The Great Civil War in Lancashire (1642-1651) Part 1

The Great Civil War in Lancas.h.i.+re (1642-1651).

by Ernest Broxap.

PREFACE

There has not hitherto been a separate History of the Civil War in Lancas.h.i.+re, and I venture to think that the present study, by a native of the County, may suitably find a place in the publications of the University of Manchester. It is merely intended to be an account of the Civil War within the borders of the County, religious and social questions and the general course of the war being touched on only so much as is necessary to make the narrative intelligible. The princ.i.p.al sources of information are detailed below, and need not be further referred to here. It only remains to be said that some care has been taken with topography, and above all I have tried to give an impartial narrative of the events. Contemporary writers on both sides naturally display much prejudice, and it is often difficult to arrive at an exact knowledge of the facts.

The plan of Manchester is taken from the Owens College Historical Essays (1902) and my acknowledgments are due to Messrs. Longman & Co. for permission to reproduce it here. The plan of Liverpool is reprinted from Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancas.h.i.+re and Ches.h.i.+re, Session 6, 1853-4, vol. 6, p. 4. The map of Lancas.h.i.+re, and the other plans, have been specially prepared for the present volume, but the plan of the Preston Campaign in 1648 is based on that given in Gardiner's "Great Civil War," vol. 3, p. 431.

I take this opportunity of thanking the authorities at Lathom House, Hornby Castle, Thurland Castle, and elsewhere, for their courtesy in allowing a personal inspection of those places to be made. My sincere thanks are due to Professor T. F. Tout and Professor James Tait of Manchester, for constant a.s.sistance. I share the grat.i.tude felt by so many of their old pupils for their keen and practical interest in the work to which their teaching was the first incentive. Professor Tout's advice has been of great service in preparing this book for the press.

But especially I am indebted to Professor C. H. Firth of Oxford. It was really at his suggestion that the present work was begun nearly four years ago, and he has at all times since been ready to give invaluable help with the utmost kindness. Without his suggestion and help the task would probably not have been accomplished.

ERNEST BROXAP.

WESTCLIFF, HR. BROUGHTON, MANCHESTER, _March 25th, 1910_.

AUTHORITIES

There has. .h.i.therto been no separate account of the Civil War in Lancas.h.i.+re. The two best accounts in more general works are in Edward Baines' "History of Lancas.h.i.+re" and in Halley's "Lancas.h.i.+re Puritanism and Nonconformity." Baines is a capable historian of sound judgment, but there are now available sources of information which he could not use, and which subsequent editors could not very well include; and the latter book is written from a particular standpoint. The last edition of Baines' work was edited by J. Croston in 5 vols. 1889-93. The Civil War is dealt with in vol. i, chap. 15, pp. 283-321. The other histories of Lancas.h.i.+re by b.u.t.terworth, Corry, Britton and others are of no value for the present subject. The few pages devoted to the Civil War in the "Victoria County History of Lancas.h.i.+re" (vol. ii, pp. 232-240) are hurried and inaccurate.

The first main source upon which this work is based is the publications of the local antiquarian societies, the Chetham Society, the Lancas.h.i.+re and Ches.h.i.+re Record Society, and the Historic Society of Lancas.h.i.+re and Ches.h.i.+re. The first of the three is the most important; and two books in this series, the "Civil War Tracts" (No. 2), edited by Mr. Ormerod, and the "Discourse of the Warr in Lancas.h.i.+re" (No. 62), edited by Mr.

Beamont are invaluable. The editing of the Chetham Society books varies considerably, and it is a great advantage that these two are very ably done. Mr. Ormerod's "Civil War Tracts," published more than 60 years ago, is a most exhaustive collection from contemporary pamphlets and newspapers. In the "Discourse" we have a singularly impartial account of the local war, written by one who himself fought in it; and Mr.

