Of the non–Aryan tribes who at some remote period lived in the North of England we do not know sufficient to even conjecture what was their religion, if they had any; but judging from analogy, it may be presumed that they had some kind of belief in a super–human power.

The tribes who next succeeded these rude savages in effecting settlements in this country were all of the Aryan race, and all that we are able to ascertain as to their religious faith is that when Julius landed in Britain he found that the inhabitants were pagans, and followed a mysterious kind of worship known as Druidism, and that their priests were called Druids, and were not only the arbitrators in disputes, but also judges of crime.

One of the tenets of this religion was a belief in the immortality of the soul, and also in its transmigration. As to the nature of their gods we know little or nothing, except that to them were offered human sacrifices, who were sometimes criminals and at other times prisoners of war. Of temples they appear to have had few, but to have performed their mystic rites in the secluded groves of oak which were then found on every side. The Druids were exempt from military service, and were at once priests, lawgivers, and teachers. From the time the Romans penetrated into Northumbria (see p. 15) near the beginning of the fifth century, the religion of the people of that district (which includes, of course, Lancashire) must have undergone a gradual change, as the polytheism of the Romans made itself apparent.

At all their large stations the conquerors erected temples dedicated to their gods, and altars to their various deities were put up in every direction, and thus, no doubt, year by year the influence of the Druidical priesthood diminished, and was probably finally extinguished by the more attractive worship which found favour in imperial Rome.

After the Romans vacated Lancashire, the conversion of Constantine the Great to Christianity (see p. 17) had no doubt some effect upon religious thought even in Northumbria. But long after the Roman Empire became a Christian State, the tribes which were then struggling for supremacy in Britain still adhered to the old pagan worship, and Thor, the god of thunder, Wodin, the god of war, Eostre, the goddess of spring, and a host of others, were numbered amongst their deities. They believed, however, in a future state, as their warriors slain in battle were supposed to inhabit a bright and happy palace called Valhalla. Near the end of the sixth century, King Æthelbert, who ruled in Kent, married the daughter of King Charibert of Paris, and by the terms of her marriage contract she was to be allowed to enjoy the exercise of Christian worship, which she did in a small chapel near Canterbury. With her, from France, came a Frankish Bishop named Liuhard, who was soon followed by a Roman Abbot named Augustine, who came by instructions from Pope Gregory I., accompanied by some forty monks, who were to establish the Christian religion in Kent; they ultimately persuaded the King to be baptized, and this event may be regarded as the foundation of the Christian religion in England. Little by little the new religion spread, and in A.D. 627 Edwin, the King of Northumbria, became a convert through the instrumentality of his wife, who was a daughter of Æthelbert, (see p. 42), and Paulinus, one of the company who came to Britain with Augustine. He had been consecrated to the episcopate by Justus, Archbishop of Canterbury, “in order that he might be to Ethelburga, in her Northern home, what Liuhard had been to her mother in the still heathen Kent.”169 On the authority of Bede, Paulinus was a man of striking appearance, being tall, though slightly stooping, with black hair, but of worn and wasted visage; his nose thin, but curved like an eagle’s beak, and altogether a presence to command respect and veneration.

The tale as told by Bede, of the dramatic events which led up to the conversion of Edwin, must be received with caution, mixed up as it is with such incidents as a spiritual visitor with whom the narrator held familiar converse; nevertheless, the main facts of the story are probably correct, allowing for the fact that the account was written nearly 100 years after the events took place, and by one who was prone to mix with history incidents which would only at the present time be classed with legends and superstitions. The story, briefly told (omitting the apparition), is that Edwin for a long time refused to abandon his old faith, but after an attempt had been made to assassinate him, the birth of a daughter and a victory over his enemy, the King of the West Saxons—all of which events were turned to account by the wily Bishop (who was trying to convert him)—he consented to call a council of leading men and to lay the matter before them, and if they agreed with him they would together be baptized and admitted into the Church.

At this meeting, a chief priest of one of the pagan temples, Coifi by name, declared himself against his old faith on the simple grounds that after all his long devotion to his gods he was still without that worldly success for which his soul thirsted; and, therefore, as he had nothing to lose and everything to gain, he should vote for giving the new religion a trial.

Another of the council spoke, and in simple but striking words reminded his hearers how they had often on a winter’s night, gathered round the fire, when all outside was dark and dreary, the wind howling and the rain beating against the latticed windows, when a door for a moment opened admitting a poor little bird seeking shelter from the storm. But a moment only it stays, flies across the hall, and is gone. This, he continued, is a fit emblem of man’s life; he appears for a little season, and having finished his appointed course is gone; but no earthly wisdom has told us from whence he came, or has illuminated his departure. And so, he concluded, if the new teacher can tell us anything with assurance of certainty as to man’s origin or future destiny, his words ought to be received and accepted. Paulinus then addressed the assembly, at the conclusion of which Coifi, with all the fanatic zeal which might be expected from such a man, volunteered to enter the temples of the gods and to take therefrom what he heretofore had held to be sacred, and having been armed and mounted he rode to Goodmanham, a place of the highest pagan sanctity, and there tore down the idols of Thor and Wodin with shouts of joy and gladness. Bede adds, the people stood awe–struck, and thought that their chief priest had gone mad. But Coifi knew what he was about; he had only determined (like many a better man had done before) to keep himself on the winning side, for he saw clearly enough that paganism had received its death–blow, and however little his gods had done for him in the past, they would certainly do less in the future. Edwin, with the enthusiasm of a new convert, now set about erecting a small church, or more probably an oratory, in the city of York. This was made of wood, and within this building the Northumbrian King was baptized by Paulinus on Easter Day, A.D. 627 (April 12). This oratory was not long afterwards enclosed within a larger structure which was built of stone, and upon the site of which was afterwards erected the stately Minster of York. It is said that shortly after the baptism of Edwin a large number of his barons and subjects followed his example. Paulinus and his friends now lost no time in spreading through the length and breadth of Northumbria the tenets of the Christian religion, and under the patronage of the King and Queen no doubt many proselytes were obtained, not a few of whom were dwellers on Lancashire soil. This missionary work proceeded uninterruptedly for six years, but was then destined to receive a very severe check by the war between Edwin and Penda (see p. 42), in which the King of Northumbria was defeated and slain on October 12, A.D. 633, and subsequently the whole of his kingdom was overrun by pagan soldiers, who, according to Bede, slaughtered the Christians without regard to either age or sex. The head of Edwin was taken to York by some of his friends, and placed within the church which he had so recently built. Ethelburga, the Queen, and her two children, escorted by Paulinus, fled into Kent, and Paulinus was afterwards presented to the See of Rochester.

He was never Archbishop of York (as by some supposed), although the Pope offered that dignity to him; the letter was addressed to Edwin, who was dead before it was delivered. Paulinus died at Rochester October 10, A.D. 644. CÆdwallon ruled over Northumbria for only a few years, and his successor, Oswald, who had probably passed some years in the monastery of Iona very early in his reign, sent over to that community for help towards the revival of Christianity in this kingdom.

The first priest who was sent returned reporting that the people were impracticable and refused to be converted, whereupon a priest called Aiden was consecrated Bishop, and despatched to Northumbria in the year 635.

Oswald did not, as might have been expected, place Aiden at York, but gave to him a small island on the coast of Durham known as Holy Island, and here was founded the abbey of Lindisfarne, which was destroyed by the Danes in A.D. 795; from this centre the missionary work in the North of England emanated. The basilica at York was finished by Oswald, and by erecting other churches and granting lands for the sites of religious houses this King did much to establish the Christian religion in the North. But after eight years of comparative peace Northumbria again passed into pagan hands (see p. 43), and not until Penda in A.D. 655 was defeated and slain did paganism receive its death–blow. Oswy, on gaining this final victory, fulfilled the vow which he had made—that if he was successful in this war he would give twelve sites for as many monasteries, and give his infant daughter to serve the Lord in holy virginity. The monasteries were founded, but none of them appear to have been on the western or Lancashire side of the Pennine Hills. Early in A.D. 665 the bishopric of York was re–established, when Wilfrid was consecrated as Bishop at CompiÈgne in France; but having delayed his coming to his see for nearly twelve months, he was not a little astonished to find that in the meantime Chad’s consecration had taken place and he was already in possession. For a few years only he held the office, and on his retirement to the monastery of Lastingham, Wilfrid took his place.

Of the dispute with Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, and the temporary expulsion of Wilfrid from the See of York and his subsequent visit to Rome, where he saw the Pope, and obtained from him a decree which was to reinstate him, little need here be said, except that on his return to York, and a “witan” having been called, the Pope’s order was treated with scorn by the assembly, and Wilfrid was cast into prison, where he remained for nine months.

The real point at issue was the supremacy of the Pope, Egfrid, the King of Northumbria, being strongly opposed to it, whilst Wilfrid and his friends were just as firmly decided in its favour. Wilfrid had for some years been the sole Bishop of Northumbria, his diocese extending from the Firth of Forth to the Humber, and from the Firth of Clyde to the Mersey. Through the entreaty of an aunt of the King’s, who was Abbess of Ebba, Wilfrid was at length liberated, but banished from the kingdom. Whilst these disputes were going on, Bosa occupied the episcopal chair of York, and was followed by John of Beverley, who died May 7, A.D. 721. Before this date several monasteries are believed to have been established in Lancashire. Wilfrid II. held the see from 718 to 732, when he was succeeded by Egbert, to whom Bede, now an old man, addressed a letter, the contents of which show clearly that already many abuses had crept into the Church, and that in some of the so–called religious houses luxury and license were more the rule than the exception. Land granted for purely religious purposes, and thus free from secular claims, was used to erect houses, religious in name, but really only dwelling–places for the founders and their people. Egbert, in A.D. 735, was appointed by Pope Gregory III. Archbishop of York, and thus became Primate of the Northern Province, and a few years afterwards his brother, Eadbert, became King of Northumbria. Towards the middle of the ninth century began the invasions of the Danes (see p. 44), which continued until A.D. 867, when the whole of Northumbria was in their possession, and for many years before and after this event the ecclesiastical history of the kingdom is almost a blank. The new occupiers of Northumbria were mostly from Denmark, and were a wild, lawless set of pirates, distinguished for courage, ferocity, and a violent hatred to the newly–established faith. The religion these tribes professed was a worship of Odin and other kindred gods. A great point of difference between the conquerors and conquered (who had both descended from the same race) was that whilst the Danes had continued to worship the gods of their forefathers, and had not forsaken their old profession of sea–pirates, the settlers in Britain had devoted themselves to peaceful pursuits, and had to a great extent adopted the new religion.

It may therefore be taken for granted that amongst the first objects upon which they wreaked their vengeance would be the newly–erected churches, and in all probability not one was left untouched. Persecution would follow as a natural consequence, and the religious progress made during the last two centuries was not only arrested, but almost annihilated. During the troubled times which intervened between this period and the election of Edward the Confessor Christianity made some progress, as even the Danes to some extent yielded to its influence, and a Bishop of Danish blood (Oskytel) occupied the episcopal chair of York, and his kinsman Oswald, in A.D. 972, was Archbishop, and held the see until his death in A.D. 992.170 With the Conquest came another change, and the Bishops of York were selected from Norman ecclesiastics. Up to this period, except as part of the Diocese of York, we have found but scanty records referring to the religious history of Lancashire, but, nevertheless, it is absolutely certain that in some few of its scattered villages churches were built and Christian colonies established. But in considering this question it must be borne in mind that in what we call Lancashire there were at that time no large towns, nor even any number of considerable–sized villages; the inhabitants were mostly engaged in agricultural pursuits, and the religious requirements were administered from York. In Yorkshire and other parts of ancient Northumbria we know that churches and monasteries had been so long established that into the latter many abuses had been introduced even as early as A.D. 732, but we have no evidence to lead us to suppose that such was the case in Lancashire.

