England the Presbyterians were preparing to
work and to fight for the restoration of the monarchy, but in no part
were thefr preparations conducted vrith so much acti"rity and vigour
as in Lancashire and Cheshfre. In this stronghold of presbyterian
ism. Sir George Booth was universaUy acknowledged to be the leader
of the party, to which in all its reverses he and his grandfather had
faithfully adhered. We have seen how actively and bravely he served
when a youth in the parUamentery army. Rejoicing in the triumph
of his party, he protested against the extreme measures of the repub
Ucans, and especially against thefr execution of the king. Suspected
by Independente and disUked by Prelatists, he was ready to engage
in any honourable enterprise which promised to secure the establish
ment of constitutional monarchy.
On the resignation of Richard Cromwell the Presbyterians felt
that, however distrustful they were of thefr prelatical enemies, they
must find some means of acting in concert vrith the EpiscopaUans.
The two parties, at variance on all other subjects, could honestly unite
in demanding a free parUament, and in leaving to its decision the
terms on which the monarchy should be restored. In the correspond
ence which Sfr George carried on "vrith the royaUst genfry in different
parts of the country, in order to promote a simultaneous rising, he
obteined promises of assistance from some five hundred persons of
rank and influence, although almost all of them disappointed him in
the time of action.*
The Presbyterian ministers of his neighbourhood were well ac
quainted vrith the design of Sfr George, and many of them were
actively engaged in promoting its success. The ministers of Man
chester were aU concerned, although Heyricke, either from the in
firmities of age or from distrust of success, did not engage in it with
the energy and acti-rity with which he had resisted the government
both of King Charles and of Oliver Cromwell. On two occasions he
was absent from the ministers' meeting, and his absence was noticed
by Newcome in a manner which seems, if not to distrust his fideUty,
at least to impugn his courage.f Many of the older ministers, as
* Newcome, in his Autobiography, says, under date August 7, 1659 : ' At night
after supper we were with Sir George Booth, who with much sorrow told us how
basely he had been deserted. Five hundred lords aud gentlemen of the best in
England were engaged, and were all either prevented or had failed in their trust,
and none was up but Sir Thomas Middleton, of Chirk Castle.'
t 'Mr. Heyricke absenting himself, though he knew of the business as well and
as soon as I.' — Autobiography, under date July 31, 1659.

326 LANCASHIRE.
Harrison of Ashton, and Tilsley of Dean, were as resolute and zealous
as they had been in the conflicts of thefr earUer years. Several younger
ministers, as Newcome, and Finch of Walton, imbibed thefr spirit
and foUowed thefr example. The Presbyterians armed in all dfrec
tions round Manchester. The tenantry of Sfr George Booth and of
other presbyterian lords and gentlemen were openly and regularly
mustered and exercised, whUe ministers and women went to see the
soldiering. A wet mustering day was regarded as an eril omen, a
fine day as an auspicious providence. The many rainy days on which
the Dunham tenantry mustered were interpreted by Adam Martindale
as indications of the disapproval of God, and suppUed him with a
reason for not joining in the enterprise.* The pretext for mustering
was to suppress an expected insurrection of the Quakers— a pretext
so flimsy as to deceive nobody, although probably some thought it
would supply an excuse if they were apprehended,
July 31 was a memorable Sunday in Manchester, As the presby
terian gentry were to meet Sfr George Booth at Warrington on the
foUowing Monday, and the trained companies on the Tuesday, notice
of the meetings was to be given to the congregation before it left the
church. How this should be done was a perplexing question. To the
disappointment and annoyance of the younger ministers the warden
was absent from ch'nrch that day, and no reason could be assigned
for his absence. Mr. Stockport proposed that notice should be given
of a muster at Warrington, on account of a ' rise of the Quakers.'
Newcome, who was the preacher for the day, refused to make a false
statement. He would go as far as any man in support of what he
beUeved to be the cause of God, ' but the cause of God had no need
of his lie.' He was never before in so great perplexity. The Man
chester men were wanted. The occasion was urgent. He would not
speak falsely ; he durst not speak truly ; and yet he must say some
thing. While at the conclusion of his sermon he stood sUent in the
pulpit considering what to say, Stockport, his coUeague, announced
that the Quakers had risen, that the trained banda would muster on
Tuesday morning, and that Warrington waa to be the place of meet
ing. The people understood him, for his Ue deceived no man. That
night the excitement spread through the town and neighbourhood.
The next day the people were busy with thefr preparations, coUecting
thefr provender, cleaning their arms, and mustering in their ranks.
Old officers, weU-known in the former war. Colonel HoUand, Major
Ashurst, and others, appeared in the town to dfrect the movement.
On Tuesday moming five hundred well-armed men marched from
Manchester to Warrington, and instead of fighting the Quakers ral
Ued round Sfr George Booth and raised the cry for a free parUament,
Friday, August 5, was observed in Manchester as a day of humUi
ation and prayer, in the midst of which the congregation broke up
suddenly, being alarmed by a report that Colonel Lilburne was march
ing upon the town. Lilburne happily did not come, because, as New-
come thought, they had imprisoned ' a most perfidious and bloody
Anabaptist,' who was caught on his way to inform the republican
* Life of Adam Martindale, p. 136.

COMPREHENSION. 327
commander of the absence of the train-bands. After the noise and
alarm of the week came a sacramental Sabbath — ' a peaceful, blessed
day ' — ^when Newcome preached, as he only could preach on such
occasions, from the words, 'And when the Lord saw that they
humbled themselves, the word of the Lord came to Shemaiah, saying.
They have humbled themselves, therefore wiU I not desfroy them ;
but I vrill grant them some deUverance, and my wrath shall not be
poured out upon Jerusalem by the hand of Shishak,' Jerusalem was
readily understood to denote Manchester, and Shishak, in the estima
tion of the women, whose husbands, brothers, and sons were hazard
ing thefr Uvea in the musters at Warrington, might be either LUburne
threatening thefr town,[or Lambert marching against the army of Sir
George Booth.
The succeeding week was one of great agitation and alarm in Man
chester. Heyricke kept out of sight, but Newcome and Stockport
worked hard in sending recruits to the army of Sfr George. At the
urgent request of Colonel HoUand, Newcome was about to go into
Derbyshfre, where multitudes would readUy arm on the exhortation
of their favourite preacher ; but the importunate remonstrances and
alarming agitation of his wife induced him reluctantly to defer his
journey. On Thursday, August 11, disastrous reports reached the
town. The alarm became so general that many fled, and in the pre
valent dismay Newcome and his friends had great difficulty to induce
the sentinels to keep their watch through the night. On Sunday,
August 14, the affafrs of the RoyaUsts were desperate. Newcome,
worn out with fatigue, harassed by importunate enquirers, and de
pressed vrith unfavourable reports, was unable to preach. Although
Mr. Holbrooke of Salford, an able preacher, suppUed his place, the
people were bitterly disappointed ; for on such occasions much was
expected from his gentle, persuasive, and insinuating eloquence,
Wednesday, the 17th, was kept with much solemnity as a fast in
Manchester, Most of the day was spent in prayer, Mr. Angier and
Mr. Dunster preached. Unusual seriousness pervaded the congrega
tion, which consisted largely of women and infirm men.
On Friday, August 19, the fatel battle was fought at Winnington
Bridge, near Northwich. The defeat of the Royalists was generally
expected, and may be atfributed to an unfortunate concurrence of
many causes. The assistance promised to Sir George failed him from
almost all quarters. The old dislike between the CavaUers and
Roundheads prevented thefr combined and harmonious action. The
boisterous merriment and profanity of Lord Derby's froops excited
the apprehensions and provoked the censure of the covenanting Pres
byterians. The hasty and imperfect fraining of the Cheshfre tenantry
and Manchester tradera was unequal to meet the discipline of Lam
bert's veterans. The presbyterian regiments were broken and fled in
all dfrections. Saturday 'was a sad day' in Manchester. Early in
the morning many of the fugitives entered the town followed by
thefr pursuers. Of many who had not arrived thefr families could
obtain no inteUigence. HappUy for the inhabitants, thefr neighbour,
Colonel Bfrch, commanded the troops who took possession of the

328 LANCASHIRE,
town. Although he was a zealous Republican and firm Independent,
he was personally friendly to the ministers, and did aU in his power
to protect them from the insolence and rapacity of a strange soldiery.
It must have been disfressing to both parties when officers like
Colonel Birch and General Booth, who in their youth had bravely
fought side by side in defence of the Uberty of thefr country, were
engaged on opposite sides of a desfructive conflict. In the evening of
the same day Colonel Lilburne, a stranger in the county, arrived in
Manchester and took the command of the repubUcan army.
On the Sabbath, to the surprise of the people, who knew not what
had become of him, Warden Heyricke appeared in the pulpit, and
preached from the words of Job, ' My righteouanesa I hold fast, and
will not let it go : my heart shall not reproach nie so long as I Uve.'
We have no account of the sermon ; but the text suggests an excul
pation or apology for conduct which had grievously disappointed his
friends. LUburne seems to have been displeased, for he would not
allow any more presbyterian preaching that day, but ordered old Mr,
Roote, the independent minister, to officiate in the coUegiate church.
He preached from Psalm xxvii. 8 : ' "When Thou saidat. Seek ye My
face ; my heart said unto Thee, Thy face. Lord, vrill I seek.' *
Many of the presbyterian ministers had acted so decided a part in
the insurrection as greatly to alarm thefr friends for thefr safety.
Newcome, although he had been deeply impUcated, found the advan
tage of good friends among the RepubUcans, especiaUy of Colonel
Bfrch and Samuel Eaton, who used thefr influence with General Lam
bert to obtain for him exemption from punishment. The Presby
terians generaUy and gratefully acknowledged the leniency "with
which they were freated after the defeat. Little blood was shed.
Very few were imprisoned. The ministers naturally and reasonably
expected that thefr augmentetions of income would not be paid by
the sequestrators ; but through the good offices of Colonel Bfrch,
Newcome obtained his payment as usual. The worst that befel him
was the quartering upon him of some Anabaptist soldiers, ' base prag
matical secteries,' though probably his house was quite as offensive
to them as their presence was annoying to him. It has been said
that Lambert vrished to teke advantege of the opportunity of ingra
tiating himself -with the Presbyterians, because he foresaw the cloud
gathering in the north around the movements of General Monk;
but why should we impute motives to a man who after his victory
was as generous as he had been prompt and energetic in preparing
for the battle ?
Although most of the ministers of hia neighbourhood were con
cerned -vrith Sfr George Booth in the insurrection, a few were timid
and a few were wary and cautious, Heyricke, as we have observed,
kept out of the way. He had before seen the inside of a prison, and
although he had borne hia confinement patiently, he had no wiah to
return to his cell. John Angier professed to have done vrith strife,
and, whUe sincerely attached to the cause of royalty, was content to
show his attachment in no more obtrusive manner than by helping
* Newcome's Autobiography, August 25, 1659.

COMPREHENSION. 329
and comforting his friends who had suffered in the defeat. The reasons
which influenced Adam Martindale, a sincere RoyaUst and near neigh
bour of Sir George, are very curious, and clearly illustrate the feelings
of a shrewd Presbyterian of the time and neighbourhood. He did
not join the insurgents for twelve good reasons, that is, good enough
to pacify his conscience : —
I. They did not frrrite him 'untU they were actually in arms,
and it is usuaUy said, " 'tis a bad dog that is not worth whistling
for." '
2. It was easy, ' without a spirit of prophecy, to see they were not
Uke to stand.'
3. He had not confidence in the promise of a simulteneous rising in
other parts of the country.
4. It would be ' Uttle less than a mfracle if raw undisciplined men
could stend before Lambert's veteran soldiers.'
5. ' God seemed to fro-wn upon them ; the weather being so very
foul that many were discouraged from going to their musters, and
those that went were scarce able to stand upon the ground, much less
to exercise thefr firearms.'
6. ' Ha-ring missed the teking of Chester Castle they had no place
to hide their heads in safety.'
7. ' Thefr army was Uke Mahomet's angelical cocks, made up of fire
and snow, for many were not only different but contrariant in their
principles.' He refers to the discordant principles and interests of the
Presbyterians and Episcopalians.
8. ' If common interest could rivet them together so long as a com
mon enemy was to be dealt vrith, if they should become conquerors,
then the end of one contest would be the beginning of another,'
9. ' I waa desired by some that were actuaUy engaged to keep my
self free, that I might be capable of doing that kindness for them for
which I should disable myself by engaging among them.'
10. ' I feared God could not prosper a business the foundation of
which was laid in lying and deceit. I could name a great man in
Lancashfre that sent out his warrants to come to musters under pre
tence of danger from the Quakers.'
11. The printed declaration ' o"wned no authority but that of lords,
gentlemen, citizens, freeholders : ' that is, authority from the king
"without the parUament.
12. ' The declaration promised universal toleration, which was either
a perfect cheat or a promise of what 1 utterly abhorred.'
These twelve reasons might be sufficient to excuse Martindale, or
any other man who thought "with him, from committing himself to
the measures of Sfr George Booth, although -he could not desfre for
them anything but success. "When the insurrection failed, he gener
ously exerted himself on behalf of his friends who were brought to ruin
by thefr o-wn impetuosity and rashness. Although he had engaged
in keen controversy "vrith the Independents, and had loudly boasted of
hia wonderful ¦rictories over thefr ' gifted brethren,' he found no in
fluential person of the opposite party so accessible as Samuel Eaton,
or so ready to plead on behalf of the presbyterian ministers. It must.

330 LANCASHIRE.
however, be said to the honour of the RepubUcans, that no one among
them was disposed to freat the conquered insurrectionists -with severity.
It is true that Sfr George Booth was committed to prison, but the
government could not overlook his rebelUon, unless they meant to an
nounce that Presbyterians might conspfre and rebel vrith impunity.
Although the insurrection faUed, chiefly through the fears and
suspicions of the episcopaUan genfry, it revealed the preparation which
many parties were sUently making for great changes. The unsettled
state of the government, if government it could be called, excited
grave apprehensions in the minds of quiet and thoughtful people.
Was England reduced to the hard necessity of surrendering its free
dom to the rule of the sword ? If it were, what soldier was left who
could firmly grasp that sword ? Pure repubUcanism was helpless.
Monarchy or mUitary despotism seemed to be the alternative. Pres
byterians desfred constitutional monarchy ; EpiscopaUans the restor
ation of the monarch without conditions. The sectaries knew not
what to desfre. Throughout Lancashire the Presbyterians, although
discouraged by thefr recent defeat, and perhaps softened by the
leniency vrith which they were treated, were yet Ustening to the loud
caU of thefr southern brethren for a free parUament.
The disposition of their ministers appeared in thefr general refusal
to offer pubUc thanksgiving to God for the victory of Lambert. So
long as no particular day was appointed for that purpose, the minis
ters, however they might displease the soldiers who attended thefr
serrices, were not chargeable with disobedience to any order of the
government. When, eventuaUy, November the third was appointed
for the public thanksgiving, the divisions and perplexities of the
government were so generaUy known in Lancashire that few cared
to enforce obedience to any of its ordinances. When the day came,
not a presbyterian minister in the county, so far as I know, offered
pubUc thanksgiving for the victory. Some went from home. Some
said they had received no dfrections, as certainly, for some reason or
other, the authorities were very remiss in sending thefr notices.
Some said, as Newcome did, ' It is but an invitation, not a command.'
Some plainly refused to conduct any such serrice as was recom
mended. No sooner had the day passed than other affafrs of greater
urgency engaged the attention of the government, whose members
had become desfrous of conciUating rather than offending the Presby
terians. The ministers held their private days of prayer, and espe
ciaUy ' one very precious day,' when Mr. Angier preached ' the most
seasonable and sweet sermon that ever was preached.' * A few days
after, in answer to their prayers as they thought, they gladly wel
comed on his recovered Uberty Mr. Harrison of Ashton, the only one
of their number who had been imprisoned for being concerned in the
insurrection. The ministers dined vrith him at the warden's, and
talking about the prevalent reports of the mysterious movements of
General Monk, some were elated, some depressed, but most of them
hoped that Presbyterianism had passed ita darkest day. How vain
were their hopes we shaU see in the next chapter.
* Newcome's Autobiography, November 8, 1659.

CHAPTER XV.
EPISCOPACY RESTORED.
While the conduct of Monk was observed vrith intense anxiety, the
ministers of Lancashire devised many expedients to obtain early and
correct information of his movements. Correspondence was .com
menced with Mr. Case, Mr. Ash, Mr. Calamy, and other influential
ministers of London. Thefr letters were regularly received, carefuUy
examined, and extensively cfrculated. The intelligence seemed to
vary with every arrival. Reports were spread of the actirity of the
Prelatists, and of the influence of the Papiste upon the mind of the
royal exUe. Subsequently the inteUigence became more favourable.
The king was disposed to make considerable changes in the govern
ment of the Church ; tender consciences would be indulged ; sectaries
would be silenced ; worse erils than any the king could introduce
would be averted by his restoration ; and Monk, who had been con
sidered favourable to Independency, received the sacrament from the
Jbands of Mr. Calamy, whom he consulted in the selection of his
preachers. When the London ministers trusted so unscrupulous a
soldier as Monk, it does not surprise us that their counfry brethren
should foUow their example. His mind was too dark and deep to
be explored by the inquisitive eyes of puritan preachers.* Few
presbyterian ministers had the sagacity to see with Adam Martindale
that ' the end of one contest would be the beginning of another ; ' few
the foresight of Richard Baxter, who wrote of the London ministers :
' These dirines know nothing of the state of affafrs. They pray for
the success of my labours, when they are persuading me to put an
end to my labours by setting up the prelates who will silence me and
hundreds more. They persuade me to that which wUl separate me
from my flock, and then pray that I may be a blessing to them ; and
yet I am for restoring the king, that when we are silenced, and our
minisfry at an end, and some of us Ue in prison, we may in that con
dition have peace of conscience in the discharge of our duty, and
faith, patience, and charity in our sufferings.' t
The attempts of the Independents in London to obsfruct the move
ments of Monk were so feeble and fruitless as to be scarcely known
to thefr friends in Lancashfre. Although Owen and Nye may have
proposed to raise a hundred thousand pounds to defray the expenses,
if the officers of WaUingford House would call out thefr regiments,
* In November he caUed Dr. Owen his 'dear friend,' whose prayers he sought
that he 'might be kept from going out of God's way in doing God's work.' In
March he dismissed Ms independent chaplain aud resolved to do ' God's work '
only in the presbyterian way.— Neal, vol. ii. p. 540.
t Ufe, part U. p. 216.

332 LANCASHIRE.
it is very doubtful whether they would have been supported by their
counfry brethren, many of whom were weary of war, and sought for
themselves nothing more than such a toleration as could be secured
by peaceable measures.
In the midst of these uncertainties the Lancashire Presbyterians
lost one of their most consistent, most influential, and most scholarly
ministers. Charles Herle, the rector of Winwick, died on September
29, 1659, and was buried in his own church. Of his early Ufe, his
advancement to the richest parochial benefice in the north, and his
elevation to the dignity of prolocutor of the Westminster Assembly,
I have already written. On the dissolution of the assembly he was
associated with Isaac Ambrose of Preston, and Edward Gee of
Eccleston, in the not very pleasant office of commissioners for the
ejecting of ignorant and scandalous ministers from the churches and
chapels of Lancashfre. However severe Mr. Gee may have been, no
men in the county could have been selected more forbearing and
considerate in the discharge of painful duty than Ambrose and Herle.
Devoted to his parochial duties, and conciliating the good feeling of
all parties around him, Herle spent the last years of his life, untU he
was taken away from the eril to come, the ejectment from his rich
living, his hospitable parsonage, his pleasant church, and his beloved
fiock.* After Monk had restored the ejected members to their seats in
parliament, events seemed to proceed in a course favourable to the
interests of the Presbyterians. The Independents, conscious of thefr
numerical inferiority, and perhaps ashamed of their foUy, left the
management of public affairs to opponents frritated by thefr arbifrary
expulsion from the house. It was prorided that in the parUament
which was soon to be convened, no person should be aUowed to take
his seat who had borne arms against the preceding parliament. Al
though this provision was evaded, for several RoyaUsts were elected
whose right no one ventured to challenge, yet it quieted for a time
all fears of retribution from the prelatical party. Still more satis
factory and assuring to the Presbyterians was the resolution that no
person was to be invested with any miUtery authority, unless he had
sworn to acknowledge the lawfulness of taking arms on the authority
of parliament against the adrisers of the king. Gratified vrith these
securities, the Presbyterians of Lancashfre were further delighted
with the intelUgence of the release of Sfr George Booth, and of the
repeal of the engagement to be true and faithful to the Common
wealth "without a king or house of lords. Having done so much that
was agreeable to the Presbyterians, the house issued its write for the
meeting of a free parliament on April 25, and on ita own authority
diasolved itself
The new parUament, or convention, assembled on the appointed
¦* John Howe, referring to his ordination in Winwick Church by Herle and the
ministers of the several chapels of his large parish, says : ' There are few ministers
whose ordination has been so truly primitive as mine, having been devoted to the
sacred office by a primitive bishop and his officiating presbytery.' — Life of John
Howe, by Henry Rogers, p. 28.

EPISCOPACY RESTORED. 333
day, and, as in old time, in its two hou.ses of lords and commons.
So quiet a return to the ancient constitution was itself an assurance
of the restoration of the king, and a presage of its peaceful accom
plishment. The Presbyterians, although at first surprised and
troubled at the election of so many RoyaUsts, had thefr own way in
the earUer arrangements of the convention. The Earl of Manchester
was chosen Speaket of the Lords, and Sir Harbottle Grimstone of
the Commons.
Before entering upon business both houses observed a fast day in
frue presbyterian fashion, when Reynolds preached before the lords,
and Calamy and Baxter before the commons. For recalling the king
without imposing any resfriction upon the royal prerogative the
Presbyterians were undoubtedly responsible, and deserving of the
severest censures, as they were afterwards compelled to acknowledge.
When that pafriotic lawyer, Sfr Matthew Hale, moved the appoint
ment of a committee to consider the propriety of renewing the
propositions made to the king's father, the Presbyterians were too
cowardly or too simple to support him in opposition to the
remonstrance of General Monk. Had they then stood firmly by
their principles, and maintained the Uberties of the people as well
as the prerogatives of the king, they might have averted many
of the evils that fell upon thefr country, thefr ministers, and
themselves. The negligence or confidence of the Lancashfre Presbyterians is
apparent in the names of the persons chosen to represent their county
and boroughs in the convention. For the county were elected
Edward Stanley and Sfr Roger Bradshaw, both Episcopalians.
Liverpool was represented by WilUam Stanley and GUbert Ireland ;
Preston by Edward Rigby and Jeffrey Rushton ; Lancaster by Sfr
John Harrison and Richard Kfrkby ; Wigan by Jeffrey Shackerly
and Lord Anfrim ; CUtheroe by Sfr Ralph Assheton and John Heath ;
and Newton by Richard George and Richard Leigh. Manchester, on
the restoration of the old constitution, lost its privUege of returning
a member. Of these representatives, Sfr Ralph Assheton was the
only one who could have been expected to take any active part in
promoting the interest of the Presbyterians. Edward, the son of the
indefatigable statesman Alexander Rigby, inherited neither the prin
ciples nor the energy of his father. In these elections the influence
of the Stanleys reappears, while on the other hand it is difficult to
ascertain why the old presbyterian leaders generally retfred from the
representation. The restoration of the monarchy was speedUy determined by the
convention, but not more speedily than the Lancashfre Presbyterians
desired. In no part of the kingdom waa there a more exfravagant
outbreak of loyalty than among the people who, a few j-^eara before,
had fiercely fought for the privileges of parUament. The CathoUcs
of the county were moderate in thefr rejoicing ; the EpiscopaUans
cautious and quiet ; but the Presbyterians were wUd with exultation.
The ministers of thefr persuasion in London restrained their rejoic-

334 LANCASHIRE.
ings vrithin the limits of ministerial gra-rity and decorum, and never
forgot themselves in thefr cordial welcome of thefr returning sove
reign. But in Lancashfre their ministers forgot not only themselves,
but thefr liberties, thefr confroversies, thefr sufferings, and even their
covenant, in the Ucentiousness of thefr newly-excited loyalty.
They hated bishops, by whom they were Ukely aoon to be
governed ; but they hated Baptists more than bishops, and Quaker
ism more than prelacy. It is not pleasant to atfribute the exultation
of these good ministers to a "rindictive spfrit; but it is not easy
to find any other cause of its extravagance than the fall of the
sectaries by whom, however, they had been ¦ more frightened than
injuredi As early as Sunday, May 6, 1660, in the presence of the great
congregation which attended the afternoon serrice, Mr. Newcome
prayed for the king ; but being cautious as weU as loyal, mindful of
the past as weU as hopeful of the future, he prayed, as he tells us, ' by
periphrasis.' * However curiously he contrived his periphrasis to
protect himself from punishment if the attempt to restore the king
should faU, his periphrastic prayer was well understood, and produced
great excitement among the people, A meeting of the congregation
was convened. It was resolved that King Charles the Second should
be pubUcly proclaimed, and should be prayed for in the simple, old-
fashioned, straightforward, orthodox manner. On Saturday, May
12, the Presbyterians gathered around their favourite preacher and
crowded every part of the coUegiate church. After the singing of a
psalm, Newcome ascended the pulpit, and without employing peri
phrasis prayed for the king for about half an hour. Among other
petitions, he prayed that the joy of that great and glorious day
' might not be blemished by the intemperance of one person.' His
prayer (he had the puritan gift of power in prayer) brought a chas
tening influence over the exulting hearts of the people. His words
were not forgotten, for throughout that day they were often repeated
by his hearers, and induced the people, whatever excesses were
afterwards allowed, ' to carry thefr rejoicings very carefully,' t In
the neighbouring puritan towns, where in imitetion of Manchester
they kept the festival, they were not, I fear, so careful, as they were
not so free from accident. In Rochdale, where the foUovring Monday
was observed, the Puritans, ' by the miscarriage of thefr muskete,'
kUled thefr drummer. The puritanism of Ashton, of Stockport, of
Bolton, and of Bury, found expression for its joy, though not for its
sobriety, after the example of the people of Manchester.
Although the Presbyterians of the south-eastern towns of Lanca
shire had, in the exuberance of their joy, anticipated the twenty-fourth
of May, the day appointed by government for the general thanks
giving, they were too grateful to God, and too loyal to thefr king, to
neglect the observance of any day enjoined by authority. In Man
chester, as might have been expected, Newcome was appointed to
preach in the collegiate church. From all parts of the neighbourhood
the people crowded to hear the great preacher on the great occasion.
* Autobiography, May 6, 1660. f Autobiography, May 12, 1660.

EPISCOPACY RESTORED. 335
Amidst profound sUence he announced his text : ' And he bowed the
heart of all the men of Judah, even as the heart of one man ; so that
they sent this word unto the king, Return thou, and all thy servants.' *
The sermon produced an extraordinary impression. Its publication
was urgently requested, almost demanded, by those who heard it
and by many more who had heard of it. Newcome compUed vrith
thefr request, and published the sermon with the title ' Usurpation
defeated and David restored.' He prefixed a dedication to Sfr
George Booth, Sir Ralph Assheton, and Richard HoUand, Esq., the
presbyterian leaders of his neighbourhood. An extract from thia
sermon may show the spirit which breathed in many of the puritan
sermons which were preached in that festival time, and the preaching
of which many of the preachers Uved long enough to repent.
Referring to the usurpation, he says : ' There is a liberty which is
our birthright, and might have been maintained without riolation
of the laws of God and man.' (These words were introduced to
"vindicate the opinions and proceedings of the Presbyterians in fight
ing for the constitutional limitation of the monarchy.) ' Oh ! the
noise that has been made for the pubUc ! The administration of
justice ! The security of the good people of these nations I This
hath been cried up to be the Good Old Cause ! And the government
settled by the fundamental laws of this land, and sworn unto by us,
must be changed for the public good, when it is clear as the noon
sun that private designs and interests were sought and carried on
under these pretexts. We talk of public ease and Uberty of the
people, and of our keepers of the Uberties, whereas the people's taxes
and burthens increase aU along under this way of government, and
must necessarily do so to keep it up. And these keepers apparently
increase themselves, and, to keep their unjust acqufrements, an un
righteous settlement must be kept up over the whole nation ! The
naked truth now appears — to set up an Absalom on the throne is the
design, and this is done under the pretence of the justice he wUl do
to the people ! So we are also necessiteted to keep up the govern
ment of a free stete, as they caU it, to preserve the estates unjustly
gotten of a few men, which cannot endure the test of a righteous
settlement, to the true public good of the nation. — This the first
pretext. ' The second pretext is of piety and devotion, whereby this despe
rate, ambitious design is introduced. Absalom desfres leave of his
father that he may go to perform his vow in Hebron — a religious
serrice and piece of God's worship then in use, wherein by sacrifice
they engaged themselves to God. And he further relates the ground
of it to be the deep sense that he had of the Lord's deUverance of
him in his former troubles, that then he promised to serve the Lord.
So that it is not only the pretext of a mere vow for that time, or of
so much reUgion only as might be expressed in what accompanied a
vow, but he would make this vow not only a part of his intended
reUgiousness towards God, but an infroduction into a more strict
course than heretofore. He would thus begin and henceforward be
* 2 Samuel xlk. 14.

336 LANCASHIRE.
very sfrict and serious in the Lord's service ; and now how much
might this take vrith the people, not only to get them into his con
spfracy, but to tie them to him when they were in. They might a
Uttle startle when they heard him declare to usurp the kingdom ; but
then this would sway much "with the people. He is known to be a
great favourer of the public Uberty, and a man that we see owns the
serrice of God, and sets out reUgiously, and therefore we may the
better venture with him. He doth not declare against the temple ;
he doth not threaten to cast off the true God, and to introduce idol
atry, but on his very entrance into his work pretends to a more than
ordinary piety and devotion. It is easy in our paraUel to find out an
Absalom that had a design to aspfre ; that never showed much reli
gion till it would advance a wicked design. On the sudden he is
reUgious — the only popular man — all for devotion and the Lord's
service ! " Oh ! " say the poor people, "this cannot be murther, and
rebeUion, and usurpation, and perjury, that such men as these are
engaged in ; they are not profane, notorious sensual men, but men of
the greatest profession and of the strictest life ! " In nomine Bo-mini
incipit omne malwn ; a proverbial speech first teken up from the
pope's murtherous bulls and edicts that used to come out thus in
Christ's name ! It hath been one of the designs of the devil since
the Church was Christian to bring in his greatest persecutions under
the disguise of some great profession ; the matter else would want
accomplices to carry it on. A vile man in esteem "vrith a good design
would have but few foUowers ; and a seeming good man hath a great
advantage in his hand of betraying many to a bad business if he dare
lead in it. Men are too apt to follow men, and can hardly keep out
of error if a tolerable person undertake their conduct. It is hard for
the ¦vulgar to distinguish between good men and bad actions, as if it
must cease to be eril when such men dare engage in it ; whereas men
should judge men by their actions, and not actions by men. Oh,
what pretences of religion and godUness hath there been in the late
mischiefs that have been perpetrated ! Calling upon God ! Appeal
ing unto God to decide the controversy ! Nay, perpetrating riUany
upon impulses pretended from the Spirit of God ! Security of reli
gion ! Liberty for tender consciences ! This hath been cried up as
their Good Old Cause, that had the blood of kings and prophets at
the bottom of it ! " They build up Sion with blood, and Jerusalem
with iniquity, yet wiU they lean upon the Lord and say. Is not the
Lord among us ? None eril can come upon us ! " Nay, their un
heard-of viUanies are made the fulfiUing of thefr vows ! No return
for thefr deUverances and "rictories so proper as to rase our founda
tions, murther our king, and pull down the ministry, as no doubt it
was in design ; yet all along to advance rehgion too I None so cruel
among the Turks as a renegade Christian ; and none more Uke to
ruin religion than the apostate professor : — and much the more if in
truth an apostate and yet a professor stUl ! Absalom — we know not
what sort of a king he might have proved — was never tried ; ours
have had time enough to have showed some of their great good they
seemed to be big with ; but wo never could see a reaUty in them to

EPISCOPACY RESTORED. 337
this end to this day. But thua we agree in the second particular, in
the introduction of the design with high pretences of reUgion and
the liberty of the people,
' Thirdly, with regard to the manner and management and advance
of this design, several things are to be considered: First, that many
are drawn into the business that meant well ; the hker to be the
more resolute in the undertaking. Absalom (he knew what he
intended by his vow) meant nothing less than treason or murther to
his king and father. There were two hundred who foUowed him
from Jerusalem in the simplicity of thefr hearts, and when they were
cheated and drawn hoodwinked into this design, they helped it for
ward. And so all over Israel ! He had his agents, who were privy
to his design, and they, at the sign given, drew in the people in Uke
manner. Many a time desperate businesses are carried on under
pretences ; upon the secret design of a few, a sad unnatural civil
war is kindled, is carried on a great way : too far, if it had been the
"wUl of God ! Parties engaged declare themselves defensive ; they
protest, and vow, and covenant they had no design against his
majesty's royal person or just honour and greatness. The business
goes on ; the "rictory faUs to thefr side ! Now the Absaloms appear,
and they show what their design was ! The people went in their
simplicity, meaning no other than what was declared to them ; which
hath sufficiently appeared in that the business could not be effected
till force was put upon the Houses of Parliament, the lords clearly
dismissed, near three hundred commoners pulled out, and kept out
of the House of Commons ! Many hundreds in the nation would
never say a confederacy with them, and have suffered according to
their first declared principles and innocent intentions under these
usurpations. But yet many were drawn in (no doubt in thefr sim
plicity) to go on further "with them. If this had been known at
first to have been the design, it might in all llkeUhood have been
never advanced one step ; but they take their advantage. The
common people, and some good people of middling capacities, others
seduced and infected in thefr principles, are gotten on further into
the business ; they are decoyed and cheated into the design to f oUow
that cursed Absalom to the throne I They pretend it is the parlia
ment's cause stiU ; and the people generally make no great difference
between a parUament consisting of lords and commons freating vrith
the king and upon the matter agreed with him, and a bit of a parUa
ment, the lords removed, and the best and greatest number of the
commons forcibly excluded. And to desfroy the king too ! Alas !
many went in wickedness, and many in simplicity, meaning no hurt,
not forseeing the guile nor understanding the freachery.'
Mr. Newcome concluded his discourse with a caution which betrays
the puritan spfrit, scrupulous in ite rejoicing, and firm in its opposition
to aU practices of doubtful propriety. During the Commonwealth,
the practice of drinking healths had been so discouraged by the
Puritens that on public and even convirial occasions it was generaUy
abandoned. No sooner was the restraint loosened than even in
Puritan Manchester, amidst the pubhc rejoicings, the old custom was

338 LANCASHIRE.
re"rived, probably by the instigation of the few Episcopalians of the
town. The preacher thus uttered his protest, as he concluded his
discourse : ' Here I must needs speak of a profane and "vricked prac
tice beginning to break out, and upon this mercy too (the worst time
that can be for sin to meet so eminent a mercy in, lest it should turn
it back again), and that is, that men faU a-drinking of healths, as if
they could not testify thefr affection to thefr king unless they do
apparent dishonour unto God. For men to make thia an engine to
intemperance and excess in drunkening is very unworthy and unbe
coming. It is that which a heathen king forbade : " And the drink
ing was according to the law ; none did compel : for so the king had
appointed to aU the officers of his house, that they should do
according to every man's pleasure." (Esther i. 8.) His majesty,
we hear, measures the affections of his subjects by the prayers they
put for him, and not by the healths they drink unto him. And I
hope such as these, that are a dishonour to God and the king too,
vriU in time be made to know it. Hath the Lord given us such- a
deliverance as this, and shall we again break His holy commandments?
Was this all the burthen that lay upon us, that we had not Uberty to
drink and revel, or to blaspheme ? Or is this the way to have this
mercy continued or completed ? Oh, lay aside this wretched excess
out of obedience to God and the king too ! For, be you weU assured,
these courses vrill soon breed new judgments among us. He that
hath caused it towards evening to be light, can make our sun to set
at noon. Labour to be Christians stUl, and to carry like Christiana
under this wonderful mercy ; for the Christian hath not had the
least hand in the procuring of it ! '
This exhortation waa, 1 fear, Uttle regarded. Puritan Mancheater,
a few months afterwards, made her conduits flow with claret and her
gutters swell with strong beer. Neither the stern remonsfrance of
Richard Heyricke nor the gentle persuasion of Henry Newcome could
prevent the people, rich or poor, from drinking the health of thefr
king and (offensive as it was to them) of thefr ministers also.
The dissolution of the Commonwealth was soon followed by the
fall of the presbyterian establishment in Lancashfre, It seemed to
die [a natural death. The classical assemblies, in the course of the
ensuing summer, one after another held thefr last meetings, and
adjourned in thefr ordinary manner, apparently intending at the
regular time to resume thefr business. The minutes of the last
classical meeting in Manchester, held on August 14, 1660, have a
painful interest: ' Mr. Hulme preached according to order. Mr. Har
rison, moderator, began with prayer. Mr. ElUson returned his
instrument, affixed and subscribed ; he hath been examined in diri
nity, chronology, and ecclesiastical history. He maintained a dispute
on the question, Utrum opera sint causa justificationis vel pars aliqua
justitice nostrce coram Deo ? and was approved. Mr. ElUson to be
ordained at Flixton, on Wednesday the twenty-eighth instant. Mr.
Leigh to preach; Mr. Newcome to give the exhortetion; Mr. Walker
and Mr. Jones to pray ; and Mr. Constantine to pray at the imposition
of hands. Mr. Angier, jun., to preach at the next class ; Mr. Walker

EPISCOPACY RESTORED. 339
to be moderator. Next class to be the second Tuesday in September
next.' On the second Tuesday in September the classis held no
meeting. The end had come.
In the midst of thefr rejoicings the Presbyterians of Lancashfre
sustained the loss of one of their most eminent preachers. Edward
Gee, the minister of Eccleston, died on May 27, 1660. He had
occupied -with abiUty and wisdom many ecclesiastical offices of
importance in the county. He had been moderator of the pro-rincial
assembly, and one of the commissioners for the ejectment of ignorant
and scandalous ministers. A dexterous logician, he was ever ready
to defend the presbyterian discipline, both by his preaching and by
Ms writings. Intimately associated in long friendship and many
labours -with Charles Herle, he soon foUowed his friend to his res"t,
and was spared the hard necessity to which his surriring brethren
were subjected, of choosing between keeping his benefice and main
taining a conscience void of offence towards God and man.
Amidst the extravagant rejoicings of the Presbyterians of Lan
cashfre on the arrival of the inteUigence of the king's triumphant
entry into London on May 29, 1660, their leaders could not have
been without some anxieties and fears, as they had teken up arms
against the king's father, and had caused the death of many of thefr
Catholic and Episcopalian neighbours whose relatives were about to
resume their authority. What would the young Earl of Derby say
of the murderers of his father ? What would the relatives of Tyldes
ley and others, killed in defence of the royal cause, say of retri
bution now that their old enemies were delivered into thefr handa ?
The promised indemnity afforded them some assurance of safety, but
their assurance must have been far from complete untU the passing
of the Act which provided that, whatever might become of a few
desperate sectaries, no Presbyterian should suffer for the part he had
taken in the civil war. Still more gratifying was the inteUigence
that ten presbyterian ministers were appointed chaplains to his
majesty, by which gracious act the hopes of thefr country brethren
were raised and sustained during a time of anxious uncertainty and
transition. The twenty-third of April, 1661, the day on which Charles waa
crowned at "Westminater, was observed throughout Lancashfre vrith
magnificence and splendour unexampled even in a county remarkable
for its magnificent festivals.
In Manchester on the morning of that festive day (St. George's
day) several companies of freeholders and tradesmen, arrayed ' in
great gallantry and rich scarfs,' presented themaelvea for ' the
solemnisation of the day.' Although most of them were Presbyte
rians and had been ParUamentarians, they forgot or concealed thefr
old resentments, and submitted themselves to the command of the
two principal RoyaUsts of the town, John Byron and Nicholas Mos
ley. Between thefr two companies as they marched to church after
the banner of royalty, was a procession of young boys, chUdren of
the best families of the town, ' about the age of seven years, all
clothed in white stuff, plumes of feathers in thefr hata, blue scarfs.

340 LANCASHIRE.
armed vrith little swords hanging in black belte, and short pikea on.
thefr shoulders.' In the rear of Mosley's company was a procession
of young gentlemen ' about twelve years of age, with muskets and
pikes, drums beating and colours flying.' All, both men and boys,
being drawn up in the churchyard, laid down thefr arms, and so-
passed into the church to hear the sermon ; ' at which time there was
such a concourse of people . . . , the like was never seen in this nor
any other place.'* I may venture to add, and such a sermon was
preached, ' the Uke was never heard in this or any other ' church.
The preacher was Warden Heyricke. The infirmities of age were
creeping over him, but on that great occasion he seemed to have
recovered the "rigour, the earnestness, and the impassioned eloquence
of his earUer days. Many things combined to induce him to exert
himself to the utmost in one of the most exciting serrices in which
he had ever engaged. In that church whose walla had often
resounded -with his fierce denunciations of popery, prelacy, and arbi
trary power, where he had with intense earnestness entreated his
hearers to subscribe the Solemn League and Covenant, where he had
encouraged the to"wnspeople to arm in defence of thefr waUs against
the assault of the RoyaUsts, where he had pleaded with tears for the
sufferers in the Bolton massacre, and incited his congregation to
efforts of unexampled UberaUty in the disfress of the civil war, where
he had, at the peril of his liberty and life, denounced CromweU as a
wicked usurper, there, in the church he so much loved, he stood
before an immense audience, and announced hia text : ' And he
BEOUGHT FOETH THE KING'S SON, AND PUT THE CEOWN DPON HIM, AND
GAVE HIM THE TESTIMONY ; AND THET MADE HIM KING, AND ANOINTED
HIM; AND THET CLAPPED TH13IE HANDS, AND SAID, GOD SAVE THE KING.'f
They who know what the warden waa in his youth, can imagine
how, as the spirit of former days came over him, he yielded to the
various emotions of that great occasion. Rejoicing in the restoration
of monarchy, proud of the conduct of his own party, grateful for the
recovery of his office, and exulting in the fall of the sectaries, he could
not refrain from expressing some fear of the intentions of the new
government, and some censure of ita ungrateful treatment of the
Presbyterians. In a strange and abrupt fransition from the weU-
connected sentences of his sermon, he exclaimed, ' A crown falling
into a river, one divea for it, and, ha~ving recovered it, sete it upon
his head, and swims to the land "vrith it. The king tekes his crown,
rewards the man, but cuta off his head.' These ambiguous words
could mean notliing else than an expression of disapproval of the
king's conduct towards the Presbyterians. Like his friend Newcome
on a previous occasion, he solemnly charged the people not to pro
fane the auapicioua day by the drinking of healtha to any one, not
even to the king'. ' The Jew a shouted God save the king, but they
did not drink his health.' ' Even great Ahasuerus, the heathen king,
* Letter from a person present, cited by Hibbert in History of the Collegiate
Church, vol, i. p, 350. t 2 Kings, xi. 12.

EPISCOPACY RESTORED. 341
in his great festival, expressly forbade it, nor hath the Church of
God any such custom.' He concluded vrith the foUowing exhorta
tion : ' Be exhorted on the day of the king's coronation to praise
God, to give God the glory and honour of it. Bless God that we
have a king. The shout of a king is a joyful shout. Better any
thing than an anarchy ; better any one a king than every one a king.
I remember the cry of the beasts in the fable, when they were in
consultation to submit themselves to the Uon as to their king. Some
alleged he would do what he pleased, upon which they all cried, Better
one Uon do so, than all the bears, and wolves, and vrild beasts of the
forest. Secondly, bless God that our king is not by election but by
succession; no invader, no usurper, no conqueror, no alien or stranger;
not one whose speech we understand not ; but a king lineally de
scended from kings of the race royal for many hundreds of years,
who hath an undoubted right to be king. Blessed art thou, 0 land,
when thy king is the son of nobles, the son of kings. Thfrdly, bless
God that our king is peaceably restored to us ; that the people
, generally and universaUy receive him for king. There were great
thoughts of heart because of the dirision of kings and subjects. It
was given out concerning Queen Elizabeth, that when she died clouds
of blood did hang in the afr ; but God brought in King James peace
ably, and made him a peacemaker. It was above our faith, above
our hopes ; yet in duty we prayed that our king might peaceably be
restored to us. It is observed no less than mfraculous, when God
brought his people Israel out of Egypt, that no dog opened his mouth;
it was in the dark time of night, there was great noise and tumult,
yet no dog barked when the king was restored to us ! It was as it
was in heaven for a time — great silence ; all men's mouths were
stopped, and the king peaceably and joyfully restored I Fourthly,
Ibless God that we have not only a king, but a race and succession of
kings ! God preserved the royal famUy as the three chUdren in the
fiery furnace, so that no hair of their head was singed. You see
what great cause we have to praise God : Not unto us, 0 Lord, not
unto us, but unto Thy name be the glory. Not by might, not by
;power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts.' . . . ' They
praised the king. Give then the praises due unto him ! Praise him
for his in"rincible patience and forbearance ! Praise him for his act
of indemnity and pardon I Praise him for restoring the rights, the
Uberties of the Church ! Praise him for esteblishing truth and judg
ment ! Never had king greater provocation, greater temptation ; yet
he hath conquered himself, which is more than if, vrith Alexander,
he had conquered the whole world. He is even more than a con-
¦ queror — a triumpher ; not over men's bodies, but over thefr hearts,
their souls, their spirits ! Shout and cry aloud, and let heaven and
earth echo it back again, God save the king ! Let the king live !
God save the king ! they are the last words of my text, and they
shall be the last of my sermon ; and let all the people shout it out
"vrith a loud shout — God save the king ! '
According to the narrative written on the occasion of these loyal
feati"rities, 'After sermon, from the church marched in order the

342 LANCASHIRE.
boronghreeve, constables, and the rest of the burgesses of the town
not then in arms, accompanied by Sir Ralph Assheton, knight and
baronet, and divers neighbouring gentlemen of quaUty, together vrith
the said warden and fellows of the said college, and divers other
ministers, with- t^Jjc- taTj^L!^t.'.jeic»,jp]|gying before them upon loud
instr'uments, through the streets "to the cross, and so forward to the
conduit, officers and soldiers in their order. The gentlemen and
officers then drank his majesty's health in claret running forth at
three streams at once out of the said conduit, which was answered
fi'om the soldiers by a great volley of shot, and many great shouts,
saying, God save the king ! which being ended, the gentry and
ministers went to dinner, attended with the officers, and music of
the town, the auxiliaries dining at the same place. During the time
of dinner, and until after sunset, the said conduit did run "with pure
claret, which was freely drunk by all that could, for the crowd came
so near the same.
' After an hour, or something more, spent in dinner, the drums
did beat, and the soldiers marched into the field again, giving three
great voUies, and making the country therewith to echo ; and from
thence through several streets, bringing the aforesaid Major Byron
to his own house, where, making an halt, the major began hia
majesty's health in sack to the officers ; the soldiers standing in rank
and file, who likewise drank the same, and echoed it "with several
vollies and acclamations of joy. So from the major's house round
about Salford, firing and shouting all along, and at the door of the
major's ensign's house another halt was made, and the companies
were drawn up in single fUe around the street, and freely entertained
vrith sack and claret. Returning thanks with voUies of shot and
great shouts, they marched back into the town, and, after some few
vollies and shouts were taken up with rain, and thereby prevented
from marching. Bonfires being in every street, the bells continued
ringing night and day, some fireworks running upon cords the length
of one hundred yards, and so back again, vrith crackers in the air ;
which sport continued till almost midnight. But the spectators
were much disappointed by the rain, aU the day being very clear and
glorious. ' Bonfires were burning above a week ; unto which, suffer me t*
add these ensuing lines : that after Captain Mosley had received
inteUigence of the joyful, glorious, and prosperous carrying on of the
day in London, without prejudice in that concourse (being honoured
"with the brightness of the sun unto which day the heavens gave-
testimony of thefr assent), he did, upon the first of May, march his
company into the field, and there, in the middle of them, being drawn
round, made a learned speech, declaring the goodness of God to this
nation in the happy restoring his majesty to his just right and privi
lege beyond all expectations of man ; using argumenta of obedience
and grounda of thanks for hia majesty's preservation, and praying-
for hia majesty's long and happy reign over these nations. All the
people then cried, God save the king ! His speech was not long,
only I say he made a speech.

EPISCOPACY RESTORED. 343
' This ended, the company as before, with the young boys, marched
into the town, and were ciriUy entertained by Dr. Haworth and
others of thefr mark, and being drawn up at the cross and there
about, all bareheaded, drank his majesty's health in sack and claret,
at the charge of Mr. Halliwell, giving a volley and shout. Then
marching through several streets, stUl firing and rejoicing until the
evening, they lodged their colours ; discharging the company untU
the 29th of May instent, being his majesty's birthday, and the day
of his glorious return to "Wliitehall, which is intended with thankful
ness and all manner of rejoicing to be observed.'
Heyricke's loyal sermon, with an epistle dedicatory signed by six
leading RoyaUsts of the town, was printed apparently without hia
authority.* WhUe it contained much which greatly pleased the
Royalists and induced them to print it, there was also in it quite as
much which probably Heyricke soon afterward wished he had never
preached. But at the time the Presbyterians had not recovered from
the ill effects of thefr atrange paroxysm of loyalty.
Of the extraordinary texts which the presbyterian ministers pre
fixed to thefr loyal efiiisions, none was more extraordinary than that
of Nathaniel Heywood, the vicar of Ormskfrk. Haring been one
of the king's preachers who received an annual grant of 401. for
preaching in the CathoUc parts of the county, and had hitherto
retained it through all the changes of government, he lost his
appointment at the restoration. On the thanksgiving day he selected
for his text the words, ' Mephibosheth said unto the king. Yea, let
him take aU, forasmuch as my lord the king is come again in peace
nnto his own house.' f He was reminded by one of his parishioners
both of his text and of his exfravagantiy loyal sermon, when, on the
passing of the Act of Uniformify, ' the king took aU,' not only his
annual grant, but his parsonage, glebe, tithes, church, and graveyard.
His uncomplaining resignation to his heavy losa of all things fur
nished a beautiful Ulustration of his loyal sermon.
Some of the episcopal clergy were quite as forward as thefr pres
byterian neighbours in expressing thefr political feelings by the texte
they chose and the sermons they preached. Mr. Johnson, who had
lost his feUowship in the collegiate church for refusing to take the
engagement, preached his first sermon after the recovery of his
benefice from the words, ' The ploughera ploughed upon my back :
they made long thefr fnrrows. The Lord is righteous : He hath cut
asunder the cords of the wicked.' J In hia discourse, the preacher,
who I doubt not had been ill treated, took occaaion not only to assert
the goodness of his own cause, but to exult over those who had taken
the opposite side in the late controversy as over bad men punished
for thefr rebelUon. As the presbyterian ministera with whom he was
associated had at that time a legal title to thefr benefices, and con
ducted themselves with exemplary loyalty, his intemperate proceed-
¦* This discourse is extremely scarce. A copy exists in the British Museum,
from which were taken the extracts that appear in Hibbert's History of the Col.
legiate Church. Even the Chetham Library is destitute of a copy-
t 2 Samuel, xix. 30. J Psalm cxxix. 3, 4.

344 LANCASHIRE.
ings gave offence to moderate men of all parties. Complaining of
persecution, he gathered around him a party of High Churchmen,
whose influence seems to have grown, especiaUy by the adhesion of
the young men of wealth and fashion, until Manchester entirely
changed its political and religious character. By a strange and
sudden revulsion the puritan town of 1660 became in a few years one
of the most Jacobite towns of England. The sermon of the restored
fellow supplied the young Tories of the town with the motto which
they used on all public occasions, Vwicit qui patitur.
No sooner had the restoration of the monarchy been securely
accompUshed than the Presbyterians became sensible of their mistake,
by obserring the ascendency and feeling the resentment of their
implacable enemies. The bishops who had recovered thefr revenues
and the courtiers who had suffered for thefr loyalty were incessant
in thefr demands to compensate their losses and to inflict just
punishment upon the rebels. Although the Presbyterians would not
acknowledge that they had made any mistake in promoting the
unconditional restoration of the king, for thefr loyalty had marvellous
power of endurance, they must have felt, if they would not say so,
that they ought to have taken some precaution, whUe it was in thefr
power, to protect thefr liberty and religion. They had soon to suffer
severely for putting confidence in princes.
Thefr first troubles, however, came neither from prelates nor from
courtiers, but from ' certain lewd fellows of the baser sort,' who in
many places ' gathered a company and set aU the city in an uproar.'
The morris-dancers, the pipers and fiddlers, the bear-wards, the
wrestlers, the rush-bearers, and the players, came forth in extraor
dinary gaiefy and strength, as if they had been refreshed by their
long repose. The restraint which puritanism had imposed upon
boisterous mirth and Sunday sports ha"ring suddenly yielded to the
popular excitement, the people of Lancashire were determined to
enjoy their newly acqufred liberty and obtain some compensation for
the gra"rity and dulness of their last twelve summers. The month
of May, associated with the restoration as weU as vrith the nativity
of the king, more than recovered its former merriment and festivity.
Maypoles, the old standards of the enemy, were never before so
numerous, so gaUy adorned, or surrounded by so great crowds of
noisy d^ancers. In many instances the ministera were insulted, as if
in revenge for the rigid and ungracious exercise of the power which
they had long possessed. People would be merry at the expense of
those who had compelled them to refrain from the sports of thefr
boyhood. The old times had returned, and the merry-makers
resolved to invest them with more than thefr old honours. The
Maypole was sometimes raised opposite to the parsonage, or between
it and the church, on purpose to annoy the puritan preacher. The
morris-dancers sometimes danced before or behind him, when on
Sunday he was going to church or returning from it. Loose people
vvent down upon their knees as a preacher passed, drank the king's
health, and asked the parson to drink it with them.* Adam Mar-
* ' May 27, 1660. We found Maypoles in abundance. I saw a morris-dance.

EPISCOPACY RESTORED. 345
tindale says : ' The rabble of profane youths, and aome doting old
fools that took thefr part, were encouraged to affront me by setting
np a Maypole on my way to church.' Adam preached against the
pole, and told ' the doting fools ' that ' learned men were of opinion
that a Maypole was a relic of the shameful worship of the strumpet
Flora.' This sermon ' so nettled ' the fools that they asked Mr.
Brooks of Congleton to preach on the next Sunday. He came, says
Adam, and obserring the Maypole, 'called them by most opprobrious
names, as the scum, rabble, and rife-rafe of the parish, insomuch
that my words were smooth as oil in comparison of his, so fuU of
salt and vinegar.'
Adam's wife worked more effectually vrith her saw than Adam
with his sermon. She cut down the pole in the night, ' which made
them almost mad.' They pieced it vrith another pole, 'but it was
such an ugly thing, so rough and crooked, that it proclaimed the
folly and poverty of them that set it up.' *
In these troubles, and even in the greater that foUowed, the puritan
ministers had the solace of thefr own amusements. They comforted
themselves vrith their shuffleboard. Thefr boys at Shrovetide had a
grand ' cocking ' in honour of the king. The foUowing entries in
Newcome's ' Diary ' of this time show that he and his friends were
not ' swallowed up with overmuch sorrow.' ' I was at billiards vrith
Mr. Heyricke and Mr. Holbrooke,' the presbyterian minister of
Salford. 'After dinner I wasfetched out to the biUiards.' 'Iwassent
for to Mr Poole's for the biUiards.' These bilUard-players might
have looked a little more pleasantly upon Maypoles and morris-
dancers. But greater troubles than Maypoles and morris-dancers aoon came
upon the Presbyterians. ParUament enacted that in aU instances in
which a clergyman had been ejected whUe the royal supremacy was
suspended, he might immediately recover possession of his benefice.
Of this enactment the Puritans had no good reason to complain.
The EpiscopaUans who had been illegally ejected had certeinly a jnst
claim to recover thefr homes, whatever may have been the conse
quences to thefr successors. It is difficult to explain how, of the
great number who for one cause or another had been ejected, com
paratively few claimed , restoration. Baxter says, ' almost all the
Welsh clergy were ejected.' It has been asked, if they were, what
became of the sur"rivors at the restoration ? My answer is that, as
I find in Lancashfre, so I doubt not it was everywhere else, many
who were ejected on one occasion were restored on another, or found
which I had not seen for twenty years before. It is a sad sign ; the hearts of the
people are poorly employed when they can play the fool as they do.' — Newcome's
Autobiography. * Life of Martindale, p. 157. In some other counties, ministers were treated
more ignominiously than in Lancashire. Newcome notices, in his Diary, 'a sad
story about a play wherein Mr. Baxter and other divines were acted. ' He refers
to the revival of Ben Johnson's comedy of Bartholomew Fair, which, says Pepys,
' had not been acted for forty years, it being so satirical against the Puritans.' It
is said that on its revival 'the Rabbi Bury was dressed to resemble Richard Baxter.'
Newcome's Diary, p. 7 ; Note by Heywood.

346 LANCASHIRE.
thefr way into another parish. Several, for instance, who had been
ejected for refusing the covenant, obtained induction into vacant
churches by favour of Cromwell's triers, especiaUy after the covenant
had faUen into disrepute vrith the governing powers.*
The Presbyterians acquiesced in the proposal, so far as it referred
to those who had been ejected on political or ecclesiastical grounds,
but they sfrove hard to exclude from its benefit aU who had been
expeUed as ignorant or scandalous. Although the greater number
of the excluded clergy were either incompetent or immoral, yet to
continue on that ground thefr exclusion would have been to acknow
ledge the authority of the courts or commissions by which they had
been tried and condemned. One inducement which the parUamentary
friends of the Presbyterians had to pass the Act was, that it gave
validity to the titles of aU ministers for whose benefices there was no
prior claimant.
Heyricke's position was peculiar, and caused his friends some
anxiety. He had been warden before the breaking out of the war,
and he had obtained his office, as he asserted, by a payment made to
the king in purchase of it for life. But although he had lost his
office, he had not been ejected by either parUament or protector.
The collegiate charter had been violated, and the college dissolved.
It was said to be within the king's prerogative to renew the charter
and restore the coUege on what conditions he pleased. In the uncer
tainty of the law, there were not wanting some to remind the king
that Heyricke had been a "riolent enemy of his father ; that he had
done everything short of taking arms againat the royal cause ; that
if he had promoted the restoration, he had done so because he had
quarreUed with the usurpers ; and that in restoring the coUege the
king had an opportunity of conferring the vacant benefice upon
some deserving RoyaUst. Such a man was easUy found. One Dr.
WooUey had considerable influence at court ; his loyalty was beyond
suspicion; he had not the sUghtest taint of puritanism; he was
orthodox in aU things. Poasibly, like Heyricke's father, he had
some money to spare, and if he had, he had good reason to purchase,
for the office would be very lucrative through the fines for rene"wing
the leases. Dr. WooUey waa nominated ; but Heyricke was not to
be quietly ejected from a position he loved so weU, and the infiuence
and dignity of which he had contrived to retein through so many
changes. Even whUe the charter was in abeyance, he was generally
acknowledged in Manchester as the rightful warden. He went to
London and pleaded his own cause ; he urged that he had lost his
office by the act of the usurpers as certainly aa by their act the late
king had loat hia crown ; he engaged the powerful influence of Sir
George Booth, whom the king'a ministers were unwiUing to offend
* Of twelve clergymen who were ejected at various times from benefices in
Lancashire, two recovered their Uvings at the Restoration ; two were previously
restored by CromweU's triers and were sad troublers of the Presbyterians ; two
obtained higher preferment and eventually became bishops ; three had died, and
one had gone abroad. Of the other two I can discover no traces. See the Lanca
shire names in Walker's Sufferings of the Lancashire Clergy.

EPISCOPACY RESTORED. 347
SO soon after the great serrice which he had rendered to royalty.
He pleaded that cathedral dignitaries had been restored where the
chapters had been not more illegally dissolved than his own college.
The king, although at first determined to support WooUey, was com
pelled to yield, and Heyricke returned to Manchester to resume the
office of warden of the collegiate church.*
With Newcome the result was different. Aa the coUege had been
dissolved before he was invited to Manchester, he had never been
installed as a fellow, and therefore could not estabUsh his claim to an
office which he had never held. He had been only a stipendiary
preacher, whose office waa superseded by the restoration of the regular
staff of clergymen. It waa pleaded in his favour that he had dis
charged the duties, although he had not received the emoluments, of"
a fellowship ; that of the four feUowships, three were vacant, and
that according to the spirit, if not the letter of the Act, he had a
good claim to fiU one of the vacancies. Newcome, unlike Heyricke
who acted vrith Uttle consideration, considered a long whUe before he
acted. While he was considering what he should do, and what
friends he should engage, and what he should write to Sfr George
Booth, and what sort of a petition he should procure from the
townsmen, 'shortly it came to pass that aU the fellowships were
snapped up, and I was ousted of my place.' f With Heyricke as
warden were installed the four fellows, Johnson, Western, Mosley,
and Birch.
The people of Manchester were sorely disappointed vrith the failure-
of thefr application to secure a fellowship for thefr favourite preacher.
On Friday, September 21, at thefr request he preached what he
feared would be his last sermon in thefr church. An immense crowd
filled the spacious edifice, ' Hugely they were affected, and likely ta
have spoiled me when I first went into the pulpit by the passion
they showed at the sight of me,' ' The steward, in the evening, and
some of the head burgesses came to me, and gave me forty shilUngs
for my sermon,' Two days after they returned the sermon in a
printed form, which was eagerly purchased and read by the towns
people. The excitement was such that the new fellows were glad to
make a compromise, which would gratify the people and excuse
thefr own indolence or incompetency. Indisposed to preach, they
¦* Dr, Hibbert and other writers following him have supposed that the attempt
to promote Dr, Woolley occurred on the passing of the Act of Uniformity, Hence
a strange mistake has widely prevaUed, that Heyricke refused to conform, and re
tained his place in defiance of the requirements of the Act, and the authority of
the king. It is distinctly stated in the Diai-y of Newcome that the attempt to
introduce WooUey into the place of Heyricke was made at the Restoration. W&
shaU hereafter see Heyricke in his old age recanting the profession of his long Ufe.
So prevalent, however, is the misunderstanding, that Heyricke has been frequently
caUed the nonconforming Warden of Manchester.
+ Autobiography, July 20, 1660. Secretary Morris undertook the business for
Newcome, and promised him an order to fill the vacancy, for which his fees
amounted to 23/., although 'it signified nothing and was not worth one penny.'
The crafty secretary knew very weU there was no vacancy, as the appointments
had been previously made.

348 LANCASHIRE.
were wUUng that Newcome should be engaged as a sort of curate or
chaplain until more satisfactory arrangements could be made. Hia
remuneration waa miserably inadequate, and grudgingly paid by
these rapacious Churchmen, who gained great profits by the renewal
of the leases. Newcome, however, thankfriJLly accepted the proposal.
He loringly served a loring people, and though always poor waa
alwaya contented and grateful in his poverty.
So far as I can ascertain, the only incumbents in Lancashire who,
in 1660, were ejected to make way for Royalists claiming thefr
benefices, were Mr. Joseph Thompson, the rector of Sephton, and
Mr. Robert Eaton, the vicar of Walton. The latter received the
appointment of chaplain to Sir George Booth on his elevation to the
peerage. In the interval between the Restoration and the passing of the
Act of Uniformity, the government of the Church was very unsettled,
and its services were very far from uniform. The liturgy was
restored by royal authority ; but the Presbyterians had the king's
promise of toleration in the exercise of thefr ministry. Many of thefr
leaders retained thefr benefices, although they were avowed noncon
formists in thefr manner of conducting public worship. Whether to
allow the irregularities of the nonconformist clergy or to prohibit
them was a perplexing question, the solution of which involved very
serious consequences. Parliament must decide what should be done,
and until its decision was made it was difficult to prevent any man
from doing 'that which was right in his own eyes.' The restored
clergy brought with them their old prayer books, and in many in
stances vrith a consequential air and tone announced their purpose
of conducting public worship in the manner approved by royal
authority. The Presbyterians generally observed the order of the
Westminster directory, although some of them made considerable
use of the Book of Common Prayer. Where the minister and people
¦acted in harmony, there was Uttle danger of the interference of
sfrangers, unless a busy magistrate or pragmatical lawyer showed
his loyalty or his self-importance by insisting upon exact conformity
¦vrith the ritual. Churchwardens were sometimes troublesome, and
old sinners, who had some grudge against a minister for the exercise
-of discipline, would occasionally retaliate by complaining of his irre
gularity in discharging his public duties. Mr. Thomas JolUe, the
minister of Altham, was cited at the instigation of a neighbouring
magistrate to appear in the ecclesiastical court of Chester, where he
was suspended for refusing the Book of Common Prayer, although
the court, as if not satisfied with the legality of its own proceedings,
did not venture to publish his suspension. Prohibited from preaching,
he was silenced one week sooner than he would have been ejected
by the Act of Uniformity.*
* "Vexatious persecutions of this sort were not infrequent in many parts of the
¦country. The chief man of Oliver Heywood's chapelry brought the prayer book
¦and laid it upon the cushion of the pulpit as the minister was commencing the
¦service. Mr. Heywood quietly laid it upon ' the lower pulpit,' and ' was wonder-

EPISCOPACY RESTORED. 349"
"What the Presbyterians expected to gain from the restored
monarchy it is not easy to say, for thefr expectations must have fiuc-
tuated with the vicissitudes of every day. At first they had reason
to expect great things from the promises of the king, the influence
of their leaders in both houses of parliament, and the acknowledged
services which they had rendered to the cause of royalty. But they
soon observed that their worst enemies were raised to the chief
offices of authority, that the king was subjected to the infiuence of
men whom they utterly distrusted, that Prelatists and even Papiste^
had claims for good serrice quite as strong as thefr own, and that
some of the new bishops, aa Sheldon and Morley, were as bitterly
opposed to puritanism, though for different reasons, as had ever been
Laud himself.
The new parUament was the cause of more serious apprehensions.
It was summoned to meet on May 8, 1661, and to it was entrusted
the settlement of ecclesiastical affafrs. Considering the number and
influence of the Presbyterians in the counfry, it may seem difficult to
account for the great preponderance of the High Church party as it
appeared in the result of the elections. The courtiers had employed
all thefr influence "with no small skUl and management in securing-
the return of their most zealous adherents. Churchmen exerted
themaelves, and in the reaction the stream of popular favour flowed
everywhere aa they directed it. Discouraged by the cry of disloyalty
which was raised wherever they opposed the candidates of the court,
the Presbyterians made in many places no effort to support thefr
own friends. The Independents and other sectaries, insulted as Re
pubUcans and regicides, had lost much of their power, and scarcely
dared to use tlie little which they retained. A house of commons
was retumed ready to carry any measures which the court or bishops
might recommend, and to humUiate the Presbyterians by treating
them as prostrate enemies of the Church and State. The Noncon
formists found more consideration and tolerance in the house of peers
than in the house of the people.
I pass, however, as having only a remote connection with Lanca
shire, the repeated attempts of the London Presbyterians to obtain
some modifications of the public serrice, the plausible and courteous
behariour of the king, by whom thefr hopes were susteined, and the
opposition to their proposals made by Clarendon and the prelates,
until eventuaUy they were left to the tender mercies of the parUa
ment, whose tender mercies were cruelty. In the duU and wearisome
conferences of the Savoy, happUy for me and my readers, no Lanca
shire divine took any part.'*
Whatever the Presbyterians may have expected, the Independents
fuUy assisted that day in prayer so that many were amazed.' For this refusal of
the prayer book he was cited by a troublesome attorney before the consistorial
court of York, and suspended, apparently in a very irregular and arbitrary manner,
from the exercise of his ministry.
* The Presbyterians engaged in the conference requested to be aUowed to-
consult their country brethren, but this reasonable request was peremptorUy
refused.

350 LANCASHIRE,
could have had no hope of being comprehended in the Church,
They ventured to solicit nothing more than the toleration of thefr
churches. When their petition was presented to the king, they were
aUowed to plead their own cause. The bishops vrisely kept silence
and allowed the Presbyterians to make thefr objections. Baxter
said, ' It would lead to a toleration of Papists and Socinians.' The
king angrUy repUed, ' The Presbyterians cared for none but them
selves.' * We may easUy understand why the king, secretly vrishing
to tolerate the Papists, allowed the Independents to plead for tolera
tion, and rebuked the intolerance of the Presbyterians.
The clergy of Lancashfre were again brought under episcopal rule
by the consecration of the celebrated Brian Walton as Bishop of
Chester. On account of his infirmities he was not able, even if he
had been wiUing, to do much for the restoration of episcopal disci
pUne in his extensive diocese. Complaints of frregularities in the
discharge of clerical duty were made by some of the prelatical party,
but as he had grown irritable and impatient, it was alwaya uncertain
whether he would express his displeasure with those who made the
complaint or those of whom it was made. He occasionaUy scolded
and even threatened, but he did little else for the correction or
punishment of nonconformity. He died in the first year of his epis
copate, and Dr. Fearne, his successor, Uved to occupy his place only
five weeks.
Without episcopal interference the cathedral service was aoon
restored in the coUegiate church of Manchester. It may seem strange
that it should be so easily restored in the stronghold of Puritanism,
which Manchester had been under the ministry of Bourne, Heyricke,
HolUngworth, and Newcome. But the change is easily explained.
On the restoration of the collegiate estabUshment, the ordering of
the service belonged to the warden and feUows. The four new
fellows were zealous Churchmen, who by their unanimity overruled
the two votes claimed by the warden. Besides, Warden Heyricke,
though a Presbyterian, approved of the Book of Common Prayer,
loved solemnity, perhaps magnificence in worship, and enjoyed the
chant of the choristers and the peal of the organ. Even Newcome
speaks temperately of the restored serrices : ' November 28, 1660.
The chofr serrice began at Manchester. My thoughts of it were
these. They tell us they set candles upon the altar to mind us of the
persecution of former times, when all serrice was done by candles,
and so the sight of them may induce us to bless God that now we do
not need them. So this serrice may mind us what pitiful serrice
hath been used, and is stiU doated upon by many, and bless God
that ever we knew what better service meant.' Candles on the alter
accompUsh very good serrice in a very strange way, if they induce
us to thank God that we do not want them.
Of the next Bishop of Chester, Dr. George HaU, no one could
complain for remissness or undue lenity in the exercise of discipUne,
especiaUy when Nonconformiata were concerned. Of him Adam
* Neal, vol. u. p. 564.

EPISCOPACY RESTORED. 351
Martindale says : ' "What favour could I expect, or rather what
"riolent proceedings might I not expect, from a prelate who preached
so violently against ns, was so brisk with his sigrdfioavits, and was
linked so fast in his interests to the patron ? ' * The son of the
celebrated Bishop HaU of Norvrich, vrithout a particle of his con
templative father's sweetness, he seems to have regarded it as a fiUal
duty to retaliate and avenge the wrongs of his persecuted sire upon
aU Presbyterians who came under his power. As he was elevated
to the bishopric of Chester in May 1662,. he was responsible for the
manner in which the Act of Uniformity was enforced in Lancashire.
¦* Life, ch. vi. sect, xviii.

CHAPTL^SVT. -' EXCLUSION.
The Act of Uniformity received the royal assent on May 19, 1662.
It required that ' every parson, vicar, or other minister whatsoever,'
should, before the feast of St. Bartholomew, ' openly and publicly
before the congregation assembled for reUgious worship declare hia
unfeigned assent and consent to aU and everything contained in, and
prescribed by, the book entitled the Book of Common Prayer, and
administration of the Sacramente, and other rites and ceremonies
according to the use of the Church of England ; ' that ' it was not
lawful on any pretext whatever to take up arms against the king ; '
that ' there is no obligation upon any person from the oath commonly
called the Solemn League and Covenant ; ' that ' the same is itself an
unlawful oath.' It further enacted that ' no person should be capable
of any benefice, or presume to consecrate or administer the Holy
Sacrament, before he be ordained a priest by episcopal ordination.'
AU ministers who did not comply vrith the requfrements of the Act
were ipso facto deprived of thefr benefices, and if they officiated in any
church, even as lecturers or occasional preachers, they were subject
to heavy fines and imprisonment.
Nothing could have been devised more offensive or humUiating to
the puritan ministers. They had pubUcly to profess thefr assent
and consent to many things from which they had avowed their dis
sent, and so to contradict thefr public professions before thefr o-wn
people. Most of the older men had taken the covenant, which they
were required publicly to declare to be an unlawful oath, and most
of the younger had received presbyterian ordination, which they
were compeUed to repudiate. By complying -with the requfremente
of the Act they would not only have done riolence to thefr own con
sciences, but have done so in the presence of many who must have
known the falsehood of thefr declarations ; and thus they would have
lost not only their self-respect, but the respect of their people. The
Act was eridentiy intended to dishonour the puritan ministers, or to
drive them out of the Church. In a few instances it accompUshed
the former purpose ; in a great many, the latter.
"Wliat the ejected ministers were, some of the best, vrisest, most
patriotic men of their time have told us. The testimony of Locke
is well known and is especially important, as few men had better
opportunity of forming an unprejudiced and accurate estimate of
their character. He did not accept thefr theology ; he was not on
terms of intimate friendship with many of them ; to his cahn and
contemplative mind thefr fervent and unreasoning excitement must
have been distasteful ; but he says, ' Bartholomew day was fatal to

EXCLUSION. 353
our Church and religion in throvring out a very great number of
worthy, learned, pious, and orthodox dirines, who could not come up
to some things in the Act of Uniformity.'
Although the eulogium of Dr. John Taylor haa been often cited,
it may be here appropriately introduced on account of its reference
to the sufferers of Lancaahfre : ' The principles and worship of Dis
senters are not formed upon such slight foundations as the unlearned
and thoughtless may imagine. They were thoroughly considered
and judiciously reduced to the standard of Scripture and the writings
of antiquity by a great number of men of learning and integrity ; I
mean the Bartholomew divines, or the ministers ejected in the year
1662, men prepared to lose all, and to suffer martyrdom itself, and
who actually resigned their livings, which vrith most of them were,
under God, aU that they and thefr famUies had to subsist upon,
rather than sin against God, and desert the cause of ciril and reU
gious liberty ; which, together with serious reUgion, would, 1 am
persuaded, have sunk to a very low ebb in the nation had it not been
for the bold and noble stand these worthies made against imposition
upon conscience, profaneness, and arbitrary power. They had the
best education England could afford ; most of them were exceUent
scholars, judicious divines, pious, faithful, and laborious ministers ;
of great zeal for God and religion ; undaunted and courageous in
their Master's work ; keeping close to thefr people in the worst of
times ; diligent in thefr studies : solid, affectionate, powerful, Uvely,
awakening preachers ; aiming at the advancement of real vital reU
gion in the hearts and Uves of men, which, it cannot be denied,
flourished greatly wherever they could influence. Particularly, they
were men of great devotion and eminent abiUties in prayer, uttered,
as God enabled them, from the abundance of thefr hearts and
affections ; men of divine eloquence in pleading at the throne of
grace, raising and melting the affections of thefr hearers, and being
happily instrumental in transfusing into their souls the same spirit
and heavenly gift. And this was the ground of all their other
quaUfications ; they were exceUent men, because excellent, instant,
and fervent in prayer. Such were the fathers, the first founders of
the dissenting interest. And you here in Lancashire had a large
share of these burning shining lights. Those who knew them not
might despise them, but your forefathers, vriser and less prejudiced,
esteemed, them highly in love for thefr work's sake. You were once
happy in your Newcomes, your Jollies, your Heywoods, &o., who
left aU to foUow Christ ; but Providence cared for them, and they
had great comfort in their ministerial services. The presence and
blessing of God appeared in thefr assembUes, and attended their
labours. How many were converted and built up in godUness and
sobriety by thefr prayers, pains, doctrine, and conversation ! How
many days, on particular occasions, were set apart and spent in warm
addresses to the throne of grace, and how much to the comfort of
those who joined in them ! But now, alas ! we are pursuing mea
sures which have a manifest tendency to extinguish the light which
they kindled, to damp the spirit which they enUvened, and to dissi-
a1

354 LANCASHIRE.
pate and dissolve the societies which they raised and formed ! Let
my soul for ever be "with the souls of these men ! '*
Of the two thousand ejected or silenced ministers, nearly a hundred
resided in Lancashire. Of these some were only ' expectants ' of the
ministry. As they had neither subscribed the covenant, nor received
presbyterian ordination, they might have conformed vrithout subject
ing themselves to the dishonour of repudiating thefr own professions,
which, it has been said by thefr enemies, deterred thefr fathers and
elder brethren from complying vrith the requfrements of the Act.
We cannot but mention with respect these conscientious youths, who
were disqualified by thefr nonconformity from exercising thefr
minisfry, when they might, in the difficulty of providing ministers
for the numerous vacancies, have easily obtained by conforming
some of the richest benefices of the country. Two of the noncon
forming ' expectants ' of Lancashire afterwards became eminent
ministers in thefr own county. One of them, John Crompton, says
Matthew Henry, ' was a man of great worth and great humUiiy.
Indeed it were easy to enlarge upon the characters of Mr. T. JolUe
and Mr. Crompton ; men of the first rank, both for ministerial gifts
and graces, steadfast to thefr principles in trying times, and an orna
ment to their holy profession. But I forbear, their praise is in all
the churches of that country.' The other, Mr. John Parr, who
preached at Preston and its neighbourhood, was, according to the
same author, distinguished for ' his affectionate, searching, and pro
fitable preaching.' He suffered at different times fine and imprison
ment. When the Duke of Monmouth landed in Devonshfre, he,
although a peaceable man, was apprehended in Lancashfre, and,
vrithout any charge brought agains^t him, was imprisoned for several
weeks, first in Warrington, and afterwards in the horrible dungeon
of Chester, where the martyr George Marsh had been immured a
century before him.
Of the ejected ministers of Lancashfre about thirteen afterwards
conformed, some forced by persecution, others tempted by preferment.
With these, except -with Mr. WiUiam Cole of Preston, I have no
further concern. I except him on account of an anecdote which ig
worth telling, and which may remind the reader of something similar
in the account I have given of Dr. Pendleton, a Manchester preacher
in the time of Queen Mary. A meeting of several ministers waa
convened at Bolton, not long before the passing of the Act, to con
sider what course they should take in the event of its becoming law.
Isaac Ambrose intimated his vrilUngness to read the greater part of
the Book of Common Prayer, although he could not profess his assent
and consent to every part of it. Cole, displeased with the weakness
and indecision of hia neighbour, asserted vrith some warmth that he
was determined never to conform. "Wlien the time of frial came,
Ambrose,- ejected from Garstang, consistently maintained his mode
rate nonconformity until his death ; but Cole, if ejected at all, waa
* Scripture Account of Prayer, a pamphlet which I shaU have occasion hereafter
to notice.

EXCLUSION. 355
among the first of the ejected ministers to conform.* He obtained
the living of Dedham in Essex.
Several nonconforming ministera in Lancashire confrived in one
way or another to retein thefr places without complying with the
requfrements of the Act. This could be done only where the minister
was so much respected that no one would lay an information against
him, where the pafron of the li"ring had no desire to present another
incumbent, and generaUy where the stipend was so smaU as to excite
no desire in any other clergyman to appeal to authority to have the
church declared vacant.
Of these nonconforming incumbents, the most distinguished was
John Angiee, the beloved minister of Denton, a chapefry in the
parish of Manchester. To his continuance in the benefice all the
circumstances were favourable. The two principal families of the
chapelry were avowedly and decidedly Puritan. The stipend waa
small ; the ' chapel wage ' twenty pounds a year, the legal claim to
which was doubtful, and neither the Hollands nor the Hydes, who
together contributed thfrteen of the twenty pounds, would willingly
have paid ' the wage ' to any conformist who might have occupied
the place of thefr beloved pastor.f Besides, the common people
heard him gladly. The farmers and labourers of the chapefry were
as fond of him as Colonel Holland or Squire Hyde. As he had ever
acted with kindness and consideration towards the Episcopalians,
they were ready to treat him leniently, or to avoid the odium of
disturbing so peaceable and quiet an old man.
John Angier was born at Dedham in Essex. His early reUgious
impressions were produced by the affectionate and powerful addresses
of John Rogers, the celebrated puritan preacher of the place. Being
of a studious disposition, he was early admitted to Emanuel College,
Cambridge, at that time the favourite resort of Puritans from the
eastern counties. Having obtained his degree in Arts, he resided for
some time "with Mr. Rogers, and, as was not uncommon vrith young
Puritans, occasionally preached before he was ordained. FromDedham
he removed to Boston, and continued his preparations for the minisfry
under the instructions of the celebrated John Cotton, afterwards of
Boston in New England. "While resident there he became acquainted
with Ellen Winstenley, ' the mirror of her age for accomplishmente
and piety,' f whom he married. After the birth of a son in 1629,
he began to think about pro"riding for a family, and obtained ordi
nation from a Welah bishop, who kindly dispensed vrith his subscrip
tion to the formularies. "With the care of a family coming upon
him, he contemplated removal to New England, where some of his
relatives had founded a new Dedham and would gladly have wel-
* How often in ecclesiastical history we learn that the man who is the first to
say, ' Though I should die vrith Thee, yet wiU I not deny Thee,' is the first to deny
Christ !
+ The commissioners in 1650 valued the benefice at 51. 16s. a year. The two
famUies paid the deficiency. In 1704, a valuation was made of house and garden
21., interest of stock 81., and surpUce fees 21.
t So she was caUed by OUver Heywood, who married her daughter.

356 LANCASHIRE.
comed bim aa thefr minister. Before he quite determined to leave
his native land, he risited his "wife's frienda at Wigan, where hia
preaching excited considerable interest. While there he accepted an
inritation to become minister of Ringley chapel, in which he officiated
for about two years. Complaints of hia nonconformity were made to
Bridgman, bishop of Chester, who then resided at Great Lever, inr
the neighbourhood of Ringley. The bishop was disposed to treat
the good pastor with leniency, but he was in a position of no ordinary
perplexity. Archbishop Laud had heard of Angier, and remonstrated
with Bridgman for tolerating a Nonconformist so near his residence.
But Angier had a friend whom the bishop, we may believe, loved
more, even if he feared less, than the metropoUtan of aU England.
The bishop's "wife, as I have already observed, interposed on his
behalf.* It was therefore arranged that Angier should remove to-
Denton, where he might practi"ae nonconformity unobserved by his
diocesan,, and probably by any emissary from Lambeth.
In Denton he secured the esteem and love of all whose esteem and
love were worth securing. His plain, earnest and affectionate preach
ing attracted devout people from the neighbouring "vUlages. He was,
saya Calamy, ' of a sweet, moderate, cathoUc, healing spirit, an
excellent casuist, a man mighty in prayer, a hard student, of an
exact conversation, very affable and courteous, and in general a
pattern of holiness.' Although, as I have observed, his stipend was
very small, he had always something to spare, especially for hospi
taUty to the poor, who every Sabbath from a great distance frequented
his kitchen as well as his church. In his humble residence, as it
must have seemed even in those days, he maintained the courteous
hospitality of a south-country gentleman.
In 1642 he lost his beloved wife, who before her departure very
considerately prorided him with a good successor. Her dying request
was that, as soon as decency would allow, he would marry Margaret,
daughter of Squfre Mosley of Ancoats. Thefr marriage was S9lem-
nised on November 15, 1643, when two celebrated ministers preached,
Mr. Horrocks of Dean, and Mr. Roote of Gorton. By this marriage
Angier became related to aome of the best families of the counfy,
who received him with the respect which was due to his manners,
his learning, and his character. His domestic troubles were severe.
His eldest daughter, the wife of Oliver Heywood, died of consump
tion soon after her marriage. Hia eldest son was at coUege a worth
less spendthrift, and was little improved by the diacipUne of the
preabytery, to which I have already referred. t
On the passing of the Act of "Uniformity, it was observed that
Mr. Angier said very Uttle about it. To conform would have been
to contradict all the professions of his ministerial Ufe, and yet he
made no preparations for his removal. He attended no conferences
of his brethren, who often met to consider what they should do in
the time of trial. He spent Uttle time in conversation vrith his
friends, much in prayer to God. He intimated his purpose to no
one ; probably he had no purpose to intimate, but sUently waited to
* See p. 148. t See p. 250.

EXCLUSION. 357
see what the day might require. On the Sabbath preceding St. Bar
tholomew, when several ministers preached their fareweU sermons,
he said nothing about coming events. As the week passed on he
seemed to be teking no thought for the morrow, for the Master had
said to him, ' Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.' Bartholomew
Sunday came and went, but it was to him, so far as the people could
observe, very like the other Sundays of the year.
At the hour of public worship the bell sounded, as it had sounded
on Sunday mornings from the coming of Mr. Angier. The people,
as they usually did in the summer time, gathered in groups in the
churchyard, waiting for the commencement of the serrice. The good
minister walked without noticing anyone from his parsonage to the
church, ascended the pulpit, conducted the service in the presbyterian
manner, and retired on ite completion to his humble residence. So
passed the black Bartholomew, scarcely casting ite dark shadow
over Denton; and so passed very like it fourteen other Bartholomews,
until, in 1677, the fifteenth found him within a week of his peaceful
departure to the heavenly sanctuary.
Those fifteen years were spent in comparative tranquilUty. Occa
sionally he was froubled by reports of informations and other pro
ceedings, but they never caused any serious injury to himself or
interruption of his ministry. His vrife's connections did something
to protect him ; the universal esteem in which he was held did much
more. Even the officials of the ecclesiastical courts spared him in
executing their warrants. The neighbouring magistrates often said,
' He is an old man, and will not live long. Let us not trouble him.'
"When WUkins aucceeded HaU in the see of Chester, he readily
accepted this excuse, and often enquired about the health of the good
old man.
Mr. Angler's curate, James Holm, had not the quiet confidence
of the incumbent, for he retfred from Denton, and after several
¦changes became the minister of a non- conforming congregation in
Kendal. Mr. Angier, however, obtained other nonconforming curates, who,
not-withstanding the hea"vy penalties which they incurred, quietly
-discharged thefr ministerial duties under his superintendence. They
are said to have ' tabled ' vrith him in the parsonage ; but how
Mrs. Angier, a lady by birth and education, could have provided
board and lodging for them, in addition to her family, in his little
house, aU who have seen it may well wonder. Ministers and thefr
"vrives in those times must have been without conveniences which
seem to us indispensable to endurable existence.*
The first nonconforming assistant whom he obtained after the
passing of the Act was Mr. John JolUe, a son of Major JolUe, the
provost-marshal of the parliamentary army. After serving Angier
for some time, he obtained, without conforming, possession of Nor-
"bury chapel, apparently because no one else cared for so poor an
incumbency. * The Uttle parsonage adjoining the graveyard was standing iu my younger days.
On looking over it I wondered where the ' tablers ' lodged, for it seemed too smaU
for a decent family.

358 LANCASHIRE.
After this Mr. Angier engaged the serrices of his nephew Samuel,.
who had received his early education in Westminster School, under
the care, and probably the correction, of the most renowned of peda
gogues. Dr. Busby. From Westminster he removed to Christ
Church, Oxon, where he formed an intimate friendship with
Dr. Owen, ¦vrith whom he resided for some years after they were
both expeUed from the university. In 1667 he settled in Denton,
and received ordination from ' the heads of the presbytery,' that is,
from several nonconforming ministers who met in the house of
Mr. Robert Eaton of Deansgate, Manchester. Aa I shaU have
occasion hereafter to notice thia ordination as the first which the
nonconforming ministera solemnised after thefr exclusion from the
Church, I at present only call attention to the remarkable fact that
a candidate was ordained in a private house, according to the simple
forms of the early Nonconformists, to officiate in a parochial chapel,
the incumbent of which was one of the ordaining ministers.*
Samuel Angier continued assistant in Denton untU the death of
his uncle in 1677. A petition that he might succeed to the vacant
chapelry was numerously signed by the inhabitants, but the warden
and fellows of Manchester refrased to allow a Nonconformist to be
appointed, and presented thefr nominee to the Bishop of Chester for
induction. Samuel Angier fought vrith more determination than
dignity for the chapel and afterwards for the little parsonage. Being-
compelled to retfre from both, he preached to his adherents in a barn,
and afterwards in a meeting-house, which was erected chiefly at the
cost of the Dukenfield family.
In the chapelry of Biech the proceedings were more remarkable
even than those at Denton ; for although a timid nonconforming-
minister retfred, a bolder nonconformist was appointed in his place.
The ' chapel wage ' was very small. In 1636 it amounted to
vn. 2s. 7cZ., which was increased in 1640 by a subscription of 'the
principal genfry' for 'the charges ofthe ministry.' Ralph Worsley,
Esq., subscribed eight shUlings ; Mrs. Bfrch five shUUngs and three
pence; Mr. Bfrch five shUUngs; Mr. Siddall three shilUngs and
fourpence ; and Mrs. Edge two shillings and sixpence. In the excite
ment of the civU war the subscriptions were considerably increased.
According to the chapel book of a few years later, Mrs. Bfrch sub
scribed twenty -five shUlings; Mr. Bfrch twenty shUlings; OUver
Edge twenty-five shiUings ; Ralph Worsley twenty-eight shilUngs.
These generous subscribers were 'of the congregational way.' Other
names are appended for smaUer sums, down to those of the viUage
blacksmith, who gave two shUlings, and of some others who gave
one shUUng, the smallest sum mentioned. The whole amount of the-
subscriptions was nearly twenty pounds.
On the passing of the Act of Uniformity the minister was Robert
Bfrch, who, Uke the rest of his famUy, was ' of the congregational
way.' A meek and quiet man, apparently afraid of incurring the
penalties of the Act, he retfred from his ministry, and applied him
self to the practice of physic. Although the chapelry was vacant,
* Hunter's Life of Oliver Heywood, p. 244.