Beamont's notes to the narrative add greatly to its value. Other volumes of the Chetham Society which contain material for the Civil War are the "Autobiography of Adam Martindale" (No. 4), the "Moore Rental" (No. 12), the "Farington Papers" (No. 39), the "Shuttleworth Accounts" (Nos. 35, 41, 43 and 46), the "Lancas.h.i.+re Lieutenancy," Part 2 (No. 50), and the "Stanley Papers," Part 3 (Nos. 66, 69 and 70); and some others in a less degree.

All the above numbers refer to the Old Series of the Society's Publications. Where the New Series is mentioned in the following pages the fact is indicated; the later books of the Chetham Society, however, do not contain much material for the purpose.

In the Record Society's Publications (Nos. 24, 26, 29 and 36) are four volumes of extracts from the Composition Papers of the local Royalists.

These books contain some valuable details of general information.

The Historic Society Transactions for 1852 give an account of the Siege of Warrington in 1643 by Dr. Kenrick, and the New Series, Volume 5, an article on the Earl of Derby by Mr. F. J. Leslie.

Next come the Public Records, the "Journals of the House of Lords" and the "Journals of the House of Commons," and the "Calendars of Domestic State Papers," which connect the local history with the general course of events. The "Reports of the Historical MSS. Commission" also contain a great deal of very important though scattered information, chiefly in the form of letters. Most valuable are the Denbigh MSS. (Report 4), Sutherland MSS. (Report 5), the "Moore Papers" in Capt. Stewart's MSS.

(Report 10, app. 4) and the Portland MSS., vols. 1, 2 and 3. The contemporary Diary of the Siege of Manchester in the Sutherland MSS. (p.

142) is perhaps the best existing account of the Siege. The Kenyon MSS.

give much information as to the condition of Lancas.h.i.+re in the 17th century, though not bearing directly on the Civil War.

Clarendon's "History of the Great Rebellion" presents the Royalist standpoint, and amongst other contemporary or nearly contemporary authorities may be mentioned Rushworth's "Historical Collections" (1692 edition in 7 volumes), Whitelock's "Memorials" (1732 edit.), "Autobiography of Captain John Hodgson" (Brighouse, 1882), Seacome's "House of Stanley" (2nd ed. Manchester, 1767), and Hughes' "Boscobel Tracts" (ed. 1830). More modern biographical works are: E. G. B.

Warburton's "Prince Rupert" (3 vols. 1849), Leon Marlet's "Charlotte de la Tremoille Comtesse de Derby" (Paris, 1895), and the "Life of the Earl of Derby" prefixed by Canon Raines to his edition of the Stanley Papers (Chetham Society, Nos. 66, 69 and 70). Seacome had the use of the papers of Bishop Rutter, the chaplain of the Stanley family, and gives valuable information not elsewhere obtainable, but he is very inaccurate and bia.s.sed. Canon Raines is a violent partisan and quite uncritical. There are notices in the "Dictionary of National Biography" of the Earl of Derby and of the Countess of Derby by Professor A. F. Pollard, and also of a few other local leaders: and of some of the more prominent Lancas.h.i.+re Roman Catholics in Mr. Joseph Gillow's "Dictionary of Catholic Biography."

In the British Museum are some Tracts and Newspapers which escaped Mr.

Ormerod's notice. The Tracts are nearly all in the Thomason Collection, which have recently been made much more accessible by the Catalogue in two volumes, issued in 1908. References in the following pages has always been made to the Civil War Tracts where possible, and to the British Museum Catalogue only when the Tract or Newspaper has not been reprinted anywhere. The princ.i.p.al newspapers are the Royalist "Mercurius Aulicus": and "Perfect Diurnall" (which has several issues), "Certaine Informations, Continuation of Certaine Speciall and Remarkable Pa.s.sages," and "Letters from Scotland," &c. on the other side. The last mentioned, which belongs to 1648 and gives a great deal of local information, is not quoted at all by Mr. Ormerod. None of the Newspapers are very reliable but the "Mercurius Aulicus" is hopelessly inaccurate.