In the middle of the eleventh century, on the reliable testimony of the so–called Domesday Survey, we have positive evidence that in Lancashire there were then at least a dozen churches; however many more were left unnoticed, or had existed and been destroyed by the ravages of the Danes, we can only conjecture, but there are not wanting indications in that direction which leave little room for doubt that, at all events, some half–dozen others are wanting to complete the list. The Great Survey was not in any way intended to furnish such a list, and its object might have been attained almost without the mention of a single ecclesiastical building; it is therefore not improbable that other churches existed, of which no trace, nor even tradition, has been handed down to us. Beginning with the early churches in the north of the county, and coming down to the Mersey, we shall be able in some measure to trace the local rise and development of the Christian religion in the county. In the Lancashire part of Lonsdale no church is named as a building, but as we have after the word Lancaster171 Church Lancaster (Chercaloncastre), it is evident that this ancient town had at that time, at all events, its church (to which we shall refer again hereafter); and from the fact that to the four manors of Bentham (in Yorkshire), Wennington, Tatham and Tunstall were attached three churches, it is clear that not less than two of them were in Lancashire, and these were at Tatham and Tunstall. The church at Tatham, like many others of these early foundations, has now no village near to it, but stands at the extreme north of the parish; it is mentioned in the Valor of 1291, and it has been more than once rebuilt, but a Norman doorway remains, and an archway said to belong to the Saxon period.

Tunstall was the site of a small Roman station (see p. 36), and therefore the more likely to be afterwards used as the settlement of a Saxon community. The early history of this church is obscure, but it was recognised in 1291, and shortly afterwards appears to have belonged to the Abbot of Croxton Keyrial, in Leicestershire; it has been at least three times restored; it was originally dedicated to St. Michael, but the more modern dedication is to St. John. Thurland Castle, which is not far from the church, is supposed to have taken its name from a Saxon Thane. At Kirkby Ireleth one can scarcely avoid coming to the conclusion that at some time during the Saxon Heptarchy a church existed, though all material trace of it was soon afterwards swept away. The present parish church is dedicated to St. Cuthbert, who, in A.D. 685, had given to him by the King of Northumbria “the land called Cartmel and all the Britons there” (“terram quÆ vocatur Cartmel et omnes Britannos cum eo”),172 and as Kirkby Ireleth is only some ten miles from that place, it is at least probable that here Cuthbert erected a church, which afterwards being destroyed, left only a tradition of its founder.

A few miles to the west of Lancaster, at Heysham, on high ground overlooking the waters of Morecambe Bay, undoubtedly once stood a Saxon church, on the site of which, in Norman times, was erected the present building, portions of which, notably a doorway and part of the north wall, are of undoubted Saxon architecture. In the churchyard is a very ancient runic cross with a richly carved scroll and rude figures of the Virgin and Child, and on the bare rock, a little above the church, are several excavations of coffin–like shape, in which at some very distant date human bodies were interred. The hog–backed stone in the churchyard, with elaborate carvings, has formed the subject of much learned argument, but whilst there are several opinions as to the correct story intended to be represented by the sculptor, all agree that this relic is of very great antiquity, and probably belongs to the sixth or seventh century.173 The original church, which was only 24 feet long and 7½ feet wide, was dedicated to St. Patrick, and has, on that account, been thought to have been established by a colony of Irish monks who, about that period, are said to have visited this district.

Coming back to “time–honoured Lancaster,” the only vestige of the Saxon church which has been preserved is a small stone cross discovered in 1807 in the churchyard; it is almost complete, and bears an inscription in Anglian runes, of which the generally accepted reading is (when translated): “Bid” (i.e. pray ye) “for Cunibalth Cuthboerehting” (Cuthbert’s son). This is, by the best authorities, ascribed to the seventh century. At the time of the Conquest Lancaster had fallen from its former high estate, and was returned in the Domesday Book as a dependency of Halton. The church, which stood not far from the castle and some little distance from the town, was no doubt of small dimensions, and was the property of Roger de Poictou, who just before the close of the eleventh century (A.D. 1094) conveyed it to St. Martin of Sees, in Normandy, by the name of the church of St. Mary of Lancaster, with all things pertaining thereunto, including part of the land of the vill, from the old wall (of the town) to the orchard of Godfrey and as far as Prestgate, and near to Lancaster two mansions, Aldcliffe and Newton.174 The charter which made this grant to the monastery of Sees was, in fact, the charter which established the alien priory of St. Mary of Lancaster, which consisted of a Prior and five monks, with three priests, two clerks, and the usual servants—the monks were all drawn from the parent Norman monastery.

Amongst other endowments of this religious house, given to it by its founder, were the patronage and temporalities of a number of churches, many of which had only been recently erected in Lancashire; these were Heysham, Croston, Eccleston, Childwall, Preston, Kirkham, Melling, Bispham, Bolton (near Lancaster), and Poulton–le–Fylde. By charter dated March 26, 1200, King John took into his hands the custody, protection and maintenance of the church of St. Mary of Lancaster, and the Prior and monks there “serving God and St. Mary,” with all their lands and possessions.

In 1260 Pope Alexander issued a Papal Bull in which he expressed a desire that “the church of the Monastery of Lancaster, of the Order of St. Benedict, of the Diocese of York,” might be “filled with fitting honours,” to accomplish which, “in the mercy of God and the authority of the blessed Peter and Paul his apostles, he mercifully” remitted to all “true penitents and the confessed” who approached the church for the sake of devotion annually on the feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary, “to whose honour it was asserted the church was dedicated,” a hundred days of the penance enjoined on them. And in the 10 Kal., March, 1292, Pope Nicholas granted relaxation for one year and forty days of the enjoined penance to those penitents who visited the church of Lancaster on the feasts of the Blessed Virgin and St. Nicholas, in their octaves, and on the anniversary of the dedication.175

In 1246 a dispute was settled between John Romanus, Archdeacon of Richmond, and the Abbot and convent of Sees. The matter had been referred to the priors of Kirkham and Bridlington by the Pope, and through this intervention a compromise was arrived at, the terms of which were that the right of patronage with the pension of three marks, and all right which the Abbot and convent had in the church of Bolton in Lonsdale, should be yielded up for ever, and that the moiety of the church of Poulton, with the appurtenances which Alexander de Stanford possessed, when it became vacant, should be ceded to the priory of Lancaster to its own uses, provided that in the said church the vicarage should be taxed “by good men chosen by each party” from the goods of the same church to the value of 20 marks; to the vicarage the Abbot and convent of Sees to present their own clerk for ever, who shall find hospitality for the Archdeacon and support all other due and customary burdens.

It was also settled that the Archdeacon should confirm the church of Lancaster to the priory for ever as they formerly held it, and that neither he nor his successors should “compel” those so appointed to the vicarage, unless it shall please them, saving, nevertheless, to the Archdeacon and his successors in all things their archidiaconal rights in the same. This agreement was afterwards confirmed by the Archdeacon and the Archbishop of York. A few years later we find Gerard de Wipensis (or Vyspeyns), Archdeacon of Richmond, granting to the Abbot and convent, Prior and monks, at Lancaster, that they may in future hold and possess in full right the church of the Blessed Mary at Lancaster, with all lands, tithes, possessions, and chapels belonging to it, namely, the chapels of Gressingham, Caton, Overton and Stalmine. Also, as the monks by themselves or by fit chaplains administered continually day and night in the said church of Lancaster and the parish of the same, and laboured perpetually in the cure of souls, so they should not be compelled by anyone to make or ordain a vicarage or vicar in the said church against their will, as none existed therein. From this it is clear that at this time no vicar was appointed, the entire duties being executed by the monks or their chaplains.

The number of grants made in the thirteenth and following century to the church of Lancaster, and the Prior and monks there serving, is considerable, and it is impossible here even to catalogue them; one or two will, however, serve to show how strong the influence of the religious men had become. By deed dated at Caton in 1256, Roger, son of Vivian de Heysham, granted to God and the church of the Blessed Mary of Lancaster, and to the Prior and monks, etc., for the safety of his soul and the soul of Wymark his wife, and for the souls of his ancestors and successors, the third part of his corn–mill at Caton, also of his fulling–mill there, with the pond and free water–course to the said mills, with free common in the wood of Caton for repairing the said mills, to be held for ever.

By another charter, without date, but executed in either 1261 or 1272 (one of the witnesses being Ralph Dacre, the High Sheriff, who held that office in those two years), John, son of Roger Gernet, of Caton, for the safety of his soul, etc., gave a piece of land in Caton, lying from the north corner of Cottescroft, going northwards as far as the root of the burnt oak, next to the sun, and so to the stream running between the land of William de Bensted and the land of Adam de Lee, to the priory to be held for ever free of all customs. About the same date, Helewise, daughter of Adam, son of Gilbert de Bolton, gave the church of the Blessed Mary of Lancaster, and the Prior and monks serving there, all the land in the vill of Bolton which she had received from her father, to be held by them for ever, but subject to the usual services to the lord of the fee.

One of the large landowners in Bolton (in Lonsdale) at this time was Thomas de Capernwray, who about A.D. 1261 gave to the church of Lancaster and the Prior and monks all his lands, buildings, services, and rents in the vill of Bolton, except certain land previously granted to Adam, son of Robert Kellet. Many other similar grants followed, and, as already stated, the advowson of nearly all the churches in the district fell into their hands.

After the alien houses were suppressed in 1414, most of the possessions of this priory went to the monastery of Syon in Middlesex, the foundation–stone of which was laid on February 22, 1415, by the King in person, who endowed it with £110 a year, to be paid out from the farm of the Lancaster Priory lands. Giles Lovell, the last Prior of Lancaster, died in 1428. The priory itself was granted to Syon in frank almoigne in 1432. Thus the Abbot and convent of Syon became the patrons of the Lancashire churches held by the priory. Probably Syon appointed Richard Chester Vicar of Lancaster, who in 1430–34 also held the rectory of South Wollyngham in Lincolnshire, and had protection granted to him on going in that year to the Council of Basle, in the retinue of Robert, Bishop of London.176

At Lancaster there was also founded, late in the twelfth century, a small hospital of the Augustine Order; it was dedicated to St. Leonard’s in or about the year 1357. It was annexed to the nunnery of Seton in Cumberland; at one time its accommodation was limited to a master, his chaplain, and nine persons, three of whom were to be lepers. There was also here a small monastery of the Grey Friars, about which little is known. The century succeeding the Conquest was distinguished by the rise of monasteries and convents, and with them rose many of the ancient churches in which Lancashire is so rich. It is, however, a mistake to suppose that the abbots built these; history rather shows that the monasteries absorbed the lesser ecclesiastical foundations, or, more frequently still, they received them as part and parcel of their own endowments.

The great monastic institution in this part of the country was Furness Abbey, which was not only a great religious centre, but from it sprang many other abbeys of note. Furness Abbey is near to the town of Dalton, but lies in a sheltered nook, so that it is cut off, as it were, from the neighbouring towns. The abbey of Savigni in Normandy was founded in 1112, and within a few years of its foundation (in 1126–27) Stephen gave Furness to this monastery, but only, it would seem, in order that St. Mary’s of Furness should by this order be established; with this object, he endowed it with very large tracts of land, including the whole of Furness, Dalton, Ulverston, and Walney Island, in addition to such rights and privileges as made them veritable lords over all the district. And here was built that abbey which even in its ruins is majestic and beautiful. This institution was originally founded in July, 1123, at Tulket, near Preston, and the monks remained there for over three years, when, finding a more suitable site, they migrated to Furness. About the year 1148 the monks of Furness, with other followers of Savigni, joined the Cistercian Order. The monks of Furness were an immense power in the district, and, notwithstanding that they suffered like the rest of the people from the ravages of the Scots, must have enjoyed a very large revenue. Not only were they breeders of cattle and rearers of horses, sheep, and oxen, but they had on their demesne a considerable number of iron furnaces and salt works, all of which, if not worked by the community, were a considerable source of income. As in the case of other monasteries, as time went on, numerous benefactors arose, and lands and tenements all over the district were added to the possessions of the already opulent institution, and the patronage of Urswick Church and almost every other church for miles around fell to them. Very shortly after their settlement at Furness these monks began to send out colonies to other places; one of the earliest which they established was in Wyersdale, where, however, the monks did not remain very long, as about 1188 they removed to Withney in Ireland; but whilst they were in Lancashire they obtained the patronage of the church of St. Michael’s–on–Wyre.