EXCLUSION. 359
the old Roundheads, Squfre Worsley, Colonel Thomas Bfrch, and
Captain OUver Edge were not disposed to give thefr money to main
tain a conforming, prelatical, surpliced minister. Without thefr
subscriptions, the 'chapel wage' was insufficient to support even such
a poor incumbent as might then be found, unable to preach. Scarcely
able to read, doing some sort of ecclesiastical duty for the rustics of
Lancashfre. While the chapel was left vrithout an incumbent, Colonel Birch
procured the occasional services of various nonconforming ministers.
On one occasion the Conventicle Act was enforced, and Colonel Bfrch,
Mrs. Worsley, and other attendants were fined. "When it was found
that no conformist could be supported, the magistrates ceased to
take any notice of these irregular proceedings, and Colonel Bfrch,
with the approval ofthe congregation, in^rited the Rev. Henry Finch,
the ejected minister of Walton, to officiate regularly in the chapel.
At the risk of heavy penalties, Mr. Finch accepted the office, and,
supported by the voluntary contributions of his hearers, continued
in the discharge of his duties until the Revolution.* The Act of
Toleration, which gave liberty to hia surriving brethren, was the
means of ejecting bim from his situation. On his appearing before
the magistrates to certify, as requfred by the Act, his ' preaching
place called Birch chapel,' the warden, who was in court, objected
that Bfrch chapel was ' one of the consecrated places appertaining
to the warden and feUows of the coUegiate church of Manchester.'
The magistrates very properly refused to Ucense the chapel as ' a
meeting place for his majesty's subjects dissenting from the Church
of England.' We may meet vrith Mr. Finch hereafter as a dissenting
minister preaching in the Ucensed houses of Ralph Worsley and
Oliver Edge, and Uving respectably upon 'his wage of sixteen pounds
a year.' The ancient chapel of Toxteth Paek, near Liverpool, was not
only retained by nonconforming ministers after the passing of the
Act of Uniformity, but Ucensed under the Act of Toleration as a
preaching place for dissenters.
This building, often called the Dingle chapel, had been, untU the
subversion of episcopacy, subject to the authority of the Bishop of
Chester. On the removal of Richard Mather, who, as we have seen,
was so persecuted for his nonconformity that he fled to New England,
the chapel was occupied by a conformable minister whose name was
Huggin. The report of the sequestrators of 1643 was that ' Mr.
Huggin, an episcopal minister, received the tithes of Toxteth, valued
at 45Z. a year, that he also obtained IOL of the rector of Walton, and
that Toxteth Park ought to be made a parish.' On the passing of
* Onthe issuing of the Declaration of Indulgence in 1672, in the register of
Ucences preserved in the Record Office is the foUowing entry : License for ' Private
Oratory of Thomas Birch of Birch HaU near Manchester for a congregation of
Presbyterians.' Another entry is ' Henry Finch of Manchester, general Presbyte
rian minister, a private oratory belonging to Thomas Birch, Esq., of Birch HaU,
Ucensed for a congregational meeting place.' These entries were copied by Joshua
Wilson, Esq.

360 LANCASHIRE.
the Act the Rev. Thomas Crompton was the minister, and continued
to be so vrithout conforming, apparently undisturbed until his death.
That he should have retained so respectable a U^ving may be explained
partly by the uncertainty of the minister's claim to the tithes, as it
was contended that Toxteth was an -feitra-parochial place, partly by
the feeUng of the people, who would, if the tithes faUed, contribute
nothing to the support of a conformist, and partly by the acquiescence
of the patron, Lord Molineux, who, being a Papist, was indifferent
about the occupation of the chapel. With Mr. Crompton was asso
ciated, soon after the passing of the Act, Mr. Briscoe, who had been
ejected from Walmesley Chapel, in which he had gathered a congre
gational church. The two ministers preached alternately, and
although one was presbyterian and the other congregational, they
worked harmoniously in a chapel legally belonging to the Episco
paUans and subject to the patronage of a Papist. Mr. Briscoe con
tinued his ministry at Toxteth until his death in 1685, when Mr.
Crompton, unequal to the labours of his office, retfred to Manchester,
where he died in 1699.*
In the parish of St. Michael-le-Wyre is the chapel of Elswick,
which came into the possession of the Nonconformists in a stUl more
extraordinary manner. The flrst chapel in this viUage was erected
a short time previously to 1650, for the parUamentary commissioners
reported in that year that 'theinhabitantsbeingfiftyfamUies, and flve
miles from their parish church, have lately, vrith the voluntary and
free assistance of the neighbouring to^wns, erected a chapel' A grant
had been made by the committee of plundered ministers to support
a preacher in Elsvrick, but as the commissioners reported that no
minister had been appointed, the grant was not claimed.
In the ' Notitia Cesfriensis ' is the foUovring communication from
the Vicar of St. Michael's to the Bishop of Chester, dated 1722 :
' Dirine serrice was performed in the chapel of Els-wick in the
memory of several now liring, but for many years together it was
used for a school untU King James's toleration, when the Presby
terians seized it and have used it for a meeting-house ever since.'
The facts are these : Cuthbert Harrison had been ordained by the
seventh presbyterian classis minister of Singleton chapel, in the
adjoining parish of Kirkham. He is sometimes called the ejected
minister of Singleton, but erroneously, as in 1662 he was settled
over a presbyterian congregation in Ireland, Returning soon after
wards -to this neighbourhood, where he had some property, he was
allowed by the tolerant bishop Wilkins to preach in his own house
¦* In Bishop Gastrell's Notitia Oestriensis is the following note : ' Park Chapel in
Toxteth, supposed to be extra-parochial, or in the parish of Lancaster, possessed
by dissenters, held by a lease from Lord Molineux, and given as a house belonging
to his lordship by his agents when they registered his estate. It is strange that
Lord Molineux's agents should be able to grant a lease of a chapel which had been
endowed with tithes.' From the Register of Licenses granted in 1672 it appears
that, on May 8, ' The meeting-house Toxteth near Leverpoole was licenced,' for
Mr. Crompton for Presbyterians, and on May 29, for Mr. Briscoe for Congrega
tionalists. In the register Mr. Crompton is called ' Trumpton.' The register has
several similar mistakes.

EXCLUSION, 361
of Bankfield in Kirkham. After preaching there for some time he
obtained, I know not how, the king's permission to license the chapel
in Elswick Lees, ' for the use of such as did not conform to the
Church of England, commonly caUed Congregational.' As the license
is dated 1672, it must have been King Charles, and not James, who
consented to this aUenation of Church property. The vicar of St,
Michael's was also wrong in attributing the ' seizure ' of the chapel
to the Presbyterians, for it was ' seized ' by those ' commonly caUed
Congregational,' * The neighbouring clergy seem to have been
chiefly troubled by the solemnising of marriages in the chapel, as by
that means Harrison deprived them of thefr fees. The ¦ricar, having
attempted in vain, first to eject him, next to prevent him from cele
brating marriages, and finally, on his death, to exclude his body from
the family grave in the church porch as too honourable a resting-
place for a schismatic, was content -with ha"ring the foUowing
inscription put upon his gravestone : — •
' Here Ues Cud
Who never did good
But always was in strife
0 ! Let the knave
Lie in his grave
And ne'er return to life.' +
Elhill Chapel, in the northern part of the county, was the scene
of the exfraordinary labours of Peter Atkinson, called, on account of
his zeal and great success, the Apostle of the North. According to
Calamy, ' he had so much favour with the gentry that he preached
quietly for a considerable time after the Act of Uniformity was
passed.' It is added, ' his income was small ; ' probably if it had
t)een large he would have lost it. He was assisted by his son, named
like himself Peter.
At St. Helens, Mr. Thomas Gregg continued to preach in the
chapel, which was occupied by the Nonconformists untU 1710, when
Matthew Henry preached in it a funeral sermon for Mr. Naylor, the
last nonconforming minister. It was soon afterwards surrendered to
the bishop.J
Rainfoed Chapel, in the parish of Prescot, was retained for the
Nonconformists by an ingenious contrivance of Mr. Bradshaw, the
ejected minister of Hindley. Remo-ving after his ejectment to Rain-
ford, he preached to his neighbours in the vacant chapel, no man
forbidding him. Ha"vlng some friends among the conforming clergy,
he procured thefr occasional ser"rices, when they read the Book of
Common Prayer, which he could not conscientiously read himself.
* In the Congregational Tear Book the chapel of Elswick is represented, I sup
pose on the authority of Calamy, as founded in 1672. In that year Harrison
obtained the use of it, but it was buUt, as we have seen, before 1650.
t I have given this ridiculous epitaph upon the authority of Mr. Baines, Hist, of
Lancashire, vol. iv. p. 384. It is, however, due to the memory of the "picar to say
that the doggerel was probably written with Chalk, and attributed to him without
good reason.
X GastreU's Notitia Oestriensis, vol. U. pt. u..p. 206.

362 LANCASHIRE.
The scruples of some conscientious men, and the expedients by which
they are satisfied, are sometimes very perplexing to other people.
The churchwarden appeared at the episcopal visitetions, and to the
question, ' Have you the Common Prayer read in your chapel ? ' re
plied, ' "Tes.' Several attempts were made to disturb Mr. Bradshaw,
but Bishop Wilkins always managed to protect him.
The "ricarage of Dean supplies another instance of the unlawful
occupation of both the parish church and the district chapel by non
conforming ministers. If an arbitrary king sometimes exercised a
dispensing power, a tolerant bishop occasionaUy imitated his example.
That active, but not very tolerant, Presbyterian who has often crossed
our path, John TUsley, was ricar of Dean on the passing of the Act
of Uniformity. He is said by Calamy to have ' possessed prodigious
abiUties,' and he certainly made 'prodigious' use of them. When
Wilkins succeeded to the see of Chester, he obtained the sanction of
the good bishop to an arrangement by which he was to preach regu
larly in the church as lecturer, while the new "ricar was to read the
prayers.* This arrangement, as agreeable to the ricar who could
not preach, as it was to the lecturer who would not read the prayers,
continued until after the death of the good bishop, when Tilsley waa
finally ejected by the Tory magistrates of his neighbourhood.f
WhUe he was lecturer, another nonconforming or at least nonsub-
acribing minister was presented to the "ricarage by the king, who
exercised on the occasion a sort of diapenaing power. Although
Richard Hatton was wUling to read the prayers which TUsley refused,
he would not renounce the covenant. A minute inserted in the
register of the incumbents says of his induction in 1673 : ' The induc
tion was void by Richard Hatton not renouncing the covenant, but
the bishop on the presentation of the king instituted him to the
vicarage aforesaid. J
In the parish of Dean is the chapelry of Hoewich, concerning
which James RothweU, the successor of Hatton in the vicarage, wrote
to the warden of Manchester in 1717 : ' The chapel has been above
twenty years past in the hands of the dissenters through the confriv
anoe of the late Lord WUloughby, and the connivance of my prede
cessor Richard Hatton. One illegal appointment led to another.
The nonsubscribing vicar of the church appointed a nonconforming
* Calamy. Nonconformist's Memorial, abridged by Palmer, vol. U, p. 90.
+ TUsley was thrice ejected from Dean : first, by the Republicans for refusing
the engagement ; secondly, from the office of vicar, although by the connivance of
the trustees he continued to reside in the vicarage ; and thirdly, from his place as
lecturer. After his last ejectment he resided in Manchester until his death. His
loring friends buried him under the old yew tree in the graveyard of Dean, and
inscribed upon his tomb, ' Here lyeth the body of John TUsley, clerk, Master of
Arts, and sometime vicar of Deane, which was interred the 16th day of December,
1684.' His 'dear and pretious wife, a most virtuous woman, in price far above
rubies,' was a niece of Humphrey Chetham.
X Baines, History of Lancashire, vol. iii. p. 24. The bishop was the learned Dr.
Pearson, who has been charged with obsequious submission to the king. The loyalty
must have been very strong which induced so high a churchman to institute a
nonconforming vicar.

EXCLUSION. 363-
minister to preach in the chapel' The nonconforming minister was
John Walker, who, after keeping possession of the chapel for some
years, was induced to avoid expensive litigation by surrendering it to
the ecclesiastical authorities. The ricar then complained to the
bishop that, although he had recovered the chapel, he could not ob
tain possession of the endowment, which the presbyterian trustees
appropriated to the support of a dissenting teacher. 'Against justice
and honesty these frustees will build a meeting-house, and apply the
remaining part of the money towards supporting a presbyterian
minister.' In GastreU's ' Notitia ' it is said : ' This is an ancient
chapel and consecrated ; but the money in stock, that yields ten or
twelve pounds per annum, is in a Dissenter's hands,' *
From Rivington, near Bolton, Samuel Newton was ejected, but
returning some time afterwards and finding his place unoccupied, he
was aUowed 'to preach in the church vrithout disturbance.' The
editor of the 'Notitia' thinks that he conformed, as he died incumbent
of Rivington ; but there is no reason to doubt the truth of Calamy's
statement, that whUe a Nonconformist he ' continued to preach with
out disturbance.'
To Astlet, in the parish of Leigh, Thomas Crompton, although
ejected for a time, retumed, according to Calamy, on the inritation
of the inhabitants, and preached in the church without subscribing,,
' reading some few prayers.' Although I can find no local confirma
tion of this statement, I have not the slightest doubt of its truth.
The chapel had been founded and endowed by Adam Mort for a
preaching minister, because the inhabitants 'were very rude and
ignorant of good things.' For a long time violent disputes prevaUed
respecting the appointment of a minister for these rude and ignorant
people. The right to appoint was claimed by the hefr of the founder,
by the "ricar of Leigh, by the bishop of Chester, and by ' the rude
and ignorant' people themselves. After prolonged litigation the
patronage was declared to belong to the vicar of Leigh. In this un
certainty and contention Mr. Crompton kept possession of the chapel
and endowmente until his death.f
In LoNGEiDGB Chapel, near Preston, Mr. Timothy Smith, although
he did not conform, continued to preach, for, says Calamy, ' this
being an obscure place "vrith a smaU salary, there was no great striving
for ft,'
Of CoCKET MoOE, John Leaver is represented by Calamy as
'sUenced' in 1662, He was certainly the minister in 1663, when
¦* See the notes appended to the Notitia Oestriensis, printed for the Chetham
Society, vol. U. part i. p. 41. The money retained by the disssenting trustees is
said to have been recovered (that is, so much of it as was not lost in expensive
Utigation) for the church in 1724. The chapel is called an ancient chapel. It cer
tainly existed in 1565, for in that year ' the commissioners for removing supersti
tious ornaments ' informed the bishop that they had taken away the 'vestment,.
albe, altar cloth, and other idolatrous gear,' I fear these commissioners of Queen
Elizabeth, as well as the bishop, if not the queen herself, were in the opinion of
some modern Anglicans guilty of sacrilege.
f Mr. Crompton's ' chapel wage ' amounted to 16Z. a year. — Notitia Oestriensis,.
vol. U. part ii, p, 188,

364 LANCASHIRE,
articles were exhibited in the Consistory Court of Chester against
the chapel-warden, for aUowing, ' contrary to his oath, nonconform
ing ministers to preach in the said chapel of Cockey, and draw
together several disaffected persons from their respective ministers,'*
Similar instances of nonconforming ministers retaining thefr
laenefices, or being aUowed as lecturers to preach in their churches,
may be found in the adjoining counties of Cheshfre and Yorkshfre,
I Imve been the more careful to notice them, because it is not gene
raUy known that many Nonconformists in obscure situations, and
especiaUy in poor benefices, continued to discharge their official
duties, notwithstanding the rigorous provisions of the Act of Uni
formity. As they would endeavour to conceal thefr nonconformity
from their enemies, it would be vain to attempt to form any estimate
of thefr number, t
Of the Lancashfre ministers actually and permanently ejected, the
more eminent were Henry Newcome of Manchester, Richard Hol
brooke of Salford, John Harrison of Ashton, Robert Constantine of
Oldham, Robert Bath and Zachary Taylor of Rochdale, Henry Pen-
dlebury of Holcomb, James Hiet of Croston, Henry Welch of Chorley,
Richard Goodwin and Robert Park of Bolton, Robert Eaton of Walton,
Robert Yates of Warrington, Charles Hotham of Wigan, John Wright
of BilUng, James Bradshaw of Hindley, Samuel Mather of Burton
Wood, WUliam Bell of Huyton, Isaac Ambrose of Garstang, Nathanael
Baxter of St. Michael-le-Wyre, Nathanael Heywood of Ormskfrk,
and Dr. WiUiam MarshaU of Lancaster. Above forty others of less
celebrity, but not on that account of less worth, having most of them
but scanty provision for thefr famUies, resigned their Uvings, not
knowing what would befall them nor where they would be allowed
to exercise thefr ministry.
Of these ejected ministers no one has left materials so ample for
forming a correct judgment of the various influences and motives
which produced the great secession as Henet Newcome, especiaUy
in his ' Diary ' extending from September 1661 to September 1663,
We may there trace the fears and hopes, the anxieties and encourage
ments, the conflicts and comforts of a Nonconformist who might, in
the talk of our times, be caUed ' a representative man.' J
The glebe granted to this chapel was, on the erection of the presbyterian
meeting-house in 1672, transferred to its minister, and is still held by his successor,
who is bound to pay a yearly acknowledgment of 21. 15s. to the episcopal minister
of Cockey chapel. — Notitia Oestriensis, vol. ii. part i. p. 105.
¦f The Act of Uniformity required the subscription of assent and consent from the
masters ot public schools as well as from the incumbents of ecclesiastical benefices.
In Lancashire, at least one schoolmaster, Mr. Charles Segar, master of the pubUc
school at Blackburn, was allowed to retain his situation without subscribing as
required by the Act. We shall meet with him again as the first minister of the
Nonconformists in Darwen.
J Newcome's Diary is to be distinguished from his Autobiography. The former
contains a minute account of the incidents of his eventful life. The Autobiography
is an abstract of the Diary, made for the instruction of his family. The part of
the Diary belonging to the two most important years of his life has happily been
preserved, and edited for the Chetham Society by Thomas Heywood, Esq.

EXCLUSION. 365
Newcome, as I have observed, held no recognised office in the
collegiate church, for he received, for preaching in the place of the-
indolent men who had secured the fellowships, only a small stipend
augmented by the benevolence of the congregation. The Act, how
ever, by prohibiting him from preaching, deprived him of hia only
meana of mainteining his famUy. Under date May 31, 1662, he
wrote : ' At night, late, I saw the Act of Conformity, and it answers
expectation to the full. The Lord show his poor servante what He
would have them do.'* From the first hour he saw the Act, he
never contemplated the possibUity of submitting to its conditions.
To assent to what he did not believe, to consent to what he did not
approve, by doing so to humiliate himself pubUcly for the sake of a
liveUhood, to deal falsely with hia God and bring scandal upon reU
gion — to do this great wickedness he seems never to have been sub
ject to the slightest temptation. He might have indulged some hope
that the Act would not be rigorously enforced, that in the extremity
some indulgence would be granted, that the Nonconformists would
be so numerous and influential as to compel the government to
modify the Act ; but to conform was with him simply and certainly
an utter impossibility.
In the interval between the passing and the enforcing of the Act,
various reports were prevalent respecting the indulgence which non
conforming ministers might obtain from the king, and the opposition
of the bishops to any such exercise of his leniency. In thefr several
conferences, the ministers of Lancashfre were perplexed by these and
other uncertain and contradictory reports, and apparently prevented
from coining to a good understanding respecting the manner in which
they should act in the emergency,
August 3 was the last sacramental Sunday on which, if the Act
were strictly enforced, Newcome would be able to commemorate the-
death of Christ -with the people who were so devotedly attached to
him. He ' preached about the sacrament ; ' and after the sermon he
and Mr. Richardson, the early moming lecturer,! ' administered it
to a very great company.' In the afternoon he preached long, for
he 'did not know whether he would ever preach on the subject
again.' , , , ' The people were sad and much affected.'
August 17, the Sunday preceding St. Bartholomew, was the last
day on which the ministers could comply vrith the requisitions of
the Act. Newcome preached in the afternoon on Eph. v. 16, ' Re
deeming the time, because the days are eril.' As he stiU cherished
some hope that an indulgence would be granted, he did not avowedly
preach a fareweU sermon, although he painfully felt the probabUity
that it would prove his last address to the crowded congregation of
the coUegiate church. ' The Lord did wonderfuUy help me m the
duty, and it was sweet to me. I was long at it. I was affected with
* Newcome under his ill-treatment retained his loyalty unimpaired. Only two
days before he saw the Act, on May 29, he preached a thanksgiving |™on for
the Restoration, and drank wine at the condmt, 'but not m a health, for which I
am glad.' t Puritans in those days went to church at six o'clock in the mormng.

366 LANCASHIRE.
the sight of the people who are dear to me, to whom I knew not
when I should preach again.'
On Wednesday, August 20, meetings of pioua people were held in
Manchester and in several other towns ofthe county for the purpose
of offering prayer on behalf of their miJisvera. Newcome spent the
greater part of the day praying -frith different companies of his friends
in the several houses in which they were assembled.
On the festival of St. Bartholomew he went to the church with a
heavy heart, but prepared to preach as usual if he were not obstructed.
' To the great joy of my heart and of the poor people, 1 had liberty
to preach in the forenoon.' To preach on that day was a courageous
act. Hia text was Exodus xx. 24 : ' In all places where I record My
name I wUl come unto thee, and I vriU bless thee.'
Towards the end of the week he -risited Lord Delamere at Dunham
Park, and preached at Bowden church on the Sabbath which followed
St. Bartholomew.* Although his preaching was illegal, he had no
reason, under the protection of Lord Delamere, to apprehend any
annoyance. Together with ' my lord ' the Dean of Chester was
present, and in the evening he ' had much discourse vrith them.'
On Sunday, September 7, Newcome, having returned to Manches
ter, went to church, ' prepared as. weU as I could for the public'
He found most of the fellows in the church, the pulpit occupied by
one of them, Mr. Western, clad in a surpUce. ' Mr. Browne conse
crated in his surpUce.' A great congregation had been brought
together by the hope of hearing Newcome preach once more before
his ejectment. The multitude fixed thefr eyes upon their favourite
preacher when, excluded from the pulpit, he quietly took his accus
tomed seat as an attentive auditor. It was long since a surpUce had
been exhibited in Manchester church. Many of the young people
had never before seen such a thing. They looked curioualy at the
preacher in the pulpit, lovingly at the minister in the pew, as he
devoutly worshipped when he could not officiate, and attentively
Ustened when he could not preach. Of the ser-rioe he wrote, ' I de
sfred to apply myself to my God, and I found it a very sweet sacra
ment. We had a very sweet time of repetition in the evening.'
"What could be more beautiful than the spirit and demeanour of
Henry Newcome on the day of his exclusion from his beloved
pulpit ? Ejected, sUenced, dishonoured, he forgave the injury, over
looked the surplice, united in the prayers, listened to the preacher,
enjoyed the sacrament, catechised the chUdren — which duty the
clergyman neglected — and spent the evening with his family in
' sweet repetition ' of the sermon preached by the surpUced intruder.
Sunday, September 14, was a sad and humiUating day to Newcome
and to many of the Manchester people. Warden Heyricke entered
the desk clad in a surpUce, and as a conformist read the new serrice
book according to the requfrement of the Act of Uniformity. He
who had been the daring leader of the Presbyterians, who had pre
sented the Lancashfre remonstrance to Charles the Ffrst, who had
•* 'This was the last time I was in a pulpit.' — ^MS. cited in a note appended to
his Diary.

EXCLUSION, 367
denounced Laud from the pulpit, and roused the people to resist in
arms the unconstitutional authority by which the ceremonies were
imposed, who had signed the Solemn League and Covenant, and ex
horted the people to append thefr signatures to his own, who had
obtained the establishment of the presbyterian discipline thoughout
Lancashfre, who went to prison rather than submit to the demands
of Cromwell — ^that great preacher stood before hia congregation to
contradict the professions of his long Ufe, and to renounce the cove
nant which many of his hearers had subscribed at his instigation.
That day, although it was later than the time aUowed by the Act,
he conformed. He had eridentiy hesitated and delayed as long as
he could, and at last conformed very reluctantly. Poor old man !
The best excuse that can be made for him is, that the infirmities of
age had oppressed his spfrit and incapacitated him from acting -with
decision in so great an emergency. The best commendation that can
be given to him is that, like a man conscious of dishonour, he never
assumed a lofty or consequential manner towards his nonconforming
brethren in their poverty and distress. His conduct towards them
was Uke that of one who felt they had done better than he himself
had the courage to do. He continued warden until his death, but
after his conformity he never took any prominent part in public
affafrs. His work was finished, and he felt it, on the day he put on
the surplice.
How remarkable waa the contrast between Heyricke and Newcome!
The warden had for years fiercely denounced every approach towards
the popish ceremonial, vehemently urged the claims of the presby
terian polity, and passionately inveighed against the toleration of
heresy as a renunciation of the national covenant. The lecturer had
seldom mingled in the war of words ; mUd and gentle, he could easily
bear contradiction ; and if he found EpiscopaUans or Independents
disposed to be reasonable and courteous, he would be reasonable and
courteous in his intercourse -with them. In the storm the stately free
broke, while the fiexible reed bent and rose again. The fierceness of
intolerance failed to assert its honesty, while the mUdness of charity
mainteined its consistency. Until death Heyricke moved timidly and
hesitatingly in his surplice ; Newcome stood firm and erect in his
Geneva cloak. The lecturer must have been far the happier man. Of
his ' sweet repetitions ' and grateful acknowledgments for strength in
temptation the warden had no experience, nor did the lecturer know
the humUiation and remorse of the warden, who had grace to acknow
ledge and respect, but not to imitate, the consistency of the Noncon
formists. ¦
I have already noticed the difficulty which Heyricke had in secur
ing his office on the restoration of royalty. Dr, WooUey, who had
then endeavoured to obtain his place, was on the passing of the Act
waiting for the expected vacancy. That Heyricke should surrender
the office which he had retained so long and loved so much would be
distressing ; but that he should surrender it in favour of a rival whom
he hated would be most humiliating and mortifying. Under date
July 29, 1662, when Heyricke e-ridently intended to vacate his place.

368 LANCASHIRE.
Newcome wrote : ' The warden brought me his news, which was that
Dr. WooUey waa Bure to come in, at which he was much saddened.*
' I went -with him to Sfrangeways, to make him merry ; it was weU
if I exceeded not in mirth.' A strange time for Puritans to ' make
merry,' if not to ' exceed in mfrth.' The warden -risited hia friend
almost daily in the time of anxiety, and his friend engaged him for
diversion in a game of bUUarda, But merry-making and bUliarda did
very Uttle to strengthen the warden for the discharge of his painful
duty, Newcome wrote, August 5 : ' Mr, Heyricke being now gotten
almost to conform, had discourse vrith me this day,' August 12 :
' The warden went towards Chester.' ' Heard of some things from
Chester.' Newcome did not like to say what these unpleasant things
were, but they doubtleaa referred to the meaaurea which Heyricke
waa taking to secure his office. The warden appeared no more in
church untu the day when he read the serrice in his surplice, and
preached vrithout making the slightest reference to passing events.
Hia conformity, however kindly it was excused by Newcome, who
wrote respecting it, ' I -wiU endeavour to reserve my love for them
that are good and yet can conform,' was felt to be a severe stroke to
the presbyterian interest. The common remark was, ' A standard-
bearer fainteth,'
In connection vrith Heyricke and Newcome, there was a Uttle nego
tiation which suggests an enquiry probably new to many students of
nonconformist history. Did any of the ejected ministers, by arrange
ment with presbyterian patrons or accommodating successors, retain
any part of thefr incomes ? or were they able by such an arrangement
to obtain any compensation for thefr losses ? The instances were, I
beUeve, very few in which such arrangements were made ; but several
of the presbyterian patrons were tmly or falsely accused of making
them. The following account may suggest further enqufries : A bene
fice in the gift of Newcome's friend, Sfr George Booth, recently
created Lord Delamere, had become vacant by the ejectment of
Samuel Fisher from the rectory of Thornton-on-the-Moor. As the
rector was aged, and, as Newcome says, ' not seeking to propose any
one for his interest,' Lord Delamere wished ' to give me the liring,
that is, to a friend of mine for me,' These words tell a tale. Ejected
ministers were aUowed to ' propose ' to presbyterian patrons ' some
one in thefr interest,' that is, a conforming friend who would make
them some allowance from the emoluments. Had the old rector-
desfred such an arrangement. Lord Delamere was willing to sanction
it. On simUar terms the patron would have conferred the Uring
upon a friend of Newcome. It was proposed that Heyricke should
have the rectory, that he should keep a curate at Thornton, and that,
after deducting ' the curate's wage,' he should pay the remainder of
the emolument to his friend Newcome. Although pluralities were not
objectionable in those days, on other accounts ' the matter was difficult.'
Two grave and godly ministers, Mr. Harrison and Mr. Angier, were
consulted. They thought that, as the warden had brought great scan
dal upon his religion by ' subscribing for Mancheater and renouncing
the covenant there,' ' he would increase the scandal ' by repeating the

EXCLUSION. 369
offence at Thornton. To allow the old man to humiliate himself a
second time was more than his friends who mourned over his fall
could endure. Newcome therefore declined his proposal, and made
another arrangement. One of Lord Delamere's chaplains, a Mr. Shaw,
although he had previously professed his adherence to presbyterian-
iam, announced his intention to conform. The rectory waa given to
him upon the condition of hia signing a bond to resign it whenever
his lordship might requfre him to do so. Shaw evaded hia engage
ment, at first promising to pay Newcome 40Z. a year, and after con
siderable delay, offering to pay 201. Eventually, when Lord Delamere
was in some trouble about similar arrangements made at Ashton in
favour of Mr. Harrison, Shaw refused to sign the bond, and escaped
his obligation by ' giving out that my lord engaged hia livings for
the Nonconformists. ' * Newcome, unwilUng to bring his noble patron
into more frouble, gave up as hopeless all further attempte to secure
any payment from the dishonest rector of Thornton. Cast pennilesa
npon the world with his young family, he was, as he gratefully
acknowledges, * never left to want any good thing.'
Of the ministera who had belonged to the Manchester classis, no
one was more influential, more respected, or more trusted, than John
Haeeison of Ashton-under-Lyne. Of good family, distinguished
both at school and at college for his early proficiency, after having
done good serrice as minister of Walmesley chapel, he received from
Sfr George Booth the presentation to the rectory of Ashton. Aa a
pariah minister he was universaUy respected for his grave and pru
dent carriage, his unwearied devotedness to the welfare of his people,
and his acceptable and useful preaching. In the classical meetings
he had been frequently appointed moderator, and invariably selected
to serve on committees of importance. No minister had more com
pletely obtained the confidence of the Booth famUy. Indeed, his
intimate friendship vrith them produced some jealousy among the
smaU-minded of his brethren, who regarded him as a creature of the
great patron of the Presbyterians. In the poUtical movements in
which Sir George was concerned, he was generaUy consulted, and a
wiser counseUor could not have been selected. On his ejectment Lord
Delamere offered to bestow the benefice upon his son, but the good
pastor, fearing that his son was not competent to sustain so weighty a
charge, ' conscientiously waived it, and made use of his interest on
behalf of Mr, EUison, a man of great worth and a good preacher, who
enjoyed the Uring untU his death,' His lordship was charged -with
' engaging the U"ving for the interest ' of the ejected minister, with
what truth I cannot ascertain. It is not improbable that the new
rector, who Uved on terms of intimacy "with the ejected minister, may,
with or -without an understanding -with the patron, have made some
aUowance to Mr, Harrison. ElUson preached a funeral sermon for
his predecessor, and gave him ' a great character, but not beyond hia
desert.' f
* MS. of Newcome cited in a note to his Diary under date September 4, 1662.
t Tlie Nonconformist's Memorial.
b1

370 LANCASHIRE.
Another eminent minister who had served "vrithin ¦the boundaries
of the Manchester classis waa Robert Constantine of Oldham, In
his younger daya he had laboured -with much success among the hUla
of Derbyshire, whence he removed to the ancient chapelry of Oldham.
While there he was prosecuted for refusing to take the engagement
to the repubUcan government, and compeUed to remove to Yorkshfre.
In his absence the people, who seem to have been ever incUned to op
pose existing authorities, elected a zealous EpiscopaUan, who gave the
presbyterian courts a great deal of trouble.* Returning to his in
cumbency on the Restoration, he continued in the discharge of its
duties until he was a second time ejected by the Act of Uniformity.
Mr. Constantine, in the time of the indulgences, Ucensed a house for
preaching on Greenacres Moor, and founded the dissenting interest
which stUl exists in that neighbourhood.
The other ejected ministers of the Manchester district were, Robert
BiEOH of Birch chapel, and Richard Holbeooke of Salford, son-in-
law of Warden Heyricke, who, like some other nonconforming min
isters, appUed themselves to the practice of medicine ; Thomas Hol-
T.AND of Blackley, who was soon disabled by sickness for the discharge
of ministerial duties ; William Leigh of Gorton, who died soon after
his ejectment ; Edmond Jones of Eccles ; and John Richaedson, the
early morning preacher of Manchester. John Walker, ejected from
Newton-Heath, succeeded Samuel Nevriran, already noticed aa Ule-
gally gaining and keeping possession Of Rivington Chapel.
Of the second presbyterian district, the ejected ministers were
Richard Aatley of Blackrod, Richard Goodwin and Robert Park of
Bolton, Jamea Walton of Horwich, George Thomason of Heywood,
Henry Pendlebury of Holcomb, Peter Naylor of Houghton, Thomas
Pyke of Radoliffe, Robert Bath and Zachary Taylor of Rochdale,
— Dury of Bradshaw, and Peter AspinwaU of Heaton.f Thomas
Crompton of Astley, John Leaver of Cockey Moor, John TUsley of
Dean, Samuel Newton of Rivington, and Michael Briscoe of Walmea
ley, I have afready mentioned as having either retained thefr places,
or obtained others, vrithout conforming to the requfrements of the Act
of Uniformity.
Richaed Goodwin, M.A. of Emanuel College, Cambridge, had on
the passing ofthe Act been vicar of Bolton about twenty years. .An
exceUent scholar, diUgent student, and able preacher, he was much
beloved and trusted by his parishioners, although his retfring and
studious habits prevented him from taking the prominent position
* As early as 1406 the litigious people of Oldham resisted the claims of the
rector of Prestwich, who required them to contribute for the bread and wine of
the sacrament. ' The Oldham chaps ' maintained their reputation for legal fight
ing, as the records of the ecclesiastical courts of Chester and York testify, from
1406 down to 1865, when the opposing claims of an incumbent of one of the dis
trict churches of Oldham and the rector of Prestwich, respecting marriage tees,
were in Utigation in the court of Vice-ChanceUor Kindersley.
¦j" Calamy says Peter Aspinwall afterwards conformed. This (as Calamy else
where acknowledges) is a mistake, for he Uved and died a consistent Nonconformist
in Waf rington. He may have been mistaken for WiUiam Aspinwall, the ejected
minister of Formby, who afterwards conformed.

EXCLUSION, 371
which hia abiUty and character would have entitled him to occupy-
In 1672 he obtained a license for a meeting-place in Bolton, where he
founded what was known for several generations as the great noncon
formist congregation. He was succeeded in his important charge by
Mr. John Leaver of Cockey Moor,*
RoBEET Paek, also of Emanuel CoUege, Cambridge, was lecturer
in Bolton church and assistant to his friend Goodvrin. He had been,
before the ci"vil war, ricar of Bolton, but being froubled for his non
conformity to the ceremonies he retfred to Holland, and for some
time preached to the EngUsh congregation at Rotterdam. After the
fall of prelacy he returned on the entreaty of his old friends to Bolton,
where he officiated as lecturer, and had the benefit of Mr. Gosnell's t
bequest, considerably augmented by the contributions of the people.
On the passing of the Five Mile Act he resided at Broughton near
Manchester, After its repeal he returned to Bolton and preached as
he had opportunity for his brethren in the neighbourhood. His
friends, who had contributed for his support whUe he was lecturer in
the church, continued to make thefr contributions after he was ejected,
grateful for his occasional serricea and prayers ' on thefr private
days.' His funeral sermon was preached by OUver Heywood.
Henet Pendlebury, M.A. of Christ's College, Cambridge, had the
reputation of ' great learning, strict godliness, and every ministerial
qualification. He was beloved by aU who knew him, as especially by
his brethren in the minisfry,' He wrote a freatise on Trausubstan-
tiation, of which the manuscript, submitted to TUlotson, so pleased
the archbishop, that he paid the expense of printing it, Holcomb,
from which Pendlebury was ejected, was a very poor benefice in a
bleak and inhospiteble neighbourhood. Its chapel had originally
been the prison in which the lords of the manor in feudal times con
fined thefr unruly "vUleins and sturdy vagrants, A comfortless jaU,
¦• See an interesting account of this nonconformist congregation in The Rise and
Progress of Nonconformity in Bolton, in Four Lectures, by Franklin Baker, M.A.,
Minister of the Chapel.
t This gentleman — Mr. Gosnold, as Calamy and Palmer call him, GosweU, as
Brook designates him — was the Rev. James Gosnell, vicar of Bolton 'in the early
part of the seventeeth century. In his wiU, dated January 9, 1622, he describes
himself as ' by the gracious goodness of God a Minister of the Gospel of Jesus
Christ, having exercised my said ministry above forty years in Bolton in the Moors,
to God's glory and the comfort of my conscience, being now somewhat diseased in
body.' He further says : ' Touching my ministry, I do give all the people of God
to understand that I have deUvered no doctrine but such as in my conscience I
took to be agreeable to God's most sacred word, and I protest before God and men
that I am verily persuaded the religion now established in this kingdom to be, con
cerning the substance of the Articles of the doctrine of faith and sacraments, the
only true religion of God by which men shaU be saved, and for the matter of for
maUty I protest as before God that the main cause of my not yielding is, and hath
been, for that I think the things urged to have been in themselves simply unlaw
ful and inconvenient,' The nonconforming vicar conveyed his lands in trust to
James Lever, Richard Fogg, John Bradshaw, ElUs Crompton, James Crompton, and
John Norris, all members of puritan famiUes, to divide the rents thereof into six
parts, and 'to pay annuaUy four of the same to a preacher, distinct from^ the Vicar
of Bolton, to preach in the parish church every Lord's day and Monday.'— ivoJiiJO
Oestriensis, vol, u. part i, pp. 9-10.

372 LANCASHIRE.
it was thought good enough for a rural sanctuary. It was ten feet
nine inches in height, and seated 'two hundred and thfrty-four per
sons on the fioor, and seventy-six in the gaUeries.' What sort of
accommodation gaUeries afforded in a buildmg ' ten feet nine inches
in height,' people who are accustomed to the comforts of a modern
chapel cannot easily understend. In the ' Notitia ' it is ' certified
that nothing certain belongs to it.' Yet from thia poor place, from
which any minister, conformist or nonconformist, might be glad to
escape, both Walker and Calamy obtain materials for thefr ' Suffer
ings of the Clergy.' Walker tells ua how good Mr, GUbody was here
sequestered by the Presbyterians, and Calamy how good Mr. Pendle
bury was hence ejected by the Episcopaliana. I believe that Pendle
bury, and I hope the same thing of Gilbody, was much better off after
his ejectment than he had ever been before.
RoBEET Bath, vicar of Rochdale, had married a niece of Arch
bishop Laud, and obtained in consequence one of the beat benefices
in the patronage of the metropoUtan.* Little did Laud know what
aort of a -ricar he waa pro-riding for the people of Rochdale. He is
described by Calamy as ' a gracious, humble, meek, peaceable man,
though he had not a ready utterance.' Probably hia defective utter
ance diaqualified him for becoming a popular preacher, and so pre
vented the fame of his puritanism from reaching the ears of his uncle.
He had not been long settled in his comfortable -ricarage when Laud
was disabled from disturbing his puritanical relationa. Although a
firm and uncompromisfrg Puritan, Bath had no objection either to
episcopal government or to the use of the Book of Common Prayer.
On the establishment of the presbyterian discipUne in Lancashfre, he
united vrith the second classia, by the members of which he was
greatly respected for his vrisdom, moderation, and gentleness.
Acknowledging the divine right neither of presbyterianism nor of
episcopacy exclusively, he readily acted with Hs classis in the ordina
tion of ministers according to the presbyterian directory.f On the
passing ofthe Act of Uniformity, he had fewer objections to conform
ity, and more benefits to lose by nonconformity, than most of his
brethren. Yet as he could not with a clear conscience subscribe his
assent and consent to all and everything required, he honestly refused
to conform, and cheerfully accepted the consequences of his refusal.
From his vicarage he removed to a humble cottage. On the granting
of the indulgences, he licensed a house for preaching in one of the
hamlets of his extensive parish. The Puritans of Rochdale, who
from the time of Mr. Midgley had been very numerous, gladly at
tended his minisfry. He was the founder of the old dissenting
interest in Rochdale, where he laboured with exfraordinary zeal and
energy untU his death in 1674.
* ' The vicar has a large glebe, and all the houses of two of the best streets in
the town belong to him, 130 houses.' — Notitia Oestriensis, vol. U. part i. p. 123.
According to the parliamentary inquisition of 1650, the glebe was worth 160Z. per
annum. + He officiated at the ordination of Mr. Pendlebury at Ashworth Chapel. — Life
ofPendlebwry, by Robert Seddon of Bolton, 1696.

EXCLUSION. 373
Zachaet Tatloe, Mr, Bath's assistent, was in many respects like
his ¦ricar. Throughout the ci^ril war he had been not only a Royalist,
but a chaplain in the royal army. Nevertheless, on the defeat of the
king's forces, he quietly submitted to the existing government, and
liolding with the vicar that no particular form of ecclesiastical disci
pline was of divine authority, he readily co-operated with the Presby
terians, Quite as favourable to episcopacy as Mr, Bath (perhaps a
little more so), he would not do violence to his conscience by profess
ing hia assent to everything in the Book of Common Prayer, He may
with propriety be called an episcopalian nonconformist. Being an
excellent scholar, he established a good reputation as an instructor of
youth, and by some evasion of the Act of Uniformity obtained the
appointment of master of the grammar school of Kirkham.*
In the hundred of Blackburn, which comprised the parishes belong
ing to the thfrd presbyterial classis of the county, the ejected minis
ters were Thomas JolUe of Altham, Robert Town of Accrington, Mr.
Sandford of Harwood, and Mr. Kippax of New Church; all of whom
were incumbents of very poor chapelries.
Thomas Jollie was a son of Major JolUe of Droylsden, whom we
have before met with as provost-marshal of the parliamentary army.
Thomas was educated in Trinity College, Cambridge, and in early
Ufe avowed himself an adherent of congregational principles. Elected
by the inhabitante minister of Altham, he formed ' a gathered church'
in the chapel, to which he preached with much comfort and success
for thfrteen years. He was described by the parliamentary commis
sioners in thefr report for 1650 as ' an able divine,' who received 101.
per annum from the tithes of WhaUey, and 80Z. from the committee
of the county. ' The Committee of plundered ministers ' assigned to
him 50Z. from the estate of ' that popish malignant ' Mr. Clifton ;
but the popish malignant had been wise enough to encumber hia
estete with debts to Protestants, who had a prior claim upon its
proceeds. Before the passing of the Act, as I have already noticed, Mr.
•Jollie was suspended from the exercise of his ministry, and silenced
one week before it came into operation. He afterwards suffered
grievous persecution. Residing with a famUy whose devotional habits
were weU known to thefr neighbours, he was froubled by a company
•of soldiers, who forced an entrance into the house at the customary
time of family worship. Found, as they expected, conducting the
worship with a Bible in his hand, he was dragged to prison under the
¦charge of 'keeping a conventicle.' Soon after his release, he was
again seized and confined for some mouths in a cold and comfortless
¦ceU in York Castle, having the lowest and vilest of rogues associated
with him night and day. The next year he was confined eleven
weeks in Lancaster Castle. He was again imprisoned in 1665 ; and
in 1669 he was confined for six months. In 1674 he was apprehended
and fined. In 1684 he was saved from prison by finding sureties for
good behariour to the amount of 200Z., which Judge Jeffreys said
¦• He has been often represented as the author of The Lancashire Levite, which
was the production of his clever son and namesake, Zachary Taylor.

374 LANCASHIRE.
' ought to have been 2,000Z.' His life of frouble was closed with an
evening of comfort and peace. An old man at the Revolution, he
often expressed his gratitude to God for the liberty which he had to
preach the gospel ; of which U\?erty he largely availed himself, for he-
often preached six or seven tL-<si a I'^sk after he was seventy years
of age. Matthew Henry says : ' He was a minister of the first rank
for gifte and graces.' He left a son, Timothy JoUie, who became the
congregational minister of Sheffield, and, Uke his father, was a great
sufl'erer for nonconformity.
Of the district of Warrington, including the parishes which had
been subject to the fourth presbyterial classis, the ejected ministers
were : Jamea Wooda of Ashton in Makerfield ; James Woods, his son,
of Chowbent ; John Wright * of BUling ; Samuel Mather of Burton
Wood ; James Bradshaw of Hindley ; Roger Baldwin of Rainford ;
Robert Yates of Warrington; and Charles Hotham of Wigan. Thomas
Crompton of Astley, and Thomas Gregg of St. Helens, as I have
afready observed, retained their chapels without conforming.
Samuel Mathbe was the eldest son of Richard Mather, who,
harassed for nonconformity, removed from Toxteth Park to New
England. Samuel, when nine years of age, accompanied his father
across the Atlantic. Haring prosecuted his studies with much dili
gence and success in Harvard University, he obtained the first fellow
ship founded in that seat of learning. On the fall of episcopacy, he
retumed to England in order to complete his studies in the univer
sities of hia native country. Having graduated at Oxford, he became
chaplain of Magdalen College, when Dr. Thomas Goodwin was its
principal, by whom he was greatly respected for his learning and
abUity. .After spending some time at Cambridge, where he also gra
duated, he accompanied Lord Henry Cromwell, as one of his chap
lains, to Dublin, where he again graduated, and became a fellow of
Trinity College. On his return to England, he obteined the little
chapelry of Burton Wood, where one William Bagaley had minis
tered ; who, according to the parliamentary commissioners, was ' not
well qualified to teach, and made marriages contrary to the directory.'
The humble sanctuary of an obscure vUlage in the midst of what
remained of one of the great Lancashfre forests is not exactly the
place in which we should look for a graduate of four umversities,
who had been a fellow of two colleges and a chaplain to the lord
protector's son. But there the Act of Uniformity found the great
scholar preaching in a wooden chapel, which the parUamentary com
missioners, who were not very particular about the convenience of
the chapels scattered among the woods and wUds of Lancashire, pro
nounced to be an ' unconvenient ' place. His benefice was not very
tempting, for it brought him 4Z. 19s. interest of money, and 2Z. 5s.
rent of a house and orchard, besides a few pounds which the villagers
* Mr. Wright was the grandfather of Dr. Samuel Wright, who was for nearly
forty years the minister of the presbyterian meeting-house in Carter Lane, Doctors'
Commons, and the author of a book once in high repute on Regeneration. The
doctor, having lost his parents in his childhood, was brought up in Lancashire-
under the care of his widowed grandmother.

EXCLUSION, 375
gave him, I can imagine only one inducement that could have
brought Samuel Mather to select that vUlage for his ministry — ^its
contiguity to Lowton, in which his honoured father was born, and of
which he might have had some chUdish recollections. Expelled from
that quiet home, he was not treated as he had treated others ; for
when he was in Ireland he refused a commission to displace some
episcopal ministers of Munster, and gave as his reason that ' he was
caUed to preach the gospel, and not to hinder others from preaching
it.' After he was ejected he returned to Ireland, and being, as Wood
says, ' a congregational man and Nonconformist, yet ci-ril to those of
the episcopal persuasion,' he preached to a gathered churchin his own
hired house. There he was disturbed by the soldiery, and charged
before the Lord Mayor with preaching in a conventicle to ' old dis
contented officers.' Although he was subject to frequent annoyance,
he continued his ministry until his death in 1671. He left several
' learned treatises ' on the popish controversy, a tract against ' stinted
liturgies,' and an ' Irenicon to reconcile Presbyterians, Independents,
and Anabaptists,' His younger brother Nathanael, who succeeded
him in his ministry at Dublin, published a volume of his discourses,
which were in good repute among the early Nonconformists,*
James Bradshaw has afready been before us as the popular preacher
of Wigan, who at the siege of Lathom insfructed the soldiers in the
mysteries of the Apocalypse, He had been ejected from the rich
benefice of Wigan in the time of the Commonwealth because, as the
commissioners reported, ' although he was a painful, preaching min
ister, he did not observe the fast ' appointed by parliament. He was,
however, allowed to retein the chapel of Hindley until the Royalists
finished the work which the RepubUcans had begun, and deprived
him of the little which his former persecutors had left. He was
afterwards aUowed, as I have observed, to occupy the smaU chapel of
Rainford, After the Revolution his friends erected for him a meeting-house
near the chapel from which he had been ejected, and instituted a smt
in the duchy court to recover the endowments which had been given
by the Presbyterians for the benefit of preaching ministers. After
prolonged litigation, they were compeUed to resign their claims, and
to found a dissenting trust under the protection of the Act of Tolera
tion, James Bradshaw died in 1702.t
Robert Yates, the rector of Warrington, was, like his friend Brad
shaw, a zealous Presbyterian, and, like him, sorely troubled by Epis
copalians on the one hand and Independents on the other. Several
of his friends were ejected for refusing the engagement to support the
Protector's government, but he so boldly opposed it, and dissuaded
others from taking it, that he was tried at Lancaster on a charge of
high freason. Being requfred to refract, he firmly refused, and was
left for execution. By the clemency of the judge he was, however,
* Cotton Mather's Magnalia; Life of Mather in Clarke's Uves; Wood; and
Calamy. + Calamy ; Palmer ; and Gastrell's Notitia.

376 LANCASHIRE.
released and permitted to return to his rectory. Thence the Act of
Uniformity expelled him. Having escaped the persecution of both
Independents and BpiscopaUana, he licensed a private house for
preaching, until in 1672 his friends erected a meeting-house for him,
in which he officiated until his death in 1678. He was the founder
of the presbyterian interest in Warrington, in the charge of which his
son Samuel aucceeded him,*
Charles Hotham had been appointed rector of Wigan on the ex-
pulaion of Mr, Bradshaw for refusing to observe the fasts appointed
by the republican government. The son of the celebrated parliamen
tary officer Sir John Hotham, he had been for some time fellow of
Peter House, Cambridge, and a proctor of the University, Calamy
says he was a great scholar and ' searcher into the secrets of nature,'
What else he was it is not easy to say, except that by the surrender
of the rich benefice of Wigan he proved himself to be an honest man.
Astrology aeems to have been his favourite study, as he hoped by the
teaching of the stars to interpret the prophecies of Scripture. After
his ejectment he does not appear to have prosecuted his ministry, nor
to have associated -vrith his nonconforming brethren. As the shadow
of death was falling npon him, he seemed to become dissatisfied with
his favourite studies, for he expressly requfred in his will that aU his
asfrological books and papers ahould be burnt.
Within the boundaries of the fifth classis, which included the neigh
bourhood of Liverpool, the ejected ministers were : John Fogg of
Liverpool ; William Bell of Huyton ; Nathanael Heywood of Orms
kirk ; Joseph Thompson of Sephton ; Henry Finch and Robert
Eaton of Walton ; f and John MaUinson of Melling,
John Fogg is omitted by Calamy, although he was held in great
esteem by the Presbyterians of hia time. He preached privately, aa
he had opportunity, after his ejectment, until he was compelled by
the Five Mile Act to leave the neighbourhood of Liverpool He found
shelter at Great Budworth in Cheshire, where he died in the forty-
eighth year of his age.
William Bell, M.A. Oxon, vicar of Huyton, was held in great re
putation, both as a scholar and as a preacher. As he had been one
of the king'a preachers in Lancashire, his stipend of 50Z, per annum
was, on the fall of episcopacy, augmented by the parliament to 80Z.,
which was ' paid to him as a minister itinerant within the county, by
Mr. Pollard, the receiver ofthe revenues of the duchy,' { Although
he had been episcopally ordained, and was wUling to submit to epis
copal government, he could not profess his assent and consent to
everything contained in the Book of Common Prayer, After the
passing of the Five Mile Act he resided near several other Noncon-
* Calamy; Palmer's Nonconformist's Memorial ; and notices of him in the Ufe
of Nathanael Heywood.
+ Thompson and Eaton were ejected in 1660. See p. 348.
X Report of the Commissioners. The salaries of the itinerant preachers of Lanca
shire, which had remained stationary from their appointment under Elizabeth,
were generally augmented under the protectorate. On the restoration of royalty
they were reduced to the original estimate.

EXCLUSION. 377
formista in Mancheater, ' the godly town without a corporation,' and
usually attended the ministry of John Angier. On the issue of the
royal licenses he returned to Huyton, and registered a meeting-house
for Nonconformists. According to Calamy he died in 1681, at the
age of seventy-four ; but, according to a brass plate afiBxed to a waU
of Huyton church, in 1683, in the eightieth year of his age. The
inscription is : —
' Here underneath lyeth the body of that worthy Divine, and Most Famous
Preacher of God's Word, Mr. WiUiam BeU, M"^ of Arts, whose Pithy and Senten
tious Sermons warmed the Hearts of aU Good Christians who heard him, and
whose Pious Life and Holy Conversation was a Continual Sermon to teach others
Imitation. Hee Dyed or rather Begun to Live a Life of Glory, upon Monday the
10th Day of March, and was here solemnly Interred on Wednesday the 12th Day
¦of March Anno Domini 1683, and in the '80th year of his Age, having been Pastor
of this Church A Bove 20 years.'
Nathanael He-iwood, vicar of Ormskfrk, was a son of Richard
Heywood of Little Lever and Alice his wife, one of the Critchlaws of
Longworth near Walmesley. His mother was especially remarkable
for the puritanical character of her piety, being ever ready, as her
son tells us, 'to demolish relics of superstition,' 'to keep private
days and fasts,' and ' to procure pious preaching ministers for the
chapels ' of her neighbourhood. Although her son Nathanael had
not quite so much of the mother in him as his elder brother OUver,
that is, not so much actirity and working power, he had more learn
ing than his brother, and was probably of the two the abler preacher
and more agreeable gentleman. "With his brother he was edu
cated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he received, if not his first,
yet his deepest and most enduring religious impressions, under the
preaching of Mr. Hammond, at that time the popular preacher of St.
Giles's. On completing his collegiate course he went to London, to
do what was then considered almost a necessary part of a ' preaching
minister's ' education, to ' hear famous ministers.' On his return to
his native county he ' tabled ' vrith the ' famous Mr. Edward Gee '
of Eccleston, and by serving him in the ministry for two yeara, he
' became moulded in the same method, manner, and practice.' His
first settlement was at lUingworth in Yorkshfre, whence he removed,
in 1657, to Ormskirk, to the vicarage of which he had the satisfac
tion of receiring, first, the unanimous call of the people ; secondly,
the presentation of the Countess of Derby ; thfrdly, the induction of
the presbyterian classis ; fourthly, the approval of the parUamentary
commissioners ; and, lastly, the welcome of the ministers and Protes
tant gentry of the neighbourhood. But even his unimpeachable title
was annulled by the Act of Uniformity. Of a meek and quiet spirit,
avoiding the controversies to which his mother and his elder brother
were so prone, married to a bishop's niece, esteemed by the Countess
cf Derby, and beloved by his parishioners, it was thought by many
that he would contrive by some means to retein his benefice. They
who thought so knew only one side of the good man's character. If
the objections to conformity did not seem to him so numerous as they

378 LANCASHIRE.
did to many of his brethren, or if he said less about them, he had a
very sensitive conscience, to which, in the smallest particular, he could
not do violence. His character is Ulusfrated by an incident -which
seems to be well authenticated. ' Ah ! Mr. Heywood,' said a parish
ioner, ' we would gladly have you stiU preach in the church.' ' I
would gladly preach,' was the reply, ' if I could do it vrith a good
conscience.' ' Ah,' said the rustic, ' many a man now-a-days makes
a great gash in his conscience ; cannot you make a Uttle nick in
yours F ' That ' Uttle nick ' he could not cut. He was not the man
to estimate the size of the wound to be inflicted, when he would in
flict no wound at aU.
After the good paator had lost the emoluments of his office, he con
tinued to reside in the parish ; and as his successor, content vrith the
tithes, cared Uttle about the people, he employed himself in -visiting
the sick, preaching in private, often in the night, in the lonely home
steads among the mosses of the neighbourhood. On the granting of
the indulgences he Ucensed two houses situate in remote parts of the
extensive parish. At Bickerstaffe he obtained a license to preach in
the chapel belonging to the mansion of Lady Stanley, who, to ensure
safety, procured a conforming minister to read the prayers before he
commenced preaching. After the recall of the licenses, a party of
soldiers entered the chapel while he was preaching, ordered him to
desist, and proceeded to apprehend him. Lady Stanley, with extra
ordinary promptness and decision, left her gallery, hastened to the '
pulpit stairs, and forbade the soldiers to ascend. As he was ordered
to appear before the magistrates at Wigan, Lady Stanley accompanied
him, stood by his side during the examination, and probably was the
means of procuring his release.*
Nathanael loved preaching in his 'Uttle Bethels,' which were, in
his estimation, very pleasant substitutes for the Zion of the great con
gregation. He felt the disappointment so severely when he was pro
hibited from continuing to preach in private houses, that he wrote to
his brother Oliver, ' I think this turning us out of our licensed places
•will cost Mr. Yatesf and me our lives. This goes heavUy, The cast
ing us out of our great places was not so bad as the casting us out of
our little places. Other afflictions are Ught compared with a dumb
mouth and a silent Sabbath.' He died on December 16, 1677, in the
forty-fifth year of his age. Amidst a crowd of his parishioners and
neighbours, who made great lamentation over him, he was buried in
the chancel of Ormskfrk church, ' in the burial-place of the Stanleys
of Bickerstaffe,' As the church was crowded with people expecting
a funeral serrice, and as the vicar made no appearance, Mr, Starkey,
an ejected minister, went into the pulpit, 'no man forbidding,' and
preached what I suppose was the last sermon preached by a Noncon
formist in the curious old church of Ormskirk. In the night (by
which is meant what we should call after dark in the evening), OUver
* Several of the Stanleys of Bickerstaffe, ancestors of the present Earl of Derby
were more or less favourable to the Puritans, often ia opposition to the older family
of Lathom.
t The ejected minister of Warrington.

EXCLUSION, 379
Heywood preached in the house of the vridow to aa many people as
the room would aUow, To the itinerant preaching of Nathanael
Heywood, says Mr. Hunter, may be traced, ' in part at least,' the old
nonconformist congregations of Wigan, Warrington, Liverpool, and
Preston. His itinerant labours were undoubtedly very useful in these
and many other places, but he cannot be regarded as the founder of
any one of those congregations.*
Of Joseph Thompson, ejected from Sephton, all I know is, that he
was bom at Wigan, and educated at Oxford ; that he was a good
scholar, and a vritty and ingenious gentleman ; that he was very rich,
and did much good with his money. After he was ejected from his
pleasant parsonage he Uved quietly in Ormskirk, and, I doubt not
from the character given him by Calamy, contributed generously to
the support of his poorer brethren, I allude to this, because it ought
to be noticed in honour of the few ejected ministers who had private
property, that notwithstanding their heavy losses, they very gene
rally, though quietly, contributed to the relief of thefr brethren who
were not so fortxmate as themselves. In some instances thefr bene
ficence and hospitaUty were maintained by great self-denial and
economy. Scarcely an ejected minister who could keep a house over
his head was unwUling to entertain a travelling fellow- sufferer. Had
Joseph Thompson been an exception, he would not have acqufred the
reputation for UberaUty with which his memory is associated in non
conformist narrative.
Henet Finch has been already noticed as occupying, on the invi
tation of the people, the chapel of Birch. He had been in great
trouble on account of hia connection vrith the rising of the Presby
terians under Sfr George Booth. The parliamentary sequestrators
had seized his estate and effects, and had it not been for the restoration
of royalty, they would probably have deprived him of his benefice.
Whichever party was in power, he acted conscientiously, and firmly
refused both to take the engagement to the Protectorate and to sub
mit to the Act of Uniformity. As the Republicans had confiscated
his estate, and the Royalists had ejected him from his benefice, he
was reduced from comparative affluence to poverty and dependence.
"Wlule he was the nonconforming minister of Birch chapel, he received
ten shUlings a Sunday for his ser-rices. At the close of one year
there remained a surplus of IZ. 16s. 2cZ., ' out of which sum Mr. fBnch
had ten shUlings gratuity, because he had been sicke, and eight shU
lings and sixpence were lost in bad and broken money.' t When, on
the death of the proprietor of the estate, his heir required Mr. Finch
to leave the chapel, hia congregation, as we shall hereafter notice,
erected for him a meeting-house, in which he officiated until his death
in 1704.
His friend Robeet Eaton, like himself a devoted RoyaUst, became
* Calamy ; Palmer ; Hunter's Ufe of Oliver Heywood. A life of Nathanael
Heywood was written by his brother Oliver, and long afterwards printed at the ex
pense of Sir Henry Ashurst, who prefixed to it a dedication to Lord WUloughby of
Parham. t History of Birch Chapel, p. 139.

•^80 LANCASHIRE.
the fainily chaplain of Sfr George Booth, created Lord Delamere. On
liberty being granted to the Nonconformista, he ministered at Prest
wich, where his congregation erected for him ' a fiiir and handsome
meeting-house,' as no doubt it appeared to the eyes of its plain and
homely worshippers.
In the hundred of Leyland, which had been under the government
cf the sixth presbyterial claasis, the ejected ministers were : Henry
Welch of Chorley ; James Hyett, or Hiet, of Croston ; and Paul
Lathom of Stendish.
Henet Welch was, I suppose, a preacher of no extraordinary
ability, aa it is said of him in ' The Nonconformist's Memorial,'
' Though he did not excel in gfifts, it was made up to him in grace.'
Whatever may have been the deficiency of his ' gifts,' he had ' grace'
to secure in a remarkable degree the esteem and confidence of the
principal genfry of his neighbourhood. No man in the county was
more frequently sought to conciUate enemies, to settle disputes, and
to arrange famUy interests. He was intrusted vrith the guardianship
of the orphan children of Mr. Stendish oi Duxbury, and to the aatia-
fection of aU parties concerned he discharged his difficult trust.
James Htett was one ofthe oldest and most honoured ministers of
the county. He had been appointed the moderator of the provincial
assembly at its first meeting, and had been frequently elected presi
dent of the presbyterian courts to which he belonged. Having a
considerable income, he was long remembered for the generosity with
which he expended it, during the civU war, in reliering the urgent
distress of the people who had been harassed and plundered by both
conflicting armies. Like several other Lancashire Presbyterians, he
was twice ejected ; first by the Republicans for refusing the engage
ment ; secondly by the Royalists, for not submitting to the Act of
Uniformity. Above seventy years of age on the passing of the Act,
he did not surrive his ejectment more than two years, in which time
he contributed largely to the relief of his poorer brethren, who fre
quently applied to him for help, and were seldom, if ever, refused.
Paul Lathom, rector of Standish, although a much younger man
than his neighbour and friend, Mr. Hyett, Uke him did not long
survive the loss of his benefice. Connected vrith many of the chief
famiUes of the county, he had been during the ci^vil war chaplain to
Colonel Assheton of Middleton. It is said of him in ' The Noncon
formist's Memorial,' ' he had a good estate, and lived in a manner
suitable to it,' by which I hope is meant that he, like his wealthy
friend, made use of it for the benefit of his poorer brethren. He
¦certainly resigned ' a rich parsonage ' rather than do violence to hia
conacience. He died the next summer, in the fifty-fourth year of
his age.
In the district comprised vrithin the boundaries of the seventh
presbyterial classis, of which Preston was the principal town, two
ministers of considerable eminence were ejected — Isaac Ambrose and
Nathanael Baxter.*
* The reader of Calamy, on observing the omission of the names of Timothy

EXCLUSION. 381
Isaac Ambeose was, on the passing of the Act, -ricar of Garstang.
Although his practical and devotional works were very popular
among the early Nonconformiate, few memorials of his Ufe have been
preserved. AU who have read his devout meditations, his sweet
experiences, or his fervent prayers, must unite in the regret and the
wiah expressed by Mr. Hunter in his preface to the ' Life of Oliver
Heywood : ' ' Mr. Ambrose earnestly recommended the keeping of"
diaries, as eminently serriceable to thoae who made it a principal
object of their Uves to estabUsh themselves in aU the thoughte and
ways of piety, and in the book which he entitled " Media," he gives
a specimen of what, in his opinion, such diaries ought to be, by
extracts from his own. With such specimens before us, we cannot
but lament that the carelessness of later times should have suffered
such a curious and valuable document to perish, for perished it is
feared it is. There is a pathos and beauty in some of the passages
which he has selected, as when he speaks of hia occasional retire
ment to the sweet woods of Widdicre, which make one vrish for-
more.' This reference is to the tenth section of the fourth chapter of the
' Media,' in which Ambrose gives ' some example of a daily register
of a poor unworthy servant of Christ.' The date of the year is not
given, but the month of the exfracts was May, in which it was his
annual custom to retfre to a Uttle hut in a wood, and in entfre seclu
sion to spend most of his time in meditation and prayer. There
originated the meditations which long after his death refreshed and
comforted the Puritans of Lancashfre.
As the ' specimen ' may interest othera aa it did Mr. Hunter, and
as it affords a pleasing iUustration of the most meditative Puritan of
Lancashfre, I give it at length : —
' May 13. I retfred to a soUtery and silent place to practise espe
cially the secret dutiea of a Christian. My ground is that of Cant.
"rii. 11, 12 : " Come, my beloved, let ua go forth into the field, &c.,
there "will I give thee my lovea." The bridegroom of our souls (said
Bernard) ia bashful, and more frequently "risits his bride in the
solitary places.'
' May 14. In a pleasant wood, and sweet walks in it, the Lord
moved and enabled me to begin the exercise of secret duties : and
after the prolegomena, or duties in general, I feU on that duty of
watchfulness : the Lord then gave me to observe my former negUgence,
and to make some resolutions. I found the Lord sweet to me in the
conclusion of the duty. AUelujah.
' May 15. I fell on the duty of self- trial, and in the morning con
fessed my sins before and since conversion, wherein the Lord sweetly
melted my heart. In the evening I perused my diary for the last
year, wherein are many passages of mercies from God, and troubles
for sin, &c.
' May 16. In the morning I went through the duty of experiences,
Smith of Longridge and Cuthbert Harrison of Singleton, will remember that I
have already mentioned them as occupying their chapels without conforming to the
requirements of the Act.

382 LANCASHIRE.
and felt some stirrings of God's spirit in my soul. In the evening I
fell on the duty of eridences, when I acted faith, and found my
eridences clear. Oh how sweet waa my God !
'May 17. This day in the morning I mediteted on the love of
Christ, wherein Christ appeared, and melted my heart in many sweet
passages. In the evening I meditated on eternity of hell, and on
eternity of heaven, wherein the Lord both melted, and cheered, and
warmed, and refreshed my soul. Surely the touches of God's Spfrit
are as sensible as any outward touches. AUelujah.
' May 19. In the former part of this day, I exercised the Ufe of
faith, when the Lord sfrengthened me to act faith on several promises,
both temporal, spiritual, and eternal ; I had then sweet, refreshing,
and encouraging impressions on my soul against all the fearful, sin
ful, and dou'btful dreams I had the night or two before dreamed. In
the evening I considered the duty of prayer, observed some workings
of God's Spfrit in my perusing the rules, and afterwards in the
practice of this duty. Blessed be God !
' May 20. In the morning I fell on reading the word, perused the
dfrections, and then searched into the common places and uses of
my corruptions in nature and practice ; of my comforts against the
burthens of my daily infirmities ; of establishing my heart against
the fear of falling away ; of directions in my calling ; of comforts
against outward crosses ; of my privUeges in Christ above aU the
wicked in the world : in every of these Christ appeared in some
measure suitably to my soul. In the evening I proceeded in the
common places and uses of sweet passages that melted my heart ; of
sensible comforts, and of places hard to be understood : in the first
my heart was sweetly melted, in the second cheered ; in the conclu
sion the Lord struck me vrith a reverence of His majesty and presence,
filled my soul "vrith spfritual refreshings, enlarged my heart with
praises of Him, and desfres to live unto Him, who hath given me in
this time of love so many -risits, and kisses of His mouth. Allelujah.
' May 22. OccasionaUy, though not in course, I fell on some
parte of the duty of self-denial : the Lord in mercy wrought in my
soul some suitableness to that spfritual gospel-duty ; Lord, keep thia
fire up in a flame still. Oh it is a sweet, but a very hard lesson.
' May 31. I practised (as the Lord enabled) the duty of saints'
sufferings ; into which condition as I was cast, so the Lord gave me
to see my sin and to bewaU it, and to pray for the contrary, grace
and God's favour. The Lord was sweet to me in the preparations
to, but especiaUy in the improving of, sufferings. Now the Spfrit
left in my soul a sweet scent and savour behind it. Amen, Amen.'
Through the loss of hia diary, I can collect only a very imperfect
biography of Isaac Ambrose. From his ' Media,' under the head of
' Experiences,' a few incidents of his life may be gleaned, and else
where a very few more.
According to Anthony Wood, he was ' a minister's son descending
from those of the name liring at Lowick, and they from the Ambroses
of Ambrose Hall in Lancashire.' If this be frue, of which I am very
doubtful, it. would be interesting to know how, as the Ambroses of

EXCLUSION, 383
Lovrick were among the moat persistent Catholics of Lancashfre,
Isaac or his father, the minister, became a Protestant, Although
there are in his writings many references to the Papists, he makes
no allusion to his conversion from popery, or to any Catholic relatives
or associations. There is, however, no reason to doubt that he was
a minister's son, and a native of Lancashire. He entered at Brase
nose, Oxon, in 1621, in the seventeenth year of his age. Haring
taken a degree in arts and obtained orders, he served ' a little oure '
in Derbyshfre.* This 'little cure,' Uke many others in that county,
seems to have been very little indeed, for while serving it he waa
refreshed by some charitable relief of the Earl of Bedford, By the
influence of that nobleman, as Wood tells us, he was appointed one
of the king's itinerant preachers in Lancashire. Haring served for
a time a curacy in Garstang, he was selected by that patroness of
godly ministers. Lady Margaret Hoghton, to occupy the important
position of Vicar of Preston.f Wood says : ' He was then a zealous
man for carrying on the beloved cause, and acting against the ortho
dox clergy, when he was appointed an assistant to the commissioners
for the ejecting of such as they called scandalous and ignorant min
isters and schoolmasters.' Isaac Ambrose was not likely to trouble
any minister or schoolmaster who was competent and vrilling to
discharge the duties of his office. On the contrary, the foUo-wing
certificate, found among the Ffarington papers, shows his readiness
to assist those of the opposite party who were involved in trouble :
' The humble certificate of Isaac Ambrose, minister of God's word
in the church of Preston, showeth,
' That to his knowledge WUliam Ffarington of Worden in the
county of Lancaster was, before these unhappy times of war, a
gentleman weU affected to the Protestant religion, and a constant
frequenter of our weekly lectures and other ordinances of reUgion,
As also in the beginning of those times he was a man of peaceable
disposition, bending all his counsels to the accommodation and quiet
of the counfry ; and in particular out of his love and respect for the
ministry engaged himself for me (body for body and all his estate)
when I was taken prisoner by the commissioners of array in the said
¦* Castleton. Mr. Bagshaw, the author of De Spiritualibus Peed (Pecoi means of
the Peak of Derbyshire), says of him, ' I have not had the happiness to converse
with, or indeed to see, this Lamb of the Lord, save once at Manchester. At that
time his love of Cassleton, upon the mention of it, revived, tears shot into his eyes,
and from his mouth fell this ingenuous acknowledgment, " It was my sin, and is
my sorrow, that I left that place when the Lord was blessing my ministry, '"p. 23,
+ ' I speak my own loss. She was pleased to cast her affections upon me, un-
worthiest of all my Master's messengers. In her Ufetime she preferred me to this
place. The Lord made her the first wheel of His providence in bringing me hither,
and it was some trouble to her that I left this pastoral charge before she left the
world.' — Sermon preached at Preston, at the funeral of Lady Margaret Hoghton,
by Isaac Ambrose.
Wood says ' he received the appointment to Preston in 1648,' but it must have
been received earUer, as in the Ordinance for the establishment of the presbyterian
classes, dated October 1646, he is included in the seventh classis as minister of
Preston, and in a certificate dated May 18, 1647, he eaUs himself minister of God's
word iu the church of Preston.

384 LANCASHIRE.
county, "Whereupon he procured my liberty, and in his o-wn person
he brought me home to my wife and children, vrithal offering me
and mine all the kindnesaea in his power. And since that time he
was never a soldier. Nor in the time of our exUe did I ever hear
that he waa active against the king and parliament. To this certifi
cate at his desfre in very equity I cannot but subscribe. — Isaac
Ambrose. ' Preston : May 18, 1647,' *
Arnidat the inciviUtics common on both sides during the ciril war,
it is pleaaing to meet vrith such inatances of mutual courtesy and
kindness. As the squfre, though a RoyaUst, was ' well affected to
the Protestant religion,' Ambrose was well affected to him. Had he
been a Papist, Ambrose, if we may judge from a passage in his ' Ex
periences,' would not have been so ready to recommend him for a
lenient composition. In his ' Media ' occurs the foUowing entry
under the head of ' Experiences ' (section yi.) : —
' 1643. Feb. 6, Preston was taken by the parUamentary forces..
Several Papists slain in it ; some naturally of good disposition, and,
therefore, many mourned -their untimely death, but rejoiced in the
accomplishment of the promise.
' Text. Rev. x.Yi. 6, 7. " They have shed the blood of saints, and
thou hast given them blood to drink. . . Even so, Lord God Almighty,
true and righteous are Thy judgmente."
' Rev. xvUi. 20. " Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy
apostles and prophets ; for God hath avenged you on her." '
Notvrithstanding this strange ' experience,' I am sure the 'naturally
good disposition ' of Isaac Ambrose would have saved even a Papist
from death, if he had an opportunity.
So long as Ambrose continued in Preston he was favoured vrith
the friendship of the Hoghton famUy, who were among his regular-
and admiring hearers. The beautiful woods of the tower prorided
bim with sequestered places sacred to devout meditation,t while
frequently within its hospitable walls he was refreshed by social
intercourse with ' famous ministers.' "Why he left his great congre
gation at Preston does not appear, but it is evident, from an extract
* The object of this certificate was to obtain a favourable consideration for Mr.
Ffarington on his compounding for his estates before the commissioners who met
in Goldsmiths' Hall, London. How far it prevaUed to induce the commissioners
to treat the ' constant frequenter of weekly lectures ' with lenity I cannot say, but
his composition was fixed at 6311. The list of Lancashire gentlemen assessed con
tains the names of one hundred and forty-six persons, of whom only seven were
assessed at a larger sum. The head of the family to which Isaac Ambrose is said
(though I think with little probability) to have belonged, William Ambrose of
Lovrick, was amerced 129Z. — Raines's Lancashire, vol. U. p. 35. After the Restor
ation, when it was proposed to create a new order of knighthood, the estate of
WUliam Ffarington of Worden, proposed to be one of the ' knights of the royal
oak,' was valued at l.OOOi. a year.
+ Every spring, while he was minister of Preston, he paid a visit of some days
to the tower, and passed much of his time in the woods overhanging the stream,
where he found, as he said, ' his best school of theology.' The Darwen was then
the resort of salmon and trout, not as now of madder and indigo.

EXCLUSION. 385
already cited from his sermon preached at the funeral of Lady Mar
garet, that his lea"ving was not agreeable to the Hoghton famUy. On
the occasion of his preaching that sermon, the interest excited was
so intense, and the crowd so oppressive, that with great difficulty
the funeral procession obtained an entrance into the church. The
voice of the pathetic preacher was often interrupted and overcome by
the lamentations of the people.
But Ambrose, for some good reason 1 doubt not, left Preston and
became minister of Garstang. Elected during the Commonwealth
in what was afterwards thought an irregular manner — that is, by
the voice of the people — his name is not inserted in the approved
lists of the Garstang vicars. But ricar he was, legally as well as
ostensibly, on the passing of the Act of Uniformity. He could con
scientiously have complied with many of the requirements of the
Act ; he was "wiUing to read the Book of Common Prayer ; he was
rebuked for his feebleness in making concessions by Dr. Cole, his
successor at Preston ; but in the hour of trial the feeble grew strong,
and the strong man fainted. We have already seen how Cole con
formed, and we now see how Ambrose was ejected.*
We know but little of the subsequent life of the Nonconformist.
He spent his later years in meditation and quietude among his friends
in Preston. A lover of nature as well as of God, like his namesake
the patriarch, ' Isaac went out to meditate in the field at eventide.'
He spent a great part of his time every summer in Widdicre wood,
where, seldom seen by any, except on the Sabbath, he communed
with his own heart and his God. The last time he was seen aUve
was by some friends from Garstang, of whom he is said to have taken
leave with unusual affection and solemnity. Immediately after they
left him he retfred to his place of meditation, where he was found by
an attendant in the moment of death. He departed in 1664 at the
age of slxty-one.f
Of the Lancashire Nonconformists Isaac Ambrose is better known
as a practical writer than any other. His book entitled ' Looking to
¦* Calamy and Palmer refer to Cole as having subsequently conformed ; but it is
not certain that he was ever ejected. He favoured Ambrose with a oommendatoiy
letter which was appended to the treatise upon the Ministration of Angels. It is
about as pedantic and pretentious a letter as was ever written even by a doctor in
divinity. What worse can be said of it I know not. It is not surpassed iu pedantry
and pretence by any of Dr. Parr's letters.
t Under the portrait prefixed to his collected works, he is said to have been
fifty-nine in 1663. Calamy says, 'He died at. 72 ;' but this is certainly a mistake.
Wood had, I suppose, some reason for calling him a minister's son. I find two
vicars of Ormskirk named Ambrose, Richard and Henry ; Richard died in 1612,
and Henry succeeded in 1615. As the intervening vicar resigned in favour of the
latter, I suspect the Earl of Derby, who was the p-itron, made the arrangement for
the benefit of Henry. If it were so, he was probably a son of Richard, not of suffi
cient age on the death of his father to take the vicarage. As Isaac Ambrose was
born in 1604, he might have been a son of Richard and a younger brother of He"J-y-
Among the ejected ministers of Lancashire were Joshua Ambrose of West Derby,
who afterwards conformed, and Nehemiah Ambrose of Kirkby. I know nothing
of the parentage of either, although I cannot but think that Isaac, Joshua, and
Nehemiah Ambrose were somehow related.
lc

386 LANCASHIRE,
Jesus ' was at one time very popular with devout people in the north
of England, and is still read by those who retain a relish for puritan
dirinity. Of the writers of his age and opinions, some who seem to
me very inferior to him have been more highly recommended.
Doddridge, in his account of nonconformist writers, does not notice
him, although those who knew him would, I think, prefer him to
Manton or Bates, whom Doddridge highly commends. He has been
compared with Flavel, whom in some respecte he resembles, but to
whom in others he is very unlike. The great fault of Ambrose is
found in the awkward arrangements and complicated divisions vrith
which he wearies and perplexes his readers. Frequently he intro
duces materials remotely connected -vrith his subject, and makes
digressions of an intolerable length. Although more artificial (if it
be artifice and not carelessness) in his method than Flavel, he is
more easy, natural, and appropriate in his Ulustrations. More judi
cious than Flavel, he had a finer imagination and much more of true
poetry. If not so sensitive, so plaintive, so ready to weep, as Flavel,
there is in him deeper and more varied feeling, often restrained and
often beautifully expressed. Flavel spirituaUsed the works of man's
husbandry ; Ambrose the works of God in nature. Flavel loved the
garden and the corn-field ; Ambrose the heath and the forest. Isaac
loved to meditate in the evening in the quiet wood, and tell the
people on Sunday morning what he had seen and felt in his lonely
retreat. His meditations seem fragrant with the sweet hawthorn of
Widdicre wood and the weeping bfrches of Darwen water. But at
times he could leave his woods and streams, and present in thefr
simple grandeur objects of infinite importance. Telling us to look
to Jesus, how clearly and impressively he presents the Sariour alone
in all the varied aspects of His character and changes of His life !
Taking us to the palace of the high priest or the judgment hall of
PUate, he says, as few men ever said it, Ecce Homo I and Ecce Deus !
and we see the man of sorrows and yet exclaim, ' My Lord and my
God ! ' Many who have no love to puritan doctrine, nor sympathy
"vrith puritan experience, have appreciated vrith Joseph Hunter ' the
pathos and beauty ' of the "writings of Isaac Ambrose.
Nathanael Baxter, M.A. of Jesus College, Cambridge, was ejected
from the vicarage of St. Michael-upon-"W"yre. After learing the
university he resided some time in the famUy of Henry Newcome,
that he might be fitted for the serrices of a working pastor. During
his residence in Manchester he gained the confidence of Mr. New-
come, the esteem of the ministers of the presbytery, and the affection
of the people of the town. In allusion to the simplicity of his life
and manners, as well as to his name, they called him a true Nathanael,
a man without guUe. While under the care of Mr. Newcome he
frequently preached, as was then customary vrith expectants, for the
neighbouring ministers ; his occasional serrices were very acceptable,
and especiaUy to the congregation of Mr. Angier. Being strongly
recommended both by Newcome and by Angier to Isaac Ambrose,
he was by the kindness of the latter introduced to the vacant church
of St. Michael, where he preached as a candidate for the minisfry.

EXCLUSION. 387
On the inritetion of the people, with the consent of the patron, and
the approval of the commissioners, he was ordained by the presbytery,
and instituted vicar of the parish.
After he was ejected he removed into Yorkshire, and found a home
in the famUy of Sfr WiUiam Middleton of Aldworth. While acting
as chaplain to that gentleman, he was inrited by Mr. Pegg, proprietor
of Beauchief Abbey in Derbyshire, to preach in ite unoccupied chapel.
For this service Mr. Pegg aUowed him sixteen pounds a year. So
long as the old proprietor lived, that is, for seventeen years, Mr.
Baxter continued to preach without molestation. But the young
squire had not the courage of his father. Being alarmed at the pen
alties with which he was threatened for encouraging nonconformity
and allowing a conventicle on his estate, he required Mr. Baxter to
desist irom preaching, "When King James granted the indulgences
to nonconforming ministers, Mr, Pegg inrited his father's chaplain
to return, and offered him thirty pounds a year if he would read the
Book of Common Prayer. On his decUning to do this, so desfrous
were the proprietor and the people to secure his preaching, that they
offered to proride the expense of a person to read the prayers.
Although he could not agree to this arrangement, he retained the
esteem of the proprietor, who ' left him a handsome legacy on
account of his pious and charitable serrices to the people of the
"rillage.' In the neighbourhood of Lancaster, which had been comprised
¦vrithin the boundaries of the eighth presbyterial classis, the ejected
ministers were, Mr. "WTiite of Melling, Mr. Nicholas Smith of Tatham,
and Dr. WiUiam Marshall, ricar of Lancaster, who afterwards became
a physician of some eminence in London.
In the mountainous, and, to the rest of the county, almost unknown
district north of Morecambe Bay, were several of the most self-deny
ing, laborious, and useful ministers of Lancashire. They had con
stituted the lunth presbyterial classis. Their little white churches
were poorly endowed, and scarcely accessible to their remote parish
ioners in the inclement weather which often prevaUs among the fella
of Furness and Cartmel. Yet in that bleak and Ul- cultured region,
scarcely ever visited by tourists (if such people then existed), good
men were earnestly and successfuUy preaching the great doctrines of
the Reformation. If their people could not go to their churches,
they cheerfully went to their people, and preached in barns, cottages,
and, in summer time, within the ruins of Furness Abbey and Cartmel
Priory, wherever they could collect the rustics who, if they knew
litle else, knew ' the sweet sound of Christ's holy evangile.' Secluded
from the world, they maintained Christian intercourse among them
selves, and worked wUUngly together for the spiritual welfare of the
rural population. The most distinguished for thefr itinerant labours
were Mr. Bennet of Cartmel, Mr. Camelford of Steveley, Mr. Drinchal
of LindhaU, Mr. Lamvet of Ulverstone, Mr. Whitehead of Dalton, and
Mr. Nehemiah Ambrose of Kfrkby-on-Duddon. On St. Bartholo
mew's day, 1662, not one of them could have seen the book to which
they were required to give thefr assent and consent. WhUe some of

388 LANCASHIRE.
their brethren, in order to make sure of a scanty livelihood, subscribed
thefr assent to a book they had not seen, it was honourable to the
simple integrity of a poor and remote clergy, who had no opportunity
of consulting thefr better informed friends, that the majority of them
refused to do what they were not sure would prove in accordance
with thefr belief. In no other district of the county was the propor
tion of nonconforming ministers so great as in that beyond the sands.
They had pre-riously been, with scarcely an exception, opposed to the
ceremonies. A snrpUce was almost unknown in their country.
"When the day of trial came, they left thefr churches, but they would
not forsake the congregations they had gathered in the hamlets and
farmhouses of their extensive parishes. Although they resigned thefr
Uvings (small, indeed, but everything earthly they had), they con
tinued in the country and preached in unobserved places, as they had
opportunity. Protected from the informers by their almost impass
able mountains, they were content with the hospitaUty of a poor but
"vrilling people. Several of the churches continued unoccupied ; for
few conformists cared to settle where their stipends would be smaU,
their churches empty, and their neighbours looking upon them as
intruders. At times the Nonconformists were compelled by some
obfrusive magisfrate to desist from preaching, but they soon resumed
their itinerant labours. Thefr ' wage ' was smaU, but thefr work
was prosperous, and thefr hearts contented and grateful. An intruder
had once the bad manners to tell one of them that his ' coat was too
mean for a minister,' and the minister had the spfrit to reply, ' It
might have looked finer if I had turned it.' In the time of the in
dulgences they were so successful in gathering their people that, on
the passing of the Act of Toleration, there were more congregations
able to support their ministers in Cartmel and Furness than there
have ever been at one time since the accession of the house of Han
over. Many of them attained a degree of stability which enabled
them to proride successors after the ministers who founded them
were removed by death. A summer visitor of their lakes, finding in
their vaUeys only two or three small congregations of dissenters,
may weU enquire. What has become of the old nonconforming
interests of that country ? They are gone, and have left but scanty
memorials of thefr history. One or two facts are worthy of preser
vation. It has been disputed where was formed the first congregational
church in England. IsUngton, Yarmouth, Southwark, Dukenfield,
have claimed the honour.* Among the fells of Furness was founded
the first Cheistian Church in England. By Christian I here mean,
not congregational, nor presbyterian, nor episcopal, nor baptist, but
simply Christian in its unrestricted sense — Christian, not sectarian ;
Catholic, not denominational ; a Church of people, acknowledged as
Christians and as nothing else. A poor ejected minister over the
sands had the wisdom and grace to form such a Church, and the
poor mountaineers of his neighbourhood had the piety firmly to
adhere to it and long to sustain it. I know the neighbourhood ; I
* I refer not to Brownists, but to CongregationaUsts.

