Lancashire

“ There is a quiet tract of country on the eastern border of Lancashire, lying in a corner, formed by the junction of the rivers Mersey and Irwell, and having but little intercourse with those great towns of the county which boil with the industry of these days, a few miles off, to the north and eastward. It is the green selvedge of our toilful district, in that direction; and the winding waters of the Mersey lace its meadows, lengthwise, until that river joins the more soiled and sullen Irwell, on the northern boundary of the parish. In all the landscape there are no hills to break the view ”

“ But now, as the rosy time of the year grew towards its height, I began to hanker after those moors and noiseless glens of Lancashire, where, even yet, nature seems to have it all her own way. I longed for the quiet valleys and their murmuring waters; the rustling trees; and the cloudless summer sky seen through fringed openings in the wildwood's leafy screen. Somebody says, that "we always find better men [Pg 161] in action than in repose;" ”

“ Lancashire is the most densely284 populated county except Middlesex, and to every square mile of its surface there are 1,938 people.
We have now traced the history of the county palatine of Lancaster from the time when it was first inhabited by mortal man, through all its varied and not uneventful course, until we now leave it with, we may hope, a bright future dawning upon it—a future that will still find it, as it for so long has been, an important power in that great kingdom on whose domains the sun never sets. ”

“ My own impression of the natural charms of this part of Lancashire is, perhaps, a little warmer and more accepting than that of an unbiassed stranger would be; for the wheels are beautiful which roll me towards the country where I first pulled the wild flowers and listened to the lark. In this district, there are none of those rich depths of soil which, with little labour and tilth, burst forth in full crops of grain. But the land is mostly clothed with pastoral verdure; and the farming is almost entirely of the dairy kind. ”

“ During the century to which the Lancashire plot just recorded formed a fitting close, Lancashire had witnessed many stirring events—the monarchy had been destroyed, the Commonwealth set up, and the rule of kings again established; Roman Catholics had persecuted Protestants, and Puritans had tried their best to repress Roman Catholicism; and in each and every case this county had done its share: if battles were to be fought, the Lancashire lads were in the thick of them; if religious creeds had to be repressed, in their mistaken zeal, there again were the people of this county to the fore. ”

“ LANCASTER CASTLE
“A TRADITION PREVAILS THAT THIS FORTRESS HAD BEEN PREVIOUSLY TAKEN BY CROMWELL, AND THAT HE PLANTED HIS CANNON ON A CIRCULAR MOUNT AT THE SOUTH-WEST SIDE OF THE TOWN, ON HILL MEADOW.”—Baines’s History of Lancashire.
Well does Lancaster deserve the name which the Romans gave to it, of the green city; and the beautiful scenery, for many miles around, may be considered as its delightful gardens. There are no huge rocks frowning, like tyrants, in the country which they have ruined, and blighting with sickness and poverty, all that is healthful and rich. ”

“ South-east Lancashire is all picturesque ups and downs, retired nooks, and "quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles," and little winding vales, with endless freaks of hill and hillock, knoll and dell, dingle [Pg 121] and shady cleft, laced with numerous small streamlets, and clear rindles of babbling water, up to the foot of that wilderness of moorland hills, the "Back-bone of England," which runs across the island, from Derbyshire into Scotland, and forms a considerable part of Lancashire upon its way. ”

“ Standing upon these proud and rugged desolations, which look down upon the changeful life of man in the valleys at their feet, with such an air of strength and serenity, whilst the toiling swarms of Lancashire and Yorkshire are scattered over the landscape beyond, in populous hives—the contrast is peculiarly strong ”

“ Gentlemen, it is very hard to ascertain with any certainty what has been done by Lancashire, because, in the first place, the amount of local subscriptions and the amount of public contributions by themselves give no fair indication of that which really has been done by public or private charity. I don't mean to say that there are not individuals who have grossly neglected their duty in Lancashire. ”

“ When one gets a few miles off any of the populous towns in Lancashire, many an old wood, many a lonesome clough, many a quiet stream and ancient building, is the reputed haunt of some local sprite, or "boggart," or is enveloped in an atmosphere of dread by the superstitions of the neighbourhood, as being the resort of fairies, or "feeorin." ”

“ In Lancashire, where we might have expected to find that the noise of the steam-engine had frightened away both the fairies and the queen of the May, and the spread of knowledge to have destroyed all faith in spells and charms, interesting articles of folk-lore have been recorded as either still surviving, or as having only recently become obsolete. ”

“ Lancashire has so strong a character of its own that it may almost be considered a nation. The accident by which it is a Royal Duchy, as Wales is a Principality, may be an additional excuse for considering Lancashire, for the present, as a little nation within its own frontiers. It is fairly comparable in wealth and population, not only to the Lowlands but to the entire Kingdom of Scotland. The population of Lancashire in 1881 was to that of Scotland as thirty-four to thirty-seven, and to that of Switzerland as thirty-four to twenty-eight, in round numbers. ”

“ During these six centuries Lancashire had many rulers,46 and must have been the scene of many a pitched battle. Its people were never long at peace, but rebellions, invasions, and wars of every kind fast followed each other. At one time they were governed by kings of Northumbria, at another by kings of England; at one time they were ruled by only tributary kings, or even only by tributary earls; sometimes the Christian religion was upheld, and sometimes they were referred back to Woden and Thor and Oden. ”

“ At this date Lancashire contained many extensive forests, and in every direction were trackless morasses. As these almost savage tribes lived in tents or huts, and spent their time in hunting or fighting, it is not surprising that the traces of their existence are faint and unsatisfactory, and that it is often impossible to decide whether particular remains belong to the early Celtic or the late British. The geographical nomenclature of the county furnishes some examples of Celtic origin, but for the most part it clearly points to a later period. ”