The last Abbot of Furness was Roger Pele, or Pile, who was elevated to that dignity in about the year 1532; he surrendered the abbey to the King, April 9, 1537. The suppression of Furness Abbey must have been for a time very severely felt by the inhabitants of the district, as from it emanated much hospitality, and to it all the natives looked for the education of their children and for such religious help as was usually obtained from these houses. Between the abbots and their tenants there appears to have been carried on a system of barter and exchange, some of the details of which are preserved in the evidence brought forward in support of a petition made in the duchy court in 25 Elizabeth (1582–83) by the tenants of Walney against the Queen’s Attorney–General, who had obtained a lease of the late dissolved monastery. One of the witnesses, who was then seventy–eight years old, said that they (the petitioners) and their ancestors, whose estates they severally held, used to pay and deliver to the Abbot certain “domestical” provisions, such as calves, sheep, wheat, barley, oats, and the like, and for recompense they not only enjoyed their burgages or messuages, but also received from the abbey great relief, sustentation, and commodities for themselves and their children, viz., all the tenants had weekly one ten–gallon barrel of ale; the tenants of Newbarns and Hawcoat had all the worthings177 of all the horse and oxen (except those at the Abbot’s stables); the tenants had also a weekly allowance of coarse wheat bread, iron for their husbandry, gear and timber for the repairs of their houses. In addition to these grants, all tenants who had a plough could send two men to dine at the monastery on one day in each week from Martinmas (November 11) to Pentecost (Whitsunday); and the children of the tenants who had found the required provision were educated in the school of the monastery free, and allowed every day a dinner or a supper; and if any of them became good scholars, they were often made into monks. The question at issue between the tenants and the Attorney–General was that whilst he demanded the provisions, he claimed exemption from making the recompenses, alleging that the abbots had merely given the food out of benevolence and devotion to their neighbours. The result of the petition was in favour of the tenants.

The condition of the abbey itself in 1774 is thus described by West178: “The magnitude of the abbey may be known from the dimensions of the ruins, and enough is standing to show the style of the architecture, which breathes the plain simplicity of taste which is found in most houses belonging to the Cistercian monks which were erected about the same time with Furness Abbey.

“The round and pointed arches occur in the doors and windows. The fine clustered Gothic and the heavy plain Saxon pillars stand contrasted. The walls show excellent masonry, are in many places counter–arched, and the ruins show a strong cement.

“The east window of the church has been noble; some of the painted glass that once adorned it is preserved in a window in Windermere Church (Bowness). The window consists of seven compartments or partitions. In the third, fourth and fifth are depicted, in full proportion, the Crucifixion, with the Virgin Mary on the right and the beloved disciple on the left side of the cross; angels are expressed receiving the sacred blood from the five precious wounds; below the cross are a group of monks in their proper habits, with the Abbot in a vestment; their names are written on labels issuing from their mouths; the Abbot’s name is defaced, which would have given a date to the whole. In the second partition are the figures of St. George and the dragon. In the sixth is represented St. Catharine, with the emblems of her martyrdom, the sword and wheel. In the seventh are two figures of mitred abbots, and underneath them two monks dressed in vestments. In the middle compartment above are finely–painted quarterly the arms of France and England, bound with the garter and its motto, probably done in the reign of Edward III. The rest of the window is filled up by pieces of tracery, with some figures in coat armorial, and the arms of several benefactors, amongst whom are Lancaster, Urswick, Warrington, Fleming, Millum, etc. On the outside of the window of the abbey, under an arched festoon, is the head of Stephen, the founder; opposite to it, that of Maud, his Queen, both crowned and well executed. In the south wall and east end of the church are four seats adorned with Gothic ornament. The chapter–house is the only building belonging to the abbey which is marked with any elegance of Gothic sculpture; it has been a noble room of 60 feet by 45. The vaulted roof, formed of twelve ribbed arches, was supported by six pillars in two rows at 14 feet from each other.

“Now, supposing each of the pillars to be 18 inches in diameter, the room would be divided into three alleys or passages, each 14 feet wide. On entrance the middle one only could be seen, lighted by a pair of tall pointed windows at the upper end of the room; the company in the side passage would be concealed by the pillars, and the vaulted roof that groined from those pillars would have a truly Gothic disproportionate appearance of 60 feet by 14. The northern side alley was lighted by four small pointed side–windows, besides a pair at the higher end, at present entire, and which illustrate what is here said. Thus, whilst the upper end of the room had a profusion of light, the lower end would be in the shade. The noble roof of this singular edifice did but lately fall in; the entrance or porch is still standing—a fine circular arch, beautified with a deep cornice and a portico on each side.

“The only entire roof of any apartment now remaining is that of a building without the enclosure wall, which was the schoolhouse of the Abbot’s tenants. It is a single–ribbed arch that groins from the wall.

“A remarkable deformity in this edifice, and for which there is no apparent reason or necessity, is that the north door, which is the principal entrance, is on one side of the window above it. The tower has been supported by four magnificent arches, of which only one remains entire. They rested upon four tall pillars, whereof three are finely clustered, but the fourth is of a plain unmeaning construction. The west end of the church seems to have been an additional part intended for a belfry to ease the main tower, but that is as plain as the east. The east end of the church contained five altars besides the high altar, as appears by the chapels, and probably there was a private altar in the sacristy.

“In magnitude this abbey was second in England belonging to the Cistercian monks, and the next in opulence after Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire. The church and cloisters were encompassed with a wall, which commenced at the east side of the great northern door and formed the straight enclosure; and a space of ground to the amount of 65 acres was surrounded with a strong stone wall, which enclosed the mills, kilns, ovens and fish–ponds. The inside length of the church from east to west is 275 feet 8 inches; the thickness of the east end wall and the depth of the east end buttress is 8 feet 7 inches; the thickness of the west end wall 9 feet 7 inches; the extreme length of the church is 304 feet 6 inches; the inside width of the east end is 28 feet, and the thickness of the two side walls 10 feet. The inside width of the cloister is 31 feet 6 inches; the area of the quadrangular court is 338 feet 6 inches by 102 feet 6 inches.”

Since this description was written many researches have been made, and much light thrown on various points of interest. The church is ascribed to the time when John de Cauncefeld was Abbot—i.e., about A.D. 1160. Of the parts of the church still remaining in fair preservation, the most conspicuous are the transepts, which are 126 feet long, by 28 feet wide. At the north end of the transepts is a Transitional doorway which is rich in its ornamentation and mouldings; above it is a magnificent window, probably inserted in the fifteenth century.

Various monuments have been discovered, one of which is probably the effigy of William de Lancaster, the eighth Baron of Kendal, whose Inquisition is dated 31 Henry III. (1246–47).

The beautiful groined roof of the chapter–house was intact until the end of the last century. Beyond the chapter–house was the fratry, or monks’ common room, which was 200 feet long, and over it were the dormitories. Near the western tower the walls of the hospitium, or guest–house, may still be traced. At the south end of the ruins there is a building with a groined room which has generally been called the school–house, but many authorities now consider that it was a small chapel, as it contains a large east window and a piscina; if this be so, then it was without doubt the Abbot’s private chapel. The date assigned to it is early in the fourteenth century.

Near to the abbey the Preston family, to whom the site was granted soon after the dissolution,179 built their mansion, and part of this house now forms the Furness Abbey Hotel. In 26 Henry VIII. the rentals belonging to the abbey amounted to £942 per annum, of which tithe offerings and ecclesiastical fines came to £182. In 1540 these possessions were annexed to the Duchy of Lancaster, and were not finally alienated therefrom until the time of James I. From the Prestons it passed by marriage to Sir William Lowther, Bart., whose son and heir married Lady Elizabeth, the daughter of William, Duke of Devonshire; his son and heir, dying without issue in 1756, bequeathed all his estates to his cousin, Lord George Augustus Cavendish.

The coucher book of Furness is still preserved in London; it is a handsome volume containing 293 folios. On the seizure of the abbey in 1537 this volume and other memorials, trussed in three packs, were sent by Cromwell on the back of three mules to London, and £1 15s. 4d. was expended on their conveyance. It was afterwards placed in the duchy office, and ultimately handed over to the Record Office.180

Before the end of the twelfth century a new religious order was formed, of which the first house in England was the priory of SS. Julian and Botulph in Colchester, in 1105 (or 1107). This was the canons regular of St. Augustine, who subsequently held 175 religious houses in Great Britain. At Cartmel a priory of this order was founded in 1188 by the Earl of Pembroke; it was dedicated to St. Mary, and displaced the ancient parish church, which, if not of Saxon origin, was certainly a very early foundation. One of the privileges of this house was that it had the exclusive right to furnish guides to conduct travellers over the treacherous sands across the estuary of the Kent. To the fact that this parish church became the priory church we no doubt owe its preservation, as at the dissolution of the monasteries it did not share the fate of so many fine examples of early Church architecture, but still remains a noble monument of the past. At Coniston, in the extreme north of the county, in 1188 was founded a small hospital for lepers, and it would thus appear that even to that remote district leprosy had spread. This hospital was given in charge of some monks of St. Augustine’s Order, who converted it into a priory, at the same time appropriating to themselves the church of Ulverston, over 40 acres of land, and other possessions. It is, however, only fair to add that they took charge of the lepers when there were any. Though never of any considerable size or importance, yet in its early days its establishment consisted of over a dozen canons and a Prior, and the usual number of attendants. After its dissolution in 1536 every trace of it was swept away. Of the PrÆmonstratensian Order there were two houses in Lonsdale Hundred—one at Cockersand, and the other at Hornby. Amongst this order—which was introduced into England in 1120—a greater strictness of discipline and a less external code of duties prevailed than amongst the Austin canons.

The history of Cockersand is somewhat obscure, but at an early period there was here a hermitage, which was afterwards a hospital, presided over by a Prior, and dependent upon the abbey at Leicester, founded by William of Lancaster; but in 1190 it became an abbey of the PrÆmonstratensian canons. It was one of the lesser houses which were given to the King in 1536, when it consisted of 22 religious men and 57 laymen, with an annual income of about £200 arising from a rather large rent–roll and customary boons and services.

The establishment at Hornby was scarcely worthy of the name of a priory, but was rather a hospital or cell with a Prior and three canons dependent on the abbey of Croxton, in Leicestershire. It was dedicated to St. Wilfrid, and had a small endowment of £26 a year.

In the hundred of Amounderness the Great Survey only refers to three churches, and these, though not named, were undoubtedly Preston, Kirkham, and St. Michael’s–on–Wyre; and in the absence of proof to the contrary we must assume that none others were then in existence, though possibly others may have been erected in Saxon times, but, like the district upon which they stood, were then lying waste (see p. 57). Poulton is dedicated to St. Chad (a Saxon saint), and Garstang may possibly have been the site of a pre–Conquest church, although its proximity to St. Michael’s renders it somewhat improbable.

Preston Church was originally dedicated to St. Wilfrid, and was probably built in the tenth century; Kirkham,181 or the church village, may even be of an earlier foundation than Preston, for from the time that Roger de Poictou granted the church to St. Mary of Lancaster (see p. 187) to the present date its history is clear and fairly complete; no trace of the Saxon building has, however, been discovered.