EXCLUSION. 389
vrish I could identify the exact spot where these Catholic Christians
for many years worshipped the God and Father of aU good people.
_ The little chapel from which the Rev. Gabeiel Camelford was
ejected was situate in the romantic village of Staveley, not far from
Newby Bridge, near the southern end of Windermere. Although
ejected, he would not be sUenced, as he felt a woe upon him if he
preached not the gospel. Beloved, not only in his own chapelry, but
through all the lake counfry, he resolved to Uve and die preaching
wherever he could find hearers, by the side of the lakes or in the
shelter of the glens. He was ' an instrument,' says a correspondent
of ' the Nonconformist's Memorial,' ' of converting many in Furness
feUs, beyond the sands.' His converts formed a Church upon the
cathoUc principle : ' We declare ourselves willing and ready to receive
into our communion aU who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity
and truth.' This Church, composed of poor and UUterate men, in an
obscure corner of the land, imposed no terms of communion, and
requfred no compromise of opinion. In form congregational, in
reality Catholic, "this Church, although unlike in its catholicity to
any other in England, acquired considerable strength and stability,
for after the death of Mr. Camelford, Mr. Sedgefield was its pastor
more than forty years, and, during the whole of his ministry, the
catholic principle was preserved inriolate.*
We have thus become acquainted with the fathers of Lancashire
nonconformity. In the reriew of thefr character and conduct, we
may confidently assert that Lancashfre Nonconformists have no
reason to be ashamed of thefr ancestors. May they ever act worthily
of their ancestry and lineage, of thefr Newcome, and Heywood, and
Harrison, and Jollie, and Ambrose, and Camelford, and thefr con
temporaries and immediate successors !
* These particulars were communicated to Mr. Palmer by a son of Mr. Sedgefield,
who had been a member of the Church, and had conversed with old people who
remembered the famous itinerant preacher, Gabriel Camelford.

CHAPTER XVII.
NONCONFORMITY,
We have now to consider nonconformity no longer as an irregularity
tolerated, or persecuted, within the Church of England, but as an
organisation formed vrithout its limits, and governed independently
of its rule. It appears as a great schism, which suggests the enquiry.
Who were the schismatics ? "Wlio made the schism ? Who tore to
pieces the seamless robe of Christ ?
Although it is easy to say the people of a schism are the schismatics,
it is not always just to say so. Christian men may, without any fault
of their own, be brought to a position in which they cannot with
honour, with integrity, or with a good conscience, remain in com
munion with the Church of their country. It was so in the great
schism of which we are speaking. Both the civU and the ecclesiastical
authorities determined, for different reasons, to exclude the Puritans
from the national Church. The terms of communion were purposely
made so stringent that the Presbyterians could not comply vrithout
dishonour. It was resolved, by those who had the power to carry
their resolution into effect, that the presbyterian ministers should be
either ruined in reputation or expelled from their livings. The
authors of the Act knew that many ministers could not honestly con
form, and that if they did conform they would be despised by thefr
people. Some Churchmen acknowledged that, if they had thought
their old enemies would have conformed, they would have made the
requfrements of the Act more severe and oppressive. Some courtiers
wished to promote a large Protestant nonconformity, by means of
Avhich they might obtain a toleration for Roman Catholics. It was
not enough for a minister to observe the ritual of the Church ; he
must profess his assent and consent to many things which he had
publicly denied. If a young man, he had to repudiate his ordination ;
if an old man, to renounce his solemn covenant. Who was the
schismatic ? The man who imposed the dishonourable condition, or
the man who would not accept it ? The latter was in the schism,
but the former drove him into it ; the latter suffered the schism, but
the former made it. The latter was in no other sense a schismatic
than the man who wears a coat is a taUor. Had nonconformity not
been an organised schism -without the Church, it would have been an
organised hypocrisy within it, and the presbyterian ministers, guUtless
of the schism, would have been guilty of the hypocrisy.
The ejected ministera, vrith almost entire unanimity, resolved to
continue the exercise of their ministry aa they could find opportunity.
They had been appointed and ordained to thefr office, by such au-

NONCONFORMITY, 391
thority and in such a manner as they believed to be sufficient to
authorise their pubUc ministrations. They had done nothing to dis
credit thefr orders, or to relieve themselves of thefr ordination vows.
In the losa of their UveUhood they could trust to the providence of
God, in whose service they had sustained that loss in order to pre
serve their integrity and honour. They quietly waited to see what
opportunity they might find for resuming their ministry, and what
livelihood they might obtein by its exercise. They had not long to
wait before the way of serrice was made plain, and support in it
unexpectedly prorided.
As to the hope of obtaining any pubhc employment, the presbyte
rian ministers were alternately elated and depressed by the inconsistent
and disingenuous policy of the court. Lord Clarendon and Bishop
Sheldon were thoroughly understood by the Nonconformists. Thefr
conduct was uniform, plain, and consistent. Intent upon crushing
the Presbyterians as convicted enemies of the Church and the mon
archy, they vrith no pretence of conciliation unscrupulously employed
any expedients which were likely to accomplish thefr purpose. But
the poUcy of the courtiers, of the queen mother, of her popish
attendants, and of the king himself, so far as he had any policy at
all, was not so easily understood by the Nonconformists. What could
be the meaning, they might well enqufre, of the promises of one day
and the threatenings of the next, the blending of leniency and severity
in a maze of perplexing alternations ? There was much to encourage
them, and quite as much to intimidate them. Was it the result of
mere waywardness and humour on the part of the court ? or was
there, in the hearts of those who influenced the king, some secret
purpose untu the divulging of which they could not interpret these
intricate and perplexing movements ?
To the eve of Bartholomew's day the ministers were cheered -with
the vain hope of being aUowed to retain their benefices, or of being
in some other way employed in the public serrice. Letters of pro
mise, apparently resting on good authority, were sent from London
and eagerly read by the ministers of Lancashire. Some indulgence
was undoubtedly contemplated by the king, and as undoubtedly
prevented by Clarendon and Sheldon.
On August 27, only three days after black Bartholomew, a petition
was presented to the king by several of the London ministers, who
' humbly cast ourselves and concernments at your majesty's feet,
desiring that of your princely vrisdom and compassion you vrill teke
some effectual course whereby we may be continued in the exercise
of our ministry,'* The king gave them a favourable reply, and the
* To this petition twenty-seven names were subscribed. The sixth name is
' John Tillots.' No minister of that name can be discovered either in London or
the country. John TUlotson, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, was at the
time residing at Cheshunt, and was regarded as a Nonconformist. I suspect ' John
Tillots ' was no other than John TiUotson, although I cannot tell why he abbre
viated his name. It is doubtful whether TiUotson ever conformed. It is remark
able that Birch, his biographer and intimate friend, oould not discover by what
bishop he was ordained. It is now ascertained that he procured ordination from a,
Scotch bishop who required no subscription to any articles. Nor is it known that

392 LANCASHIRE.
next day intimated in council his intention of granting 'indulgence.'
Sheldon, however, defeated the purpose of ' princely vrisdom ' by a
bold and resolute speech against an unconstitutional exercise of pre
rogative in suspending an act of parUament, to which the king in hia
'princely wisdom' had given his assent. Sheldon was constitu
tionally right, but his constitutional right was grievous wrong to the
Nonconformists. Summ/um, jus summa injuria est.
The nonconforming ministers, deprived of the opportunity of
engaging in the public serrice of the Church, devoted themselves,
until better days might come, to such private ministrations as were
prevalent among the Puritans and characteristic of the religious
life of their famiUes. Like the catholic priest, though vrith different
purpose, the puritan pastor was concerned in all the passing events
of the several families placed under his spiritual charge. In sickness
and sorrows, in festi"rities and congratulations, the minister had his
appropriate duties ; and if he were worthy of his office, his services
were rewarded with many expressions of grateful acknowledgment.
The baptising of infants, the catechising of children, the welcome
of the young to their first communion, the departure of sons to
places of business, the espousals and the marriages of daughters,
recoveries from sickness, removals to new habitations, intrusions of
death in their families ; these and other incidents of social life were
appropriate occasions for the spiritual assistance of the pastor in the
form of congratulation or condolence, of thanksgi"ring or humiliation.
Special times of devotion were observed, and the presence of the
minister was as naturally expected as at a baptism or a funeral. The
diaries which the nonconforming ministers have left teach us how
much of their time was occupied in ' keeping private days ' with
their friends, and in ' sanctifying ' the several occurrences of domestic
Ufe by the performance of reUgious services. In return for these
services the voluntary offerings of friends were more liberally pre
sented, because the ministers were unjustly deprived of thefr regular
incomes. Newcome often in his 'Diary' refers to the ' private days'
he kept with his friends, and to the pleasant expressions of thefr
gratitude which he received in the time of his poverty.
In the urgency occasioned by so many churches becoming vacant
at one time, the ecclesiastical authorities were compeUed to admit
very incompetent persons into the benefices, rather than leave the
parishes entirely destitute of reUgious ordinances. Uneducated men,
some of whom could scarcely read the liturgy, irrehgious men who
had no concern for the spiritual interests of the people, immoral men
who were a scandal to thefr office, often occupied the places which
had been worthUy fiUed by learned, holy, and devoted pastors. Some
¦ could not preach, some would not preach, some had better not have
preached ; very few preached like their predecessors. Where the
new incumbents could with propriety conduct thefr ministry, they
often remained but a short time, amidst the many opportunities
iu any of his subsequent promotions he ever complied with the provisions of tha
Act of Uniformity. I am indebted for a copy of the signatures to Joshua Wilson,
Esq., which copy he carefuUy made from the original manuscript.

NONCONFORMITY. 393
which such men found to obtain more lucrative situations. In this
deficiency of pastoral oversight, some people favourably disposed to
the Episcopal Church resorted in thefr spiritual anxieties and conflicts
to the devout men whom an act of oppressive power had ejected
from their li"rings.
The deficiency of religious instruction, lamentable in the towns,
was still worse in many of the rural viUages. The successors of
OUver Heywood at Coley Chapel were not favourable samples, but
certainly not unusually bad ones, of the kind of conformists who
were infroduced into the churches of the north of England. The
first ' was not liked, being a vrild man.' The next came under a
false name, and, after officiating a month, ' carried away ' (let us
hope by mistake) ' some things which he had borrowed of his neigh
bours.' The thfrd 'left, not much regretted.' The fourth 'gave
Uttle satisfaction.' The fifth ' steyed but a short time.' The sixth
went away, ' ashamed to remain.' These six men were in the course
of twelve years the successors of one of the best ministers of the
north of England.* It is not a grateful subject, but it would be
easy to produce from all parts of Lancashfre instances of the occu
piers of the numerous vacancies, of whom the complaints were that
they were unable to preach, that they were negUgent of thefr dutiea,
that they frequented ale-houses, that they did not pay thefr debts,
that they quarrelled with their people. In a few instences the vacant
churches were filled by exemplary ministers, and they were often the
best friends of their ejected predecessors. Under these cfrcumstances
the nonconforming ministers were induced by the urgent wants of
the people, and encouraged by the contributions of thefr friends, to
continue their ministrations in such places and in such manner as
they might find opportunity, t
As they were forbidden to preach publicly in the churches, they
conducted such religious serrices in thefr own houses, or in the
houses of thefr friends, as they hoped would not expose them to the
¦* Hunter's Life of Oliver Heywood, p. 149.
"t ' I saw that the danger of separation from the public worship would be heigh
tened by the general dislike of my successor, his voice being weak and lisping, that
multitudes could not at all understand him, and those that could thought him a
very mean preacher.' ' A gentleman conformable to the very bone cursed me one
Lord's Day for not keeping the place from such a bungler.'
' Being young and sociable, always either tabling in an ale-house or very near
one, he was laid open to the temptation of wild company, and got such a habit of
loving strong ale and brandy, that it prejudiced his studies and at last killed him.'
— The Life of Adam Martindale, p. 169.
Adam used iu his own house to have ' repetitions ' every Sunday evening of the
sermons of his unworthy successor with remarks of his own, ' and the people
would say that they liked the sermons better in the repetition than iu the preach
ing. ' Adam says of his successor that he ' had good texts and good matter,' having
the MSS. of a dead brother; but 'that which was good in itself in delivering
seemed to freeze in his mouth, when as I repeating it with as much vigour as I
was able, one note seconded another, yet warm upon the hearers' hearts, and helped
to raise their affections to a higher degree.'— ii/e of Martindale, p. 173. The
preaching at church in the afternoon and its repetition in Adam's house in the
evening, must have formed a very curious, if not an edifying, contrast.

394 LANCASHIRE.
penalties of pubUc preaching. In devotional exercises they intro
duced what they called ' repetitions.' They had been accustomed,
before they were ejected, to repeat the outlines of thefr discourses or
of the discourses of others to thefr families and frienda on the evening
of the Sabbath, When churches were seHom Ulumined with candles
or lamps, the long evenings bf winter Sjndays were in this manner
often spent pleasantly and profitebly. The phrase ' sweet repetitions '
is found in the letters or diaries of Newcome, Heywood, Angier, and
many other Lancashire Puritans. After the ejectment their ' repe
titions ' were often conducted on the evenings of week-days, as weU
as on those of Sundays. It is pleasing to observe such a minister
as Harrison of Ashton going on Sunday moming or afternoon to
the church from which he had been ejected, and finding good mate
rial in the sermons of his successor for ' sweet repetition ' in the
evening. So Newcome thanked God for good sermons from unworthy
ministers because they suggested to him 'sweet repetitions.' Fre
quently, however, the ' repetitions ' were the outlines of thefr own
sermons, which the nonconforming ministers had preached in former
daya, and which thefr friends were glad to hear again expressed in a
more simple and colloquial style.
Many of the ejected ministers soon obtained wider space for the
exercise of thefr ministry than thefr own houses or the houses of thefr
people afforded them. Invited to visit distant friends, they found
many opportunities of conducting religious services in different towns
and riUages through which they fraveUed, They arranged preaching
tours, and often included in their itinerancy a considerable extent of
country. In places where no puritan minister resided, and especiaUy
whence persecution had compelled one to remove, the travelling
preacher often found a comfortable lodging, as weU as an attentive
congregation. As notice of these visits was sometimes preriously
given, their audiences became larger, and thefr religious serricea
assumed a more popular and formal character. Domestic exercises
grew into public services, social meetings into large gatherings,
' sweet repetitions ' into long sermons, and the principles of an
organised nonconformity were gradually developed and brought into
public notice. These services, conducted by many of the ejected
ministera and encouraged by the UberaUty of thefr friends, excited
some apprehension and more opposition among the conforming clergy.
Some of the more diligent were angry because many of thefr parish
ioners resorted to the conventicle instead of attending the church,
and even the negligent were ashamed that the work which they
neglected should be done by their rivals or by strangers.
The parliament, instigated by the clergy, determined to suppress
the conventicles in a more effectual manner than the magistrates,
even when wilUng, were able to do by means of the existing lawa.
It passed one of the most severe and cruel acts which ever disgraced
English legislation. In 1664 it was enacted that ' if any person
above the age of sixteen shaU be present at any meeting, under
colour or pretence of any exercise of religion, in other manner than
is aUowed by the Uturgy or practice of the Church of England, where

NONCONFORMITY. 395
shall be five more persons than the household, he shall for the first
offence suffer three months' imprisonment, or pay a fine not exceed
ing five pounds ; for the second offence six months' imprisonment or
pay ten pounds ; and for the thfrd offence be banished to some of
the American plantations (excepting New England or Virginia) for
seven years, or pay one hundred pounds, and in case they return, or
make their escape, such persons are to be adjudged felons and suffer
death without benefit of clergy.' Magistrates were empowered to
dissolve conventicles, to imprison such as they found attending them,
and to send married women to prison for a year unless thefr husbands
paid forty shillings for their release.
The consequences of the Conventicle Act were terrible. Any
magisfrate could enforce its severest penalties upon the oath of a
common informer, without the formality of a trial by jury. As the
ministera would not desist from preaching, nor their friends from
hearing them, the common gaols were filled with quiet, moral, reli
gious men and women. The Quakers took no care to conceal their
meetings, and as even thefr silent exercises were accounted religious
serrices, they were the greatest and most frequent sufferers. But
no nonconformist worshippers were safe. Fines were enforced, fur
niture was sold, cattle were seized, ministers and people were immured
with felons in dungeons, the wretchedness and filth of which are
scarcely credible in these civUised times.
If these severities deterred some persons from attending the meet
ings of the Nonconformists, they on the other hand prevented many
from frequenting the serrices of the EstabUshed Church. They did
more than anything else to discourage the occasional conformity
which the Presbyterians were willing to practise. They gave occasion
for many bitter refiections upon the clergy, who were known to have
promoted the passing of the Act, and they invested the suffering
Nonconformists with something of the glory of martyrdom. The
fortitude with which the ministers exposed themselves to danger and
submitted to suffering, the integrity and honour vrith which they
maintained their cause amidst the vacillation of thefr rulers and the
freachery of their enemies, endeared them to thefrjfriends, conciliated
some of their opponents, and gathered round them a powerful party,
determined at all risks and consequences to help, protect, and support
them. Under the terrors of thia rigoroua law the Nonconformists were
compelled to maintein secresy respecting their religious serrices, to
meet in unknown and obscure places, in barns, or in woods, or on
the mountain side, to keep watch against the approach of informers,
or soldiers, or magistrates, and to confine the notice of thefr meetings
to trusty friends who would take every precaution against dangerous
publicity. Of the maimer in which the foundations of Lancashire noncon
formity were laid, the diary of OUver Heywood affords our beat
Ulustration. Although he was settled in Yorkshire, he never forgot
that Lancashfre was his native county, that his nearest relatives and
most intimate friends resided there, that they being Nonconformists

396 LANCASHIRE.
Uke himself were always glad to see him on his itinerant missions, ¦
and ready to succour him in his urgent necessities. The descendants
of the old puritan famiUea of Bolton and its neighbourhood had not
degenerated from the original stock, and therefore in the Geneva of
his party he loved to labour and to acknowledge the kindness with
which his labours were rewarded.
As Mr. Heywood was ejected from a chapelry in Yorkshire, I have
hitherto had Uttle to say about him, but aome notice of his labours
becomes necessary here on account of their connection with the rise
of Lancashire nonconformity. As he had been suspended from the
exercise of his ministry in the diocese of York, and as his suspension
had been published in the parish of Halifax, he was silenced a few
weeks before the coming of black Bartholomew. The suspension
was soon followed by his excommunication, which was published in
Halifax church on November 2, 1662. By this terrible sentence he
waa rendered liable to severe punishment, if he partook of the com
munion or even attended worship in any church in the diocese of
York. On one occasion, when he attended as a hearer, the chapel-
warden ordered him to leave the sanctuary in which he had long min
istered. On another, the same official called aloud to the minister
to desist, because an excommunicated man was present. In a private
house, where he was invited to dine, the rector of Halifax refused to
sit at the table, under the pretext that he would -riolate the canons
of the Church by flining -with an excommunicate man. As the
sentence of excommunication was not published in the diocese of
Chester, Mr. Heywood resolved to exercise his ministry, as he could
find opportunity, in the open houses of his Lancashire friends.
There we find lum keeping ' private days, ' haring ' sweet repetitions,'
and even obtaining occasional admission into churches and chapels
through the solicitations of his friends and the permission of pious and
Uberal conformiste. He preached twice on a Sunday in the chapel
of Shaw in Prestwich, and on one occasion deUvered a funeral
sermon for an intimate friend in the pariah church of Bolton.
The most effectual means of sUencing Mr. Heywood was to publish
in the diocese of Chester the sentence of excommunication which had
been pronounced in the ecclesiastical court of York. This would
make it perUous not only for him to preach, but for any one to
encourage, or even to attend, any religious serrice which he might
conduct. George Hall, then Bishop of Chester, with hia usual
severity, lost no time in endeavouring to suppress the preaching of
the popular Nonconformist. On December 7, 1662, the citation of
Oliver Heywood was read in Bolton church, and on the fourth of
the following month the sentence of his excommunication was pub
Ucly announced in the same place. His friends were stricken with
consternation, but he heard it very calmly, and ' desfred to make
some spiritual use of it, and to get so much nearer to God as men
drove him out from them.' It was not easy to silence such a man.
After making preaching itinerancies in other counties where we
need not accompany him, he soon resumed his work in Lancashire,
and quietly waited the consequences. He again found people wUling

NONCONFORMITY. 397
to hear him, and, strange as it may seem, churches and chapels were
occasionally open to the excommunicated man, and crowded when
ever he was expected to preach. At Mottram the churchwardens
accompanied him to the church, and the -ricar attended both the
services which Heywood conducted on the Sabbath. In Denton
church, old John Angier publicly and lo-vingly received the excom
municated man to the communion of the Lord's Supper, and, not
withstanding their fears, neither Angier nor Heywood was troubled
for this bold defiance of episcopal authority.
The ' private days ' he kept at Denton were long remembered for
the deep impressions of his solemn serrices. Although the days
were called ' private,' the congregations were considerable. Referring
to a service in the house of the venerable Angier, he says : ' I con
tinued about three hours in prayer, pouring out my soul before the
Lord, principally on behalf of His Church.' The houses of the
puritan gentry were open to him for such serrices. He kept a
private day at Colonel Holland's, preparatory to the marriage of the
old parliamentary soldier.* The anniversaries of black Bartholomew
were observed vrith great solemnity by him and his friends.
This zealous evangelist was not to be silenced even by the severities
of the Conventicle Act. Of his seasons of preaching and praying,
he says, ' They are worth a prison.' On occasion of a double service,
after the first minister had finished preaching, he ' took it up about
eleven o'clock vrith abundant enlargement until half-past three.' On
another occasion when the rector of RadcUffe endeavoured to induce
the magistrates to enforce the law against him, he conducted a reli
gious service in his father's house 'from ten untU six in the evening.'
His prayers seem to have had more influence with the magistrates
than the rector's arguments.
If few of the Lancashire Nonconformists fraveUed as much or
preached as often as Oliver Heywood, many of them did, according
to thefr sfrength, very much of the same kind of service, and so
maintained in the worst time a very intimate and endearing connec
tion with the pious members of their congregations. Although we
have not so detailed an account of their devotional exercises, we have
quite enough to show that the 'private days' of Newcome, Harrison,
Constantine, Ambrose, and many others, were very Uke the ' private
days ' of Oliver Heywood. In the same devout spirit they laid the
foundations of Lancashire nonconformity.
An interesting enquiry is here suggested. How were the ejected
ministers and thefr famiUes supported until they were aUowed to
license thefr meeting-houses and gather their congregations ? Some
of them suffered many privations, but one who knew them weU could
say, ' Although many of the ejected ministers were brought very low,
had many children, were greatly harassed by persecution, I never
knew nor heard of any in prison for debt. Providence was instead
* The proposed marriage never took place. The colonel was suddenly stricken
with sickness, and his funeral was solemnised on the day fixed for his marriage.
A puritan minister preached on the occasion from the text, ' Behold, the bride
groom cometh.'

398 LANCASHIRE.
of brings to them who left their livings for the sake of their con
sciences. They were driven first out of their freeholds, and after
wards from all corporations, on purpose that they might be separated
from their kind neighbours. Cautions were entered against them
in all ways of livelihood they were capable of; and yet they lived
comfortably and maintained their families creditably. Many of them
bred up their sons to the minisfry in which they were useful, and
they at last died in peace, and were laid in their graves vrith honour.'*
So far as Lancashfre is concerned, this stetement ia correct and
appropriate. I do not know that any nonconforming minister of the
county was aUowed to sink into debt or squalid poverty. Some of
them were poor and dependent upon the bounty of their friends, but
so far as I can discover, not one was left destitute of the necessaries
or even of the ordinary comforts of life. Sad stories are current of
ejected ministers reduced to menial situations or day labour, but
they did not live among the generous people of Lancashire. This ia
the more honourable to those people, for many of the benefices were
so miserably poor that thefr ministers could have taken very little
with them from the parsonages which they were compelled to leave.
They went out, not knowing whither they went, but God and God's
people prorided for them in a manner they never expected. The
most urgent pressure upon many of them was in the dark interval
between thefr ejectment and their toleration, but even in that emer
gency God wonderfully provided for them and thefr famUies.
The few ministers who, like Mr. Hyett of Croston and Mr.
Thompson of Sephton, had anything worthy the name of private
property, were ever disposed, as they were often soUcited, to contri
bute to the support and comfort of their poor brethren. Even those
who had nothing more than a comfortable home and small income were
glad to afford hospitality to itinerant preachers. Such hospitable
abodes as that of PhiUp Henry of Broad Oak might be found in other
parts of the country. After the severe losses which the ministers
who had anything ¦to lose had sustained, thefr contributions for their
destitute brethren would be found, if an approximate estimate could
be formed, to reflect the highest honour upon thefr kindness and
generosity. A few derised means of obtaining a livelihood, and made their new
occupations more or less subservient to their ministerial labours.
Some, Uke Mr. Birch of Birch, practised medicine.f Several of the
younger men became tutors in the families of wealthy Presbyterians.
Some gave private instruction in classics and mathematics to youths
preparing for the universities. Although the Act of Uniformity
requfred schoolmasters to subscribe a declaration of conformity on
the penalty of three months' imprisonment for refusing, that
¦* Cited in Palmer's Nonconformist's Memorial, Introduction, vol. i. p. 36.
t Mr. Hunter says of the ejected ministers, ' Three or four became physicians.'
— Life of Heywood, p. 143. It by physicians he meant those who practised physic,
thirty or forty would have been a more correct estimate. If we were to include
such as occasionally administered medicine to their friends, and received gratuities
for doing so, the number would be considerably larger.

NONCONFORMITY. 399
prorision seems in the north to have been seldom enforced. At aU
events some ejected ministers did establish schools. Adam Martin
dale, for instence, obtained from flfteen to twenty shillings a week
'by schooling and tabling of young gentlemen.'* Some betook
themselves to farming or gardening, and probably a few (although I
do not know an instance in Lancashfre) to some sort of small
trading or handicraft, f
As the ministers were legaUy ejected on August 24, a perplexing
question arose — What claim they might have upon their successors
for the serrices which they had legaUy rendered from the beginning
of the year ? I am not aware that any ejected minister ever brought
an action at law to recover any part of his stipend, but several
attempts were made in various ways to obtain payment for serrice
done preriously to the ejectment. They were, I fear, generaUy
unsuccessful. In some few instences kind and thoughtful clergymen
may have taken into thefr consideration the claims of men into
whose unpaid labours they had entered- ; but most of the new
incumbents were too bitterly opposed to the ejected ministers to be
wUling to make them any compensation, or too poor to do so, even if
they had been willing. That some allowance was occasionally made,
I infer from a remark of Martindale, who says that the refusal of the
new ricar to make him any allowance from the tithes of the year, of
which his share would have been 22Z., ' raised the spleen of the people
against him,' Instead of reasoning with the parson, who was not
very sensitive to argument, or going to law -with him in an uncertain
ma"tter, Adam took the more sensible course of sending his ¦wife (the
woman who cut down the Maypole while her husband was vainly
preaching against it) 'to get what she could out of the man,' and she
* Martindale was afraid to take any boys old enough to be examined on oath
lest they should be compelled to give evidence against him, or to allow his maid
servant to enter the schoolroom while he was teaching. — Life of Ma/rtindale, p. 173.
+ The most credible account I know of extreme poverty among the nonconform
ing ministers is in The Conformist's Plea for the Nonconformists. The writer
says of them : ' Though they were as frugal as possible, they could hardly Uve ;
some Uved on little more than brown bread and water ; many had but eight or ten
pounds a year to maintain a family, so that a piece of fiesh has not come to one of
their tables in six weeks' time. 'Their allowance would scarce afford them bread
and cheese. One went to plough six days and preached on the Lord's day;
another was forced to cut tobacco for a livelihood.' These must have been
extreme cases and far away from Lancashire, where, although I cannot find a non
conforming minister cutting tobacco, I find several, like Newcome, smoking a
great deal too much of it. Contrast with this account the testimony of Oliver
Heywood : ' 0 what a day have I lived to see this last twenty years ! near two
thousand ministers turned out of public maintenance for their consciences, living
only on God's providence, strangely preserved, maintained ; none that I know
reduced to debts or extreme want; many of them iu a better condition than wheu
they were turned out ; whereas many conformists that stretched their consciences
for a livelihood, or preferment, are reduced to such exigencies as drive them into
prisons or dangers, or a-begging to hard-hearted men. God hath found employ
ment for some, friends for others, or cast in real or personal estates on others, and
given credit and good repute to all conscientious suffering ministers, that, though
they were sent without staff or scrip they have lacked notliing. meipso adhuc
testificante,' — Diary, 1681.

400 LANCASHIRE.
' "with much importunity wrangled him out of ten pounds.* In a
few instences, I suppose very few, either by reasoning or by
wrangling, by soUcitatiou or by threatening, some small proportion
of the year's stipend was obtained. Few ministers' wives managed
these things as cleverly and resolutely as Mrs. Martindale.
I have already adverted to instances in which, by favour of the
patron, arrangements were made with the new incumbents for the
benefit ofthe ej ected ministers . I cannot say that any such arrangement
was carried into effect in Lancashfre, although it is probable that
Mr. Harrison of Ashton had the benefit of something of the kind
through the influence of Sfr George Booth.f In other parts of the
country presbyterian patrons may be found offering to make similar
arrangements, although they were not carried into effect, or if they
were, the parties concerned, for obrious reasons, took care to conceal
them. J
But the ejected ministers had, under God, to depend chiefly upon
the generosity of thefr friends. The religious exercises to which I
have referred were remunerated according to the abUity of their
hearers, who for the most part were in humble circumstances, or vrith
Umited incomes. Voluntary contributions were sometimes liberally
made, where no spfritual serrices were rendered or expected in return.
Wealthy men, as Lord Delamere, Sir Henry Hoghton, Colonel
HoUand, and many others, sent frequent presents to ministers who
were thefr neighbours or acquaintances. Funds were raised in large
and wealthy towns, to relieve the necessities of the poor and thinly
peopled districts. Baxter, in his funeral sermon for Henry Ashurst,
Esq., who haring left Lancashire in his youth acqufred considerable
property in London, says that in addition to other donations the
good man contributed lOOZ. annually for poor ministers of his native
county. Newcome, in his ' Diary,' has several entries of monies
given to him by his wealthy friends : ' Mrs. Haworth was with us
this afternoon and gave ten guineas from the justice.' ' My dear
friend Mrs. Grant left me by will one hundred shillings.' ' I received
after supper lOZ. of Mr. Alexander. It is a mercy that I have supply
ready, and am forced into no sfraits as yet for Uring.' Mr. Hartley,
a draper of Strangeways, ' showed me much kindness in giring me
3Z., a pair of gloves and escutcheon.' ' Came home to Mr. Hartley,
* Although Adam received 10^., he never forgot that more was due to him.
When the vicar was dangerously ill, he sent to request the prayers of the ejected
minister. Martindale thought it a fine opportunity to bring the vicar to repent
ance for his sins in general, and particularly for his sin in not paying the twelve
pounds still due for unrequited service. For this interference Adam was severely
blamed, but he shrewdly replied, ' He did not know how to do a sinner good
vrithout making him sorry for his sins.' lU-natured people said the poor vicar
died through Adam's unseasonable importunity, but the apothecary, who ought
to know, attributed his death to ' gills of brandy.' — Life, ch., vi. sect. xxi.
-j- We have seen how such an arrangement on behalf of Mr. Newcome faUed
through the treachery of the incumbent of Thornton.
J At Tarrant Hinton in Dorsetshire, Timothy Sacheverel, the ejected minister,
was requested to nominate a friend who would hold the living and allow him the
profits, but he declined the offer. — The Nonconformist's Memorial.

NONCONFORMITY. 401
who gave me 40Z.' * ' Mr. Worthington paid me 6Z. and odd money.'
' Lady Booth of the Mill House sent me forty shUlings ' He also
notices ' tokens,' ' gifts,' and 'favours ' which he received from hia
friends, and thanks God that supplies came to bim in a manner he
never expected. It is pleasant to read that the good wife of the
conforming warden sent him ' a token of Unnons of considerable
value.' It is not possible to ascertain how much Newcome received in
these several ways. Although he had no private property, he
obtained many comforte and some luxuries. He spent many evenings
at a quiet tavern, entertained his friends, and occasionally made
them ' very merry.' He purchased books, took journeys, bought
new clothes, and ' paid for his fine breeches.' Although he enumer
ated ' tobacco ' among his ' besetting sins,' he never stinted himself or
his friends in the use of it.f
Newcome speaks of recreations which, if not expensive, seem
strange for a puritan minister. He would sometimes draw ' valentines
in bands,' and ' write in Wilde's comedy of " The Benefice." ' J
Amidst his billiards and shuffieboard, his comedy and tobacco, he
made himself comfortable, and, though he had good wine, was very
careful to drink to the health of no one.
Respecting the UveUhood of an ejected minister in a rural district
we obtain some good Ulusfration from Adam Martindale. Although
he had not the same opportunity of procuring assistance from the
wealthy Nonconformists as his distinguished friend in Manchester,
he got through the worst of times with tolerable comfort. In reply
to some who accused the ejected ministers of getting rich by noncon
formity (a strange accusation), he gives an account of his income.
Referring to three years which had elapsed since his ejectment from
* A misprint, I suspect, for 41. Os.
+ ' This base tobacco ! Take it before secret duties, then it prevents them ; put
it off, and then my base heart wiU count of it all the time of duty.' — Diary, p. 199.
J This may require some explanation. Graceless prelatists ridiculed noncon
forming ministers, and introduced some of them on the stage. Dr. Robert Wilde,
rector of Ay nhoe in Northamptonshire, 'a fat, jolly, and boon Presbyterian' as
Wood calls him, fought the^Prelatists with their own weapons. He wrote a comedy,
of which a manuscript copy may have been entrusted to Newcome, who corrected
it or annotated upon it, for in his Dia/ry several references occur to his writing in
the comedy. This puritan Doctor bequeathed an orchard in his native parish, St.
Ives, Huntingdonshire, to the incumbent, that the produce might be spent in ,
bibles to be raffled for by the school boys. As a game of chance, raffling would
seem very unpuritauic. But it may be made puritanical, and so unobjectionable.
A game of chance was usually considered to be a breach of the third command
ment, being a profane appeal to Providence. The good puritan directed that the
appeal should be made not carelessly, but solemnly in the church, after prayer by
the minister that the lot might faU on the right boys. The field is stUl kno-vra in
St. Ives as the Bible Orchard. Some proposal was mentioned a year or two since
of instituting a suit in chancery to secure the appropriation of the orchard to the
object for which it was given. It is, however, doubtful whether raffling would not
be considered an immoral practice, unless the Chancery Judge should approve of
the puritanic distinction between careless, profane raffling, and solemn, devout,
reUgious raffling. An edition of WUde's poems has been recently pubUshed, and
strange exhibition they make of puritan fun or of funny puritanism.
Id

402 LANCASHIRE.
his vicarage, he says : ' I had sent me from London at four several
times 24Z. — that is, lOZ., 'II., 61,, and 2Z. ; from Chester, IIZ., viz., 61.,
31,, and 8Z. ; and from a no"ble friend in the country, 6Z. — that is, 5Z.
and IZ. : all which conies to 41Z., and it is probable I had so much
more in small parcels, now forgotten, as made up 50Z. The lOZ. my
wife wrangled out of my successor, together vrith a table, forms, and
ceding, and rent detained, after paid me, made up some 20Z. more.
And then for my yearly subsistence I had the house in Leigh and
about lOZ. per annum from some of my people, abundance of French
wheat and rye out of my ground at Tatton amounting to 12Z., and
what I got for tebUng and schooling young gentlemen for two of
the first years, and teaching mathematics afterwards, bringing me in
sometimes fifteen shillings, sometimes twenty shUUngs, a week,
besides my own diet and keeping my horse. Thus, though my con
dition seemed threatening, and far from such as could inrite me to
throw up 60Z. a year for the hopes of it, as the counterminer names,
yet I acknowledge that this, with God's blessing upon what I had
and did, was a very comfortable supply to us.'*
It appears from these and other statemente of the ejected ministers
that although they were exposed to much suffering, the liberality of
thefr friends, which must have been very great to supply the
necessities of more than a thousand families, prevented them from
being reduced to anything like the extremity of destitution. In thefr,
faithful adherence to thefr principles they trusted in God for ¦ the
supply of thefr wants, and God rewarded them by inducing thefr
rich friends, and even thefr poor friends, according to their abUity,
to act nobly .in pro-riding a liberal supply for them in the time of
their need.
There was another source of supply about which I should like to
have more definite and satisfactory information than I have been
"* Life of Ma/rtindale, ch. vi. sect. 21.
In reading the Ufe of Oliver Heywood, as he says little about his receipts, we
wonder how he procured a livelihood for his family, the good education of his boys,
his travelling expenses, and money for the purchase of laud at Little Lever, and a
house at Northowram. Ou this subject Mr. Hunter observes: 'None of Mr.
Heywood's accounts of receipt and expenditure have been preserved ; but it is
erident that he cannot have Uved all these years, conducting the.=!e frequent
religious services, without gratuities from those who benefited by them. It is
true, not many great, not many noble, were called ; but he cannot have visited
such famiUes as the Fairfaxes, Arthingtons, Dyneleys, Rawdens, Rhodeses, or the
Scotwells, Cottons, Wordsworths, and Riches, without receiving from them gratu
ities which would bear some proportion not only to their estimate of the value of
his very acceptable serrices, but also to their sense of the sacrifices which he had
made iu what they deemed a just and holy cause. His other friends were, for the
most part, the lesser gentry, or the better kind of yeomanry — men whose names
are not perhaps in the heralds' books, but men of substantial property, and whose
sober and religious habits of life gave them the better power of being liberal and
generous with their less affluent means. However, certain it is, that in the year of
which we are speaking, he added to his estate at Little Lever by a purchase of
land adjoining to it. "I must confess 'tis strange I should buy land iu such a day
as this ; but my case is almost Uke the prophet's, I was necessitated to buy it, and
that God that cast it unsought-for on me can tell how to see it is discharged,
though I had never so much money together in aU my Ufe.'" — Ufe of OlAoer
Heywood, chapter x.

NONCONFORMITY. 403
hitherto able to obtain. The ejected ministers had some ' taste of
the royal bounty.' Of the fact there can bono doubt. Of the extent
of the bounty I am unable to speak with confidence.
What induced King Charles to bestow his bounty upon the noncon
forming ministers is a question that may be answered by another :
What induced him to vacillate so strangely in his conduct towards
them — to promise and to threaten them, to encourage and to persecute
them, to drive them from their congregations and to grant them in
dulgences, to prohibit thefr conventicles and to Ucense thefr meeting
houses ? He did these inconsistent things, but in doing them he pre
served a consistent policy. He eridentiy desired, by means of an influ
ential nonconformity, to obtain a legal toleration for Roman Catholics.
There were prevalent reports that pensions of 50Z. to lOOZ. a year
were granted by the court to the principal nonconforming ministers.
These pensions were called hush money, by which, as thefr enemies
insinuated, they were bribed to promote the design of the court, or
at least not to oppose it, in conceding toleration to the Papists.
That illiberal Churchmen, admirers of Clarendon, should have
credited these insinuations is not surprising ; but that liberal clergy
men Uke StUlingfleet and Burnet should countenance the scandal
shows how little Nonconformists were understood by some of their
professed friends. In reply to StUlingfleet, Dr. Owen called the
¦ insinuation ' a frontless, malicious Ue,' as it undoubtedly was ; and
he added ' never did any person in authority, dignity, or power in the
nation speak to me or advise vrith me about any indulgence or
toleration to be granted to Papists.' * Although Owen indignantly
denied that he was consulted about tolerating Papists, he could not
deny that he had received the royal bounty for the benefit of the
ejected ministers.
The first intimation of the kindly intentions of the king towards
the Nonconformists seems to have been made to Owen through the
Duke of York. In an interriew at Tunbridge Wells, the duke
assured him that the king would like to converse with so eminent a
dirine. On his return to London the king sent for him, graciously
intimated his good intentions towards the Nonconformists, and gave
him a thousand guineas to disfribute among his necessitous brethren.
Thia gave rise to the ungenerous assertion of Burnet, ' The court
hired the Dissenters to be sUent, and they were veiy compliant.' f
Matthew 'Poole is also mentioned as haring received from the king
considerable sums of money, which, I doubt not, he as well as Owen
very honestly distributed. * Preface to the Answer to StUlingfleet.
t Ufe and Times, vol. U. p. 16. Orme's Life of Owen, p. 378. Orme considers
this grant 'the beginning ot the series of grants afterwards called regium donwm.
I suspect that they began earUer, and that the stern independence of Baxter was
not agreeable to the yielding spirit of Bates, Manton, and others. In Mr. Thom
son's admirable Life of Owen, prefixed to the Edinburgh edition of his works, it is
stated that Owen had the interriew with the king in the royal tent at Tunbndge
WeUs. Our only authority is in the Memoirs of Owen, prefixed to the foUo edition
of his Sermons, from which it appears that the interview with the king was in
London.

404 LANCASHIRE.
Baxter, however, acted the vriser, if not the nobler, part, in
refusing, or as the reports of the time said, returning the king's
money. His high feelings and ste-m integrity rendered him perhaps
unduly sensitive, for I believe he would have seen the Dissenters
starve rather than endanger thefr independence by becoming pen
sioners of the royal bounty.
I do not suppose that any ' taste of the royal bounty ' refreshed
the thirsty lips of the Lancashire Nonconformists. Baxter was thefr
great example and adviser. With Owen they had little intercourse.
Of no nonconformist leader does Newcome, Ambrose, or Heywood
speak so reverently as of Richard Baxter.
So, in 1666, when the Oxford Act prohibited nonconforming min
isters from residing within five miles of the places wherein they had
exercised their ministry, or of any corporate , town, unless they
quaUfied for residence by taking an oath ' that it was not lawful, on
any pretence whatever, to take arms against the king,' none of the
Lancashire ministers would teke ' the ensnaring and slarish oath.'
Although Bates, Howe, and others like them, on one pretext or
another purchased their peace by taking the oath, it was enough for
the Lancashfre ministers to know that Richard Baxter had uttered
his honest and indignant remonstrance against it, to induce
them to leave their homes as nobly as they had resigned thefr'
benefices, and rather than submit to an unconstitutional exercise of-
arbifrary power, to retire to country viUages, or to go, as several of
them went, to ' the godly town vrithout a corporation.' They did not
understand the spirit of Howe ot Bates, neither did Howe or Bates
understand the spirit of the Lancashire Nonconformists.
For nearly ten years, during which the crooked and vacillating
policy of the court excited thefr alternate hopes and fears, the ejected
ministers persevered in the exercise of thefr ministry, exposed to the
danger of fines, imprisonment, and even exile from thefr country.
How much suffering they endured, and how meekly, patiently,
bravely, they endured it, it is not vrithin my purpose to relate. They
found relief in a manner they little expected, and could scarcely
approve. The declaration by which King Charles, in the unconsti
tutional exercise of his prerogative, suspended the execution of the
penal laws in matters ecclesiastical, is dated March 15, 1671-2,
Clarendon, the persecutor of the Nonconformists, had fallen from
his high estate, and found better employment in writing good history
than in persecuting good people. He had made for himself enemies
more powerful than the Nonconformists, and far more resentful. He
hated the Papists, and the Papists conspired for his downfall. His
unbending constancy and inflexible resolution, unbending and
inflexible in manner as well as in purpoae, had raiaed a powerful
party against him in parUament as well as as in the court. Vigor
ous, stern, hard, lofty, he never conciliated any of the numerous
enemies whom he had made by his arbitrary measures and his rigorous
execution of them. His good qualities as weU as his bad ones
combined to make him an object of disUke to the courtiers and favour
ites of the sovereign. His proud and lofty independence unfitted

NONCONFORMITY, 405
him to be the utensil of a dishonest king or the manager of a profli
gate court. The king cherished preferences and purposes to which
Clarendon had too much honour and integrity to become subservient.
His insatiable ambition which he .could not conceal, his exfravagant
magnificence which excited popular complaint, his rapid elevation,
his relations to royalty, and the court intrigues — ^both those contrived
against him, and those believed, truly or falsely, to be of his own
contrivance — all contributed to hasten the fall of the great pillar of
the established Church.
Soon after the passing of the Act of Unfformity his power began
rapidly to decline. In the next year he was impeached for high
treason, and though the impeachment failed, he was soon afterwards
deprived of the great seal. Impeached a second time, he dared not to
meet his accusers, but fied from his country, and was compeUed to
choose his residence among either Papists whom he passionately
hated, or Presbyterians whom he had cruelly persecuted. He left
England lamented by none, unless, sfrange to say, by the perse
cuted Nonconformists, who, in thefr dread of popery, feared lest a
worse than even Clarendon should guide the policy of the government.
During the ten years of persecution which elapsed from the passing
of the Act of Uniformity to the Declaration of Indulgence, the Lan
cashire Nonconformista had their ahare of the afflictions of thefr
brethren. Although some of them were sheltered under the protec
tion of powerful friends, or overlooked in the obscurity of thefr
situations, or spared through the prudence with which they stooped
before the storm, others were severely fined, cruelly imprisoned, or
driven from their families and homes.. Mr. JoUie of Altham, whose
several imprisonments I have already noticed, seems to have been the
greatest sufferer. He never recovered from the ill effects of the
severe winter he spent in York Castle, exposed to bitter winds and
driving rains in a dilapidated room without the comfort of a fire, nor
from the disease contracted in his close confinement in Lancaster for
preaching vrithin five miles of Altham chapel. Mr. Bradshaw of
Hindley, Mr. Yates of Warrington, and others, were imprisoned for
preaching in private houses.
Before we welcome the approach of better days under the admin
istration of the Duke of Buckingham, it is due to the memory of
Charles Earl of Derby, the son of James, who was beheaded at Bolton,
to observe that, instead 'of showing any disposition to avenge the
death of his father upon the Nonconformists, he was rather disposed
aa lord-Ueutenant of Lancashire to protect them, and to' execute the
severe laws of which he was the reluctant minister with as much
leniency and forbearance as possible. In the ' Diary ' of Henry New-
come is found honourable mention of several instances of the earl's
kindness to the Nonconformists. On one occasion when his neigh
bour. Sir Roger Bradshaigh, complained to him of the conventicles
which were held as near to his residence as St. Helens, the earl
repUed that if he was compelled to enforce the laws against the
Presbyterians, he must with equal severity enforce them against the
Papists whom Sir Roger protected. On another, when the rector of

406 LANCASHIRE.
Walton requested him to suppress a conventicle which was held at
Toxteth Park, the earl enqufred what the people did at the conven
ticle; ' Pray and preach,' was the reply of the rector, who was not
remarkable for his own attention to such duties. ' As,' said the earl,
' you neither pray nor preach yourself, you might thank others who
pray and preach for you.' *
The elevation of the Duke of Buckingham promised better times
for the Nonconformists. Having married a daughter of Lord Fairfax
and appointed a nonconforming minister to be her chaplain, he was
not Ukely to continue the persecuting irieasures of Clarendon, whom
he had long and resolutely opposed. The Nonconformists had to
fear, not his dislike, but his strange inconsistency and his vrilUngness
to concede what Uttie principle he had at the call of expediency.
Previously to what the ministers called his 'conversion,' none of
them, except Baxter, had a word to say in his favour ; after that ex
traordinary event, they spoke of him, as they weU might, with sfrange
alternations of hope and fear, confidence and suspicion. He was to
them as good a friend as any politician of expediency and pleasure
could have been, and probably had he been a statesman of principle
and integrity, he would not have had the opportunity of serring them
at allt
Although for five years neither the converted duke nor his
unconverted master could obtain from parliament a toleration of
nonconformity, the penal laws in many places were executed vrith
little severity, and the nonconforming ministers found many oppor
tunities of preaching in comparative safety and peace. Where the
people were favourable and the magistrates lenient, they coUected
* The character of Charles, the eighth Earl of perby, is not very easily inter
preted. Although he was no persecutor of the Nonconformists, he seems to have
inherited his mother's dislike of the Papists. On some occasions he betrayed a
profane aud scoffing disposition, as when Bishop Wilkins preached at Knowsley
one Sunday morning on the observance of the Sabbath. After dinner the earl, as
if to show his appreciation of the bishop's arguments, ' called for tables to play
with his guests.' OUver Heywood says of him : ' The Earl of Derby is dead, having
endured a long, pining disease. His body was opened, and the physicians found
not one drop of blood in it, except a drop or two at his heart. It calls to my mind
his commanding Mr. Christian to be shot to death iu the Isle of Man, upon his
mother's instigation, for delivering the castle to the parUament many years before.
This was upon the king's coming in, for which his majesty frowned upon him.
Christian's blood shed left no blood in a noble's body. There is a loss of him in
Lancashire as being a great bulwark against Papists.' If all this be true, the ' in
stigation ' of Charlotte de la Tremouille is the worst thing I know of her, the com
mand of her son Charles the worst thing I know of him, the remark of Oliver
Heywood about Christian's blood the worst thing I know of him, and the frown of
King Charles nearly the best thing I know of him.
¦[¦ The ' conversion ' of Buckingham, however unfortunately it terminated, excited
great interest at the time. A puritan minister wrote to Newcome : ' The Duke of
Buckingham is become a most eminent convert, hath had a solemn day of prayer
for the completing and confirming the great work upon him. Dr. Owen and
others of the like persuasion were the carriers on of this great work. He grows
more and more in favour and power.' Some time afterwards this ' most eminent
convert ' appealed in the House of Lords, in words which must have sounded out
rageously puritanical in the ears of the court bishops, to ' the express doctrine and
example of Jesus Christ.' — Hunter's Ufe of Heywood, p. 198. Neal, vol, u. p. 703.

NONCONFORMITY. 407
large congregations in private houses and sometimes even in the
churches. Thus OUver Heywood preached, not only as before, in
churches with the approval of the clergymen or churchwardens, but
even occasionally in his old pulpit at. Coley chapel. Adam Martin
dale, in 1670, writes : ' In the interim there was so great connivance
at public and private preaching in Bolton parish and in several other
parishes adjacent, that except it was now and then to gratify some
great person or special friend, I did not practise teaching mathematics
at all. Yea, even such high episcopal men as Dr. Howorth and Mr.
Mosley, justices of the peace, were engaged to me, and paid me nobly
to teach in thefr houses, though they knew I preached publicly in
two neighbour chapels, Gorton and Birch, and possibly might
hear that I did the like at Cockey, Walmesley, Darwin, &c., and for
all this, I never fell into any considerable trouble but only once.'
The exercise of the royal prerogative in 1672, by unconstitutionally
suspending the penal laws, placed the Nonconformists in a position
of great perplexity, and produced among themselves some diversity
of opinion as weU as aUenation of feeUng. That they should have
Uberty to preach seemed to them certainly right, however unconsti
tutional may have been the manner of giving them thefr rightful
liberty. But most of them had made loud professions of their de
voted allegiance to parliamentary government, with which professions
it seemed inconsistent to acknowledge the prerogative of the king in
suspending the laws of parliament. It was also erident that the
king and his courtiers intended to favour the Papists under the pre
text of tolerating the Dissenters. Although in our time all parties
acknowledge the right of the CathoUcs to religious liberty, that
right was acknowledged by no party when every town and rillage
in the country preserved many traditions of the fierce conflict between
Papists and Protestante. The times were threatening, the signs of
the future were ominous, popery was showing ite sfrength, the hefr
to the throne was a Papist, as were many of the officers of the court.
Emissaries from Rome were working in many parts of the kingdom,
and in no part more actively than in Lancashfre ; Jesuits and semi
nary priests appeared there in greater numbers than had been known
since the time ofthe Spanish invasion ; popish plote, real or counter
feit, disturbed the minds of patriots as weU as of Puritans. I do not
wonder that, in the uncertainty of the times, Protestant Dissenters
were greatly perplexed to know the right and wise course for them
to pursue.
They generally acted vrith much caution, perhaps with more
caution than courage. Their liberty was to be obtained, prorided
they would ask for it ; but how could they ask for a dispensation
from penal laws, without acknowledging the dispensing power of the
king ? To men among whom parUamentery government was a
superstition, almost a gospel, thefr liberty seemed opposed to parlia
mentary authority, and if, under the perplexing circumstances of the
time, they acted vrith some inconsistency, they are not to be severely
blamed. The common-sense view of the subject taken by that plain,
strong-minded man, Adam Martindale, does not appear to have

408 LANCASHIRE.
presented itself to any of his neighbours : ' I have done no more by
the king's permission than I would, if I could, have done vrithout
it.'* In London the Independent ministers resolved to accept their
liberty, and presented to the king an address of thanks for his
' gracious clemency and indulgence.' After some daya the Presby
terians overcame thefr reluctance, and foUowed the Independents
¦vrith a more moderate and cautious address, in which, notwithstand
ing its extreme moderation and caution, Baxter would not unite vrith
his brethren.
In the country many of the presbyterian ministers were almost as
difficult to please as Baxter himself. PhiUp Henry was put into
what he calls ' a trUemma, either to turn Independent in practice, or
to strike in with the conformists, or to sit down in silence and
suffering.' He, however, managed to get out of his ' trUemma ' by
procuring a license.
In Lancashire the ministers were not so scrupulous as many of
thefr London brethren. Intelligence of the king's declaration, which
was published on March 15, reached Manchester on the 18th of the
month. The ministers resident or sojourning in that neighbourhood
immediately held a conference, and agreed to •write to their friend
Alderman Ashurst in London, for further information and adrice.
Thefr first thought was that, as they were promised so much by the
king, they nught obtain a little more from the bishops. They re
quested the alderman to wait upon the bishops, and solicit liberty to
preach ' in void chapels and churches, where the incumbent would
give leave.' By this time they might have kno'wn the bishops better ;
but they were good, confiding people, who had over their own diocese
the most liberal bishop of the bench. This letter was signed by Hol
brooke, Richardson, Leaver, Scoles, Risley, Finch, BeU, Angier,
Newcome, Constantine, Baton, and Jones. Ashurst, in reply, in
formed them how they might take advantage of the king's declara
tion. Permission to preach in the churches was positively refused,
but any minister might apply for a license for his own or any other
house in which he intended to conduct reUgious serrices. Every
applicant was requfred to state the denomination, Presbyterian, In
dependent, or Baptist, to which he belonged. Baxter, who was
alwaya scrupulous about doing anything he was required to do, was
¦* In connection with the dispensing power, Martindale refers to an extraordinary
movement of the good Bishop of Chester, of which I should be glad to obtain more
information. 'About this time Bishop Wilkins, observing what a great company
of drunken ministers there were in his diocese, and especially near Wigan, his
residence, was resolved to turn such out, or at the least to suspend them, and- to
fiU their place with better raen, and having a good opinion of some of us that he
took to be moderate Nonconformists, he proposed terms to us, to which we re
turned a thankful answer, showing our willingness to comply in anything that
would not cross our principles, and instancing in particulars what we could do.
But the Archbishop of York at his visitation took all power out of his hands for a
year, soon after which Bishop Wilkins died.' — Ufe, ch. vii. sect. 7. The bishop,
Uke the king, seems to have claimed ' a dispensing power ' in employing ' moderate
Nonconformists.' Wilkins died in London, Nov. 19, 1672, iu the house of his friend
Dr. TUlotson.

NONCONFORMITY. 409
suddenly troubled with a scruple about calUng himself, what he had
often called himself before, a Presbyterian. He procured by special
favour a Ucense as a Nonconformist. In Lancashfre the ministera
had no diBficulty in that particular.
On April 19, eighteen ministers met in Manchester, ' to consult
about the use of the king's declaration.' Although the meeting was
professedly convened for the ministers of Lancashfre, Oliver Heywood,
who considered himself almost a minister of his native county, was
present, and took part in the consultation. The proceedings were
conducted vrith perfect harmony, and the ministers took a more de
cided course in separating from the EstebUshed Church than thefr
brethren in any other of the northern counties, perhaps 1 might say in
any, other county of England. In the first place, the Presbyterian
ministers joined with the Independents in one address to the king,
indicating thefr united course of action, whUe the ministers of the
two denominations, even in London, could not arrive at any common
understanding upon the subject. In the next, they gave no counten
ance to any such purpose as that avowed by the ministers of York
shfre and of Derbyshfre, of opening their licensed meetings only in
the hours in which the churches were closed. And in the third, they
made no such profession as that of their Yorkshfre brethren who, at
a conference in York, agreed to ' endeavour to persuade the people
who came to hear, that they pay all their accustomed dues and duties
to thefr parish minister, and that they withdraw not any part of
them or of their wonted respect on any account.'
The address eventually signed by thirty-six presbyterian ministers
and six Independente was : —
' TO THE king's MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY,
* The most humble and dutiful acknowledgment ofthe Nonconforming
Ministers in the county of Lancaster.
' May it please your most excellent Majesty,
' We, your most loyal and faithful subjects, being deeply
sensible of your princely clemency and favourable inclination towards
us, manifested in your most gracious Declaration of Indulgence,
dated March 15, 1671-2, make this our most humble and grateful
acknowledgment thereof, sincerely promising our constant and cordial
endeavours, to the utmost of our capacity, to promote your majesty's
honour, interest, and authority, as also our peaceable and inoffensive
deportment in the exercise of the liberty so freely vouchsafed to us ;
whereby as (by God's assistance) we shall evidence that our noncon
formity was not out of any disaffection or disloyalty to your majesty's
person or government, so we shall give your majesty such cause to
be confident of our loyalty as we hope may encourage you to continue
your royal favour, and to confirm your gracious indulgence and
clemency towards us.' ,
It is remarkable that Mr, Angier, although he retained the episcopal
chapel of Denton, signed this address as a nonconforming mmister;

410 LANCASHIRE.
as did also his nephew Samuel, who at the time was serving as his
curate. Indeed, in all the proceedings of the Lancashfre Noncon
formists both the uncle and the nephew took an active part.
The ministers of Lancashire were not long in obtaining their
Ucenses. On April 21 Mr. Newcome received information that a
Ucense for him, as a presbyterian minister, to preach in his own
house, was obtained, and without waiting for its arrival he opened
his house for public preaching. As he had no room which could
accommodate many persons, he procured, on May 18, a license for a
barn, in which he preached on Sabbath evenings after the church
serrices had closed, and on Wednesday evenings. His observant
enemies thought they had obtained some advantage over him. The
intolerant magistrates of Manchester, presuming that he had no other
Ucense than that which he had obtained for his private house, sent
the constable to bring him to account for preaching in an unlicensed
place. He had been more careful than they supposed, and having
produced his new license, declared his intention of preaching a weekly
lecture in the barn.
Several ministers Ucensed thefr o'wn houses or houses of thefr
friends in which they could obtain a commodious room. They went
to little expense for furniture, proriding no other conveniences than
benches, a table, and a desk. When considerable numbers attended,
they occupied school-houses, bams, hay-lofts, and temporary wooden
buildings. In Bolton one of the licensed meeting-places must have
been large, for in it Mr, Leaver ' administered the Lord's Supper
every month to some hundreds,' The Uberty of the Nonconformists
was too precarious, and thefr prospects too uncertain, to encourage
them to erect durable and expensive buildings. The only building
worthy the name of a chapel, erected by the Dissenters during the
time of the indulgences in the north of England, was one at Mill HiU
in Leeds. It was, according to Thoresby, the first chapel erected by
the Dissenters 'more ecclesiastico, with arches.'
Before the granting of the ' Indulgences,' several of the ejected
ministers of Lancashfre had fallen asleep in Jesus. John Harrison
of Ashton, Samuel Mather of Burton Wood, Henry Welch of Chorley,
James Hyett of Croston, Isaac Ambrose of Garstang, WiUiam Leigh
of Gorton, Joseph Thompson of Sephton, and probably one or two
others had gone beyond the reach of their persecutors. Some had
removed to other counties ; two or three, induced by various motives,
had reUnquished the ministry ; two or three in the time of distress
had returned to the Church ; and two or three were incapacitated
for preaching by the infirmities of sickness or age. The foUowing,
who obtained Ucenses for different buUdings, deserve honourable
mention as the principal founders of the dissenting interest in Lanca
shfre : * —
* From the Register preserved in the Record Office, extracts from which have
been made by Joshua 'WUson, Esq., it appears that fifty-one licenses were granted
for Presbyterian ministers, some in houses specified and some ' in any aUowed
place,' and seven for Congregational ministers. I notice almost all the ministers
in the course of the narrative. Many of their names are strangely spelt.

NONCONFORMITY, 411
Mr. Newcome, as I have already noticed, obtained a license, first
for his own house, and, soon afterwards, on account of its incapacity
to accommodate his numerous hearers, for a barn in the neighbour
hood of Shude HUl. Mr, Richardson, who had been the early morn
ing preacher in the collegiate church, Ucensed a house in Chorlton,
and preached to as many as its largest apartment would contain.
Mr. Pyke of RadcUffe licensed a house at Blackley, and coUected a
considerable congregation. Mr. Constantine of Oldham licensed a
ba,rn* on Greenacres Moor, and founded the dissenting interest which
stiU adheres to ite old faith and maintains a good position in the
village. Mr. Bath of Rochdale opened a commodious house at
UnderhUl in the same parish. Mr. Robert Eaton preached to a con
gregation in Prestwich, Mr, Goodwin of Bolton took out a license
for a private house t in that town, where he soon collected a very
large and influential congregation, Mr. Leaver had also a licensed
place in Bolton sufficiently capacious to hold some hundreds of people.
Mr. Wright of BUling licensed the house of Mary Lyon of Prescot.
Mr. Whitehead preached to his old congregation at Dalton, who had
deserted the church after he was ejected, and now heard him gladly.
Mr. JoUie of Altham licensed several houses in the hundred of Black
burn, where the independent churches of Darwen, Hesketh Lane,
Egerton, and Wymond Houses originated chiefly from his labours.
Mr. Heywood of Ormskfrk licensed a house at Bickersteffe and
another in Scarisbrick, and preached in them alternately. With
these meeting-places should be associated the chapels of Birch,
Cockey Moor, Toxteth Park, St. Helen's, and Elswick, for which the
ministers who kept possession obtained the king's Ucenses. Besides
these meeting-places intended for the regular serrices of ' stated '
ministers, many private houses were licensed for occasional preaching,
and were frequently occupied by ministers on thefr itinerancies, and
on special occasions.
Thus in 1672 was founded, amidst many fears, anxieties, and
prayers, what may be called the Oid Dissent of Lancashire. It was
chiefly, but not exclusively, Presbyterian, for from the time that the
Presbyterians and Congregationalists united in their address of
grateful acknowledgment to the king they acted together "with un
interrupted harmony. Thefr mode of conducting pubUc worship
was the same ; they often preached for one another ; Oliver Heywood
and Thomas JolUe resorted to the same licensed houses in thefr
preaching tours. In one instance, as we have seen, the two parties
occupied the same chapel. They kept private days together, occa
sionaUy united in sacramental communion, and even co-operated in
ordination services. Indeed, presbyterianism as an organised govern
ment of the Church by classes and synods was no longer practicable.
Presbyterian congregations practically and necessarily in most parti-
¦* It is called a ' barn ' iu the register, but in all other accounts it is represented
as a house.
t The house of John Okey, brother-in-law of Oliver Heywood. The memory of
Okey has been perpetuated by a very long epitaph, which has been printed so often
that I do not think it worth printing any more.

412 LANCASHIRE.
culars became independent, and if new jealousies had not been
fomented, and new controversies excited, the old distinction would
long since have been obliterated and forgotten.
Uncertain as was their toleration, and precarious thefr livelihood,
the nonconforming ministers resolved to pei"petuate their ministry.
Satisfied with thefr church order ag scr^iJural, they began to con
template it as worthy of preservation for a testimony to the truth
and a blessing to the people. The question of ordaining young
ministers was one of some difficulty, and therefore brought under
careful consideration. The times were unfavourable, the obsteclea
formidable, the old modes of ordination impracticable, the provision
for the ordained uncertain, and the induction to a pastorate difficult.
While some leading men hesitated, others resolved to proceed,
although they were compelled in doing so to act upon independent
principles. The first ordination among the nonconforming ministers
seems like a compromise between the two parties, and many subse
quent ordinations in the north of England were solemnised in the
same manner.
On October 29, 1672, in the house of Mr. Robert Eaton of Deans
gate, in Manchester, was conducted what I have no doubt was the
first ordination in England of nonconforming ministera.* The can-
didatea were Mr. Joseph Dawson, a young friend of Oliver Hey
wood, Mr. Samuel Angier, the nephew of John Angier of
Denton, and Mr. John JolUe, a younger brother of the independent
minister of Altham. The ministers who conducted the solemnity
were Mr. Heywood, Mr. Angier, Mr. Finch, Mr. Newcome, and
Mr. Eaton ; of whom it is remarkable that Mr. Finch was the pastor
of a congregational church, and Mr. Angier, the incumbent of Denton,
was in some sense subordinate to episcopal authority. Of the can
didates, Mr. Dawson was a Presbyterian, Mr. Jollie an Independent,
and Mr. Samuel Angier an assistant to his uncle in the episcopal
chapel. The solemn service commenced with three prayers, offered
by Mr. Eaton, Mr. Finch, and Mr. Heywood. Mr. Angier then
received the confession from Mr. Dawson, proposed to him some
important questions, and received satisfactory answers. Mr. New-
come performed the same service with respect to Mr. Samuel Angier,
and Mr. Eaton with respect to Mr. Jollie. Mr. Newcome then
delivered a charge to the three young men, and closed the serrice
with prayer and benediction. It must have been a solemn and
impressive service, the auspicious percursor of many simUar, continued
to this day among Protestant Dissenters. It designated also a great
change in the relation of nonconformity to the Church ; a recognition
of a ministry permanently and avowedly separated from the episcopal
communion. Oliver Heywood says, ' It was a sweet, aolemn day, a
hopeful budding of Aaron's rod after a sharp winter. Blessed be the
Lord ! ' *
* In calUng this ' the first ordination of nonconforming ministers,' I mean the
first after the passing of the Act of Uniformity. There were preriously several
ordinations of both pastors and teachers iu the 'gathered churches' of the
Independents. ¦" In Wilson's History of the Dissenting Churches in London, under the article

NONCONFORMITY, 413
Affecting as are the accounts of the ordination of young men to
the nonconformist ministry in the unsettled times of the indulgences,
far more affecting are the accounts of poor persecuted ministers, reli
giously devoting their most promising sons to the sacred serrice in
which they had suffered so much, and which promised very little
comfort to their successors As soon aa they had resolved that thefr
ministry should be perpetuated by succession, many of them were
ready to bear their fall proportion of the responsibilities incurred by
their decision. Within a year after they had obtained their licenses,
some of them consecrated their sons to the self-denying service of
their humble sanctuaries, and expended considerable sums in pro-
'riding for those sons a Uberal and appropriate education.
In 1673, Oliver Heywood, who knew as well as any man then
Uring the sufferings of the nonconformist ministry, solemnly by
prayer and fasting dedicated his two sons to that laborious service,
and sent them to the Rev. Mr. Hickman, a scholar of high reputation,
who at that early date had opened an academy in Worcestershire for
the education of youth for the nonconformist ministry. With these
boys were associated the sons of two intimate friends of Mr. Hey
wood, Mr. Richardson, an ejected minister, and Mr. Cotton, probably
the first layman who ever frained a son for the ministry of Protestant
Dissenters. It would not have been consonant with the habits or
feelings of a puritan family to allow an event of so much domestic
interest to pass vrithout being haUowed by religious Solemnities.
How affecting is the account which Mr. Heywood gives of these
solemnities in his ' Diary ! ' ' My sons being to go abroad for their
learning, I took them with me to three private days this week. One
was at Halifax, May 14 ; one at home. May 15 ; the last at Mr. Daw
son's, May 16. But Thursday at home was such a day as we have
seldom had, I purposely appointed it to seek God on thefr behalf,
' Presbyterian Meeting House in Little St. Helens,' it is said: 'The first public
ordination held by the Nonconformists after the Bartholomew Act was performed
in this place, June 23, 1694.' The ordination in Manchester was twenty-two years
earlier. An ordination was celebrated in 1678 in a house in Craven, where Mr.
Heywood was engaged. In 1680 another was solemnised in the same house. Two
others were observed in Yorkshire in 1681. Indeed, several took place iu the
north before that mentioned by Walter Wilson. Nor is it correct to say it was the
first public ordination. At the ordination of Timothy Jollie, iu 1681, the people
were present and were ' strangely affected.' During the examination of the can
didate the ministers were left alone, but afterwards the people returned, for
towards the close of the service those not of the church were desired to withdraw,
but the members remained. See several references in the Life of Oliver Heywood.
As early as 1688 an ordination was held in the private house of Dr. Annesley in
Spital Fields, Joseph Hussey of Cambridge was then prdained 'with examination,
confession, fasting, prayer, and imposition of the hands of the Presbytery,' Hus
sey had to ' dispute with the Doctors in Latin on the theme, Papam esse ilium
Antichristum.' His testimonials were signed by S. Annesley, S.T.P., S. A. Slater,
John Quick, Robert FrankUn and Richard Turner. In the Latin copy mention is
made of a sixth person concerned, ' Domino Anonymo. ' Of this Dotninus Mr.
Hussey says, ' The sixth man was shie because of the cloudinesse of the times, and
would neither subscribe nor be known to me.' A full account iu the handwritmg
of Mr. Hussey is inserted in a kind of church-book preserved by the Independent
church in Cambridge.

414 LANCASHIRE.
and God wonderfuUy helped all His servants to plead for them.
About the middle of the day I called them both before the company,
and asked them several questions, as " What caUing they chose ? "
With tears they both answered, " The ministry." I asked them,
" For what end ? they might suffer pers"e(?Q.tion ; must not dream of
honour therein, and to Uve like gentlemen," &c. They told me,
" Thefr only end was to glorify God and -win souls." I marked
John's worda : he said, " He desired to do God more service than
any of his ancestors." I asked them, "What they desfred Mr. Daw
son and the rest of God's servants might pray to God for on their
behalf?" They spoke openly, both of them. Eliezer spoke first,
and said, " That God would give them grace and gifts, forgive the
sins of thefr chUdhood and loss of time ; would make them studious,
keep • them from temptation and sinfnl company." John's answer
was muchwhat of that nature. They both wept exceedingly ; tears
dropped down apace ; the whole company wept. Then I gave them
np solemnly to God in His work. They that went to prayer read
also a scripture. W. B. read 1 Samuel i., of dedicating Samuel to
God ; Mr, Dawson read Genesis xxriii., of Isaac's sending away
his son Jacob ; R. R. read Proverbs Ui., about getting wisdom ;
Mr. Hodgson read the latter end of Genesis xlriii., and when he
came to those words, "The angel which redeemed me from all evU,
bless the lads," tears stopped him ; we all wept. The scripture I
read, and expounded briefly, was 1 Chronicles xx, of Solomon's charge
by David about building -the temple. In prayer God helped all ; but
God wrought strangely in my heart : oh, what a flood of teara I
what pleadinga 'with God ! I can acarce remember the like. Blessed
be God ! it's a token for good. At night, after the young men's
conference, I set my two sons a-praying. EUezer began, and wept
and prayed very feelingly; but John exceeded, both in sfrong
scriptural expostulations and sobbing and weeping, that sometimes
he could hardly speak ; and such an evening of such a day I have
seldom had in all my life. I watch to " hear what the Lord vrill
speak " to all these ; surely " He will speak peace ; " but oh, that I
and mine might " not return to foUy ! " '
It is remarkable that in the time of the indulgences the ministers
of Lancashfre seem to have been more scantily supplied with the
comforts of Ufe than they had been in the time of persecution. On
examining the memoirs and diaries of several, we find references to
their cfrcumstances which induce us to conclude they were not so
well prorided for in the regular discharge of pastoral duties, as they
had been when they looked, under God, to the casual but Uberal
confributions of friends, or even strangers, who sustained and cheered
them in thefr ten years of wandering and frouble, "Whether the
sympathy felt for them in their suffering had become weakened in
their enjoyment of Uberty, whether the efforts strenuously made to
proride a supply of thefr wants were thought no longer necessary, or
whether thefr friends, subjected to heavier expenses in proriding
places of worship, were unable to maintain the rate of thefr contri-

NONCONFORMITY. 415
butions^ for the ministers, I do not know ; but I hear at this time
expressions of poverty and want which I have not preriously heard
from the lips of the ejected ministers. They have hitherto had to
complain of persecution and imprisonment rather than of neglect
and destitution. When fined for preaching, they appear more easily
to have found friends to pay their fines than they could to feed and
clothe their families, while they were preaching to respectable con
gregations. At least it was so in some instances.
On consulting the ' Autobiography ' of Newcome to ascertein how
he fared in the year of his liberty, I find him writing : ' Several
times this summer I was hard put to it for outward supplies ; oft
brought almost to the last dust in the barrel. As before April 6, so
now June 17 and 20, August 80, October 22 and 28, I had much
trouble by adversaries and by friends who would overdrive me.
Fain I would do what good I could, and yet keep also the esteem of
the public. I did what 1 could, and thought the Lord saw the mercy
and content of liberty too great for me, unless balanced with these
burdens.' Referring to his neighbour Edmond Jones, the ejected
minister of Eccles, he writes : ' 1 find in poor Mr. Jones's case, and
it is well if it prove not so with me, that the indulgence as to outward
things vriU have done great prejudice.' When Newcome made this
entry, his ' dear friend and brother in the work and patience of the
gospel, Mr. Edmond Jones,' was vrithin six days' journey of his
Father's house. According to the next enfry, intelligence of hia
death came on May 1, 1673.
Martindale, our other authority in these matters, being at that
time chaplain to Lord Delamere, was prorided for somewhat more
comfortably, though not very liberally. His autobiography supplies
an interesting account of the position and services of a nonconforming
chaplain in the family of a presbyterian nobleman. His official dutiea
confined him to residence at Dunham Park from May until October,
which time ' my lord ' spent at his counfry house, according to the
custom of the noblemen of his day. The rest of the year he was at
liberty to Uve where he pleased, and to obtain some addition to his
income by teaching mathematics. He teUs us, ' My salary was after
40Z. per annum ; for so much of the year as the family was at Dun
ham; that being usually about half the year (sometimes a little more,
sometimes a great deal less), that which was called 40Z. would be
dwindled to 21Z., 20Z., or 15Z., or thereabouts, out of which there
were divers defalcations, as fees to many officers in the family, which
-vrithout palfry nigardise, or the repute of it, could not be avoided.
The charge of having one in constant pay to wait upon me in my
chamber, and bring me necessaries ; for though the groom of the
chambers ought by his office to do it, his ordinary employment, mom
ing and evening to make clean the dining-rooms, and his extraordi
nary business with guests, would not give him time for it. As for the
remainder, a great part was necessarily squandered in apparel, for
gentlemen's chaplains about us, as the bishop's, Sfr Willoughby
Aston'a, Sfr Peter Leicester's, &c., were single men and conformists,
that had every one of them a benefice, or a chapel, or a feUowship.

416 LANCASHIRE.
This enabled them to go very fine. I, being in regard to my lord's
honour and mine own age, to take place of aU these, or all but one,
must needs be somewhat answerable to them. Yea, it was expected
of me that my wife and chUdren too should in thefr habit bear some
proportion. Add to thia that some that got twice as much in private
as I got at Dunham had great gifts and tokens sent them, as I had
when I was first ousted of my vicarage, but now it is thought my
place is so beneficial that I was passed by, my friends in London and
elsewhere thinking I had no need, and I could not well undeceive
them for fear of refiecting upon that noble famUy.' *
But whatever may have been the effect of the Declaration of In
dulgence upon the temporal or spiritual condition of the noncon
forming ministers, the king was compeUed by the constitutional
vigUance and pressure of his parliament to rescind it. Adhering
firmly to it untU the Commons refused to pass the Money Bill, he
then yielded, contrary to the advice of his ministers, but in compUance
"vrith the wishes of his mistresses, who were sadly in want of money
to support their extravagance. In parUament no man spoke more
resolutely against the indulgences than Alderman Love, the presby
terian representative of London, who was cheered by the other pres
byterian members when he made hia pafriotic avowal that ' he would
rather go vrithout his own Uberty than obtain it by the destruction
of the liberties of his country.' On March 8, 1673, the king, in the
presence of the Commons, broke the seal of his Declaration of
Indulgence, by which act the Ucenses granted under its authority
became unavaiUng in every court of law. The Commons promised
to grant relief to Protestant Dissenters, but their promise was never
fulfiUed, as the dissenting representatives were unvrilUng to promote
a legal toleration, in which Papists, Quakers, and other intolerable
people might be included.
Three days after the event, the news reached Manchester of the
rescinding of the king's indulgences. It was received by the popu
lace vrith great delight. The beUs were rung, the bonfires were
Ughted, the streets resounded with shouts of joy, the whole town
seemed revelUng in festivity and mirth. It is not easy to say why
the people received the intelUgence with so much rejoicing and
acclamation, Thefr applause could not have been the expression of
sympathy with the triumph of constitutional principles, in opposition
to the arbitrary purposes of the court, for Newcome says of the
populace, ' They expressed much joy and scorn over us,' The tide
of popular feeling was eridentiy turning in Manchester, A reaction
was commencing against puritanism, which proceeded until it pro
duced a complete change in the political and religious character of
* Ufe, chap. viu. sec. 1, If any are curious to know what the chaplain did for
his salary, Adam vriU satisfy them, ' My employment (besides accompanying my
lord often abroad) was family duty twice a day, which before dinner was a short
prayer, a chapter, and a more solemn prayer, and before supper the like, or a psalm
or part of one after the chapter. When it was my lord's pleasure that the Lord's
days or the king's days shoiUd be kept at home, I officiated ; and when on the
Lord's days we went to Bowdon, I catechised in the evening, and expounded in a
doctrinal and practical way,'

NONCONFORMITY, 417
the town, Manchester, ha-ring been a few years earlier distinguished
above aU the great towns of ihe north for its love of puritanism and
constitutional liberty, became, a few years later, the stronghold of
intolerance and arbitrary power, Newcome observed the transition
at ite commencement. Neither popery nor unlimited prerogative
was as yet generally popular in the town, but the austerities, and I
fear the good morals, of puritenism had become unwelcome to the
new generation, Newcome frequently and sorrowfuUy refers to the
young men, whose fathers he honoured and loved, haring fallen into
shameless irreligion, intemperance, and profligacy. Under the
demoralising influence which, since the restoration of royalty, had
been widely spreading over the counfry, they despised the -rirtues
which thefr fathers honoured, and indulged in the vices which thefr
fathers abhorred. In the next generation Manchester became one
of the most prelatical and Jacobitical towns in England.
On the revocation of thefr licenses, the ministera of Manchester, to
whom their brethren in the neighbourhood looked for example and
advice, convened a meeting at the house of Mr. Newcome, to consider
whether they should continue thefr preaching or desist from it for a
time.* After considerable debate they agreed to desist for the
present, induced by the hope that parUament, according to its reso
lution, woiUd do something for their reUef. Haring waited some
time in vain for the interposition of parUament, they began, not by
concert, but aa they were severally inclined, to resume thefr preaching.
On April 30, Newcome wrote : ' Others having begun before me, I
began again. And the Lord heard me in this thing, for we have had
our Uberty for above half a year without any molestation at all'
Under the circumstances all poUtical parties were perplexed, and, in
their perplexity, they hesitated to enforce the law. The king's friends
knew that he had reluctantly suspended the indulgences, and there
fore were unwilling to act as supporters of his enemies. On the
other hand, the friends of parliamentary government were also the
friends of the nonconforming ministers, and had expressed thefr
admiration of the manner in which the Nonconformists had to thefr
own injury opposed the exercise of an unconstitutional prerogative.
Here and there an ignorant or bigoted justice might fine or imprison
a nonconforming preacher, but influential magistrates of both parties,
though for different reasons, were reluctant to punish peaceable
ministers. For some time, therefore, in Lancashire, they preached
"with httle interruption from the pubUc authorities, Thefr most
froublesome enemies were noisy, drunken mobs, too often instigated
by profligate gentry and hostile clergy, who, unhappUy, could plead
on thefr side the majesty of law and constitutional authority.
After a few months the Nonconformists found that quietude
dependent upon arbitrary power was not to be trusted. The courtiers
complained that the Dissenters had not supported the prerogative of
the king as a regard to thefr own interests might have suggested, or
* The meeting was held on May 11, OUver Hey wood, to whom we are indebted
for the information, being in Manchester at the time, was invited to assist in the
consultation, — Hunter's Life of Heywood, p. 248.
lE

418 LANCASHIRE,
gratitude to thefr benefactor have required. It became known that
they were not in favour vrith the court. Informers went through
tlie country ; prelatical magisfrates were stimulated to activity ; the
hopes which had been excited in the minds of Nonconformiate,
at one time by the king, at another by the parliament, alike failed,
and the cloaing yeara of the reign of Charlea were foreboding and
disastrous to the cause of protestent nonconformity.
Amidst the uncertainty and gloom of that time, it is remarkable
that several candidates for the dissenting minisfry appeared, and that
academies for thefr appropriate training were opened and encouraged.
I have already alluded to the academy which was opened in 1673,
for the education of dissenting youth contemplating the ministry, at
Bromsgrove, in Worcestershire. About the same time Mr. Richard
Frankland, who had commenced an academy for the sons of noncon
formist gentlemen on his hereditary estate at Rathmel, in Craven, on
the borders of Lancashire, began to receive young men who desired
to pursue a course of study for the dissenting minisfry. As in this
academy were educated many of the ministers who succeeded the
founders of Lancashire nonconformity, and contributed to its strength
and permanence, a brief notice of it may be necessary to render sub
sequent references intelUgible to the reader.
Richard Frankland was educated at Christ's CoUege, Cambridge.
Ha-ving gained a high reputation for his scholarship, he was appointed
during the Commonwealth -rice-president and tutor of the coUege
founded by Cromwell at Durham^ and intended by him to supply the
place of a university for the northern counties.
On the Restoration, the attempt to form a third university haring
faUed, Mr. Frankland lost his appointment, and, on the passing of
the Act of Uniformity, his weU-endowed beneflce of Bishop Auck
land. A gentleman by descent as weU aa by education and accom
plishments, he settled upon his property and opened the academy to
which I have referred.
As a schoolmaster Mr. Frankland was exposed to the penalties of
the Act of Uniformity, and was compelled, as was not unusual vrith
teachers in those times, to remove his pupils from one obscure situ
ation to another. Having begun at Rathmel in 1672, he removed to
Natland, near Kendal, in 1674; thence to Calton in Craven in 1683;
thence to Dawsonf old ; thence to Hartborough ; and thence to Atter-
cliffe in 1686. On the passing of the Act of Toleration, he ceased
from his wanderings and settled again upon his property at Rathmel,
where he remained untU his death in 1698. In these several places
he educated three hundred and three students, of whom the large
proportion intended for the dissenting ministry shows how the frienda
of nonconformity were "wilUng to devote their sons to its serrice,
persecuted as it was at the time, and precarious and unpromising as
seemed its future. In August, 1673, the year of the revocation of
thefr Ucenses, two of the ejected ministers of Lancashfre placed thefr
sons under the care of Mr. Frankland : Mr. Yates of "Warrington,
who consecrated his ' dear Samuel,' and Mr. JoUie of Altham, who

NONCONFORMITY. 419
devoted his 'young Timothy' to the work of the nonconformist
ministry. There can be no doubt that these two lads, like Mr. Hey
wood's John and Eliezer, were, on learing their respective homes,
commended to their holy calling by the solemnities of a ' private
day.' In 1674 Mr. Heywood's two sons and their three friends,
Thomas Cotton, Christopher Richardson, and Godsgift* Kirby, were
removed from Bromsgrove to the more flourishing academy of Mr.
Frankland. They were soon joined by four Lancashfre lads, a son
of Nathaniel Heywood of Ormskirk, a nephew of John Angier, a son
of Mr. Eaton, then minister at Prestvrich, and Eliezer Birch of the
puritan famUy of Birch Hall. These, and several others of the
county admitted soon after them, show the great esteem in which the
academy was held by the Nonconformists of Lancashire.
It may prevent our return to the subject, if we anticipate a few
years by observing that two of Mr. Frankland's pupils established
academies for the preparation of youth for the nonconformist minisfry,
Mr. Timothy JolUe at AttercUffe, and Mr. John Chorlton in Man
chester. Although Timothy JoUie was never settled as a minister in Lan
cashire, yet, as a native of the county, a son of one of ita most labo
rious ministers, often preaching in it, receiring many pupils from it,
and supplying from his academy some of the best ministers of its
vacant meeting-houses, he demands from us respectful notice. Hia
life also suppUes valuable information on a subject imperfectly under
stood, and yet on many accounts of great importance — the happy
and harmonious co-operation of the leaders of the Presbyterians and
the Independents in the north of England during the latter part of
the seventeenth century.
Although Thomas JolUe of Altham was a decided Independent, he
committed his son to the care of a presbyterian tutor ; and when
that son became an independent tutor, he was entrusted with the
sons of several presbyterian ministers, Timothy JoUie, having
completed hia studies under Mr. Frankland, and spent some time in
connection vrith an independent congregation in London, accepted
an inritation to the pastorate of a nonconformist church in Sheffield.
Hia ordination is one of the most remarkable in nonconfornaist history,
on account of the curious adjustment and blending in it of the dis
tinctive peculiarities of the two denominations. Of the ministers
engaged, Thomas JoUie the Independent and Oliver Heywood the
Presbyterian, chief men of their respective denominations in the
northern counties, undertook the principal parts. The serrice waa
conducted in the houae of Abel Yatea, The ministers chose, accord
ing to presbyterian usage, Mr, Heywood to be thefr moderator. They
Isegan thefr work on the first day about ten o'clock in the morning
with prayer. The candidate for orders preached a sermon in the
presence of a considerable congregation. The people then retfred,
and the ministera examined the young man in logic, phUosophy, lan-
* The name Godsgift sounds in our ears as very puritanical or very profane,
although, disguised in foreign speech as Theodore or as Diodato, it sounds very
respectable, almost genteel.

420 LANCASHIRE,
guages, and divinity. By some mistake no Latin thesis was prepared,
but instead of it the candidate had to engage in an extemporaneous
debate on the difficult subject. An imfantes omnes haptizatorum, etd
scandalizantimn, sint haptizandi. Extemporaneous Latin disputation
would, 1 fear, sorely try the scholarship of some ministerial candi
dates of this degenerate age. This continuing until about six o'clock
was enough for the first day. The ministers resumed thefr work
about seven o'clock the next moming, Mr. Hancock and Mr, Bloom
prayed, when most of the members of the society were present. Mr.
Heywood proposed several questions, the answers to which were
pronounced 'very satisfactory.' Mr. Thomaa JolUe 'in a very
pathetic manner gave up hia son to the ministry aa he had formerly
given him up to God in his baptism.' Mr. Heywood prayed solemnly
over the candidate, and the ministers standing round laid their hands
upon his head while he was kneeling in thefr midst. Mr, Heywood
gave him a faithful charge, and foUowed it vrith another prayer.
Thus far presbyterian usage prevailed, but then all persons whO'
were not members of the church withdrew, and even the presbyterian
ministers retired. In their absence, an officer of the church read a
letter of dismission from the church to which Mr. Jollie had belonged
in London, on whose recommendation he was received into the com
munion of the church at Sheffield, Mr. JolUe was then caUed by
the voice of an elder, with which the members expressed thefr con
currence, to teke upon himself the office of thefr pastor. To tiiis
caU he gave his distinct and formal assent. His father then preached
on the relative duties of pastor and people, and the son concluded the
whole serrice with prayer. The serrice of the second day occupied
about twelve hours,*
Mr. Heywood in his diary notices, with grateful acknowledgment
to God, the harmony and fraternal feeling with which ministers of
the two denominations acted together on that occasion. There was
no jealousy, no discord, ' no noise of a hammer in that building.'
It was Uke 'an oUve branch of peace among God's people.' A record
of the proceedings, engrossed on parchment, was signed by the
ministers engaged and given to the minister ordained.f
Mr. JolUe is represented by Bogue and Bennett in thefr ' History
of Dissenters,' as well as by Walter Wilson in his ' History of Dis
senting Churches in London,' as succeeding Mr. Frankland in the
presidency of the academy at AttercUffe. This representation is not
quite correct. Soon after Mr. Frankland removed his academy from
AttercUffe to Rathmel, Mr. JolUe opened in the former place another
academy, in which several Presbyterians as weU as Independents
were educated for the ministry.
* The ordination services of the early Nonconformists often occupied three
days, but ou these occasions several candidates were usually ordained in the same-
place. t Hunter's Ufe of OUver Heywood, p. 301. As the service had been, impru
dently as Mr, Heywood thought, made known in the town, the ministers were in
some fear of interruption, Mr. Heywood notices, as a great mercy, ' there was no
disturbance nor affront whatever in the midst of a considerable market town.'

