Ernest Broxap

“ By 10 o'clock the following day all the royalist garrison was to be disbanded and 40 Parliament soldiers to be received as a guard. The royalists, however, seeing that there was now no more time to be gained, formally broke off all negotiations. The defiant answer was at length given which had been kept in the background for a week. The Countess of Derby refused all their articles, and declared "That though a woman and a stranger, divorced from her friends, and robbed of her estate, she was ready to receive their utmost violence trusting in God both for protection and deliverance." ”

“ No one could call Prince Rupert's methods of war merciful at any time; and in the present instance he was in haste to relieve York, and would be sure to make short work of any obstacles in his way. For the local royalist troops engaged, it was the first experience of victory after many months of defeat, and the garrison opposed to them was the same force which had besieged Lathom House, against whom naturally the Earl of Derby and his followers had a particular grudge. ”

“ To return, however, to the trial of the Earl of Derby, Charles, Lord Strange, now appeared upon the scene. He was a worthless person of whom his father had written "I have no good opinion of him; he is not ashamed of his faults." [242] Strange was only 14 on the breaking out of the war, and had therefore been too young to have any considerable part in affairs. But a few years later the exile of the Isle of Man became irksome to him and he left his parents and went to France, where he spent most of the next few years. ”

“ He has heard that the Princes are joined, and fears that their objective may be Lancashire by way of Hale Ford or Liverpool. In the meantime Derby continued to address urgent appeals to Rupert. He has not been able to raise the regiments which the Prince had required in order to raise the siege, "and the time is now past, for the enemy is so close to the House that it is impossible for that design to take effect which might have been some relieving of a distressed woman whose only hope, next to Almighty God, is in your Highness's help." ”

“ It was fortunate for the Parliamentarian cause in Lancashire that the largest town in the county was on its side. The 'very London of those parts' had as much weight then as now in local affairs, though not its present importance in the national life. The Civil War gave Manchester a national position such as it had never had before. There was no doubt that the majority of the townsmen were against the King; the town was not unanimous as the affray on July 15 had shown, but the fact that the Manchester magazine alone was not secured by the royalists is significant enough ”

“ The Parliamentarians would not be likely to over-estimate their own losses. Of this 1,200 or 1,500 no doubt the larger number would belong to the town. Supposing the royalists to have lost 200 men in the first attack and 200 more during all the rest of the engagement, it would still make the losses of the town three or four times as numerous, which is credible enough; for the Parliamentarian troops would have lost very heavily in their flight, Rupert having a large number of cavalry who could be of service in the pursuit. Colonel Rigby's cleverness alone secured his own escape. ”

“ After the first engagement at Preston Sir Thomas Tyldesley, who was still in command of some horse, laid siege to Lancaster, and was on the point of taking it when news of further defeats arrived. Thereupon he joined Monro, and attempted to persuade him to advance and attack Cromwell's rear, as they had still an equal number of troops. The proposal was an illustration of Tyldesley's bravery, but it was too rash for Monro to accept, and if carried out would probably have effected little.
Weariness alone prevented the victors from completing the ruin of the Scots in Lancashire. ”

“ It is evident that the Revolution had already gone too far for the Presbyterians in Lancashire. A private letter written at the same time as this Declaration, and printed with it, further expresses the same difficulty, "our soldiery apprehend themselves in great straits; for if the Army come down, and they join with them to suppress the Cavaliers, they fear and are very jealous that the Army will afterwards fall upon them and suppress them." It was evidently thought that unless Parliament got the better of the Army, there was little prospect of a peaceful settlement. ”

“ Cromwell wrote on August 20th, "I should not doubt but to give a very good account of them; but truly we are so harassed and hagled out in this business, that we are not able to do more than walk an easy pace after them." As it was Cromwell himself did not follow the Scots into Cheshire, but left Colonel Lambert to continue the pursuit, and wrote to Lord Grey, Sir Henry Cholmondeley, and Sir Edward Rhodes to intercept Hamilton. Indeed the Scotch army might now almost be left to melt away of itself. ”