At St. Michael’s, also, all material evidence of the pre–Norman period has long ago disappeared. In Amounderness only two religious houses were established—one at Preston, the other at Lytham. At Preston was a Franciscan convent of Grey Friars, or Friars Minor, built in 1221 by Edmund, Earl of Lancaster. Within the precincts of this house was buried Sir Robert Holland, who impeached Thomas, Earl of Lancaster of treason. Little is known concerning this friary; in 1379 letters were addressed to the Warden of the order of Preaching Friars there, asking them to pray for the Duke of Lancaster on his going abroad. There was also at Preston a hospital for lepers, which must have been established early in the twelfth century, as Henry II. took it under his protection, as did also King John; there was a chapel attached dedicated to St. Mary Magdalen. The cell at Lytham was dependent upon the Priors of Durham from its foundation in 1190 to 1443, when it became partly independent. They were black monks.

In the hundred of Leyland no churches are mentioned in Domesday Book, but there was almost certainly one at Croston and another at Eccleston, as both these were given to the priory of Lancaster in 1090 (see p. 187), and if not in existence at the taking of the Survey one can scarcely avoid coming to the conclusion that long before that date churches had been erected at Eccleston, Leyland and Standish, the latter being dedicated, like Preston, to St. Wilfrid.

On a site on the opposite side of the river Ribble to Preston stood the priory of Penwortham. Its situation was picturesque, commanding as it did an exclusive view down the valley, through which the river flowed, and not far from it were the parish church and castle. It was founded as a dependent upon the abbey of Evesham, in the county of Worcester, in 1087, by two brothers, Warine and Albert Busset, with the approval of Pope Alexander III., and it was for 400 years regularly supplied with monks from the parent house. The monks were Benedictines, or black monks, and their home in Lancashire was but sparsely endowed, although it included the churches of Penwortham, Leyland and North Meols. At the dissolution it was rated at a little over £100. No great number of churches were erected in this hundred during several succeeding centuries.

In Blackburn Hundred two churches are named in the Survey—St. Mary’s at Whalley and St. Mary’s at Blackburn—and the only other parish at all likely to have had a church earlier than this period is Ribchester. The present church is dedicated to St. Wilfrid, and tradition adds that its original foundation was laid in Saxon times; it certainly is built close to the walls of the ancient Roman castrum (see p. 27). Another very early foundation was that of Chipping, said to have been built in 1041. St. Mary’s of Blackburn is still the parish church, but there is no evidence to prove that its foundation dates back to pre–Norman times.

The church at Whalley is perhaps the most interesting church in Lancashire, not only from its undoubted great antiquity, but from its association with the abbey, which was second only to Furness in importance, but about the history of which much more is known.

John, Constable of Chester, in 15 Henry II. (1163), founded a monastery of the Cistercian Order at Stanlawe, in Cheshire, and having endowed it, he instructed that it should be called Locus Benedictus. The situation selected was not a happy one, as not only was the soil barren and unfruitful, but a considerable portion of it was liable to periodical encroachments by the sea, which at spring tide almost surrounded it. After almost a century, the monks—when the monks had become considerably richer by the acquisition of properties, chiefly in Lancashire—decided to remove the abbey to a more convenient site, and ultimately fixed upon Whalley. This translation was, no doubt, hastened by the destruction of a great part of Stanlawe Abbey by fire in 1289, but it was not until April 4, 1296, that Gregory, the eighth Abbot of Stanlawe, and his convent took formal possession of the parsonage of Whalley, where they continued to live until the new monastery was erected. Here they found one of the oldest church foundations in Lancashire, which probably dated back to the time when Christianity was first introduced into the district; it was originally known as the White Church, and in its churchyard still remain three very fine specimens of Saxon crosses. The church was another of the Northern erections dedicated to St. Wilfrid, and at the time the monks settled there it had been rebuilt, and was a good sample of Norman ecclesiastical architecture.

Amongst their other possessions the monks held the impropriate rectories of Whalley, Blackburn and Rochdale, with the right of presentment to their vicarages and chapels of ease. Attached to Whalley were the chapels of Clitheroe, Colne, Burnley, Altham, Downham, Church and Haslingden. Whalley now (to quote the language of its historian)182 “became the seat of an establishment which continued for two centuries and a half to exercise unbounded hospitality and charity; to adorn the site which had been chosen with a succession of magnificent buildings; to protect the tenants of its ample domains in the enjoyment of independence and plenty; to educate and provide for their children; to employ, clothe, feed and pay many labourers, herdsmen and shepherds; to exercise the arts and cultivate the learning of the times; yet, unfortunately, at the expense of the secular incumbents, whose endowments they had swallowed up and whose functions they had degraded into those of pensionary vicars or mendicant chaplains.”

Notwithstanding the great abuses that gradually crept into these and the other monastic houses, and ultimately brought about their destruction, there is still much truth in the dictum of the learned author.

The charters whereby lands were conveyed to Stanlawe and Whalley are very numerous, and have all been printed.183 They extended over a very large area, and included lands in Rochdale, Blackburn, Whalley, Childwall, and other places in Lancashire and Cheshire. The full complement of monks belonging to this abbey was twenty, exclusive of a Lord Abbot and a Prior; in addition to this there were ninety servants, twenty of whom belonged to the Abbot. That these monks lived well, and probably entertained strangers on a liberal fare, may be inferred from the following table of animal food consumed: for the Abbot’s table, 75 oxen, 80 sheep, 40 calves, 20 lambs and 4 pigs; for the refectory tables, 57 oxen, 40 sheep, 20 calves and 10 lambs; whilst 200 quarters of wheat, 150 quarters of malt and 8 pipes of wine were annually consumed.

The dissolution of this house in 1539 was accompanied by a tragic event. John Paslow, the last Abbot, with many of his followers, had taken part in that rebellion known as “the Pilgrimage of Grace,” by which this and the county of York were for some time greatly agitated, and on its final suppression Paslow, with others, was lodged in Lancaster Castle, from whence he was taken back to Whalley, and on March 12, 1537, was executed in front of his own monastery along with John Eastgate, one of his monks, who was hung, drawn and quartered, whilst a third brother of his order was on the following day hung on a gallows at Padiham. Of this stately building comparatively little now remains.184 The whole area of the close contains nearly thirty–seven statute acres, and is defined by the remains of a deep trench which surrounds it. The abbey was approached through two strong and stately gateways yet remaining. These gateways were of the usual plain, substantial character which was common with the Cistercian brotherhood. The central portion of the north–west gateway is almost entire, and is a fine specimen of the late Decorated architecture, probably of the middle of the fourteenth century. It is of two stories, the higher being supported on stone groining springing from wall corbels. To this upper room, however, there is now no staircase; access must have been gained from apartments lying on the north and south of the existing portions, but no trace of these is left. The north–east gateway is of much later date; it has a spiral staircase in an angle turret which leads to the second story and roof. The house itself stood on the bank of the Calder; it consisted of three quadrangles, besides stables and offices. Of these the first and most westerly was the cloister court, of which the nave of the conventual church formed the north side; the south transept, sacristy, chapter–house, penitentiary, and part of the refectory, the east; the kitchens, principal refectory, etc., the south; and the guest–house the west. The roof of the cloister was supported on wooden posts, the corbels for bearing the rafters being still visible. The area within was the monks’ cemetery, and some ancient gravestones are still remembered to have been there. In the south wall of this quadrangle is a wide arched recess, which was the lavatory. The groove where the lead pipe was placed is still conspicuous.

Of the building to the south nothing is now left but a portion of the north wall of the refectory, etc., but the eye rests with satisfaction on the beautiful doorway of the chapter–house, with its numerous pateras and the richly–moulded and traceried windows on either side, with many shafts and an amount of carving which serves to illustrate the peculiar care which was bestowed on the decoration of the building. The south–west angle of the day–room is ornate and picturesque. The predominating style is that of the transition from the Decorated to the Perpendicular. The guest–house is almost entire, and is now used as a barn and cow–house. To the east is another quadrangle, one side of which is formed by what is believed to have been the Abbot’s house. On the southern side of this is a ruin presenting a very beautiful window of the Transitional character, which was probably part of the Abbot’s private chapel.

The conventual church would rank amongst the finest of the Cistercian Order in Europe, and exceeded many cathedrals in size. It was almost demolished soon after the suppression, though not entirely, for in the account books of Sir Ralphe Assheton we find in 1661 and 1662 several items such as, “P? pulling down the old walls over the inner close, £1 0s. 6d. Pulling down the old abbey walls. Pulling down the old part of the steeple and those sides adjoining at 3d. per yard. For taking down the great window or door at the head of stairs in the cloisters.”

Near to Ribchester was a small institution belonging to the Hospitallers. Very little is known concerning its early history, but it was founded at a very early date; it is referred to in the coucher book of Salley as the Hospital sub–Langreg, and Dugdale also calls it the Hospital sub Langrigh, and merely mentions two bequests made to it, one by Alan de Syngleton, and the other by Walter, son of Walter de Mutun. There were, however, several other endowments. This religious house was, no doubt, at one time of not inconsiderable size and importance, and was, it is believed, dedicated to our Saviour and the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Alan de Syngleton, son of Richard, gave to God and our Saviour for a hospital four acres of land in Dilewhe (Dilworth), and Walter de Mutun, of Ribelchester, granted in the time of Henry III. all the lands which his father, Walter, had bequeathed to the same hospital. In a charter of the time of Henry VII. it is called the House of St. Saviour at Sted.

Nicholas Talbot by will, dated 1501, appointed a priest to sing for twelve months at Stede, where his father and mother were buried.

After the dissolution the manor of Stede [Stydd], with all its rights, in 1544, was granted to Sir Thomas Holt, of Grizzlehurst. From this grant it appears that Stydd was then a house of preceptories, consisting of Knights Hospitallers dependent on the house of Newland, near Wakefield. One of the provisions of this charter was that out of the revenues of the manor, etc., was reserved 40s. a year for the payment of a curate to perform divine service at the church at Stydd.

It was, no doubt, at this time that all the buildings except the small chapel were demolished. From the time of the Reformation until quite recently service was only performed here three or four times a year, although the church was endowed with the tithes of eleven farms in the township of Dutton.

The church as it now stands is at once striking and picturesque; it is composed of gray grit stone, and is almost covered with ivy. Small as it is, there were evidently three entrances to it, one of which, on the north side, is of very early Norman character. The principal entrance is in the west end, and its proportions and mouldings mark it as of Anglo–Norman date. The effect of this doorway is partly destroyed by a rude porch, which at a comparatively recent date has been added to it. The east window is of fine proportions; the compartments are lancet–shaped without cuspings, and contain three lights. The window on the interior of the mullions has been ornamented with painting in polychromy, now hardly visible. On the south side is a long, narrow aperture, which was probably used as a hagioscope or squint. The interior of this interesting little building looks cold and bare, as it is unseated and almost without the usual church furniture.185 It contains several tombstones of great age, one of which is to the memory of a Lord and Lady of Salesbury Hall, who were living in the time of Edward III., and another is embellished with the double cross of the Knights Templars. The head of this stone is richly ornamented, and is a fine specimen of its kind. The stone font is a massive octagonal piece of work, and is probably of the fourteenth century.186

In West Derby Hundred, the Domesday Book mentions five churches: Childwall and Walton–on–the–Hill, Wigan, Winwick and Warrington; but there had probably been at some earlier period churches at Kirkby and Ormskirk, and very soon afterwards others were founded at Prescot, Huyton, Sefton, and North Meols. The church of Warrington calls for special notice on account of its dedication to St. Elfin (see p. 55), a saint whose name does not occur in the Romish calendar, and is unknown to history. Beamont187 conjectures that it is the name of some local benefactor, canonized by the people for the good deeds which he had done; a cognate name was that of Elfwin, the brother of Egfrid, and the nephew of King Oswald, who was slain fighting with Ethelfrid in the battle on the banks of the Trent in A.D. 679.