NONCONFORMITY. 421
This academy was of great advantege to the nonconformist con
gregations of Lancashire. As there were usually about twenty-five
students under the care of its tra.tor, simultaneously preparing for the
ministry, it furnished a considerable proportion pf preachers for the
vacant pulpits. One of Mr. JoUie'a pupils. Dr. Benjamin Grosvenor,
minister of the presbyterian congregation which assembled for wor
ship in Crosby Hall, London, has left us the following description of
his venerated tutor : ' He had a charming voice, flowing, and of a
musical sound ; a natural eloquence. His elocution and gesture
were such as would adorn an orator. The pathetic was sometimes
so heightened with that divine enthusiasm which is peculiar to frue
devotion, that he would make our hearts glow with a fervour which
he kindled in the breasts of those who endeavoured aU they could
not to be moved by him. There have been tutors of greater learning,
who have been capable of laying out a greater compass of education;
but at the same time it must be acknowledged that the relish for
practical religion, that devotional spirit which was so improved by
his example, that sweetness of temper and benevolent turn of mind
which a soul of anything the same make insensibly catches from such
an example, are things not everywhere to be met with, and yet have
such an influence towards our usefulness and acceptance aa ministers,
as cannot easily be suppUed by any other qualification.'*
The other academy to which I have referred was estabUshed in
Manchester by Mr. Chorlton, the assistant and successor of Henry
Newcome. He appears from the testimony of his tutor and con
temporaries to have been eminently quaUfied by his learning, judg
ment, and piety, to prepare young men for the Christian ministry.
Matthew Henry says : ' He was eminent for solid judgment, great
thought, an extraordinary quickneaa and readiness of expression, a
casuist one of a thousand, a wonderful clear head.' His academy
acquired more of a public character than its predecessors, as the
ministers of Lancashire passed resolutions in its favour, expressed
publicly their confidence in its tutor, and obtained for it promises of
pecuniary support. On the premature death of Mr. Chorlton, hia
successor, incompetent to sustain ite reputation, brought the academy
to an untimely and not very honourable end. t
During the latter part of the reign of Charles IL, the liberty and
peace of the nonconforming ministers depended chiefiy upon the
personal or political interests of unprincipled courtiers and stetesmen,
and were consequently very uncertain and precarious. Privately
flattered by influential parties, pubUcly accused by other parties and
sometimes by the same, made subserrient at one time to the designs
of Papists and at another to the will of the persecutors of both
* Wilson's History of Dissenting Churches, vol. i. p. 346.
+ Lancashire nonconformity was also indebted for some good ministers to
Mr. James Owen, who received theological students first at Oswestry and after
wards at Shrewsbury. On his death, in 1706, Dr. Benyon, the successor of PhiUp
Henry, removed from Broad Oak to Shrewsburj', where he took charge of both
the academy and the congregation of Mr. Owen. Of the academy established by
Dr. Caleb Rotherham at Kendal, in which were educated many of the Lancashire
ministers in the early part of the eighteenth century, 1 shall have to speak hereafter.

422 LANCASHIRE,
Papists and Puritans, often favoured by unconstitutional Ucense and
often persecuted by legal authority, they occupied a position in which
it was very doubtful how far they ought to protect their own interests,
and how far to submit to legal oppression for the sake of Protestent
principles and constitutional government. It was not surprising if
their leaders were often in great perplexity when opposite courses of
action promised great advantages, and were also liable to serioua
objectiona. In these circumstences considerable difference of opinion
was unavoidable. In the midst of thefr perplexities and uncertainties,.
they lamented the death of thefr good-natured, light-hearted, un
principled, irreligious king. It may seem sfrange that they should
have done so, but they feared and thoroughly distrusted his successor,
whose promised toleration seemed to many of them worse than his
brother's oppression. With the commencement of the new reign,
we may have to notice the increasing perplexity of the Noncon
formists as to the course they should pursue, and the difference of
opinion respecting it between thefr leaders in the north and those in
the south of England.
A retrospect of the reign of Charles II. reminds us of a few events
connected vrith the history of Lancashfre nonconformity.
On August 6, 1667, the Rev. Richard Heyricke finished his
eventful Ufe in the sixty-eighth year of his age. After he renounced
his principles to retain his place, he seemed humbled and oppressed
with the difficulties or duties of bis altered position. I do not say
he suffered remorse, for 1 doubt not he satisfied his conscience of the
propriety of his inconsistent conduct; but his lofty spirit was broken,
and he became another man. His sympathies were -with his non
conforming friends, 'with whom he had long and lovingly acted. BKs
heart was e'ridently with the course which he had disowned vrith his
Ups, and he seemed an alien in the Church to whose services he had
conformed. He avoided publicity ; he made his conformity so unob
trusive as to sfrengthen a prevalent opinion that he had never legally
conformed. Instead of acting haughtily towards his old presbyterian
associates, he seemed glad of any opportunity to show them kindness,
whUe they grieved over his weakness and inconsistency. He preached
very seldom, and his preaching had lost its power. The mighty
spirit which had swayed the great congregation departed from him y
probably he never desired to recover it. The active, energetic,
haughty Presbyterian passed the last years of his life a quiet, retiring,
peaceful, unassuming conformist. He died disliked by his old ene
mies, popish and episcopal, and pitied by his old friends, protestant
and nonconforming.
As warder of the collegiate church, he was succeeded by Nicholas
Stratford, D.D., a High Churchman, but a very good and charitable
Christian. Although very strict and careful in enforcing the most
exact and scrupulous observance of all the forms of the established
Church, he was gentle and forbearing vrith conscientious Noncon
formists. Of a spfrit averse to persecution, he laboured to satisfy
thefr scruples, and to conciUate them by a meek and courteous,.

NONCONFORMITY, 423
though firm, defence of the legally appointed ritual and ¦ serrices.
Strong in Church principles, he adhered faithfully to the great
doctrines of the Reformation, and was more determinately opposed
to Papists than to Puritens.
With the warden was associated a clergyman of a kindred spirit,
but of greater abUity and more impressive eloquence. Mr. Richard
Wroe, who was elected a feUow of the coUegiate church in 1675, waa
so distinguished by his gentle and persuasive preaching as to obtain
the popular designation of ' the silver-tongued Wroe.' In the grace
and beauty of elocution he had a rival, probably a superior, in his
nonconforming neighbour Henry Newcome, but at that time there
was no other preacher in Lancashire or in the north of England
equal in elocution to either of them, "WTiile Stratford and Wroe
were labouring in the church, the interest of nonconformity in Man
chester, notwithstanding the deserved popularity of its great preacher,
seems to have considerably declined. Both were friendly vrith New-
come, Stratford treated him respectfully, Wroe pleasantly and
affectionately. This statement must be understood as restricted to
their personal intercourse, for in the church the dignified Sfratford
and even the sUvery Wroe occasionally reflected vrith much severity
upon the schism of the Nonconformists, Newcome, however, Uke a
good Christian, attended their ministry whenever he was not preaching,
and especially endeavoured to extract blessings from their strictures.
Although both Sfratford and Wroe were firm defenders of epis
copal and royal prerogative, it was greatly to thefr honour that on
occasion of the infamous conspiracy which brought Russell and Sidney
to the scaffold, neither of them would dishonour himself by a public
approval of the scandalous proceedings of the government. On the
day appointed for public thanksgiving in the churches for deliverance
from the pretended treason, neither the warden nor his fellow, loyal
and Tory aa they both were, would officiate in the pulpit of the
coUegiate church. Instead of the dignified address of the former, or
the sweet and sUvery tones of the latter, a voice was heard, harsh
indeed, but more agreeable than even Wroe's liquid sUver to the
young men of Manchester, who, ha-ring generally forsaken the puri
tenism of thefr fathers, were gratified with the most vulgar and
intolerant denunciations of their fathers' religion. Young Manchester
affected gentiUty, and therefore exulted in the execution of Russell
and Sidney. A preacher from the grammar school readily undertook
the service which his superiors had decUned. He denounced in the
most inflammatory language and impassioned manner the enemies of
the royal prerogative, who for thefr wicked resistance of its exercise
would receive unto themselves damnation. 'HeU,' he said, 'was made
for traitors, for the devU and his angels, whose crime was rebeUion
against the prerogative of the Eong of heaven.' He called upon his
hearers to unite in extirpating ' the impious, seditious, scandalous,
damnable, heretical, blasphemous, and infamous doctrine' of the
right to resist royal authority under any pretence whatsoever. The
young men applauded as zealously as their grandfathers on the same
spot had applauded Warden Heyricke's fierce denunciations of

424 LANCASHIRE,
unconstitutional prerogative. The pubUcation of the aermon was
loudly demanded. It waa publiahed and read in all the public-houaes
of Manchester. The fransition from puritanism to its opposite, the
beginning of which Newcome had sorrowfully observed some years
before, had rapidly proceeded to the extreme of High Church and
Tory politics. Judge Jeffreys was coming that year to hold the assizes
in Lancashire, and the young men of Manchester resolved to show
him aU possible respect. It was regarded as a point of honour vrith
the Manchester youth to appear in his court at Lancaster, or in the
sfreets as he went to or from it. They were as much gratified vrith
his riolent abuse of the Nonconformiste as he could have been with
their acclamations ; that is, if his fierce and passionate nature waa
susceptible of any gratification whatever.
Dr, Stratford was grieved and annoyed. He preached on the text,
'Recompense to no man eril for evil,' and printed the sermon,
entitled 'A Dissuasive against Revenge,' Many of his parishioners
were enraged and implacable. Unable, or unwiUing, to endure the
iU-feeling he had excited, he resigned his office and retfred from
public life.'* Every good Dissenter will honour the memory of thia
gentie and loving bigot, who regarded Dissenters and "Whigs as
enemies whom he ought to love, and whom he loved very sincerely-
He was succeeded by his ' sUver-tongued ' friend Wroe, a clergy
man of similar disposition and of the same principles, which, how
ever, he maintained with more decision and energy. Like Stratford
he might have preached against revenge, but he would never have
been frightened by any opposition into resigning his honourable
sitniation. He was warden at the death of Charles II.
In 1672 died that great and good prelate Dr. Wilkins, who had
succeeded in the bishopric of Chester the miserable persecutor
Dr, George Hall. He was lamented by all liberal men in his diocese,
by none more sincerely than by the nonconforming ministers, of
whom it is not too much to say, 'they made great lamentation over
him.' While he lived they frequently and gratefully acknowledged
his Uberal spirit and lenient rule. It is pleasing to observe, amidst
the bitter contentions of the time, how a kind and tolerant bishop was
honoured by ejected ministers while he lived, and lamented when he
died, Henry Newcome wrote in his ' Diary : ' 'I received the sad news
of the death of the learned, worthy, pious, and peaceable Bishop of
Chester, Dr. John Wilkins. He was my worthy friend. 'f John Angier
wrote : ' November 19, 1672, died good Bishop WUkins, a great loss.
He died comfortably, and rejoiced in his moderation while he waa
bishop. His death waa much lamented in the city of Chester.' J
He was succeeded by the learned, but not great. Dr. John Pearson,
who was too much occupied with hia literary works, to do much
good or harm in his diocese. Nonconformity, if Uttle the better, was
none the 'Worse under his negligent administration.
* Hibbert's History of the Collegiate Chwrch of Manchester.
+ Newcome's Diary, under date November 22, 1672.
J Life of John Angier, by Oliver Heywood, p. 86.

NONCONFORMITY, 425
On the accession of James II, to the throne, the Protestent Dis
senters, who had been greatly perplexed, during the reign of hia
brother, respecting the courae they ought to pursue, were involved
m still greater perplexity under the government of a popish king,
carefuUy adrised by popish emissaries. Freedom of worship was
their inalienable right, but to secure it they had to acknowledge an
arbitrary and unconstitutional exercise of the royal prerogative.
Placed between a catholic king and a protestant parliament, by
accepting thefr liberty from the former in the only way in which he
would grant it, they would apparently repudiate the authority of the
latter, when it was exercised for the protection of constitutional
government. On the other hand, by acknowledging the authority of
the latter, they would as apparently approve of the penal laws which
punished them for doing what they believed to be not a crime but a
solemn duty. Neutrality might have seemed to be their proper
course, but neufraUty (had it been possible) was scarcely consistent
•vrith the claims either of religion or of patriotism.
Most of the High Church party were for a time (though some of
them speedily repented) strenuous defenders of the unrestricted
exercise of the royal prerogative. The members of the University
of Oxford, although they soon had reason to regret their decision,
assured the king that thefr ' religion by law estabUshed indispensably
bound them to bear faith and true obedience to thefr sovereign, with
out any limitation or restriction.' Nor was the address of the sister
nniversity much more moderate in its professions of the doctrine of
non-resistance and passive obedience.* The dissenting ministers,
however undecided a few of them may have been in their perplexing
position, or censurable for submitting to unconstitutional authority,
were surely not to be censured by those who had professed their
determination to defend that authority to whatever extent it might
be assumed or exercised. I know not how, on the accession of
James, the Dissenters could have acted othervrise than they did ; but
if they failed in thefr duty to the cause of English freedom and
Protestant faith, thefr failure was far less culpable than were the
loud professions of submission to arbitrary power made by the estab
lished clergy in all parts of the country. When the Church soon
afterwards came to a sense of her danger, and called for help, the
Protestant Dissenters, with scarcely an exception, forgetful of thefr
own grievances, were found pleading her cause, and uniting for her
defence. Churchmen who consider how much the Dissenters suffered
from the protestant parliament in the beginning of this reign must
readily acknowledge, as many of their best bishops have done, that
the Dissenters acted a noble and patriotic part in uniting vrith thefr
worst oppressors in defence of thefr common faith and country,
* Among the Lancashire Tories the people of 'malignant' Wigan, true to the
traditions of their town, made themselves conspicuous not only by the extrava
gance of their loyalty but by the boldness of their address, in which they assured
the king that they would defend him ' against aU plotting Ahithophels and rebel
Uous Absaloms,' — Macaulay's History of England, vol. i. p. 476. What 'Wigan
would have done had Ahithophel or Absalom appeared I do not know, but it did
very Uttle against Lord Delamere and the Cheshire Whigs.

426 LANCASHIRE.
Possibly no party acted more wisely or more honeatiy than the
Quakers, although thefr address has been interpreted as appro"ving
of the dispensing power. Standing in the presence of their new
sovereign, they addressed him, ' We are come to testify our sorrow
for the death of our good friend King Charlea, and our joy for thy
being made our governor. We are told that thou art not of the
persuasion of the Church of England no more than we, therefore we
hope thou wilt grant us the same liberty as thou allowest to thyself,
which doing, we wish thee aU manner of happiness.'
For the severities to which the Dissenters were subjected soon
after his accession, the popish king was not so much to blame as the
protestant parUament, which prayed the king to enforce the penal
laws against all Dissenters from the Church of England, Thia
prayer befrayed not so much disUke of Dissenters as fear of the
exercise of a dispensing power. Both parties of Churchmen had
their reasons for desiring the enforcement of the penal laws : the
High Churchmen, who were Tories, because they disliked dissent;
the Low Churchmen, who were Whigs, because they disapproved of
an illegal toleration. Sharing the disapproval of unconstitutional
authority, some of the Nonconformists refused unconstitutional
liberty, and seemed disposed to persecute themselves. While a few
of thefr brethren excusably wavered, the greater part firmly adhered
to the Whigs and Uberal Churchmen.*
In these perplexing circumstances, it is not strange that some of
the Dissenters favourably regarded the rash attempt of the Duke of
Monmouth. His success seemed to promise the only solution of thefr
difficulties, as it would secure both the Protestant Establishment, and
the freedom of nonconformist worship. The supporters of the prero
gative, however inexcusable were thefr severities, were not altogether
wrong in distrusting the loyalty of the Protestant Dissenters. Far aa
Lancashfre was from the camp of Monmouth, many of the Dissenters
of that county waited for the earliest intelligence of his movements
vrith intense interest and hope. Some of them excited so much sus
picion by thefr conduct that they were sent to prison, or were com
pelled to leave their homes, and conceal themselves for several weeks
from spies and informers. The magisfrates of Manchester received
orders to observe and secure the dissenting ministers. The house of
peaceable Henry Newcome, of all men in the county the lea^t likely
to raise an insurrection, was, greatly to his horror, searched for arms.
Mr. Jollie of Altham was imprisoned in Preston ; Mr. Bradshaw of
Hindley, Mr. Finch of Birch, and some others, were carried to
Chester ; Mr. Robert Eaton of Prestwich fied from the county until
the danger had passed away. The greatest interest, however, felt by
* When on a later occasion the dissenting ministers of London were convened to
consider what answer they should return to the king for his Declaration of Liberty
of Conscience, one of them rose aud said, iu the presence of two messengers sent
to report their proceedings, ' If the king expects we should give up the constitution
and declare for the dispensing power, I had rather lose my liberty and return to
my former bondage.' John Howe, who was in the chair, intimated to the king's
messengers at the close of the meeting that they ' were generally of the same
opinion.' — Neal's History of the Pwritans, vol. U. p. 769.

NONCONFORMITY. 427
the Lancashfre Nonconformists was in the trial of Lord Delamere,*
who undoubtedly was preparing to use his infiuence in support of
Monmouth, had the duke made greater progress in coUecting and
strengthening his forces in the west. WhUe Delamere was in prison
' prayer was made for him continually.' Newcome, in his ' Diary,'
mentions his ' praying for the rescue of Lord Delamere.' On hearing
of his acquittal by the House of Peers, Newcome ' could do little aU
day for the thoughts of the unexpected mercy.' But the rapturous
joy of the Puritan was somewhat disturbed by the unpuritan sort of
exultation which prevailed among some of bis friends. A Uttle
exuberance of mirth might have been excused on so joyous an occa
sion ; but some inconsiderate people went to the excess of drinking
to the health of the liberated nobleman. Newcome felt the scandal,
and wrote in his diary, ' this drinking of Lord Delamere's health is
a poor way of rejoicing.' Delamere Uved to take his proper place in
the great conflict with arbitrary power, and to do good serrice in
dri"ving from the throne the last of the Stuart kings. From the ac
cession of James I. down to the death of Queen Anne, no noble
family in England resisted with more firmness and resolution the
civU and ecclesiastical tyranny of the Stuarts than the Booths of
Dunham, steady, uncompromising friends of constitutional govern
ment and religious freedom under whatever title they assumed,
Dunham Massey, Delamere, or Warrington.
The frightful severity vrith which the Dissenters were persecuted
after the suppression of Monmouth's rebellion produced a favourable
reaction in the dispositiona even of many High Churchmen. All
who desired the preservation of the independence of the Church from
the domination of Rome, however they may have been opposed to
puritanism, began to feel that in the threatening conflict they might
be glad of the assistance of the Protestant Dissenters. While in
Lancashire, as in many other parts of the country, the Nonconformists
were compelled to assemble in secret, to conduct their worship in
secluded houses, unfrequented glens, or dense woods, many of the
clergy, in fear of popery, endeavoured to obtain a better understand
ing with thefr ministers, and began to suggest proposals for compre
hension. Some clergymen were disposed to return to the CathoUc
Church, but many desfred by an aUiance with the Dissenters to resist
papal domination. Such clergymen as the old and the new warden
of Manchester, Stratford and Wroe, who had preached with impar
tial zeal against both Papists and Nonconformists, had in thefr love
of protestantism, or fear of popery, kept in abeyance thefr high
church notions of unconditional submission to royal authority.
Wroe became the intimate friend of Lord Delamere, and apparently
encouraged his opposition to the measures of the government ; Strat
ford pubUshed several discourses against the designs of the Papists.
In Lancashfre, where the Catholics, feeling thefr sfrength, were be
ginning to avow thefr determination to support the arbitrary rule of
the king, some of the protestant clergy, sensible of the danger to
* Henry, the second Lord Delamere, succeeded to the title on the death of hia
father in 1684.

428 LANCASHIRE.
which they were exposed, looked to the Dissenters as their best
friends in the day of adversity and terror.
WhUe this feeUng was spreading among the clergy, the govern
ment became suspicious and distrustful of the Church, and proposed
advantageous measures for the Dissenters. Really in the interest of
CathoUcs, professedly in the interest of Nonconformists, the penal
laws were to be suspended, and freedom of worship granted to aU
parties. The course of the Dissenters was again involved in per
plexity. They would not acknowledge the dispensing power ; but
they could not refuse to avaU themselves of their Uberty. Because
the gates of thefr prison were opened by an unconstitutional exercise
of prerogative, were they not to go to thefr own homes ? They have
been censured by opposite parties for not acting "with more decision,
when placed in a position of great difficulty and doubt. There were
Jacobite dissenters aa well as Jacobite clergymen ; but the former
were very few and hesitating, the latter very many and resolute.
The subject deserves a passing enqufry.
When the Declaration of Liberty of Conscience was pubUshed,
many nonconformist ministers resolved to preach under the protec
tion of the royal authority. No one can severely blame them for
accepting their own Uberty. They were, however, blamed both by
the friends of the parUament and by the friends of the court ; by the
former for accepting liberty unconstitutionally granted, and by the
courtiers for not gratefully acknowledging the unconstitutional
authority by which it was conferred. The manner in which they
ought to express thefr acknowledgment of the Uberty granted, it was
very difficult and perplexing to determine. On the one side, Baxter,
Howe, Mead, and others who were in communication "vrith the leaders
of the Whig party, would have dissuaded the Dissenters from making
any acknowledgment at all of the Uberty granted by the king ; on
the other, Vincent Alsop, Theophilus Lobb, Penn the Quaker, and
others in communication "with the court, would have persuaded them
to offer grateful professions of loyalty and obedience to their most
gracious sovereign. "WTiUe Tory writers have defamed the former
class, Macaulay, like most Whig historians, has "with sufficient severity
and some injustice censured the latter. Whatever may have been
the blame due to such Dissenters as John Howe on the one side, or
Vincent Alsop on the other, the general body of dissenting ministers
of that time were not responsible for the faults of either extreme.
In London they presented thefr addresses to the king, acknowledging
their sense of the liberty accepted, but suppressing every reference
to the authority by which it had been conceded. The Baptists, who
at that time were less impUcated in politics than any other party,
were the first to offer their acknowledgments, and of all Dissenters
the most deferential to the royal authority. They said, ' Our sense
of this invaluable favour and benefit derived from your royal clemency
compels us to prostrate ourselves at your majesty's feet, with the
tender of our most humble thanks for that peace and Uberty which
both we and all other dissenters from the national Church now enjoy.'
The Presbyterians soon afterwards presented thefr address, which,

NONCONFORMITY. 429
notwithstanding the sfrenuous opposition of several of thefr leaders,
was expressed in nearly similar terms, though without the words,
' benefit derived from your royal clemency.' After some hesitation
and long debate, the Independente addressed the king, and in a still
more cautious manner expreaaed their gratitude that ' in the indul
gence vouchsafed there were no limitations hindering the enjoyment
of it with a good conscience.' In Lancashire, where the ministers
generaUy seem to have had less objection to the exercise of the royal
authority than thefr brethren in the south, many of them united in
an address of grateful acknowledgment to the king for the Declara
tion of Indulgence. It was cautiously expressed, for the ministers
who adopted it, although they did not see the propriety of perse
cuting themselves aa a mode of proteating against the assumption of
arbitrary power, would not, on the other hand, make the professions
of uncoiiditionai loyalty and obedience recommended by Penn and
Alsop. The arbitrary measures of the government excited great alarm
among such of the clergy as were not prepared to return to the
domination of the pope. Low Churchmen, afraid of the restoration
of popery, began to avow their desire for a comprehension of the
moderate Nonconformists, and their wUUngness to make large con
cessions to secure so important an object. Even High Churchmen
who valued the independence of the national Church changed their
speech, and learned to talk of the injustice with which the Dissenters
had been treated, and of the propriety of a toleration for Noncon
formists. While all true Protestants desfred the reconcUiation of
Churchmen and Dissenters, the Catholics, the courtiers, and so many
of the clergy as were vrilling to become Catholics, endeavoured to
perpetuate thefr mutual hostility. The persecuted Nonconformists
were unexpectedly raised to a position in which opposing parties
sought to conciUate thefr favour, as both felt the need of thefr assist
ance. The government promoted them to offices of trust and im
portance, especially in the corporate towns of the country ; while
Churchmen, acknowledging the value of thefr past serrices, hoped
to make their old hatred of popery subserrient to the security of the
protestant cause. With some exceptions the Dissenters heartily co
operated with the protestant party in opposition to the measures of
the court, and those exceptions were few and very inconsiderable
compared with the number of the clergy who to the last adhered to
the cause of passive obedience, non-resistance, and the arbitrary rule
of the Lord's anointed.
Much has been said (certainly not too much) in honour of the
seven bishops who went to the Tower rather than requfre from thefr
clergy the pubUcation of the king's declaration in favour of Uberty
of conscience. Those, however, who extol their patriotism at the
expense of a few unpatriotic dissenting ministers, should in all fafr-
ness enqufre. Where were the other seventeen ? They would soon
find other seven bishops who did everything requfred of them in
subservience to the unconstitutional exercise of prerogative. Crewe,
Bishop of Durham, and Parker of Oxford, were quite as submissive

430 LANCASHIRE.
to the arbitrary rule of the king as Sancroft and Ken were resolute
in refusing to acknowledge its unconstitutional exercise. The dis
senting ministers submissive to the power assumed by King James
might be told by units ; the submissive clergy might be counted by
thousands. TheophUus Lobb, the independent minister of Fetter
Lane, stood almost alone among his London brethren in the defence
of the government, whUe hundreds of the clergy approved of his
conduct. In Lancashire, where, under Cartwright, a Tory bishop
who had succeeded Pearson in the see of Chester, many of the clergy
supported, some of them clamorously enough, the arbitrary proceed
ings of the court, I do not know of one dissenting minister of the
county who expressed any approval of its measures. It must have
been a strange thing to hear bigoted clergymen defending liberty of
conscience amidst the sullen sUence or murmurs of the Dissenters
who were to enjoy that liberty.
There were, however, among the Lancashfre clergy, some who,
like thefr most prominent leaders, Stratford and Wroe, were on the
one hand High Churchmen, but on the other sound Protestants and
generous Englishmen. They had taught the doctrine of passive
obedience and non-resistence, but they had somehow learned to
reconcile their slarish doctrine, if not with the revolutionary princi
ples of others, at aU events vrith thefr own revolutionary practices.
Events in Church and state were hastening to a crisis. The per
secutions and the indulgences of Dissenters, the craven fears of some
Churchmen and the firm resolution of others, the neglect by the
court of protestant noblemen and the preference of many Papists, the
infatuated poUcy of the king, the unseemly exultation of the CathoUcs,
the presence of foreigners about the throne, the severities, never for
gotten, which followed the suppression of Monmouth's rebeUion,
were silently but surely preparing and providing facUities for a great
revolution. Protestants of aU parties, disposed to condone old
offences, and to combine for the protection of thefr common faith,
were looking "with earnest desfre, if not with hope, towards Holland,
where many both conformists and nonconformists were gathering
round the Prince of Orange. Some of the greatest and most patri
otic noblemen of the country opened communications more or less
dfrect vrith him through the exUes who found safety and encourage
ment in his court. There can be little doubt that Lord Delamere
was among the earliest, as he was among the most devoted, adherents
of the Prince of Orange. Much may be inferred from the following
extracts from Newcome's diary : ' October 7, 1688. Now was the
amazing news of the Prince of Orange designing to come among us,'
' October 8. I went to Grange this day, and met my Lord Delamere
at Hulme.' ' They none of them minded the news, and seem to be
less concemed and less afraid than I am.' ' October 16. Things
are dark and in great confusion. The Lord be mercifnl to us ! '
' November 9, The news came this morning of the landing of the
Dutch in the west. An astonishing providence. Our refuge is in
God, and in Him only.' ' 14. We heard whispers of sad things to
day.' ' 16, We had a private day on the sad occasion of the confu-

NONCONFORMITY, 431
sion in the nation and country. Lord ' Delamere came to town
soldier-like. I was affected with a great passion of tears to see my
Lord Delamere ride by.' ' 28. Lord Delamere vrith his company
went from Nottingham in a sad season. I was discouraged this
night on the probable cause for it, in the news about his being set
npon, and either killed or wounded.' ' November 30. We heard
the news, amazing and surprising, of the general revolt of most of
the great ones from King James.' ' December 2, We had the news
of a treaty, which was what we prayed for, and the only way Ukely
to heal us.' ' 24. We waited upon my Lady Bland * to see my Lord
Delamere, whom we found preserved, and wonderfuUy rerived upon
this strange revolution.'
From these notices it would appear that Newcome was not
acquainted with the purposes, although he felt great interest in the
movements, of Lord Delamere. The young lord, although he inher
ited his father's political principles, was either not so communicative
as his father had been, or more reticent in telking with nonconform
ist ministers. Nor was he, like his father, an avowed Presbyterian,
Of a Uberal spfrit, he would gladly have promoted a comprehension
of Dissenters. He showed great respect and kindness to his father's
nonconforming friends, and kept his house ever open to them as it
had been in his father's days. But either from principle or from
policy he cultivated the friendship of liberal clergymen, and desfred
to unite all frue Protestants in opposition to popery and unUmited
monarchy. Among his intimate friends was the ' sUver-tongued ' warden of
Manchester, who in his dread of popery had forgotten his passive
obedience, and heartily promoted the settlement of Church and state
under the rule of WiUiam and Mary. He and Newcome frequently
met in the presence of ' my lord ' and his pious lady ; and whatever
may have been their theoretical differences, they would have found
little difficulty in contriving a comprehension in which conforming
and nonconforming ministers endowed with thefr spfrit might be
included vrithout any compromise of principle.
But as all Churchmen were not like Richard Wroe, nor aU Dis
senters like Henry Newcome, nor all legislators Uke Lord Delamere,
the prospect of a comprehension, however favourable it appeared at
first, soon became overclouded and unpromising. High Churchmen,
who in the day of thefr alarm had made great professions of thefr
* Lady Bland, previously Miss Ann Mosley. 'March 31, 1685. Sir John Bland
and Madam Ann Mosley were married this day.' The Mosleys of Ancoats were
cordial supporters of Mr. Newcome. He was accustomed to ' keep private days '
on occasions of Lady Bland's confinements. As a compUment to her, the church
erected in Manchester in 1709 was caUed St. Ann's, in which the Low Church
folk were long accustomed to worship, while the High Church people frequented
the collegiate church and were edified by homilies against rebeUion. Lady Bland
had her public days as well as private, when she endeavoured in her coach and
four to outshine Madam Drake, the leader of the High Church fashionables. A
leader of Low Church fashion in the newly-erected assembly room, she is said to
have been on one occasion so annoyed with the brilliant display of Stuart tartan
by the High Church ladies that she led her party in orange ribbons into the street
and danced by moonUght. , ,

432 LANCASHIRE.
desire to concUiate the Dissenters, would concede nothing of import
ance. Low Churchmen, however -wiUing to make concesaions, were
not agreed about the conceasiona which they would make ; nor were
the Dissenters united about the changes which would be satisfactory
to them. Old rankling wounds were not readUy healefl. Every
party professedly desfred to remove the dissension, and every party
"blamed others for its continuance. New difficulties arose as old ones
were overcome. When comprehension appeared to some impracti
cable, to others it began to appear undesfrable. Men of all parties
feared they would have to concede too much. Newcome writes :
' January 25. Many heartUy vrish our councils may divide. Many
have eril wUl at our Zion.' ' February 4. Much struggUng we are
Ukely to have vrith the Churchmen, who would unravel all rather
than not rule to persecute.' The newly-estabUshed government
could Ul afford by an attempt at comprehension to alienate any con
siderable party of Protestants. The Papists of Lancashire had opened
communications ¦with the Irish supporters of King James. Lord
MoUneux, Sfr WilUam Gerard, Sir Thomas Clifton, and other Cathohc
gentlemen, were arming their tenantry in defence of the cause of the
Stuarts.* Catholics from Yorkshire and the north were gathering
in the houses of thefr Lancashire friends. Of the protestant Royal
ists whose fathers had fought for Charles I., many, although they
had opposed the design of James upon the Church, avowed thefr
attachment to his inviolable person and cro-wn. They professed to
be bound by thefr oath of allegiance, from which no personal mis
conduct of the king could release them. These two parties, although
they had little confidence in each other, were preparing, as they had
done fifty years before, to unite in rallying round the stendard of
their legitimate king. Arms and ammunition were collected, and as
a measure of precaution deposited only in the houses of such adher
ents as professed to be Protestente. Suspicion, however, was excited
by the landing of several Irishmen on the coast, and by the discovery
of arms in transit from London to Manchester. Lord Delamere
immediately issued a proclamation, in which he summoned the friends
of Uberty and the new government to meet him on Bowdon Downs.
Nearly forty thousand Protestants, partly Low Churchmen, partly
Nonconformists, are said to have speedUy gathered round his standard.
This great demonstration of protestant feeling quelled the spirit of
the Jacobites, and preserved the tranquilUty of Lancashfre under the
government of William and Mary.f
* The foUowing Treasury Order, signed by William III., wiU confirm this state
ment : —
Teeasuky Oeder signed bt William IIL— 'At our court at Kensington, the
1st day of February, 1694, in the 6th year of our reigu.
' To Robert Lord Lucas, governor of our Tower of London, in satisfaction of so
much expended aud disbursed by him in sending down the gentlemen (lata
prisoners iu the Tower) into Cheshire and Lancashire— to wit, Caryl Lord "Viae.
Molyneux, Sir Thomas CUf ton, Sir WiUiam Gerard, Sir Rowland Stanley, Peter
Lea of Lyme, Bartholomew Walmsley, and WilUam Dicconson, esq. — and all other
charges and expenses of the guards and attendants.'
t Oldmixon, vol. ii. pp. 70-73.

NONCONFORMITY. 433
During the uncertainty of the conflict, no clergyman of the north
did more to promote the Revolution than the amiable Dr. Stratford,
who contrived to hold his principles in abeyance, and, consistently or
inconsistently, to resist while professing the faith of non-resistance.
In defence of the new government and the Protestant religion he
wrote several pamphlete, according to the argument of which WilUam
ought to have been made regent and invested with the power of the
king, who had abdicated his throne, and who could not without the
concurrence of the people revoke his abdication. On the settlement
of the government, Stratford was appointed Bishop of Chester in the
place of Cartwright the Jacobite, Wroe was confirmed in the office
of Warden of Manchester, Lord Delamere, for whose promotion in
the peerage Newcome had offered especial prayer, was created Earl
of Warrington, and the Dissenters, failing in their hope of compre
hension, obtained the great charter of thefr liberty- — the Act of
Toleration,* * The foUowing extracts are curious : ' I was a little troubled when I heard that
Lord Delamere should miss of deserved preferment, God will do what is best.
Preferment comes from God. If I were near the king I would persuade him to
honour him, but this cannot be. But I can pray to God for him, and do more for
him than all his friends can do in any other way.' — Autobiography of Newcome,
Feb. 26, 1689. ' 1 heard of some preferment which my Lord Delamere had, which
I was-very thankful for.' March 22, 1689.
In the funeral sermon preached for the Earl of Warrington by Warden Wroe,
we have the following testimony to his extraordinary ability. The reference is
to his defence of himself against the charge of being concerned in Monmouth's
rebelUon. ' Indeed his own wonderful defence of himself superseded the use of any lawyer
at his trial; and I may appeal to -written evidence for his ability in speaking and
managing that cause (of the highest nature and concern that could befal him, which
often confounds men's intellect), when he defended himself to the great joy and
satisfaction of his friends, the envy and surprise of his enemies, and the wonder, if
not astonishment, of all that heard him. Yet did he not in all this sacrifice to his
own net, or ascribe the success of his release and deliverance to his own wit and
poUcy, to his parts and management, but GAVE THE GLOBT TO GoD, and paid the
annual tribute of praise and thanksgiving to Him for it by setting apart that day
as a day of grateful memorial, which he solemnly and reUgiously observed with his
famUy every fourteenth day of this month of January ; this very day which now,
by the providence of the All- wise Disposer, is become the day of his obsequies, as
if prophetically chosen for a remarkable vicissitude, that what was before a day of
jubilee must now be written in black letters, and made a day of sadness and mourn
ing, and so become doubly observable to his honourable posterity.'
' His gratitude to God was rightly accompanied with charity to men, and he
solemnised that day not only with prayers and praises, and other offices of devotion
to God, but also at the same time clothed and fed twenty-seven poor people, accord
ing to the number of peers that acquitted him, that he might increase his own re
joicing and gratitude with the joy and refreshment of the poor and indigent.'

Fl

CHAPTER XVIII.
TOLERATION,

Aptee the Revolution, protestant nonconformity appeared in a very
different position from that which it had occupied since the restoration
of the monarchy. Persecuted or indulged, it had preriously no legal
existence, no constitutional right to exist. We scarcely know whether
to censure the authorities most for persecuting Nonconformists or for
suspending in their favour the persecuting laws. Henceforth we
have to speak of it as ha^ving obtained a pubUc and recognised posi
tion, under the protection of stetute law and constitutional authority.
The Act of Toleration, however imperfect it may appear in the light
of later times, was regarded long after it had passed as the great
charter of religious freedom. The Presbyterians, although disap
pointed in thefr hope of a comprehension, readily and gratefully
accepted the liberty and protection which it afforded. The Indepen
dents and Baptists acknowledged that it secured for them all they
had desfred and more than they had hoped to obtain. It ia true the
Test Act remained, and the toleration was restricted to such Dissent
ers as professed thefr belief in the docfrine of the Trinity; but as the
Test Act was intended chiefly to exclude CathoUcs from offices of
trust, the Dissenters had no desfre to overrun that bulwark of the
Protestent Church ; and aa to. the few who denied the doctrine of the
Trinity, the three denominations were unwilling to acknowledge such
people, and probably considered them, as thefr fathera had done,
intolerable and unworthy of the protection of law. At all events
such was the opinion of the Presbyterians, whatever some obscure or
eccentric Independents or Baptists may have thought upon the sub
ject. Although in theory these two denominations argued for univer
sal liberty of conscience, they did not practicaUy plead for the liberty
of Catholics, of whom they were terribly afraid, or of Socinians, of
whom they knew very little except as fanatical troublers of their
Israel. Had the Dissenters themselves drawn an Act of Toleration,
they would not have drawn a more just, liberal, or serriceable Act
than that which ia known aa the First of WiUiam and Mary, cap, 18.
King WiUiam, of glorious memory, much aa Papists abhor his
memory, would gladly have obtained in their favour the repeal of the
Teat Act. Liberal Churchmen, lUce Tillotaon, Tenison, Burnet, StU
lingfleet, would as gladly have concihated Nonconformists by reform
ing the liturgy, by regarding the crossing in baptism and the. kneeling
at the sacrament as things indifferent and optional, by exchanging
the apocryphal leasons for holy Scripture, by learing the vestments
to the discretion of the clergy, and by excluding organs and aU

TOLERATION. 435
such papistry from the churches ; but the difficulties of obtaining
so great a reformation in opposition to the majority of the clergy
were found to be insuperable. Under all the cfrcumstances, the Act
of Toleration is a grand memorial of the vrisdom, justice, and liberal
ity of the new king, of the statesmen selected for his advisers, and of
the parliament convened under his auspices. In Lancashfre it was
received with joy and gratitude by the Presbyterians, who saw, appa
rently without much regret, the impossibility of thefr comprehension
within the enclosure of the national Church,*
Under the Act of Toleration the ' dissenting interest,' aa it was
then called, acqufred definite form and a recogniaed place among the
institutions of the country. The meeting-houses of the Dissenters
were registered, and thus, by legal formality, placed under the pro
tection of the king's courts. Their property given for reUgious uses
was secured by trust deeds which the legal authorities recognised and
enforced, Thefr ministers, duly Ucensed and solemnly sworn, were
legaUy invested with a aort of clerical character, and exonerated from
many services to which laymen were subject, WhUe the Quakers
were regarded as a distinct community, vrith whom Protestant Dis
senters had neither legal nor religious connection, the three denomi
nations, whatever differences may have prevailed among themselves,
were in the estimation of the law one community, whoae ministers,
meeting-houses, and trusts were subject to the same authorities,
governed by the same rules, restricted to the same uses, exonerated
from the same burdens, and entitled to the same privileges. Their
ministers carrying on no trade save that of a schoolmaster, although
elsewhere known as Presbyterians, Independents, or Baptists, were
recognised in law equaUy and only as licensed teachers. Of the
strength of this community on attaining its legal recognition I may
be expected to give some estimate, so far as it belonged to the county
of Lancaster.
Of the number of the Protestant Dissenters in Lancashire who
after the passing of the Toleration Act worshipped under its protec
tion, it is not easy to form an exact or even an approximate estimate.
In obedience to an order of councU issued in January 1688, a return
was made of the number of Conformists, Nonconformists, and Catho
lics in the province of York. The number given were. Conformists,
353,892 ; Nonconformista, 15,625 ; Papists, l,987.t _ How these
numbers were taken it is now impossible to ascertain. In thefr
favour it may be said that the proportion of the several denominations
nearly corresponds with the proportion given in the return for the
province of Canterbury, On the other hand, there are good reasons
for supposing that the estimate for both provinces, so far as CathoUcs
and Dissenters are enumerated, is much too smaU, When we con
sider the number and estates of the old Catholic famiUes of Lanca-
* ' May 28, The news came of our liberty settled by law, a great meroy, a pre-
oions instance of God's goodness, so much opposed and maUgned, and yet effected.'
— Newoome's Autobiography.
+ Cole's MSS, in the British Museum, cited by Hunter in his Ufe of OUver
Heywood, p, 412.

436 LANCASHIRE.
shire, Yorkshire, Durham, and Northumberland, where the greater
part of the tenantry professed the faith of their landlords, we are
confident that their number must have greatly exceeded the estimate
in the return. If the Catholics of the seven northern counties were
only 1,987, the part of them who dwelt in Lancashire, according to
any proportion we can estimate, could not have raised the formidable
opposition which we know they did raise to the elevation of the
Prince of Orange to the throne. It is quite as probable that the esti
mate of the number of the Protestant Dissenters is very much too
small. In 1688 their organisation was not so complete as to enable
them to compute thefr own numbers correctly. Scarcely any of
thefr large meeting-houses were then commenced. They generally
held their serrices in private houses, barns, and temporary buildings,
frequently out of canonical hours, in which many of thefr friends,
afterwards their firm adherents, with more or less regularity attended
the religious services of the Church.
In the rural districts, where before the building of the viUage
meeting-houses the preaching of the nonconforming ministers was
only occasional, in the course of their itinerant labours, the Dissent-
era, regarding public worahip under all circumstances as a duty, fre
quently attended the Sunday serrices of thefr parish churches, and
were distinguished from orthodox Church people by their not repeat
ing their responses, nor bowing at the name of Jesus, nor kneeling
at the absolution. Such nonconforming attendants at church would
be generaUy reckoned with the conformists.
We have another authority. There is preserved in the Library of
Dr, Williams a Ust of nonconformist congregations made with much
care for Dr, John Evans in 1716, only twenty-seven years after the
passing of the Act of Toleration. As the name of every minister is
given, and the number of the attendants obtained from the officers or
well-known members of the congregations, we may depend upon its
general accuracy. The object of Dr. Evans in securing as correct
an account as possible was to obtain assistance in fairly distributing
the monies collected by the London churches for the benefit of
counfry ministers. According to the Ust, there were in Lancashfre
forty-three congregations of Presbyterians and Independents, consist
ing of 18,310 regular hearers, and including 1,328 freeholders
entitled to vote at the county electiolis, and 237 freemen in the
six parUamentery boroughs.
When we consider that between 1688 and 1715 commodious meet
ing-houses were erected in almost all the towns of the county, and in
many of the larger vUlages, and that congregations were found
sufficiently large to support their ministers, we may be sure that the
number of the Dissenters at the close of that period could not have
been less than at its commencement. Some adherents of the ejected
ministers had returned to the church, but in their place others had
been attracted to the new meeting-houses. We may safely conclude
that, during the interval from the Revolution to the accession of the
House of Hanover, the number of Dissenters in Lancashfre amounted
to something between fifteen and twenty thousand persons.

TOLERATION. 437
They were distributed in different porportiona over the county. In
the list of Dr, Evans, four places are mentioned in which the number
of Dissenters exceeded a thousand, Manchester had 1515, Liverpool
1158, Bolton 1094, and Chowbent 1064. Several of the rillage con
gregations consisted of from four to seven hundred hearers, with a
good proportion of freeholders. Some were small, having fewer than
three hundred hearers, although there were scarcely any without
some freeholders. Twenty-five of the ministers of the rillage con
gregations received donations, which were usually annual, from the
Presbyterian Fund, varying from M, to 71. Until the year 1729,
additions to and corrections of the list were made, so that it repre
sents the state of the ' dissenting interest ' at the later date as well
as at the former. The namea of several ministers are inserted as
succeeding to the places which were rendered vacant by death or re
moval. It is pleasant to observe of these old Lancashire congrega
tions, that none remained very long without a pastor.
The number of commodious meeting-houses erected within a
quarter of a century from the passing of the Act of Toleration may
require some explanatory detail*
Many of these buildings were inexpensively constructed of timber,
lath and plaster, but many of them consisted of solid brick walls,
massive roofs, substantial galleries, and oak or walnut pews. The
meeting-houses in the towns were generally superior to the buildings
by which they were surrounded, and those in the rillages were quite
as comfortable as the rural churches and chapels of their neighbour
hood. Ornament was regarded as superfluous, if not inconsistent
with the simplicity and spirituality of divine worship. Opposed to
all attempts to excite religious feeUngs by sensible appUances, the old
Dissenters regarded devotion as most pure when most free from
earthly associations, like the Mohammedan who in his plain and
colourless mosque values nothing as accessory to worship but pure
air and clear celestial light. Amidst the recollections of the sensuous
religion which had been the terror of thefr fathers, the early Dissent
ers, in erecting their simple sanctuaries, 'lifted up a standard'
against the relics of the old debasing superstition.
But the simplicity of the meeting-house, unlike that of the mosque,
was rather of a gloomy than of a cheerful character. The windows,
* Besides the separate buildings erected as meeting-houses, a considerable num
ber of dwelling-houses aud barns were registered for dissenting worship. Some of
them were occupied whUe ' the great meeting-houses' were 'ouilding. Others -were
dependencies upon the town congregations, while the ministers officiated occasion
ally on Sunday or other evenings. The following is a copy of an early certificate
of a dwelling-house registered under the Act of Toleration : — ' 21 Die Julu, 1690.
' These are to certify whom it may concern that the house of Peter Gaskell of
Burton Wood in this county was certifyed to this court for a meeting place for a
congregation of Protestants dissenting from the Church of England, for the exercise
of their religious worshipp in, as (pursuant to a late Act of ParUament in that case
made and provided) recorded att this present Q' Session. Given und' my hand
in open court of Q,' Sessions att Ormeskirk the day and year above written.
' Roger Kenyon, clerk of the peace there.

438 LANCASHIRE.
though sometimes large on each aide of the pulpit, were in the other
three walla usually small, and often darkened by heavy gaUeries and
other obsfructions. The woodwork of the interior was dark and
massive, and contributed to its venerable gloom. The most promi
nent object was the pulpit, which, with its broad stafrcase, occasionaUy
doubled for the sake of uniformity or completeness, its large book
board, ita great red cuahion, its lofty back panelling, and cumbrous
sounding-board overhanging the whole, might be understood to inti
mate that, if for no other purpose, some art and device were allowed
to designate the high place of the preacher. Although the sign of
the cross in any form was intolerable, occasionally on the sounding-
board of a ' brave pulpit ' was carved a dove vrith an olive leaf in her
bill,* The furniture of the pulpit was frequently completed by a
large peg or brass naU, fastened in the panelling behind the preacher,
on which peg was suspended with becoming gra'rity, on occasion of
funeral sermons, the preacher's hat, with its sUken tokens of mourn-
ing,t Occasionally, not often, there was a reading desk in front of
the pulpit, and apparently subordinate to it. It would seem in good
taste to provide an appropriate place where the minister could pray
with the people as one of them, and not as one above them, before he
rose to his more exalted position aa their teacher. A slightly elevated
seat with a book board was thought sufficiently distinctive for the
precentor, or ' clerk ' as he was usuaUy called.
The pulpit was generaUy placed against one of the longer walls of
the meeting-houae, while the gallery waa affixed to the oppoaitb wall,
and if the congregation waa large to the two other sidea, A huge-
faced black clock, ¦vrith gUt pointers and figures, was often placed
against the front gallery immediately opposite the pulpit. Its dark
countenance, and solemn articulation of seconds, contributed to the
appropriate gloom of the sanctuary.
The exterior of the meeting-house (although very distinctive, for
nobody ever mistook it for anything else) was as destitute as the
interior of any sort of ornament, unless it were a great sun-dial afBxed
to its southern wall. On the dial was often a text of Scripture, or a
moral admonition in quaint verse. As an instance, I may select 'the
poetry ' on ths dial of the Presbyterian chapel of Blackley :
' My charge is sure, it may be soon.
Each hastening minute leads me on ; .
The awful summons draweth nigh.
And every day I Uve, I die,' J
* I remember two or three of these emblems in the old meeting-houses of my
boyhood. The dove was sometimes made of metal. One of painted copper is pre
served in the vestry of Rook Lane meeting, Frome, as a relic of the old pulpit.
+ I remember that when I was a child, after some'repairs had been done to the
Independent Meeting at Deptford, the proper peg had not been restored to its place
above the pulpit. On the next Sunday was a funeral sermon, and the omission
had not been observed until it was time to carry the mourning hat of the Rev.
John Theodore Barker to its proper place. As he was an orderly sort of man, and
the bereaved family ot some consideration, the service was delayed a few minutes
whUe the_ undertaker, in the presence of the waiting congregation, had the ' nail
fastened in a sure place,' and the hat properly hung upon it,
J Dials in those times were not very expensive monitors. In 1659 the warden of

TOLERATION. 439
In a few rural meeting-houses, as at Chowbent, a beU was pro
vided to announce the time of serrice. Some of the pews in the
large meeting-houses were capacious square compartments, in which
the chief famiUes sat in a sort of stately seclusion. In many instances
greater privacy was secured by thick green curtains suspended on
wooden rods, behind which, if the famUy was one of consideration,
there was a seat occupied by the servants.* As the support of the
minister was chiefly derived from the pew rents, the famUiea who
rented these great pews regarded them almost as private property,
and would have been nearly as much offended by the intrusion of a
sfranger, as if he had gone uninvited into their dining-room. In
some meeting-houses a well dressed stranger would be courteously in-
¦rited to take a seat in a family pew, but in many he would be left to
sit on the comfortless benches of the poor. Immediately in front of
the pulpit was the communion pew, or, as it was more frequently
called, ' the table pew,' in which a long table was placed for the cele
bration of the Lord's Supper. On this table was usually a large
Bible, and not infrequently Fox's ' Book of Martyrs,' or a folio volume
of puritan sermons. This great pew was generally occupied by the
poor male members of the society, who were regarded by virtue of
their connection with the communion as haring some claim upon
that chief seat, so far as the poor were concerned, of the synagogue.
Whenever a vacancy occurred, it was usual in some places for an
elder or deacon to intimate to a cleanly attendant onthe back benches
that he might take his seat in the table pew.f At the administration
of the Lord's Supper, it was occupied by the minister and deacons,
and occasionaUy by some of the older male communicants. In some
what later times, the most conspicuous part of the front gallery was
occasionaUy appropriated to singing men and women, into whose
company were introduced (more frequently I think in the north and
west of England than in the south or east) musicians, who played
upon bass-riols, violins, flutes, and other instruments of music. This
may be thought a sad departure from the simplicity of puritan wor
ship, but it began to prevail in the early part of the last century. It
is difficult to say why fonts were offensive to the Presbyterians and
excluded from thefr sanctuaries, but in the pubhc administration of
baptism a basin or bowl was esteemed sufficiently distinctive of the
rite, J
Didsbury chapel 'paid for a dial 0^. 6s. Od,', 'for lead to fasten it, 01. Is. Od.', and
' for fitting the head of the cross of the dial, 01, Os. Gd. Warden's accounts, cited
in The History of 'Didsbury Chapel, printed for the Chetham Society.
* The pews appropriated to the gentry were frequently distinguished by the
family crest or by a monogram curiously carved on the door. In the old meeting
house at Tockholes near Blackburn, the pews which had been occupied by the
Hoghton family were known long after they had left the place by the initial letter
H, curiously cut in old character.— -MSS. of the late Dr. Baffles.
+ Although I have a distinct recoUection of many of these great table pews in the
old meeting-houses of London and the country, I never remember seeing a woman
sitting in that sacred enclosure. They used iu some places to sit on forms placed
very near it.
J Under the presbyterian government of Lancashire, basins 'instead of fonts

440 LANCASHIRE.
The buildings were usually erected npon freehold ground, and the
expenses were defrayed by the contributions of the members of the
congregation, with some assistance, if it were needed, from their
wealthier friends. As a mortgage of a sanctuary was scarcely known
among the earlier Dissenters, the contributions of the rich must often
have been exceedingly Uberal. In aome instances the expense of
erecting -rillage meetings was defrayed by one or two famUies of the
neighbourhood. When a building had been registered according to
the prorisions of the Act of Toleration, ite permanent appropriation
to nonconformist worship was secured by its conveyance to trustees,
who held the property subject to conditions prescribed in the trust-
deeds. The building was to be used for the worship of God by Pro
testant Dissenters, sometimes of the Presbyterian order, sometimes
of the Independent denomination, sometimes of both conjointly, and
sometimes the denomination was not mentioned. Sometimes the
Assembly's Catechism was made a rule or standard of doctrine,
sometimes the docfrinal articles of the Church of England. These
grave and venerable sanctuaries, haUowed by the prayers and praises
of the founders of nonconformity, and sacred with many precious
remembrances, did good serrice to the cause of pure and undefiled
religion ; untU, after the rise of Methodism, Nonconformity, yielding
to the spirit of the time, or imitating its younger and more popular
rival, raised chapels of more agreeable forms and lighter colours,
vrith open galleries, low pews, and greater convenience for musical
display. The questionable taste which substituted the gay metho-
distical chapel for the grave puritan meeting-house is now yielding
to a love of ecclesiastical edifices with Gothic columns, arches, vaulted
roofs, and lofty spires, called ' Congregational Churches.' The
meeting-house is gone, and I suppose another will never be erected ;
the chapel is going the way of the meeting-house — and let it go, for
of the three forms of ecclesiastical buildings it seems the least appro
priate to its purpose. The church is coming, with what result I
cannot predict, but I hope it will not be allowed to corrupt the sim
plicity of nonconformist worship. The style of architecture most
suitable for dissenting serricea demands much more consideration
than has been hitherto given to it.
were provided in all the churches. The^Directory required the ministers to solem
nise baptism, ' not in the place where fonts were unfitly and superstitiously
placed.' This prohibition, however, refers rather to the place of the font near the
entrance of the church than to its use. In the accounts of the wardens of the
parochial chapel at Didsbury is the foUowing item, under date 1645 : ' Paid for one
pewter basson to baptize children in, 01. 3s, 5d,' After the Restoration the fonts
were replaced. In the register of Blackley chapel is the foUowing entry, under
date 1669 : Ann, the daughter of Robert Kenyon, was baptized at the font.' In
that viUage, puritan from the days of John Bradford, it seems to have been difficult
to resume the use of the font, as this was the only baptism celebrated in the church
during the seven years which had elapsed from the passing of the Act of Uniformity.
In the register book of Hillingdon is the foUowing note appended by a clergyman
to an entry of baptism in 1671 : ' The first that for eleven years was baptized at
the font, the custom having been iu this place to baptize out of a basin after the
presbyterian manner, whibh I could never get reformed tUl I had gotten a new
clerk, John Brown, who did what I appointed to be done.' In Scotland, fonts
went with all the rest of ' the idolatrous gear of tha Papists,'

TOLERATION. 441
One loathsome custom prevaUed among the early Dissenters,
although in that respect they were not much worse than thefr church
going neighbours : they frequently buried their dead in their sanc
tuaries. Even in country places, where burial ground was easUy
obtained and generally enclosed round the meeting-house, the prin
cipal subscribers were often buried, apparently to do them honour,
in the aisles or under their family pews. The burial-place of the
minister was frequently under the table pew, or in the passage
immediately in front of the pulpit. Henry Newcome, as his son
tells us, ' was laid in the west alley of the meeting-house, not far
from the pulpit.' The Rev, Samuel Bourne of Bolton was buried
' in the meeting-house, not far from the pulpit,' as was the Rev, John
Heywood in the meeting-house of Blackley, and as were many others,
whom it is needless to mention, in their several meeting-houses.
WhUe such interments were frequent, it is pleasant to observe that
in a few instances, as in that of Mr. Bell of Huyton, a nonconforming
minister was interred in the church from which he had been ejected,
and his rirtues were recorded on a monument from which ' he being
dead yet speaketh,' and once spoke to a congregation who had been
prohi"bited from listening to his living voice. Occasionally a chari
table incumbent in a funeral discourse eulogised the virtues of his
ejected predecessor, and exhorted his hearers to imitate the deceased
' in all but his nonconformity.'
In a few instances substantial vaults were made for rich Dissenters
under their pews, but generaUy an ordinary grave, and not a very
deep one, was thought sufficient to contain the remains of a wealthy
famUy. Mural tablets seemed the appropriate accpmpaniments of
intramural interments. Some of the inscriptions on them are
exceedingly appropriate and instructive. As the dead are not
responsible for others, I will not copy the strange epitaphs which I
have sometimes observed.*
Of the erection of these old meeting-houses some interesting
deteils may be obtained from church books, diaries, account books,
and similiar sources of information. A reference to the particulars
of one or two may elucidate the state and proceedings of the Dis
senters after they had obtained the protection of the Toleration Act.
One of the oldest meeting-houses in the county, about which any
detailed accounts of contributions and expenditure for its erection
can be obtained, is that of BmcH near Manchester.
I have afready observed that the principal families of that neigh
bourhood kept possession of the old chapel and used it for noncon
formist worship, with some short interruption, for nearly thfrty-five
years, during the greater part of which time Mr. Finch, the
ejected minister of Walton, was the preacher. In the year 1697
Mr. Birch, the proprietor of the estate, died, and his son George,
either through fear of the consequences of retaining it, or from
conviction that it rightly belonged to them, restored Birch chapel
* In the MSS. of Dr, Raffles are some very curious epitaphs copied from the
tombs of Lanca,shire Puritans,

442 LANCASHIRE,
to its legal owners, the warden and fellows of the collegiate
church.* On his exclusion from the ancient chapel, Mr, Finch procured
licenses for several houses of his friends who resided in the neigh
bourhood of Platt and Bfrch, and preached in them as often as might
be convenient to the owners or to his hearers. His chapel wage
was collected with as much regularity and supplied his wants aa
liberally aa when he had possession of the parochial chapel. It
amoun^ted to about 16Z, per annum.
After Mr, Finch had for some time continued his ministry in this
not very agreeable manner to himself or his hearers, he invited his
friends to consider the propriety of erecting a meeting-house on a
plot of land which Mr, "Worsley had given for its site. The foUow
ing resolutions were adopted and signed by twenty-four respectable
inhabitents of Birch, Platt, and Rusholme : —
'1. Wee whose names are hereunto subscribed doe declare our
earnest and hearty desire that there may be a building erected for
the Worshipp of God ffor the benefitt and convenience of that con
gregation w'"" now attends upon the ministry of Mr. ffinch.
' 2, Wee doe promise and declare that wee will duely attend the
Worshipp of God in such place when erected,
3, ' ffurther wee doe promise to contribute for the maintenance of
such Dissenting Minister or Ministers as shall be unanimously elected
to officiate in the said place,'
In addition to the land, which contained 'about twenty roods,'t
Mr. Worsley contributed IOL towards the buUding ; Mr. Finch, the
nUnister, twenty ; Mr, Edge six pounds ; Mr. Whittaker' five pounds ;
Mr. Birch, the ejected minister of the place, one pound ; and other
residents sums varying from ten shillings to thirty. The building
cost about 95L Among the items of expenditure, the reader who is
curious enough to cast his eye over the note at the foot of the page J
* Mr. George Birch, although not apparently retaining the firm and decided
nonconformity of his family, contributed to the support of Mr. Finch when he
officiated in the dissenting meeting-house as liberally as when he occupied the
episcopal chapel.
t So it is said in The History of Birch Chapel, but this is a mistake, as the site
consists of about one rood, ¦
t Items of expense in building the meeting-house at Birch, extracted from tha
meeting-book : —
ffor Bricks . . . , ,
ffor 56 Loads of Lime at IM, per load
Peter Ryland, Brioksetter ....
Handle Thomeley, &c., ffor Slate
ffor Timber •....'
Jeremiah Kirsley for Slateiuge and Mosse
ffor Boardes for Doores and Weatheringe and for 50 yards of Sparrs
at 3d. per yard ....
Three Loades of fflagges and carriage ....
ffor meats, drinks, ale. Pipes and Tobaccer att ye Rearinge bemg
y" sixth day of October
ffor Glass six score and foure foote at ii^d, y' foote

I,

3.

d.

. 10

10

0

. 4

4

0

. 4

2

6

, 4

15

6

, 10

0

0

, 2

13

8

rs , 2

8

2

, 1

7

6

g , 0

19

0

. 2

6

6

TOLERATION. 448
may be amused to observe the notice of ale, pipes, and tobacco,
given at the rearing. 'The Pulpitt Quishion,' costing IZ. 3s. Sd.
seems an extravagant affair, scarcely consistent with the moderate
cost of the meeting-house, but the ' pulpitt quishion ' was an impor
tant thing in the estimation of the old dissenters. On the day of
opening Mr. Grimshaw preached, and ' received five shiUings for his
trouble.'* _ In curious contrast with the simplicity of the buUding is the gran-
dUoquence of the conveyance of ' the said edifice, chapel, oratory,
and meeting-place,' to trustees, who were to hold it ' upon the trust
that they and their hefrs shall permit the said edifice, chapel, and
oratory from time to time, and at all times thereafter, so long as the
law of the realm will permit, connive at, tolerate, allow, or indulge,
the same to be used as a meeting-place or assem'bly of a particular
Church or congregation of Protestants dissenting from the Church
of England, for the free exercise of their dirine and religious worship
therein, on such days and times, by such minister and ministers, as
in the said indenture of release are mentioned.' Although the
Church which had assembled in the parochial chapel was congrega
tional, the trust deed of the meeting-house requfred that the minister
should be 'a Protestant able minister who is of the presbyterian
judgment and practice as to church discipline and government, and
not of any other persuasion ; ' and that he should be ' orthodox and
sound in the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, and hold and profess
the doctrinal articles of the Church of England.'
The Rev. John Booker, in his interesting ' History of the Ancient
Chapel of Bfrch within Rusholme,' has furnished a ground plan of
the old meeting-house as it was on its completion and continued
until its rebuUding in 1790. The communion pew immediately in
front of the pulpit was occupied by ten men, whose names were
inserted in the plan. There were twenty -seven other pews, of which
two immediately in front of the communion pew were appropriated
The Smith for Bandes for Doores, w* Barres and Bolts and Win
dow rode , , , , .
ffor Recordinge om- ChappeU
ffor the Pulpitt Quishion , , , ,
John Odcroft's Bill for y' Pulpitt, Sounder, seats, Wainscott, &c.
— History of Birch Chapel, p. 162.
¦* On this occasion the good people were uncommonly liberal aa compared with
their church-going neighbours at Didsbury, In the churchwarden's accounts of
that chapelry these items occur : In 1671, ' Spent on Mr, Worsley wheu he preached
one day att our chappell, 01. 2s. Od.' In 1673, 'Spent ou Mr. Yannes and Mr.
Pechy, when they preached att our chappel, 01. Os. 6d.' In 1674, 'Spent att Dids
bury when Mr. 'Wrigley' preached, 01. Is. Od.' In 1679, 'Spent in a treat to our
parson who preached on Christmas day, 01. Os. id.' In 1679, ' Spent on Mr. Lomas
preaching in our parson's absence on two several occasions, 01. Is. 2d.' In 1681,
' Paide when Mr. Yannes preached, 01. Os. lOd.' In 1698, ' Spent wheu Mr. Dickens
were here to preach, 01. Is. 6d.' In 1706, ' Spent wheu Mr. Collier preached,
01. Os, 9d.' In ] 746, the churchwarden was more Uberal : ' Spent when the
young parson began to preach, 01, 2s. Od.' They, however, on no occasion gave
any of their preachers half as much as the Nonconformists of Platt gave ' the
strange preacher ' at the opening of their meeting-house,— History of the Ancient
Chwrch of Didsbury.

- , 1

12

10

. 0

1

6

. 1

3

3

. 18

7

11

444 LANCASHIRE,
to the Worsleys, and one behind them to their servants. As no seat
was allotted to the Bfrch family, they seem after the accession to
the estate of George Birch, the grandson of the old parliamentary
colonel, to have discontinued their attendance on dissenting worship.*
Mr. Finch, like some others of the ejected ministers, lived to
officiate a short time in his licensed meeting-house, and to rejoice in
the prospect of better daya for hia auccessors. He died in 1704, and
was aucceeded by Robert Hesketh, one of Mr. Frankland's pupils.
About the same time, or a little earlier, the Nonconformiste of
Blacklet erected their meeting-house.f From the passing of the
Act of Uniformity there had been preaching in that vUlage by the
ejected ministers, with little interruption, chiefly in the house of
widow Travis, whose family, as I have already noticed, was long
connected with the puritanism and nonconformity of Blackley. Of
the congregation thus collected, Mr. Pyke, the ejected minister of
RadcUffe, undertook the pastoral charge, and sustained it until his
death.J The land was conveyed by "WiUiam Rawlinson to Thomaa
Travis, George Travis, and two other trustees, ' for Nonconformist
or dissenting ministers,' on a lease of nine hundred and ninety- nine
years, for ' an annual payment of twopence 'upon the Feast of the
Nativity of our Lord God, if the same be demanded,' No particular
denomination was specified. The building was smaller than the
meeting-house of Birch, and contained only seventeen pews.§ It
was destroyed by the ' Sacheverel mob,' and the present building
was erected on the old foundations.
Having noticed the contributions which were made for the erection
of a village meeting-house, it may be amusing to compare with them
the contributions which were made for the support of the ministry
of a -rillage congregation. In tho hamlet of Tockholes near Black
burn, a meeting-house was built in 1710.T[ As the members of the
Hoghton family, at that time among the principal supporters of non-
* A few years later, as appears from the return made to Dr. Evans, the congre
gation consisted of two hundred and fifty-seven persons, of whom twenty-nine
were freeholders.
+ The conveyauce of the land is dated July 19, 1697, from which it appears that
the people had previously, with the permission of the proprietor, ' erected, reared,
and set up a structure or buUding for a meeting-house.'
+ Mr. Pyke was buried in 1676, in the episcopal chapel, and the conformist
minister of Newton Heath was charitable enough to preach his funeral sermon.
§ At least that was the number of pews in the second meeting-house, erected
on the site of the first, and fitted to accommodate the same persons apparently
in the same manner. 'In Dr, Evans's list the hearers are two hundred and twenty-
four, including twelve freeholders. If they were all there at one time they must
have been uncomfortably crowded. — History of Blackley Chapel.
IT During the establishment of presbyterianism in Lancashire, Mr, Jpshua
Barnet was ordained by the classis minister of Tockholes chapel. As he could not
conscientiously subscribe ' the Solemn League and Covenant,' he was compelled
to resign his situation. He removed to Hodnet in Shropshire, where he had to
submit to a second ejectment for refusing to sign the ' Engagement ' under the
republican government. Not complying with the requirements of the Act of
Uniformity, he suffered a third ejectment, which was from Rockwardine, in Shrop
shire. — Palmer's Nonconformist's Memorial, vol, ii, p. 329,

TOLERATION, 445
conformity in Lancashire, occupied in this meeting-house two pews,
into which, guarded by their monogram, no stranger, I suppose,
ever dared to intrude, I was curious to ascertain how much they
contributed. There is a book extant, of subscribers, the entries of
which commence in May 1715, and continue, though with many
omissions, untU 1761. The first list contains twenty-five names of
contributors, of which the highest * is for 10s., and the lowest 6d.
The amount is 4Z. 3s., which, with the addition of 7s, ' sacrament
money,' is acknowledged by the signature of John Waddington,
the minister. The quarters are reckoned after the Scotch fashion.
Candlemas, Whitsuntide, Lammas, and Martinmas. f Every quarter
the freasurer took his book to the minister, who returned it with his
receipt for the amount coUected since the last settlement. In the
Saint Martin's quarter of the same year, the subscriptions increased
to 61. 2s. 6d. In 1716, the Hoghtons appear for the first time as
contributors, the items being —
1st seat of the Hon"' Lady Hoghton 01. 7s. Od.
2ud seat „ „ „ „ „ 01. Is. 6d,
The family of chief distinction thus contributed ,14s. 6d. a quarter
for the support of the minister. It should be observed that the
servants who occupied the family pews also subscribed. ' Old Hugh,'
no doubt a confidential servant, who sat in Lady Hoghton's first
seat, paid Is. a quarter. J
These instances may elucidate the manner in which the rural
sanctuaries of the Dissenters were erected and sustained in the
beginning of the last century. Occasionally contributions were
obteined from distant friends, and collections were made in settled
congregations to assist poor people in building a sanctuary, Oliver
Heywood notices a collection made in Yorkshire towards defraying
the expense of a meeting-house in the distant county of Dorset,
Most of the rural congregations of Lancashire received aid from the
London ' Fund Boards,' for the support of their ministers.
Of the meeting-houses erected in the towns of Lancashfre, that of
¦' The highest entry is ' Mrs. Coop's interest, V,. Os. Od.' It is thus distinguished
from the contributions.
i" This mode of reckoning was then not uncommon in Lancashire. I have lately
met with a foolish writer on Lancashire affairs who attributes it to the presbyterian
dislike of keeping Christmas. With even greater absurdity he attributes the
dating of the year according to the old style, from March, to the puritan dislike to
begin the year within a week of Christmas day. The Puritans have borne a great
deal of blame which they never deserved, but it is 'too bad' to make them re
sponsible for the long continuance in England of the old style of reckoning,
X These particulars were extracted by Dr. Raffles from a book which he found
in the possession of ' Mr. Aspden of Tockholes,' and inserted in vol. Ui. of his
MSS. entitled Collections for a History of the Nonconformist Churches of Lancashire.
Knowing the care and accuracy of my late friend, I have unhesitating confidence
in the correctness of his copy.
Not only had the ministers of this chapel the honour of being buried in the
communion pew, but so many of their people were buried around them that Dr.
Raffles in his note observes : 'The whole of the ground vrithin the chapel has been
so fiUed with bodies that it is impossible to take up a board without exposing
human remains,' '

446 LANCASHIRE,
Manchbstbe waa the largeat, the moat important, and the most
expenaive, as it was appropriated to the use of what waa probably
the most wealthy, as well as the most numerous, congregation of
Nonconformists in the county.
In 1687, Mr, Newcome having accepted the indulgence granted
by King James, Ucensed the house of his friend Mr, Barlow, and
soon afterwards requiring more room for the increasing number of
his hearers, 'he obtained Thomas Stockton's bam,' which with
much difficulty was considerably enlarged. There he preached
regularly, ' in the public time,' and obtained the assistance of Mr.
Chorlton, who became hia coUeague and eventuaUy hia successor.
After the Revolution, the wealthy Presbyterians gathered round
their favourite preacher, and although he was growing old and
feeble, resolved to erect a sanctuary worthy of themselves, their
pastor, and thefr principles. For some time the work was delayed
by the opposition of Churchmen, the differences prevalent among
the promoters of the object, and the timidity and vacUlation of the
aged minister. Eventually, on June 24, 1694, ' the great and fair
meeting-house,' was opened amidst 'the curses and reproaches,'
' the great oppositions and malicious refiections ' of the Jacobite
populace of Manchester, Notwithstanding the remarkable change
of popular feeUng which had affected many of the children of the old
Nonconformiste,* some of the best fanuUes of the town, aa the
Mosleys, the Gaskells, the Butterworths, and the Bayleys, immedi
ately occupied the chief pews of the sanctuary, and gave a character
of respectability and importance to the place.f
Mr, Newcome, although very infirm, preached at the opening of
the meeting-house from the words, 'Holiness to the Lord,' Although
his enchanting voice reteined ita sweet music, it had lost its thrUling
power. He was afterwards seldom able to officiate. On June 13, 1695,
he preached his last sermon, and appended to the notice of it in his
' Diary,' the words, ' short, yet tired.' On September 17 of the
same year he died. He was interred, as I have observed, in his
proper burial place, near the pulpit of his own meeting-house. To
his mourning congregation Mr. Chorlton preached a funeral sermon
from the appropriate words, ' They that be wise shall shine as the
brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteous
ness as the stars for ever and ever.' (Dan, xU, 3.)
* A popular change as remarkable came over the spirit of Liverpool, which
from being the stronghold of the Tories, became Whig and Liberal almost as
rapidly as Liberal Manchester became Tory and Jacobite.
+ In the MS. of Dr, Evans the congregation is estimated at 1515 persons, of
whom six were magistrates and seventy-four freeholders. How much these re
spectable people contributed to the support of their aged minister I do not know ;
but Dr, Aikin gives some curious particulars of the expenses of a nonconformist
manufacturer of Manchester, coUected from his cash book for 1700, six years after-
the opening of the meeting-house. As this worthy Presbyterian spent 201, 18s. 9d.
on a family excursion to Scarborough, and paid 21. 10s. for a new periwig, and
21. 5s. for gloves at the funeral of a chUd, he must have been rich, and Uberal in
his expenditure. His ' chapel wage ' for his pew in the meeting-house was ten
shiUmgs a quarter. As he had a family, he no doubt occupied a whole pew for
that 'wage.'— Cited in Reilly's History of Manchester, vol. i. p. 225.

TOLERATION. 447
John Howe, in an epistle to the reader prefixed to Mr. Chorlton's
funeral sermon,* observes : ' It may be truly said of worthy Mr.
Newcome, " aa unknown, and yet weU-known." Thay that knew
him best could know but a small part of his true and great worth,
and might alwaya apprehend, when they knew most of him, there
was stUl much more that they knew not, his most sincere and inarti
ficial humUity stiU dravring a veil over his other exceUences which it
hid and adorned at once ; so as the appetite of knowing more must
always meet vrith a check and incitation at the same time. There
was in him a large stock of solid learning and knowledge always
ready for use; for ostentetion, never. Conscience the most strict
and steady to itself, and the remotest from censoriousness of other
men. Eloquence without any labour of his own, not imitable by the
greatest labour of another, 0 the atrange way he had of insinuating
and winding himself into hia hearers' bosoms ! I have sometimes
heard him when the only thing to be regretted waa that the sermon
must soon be at an end. Conversation so facetious and instructive
together, that they who enjoyed it, if they were capable of improving
it, could scarce tell whether they went away from him more edified
or delighted. He was a burning and a shining light.'
Another funeral sermon was preached by his old and beloved
friend, Mr. Bagshaw, ' the Apostle of the Peak,' who thus concludes
his eulogium : ' May I not say of him. Blessed Henry, as thy stature
and face were comely, thy parts, gifts and graces excelled the ordi
nary portion and proportion of eminent ministers ? There was one
in that county (Mr. Booth of Rochdale) who, when he heard this
our Henry, said, " If I had this man's tongue, I could not escape
being proud of it." That he had the voice of the learned, and
that the Lprd spake by him, Lancashire, Cheshfre, Staffordshire,
Shropshire, &c., have many witnesses.
'His faithfulness, too, and suffering on his principles, did not
hinder his moderation towards worthies that differed from him. He
could distinguish between spfrituals and ecclesiasticals, as an exceUent
doctor (Goodwin) had done before him. Who, if it were not his
own fault, went away from him unedified ? But the rest tears
should speak. He is laid in his bed, and I must draw with sUence
the curtain about him, "What hath been said was to glorify God in
him,' In Bolton, ' that ancient and famous seat of religion,' the founders
of the old dissent, Richard Goodwin, the ejected vicar, Robert Park,
the ejected lecturer, and John Leaver, of Cockney Moor, frequently
kept ' private days ' with the puritan famUies of the town and neigh
bourhood, as well as engaged in more public exercises of religion.
In a place where puritanism was so strong and influential, the min
isters acted vrith less timidity and caution than in many other parts
of the county. Mr. Goodwin, availing himself of the indulgence,
Ucensed in 1672 a large buUding in Deansgate, in which he and his
* This is one of the best of the nonconformist funeral sermons. If Mr. Chorlton
was not so eloquent or so popular as his predecessor, he was certainly quite as able
a divine, as logical a reasoner, and as forcible a writer.

448 LANCASHIRE.
friend Mr. Park preached to considerable congregations. After the
death of the founder of the church, the Rev. Robert Seddon, who
had been ejected from the rectory of Langley in Derbyshfre, was
inrited to take charge of the congregation. A native of Lancashire,
ordained by the Manchester claasis, and having many relatives in
Bolton and some property in the neighbourhood, he gladly accepted
a tranquil retreat from persecution in the congenial associations of
the puritan town which continued faithful to ite traditions after
Manchester had become apostate. As soon as there was reasonable
expectation of permanent protection for dissenting worship, the con
gregation of Bolton resolved to erect a sanctuary worthy of their
numbers, wealth, and respectability.* Mr. Seddon zealously pro
moted the design, and gave for its accomplishment a large and
valuable plot of freehold land. Having the satisfaction of completing
the legal conveyance of ' the land at the back of his own mansion-
house,' he 'ceased from hia labours and entered into rest.' His
nephew, tho Rev, Samuel Bourne, who was inrited to succeed him,
completed the good work which he had auspiciously commenced.
The members of the congregation liberally confributed to defray the
expenses, and in 1696 the meeting-house was opened and licensed
' for the worship of Almighty God by hia majeaty's loyal subjects
the Dissenters of Bolton and the adjacent parts, commonly called
Presbyterians.' The edifice was a favourable specimen of noncon
formist architecture, although it was not so large as might have been
expected, considering the numerous congregation for whose benefit
it was erected.f It remained until 1854, when 'a chapel' waa
erected on the site of the venerable meeting-house.
Only one other meeting-house in Lancashire is represented in Dr.
Evans's list as frequented by a congregation of more than a thousand
persons. In the village of Chowbent, in the parish of Leigh near
Wigan, was collected the largest dissenting congregation of the
county, with the exception of the two ' great congregations ' of Man
chester and Bolton. Although the meeting-house waa not erected
until after 1720, the origin and early hiatory of the congregation are
worthy of brief notice. J
James Wood or Woods (his name is spelt about as often one way
as the other) was the son and the grandson of an ejected minister.
James Woods, his grandfather, was ejected from Ashton-in-Maker-
field ; James Woods, his father, from the chapel of Chowbent, although,
* In Dr. Evans's list, this congregation is enumerated as 1094 persons including
seventy freeholders.
+ I know not whether the engraving prefixed to the Lecture of the Rev. Frank-
knd Baker represents the original pewing or some later construction. It has not
the communion pew, which is distinctive of every old meeting-house I know. The
pulpit is not high enough nor massive enough nor grand enough for 1695. It
looks very Uke an innovation of degenerate days.
X The congregation in the new meeting consisted of 1064 persons, of whom
fifty-three were freeholders, having been nearly as large and influential as that of
the populous and puritan Bolton. In Liverpool there were 1158 hearers, eighty-
three county voters, and one hundred and fif ty -five borough voters ; but they
formed two congregations, in what proportions I do not know.

TOLERATION. 449
as I have already observed, his ejectment was only partial and tem
porary. After the passing of the Act of Uniformity, the latter retired
to the house of his friend, Mr. John Mort of Warton Hall, in the
parish of Dean. In that hospitable and secluded asylum, he preached
to a congregation of vUlagers as often as the times would aUow,
until, on the passing of tbe Act of Toleration, he resumed his services
in the old chapel at Chowbent, where his friend Mort had consider
able property and influence. He was succeeded in 1699 by his son,
the third James Woods, in the pastorate of hia large and respectable
congregation. The son, however, had not peaceable possession of the buUding, for
the lord of the manor claimed the right of presenting a conformist
minister, on the ground of its having been ' a pubUc chapel' Long
litigation ensued, and the right of any party to the possession of the
chapel was not very clear. In the ' Notitia Cestriensis,' the account
of it is : ' It hath been possessed by Presbyterians who, when the
vicar comes to officiate, quit the place, leaving him a large Bible and
Prayer Book ready for his use.' * Of the anomalous proceedings of
this place, one of the most remarkable was that the Prayer Book,
kept for the exclusive use of the vicar, was carefully put out of sight
during the ministrations of the Presbyterian pastor. Eventually the
lord ofthe manor obtained possesion of the chapel, and in 1723 pro
cured its consecration.
In 1715, whUe Mr. Woods was minister of the old chapel, the
Nonconformists of Lancashfre were alarmed by the advance of the
Scotch army into thefr county, to support the cause of the Pretender.
Meeting with scarcely any opposition, they marched upon Preston,
and there proclaimed the Chevalier St. George, by the style and title
of James III. King of England, and VIII. of Scotland. Among the
nonconformist ministers conferences were held and resolutions unani
mously passed in favour of the House of Hanover. Mr. Woods, being
a plain, sfraightforward sort of man, could not appreciate the value
of well-expressed and unanimous resolutions, as defences against an
invading army of Scotch and popish Jacobites. WhUe his brethren
were consulting, and resolving, and asserting with perfect unanimity
thefr loyalty to King George, Woods convened all the able-bodied
men of his large congregation, coUected as many muskets, pikes,
and swords as his neighbourhood would supply, told the unarmed to
take scythes, pitchforks, and whatever implements of destruction
they could flnd, and marched at their head to join the king's forces
at Preston. The people called him ' the old general,' as they called
Mr. Walker, another dissenting minister who acted under his direc
tion, his lieutenant. General Wills made to the government so
favourable a report of the value of his services, and the judgment
and bravery with which he had acted, that a pension of lOOL was
settled upon bim for life.f According to a prevalent tradition of the
¦* Notitia Cestriensis, vol. U. part U. p. 190.
t Peter Rae, in his History of the Rebellion, printed in Edinburgh 1718, represents
Woods and Walker as receiving each an annuity of 1001. Other accounts refer to
grants, not annuities, of 100^
iG ^

450 LANCASHIRE.
neighbourhood, he gave this money, or the first payment of it, as hia
confribution towards the erection of a commodious meeting-house.
Be that as it may, on the loss of the old chapel, he readily obtained
Uberal donations for the erection of a meeting-house. Loyal men
could not very weU refuse ' the old general,' who was not more timid
in begging than in fighting. He is said to have gone to Mr. Hulton
of Hulton, who, being the representative of a Puritan family, could
not easUy refuse him, although, being very penurious, he would con
tribute as Uttle as he could vrithout giving offence. Woods asked
the Presbyterian squfre for twenty oaks for his meeting-house. Mr.
Hulton could not spare twenty, but would give him ten. ' Thank
you,' said the general, ' just the number I want ; I knew you would
give me only half as many as I asked for.' In a short time he col
lected sufficient money and material to build a large brick meeting
house, of which Mr. Doming Rasbotham saya : ' It hath a bell, a large
burying ground, and a congregation of about eleven hundred persons.'*
Mr. Woods Uved to hia eighty-seventh year, haring been minister of
the chapel and of the meeting-house more than sixty years.f
A commodious meeting-house was erected in 1710 in St. Helens.
After the passing of the Act of Uniformity, the Rev. Thomas Gregg,
aa I have already noticed, being a bold and dauntless man,
continued to officiate in the public chapel, and also to preach in
dweUing-houses, barns, aU sorts of places, Ucensed and unlicensed,
untu his death in 1681. His successor, Mr. James Naylor, Uke him
self a Nonconformist, preached in the same chapel, caUed St. Mary's
by Church folk, but Mary's-in-EUen's by true Presbyterians. On
the death of 'this worthy good man and very useful minister,'
Matthew Henry, whose words I cite, preached his funeral sermon,
which was probably the last sermon preached by a Nonconformist in
the pulpit of ' Mary's-in-EUen's.' The bishop then claimed authority
over the chapel, and the Dissenters erected a ' great meeting,' of
which they in-rited Mr. Joseph GelUbrand, one of Mr. Frankland's
students, to become the minister. Although the Nonconformists
could not retain possession of- the pulpit of ' Mary's,' they acqufred
two of its pews. On a black 'table of benefactions,' affixed to the
waU of the old meeting-house, there was written in gold letters, ' two
pews of the chapel,' of which pews the rents were appropriated to
the benefit of the dissenting minister. Mr. GeUibrand was one of
the most popular preachers in Lancashire, as weU as an affectionate
pastor, beloved by his people, and respected by all parties in the
town and neighbourhood. J He died on June 18, 1740, and of course
¦* Raines's History of Lancashire, vol. iu. p. 612.
+ A short View of the Life, Sentiments, and Charactei- of Mr. John Mort, in an
Address to the Dissenters of Atherton, and iu a Sermon preached in Chowbent Chapel,
Jan. 20, 1788, by H. Toulmin. History of the late Rebellion, by a Lover of the
Peace and Prosperity of Britain (Peter Rae), Glasgow, 1718. Hibbert Ware's
Memorials of the Rebellion of 1715. Mr. Raines' valuable notes to the Notitia
Cesti-iensis, article Chowbent.
% See an interesting tract of Dr. Raffles', entitled Independency in St. Helens.
The congregation was originally presbyterian, but Uke other presbyterian congre
gations which retained the Calvinistic theology, it graduaUy became identifled
vrith the Independents.

TOLERATION. 451
was buried in his place immediately in front of hia pulpit. During
his ministry the congregation, according to Dr. Evans's list, consisted
of six hundred and ninety-seven persons, of whom fifty-four were
freeholders. Although the original meeting-house in Waerington was taken
down in 1 745 and the present building erected in its place, the good
people who designed the latter seemed to have adhered so scrupulously
to the true presbyterian style of architecture as to have furnished a
perfect representative of the earliest sanctuary of thefr fathers. It
appears more venerable, more puritanic, more genuine and uncor-
rupted in its decay than any other of the Lancashire meeting-houses
erected in the middle of the eighteenth century. The congregation
which worshipped in the first sanctuary under the ministry of its
learned and laborious pastor. Dr. Charlea Owen, amounted to seven
hundred and thirteen persons, of whom eighty-two were freeholders.
The doctor -was a remarkable man, as a preacher, a scholar, and a
patriot. During the rebellion in 1715 he defended the right of King
George as zealously and boldly with his pen as James Woods of
Chowbent did vrith his pitchfork. Indeed he got into a great deal
more trouble than his patriotic friend, for, haring expressed himself
more boldly than prudently respecting some of his neighbours whose
loyalty was suspected, he was prosecuted for a libel* Although he
obtained an acquittal, the expense of the proceedings was almost as
ruinous as if he had been convicted and sentenced to pay heavy
damages. His pamphlet, however, had for those times an enormous
sale, as it rapidly passed through twenty-three editions. His writ
ings, although now scarcely known, were in good repute for some
years after his death.f His character as a pastor and author is re
presented, apparently vrith much care as weU as ati'ection, in a funeral
sermon preached at Warrington by his nephew. J
The oldest of the Liverpool meeting-houses (I do not here include
the ancient chapel of Toxteth Park) was erected, soon after the
Revolution, in Castle Hey, since called Harrington Street. § The
* The doctor could both preach and -write with severity, especially concerning
the Stuarts. His funeral sermon for Queen Anne was preached from the text,
'And Ahab the son of Omri did evU in the sight of the Lord above aU that were
before him.' (1 Kings xvi. 30.) His friend, Thomas Bradbury, was, however,
far more ingenious in finding a text appropriate to his sentiments. He is reported
(I know not how truly) to have preached on the same mournful occasion from
the words, ' Go, see now this cursed woman, and bury her : for she is a king's
daughter.' (2 Kings ix. 34.)^WUson's History of Dissenting Churches, vol. iu.
p. 514.
+ His ' great and immortal work ' on Serpents, .as his nephew caUed it, has, I
fear, ' given up the ghost.'
X The Christian's Conflict and Crown, a sermon preached at Warrington, Feb.
23, 1745-6, on occasion of the death of the late Rev. and learned Charles Owen,
D.D., by J. Owen. I infer that the Rev. J, Owen, of Rochdale, the preacher of
this sermon, was his nephew, from the dedication ' to his much honoured cousins,'
meaning the chUdren of Dr. Charles Owen.
§ 'It is probable that Castle Hey chapel was built about 1688.'— MSS. of Dr.
Raffles entitled Collections for a History of the Nonconformist Churches of Lanca
shire.