“ Then followed the open breach between Parliament and the army, the carrying off of the King from Holmby House, and the extremely moderate demands made by the Army in the Heads of the Proposals. These provided by far the best solution of the difficulty if only both sides could have accepted and kept them. In all this Lancashire had no part. The leaders were interested, particularly in Ecclesiastical affairs, but the people in general cared less about the negotiations than about the recovery of their own position. There can never be war, and especially civil war, without much misery ”

“ And that there were many royalists even in Manchester itself the events of July 15 and 16 had plainly shown. Moreover even the possibility of raising the royal standard within the borders of Lancashire would seem to show that it was a county whose loyalty could be relied upon.
It is not possible in the present work to give a detailed account of all the families in Lancashire during the Civil War; all that can be done is to indicate the main lines of division between the various parties and to give brief descriptions of the more prominent leaders on both sides. ”

“ Without waiting to be attacked Rigby left only as many men before the Castle as were quite necessary to maintain the blockade, and himself started with 500 foot, 3 troops of horse and 2 guns to meet them. Marching 30 miles in one day "over mountains and through sea sands and waters," he found the royalists on Sunday, October 1, at Lindale, three miles from Cartmel. The Parliamentarian word was "God with us," and they charged with such vigour that the enemy began to retreat almost before the battle was joined, and in a quarter of an hour the royalists fled in confusion. ”

“ In June, 1626, Strange married, and lived for a time at court; but he soon retired to his estates in the north of England, living chiefly at Lathom House, and finding ample scope for his activities in local affairs in Lancashire, Cheshire and the Isle of Man. Strange was not a man fitted by temperament or inclination to shine at a court like that of Charles I., and though his loyalty was conspicuous and undoubted, he had evidently made himself very unpopular with the royal advisers who [Pg 25] hindered rather than helped him during the Civil War. ”

“ But the tide now turned against the royalists. Byron laid siege to Nantwich which under the circumstances was a place of very great importance. Clarendon says "it cannot be denied the reducing of that place at that time would have been of unspeakable importance to the King's affairs, there being between that and Carlisle no one town of moment (Manchester only excepted) against [Pg 98] the King; and those two populous counties of Cheshire and Lancashire (if they had been united against the Parliament) would have been a strong bulwark against the Scots." ”

“ The local militia under Captain Birch and Captain Holcroft was, however, in Manchester, and the surprising thing is not that an affray occurred, but that it was not a great deal more serious than it turned out to be. Hardly had the Royalists sat down to dinner when word was brought that Birch and Holcroft accompanied by Sir Thomas Stanley of Bickerstaffe [19] were marching their men about the streets. The Sheriff immediately ran downstairs, mounted Lord Strange's horse, and near the Cross met Holcroft, whose men he endeavoured unsuccessfully to disperse. ”

“ Men and women alike have devoted their time and pains to working out problems of importance and often of no slight difficulty. The result is one of which the university and city may be justly proud."—The late Professor York Powell in the Manchester Guardian. ”

“ Sir Gilbert Hoghton had a special case against this garrison as it was only three miles from his own house. Accordingly on Christmas Eve he marched out of Blackburn, it was said with 5000 men, to attack the town. The garrison numbered only 400. But there was no fighting at close quarters; the royalists had with them one small piece of cannon which they discharged repeatedly without effect, but they hardly approached within musket shot at all, and under cover of night they retreated. No lives were lost and the only result was the plundering of the countryside. ”

“ The Earl of Derby instead of continuing his march had occupied Whalley, and early on the same morning he drew up his troops on the east side of the river Calder, apparently waiting to be attacked. Derby himself had quarters in Whalley Abbey, Sir Ralph Assheton's house. The royalists made a great mistake in not at once advancing in force. After some delay, however, they advanced and the scouts of both sides approached each other near Read Hall, half way between Padiham and Whalley. ”

“ Small as Lancashire is it is not very easy to connect in one plan the necessarily somewhat scattered incidents of the war. On the whole, however, its course at first shows a gradual advance by the Parliamentarian party northwards and westwards from their base at Manchester. They first met successfully an attack in their own quarters; the remainder of 1642 saw them fighting mostly on the defensive in Salford and Blackburn Hundreds; but early in 1643 they began to extend their lines until all the county was gradually conquered. ”