At Warrington, probably towards the end of the thirteenth century, a friary of the Augustine or Hermit friars was established, but the name of its founder and the exact date of its foundation are alike unknown; it was not on a very extensive scale, and was dissolved with the other lesser houses in 1535. The third house established in Lancashire by the Austin canons was the priory of Burscough, which was founded in honour of St. Nicholas, by Robert Fitz–Henry, Lord of Lathom, in about 1124. To this priory was granted a charter in 1286 to hold a weekly market and a five days’ fair in their manor of Ormskirk; amongst its endowments were the advowsons of the churches of Ormskirk, Huyton and Flixton, and lands in many parts of West Derby. At the time of the dissolution (about the year 1536) it contained a Prior, five monks, and forty dependents, and its temporalities were then worth about £1,000 a year, according to the present value of money. There was here a priory church with several altars, a chapter–house, and a hospital, into which Henry de Lacy, Constable of Chester, agreed with the Prior for a perpetual right to send one of his tenants. Very little of this ancient priory has been left by the destroying hand of Time.188

A small Benedictine priory, dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury, was founded at Upholland, near Wigan, by Sir Robert Holland, in 1318, and to it were impropriated the churches of Childwall in Lancashire and Whitwick in Leicestershire.

In the great hundred of Salford, the Domesday Book only names two churches, both of which were in Manchester, and dedicated to St. Michael and St. Mary, and it is somewhat remarkable that even the sites of these buildings are now only a matter of conjecture. The probability is that one stood in Aldport and the other in Acres Field, near to the end of the present St. Mary’s Gate. When or why these churches were pulled down history does not tell us, but for centuries after the Conquest Manchester was a rural deanery, and probably was the ecclesiastical centre of the ten parishes comprised in the county division. Baines says (and others have repeated) that the church at Bury was named in the Great Survey; this is not the case, but before the end of the twelfth century there were churches not only at Bury, but at Ashton–under–Lyne, Prestwich, Middleton and Flixton, and a little later saw the rise of the churches of Radcliffe, Bolton and Eccles. Rochdale Church was certainly built before 1194, and was almost certainly a Saxon foundation.

In 1421 (August 5) the parish church of Manchester was, at the instigation of Thomas la Warre, twelfth Lord of Manchester, made into a collegiate church, to be governed by one warden and eight fellows, four clerks, and six choristers, and it was ordained that divine service should be celebrated there every day for the good health of the King, of the Bishop, of Thomas la Warre, and for the souls of their ancestors, and for the souls of all the faithful departed for ever. This collegiate church in 1540 obtained the privilege of asylum (as had also Lancaster), whereby any criminal resorting to it for sanctuary should be assured his life, liberty and limbs. At the beginning of the fifteenth century the church of Manchester was a wooden building, on the site where now stands the cathedral.

The only monastic institution in this great division of Lancashire was the priory of Kersal, near Manchester, which consisted of a cell to the Cluniac house of Lenten, near Nottingham. The manor and cell of Kersal was granted by Henry II. (1154–1189) to Lenten, and both passed into the hands of Henry VIII. at the dissolution.

During the two centuries which immediately followed the Norman Conquest, a vast change came over the religious aspect of Lancashire; the commissioners who compiled the Domesday Book found here and there a small church and other evidences of the growth of the Christian faith; but in all directions they found great tracts of country—especially in the northern parts—lying waste, with few or no inhabitants. British settlements had been followed by Roman camps, and these in turn had been destroyed by the Scots, the Saxons and the Danes, in their struggles for supremacy; but, still, it is clear beyond dispute that the teachings of Paulinus, and Bede, and Wilfrid had taken firm hold of the minds of the people, and the time was ripe for a great missionary effort. The opportunity was seized, and in every direction colonies of monks and friars were sent out, and religious houses founded, one effect of this being that gradually a very large number of the existing churches were passed over to and became part of the possessions of the newly–established institutions. There were, of course, exceptions, but as a rule, where the patronage of a church was not held by the King, it was owned by some religious house. One result of this was the appointment of non–resident vicars, many of whom held several livings, the care of which was handed over to others.

One example of this may be cited. In 1289 the patronage of St. Michael’s–on–Wyre was vested in the King, and in the December of that year the Pope granted an indulgence to Walter de Languethon, the King’s clerk, Rector of St. Michael’s, to hold an additional living: in 1290 he held also the Rectory of Croston, and had a dispensation granted to enable him to accept a third, and in the following year he got an indulgence to retain two of these for five years without residing there or being ordained priest, whilst he was engaged in the King’s service, the churches in the meantime to be served by vicars. Another vicar of this parish in the next century was also acting as receiver for John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster; and at Preston, a long series of Rectors probably never were within sight of the church of which they held the living.

The establishment of these religious houses does not appear to have been immediately followed by any considerable increase in the number of churches, though here and there a new one was erected; the number added to those recognised by the valuation of Pope Nicholas in 1291 was very small indeed.

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries many chantries were founded by private individuals in the parish churches, very few of the older foundations being without one or more of these altars, nearly all of which were more or less endowed, and there were buried their founders and their successors, to whose memory stately monuments were therein erected. With the birth of the sixteenth century, it was evident that serious abuses had crept into the monastic institutions, which prepared the way for and finally led to their suppression. The change brought about by the violent measure taken by Henry VIII. must have been greatly felt in Lancashire, where then, as now, great difference in opinion must have existed as to its wisdom or otherwise. There are those who now declare that history justifies the course then taken, whilst there are others who maintain that “neither among the friars, with their public ministry and their international character, nor among the Cistercians of Furness and Whalley, with their industries and agriculture, nor among the regular canons, Augustinian and PrÆmonstratensian, nor among the Benedictines, with their large place in the national history, their local ties, and their varied work, was there found, when the end was at hand, anything to warrant their wholesale suppression.”189 Into this question it is not necessary to enter, but it may be briefly stated that most historians agree that, although many of these houses were well managed and regulated, the abbots and priors were often more concerned about the temporal possessions of their orders than for the spiritual benefit to the community, which alone justified their continued existence. And no one can read the literature of those times without coming to the conclusion that, at all events in the popular mind, there was then a strong conviction that the lives of the monks were not regulated by the high standard of morality aimed at by the original founders of their institutions.

Acting upon powers given by Parliament, the King took possession of the religious houses in Lancashire, and with no loss of time conveyed all their lands and tenements to willing purchasers, the abbeys, priories, and other buildings being in nearly every instance unroofed and more or less destroyed, and even the silver shrines, the church plate, and the richly embroidered vestments, were all converted into money, which found its way into the royal coffers.

The Reformation was now accomplished, and the Pope was no longer head of the English Church, which was now controlled by Henry VIII., who not only regulated the appointment of its clergy, but to some extent dictated its form of ritual as well as its teaching: images and holy relics were swept away, as well as many forms of worship considered of Popish origin. Edward VI., to make the matter complete, suppressed the private chantries, and converted their endowments to his own use; and soon afterwards (in 1552) inventories of all church goods were taken, and such as were not deemed necessary to carry on divine service according to the reformed method were to be sold. These lists for Lancashire have been preserved;190 as a sample of the then furniture of a church, the case of Ormskirk may be taken: in it there were found 2 chalices, 1 cope of old green velvet, 2 copes of old blue silk, a vestment of silver velvet, 1 of tawny velvet with yellow crosses, 1 vestment of green satin bridges,191 with 2 other vestments, 3 albs, 2 altar–cloths, 1 towel, 3 corporases,192 5 bells, 2 cruets,193 3 sacring bells, a pair of organs. Organs were now not very common in parish churches; they were, however, found in the churches at Rochdale, Middleton, Preston, and Liverpool; in the latter place the Mayor and Bailiffs in 1588 ordered that there should be a hired clerk who could sing his plain song and prick song and play on the organs. At the time of the suppression of the chantries the number of clergy, including the chantry priests, was considerable in some of the larger parishes; thus we find twenty in Manchester, fourteen in Winwick, fourteen in Blackburn, and eleven in Prescot.

Many of these cantarists, as they were called, were now pensioned off for life. In Lancashire at this time there was a very strong party in favour of the old form of religion; and this wholesale doing away with the institutions which had so long been established in their midst met with almost open rebellion, and thus it was that again progress was arrested in the county.

It has already been stated that during the monkish rule little was done in church–building; indeed, in what is now the Diocese of Manchester,194 between 1291 and the suppression of the monasteries, there were not a dozen churches erected, whilst during the reign of Henry VIII. seven were built, several of which would perhaps be more properly described as chapels–of–ease; they were Ashworth, Denton, Blakley, Douglas, Hornby, Rivington, and Shaw. On the accession of Mary in 1553, there was a return to the old order of things, and Popery being once again established, the Lancashire Catholics were not slow in taking advantage of the opportunity; thus, we find that in 1558 the Mayor and Bailiffs of Liverpool ordered that the priest of St. John’s altar should say Mass daily between the hours of five and six in the morning, that all labourers and well–disposed people might attend. During the troubled times which followed, two of Lancashire’s sons became martyrs in the cause of the Protestant religion. John Bradford was a native of Manchester, where he was born in the early part of the century; he became Prebendary of St. Paul’s and chaplain to Edward VI., but on his refusal to give up preaching the reformed doctrine he was sent to the Tower, and after an examination before the Lord Chancellor and the Bishop of London, and repeated appeals to conform, he was pronounced to be a heretic, and on June 30, 1554, he was burnt at Smithfield in the presence of a vast concourse of people. On reaching the place of execution he walked firmly up to the stake, and after a short prayer he took up a faggot and kissed it, and took off his coat and delivered it to his servant, and then, turning towards the people, he held up his hands, and exclaimed: “O England, England, repent thee of thy sins! Beware of idolatry, beware of antichrists, lest they deceive thee!” His hands were then tied and the fire lighted, and amidst the flames he was heard to say, “Strait is the way and narrow is the gate which leadeth unto life, and few there be that go in thereat.” Fuller describes Bradford as “a most holy man, who, secretly in his closet, would so weep for his sins, one could have thought he would never have smiled again, and then, appearing in public, he would be so harmlessly pleasant, one would think he had never wept before.”

During his imprisonment he wrote to his mother, then living in Manchester, and tried to console her by the assurance that he was not going to die “as a thiefe, a murderer, or an adulterer,” but as “a witness of Christ, hys gospel and veritye.” He left several sermons which, together with his letters and an account of his life, were afterwards published.

George Marsh was a native of Dean, near Bolton, where he was born about the year 1515, and was brought up to follow agricultural pursuits; but having lost his wife when he was about thirty years old, he left his young children with his father, proceeded to Cambridge, and became a student at the University, and being subsequently ordained, was appointed Curate of Allhallows’, Bread Street, in London, by the Rev. Mr. Saunders (the martyr), then Rector of that church. In 1555 he appears to have been persecuted for his zeal in the reformed religion, and contemplated leaving the country; but before doing so he paid a visit to his mother and his children, and on this occasion the Earl of Derby sent a letter to Mr. Barton, of Smithell’s Hall,195 near Bolton, to apprehend him and send him to Latham. This order was duly carried out, and after an examination before the Earl, he was imprisoned in what he describes as a “cold windy stone house, where there was very little room,” and where he remained for two nights without bed, “save a few great canvas tent–clothes.” This was in March, 1555. He remained here for over a fortnight, and on Low Sunday (with some others) was removed to Lancaster Castle. After a time the Bishop of Chester came to Lancaster, and, according to Marsh’s statement, he refused to have anything to do “with heretics so hastily,” but at the same time he “confirmed all blasphemous idolatry, as holy–water casting, procession gadding, mattins, mumbling, mass–hearing, idols up–setting, with such heathenish rites forbidden by God.” Subsequently Marsh was sent to Chester, and brought before the Bishop (Dr. Cotes), and there was charged with having preached at Dean, Eccles, Bolton, Bury, and many other places in the diocese, against the Pope’s authority, the Catholic Church of Rome, the blessed Mass, the Sacrament of the Altar, and many other articles; whereupon he did not deny the preaching, but asserted that he had only, as occasion served, maintained the truth touching these subjects. Having firmly refused to recant, the Bishop “put his spectacles on his nose,” and read out his sentence, after which he added, “Now will I no more pray for thee than I will for a dog.” He was then delivered to the sheriffs of the city, and put into prison at the North Gate. On April 24, 1555, he was taken thence to Spittle–Broughton, near the city, being escorted by the sheriffs and their officers, “and a great number of poor simple barbers with rusty bills and poleaxes.”