452 LANCASHIRE.
congregation that worshipped in it was gathered by the Rev. Chris
topher Richardson, the ejected minister of Kirkheaton in Yorkshire.
Having been inrited about the year 1672 to assist the minister of
Toxteth Park chapel, he licensed, under the protection of the indul
gence, a house in Liverpool, in which he preaphed on alternate Sun
days, when his services were not requireoatToxteth Park. On the
completion of the meeting-house in Castle Hey, he resigned his con
nection with the congregation of the Park, and continued preaching
regularly in Liverpool until his death in the eightieth year of his
age. In 1727 the people, then under the pastoral care of the Rev.
Henry Winder, D.D., removed to a more commodious sanctuary in
Benn's Gardens.*
In 1707 a meeting-house was erected in Kaye Street, where the
Rev. Christopher Basnett, who had been a student in Mr. Frankland's
academy, long ministered to the satisfaction and benefit of a large
and influential congregation. He seems to have preserved the old
puritan habit, which was then becoming unusual with presbyterian
ministers, of preaching extemporaneously. In the preface to his
volume entitled ' Zebulun's Blessing Opened and Applied in eight
sermons,' he says : ' The sermons are as near what he preached as
could be, considering the way in which he was accustomed to deUver
his discourses.' As he was growing infirm, his people, after making
an ineffectual attempt to secure the assistance of the Rev. Jonathan
Mercer of Spalding,t obtained an assistant of greater abiUty, the
* Dr. Winder had been a student in Mr. Dixon's academy at Whitehaven, where
he wa.s associated in his studies with two distinguished men, Dr. Caleb Rotheram,
afterwards the able and successful tutor of many eminent ministers, and Dr. John
Taylor of Warrington. He was a remarkable man, or at least he published a
remarkable book, entitled, A Critical and Chronological History of the Rise,
Progress, Declension, and Reiiival of Knowledge, in Tivo Periods : the Pm-iod of
Tradition from Adam to Moses, and the Period of Letters from Moses to Christ.
Two volumes, quarto. This very comprehensive book had the good fortune to
reach a second edition, at least so far as the title-page waa concerned, '2nd
Edition, 1756.' To this edition Dr. George Benson prefixed Memoirs of the Life
of the Author.
+ I introduce Mr. Mercer, not on account of any connection he had with this
congregation, but for the sake of an amusing illustration of the state of Liverpool
dissent at that time. As Mr. Mercer afterwards became, and continued for
twenty-nine years, the minister of St. Helen's, he ought to make an appearance in
a history of Lancashire nonconformity, I am indebted to Dr. Raffles for a know
ledge of the correspondence between the Presbyterians of Kaye Street and Mr,
Mercer, part of which the doctor inserted in his tract entitled Independency in St.
Helen's. The authorities of the congregation in Kaye Street wrote to Mr. Mercer an
explanation of the services they required and the remuneration they would give.
' What wiU be expected in case of your compliance wUl be, half the public work
on Lord's days and lecture days, and to do all the work for four or six Lord's days
iu the year, if our pastor be absent for health or business ; and in case of iUness
that unfits him for public work, that you undertake for the whole. And it wUl
be for this reason expected and desired that you be wilUng to embrace the first
proper opportunity of being ordained, that you may be ready upon occasion to ad
minister either of the two Sacraments. As there is a sum fixed and agreed upon
for our pastor, we find that over and above that we are at present able to raise for
you 40/. per annum, and have reason to hope it will be rather improving than
otherwise.' Upon this Uberal offer Mr. Mercer comments in a letter to his friends

TOLERATION. 453
Rev. John Brekell, with whom we shall meet again, on account of
the part which he sustained in the dissenting controversies of the
last century. From the number and value of his pubUcations we
may infer that he had a more liberal allowance for books than, as
appears from the preceding note, Mr. Mercer expected to obtain in
Liverpool. The only other meeting-houses in the county which in the early
part of last century were frequented by more than five hundred per
sons, were that at Monton under the ministry of Jeremiah Aldred,
that at Rainford under Ronald Tetlow, that at Holcomb under
Edward RothweU, that at Darwen under George Griffith, and that
at Walmesley under James Milne. The last two were congregational.
In the northern division of the county the congregations were
small, and as almost all of them received assistance from the Presby
terian or from the Congregational Fund-Board, we may infer that
they were poor and feeble. In Preston the congregation of the Rev.
John Parr numbered only one hundred and fifty persons, and in Lan
caster that of the Rev. James Grimshaw two hundred and sixty.
Each of these ministers received six pounds a year from the Presby
terian Fund . The largest congregation in that dirision was at Forton
and Lytham, which is represented as numbering four hundred and
sixteen persons, of whom fifty were freeholders. Its minister was not
a recipient from either of the London funds.
The first Baptist church of Liverpool was formed by an amicable,
or rather on account of the distance a necessary, separation from that
-of Hill Cliffe in Cheshire, one of the oldest Baptist churches in the
north of England.* As Hill Cliffe is by the nearest overland road
at AUerton, which fell into the hands of Dr. Raffles. 'As for the advantages pro
posed, they would do nothing more than support a single person ; what, then, must
become of a family, which I should be sure to think of as soon as 1 were ordained ?
201. a year would do nothing more than bnard me, and pay for extraordinaries that
would be necessary at home ; and if I had a family the character of a minister at
such a place would oblige me to spend raore thau so Qiuch every year. As I go
on at present, 101. a year would hardly excuse me in booki ; nor if I should lay out
-Bo much for thirty years together should I think after all I had any extraordinary
Ubrary. 61. a 'year would go in clothes, at least in such a town and so employed,
and il. a year would be too little for pocket-money and journpys.' Mr. Mercer's
prudence induced him to avoid ' such a town,' and to settle at St. Helen's, where I
hope he had more money to spend upon books, clothes, and journeys than the
people at Liverpool offered him. At all events, when a considerable part of his
^iongregation found it needful to worship in Prescot, on account of the distance of
St. Helen's from their homes, they entered into an agreement as honourable to
themselves as it was gratifying to their minister. Seventy-six persons signed the
foUowing document: ' We whose names are hereunto subscribed do hereby unani
mously promise and consent with each other to make up all and every deficiency of
our salary and benefit to our present honoured and worthy minister, Mr. Mercer,
that shall or may arise for or by reason of the present members of our chapel and
congregation at St. Helen's- within- Hardshaw that are now or soon for separating
themselves from us, in order for the joining a congregation at Prescot. As witness
our hands.
• February 29, 1756.'
¦* The first meetiug-house of the Baptists in Lancashire was founded at Bacup
in 1691. — Hunter's Life of Oliver Heywood, p, 281.

454 LANCASHIRE.
not much less than twenty miles from Liverpool, or, if a shorter
journey were attempted by the ferries of the Mersey, the saving of
time -would be small, while the navigation of the river was often diffi
cult and occasionaUy impracticable, the members ofthe mother church
who resided in Liverpool must have left very early on Sunday morn
ing and returned very late at night wnen they united with thefr
brethren on the cliff in solemnising after their own manner the wor
ship of God ; I mean if they went and retumed in one day, which
day could scarcely have been to them a day of rest, a Sabbath, as the
Puritans loved to call it. Probably they made the journey or part
of it before, and rested vrith hospitable friends on the way to their
hiU of Zion, thefr mountain of the Lord's house. We may suppose
that their sanctuary on the cliff, ' beautiful for situation,' was con
nected in thefr memory with many haUowed associations. In that
mountain their fathers worshipped. They seem to have graduaUy
severed themselves from the first home of their religious life. The
earliest aUusion 1 can find to the Baptists of Liverpool ia in an ex-
fract from the records of the Quarter Sessions, among Dr. Raffles'a
MSS. : ' The house of Mr. Daniel Fabiens, practizer in physic, was
Ucensed at the Quarter Sessions, July 25, 1700.' This house. Dr.
Thom says, was at Low HUl. In 1714, a church had been formed;
for Peter Davenport, a tobacconist, was then called to the pastoral
office. He was succeeded by John Sedgefield, and he, in 1727, by
James Haworth, during whose ministry the chapel in Byrom Street
was erected. In 1730 Mr. John Turner, an apothecary, became
pastor of the church. He was sometimes called from the pulpit to
attend his patients, when he left the good people to sing and pray
until his return. The singing of the General Baptists, 'waiting
upon thefr gifts,' would seem to be very useful in such emergencies.*
Thia church has continued to fiourish under a succession of able
ministers until the present time.
Before the middle of the century. Baptist churches were formed
in other parte of the county, chiefly near its eastern boundary, by
separation from the neighbouring societies of the West Riding of
Yorkshfre. In 1772, according to a list of dissenting congregations
in Lancashfre preserved in the Library of Dr. Williams, there were
sixty-flve dissenting churches, of which fifteen were Baptist.t I
may have occasion to notice some of these in the course of the
narrative. * Taylor, in his History of ihe General Baptists, tells us some of their early
churches thus conducted their 'service of song' (vol. i. p. 425). ' The best,' he-
cites an old authority among them, ' and for aught I can find, the only certain way
to be used to sing the praise of the Lord is this — That such persons as God hath
gifted to sing His mighty acts, should have their, liberty and convenient opportu
nity to celebrate the high praises of God one by one.' If any man ' had a psalm'
he was to have Uberty to sing it, and the others were to ' wait on his gifts,' that is,
to be quiet until he had done.
+ MSS. of the Rev. Josiah Thompson. According to the Annual Register of the
Baptists for 1790, edited by Dr. Rippon, there were at that time fifteen Baptist
churches in Lancashire. The two lists, although agreeing in their totals, do nut
correspond in their particulars, several changes having occurred in the course of
eighteen years.

TOLERATION. 455
In the early nonconformist sanctuaries the mode of conducting
public worship was so uniform that, although it had never been de
termined by any acknowledged authority, a sfranger might suppose
it had been prescribed by some Act of Uniformity. Indeed the
order and arrangement of public worship were much more uniform
among the Protestant Dissenters of 1719 than they are among thefr
descendants of 1869. In formularies of religious serrice unlike those
of the Church of England, the prevalence of uniformity amidst uni
versal liberty in three denominations, settled in different proportions
in every county of England, may be explained partly by the tradi
tional respect which was paid to the Directory of the Westminster
Assembly, partly by the good understanding and comity which
dissenting ministers maintained in thefr several associations, and
partly by the simplicity and appropriateness of the serrices, at least
in the estimation of men who had learned to suspect and distrust all
sensuous excitement which simulates and corrupts pure and spfritual
devotion. Amidst the variations which modern Dissenters have infroduced
in the arrangements of divine worship, a general regard is stUl paid
to the forms and order of thefr fathers. One innovation, however,
has become universal : that is, the concluding of public worship vrith
a very brief prayer, and sometimes with only the benediction. The
fathers of dissent offered thefr general prayer in the early part of the
service, but reserved their intercession for particular persons until
they had finished the sermon. A similar division of the long prayer
has been recently introduced into many dissenting chapels, but the
particular intercession, like the general supplication, precedes the
sermon. In the ancient meeting-houses, the intercessory prayer,
which often ' condescended to particulars ' vrith sufficient detail and
precision, followed the sermon, and usuaUy preceded the singing of
the last psalm and the benediction. The reading of Scripture was
commonly restricted to one lesson, but that was generally read as
God's lesson, vrithout the interruption of impertinent remarks, which
modern preachers caU ' commenting on the word.' I hope Dissenters
are now returning to the usage of their fathers, for nothing can be
more offensive, not only to good taste but to reverential feeling, than
the sort of ' commenting on the word ' which, often trifiing, some
times pedantic, occasionaUy rhetorical, was frequently heard in
dissenting chapela in the former half of thia century.
Monthly communion became common, almost universal, among
the three denominations of Protestant Dissenters.^ "Why that ar
rangement should have been so generally adopted it is not easy to
explain. It was not, however, distinctive of Diasentera, for in many
pariah churches, both before and after the passing of the Act of
Uniformity, especiaUy where the puritanical feeUng of the clergyman
or of hia parishionera waa unfavourable to the observance of festivals,
one Sunday in every month was known as the communion Sunday.
The Lord'a Supper waa usuaUy observed among Dissenters as 'a
supper ' at the cloae of the afternoon service. With aome churches
it was a principle to restrict it to that time. OccasionaUy among

456 LANCASHIRE.
the Presbyterians, very seldom, if ever, among the Independents or
the Baptists, it was observed at the close of the morning serrice.
Lectures, which were nothing else than week-day sermons, were
very common among aU classes of Dissenters. Almost every con
gregation had its weekly evening lecture. In large towns, morning
lectures were not unusual, especially on market days. In some
places, wealthy Dissenters gave or bequeathed money to found a
weekly lecture, the proceeds of which donations or bequests are in
some instances still received although the lectures are discontinued.
In Bolton, the market lecture of the Monday is vrisely anticipated by
the presbyterian minister on the Sunday evening, when the people
are better able or more wUling to attend to the lecturer.

CHAPTER XIX.
THE OLD DISSENT.
The Dissenters of Lancashire had scarcely completed their meeting
houses, and occupied them, under the protection of the Toleration
Act, when they were rudely disturbed and alarmed by the furious
partisans of Dr. Sacheverel. To understand the reason and extent
of thefr disturbance and alarm, it may be desirable to glance at the
state of parties in the county in the beginning of the last century.
Of tho Protestant Dissenters I have acknowledged that there were
a few (and they were very few, chiefly Independents and Baptists)
who, previously to the Revolution, were disposed to defend or to
extenuate the arbitrary measures of James II. These dissenting
Jacobites disappeared with the Revolution, even if any of them ever
existed in Lancashfre.*
¦* Dr. Hibbert Ware, in his volume entitled Lancashire Memorials of the Rebellion
0/1715, p. 174, has printed a letter as a proof ot the indifference of the Independ
ents to the result of ' the struggle of that period except as it brought into ooUisinn,
to their great joy, three state religions, namely, the Church of England, the Kirk
of Scotland, and the Church of Rotne.' The letter, Dr. Ware says, was ' written
by a Quaker of Liverpool, yet evidently emanating from an Independent partisan.'
The doctor has no reason whafever to say it ' emanated from an Independent par
tisan.' It is a Quaker's letter and nothing else. No Quaker would have consulted
the Independents in such a matter : no Independent in Lancashire would have
written such a letter. Instead of illustrating the state of parties at the time, it
iUustrates nothing else than the fanaticism of a Quaker, aud the inabiUty of the
doctor to find better evidence for his unsunported assertion, that in Lancashire
the Independents ' were disposed to regard with indifference the struggle of that
period except that it brought into colUsion, to their great joy, three state religious.'
The letter is : — Laverpool, 19 of the 9th Month of the year called 1Y15.
Friend WiUiam, — I hope thou art now fully convinced that these BacksUders
from the Truth, who prophanely call themselves the Church of England, and the
Kirk of Scotland, are nothing but the Worshippers ot Baal and Dagon, and thy
inward Light will plainly shew thee, that if their Tithes be taken from them,
these Priests -will turn Boars and Wolves to suck out the Heart Blood ot the
Deluded Flock : they have the subtUity of the old Serpent in their Blasphemy and
Cursing, which is by them called preaching, to turn the Brains of their Giddy
Hearers, making them beUeve Lyes that they all raay be Damned. If their
private Interest is ia the least touched immediately the Ecclesiastiok Drum is
beaten and Anathema Maranatha is the word for those who wiU not go out to
fight the Battles of the Lord against the Mighty. These Sons of Belial are now
knocking their Heads one against another, but let us who are the true Enlightened,
Thy Ungodly kinsman who sojourneth here, Joseph Fallman, who is a Wor
shipper of the Scariet Coloured Whore is sick almost unto Death for the Defeat of
his Friends at Preston.

458 LANCASHIRE.
The Roman Catholics of Lancashire consistently maintained thefr
adherence to the exUed Stuarts. The position of High Churchmen
was one in which it was very difficult to preserve in harmony, on the
one hand, their faith in the Reformation, and, on the other, thefr
beUef in the divine right of kings. Opposed as many of them had
been to the unconstit;utional exercise of the dispensing power, they
had professed thefr -willingness quietly to submit to punishment, if
it were needful, in accordance with their principle of passive obedi
ence and non-resistance. After the Revolution they were requfred
to take the oath of allegiance to the new rulers, which oath implied
a renunciation of the old and divinely-appointed authority. Such of
them as refused we must respect for thefr honesty ; but many, under
one pretext or another, professed their allegiance to the new dynasty,
and shared the honours and emoluments which it had to bestow upon
ecclesiastics, lawyers, and statesmen. The nonjurors, compelled to
resign thefr preferments in the Establishment, formed what, though
called by them 'the British Church,' 'the true Church,' 'the Apos
toUc Church,' or ' the Anglican branch of the Catholic Church,' was
as really a dissenting sect, as completely severed from the national
Church, and as readUy availing itself of the protection of the Toler
ation Act, as any one of the three denominations. Defective and
incomplete in thefr ecclesiastical organisation, episcopal in name and
theory, but controlled by no effective authority, they presented the
appearance not of one complete 'Church but of several independent
congregations. One of the most remarkable of these was formed in
Manchester, and will hereafter come prominently before us.
The High Churchmen and ecclesiastical Tories who submitted to
the arrangements made by the revolutionary government, were
remarkable for their inrincible, almost malignant, hatred of Low
Churchmen, and especially of the bishops who, like TUlotson, Tenison,
Burnet, and Pafrick, having succeeded to the preferments vacated by
the nonjurors, sought to modify the exclusiveness of the established
Church, and to comprehend within its pale, by some concessions of
Uberty, the more moderate of the nonconforming ministers.
The High Church party was numerous in Lancashire, and by a
Roger the High Church Man, laughs yet and says all will be well, and that the
Covenanters wUl fall before them.
The Pagans who descended from the high Mountains of Scotland, play'd the
Devil under Command of one M'Intosh, who may be compared to one Beelzebub,.
the God of Ekron.
Fare thee well ! aU the Congregation of the Faithful wish thee Health. Several
of the Sisters long much to be Refreshed with thy presence.
Notwithstanding all our care, we hear that one of our Sisters named Hannah,
whom we hoped would have held forth one of these days, alas ! she has fallen down
beneath one of the half Naked Brauny Pagans, tho' it's hoped she may rise again,
yet she cannot be received into our Bosom tiU she be twin'd of the Bloody Offspring
of that Anakite,
Keep thy Garments clean, and neither trouble Thee whether Rehoboam or
Jeroboam the Son of Nebat be the Ruler, aud learn to be as Indifferent about
their Kings and Priest as thy Friend, Gabriel Dnxiou.
To ¦William Bradine, Clothier at Berwick.

THE OLD DISSENT. 459
re^vulsion from old traditions, to which I have already referred,
strong in the eastern district though feeble in the western. They
were, however, not on friendly terms with any of the other parties.
The nonjurors regarded them as false brethren, who had dishonoured
thefr principles for the sake of their emoluments. The Roman
Catholics complained of being deserted, if not betrayed, by these
Churchmen, on whose support they had reckoned in their defence of
the cause of the Stuarts. Between them and the Low Churchmen
the opposition was so flerce, involring as it did the great principles
of civil and ecclesiastical poUty, that in some places, as in Manchester,
although they used the same forms and repeated the same prayers,
they would not do so in the same church. The Low Churchmen of
St. Ann's had much less of friendly feeling with the High Church
men of the collegiate church, notwithstauding their uniformity of
worship, than they had with their neighbours, the Nonconformists
of Cross Street. With Protestant Dissenters the High Churchmen
had no good understanding, and as they were determined to resist
all proposals of comprehension, they provoked animosity by raising
the cry that the Church was in danger.*
We have seen that both Dr. Stratford, when Warden of Man
chester, and his successor. Dr. Wroe, although both of them were
theoretically High Churchmen, were favourable to the Revolution,
and firm adherents of the Prince of Orange and the Protestant suc
cession. The mUd and gentle manner in which these amiable
Churchmen accommodated their theory to the exigencies of thefr
position did more to promote their principles in Lancashire than the
fierce harangues of Sacheverel, and the furious clamours of his angry
followers. Such Churchmen as Warden Wroe were, in the speeches
of Sacheverel, reprobated as 'false brethren,' very little better, even
if they were not worse, than such fraitors as TUlotson and Biirnet,t
or even such schismatics as the presbyterian ministers.
A considerable party in and about Manchester, many of whom
were children and grandchildren of Nonconformists, zealously, or
rather furiously supported the principles and cause of Sacheverel.
His impeachment produced as much excitement in Lancashire as in
any county of England. His sermon, preached in London before the
lord mayor and ordered to be burnt by the common hangman, was
read by almost everybody who could read in Manchester. The mob
was roused as if by a message from heaven to defend ' the Church in
danger,' and it found leaders, secret and avowed, among the magis-
* It is pleasant to observe some Uttle kindly feeling between even the nonjurors
and Nonconformists. Mr. Henry Finch, the nonconforming minister of Birch,
haud ignarus mali, is said to have ' had a great tenderness for those who refused
the oaths and lost their places for conscience' sake, to aome of whom he was a
charitable contributor.' — Nonconformist's Memorial.
¦|- 1 he Low Churchmen, called ' false brethren ' by Sacheverel, ' would,' he said,
' renounce their creed, and read the decalogue backwards, and faU down and wor
ship the very devil himself for the riches and honours of this world. ' If these
words were intended by the orator only for the Whig clergy, the Manchester
people very readily appUed them to their protestant warden and his High Church
friends.

460 LANCASHIRE.
frates and gentry of the town and neighbourhood. The appeal of
the orator to the 'true and apostolic priests,' who were called upon
to ' denounce unsparingly all Dissenters and false brethren,' obtained
a ready response from the clergy of Lancashfre, in opposition to the
mild and moderate example of their ecclesiastical superiors. The
High Churchmen of Manchester gave expression, although in some
what more guarded language, to all the fierce intolerance and bigofry
of the lord mayor's chaplain. They loudly repeated his cry of ' the
Church in danger,' and instigated the people to demand the protec
tion of the establishment by the repression and discouragement of
dissent. They especially denounced the ' occasional conformity ' of
Dissenters who, they said, perhaps truly, ' swallowed the sacraments
to secure good places.' The punishment of Sacheverel was too
lenient to deter other clergymen from avowing their adherence to
his principles. The burning of his two sermons promoted rather
than prevented their cfrculation. On the completion of his term of
enforced silence, he made a preaching tour over the country, when
¦excited mobs crowded the churches, and followed him through the
streets crying, ' Sacheverel for ever ! Down with the Whigs and
Dissenters ! ' High Church principles triumphed ; the Tories gained
the ascendency; parliament was alarmed through the noise of its own
prosecution ; a Schism Bill was enacted, by which Dissenters were
prohibited from teaching children vrithout a license from a bishop,
anil schoolmasters episcopally Ucensed from being present in a con
venticle. Although, by the death of Queen Anne on the day before
the Act was to come into force, all proceedings under it were sus
pended, its passing showed the power of the High Church party, the
length they would go if they could secure the popular feeling in their
favour, the dangers to which the Dissenters were exposed, and the
diSiculties in which the new king and his advisers would be involved
in protecting the Uberties of thefr most zealous friends, the Protestant
Nonconformists. Although Sacheverel, in his triumphant procession, did not visit
Lancashire, a large and powerful party in that county carefully
observed his progress, preparing to go even further than he adrised,
and to make common cause with the Jacobites in subverting the
revolutionary settlement and the Hanoverian succession. The
declaration of King George that he would preserve the Toleration
inviolate roused the indignation of the Lancashire populace. The
appeals of Sacheverel were read in the churches, repeated by school
boys, and circulated in alehouses, until multitudes were ready to
follow any declaimer who would lead them against Whig bishops
and wicked Dissenters. Clergymen cried in the words of Sacheverel,
and the people of Lancashire echoed the cry louder than ever, ' The
Church is in danger ! ' ' The Trojan horse is come into our holy
city.' ' False brethren neither believe her faith, nor submit to her
discipline, nor observe her liturgy.' ' The pure spouse of Christ is
prostituted to more adulterers ' (the Whig bishops) 'than the scarlet
whore of the Revelation.' Tory magistrates, by thefr silence, coun
tenanced the prevalent notion that they would be very lenient ¦with

THE OLD DISSENT. 461
rioters who deatroyed only the property of Whigs and the conven
ticles of Dissenters. The mobs of the south-eastern towns of Lan
cashfre, once the strongholds of puritanism, were better prepared for
riot and insurrection in defence of the Church than the friends of
good order at a distance, or even in the neighbourhood, had any
reason to suppose.
The 10th of June, 1715, the birthday of Prince James Francis
Edward, was a great day in Lancashire with the Jacobites and Tories.
Early that morning in Warrington the bells rang a merry peal, many
of the well-to-do people appeared in their Sunday clothes, and a
riotous mob shouted in the streets, ' The Church in danger ! ' * Down
with the Dissenters ! ' ' God save King James the Third ! '
The greatest mob, however, was collected in Manchester. A
meeting ofthe leaders of the Jacobites on -the preceding day showed
that they were concerting their measures, and the inteUigence,
having been conveyed to "Warrington and other towns, induced the
rioters of the neighbourhood to resort to Manchester. Convened by
the beating of drums, and inspirited by martial music, they formed
a sort of miUtary procession through the principal streets, denouncing
the Dissenters, proclaiming King James, and damaging the houses
of the friends of the Hanoverian succession. Liquor was supplied to
enable them to drink the health of the king, and in some instences
supplied so liberally that they forgot to which king they ought to drink.
The more cautious tradesmen, who had something to lose, refreshing
themselves in the taverns, drank the health of the king over a glass
of water, signifying the king who was over the water. The magis
trates were cowardly, or culpably negligent, or secretly favourable
to the rioters. The town w as for some days at their mercy. Led
by Tom Syddall, a wig maker, the mob made a fierce attack upon
' St. Plungeon's,'* as the Presbyterian meeting-house was called,
smashed its doors and windows, tore down its pulpit and pews,
carried away everything portable, broke down the roof, and left only
the ruinous walls. They afterwards risited the neighbouring villages,
¦* The meeting-house received its opprobrious name from its having been built
near the pool where scolds were plunged, not from having ever been used by the
'plungers,' as the Baptists were often called. There were two peruke makers,
father and son, named Thomas Syddall, both of whom were martyrs to the cause
of the Stuarts. The identity of the name and trade has caused some uncertainty
and contusion. The father, however, was executed for being concerned in the
rebellion of 1715, the son in that of 1745. They were not Papists, as they are
sometimes represented, but disciples of Sacheverel. The son was a member of the
congregation of Dr. Deacon, the nonj uring bishop of the 'true British Catholic
Church ' in Manchester, a church disclaiming the errors of Rome and Canterbury.
The wig makers seem to have acted a considerable part in these Manchester
troubles. There is extant a curious diary of Edmund Harrold, a Manchester wig
maker, edited by Mr. Harland. Harrold, to use his own words, -was ' reraarkable
for debates betwixt good and bad thoughts,' for he seems to have spent what time
he had to spare either in making, merry at the ale-house or in listening to good
sermons at church. He "very ingenuously describes the scolding of his wife when
he got drunk, the comfort he felt in taking the sacrament, and the benefit he
derived from reading good books, like Sherlock on Death and on Judgment. As be
frequented St. Ann's church, and married two nonconforming wives, he seems to-

462 LANCASHIRE.
plundered the houses of the Dissenters, and vrith horrible yells
damaged their meeting-houses. On June 20 tihey pulled down the
have been Low Church in his principles. His reflections at the end of each month
are very curious, especially when expressed in doggerel rhyme : —
' 0 God may I remeraber
That I have displeased Thee this September,
And give grace this October
To me to keep sober.'
Although he does not often refer to the Nonconformists, his few and slight
references are amusing and valuable as coming from a source from which we do
not often obtain information. On the death of his vrife, whose family were Non
conformists, he says, ' Her relatives think it best to bury her at meeting-place in
Plungeon Field,' ' so I will according to her mind.' 'Dec. 19. This day about
halt-past four at night, my wife Sarah was carried to meeting-place in Plungeon
Field to be buried, and Parson Birch preached on Be ye also ready. Then we
came home, and had all the relatives and acquaintances that I could get to supper,
and treated them handsomely. 23. Paid Mr. Birch ten shillings for preaching at
wife's funeral.' ' I was in drink and ramble but came staunch home.'
On the coronation of King George, Harrold being strong for the Protestant suc
cession was very merry, lost his handkerchief in a fray, was ' Ul hurt iu the face '
by the Jacobites and other malicious persons, and finished the day in the dungeon
for being ' drunk and disorderly.' He then resolved to leave off drinking, and on
Nov. 11 he wrote : ' I bless God for enabling me to perform and govern myself so
well.' In the rebellion of 1715 he wrote : ' Nov. 11. This day is gone Gen. Wills
and his men towards camp to meet the rebels who are now at Preston, where they
have proclaimed J — m — s the 3rd and prayed for him in the church by their own
priest, for the minister there would not do it. I never saw so many fine men and
horses in my life at one time as is gone through the town on this occasion. 0
God ! who governest all things, give victory to the righteous and let iniquity be
punished, for sin is an evil to be punished by the judges. Do Thou bless and
preserve the Church of God in its Uturgy, laws, and Uberty, as it now is by law
estabUshed. Unite all its members and make its hill strong, that the gates of heU
may not prevail against her, but that she may be Catholic, pure, primitive, and
a.postoUo in all her doctrines and devotions, her chUdren pure in heart, sincere in
their words and actions ; that they may be loyal to the supreme Head and Gov
ernor of these realms under God, who helps them to right that suffer wrong, who
feeds the hungry, hates a false way, but delights in those that are upright in their
hearts.' The wig maker believed his prayers were answered in the defeat of the
rebels at Preston. He especially noticed that Tom Syddall, the rival barber,
'stood at Town's End with a rope about his neck.' Then followed a time of
'ringing of bells, shooting, illuminations, and other matters of loyalty.' After aU
this devotion and rejoicing there carae on him ' the barber's mad fit,' when he
drank for three days, was ill three days more, with ' broken knuckles, head, and
other parts,' ' repented sadly,' and went to church to ' thank God for the wonder-.
full deliverance of the nation from popery. '
Soon after Tom Syddall aud Edmund Harrold there flourished another of their
trade, ' Thomas Podmore, barber and peruke maker in Manchester.' Podmore like
Syddall was a Jacobite, and like Harrold a literary man, but unlike both, a grave,
quiet, respectable scholar. He was the intimate friend of Dr. Deacon, and au able
defender of the doctrines of the ' British Catholic Church.' He published a book
entitled The Layman's Apology for returning to Primitive Christianity.' In this
learned work, in which he showed a critical knowledge of the Greek and Latin
fathers, he proved, at least to his own satisfaction, that the Greek Church had de
parted from the primitive Apostolic and CathoUc Church in three great points, the
Romish Church in fifteen, the English Church iu fifteen (eight in agreement with
the Romish Church and seven in opposition to it), and the foreign Protestants aud
English Dissenters in almost aU things, and more than all had unchurched them
selves by renouncing bishops. A controversial writer of the time charges the
clergy of Manchester with neglect of duty in not ansivering ' that queer dog of a
barber.' The clergy acted prudently in avoiding ' the queer dog,'

THE OLD DISSENT. 463
meeting-house of Blackley ; on the 21st the meeting-house of Monton
and that at Greenacres. A party of them marched into Yorkshfre,
and another into Staffordshire and Shropshfre, instigating the people
to attack the houses of the Dissenters and to destroy their conven
ticles. In Shrewsbury, they placarded the streets with the following
proclamation : ' We gentlemen of the loyal mob do issue this procla
mation to all Dissenters of what kind soever, whether Independente,
Baptists, or Quakers. If you, or any of you, do encourage or suffer
any of that damnable faction, called Presbyterians, to assemble them
selves in any of your conventicles at the time of divine worship, you
may expect to meet vrith the same that they have been treated vrith.
Given under our hands and seals on the eleventh day of July, 1715.
God save the King ! '
On hearing of these proceedings, the House of Commons addressed
the king, praying that the riotous mobs might be suppressed, the
negligent magistrates punished, the laws against Papiste and non
jurors rigorously enforced, and compensation given to the sufferers.
A proclamation was immediately issued that any person convicted
of demolishing a registered meeting-house would incur the punish
ment of death vrithout benefit of clergy. Troops were sent to
Manchester, by whom the rioting was effectually suppressed before
the end of July. Tom Syddall, or, as he was then called, Captain
Syddall, was apprehended and sent for trial to Lancaster. Being
convicted of rioting, he was sentenced to stand in the pUlory, where
he stood his full time, while nobody threw at him anything worse
than flowers. He was then imprisoned in Lancaster Castle, where
he remained until November, when the Scotch adherents of the pre
tender entered the town. Tom got inteUigence of their arrival, and
mounting the walls of the castle welcomed them vrith loud huzzas
and waving of his handkerchief. The Scotchmen recognized the
welcome of a friend, and speedily released him and his companions.
Tom put himself at the head of his fellow-prisoners and joined
the Jacobites, who marched to the market cross, and forming round
it with colours flying, claymores drawn, and bagpipes playing, pro
claimed King James the Eighth of Scotland and Thfrd of England.
The bm-gesses of Lancaster, who were almost aU Protestants and
Whigs, being disappointed in their expectation of the arrival of Sfr
Henry Hoghton's dragoons, could offer no effectual resistance. WhUe
the Scotchmen were making themselves comfortable with the brandy
of the custom house, which they found a tolerable substitute for
thefr native usquebagh, the townspeople sent southward as many
of their arms as they could remove, and threw their gunpowder into
a well. The Jacobites, however, got possession of six cannons, which
were on board a ship in the harbour, and which the owner, a grave
and prudent Quaker, is said (1 hope falsely) to have sold at an
exorbitant price for ready money, first to the mayor of the town for
the use of King George, and afterwards to the commander of the
Scoteh for the benefit of King James, vrith a Christian wish that
neither would do any harm to the other with such barbarous weapons.
OiUy two of the householders of Lancaster avowedly joined the rebels,

464 LANCASHIRE.
and one of them was of Tom SyddalTs profession, ' Edmund Gart-
side the barber.' They were appointed quartermasters of the Jacobite
army, and they seem to have discharged thefr onerous duties with
exemplary dUigence, acti-rity, and care.*
Although the burgesses of the town avoided the insurgents, many
of the Catholic gentry of the county came in at the head of their
tenantry and servants. Dalton of Thurnham Hall, Hodgson of
Leighton, Tyldesley of the Lodge, Butler of RawcUffe, Walton of
Cartmel, the representatives ofthe CathoUc famUies who once upheld
the banners of Charles I., appeared to support the cause of his
grandson. On Sunday, November 8, the church bells rang for divine serrice.
Someperson (the contemporary writers differ as to his name) so cleverly
altered the name of George into James in the great prayer book of
the desk that the change might have passed without notice. The
vicar was requested to read according to the correction, but being a
timid or a time-serving priest, he begged to decline the service. The
rebels had a zealous chaplain, one WiUiam Paul, who immediately
went to the desk, and in reading the prayers substituted ' James '
for ' George ' and the ' king's mother ' for ' the Princess Sophia.'
From Lancaster the insurgents, considerably strengthened by
Catholics, marched in good order to Preston. Some unpleasant
feeling arose among the Scotch Presbyterians because so many
Papists had joined them. The Papists, on the contrary, complained
bitterly of the jealousy of the Presbyterians and the cowardice of the
episcopalian Tories, who, it was said, were valiant in the taverns,
drinking ' over the water,' but nowhere else.t On thefr arrival at
Preston, they were strengthened by the adherence of the great
Catholic proprietors of the neighbourhood, Townley of Townley, who
was attended by an immense retinue, Anderton of Lostock, Chorley
of Chorley, Hesketh of WhitehiU, Leybourne of Natsby, Standish of
Standlsh, and many others.
Although we have several contemporaneous accounts of this insur
rection, it is not easy to form an accurate estimate of the number of
the pretender's adherente when they took possession of Preston.
Peter Rae, a Whig historian, computed them to have been about
four thousand. The Jacobite writers believed them to be conside
rably more numerous. It would seem that, while on their march
they were strengthened by the adhesion of many Lancashire Catho
lics, they were also weakened by the desertion of many Scotch Pres
byterians. In Preston the two parties betrayed their mutual dislike
and suspicion by assuming distinctive badges and keeping in separate
* Memorials of the Rebellion of 1715.
t The Rev. Robert Patten, in the preface to his History of the late Rebellion
(London, 1717), says of the Protestant Tories and High Churchmen, that they
' tossed about healths and full bumpers with distinguished names, characters, and
wishes, and concluded with confusion, damnation, and destruction, to others whom
they durst not name.' Patten had been chaplain to the rebel forces, but having
obtained his pardon, he was too anxious to please the government which had gen
erously spared his life to allow us to place full confidence in his statements.

THE OLD DISSENT, 465
quarters. The Scotch mounted blue and white cockades, the CathoUcs
red and white ones.*
But Preston was a Capua to the Scotchmen. The old Duke of
Marlborough sagely caUed that pleasant town ' the net of the fowler,
spread to ensnare those vrild bfrds of prey.' So it proved. The
kUted Presbyterians had fallen among the Lancashire witches, and
were fascinated with thefr enchantments. Proud Preston, the gayest
of the gay towns of Lancashire, proud of its hospitaUty, good cheer,
and fafr charmers, proved fatal to the hopes of the Chevalier
St. George. Peter Clarke, the journalist of the Jacobites, writes in
their pleasant quarters under date November 9 to 12 : ' The ladies
in this town, Preston, are so very beautiful and so richly attired,
that the gentlemen soldiers from "Wednesday to Saturday minded
nothing but courting and feasting.' During those four days of
' courting and feasting,' their enemies were collecting forces and
making arrangements for an attack upon the town. General Wills,
the commander of the garrison of Chester, employed the time in
cautiously but continually forwarding troops towards Preston.
Having occupied Warrington and secured the bridge and ford of
the Mersey to prevent the progress of the rebels southward, he
marched with a considerable force upon Wigan, and there prepared
to advance upon Preston. The only people south of the Ribble that
caused him any anxiety were the Jacobite populace of Manchester.
CompeUed to send a regiment to overawe the people of that town
who, though disUking both the Presbyterians and the Papists of the
pretender's army, threatened to make an insurrection on thefr own
account in defence of the Church of England, he concerted measures
¦vrith Sfr Henry Hoghton to raise and arm the nonconforming pea
santry of the neighbourhood. It was at this juncture that Woods,
the minister of Chowbent, to whose zeal and bravery I have afready
referred, anticipated the caU of the general, and on his own authority
raised and armed his large congregation. Within a few hours of
receiring the order to act in his majesty's service,! he was ready
vrith aU the farmers and labourers of his neighbourhood to march
towards Preston. According to the traditions of the viUage, he
drew his sword upon the only member of his congregation who
¦* A Journal of Several Occurrences from November 2, 1715, as kept by Peter
Clarke, printed in The Lancashire Memorials of the Rebellion of 1715, edited by Dr.
Hibbert Ware : Patten's History ; Peter Rae's History of the Rebellion.
t To the Rev. Mr. Woods in Cliowbent, for his Majesty's service.
Chaeles Wills,
The officers here design to march at break of day for Preston ; they have desired
me to raise what men I can to meet us at Preston to-morrow, so desire you to
raise all the force you can, I mean lusty young fellows, to draw up on Cuerden
Green, to be there by 10 o'clock, to bring with them what arms they have fit for
service, and scythes put in straight poles, and such as have not to bring spades and
bUl-hooks for pioneering with. Pray go immediately aU amongst your neighbours
and give this notice. I am your very faithful servant,
H. Hoghton.
Wigan, Nov. 11, 1715.
— Toulmin's Life of Mr. John Mort.
Hi

466 LANCASHIRE.
showed any signs of fear, and ordered the coward ' to leave the men
and go home to the women.' He soon sent word to General Wills
that he was ready for the king's service, that he would march to tho
bridge of the Ribble, where he would wait for orders and, in the
meanwhUe, prevent all communications between the rebels and their
friends who on the south of the river were preparing to act in concert
with them.
Sfr Henry Hoghton had informed General Carpenter, who com
manded the king's forces in the north, of the progress of the rebels
through Lancaster to Preston. Carpenter immediately marched
into Lancashfre, and arrived at CUtheroe on Saturday, November 12,
when WUls had brought his froops in front of Preston. The Jacobite
officers were taken by surprise and sfruck with consternation. In
the festivities of the week they had neglected to obtain correct intel
Ugence of the advance of the enemy, and would not beUeve that the
danger was so imminent. Their commander. General Forster, was
in bed on the Saturday morning when the RoyaUsts were advancing
to the assault upon the to^wn. Not destitute of personal bravery, he
was conscious of the irreparable injury which the cause entrusted to
him had sustained by his own negligence, and by the license which
he had allowed to his troops. He had no clear understanding with
his officers respecting the serrice which the several parties, Presby
terians and Papists, were to undertake, while without such an under
standing they were as likely to fight with one another as with the
common enemy. The Scotch, who, trusting to thefr claymores, were
ready to face any number of foot, feared nothing so much as a column
of horse, and, therefore, desfred to fight as near to the town as pos
sible, where, under the shelter of the buildings, they could maintain
vrith advantage their irregular mode of action. This was the plan
proposed by Brigadier Mackintosh, the most experienced officer of
the Highlanders. General Forster, on the contrary, intending to
march towards Manchester, directed the Earl of Derwentwater to
occupy the bridge and oppose the passage of the English forces. No
sooner had Forster retfred than the earl, acting in concert vrith
Mackintosh, returned to the sfreeta of the town and formed a line of
defence more agreeable, if not more favourable, to the Highlanders.
General WiUs, on hia arrival, waa surprised to find the bridge
undefended, and inviting his march over the river. Naturally sus
pecting some strategem, he proceeded cautiously, haring ordered the
hedges of the road which might serve as an ambush to be destroyed,
and the country on all sides to be carefully examined. StUl sus
picious, he left Parson Woods vrith his congregation to protect his
rear. The position was critical. A concealed enemy might place the
Royalists, whUe crossing the bridge, between two armies. But he
knew from Sfr Henry Hoghton that he could depend upon the
parson and his people, who would fight to the death rather than
allow a Scotchman or a Papist to fall upon his rear. On crossing
the bridge and forming his line vrithout opposition in the meadows,
WUls sagaciously concluded that the rebels had determined to defend
themselves where his cavalry qould render Uttle assistance. He

THE OLD DISSENT. 467
therefore resolved to dismount a considerable proportion of hia horse
men, and to send the remainder to take possession of the north road,
in order to prevent the Highlanders from making their escape
towards Scotland. Of the south road he had Uttle fear, for the
rebels might as safely pass the teeth of a herd of Uons as the scythes
and pitchforks of Woods' Presbyterians. The order was given to
burn the houses at the extremities of the town, and to drive the
rebels upon the open market-place in the centre.
The defence of the town was intrusted to Mackintosh. It does
not appear what General Forster was doing on that eventful day of
the assault — whether he was enchanted by the vritchery of the
Preston charmers, or overcome by the potency of the Preston liquors.
Mackintosh probably did better without his commander than he
could have done with him. He raised barricades across the streets,
behind which his men were to defend the centre of the town, and to
render assistance to any of thefr friends who might be attecked by
the Royalists. Haring completed four barricades across the four
sfreets which converged towards the market-place,* he intrusted the
command of them to four of his best officers. The Earls of Derwent
water, Wintoun, and Nithsdale, and Lord Kenmure, stationed near
the churchyard, were ready to advance for the defence of any barri
cade which might be exposed to the most dangerous assaults. In
the course of the day, the Scotchmen, firing from the houses, inflicted
severe injury upon thefr enemies, whUe, protected by their baiTicades,
they suffered very little themselves. Towards the evening General
Forster flrst made his appearance, and ordered the Scotchmen to
make a sally against the enemy. Mackintosh explained the danger
to which such a proceeding would expose his men, as well as the
whole to^wn. Forster retfred, threatening to bring Mackintosh before
a court-martial as soon as he had established King James upon the
throne. At night-fall, although the RoyaUsts had burned several
houses and dislodged the rebels who possessed them, the advantage
was upon the whole vrith the besieged. The next morning Mackin
tosh wrote in good spirits to the Earl of Mar, and expressed a confi
dent expectation of holding the town untU reUef could be obtained.
His chief trouble arose from the incompetence and mischievous
interference of his commander, and from the dissatisfaction of the
English CathoUcs, many of whom, residing in the neighbourhood,
had deserted and returned to thefr homes under shelter of the long
nights .
On Sunday morning Forster, alarmed by the arrival of General
Carpenter with large additions to the besieging army, resolved,
¦vrithout caUing a councU of war, to propose terms for the surrender
of the town.
The reply of Wills was stern and peremptory. He would offer
nothing better than a vague intimation that, surrendering at discre
tion, the rebels might be freated with less severity than they would
be if they offered prolonged resistance. In the meanwhUe the Scotch
discovered that the English, vrithout consulting thefr officers, were
* See plan of Preston in The Lancashire Memorials of the Rebellion.

468 LANCASHIRE.
treating for a capitulation. Indignant, enraged, uncontroUable, they
would die fighting at thefr barricades, or they would have vengeance
upon Forster, who, had he then appeared, would probably have been
torn to pieces.
In the evening an officer from General Wills appeared with a flag
of truce, requiring an immediate answer to the proposals made in the
earUer part of the day. Forster requested that the armistice might
be prolonged until the next morning, when he hoped to reconcUe the
Scotch to the surrender which seemed ineritable. The general con
sented to prolong the truce on condition of receiving two officers of
rank as hostages against any infraction of it during the night.
Forster was cunning enough to give him the Earl of Derwentwater
and Colonel Mackintosh, The next moming Forster made an uncon
ditional surrender of the town.
To submit to the indignity was bitter and humiUating to the proud
spirit of the Highlanders. They declared they would not surrender ;
they would cut their way through the enemy ; they would clear the
northern road of the RoyaUsts and go home, learing the English
Papists to the just retribution of their cowardice. But it was too
late. Their best officers were confined in the EngUsh camp. Those
who remained were bound by all the laws of war to accept the hu
mUiating proposals of thefr commander. Carpenter and WiUs, at
the head of thefr respective armies, marched into the town by oppo
site roads and met in the market-place, where amidst the sound of
drums and trumpets they received the swords and colours of the
rebels. About fifteen hundred prisoners were secured, almost exclu
sively Scotch, for the EngUsh Papists had run away. Most of them
were confined in the church, fed upon coarse bread at the expense of
the to-wn, and left without beds or coverings through a bleak Novem
ber, until they were sent, some to the scaffold, some to the dungeons
of felons, and some to the horrors of plantation slavery. The town
was given vrith Uttle restraint to the plunder of the soldiery. The
victory of the RoyaUsts was so complete, and the cause of the pre
tender so utterly crushed, that there was no excuse for the atrocious
severities with which the prisoners were maltreated. The barbarities
which foUowed the battle of Preston were a disgrace to the house of
Hanover or to the officera charged with the protection of ite honour.
The bloody assize of Lancashire was not soon, and never wUl be
entfrely, forgotten. Had the adherents of the Stuarts been disposed
to recriminate, they might have justly said that the cruelties inflicted
upon Monmouth's followers in the west were expiated by the terrible
sufferings of thefr friends in Lancashfre, One bloody assize may be
set over against the other, whUe both parties may be aUowed to hope
that if ciril war were to break forth in our time, a milder spfrit would
regulate the passions and resfrain the excesses of the combatante.
That, however, may be a delusive hope, for the war spirit has ever
been an unconfroUable demon.*
The prisoners of rank and distinction were sent to London and
* The anniversary of the defeat of the rebels in Preston, Nov. 14, 1715, was
religiously observed for many years by the Dissenters of Lancashire, especiaUy in

THE OLD DISSENT. 469
disfributed in different prisons. The Earl of Derwentwater and
Lord Kenmure were beheaded on Tower Hill, where they offered
thefr last prayers for thefr true and rightful sovereign, James III.
The Earl of Nithsdale, when under sentence of death, escaped by a
bold stratagem of his -devoted countess. The Earl of Wintoun, by
his mechanical skill in severing an fron bar of his cell, and Mackintosh
by his personal courage in attacking and disarming the guard of
Newgate, made thefr escape, and were concealed by their friends.
The heroic conduct of the rebels on the scaffold, especially of thefr
chaplain, who stood on the gaUows in his go-wn and cassock, rejoicing
that one protestant clergyman was wiUing to die for King James,
the barbarity which exposed the mangled heads and limbs of poUtical
offenders on conspicuous places to the gaze ofthe multitude, and the
horrible accounts of the 'bloody assize in Lancashfre,' produced a
reaction in popular feeling, and made the juries in London reluctant
to conrict the prisoners.
"Wlien two Lancashire Catholics of station and influence, Townley
of Townley and Tyldesley of the Lodge, although they had been
seen by many -vritnesses commanding the troops which they had
raised, were acquitted by a protestant jury, the rindictive govern
ment of King George began to fear that thefr barbarities would excite
the commiseration of the people rather than deter the disaffected
from resorting to arms. The judge. Baron Montague, a sort of
Whig Jeffreys with a more gentlemanly exterior but with as hard a
heart, severely reprimanded the jury for their verdict ; but his repri
mand injured rather than served the cause of the government. The
citizens of London were neither Papists nor Jacobites ; but revenge
is not a Londoner's -rice, and of all vindictive people he most disUkes
a vindictive judge.
Of the horrible deteils of ' the bloody assize in Lancashfre,' 1 shall
take no further notice than is necessary to elucidate the state of reli
gion in that county. Nothing more shocking can be found in our
national history than the barbarous execution of the soldiers and
gentlemen who surrendered at Preston in the hope of obtaining the
clemency of the government. An adherent of the house of Hanover
cannot read -without a sense of burning shame the several accounts
of the proceedings of either the courts-martial or the court of assize.*
Of the Scottish prisoners condemned by the court-martial to be
shot in Preston were four gentlemen, Major Nairn, Captain Lockhart,
Mr. Shaftoe, and Mr. Erskirie. Being Presbyterians, they were
attended by English ministers of thefr own persuasion, who, being
Manchester. Anniversary sermons were preached in Cross Street meeting, and
afterwards printed, in 1716 by Jeremiah Aldred, in 1717 by Charles Owen, D.D.,
in 1718 by Joseph Mottershead (the newly elected minister), in 1719 by Joshua
Jones (afterwards assistant minister), dedicated ' to the young gentlemen of the
Dissenting Congregation of Manchester.'
* In The Memorials of the Rebellion of 1715, 'An Account of the Disbursements
of Thomas Crisp, Esq., High Sheriff of Lancashire, attending the trials of the
rebels at Liverpool, and the execution of thirty-four of the.u,' contains, besides
the ordinary charges for executions, charges for ' firing to burn the entrails,' and
for 'quartering the bodies,' and ' setting up the heads on public places.'

470 LANCASHIRE.
zealous Wliigs, laboured chiefly to bring them to a,n humble and
contrite acknowledgment of thefr great sin in rebelling against the
Protestant government of King George. They readUy acknowledged
many and great sins, for which they hoped to obtain pardon through
the merit and sacrifice of the Lord Jesus ; but they coidd not acknow
ledge any sin in resisting to the utmost of thefr power a government
founded on the usurpation of dirinely constituted authority. They
had carefully considered their duty, and resolved to attest vrith their
blood thefr faith in the righteousness of the cause for which they had
fought and suffered. As their last day had come, they would grate
fully receive spfritual adrice or consolation from the ministers, but
they could not spare any of the short time left them for discussing
the reasons of their insurrection. The mimsters did not understand
them, nor they the ministers. Confident in the goodness of thefr
cause, they died -with caUn and heroic submission. Major Nairn
was shot first. His friend, Captain Lockhart, vrith Scottish pride,
enfreated the common soldiers not to touch the body of a chieftain,
placed it in its coffin, and then kneeled by the corpse of his friend
untu the signal was given to fire upon him. The other two gentle
men laid his body in its coffin, but as they were shot simultaneously,
there was no surriring friend to perform the same serrice for them.
Uncoffined they were thrown into a grave opened on the spot where
they feU.
More terrible than these military executions were the proceedings
of the judicial authorities. In January 1715-16, Baron Montague
and two other judges proceeded vrith much state and display to
Liverpool where, as its population was then more puritan, loyal, and
Hanoverian than that of any other town in the county, it was deter
mined to hold the special assize. There is some discrepancy in the
Usts of persons tried and condemned for high treason, but we may
conclude they were certainly not less than seventy. Of these, as
appears from the sheriff's accounte, twelve were executed at Preston,
four at Garstang, five at Wigan, five at Manchester, four at Lancas
ter, and four at Liverpool. Of the entries of the expenses of these
horrible executions, the foUo-wing is a specimen : ' Jan. 27. Erecting
gallows and materials, hurdle, fire, cart, &c., in executing Shuttle-
worth and four men at Preston, and setting up his head, &c., 12Z. Os.4d.'
Mr. Shuttleworth, whose head was fixed upon a pole in front of the
town-haU of Preston, was the chief of one of the best famiUes of the
county. But probably, of the heads exposed at Preston, none excited
more commiseration than that of Richard Chorley, Esq., the aged
representative of a Catholic famUy universally respected. His ven
erable countenance, and white locks wa-ring in the breeze, brought
tears into the eyes of many Preston people, and roused the fierce
indignation of many more. The head of his son was to have been
exposed near his ovm, but the youth was spared that indignity by
his premature death in prison.* A friend of the Preston Noncon
formists may be permitted to think that the few surviving Puritans
who in thefr childhood had listened to the loving exhortations of
* It has been said that the head fixed upon the town haU of Preston was not

THE OLD DISSENT, 471
Isaac Ambrose must have been grieved vrith the barbarities of thefr
own party.
Among the Jacobites executed at Manchester was Tom SyddaU,
the leader of the mob that destroyed Cross Street meeting-house.*
His head was fixed upon the market-cross of the town. Among
those who looked upon it was his only son, a boy of ten years of age,
bearing his own name, Thomas. The boy, looking steadUy at hia
father's exposed and insulted countenance, conceived an implacable
hatred to Dissenters, Whigs, and aU the Hanoverian race. He is
said to have there vowed, and he never forgot his vow, that he would
seek and find opportunity to avenge the barbarity with which his
father was treated. We shaU meet with the boy of 1715 among the
men of 1745.
The suppression of the rebelUon afforded the Whig government
the opportunity of rewarding thefr Lancashire friends who had op
posed the advance of the Jacobites. The brave presbyterian parson
of Chowbent, and his lieutenant Walker, received the grants which
I have afready noticed. Assessments were made for the rebuilding
of the meeting-houses destroyed by the Sacheverel mobs, and fifteen
hundred pounds were voted for the restoration of that in Cross
Street, Manchester.f
On this auspicious occasion the Protestant dissenting ministers of
the counties palatine of Lancashire and Cheshire resolved to present
' an humble and united address to the king.' A copy of a document
entitled ' a rough draft of the address ' is preserved among the MSS.
of the late Dr. Raffies. This ' rough draft ' was ' after correction
and engrossing to be deUvered to his majesty.' Although it obtained
twenty-nine signatures, it was so unworthy of the men who signed it
that they acted vrisely in not presenting it, whether they did so on
more mature consideration or on the adrice of thefr friends. In the
first paragraph the ministers, after an awkward sort of apology for
not assuring the king of their loyalty on his accession to the throne
(as did their brethren in London and many parts of the country),
say that they preferred his ' majesty's ease to the gratifying of thefr
o'wn inclinations.' Their gratitude then became ' too great to admit
of longer sUence, or any longer delay in the public expression of it.'
They next expressed thefr pleasure ' in the growth of religion,' ' the
security of Uberty and property,' ' the declension of the popish and
French faction,' ' the revival of British honour and fidelity,' ' the
exceUent minisfry of the king composed of noble and honest states-
that of Mr. Chorley, but that of James Drummond, a relative of Lord Drummond.
At all events the people beUeved it to be Mr. Chorley's, and unless it was muti
lated they could not have been mistaken. In 1817 two decapitated bodies were
found in cutting through the gallows hill. Probably both heads were exposed.
¦* In the list of the condemned he is incorrectly oaUed a blacksmith. In one
account given by Baines, he is said to have been executed at Wigan, but of its
inaccuracy there can be no doubt.
t The damage to the meeting-house at Monton was assessed at 1 40/. According
to a MS. written at the time by Mr. Jeremiah Aldred, cited by Mr. Joshua WUson,
two of the neighbouring magistrates encouraged the rioters.

472 LANCASHIRE.
men,' ' the generous concern of his majesty at the unchristian and
barbarous treatment of those of their persuasion,' and ' the compensa
tion so graciously promised.' The next paragraph must not be
abbreriated. ' "When we consider that the parting tears of your
German subjects upbraid the ingratitude of Britons, we are reaUy
ashamed of 'em, and cannot but be greatly concerned to hear your
majesty declaimed against as a foreigner, whereas the throne you fiU
ia none other but that of your royal anceators.' The address closed
vrith an extraordinary effusion of loyalty : ' The high perfections
perspicuous in your majesty, the noble rirtues and exemplary piety
of their royal highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales, and the
promising endo^wments of thefr royal offspring, give us large hopes
of such a union at home as will prove effectual to stem the tide of
rebeUion and immorality and to rerive true religion. May your
majesty's reign be long and glorious ! May you be happy in the
affections of all your people ; successful against all your enemies ;
safe and easy in the fidelity of all employed in your service ! And
when you put on bright immortality, may the British throne be
furnished out of your royal house with hefrs like yourself, tUl time
shall be no more. These are the unfeigned vrishes and hearty
prayers of, ' May it please your majesty,
'Your most obedient and dutiful subjects,'
While Preston was occupied by the rebels, the curate, Samuel
Peploe, was a decided and zealous partisan of the house of Hanover.
As he became Warden of Manchester, and on aU occasions defended
the liberty of Nonconformists, he claims a prominent place in the
history of Lancashire nonconformity. When the Jacobites occupied
Preston, he read morning prayers in the parish church, and read
¦vrith more than his usual emphasis the prayer for King George and
the house of Brunsvrick. A soldier ia said to have approached with
a drawn sword and required him to substitute James for George.
He repUed, ' Soldier, do your duty, and I will do mine.' He was,
however, compelled to surrender the desk and pulpit to the chaplain.
of the insurgents, Mr. Patten, who, although a clergyman, had
assumed something like a military dress. In a grotesque combina
tion of profane and sacred vestments, a blue coat and lace trimmings
and a grave and venerable wig, the chaplain substituted James for
George, and the congregation, vrith the exception of Peploe, reverently
kneeled in assent to the prayer.
The death of Dr. Wroe, the silver-tongued Warden of Manchester,
in 1718, afforded the Whig government a favourable opportunity of
rewarding the boldness and intrepidity of the loyal curate of Preston.
But Peploe, in the estimation of the fellows of the college, was not a
fitting successor to the deceased warden. The feUows had complained
of the inconsistency of Wroe, who, a Tory in theory, was in practice
an adherent of the house of Brunswick. As his politics and reUgion
did not harmonise, he acted vrith decision in no matter of importance.
Considerate and gentle to all, he was friendly with Nonconformists

THE OLD DISSENT. 473
while he preached against their nonconformity, and averse to popery
while he mainteined High Church principles with as much tenacity
as his gentle spirit would allow him to maintain any theory what
ever. The fellows desfred a warden of more spirit and decision, who
would say what he meant, and do what he said, and make everybody
understend him. They found such a man placed over them ; but hia
spfrit and decision appeared, not in favouring and forwarding, but in
opposing and frustrating, their purposes. To them it was the exchange
of King Log for King Stork.
Peploe, like Wroe, was a gentleman, but -vrith a very different sort
of gentility. Of dignified manners and lofty bearing, he knew what
was due to himself, and was not unwUUng to assert and maintain hia
authority. Respectful to others, he required respect in return, and
faultless in his own behariour, he knew well how to take advantage
of the misbehaviour or mistakes of his opponents. Of strong will
and resolute spirit, he was ever ready at all costs to maintain his
own place and execute his own purpose. About him there was not
a shadow of weakness or inconsistency. Everybody knew not only
what he did say, but before he spoke what he would say, about any
public question. His poUtical and reUgious principles were in perfect
harmony. His love of liberty was so strong that, opposed as he waa
to popery, he asserted what few Protestants would then acknowledge,
the right of even Papists to toleration in the quiet observance of their
religious ritual. On account not only of his liberal principles, but of
the firmness and decision with which he maintained them, the fellows
resolved that this man should not reign over them, or that, if he did,
they would make his reign troublesome to himself by every annoyance
which they oOuld derise. The man who prayed for King George in
the presence of the Jacobite soldiery was not very likely to submit
quietly to a cabal of Tory fellows, clerks, and chaplains.
But the fellows had the bishop in their favour, Dr. Gasfrell, a
High Churchman, who then occupied the see of Chester. He refused
to inaugurate the warden, and the warden refused to acknowledge
hia jurisdiction. The confroversy excited great interest among eccle
siastical lawyers, who watched its progress with intense party-feeling,
untu, after many hearings and appeals, it was decided by the highest
judicature of the country. Since the Reformation, no question of
Church polity has excited more interest than that which was then
Utigated, the legal right of the Archbishop of Canterbury to exercise
the pri-vilege which had been before the Reformation committed to
his predecessors by the authority of the pope. A brief notice of the
long confroversy may be interesting even to Nonconformists.
According to the charter of the coUegiate church of Manchester,
the appointment of the warden was vested in the crown, and the
king had appointed the Rev. Samuel Peploe. So far there was no
dispute ; but the charter prescribed as a qualification a degree in
dirinity. As Peploe had not graduated in dirinity, the bishop
refused to invest him vrith the office, and assigned as the reason for
his refusal that the appointment, being contrary to the charter, was
iUegal and void. It would seem not very difficult for a king, who

474 LANCASHIRE.
could make dukes and archbishops, to make a doctor in dirinity.
On an intimation of the royal pleasure, Peploe was created doctor in
divinity by mandate of the Whig Archbishop of Canterbury. But
Gastrell was not so easily satisfied. He contended, first, that the
archbishop had no legal authority to confer degrees in divinity, and
next, that even if he had, his degrees were merely honorary titles, of
no value in qualifying for an office. In support of the first proposi
tion, he and his lawyers maintained that the authority of the arch
bishop, ha-ring been originally ' legatine,' derived from the pope, had
ceased at the Reformation together with its source, the papal juris
diction. In support of the second proposition, they contended that
the charter required some proof of competent learning for the dis
charge of the duties of the office, and not a merely honorary distinc
tion which would afford no eridence of any such learning. The
bishop, instigated by the fellows, fought hard for yeara to prevent a
Uberal clergyman from attaining the office ; but eventually it was
decided by the highest authorities of the land, that by the Act of
Supremacy the jurisdiction of the pope had vested in the crown ; that
the archbishop derived from the crown whatever authority his pre
decessors had derived from the pope, and that his degrees were in
every respect valid, and equal to those conferred by the universities.
The bishop could refuse institution no longer. The Whig doctor,
triumphing over his Tory fellows, or rather over thefr empty stalls,
for they took care not to be present, was inaugurated, and during the
long and eventful period from 1718 to 1781 the two Peploes, father
and son, both "Whigs, ruled the Manchester clergy, the father vrith a
hard hand, subject to every possible annoyance ; the son vrith a softer
hand, and therefore vrith less trouble. Thefr rule, however, was a
sad mortification to the Manchester Tories, both lay and clerical.
WhUe Peploe on all occasions asserted his authority and made it
felt by the fellows, they found some small comfort in complaining of
his conduct to Bishop GasfreU, who, by vfrtue of his office as visitor
of the college, had power to correct whatever in any official waa
proved to be wrong. But Peploe was too rigUant to bring himself,
by any illegality, under the power of the episcopal visitor, who, on
hearing the complaints of the fellows, could do no more than express
hia disapproval of the warden's imperious conduct. For that disap
proval the warden cared very little, and seldom failed to show by hia
looks and movements how Uttle he cared for it. The fellows next re
sorted to the pulpit, and preached the doctrine of passive obedience
and non-resistance ; the warden, on the confrary, preached on the
right of the people to assert thefr freedom by the resistance of uncon
stitutional power. The fellows preached in defence of the dirine .
right of kings ; the warden in defence of the glorious Revolution.
The Tory preachers by thefr popular eloquence drew crowded con
gregations ; Peploe was too stiff and dignified a gentleman to work
upon the feelings of the populace. -^ by the charter the warden had
to preach only on great occasions, aa on Chriatmas Day and Easter
Sunday, the four fellows with their two chaplains possessed the advan
tage of having at their disposal eight or ten Sundays for every one

THE OLD DISSENT. 475
claimed by the warden. Constitutional liberty would have fared Ul
in Manchester, had it not been for the "Whig rector and curate of St.
Ann's church and the ministers of the presbyterian meeting-house in
Acres field. The people were as zealous for thefr respective parties
as -were thefr teachera. Ladies in plaid petticoats, and gentlemen in
plaid waistcoats, representing Stuart preferences, frequented the col
legiate church except when the warden preached, whUe other ladies
with orange ribands, and other gentlemen with orange handkerchiefs,
worshipped in St. Ann's or in the Cross Street meeting-house. In
the collegiate church, when the prayer for King George was mumbled
over, the people rose from their knees : in St. Ann's that prayer was
repeated with especial emphasis and fervour. Such was the reUgious
life of Manchester in the early part of the last century.
Peploe asserted his authority by enforcing vrith unexampled severity
the old rules of the college, and imposing fines upon the feUows for
neglect of observances which had long become obsolete. The fellows
appealed to the bishop to afford them some protection in thefr troubles.
During the dispute the bishop died, and Peploe, who had powerful
friends at court, obtained for himself the episcopal throne, becoming,
to the consternation of the fellows, his own visitor. Being thus both
bishop and warden, he was absolute over the Manchester clergy,
whom he resolved to rule vrith rigour, and to punish for all the annoy
ance they had given him. His subordinates resisted. They pleaded
that an official could not be his own risitor, that he could not be
judge in his own cause, that he could not punish himself for his own
faults. An appeal must lie somewhere, to some court ecclesiastical
or ciril, to the archbishop or to the crown. Peploe had not much to
fear from either authority ; but instead of encountering prolonged and
expensive Utigation, he confrived to have his son, who would do any
thing he desired, made warden in his place, while he as Bishop of
Chester would continue to discharge all the duties of visitor. The
fellows were humiUated by being made subordinate to a man much
younger than themselves, while they felt as hearily as before the
hand of the father, who, by means of his obedient son, and his risita-
torial powers, annoyed them more effectuaUy and yet more safely than
he could have done had he combined in his own person two incompa
tible offices. The quarrel became fiercer than ever. The bishop
charged a fellow with being no better than a Jacobite ; the parson
retaliated by accusing his bishop of being as bad as a Presbyterian,
It was strange preaching in Lancashfre, when a Tory clergyman
preached against a Whig brother for not observing the thirtieth of
January, and the Whig preacher retaliated by looking through
the windows of St. Ann's church towards the heads exposed on the
neighbouring exchange, and affecting to address the Tories, exclaimed,
' These be thy gods, O Israel ! ' Worse than either, a presbyterian
preacher, James Owen, a man of much learning, and I hope of some
Uttle piety, not satisfied -with the terrible severities of the govern
ment, was demanding more blood of the vile Papiste and rapacious
Scotchmen.* * Owen's worst sermon was preached after the rebellion of 1745, on the anni-

476 LANCASHIRE.
It is pleasing to interrupt the course of the narrative by obserring
that in the midst of all this ¦riolent excitement, John Wesley visited
Manchester in 1733,* and preached both in the high place of toryism,
and in the temple of whiggery, and displeased both parties by preach
ing in favour of neither. His mission wi, -^o all men, and men of all
parties would have been wiser and bettei- had they Ustened to his
evangelical instructions. As he preached peace and the common
salvation equaUy for all men. High Churchmen and Low Churchmen
angrily called him a schismatic, and grave Presbyterians shook thefr
heads, and said he was ' very irregular.' ' The common people ' of all
parties and of no party ' heard him gladly.' f
Amidst the bitter and exasperated feelings which prevailed in Man
chester during the interval between the two Jacobite rebeUions, a
new kind of nonconformity excited considerable attention, not so
much by the number of its adherents, as by the indomitable energy
and restless actirity of its minister and principal supporters.
In theory a great many High Churchmen were Jacobites, although
they had taken the oath of allegiance to King George, and desired to
maintain the protestant succession in his family. What they would
have done had the pretender professed to become a Protestant, or
professed his willingness, without becoming a Protestent, to maintain
the Protestant Church of England, it is vain to conjecture. There
were also several clergymen who, foUowing the example of the non-
juring bishops of the Revolution, willingly ventured upon the conse
quences of refusing the oath of allegiance to the house of Hanover.
With something of the integrity and self-denial of the older Noncon
formists, they resigned their benefices, and became incapable of hold
ing any office in the national Church.
Of ¦the nonjurors, one of the most remarkable was Dr. Thomas
versary of the battle of Culloden. At this time Mr. Joseph Mottershead, a very
•quiet and peaceable man, was the presbyterian minister in Manchester, and Mr,
John Seddon (whom Dr. Priestley called ' a Sdoiuian ') was his assistant. Owen,
however, although residing at Rochdale, seems to have intermeddled in aU the
quarrels of the Manchester Dissenters as if he had been their leader.
* Collectanea relating to Manchester, compiled by John Harland, F.S.A., p. 168.
In 1735 Mr. Wesley paid his second visit to Manchester, and preached in Trinity
•chapel, Salford. In the same year Mr. Whitefleld first preached in Manchester. — Ibid.
t In his early visits to Lancashire, Mr. Wesley found the people in the puritan
parts of the county very unmanageable. In his Journal he says of Rochdale :
' As soon as ever we entered the town, we found the streets on both sides Uned
with multitudes of people, shouting, cursing, blaspheming, and gnashing upon us
with their teeth.' . ' . ' We came to Bolton about five in the evening. We had
no sooner entered the main street than we perceived the lions at Rochdale were
lambs in comparison with those of Bolton. Such rage and bitterness I scarce ever
saw before in any creatures that bore the form of men. They followed us in fuU
cry to the house where we went ; and as soon as we were gone in, took possession
of all the avenues to it and filled the streets from one end to the other. After
some time the waves did not roar quite so loud, and Mr. P. thought he might ven
ture out. They immediately closed in, threw him down, rolled him in the mire,
80 that when he scrambled from them and got into the house again, one could
scarcely tell what or who he was.' — Extracts citedin Centenary Memorials of Duke's
Alley Chapel, Bolton -le- Moors, p. 28. When he was preaching in 1747 iu Salford,
the people threatened to play the fire-engine on Mr. Wesley. — Collectanea, p. 169.

THE OLD DISSENT. 477
Deacon, the pastor, or, as he was often styled, the bishop of a congre
gation accustomed to assemble in a building called by the Whigs of
Manchester the ' schism shop in Fennell Street.' Although a devoted
nonjuror, he differed from the Church of England much more widely
than most of his brethren who like himself had refused to take the
oath of allegiance. The nonjurors generally had no objection to the
articles or formularies of the English Church, and would gladly have
continued thefr minisfry in its communion, if they could have done
so without swearing allegiance to the ruUng powers. Some of them,
it is true, like Dodwell, held very strange doctrines, but they would
not allow that their doctrines were contradictory to any of the articles
of the EngUsh Church. Some accredited clergymen probably held
them, as well as these nonjurors.
But the schismatics of FenneU Street imputed false doctrine to the
Church of England, as well as to all other existing Churches save
thefr own. I have already referred to the errors of the Greek, the
Latin, and the English Church which were discovered and refuted
by Podmore the learned barber. In his estimate of thoae errors, the
doctor generally agreed with the barber. The book from which we
may learn their doctrine is entitled ' A fuU, frue, and comprehensive
view of Christianity, containing a short historical account of religion
from the creation of the world to the fourth century after our Lord
Jesus Christ, as also the complete duty of a Christian in relation to
faith, practice, worship, and rituals, set forth sincerely, without re
gard to any modem Church, sect, or party, as it is taught in the
Holy Scriptures, waa deUvered by the Apostles, and received by the
Universal Church of Christ during the first four centuries.'
This title is not only comprehensive but appropriate, for assuredly
no 'modern Church, sect, or party,' out of FenneU Sfreet, Man
chester, ever believed the reUgions principles of this remarkable book.
As soon as it was published, the Tory clergymen of the coUegiate
church were greatly annoyed on account of the CathoUc doctrines
which it maintained : Catholic doctrines some of them undoubtedly
were, as they had been uniformly professed by aU episcopal Churches,
Latin, Greek, and Oriental, before the Reformation, and yet they
were not the doctrines of the Church of England. The collegiate
feUows had expected a defence of High Church principles, and had
therefore soUcited subscriptions for the book ; but they found in it so
much confradiction of the articles of their own Church, that they
knew not how with a good grace either to defend or to abandon the
position they had hastUy assumed. Owen, the fierce Presbyterian,
had accused them of promoting popery by encouraging Deacon, and
they found he had good reason for his accusation. Thefr old enemy.
Bishop Peploe, armed with visitatorial powers, would soon, as they
feared, charge them vrith favouring aU sorts of false doctrine. The
more moderate of their own par^, Tories but not Jacobites, were
ashamed of thefr imprudence.
On the pubUcation of the book, the author appeared so desirous
for reunion with the CathoUc Church that he was hastily supposed
to have renounced the principles of the Reformation. A careful

478 LANCASHIRE.
reading of the work, however, would have shown that there was not
much reason to fear on that account. He longed for a union with
the popish church, but to accomplish it the pope must be converted,
and make such concessions to Dr. Deacon as no pope ever thought
of making to an emperor. He would hold communion with the pope,
if the pope would accept his creed instead of the decrees of the Coun
cil of Trent : just as he would hold communion vrith King George,
if he would return to Hanover, and leave the throne for its rightful
owner. Deacon was no lover of schism, for he would gladly have
healed aU schism by inducing all schismatics to unite with his, ' True
British Catholic Church. ' Owen came out fiercely against the feUows
in a publication entitled ' Jacobite or Nonjuring Principles Examined,
in a Letter to the Master Tool of the Faction,' the said ' master tool '
being Dr. Byrom, who, though not in orders, had considerable influ
ence over the Jacobite clergy.* One specimen of the style of this
presbyterian polemic may be quite enough for the reader. Deacon
had contended that exorcism was one of the rites of true baptism
which the English Church had renounced. Owen exclaimed, ' Un
happily, infants come out 'of thefr Maker's hands possessed of the
devU ! but a poor contemptible devU it is, to be blown out of his do
minion by the breath of a nonjuring priest. The fire of exorcism,
says Dr. Deacon, not only burns but drives away the de^vil. Right !
a burnt devil, Uke a burnt child, dreads the fire.'
The difference between Dr. Deacon's Church and all other Churches
is apparent in the foUowing particulars :
According to him there are twelve sacraments : two greater —
baptism and the eucharist ; ten smaUer — exorcism, the anointing
¦with oil, the wearing of white garmente, the taste of milk and
honey, the anointing with chrism, the signing of the cross, the im
position of hands, the anointing of the sick, holy orders, and matri
mony. The doctor also taught that it was a duty obUgatory upon all
Christians to abstain from eating blood, and to stand when praying
on Sundays and on every day between Easter and "Whitsuntide. In
deed, he seems scarcely to have known who was the worse sinner
the Churchman who kneeled when praying on Sundays or the Dis
senter who stood when praying on Fridays. Praying to saints or
angels he strictly prohibited. He utterly denied the doctrine of tran-
substantiation and the real presence in every form. His doctrine of
the oblation of the body and blood of Christ in the sacrament was
pecuUar to his Uttle sect, yet as it secures the authority of the priest
in offering the sacrifice of Christ without involring the absurdities
and contradictions of the real presence, I wonder that it has not been
accepted by other advocates of sacerdotal power. By the repetition
* Byrom was well able to reply in prose or verse to Owen and his presbyterian
friends. He was the writer of the Unes well known in Lancashire : —
' God bless the King ! I mean our faith's defender,
God bless (no harm in blessing) the Pretender !
But who Pretender is, or who is King,
God bless us aU ! that's quite another thing.'

THE OLD DISSENT. 479
of the words ' This is my body,' ' This is my blood,' made by an
apostoUc priest, the bread and wine become the authorised symbols of
the body and blood of Christ, and as such they are offered a propi
tiatory sacrifice for sin, the symbols being accepted for the reality.
Of the solemn fasts of the Church he insisted upon the strict obser
vance of Good Friday and Holy Saturday. The doctor condemned
both the Latin and the English Church for the insertion of ' fiUoque '
in the Athanasian creed, for the reading of the Apocrypha as Scrip
ture, and for the neglect of the trine immersion. And further, he
regarded the fundamental principle of the English Church, the royal
supremacy, as the worst of abominations, the scandalous sale of the
birthright of the Church for a mess of pottage.
For the use of his church he printed ' A complete Collection of
Devotions both public and private, taken from the Apostolic Consti
tutions, the Ancient Liturgies, and the Book of Common Prayer.'
Of the number of his adherente the accounts are contradictory.
One opponent says scornfully that the congregation consisted of
' only a few score of old women.' Another says angrUy, ' He has in
veigled such numbers that, unable to do his business himself, he has
ordained a queer dog of a barber.' It is certain that his books had a
large sale, that his influence in Manchester was considerable, and
that several of his people were in circumstances to purchase commis
sions in the Manchester regiment of the pretender's army.
The barbarous severities vrith which the rebeUion of 1715 was
crushed perpetuated the bitter and resentful feeling with which the
Whig government was regarded by the Catholics and High Church
men of Lancashire. No man did more than Dr. Deacon to preserv.e
and exasperate this feeUng, although he did it with so much skill and
contrivance as to escape prosecution. Li-ring on intimate terms vrith
the collegiate clergy, he was suspected of being the medium of clan
destine communications between them and the pretender, while they
were pubUcly accused by thefr enemies. Bishop Peploe and Mr.
Owen, of encouraging and promoting, as far as they dared, the
freasonable purposes and schemes of the Jacobites. Meetings of the
adherents of the Stuarts were regularly held in different taverns of
Manchester (frequently known by their signs), in which the Jacobites
drank the health of ' the king ' over the water (not, I suppose, drink
ing of the water).* Many of the clergy were known to frequent
these convivial meetings, especiaUy at a favourite tavern at Didsbury.
The chief and acknowledged agent of the pretender was Colonel
Townley, a member of the great CJathoUc family of that name, whose
intimate association vrith the coUegiate clergy was notorious and un
deniable. How far he made them acquainted vrith the plans and
purposes which he afterwards worked, or how far he thought it pru
dent to trust them, there are no means of discovering.f
¦* The Rev. Richard Assheton assigns, as one of the reasons of Warden Peploe's
refusal to admit him chaplain, when elected by the feUows of the church, that he
never entered a tavern which was caUed ' the George,' and never baptised a child
¦with that Hanoverian name.
t The intimacy of Dr. Byrom with Townley is apparent in a poem addressed to

480 LANCASHIRE.
When, in November 1745, Prince Charles marched into Lancashfre,
Colonel Townley, ha-ving carefully made his arrangements vrith the
Jacobites for the reception of the prince in Manchester, joined the
pretender's stendard at Preston. On the evening of Friday, Novem
ber 28, the vanguard of the rebels entered Manchester, and on the
foUowing morning the main body joined them and encamped in St.
Ann's Square, then newly buUt. Thefr friends, being prepared for
thefr arrival, collected in crowds, and greeted them vrith shouts of
welcome. The Whigs and Presbyterians were only too glad to keep
out of thefr way. Colonel Townley, who had previously engaged
several of the gentlemen and principal fradera of the town for officers,
speedily mustered and enrolled a Manchester regiment in the service
of the prince. Three sons of Dr. Deacon were, on the ad-rice of their
father and with his prayers and blessing, among the first who obteined
thefr commissions. Thomas Syddall, who had never aUowed to
decay within him that inveterate hatred of Whigs and Dissenters
which took possession of his soul when he saw the head of his father
fixed upon the market-cross of Manchester, showed so much zeal and
activity that he was made adjutant of the regiment, and worked in
cessantly for the cause. Of the officers, some were members of
Deacon's church, some were CathoUcs, and some orthodox Church
men. Several were so zealous as to purchase their commissions at a
considerable price. A captain's commission was bought of Colonel
Townley for 50Z. One of the first enroUed was Captain James Daw
son, who was the subject of Shenstone's beautiful baUad entitled
' Jemmy Dawson.' * The Rev. Thomas Coppock of Brasenose Col
lege, Oxon, a teacher in the grammar school, was appointed chaplain.
Dressed in full canonicals,- he accompanied a drummer through the
town, and exhorted the townsmen in the name of their God to enUst
in the serrice of thefr rightful sovereign. How many Manchester
men enlisted does not very distinctly appear, but so far as we can
the Jacobite colonel, who was sadly addicted to profane swearing : —
' Soldier, so tender of thy prince's fame.
Why so profane of a superior name ?
For thy king's sake the brunt of battle bear,
But for the King of kings' sake — Do not swear.'
* ' Toung Dawson was a gallant youth,
A brighter never trod the plain.
And well he loved one charming maid.
And dearly was he loved again.'
This ' charming maid ' foUowed her lover as he was drawn on a sledge to the
scaffold. ' And then her mourning coach was called.
The sledge moved slowly on before ;
Though borne in her triumphal car
She had not loved her favourite more.
' The dismal scene was o'er and past.
The lover's mournful hearse retired.
The maid threw back her languid head,
And sighing forth his name expired.'

THE OLD DISSENT. 481
ascertain from the reports of the recruiting sergeant and of Lieuten
ant Deacon, the secretary of the regiment, they were above five
hundi-ed. On that Saturday the prince was proclaimed amidst loud
applause in St. Ann's Square, and in several other parts of the town.
The Rev. Mr. Clayton, one of the chaplains of the collegiate church,
offered before a listening crowd prayers for the new king in the
public street of Salford. The rejoicings and festivities of the day
were closed with iUuminations and fireworks in the evening.
But Sunday, November 30, was the grand day of the Jacobites,
one of the great Sundays of which Manchester has seen so many.
As it was St. Andrew's day, the Scotch, in honour of their national
saint, had the service celebrated in the collegiate church according
to the formularies of the Scottish episcopal community. The
Manchester regiment mustered in the churchyard around thefr flag
inscribed ' Church and Country.' The men mounted blue and white
cockades, and the officers wore waistcoats of Stuart tartan. The
ladies with tartan ribbons, shawls, and mantles crowded the church
and paraded the sfreets. Never in Manchester has there been such
a magnificent display of tartan plaid as blazed out on that memorable
Sunday. Prince Charles occupied the warden's seat, and Coppock
preached before him from the -text, ' The Lord is King, let the earth
be glad thereof.' Men and women, whose grandfathers and grand
mothers in that venerable church had felt thefr souls stirred within
them by Warden Heyricke's fierce denunciations of the popish policy
of a Stuart, Ustened with delight to the flattering eulogies offered to
his popish descendant. Where Warden Peploe was on that Sunday
I do not know, but he showed none of the spirit of his father, who,
thirty years before, prayed for King George in the midst of the
pretender's soldiery. Nor do 1 iuid either the Presbyterians or the
Whigs offering any counter-demonstration. The congregations who
on that day ought to have been with thefr orange colours praying
for King George in Cross Street meeting-house or in St. Ann's
church seem to have confined thefr devotions to their private
houses. Owen preached against the Jacobites, but as far from them
as Rochdale. The spirit which thfrty years before inspfred Parson
Woods of Chowbent seems to have departed fi-om the Presbyterians
of East Lancashfre. Although their brethren in Liverpool were
arming in defence of the house of Hanover, and threatening deter
mined resistance to the Stuarts, they had lost their zeal, actirity,
and courage. Especially in old puritan Manchester the orange
plumes seem to have grown pale and faded into white feathers before
the bright colours of the Stuart tartan.*
After a day or two the Manchester regiment marched southward
with their prince through Macclesfield towards Derby; but they
soon returned, in opposition to the earnest and indignant remon-
* Among the most zealous and active of the volunteers ¦n'ho enlisted in the
Liverpool regiment for the defence of King George, was Mr. John Johnson, pastor
of the Baptist church in Byrom Street, and the founder of the sect of Johnsonian
Baptists, whose peculiarities are described in Kurd's History of Religious Denomin
ations. See also Thorn's Liverpool Churches and Chapels, p. 44.
Il

482 LANCASHIRE.
strances of their adjutant Syddall and their chaplain Coppock.
Distrusting the skill of thefr own officers, and -obserring that many
of the Scotch were going the nearest road to thefr own country -vrith
as much booty as they could carry, they yielded to a panic, and,
returning to Manchester, broke up the regiment and dispersed in the
town. Coppock, Syddall, the Deacons, and a few others, kept
together, retreated to CarUsle, and made a feeble effort to hold that
city for Prince Charles. They were compelled to surrender at
discretion. Coppock was executed at Carlisle. He appeared on the
scaffold in full canonicals, and prayed for his true and lawful
superior. Prince Charles. Ten of them were sent to London and
executed on Kennington Common. Among these were Adjutant
Syddall and Lieutenant Deacon, both of whom died with wonderful
calmness and heroism. Syddall spent an hour in his private
devotions. While he was so engaged, a pile of faggots by which his
heart was to be burnt accidentally ignited. He calmly looked on the
fire and prayed, ' Lord, help me ! ' He avowed his faith in the true
British Church, not the corrupt Church of the pope nor the schis-
matioal Church of the Hanoverians.* He prayed for James III., his
rightful king, and for Charles Edward and Henry Benedict, the true
Prince of Wales and Duke of York. He entreated God to forgive
his enemies, and protested that he had acted from a deep and settied
conriction of the justice of the cause for which he was ready to die.
Finally he prayed, ' May all my dear children have grace to tread
the dangerous steps which have led me to this place, and may they
also have the courage and constancy to endure to the end, and to
despise power when it is opposed to duty.' t
The heads of SyddaU and Deacon were sent to Manchester, and
placed on poles on the exchange. J Dr. Deacon was among the first
who went to look upon the head of his son and that of his friend.
He raised his hat, and uncovered thanked God for their faith and
constancy. His friends performed the same act of reverence, and, as
long as the heads remained upon the exchange, the Jacobites never
passed without respectfully stopping and raising their hats. This
was a sad annoyance to "the Presbyterians. It was denounced as
false worship and idolafry by thefr intemperate preacher Owen, who
not only preached but printed, ' It is one of my principles that
sho^wing religious honours to rebels' skuUs is false worship in the
Christian sense, but true nonjuring and Jacobite devotion.'§
A day of public thanksgiring was observed in Manchester.
* All the Deaoonites who were executed made the same profession of their faith
on the scaffold.
+ A document in the posse.ssion of a descendant of SyddaU professes to be the
dying speech of the martyr. It is signed ' Thomas SyddiJl,' and dated on the day
of his execution ; but it is improbable that the whole of it was addressed to the
spectators. It may have been written by Dr, Deacon, and signed by SyddaU as
the expression of the sentiments to which he briefiy adverted on the scaffold.
t An entry in the accounts of the constable of Manchester is : ' Expence, tending
the Sheriff this morning for Syddall's and Deacon's heads put up, 01. Is. Od.'
§ Owen's scandalous sermon, to which I have already referred, is entitled, AU is
well; or the Defeat of the late RebeUion, an exalted and iUustrious blessing.