“ In mere numbers the royalists in Lancashire were probably at all times equal to their opponents; it may be doubted whether the supporters of the Parliament ever counted a numerical majority in the county. Their success was due partly to the fact that their attention was concentrated on Lancashire, while the royalist leaders were concerned also with other parts of the country. The soldiers first raised by the Earl of Derby were withdrawn to swell the regiments of the royalist army at Edgehill ”

“ Some of the most prominent of the Lancashire royalist leaders were Roman Catholics. The Puritan element was strongest in the east and south-east of the county, especially in Manchester and in Bolton, 'the Geneva of the North'; and it was these places which formed the stronghold of the Parliament's cause in Lancashire. The Hundreds of Salford and Blackburn were the only two out of the six Hundreds of the county which were on the popular side in 1642. But a distinctive development took place in the later years of our period. The Lancashire Parliament men were Presbyterians ”

“ In the confined space no manœuvring was possible, and for nearly an hour the cavalry fought at close quarters. At length at the third charge Lilburne brought up a small reserve, and the superior steadiness of the veterans of the new Model prevailed over the impetuous bravery of the cavaliers. The royalists wavered and began to give ground; Widdrington fell dead, Tyldesley was unhorsed and shot down as he attempted to extricate himself from [Pg 194] the press; [233] Derby himself was wounded, and Lilburne's men chased the now broken royalist squadrons down the hill into Wigan. ”

“ It is rather surprising and testifies to the extreme reluctance to begin a war of which no man could see the end, that the Militia and the Array did not come to blows before they did. The royalists were the first to move. Lord Strange returning from a visit to the Court at York called a meeting of his supporters on Fulwood Moor near Preston in accordance with a letter from the King to Sir John Girlington, High Sheriff; the ostensible purpose being to hear read Charles' two Declarations and his answer to the Lancashire petition. ”

“ On coming to England her mother had endeavoured, though without success, to have her attached to the household of the Queen. After the outbreak of the war it would seem as if Lady Derby had endeavoured to secure herself against possible reverses of the royalist cause; but she showed no wavering afterwards, and her defence of Lathom House in [Pg 27] 1644 was the one conspicuous success of the royalist cause in Lancashire. After her husband's death she was with difficulty persuaded to surrender the Isle of Man when all other resistance had come to an end. ”

“ Between the Lune and the Ribble are Burn Moor and Bowland Forest; and south of the Ribble Trawden Forest, the Forest of Rossendale, and Blackstone Edge stretch almost to the south of the county. It was by the Ribble valley that Prince Rupert marched out of Lancashire on his way to York in 1644; and it was by this road that Cromwell entered the county in pursuit of the Scots in 1648. All the moors are fairly high; the eastern border of Lancashire is seldom lower than 1000 feet above sea level, and rising in places to 1700 and 1800 feet. ”

“ The general royalist position was at this time far other than it was in Lancashire. The King was master of about two-thirds of the country; and so evenly balanced was the issue in the summer of 1643, that both sides had summoned outside help, Parliament the Scots, and Charles the troops from Ireland, which had been set free by the Cessation. The King's negotiations with the Irish had been marked by his usual duplicity, for he could have no hope of keeping the promises he made.
In March, 1643, the Irish had demanded a free Parliament, on promise of which they would send over 10,000 men. ”

“ They declared that they could not possibly bear any more levies, and complained that after their stand for the Parliament's cause and all the help which they had sent into other counties, it was unreasonable to impose a fresh tax upon them. If they even attempted to raise it all the troops would disband; and instead of paying, they urgently demanded a large [Pg 154] contribution from Parliament which they hope would not be long delayed. "This (however strange reports have been or may be made of our condition by such as know little of it) is nothing but real truth." ”

“ Some time in June, 1643, Alexander Rigby arrived in Lancashire with a Colonel's commission to raise forces in Leyland and Amounderness Hundreds. Rigby was not the man to remain idle, even though the fighting seemed over. He appointed 15 or 20 captains in Amounderness to raise foot companies and one troop of horse; and a few also in Leyland. The Order of Parliament for impressing troops was not passed until the end of October, 1643, but it was easier to raise men now that they could be provided for out of sequestered estates. ”