When at the stake he was again asked to recant, but again refused, whereupon he was chained to a post, and “a thing made like a firkin, with pitch and tar” in it, was placed over his head, and the fire lighted.

The religious persecution was now going on all over the kingdom, and many Protestants from Lancashire, in company of thousands from other parts of England, fled for shelter to foreign countries, there to seek that liberty of conscience which was denied them at home. They mostly went to Geneva, Strasburg and Holland. Towards the end of Mary’s reign, Pope Paul IV. began to insist on the reinstitution of the abbeys and monasteries in England; but it was found that those who now owned these estates declined to part with them “as long as they were able to wear a sword by their sides.”

The war with France following, when the Pope took sides against the Queen, and in which England lost all her dominions in that country, only for a time stayed the persecution of heretics, and in October, 1558, it was again renewed; but the death of the Queen on the 17th of November in the same year closed this dreadful chapter of English history.

The Church was now again freed from the authority of the Pope, and gradually restored to what it was in the time of Henry VIII.; but in order not to hurt the Roman Catholics too much at first, a small number of Catholic ministers were retained in her Majesty’s Council. Commissioners were appointed to visit each diocese and to report on the state of things, especially as to the effects of the late persecutions. Amongst those selected for the Northern visitation was the Earl of Derby. The commissioners commenced their work on August 22, 1559, and were directed to minister the oath of recognition; they received many complaints from clergymen who had been ejected from their livings for being married and other causes, and in some cases these were reinstated. In Lancashire the oath of supremacy was ordered to be taken by a proclamation to the Chancellor of the duchy, dated May 23, 1559, both clergy and laity being required to take it. At the same time all the restored chantries were only to be now used in accordance with the Reformed Church: the Host was not to be elevated, and the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Gospels were to be read in English.

The progress of the Reformation was rapid in the South of England, but in Lancashire the feeling in favour of the old form of religion was so strong that for some years little or no permanent change was effected, as nearly all the oldest and most powerful families in the county were rigid Roman Catholics. It is a remarkable fact that when England, under Elizabeth, again became Protestant, and almost all the bishops gave up their sees, the great majority of the clergy in Lancashire agreed rather to accept the new form of religion than to resign their livings, the result being that in many parishes the vicars or rectors were really Papists in disguise, and had shown themselves but ill qualified shepherds to have the care of such large, scattered, and disunited flocks. But this exhibition of pliant and accommodating consciences was put in the shade by the rapidity with which the Earl of Derby changed front, and we now find the persecutor of Marsh every whit as keen in running to earth the recusant Roman Catholic. But in all extreme movements there is generally a reaction; so the harsh measures taken by Queen Mary laid the seeds for the formation of a new body of malcontents, to whom the reform meted out to the Church was not sufficient; and this, at first a mere sect, soon rose into a powerful party, which was recognised under the general title of Puritans. Queen Elizabeth hated a Puritan only with a less bitter hatred than she did a Catholic; so as both these were represented in Lancashire, this county was at once marked out for persecution; and it was not long before we hear of 600 recusants being presented at one assize at Lancaster, and that all the prisons were full.196

Catholics were forbidden to leave the country, and Puritans were not allowed to meet together to worship anywhere except in the church. In 1567 the Queen addressed a letter to the Bishop of Chester, in which she says: “We think it not unknown how, for the good opinion we conceived of your former service, we admitted you to be bishop of the diocese; but now, upon credible reports of disorder and contempts, especially in the county of Lancaster, we find great lack in you. In which matter of late we writ to you, and other our commissioners joined with you, to cause certain suspected persons to be apprehended, writing at the same time to our right trusty and well–beloved the Earl of Derby, for the aid of you in that behalf.

“Since that time, and before the delivery of the said letters to the Earl of Derby, we be duly informed that the said earl hath, upon small motions made to him, caused such persons as have been required to be apprehended, and hath shown himself therein according to our assured expectation very faithful and careful of our service.”

The letter concludes with instruction to the Bishop to make a personal visitation into the most remote parts of his diocese, especially in Lancashire, and to see for himself how the various church–livings are filled.

Notwithstanding this reproof to the Bishop, he had before this had many times to deal with rebellious clergy and their congregations. Many instances might be quoted. In 1564 the curate of Liverpool was admonished to warn the people “that they use no beades,” and that they “abolish and utterly extirpate all manner of idolatrie and superstition out of the Church immediately;” and at the same time the curate of Farnworth was presented “for showing and suffering candles to be burnt in the chapel on Candlemas daye, accordinge to the old superstitious custom.” In the same year complaints were made to the Archbishop of York that in all the livings in Whalley and Blackburn the clergy were neglecting their duty, and very seldom preached to their flocks. The Bishop made a visitation in the summer of 1568, but he has left little record of it, except that he was well entertained by the gentry, the only drawback to his perfect enjoyment being the excessive heat of the weather. The disaffection increased, and there was a determination on the part of a large portion of the community not to attend church nor to hear sermons, but to have Mass celebrated, and otherwise to act against the laws of the land; indeed, there is not wanting evidence to show that it would at this time not have required much excitement to have resulted in open rebellion.

Many of the Lancashire gentry, hoping to again establish the Catholic religion, openly espoused the cause of Mary, Queen of Scots. The Bishop of Carlisle, writing to the Earl of Essex in 1570, gives an account of the state of Lancashire in that year; he writes: “Before my coming to York, Sir John Atherton arrived there from Lancashire, where he long resided, and not being able to come to my house through infirmities, he sent to my father and declared to him how all things in Lancashire savoured of rebellion; what provision of men, armour, horses and munition was made there; what assemblies of 500 or 600 at a time; what wanton talk of invasion by the Spaniards; and how in most places the people fell from their obedience and utterly refused to attend divine service in the English tongue. How since Felton set up his bull so the greatest there never came to any service, nor suffered any to be said in their houses, but openly entertained Louvainists massers with their bulls.”197 And the same year the Bishop wrote to Sir William Cecil (afterwards Baron Burleigh), that in Lancashire the people were falling from religion altogether, and were returning to “popery and refused to come to church.”

Ten years later things seem little improved, as Sir Edmund Trafford writes in 1580 to the Earl of Leicester, informing him that the state of the county was “lamentable to behold, considering the great disorder thereof in matters of religion, masses being said in several places.” And he winds up with a request that the Government will cause the offenders to be rigorously dealt with.198 Possibly in reply to this appeal a Royal Ecclesiastical Commission was now appointed, consisting of the Bishop of Chester, Lord Derby and others, which was to bring the offenders “to more dutiful minds;”199 and about the same time an Act was passed by which absentees from church for a month were to be liable to a penalty of £20. A contemporary Roman Catholic writer, commenting upon the appointment of Sir Edmund Trafford as Sheriff of Lancashire, describes him as a man “so thoroughly imbued with the perfidy of Calvin and the phrensy of Beza, that it might be said he was merely waiting for this very opportunity of in every way pursuing with insult all that professed the Catholic religion, and despoiling them of their property. For the furious hate of this inhuman wretch was all the more fiercely stirred by the fact that he saw offered to him such a prospect of increasing his slender means out of the property of the Catholics, and of adorning his house with the various articles of furniture filched from their houses.” He then goes on in the same strain to describe the manner in which the Sheriff’s officers took possession of Rossall, and expelled therefrom the widowed mother and sisters of Cardinal Allen.200 The persecution in Lancashire now became more severe, and very few of the old families adhering to the unreformed religion escaped punishment. Amongst those who were imprisoned were Sir John Southworth, Lady Egerton, James Labourne, John Townley, Sir Thomas Hesketh, Bartholomew Hesketh and Richard Massey.

In 1582 the prisoners, on the ground of recusancy, were ordered to be sent to the New Fleet prison in Manchester, instead of, as heretofore, to Chester Castle. At this time numerous amateur detectives seem to have made out lists of recusants and forwarded the same to the Government officials, so that no man knew who was his accuser; but once his name got down on the list, persecution and fine or imprisonment invariably followed. In 1585 the sanguinary law against Jesuits, seminary priests, and others was enacted, and by it all such were ordered at once to quit the country, and anyone harbouring them was to be adjudged guilty of high–treason. This brought a new crime into existence, and many Lancashire people became the victims. Priest–harbouring was soon amongst the most prolific causes of arrest and imprisonment. As samples of the working of this Act in Lancashire, the following are selected from a long list:

The following year (1586–7) no less than 128 gentlemen in various parts of the country were in custody for recusancy, amongst whom were several from this county, who were released on giving bond to yield themselves up on ten days’ notice.

In 1591 a report was sent to the Council, from which it appears that the Lancashire commission had made “small reformation,” and that, notwithstanding the rigour of the law, the churches were still empty, and there were still “multitudes of bastards and drunkards”; in fact, the county was in a worse state than ever; the people, it is added, “lack instruction, for the preachers are few: most of the parsons are unlearned, many of them non–resident, and divers unlearned daily [are] admitted into very good benefices.” But even a greater evil is yet added, for the young “are for the most part trained up by such as profess Papistry. The proclamation for apprehension of seminaries, Jesuits and Mass priests, and for calling home children from parts beyond the sea” is not executed, neither are the instructions to the justices to summon before them “all parsons, vicars, churchwardens and sworn men,” and to examine them on oath how the statutes of 1 and 25 Elizabeth, as to resorting to churches, are obeyed. It is further reported that some of “the coroners and justices and their families do not frequent church, and many have not communicated at the Lord’s Supper since the beginning of her Majesty’s reign.” Some of the clergy have “refrained from preaching for lack of auditors, and people swarm in the streets and the ale–houses during divine service time,” and many churches have only present “the curate and the clerk,” and “open markets are kept during service time,” and “there are about many lusty vagabonds.” Marriages and christenings are celebrated in holes and corners by seminary and other priests. Cock–fights and other games are tolerated on Sundays and holidays during service, at which ofttimes are present justices of the peace, and even some of the ecclesiastical commissioners. The report concludes by stating that Yorkshire and the other adjoining counties cannot “be kept in order so long as Lancashire remains unreformed.”

Another report of about the same date, made by several of the Lancashire clergy,201 confirms this account; they state that Popish fasts and festivals were everywhere observed, and that “crosses in the streets and waies, devoutly garnished, were plentiful, and that wakes, ale, greenes, May games, rushbearings, bearbaits, doveales, etc.,” were all exercised on the Sabbath, and that of the number of those who came to church many do more harm than good by their “crossinge and knockinges of theire breste and sometimes with beads closely handled” (i.e., partly concealed), and that at marriages they brought “the parties to and from churche with piping, and spend the whole Sabbothe in daunsinge,” and that the churches generally were in a ruinous condition, being “unrepaired and unfurnished,” whilst the “churches of ease (which were three times as many as the parish churches)” were many of them without curates, and in consequence were growing into “utter ruin and desolation.” This report, which has a strong Puritanical tone about it, was signed by a Fellow of the Manchester Collegiate Church, the rectors of Bury, Wigan, Warrington and Middleton, the vicars of Poulton–in–the–Fylde, Kirkham and Rochdale, and other clergy.