THE OLD DISSENT. 483
WhUe the Tory feUows of the coUegiate church were sulky and
sUent, the Whig clergy and the presbyterian ministers preached
sermons to prove that ' the rebels and traitors were guUty of the most
atrocious crimes, and had no just claim to the distinction of Christian
martyrdom.'* The partisans of the house of Branswick made a
grand display of thefr loyalty. St. Ann's church and Cross Street
meeting-house appeared almost as gay with orange ribbons as, in the
preceding November, the coUegiate church had been vrith Stuart
tartan. The bells rang through the day, the festi-rities of which
were closed with bonfires and Uluminations in the evening. A Whig
mob was collected and instigated by men who ought to have known
better, until it became almost as outrageous and unmanageable as
the Tory mob of the prerious year. They made a savage attack
upon the house of Dr. Deacon mourning for his son, and upon that
of widow Syddall weeping with her four orphans for their father,
and in cruel mockery of their grief forced an illumination by putting
lights in thefr windows. Byrom's satfre was not undeserved : —
' Leave to the low-bred Owens of the age
Sense to belye and loyalty to rage,
Wit to make treason of each cry and chat.
And eyes to see false worship in a hat.'
With the suppression of the rebelUon in the middle of the
eighteenth century, we may well leave the coarse sermons of Owen
and the clever songs of Byrom, and notice the progress or the
decline of nonconformity since the building of the venerable sanctu
aries, most of which were erected before the accession of the house
of Hanover.
In many parts of the county, probably in most of the rural
districts, it had considerably decUned in numbers, and still more in
respectability and influence. In some large towns where the dissent
ing ministers were popular preachers or exemplary Christians, or
where the clergymen were not popular or not exemplary, the non
conformist congregations received numerous accessions of prosperous
traders or professional men ; but in others, under inefficient preaching,
they sadly declined, and seemed ready to die vrith the aged occupants
of the great famUy pews. Complaints frequently occur in the diaries
of their ministers, and in other documents, of the indifference or
desertion of their young people. Dr. Priestley, who knew Lanca
shire well, reckoned that in the reigns of the first two Georges the
Dissenters had diminished by a third of thefr original numbers.
The landed gentry, especiaUy of tho higher class, had generaUy
forsaken them. Of the old nonconformist famiUes, the Hydes, the
Hollands, the Booths, the Asshetons, the Shuttleworths, the Birches,
the Mosleys, and many more, had left scarcely a representative in
their sanctuaries. Of the higher class of Lancashfre gentry, the
Hoghtons were almost the only family who continued to take any
interest in the dissenting cause. Some of the prosperous dissenting
merchants and manufacturers purchased considerable estates in the
* Sermon of Rev. Mr. Nicholls preached in St. Ann's Church.

484 LANCASHIRE.
county, but if they adhered to thefr principles, they did not gain the
position or influence of the old families whose names, as the founders
of thefr sanctuaries, seemed a few years earUer Ukely to be associated
with nonconformity as long as nonconformity might exist in the
county. A great change had graduaUy come over (or rather in the middle
of the century was coming over) the theology of the old noncon
formist societies. To trace this change to its cause is not easy, nor
is it easy to find the solution of several perplexing questions respect
ing its progress and results. To the founders of the presbyterian
meeting-houses in the beginning of the last century it would seem,
could the change have been suggested, very improbable, and certainly
very undesfrable, that their grandchUdren occupying the same
sanctuaries should Usten to the exposition of Arian docfrine, or thefr
great-grandchUdren to that of unitarianism. Had they foreseen the
change, they probably would not have built their meeting-houses,
certainly would not have endowed them. This I may assume from
what I know of those founders, vrithout joining in the outcry about
spoUation and robbery which some Dissenters (and some Churchmen
too who have little concern in the dispute) have raised against men
who retain possession of thefr fathers' sanctuaries whUe they have
renounced the formularies of their fathers' faith. It may be very
natural and proper for Dissenters who retain the doctrines of the old
Nonconformists to regret, as I do, that their sanctuaries and trusts
should have fallen into the hands of the opponents of those doctrines.
But so far from giring utterance to any accusation or insinuation of
dishonesty against honourable and upright men, I express my belief
that if the fransition were reversed in a chapel of unitarian founda
tion, Trinitarians would with an easy conscience take advantage of a
change brought about by those who had no purpose or thought of
alienating the property. I think it right to say so much, lest I
should be misunderstood in expressing, as I may have occasion to ex
press, my wish that the Dissenters of the last century had generally
adhered to the faith as well as to the foundations of thefr fathers.
The change in the theology of many Nonconformists, which, though
great, was gradual, has been attributed, I think inconsiderately, to
the influence of presbyterian rather than of independent ministers.
The greatest offenders or the greatest reformers (however the change
may be regarded) were educated among the Independents, more
frequently than among the Presbyterians. In London, in the early
part of the last century, Nathaniel Lardner, Martin Tomkins, Moses
Lowman, and Jeremiah Hunt, educated as independent ministers
and accepted as members of the independent board, were the chief
supporters of the new theology.* So on comparison of the Lanca-
¦* Even after Dr. Lardner was elected afternoon preacher in the presbyterian
meeting-house in Poor Jewry Lane, he continued a member of the Congregational
Board. In a Ust of independent ministers iu 1734 occurs the name of Richard
Lardner, Sen., but the words ' Richard ' and ' Sen.' are written by a later hand.
Mr. James says, in his learned History of the Litigation and Legislation respect
ing Presbyterian Chapels and Churches, ' The original entry appears to have
been meant, for the son ' (p. 715). There can be Uttle doubt about it.

THE OLD DISSENT. 485
shfre ministers belonging to the middle of the century, those educated
in the independent academy of Northampton and Davenfry, under
Doddridge and Ashworth (;the academy of Priestley and Belsham),
were more decided and active in promoting the new theology than
those who had been educated in the presbyterian academy under
Dr. Rotheram at Kendal. It is true that some of the independent
ministers of the time were among the most zealous and determined
opponents of the Arian doctrine. The subsequent differences between
the Independents and the Presbyterians, in reference to their adhe
rence to the old faith or reception of the new doctrine, may be
explained partly by the difference in the character and habits of thefr
ministers, and partly by the difference in amount of influence which
the laity exercised in thefr respective societies.
As to their ministry, the presbyterian ministers, as they appear to
me, were, in the middle of the last century, generaUy good, quiet
men, moring with the times, but moring slowly, doing thefr pastoral
work steadily, but doing little else, living to be old in a sort of
comfortable and respectable poverty, having little to fear or to expect
from innovations, provided they came gradually and did not rudely
disturb their nonconformist traditions. They were not the men to
impel or to resist a religious movement. The probability was that
in such a movement they would preserve a middle course, the more
active restraining the extremes, the less active resting between them.
Many of them desired to maintain the confidence of both Calvinists
and Arians, and therefore said little about controverted doctrines.
They betook themselves to preaching on e-ridences, or moral duties,
or Scripture histories, without noticing the controversies of their time.
The people who loved the puritan theology either forsook such
preaching, or lost under its influence their early predUections. It is
very difficult to say what the doctrine of some of these preachers
was, or whether they had any doctrine at all. Arianism has not
proved a resting-place for religious teachers who come into collision
with other people, but it was a comfortable resting-place for some of
the presbyterian ministers so long as they could contrive to say
nothing about it.
The independent ministers, on the contrary, belonging to a
younger sect, subjected to a different training, and having smaller
endowments and therefore more work, were more disposed to take an
active part in the polemical discussions of the time, and to become
prominent in impelling or resisting the progress of the new theology.
It seemed strange to the regular Presbyterians that such men as
Thomas Ridgley and Thomas Bradbury on the one hand, and Moses
Lowman and Nathaniel Lardner on the other, should belong to the
same board and sip their rum and water together at the same tevern.*
Whether they thus softened or exasperated their polemics I do not
" The only test 1 can find of the Independent Board or Third Body, as it was
sometimes caUed, was that every member should at their meetings ' spend two
pence for the good of the house ' that afforded them accommodation. This I find
stated in the MSS. of the late Dr. Humphreys, principal of MUl Hill Grammar
School, as a rule of the Independent Board when he joined it towards the close of
the last century.

486 LANCASHIRE.
know, but they acted fairly in their elections, for on the appointment
of six to represent them as a deputation to the throne, Mr. Bradbury,
Dr. Ridgley, Dr. Watts, Mr. Hurrion, Mr. Lowman, and Mr. Asty,
men representing various opinions, were elected.* Whatever may
have been thefr theological differences, they were of one faith in their
politics, for they were all fierce Hanoverians, and probably forgot
their reUgious polemics as well as their puritan traditions in drinking
to the health of King George and confusion to the pretender. The
difference, however, in their theology was ao great as to justify the
conclusion that the departure from the old faith of the Nonconform
ists was zealously promoted on the one hand, and resisted on the
other, by ministers of the independent denomination.
It is often said that the laymen of the Presbyterians were more
favourable to the new doctrine than those of the Independents. It
would be more correct to say, they offered less opposition to it. This
may be attributed partly to the unwillingness of the presbyterian laity
to oppose a ministerial movement, but chiegy to the constitution and
practice of the Independent churches, in which discussion was
common, and every member might speak and vote against the teach
ing of his pastor. Among the Presbyterians a layman who did not
approve of his minister's doctrine would probably go elsewhere, as
many did go to church. Among the Independents a dissatisfied
member would probably raise a controversy with the minister or
propose a change in the ministry. Very few independent churches
became unitarian, whUe some presbyterian societies remained ortho
dox. After a few years, the societies concurring in doctrine became
uniform in discipline and connected by friendly association. When
they were distinguished by different names, such as retained the old
theology were commonly called Independents, and such as lapsed
into the new were as commonly called Presbyterians, without much
regard to the appropriateness of their respective designations.
Indeed, in many parts of England, and especially in Lancashire and
Cheshire, the distinction of the two denominations was practically
obUterated after the passing of the Act of Toleration. Students
from the academies of one party often became ministers of the
meeting-houses nominaUy belonging to the other. The most im
portant difierence was that to which I have aUuded. In the societies
originally independent there was a traditional disposition of the
members to interfere in ecclesiastical matters, while in those originally
presbyterian the traditional disposition was to acquiesce in the pro
posals of the minister and managers of the meeting-house. The
former proved conservative of the old theology, where at first it
seemed in the greatest danger ; the latter proved favourable to the
growth of Arianism, not so much because it was Arianism, but
because it was the creed of the preachers. To the freedom and self-
government of the independent churches, preserved not only in
theory but "in practice, they are, I believe, chiefly indebted for the
preservation of evangelical doctrine when it was lost in so many of
the presbyterian societies. Their freedom — their democracy, as some
¦* James's History, &c., p. 713.

THE OLD DISSENT, 487
call it—has been thefr conservative principle in seasons of danger
and religious declension.
When, in the middle of the eighteenth century, there was observed
among the dissenting ministers of Lancashfre a prevalent departure
from the old puritan theology, it was, I think, not generally under
stood or accepted by their congregations. The silence respecting
evangelical doctrine was supposed to arise from dislike of the old
modes of stating the truth, rather than from dislike of the truth
itself. Hearers were sometimes reconcUed to the absence of any
statement of doctrine by the assertion or the insinuation that dog
matism was offensive and confroversial preaching unprofitable. With
this negative sort of theology there remained about the dissenting
pulpits not a Uttle of the puritan spirit, or at least the semblance of
it. The preachers' manner often betrayed thefr origin and early
education. They talked their fathers' language after they had lost
their fathers' faith. The phraseology of Ambrose, Newcome, and
the Heywoods was often heard with pleasure by old people, who
gladly, received it as a :^emembrance, after it had ceased to be a
representation, of puritan doctrine.
But all this was unreal, and therefore could not long continue.
The ministers who had scarcely any doctrine to teaoh felt little
interest in thefr own teaching, and consequently excited little interest
in their hearers. Many who were Arians came, from the mere habit
of saying nothing about Arianism, to care very Uttle for it. Their
preaching almost of necessity became vague, indefinite, and very
unimpressive. In thefr gloomy meeting-houses it was often hard
work for people to keep awake through the sermon. Some men
cannot but' speak earnestly upon any subject on which they speak at
all ; but such men are not numerous, and the position of a dissenting
minister of that time, especiaUy in country places, was singularly
unfavourable to earnest and impassioned address. Strangers were'
not expected to risit the meeting-house, and therefore no effort was
made to interest them. The countenance of every hearer in the pews
was as familiar to the preacher as his own cushion or his big Bible.
Devotional feeling, unless it were of the most calm, quiet, and sub
dued form, was often considered fanaticism. The common people
had Uttle sympathy with critical or ethical disquisitions. The
children were expected in the evening to give some account of the
afternoon sermons ; but of all things in the world those afternoon
sermons must have been the most uninteresting and wearisome to
children. The religion of the meeting-house in the decline of puri
tanism became little more than a tradition and a formality. Some
persons continued to worship, or at least to sit stiU, for an hour or
two on the Sundays in the sanctuaries where they had been baptized
and thefr fathers buried ; but while they endured the dulness, others
found opportunities, especially on the death or removal of a minister,
to go elsewhere, the wealthy to more fashionable places of resort, the
poor to the exciting services of the itinerant preachers of the Me-
thodiste, then beginning to travel through the country. In some in
stances the declension was stayed by the eloquence of the preacher, by

488 LANCASHIRE.
his carefril attention to pastoral duties, or by his pleasant and conciliat
ing manners. But the decline of the dissenting interest was freely
spoken of by its own ministers, preached about at thefr associations,
lamented by the more religious of them, and attributed to various
causes, seldom to the frue cause, their own loss of their fathers'
evangelical power to interest and affect the people. In several
¦rillages, and in some towns, the sanctuaries themselves, ill -kept, ill-
repafred, ill-cleaned, were melancholy witnesses of some ' abomination
that maketh desolate.' Had it not been for assistance from London
or for their own scanty endowments, many of them, would have
fallen or have been utterly forsaken. How sadly they needed for
the rerival of thefr religion the incessant activity of Oliver Heywood,
the pathetic expostulation of Isaac Ambrose, the affectionate address
of John Angler, the quickening power of their first preachers ! But
in the middle of the eighteenth century there was in Lancashire no
Heywood, nor Ambrose, nor Angier, nor any man Uke the founders
of Lancashfre nonconformity.
I do not attribute the decline of the dissenting interest in Lanca
shire exclusively to Arianism, concealed or avowed, nor to Arminianism,
which generaUy preceded it. The Calvinism of the time, such as it
was, must bear no small proportion of the blame. A sort of creeping
paralysis had come upon the nonconforming societies, whether they
professed an orthodox or a heterodox faith, or had no faith at aU.
The puritan theology, where it was preserved, seemed too often a
tradition rather than a faith, an old religion which had grown infirm
and decrepit, and lost the spirit and strength which had once worked
wonders on the earth. The wrestling with e-vU spfrits, the con
straining love of Christ, the glorying only in the cross, the terrors
of the world to come, the bright and blessed hope of everlasting life,
had become unmeaning phrases on the Ups of many who professed
to retain the faith as well as to speak the language of their puritan
ancestors. The old Calrinism which had worked so mightily in the
hearts of the reformers, the Puritans, and the founders of noncon
formity, had been in New England formulated into a metaphysical
creed, and, however identified in theory, had become in practice and
experience almost another religion. The feeling of the father's
heart became a logical deduction of the son's intellect. The Calrin
ism with which the Puritans fought popery, prelacy, Arminianism,
and sin, became phUosophioal necessity among the metaphysical
di^vines of the last century. Irrefragable as was thefr reasoning, it
could not be made to work upon the hearts of the common people,
nor even upon the hearts of the metaphysicians themselves. ' The
depravity of the human heart ' and ' the necessary defectibiUty of aU
dependent moral agents ' might mean the same thing, as might ' the
electing love of God in Christ ' and ' the indissoluble connection of all
events mediately or immediately with the First Cause,' but the new
phraseology as uttered in the pulpits of nonconformity had lost the
power of ¦the old dirinity. President Edwards and many of his
school were undoubtedly and pre-eminently devout and earnest men,
but thefr devotion and earnestness no more grew out of thefr reason-

THE OLD DISSENT. 489
ing upon necessity and contingency than Dr. Priestley's devotion, of
which I shall speak presently, grew from the source to which he
attributed it — the materiaUsm of Hartley. Refute them ! — who
would be foolish enough to attempt it ? As a man weighs none the
heavier by beUeving the laws of gravitation, so he becomes none the
more devout by the help of a metaphysical demonstration of Calrin
istic theology.
It may be said that the dissenting congregations of the last century,
whether lethargic Calvinists or sleeping Arians, were not much
addicted to metaphysical reasoning. Generally they were not. But
some teachers of both creeds resorted to modes of reasoning which
their disciples were taught to regard, whether they understood them
or not, as the oracles of God. Men with small reasoning powers
often trust the deductions of a logical preacher as firmly as a rustic
trusts the calculations of an astronomer for the eclipses of the coming
year. Religion, whatever may be the creed of the intellect, is always
a feeble and worthless thing if it do not grow out of the affections
and sympathies of the moral nature of man, that is, if it be not faith
but phUosophy.*
I offer these remarks, not to account for the decay of the religious
life among the Calvinistic Dissenters of the past age, but to caU
attention to the fact that Calvinism had lost its old power, and had
become weak as Arminianism in breathing life ino the dying
churches. Nor let the Arminian boast, for Arminianism, almost
universaUy prevalent in the established Church in contradiction of
its articles, did quite as little for the religious life of that communion
as either Calvinism or Arianism did for that of the Dissenters.
Religion everywhere and in every form was becoming a speculation
under whose withering influence the devotions of every communion
were nigh unto death. When the revival came, as if to show how
small is the practical importance of these speculations, it worked
with equal and mighty power through the Calvinism of George
Whitefleld and the Arminianism of John Wesley,
In the change which after the middle of the last century was
produced in the theology of a large part of the Dissenters of Lanca
shire, two men acted so conspicuous a part that they claim particular
notice. I refer to Dr. John Tatlob and Dr. Joseph Peiestlet.
Although they were both brought into the county by the trustees of
the Warrington academy, yet as the former did the greater part of
his work before he became connected with the academy and the latter
after he left it, I may notice the influence which they exercised upon
the dissenting societies before I give some account of the academical
institution itself.
In their wide departure from the puriten doctrine, both Taylor
and Priestley retained much of the puriten spirit and character. In
Taylor it appeared in his love of free prayer, his veneration of the
ejected ministers, his respect for puritan traditions and modes of
¦• With those Calvinistic preachers to whom Edwards's Inquiry into the Freedom
of the Will was too duU or too profound ¦-¦ work, Augustus Toplady was a great
authority.

490 LASf CASHIRE.
serrice, and his outburst of indignant feeling against the introduction
of a liturgy into the sanctuaries of nonconformity. In Priestley it
assumed the form of an intense love of freedom, and an abhorrence
of all restraint upon reUgious enquiry or religious profession. Both
were pious men, each after his own manner, which was a very strange
manner with both of them. Taylor's seems to have been an ill-tem
pered sort of piety, with which his love of his neighbour did not
combine so kindly and pleasantly as, according to the teaching of
St. John, it ought to have done. Priestley's piety, if he understood
himself, was nourished by strange aliment, his faith in Hartley's
materiaUsm,* and yet it was simple, loring, confiding, meekly sub
missive to God, and tenderly benevolent to men. Both reasoned on
reUgion, but Taylor reasoned on the phUology and criticism of
Scripture ; Priestley on the phUosophy of cause and effect, the
phenomena of the material, and the laws of volition. Taylor, an
Arminian and an Arian, was eridentiy disposed to go further from
the puritan theology than his puritan respect for the letter of Scrip
ture would allow him ; Priestley, though beginning his studies at
Daventry as an Arminian, was compelled by his philosophy to re
nounce as absurd and unintelUgible his early notion of free will, and
to maintain the simple humanity of Jesus, the Christ. Taylor
graduaUy led his hearers to his own position of Arminianism and
Arianism ; Priestley forcibly drove the Arians to his conclusions of
necessity, materiaUsm, universal predestination, and simple humani-
, tarianism. Both were firm believers in the miraculous attestation of
Christianity, as both professed unreserved submission to the authority
of Christ and His Apostles. To neither was Christianity, as it is to
modem rationalists, merely an echo of the Divine voice within the
soul, or an illustration of the truths of natural religion. To both it
was a revelation of doctrines which never could have been discovered
by the light of nature, and especially of the doctrine of the resurrec
tion ©f the dead, attested and verified by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ. Dr. Taylor was a native of Lancashire, having been born in the
neighbourhood of Lancaster in the year 1694. He received his edu
cation and training for the ministry in the dissenting academy over
which the Rev. Dr. Dixon presided at Whitehaven, and from which
proceeded in the early part of the last century some of the best
ministers of the northern counties. On completing his preparatory
studies, he became the pastor of a small congregation at Kirkstead
in Lincolnshire, where for twenty years, in addition to his ministerial
labours, he taught a grammar school, and acquired that extensive
learning by which his subsequent life was honourably distinguished.
Thence he was invited to preside over a large and respectable con-
* Priestley, in his Memoirs, edited by J. T. Rutt, says, part i. p. 24, ' It,' (Hart
ley's Observations on Man) ' greatly improved that disposition to piety which I
brought to the academy.' ' Indeed I do not know whether Hartley's theory con
tributes more to enlighten the mind or improve the heart : it affects -both in so
Bupereminent a degree.' It must have been uncommon piety which converted a
philosophical defence of materialism into a book of devotion.

THE OLD DISSENT. 491
gregation at Norwich, where he continued from 1733 to 17-57.
Having acqufred great reputation as a theologian and scholar by his
' Paraphrase on the Romans,' and his ' Hebrew Concordance,' he
was invited by the founders of the Warrington academy to become
the first president of that institution, or, as he was styled. Rector
Academies, where he exercised considerable influence upon the non
conformity of his native county, not only by his scholarship, but also
by his earnest and energetic opposition to several attempts to intro
duce among Dissenters a Utnrgical serrice, and to encroach npon the
simple forms of puritan worship. Finding him at the head of the
Warrington academy, we must now notice the origin and the history
of that institution.
The necessity of a new theological institution was felt by several
of the Lancashire Dissenters on'the failure, in 1752, of the academy
which had been ably conducted at Kendal by the Rev. Caleb Rotheram,
D.D., and from which the presbyterian congregations of Lancashire
had obtained some of thefr ablest ministers. Dr. Rotheram and Dr.
Taylor had both been students at Whitehaven, and, as they were
born in the same year, they must have been contemporaries, probably
were class-mates, and apparently were the two best scholars of the
many theologians educated under Dr. Dixon. Alike in theological
learning, unUke in everything else, their uncongenial dispositions
seem to have prevented the formation of any intimate friendship be
tween them. Rotheram was gentle, amiable, yielding and modest ;
Taylor ill-tempered, arrogant, dictatorial, and pertinacious. In the
funeral sermon preached for Dr. Rotheram by his pupil, Mr. Daye
of Lancaster, it is said : ' His friendship for his brethren in the min
istry was truly cordial. I do not know whether I might not justly
call him the cement of love and harmony in the friendly association
of the two counties ' (Lancashire and Westmoreland). ' His learn
ing, piety, sincerity, experience, and good sense gave him authority
among his brethren, whom he always treated with affection, freedom,
and respect.' Nothing like this was ever said of Dr. Taylor.
Of the ministers educated by Dr. Rotheram, the following settled
in Lancashire : John Seddon of Manchester ; James Daye of Lancas
ter ; John Hardy of Bispham ; Benjamin Sandford of Ormskfrk ;
Richard Meanly of Platt ; Titus Cordingley of Whitworth ; Thomas
Dison of Bolton; John HoUand of Chowbent; Joseph Valentine of
Wharton ; Robert Andrews of Platt ; James Benn of Blackley ; John
" Helme of Walmesley ; Richard Godwin of Gatacre ; John Seddon of
Warrington ; WiUiam Gaskell of Tunley ; WiUiam Davenport of
Hindley ; James Woods, who succeeded his father the fighting parson,
of Chowbent ; George Walker, mathematical tutor of Warrington
academy, and afterwards theological professor in the Manchester
New College.
A glance over these names is sufficient to show the influence which
Dr. Rotheram's students had upon the nonconformity of Lancashfre.
The two Seddons, Holland (who died young), Dison, and Godwin
were men of great abiUty and of extensive influence. George Walker,

492 LANCASHIRE.
according to the estimate of the young Socinians (not the old Arians)
of his time, was the most wonderful man in the world ; an ' astonish
ing ' mathematician, an ' exquisite ' poet, and in eloquence ' outri-
valling ' Burke and even Cicero.*
Most of these students, like their teacher, held some form of
Arianism. A few of the younger were Unitarians, though probably
they were not so at the commencement of their ministry. Dr.
Priestley, referring to the time he spent at Warrington from 1761
io 1767, says: 'The only Socinian in the neighbourhood was Mr.
Seddon of Manchester, and we all wondered at him. ' f He waa
probably the first pastor of a nonconformist congregation in Lanca
shfre who taught the doctrine of the mere humanity of Christ.
In 1752 the academy of Dr. Rotheram ceased vrith the death of
its founder. As several other domestic academies were closed about
the same time, J both the Presbyterians and the Independents felt
the need of academical institutions of a more public and permanent
character than were those which depended upon the life, the health,
the convenience, or the continued abUity of any one man, however
well qualified he might have been.
The academy of the Independents at Davenfry had, through the
support of Mr. Coward's trustees, ceased to be private property, and
the Independents of the north were contemplating the establishment
of a similar institution in Yorkshire. The Presbyterians held several
consultations on the subject of ministerial education in different
parts of the country, but their ministers in Lancashire were the first
to commit themselves to the responsibilities of a complete and expen
sive coUegiate institution, -with commodious buildings and an appro
priate staff of officers and teachers. The project was laudable. Its
history, if we could impartially write it, would be valuable; ita
failure, if we could ascertain the cause, very instructive. It promised
to be a great success ; it became, as its best friends acknowledged, a
lamentable failure. It had liberal supporters, an active committee,
able professors, convenient buUdings, a good library, high reputation,
and vrithal to strengthen it not a Uttle party spfrit ; and yet the fra
dition of Lancashfre is that the academy was a sad failure, and that
the trustees acted vrisely in learing it to its fate in Warrington, and
in estabUshing its successor in Manchester.
To whatever cause the ill success of the academy is to be attributed,
its auspicious commencement is to be ascribed to the energetic and
' His doctrine of the sphere is an astonishing work.' Of an address prepared
by him, ' Mr. Burke declared he would rather be the author of it than of aU his
works.' After a speech he made at Mansfield, ' the late Duke of Portland declared
that he had outrivaUed Cicero himseU.' See a Review of his Ufe in the Monthly
Repository, vol. v. October 1810. The authority for these statements was Mr.
Walker's son, but as he in the same volume accused the Trustees of the Man
chester New CoUege (as honourable men as any in Lancashire) of having violated
their engagements with his father, I should be glad of some better authority for
them. t Memoirs, &c. part i. p, 69.
J The respectable academy of Dr. Latham, at Findern, near Derby, was closed
in 1754.

THE OLD DISSENT. 493
persevering exertions of the Rev. John Seddon, at that time minister
of the presbyterian congregation of Warrington. As the result of
an earnest address and of unwearied personal application to the
wealthy Dissenters of Manchester, Liverpool, Warrington, Bolton,
and other towns, he obteined promises of subscriptions amounting to
2171. a year. According to our modern notions, this would seem a
small sum to warrant the commencement of so respectable an insti
tution as Mr. Seddon and his friends contemplated. They, however,
thought these promises so encouraging that they resolved, in accord
ance with their circular address, ' to elect tutors of known abiUty
and good character, in theology, moral philosophy, including logic
and metaphysics, natural phUosophy, including mathematics, and in
the languages and polite literature.' To any who may wonder at the
faith of these confiding Presbyterians, it should be said that before
the academy was opened, the subscriptions were raised to what they
seem to have thought the munificent sum of 469Z. Some shrewd
observers suspected the founders were proceeding rather too fast,
and ventured to predict the faUure of the institution. Possibly they
belonged to the class of prophets who prophesy after the event. It
is, however, evident from the reports of the committee that the in
stitution suffered from the want of an income sufficient to secure
the continued services of the very able professors whom they had
the good fortune to obtain, and to provide them -with such colleagues
or assistants as the complete accomplishment of thefr plan urgently
required. The committee, with good reason, complained of poverty,
but poverty, though an early, was not the only cause of thefr
difficulties. With a pardonable vanity, often observed in decUning sects, who
in thefr declension seem fond of exhibiting the relics of thefr former-
glory, these Lancashire Presbyterians elected a sort of supposititious
lord (the only lord left them), the Right Honourable Lord WU
loughby of Parham, to be the president of their new academy.* The
vice-president was John Lees, Esq., the representative of the old
nonconformist family, the Worsleys of Platt, whose name he subse-
quentiy assumed, and called himself John Carill Worsley, Esq. The
treasurer was Arthur Heywood, Esq., a descendant of Nathanael Hey
wood, the ejected minister of Ormskirk. The Rev. John Seddon
was its indefatigable secretary. The subscribers elected for their
first professors Dr. John Taylor, divinity tutor and rector ; the Rev.
John Holt, tutor in mathematics and natural phUosophy ; and Mr.
Samuel Dyer, teacher of languages and 'belles lettres.' Of the last
gentleman I am reUeved from the necessity of saying anything, for
* The WUloughbys of Horwich were zealous Puritans, connected by marriage
with the old puritan famUv of Whittal, whose property they inherited. In 1685
Thomas WiUoughby was erroneously summoned to the House of Peers as Baron
Willoughby of Parham. The Rev. Canon Raines says : ' The title was ill supported
without an estate by several presbyterian Lords WiUoughby untd 1765, ynen the
right heir was restored.'— Notes to Notitia Cestriensis, vol. ii. part i.^ p. 42. ihe
true Lord Willoughby, however, must have had a favourable opinion of the
academy, for he placed among its pupUs his son George, the last of the family who
bore the title.

494 LANCASHIRE.
he declined the invitation, and, as we are told by an intelUgent writer
in the ' Monthly Repository,' ' it was a happy thing for the institu
tion he did not accept it.' *
Through the first year, therefore, ' the whole burden of teaching '
fell upon Dr. Taylor and Mr. Holt, but as there were for some time
only three students, and for the remainder of the year only five, that
' whole burden ' could not have been very oppressive. As during
that year Dr. Taylor had only one divinity student, it would be
pleasant to know how he poured the abundance of his theological
learning into his soUtary disciple, John Drake, who died soon after
the completion of his academical course.
The appointment of Dr. Taylor was not so fortunate as his great
learning and exfraordinary ability reasonably induced the friends of
the institution to expect, when they congratulated him upon his
infroduction to his honourable office. They expected much from the
appointment of the most distinguished theologian within their reach,
especiaUy as the faults which counterbalanced his exceUences could
not have been easily discovered at the time. He seems to have been
troubled, especially in his declining years, with a singularly uncom
fortable temper. A well-informed writer in the ' Monthly Reposi
tory,' t describing his mode of instruction, says : ' Notwithstanding
his amiable dispositions and agreeable manners in the general inter
course of life, in his class-room his manner was somewhat dictatorial,
and while he inrited his pupils to judge for themselves, he was not
very patient of contradiction.' If the statements of Gilbert Wake
field are to be credited, he betrayed in the class-room a great deal
more than 'impatience of contradiction.' Wakefield says of him,
notvrithstanding the professed liberality of his formal addresses, ' he
was in reality a very peevish and angry disputant, and dictatorial
even to intolerance.'! In a very impressive manner he charged his
pupUs that ' you steadily assert for yourselves, and allow to others,
the inaUenable rights of judgment and conscience ; ' while his pupils
well knew than any expression of dissent from his doctrine would
incur some unmlstakeable expression of his displeasure. The -writer
in the ' Monthly Repository,' afready cited, offers as an extenuation
of his impatience of dissent, a suspicion that the students ' removed
to Warrington from ' the Independent academy of ' Daventry, where
they were indulged in the greatest fr^eedoms, and where they were
referred indiscriminately to writers on all sides, were not content
vrith being seldom referred to any but the doctor's own writings.'
' Whether the plan of indiscriminate reference to writers on all the
controversies ofthe day was not, in Doddridge's "Lectures," pushed
* Vol. vUi. p. 4, A curious account of this gentleman may be found in Sir
John Hawkins's Life of Dr. Johnson: I wonder how he could ever have been
elected, and still more how he oould have obtained the recommendations of Drs,
Avery, Ward, Benson, and Chandler,
+ Vol. vni. p. 89.
X Biographical Dictionary, article ' Taylor, John, D.D.' On the other hand,
iu a funeral sermon preached by Dr. Harwood, he was praised for 'his kindness
and affability.' But the funeral sermons of that time are not of much authori'iy.

THE OLD DISSENT. 495
to an exteme, and has not a natural tendency to generate a sceptical
or else a disputatious spirit, will perhaps admit of doubt.' *
Whatever may have been the merits or the faults of Dr. Taylor,
his spfrit would not bear the interference of the trustees. When
they attempted to mediate between him and his students, he com
plained that he was deprived of the authority necessary to maintain
the dignity of his office. Before he had completed his fourth year of
teaching, his incessant disputes with his students, his coUeagues, and
the trustees, his opposition to all dogmatism except his own, and his
intemperate maintenance of his own opinions on every subject, broke
his spirits, enfeebled his constitution, and, as the good man often
said, shortened his days. When life was, as he assured his friend
Harwood, no longer an ' object of desire,' and he looked for rest in
the grave, he left no resting-place in the academy for his successors.
Although he made many enemies, he had some friends who consi
dered him Ul-treated and dishonoured. Dr. Priestley says, ' all his
friends became our enemies, 't that is, the friends of Taylor became
the enemies of his successors. The evU done both by him and to
him adhered to the unfortunate academy, through its troubled course
from its unpropitious commencement to its disastrous conclusion.
It may seem ludicrous to say so much about the liberality or the
dogmatism of Dr. Taylor's theological teaching, when for the first
year there was only one theological student upon whom he could
' exercise his gifts.' Three others were in the second year placed
under his teaching ; and so far as I can ascertain from the accounts
accessible to me, eleven students were all who in Warrington re
ceived the benefit, or endured the infliction, of his theological
prelections. Mr. Holt, his colleague, does not seem to have been much more
fortunate in the management of his department. Although he was
well acquainted with his subjects, he seems not to have known how
to teach or how to keep his pupils in good order. The -writer in the
' Monthly Repository ' says : ' His department does not seem to have
been popular, and several instances occur in the minutes of interfer
ences, sometimes rather impertinent ones, with regard to the man
agement of his classes.'
In these cfrcumstances Dr. John Aikin, a pupil, assistant, and
-friend of Dr. Doddridge, was appointed at the close of the first ses
sion to occupy the classical chair. This was, upon the whole, the
best appointment made by the trustees, for of the eminent men who
were associated with him, some more able, some perhaps more
learned, no one possessed so many and varied accomplishments, and
especiaUy such accomplishments as were desirable for a teacher.
Learned, laborious, active, prudent, affable, ever wiUing to encourage
the timid, and ever able to rebuke with dignity the impertinent, he
'* Monthly Repository, vol. viii. p. 90. This remark is curious as coming from
the pen of a Unitarian apologist of Dr. Taylor. It, however, confirms a suggestion
I have made respecting the influence of the Independent academy upon the Pres
byterian theology of the last century.
+ Memoirs of Dr. Priestley, part i. p. 64.

496 LANCASHIRE.
did much to heal the injuries which the institution had received from
his coUeagues, and to remedy the inherent defects of its constitution.
The Ufe of the academy seems to have been inseparably associated
vrith his o-wn. It. began to fiourish when he joined it, it was at its
best estate while he was sfrong and active, it declined as he grew
feeble, and it perished soon after his death. He became the classical
tutor in 1758, and was removed by death from the theological chair
in 1780, only three years before its dissolution.
The first home of the academy was in a respectable terrace which
stood in a pleasant garden overlooking the Mersey, a little westward
of the bridge, a much pleasanter situation than the square in the
eastern part of the town, to which it was subsequently removed. In
the terrace a common hall, suitable class-rooms, and accommodation
for the tutors, were provided. Accustomed to the liberal donations
by which literary, philanthropic, and religious institutions are sup
ported in these times, we may wonder at the difficulty vrith which
the trustees obtained the moderate sum required to adapt the premises
to the comfortable accommodation of the professors and students.
They were, however, fortunate in the acquisition of a library, having
received, in addition to several smaller donations of books, the valu
able coUection of Dr. Benjamin Grosvenor and that of the Rev.
Samuel Stubbs. Of the "Warrington students, thefr Alma Mater
might well have been proud of the first name on the list, that of
Thomas Percival, who afterwards became well known as an eminent
physician of Manchester, the able author of ' Medical Ethics,' and
the accomplished founder and first president of the Manchester
PhUosophioal Society.
The vacancy caused by the appointment of Dr. Aikin to succeed
Dr. Taylor, was fUled by the Rev. (afterwards Dr.) Joseph Priestley,
who was inrited from Nampt^vrich, where he had been minister for
three years, to become the teacher of the classics and polite literature.
Although this was scarcely the professorship which he would have
chosen, as his tastes and pursuits were at that early time scientific
rather than classical, yet, vrith unwearied industry and exfraordinary
flexibUity of mental power, he prepared to meet "vrith promptitude
and efficiency any demand which might be made upon him by his
pupils, his colleagues, or his supporters. In the twenty- sixth year
of his age he taught Latin,. Greek, Hebrew, modern languages, orien
tal literature, logic, history, the principles of universal grammar, of
criticism, of ciril law, of oratory, and apparently of a great many
other things. Having an impediment in his speech, of which he
often complained, he nevertheless made it his ' province to teach
elocution.' During the six years he continued at Warrington — that
is, from 1761 to 1767 — Arianism widely prevailed among the dissent
ing ministers of Lancashire, although he knew only one Unitarian.
Speaking of his coUeagues and of Mr. Seddon, the minister of War
rington, who frequently held meetings for friendly discussion, he
says : ' I have often thought it not a little extraordinary that four
persons who had no prerious knowledge of each other should have
been brought to unite in conducting such a scheme as this, and all

THE OLD DISSENT, 497
be zealous neceasariana aa we were. We were libewiae all Arians,
and the only aubject of much importance on which we differed waa
respecting the doctrine of the atonement, concerning which Dr.
Aikin held some obscure notions.'*
It was ' not a little extraordinary ' that the doctrine of philosophical
necessity should have been then maintained by four presbyterian
ministers, fortuitously brought together in one town, considering
how generally the Presbyterians had lapsed into Arminianism, and
how much they were infiuenced by that zealous defender of ' the
Uberty of the vriU,' Dr. Price of Newington. But the phUosophy of
Hartley was then beginning to influence one class of dissenting min
isters, and the metaphysics of Edwards another. It is remarkable
that these nonconforming necessarians, whether Arians or Cal-vinists,
were not only ' very zealous ' but uncommonly fierce in the defence
of thefr favourite doctrine, t
Dr. Priestley's resignation of an office which must have been on
many accounts very agreeable to him was occasioned by the inade
quacy of his salary, and apparently by the apprehension of its dimi
nution through the failure of several promised subscriptions. If the
piety of these necessarians was nourished Uke that of their celebrated
professor on Hartley's materiaUsm, their generosity does not seem
to have proportionately grown from the same aliment. It seema
strange that the wealthy Presbyterians of Lancashire should allow
such a man to leave them rather than proride the moderate income
which he requfred for the support of his family. The pecuniary
difficulties with which the academy was embarrassed prevented the
trustees from filling the vacancy so effectually as they would gladly
have done in more favourable cfrcumstances. Mr. Seddon, the un
wearied friend of the institution, was induced to take a part of the
work resigned by Priestley, whUe Dr. Ailrin in addition to his many
engagements undertook to give instruction in the Greek and Latin
* Memoirs of Priestley, part i. p. 59.
+ See a remarkable letter on this subject from that eminent Calvinist the Rev.
Augustus Montague Toplady, addressed to Dr. Priestley, which, dated from Broad
Henbury, thus commences :—
'Rev. Sie, — Condescend to accept the thanks of a person who has not the
honour of being acquainted vrith you, for the pleasure aud improvement received
from the perusal of your spirited (and for the most part just) animadversions on
the three northern doctors. AUow me also to thank in an especial manner the
good providence of God, which has raised up no less a man than yourself to con
tend so ably for the great doctrine of necessity, a doctrine, in my opinion, not only
essential to sound and rational phUosophy, but abstracted from which I oould not,
for my o^wn part, consider Christianity itself as a defensible system.' — Memoirs of
Priestley, part 1. p. 257. Especial thanks to God for raising up Dr. Priestley to
contend for a ' doctrine,' vrithout which Christianity itself would not be ' a defen
sible system,' seems strange language from the lips of a high Calvinist. His defence
of necessity seems to have sanctified the materialism, Socinianism, and aU other
heresies of Priestley in the estimate of an orthodox theologian who attacked the
Arminianism of John Wesley with almost the venom and more than the coarseness
of South. It is true that Toplady was not a dissenter, but he associated with the
Calvinistic Dissenters, identified himself with the Calvinistic Methodists, preached
in their tabernacles, and promoted their interests. VirtuaUy, though not profes
sedly, he belonged to them.
Kl

498 LANCASHIRE.
classics. On the death of Mr. Seddon in 1770, Dr. Enfield, at that
time minister of the meeting-house in Benn's Gardens, Liverpool,
succeeded both to the pulpit and to the academical chair of his
accomplished friend. Although well qualified by his great attain
ments for the work of a tutor, Dr. Enfield does not appear, even in
the estimate of his friends, to have vrisely exercised the authority
entrusted to him as the rector of the academy. His biographer says :
' In emergencies where firmness, resolution, and dignified severity
were requisite, there was reason to apprehend a faUure,' which, I
suppose, is a euphemistic method of saying he did fail in emergencies.
In fact, in his hands the discipline of the academy became inexcusa
bly relaxed and irrecoverably lost. ' He was sometimes treated with
a scornful insolence, which nothing but forbearance like his could
tolerate. He made several attempts to deliver himself from his bur
den, and after the faUure of repeated attempts to obtain a successor,
he addressed a strong remonstrance to the trustees, which put an
end to the institution.' *
Not immediately. Some ineffectual attempts were made to pre
serve it, but after the lamented death of Dr. Aikin its recovery was
hopeless. Subscribers became dissatisfied; few dirinity students
applied for admission : fewer stiU on completing thefr term of stnidy
succeeded in the dissenting ministry. The academy became unpop
ular in the to-wn, and declined in the estimation of the congregations
of the county. In 1781, Dr. Clayton of Liverpool, who had been a
pupU of Doddridge, was invited to succeed Dr. Aikin as the divinity
tutor. Unhappily for himself he accepted the invitation. After two
yeara of irritating contention and hopeless anxiety, when every
attempt to prolong the institution vrith credit had faUed, he ' retfred
¦with broken spfrits and shattered health,' and after some attempts
to secure the serrices of eminent men to preside, the frustees an
nounced the dissolution of the academy. It left a lamentable history,
which, however, suggests the thought that the Dissenters of this age
are wiser than were thefr fathers in the management of academical
institutions.f With Dr. Aikin were occasionally associated as assistante or col
leagues some remarkable men, as George Walker, GUbert Wakefield,
and Pendlebury Houghton ; but even their extraordinary abilities
did little to prolong the existence of an institution which, from ite
* Monthly Repository, vol. viii. p. 429. The only rector who successfully main
tained good order was Mr. Seddon, although his method seems to us very strange.
' He kept a weekly register of all violations of the laws, which register was read
over every Saturday afternoon publicly before aU the students, and such reprimands
and admonitions were given by him and the other tutors as to them seemed
necessary. — Monthly Repository, vol. viu. p. 427.
+ In 1785 proposals were made to the Rev. Thomas Belsham, the divinity tutor
of the Davetry_ academy, to become the rector, and as these proposals were accom
panied by an invitation to the pastorate of the presbyterian congregation, some
hopes were entertained of a successful issue. The Rev. John Yates of Liverpool
conducted the correspondence with Mr. Belsham on the subject. In his letters he
intimated that it Mr. Belsham did not accept the proposal, the academy would
probably be closed.— ii/c of the Rev. Thomas Belsham, by John WiUiams, pp. 264
-318.

THE OLD DISSENT. 499
commencement to its close, had to sfruggle against the contentions
of its supporters, the mismanagement of its trustees, the inabUity of
ite tutors to maintain discipUne, and the unwiUingness of its students
to submit to authority.
Of nearly four hundred students who received more or less of thefr
education at Warrington, several of whom became eminent in the
medical or the legal profession, very few succeeded in the dissenting
ministry, and of those few (if I compute rightly) only about six
rendered any service to the presbyterian interest of the county for
the benefit of which, according to the statements of the founders,
the academy was originally established and laboriously susteined.
The six to whom I refer were : Dr. Barnes, Mr, Ralph Harrison and
Mr, John Gore of Manchester, Mr, John "Yates and Mr, Pendlebury
Houghton of Liverpool, and Mr. John Harrison of Lancaster.
In connection with Warrington academy, 1 may notice its restora
tion, or rather the establishment of a similar institution, in Manchester,
It was hoped that the e-rils of the academy, which had rendered its
suppression inevitable, might be avoided or corrected in an institution
removed from the old associations, in a new situation, under new
management, -with new professors and new regulations. Manchester
seemed to the committee selected for the management of the new in
stitution to afford the most in-riting situation, as it certainly provided
two able and accomplished tutors, the Rev. Dr. Barnes and the Rev.
Ralph Harrison, who, being resident in that town, could undertake
the duties of their office without disturbing thefr official relations
with thefr respective congregations. The new academy was opened
vrith some formality in 1786, when 'a sermon was preached' by Mr.
Harrison, and ' a discourse was delivered ' by Dr. Barnes. In his
pubUc discourse the doctor candidly admits that ' every hope was at
length cut off ' of preser-ving or restoring the academy in Warrington.
Its hopeless condition, if it had not preriously been known, was thua
made a matter of pubUc notoriety by announcement from a Manchester
pulpit. One of the reasons for selecting the situation of the academy
for young divines seems to us very curious as it was expounded in
the inaugural discourse : ' Of Manchester, much may be said in favour
of the regularity of its poUce.' I do not profess to explain this
reason, because I do not understand how divinity is best taught
under the vigUant eye of a regular poUce. But the Manchester
police seem to have been especial favourites of the founders of the
academy. In thefr prospectus issued to concUiate support to their
proposal, they observe that ' the town is remarkable for a well regu
lated police.' For thefr selection of Manchester they also offer another
reason, which appears to me quite aa unintelUgible : ' The industry,
ingenuity, and enterprising spfrit which characterise the people can
not fail to influence by example, and may catch the minds of youth
by a secret and powerful sympathy.' Great attention was promised,
and I doubt not was paid, to the discipline of the college. According
to the printed rules, ' no student shall be permitted to ride out of
town, or to be in a tavern, without leave from Dr. Barnes or Mr.
Harrison,' It was ' earnestly recommended to the students to use

500 LANCASHIRE.
great plainness in dress.' Taught ' by the experience of the academy
at Warrington ' of the evils of residence in one buUding, Dr. Barnes
says : ' The safer maxim seems to be to diride in order to govern.'
AU this sounds sfrange in the ears of living people. But, notvrith
standing the poUce, and the powerful sympathy, and the plain clothes,
and the prohibition to ride, and the diriding to conquer, the new
academy in Manchester was not more fortunate than its predecessor
in Warrington. On the death of Dr. Barnes, the celebrated Dr.
George Walker succeeded as theological professor, and in addition to
the duties of hia office he teught classics, mathematics, and, according
to his biographer, almost everything else. ' The whole institution
was upon his shoulders.' He seems, however, to have brought vrith
him the evU genius of Warrington — a quarrelsome spirit. Old
quarrels were revived, new quarrels excited. Dr. Walker misunder
stood those who acted -vrith him, or they misunderstood him. He
seems to have assumed all sorts of work, and to have complained
that aU sorts of work were imposed upon him. The academy was
removed from the county to York, where I have no doubt it waa
much better managed and much more aucceaafnl. Aa, however, it
returned to the county only for a short time, and on its final removal
retained, so far as I know, no other connection vrith Lancashfre than
the name, ' The Manchester New College,' I have no reason to pursue
ite history any further.*
Soon after the establishment of the Warrington academy, an
attempt was made by some of the Arian ministers to introduce a
liturgical serrice into the presbyterian meeting-houses of the county.
The ministers chiefiy concerned in this project were Mr. Seddon of
Warrington, Mr. HoUand of Bolton, and Mr. Godwin of Gatacre.
Each of these eminent men is said to have composed one serrice for
the Sunday, and to have submitted it to the consideration and cor
rection of the other two. Thefr book was printed, and became known
as ' The Liverpool Liturgy.' The reUgious sentiments were vague
and indefinite, as might have been expected from the declension of
evangeUcal, and indeed of all earnest feeling which prevailed among
the Dissenters of that time. It produced an angry confroversy, and
encountered so much opposition from some of the older ministers,
and so much more from .thefr congregations, who retained the puriten
abhorrence of all formaUties, that it was found impossible to introduce
it into the old meeting-houses. Even where the ministers were
favourable to its use, the people would have resisted its imposition,
and would have seceded and formed independent societies had it been
introduced into thefr venerable sanctuaries. In Liverpool, however,
some wealthy Dissenters, either ashamed of the simpUcity of thefr
fathers' worship, or expecting to attract some dissatisfied members
of the EngUsh Church to what might seem to them a corrected edi
tion of thefr o-wn formularies, erected an Octagon chapel, and infro
duced their reformed Uturgy. In 1763 Mr. (afterwards Dr.) Clayton
was invited to officiate in the chapel. The popular address, dignified
* I have been informed that the meetings of its supporters are still held in
Manchester.

THE OLD DISSENT. 501
manner, and great respectabUity of the miniater forbid us to attribute
to him personally the failure of the undertaking. But faU it did,
and that utterly. Few Church people came ; those who did disUked
¦fche novelties ; whUe the Presbyterians preferred the old associations
of their fathers' sanctuary in Benn's Gardens, and the puritan sim
plicity which was there preserved, even when they had lost thefr
love for the puritan docfrine. In his farewell sermon. Dr. Clayton
acknowledged that the Octagon had proved an utter faUure. The
chapel was sold to a clergyman, who had it licensed for ' the genuine
worship of the Church of England.' This faUure affords another
iUustration of what I think is undeniable, that no Uturgy other than
that of the EngUsh Church is ever acceptable to EngUsh people.
Many who dissent from some expressions in the EngUsh liturgy
would, rather than use a different form of prayer, be sUent whUe
they are read, as the Jacobites in Manchester church were sUent
when the response was expected to the prayer for King George.*
The most memorable thing in this controversy was the earnest
and effective protest against the introduction of a liturgy into the
sanctuaries of nonconformity, written by Dr. Taylor amidst the
infirmities and sorrows of his old age. Roused by what he considered
a grievous betrayal of the principles of his fathers, he felt his mental
power tm.diminished by bodily weakness, as he never in the days of
his sfrength wrote anything more eloquent or rigorous than his
pamphlet entitled ' The Scripture Account of Prayer, an Address to
the Dissenters of Lancashfre, occasioned by a New Liturgy some
Ministers of that County are composing for the use of a Congregation
in Liverpool' He breathed his last before the pamphlet was brought
through the press. His eloquent eulogy on the founders of Noncon
formity, and especiaUy on the ' burning and shining lights ' of Lanca
shfre, has afready been cited in this narrative. After referring to
' thefr great devotion and eminent abiUty in prayer, uttered as God
enabled them from the abundance of thefr hearts and affections, men
of great eloquence in pleading at the throne of grace, raising and
melting the affections of their hearers, and being happUy instanimental
in transfusing into thefr souls the same spirit and heavenly gift,' the
dying Nonconformist utters his last lamentation over the decUne of
nonconformity, which he had done much to hasten : ' Now, alas ! we
are pursuing measures which have a manifest tendency to extinguish
the Ught which they kindled, to damp the spfrit which they enUvened,
and to dissipate and dissolve the societies which they raised and
formed.' Alas ! Dr. John Taylor had good reason to exclaim ' alas 1 '
when he compared the nonconformity of Lancashire as he knew it in
his boyhood vrith the nonconformity of Lancashfre as he observed it
in his old age. ' How is the gold become dim ! How is the most
fine gold changed ! '
* Forms of Prayer for the use of a Congregation of Protestant Dissenters in Man
chester were printed in Birmingham, 1789, pp. 100.

CHAPTER XX.
MODERN DISSENT.
About the middle of the last century might be observed the rise of
what with some, although not -with exact, propriety has been called
the New Dissent. The phrase is not accurate, at least in the extent
in which it is frequently used, because several congregations included
in that designation occupy the sanctuaries of thefr fathera, or others
that have been erected on their sites, and retain an uninterrupted
succession of ministers originating in the beginning of nonconformity.
Its congregations also have adhered to the articles of the old theology,
and have preserved, vrith a few unimportant variations, the forms,
serrices, and traditions of the early Dissenters. It is true that the
old dissenting congregations who have retained the puritan doctrines,
as weU as those of more modern foundation, have generally assumed
the name of ' Independents,' but their great principle, the self-govern
ment of each separate society, was, after the Act of Toleration, prac
tically the principle of all the three denominations. They have also
retained or adopted quite as many of the forms and methods of the
early Presbyterians as have the Arians or Unitarians, who have been
sometimes considered as entitled to the name of the Old Dissent.
Although the modern Independents are not Presbyterians, they are
quite as much so as the congregations which retain that designation.
They have, in fact, aa much presbyterianism as any English Noncon
formiste (I exclude Scotchmen) ever had since nonconformity
obtained a legal standing in this country. The modem Independente
have, moreover, renounced most of the pecuUarities by which their
fathers were distinguished from the Presbyterians. They no longer
acknowledge the distinction of pastor and teacher ; they are no longer
troubled with ' the gifted brethren ; ' thefr ministera occupy a position
in almost every respect more Uke that of the old preabyterian minis
ter than that of the old independent teacher ; and thefr deacons are
entrusted vrith much of the spiritual serrice which was enfrusted to
the ruling elders of the Presbyterians. PracticaUy the deacons'
vestry is the elders' court, or the kirk session, at least quite as much
BO as any committee of EngUsh Presbyterians. In all important
respects the modern Independents, more nearly than the Uniterian
dissenters, resemble the old Presbyterians. In some particulars both
parties, though in a different manner, have introduced innovations
which have neither improved nor strengthened the original dissent.
The intimate connection and blending of the two denominations were
especially apparent in Lancashfre, where, from the Act of Uniformity,
Newcome, Harrison, Heywood, and the other presbyterian leaders

MODERN DISSENT. 503
came to a good understanding and harmonious co-operation with
Jollie, Eaton, Bfrch, and thefr independent brethren.
On the other hand, there arose in the last century so complete a
disruption on account of doctrinal differences among the Dissenters,
that new names became necessary to distinguish the two parties.
Neither was presbyterian. The lineal connection of those called
Presbyterians with the old nonconformity may have been more appa
rent, since they have reteined the greater number of its sanctuaries
and endowments, especially in Lancashfre, whUe the rapid rise of
independent congregations, having no Uneal connection with the
earlier and formed by a new agency, may authorise our calUng them,
even when united with the older Calrinism, by the name of Modern
Dissent. Stronger objections may be felt to calling the Unitarian
party the Old Dissent, as they have much less than the modern Con
gregationalists of the traditions of the early Nonconformists. The
names, however, are convenient, as they express my meaning better
than the terms Presbyterian and Independent. I am willing to
accept them from Unitarian writers who consider themselves the
representatives ofthe old dissent.*
I have afready noticed the prevalence of Arianism in the middle
of the last century among the dissenting ministers of Lancashfre.
To many persons perplexed with expositions of the doctrine of the
Trinity, and yet regarding unitarianism both as opposed to any fafr
interpretation of the New Testament, and as derogatory to the dig
nity of the Founder of thefr Faith, Arianism seemed to afford a quiet
and promising resting-place between two offensive exfremes. It
appeared so to many who were educated in the dissenting academies.
Their teachers naturaUy cherished, in those quiet retreats from the
discussions of the world, a love of moderation and a dislike to ex
freme opinions. There prevaUed in them a disposition to avoid
giving offence to either party in the controversy which was beginning
to disturb the peace of the Nonconformists' little world. There was
inculcated a reverential submission to the letter of Scripture, to
which Arianism appealed, while Unitarianism did violence to aU
thefr fraditional canons of interpretation. But somehow or other
Arianism did not long continue to be the creed of any church. It
was not the resting-place which it promised to become to the dissent
ing ministers who first listened to its proposals. Many of them who,
in the last century, became Arians in thefr youth, avowed, Uke Dr.
Priestley, Socinianism in thefr old age ; f while others, as if afraid
of the consequences of the change, quietly retraced thefr steps, and
returned to the old theology. Some seemed so perplexed as to be
afraid to commit themselves to any definite expression of opinion
on the person of Christ. Of those who retained the Arian doctrine
to the close of thefr minisfry, if they survived the last century, very
¦* I refer chiefly to Mr. Hunter, who, in his Ufe of Oliver Heywood, thus dis
tinguishes the old and the new dissent.
t I here use the word]' Socinianism,' not offensively, but because Dr. Priestley
used it. I think it wrong to call any persons by a name which they disUke, even
though I do not know why they should disUke it.

504 LANCASHIRE,
few had successors to perpetuate thefr faith in thefr own pulpits.
The decUne of Arianism has been so decided that I know not an
Arian minister preaching in Lancashfre, or indeed in any part of
England. The Arian ministera were usually quiet, peaceable, pleasant pastors,
not addicted to controversy, but tsySig-to make their preaching
agreeable and useful to all parties. They seldom roused the bad
feelings of thefr regular hearers by any dfrect or earnest opposition
to the traditions of thefr fathers. In many instances the Arian
doctrine was never distinctly asserted in the pulpit, and in many
others it was proposed as a personal opinion of the preacher to which
he had no desfre to convert his hearers. Many of them held, more
or less distinctly, the doctrine of the atonement, "Whenever they
spoke of the death of Christ, they spoke of it, in some vague sense,
as redeeming sinners from guilt and misery. What Priestley said of
Dr. Aikin might be said of many of his time : ' He held some obscure
notions respecting the doctrine ofthe atonement.' Without making
myself responsible for an uncharitable clause in the extract, I might
say of their doctrine what a writer in the ' Monthly Repository ' says
of Dr. John Taylor's : ' His doctrine of the atonement was an in
genious attempt to construct a scheme which should be consistent
¦vrith the moral perfections of the Father of mercies, and at the same
time enable a man to use the language of reputed orthodoxy.'
While I do not endorse the insinuation that the Arian ministers
ingeniously confrived to 'construct a scheme,' they did 'use the
language of reputed orthodoxy ' in a manner to be attributed not so
much to ingenious contrivance, as to vague and obscure views
belonging to the transitional state through which they were passing.
But thefr preaching did no good. It did not meet the wants of
thefr age. The vagueness of thefr opinions, and the want of decision
in thefr expression, gave an appearance of doubt, indifference, or
apathy to their preaching, and appearance in them became reaUty to
their hearers. Unless the preachers were, Uke Dr. Barnes, endowed
with considerable oratorical power, thefr congregations declined, the
younger members of thefr famiUes forsook them and went, if any
where, to church. Strangers ' brought under religious influence,
instead of joining them, were attracted by the earnest and lively
preaching of men who seemed to them irregular and unauthorised,
encroaching upon their boundaries and disturbing thefr quietude, but
who believed what they said, felt what they preached, and were
intent, with God's help, on making others beUeve and feel as they
did. The old dissent seemed nigh unto death, and many of its foes
predicted, as some of its friends feared, that it would not outlive the
eighteenth century, or outUve it in no other sense than as a few old
ministers lived upon its endowments.
Some of the Arian preachers, especially those whose Arianism was
of the form most nearly resembUng orthodoxy, were very much afraid
of what they called Socinianism, and spoke of it as likely to prove
destructive to the dissenting interest. Had it been so, it would only,
so far as thefr interests were concerned, have been death to the

MODERN DISSENT. 505
dying, destruction to that which waa ready to perish. In some
instances it probably hastened the dissolution of Arian congregations,
but in others it awakened interest by its novelty, or by the earnest
ness, ability, or ingenuity of its advocates. Even a fierce polemic in
the pulpit excited more attention than a reverend man who seemed
to preach in his sleep to a sleeping congregation. If he repelled
some of the old hearers, he attracted new ones, and infused among
the people who remained some party spirit, some interest in the new
doctrine, and some zeal for its promulgation.
But the rerival of religion in the spirit and after the traditions of
the original Nonconformists came about in another manner in the
latter part of the eighteenth century. We have to trace the growth
of the evangeUcal dissent in Lancashire untU it became the power it
now is in that county.
Although the present Congregationalism of Lancashfre is, in its
doctrine, its principles, and its spfrit, really the old nonconformity,
in only a few instances can ite lineal descent be dfrectly fraced from
the old congregations. In a few instances, however, it can ; and as
they show how naturaUy and easUy presbyterianism, where it retained
its original doctrine, passed into modern Congregationalism, I had
better notice them before I describe the rise of other congregations
in the principal towns of the county. The congregations to which I
refer are those at St. Helen's, Greenacres, Darwen, Whitworth,
Elsvrick, and the "little flock" at Tockholes, almost lost in the
transition of which I have spoken.
The Nonconformiste of St. Helen's, as I have already said, retained
possession of the ancient chapel of the town untU after the death of
thefr minister, Mr. Naylor, in 1710, when they resigned it to the
bishop of the diocese, and erected a meeting-house into which they
could introduce a minister of thefr own choice. During the critical
time of transition, from 1710 to 1770, when so many of the Lanca
shfre societies lapsed from their early faith, only two ministera
occupied the pulpit, both of whom were decidedly evangeUcal, and
were well qualified by their abUity and character to maintain the
influence and popularity of the old doctrine. During the prolonged
ministry of the Rev. Joseph GelUbrand and the Rev. Jonathan
Mercer, the congregation, though called presbyterian, was practicaUy
regulated in accordance with congregational principles. After a
short interval, in which the pulpit was occupied by the Rev. Samuel
Braybrooke, a student from Davenfry, under whose ministry the
congregation considerably declined, the people, unwilling to negotiate
with another Davenfry student, and estimating thefr religious prin
ciples as of greater importance than an unmeaning designation,
obtained a minister from the independent academy then recently
established at Heckmondwike. Under the ministry of the Rev.
Isaac Sharp, the old faith was perpetuated, the evangelical spfrit was
revived, and the congregation increased, until it became, what Dr.
Raffles says it was when he first knew it, ' the most respectable congre
gation for wealth, numbers, and talent, in the county.'* The church,
¦* Independency in St. Helen's. See the speech delivered by Dr. Raffles on
occasion of the jnbUee meeting of the Sunday School in that town.

506 LANCASHIRE.
during the pastorate of Mr. Sharp, making no other change than
that of avowing the principles in accordance -with which it had acted
from the day it left the episcopal chapel, connected itself vrith the
Congregational Union of Lancashire.
In many respects the history of the dissenting congregation at
Geeenagees resembles that of the congregation at St. Helen's. The
Rev. Robert Constantine, the ejected minister of Oldham, who
founded the interest in 1672, lived until the close of 1699. Although
he was too infirm to discharge the duties of the pastoral office, his
affectionate people seem not to have secured any successor until
after his decease. The Rev. Benjamin Denton, who commenced his
ministry about 1700, continued vrith the people until his death in
1743. Thus for seventy-one years the people had known only two
pastors. Mr. Denton was succeeded by the Rev. James Burgess, a
firm adherent of the old puritan theology. Under his ministry, and
that of his successor the Rev. Edward Harrison, who, having no
academical training, had what the people valued far more, an earnest
desire to teaoh evangeUcal doctrine, the congregation preserved the
faith of its founder, and by an easy and natural transition scarcely
noticed in its history, became connected with the independent
churches of the county as one of their own denomination.*
The history of dissent in Daewen is unlike that of dissent in St.
Helen's or in Greenacres Moor. The tradition of the Darwen people,
the truth of which nobody doubts, is that ' our fathers worshipped in
this mountein.' Before the Revolution the Nonconformists of the
neighbourhood are said to have held thefr religious serrices in an
unfrequented part of the moors, near the spot where the Lower
Chapel was afterwards erected.f Thefr first minister was Mr.
Charles Seager (or Sager), who had been educated in St. John's
CoUege, Oxon. On his leaving the university, he was appointed
master of the public school at Blackburn, where he gained the respect
and confidence of the governors as well as of the neighbouring
genfry, and was aUowed to retain his office for some years after the
passing of the Act of Uniformity. "WhUe at Blackburn he frequently
preached in the neighbouring viUages, and especially to a congrega
tion accustomed to meet on the hills of Darwen. Some Churchmen,
having discovered that he had not conformed, insisted upon his dis
missal from his office as master of the school, and afterwards Major
Nowell (whom Calamy calls ' his great enemy ') sent him to Lancaster
Castle, where he was confined for several months. On his release he
resumed his preaching at Darwen, and after the passing of the Act
of Toleration he licensed a large bam, and had it fitted and adapted
for religious serrices. His eminently useful ministry was well sus
tained by his affectionate spirit and blameless life. He died in 1697,
and was of course buried near the pulpit of his humble sanctuary.}
* History of Qreenacres Chapel, by the Rev. Geo. G. Waddington.
¦f- The Lower Chapel, often supposed by strangers to be situated in the valley,
is inconveniently high on the mountain. It was called the Lower Chapel because
another chapel stood a few yards higher on the ascent.
t Palmer's Nonconformist's Memorial, vol. i. p. 335. For some reason which I

MODERN DISSENT. 507
He was succeeded in 1701 by the Rev, Griffith Griffiths, an
earnest, affectionate, soul-stfrring Welshman, whose popular preach
ing atfracted greater numbers to the meeting-house than it could
accommodate. The people, therefore, resolved to build a new
sanctuary. Having purchased a piece of land a few yards distant
from the old place, they set to work, minister and people, men,
women, and chUdren ; everybody who could do anything did some
thing vrith a spade, or a barrow, or a trowel, or carpenters' tools, or
with something else. In a short time the building was completed,
s^nfficiently large to accommodate a thousand people. Though rudely,
it must have been well built in 1719, for it remains to the present
¦fcime, having been on that bleak mountain exposed to many a storm,
Mr. Griffiths continued minister there for many years, and on his
death, previously to 1737, he was laid in his proper place near the
stairs of his pulpit.*
After his death, during the time of doctrinal fransition among the
Dissenters, the pulpit was occupied by preachers who gave Uttle
prominence to thefr doctrine whatever it may have been, or stayed
too short a time to leave any definite impression upon the people, or,
Uke the good man in both cap and vrig, were careful to give no
offence to any party.f
There was, however, one exception. A student from Daventry
preached Unitarianism, and afterwards denied that he had preached
anything of the kind. His conduct, however, became so irregular
and immoral as to render his ministrations intolerable. Whether he
was or was not a Unitarian, the people beUeved he was one, and
imputed to his doctrine the scandal of his life.
Amidst these changes the congregation sank into a low state of
irreligion and even of immoraUty. While they retained some sort of
connection with the old sanctuary, many of them seldom attended its
cannot discover. Palmer places him in Derbyshire. His contiguity to Blackburn
aud imprisonment in Lancaster might have shown that the scene of his ministry
was Darwen in Lancashire.
* Letter of Rev. Mr, Blake and MS. of Rev. Richard Bowdon, cited in Dr.
Raffles's Collections. Dr. Raffles has preserved a curious anecdote of this good
Welshman which, if not true, deserves to be. It is given on the authority of one
of his successors. During the time of his ministry, the black cap of the puritan
minister was going out of fashion in genteel congregations. Some of the young
people of Darwen had been to Liverpool, and had seen the graceful wigs which
poUte ministers wore in that town. Esteeming their minister worthy of so hon
ourable a decoration, they generously purchased one for him. The old gentleman,
pleased with this mark of respect from his young friends, somewhat incautiously,
vrithout consulting the elders, appeared the next Sunday doing duty iu his
fashionable wig. It was a sad scandal to the elders. Was their minister conform
ing to the fashions of the world ? Or was it a new sort of conformity to the Church ?
Had he appeared in a surplice, they could not have been more offended. They
left the place, and in the afternoon their seats were vacant. The good minister
was sorely distressed. He wished to conciliate both old aud young, and succeeded
by appearing the next Sunday with his black cap over his wig, the graceful curls
of which hung beneath it. Endeavouring to ' please aU men in aU things,' he
seems to have succeeded.
f Among them was the Rev. Joseph Barrett, afterwards well known and greatly
respected as the minister of Carter Lane, Doctors' Commons.

508 LANCASHIRE.
reUgious serrices, and of many others it was not easy to explain the
more regular attendance. They had a sort of proprietary interest in
the Lower Chapel, for there were thefr famUy pews, there they were
baptised, and there they claimed thefr burial-places inside or outside
the buUding. It was commonly said that if all the Lower Chapel
people had gone on the same Sunday to thefr sanctuary, they could
not have found room within its waUs. There was, however, little
fear of such a crowd. The Rev. Richard Bowdon, who was invited
to be thefr minister in 1797, saya of them : ' Among the people were
professed infidels, whUe the greater part were working aU iniquity
¦with greediness. Many, however, were sufficiently religious to
express their approbation of earneat and faithful addreaa, when
delivered from the pulpit.'
In the winter of 1805, as he was returning late in the evening vrith
his wife from a Christmas party, his horse was carried down the
overflowing water of the Darwen sfream, his vrife was drowned, and
his own Ufe waa in imminent perU. Deeply afiected by hia danger
and deUverance, he from that time preached more earnestly, and the
people, careless and vricked as many of them had been, felt the
power of his new manner of preaching. An extraordinary revival of
evangeUcal and practical reUgion was the happy result. The
majority of the congregation were estabUshed in the truth, and
regarded it aa the power and grace of God for thefr aalvation.*
Since the removal of Mr. Bowdon the congregation haa obtained
an uninterrupted succession of evangelical ministers, as have several
other congregations which have been formed from it.
The congregation founded at Whitwoeth, near Rochdale, was, in
the middle of the last century, in a state of indifference or uncer
tainty respecting religious doctrine. For some time the people
listened to the preaching of a student from Warrington, who did not
succeed (even if he made the attempt) in promoting the Arianism
which he is supposed to have held. He was succeeded by Mr. Titus
Cordingley, ' a very useful and acceptable minister. 'f Bfis successor
was an extraordinary man. Although not a Calvinist, for he seems
to have held the theological opinions of John Wesley, the Rev. James
Burgess zealously preached the puritan docfrines of justification by
faith, salvation by grace, redemption by the death of Christ, and
regeneration by the infiuence of the Holy Spfrit. Living by this
faith, he laboured earnestly to establish it in his church and promote
it in his neighbourhood. But he was a sfrange as weU as an evan
geUcal preacher. When his wild imagination gained the ascendency
over his judgment, he often startled hia hearers by his incautious
and exfravagant assertions.} As years advanced he became moder
ate and sober-minded. His later method of preaching may be
conjectured from the charge he gave to Mr. Towers, his successor,
¦* Memorial of the Power and Grace of God ma/nif ested in the Account of the recent
Awakening a'nd Conversion of many Persons in the village of Darwen. London, 1806.
t Dr. Raffles's MSS.
J One of his strange sermons was printed, and is stUl preserved as a curiosity.
It is entitled Beelzebub driving and drowning his Hogs,

MODERN DISSENT. 509
' to preach doctrines practicaUy, and to enforce duties evangeUcally.'
The congregation, originally presbyterian, thus became connected
with the CongregationaUsts.
The presbyterian congregation at Elswick, founded immediately
after the Act of Uniformity, was, in the last century, very much in
the same state vrith regard to doctrine as that of Darwen or of
"Whitworth. I have afready observed that the Rev. Cuthbert Harrison
obtained a licence for the parochial chapel in 1672. After his death
the place waa occupied by ministers who had been educated at
Kendal or at Warrington, under whoae ministrations the congrega
tion gradually declined, while no very definite infiuence was felt in
forming or modifying thefr religious opinions. The few people who
remained in connection vrith the chapel were willing to hear any
plain and earnest man who would teach them ' the way of the Lord
more perfectly.' In the year 1780, Mr. Robert Simpson (afterwards
Dr. Simpson of Hoxton Academy), having completed his term of
study at the Independent academy of Heckmondwike, became the
pastor of the church. Although he continued but a short time in
this retfred situation, he excited so much interest by his earnest and
affectionate preaching, and his devoted and exemplary Ufe, that on
his departure the people would Usten to the preaching of np other
gospel than that which he had preached. Simpson was their model
minister, and as they found no one Uke him among the Presbyterians,
they connected themselves with the congregational denomination.
We shall soon meet vrith thefr beloved pastor settled and doing
good service in Bolton.
The presbyterian meeting-house in Tockholes, near Blackburn,
was, as I have afready observed, erected soon after the passing of the
Act of Toleration. Although the congregation was small, it had for
a considerable time a kind of respectabUity under the countenance and
patronage of the great family of Hoghton Tower. I can scarcely
say it fiourished under their UberaUty as weU as thefr patronage,
for they did not consider it beneath their dignity to allow their min
ister to derive a considerable part of his support from the funds of
the London mercers, grocers, and other traders. In this respect,
however, they were not worse, but rather better, than many other
wealthy nonconforming famiUes in the county. Among the earUest
ministers of Tockholes were Mr. Atkinson and Mr. James Towers,
under whose ministry about one hundred persons from the neigh
bouring farms, together vrith the servants of 'the Tower,' usually
attended. Both of them were strictly orthodox.* The former waa a
sound, if not a high, Calrinist, as appears from a treatise which he
published on ' God's Sovereign Election.'
Mr. Towers was succeeded, though not immediately, by Mr. James
Scott, a native of North Britain. At the time of his settlement, the
presbyterian congregations of Lancashire were generally falUng into
that state of reUgious declension which I have already described.
* Letter of the Rev. Noah Blackburn, afterwards minister of Tockholes, cited
in Dr. Raffles's MSS. Article Tockholes, in his Nonconformist Churches of
Lancashire.

510 LANCASHIRE.
So far as the devotional feeling of the people of Tockholes was con
cerned, Mr. Scott did much to raise and sustain it by his plain,
affectionate, and earnest preaching ; and as to their doctrine, he took
the most effectual means of securing its orthodoxy, not by contro
versy, but by inducing almost all of them to learn the Assembly's
Catechism. As he made his pastoral visits, he catechised the several
famUies, of which ' some more than seventy years old would stand up
like children,' and repeat the answers of the catechism to his great
satisfaction.* Mr. Scott removed to Heckmondwike in Yorkshfre,
where he was greatly respected and eminently useful.
He was succeeded by Thomas Waldegrave, a converted Papist,
who. Dr. Raffles says, ' was almost deified in Tockholes and Man
chester.' He removed to Bury St. Edmunds, and eventually rose to
the dignity of a ' Tabernacle supply ' in London, where he annuaUy
coUected great crowds to hear his ferrid declamation.f
Mr. Waldegrave was followed by James McQuhae, who had been
educated at Edinburgh for the ministry of the Antiburghera. Dur
ing some years he laboured at Tockholes, where, although the con
gregation was very small, he never preached without committing his
sermon to memory. As his thoughtful preaching brought several
Scotchmen from Blackburn to hear him, they induced him to remove
to their town, where they could regularly attend on his ministry. We
shall meet vrith him again doing a good work in his new situation.}
* Information of his successor, the Rev. Noah Blackburn, in Dr. Raffles's MSS.
Instead of observing the orthodox custom of burying his family inside the meeting
house, he had his wife interred outside in a grave which, when preaching, he could
see through the vrindow, ' that he might be perpetually reminded of his own
dissolution.' + Memoir in Evangelical Magazine, vol. xxU. p. 262.
X While he was at Tockholes he was charged by some of the neighbouring min
isters ¦with trimming, so as to please the Hoghton famUy, who were then supposed
to have departed from the doctrine of their fathers. Dr. Rafiles suppUes the fol
lowing anecdote, which he heard from that unfailing repository of dissenting anec
dotes, Mr. Charrier of Liverpool. Mr. McQuhae complained of a sermon preached
at a meeting of ministers, as deficient iu evangeUcal doctrine, and said to his
brethren at the dinner-table, ' It is not, as they say, that I have a crop for aU sorts
of corn.' ' No,' repUed Mr. Charrier, ' they say you have corn for all sorts of
crops.' Another statement, however, respecting Sir Henry Hoghton, the last
baronet who attended the meeting-house at Tockholes, scarcely harmonises with
the fiction that he wis'ned ministers to ' trim.' To Mr. Waldegrave, his favourite
preacher, he frequently said, as weU as to the praying members of the congrega
tion, ' Pray for me ! for there are very few in my situation that go to heaven.' Dr.
Raifies makes this statement on the authority of the Rev. Noah Blackburn. — MSS,
as before.
Among other curious information. Dr. Raffles suppUes in his MSS. the following,
as communicated to him by the Rev. Noah Blackburn and the Rev. Peter Samuel
Charrier. A very strongly marked separation distinguished Dissenters and Church
men in that neighbourhood. People never thought of changing their religion.
Church folk were Church folk through Ufe, and Presbyterians were Presbyterians,
and their children after them. If a Churchman married a presbyterian woman
(a very unusual occurrence), each continued to attend the accustomed place of wor
ship, while, of their children, the boys uniformly went with their father, aud the
girls with their mother, to church or meeting as the case might be, A conversion
of a brother to his sister's religion was scarcely ever known. The old puritan no
tions of athletic sports were long preserved in that presbyterian society. Dr, Raffles

MODERN DISSENT. 511
Among his successors were Mr. Noah Blackburn, afterward of
Delph, Mr. Thomas Whiteley, and some others who remained only a
short time. The congregation, as may be supposed, is now very
small, although it has retained its ancient faith and, I hope, its first
love, in all the changes through which it has passed.
From the preceding statements it appears that Congregational
Dissent gained no sfrong or prominent position in Lancashire untU
after the middle of the last century. The old Independency, never
powerful in that county, had become closely connected, or rather
identified, with what was often, though improperly, caUed Presby
terianism, whUe the few Nonconformist congregations, whether ori
ginally Presbyterian or Independent, which had reteined the faith of
their founders, readily associated in one denomination with the dis
senting societies which, assuming a somewhat new form of congre
gational nonconformity, were rising and rapidly grovring around
thefr ancient sanctuaries. These old congregations, the reader may
have observed, were small, feeble, and situate in rural if not obscure
villages. In the great towns — Manchester, Liverpool, Bolton, Roch
dale, Bury, Preston, Lancaster, Warrington, Wigan — there was, in
the early part of the last century no professedly congregational church
of any importance.
Several causes confributed to the production, -ritaUty, and growth
of the new congregationaUsm, or rather to the revival of evangeUcal
nonconformity. The Methodists soon came into Lancashire, and
found there the means and opportunity of doing a great and good
work, John Wesley, on his first risit to Manchester, as he belonged
to no party, was allowed, as we have seen, to preach to the Tories in
the collegiate church, and to the Whigs in St. Ann's ; although on
subsequent -visits he produced upon the crowds who heard him in
unconsecrated places, as bams or factories, more deep and permanent
impressions than he had ever produced upon the genteel people
assembled in either ecclesiastical edifice. Many of his hearers, re
taining thefr religious impressions after he had left them, gladly asso
ciated in various places and with different forms, anywhere or any
how, as they could, with preachers or vrithout them, for their mutual
edification and comfort. Their prayer-meetings and other frregular
services, as they were caUed, produced an interest in reUgious truths
' which spread among many of the Dissenters, and was received by
them as a rerival of the religious Iffe of the Heywoods, the JoUies,
and the other fathers of Nonconformity. In many respects the Me
thodist resembled the old Puritan, as his descendante knew him by
their family traditions, or read of him in their favourite books. But
they saw resemblance vrith difference. The methodist doctrine ¦was
not exactly that of their fathers, nor was the manner of preaching
says, ' Church members and deacons would go a-hunting or shooting, and never
dream of any impropriety in the practice.' 'Why should their sleep be disturbed
by such dreams of impropriety ? Dissenting ministers eat with as little scruple as
most men a hare or a partridge for supper, and ' never dream of any impropriety.
-Why should my dear friend have supposed that evU dreams would scare the hunts
man or sportsman, rather than the parson who feasted on the game ?

512 LANCASHIRE.
according to thefr model. They were interested, excited, stimulated,
but they wanted for thefr spfritusd nourishment something different
from that which they found in the Wesleyan serrices. The chapels
were not meeting-houses, though often very much Uke them. Many
Dissenters religiously affected, feeUng no personal obUgation to Mr.
Wesley, preferred to obtain religious instruction in the orthodox way
of their chUdhood and of thefr fathers, though vrith more Ufe than
thefr fathers knew, rather than to connect themselves vrith the new
reUgious organisation spreading around them. Preachers adapted to
this class of hearers occasionally appeared in different parts of the
county. Some of them preached according to the Calvinistic the
ology of the Puritans, and inculcated the principles of the Assembly's
Catechism. Others confined themselves to earnest, evangeUcal, prac
tical preaching, without stertling thefr dissenting hearers vrith the
sfrange aud unmeaning conventionaUsms of the Wesleyan fraternity
— free wiU, falUng from grace, experiencing justification, and obtain
ing perfection. As these preachers, many of whom, like St. Paul,
worked vrith their own hands to minister to their necessities, said
Uttle, and probably cared little, about ecclesiastical poUty, thefr hear
ers, even if they had not been preriously connected with dissenting
churches, easUy and naturally adopted the simplest form of congre
gational organisation, that is, the form which allows any number of
people, who meet in one place for thefr mutual edification, to make
such regulations as may seem to them most convenient and useful.
Such congregations in a short time became Independent churches,
often acting on the advice of some neighbouring Independent min
ister. The growth of Congregationalism may also, in some degree, be at
tributed to the immigration of many Scotch weavers and traders into
the manufacturing and commercial districts of the county. These
strangers, disliking a liturgical serrice, and finding the doctrine of
the English Presbyterians very unlike the gospel of the Shorter Cate
chism, were pleased to find in the independent meeting-houses the
doctrine and serrices of their own kfrk. They naturally sought, or
were induced to accept, reUgious association with the people most
Uke themselves. Although they were occasionaUy froublesome to
thefr new associates about very smaU matters, and desired a closer
approximation to thefr own modes of government, they were com
pelled to acquiesce, as they were neither sufficiently numerous nor
sufficiently generous to erect sanctuaries in which they could worship
according to their own pleasure. Many of them, on growing accus
tomed to the congregational discipline, overcame their early preju
dices, and became its able and decided advocates. The Scottish
element was not vrithout its influence in forming the character of
Lancashire Congregationalism. To a considerable extent it counter
acted some irregular and unpuritanic tendencies which had come
from methodistical association. Organs, for instance, would have
been set up earUer in many independent meeting-houses, had it not
been for the sfrong opposition of Scotchmen to ' that profane noise '
of machinery.

MODERN DISSENT. 513
The change, on occasion of a vacancy in a nonconformist pulpit,
from an Arian to a Unitarian preacher, contributed in many places
to the growth, and in some to the formation, of congregational
churches. On the death of a quiet, peaceable, charitable Arian minis
ter, the introduction into his pulpit of a Unitarian, especially if he
were gifted vrith controversial powers and fond of exhibiting them,
frequently caused a considerable secession from the presbyterian
meeting-house. In some instances the seceders returned to the Es
tablished Church, but in many, especially where the congregational
minister was a peaceable man and a good preacher, they united vrith
the CongregationaUsts. This I can elucidate by my own recollec
tions. Although I settled in Manchester nearly thfrty years after
the death of Dr. Barnes, the last Arian minister of the venerable
sanctuary in Cross Sfreet, I found several old people in the congre
gational societies of that town who had been his regular hearers, and
even devoted admfrers. They had much of primitive puritanism
about them. Although not avowedly Arians, they would have gladly
Ustened to a peaceable, moderate sort of Arian, preaching evangeli
cally, or making use of puritan phraseology. Above all things they
disliked confroversial preaching, whether on the side of Arianism or
of Calvinism. In the large towns of Lancashire, almost all the con
gregational churches had, in the early part of this century, some
representetives of the presbyterian nonconformity which was passing
away. The gro-wth of congregationaUsm at the time of which I have been
speaking may, to a great extent, be attributed to the torpid stete of
the Established Church, and to the incompetency, indolence, and even
immorality of many of its clergy. HappUy, this state of clerical
deUnquency has passed away, and it is not pleasant to refer to its
past existence. The truth, however, must be told. The clergy who
complain so bitterly of the gro-wth of dissent should be taught that
the only remedy for the eril which so grievously troubles them is to
be found in a course of conduct on their part the reverse of that
which, in the daya of their fathers, brought upon their Church the
loss of the religious part of the middle classes of society, Lanca
shfre was not -without its proportion of ignorant, negligent, worldly,
and even immoral clergymen ; and the English Church, never very
strong in that county, suffered there a loss quite proportionate to its
loss in other parts of England. Methodism and congregationaUsm
were the denominations which, on the revival of religion, obtained
the larger part of the reUgious people who left the Church of Eng
land, "When so many people, infiuenced by devout feeling, were leaving
the national Church, attempts were made in several populous towns,
as in Manchester, Preston, and Rochdale, to form congregations
either in connection with the Cal-rinistic Methodists, or in no recog
nised connection with any nonconformist denomination. Seceding
from the English Church because they desired more earnest and
evangelical preaching, or more free and unrestrained exercise of thefr
reUgious activities, than they could obtain in the Establishment,
l1

514 LANCASHIRE.
many zealous persons met for worship as they found opportunity,
erected sanctuaries which they called chapels, encouraged a more
free and animated style of preaching than that of either the church
or the meeting-house, introduced the liturgy, prorided clerical robes
for their preachers, set up organs, instituted evening services, and
although they required the reading of prayers, with some inconsis
tency would not tolerate the reading of sermons. For some time
their chapels succeeded. Large congregations were brought together,
especiaUy in the evenings, of religious people who cared little about
the old reasons of nonconformity, and whose only inducement to go
to chapel was, that they liked its serrices better than those to which
they had been accustomed at church. But, somehow or other, not
withstanding their auspicious commencement, the preachers of these
chapels, often boasting that they had the advantages of both Church
and dissent without the evils of either, failed to retain the congrega
tions which they had attracted. Thefr hearers, frequently, on the
settlement of a better preacher or a better man than the clergyman
whose ministry they had forsaken, returned to the religious home of
thefr youth. Others became theoretically as well as practically dis
senters, avowed thefr principles, and joined the congregational socie
ties of their respective neighbourhoods. Many were induced to
frequent those meeting-houses where the dissenting ministers, either
from preference or from policy, adopted the popular style of metho
distical preaching which, however intelligent readers may wonder,
has done marvellous good to the common people of this county wher
ever it has been well managed and well supported by a blameless life.
And further, like the Unitarians of Liverpool in the last century,
many Calvinists of Manchester and Preston in the present, disliking
to hear the liturgy out of its proper place, the parish church, either
went to enjoy it there, or worshipped without it in the meeting
house.* So complete has been their failure that, of several Calrin
istic Methodist chapels which were erected in the county in the
beginning of this century, some in the connection of the Countess of
Huntingdon and others distinct from it, that in Rochdale is, I be
lieve, the only one that still retains its original character and
formularies. However their faUure may be regretted on account of
the good influence they once exercised upon a class of persons usually
neglected by the Church and inaccessible to dissent,- it has proved a
source of considerable increase and strength to the congregationaUsm
of the county. Nor has their brief existence been without some in
fluence upon the form and character, as well as upon the strength of
nonconformity. A few of their ministers became pastors of congre
gational churches, and, like Mr. Roby of Manchester, were among
the best pastors those churches ever acquired. In many instences,
congregational ministers wisely adopted thefr free mode of preaching,
¦* In my younger days I knew good people who, although they had no objection
to hear dissenting ministers pray or preach, thought them chargeable with arro
gant assumption if they read the liturgy, which belonged not to them but to the
clergy of the Church of England. Some such feeling still lingers in country vU-

MODERN DISSENT. 515
fooUshly their semi-clerical robes, and, whether wisely or foolishly I
leave musical people to determine, their instrumental music. Since
the introduction of these changes, the meeting-houses have gradually
but generally assumed the name of chapels.
StiU more than to any of these causes, the vigorous growth of
Congregationalism in Lancashire in the latter part of the eighteenth
and beginning of the present century is to be attributed, under God,
to several ministers who, by their earnest preaching and incessant
working, raised new congregations or rerived old ones in many parts
of the county, and excited a spirit like their own among the people
of thefr charge. Not only by their powerful preaching, which, when
there were few effective preachers near them, worked wonders in the
land, but also by the instrumentality which they originated for the
promulgation of their evangelical doctrine, they produced a great
change in the religious character of many of the principal towns and
populous vUlages of the county. These men, not content with preach
ing as often as their strength and pastoral duties would allow, induced
itinerant preachers to visit the places which in their neighbourhood
were destitute of religious instruction, often afforded these itinerants
guidance and help as to their manner of preaching, promoted the
building of chapels, encouraged the opening of Sunday schools, and
in short began that evangelical work which, carried on by successors
inspired by their spirit and cheered by their success, has given, in
place of the few evangeUcal nonconforming societies of the past cen
tury, the hundred and seventy congregational churches which are
now established in the county. Some of these churches consist singly
of as many members as would be nearly equal in number to the mem
bership, taken coUectively, of all the congregational churches which
existed in Lancashire in the year 1748.* Congregationalism, which
was at that time, relatively to other denominations, , feebler in Lanca
shire than in any other populous county of England, has now, esti
mated in the same manner, become probably stronger than in any
other. The men who did this great work are well worthy of being
kept in remembrance ; and although I can attribute it especially or
pre-eminently to no one workman, I can easily select a few of the
more prominent and successful.
1 have already noticed the good serrice done to the dissenting
interest in Lancashfre by two Scotchmen, who began their ministry
in the old presbyterian meeting-houses of two obscure viUages of the
county, Mr. McQuhae in Tockholes and Mr. Simpson in Elswick.
They continued their labours with great energy and success, the for
mer in Blackburn, the latter in Bolton.
The Rev. James MoQuhae removed from Tockholes to Blackburn
about the year 1777. The few English Nonconformists who resided
pre-riously to that time in Blackburn had been connected with the
¦* In the Congregational Tear Book ior 1868 the Independent chapels of the
Lancashire Union are enumerated as two hundred and thirty-three, with a fellow
ship of 20,362 members. Looking to the accounts of one hundred and twenty
years ago, I do not know where to find five, or even two, consisting of a hundred
members.