“ PROGRESS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. The general appearance of the chief Lancashire towns in the early part of the eighteenth century has been graphically described by a lady who rode through England on horseback;223 and from this source we take our descriptions of Manchester, Liverpool, Lancaster, Wigan, Preston, and Rochdale. ”

“ We now find ourselves on the eve of those domestic struggles which ever since have been known as the Civil Wars, and in which Lancashire was destined to play no small part. At this time most of the old castles and fortresses had long ago been allowed to fall into disuse and ruin, but there still remained tenable the castles at Lancaster, Clitheroe, Greenhaugh and Liverpool, and the smaller fortified houses of Thurland, Hoghton, Latham and Greenhaugh, all of which were utilized to the utmost. ”

“ Even when the Lancashire people did not intend to be uncivil, their manners often asserted a sense of equality that I have never met with from the corresponding class in France. I have often stayed in Lancashire with a friend, now no more, who was one of the richest men in his neighbourhood, and in Lancashire this means great wealth. ”

“ INTRODUCTORY. Lancashire, on its south and south–east, is bounded by the county of Chester, the division for about 50 miles, i.e., from Stockport to Liverpool, being the river Mersey; on the west is the Irish Sea; on the east, up to Graygarth Fell, in the parish of Tunstall, lies Yorkshire; from thence to the waters of Morecambe Bay the boundary is formed by Yorkshire and Westmorland ”

“ If Lancashire was famous for wakes, the wakes of Whalley were famous even in Lancashire. The men of the district were in general a hardy, handsome race, of the genuine Saxon breed, and passionately fond of all kinds of pastime, and the women had their full share of the beauty indigenous to the soil. ”

“ It has been suggested—and with some show of reason—that the early neolithic man in Lancashire had been driven from the Yorkshire coast by the victorious invader, who came armed with a war–spear and polished stone axe.2 Be this as it may, the evidence of such a race of men having for some time lived in parts of the county is of the most conclusive character. ”

“ Notwithstanding the wars and rumours of wars which were then so common, and notwithstanding the religious excitement created by the persecution, first of the Roman Catholics and then of the Puritans, people seem to have prospered in the county. The towns and villages greatly increased in number, size and importance, and the time of Elizabeth especially witnessed the erection and rebuilding of some of Lancashire’s finest halls. ”

“ But in considering this question it must be borne in mind that in what we call184 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 mind of such a serene overlooker—distinctly observing the detail and the whole of the manner of life beneath him, and fully comprehending the nature of the rise and progress of this Lancashire town—many thoughts might arise, which would not occur to those who creep about the crowded earth, full of little perturbations. ”

“ Lancashire their accent and dialect announced, and Lancashire they told us was their home in the old step-mother country.
Step-mother, indeed, to these her children! No wonder that they had found life at home intolerable! They were the poorest class of townspeople from the great manufacturing towns,—penny tradesmen, indoor craftsmen, factory operatives,—a puny, withered set of beings; hardly men, if man means strength; hardly women, if woman means beauty. ”

“ Lancashire is not referred to as a county till the middle of the twelfth century. The name is never mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. As we find the "Lands between the Ribble and the Mersey" are surveyed with those of Cheshire, in the Domesday book, it seems highly probable that they formed a part of Leofric's earldom of Mercia, at the time of the Norman conquest. Consequently it is to the latter and not to the earlier portion of the Anglo-Saxon period that the Ribble formed the southern boundary of the earldom of Northumbria, rather than of the earlier independent kingdom. ”

“ As a recent writer in the Quarterly Review reports of Cornwall, so we may state of Lancashire:—"Pages might be filled, not with mere legends wrought up for literary purposes, but with serious accounts of the wild delusions which seem to have lived on from the very birth of Pagan antiquity, and still to hold their influence among the earnest and Christian people of this portion of England.... Superstition lives on, with little abatement of vitality, in the human heart. ”

“ MISCELLANY. There are many traditions relating to the county, some of which are worth preserving; others are only the result of some fertile brain which first invented the tale and then told it as a tradition. Several of Roby’s “Traditions of Lancashire” are of this class; others are of considerable antiquity and of historic interest.
Scattered all over Lancashire are the remains or traces of roadside crosses, which at one period must have been very numerous, many of them being of great antiquity. At Burnley, near to the church, is one of these, which is of undoubted Saxon origin ”

“ Murray in his guide-book speaks of Lancashire as a county abounding in ancient black-and-white houses, and places it at the head of all others. Cheshire, however, must have many more, and of course, as far as the towns are concerned, there can be no comparison in antique relics. There are in Lancashire now twelve boroughs, with mayors and corporations, and though Lancaster is rather picturesque, it may be fairly said that the character of these corporate towns is dreariness. ”

“ I was born, as I have told you, in Lancashire, and if there is a place—I know that the so-called patriots of this country have from mercenary motives of their own, tried to create a quarrel between England and America from time to time in order to gain a certain vote, and I know that there is some justification behind it—but if there is a place on this footstool that Americans ought to look to with gratitude, it is Lancashire. ”

“ The Crusaders also had many followers from this county, whilst for the wars with France and Scotland writ followed writ in quick succession, all calling for men and arms. And again in the fifteenth century the drain continued to be heavy, and culminated with the War of the Roses, which began in 1455. None of the battles between the Houses of York and Lancaster were fought within this county, but during the struggle Lancashire must have sent some of her bravest sons to perish in that ignoble strife between the roses red and white. ”