One of the signatories of this document knew well the truth of at all events part of the statement, for in his own parish (Kirkham) was situated the chapel of Singleton, the curate of which in 1578 had been presented because he performed no services, kept no house, did not relieve the poor, nor was he diligent in visiting the sick, he failed to teach the catechism, preached no sermons, churched fornicators without penance, and, to crown his offences, he made “a dunge hill in the chapel yeard and kept a typling hous and a nowty woman in it.”202

At this date it was customary at most of the Lancashire parish churches to ring the curfew at seven o’clock in the evening from All Hallows’ Day (October 31) to Candlemas Day (the Purification of the Virgin), February 2; another duty of the sexton was to whip the dogs out of church. The curfew was tolled in some of the churches up to quite a recent date. Thomas Heneage, Chancellor of the duchy, gave testimony in 1599 that in consequence of the smallness of many of the livings in the county, and the fact that the parsonages were in private hands, there were “few or no incumbents of learning or credit,” and the priests were drawing even those from their duty.

The report led to the ordering of salaries to be paid to certain preachers (afterwards called King’s preachers), who were to deliver sermons in various parts of the county. In the commencement of the seventeenth century things became somewhat more settled, but still the agents of the Government often met with great opposition in their efforts to carry out their instructions, and this continued to the very end of the reign of Elizabeth, for in 1602–3 the Bishop of London complains that “in Lancashire and those parts, recusants stand not in fear by reason of the great multitude there is of them.” Likewise he had heard it “reported publicly that amongst them they of that country had beaten divers pursuivants extremely, and made them vow and swear that they would never meddle with any recusants more. And one pursuivant in particular, to eat his warrant and vow never to trouble them nor any recusants more.”203 On the accession of James to the throne, both the Catholics and Puritans hoped to obtain some redress, or at any rate more freedom from oppression and persecution; but instead of this hope being realized, they soon heard of new penal regulations being issued which in no way encouraged either party. The Puritans in Lancashire were offended by the issue of the “Book of Sports” (see p. 123), and the Catholics were still obliged to resort to all kinds of strategy to avoid arrest and imprisonment or fines. Nor did either of the two great religious factions receive much better treatment under Charles I., in whose reign two (if not more) Catholics suffered for their religion the extreme penalty of the law at Lancaster. One of these was Edmund Arrowsmith, a priest of the Order of Jesus; he was hung, and afterwards beheaded and dismembered. This was in 1628. At Bryn Hall (lately pulled down), until very recently, was preserved what was said to be the hand of Father Arrowsmith, the tradition being that just before his death he requested his spiritual attendant to cut off his right hand, which should then have the power to work cures on those who were touched by it and had the necessary amount of faith. Accounts of the miraculous cures worked by this hand were printed as recently as 1737.204

It will here be a suitable place to notice briefly a peculiar form of vestry which in the sixteenth century was common in the hundred of Amounderness and recognised as “sworn men.” Preston, Kirkham, Goosnargh, Poulton, St. Michael’s–on–Wyre, Garstang, Lancaster and Ribchester, each had this executive body, though the number varied; but most of the parishes had twenty–four sworn men. The oath taken by these officers was to the effect that they would keep, observe and maintain all ancient customs as far as they agreed with the law of the realm and were for the benefit of the particular parish or chapelry. Their duties were numerous: they levied the rates, elected the parish clerk in some cases, appointed churchwardens, and even laid claim to nominate the vicar, and in a general way they not only looked after the fabric of the church, but regulated its ceremonies and attended to the welfare of the parish. These men were not re–elected annually, as in the case of churchwardens, but, once appointed, they held office for life, unless they left the parish or were disqualified by becoming Nonconformists or other sufficient reason. The best men in the parish often were included in the list, and in many cases sons succeeded fathers for several generations.205

During the years immediately preceding the Civil Wars, Puritanism had gone on increasing, and at the opening of the Long Parliament, in 1640, it was felt that some change in the form of religious worship had become an absolute necessity to meet the clamorous demands heard on all sides. Lancashire, just as it had for long been a stronghold of Catholicism, now became a centre of Puritanism; and for many years to come the intolerant spirit of both parties helped to retard the progress of free religious thought.

Parliament distinctly for some time fostered Puritanism, which ultimately led to the adoption of the Presbyterian form of Church government, which was developed between the years 1643 and 1648. A modern writer206 truly remarks that, “If Puritanism anywhere had scope to live and act, it was here” (in Lancashire); “if anywhere in England it was actually a force, it was in Lancashire. There is no other part of England that can furnish so complete an illustration of the true spirit of this seventeenth–century Puritanism as it was manifested in actual practice, and it is this that gives such a peculiar value to the records of the religious life of the county during the years 1643–60.”

The actual change of Church government did not much affect the county, until the Assembly at Westminster replaced the Book of Common Prayer by the Directory; this was effected on January 3, 1645, when it was sanctioned by Parliament: other orders rapidly followed. Altars, raised Communion–tables, images, pictures, organs, and “all superstitious inscriptions” were soon swept away, and the energies of the Presbyterian party became concentrated against the clergy, the churches, and their endowment. In 1646 the titles of archbishops and bishops were abolished, and their possessions placed in the hands of trustees, and not long afterwards the “title, dignity, function, and office” of dean, sub–dean, and dean and chapter were done away with. Under the Act for providing maintenance of preachers, passed in 1649, the issues of Church livings were employed to pay preachers appointed by Parliament or the presbytery. The Church Survey of the Lancashire parochial districts was begun in June, 1650, and from it we learn the state of each parish through the evidence brought before the commissioners, who had sixteen sittings in the county; they met three times at Manchester, six at Wigan, three at Lancaster, three at Preston, and once at Blackburn. There were then in the county 64207 parish churches, 118 chapels–of–ease, of which no less than 38 were without ministers, chiefly for want of maintenance. All the churches, with one or two exceptions, had curates, pastors, or ministers, as they called themselves. The parishes in many instances were said to be very large, and subdivision was recommended, whilst some of the chapels were so far from the mother church that it was suggested that they should be made into parish churches.

The survey furnishes the names of all the ministers, and their fitness or otherwise for the office they held; as most of them were said to be “godly preaching ministers,” or were “of good lyfe and conversation, but keept not the fast–days appointed by Parliament,” it may safely be inferred that the old vicars and curates had mostly either conformed or been superseded by the then holders of the livings. On September 13, 1646, a petition was sent to both Houses of Parliament, styled “The humble petition of many thousand of the well–affected gentlemen, ministers, freeholders, and other inhabitants of the county palatine of Lancaster.” This petition set forth that, “through the not settling of Church government, schism, error, heresy, profaneness, and blasphemy woefully spread”; separate congregations being “erected and multiplied, sectaries grew insolent, confidently expecting a toleration.” The petitioners then go on in the true spirit of those times to pray that some speedy course should betaken “for suppressing of all separate congregations of Anabaptists, Brownists, heretics, schismatics, blasphemers, and other sectaries” which refused to submit to “discipline and government,” and, further, that such “refusers and members of such congregations” should not only be removed from, but kept out of “all places of public trust.” Shortly after this (October 2, 1646) the county was divided into nine classical presbyteries, as follows:

1. The parishes of Manchester, Prestwich, Oldham, Flixton, Eccles, and Ashton–under–Lyne. The members nominated consisted of eight ministers and seventeen laymen.208

2. The parishes of Bolton, Bury, Middleton, Rochdale, Deane, and Radcliffe. Its members, ten ministers and twenty laymen.

3. The parishes of Whalley, Chipping, and Ribchester. Its members, eight ministers and seventeen laymen.

4. The parishes of Warrington, Winwick, Leigh, Wigan, Holland, and Prescot. Its members, fourteen ministers and twenty–eight laymen.

5. The parishes of Walton, Huyton, Childwall, Sefton, Alcar, North Meols, Halsall, Ormskirk, and Aughton. Its members, fifteen ministers and twenty–three laymen.

6. The parishes of Croston, Leyland, Standish, Ecclestone, Penwortham, Hoole, and Brindle. Its members, six ministers and fourteen laymen.

7. The parishes of Preston, Kirkham, Garstang, and Poulton.209 Its members, six ministers and thirteen laymen.

8. The parishes of Lancaster, Cockerham, Claughton, Melling, Tatham, Tunstall, Whittington, Warton, Bolton–le–Sands, Halton, and Heysham. Its members, eight ministers and eighteen laymen.

9. The parishes of Aldingham, Urswick, Ulverston, Hawkshead, Colton, Dalton, Cartmel, Kirkby, and Pennington. Its members, five ministers and eleven laymen.

The names of all these members have many times been printed. It does not necessarily follow that all the persons nominated as “fit to be of” each classis absolutely acted in that capacity; indeed, it is well known that many refused the office.

These classes at once took upon them the management and control of things ecclesiastical. The Manchester classis first met on February 16, 1646/7, when Richard Heyricke, the Warden of the collegiate church, was appointed Moderator, although he had formerly been one of the warmest supporters of the Church and King; at their second meeting, on March 16, 1646/7, they passed a resolution to the effect that all who preached within the classis who were not members of it were to be called to account, as were also all ministers or others who permitted them so to preach. A considerable part of the time of the successive meetings was taken up by the inquiry into cases of immoral conduct and social scandals affecting the members of the various congregations: candidates for the ministry were examined by the Presbyters of each classis, and, if approved, were duly ordained; and it was also part of their work to see that improper persons were not admitted to the Lord’s Supper.

From two remarkable papers, signed by a large number of the Lancashire ministers, in 1648 and 1649, we gather something of the spirit of the age. One of these is “the Harmonious Consent of the Ministers of the Province within the County–Palatine of Lancaster, etc., in their testimony to the truth of Jesus Christ and to our solemn League and Covenant; as also against the errours, heresies, and blasphemies of these times and the toleration of them”; the other is, “The Paper called the Agreement of the People taken into consideration, and the lawfulness of Subscription to it examined and resolved in the negative, by Ministers of Christ in the Province of Lancaster, etc.” In the “Harmonious Consent”210 toleration is thus dealt with: “We are here led to express with what astonishment and horrour we are struck when we seriously weigh what endeavours are used for the establishing of an universal toleration of all the pernicious errours, blasphemies, and heretical doctrines broached in these times, as if men would not sin fast enough except they were bidden”; such a toleration, it is urged, would be “a giving Satan full liberty to set up his thresholds by God’s thresholds and his posts by God’s posts, his Dagon by God’s Ark”; and further, “it would be putting a sword in a madman’s hand, a cup of poyson into the hand of a child, a letting loose of madmen with firebrands in their hands, an appointing a city of refuge for the devil to fly to, a laying of a stumbling block before the blind, a proclaiming of liberty to the wolves to come into Christ’s fold to prey upon his lambs; a toleration of soul–murther (the greatest murther of all others), and for the establishing whereof damned souls in hel would accurse men on earth.” The petitioners also dreaded “to think what horrid blasphemies would be belched out against God, what vile abominations would be committed, how the duties of nearest relatives would be violated”; they then express their opinion that “the establishing of a toleration would make us to become the abhorring and loathing of all nations,” and after adding the words, “we do detest the forementioned toleration,” they conclude by praying that Parliament may be kept from “being guilty of so great a sin” as the granting of it would be.

This petition was signed by eighty–four ministers who had in their charge the principal parishes in the county. The other paper is quite as rabid in its tone, and bears the signature of nearly as many divines as the “Harmonious Consent.” It sets forth clearly the points at issue, one of which was that it was proposed that “such as profess faith in God by Jesus Christ (however differing in judgement from the doctrine, worship or discipline publiquely held forth) shall not be restrained from, but shall be protected in their profession of their faith and exercise of religion, according to their consciences.” To this proposition the minister of the province of Lancaster exclaims: “Thus all damnable heresies, doctrines of devils, idolatrous, superstitious and abominable religions, that ever have been broached, or practised, or can be devised (if the persons owning them will but profess faith in God by Jesus Christ) are set at liberty in this kingdom; nay, not only granted toleration, but enfranchisement, yea, protection and patronage.”