516 LANCASHIRE.
congregation meeting in the Lower Chapel, Darwen. Their fathers
had thought Uttle of the inconvenience of travelling three miles out
and home every Sabbath across the bleak moors of that unsheltered
country. Let us hope that thefr children, who determined to buUd a
sanctuary near thefr home, were induced to do this not so much from
regard to thefr o-wn convenience as by a laudable desire to introduce
thefr evangeUcal doctrine into a populous and increasing town.*
These EngUshmen conversing vrith their Scottish neighbours who
were in the habit of going every Sunday to Tockholes, it was sug
gested by one party or the other that probably if the EngUsh and
Scotch would unite, Mr. McQuhae, whose preaching they all ap
proved, might be induced to remove to Blackburn and become the
pastor of thefr xmited church. As a prospect of greater usefulness
and comfort was thus presented to him than he could hope to see in
his secluded -yUlage, he readUy accepted the proposal. In his new
position his preaching was very effective, and much Uked by all classes
of people, Presbyterians, Independents, and Methodiste. As some
Church people and Arian dissenters frequently attended his services,
the old tale was rerived, that ' he had corn for all sorts of crops.'
The fruth, however, was, if we may depend, as I am sure we may,
upon the testimony of his intimate friend, the Rev. Edward Parsons
of Leeds, that he preached the evangelical doctrine faithfully but not
angrily, practically rather than controversially, and in a manner
which interested intelUgent hearers, whether they assented or not to
his statements. For twenty-seven years he continued his useful and
successful labour in Blackburn. He educated several young men as
preachers, who, encouraged by his example and assisted by his friends,
coUected congregations in the more destitute parts of the county.
Sudden death terminated his useful labours in 1804, in the sixty-
thfrd year of his age. His funeral sermon was preached by his friend,
the Rev. Edward Parsons, who describes him as ' a minister ha-ving
few equals,' ' under whose judicious preaching every doctrine became
a test of Christian experience and an incentive to practical hoUness. ' t
Mr. McQuhae had not been long in Blackburn before he infroduced
his countryman and friend, the Rev. Robeet Simpson, to a congre-
¦* In 1777 twenty respectable famUies of Blackburn who had regularly attended
the ministry of the Rev. Robert Smalley of Darwen, separated by mutual consent,.
and built a new chapel in that improving town. Letter of the Rev. Robert Blake
of Darwen, in Dr. Raffles's MSS. Memorials of Nonconformist Churches, p. 12.
+ Serm,on preached on May 20, 1804, on the sudden death of the Rev. James
McQuhae, by Edward Parsons, In this sermon Mr. Parsons says : ' He was un
assuming, liberal, and affectionate. He thought for himself, and left others to the
full enjoyment of the same liberty. No preacher has been better esteemed at
home, or more generally acceptable abroad.' Mr. Parsons notices his ' hospitality
to his brethren,' for which virtue 'he was distinguished.' I am glad to adduce
this testimony in contradiction or explanation of strange stories which were told of
his penurious habits, especially when minister of Tockholes. A minister having
nothing else to live upon than the ' chapel wage ' of Tockholes, under 51. a quarter,
the gift of 51. from the Presbyterian Fund every year, and the subscription of the
baronet of Hoghton, might weU be excused for forming 'penurious habits.' Mr.
McQuhae, like an honest Scotchman, preferred penury to debt, and scanty living to
loss of credit.

MODERN DISSENT. 517
gation in Bolton which had been pre^riously under the ministry of
the Rev. James Wraith, who commenced his evangelistic labours as
a viUage preacher, and, like many vUlage preachers of that time, be
came the pastor of a considerable congregation. On his removal Mr.
Simpson was invited to the vacant office, and on October 2, 1782,
was publicly ordained according to the usages of congregational dis
senters. The discourses preached at his ordination were published,
and among them an affectionate, wise, and most impressive charge
addressed to him by Mr. McQuhae. At the time of Mr. Simpson's
settlement in that ' famous seat of the Reformation,' the old puritan
spfrit of ' the Lancashire Geneva ' had grievously declined and
seemed ready to die. The presbyterian congregation which in its
better days had a thousand communicants, thongh stUl very respect
able and influential, had lost much of its popularity and sfrength.
Its ministers, although maintaining a high character and preaching
with considerable ability, were unable to attract strangers, to conci
liate opponents, to prevent secessions, or to flU up the vacancies
occasioned by the ineritable changes of time. Under the ministry of
Mr. Simpson, the old spirit of the presbyterian meeting-house seemed
to revive in the congregational chapel* Nonconformity again be
came a power in its ancient resort. His simple, devout, earnest
spirit breathed a blessed influence over aU his labours, and made him,
Uke the old Puritans whose doctrine he restored in Bolton, ' mighty
in wrestUng vrith the God of Jacob.' Much interest was excited ; a
large and influential congregation was gathered ; the puritan spirit
grew with the puritan doctrine ; under his guidance and care that
spirit and doctrine were carried by itinerant preachers into the popu
lous villages of the district. After nine years spent in Bolton, the
report of his successful labours reached distant places and brought
several invitations to exercise his ministry in larger towns. Some he
refused, but one came to him as the call of God to leave Bolton. The
committee of the Evangelical Academy, then recently estebUshed at
Mile End near London, could find no one so able as the puritan
preacher of Bolton to inspfre young men vrith an frrepressible desire
and determination to preach Christ crucified simply, earnestly, and
* The congregation to which Mr, Simpson preached originated in the labours of
•the Methodists, although it was considerably strengthened by a large secession from
the presbyterian meeting-house. Both Mr. Wesley and Mr. Whitefield had
preached with great success in Bolton. One of Mr. Wesley's companions, Mr.
Bennet, becoming Calvinistic in his theology, promoted the erection of a congrega
tional chapel in Duke's Alley, in 1754. Soon after the opening, the important se
cession which had previously removed from the presbyterian meeting house joined
them. Mr. Bennet was succeeded by Mr. Whitford, who had also been a metho
dist preacher ; Mr. Whitford by Mr. Wraith ; and he, as I have observed, by Mr.
Sim^Bon.— Centenary Memorials of Duke's Alley Chapel, by WiUiam Hope Davison,
the present minister.
A second Independent church was formed in Bolton in the year 1807. The
original members seceded from the chapel in Duke's AUey, and were encouraged by
Dr. Simpson, who continued to feel great interest in the reUgious movements of
Bolton, to unite in church fellowship, and to invite Mr. William Jones, one of his
own students, to become their pastor. Under the ministry of Mr. Jones a large
congregation was gathered, and the spacious chapel in Mawdsley Street was erected
and opened in 1809,

518 LANCASHIRE.
affectionately, and to instruct them in sound biblical and theological
science. On his removal, the people of his charge were sufficiently
attached to his doctrine and imbued with his spirit to choose for his
successor a Ukeminded man, the Rev. Wm. Maurice of Rotherham
College, afterwards the able, learned, and respected minister of the
Independent church in Fetter Lane, London.
Happily, also, Mr. MoQuhae was succeeded in Blackburn by the
Rev. Joseph Fletohee, A.M., a minister in every respect able and
willing to continue and extend the work of his predecessor, both in
that town and in its neighbourhood. His persuasive preaching, un
wearied labours. Christian spirit, gentlemanly manners, and extensive
influence, raised evangelical nonconformity in Blackburn to an
attractive eminence to which it had never before attained. Hia
removal to Stepney was long regretted, as his memory is still precious
to a few surrivors in the hundred of Blackburn and throughout the
county of Lancaster.
Those who have read the ' Memoirs of the Rev. Geobgb Bdedee '
will readily beUeve that he did not minister for six years in Lancaster
vrithout producing important results. The independent church in
that town originated with some itinerant preachers, who by thefr
popular ministrations attracted a congregation in a large room, fitted
and furnished for religious worship. A few respectable famiUes who
were wearied with the dull preaching of the Church encouraged
these serrices, and associated with thefr promoters in securing a smaU
chapel which had been abandoned by its original occupants. Ha-rimg
constituted a church, they elected for their first pastor Mr. Henry
Hunt, a native of Dublin, who continued with them little more than
three years. On the erection of a more commodious chapel, some
dispute arose between him and the principal contributors respecting
the expenses of the buUding, and the arrangements for liquidating
the debt which had been incurred. So much unpleasantness followed,
that Mr. Hunt resigned his charge, and Mr. Burder commenced his
ministry in the new chapel* Although he remained in Lancaster
only from 1777 to 1783, he greatly promoted the interest of evan
gelical nonconformity in the town and neighbourhood. Not content
with the regular labours of his chapel, he frequently -risited the sur
rounding -riUages, and preached in such rooms and barns as he could
procure and appropriate for afternoon or evening worship. To the
rustic congregations of those -rillages he induced several of his friends
to preach, or to read plain sermons which he himself often furnished.
The author of the well-known ' Village Sermons,' at that time a young
man, probably supplied his itinerant preachers, who travelled in the
rural districts of Amounderness and Lonsdale, "vrith the outlines of
sermons which were afterwards preached in many country churches
of England and Wales. On his removal from Lancashire, he settled
in Coventry, and eventually in London, where he succeeded his friend
¦* Mr. Hunt, after preaching in several towns of the north of England, eventuaUy
settled in Horselydown, London, where he continued to preach until he became
the oldest independent minister in the metropolis. He died in 1815, in the ninety-
first year of his age.

MODERN DISSENT. 519
the Rev. WiUiam Maurice, already mentioned, as pastor of the inde
pendent church in Fetter Lane.*
The work which he auspiciously commenced was happily continued
by his successor, the Rev. Peter Samuel Charrier, who, having
laboured in Lancaster about twenty years, removed to 13ethesda
chapel, Liverpool, where his valuable ministry was prolonged untU
his death in 1826. Among those who have contributed to the rerival
and strength of nonconformity in Lancashfre, Mr. Charrier is worthy
of honourable remembrance, t
Modern Congregationalism in Manchester originated in the middle
of the last century with a few good people who oared much more for
Evangelical doctrine than for ecclesiastical poUty. Some of them
had seceded from Cross Street meeting-house on account of the new
doctrine which had been infroduced into that venerable sanctuary of
nonconformity ; some had immigrated from Scotland ; and some had
been reUgiously excited by the earnest preaching of the Methodists
or Calvinistic itinerants from Yorkshfre. They met for worship in
a small and inconvenient meeting-house in Cold House Lane, which
has been, successively, the first reUgious home of Presbyterians,
Independents, Scotch Baptists, and some minor sects of Methodists.
Their first pastor, the Rev. Caleb Warhurst, a man of fervent piety,
exemplary character, loring spirit, and incessant labour, was ordained
in 1756. In 1761 a meeting-house was erected for him in Hunter's
Croft, now called Cannon Street, in which he laboured for about ten
years, much to the satisfaction and benefit of his people, but much
also to the injury of his own health.}
* While resident in Lancashire he published a little book entitled The Good Old
Way, of which, his biographer says, ' more than a hundred thousand were sold.'
Of his Village Sermons it was computed some years before his death that 'between
sixty and seventy thousand volumes had been circulated.' — WUson's i)jsscre4i»jr
Churches of London, vol. viii. p. 470.
+ The growth of the independent congregation during the ministry of Mr.
Charrier in Lancaster, in so far as it was consequent upon the decline of the pres
byterian interest, may to some extent be attributed to the strange conduct of the
Arian minister of that town, who, although a very attractive preacher when he was
in good humour, was almost incessantly quarrelling with his people. On occasion
of the death of a lady of his congregation connected with several of the principal
families of the town, he observed a large audience expecting to hear her funeral
sermon. After announcing his text, he said, ' I perceive an unusually large audi
ence. Tou are come no doubt to hear the character of Mrs.  ; but you will all
be disappointed, for be it known to all of you that I and my people are at open
war. I see or know nothing of them except as they appear on Sundays in the
comers of their pews. As the deceased was a constant attendant here, let us hope
she is gone to a better world.'
In order to express his disapproval of the iUiberality of his people in contributing
inadequately to his support, he would frequently lay aside on Sunday evening the
clothes in which he had preached, and walk through the principal streets of the
town dressed in a ragged coat, patched breeches, old shoes, and dirty linen, taking
care, as he had opportuiuty, to tell those who acco,sted him that he was dressed in
a style befitting the contributions made for his support. I cite these particulars
from the MSS. of Dr. Raffles, who says of them ' communicated by Mr. Charrier.'
J For particulars of the early history of this church I am indebted to a copy of
the minutes of the church book of Cannon Street chapel, extending from its origin
to the secession of the member's who buUt Mosley Street chapel. These seceders
had with them the secretary of the deacons, who seems to have copied the church
book before he restored it.

520 LANCASHIRE.
He was succeeded by the Rev. Timothy Priestley, a brother of the
celebrated Dr. Joseph Priestley. Mr. Priestley, although a preacher
of considerable ability, was not very successfiil nor very happy in
Manchester. He was troubled, either with a quarrelsome temper or
vrith quarrelsome deacons, for the church book contains abundant
eridence of discord in the vestry. The deacons lectured him about his
frreverence and irregularities, whUe he paid very Uttle respect to thefr
lectures. He was charged vrith irreverently ascending the pulpit
with his hat on his head, and vrith making packing-cases on Sunday
nights. As to his wearing his hat on the pulpit stairs, he seems
to have freated the charge as an impertinence unworthy of notice,
and as to the packing-cases, while the deacons kept him miserably
poor, he thought it was his duty to ' pro-ride things honest in the
sight of aU men,' as well as to ' remember the Sabbath day.' "When
the demand for these cases was urgent, as it often was pre-riously to
the saiUng of an American vessel from Liverpool, he and his famUy
worked in the night intervening between Sunday and Monday, but
he never acknowledged that he began before the clock struck twelve.
After some years, which were sadly disturbed by disputes vrith
his deacons, he rfesigned his office, and was sticceeded by the Rev.
David Bradberry, who betook himself to the making, not of packing-
cases, but of epic poems. His employment, although more respect
able, was, I fear, less lucrative than that of his worthy predecessor.
In addition to the perplexity of a limited income, he was troubled by
the disputes of bis people, and especially by the pertinacious attempte
of some Scotch members to appoint ruling elders, and to introduce
some other presbyterian usages into the church. Mr. Bradberry
was not the man to be ruled by either Scotohmen or Englishmen,
elders or deacons, and therefore, after much unhappy controversy
and a large secession of members, he resigned his charge and left the
neighbourhood.* * His chief work is entitled Tetelestai, the Finale Close- It has prefixed the
following dedication : — To the Most Sublime,
Most High and Mighty,
Most Puissant,
Most Sacred,
Most Faithful,
Most Gracious,
Most Catholic,
Most Serene, ^
Most Reverend and Righteous Majesty,
Jehovah Emmanuel,
By indefeasible right
Sovereign of the Universe,
Prince of the Kings of the Earth,
Governor General of the World,
Chief Shepherd and Archbishop of Souls,
Chief Justice of Final Appeal,
Judge of the last Assize,
Distributor of Rights and Finisher of Fates,
Father of Mercies and Friend of Man,
This Poem

MODERN DISSENT. 521
The seceders from Cannon Street, including the Scotoh members,
erected their sanctuary in Mosley Street, which was the largest dis
senting chapel at that time in Lancashfre. Although they elected
Mr. Kennedy, a Scotchman, to be their first minister, they never
appointed ruUng elders, nor, so far as appears in their church book,
attempted to obtain what they so much desired when it was beyond
their reach-^a kirk-session.
Of the diminished and unpromising congregation which remained
in Cannon Sfreet meeting-house the Rev. WUliam Roby undertook
the pastoral charge. RecoUections of his ministry are still cherished
by the aged Nonconformiste of Lancashire, and traditions of his
goodness and power wUl be long preserved in thefr families.
He was born March 23, 1766, at Haigh near Wigan, where his
father kept a grammar school, in which he received his early educa
tion. Having completed the course of study prescribed in the school,
he became an assistant to his father, and, with his parents, regularly
attended the serrices of the EstebUshed Church. "While he was
thus engaged, a young friend inrited him to hear the preaching of
Mr. Johnson, who, as a minister of the Countess of Huntingdon,
had recently introduced evangelical doctrine into Wigan. Like his
father, a sound and orthodox Churchman, William Roby could not
be induced to enter a chapel untU he learnt that the prayers of the
Church were read vrith much propriety, and that the serrice had
nothing of a dissenting character. Belie-ving that the Ucensed room
was intended to be supplemental rather than opposed to the church,
he agreed to spend a Sunday -with his friend in Wigan. In the
morning he was so much pleased with the apparent devoutness of
the minister whUe he was reading the common prayer and preaching
evangelical truth, that he was quite disposed to go again in the after
noon. Mr. Johnson then read, as he frequently did on Sunday
afternoons, one of the homUies, and read it much better than Roby
had ever heard it read in the parish church. The youth, still more
gratified with a serrice so well conducted, and with a minister so
respectful to the Church, gladly attended in the evening. Mr.
Johnson then preached like a Methodist a sermon, plain, earnest,
affectionate, Uvely in its Ulustrations, dfrect in its appeal, alarming
and yet encouraging. For the first time Roby heard the kind of
preaching which, then new in Lancashire, worked mightUy in the
county, and he heard it with an interest in its truths which he never
lost. Dr. Raffles, who dearly loved the puritan dialect; says, ' There
it was that God met vrith his soul'* I trust I understand it. From
that day WilUam Roby became an earnest, reUgious, devout. God
fearing boy. (a public testimony of his obligations and hopes)
is gratefully and humbly presented
by His Majesty's
highly favoured and very unworthy
Subject and Servant, The Author.
* MSS. vol, u., CoUections for a History of the Nonconformist Churches of Lan-
caAire.

522 LANCASHIRE.
His father observed the change, and, good man as he was, greatly
feared lest his boy should become a Methodist, and pervert the
orthodox principles of his scholars. As William avowed his deter
mination to continue his attendance on the minisfry of Mr. Johnson,
the old man thought they had better amicably separate than Uve in
continual unpleasantness. Shortly afterwards the son obtained a
situation as master of the free school at Bretherton, where he sought
to promote the religious instruction and spiritual welfare of his
pupils. Among other methods of accomplishing his object, he called
them together on Sunday evenings, when there was no serrice in the
church, for catechising and prayer. As the schoolroom was acces
sible to any risitors, the parents of his scholars attended, and as they
represented the services to be very instructive, many of the neigh
bouring cottagers crowded his room. Seeing so many persons
present, he frequently said a few good words to them, and thus,
unexpectedly to himself, without conferring with any, either Church
men or Dissenters, he became a sort of methodist preacher.
The clergyman was much offended with this unauthorised assump
tion of his prerogatives by his own schoolmaster. He first advised,
next commanded, the young preacher to desist ; and eventually
threatened to deprive him of his situation. Mr. Roby resigned his
office, and, acting under the adrice of Mr. Johnson, became a stu
dent in the Countess of Huntingdon's coUege at Trevecca. He was
soon afterwards ordained a minister in the connection of the countess,
and according to the forms prescribed by her ladyship.
After spending a short time at Worcester, he returned to Wigan,
where he preached and worked with great energy and success for
about seven years, first as assistant and afterwards as successor to
Mr. Johnson. In 1795 he accepted an invitation to become the pastor
of the church in Cannon Street, Manchester, where we have already
met -with him commencing his ministry in a diminished, divided, and
unpromising congregation.
Under his earnest, judicious, and instructive preaching, sustained
by his wise administration and exemplary Ufe, the congregation
gradually increased, and improved in Christian character as well as
in social position and influence. In earnest himself, he inspfred his
hearers with his own spfrit, stimulated them to religious exertion,
wisely directed their zeal, and induced them to build such a chapel
as would afford him the opportunity of collecting a large and influen
tial congregation. The spacious sanctuary erected for him in
Grosvenor Stree'c was soon occupied by a people who loved thefr
pastor, venerated his piety, admfred his zeal, confided in his judg
ment, imbibed his spirit, and imitated his g"bod example. Educated
in a grammar school of the EngUsh Church, and associated in his
early ministry with the preachers of the Countess of Huntingdon,
he was free from the iiarrow prejudice and formal precision of the
old dissenting ministers, and yet he became in conriction and prin
ciple a firm and decided Congregationalist. A man of pleasing sim
plicity, he affected none of the formalities of a clergyman, while the
style of his preaching retained from his early associations something

MODERN DISSENT. 523
of a clerical character. Churchmen and Dissenters who loved the
gospel loved to hear WUliam Roby preach it, whUe neither heard
anything offensive to thefr feelings or thefr prejudices. By training
pious young men for the ministry, and directing the labours of itin
erant preachers over a wide extent of country round Manchester, he
originated or strengthened many independent congregations amidst
a rapidly increasing population.
In connection with his labours in preparing young men for the
dissenting ministry, honourable mention ought to be made of the
UberaUty of his friend Robert Spear, Esq. While Mr. Roby gratui
tously devoted his time and labour to teaching, Mr. Spear generously
contributed to the support of such students as were unable to provide
for thefr necessary expenditure. So long as the two good men were
thus associated, there was scarcely a reUgious institution among the
evangeUcal Nonconformists of Lancashfre which was not indebted to
the labour of Mr. Roby and the liberality of Mr. Spear. They rest
from then' labours, and their works do follow them.
Mr. Roby died on January 11, 1830. Three sermons preached on
the occasion of his death have been pubUshed : one by the Rev. John
Ely ; one by Dr. Clunie ; and a thfrd, which, however, was not printed
until after the death of its author, by the Rev. Dr. McAll.
While Mr. Roby was preaching in Grosvenor Street, the Rev.
Joseph Smith, an exceedingly popular preacher, coUected a large and
influential congregation in Mosley Street chapel. From these two
congregations were formed several others : as in New Windsor ; in
Chapel Street, Salford ; in Jackson's Lane, Hulme, since removed to
the Stretford Road ; and in Rusholme Road, Chorlton-upon-Medlock.
The spirit of William Roby breathed in them all. Around these
congregations, which existed in 1839 when the writer settled in
Manchester, new sanctuaries have been prorided as they were needed,
and have been UberaUy supported. The ' Congregational Year Book '
for 1872 enumerates in Manchester and Salford some twenty -nine
Independent churches.
In Liverpool the oldest chapel belonging to the Congregationalists
is that of Newington. I have afready observed that the ancient
chapel of Toxteth Park was, after the passing of the Act of Uni
formity, occupied by two ministers, one a Presbyterian and the other
an Independent. The difference between them was so unimportant
that they worked together harmoniously, and apparently to the
satisfaction and comfort of thefr coUegiate charge.* The ministers
who succeeded them in the early part of the last century seem, Uke
many nonconforming ministers of that time, to have held no -very
definite theological opinions, or if they did, to have given them little
prominence in their public ministrations. Of Mr. GeUibrand and
Mr. Kenyon little more is known than that they were very quiet,
gentlemanly, scholarly men, who, whatever may have been thefr
private opinions, said very little about them to thefr congregation.
* At that time the residents of Toxteth Park were almost exclusively Noncon
formists. In a MS. of Dr. Raffles, it is said, ' there was neither a Churchman nor
a CathoUc in the whole district.'

524 LANCASHIRE,
About the year 1738, WiUiam Harding, a Cheshire farmer, en
dowed vrith the gift of preaching, was invited to become the minister
of the ancient chapel. Such settlements were not frequent among
the Nonconformists of that time, and Mr. Harding's was not a for
tunate one. He seems to have mistaken his ' proper gift of God.'
Having been useful as an extemporaneous preacher, he became am
bitious of a higher distinction, and, to show that he was no longer a
Methodist itinerant but a regular dissenting minister, he assumed a
clerical dress, wore a becoming wig, and betook himself to the
reading of long and elaborate sermons. The congregation, as might
have been expected, speedily declined, and its pastor was compelled
to resume, in connection with hia ministry, his old occupation of
farming and grazing. Much to the mortification of his reverence,
his daughters had to carry the mUk and butter of his farm to Liver
pool market.
Although in his decUning years his ministrations were forsaken
by almost all the hearers, they considered themselves as properly
belonging to the ancient chapel, and called it thefr own. Many of
them attended only on special occasions, as of funerals or anniversary
celebrations. Mr. Harding, like many of the nonconformist minis
ters, alwaya ' remembered the fifth of November,' on which day he
roused himself to give interest to an appropriate and eloquent sermon,
and usuaUy attracted to the othervrise desolate chapel a considerable
audience. On his death a pleasing memorial of the old times, or what would
have been so, had it not through his negUgence lost ita significance,
was discontinued by the congregation. In the time of persecution,
the good people of the Park were accustomed to meet for religious
worship in different houses, in order to elude the observation of the
informers. On the passing of the Act of Toleration, they perpetuated
the memory of their sufferings by Ucensing those houses (no fewer
than twelve), holding monthly prayer-meetings in them successively,
and so completing the rotation every year. It may seem strange
that these assemblies should have been continued throughout Mr.
Harding's long and negligent ministry. They were so, because he
allowed them to degenerate into convivial meetings, in which drink
ing ale and smoking tobacco took the place of exhortetion, psalm-
singing, and prayer.*
Some of the people reteined, through that duU and dreary time,
so much love of the doctrine to which they had Ustened in thefr
chUdhood, as induced them to in-rite the Rev. James McQuhae to
become thefr minister. On his declining thefr proposal, Mr. Hugh
Anderson obtained an in^ritation and accepted it, much to the dissat
isfaction of a considerable minority, who desfred to hear more of the
evangelical docfrine than he preached to them. Their dissatisfaction
was not allayed by the reply which he is said to have given to thefr
remonstrances, that 'if the people would only agree about thefr
doctrine and let him know what it was, he would gladly preach it.'
Seceding from the venerable sanctuary in which they had worshipped
* MSS, of Dr. Raffles.

MODERN DISSENT. 525
in thefr infancy, and to which on the death of Mr. Harding they had
hoped to return, they formed themselves into a congregational
church, for which Newington chapel was eventuaUy erected.
The seceders proposed to build a small meeting-house in the Park
for themselves and their families ; but, yielding to the advice of
Mr. McQuhae, who thought the time had come for a more bold
and aggressive movemeilt, they resolved, though ¦with some hesi
tancy, to erect a commodious chapel near the town.* Thefr first
minister, Mr. David Bruce, a student from Heckmondwike, com
menced hia laboura in 1776, and continued them with considerable
success in the new chapel. Among the MSS. of Dr. Raffies is a
curious letter of this gentleman, addressed to one of the deacons, in
which he acknowledges ha-ring preached in ' a black gown ' to a
London congregation. His explanation of this conduct, which he
thought would excite some disagreeable surprise in Liverpool, was
that ' as he was in London to collect for the payment of the chapel,
and as he had obtained larger contributiona from the Calvinistic
Methodists than from the Independents, he thought it lawful and
prudent ' to humour their prejudice by preaching to them in the
vestment they liked to behold. He died, as is stated on a mural
tablet in Newington chapel, on January 28, 1808, in the fifty-seventh
year of his age and the thirty-second of his ministry.
In 1811 that extraordinary youth, Thomas Spencer, was ordained
pastor of the church, although he had not then completed the twenty-
first year of his age. After his ordination he preached only on six
Sundays, but his brief ministry in Liverpool produced great and
permanent results. His friends, encouraged by the numbers who
crowded to hear him, resolved to erect a spacious sanctuary in which
accommodation would be provided for some of the many who desired
to Usten to his simple, natural, but most insinuating and impressive
preaching. His unexpected death (he was drowned whUe bathing
in the Mersey) was a terrible disappointment of the fondly cherished
hopes of his friends, who were obser-ring vrith great interest the rise
of the new chapel. In mourning thefr loss they felt distressing fore
bodings that thefr labour would be in vain, and their large sanctuary
nothing else than a sad memorial of departed worth and disappointed
expectations. Thefr sanctuary, however, as soon as it was completed, became to-
them something better than a house of mourning. On the auspicious
day of its opening, the prospect was as pleasing as the retrospect
was painful. The church had secured the serrices of the Rev.
Thomas Raffles, who had been settled for a short time at Hammer
smith. In this happy settlement among them, although his friends
could not forget Mr. Spencer, they found alleviation (I do not hesitate
to say, abundant compensation) in their loss, by the acquisition of
Mr, Raffles, What Thomas Spencer might have done had ^e lived
fifty years in Liverpool it is vain to conjecture ; what Thomas
Raffles did in his prolonged pastorate, not only the town, but the whole
* Objections were made to the site of Newington chapel because it was too far
from the town, and had to be approached over a stile and across a field.

526 LANCASHIRE.
county, gratefully acknowledges. His works bear witness of what
he was when he ministered for nearly thirty years in the chapel
erected for his predecessor, and for more than twenty years in the
more spacious chapel erected for himself, after the former had been
destroyed by fire.
1 have already noticed the removal of the Rev. P. S. Charrier
from Lancaster to Bethesda chapel, Liverpool. The congregation,
at that time small, considerably increased under his earnest and
evangelical preaching. He died in 1826, and in 1829 his place was
filled by the Rev. John Kelly, under vvhose able minisfry the congre
gation became so large as to requfre additional accommodation, and
so powerful as to erect the commodious chapel in Everton Crescent.
The two congregational churches accustomed to assemble for worship
sixty years since in two small chapels, Newington and Bethesda,
have become twelve, of which almost every one exceeds in number
either of the two from which they have grown.
In the other towns of Lancashire Congregationalism has been of
more recent introduction, although in many of them it has made
considerable and rapid progress. Its introduction and progress are
to a great extent to be attributed to the suggestion, encouragement,
and co-operation of the ministers who have been mentioned as
settled in Manchester, Liverpool, Bolton, Blackburn, and Lancaster.
These five towns were the sources from which evangelical noncon
formity has been diffused through all parts of the county.
In Ashton-undee-Ltne, as early as the year 1795, Mr. Roby, by
the help of his divinity students and itinerant preachers, made
several attempts to collect a congregation and form an independent
church. Although disappointed in the immediate object of their
labours, these good men so far succeeded as to induce some of thefr
hearers to unite in fellowship, and to erect a chapel in the neigh
bouring town of Dukenfield. Twenty years afterwards Mr. Roby
and his friends renewed their efforts with more success. The room
occupied by the itinerant preachers had become so inconveniently
crowded as to induce the attendants, encouraged by promises of
liberal assistance from Manchester, to resolve upon the erection of a
commodious and permanent sanctuary. They had great difficulty in
obtaining a site, for almost all the land in Ashton, the great inherit
ance of the puritan family of the Booths, was the property of its
representative, the Earl of Stamford, who peremptorily refused a
home and shelter for the faith which had been dear to his ancestors.
Eventually, however, a site was found over which the earl had no
control ; and, although not so eligible as some others which the
people would have purchased of the great proprietor, they gladly
availed themselves of the opportunity, and erected a large and con
venient chapel. It was opened for public worship on April 17, 1817,
when Mr. Roby preached to a crowded congregation. Happily, on
his recommendation, the people invited the Rev. Jonathan Sutcliffe,
a student from Idle, to become their minister. The indefatigable
labours, kindly spirit, generous devotedness, exemplary conduct, and
honourable reputation of Mr. Sutcliffe, consistently maintained for

MODERN DISSENT. 527
more than thfrty years, while he lived in the esteem of his large
congregation, are not forgotten in Ashton ; nor will they be forgotten
as long as any live who knew him in the days of his well- deserved
prosperity. Since his removal the church has been happily provided with suc
cessors well qualified to carry on his work, and from it other congre
gations have been formed at Staleybridge, at Rye-croft, and at
Mossley. May they long and well sustain the reputetion of the
parent society !
At Oldham there seemed for a short time less urgent reason to
estabUsh an independent church, as the presbyterian congregation
of Greenacres in its neighbourhood had preserved the faith of ita
founders, and had, like many other evangelical societies of the old
nonconformity, adopted, to a considerable extent, the congregational
discipline. Although in Greenacres meeting-house some presbyterian
usages continued in association with independency, they were either
readily accepted or gradually modified by the Independents who
connected themselves with the people of that sanctuary. When,
however, Oldham grew so populous as to require more accommoda
tion for its reUgiously disposed residents, Mr. Roby's preachers and
students found their way into the town and did a good work among
its people. A congregational church was formed in 1816, and
another in 1825. Under the encouragement and care of their
ministers, several smaller congregations have been formed in the
adjacent- townships.
In Rochdale independency obtained no settlement untU the year
1814. Probably the existence in the town of a Baptist church, both
evangelical and moderate, may have induced Mr. Roby and his
zealous friends to select more destitute places for their first mission
ary labours. As early as 1769, some Baptists who resided in
Rochdale were accustomed, when the weather was favourable, to
travel over some twelve or fourteen mUes of bleak moorland in order
to attend on the instructive ministry of Dr. Fawcett of Hebden
Bridge. When unable through stress of weather to walk to Hebden
Bridge, they kept Sabbath together with prayer and fi-aternal
exhortation. Finding the benefit of a day of rest rather than of
traveUing, they formed a church, and in-rited Mr. Thomas Littiewood
to become thefr pastor. The Independents had then no dealings
with the Baptists, partly through the narrow sectariamsm of the
time, and partly through the prevalent exclusiveness of the Baptists,
both in doctrine and in discipline. But with such a minister as Mr.
Littiewood, esteemed by aU who knew him, the. Independents ot
Rochdale, if there were any, might have lived in peace, worshipped
with comfort, and enjoyed religious communion. When, m i«i.4, a
few Independents resolved to form a church, we may hcpe their
purpose was not to promote sectarianism, but to extend the influence
of evangeUcal reUgion in some proportion to the wants ot a rapidly
increasing population. . ,
Mr. Roby was here, as elsewhere, actively engaged m the move
ment. Soon after the formation of the church, he introduced Mr.

528 LANCASHIRE.
John Ely from Hoxton academy, who became its pastor, and during
his prolonged residence in Rochdale proved an efficient associate of
Roby, Fletcher, and Sutcliffe in thefr evangelistic labours in the
manufacturing districts of Lancashire. With the affectionate regret
of aU parties in the town in which he had preached for more than
t;wenty years, he removed to Leeds. As the result of his labour, con
tinued by able successors, there are now two congregational churches
in the town and several in the neighbourhood, as at Small Bridge,
Middleton, Bamford, Calderbrook, and Todmorden,
In BuEY, where the puritan docfrine survived, though feebly, in
its venerable meeting-house until the close of the eighteenth century,
the CongregationaUsts made no attempt or received no encourage
ment, to raise a sanctuary for themselves until the year 1792. The
character of the minisfry conducted in the presbyterian chapel
previously to that time may be inferred from the correspondence of
the Rev, Job Orton with his friend Mr, Hughea, who waa ordained
in 1773, and continued his ministry in Bury for some years. Mr.
Hughes, a native of Shrewsbury, had been recommended by Mr.
Orton for admission to the Daventry academy, and had, while a very
young minister, received much affectionate and faithful adrice, en
couragement, and warning from the pastor of his youth. In one of
his letters Mr. Orton, referring to previous ministers at Bury, says :
' I could wish to see rerived something of that spirit which appeared
so eminently in your predecessors, Pendlebury, Rochel, and Brad-
dock. 1 hope you wUl never give any of your aged hearers reason
to complain that it is not with them as it was in years past, but will
support the high credit which the ministry at Bury hath long been
in for seriousness, zeal, and usefulness.' Of the immediate prede
cessor of Hughes, Mr. Orton says : ' I can hardly vrish for you
anything better than that you may resemble your most excellent pre
decessor ' (Mr. Brad dock), ' who had few equals in every part of his
office and character. Such an amiable mixture of cheerfulness and
gra-rity ; such a deep seriousness in speaking of religion ; his
discourses so plain- and yet so judicious, so rational and yet so
evangeUcal. Did you ever enquire of his widow of the charge he
deUvered at Mr. Meanly's ordination ? I could wish you to read
it.'* On the introduction of Arian doctrine into the presbyterian
meeting-house, the CongregationaUsts felt it to be thefr duty to sup
port their own principles. The first congregational church in Bury
was formed in 1792, a second in 1805, and a thfrd in 1838. At Park,
near Bury, a congregational church was founded in 1798.
In Pebston the oldest congregational church originated in the
labours of the Calrinistic Methodists. The cock-pit, a place of
favourite resort in past times for Lancashfre people of all reUgions,
* Orton' s Letters, vol. i. pp. 132, 142.
Mr. Braddook, ' so rational and yet so evangeUcal,' was a sort of connecting link
between the old and the new dissent. He died, at an advanced age, about 1771,
having ' been considered for many years as at the head of the Lancashire Provin
cial Meeting, having probably deUvered more charges than almost any minister
among the dissenters.'— Addition to Dr. Raffles's MSS,, signed J. W. (Joshua
Wilson).

MODERN DISSENT. 529
haring become towards the close of the last century (let us hope
through a milder spirit instiUed by the faith common to them all)
little frequented, was hired by some religious people, and fitted,
though rudely and uncomfortably, for a place of worship ; in which
Mr. Aspinwall, one of the Countess of Huntingdon's preachers, con
ducted religious services according to the forms and in the habiliments
(or something like them) of the clergy of the Church of England.
Mr. Carter, his successor, desisted from reading the liturgy,
dispensed with the clerical robes, and associated in religious serrices
with regular Nonconformists of the county. During his ministry
the congregation removed from the comfortless cock-pit to a conve
nient chapel erected through his exertions in Fisher-gate. In this
sanctuary a church was formed in accordance with the principles of
the Independents. It continued to occupy a respectable position in
the estimation of the good people of Preston under the ministry of
William Morgan, educated in the Wrexham academy, Eli Chadwick
from the Rotherham academy, and David Thompson Carnson from
the Blackburn academy. Under the ministry of Mr. Carnson, the
congregation grew too large for its sanctuary, and erected the
commodious chapel in Cannon Street, which was opened on July 9,
1826.* The independent church which meets in Grimshaw Street origin
ated in the labours of the Rev. WiUiam Manning Walker. Mr.
Walker was a nephew of the Rev. George Walker, whom 1 have
afready noticed as a professor in the Warrington and Manchester
academy. Educated under the care of his uncle, he was for some
time minister of the presbyterian meeting-house in Preston. _ While
occupying that position, his religious opinions were considerably
modified, and after long and anxious consideration he avowed his
intention to preach the evangelical doctrines of the founders of the
society. The trustees, being 'rational dissenters,' and, Uke many
other liberal people, claiming more liberty than they allow, very
rationally requested him to resign his charge. As the majority of
the congregation adhered to him, it was doubtful whether the
trustees could legally dismiss him, but his meek and gentie spirit,
and his regard for his nearest relatives, would not aUow him to
defend by any Utigation even a good cause. He quletiy retired, and
his adherents and numerous friends erected for him the chapel in
Grimshaw Street, in which he was ordained in accordance with the
usages of the independent denomination.
On account of a distressing asthma, Mr. Walker was compelled to
resign his charge in 1821. After a short and unfortunate settlement
of another minister, the Rev. Richard Slate, of Stand near Bury,
became the pastor of the church, and continued his ministry, beloved
and respected by aU who knew him, untU in the infirmities of age he
was compelled to retfre, being on his resignation the oldest dissenting
minister in Lancashire.
A third congregational chapel was opened at Preston m 1860. _
In Wigan, as in Preston, Congregationalism originated m Calvm-
* MSS. of Dr. Raffles.
m1

530 LANCASHIRE.
istic Methodism. In 1786, a chapel was erected in Standish gate,
and received from its supporters a name which the old Dissenters
would have pronounced with horror or grief, ' St. Paul's chapel'
Mr. Johnson, whose preaching has already been mentioned on
account of its effect upon William Roby, officiated in it until his
removal to Manchester, where a chapel was erected for him bearing
another ominous name — ' St. George's.' Mr. Roby, his assistant,
continued for a short time to preach in St. Paul's, until his removal
to Manchester. Among his successors, two names are worthy of
honourable mention and affectionate remembrance, Joseph Parkin
and Alexander Steel. The church is now thoroughly identified with
the CongregationaUsts.
Another dissenting congregation, founded in 1812, although
sometimes called presbyterian, is really independent, as it acknow
ledges the authority of no presbytery nor governing body distinct
from its own officers.
In Wabeington the fortunes of independency have been uncertain
and fluctuating. Congregations have been gathered more easily
than preserved, in small and inconvenient chapels, and occasionally
opposing interests have injured each other. Chapels in this town
have been occupied by Calvinistic Methodists and by Scotch Pres
byterians, but they have not been more pro.sperous than thefr
congregational brethren, The once influential presbyterian congre
gation has sadly declined, but Congregationalism has not here,
as it has in several other places, grown from the decay of presby
terianism. The independent congregation now meeting in Wycliffe
chapel, although not large in proportion to the population of the
town, is probably more numerous and influential than ever has been
any one of the independent congregations which have rapidly risen
and fallen in Warrington.
In the smaller towns, and in many of the villages, congregational-
ism has been introduced and established in the course of the present
century. In that time chapels have been erected in many parts of
the county where Congregationalists had previously been without a
religious home, and in many other places small, uninviting, and
inconvenient meeting-houses have been exchanged for large and
commodious chapels. The instances are too numerous to mention.
The rapid growth of Congregationalism is to be attributed to the
labours of Roby, Simpson, Burder, Charrier, Joseph Fletcher, Mc.All,
Raffles, Ely, Sutcliffe, Richard Fletcher, Poore, and other like-
minded ministers, some of whom still survive in the affectionate
regards of the Lancashire Nonconformists. But it must not be
overlooked that these ministers have been well sustained and en
couraged by the active, liberal, and persevering co-operation of
Christian gentlemen, who have acted worthily of the instruction and
example of their pastors. In no county of England have contribu
tions been more generously made (1 might say so generously) for
tbe erection of chapels and school-houses, for the support of home
missionaries and itinerant preachers, for the education of poor theo
logical students, and for almost every kind and form of evangelistic

MODERN DISSENT. 531
operation. In no county has Congregationalism found more active,
energetic, devoted Sunday-school teachers, or raised larger or better
managed Sunday schools. Of the Manchester Sunday schools, I can
say (and I doubt not the same thing may be said of other schools),
some of the biost successful manufacturers and opulent merchants,
some of the foremost leaders of public opinion (whether thf-y ac
knowledge it or not), and some of the most enterprising missionaries,
have in them received their eariiest education, and their most
favourable opportunities for the commencement of an honourable and
successful course bf elevation and advancement. That moral and
religious training ought not to be despised or hastily abandoned
which has been, and still is, represented by eminent ministers, suc
cessful authors, editors of the periodical press, authorities in the
chambers of commerce, legislators in parliament, and missionaries
speaking in sfrange tongues at the ends of the earth. The seeds
have been unsparingly sown by the Congregationalists of Lancashfre,
and the harvest has been proportionately abundant.*
Of the means employed for the extension of evangelical religion in
the congregational form throughout Lancashire, notice ought to be
taken of the Theological Academy, and of the County Union.
We have seen that when in the lastcentury Congregationalism was
feeble in Lancashfre, it was indebted for some its best ministers to
the theological seminaries of Yorkshire. As the Lancashire Congre-
gationaliste became more numerous and powerful, they resolved to
do their part in educating their own ministry. The first attempts of
Mr. McQuhae at Blackburn, continued and improved by Mr. Roby
in Manchester, provided many valuable ministers for the destitute
churches of the county. Several of the students were encouraged
and assisted to pursue their studies with greater advantages in the
academies of Idle and Rotherham.
The. imperfect education of some who had become pastors in
Lancashire, and the manifest advantage with which others had
studied in Yorkshire, induced Mr. Roby and his friends who acted
vrith him to found an academical institution in which a more regular
and prolonged course of study than he could superintend might be
secured, and adequate provision be made for the board and lodging
of the students. Meetings of the principal ministers and generous
* Sunday schools were established in Manchester in 1784, in accordance with
certain resolutions passed at a public meeting of the inhabitants convened by the
borough-reeve and constables. The following advertisement, which appeared in
the Manchester Mercury of January 2, 1792, illustrates the manner in which they
Were managed : ' The Committee of the Sunday Schools request the visitors iu
Manchester wUl deliver to the Overseers of the poor a list of the names of all the
childreu who are instructed in each respective school, also the names of their
parents or friends with whom they reside. It is presumed that every school is
provided with a boi)k, in which are entered the names of all the children who
attend, and marked every Sunday whether present or absent. This book being
produced to the Overseers once or twice every month will answer the full intent.
All parents receiving pay from the town, and neglecting to send their children
regularly to a Sunday School will by this means be strictly uoteA.'— History of
Blackley Chapel, p. 105.

532 LANCASHIRE.
laymen from different parts of the county were convened in Man
chester, when it was resolved, after careful consideration, to place
the academy at Blackburn, and, as Mr. Roby declined the office of
theological tutor, to commit the responsibilities of tuition to the Rev.
Joseph Fletcher, M.A. The founders of the academy never had
reason to regret the appointment. Honoured with their confidence,
which Mr. Fletcher well deserved, he devoted himself with charac
teristic diligence to the arduous labours of his office. Although he
continued faithfully to discharge his duties as the pastor of a
prosperous church, the academy under his care met the expectations
of its attached friends, and proved the means of accomplishing much
good. Several congregations were gathered by the preaching of its
students in parts of Lancashire which, in those days of slow
travelling, were too remote from Manchester to derive benefit from
the itinerating services of Mr. Roby's preachers. On the removal of
Mr. Fletcher to the pastorate of the ancient church of Stepney, much
anxiety was felt for the continuance and prosperity of the academy.
It continued, however, to do good service under his successors. Dr.
George Payne and the Rev. Gilbert Wardlaw, until, in 1843, it was
removed to the commodious home provided for it by the UberaUty of
its numerous friends, at Moss-side, near Manchester. It has there
continued, as the Lancashire Independent College, under the able
presidency of the late Rev. Dr. Vaughan and of Henry Rogers, Esq.,
to retain the confidence, as it has deserved the liberal support, of the
Lancashire Congregationalists.
The Lancashire Congregational Union was formed in 1806. In
the sixty years of its operation it has accomplished a great work,
and extended its influence over all parts of the county, as well as in
several adjoining districts. Some of the small villages in which its
itinerants laboured have since grown into populous towns, in which
spacious chapels have been erected and large congregations have
been gathered. When Southport consisted of one hotel and a few
cottages, scarcely provided with furniture for the accommodation of
the visitors who rusticated in its sandy desert, one of the first agents
of the Union, Mr. Greatbach, preached in the summer to the visitors,
and occasionally in the winter to the few residents of the place. In
that resort of people of easy circumstances there are now two com
modious chapels, occupied by large and respectable congregations.
Some years later, the Union sustained preaching, during the
summer months, in the vUlage of Blackpool, where a small chapel
was built in 1825. As the hamlet grew into a town, the chapel was
found incapable of providing accommodation for the numerous
-risitors who resorted to it, or would have done so if they could have
found room. The present chapel was erected chiefly through the
unwearied labours of the late James Dilworth, Esq., whose *name
ought ever to be associated vrith the memorials of that commodious
sanctuary. But while the members of the Union may look -with satisfaction
and pleasure upon the results of their, labours in Southport, Black
pool, Lytham, Fleetwood, and other places of summer resort, their

MODERN DISSENT. 533
greatest success has been obtained in the manufacturing districts of
the county. Often, through the liberal encouragement and assist
ance of the Union, where a new factory has drawn round it a
-working population, a congregational chapel has risen ahnost
simultaneously with the mill, and a Sunday school has quickly been
opened to afford good training for the chUdren, and good Sunday
work or Sunday singing for the young men and maidens. In many
instances the work has prospered where the manufacturers have op
posed, as well as where they have encouraged, the agency. Modem
Congregationalism in Lancashire, having little of the stiffness and
formality of the independency prevalent in the southern and eastern
counties, has accommodated its working vrith remarkable facUity to
the feelings and habits of the manufacturing population. What
Methodism has been among the mines of Cornwall or the furnaces of
Staffordshfre, that to some, though not to the same, extent Congre
gationalism has been among the cotton mills of Lancashfre. If in
other populous counties it is to do the same good work, it must,
instead of adhering to its old formalities, form associations with the
working people, learn of them as well as teaoh them, engage thefr
sympathies, appropriate their energies, speak to them in thefr own
tongue, which is often as good EngUsh as (sometimes much better
than) the rhetorical, metaphysical, or theological cant of some
collegiate preachers, and with as Uttle interference as possible allow
them to do, what cotton-spinners male and female love to do — to
manage thefr religious concerns in thefr own way. Making its first
aggressions upon a working population by itinerant preachers blessed
with common sense, and Sunday-school teachers endowed vrith
fervent piety, the County Union has afterwards introduced, as the
hearers were prepared to receive them, higher minisfrations of Di-rine
truth. It has in many instances happily secured both kinds of
mlnisfries, as they were needed. It has found many agents, and
will, I hope, find many more, who by their good sense, plain speech,
earnest manner, and blameless lives, have been successful in atfract-
ing congregations of working people, until other ministers, not over
educated, but sufficiently educated for thefr positions, have con
solidated those congregations, and ' taught them the way of the
Lord more perfectly.'
In hastily sketching the progress of modem dissent in Lancashfre
I ought not to overlook the growth and present state of the Baptist
denomination. Whether Baptists, who are of late introduction (1 mean
in any considerable number) into the county, have been as flexible as
the Independents in adapting their usages and forms to the dispos
itions and habits of the working people, I am not able to say with
any approach to confldence. My opinion is (although I express it
-with hesitation) that in this respect they have learnt something
from the Independents, and to some small extent have, without
any compromise of principle, yielded to the requirements of the
people among whom they desired to maintain and enlarge thefr
influence. That they have not done so as readUy or as generaUy as

534 LANCASHIRE.
the Independents, may be attributed to several causes. Their dis
tinguishing practiceof adult baptism suggests the notion of a wide
separation, wider in appearance than in reality, between them and
Christians of other denominations, and often prevents them from
receiring, it may be from offering, as decided an expression of
sympathy and confidence as is due from either party to the other.
Where mixed communion prevails, this wall of separation is to some
extent broken down ; but mixed communion, although it was
practised in the northern part of the county before John Bunyan
taught it in Bedford, has been until recently almost unknown in the
manufacturing districts.
Nor, on the formation of the Baptist churches in the early part of
this century, were they so much affected by asfociations with
Scottish Presbyterians on the one hand, or with Calvinistic Method
ists on the other, as were the early Congregational churches. They
stood alone and apart from many influences to which the Indepen
dents were necessarily subjected. It is true that the General
Baptists of the new connection were, especially in thefr early state, a
sort of baptized Methodists, retaining much of connectional
discipline, and more of Arminian doctrine. Bnt these Baptists have
never been able to establish themselves in Lancashire. Feeble
attempts have been occasionally made by them to form churches in
two or three of the large towns, but' thefr attempts have failed, or
the churches which they formed, ' because they had no root ' in the
sympathy of the people, soon ' withered away.' As to the old
General Baptists, who passed through the common transition from
Arminianism to Arianism, and from Arianism to Socinianism, scarce
a vestige of them can be discovered in the reUgious history of
Lancashire. The Baptists of this county have been always Particular,
and sometimes very particular indeed, so particular that they would
have despised the weakness of desiring the fraternal love of others,
or of ofi'ering to others their own.
So many of the Lancashire Baptists, however, as are neither very
general nor very particular, neither low Arminians nor high Calrinists,
especially where they practise mixed communion, are passing, like
their psedo-baptist brethren, though perhaps more slowly, from the
hard rigidity of Independency to the kindly flexibility of Congrega
tionalism. Sights may be seen and sounds heard in some of thefr
sanctuaries, which would have sorely grieved their ancestors who
came down from the Hill Cliffe of Cheshire, or the fells of Yorkshire,
to baptise in the streams of the county. Organs and chants may be
heard among the descendants of those who could scarcely tolerate
even the slow music of their old psalm-singing. Whatever may be
in other respects the consequence of these changes, they are doing
much to faciUtate the union of two denominations of Evangehc^
Nonconformists. Of the ancient Baptist church meeting in Byrom Sfreet, Liverpool,
a division occurred in the early part of the last century, on account
ofthe peculiar doctrines of its pastor, Mr. Johnson, who was said to
be a SabelUan, although it is not very easy to say what the good

MODERN DISSENT. 535
Baptists of that time meant by Sabellianism. Mr. Johnson's
adherents retfred, and buUt a meeting-house in Stanley Street, where
he continued, it is said by Dr. Thom, ' until his death, at the ad
vanced age of ninety, in 1 791.'* It is not extroardinary if under his
prolonged ministry, whatever may have been the rigour and ability
of his earlier years, the Johnsonian Baptists, as they were called,
considerably declined, and, after his death, were content with a
smaller chapel in Comus Street, where they seem to have become
extinct. The congregation remaining in Byrom Street continued under the
pastorate of Mr. John Oulton and his successor Mr. Samuel Hall,
from 1748 to 1771. During that time it had so declined that, in
1772, when Mr. Samuel Medley was invited to take charge of this
once flourishing church, its revival seemed hopeless to many, though
not to its new pastor. Mr. Medley had served as a midshipman on
board the ' Intrepid,' and fought and bled for his country in the
action off Cape Lagos in 1769. Brought under religious influence,
he left the service, and for some time kept a school in London, where
he became acquainted with Dr. Gifford, of the British Museum, by
whom he was encouraged to enter the ministry, and to undertake
the pastoral charge of a baptist church at Watford. He was soon
afterwards invited to the vacant pastorate in Byrom Street.f Under
his earnest, popular, and prolonged ministry, the church recovered
its former prosperity, and through the influence of his liberal and
catholic spirit became happily associated vrith the independent
societies of Liverpool. During his lengthened residence in that
sea-port, he never forgot his early connection with sailors, to whose
spiritual benefit he devotedmuch of his time and labour. He would often
converse with them in the streets, address them on the wharves, and
preach especially to them in his chapel. He was a small poet as well
as a great preacher, and pubUshed a volume of original hymns, of
which, I fear, very few are found in modern selections. WhUe he
was their minister, the congregation left the old sanctuary, and
erected, in 1789, a commodious chapel which, being in the same
neighbourhood, retained the name of Byrom Street. J On his death,
in 1799, he was succeeded by Mr. Richard Davies, and he again by
Mr. Moses Fisher, whose ministry is still pleasantly remembered by
many Liverpool people of his denomination.
Although I do not profess to give a detailed account of either the
congregational or the baptist churches of the county, nor a
biography of their several ministers, it would be ungracious to leave
this notice of Liverpool without some reference to the Rev. James
LiSTEE, for many years the respected pastor of the baptist church
worshipping in Lime Street. A native of Glasgow, he entered a
* Liverpool Churches and Chapels, by the Rev. David Thom, D.D., p. 44.
t Memoirs of the Rev, Samuel Medley, compiled by his son. London, 1806.
X The old Baptist meeting-house was consecrated and made a chnrch, concerning
which Dr. Thom gives tbe following curious information : ' Common report says
that the church and advowson were for several years the property of WUUam
Shepherd, LL.D., presbyterian minister at Gatacre.'

536 LANCASHIRE.
student in ite university, where he is said (I believe fruly) to have
gained a prize for a poetical translation from the Greek, for which
Thomas Campbell was his competitor. Brought while a student
under the influence of the extraordinary religious excitement which
prevailed in the west of Scotland at the beginning of the present
century, he grew dissatisfied with the discipline of the Es
tablished Church, and relinquished his purpose of becoming one
of its ministers. Adopting sfricter riews of purity of communion,
he associated with the Congregationalists, who at that time had
formed a society in Glasgow. Soon afterwards he connected himself
vrith the Baptists, and became, in 1803, the minister of a newly
erected chapel in Lime Street, Liverpool.
The congregation had been formed by some separatists from the
church in Byrom Street on the death of Mr. Medley. Their first
minister, Mr. Aitken, a young Scotchman of great promise, is said,
just before his premature death, to have recommended his people to
secure the services of his intimate friend James Lister. The people
had much reason to be grateful to him for this last token of interest
in their welfare. Mr. Lister retained his pastoral charge until 1847,
when his congregation had been for some time settled in the new
chapel in Hope Street. Thus, during forty-four years, he maintained
his honourable position, greatly to the advantage of his church, the
honour of his denomination, and the interests of evangelical noncon
formity. He died in 1851, in the seventy-third year of his age.*
On the eastern side of the county, the baptist churches have
fiourished in connection with a high (or, as many would call it, a
narrow) form of Calvinism. Particular redemption, being the
doctrine by which one class of Baptists is nominally distinguished
from the other, has often been regarded as of undue importance, and
propounded in an extreme and offensive manner. In Manchester,
Rochdale, Bacup, on the boundaries of Yorkshire, and in the forest of
Rossendale, these high Calvinists have collected large and flourishing
congregations, who have been taught to regard their moderate
brethren as no better than Arminians. Thev are also distinaruished
by some other peculiarities as well as their extreme Calvinism. They
universally practise strict communion. They carefully preserve that
plainness, in their religious serrices, of which all classes of Baptists
were formerly very observant. They avoid every approximation to
fashionable modes of worship. They allow no instrumental music.
They admire no clerical vestments. They can see nothing worse in
a surplice and cope than they do in a gown and bands. They call no
man Reverend, a word to them indistinguishable from Rabbi or
Master. They preserve more consistently than any other sect, unless
it be the Quakers, the puritan principle that whatever stimulates
devotion through the action of the senses, by means of colour, or
form, or fragrance, or music, is to be shunned as a profane mimicry
of religion. True Puritans and staunch Nonconformists they un
questionably are, and in the manufacturing districts of Lancashire
they have been very useful in bringing large congregations of
* Liverpool Churches and Chapels, p. 80.

MODERN DISSENT. 537
working people under the salutary influence of practical religion.
That the Calvinistic Baptists and the Arminian Methodists have,
notwithstanding thefr conflicting doctrines, produced great and good
results in the hearts and lives of multitudes of the working classes of
Lancashire, as effectually as if they preached one and the same
doctrine, shows how small among uninstructed people is the effect of
dogmatic theology where ' Christ crucified to save sinners ' is simply
and earnestly preached, as these Baptists and Methodists, much as
they condemned one another, alike knew how to preach it. I have
known plain working people, when not intolerant (and they are
seldom as intolerant as logicians), pass from a preacher of one exfreme
to a preacher of the other, and find in the change little to disturb
their opinions, though much to excite their religious feelings. What
these preachers have in common which more moderate men have not,
unless it be plainer speech and more earnest manner, I cannot tell ;
but the good effect of thefr preaching upon a large class of people
has been obvious and undeniable.
In the manufacturing disfricts of Lancashire, baptist ministers
holding moderate riews of the disputed articles, although they have
been men of acknowledged ability and piety, have done little for the
working classes compared with their extreme Calvinistic brethren.
As in these days of charity and tolerance it is considered proper to
speak well of all sects excepting these particular Calvinists, I should
like to say a good word even for them. They have undoubtedly
done a great work in Manchester and in several of the neighbouring
towns. It may be said that more moderate and correct expounders
of Christian truth would have done it better, to which I must add,
provided they could have done It at all. They might have made
better Christians of Mr. Gadsby's converts if they had been the
agents of thefr conversion ; but could they have influenced in any
way the men and women who listened with intense interest around
the pulpit of William Gadsby ?
What gave to Mr. Gadsby his great power over working people ?
Not his Calvinism ; for his principal rivals, who did the same sort of
service as well as he, were Wesleyan or other Arminian Methodists.
It may be instructive to observe him carefully, for he seemed" a
preacher made on purpose for the working classes. The common
people heard him gladly. His popularity with the factory people of
Manchester was extraordinary, and the more extraordinary as he -was
not a Lancashire man. A native of one of the midland counties,
when he came to Manchester he could not speak the dialect of the
place; he had none of the intonations and modulations of voice
which, especially fifty years since, were so agreeable to the ears and
hearts of Lancashire folk. He had to speak to hearers who seldom
gave heed to strange speech ; but he knew his business vvell, and
succeeded where many greater men than he have utterly faded. A
man of plain sense, he sought to be nothing more than a plam
preacher of Christ's plain gospel. He spoke thoroughly good Eng
lish, perhaps more like the EngUsh of William Huntington (some
say of William Cobbett) than that of any other preacher of his time.

538 LANCASHIRE,
Scripture he knew well, and quoted it with verbal accuracy and
often with great effect. One author he had certainly studied, John
Bunyan, and he was much the better for his study. Besides Bunyan's
books, 1 cannot doubt he had read many a page of racy English with
great delight. He had no learning, but he had uo small share of
mother wit and native humour. A little learning would probably
have spoiled him. Illiterate as he was, he sometimes attracted men
of learning and culture (1 could mention remarkable instances), who
heard him with great pleasure. His thoughts were natural, closely
connected, logically arranged, and lucidly expressed. Quietly ear
nest, never impassioned, never vehement, but always arresting atten
tion, he is said to have presented, in manner as well as in doctrine,
a remarkable contrast to the popular Methodist preachers of his early
days. His voice was wonderful, and he well knew how to manage
it. I heard him once in the old Free-Trade Hall of Manchester, that
huge building, ill-constructed for public speaking. When other
speakers had made strange efforts to be heard, sometimes in vain, he
seemed to me, sitting near him, to be speaking in a pleasant conver
sational tone ; but the voice of the old man rolled like an equable wave
of sound across the great hall, and filled the ear of every auditor.
His expressions were sometimes coarse, inexcusably so, but on devo
tional subjects no man spoke with more seriousness and gravity than
he usuaUy did. He was called an Antinomian, and probably he did
not speak with sufficient discrimination or exactness on the nature
of moral obligation, but no minister in Manchester lived a more
moral life or presented to his hearers a more beautiful example of
Christian discipline and self-control. How far, in its practical effect
upon his congregation, his example was marred by his doctrine, or
his doctrine mended by his example, I have no means of ascertaining.
It is commonly reported that he publicly said har.sh things of other
ministers. In doing so he did very wrong; but whether in this
respect he was not more sinned against than sinning may be ques
tioned, for many others said very harsh things of him. He had, no
doubt, his faults, but he well sustained in a moral, if not in a con
ventional sense, the honour of his ministry, and left a memory, not
withstanding his errors, on which it is pleasant to think, as of one
who did a good work in Manchester by helping men to exhibit in
their lives a better morality than he is said to have enforced in his
preaching. If in the early jiart of this century the Calrinistic Baptists did
good service among the working people of Lancashfre, so unques
tionably did the Arminian Methodists, and, having more preachers
of the right sort, they did it to a far greater extent. They not only
excited by their preaching reUgious feeling in the hearts of the igno
rant and vicious, but secured by their organisation the solidity and
permanence of their numerous societies. In every populous town of
Lancashire the moral and religious character of the working people
has been greatly improved by their earnest, persevering, and appro
priate instructions. What Lancashire would have been without
their valuable labours, I leave to the consideration of those who know

MODERN DISSENT. 539
the county, and know also its methodist chapels, methodist Sunday
schools, and methodist institutions of various kinds. In this esti
mate I include the different offshoots of the methodist denomination
who retain the doctrine of their venerable founder, as well as the
adherents of the Conference which especially appropriates his hon
oured name. WhUe it is not my purpose, nor itideed in my power,
to give a detailed account of their work, it would be ungenerous or
unjust to suppress the most decided expression of ite inestimable
worth. Acting upon thefr system of a wide itinerancy, their great preachers
have not remained sufficiently long in the county to be closely iden
tified with its religious progress. If they had, there would have
been many whom I should delight to honour by giving some account
of their labours. It is, however, pleasant to say that one of their
most eminent ministers was born, and educated, and called to the
ministry in Manchester, and that he ever loved his native -town.
Jabez Bunting was the preacher of his time. He was much else
than a preacher, and in saying, 'he was the preacher of his time,' I
wish not to be misunderstood. He seemed to possess every qualifi
cation of a great preacher. I cannot think of any in which he was
deficient. Among the Methodists, as well as among other Christians,
there were contemporary with him more eloquent preachers, more
intellectual preachers, more logical preachers, more instructive
preachers, more insinuating preachers, more impressive preachers,
and I know not how many more kinds of preachers who excelled
Dr. Bunting in their especial gifts ; but several of them were as
remarkable for the deficiency of some qualifications as for the abun
dance of others. I know not any of them who to the same extent
excelled in all the qualifications of a good preacher. He was not,
Uke some of his contemporaries, the preacher of a class. All classes
heard him gladly, for all could appreciate either the simplicity or the
refinement of his preaching. For the ignorant or for the educated,
for the norice or for the experienced, for the wearied tradesman or
for the leisurely scholar, more acceptable preachers might possibly
have been found ; but as Jabez Bunting was not the preacher to any
exclusively, but to all in an eminent degree, I delight to honour him
as the great preacher of his time.*
In forming an estimate of the state of nonconformity in Lancashire,
I ought not to overlook the progress of either the Welsh Dissenters
or the Scottish Presbyterians in Liverpool and Manchester.
In Liverpool, where the Welsh-speaking people are much more
numerous than they are in Manchester, the "Welsh Methodists, Inde
pendents, and Baptists have large congregations, and exert important
* In noticing a few of the preachers of Manchester, I should like to have sketched
my honoured predecessor the Rev. Dr. McAll. But as I only once heard him
preach, and that more than forty years since, when he read his Missionary sermon
in Surrey chapel, and as I have been often told by his admiring hearers that his
printed sermons afford no help in forming an idea of his preaching, on account
not only of his perfect elocution, but especially of his extraordinary power of ex
temporaneous address, which often far surpassed his written compositions, I have,
unable to satisfy myself, relinquished the attempt in despair.

540 LANCASHIRE.
and salutary influence npon thefr countrymen. Many immigrants from
the principality understand the English language, at least the lan
guage of English preachers, too imperfectly to feel much interest in
religious serrices conducted in thefr dialect. The devotional feelings
of a true Welshman can be forcibly excited only by the sounds of
his own vernacular. Even an old Welshman who has long resided
in England, and in buying, selling, and getting gain can talk English
as fluently as his neighbours, thinks of sacred things as associated
with the language of his childhood and his home. Everything
spiritual and holy seems natural to him when expressed in his o-wn
tongue, but strange and inappropriate when uttered in the tongue
of the strangers among whom he sojourns. Still more important is
Welsh preaching to preserve the influence of evangelical reUgion
upon the hearts of the young men and women, of whom great num
bers come from Wales to find employment in Liverpool. These
young people have from thefr early childhood been accustomed to
Welsh preaching, Welsh singing, Welsh Sunday schools, Welsh
Bibles, 1 might say Welsh religion. To them English, if they
understand it, has a worldly sound, Welsh a heavenly tone and
melody. If they found no sanctuaries of their own, few of them
would be attracted by English preachers, and fewer still would gain
any benefit from thefr preaching. We cannot, therefore, but con
gratulate our Welsh friends upon the establishment and prosperity of
their congregations in Liverpool.
A Welsh Independent church was formed in Liverpool in the year
1800. It then consisted of only twelve members, who were accus
tomed to meet for worship in a licensed room in Cavendish Street
until 1803, when they hired a small chapel in Edmund Street. In
1804 they had the happiness of securing the ministrations of Mr.
John Jones, who, although he had received no regular training for
the minisfry, by his earnest and practical preaching, attracted large
congregations of his countrymen and admitted them to the fellowship
of his church. On his return to his native country, after nine years'
exhausting labour, he was succeeded by the Rev. John Breese, a
student of Wrexham academy, who with equal success carried on
the work so auspiciously commenced. To accommodate the increas
ing congregation, the large chapel in Great Cross HaU Street was
erected in 1817, of which chapel I need only observe that it stiU
continues to be the religious home of many Welsh families.
Since its opening, three more chapels have been built by the Welsh
Independents of Liverpool, one in 1827, one in 1840, and one in
1860. In Salem chapel, the most spacious of them. Dr. WilUam Rees
has collected a very large and respecteble congregation. Through
his eloquent preaching and high character, Welsh independency has
attained in Liverpool a position unequalled in any other town in
England. The progress of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists in Liverpool
has been very gratifying to their friends, as it has been zealously
promoted by their popular preachers, whose frequent -risits have
collected and interested great numbers of thefr countrymen educated

MODERN DISSENT. 541
in the Sunday schools of thefr native land. The Welsh Baptists
and Wesleyans, although not so numerous in Liverpool as thefr
Independent or Calrinistic countrymen, have contributed thefr pro
portion of good in preserving, by the haUowed influences of Christian
troth, the piety and moraUty of thefr race from the many temptations
to which they are exposed in the midst of an overgrown Enghsh
sea-port. In Manchester, Welsh nonconformity has not made the same
progress as in Liverpool. This may be partly explained by the fact
that the Welsh residents in the manufacturing towns are neither so
numerous nor so influential as those in the commercial emporium.
If, however, it be said that even proportionately to their numbers
the Welsh in Manchester have not formed so large congregations as
they have in Liverpool, it may be observed in explanation that Man
chester has not been favoured with such preachers as John Jones,
John Breese, or William Rees, and that those whom it has had have
not remained long enough to secure a permanent influence for good.
The Welsh Baptists and the Welsh Wesleyans in that town have
been, and still are, small and feeble communities. The moral and
religious character of Manchester has no doubt been influenced,
though not to the same degree as that of Liverpool, by Welsh non
conformity. In both towns the Scottish Presbyterians form a very influential
part of the residents. In the last century religious Scotchmen, on
coming to England, usually connected themselves with independent
congregations, whose religious worship was conducted in the manner
to which they had been accustomed in their own country. As they
became numerous, and especiaUy when instrumental music and some
other unpresbyterlan novelties were introduced into the independent
chapels of the northern towns, they felt the need of presbyterian
discipline, and of a more consistent adherence to puritanic forms.
They thought also of the regular pastoral risitation of their early
days, of the old psalms and tunes of their childhood, of the morning
lecturlngs of thefr own kirk, and of the administration of the sacra
ments in the manner of their own country. With the Kirk of Scot
land it was at first difficult to make arrangements for ' a supply of
ordinances ; ' but with the Secession ministers the difficulty (if there
were any) was easily overcome. Before the close of the last century,
Scotch churches were erected in Lancashire, In connection with the
Burgher synod, at that time more liberal than the synod of the
Antiburghers. For a time this arrangement seemed to he sufficient,
and Burghers, Antiburghers, Relief-men, and Kirkfolk, harmoniously
worshipped together. The Antiburghers seemed at first not to like
the union, and probably would have maintained thefr separation if
they had been rich enough or liberal enough to build kfrks for them
selves. The Covenanters were the only Presbyterians who absolutely
refused all religious association with their counfrymen. After the
three communities in Scotland, the Burghers, the Antiburghers, and
the Relief, became the United Presbyterians, their union in England
followed of course, and the old distinctions were soon forgotten.

542 LANCASHIRE.
The adherents of the Kirk, however, grew weary of their connec
tion with nonconforming societies. When the question of the relations
of the Church to the State provoked a violent confroversy in Scot
land, it disturbed the tranquUlity of presbyterian societies in Eng
land. The adherents of the Scottish establishment, although occupy
ing in England an anomalous position, contrived to obtain an irre
gular and partial recognition from their mother Church. So things
continued in Manchester and Liverpool until the memorable disrup
tion in 1843, when the friends of the Free Church resident in Eng
land took their position as separatists from what they called the
residuary or Erastian Church, which assumed the honourable name
of the Kfrk of Scotland. Some expensive litigation followed respect
ing the right of the separatists to appropriate the buildings which
had been previously recognised as belonging in some sense to the
Church of Scotland. Although the adherents of the Free Church
constituted the majority of their congregations, they were compelled
to surrender to their opponents the sanctuaries for the erection of
which they had contributed much the greater part of the money ex
pended. In some instances, as in Manchester, the mortification was
that the clause of their trust deeds which deprived them of their pro
perty was one which they themselves had infroduced in their dispute
with the older seceders, and by which they had excluded from thefr
pulpits all ministers not agreeing with themselves, that is, not in com
munion with the Church of Scotland. They, however, acted nobly
in their vexatious disappointment, and erected larger and better
churches than those of which they had been deprived. It has thus
come about that in the two great towns of Lancashire, presbyterianism
flourishes under the several names of the Church of Scotland, the
English Presbyterian Church, and the United Presbyterian Church.
Of these the English Presbyterians (all of them Scotch, and perhaps
more intensely Scotch than either of the other two communities) and
the United Presbyterians have collected small congregations in. some
other towns of Lancashire, as in Rochdale, Blackburn, and Warring
ton. The members of the Kirk, as if enfeebled by their anomalous
connection with an establishment, have done scarcely anything but
take away churches from other' people for the extension of their
denominational principles. Although the descendants of Scotchmen
seem generally to forsake the churches of their fathers, the Presby
terians, dirided by differences which Englishmen seldom understend,
constitute an important and influential part of the Nonconformists of
Liverpool and Manchester.
The societies of Covenanters, of Scotch Baptists, of S wedenborgians,
of Cowardites, of Quakers in their present declining state, and of
some smaller sects, however influential may be several individuals
belonging to them, are in the aggregate of small importance as affect
ing the religious interests of the county, unless when acting in con
nection with the great community of Nonconformists they augment
the power of its social or ecclesiastical movements. The same thing
might be said of the Unitarians, were it not for the important position
they occupy in Manchester and Liverpool.

MODERN DISSENT. 543
Such is the Protestant Nonconformity of Lancashire. In com
parison with the Church of England and the Catholic Church it may
probably have something less than one- third of the influence which
belongs to the ecclesiastical communities of the county. Considered
in connection with the Catholics, possibly the whole body of dissen
tients from the Established Church may possess nearly half of the
political sfrength of this great county. But the occasions are few in
which Catholics aud Protestant Nonconformists would combine for a
common purpose. Even on those few occasions on which a large
proportion of Protestant Dissenters would act in harmony with Catho
lics, there would be found an influential minority, mostly of Presby
terians and Methodists, who would unite with the Established Church
in especial opposition to Romanists. Occasions may come which wiU
for the time bring Catholics and Protestant Dissenters to act together,
though never in cordial union ; but other occasions are quite as likely
to occur, in which the tvvo parties will take opposite sides on great
poUtical and social questions.
I may be thcmght to have formed too high an estimate of the
Catholic influence of the county. But if due consideration be given
to the great wealth and territorial possessions of the old English
Catholic families in some of the agricultural districts, as of the Town-
leys, the Traffords, the Gerards, the Blundells, and others, whose
tenantry adhere faithfully to their lords, and to the considerable num
ber of Catholic tradesmen in Wigan, Preston, and the towns of the
Fylde, the estimate may not appear unreasonable. Undoubtedly the
great wealth of the county belongs to the members of the Established
Church, but the Catholics possess no inconsiderable share of it, and
many ofthe nonconformist manufacturers in the hundreds of Salford
and Blackburn can exert an influence, which 1 trust they will not use
arshly or unjustly, not inferior to that of the lords of the soil. In
he excitement of great questions they need, as well as their opponents,
to respect the opinions and even the prejudices of their dependents.
It may be thought that Protestant Nonconformists are so alienated
from one another by their sectarian — or, to use a milder epithet, sec
tional — distinctions, that their several parties cannot act In harmony
for a common object. What, it may be asked, have Methodists in
common with Unitarians, or Baptists with Scotch Presbyterians ?
They may have little of connection or sympathy, or even of acquaint
ance, but as they all sustain a common relation to the Established
Church, occasions may and will occur in which common interests
must be felt, and when they are urgent, the several parties will find
ome method of united action. In saying so, I do not wish to inti
mate that it is desirable for reUgious parties to be distinguished by
their common politics ; but, undesirable as it may be, it is in the
course of events sometimes unavoidable.
Of the several dissenting communities, as compared with one an
other, the more aggressive and advancing in Lancashire at the present
time seem to be the Methodists and the Independents. The Metho
dists made rapid progress in the first half of this century, but, so far
as I can form an estimate, the Independents have in the last twenty-

544 LANCASHIRE,
five years made greater advances than their energetic rivals. They
have certainly in that time built larger chapels and more of them, and
in the more important towns they have collected larger and more in
fluential congregations. One important difference may be observed
in the recent movements of the -two parties. The Wesleyans seem
dividing and separating ; the Independents uniting and consolidating.
The Wesleyans have produced numerous offshoots, many of which
cherish no kindly feeling towards their common root. The Inde
pendents have generally forgotten their old dissensions and rivalries,
and have reconciled societies which, established in the same neigh
bourhood, often on account of small differences or personal consider-
tions, had acted towards one another rather as opponents than as
friends. They have raised and strengthened, not a governing author
ity, but a popular association, which can promote unity of action so
far, and only so far, as it gains the confidence of the several churches.
They have moderated extreme opinions in various dfrections, and
come to a better, or at least a more tolerant, understanding respect
ing differences of opinion, discipline, and usage, which were formerly
regarded almost as lines of separation between different sects. They
have drawn into thefr communion a large proportion of the Calrin
istic Methodists, and have begun vrith good promise to cultivate
friendly relations, and to unite in one ' communion of saints,' with
the Baptists whose opinions and practices most nearly resemble their
own. What may be the future of Protestant Nonconformity in Lanca
shire, much as I desire to be assured of its continued usefulness,
honour, and prosperity, it is not for me to foretel or even to conjec
ture. In its principles I have confidence, not weakening, but becom
ing stronger with my advancing years. With some reverses and some
failings, it has done a great and good work in Lancashire, and will, I
believe, do a greater and better for the vast and growing population
of that county. Much as 1 love it, 1 dare not say Esto perpetua, but
1 do say. May the truth that is in it prevail, and may the errors that
attach to it be overcome. May that truth be established, and those
errors be refuted, with as little of Ul-feeling as possible. May the
rivafry and strife of parties, so long as they continue, work for the
instruction; and eventually for the peace, of all. May the Noncon
formists of Lancashire, retaining their evangelical principles, and
faithful to their hereditary traditions, as the friends alike of piety and
of freedom, ever act worthily of thefr venerable fathers, thefr iUus
trious history, their rich inheritance, thefr great county, and their
common faith !

APPENDIX I

The foUovring documents ¦mil show the manner of appointing ministers
under the Protectorate. There is in them no reference either to the
opiniona of the preacher or to the manner of hia ordination.*
There were submitted to the Triers the Attestation of the election
by the people in Manchester, and the Approval of the Classis.
I. The Aitestationj
At an appointed pubUc meeting at the Pariah Church of Manches
ter, in the county of Lancaster, December 6, 1656, for electing of a
minister of God's word there. We, whose names are hereunder ¦writ
ten, being inhabitante and parishioners of the aaid parish, did elect
Mr. Henry Newcome, clerk, to be minister of God's word there, in
the place of Mr. Richard Hollinworth, lately deceased.
Signed by 130 Householders.
II. The ApprolaUon of the Glassis.
Reveeend and beloved, — This Classis, being informed that the
congregation of Manchester had made choice of, and given you a call
to be thefr pastor, in the room of thefr reverend and dear brother Mr.
Hollinworth, deceased, have enjoined me to signify unto you that
they do much rejoice in, bleas God for, and well approve of the said
choice : and deafre that you would be pleased to accept of that call,
being so clear, free, and fuU, aa from God : assuring you that they
¦wUl be very glad that Manchester may have such a pastor and this
association such a member, and that -they shall pray that you may
come to that great people in the fulness of the blessing of the gospel
of Christ. Ha^ring thus made known what I am commanded, I teke
leave after due respects presented to you ; subscribing myself at the
appointment and in the name of the Claasis,
Tour assured friend and brother in the Gospel of Christ,
William Meeee,
Moderator, pro tempore,
Salford, Deo. 12, 1666. III. The Commission for the Triers.
Beloved Bebtheeh, — "Whereas, Mr. Henry Newcome, minister of
the gospel at Manchester, in the county of Lancaster, hath a grant to
a presentation to the place aforesaid, and is therefore to be approved
* AntoUography of ffen/ry Newcome, Addenda,

546 LANCASHIRE.
of by ns (but cannot conveniently come to us) in person. We do
therefore hereby desire you or any three of you, being together, to
receive concerning him such a certificate as is mentioned in the
ordinance for approbation of pubUc preachers ; and being satisfied
¦with the sufficiency of such certificate, to make such further trial of
the said person, concerning the grace of God in him, as also his
knowledge and utterance for preaching the gospel, as you shall think
fit. Upon all which, being satisfied in your judgments that he is a fit
person to be approved of by us, then to signify so much unto us under
your hands, and therewith to send up the aforesaid certificate. So,
forbearing further to trouble you, we take our leave, committing you
to the Lord.
Signed by the appointment of the Commissioners for approbation
of PubUc Preachers, Io. Nye, Regr.
Whitehall, Deo. 26, '56,
To the Rev. Mr. Richard Heyricke, Mr, Samuel Eaton, Mr. John
Angier, and Mr. John Harrison, or any of them,
IV. The Certificate ivhich the Candidate toas to present to the Triers
with their Commission.
We whose names are subscribed do, upon our personal knowledge
of Mr, Henry Newcome, certify that he is a person of an holy and
good conversation. And for the grace of God in him, as also for his
gifts of knowledge and utterance, able and fit to preach the gospel.
Tho. Langley. Saml. Langley.
Tho. Edge. Wm. Byeom.
Upon this return was granted,
V. The Approbation from the Triers.
Know all men by these presente, that the 14th day of January, in
the year 1666, there was exhibited to the commissioners for appro
bation of public preachers an order of the trustees for maintenance
of ministers for the settlement of Mr, Henry Newcome in the curacy
of the parish church of Manchester, in the county of Lancaster ; to
gether with a testimony in behalf of the said Henry Newcome of his
holy and good conversation. Upon perusal and due consideration of
the premises, and finding him to be a person quaUfied as in and by
the ordinance for such approbation is requfred, the commissioners
above mentioned have adjudged and approved the said Henry New-
come to be a fit person to preach the gospel, and have granted him
admission, and do admit the said Henry Newcome to the curacy of
the parish church of Manchester aforesaid, to be full and perfect pos
sessor and incumbent thereof. And do hereby signify to all persons
concemed therein, that he is hereby entitled to the profits and per
quisites, and all rights and dues incident and belonging to the said
cure, as fuUy and effectually as if he had been instituted and inducted
according to any such laws and customs as have in this case formerly

APPENDIX, 547
been made, had, or used in this realm. In ¦witness whereof, they
have caused the common seal to be hereunto affixed, and the same to
be attested by the hand of the register, by his Highness in that behalf
appointed. Dated at WhitehaU, the 14th day of January, 1656,
Io, Nye, Regr.
VL The Appointment hy the Trustees for Maintenance of Ministers,
January 23, 1656.
Whereas, the rectory of the parish church of Manchester, in the
county of Lancaster, is appropriate to these trustees, upon whom the
care of providing for the cure of the said parish church is incumbent.
And Mr. Richard Hollinworth, one of the ministers in the said
church, is lately deceased. It is ordered that Mr. Henry Newcome
(approved according to the ordinance for approbation . of public
preachers, the 10th of January instant) be and is hereby constituted
and appointed one of the ministers of Manchester aforesaid, in the
room of the said Mr. Hollinworth. And that he do officiate in the
said parish church, and preach unto and diligently instruct the in
habitants of the said parish : and that he shall have for his pains
therein all stipends, salaries, pensions, and aUowances whatsoever, to
the said serrice and employment annexed or in any vrise belonging or
appertaining. And it is further ordered that the yearly sum of 94Z.
be from time to time paid to him, out of the rents and profits here
after mentioned, viz. the yearly sum of QOl, out of the profits of the
tithes of Manchester aforesaid, and 34L out of the rents and profits
of the rectory of Rochdale, in the said county of Lancaster, amount
ing in the whole to the said yearly sum of 94L, to be accounted from
January 10th instant, and to be from time to time paid unto him for
such time as he shall officiate there, or until further order of these
trustees. And Mr. Robert Stockdale, receiver, is hereby appointed
and authorized to pay the same to him accordingly.
Edwd. Ceosset.
John Humpheey. Richd. Young.
Ri. Sydenham. John Pococke,

APPENDIX IL

The foUovring letter of Isaac Ambrose and other ministers, copied
from the original MS. in the British Museum by Joshua WUson,
Esq., iUustrates the care with which the Lancashire Presbyterians of
that time endeavoured to procure suitable ministera for the vacant
churches and chapels within thefr boundaries. Ayscough MSS.
Me. Wales, — Our Colonel Rigby hath enjoined me to write to you
a caU unto these needful barren p*^. And his desfre is that you would
please to settie yourself at Rufford. It is a place where his son-in-law
and daughter are Uke to reside, and therefore he hath an especial
respect unto it. He is pleased to allow you fifty pounds per annum.
For Tockholes if you can proride another able honest minister he will
(so that he may obtain you) aUow him as much there. Her father
desired it that you would speak to some other honeat ministers (to
the number of six at least) ¦to come unto these parts and they shall
have a suitable competency to thefr deserts. So desiring your
furtherance I rest your loving friend and brother in the ministry,
Isaac Ambeose.
Preston, Oct. 19, 1643.
SiE, — ^We aU desire your company and progress in the ministry
amongst us in these parte. Here is a great work to do and the
labourers are few : we doubt not but you might be an instrument of
God's glory and much good if you accept of this caU, and therefore
(Good Sfr) consider of it.
Isaac Ambeose.
Nathaniel Jackson.
Nicholas Cudwoeth.
William Claekson.
Petee Smith.

INDEX.

ABBOT, Archbishop, 129, 141
Academies, Nonconformist, 413,
418-21, 489, 490, 491-500, 517, 531-2
Acts of ParUament : against transmuting
metals, 85 note; restricting benefit of
clergy, 21-2; suppressing games, &c., on
saints' days, 34, 40. Act of Supremacy
(Henry VIIL), 24-5; (EUzabeth), 53-4.
Act of Uniformity (Edward VL), 41 ;
(EUzabeth), 53-4; (Charles II. ), 352-3.
Conventicle Act, 394-5. Oxford or Five
MUe Act, 404. Test Act, 434. Act of
Toleration, 433, 434-5. Schism BUI, 460
Adams, Major, 282
Adcroft, John, 246
Addison, WiUiam, 263 note
Aikm, John, D.D., 446 note, 495-8
Ainsworth, Henry, 138, 139
Ainsworth, Lawrence, 139
Ainsworth, WiUiam Harrison, 100 and
note, 110-1
Aitken, Peter, 536
Aldport, 5, 12
Alied, Jeremiah, 453, 469 note, 471 note
Alexander, John, 400
AUen, Anthony, 248
AUen, Isaac, 303-5, 306
AUen of Rossel, famUy of, 67
AUen, WiUiam, Cardinal, 18 note, 66-7
and notes, 68, 126
Alport Lodge, 72, 187. DemoUshed, 194
Alsop, Vincent, M.A., 428-9
Alt, WiUiam, 263 note
Altham, 62, 818
Ambrose, (Afferent famiUes of, 382-3, 384
note
Ambrose, Henry, 385 note
Ambrose, Isaac, 149, 166, 169 and note,
224, 226 note, 253, 260, 263 note, 272,
354, 364, 381-386, 397, 404, 410, 548
Ambrose, Joshua, 385 note
Ambrose, Nehemiah, 385 note, 387
.Ambrose, Richard, 385 note
Ambrose, WilUam, 384 note
Amounderness, hundred of, severed from
Yorkshire, 1. Its churches from the
Conquest to the reign of Edward III., 9
¦Anderson, Hugh, 524
¦Anderton of Euxton, family of, 66, 67,
166, 227, 283
Anderton of Lostock, family of, 156

Anderton, Sir Francis, of Lostock, 464
Andrews, famUy of, 164
Andrews, Robert, 491
Angier, John, 143, 149, 182 note, 183 and
note, 190 note, 191, 195 and note, 196,
198, 200 note, 201-2, 204 note, 206
note, 207-8 notes, 239, 247, 250, 251,
253, 260, 263 note, 272, 278, 290, 296,
313, 317, 319, 321, 323, 327, 328, 330,
355-8, 368, 386, 394, 397, 408, 409,
412, 419, 424 and note, 546
Angier, junr., 250, 338, 356
Angier, Samuel, 358, 410, 412
Anne, Queen, 460
Antrim, Lord, 333
Arden, forest of, 11
ArgyU, Archibald Campbell, eighth Earl
and first Marquis of, 283
Arianism iu the seventeenth century,
484-9, 503-5
Arminianism, 88 note, 91 note, 142, 276,
489-490, 534
Arrowsmith, John, D.D., 215 note
Articles of the Church of England under
EUzabeth, 60
Ascham, Anthony, 215 note
Ascham, Roger, ll4
Ash, Simeon, 331
Ashton-under-Lyne, 6, 247, 256, 526-7
Ashton of Croston, of Euxton, and ot
Penketh, families of, 66 note, 187
Ashton (Assheton), Edw.ird, 266 note
Ashton, Roger, of Croston, 67
Ashton, Roger, of Euxton, 68
Ashton, Sir Thomas, 85 note, 159
Ashurst, Henry, 145
Ashurst, Heniy, junr., 175 note, 271 note,
400, 408
Ashurst, Sir Henry, 379 note
Ashurst, WiUiam, 158, 171, 174, 175,
199-200, 229-30, 283, 298, 326
Ashworth, Dr, Caleb, 485
Aske, Robert, 28
Aspden, Mr. 445 note
AspinwaU, Edward, 135, 136 note
AspinwaU or Aspinall, Mr., 529
AspinwaU, Peter, 370 and note
AspinwaU, WiUiam, 263 note, 370 note
Assheton, famUy of, 45, 158-60, 483.
Asshetons of Blackley HaU, 38 note,
134 ; of Chadderton, of Clegg, and of

550

INDEX.