We now find practically all the churches and chapels in the hands of the Presbyterians, and governed by the various classes, which met periodically at central places. These classes sent delegates to attend the provincial synod which met at Preston twice a year. In little less than three years after the formation of these classes difficulties arose in their working, not only because some places, such as Denton, Salford and Oldham, became disaffected, but in other places several members declined to continue their membership. A great cause of division amongst the various congregations was the conduct of the ministers and elders as to the admission of communicants. Oliver Heywood gives an account of the proceedings on this point at Bolton; he says: “There were two ministers, with whom were associated twelve elders, chosen out of the parish. These sat with the ministers, carried their votes into effect, inquired into the conversation of their neighbours, assembled usually with the ministers when they examined communicants, and though the ministers only examined, yet the elders approved or disapproved. These together made an order that every communicant, as often as he was to partake of the Lord’s Supper, should come to the ruling elders on the Friday before, and request and receive a ticket which he was to deliver up to the elders immediately before his partaking of that ordinance. The ticket was of lead, with a stamp upon it, and the design was that they might know that none intruded themselves without previous permission. The elders went through the congregation and took the tickets from the people, and they had to fetch them again by the next opportunity, which was every month. But this became the occasion of great dissension in the congregations, for several Christians stumbled at it, and refused to come for tickets; yet ventured to sit down, so that when the elders came they had no tickets to give in.”

This state of things was not confined to a single parish, but was widespread, so that in some churches, rather than administer the Sacrament “promiscuously,” the minister declined to administer it at all, and it was in a few places suspended for several years.

Whatever may be said as to the general dogmatical and narrow–minded views of the Lancashire Puritan clergy, they certainly did make great efforts to institute and maintain a high moral tone amongst their flocks. The every–day life of each member was subjected to rigid inquisitorial supervision, and his sins were dealt with in no half–hearted manner, excommunication being a frequent punishment, and even after the offender’s death a funeral sermon was preached and the “occasion improved.” Lancashire is fortunate in having had preserved several of the diaries of her Puritan divines, and these all bear strong testimony to the almost childlike faith which these men held as to the special interference of Providence in the events of everyday life. If a minister was to be tried at Lancaster, God graciously took away the judge by death; if he journeyed to London, the weather was specially arranged to suit; and if anyone was more than ordinarily rebellious against the Church’s discipline and he thereabouts died, it was without the slightest hesitation attributed to a special judgment of God. We have seen with what signs of rejoicing the people of Lancashire (see p. 157) welcomed the restoration of Charles II. The country had got tired of the Commonwealth, and as to the religious feeling, the Episcopalians and Presbyterians were alike glad to have a return to the old form of government; yet the old rancour against Papists was still there, and to it was added a hatred of Anabaptists, Quakers and Independents: against the latter the Puritans were specially exercised.

The passing of the Act of Uniformity in 1662 put the clergy of the county to a severe test, the result being that sixty–seven of them refused to conform, and were summarily ejected from their livings. This act of injustice led to the commencement of Nonconformity in Lancashire, for amongst the ejected were many zealous and pious men, who through honest conviction could not conform to all the conditions required, and were not willing to abandon the views which they held.

Amongst these were Nathaniel Heywood, John Angier, Harry Newcome, Henry Pendlebury, Isaac Ambrose, Robert Bath, Richard Mather, John Harrison, and many others, all of whom soon had around them the nucleus of a future congregation. At first these men preached in private houses with impunity, but the passing of the Conventicle Act and the Five Mile Act, and the presence of large numbers of Roman Catholics, pressed hard upon them, and the amount of persecution and suffering which followed was extreme. For the next few years Nonconformists were persecuted with a vindictiveness worthy of the Dark Ages. Surrounded with spies on every hand, they were driven to hold secret meetings in out–of–the–way places, where they often met in the night–time. Those who were most zealous, or the most careless of discovery, were often apprehended at once, marched off to Lancaster, and sometimes, as in the case of Thomas Jolley (ejected from Altham), detained nearly twelve months in prison.

Perhaps no sect suffered more severely in Lancashire than the Quakers, who took no care to hide their meetings, and from them not only were fines enforced and goods sold, but many of them were for long periods locked up in gaol with felons and other criminal prisoners. Dr. Halley211 says that although “their sufferings were cruelly severe, it must be acknowledged that they provoked much of the persecution which they so patiently endured, and repelled the assistance 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, disputatious Quaker of the early days of their sect.” The Society of Friends may almost be said to have arisen in Lancashire, so great was the support which it received here in the days of its infancy. In 1652 George Fox made a visit to Swarthmore Hall, near Ulverston, when he made a convert of the young wife of Judge Fell, and by their united efforts they soon obtained a considerable number of followers in the district of Furness and Cartmel, whose sympathies were no doubt quickened by the knowledge of the cruel persecutions of these “children of the light” (as they were sometimes called) constantly being enacted in Lancaster Castle. Margaret Fell, after the judge’s death, became the wife of George Fox, and she was subsequently the writer of several treatises, and journeyed to London to deliver a copy of one of them to the King. The Lancashire Quaker literature of the seventeenth century is remarkable not only for the quantity of it, but for the light it throws on the religious thought of those writers for and against the teachings of the early pioneers of the sect.212

Of the cruel persecutions to which many of this sect in Lancashire were subjected, many examples might be cited; indeed, at one time the castle at Lancaster was said to be almost full of them, that town being one of their centres. In November, 1660, the Quakers of Lancaster, being assembled at one of their meetings, were surprised by a party of soldiers, who entered the room where they were with “drawn swords and pistols cockt,” and took the whole of them prisoners. A Lancaster Quaker called John Lawson, in 1652, was seized at Malpas (in Cheshire), where he had been preaching in what he called “the Steeple House213 Yard.” He was set in the stocks for four hours, and afterwards imprisoned for twenty–three weeks; but shortly after his release he repeated the offence in the Lancaster churchyard, for which at the assizes he was fined £20 or in default one year’s imprisonment; and again in 1660 he was sent a prisoner to the castle for refusing to take the oath tendered to him in court. Another example of the treatment which the early converts in Lancashire to this sect met with is found in the case of John Fielden, of Inchfield, near Todmorden, who in 1664 was fined £5 for attending a Quakers’ meeting, and his goods were seized by the churchwarden and sold to pay the church–rate. In 1668 he was kept in prison thirty–one weeks for being absent from church, and this kind of persecution continued until he was quite an old man, as seventeen years later we find him in Preston House of Correction, where he was retained for eight weeks, the offence being his having attended a meeting of the Society of Friends at Padiham. Very many similar cases might be quoted.

In 1689 the Toleration Act was passed, which recognised all the various forms of Dissent, which now became entitled to a place amongst the religious institutions of the county.

No time was now lost in establishing meeting–houses all over the county, and in almost every parish there soon arose Presbyterian or Independent chapels; many of the former ultimately passed to the Unitarians.

From a list prepared for Dr. Evans in 1715, it would appear that there were then in Lancashire forty–three Presbyterian and Independent congregations, consisting of 18,310 regular hearers; and that in Manchester there were 1,515 Dissenters, in Liverpool 1,158, in Bolton 1,094, and in Chowbent 1,064. Bishop Gastrell,214 writing a little later, reports that in Rochdale there were no Papists, but about 200 Dissenters, who had a meeting–house; Bolton he puts down as having only 400 Dissenters, and to Manchester he gives 233 Dissenting families.

Many of these early chapels have interesting histories, which cannot be dealt with here.215 Amongst the oldest ones may be named the following: Elswick Chapel, in the parish of St. Michael’s–on–Wyre, was built as a sort of chapel–of–ease to the parish–church, by a party of Presbyterians a little before 1650, and a minister appointed by the classis. At the Restoration it was probably vacated; but in 1671–72 it was duly licensed as a place to be used for such as did not conform to the Church of England, who were “of the persuasion commonly called Congregational”. Shortly after this an Act was passed repealing this and similar licenses, whereupon the meeting at Elswick became illegal, and the chapel was closed until the passing of the Act of Toleration in 1689, since which time it has been regularly used as a Nonconformist chapel. At Wymondhouses a small chapel was built by the Rev. Thomas Jolley (who was ejected from Altham) in 1689. The chapel of the Presbyterians at Cockey Moor was one which obtained a license in 1672. The first Dissenting chapel in Manchester was in Cross Street; it was built in 1672 for the congregation of the Rev. Henry Newcome. This chapel was destroyed in 1714 (see p. 242). The Independents had no chapel in Manchester until 1761, when the one in Cannon Street was erected.

Toxteth Park or Dingle Chapel, near Liverpool, existed certainly in the early part of the seventeenth century, and is believed to have been built by the Puritans living in the district. Richard Mather (the grandfather of Dr. Cotton Mather) was for some time minister here, but was silenced by the Archbishop of York in 1633, and his successor was a Conformist, who was probably removed by the Presbyterian classis, 1646; in 1671–72 it was licensed under the Indulgence Act. From this congregation arose the Renshaw Street Unitarian Chapel in Liverpool216 about the year 1687. Meeting–houses, as they were called, were established in almost every town under the Indulgence Act, and in most cases before the close of the century regular chapels were erected.

The Society of Friends, notwithstanding the persecution to which they were subjected, began to build meeting–houses even before the indulgences were granted. At Lancaster a Quakers’ meeting–house was erected in 1677, at which time there was no other Nonconformist place of worship in the town.

A few years later the Mayor found it necessary to place a guard at the door of the house to prevent a meeting being held. In 1708 this meeting–house was found to be small, and a much larger one was erected. The meeting–house at Swarthmoor was built in 1686 upon land given by George Fox, who also endowed it with land free from tithes, so that (to quote his letter) “Friends may be sure of a meeting–house for ever that is free and will maintain itself, and which is the Lord’s.” In this meeting–house is still preserved George Fox’s folio Bible, to which is attached the chain with which it was formerly fastened to the pulpit. The number of meeting–houses of the Society of Friends was never very great in Lancashire, and in the larger towns there were very few built before the early part of the eighteenth century. Most of them had graveyards attached, and in some cases (as in Manchester) these remain, whilst the meeting–houses have been pulled down.

Wesley made many visits to all parts of Lancashire; but the growth of Methodism was at first slow in the county, as it met with much opposition from many quarters, and in several towns the appearance of its founder led to disorder and riots. Methodism began in a very humble way in Lancashire, the handful of converts forming themselves into “classes,” and often meeting in small cottages. In Manchester the first gatherings were held in a small room in a house near the Irwell, where a woman lived, having in the room her spinning–wheel, her coals, her bed, chair and table. Some of the earlier societies (about the year 1744) were called “William Darney’s societies.” Another man who assisted Wesley in Lancashire was John Bennet of Derbyshire, who introduced Wesleyanism into Rochdale a little before 1746.

Methodism was not introduced into Preston until 1750, and in some districts it did not obtain a footing until a much later period; but long before the close of the century its chapels were found in almost every large town as well as in isolated rural districts.

Early in the seventeenth century Baptist chapels were erected in several parts of the county. Of the many sects which have arisen within the last hundred years, it is not our province to record either the origin or progress, as Lancashire, in common with all the country, has now inhabitants who worship under many forms; but there no longer exists that bitter, antagonistic feeling between one denomination and another which has for so many centuries been a blot upon the pages of England’s history.

In 1819 there were in Lancashire 77 Roman Catholic chapels, and in 1823 the Dissenting chapels included: 68 Independent, 27 Baptist, 32 Unitarian, 4 Scotch Kirk, 3 Scotch Presbyterian, and 180 Wesleyan.