ASS

Cuerdale, 159 ; of Downham, 66 note,
159; of Lever, 66 note, 159 ; of Middle-
ton, 66 note, 158 ; of WhaUey, 159
Assheton, Abdias, B.D., 100-1 and notes,
110, 117, 125
Assheton, Edward, 100
Assheton, John, 100
Assheton, Nicholas, 100, 109-12, 114,
115, 117, 125, 127
Assheton, Colonel Ralph, of Middleton,
159, 160, 170, 174, 175, 181 and note,
185, 194, 196, 199-200, 201, 205-9,
214, 216, 221, 265, 270, 271, 272, 295,
380
Assheton, Sir Ralph (son of the preceding),
335, 342
Assheton, Sir Ralph, of Whalley, 110, 114,
117, 175
Assheton, Ralph, junr. (aft. Sir Ralph), of
WhaUey, 166, 174, 175, 194, 295, 333
Assheton, Raphe, of Great Lever, 159
Assheton, Sir Raphe, of Middleton, 158-9
Assheton, Richard, of Lever and Whalley,
30, 159 /
Assheton, Richard, of Manchester, 479
note
Assheton, Sir Richard, 114
Assheton William, 263 note
Astley Chapel, 363
Astley, Richard, 370
Aston, Edward, 263 note
Aston, Sir Willoughby, 415
Asty, John, 486
Atkinson, Mr., of Tockholes, 509
Atkinson, Peter, min. at Elhill, 263 note,
266 note, 361
Atkinson, Peter, jun., 361
Avery, Benj., LL.D., 494 note

BACON, Francis, Lord, 122
Bacon, Sir Nicholas, 54
Bagaley, Wm., 263 note; 374
Bagshaw, Wm., of G-lossop, 447
Bagshaw, M.P. for Southwark, 176
Baines, Edwd., 11, 29, 38, 69, 85, 181,
215, 362, 384, 450, 471 (referred to in
the notes)
Baker, FrankUn, M.A., 371 note, 448 note
Baker's, Thomas, MSS., 80 and note
Baldwin, Roger, 374
Bamford, Congregational Church at, 528
Bancroft, Archbishop, 91, 122, 123
Bannister of Bank, family of, 156
Baptism, lay and women's, 77 note
Baptists in Lancashire, 453-4, 527, 533-
38. Johnsonian Baptists, 481 note,
535. Welsh Baptists, 539-41; Scotoh
Baptists, 542.
Barebones ParUament, 298

Barker, John Theodore, 438 note
Barlow, Edward (Father Ambrose), 166
Barlow, famUy of, 7, 166
Barlow, John de, 7
Barlow, John, 446
Barnes, Thomas, D.D., 499-500, 504, 513
Barnet, Joshua, 444 note
Barnet, Nehemiah, 190, 201, 208 note
Barret, Wm., of Cambridge, 88 note
Barret, Wm., 'a gifted brother,' 320
Barrett, Joseph, 507 note
Barrow, Dr. Isaac, 50
Barton of Middleton, family of, 158
Barton, Justice, of Smethells Hall, 43, 4,4
64-5
Barton, ' Sir ' John, 13 note
Basnett, Christopher, 452
Bast-wick, Dr., 177
Bates, Wm., D.D., 276, 386, 404
Bath, Robert, 165, 263 note, 364, 370,
372, 411
Baxter, Nathanael, M,A., 249-50, 364, 380,
386-7
Baxter, Richard, 145, 175 note, 212, 271 ¦
note, 279, 311-2, 314, 331, 333, 345 and
note, 350, 400, 404, 406, 408-9, 428
Bayley, family of, 446
Beamont, Wm., 182 note, 186 note
Bekansgill, 10, 15 note, 31
Belfield, Ralph, Elizabeth, and Ann, 100
BeU, James, 75
BeU, Wm., M.A., 263 note, 364, 376-7,
408, 441
Belsham, Thos., 485
Benn, James, 491
Bennet, John, 517 note
Bennet, PhiUp, 263 note, 387
Benson, Dr. George, 452 note, 494 note
Benson, Richard, 246, 263 note
Benyon, Dr. Samuel, 421 note
Berry, Major-Gen., 297
Best, a Protestant minister in the reign
of Mary, 50
Beswicke, John, 37 note
Beswicke, Roger, 42
Bickerstaffe Chapel, 378, Meeting-house,
411
Bigland, family of, 169
Birch Chapel, 299 note, 358-9, 879, 411.
History of, see 'Booker.' Meeting
house erected, 379, 441-8
Birch of Birch, in Rusholme, fanuly of
7, 64, 161, 291, 488
Birch, Eliezer, 419, 452 note
Birch, George, 441 and 442 note, iii
Birch, Colonel John, 161, 291, 296-8 and
note
Birch, John, FeUow of Mancheater College)
347
Birch, Mary, 296

INDEX.

561

Birch, Mrs., 358
Birch, Robert, 321, 323,, 358, 370, 398,
442
Birch, Samuel, 296
Birch, Colonel Thomas, 161, 169, 186,
197-8, 254, 265, 281-2, 284, 285 note,
287 note, 291, 292, 295-6, 298, 327, 328,
359 and note. His son and grandson,
441
Birch, Thomas, D.D., 391 note
Birch, WilUam, Warden of Manchester,
&c., 64, 161
Birches, WilUam de, 7
Bird, or Byrde, Dr. John, Bishop of
Chester (1641-1554), 32
Bird, Sir John, 62 note
Birkenhead, the Prior of, 8
Blackburn Hundred, formerly caUed
Blackburnshire, 1. Severed from
Cheshire, 1. Its Churches in the reign
of Edward IIL, 9. A stronghold of
Puritanism and Nonconformity in
Lancashire, 18, 61, 158, 165
Blackburn, rise of manufacturing industry
in, 18, Made a parish, distinct from
WhaUey, 9. The advowson transferred
to the see of Canterbury, 30. Vicars
under Elizabeth, 62-8. Congregation
aUsm in, 515-6, 518
Blackburn surprised by Royalists, 193.
Retaken, 193. Attacked again, 196.
Defences strengthened, 214
Blackburn, Noah, 509 note, 510 notes, 511
Blacklaw, ' Sir' 'Thomas, 13 note
Blackley Chapel, 17, 37 and note, 63, 131,
133-4, 299 note. Meeting-house, 411,
444 and note
Blackpool, Congregationalism in, 532
Blackstone Edge fortified, 214-5
Blake, Robert, 507 note, 516 note
Bland, Sir John, 431, note
Bloom, Mr., 420
Blundel, famUies of, 156, 543
Blundel, Robert, of Ince, 156
Bogue, David, D.D., and Bennett, James,
D.D., 420
Boleyn, Anne, 27
Bolton becomes a rival of Manchester, 17.
Its church enlarged and improved, ibid.
The Geneva of Lancashire, 26, 163, 517.
Meeting-houses, 371, 410, 411, 447-8.
Congregationalism in, 511, 517
Bolton Classis, Minutes of, 245 note, 248,
255 notes, 307 note
Bolton fortified for the ParUament, 195.
First Royalist assault on, 199-200.
Second, 202. Defences strengthened,
214. Third assault, capture, and mas
sacre, 221-3
Bolton, family of, 164

BEA
Bolton, Robert, 138-9
Bonner, Bishop, 32, 60, 59
Book of Sports, first, ] 29. Second, 145
Booker, John, B.A. : Hist, of Birch Chapel,
286, note, 291, note, 293, note, 379, note,
442 note, 443. Hist, of Blackley Chapel,
12 note, 37 note, 63 note, 133 note, iii
note
Booth, of Barton and Dunham Massey,
family of, 7, 159-60, 325, 526
Booth, Capt., 189, 191, 197. Colonel, 227
Booth, Sir George, Bart., 160
Booth, Sir George, aft. Lord Delamere,
160, 163, 178, 265, 322, 325-8, 330, 332,
335, 346, 347, 348, 366, 368, 369, 379,
380, 400, 415-6, 427 note
Booth, Humphry, 299 note, 306
Booth, John de, 7
Booth, Sir John, 159
Booth, Lady, 401
Booth, Mr., of Blackley, 134
Booth, Mr., of Rachdale, 447
Booth, Thomas del, founds an oratory at
Manchester, 5
Boteler or Butler, of Bewsey, family of,
32, 156
Boulton, Henry, 263 note
Bound, Dr., 82
Bourne, Samuel, 441, 448
Bourne, Wm., 73-4, 95-6, 97 note, 123,
130, 144 note, 145, 183, 189, 191, 192,
213, 236 note, 296, 350
Bowland, chapelry of, 62
Bowdon, Richard, 507 note, 508
Bowes, Sir Talbot, 94. Lady Bowes, 93
Bradberry, David, 520 and note
Bradbury, Thos., 485, 486
Braddock, Mr. , 528 and note
BraddyU of Braddyll, 30, 114, 117
Bradford, John, the Martyr, 37, 38-40,
41-42, 57, 58, 134
Bradford, John (others of the name), 38
note
Bradine, WilUam, 458 note
Bradshaigh or Bradshaw, Sir Roger, 333,
405
Bradshaw, family of, 45, 155, 164
Bradshaw, Dr., 164
Bradshaw, Henry, 164 note, 287
Bradshaw, James and Lawrence, 43, 164
Bradshaw, James, of Wigan and Hindley,
216-7, 263 note, 271-2, 361-2, 364, 374,
375, 405, 426
Bradshaw, John, founder of the fanuly,
155
Bradshaw, John, of Bradshaw HaU, 164
note, 248
Bradshaw, John, Lord President, 164,
note, 287, 294 note, 324
Bradshaw, John, 371 note

552

INDEX.

Bradshaw, Peter, of Cockey, 263 note
Bradshaw, Capt. Robert, 161, 164, 186,
188-91, 194-5, 287 note
Bradshaw, WilUam, 155
Braybrooke, Samuel, 505
Breese, John, 540, 541
Brekell, John, 453
Brentford, John de, on the people of
Lancashire, 13
Breres, John, 263 note
Brereton, Sir WiUiam, 227, 288
Brerewood, John, 102
Brettargh, Katherine, 97-8, 101, 108-9,
135
Brettargh, WilUam, of Brettarghaugh, or
Brettarghoult, 101, 108
Brian, or Byrom, Martin, of Manchester,
17
Brideoake, Ralph, 215 note, 218, 224, 287
Bridge, John, 249
Bridge, William, 237
Bridgman, Dr. John, Bishop of Chester
(1619-1652), 132, 136, 143,. 157, 174,
319, 356
Bridgman, Orlando, 157-8, 174i
Brierley, John, 263 note
Briscoe, Michael, 318, 323, 860 and note,
370
Bristow, Richard, 94
'British Church,' &c., 458, 476-9
Brodbank, a Protestant minister in the
reign of Mary, 50
Brook, Benjamin, 80 note, 90 note, 133
note, 136 note, 139 note, 149 note
Brook, Richard, 76
Brooks, Mr., of Congleton, 345
Brown, James, 306
Browne, Mr., Chaplain of Manchester
CoUege, 366
Brownsword, William, 263 note
Bruce, David, 525
Bruen, John, 73, 101-8, 112, 114, 115-6,
117, 118, 119
Bucer, Martin, 39, 47 note
Bnokingham, George ViUiers, second
Duke of, 405, 406 and note
Bunting, Jabez, D.D., 539
Burder, George, 518-9 and note, 530
BurdseU, John, 292 note
Burgess, CorneUns, 176
Burgess, James, 506
Burgess, James, jtm., 508
Burghall, 204 and note
Burnet, Bishop, 403, 434, 458
Burnley, chapelry of, 62
Burroughs, Jeremiah, 287, 259
Burscough Priory, 11. Its lauds ceded
to the Earl of Derby, 31
Burton, Mr., B.D., 177

CHA
Burton, Robert, 114
Burton Wood, chapel at, 374
Bury, CongregationaUsm in, 511, 528
Busby, Dr. Thomas, 358
Butler, famiUes of, 168
Butler, Henry, of RawoUffe, 464
Butler, Samuel, 313
Butterworth, chapelry of, 62
Butterworth, family of, 446
Butterworth, John, 43
Byndeglass, ' Sir ' John, 13 note
Byrom, Dr., 478 and note, 479 note, 483
Byrom of Byrom, 187
Byrom, Sir John de, 7
Byrom, WilUam, 546
Byron, family of, 7, 37, 167
Byron, Henry, 167 note
Byron, John, first Lord, 167, 185, 227
Byron, Major John, 339, 342
Byron, Margaret, 85
Byron, Sir Robert, 167 note -
CALAMY, EDMUND, B.D., 237, 331,
333
Calamy, Edmund, D.D., 216, 272 note,
356, 361 and note, 362 and note, 363,
370 note, 371 note, 372, 375 notes,
376 note, 377, 379 and note, 380 ¦note,
385 notes
Calderbrook, Congregational Church at,
528
CaldwaU, John, B.A., 71, 98-9
Caldwall, Richard, M.D., 98
Camden, WiUiam, 99 note
Camelford, Gabriel, 387, 389
Campion, Edmund, 66, 74, 81 note
Carnson, David Thompson, 629
Gary, 175 note, 285 note, 287 note
Carpenter, General, 466-8
Carter, Mr., 529
Carter, Oliver, B.D., 37 note, 64, 71, 72,
74, 75, 76-7, 94-6
Cartmell, deanery of, 9
Cartmell, priory of, 11
CathoUcs in Lancashire, 155, 156, 157,
166-8, 169, 435-6, 543
Cartwright, Dr. Thomas, Bishop of Chester
(1686-1689), 430, 433
Cartwright, Thomas, B.D,, 80, 119, 142
Caryl, Joseph, M.A., 251
Case, Thomas, M.A., 282, 831
Cecil, Sir William (afterwards Lord Bur
leigh), 54, 61, 64, 74, 78, 95, 100, 159
Chadderton, family of, 121 note, 166
Chadderton, Joan, 76-7
Chadderton, Lawrence, 91 note, 95, 121-2
and note
Chadderton, Dr. WiUiam, Bishop of
Chester (1579-1595), 71-4, 76-7, 78 note,
95, 96, 100 ¦

INDEX.
CHA
Chadwick, Charles, 91 note
Chadwick, Eli, 529
Chandler, Samuel, D.D., F.R.S., 494 note
Charles I. ; his accession, 140. Marriage,
142. Scene at his coronation, 144.
Persecutions of Puritans, 143-5. En
couragement of Popery, 147. First
ParUament of 1640, 173. Long Par
liament, 173,^. Petitions at York, 179.
Answer, 180. CivU War, 182/. Im
prisonment, trial, and execution, 272-4 ;
not approved by the Independent or
the Presbyterian ministers, 275-6
Charles II. takes the Covenant, 279.
Crowned at Scone, 279. Proclaimed at
Lancaster, 283. Defeat and FUght,
285-6. Restoration, 333 ff. Coronation,
339 /. Restores the Liturgy, 348. Act
of Uniformity, 362 ff. Promises indul
gence, 391-2. His 'bounty,' 40-3-4.
Declaration of Indulgence, 404/. Res
cinded, 416. Death, 422
Charlton, James, 246
Charnock, family of, 156
Charnock of Charnock, 187
Charnock, John, 156
Charrier, Peter Samuel, 510 note, 519 and
note, 526, 530
Cheshire (Cestrescire), extent of, at the
time of the Norman conquest, 1
Chester, archdeaconry of, 11, 32
Chester, episcopal palace at, 11 note.
Horrible dungeon at, 47 and note
Chester, ancient diocese of Lichfield or,
11. New bishopric of, founded, 32
Chetham, Humphrey, 146-7 and note, 153
ChUdweU Church, 97, 98
¦Chisenhale or Chisnall, Capt. Edward, 215
note, 220
Chorley, Richard, of Chorley, 464, 470
and note
Chorlton Chapel, 17, 246, 247, 299 note.
History of, referred to, 63 note. Meet
ing-house, 411
Chorlton-cum-Hardy, 63
Chorlton, John, 419, 421, 446, 447 and note
Chowbent, fight near, 192-3 ; another, 195
Chowbent Chapel and Meeting-house,
448-50
Christopherson, John, 47 note
Church, Chapeh-y of, 62
Cistercian Monks in Lancashire, 10, 12, 16
•Clare, WilUam, 149
Clarendon, Edward Hyde, first Earl of,
178, 285, 324 note, 391, 403, 404-5, 406
Clark, Samuel, 92 note, 102 note, 108, 131,
135, 375 note
Clarke, Peter, 465 and note
Clarkson, William, 548
¦Clayton, family of, 167

553
cow
Clayton, Mr,, of Manchester College, 481
Clayton, Nicholas, D.D., 498, 500-1
Clayton, Thomas, of Didsbury, 246-7,
249, 263 note
Clergy, the country, their occupations
before the Reformation, 13 and note.
Ignorance and incompetence, 13, 26
Clt^rgy, position of their wives and children
after the Reformation, 55, 75-7
Clifton, family of, 168
Clifton, WiUiam de, 168
Clifton, Mr., 373
Clifton, Sir Thomas, 432
Clitheroe, castle of, 2, 14. Held for
Charies I., 172
Clitheroe, chapelry of, 62.
Clitheroe, rise and progress of the town of,
4. Made a parliamentary borough, 9
Clitheroe, lords of the honour of, 2-3
Clunie, John, LL.D., 523
Clyderow, family of, 4. Adam, Hugh,
and Gilbert de Clyderow, 4
Cockersand, Abbey of, 10. Its lands
possessed by the Daltons, 168
Cockersand Church, an amusing story of , 4 9
Cockey Moor, 13 note. Chapel at, 363-4,
411
Cock-fighting, &c., 112, 114-5, et. al.
Cogan, Dr., 85
Coke, Dr. George, Bishop of Hereford, 297
Coke, Sir Edward, 122
Colburn, WiUiam, 323
Cole, William, antiquary, 435 note
Cole, William (afterwards Dr.), of Preston,
354-5, 385 and note
Coleman, Thomas, 237
Collyer, George, 33, 36, 37, 41, 48, 282
Colne, chapelry of, 62
Congregationalism in Lancashire, 138, 163,
240, 259, 265, 276, 300, 301, 308-9,
316-23, 358-9 and note, 360 and note,
361, 411/, 436, 505-33
Conishead, priory of, 11
Constantine, Robert, 260, 263 note, 838,
364, 370, 397, 408, 411, 506
Convocation, position and proceedings of,
under Henry VIIL, 24-6. Under EUza
beth, 53-4, 59-61. Under Charles I., 173
Convocations, Northern and Southern,
former divided representation of Lanca
shire in, 25 note. Later arrangement, 32
Coppock, Thomas, 480-2
Cordingley, Titus, 491, 508
Corry, 34 note
Cotes, Dr. George, Bishop of Chester
(1664-5), 46, 48-9, 50
Cotton, John, 355
Cotton, Thomas, 413, 419
Covenanters, 541, 542
Cowardites, 542

654

INDEX.

OKA
Cranage, Thomas, 263 note
Cranmer, Archbishop, 50
Crewe, Dr. Nathaniel, Bishop of Durham,
429
Crichely, James, 263 note
Crisp, 'Thomas, 469 note
Critchlaw, family of, 136, 164, 377
Critchlaw, Francis, 177
Critchlaw, William, 165 note
Crompton, family of, 45, 135, 164
Crompton, Ellis, 371 note
Crompton, Jataes, 371 note
Crompton, John, 354
Crompton, Thomas, Auditor of Crown
Revenue under Elizabeth, 159
Crompton, Thomas, of Astley, 263 note,
363, 370, 374
Crompton, Thomas, M.A.,of Toxteth Park,
360 and note
Crompton, Thomas, 164
Cromwell, Henry, 308, 374
CromweU, Oliver, 163, 259, 260, 265, 266-
70, 276, 284, 285 note, 286, 290, 292,
295, 296, 297, 298, 303, 324 and note
Cromwell, Thomas, 29, 31
CromweU, Richard, 324 and note, 325
Crossley of Scaitcliffe, family of, 167
Crossley, James, 184 note
Cudworth, Nicholas, 548
Cunliss, Robert, 298
DALTON, family of, 168
Dalton, John (son of Wm. Hoghton
of Park Hall, and Elizabeth, heiress of
the Daltons, of Thurnham), 464
Dalton, Thomas, 168
Darwen, Congregationalism in, 411, 453,
506-8, 516
Davenport, Mr., 315 note
Davenport, Mr., of New Haven, 319
Davenport, Peter, 454
Davenport, Wm., 491
Davies, Richard (Baptist), 535
Davison, William Hope, 517 note
Dawson, Capt. James, 480 and note
Dawson, Joseph, 412, 413-4
Daye, James, 491
Deacon, Dr. Thomas, 461-2 note, 476-9,
480, 482, 483
Deacon, Lieut., 480, 481, 482 and note
Dean made a separate parish, 17, 43 note
Declaration of officers and soldiers of the
County Palatine, &c., 265-6
Dee, Dr. John, 84-6, 123, 213
De Lacy, lord of the honour of CUtheroe, 2
Delamere, first Lord : see ' Booth, Sir

DC.f

Delamere, Henry Booth, second Baron,
425 note, 427 and note, 430-1, 432.
Created Earl of Warrington, 433

De la Warrs, the ancient lords of Man
chester, 6
De la Warre, Thomas, third or fourth
Baron, 7
Denry or Denny, Thos., 263 note, 266 note
Denton Chapel, 17, 161, 299 note, 355,
356-7
Denton, Sir Alexander, 160
Denton, Benjamin, 506
Derby, Edward Stanley, third Earl of,
14-5, 31, 36-7 and note, 42 and note, 43
note, 61-2, 64, 66, 70
Derby, Henry, fourth Earl of, 14, 70-1,
72, 74, 77, 99, 100, 107
Derby, Ferdiuando, fifth Eari of, 18, 77,
83, 98, 153
Derby, William, sixth Earl of, 153, 157,
178, 189, 386 note
Derby, James, seventh Earl of (Lord
Strange), 149, 152, 153, 154 and note,
155, 157, 178, 180-8, 184-5, 187-9; (Earl
of Derby), 189-94, 199-202, 204-5, 209,
213, 221-2, 224, 226, 227, 229, 283-9
Derby, Charles, eighth Earl of, 889, 405-6
and note
Derwentwater, Jas. Radoliffe, third Earl
of, 466-9
Devonshire, Charles Blount, Earl of, 93
Didsbury, chantry or field-kirk, of, 5-6.
Chapel, 17, 246-7, 299 note. History of
referred to, 438 note, 443 note
Dilworth, James, 532
Dixon, Dr., 490-1
Dixon, Thomas, 491
Dobson, George, 62, 63
Dodding, Colonel, 186, 265
Doddridge, Sir John, 128 note
Doddridge, PhiUp, D.D., 139 note, 386,
485, 494
Dodwell, Henry, senr., 477
Done, Mr., 116
Downes, John, 187
Downes, Francis, 147
Downham, Dr. Wm., Bishop of Chester
(1561-1577), 62, 65, 71
Downing, Robert, 150
Drake, John, 494
Drake, Lady, 431 note
Drinchal, Thomas, 387
Drummond, James, 470 note
Drury, Mr, of Gorton, 249
Dukenfield, famUy of, 162-3
Dukenfield, Col. Robert (aft. Sir Robert),
163, 189, 221, 254, 265, 319
Du Moulin, Dr. Lewis, 276 note
Dury, Mr., of Bradshaw, 370
Dun, William, 263 note
Dunbar, battle of, 279-80
Dunster, Mr., 827
Dimton, John, 107

CUT
Dutton, Gabriel, 457-8 note
Dyer, Samuel, 493-4 and note

INDEX.

555

EACHARD, 276
Eaton, Richard, of Great Budworth,
240, 818
Eaton, Richard, 323
Eaton, Robert, 348, 358, 364, 376, 379-80,
408, 411, 412, 419, 426
Eaton, Samuel, 163, 240, 259, 276, 308,
316, 317, 318-21, 323, 328, 329, 546
Eaton, Theophilus, 318 and note
Edge, of Birch Hall Houses, famUy of,
162, 286 note, 291
Edge, Capt. Oliver, 162, 286 and note, 292,
358, 359
Edge, Mrs. 358
Edge, Thomas, 546
Edmuudson, Christopher, 263 note
Edward VI,, accession of, 36. His govern
ment provides itinerant preachers for
Lancashire, 36-7, 38, 39-40. His Act
of Uniformity neglected, 41. His
death, 58
Edwards, Jonathan, 488-9 and note
Egerton, Independency in, 411
Egerton, Colonel, 186, 189, 191, 217, 228-9
Ejected ministers of 1662, how supported,
397/ 414/
ElhiU Chapel, 361
Elizabeth, Queen : her character, 51-2,
contrasted -with that of Mary, ib. A
sincere Protestant, 62. Her accession,
53. Caution in restoring the Reforma
tion, ib. Acts of Supremacy and
Uniformity, 53-4. Helpless and abject
condition of the Church, ib. Selection
of new bishops, and of Parker as
Primate, 64-5. The queen's dislike to
Dean Nowell, 56 and note. Her regard
for Thomas Lever, 56, 78. Little
uniformity produced by her injunctions
to the clergy, 61. Catholic plots and
treasons against her, 65-9. Her indul
gence towards loyal Catholics, 69. Uses
puritanism against popery, 72/ 94.
Her de.ath, 87- Loyalty of the Puritans
towards her, 51, 87
EUison, Mr., ordained at Flixton, 338
Ellison, Mr., of Ashton-under-Lyne, 369
Elswick Chapel, 360, 411, 509
Elwood, Samuel, 266 note
Ely, John, 623, 527-8, 530
Enfield, Dr. WiUiam, 498
' Engagement,' the, 212, 278, 332
Erskine, Mr., 469-70
Essex, Robert Devereux, Earl of, 93, 100
Evans, Dr. John, 436, 437, 444 notes, 446
¦note, 448 and note, 451

£ ua.
FT HE capital letter formerly written
ff, 16 note
Fabiens, Daniel, 454
Fairfax, Dr., 212 note
Fairfax, Sir Thomas (afterwards Lord
Fairfax), 161, 196, 216, 217, 266, 323,
406
Fanshawe, Thomas, 174
Farmer, Captain, 220
Farnworth Grammar School founded, 18.
A nursery for Puritans, 20, 57
Fawcet, Thomas, 263 note, 266 note
Fawcett, Dr., 527
Fazakerley, family ot, 156
Fawkes, Guido or Guy, 68, 123, 204
Fearne, Dr. Henry, Bishop of Chester
(1661-2), 350
Fearniside, Adam, 164
Ffarington of Worden, family of, 31-2,
87, 153, 154, 218
Ffarington, Sir Henry, 32 note
Ffarington, Miss, 154 note
Ffarington, WiUiam, 169 note, 180 note,
187, 218, 384 note
Fig-pie Sunday, 12
Finch, Henry, 326, 359 and note, 376,
379, 408, 412, 426, 441-4, 459 note
Finch, John, 75
Firth, Martin, 301
Fisher, Moses, 535
Fisher, Samuel, 368
Flavel, John, compared with Isaac Am
brose, 386
Fleetwood, Edward, B.D., parson of
Wigan, 71, 99-100
Fleetwood, Edward, minister at Kirkham,
263 note
Fleetwood, General Charles, 324
Fletcher, Joseph, A.M. (afterwards D.D.),
518, 528, 530, 532
Fletcher, Richard, 530
Florentine, the, 1) 7 note
Fogg, or Fogge, John, 263 note, 376
Fogg, Richard, 371 note
Folgate, Mr. 307
Forster, Gen., 466-8
Forton, 453
Fox, George, 254
Fox, John, 41-2, 49, 59
Foxe, Anne, 107-8
Foxe, Capt., 220
Frankland, Richard, his academy and
students, 418-9, 420, 444, 450, 452
Freckleton Marsh, fight on, 227
Froude, J. A., M.A., 27 note, 28 note
Fuller, Thomas, B.D., 6 ¦note, 13, 121 note,
150
Furness Abbey, erection and endo-wment
of, 10. Dignity of the Abbot, 15 note.

556

INDEX.

His houses and style of li-ving, 15-6.
Charges of treason against the monks,
27-8, 30. Surrender and dissolution of
the Abbey, 30-1. The lands attached
to the Duchy of Lancaster, 31. School
of Furnfess Abbey, 57
Furness, deanery of, 9
Furness, iron forges of, 10, 17
Furnesse, Toby, 263 note
f-{ ADSBY, WiUiam, 537-8
XJ Gardiner, Bishop, 50, 58-9, 316 note
Garner, William, 263 note
Gartside, Edmund, 464
Gaskell, family of, 446
Gaskell, William, 491
Gaskell, Peter, 437 note
Gastrell, Dr. Francis, Bishop of Chester
(1714-1725), 360, 473-5. His Notitia
Oestriensis referred to (chiefly in the
notes), 43, 90, 360, 361, 363, 364, 371,
375, 493
Gee, Edward, 246, 253, 263 note, 273 and
note, 278, 290, 302, 310, 332, 339, 377
Gellibrand, Joseph, 450-1, 505, 523
GeUibrand, WUUam, 130-1
George I., 460
George, Richard, 333
Gerard of Bryn, family of, 156, 543
Gerard, Sir Gilbert, 187
Gerard, Sir WiUiam, 283, 432
Gibbons, Mr., 282
Gifford, Dr. Andrew, 535
Gifted brethren, 308-9, 816, 320, 322-3,
329
Gilbody, Robert, 255, 263 note, 372
Gipps, Mr., 245 note
GirUngton, Sir John, 168, 180, 187, 198,
200, 209, 214
Glyn, John, 238
Godfrey, vice-comes of Roger of Poic
tiers, 2
Godwin, Richard, 491, 500
Goodwin, John, 276
Goodwin, or Goodwyn, Richard, M.A.,
263 note, 364, 370-1, 411, 447-8
Goodwin, Thomas, D.D., 237, 259, 374,
447
Gore, John, 499
Gorton Chapel, 17, 299 note
Gosnell, James, 80, 371 and note
Gower, Stanley, 92 and note, 93
Grant, Mrs., 400
Greatbach, George, 532
Greenacres, Nohoonformity in, 870, 411,
463, 506, 527
Greenhaigh or Greenhaugh Castle, held
for Charles I., 172. Surrendered and
demoUshed, 227 and note

HAR
Greg, or Gregg, family of, 164
Gregg, Alice, 222 note
Gregg, Robert, min. of Bolton, 222 note
Gregg, Thomas, min. of St. Helens, 361,
374, 450
Gregson, 2 note, 15 note
Gresley, family of, 5
Griffith, George, 453
Griffiths, Griffith, 507 and note
Grimstone, Sir Harbottle, 333
Grimshaw, James, 443, 453
Grindal, Edmund, 55
Grosvenor, Dr. Benjamin, 421, 496
Gunpowder Plot, 122-3

HADFIELD, William, 133 note
Hale, Sir Matthew, -84, 338
Hall, Dr. George, Bishop of Chester (1662-
1668), 350-1, 357, 396, 424
Hall, Dr. Joseph, Bishop of Norwich, 351
Hall, Samuel, 635
Hallam, Henry, 120
Halsal, Sir Cuthbert, 112
HalsaU, Mr., 83
Halsall, Major Edward, 215 note
Hamilton, James, first Duke of, 176,
264-7, 269, 272, 277
Hammond, Samuel (aft. D.D.), of Cam
bridge, 377
Hammond, Thomas, 323
Hampson, John, 62
Hampton Court Conference, 121-2
Hancock, Mr. , 420
Harding, William, 524
Hardy, John, 491
Hardy, WiUiam, case of, 256
Hargreaves, James, 62, 63
Harland, John, F.S.A., 461 note, 476 note
Harper, John, 226 note, 263 note
Harrington, family of, 156
Harrington, James, 296
Harrington, Sir John, 38, 77 note
Harrimm, Cuthbert, 36U-1 and note, 380
note, 609
Harrison, Edward, 506
Harrison, 13
Harrison, John, ot Ashton-under-Lyne,
253, 260, 263 note, 272, 273 note, 290,
302, 804-5, 313, 316, 317, 319, 323,
326, 380, 338, 364, 368, 869, 394, 397,
400, 410, 646
Harrison, John, of Lancaster, 499
Harrison, Sir John, 174, 333
Harrison, Major-General, 175 note, 267
284, 288, 290
Harrison, Mr., of Huyton, 131
Harrison, Ralph, ot Manchester, 499
Harrold, Edmund, 461-2 note
Hartley, Mr., 400-1

INDEX.

557

Hartley, Dr., philosophy of, 489, 490 and
note, 497
Harwood, Dr. Edward, 494 note, 495
HasUngden, chapelry of, 62
Hatton, Richard, 362
Hawkshead-in-Furness, 57, 98 note
Haworth or Howarth, Dr., 343, 400, 407
Haworth, James, 454
Haworth, Mrs., 400
Haydock, of Cottam, family of; 67
Haydock, George, 67.
Haydock, Vivian, 67
Hayhurst, Bradley, 262 note
Heath, James, 162, 294 note
Heath, John, 333
Helme, J.ihn, 491
Henrietta Maria, Queen of Charles I., 1 42-3
Henry VIII. : his action in the case of Dr.
Henry Standish, 23. EstabUshment of
the royal supremacy, 24-5. Marriage
with Anne Boleyn ; scandalous talk of
the priests and monks, 27. Employs
spies in the monasteries, 27-8. Insur
rection in the north, 28. Suppression
of the monasteries, 29-32. Six new
bishoprics endowed, 32. Death of the
king, 36
Henry, Matthew, 107, 160-1 note, 354,
361, 374, 421, 450
Henry, PhiUp, 160-1 note, 398, 408
Henry, Prince, son of James I., 96-7, 140
Hepworth, Mr^, of Whalley, 226 note
Herle, Charies, M.A., 149-50, 158, 210,
211 and note, 253, 260, 290, 332, 339
Herle, Thomas, 64, 87-8, 95
Hesketh Lane, Independent church at, 411
Hesketh, family of, 59. Heskeths of
Rufford, 66, 156. Heskeths of Aughton,
66
Hesketh, Gabriel, of WhitehiU, near St.
Michael's-le-Wyre, 464
Hesketh, Robert, 444
Heyricke, Richard, M.A., 114, 116, 119,
145-9, 150, 151, 179-80 and note, 183-5,
191, 192, 207, 210-1, 213, 224, 226 note,
230, 232, 236, 239-41, 246, 247, 251,
253, 260/ 262 note, 272, 281-8, 290,
299 note, 300, 302, 309-10, 312, 313,
314, 316, 316, 323, 326 and note, 327,
328, 338, 343, 345, 346-7 and note, 350,
366-9, 422, 546. Extracts from his
sermons^ 147-9, 150-1, 233-6, 340-1
Heyricke, Sir William, 1 46
Heywood, family of, 135, 164
Heywood, Alice (mother of Oliver), 104,
877
Heywood, Alice (grandmother of OUver),
131
Heywood, Arthur, 493
Heywood, Eliezer, 413-4, 419

Heywood, John, 413-4, 419, 441
Heywood, Nathaniel, 36 note, 343, 364,
376 and note, 377-9, 411, 419, 493
Heywood, Oliver, 37-8 note, 131, 134,143,
164-5, 177, 271 vote, 286 note, 348-e
note, 365 note, 366, 371, 377, 378, 379
note, 393, 394, 395-7, 399 note, 402 note,
404, 406 note, 407, 409, 411 and note,
412, 413-4, 417 note, 419-20, 424 notg,
445
Heywood, Oliver (grandfather of preced
ing), 131
Heywood, Peter, 204
Heywood, Richard, 164, 377
Heywood, Thomas, 66, 276, 345 note, 364
note
Hibbert, Justice, 314-5
Hibbert, Dr., 33, 36, 64, 77, 81, 80, 234,
236, 279, 282, 3-22, 340, 343, 347, 424:
in the notes. Otherwise —
Hibbert-Ware, Dr., 450, 457, 464, 465,
467, 469 : iu the notes
Hickman, Mr., his academy, 413, 418, 419
High Commission and Star Chamber
Courts abolished, 177
Hinde, WiUiam, 102 and note, 104, 112-4,
115, 116 note, 117 9
Hindley Chapel, 194, 375. Meeting-house,
375
Hodgson, Albert, of Leighton, 464
Hodgson, Captain John, 268 note, 286 note
Hodgson, Mr., 414/
Hoghton, family of, 3, 126, 153, 155-6,
483, 509
Hoghton, Sir Gilbert, 155, 187, 193, 197,
198, 209
Hoghton, Sir Henry (1662), 400
Hoghton, Sir Henry (1715), 463, 465, 466
Hoghton, Sir Henry (1775), 610 note
Hoghton, Sir Henry Bold, 128 note
Hoghton, Lady (1716), 445
Hoghton, Lady Margaret, 383 and note,
385
Hoghton, Richard de, 2
Hoghton, Sir Richard (1617), 126
Hoghton, Sir Richard (1647), 165-6, 287
note, 298-9
Hoghton Tower described, 125. Visit of
James I., 125-9. Held for Charles I.,
156, 172; taken by the Parliamentarinas,
198
Holbrooke, Richard, 327, 345, 364, 370,
408
Holcomb Chapel, 255, 371. Meeting
house, 453
Holcroft, Captain, 182
Holcroft, Sir Thomas, 58
Holden, Thomas, 29
Holland of Denton, the family of, 3, 7,
32, 160, 355, 483

558

INDEX.

Holland, Colonel, 160, 161, 185, 189, 190,
191, 196, 203-4, 265, 326, 327, 355, 397
and note, 400
Holland, John, of Chowbent, 491
Holland, PhiUp, of Bolton, 500
Hcllaud, Richard, of Denton, 74, 80-1
note, 160
Holland, Richard, 298, 335
Holland, Richard, Earl of, 277
Holland, Robert de, 160
Holland, Sir Robert de, 2-3
Holland, Thomas, ot Ringley and of
Blackley, 263 note, 370
Holland, Thurstan de, 7
Holland, William, of Malpas, 160-1 note
HoUingworth, Richard, 236, 239 and note,
241, 244, 253, 262 note, 271, 272, 273,
281, 282, 290, 296, 299 note, 309-10,
350, 545, 547. References to his
writings, 17, 19 note, 37 note, 88, 40,
41, 48, 72 note, 74 note, 94, 96, 131, 144
note, 147, 166, 213 note, 239 note, 277
and note, 278, 282 note, 317
Holm, James, 357
Holme, family of, 164
Holt, of Ashurst. 187
Holt, John, of Warrington, 493, 495
Hook, Dean, 71
Hopwood, family of, 69
Hopwood, Edward, 253 note
Hopwood, Geoffrey de, 7
Hornby Castle, held for Charles I., 172 ;
taken by the Parliamentarians, 208-9
Hornby, priory of, 11
Horrocks, Alexander, 143, 213 note, 222,
263 note, 356
Horrocks, Elizabeth, 222 note
Horwich Chapel, 362-3
Hotham, Charies, 364, 374, 376
Hotham, Sir John, 376
Houghton Common, fight on, 195
Houghton, Pendlebury, 498, 499 [428
Howe, John, M.A., 332 note, 404, 426 note,
Hoyle, Luke, 177
Hubbert, Mr., 131
Huggin, Mr., 359
Hughes, John, 528
Hull, Matthew, 149
Hulme, James de, 7
Hulme, Mr., 338
Hulton, family of, 7, 131, 135, 164
Hulton, John de, 7
Hulton, Mr., of Hulton, 450
Humphreys, John, LL.D., 485 note
Hunt, Henry, 518 and note
Hunt, Jeremiah, 484
Hunter, Joseph, F.S.A., 37, 165, 177, 178,
286, 368, 379, 381, 393, 398, 402, 406,
412-3, 417, 420, 435, 603 ; chiefly in the
notes

Kurd, 481 note
Hurrion, John, 486
Hurst, Jeffrey, of Shakerley, 49-50
Huyton, Meeting-house at, 877
Hvde of Hyde Hall, Denton, famUy of, 7,
161, 355, 483
Hyde, Robert de, 7
Hyde, Robert, of Denton, 161, 189
Hyde, Robert, Presbyterian minister, 323
Hyett, or Hiet, James, of Croston, 263
note, 272 (misprinted of Crosby), 364
380, 398, 410 ¦
Hylton, John, 63

TNGHAM, WUliam, 263 note
Ireland, family of, 156
Ireland, Gilbert, 156 note, 298, 333
Ireton, General Henry, 295, 324
Irish Protestants, massacre of, 151
Issherwood, 'Sir' Oliver, 13 note

JACKSON, Arthur, M.A., 282
Jackson, James, 247, 323
Jackson, Nathaniel, 518
Jackson, Richard, 263 note
James I.: his accession, 120. Appearance
and character, 121, 140. Hampton
Court Conference, 91, 121-2. Gunpow
der Plot, 122-3. Royal progresses, 124-8.
Book of Sports, 129. Lancashire min
isters in his reign, 130-9. Growth of
Puritanism, 122, 139-40; and of popery,
139-40
James II. (as Duke of York), 403. His
accession, 425. Declaration of Liberty
of Cimscience, 387, 428-30. The Revo
lution, 430-3
James, Thomas S., 484 note, 486 note
Jaques, John, 263 note, 266 note, 323
Jeffreys, Judge, 373-4, 424
Jenkins, WUliam, M.A., 282
Jewell, John, (afterwards Bishop ot Salis
bury), 50, 55
John, King, 2
Johnson, James, 323
Johnson, John, 481 note, 534-6
Johnson, John, of Wigan, 521-2,630
Johnson, Richard, Fellow ot Manchester
CoUege, 144 and note. 236-7, 343-4, 847
Johnson, Thomas, 263 note
Jollie, John, 323, 357, 412
Jollie, Major, 318, 357, 373
Jollie, Thomas, 318, 348, 354, 373-4, 405,
411, 418-9, 420, 426
Jollie, Timothy, 374, 412-3 note, 419-21
Jones, Edmond, 338, 370, 408, 415
Jones (Joanes), John, of Eccles, 256, 263
note

INDEX.

659

Jones, John, of Liverpool, 540, 541
Jones (Joanes), Samuel, 263 note
Jones, Joshua, 468-9 note
Jones, WiUiam, 517 note
Jonson, Ben, 345 note

KAY of Rochdale, family of, 59
Kay, Mrs., 19 note
Kay, NevU, 263 note
Kelly, John, 526
Ken, Bishop, 430
Kenmure, WiUiam Gordon, sixth Viscount,
467-9
Kennedy, Thomas, A.M., 521
Kenyon, Mr., 315 note
Kenyon, Ann, daughter of Robert, 489-40
note
Kenyon, John, 523
Kenyon, Roger, 253 note
Kenyon, Roger, clerk of the peace, 437
note
Kippax, J., 378
King's or Queen's preachers of Lancashire,
36 note, 37, 64, 90, 343, 876, 383
Kirby, Godsgift, 419
Kirby, Richard, 333
Kirby, Roger, 174, 198
Knowles, John, 316 note, 321
Knox, John, 57-8
Kyd, John, 263 note

LAKE, Mr., of Oldham, 306
Lambert, General, 264-8 and note,
284, 323, 324, 327, 328, 330
Lamvet, Mr., of Ulverston, 387
Lancashire, Hundreds of, 1. Survey of
the county in the time of Edward III. ;
towns and boroughs, 3-9 ; churches,
9-10 ; monasteries, 10-11 ; diocesan
arrangements, 11 ; agriculture, com
merce, manufactures, 11 ; forests, 11-2.
Manners, customs, and sports, 12-3.
The clergy, 13. History to 'the Reform
ation : the great abbeys, 14-6 , industrial
progress, 16-8 ; progress of learning,
18-20; grammar-schools, 19-20; ignor
ance and superstition of the people,
20-1 ; slow progress of the Reformation,
except in the south-eastern part, 26-7.
Mirthful character of the people, 12-3,
34-5, et. al. State of religious parties
under Henry VIIL, 36 ; of religion
under Mary, 48 ; under Elizabeth, 61/
Lancashire Commissioners for pro
moting the Reformation, 62, 72, 74.
IU-feeling between Catholics and
Protestants, 75-7
Lancashire famiUes in the CivU War, 153/

Lancashire Theological Academy (Inde
pendent College), 681-2
Lancashire Congregational Union, 631
532-3
Lancaster, origin of the town of, 1. Its
state and privileges in the time of
Edward III., 3-4, 7. Its chm-ch, 4.
Benedictine priory, 4. Shipping, ibid.
Courts of assize, ibid. An old parUa
mentary borough, 9. Trade with the
West Indies, 18
Lancaster Castle, 1, 3-4. Held for Charles
I., 172. Stormed by the Parliamenta
rians, 198. Armed with great ordnance,
198-9. Attacked by Lord Derby, 200-2.
Massacre in the town, 201. Garrison
reinforced, 214
Lancaster, nonconformity in, 463, 511, 518
Lancaster, lords of the honour of, 1-3
Lancaster, Earl and Dukes ot, 2-3
Lancaster, duchy of, made palatinate, -3.
Annexed to the Crown, 3
Langdale, Sir Marmaduke, 264, 267, 268
note, 269
Langley, family of, 45
Langley, John, M.A., 72, 101
Langley, Samuel, of Swetteuham, 320, 546
Langley, Thomas (father of Samuel), 546
Langton, Mary, 98
Lardner, Dr. Nathaniel, 484 and note, 485
Lardner, Richard, 484 note
Latham, Ebenezer, M.D., 492 note
Lathom, Sir Thomas de, 8
Lathom, the seat of the Earls of Derby,
14-5, 44, et al. Held for Charles I.,
172. First siege of, 215-21. Second
siege and capture, 228-30
Lathom or Latham, Paul, ot Standish,
263 note, 380
Latimer, ]3ishop, 89 and note, 40, 57,
315-6 note
Laud, Archbishop, 137, 140, 141-5, 160,
165, 173, 177, 356, 372
Lauderdale, John Maitland, second Earl
(afterwards Duke) of, 162, 286
Layton, Richard, 31
Leaver, John, 363-4, 371, 408, 410, 411,
447
Lee, Dr., inquisitor of the northern
monasteries, 31.
Leeds, MiU HiU Chapel, 410
Lees, John, v. Worsley, John Carill,
Legate, Robert, 27-8
Leicester, Sir Peter, 415
Leicester, Robert Dudley, Earl of, 78, 85
Leigh, Richard, 333
Leigh, WiUiam, B.D., rector of Standish,
71, 96-8, 140
Leigh, WilUam, 250, 263 note, 338, 370,
410

660

INDEX.

Leigh of High Leigh, family of, 160
Leigh plundered, 193; taken by assault,
196
Leighton, Alexander, 177
Leland, John, 17
Leland, Justice, 49-50, 64
LenthaU, WUliam, Speaker, 172, 180-1,
181, 218, 267, 284, 285, 287, 290 ; chiefly
in the notes
Lesley, Lieutenant-General David, 290
Lever, family ot, 46, 57, 135, 164
Lever, James, 371 note
Lever, John, 57
Lever, Thomas, 40, 52 note, 55, 56, 57-8,
59, 60, 78
Leybourne, James, 74, 75
Leybourne, John, of Natsby, 464
Leyland Hundred, severed from Cheshire,
1. Its churches in the reign of Edward
III., 9
Lichfield, Coventry, or Chester, ancient
diocese of, 11 ; diminished in extent, 32
Lightfoot, John, D.D., 237
Lilburne, Colonel John, 284 and note, 285
and note, 290, 327, 328
Lister, James, 536-6
Littiewood, Thomas, 527
Liverpool, rise and progress of, 8 ; state
under Edward IIL, 8-9 ; chapel of St.
Nicholas, 8. An old parUamentary
borough, 9. State under Henry VIII.,18
Liverpool, fortified, 172 ; occupied for the
Parliament, 208 ; defences strengthened,
225 ; siege and capture by Rupert,
225-6 : retaken, 227-8
Liverpool, Nonconformity in, 379, 451-3,
453-4, 511, 523-6, 534-6, 639-41, 541-2.
Liverpool Liturgy, 500. Octagon Chapel,
500-1
Liverpoole, castle on the, 2
Lloyd, Dr. George, Bishop of Chester
(1605-1615), 123
Lobb, Theophilus, 428, 430
Locke, John, 362-3
Lockhart, Captain, 469-70
Lollards, few or none in Lancashire, 20
Longford, Michael de, 12
Long Parliament, 173-6; its religious
character, 176-7 ; breach with the king,
177-8 ; wisdom in ecclesiastical matters,
237-9 ; dissolution, 290
Longridge Chapel, 363
Lonsdale Hundred, severed from York
shire, 1
Louvain, CoUege of, 62, 66
Love, Alderman, 416
Love, Christopher, 282-3
Lowman, Moses, 484, 485, 486
Low Walton chapelry, 62
Lytham, 453, 532

MACAULAY, Lord, 425 note, 428
Mackintosh, Col., 466-9
Malhoone, William, 147
MaUison, John, 263 note
Mallyns, John, 64 and note
Manchester, the Roman Mancunium, 2, 5.
Condition under Edward III., 5, 6 ;
Flemish immigrants, 6 ; ecclesiastical
arrangements of the town and neigh
bourhood, 5-7. Parks and forests in
the parish, 11-2. Industrial and
ecclesiastical condition in the first part
of the sixteenth century, 1 6-7. Deprived
of the privileges of sanctuary, 17.
Becomes Protestant and Puritan, 26-7.
Change of political and religious char
acter, 344, 417, 424
Manchester fortified, 172; outbreak of
civU war at, 181-3; assault of, 187-91 ;
head-quarters of Parliamentarians, 194 ;
refuses to surrender to Earl of New
castle, 213 ; defences strengthened,
214 ; pestilence at, 230
Manchester, castle at, 2
Manchester Classis, Minutes of, 245/,
303/ 810, 338-9
Manchester, CoUegiate Church of, founded
and endowed, 6, 7. The college dis
solved and its lands alienated, under
Edward VI. , 36 ; restored under Mary,
41 ; part of the property obtained and
retained by the Earl of Derby, 36, 41,
64. Further spoUation under Elizabeth,
64 ; checked by Lord Burleigh, ibid.
The coUege established on a new foun
dation, ibid
Manchester Grammar School founded, 19
Manchester New CoUege, 491, 499-500
Manchester, Nonconformity in, 409-10,
412, 446, 472, 511, 513, 519-23, 541-2
Manchester, Edward Montague, Earl of,
333
Manton, Dr. Thomas, 251, 260, 283, 386
Mar, John Erskine, Earl of, 467
Marprelate, Martin, 79-80
Marsden, Jeremie, 323
Marsh, George, 31, 42-7, 49
Marsh, Mr., of Warrington, 133
Marshall, Stephen, 176, 237
MarshaU, Dr. WiUiam, 364, 387
Martin, Henry, 295
Martindale, Adam, 156 note, 249 note,
250-2, 253 and note, 273 note, 278, 309,
316, 817, 318 note, 320, 322 note, 326
and note, 329, 381, 344-5 and note,
350-1, 393 note, 399 and note, 400 note,
401-2 and note, 407-8 and note, 415-6
and note
Martindale, Mrs., 345, 399-400
Mary, Queen ; her accession, 41. Restor-

INDEX,
MAS
ation of Popery, ibid. Persecutions,
41,/. Death, 47-8, 50. Impressions
left by her reign, 50. Her character,
50-1 ; contrasted with that of Elizabeth,
51-2
Massey, Isabel, 291
Mather, Dr. Cotton, 135, 136 note, 186-7
note, 138 note, 375 note
Mather, Nathaniel, 375
Mather, Richard, 130, 135-8, 359
Mather, Samuel, M.A., 308, 374-6, 410
Maurice, WilUam, 518, 519
Mawdesley, Richard, 263 note
May-day in Lancashire, 35
McAll, Robert Stephens, LL.D., 312,
523, 530, 539 note
McQuhae, James, 510 and note, 515-6 and
note, 517, 524, 626, 531
Mead, Matthew, 428
Meanly, Richard, 491, 528
MechUn, College of, 66
Medley, Samuel, 635 and note
Meek, or Meeke, WiUiam, 299 note, 306,
545
Meeting-houses erected after 1688, 437
/. Some with a beU, 439, 450. Inter
ments in, 441, 506, 507. Order of
worship, 465-6
Meldrum, Sir John, 226-7
Mercer, Jonathan, 452-3 and note, 505
Merriman, Captain, 318
Methodists in Lancashire, 513, 537, 538-
9, 543-4
Methodists, Calvinistic, 513-4, 519,'528-9,
529-30, 644
Middleton, 63, 99, 100, 306-7. Congre
gational church at, 528
Middleton Grammar-school, 59. Endowed
by Nowell, 65
Middleton, Sir Thomas, of Chirk Castle,
325 note
Middeleton, Sir WilUam, of Aldworth,
387
Midgley, Richard, 62-3, 71, 89-90, 92-3,
372
Midgley, Joseph, M.A., 90 and note, 91-2
Midwives licensed by bishops, 77
Mildmay, Sir Walter, 91 and note
MiUenary Petition, 121 and note
Milne, James, 453
MUton, John, 133 note, 276, 312 note
MinshuU, Dorothy, John, and Mary, 133
note
MinshuU, EUzabeth, 133 note
MinshuU, Richard, of Wistaston, 133 note
MinshuU, Thomas, 133note, 185, 312 note,
314
MoUneux, family of, 2 note, 8, 156, 160.
Their castle at Liverpool, 2, 8, 18, 157,
208, 226

661
NBA
Molineux, Caryl Lord (third Viscount
Maryborough) 360 and note, 432
Molineux, Sir Richard, 66
Molineux, Richard Lord (second Viscount
Maryborough) 167, 187, 209
Molineux, Sir Robert, 156
Molineux, Vivian, 2
Monasteries, state of, before the dissolu
tion, 20, 30-1. Lancashire gentry
enriched by the confiscation of their
lands, 30, 31-2. New bishoprics en
dowed from them, 32
Monk, George (aft. Duke of Albemarie),
324, 328, 331 and note, 332, 333
Monteagle, Lord, 122
Monmouth, James Duke of, 354, 427
Montague, Baron, 469, 470
Monton, Meeting-house at, 453, 463, 471
note
Moore, Edward, 167
Moore, Sir Edward, 226 note
Moore, John (the regicide), 157, 174, 176,
177, 178, 181 note, 186, 194, 214-5, 216,
221, 225-6, 227, 276
Moore, Matthew, 263 note
More, or Moore, family of, 8, 157
More, John de le, 8 note
More, John, Mayor of Liverpool under
Henry VIIL, 18
More, Richard de, 8 note
Morgan, Colonel, 217, 219
Morgan, WilUam, 529
Morland, George and Ann, 247-8
Morley, Dr. George, Bishop of Worcester,
349
Morris, Secretary, 347 note
Mort, Adam, 363
Mort, John, 449 ; Toulmin's Memoir of,
450 note, 465 note
Morton, Dr. Thomas, Bishop of Chester,
(1616-8) 123, 127, 129-30, 131-2, 136
Mosley, Francis, 304, 347
Mosley, Ann (Lady Bland), 431 and note
Mosley, family of, 446, 483
Mosley, Sir Edward, 187
Mosley, Margaret (Mrs. Angier), 356
Mosley, Nicholas, 339-40, 342, 407
Mottershead, Joseph, 468-9 iiote, 476-6
note
Munro, Sir George, 269-70
Murcot, Mr., 318
Murray, Dr., 123-4, 143-4, 145
NAIRN, Major, 469-70
Naylor, James, 361, 450, 505
Naylor, Peter, 370
Neal, Daniel, M.A.; his History of the
Puritans (2nd ed., 2 vols. 4to., London,
1754) referred to (chiefly in the notes);

562

INDEX.

77, 78, 84, 88, 97, 121, 139, 140, 276,
331, 406, 426
NeUd, 47 note
Neile, Dr. Richard, Archbishop of York,
136 and note
Neville, Henry, 295
Neville, Sir John, 15 note
Newcastle, WilUam Cavendish, Earl and
Marquis of, 213-4 and note, 226
Newcome, Henrv, 114-6 and note, 116,
119, 133, 271 note, 309, 310-6, 316, 317
and note, 318 and note, 319, 320, 321-2,
323, 324 note, 325 and note, 326, 827,
828 and note, 330 and note, 334-8, 344
note, 345 and note, 347-8, 350, 865-9,
386, 392, 394, 397, 399 note, 400 note,
401 and note, 404, 408, 410, 411, 412,
415, 416-7, 424 and note, 427, 430-2,
433 note, 485 note, iii, ii6-7, 545-7
Newton Hundred, severed from Cheshire,
and annexed to West Derby Hundred, 1
Newton, under Edward III., 7. Made a
parliamentary borough, 9. Chapel, 17,
299 note
Newton, Samuel, 363, 370
Nichols, 35 note, 53 note, 231
Nithsdale, WiUiam Maxwell, fifth Earl of,
467-9
Noble, Mark, M.A., 276
Norcot, WiUiam, 263 note
Norman, Thomas, 263 note
Norris of Speke, family of, 156
Norris, John, 371 note
Norris, Sir WiUiam, 166
Northumberland, John Dudley, Duke of,
43 note, 58
NoweU ot Read, family of, 59, 167
Nowell, Alexander, 55-6 and note, 59-60,
64, 65, 78-9
Nowell, Alexander, jun., 115 and note
NoweU, John, 69
Nowell, Lawrence, 60 note
Nowell, Major, 506
Nowell, William, 187
Nye, John, 546, 547
Nye, Philip, 212, 237, 331
ODCROFT, John, 299 note, 306
Okey, John, of Bolton, 202 note,
411 note
Old Dissent, the, founded, 395, 411. Its
decline, 483-4. Relation to the New,
414/
Oldham, chapelry, 6, 40, 306
Oldham, Congregationalism in, 527
Oldham, Hugh, Bishop of Exeter, 19-20
and note, 38
Ordinations, Presbyterian, 248-52. Non
conformist, 358, 412, 419-20

PEN
Orme, William, 403 note
Ormerod, Dr., 83 note, 184 note, 202 note,
215 note
Ormskirk Church, 70, 77, 378
Orton, Job, 528 aud note
Otewill, Margaret, 150
Onlton, John, 635
Owen, Dr. Charles, 451 and notes, 468-9
note
Owen, James, of Oswestry and Shrews
bury, 421 note
Owen, John, D.D., 331 and note, 403, 404,
406 note
Owen, Josiah, of Rochdale, 451 note, 475
and note, 477-8, 479, 481, 482 and note,
483
PADIHAM Chapelry, 62
Paget, Dr. Nathan, 133 note
Paget, John, 130 note, 133
Paget, Thomas, 37 note, 92 note, 130 note,
131-4
Palin, Mr., 130
Palmer, Mr., 184 note
Palmer, Samuel, 318, 371, 375, 376, 379,
380, 385, 389, 398, 444, 459, 606-7
(mostly in the notes)
Palmer, Sir Roger, 1 74
Park, Robert, 370, 371, 447-8
Parker, Dr. Matthew, Archbishop of
Canterbury, 54-5, 56, 62, 63, 64, 65,
89,91
Parker, Dr. Samuel, Bishop of Oxford,
429-30
Parkin, Joseph, 530
Parkinson, ' Sir ' Ralph, 50, 64
ParUament, members of, their pay and
aUowances, 9.
ParUaments of Charles I., 157, 173/,
178 / et al. (see also ' Long ParlUi-
ment). Convention of 1653, 298.
Parliaments of 1654 aud 1656, 298-9.
ParUament or Convention of 1660,
332-3. ParUament of 1661, 849
Parr, John, 354, 453
Parsons, Robert, 31
Parsons, Edward, of Leeds, 516 aud note
Paslew, John, 28-9
Patrick, Bishop, 458
Patten, Robert, 464 note, 465 note, 472
Paul, WilUam, 464, 469
Payne, George, LL.D., 532
Pearson, Dr. John, Bishop of Chester
(1673-1686), 358, 362 note, 424
Peck, Francis, M.A., 66 note, 286 note
Pegg, Mr., 387
Penderel, WiUiam, 286
Pendlebury, Henry, M. A., 364, 370, 371-2
and note, 528

INDEX.

563

Pendleton, Dr., 37, 38, 39, 41-2, 354
Penhall Chapelry, 62
Penn, William, 428
Penwortham Castle, 2, 5. Benedictine
Priory, 5, 11
Peploe, Dr. Samuel, Bishop of Chester
(1726), 472-5, 477, 479
Peploe, Dr. Samuel, jun., Warden of
Manchester, 474, 475, 479 note, 481
Pepys, Samuel, 345
Percival, Richard, 182
Percival, Thomas, M.D., F.R.S., 496
Peters, Hugh, 260, 276
Philpotts, Dr. Henry, Bishop of Exeter,
19-20 note
' Pilgrimage of Grace,' 28-9
Pilkington made a parish, 17
Pilkington, family of, 57, 135
PUkington, James, Bishop of Durham,
40, 55, 56-7, 59, 62, 63, 65, 77-8
Pilkington, Richard, 57
Podmore, Thomas, 461-2 note, 477, 479
PoUets, Mr., 246
Pollit, Mr., 255
Poole, Matthew, 403
Poole, Mr., 345
Poore, John Legg, 530
Porter, Henry, 298
Presbyterianism in Lancashire, rise and
progress of, 95, 115, 119, 129, 149, 156,
157-8, 160, 161, 209-10, 236. Estab
Ushed, 239-41. Constitution, 242-53.
List of Classes, 243 and note. Com
pared with the Scottish, 243-4. Its
working, 253Jf. Intolerance, 259.f.
Decline of the Presbyterian power,
273-4, 275/ Difficulties, controversies,
aud attempts at union, 275-83, 292-3,
299/ 304, 816, 321/ Presbyterians
and the Restoration, 325/ 331, 332-8,
339-43, 344/ Fall of the Presbyterian
estabUshment, 338-9. Position of the
ministers from 1660 to 1662, 348-51 ;
under the Act of Uniformity, 352/
390/; under the Declarations of Indul
gence, 407/ 425#; under the Act of
Toleration, 434/ Gradual blending
of Presbyterianism and Congregation
aUsm, 502/ et al. Scottish Presby
terians in Lancashire, 539, 541-2
Prescot, 40, 411
Preston, its rise and progress, 4-5.
Rivalry with Lancaster, 3-5. Capital
of the Duchy, 5. Its wealth under
Edward III., '7. An old parliamentary
borough, 9. Trade with Ireland, 18
Preston fortified for Charies I., 172.
Taken by the Parliamentarians, 196-7 ;
by the RoyaUsts, 201-2; by the Par

Uamentarians, 205. Battle of Preston,
267-8
Preston, Nonconformity in, 379, 453, 511,
513-4, 528-9
Preston, family of, 169
Prestwich-cum-Oldham, 6, 40, 302/
Meeting-house at, 380, 411
Prestwich, Ralph de, 7
Pride, Colonel, 297, 300
Priestley, Joseph, LL.D., F.R.S., 475-6
note, 483, 485, 489-90 and note, 492,
496-7 and notes
Priestley, Timothy, 520
' Priestshires ' or ' Shriftshires,' 1
Prynne, WiUiam, 136, 177, 273
Puritans ot Lancashire, not gloomy or
austere, 34, 112. Opposed the sports
at church festivals on religious grounds,
34, 35, 117-9. Their strength in the
reign of Elizabeth, 61, 87-9 ; of James
I., 139-40. Amusements allowed or
avoided by them, 112-9 et al. Early
hours of worship, 365 note
Puritans under Elizabeth not more Cal
vinistic than their opponents, 60, 88
note, 142
Pyke, Thomas, 263 note, 370, 411, 444
and note
Pym, John, 51
QUAKERS, the early, 254, 258-9. Re
ported insurrection ot, 326. Other
references, 395, 426, 435, 536, 542
RADCLIFFE, famUy of, 4, 166-7 and
note
Radoliffe of Chadderton, 159
Radoliffe, Sir Alexander, 166 note, 181,
182, 187
Radoliffe, 'Sir' Hugh, 13 note
Radoliffe, Sir John de, 7
RadcUffe, Capt. Molineux, 220
RadcUffe, Richard, 299
Radoliffe, Capt. Robert, 166 note, 186,
188, 189, 191
Rae, Peter, 449 note, 450 note, 464, 465
note
Raffles, Thomas, D.D., 519 note, 621, 525-
6 630. References (chiefly in the notes)
to his MSS., 439, 441, 445, 461, 471,
507, 503, 609, 510, 516, 519, 521, 523,
524 525, 529 Independency in St.
Helen's, 460, 45-2-3, 505
Raines, Canon, 13, 14, 32, 71, 90, 97, 99,
mi, 107, 111, 126, 460: chiefly in the
notes , , , .
Rainford Chapel, 361-2, 375. Meeting
house, 453

564

INDBX.

KAS
Rasbotham, Doming, 450
Rathband, William, of Blackley Chapel,
37 note, 134
Rawlinson, William, 444
Rebellion ot 1715, 461-71; of 1745, 479-83
Redditch, Otho de, 7
Rees, William, D.D., 540, 541
Reilly, John, 446 note
Reneses, a Protestant minister in the reign
of Mary, 50
Reynolds, Dr. Edward (afterwards Bishop
of Norwich), 333
Ribbleston Moor, 267
Richardson, Christopher, 413, 452
Richardson, Christopher, jun., 413, 419
Richardson, Edward, 323
Richardson, John, 365, 370, 408, 411,
413
Richmond, archdeaconry of, 11, 32
Ridgley, Thomas, D.D., 485, 486
Ridley, Bishop, 39, 57
Rigby, family ot, 153, 170-2
Rigby, Alexander, ot the Burgh, 171
Rigby, Alexander, jun., of the Burgh,
172, 285
Rigby, Alexander, of Goosnargh, 168, 161,
170-1, 174, 176, 177, 178,180-1 note,
181 and note, 186, 19-1, 214, 216, 216,
217 / 221-3, 228-30, 265, 276, 287
note, 548
Rigby, Alexander, jun., of Goosnargh, 171
Rigby, Alice, 253 note
Rigby, Colonel Creson, 1 72
Bigty, Edward, 171, 333
Rigby, George, 172
Rigby, Major Joseph, 172
Rigby, Nicholas, 171 note
Rippon, John, D.D., 454 note
Risley, Thomas, M.A., 408
Rivington, 57. Chapel, 363, 370
Rivingtcm Pike, 43, 45
Robie, OUver, 149
Robin Hood, procession of, 35, 40, 48
Robinson, John, 156 note, 269
Robinson, Major Edward, and the Dis-
coune of the Ciril War, &c., 182, 183,
186, 191, 195, 200, 206, 222, 226, 227,
230, 285 (chiefly in the notes)
Roby, John, 29 note, 127 note, 216
Roby, William, 514, 521-3, 630, 531-2
Rochdale, parish separated from that of
Whalley, 6. The town becomes Pro
testant aud Puritan, 26. Advowson
transferred to the see ot Canterbury,
30. Vicars under Elizabeth, 62-3.
School founded, 65
Rochdale, Nonconformity in, 372, 411,
511,513, 614, 527-8
Rochel, Mr. (RothweU, Edward ?), 528
Roger, Abbot of Furness, 28, 80-1

SAV
Roger of Poictiers, 1-2
Rogers, Henry, 332 note, 632
Rogers, John, of Dedham, 365
Roote, Henry, 276, 323, 328, 356
Rossendale, 6
Rossendale, curious deed of settlement of
a chapel in, under Henry VIIL, 33-4
Rossendale, chapelry ot, 62
Rosthern, Capt. Edward, 187
Rosworm, Lieut. -Col. John, 184-6, 188-
92, 195, 196, 203-4, 212-3, 214, 215
and note, 217 note, 228 and note, 230-1
Rotheram, Dr. Caleb, 421 note, 452 note,
486, 491-2
RothweU, Edward, 453
RothweU, James, i562-3
RothweU, Richard, 92-4
Rupert, Prince, 185, 221-3, 224-6 and notes
Rushton, Jeffrey, 333
Russell, a Protestant minister in the reign
of Mary, 50
Rutt, John TowUl, 490, 495, 497 : in the
notes
Rutter, Samuel, 218-9
Rye-Croft, 527
SACHEVEREL, Dr. Henry, 456, 459-
61
Sacheverel, Timothy, 400 note
Sabbatic oljservance among the Puritans,
71, 81-2, 99, 104-6, 108, 129; among
the ejected ministers, 366, 393 note,
394
Salford Hundred, formerly called Salford
shire, 1. Churches in, from the Con
quest to the reign of Edward III., 9.
Rise of manufacturing industry, 11.
Progress to the time of the Reformation,
17-8. A stronghold of Puritanibm
and Nonconformity in Lancashire, 18,
61, 158 / Circumstances favourable
to the Reformation, 26-7
Salford Chapel and chapelry, 17, 299 note,
306
Salford, Congregationalism in, 523
Salley, monks ot, 11
Samlesbury chapelry, 62
Sampson, Thomas, 39 ; Dean of Christ
Church, Oxon, 56 note
Sampson, WilUam, 180-1 note
Sancroft, Archbishop, 430
Sandford, Benjamin, 491
Sandford, Mr., of Harwood, 373
Sandys, family of, 67, 169
Sandys, Edwin, 55, 56, 57-9, 60, 78
Sandys, William, 57
Saunders, Laurence, 38, 40, 41, 43-4
Saville, family of, 167
Savoy Conference, 349 and note

INDEX,
SAW
Sa-wry, John, 298
Scarisbrick, family of, 9, 166
Scarisbrick, Jane, 77
Scarisbrick licensed Meetinghouse, 411
Scholecroft or Schoulcroft, James, 263
note, 266 note
Scholefield, Jonathan, 263 note
Scoles, Jeremy, 250 (?), 408
Scott, Dr. Cuthbert, Bishop of Chester
(1656-1569), 47-8, 50, 62
Scott, James, 509-10, and note
Scott, Sir Walter, 288
'Scripture Mysteries' not popular in Lan
cashire, 35
Seacome, 195, 221, 224, 225, 230, 285, 286,
287, 288 (generally in tbe notes)
Seager, Sager, or Segar, Charles, 3Qinote,
606 and note
Seaton, Rachel, 107
Seaton, Sir John, 196, 201
Seddon, J<ihn, of Manchester, 475-6 note,
491, 492
Seddon, John, of Warrington, 491, 492-3,
496, 497, 498 and note, 500
Seddon, Katharine, 222 note
Seddon, Ralph, B.A., 250
Seddon, Robert, 263 note
Seddon, Robert, ot Bolton, 372 note, 448
Sedgefield, John, 454
Sedgefield, Mr., of Staveley, 389 and note
Selden, John, 237
Sequestrators, Committee of, 280-2
Shackerly, Jeffrey, 333
Shaftoe, Mr., 469-70
Shakeriey, 49-50, 64
Sharp, Isaac, 505-6
Shaw, Henry, 263 note
Shaw, Mr., of Thornton, 369
Shaw, Peter, M.A., 71, 72, 101
Shaw, Robert, 263 note
Sheldon, Dr. Gilbert, Bishop of Loudon,
&c., 349, 391, 392
Shepherd, Wm., LL.D., 535 note
Sherborne, Mrs., 101 note
Sherborne, Richard, 117, 126
Sherburne of Stonyhurst, family of, 167
.Sherburne, Sir Richard, of Stonyhurst,
69, and note
Shuttleworth of Gawthorp, family of, 165,
483.
Shuttleworth, Nicholas and Oughtred,
165, 265
Shuttleworth, Richard, 165, 174, 175, 198,
194, 201, 205, 265, 298
Shuttleworth, Richard, junr., 165, 166,
174, 176, 186, 194, 201
Shuttleworth, Richard (1715), 470
Shuttleworth, Wm., 165
Sibthorpe, Dr., 141
Siddal or Siddall, family of, 162, 291

565
STA
SiddaU, Mr., 358
Sidney, Algernon, 163, 290, 295, 423
Simpson, Robt., D.D., 609, 615, 516-7
630 '
' Sir,' as a clerical title, 13-4 note, 33, 50, 64
Slate, Richard, 529
Slaves, last recorded sale of, in Lancashire,
11 note
Small Bridge, Congrega,tional Church at,
628
Smalley, Robert, 616 note
SmaUwood, Thomas, 323
Smethurst, 'Sir' OHver, 13 note
Smith, — , the last prior of Whalley Ab
bey, 29
Smith, John, 263 note, 266 note
Smith, Joseph, of Manchester, 523
Smith, 'Sir' Lawrence, 13 note
Smith, Nicholas, 263 note, 387
Smith, Peter, 263 note, 548
Smith, Thomas, 263 note
Smith, Timothy, 263 note, 363, 380-1 note
Smith, WiUiam, 263 note
Solemn League and Covenant, 212-3, 264,
279, 284, 352, 367, 444 note, et al.
Sorocold, "Thomas, 71
Southport, Congregationalism in, 532
Southworth, family of, 167
Spear, Robert, 523
Speed, John, 37, 56 note
Spencer, Thomas, 525
Sports on Sundays aud at church festi
vals, 12-3, 34-5, 40, 48, 99, H7-8, 125,
127, 128-9, 131, 144-6, 344-6
Spurstow, Dr. William, 251
St. Helen's. 361, 411, 450, 505-6
Staleybridge, 527
Stamford and Warrington, Earls ot, 160,
626
Standish Grammar-school founded, 98
Standish, taojUy of, 153, 155
Standish, Dr. Henry, 21, 22-4
Standish, Capt. Miles, 155 note
Standish, Mr., of Duxbury, 380
Standish, Ralph (the common ancestor),
155
Standish, Ralph, ot Standish (1715), 464
Standish, Richard, 298
Standish, Thos., ot Duxbury, 156, 174,
175-6, 187, 191, 194, 265
Standish, Thos., junr., 155, 187, 191
Stanlaw, the Abbot of, 10
Stanley, the family of, 8, 14, 23, 31, 64,
67, 70, 87, 120 note, 153-4, 157.
Stanleys of Bickerstaffe, 378 and note.
Stanleys ot Hooton, 67. (See also
'Derby, Earls of)
Stanley, Edward, 333
Stanley, Dr. James, Bishop of Ely and
Warden of Manchester, 216 note

566

INDEX.

Stanley, Bishop of Man, 41 note, 53
Stanley, Lady, ot Bickerstaffe, 378
Stanley, Sir Rowland, 67
Stanley, Sir Thomas, 154 and note, 178,
182
Stanley, Sir WiUiam, 66, 67-8, 122-3, 126
Stanley, WiUiam, 333
Starkey, James, 263 note
Starkey, Mr. (ejected from Grantham),
378
Starkie of Huntroyd, family of, 165
Starkie, Colonel, 186, 193, 198, 205
Starkie, Mrs., 149
Starkie, Nicholas, 165, 198
Steel, Alexander, 630
Stejihen of Boulogne, 10
Stillingfieet, Dr. Edward, 403, 434
Stockport, Congregational Church in, 320
Stockport or Stopford. Joshua, lecturer at
Manchester coll. church, 114, 323, 326,
327
Stockton, Thomas, 446
Stonyhurst, 69. CoUege, 69, 289 note
Stopford, Mr. ; see 'Stockport, Joshua'
Stafford, Thomas Wentworth, Earl of,
160, 174, 177
Strange, .lames. Lord ; see ' Derby, James,
Eari of '
Strangeways, James de, 7
Stratford, Dr. Nicholas (Bishop of Ches
ter, 1689-1707), 422-4, 427, 430, 433,
459
Stretford chapelry, 17, 63, 299 note, 306
Stringer, Mr., 320
Strype, John, 91 note
Stuart, Arabella, 120
Stubbes, the Puritan lawyer of indomit
able loyalty, 51
Stubbs, Samuel, 496
Sussex, Earl ot, 29, 30
Sutcliffe, Jonathan, 526-7, 528, 530
Swedenborgians, 642
Syddall, Thomas, 461 and note, 463, 471
Syddall, Thomas, junr., 461 note, 471,
480, 482 and notes, 483
SyU, John, 266 note
Symmonds, Mr., 307 and note

TORBOCK of Torbock, 187
Tarum Wakes, 118
Taylor, 454 note
Taylor, Hugh, M.A., 249,
Taylor, Dr. John, 271, 353-4 and note,
452 note, 489-91, 493-5, 496, 501, 504
Taylor, Tim.ithy, 240, 320, 321
Taylor, Zachary, ejected from Rochdale,
364, 370, 373
Taylor, Zachary, junr., 373 note
Taylor, Zachary, 313-4

Tenison, Dr. Thos. (aft. Archbishop of
Canterbury), 434, 458
Tetlow, Ronald, 453
Thom, David, D.D., 454, 481 note, 535
and notes, 636 note
Thomas, Serjeant, 176
Thomason, George, 370
Thompson (Tompson), Joseph, of Sephton,
263 note, 348, 376, 379, 398, 410
Thompson, Josiah, 454 note
Thomson, Alex., M.A., 403 note
Thoresby, Ralph, 410
Thurland, castle of, 2 ; alienated by the
Tunstalls, 168 ; held by Sir John Giri-
ington for Charies I., 168, 172 ; taken
by Assheton, 209 ; re-occu|>ied by Gir
lington, 214 ; again taken by Assheton,
and destroyed, 214
Thurloe, Secretary, 293 note, 294 note
TiUotson, Archbishop, 323 note, 371, 391
note, 434, 458
TUsley, John, M.A., 197, 233, 239, 240,
241, 263, 260, 263 note, 272, 302, 310,
316, 318 note, 323, 326, 362 and note, 370
Tockholes Meeting-house, 444-6 and notes,
609-11 [528
Todmorden, Congregational church at,
Tomkins, Martin, 484
Toplady, Aug. M., 489 note, 497 note
Toulmin, Henry, 450 note, 465 note
Towers, George, of Whitworth, 508
Towers, James, of Tockholes (grand
father of the preceding), 509
Town, Robert, 373
Townley, family of, 59, 126, 167
Townley, Charles, 167, 187
Townley, Colonel, 479-80
Townley, Mary, 167 note
Townley, Richaid, of Townley, 464, 469
Toxteth, park and forest of, 8-9
Toxteth Park Chapel, 135-8, 359-60 and
note, 411, 523
Trafford, family of, 7, 64 and note, 147,
160, 166
Trafford, Sir CecU, 147, 192
Trafford, Sir Edmund, alchemist, 84-5 note
Trafford, Sir Edmund, 64, 74, 80-1 note,
299 note
Trafford, Edmund de, 7
Trapper, Sir Francis, 167 note
Tr.ives, Father, 37 and note, 39, 42, 134
Travis, George (1603), 37 note, 134
Travis, George (1697), 37-8 note, iii
Travis, Mrs., 37-S note, 444
Travis, Seth, 37 note
Travis, Thomas (1697), 37-8 note, iii:
Travis, Thomas (1846), 37-8 note
Tremouille, Charlotte de la. Countess of
Derby, 36 note, 217-8, 287, 289 and
note, 377

TremouiUe, Claude, Duke of; 217
Tunstall, family ot, 25, 168
Tunstall, Bishop, 25
Turner, John, 454
Tyldesley, family ot, 153, 154-5
Tyldesley, Edward, of the Lodge, 464, 469
Tyldesley, Sir Thomas, 154-5, 172, 187,
190, 201, 206, 209, 227, 269-70, 283,
285, 288, 339

UNDERHILL Meeting House, 411
Unitarianism, 320-1, 492, 496, 502-
4,542
Up-HoUand, 160; priory of, 11

VALENTINE, Joseph, 491
Vane, Sir Harry, junr., 176-7, 212
Vaughan, Henry, 248-9
Vaughan, Dr. Richard, Bishop of Chester
(1597-1604), 123
Vaughan, Robert, D^D., 632
Vaux, Lawrence, 48, 64, 282
Venables, Captain, 186, 194
Vicars, John, 204, 223 and note

WADDINGTON, Geo. G., 506 note
Waddington, John, 4-45
Wakefield, GUbert, 494, 498-9
Waldegrave, Thomas, 510 and note
Walker, Dr., 98 note
Walker, Dr. George, 491-2 endnote, 498-9,
500, 529
Walker, John, his Sufferings of the Clergy
referred to, 236, 245 note, 255 notes, 278,
293, 307, 346 note, 372
Walker, John, of Horwich, 363
Walker, John, of Newton, 299 note, 370
Walker, Mr., serves against the rebels in
1715, 449, 471
Walker, Richard, 263 note
Walker, Wm., of Newton Heath, 263 note
Walker, Wra., Chaplain of Manchester
College, 236, 282, 299, 338 (?)
Walker, Win. Manning, 529
Walmesley, 318, 453
Walsiughara, Sir Francis, 95
Walton, Dr. Brian, Bishop of Chester,
(1660-1661), 350
Walton, James, of Horwich, 370
Walton, John, 64 and note
Walton, of CartmeU, 464
Ward, Dr. John, 494 note
Ward, Wm., 263 note
Wardlaw, GUbert, 532
Warhurst, Caleb, 519
Warrington (Walintune) Hundred, 1

INDEX. 667
WHI
Warrington, 2 ; fortified by the Royalists,
172, 195 ; attacked by the Parliament
arians, 204 ; taken, 207 ; defences
strengthened, 214
Warrington, under Edward III., 7 ; its
church, ibid ; deanery of Warrington,
ibid.
Warrington Grammar-school founded, 18
Warrington, Nonconformity in, 376, 379,
451, 511, 530. Warrington Academy,
489, 491-500
Watson, Thomas, M.A., 282
Watts, Isaac, D.D., 486
Welch, Henry, 263 note, 364, 380, 410
Welsh Nonconformists in Lancashire, 539-
41
Wesley, John, 107 note, 476 aud note, 489,
511-2, 517 note
West, Wm., 298
West Derby Hundred, severed from
Cheshire, 1. Its churches in the reigu
ot Edward IIL, 9-10
Westby, a Papist, 65
Westbv, of Mowbrick, family of, 168
Westby, Mr., 197
Western, Thomas, Fellow of Manchester
CoUege, 366
Westminster Assembly, 209-11, 237-9;
its Erastian constitution, 210, 237 ;
Directory of Worship, 252-3
Whalley Abbey erected, 10. Opposed by
the monks ot Salley, 11. Sale of slaves
by the abbott, 11 note. His retinue, 15.
Coucher book, 14, 15, 43 note. Fate of
the last abbot and monks. 29-30. Dis
posal of the lands and the patronage, 30-1
Whalley, ancient church of, 9. Its
rectors or deans, married priests, 9
note, 167. Vicars under Elizabeth, 62,
63. Ru.5hbearing at WhaUey, 117 note
Whalley Hermitage for recluse women, 3
Whalley Abbey and Church occupied by
Royalists, 205. Fight there, ibid
Wharton, Philip, fourth Baron, 161, 178-9
Whatton, 146-7 note
Whitaker, Thomas Dunham, L.L.D., 3
note, 10, 15 note, 29, 62 note, 96, 111-2,
115, 117 note
Whitaker, WiUiam, 95
White, John, 176-7
White, Mr,, of MeUing, 387
Whitefield, George, 489, 517 note
Whitehead, Thomas, 263 note, 266 note,
387, 411
Whiteley, Thomas, 511
Whitelock, Bulstrode, 237, 238
Whitford, Mr., 517 note
Whitgift, Archbishop, 60, 78 note, 80 and
note, 84 note, 88 note, 90 and note, 91,
92, 119

S68

INDEX.

WHI
Whittaker, Mr., 442
Whittal, family of, 164, 493 note
Whittal, Ralph, 164
Whittingham, Dean, 78
Whitworth, 508-9
Wigan under Edward III., 7-8
Wigan, the 'parson' ot, 7, 13, 63, 99
Wigan, an old parliamentary borough, 9
Wigan fortified, 172. Head-quarters of
Royalists, 194. Attacked by Parlia
mentarians, 202-4. Taken, plundered,
and dismantled, 194, 205. Plundered
by the Scotch, 268
Wigan Lane, battle of, 165, 172, 285
Wigan, Nonconformity in, 379, 511, 521,
629-30
Wigan, John, 291, 317-8, 321
Wigginton, Giles, 78 note
Wild, Dr. Robert, 401 and note
Wilkins, Dr. John, Bishop of Chester
(1668-1672), 357, 360, 362, 406 note,
408 note, 424
Willan, Brian, 263 note
William III., 430-3, 434-5
WiUiams, Sir John Bickerton, 160-1 note
Williams, Roger, 139
Williamson, Mayor of Manchester, 146-7
note
Williamson, Thomas, 64, 72, 101
Willoughby of Horwich, family of, 493
note
Willoughby of Parham, Lords, 362, 379
note, 493 note
Wills, General Charles, 449, 461-2 note,
465-8 and note
WUson, Joshua, 369, 391-2, 410, 471, 528,
548 ; chiefly in the notes
Wilson, Walter, 412-3, 420, 421, 451, 519 ;
chiefly in the notes
Wilton, Eari of, 160
Winder, Henry, D.D., 462 and note
Winnington Bridge, battle at, 327
Winstanley (afterwards Angier), Ellen, 355
Wintoun, George, Eari of, 467-9
Winwick, rectory of, 13, 63, 99, et aZ.;
Grammar-school, 135
Winwick, fight at 269
Witchcraft, former prevalence of a belief
in, in Lancashire, 18-9, 83-4
WoUen, Mr., 315-6 note

Wood, Anthony, 32, 98 note, 139 and note,
218, 296, 298 note, 375 and note, 382,
383 and note, 401 note
Wood or Woods, James, of Ashton-in-
Makerfield, 263 note, 374, 448
Woods, James, the son, ejected from
Chowbent, 374, 448 9
Woods, James, the grandson, minister at
Chowbent, 448-50, 465-7, 471
Woods, James, the great-grandsonr, also of
Chowbent, 491
WooUey, Dr., 346-7 and note, 367-8
Woolmer, Edward, 263 note
WorraU, James, 263 note
Worsley, family of, 162, 291, 296, 493
Worsley, Charles, of Platt, 162
Worsley, Lieut.-Gen. Charles, 162, 290-5,
298 9, 324
Worsley, Elias, Lord of, 162
Worsley, John CariU, 498
Worsley, Mrs. Carill, 294 note
Worsley, Mrs., 369
Worsley, Ralph, 162, 291-2, 296, 358
Worsley, Ralph, junr., 295, 359, 442
Worsley, Ralph, B.A., 249
Worsley, Robert, of the Booths, 74
Worsley, Samuel, 312 note
Worthington of Blainscow, family ot, 66
Worthington, Thomas, 67
Worthington, John, B.A., 250
Wraith, James, 517 and note
Wright, John, M.A., 263 note; ejected;
364, 374 and )ioi!e, 411
Wright, Dr. Samuel, 374 note
Wroe, Dr. Richard, 423, 424, 427, 430,
431, 433 and note, 459, 472-3
Wymond Houses, 411
Wynn, Sir Richard, Bart, 174, 295

YATES, Abel, 419
Yates, John, 499
Yates, Robert, 262 note, 364, 374, 375-6,
378 and note, 405, 418
Yates, Samuel, 376, 418
Yates, William, 184 note
York, Rowland, 68
Yorkshire (Eurickscire), its extent at the
time of the Conquest, 1
Younge, Dr. Thomas, 251

TUBBS ANn BKOOK, PEINTBES, MAEKEI-STEBET, MANCHESTBB.

YALE UNIVERSITY

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