Of MSS. in the British Museum, the Rupert MSS. contain letters referring to the invasion from Ireland, and Prince Rupert's march north in 1644; the Brereton MSS. deal with the relations between Lancas.h.i.+re and Ches.h.i.+re. They concern us mainly in the Spring and Summer of 1645, when the two counties co-operated against the projected royalist march northwards; and afterwards later in the same year, when Lancas.h.i.+re help was needed to complete the reduction of Chester. The Rupert MSS. are Additional MSS. 18980, 18981: the Brereton MSS. Additional MSS. 11331, 11332, 11333.

Other MSS. Collections are the Tanner MSS. and the Carte MSS. in the Bodleian Library. The former contain some letters of the local parliamentarian committee to the Speaker, and some royalist ones dealing with the campaign of 1651. With these must be mentioned the reprints from the Tanner MSS. in Cary's "Memorials of the Great Civil War"

(1842). The Carte MSS. being mostly Ormonde Papers, relate to the landing of troops from Ireland in December, 1643, and the events of the following Spring and Summer; and many letters of the Earl of Derby to Ormonde of later date, throwing light on the royalist leader's retirement in the Isle of Man.

Gardiner's History is always valuable to the student of the period, even in so local a subject as the present. Naturally the references to Lancas.h.i.+re are, however, few, and errors of detail sometimes occur.

The following abbreviations have been used:--

C.J.--Commons' Journals.

L.J.--Lords' Journals.

C.S.P.--Calendar of State Papers (Domestic).

C.W.T.--Civil War Tracts of Lancas.h.i.+re.

Discourse.--The Discourse of the Warr in Lancas.h.i.+re.

C.S.--Chetham Society.

R.S.--Record Society.

INTRODUCTION

The Civil War in Lancas.h.i.+re is an exceedingly interesting and perhaps the most stirring chapter in the history of the county. It was a real struggle; it is sufficiently complete in itself to be studied as a separate subject; while at the same time it ill.u.s.trates the leading ideas of the Civil War as a whole, and it had a not unimportant bearing upon the course of the war in the North of England.

In some counties either King or Parliament had a sufficient majority of supporters either to prevent fighting, or where there was fighting to make the result certain; but in Lancas.h.i.+re there was a keen struggle for supremacy between the two parties. Lancas.h.i.+re was one of the first counties to take up arms, as it was one of the last to lay them down; and it was for some time doubtful which side would win.

Geographical conditions were most important and must be described at some length. Lancas.h.i.+re was in the 17th century an isolated, remote, and backward part of England. The eastern counties were then the richest and most populous, and the political centre of England was for long after this in the south. Lancas.h.i.+re lay aside from the main lines of communication. It had no great river and no considerable port, Liverpool being still a very small town. The soil is not fertile, and before the opening up of the coalfields and the development of the cotton trade made Lancas.h.i.+re one of the richest parts of England, it was a poor and thinly populated county. Much of it was and still is barren moorland; much of it was then marsh land which has since been drained. A glance at the map will show that the words 'moor' and 'moss' in place names occur dozens of times. Moreover the natural boundaries are very sharply defined. Lancas.h.i.+re consists roughly of a coast plain divided into two by the estuary of the Ribble, and a higher eastern portion rising toward the border of the county. Its shape can be roughly contained in an acute-angled triangle, the two longer sides being the west and east. The west is coast line, the east is an almost continuous range of hills, forming part of the Pennine Chain. From the Lune valley in the north to the extreme south-east of the county there is only one good natural entrance into Lancas.h.i.+re. This is by the Ribble valley, a smaller break in the hills to the south of the Forest of Pendle joining the Ribble valley lower down. 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 Lancas.h.i.+re 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 Lancas.h.i.+re is seldom lower than 1000 feet above sea level, and rising in places to 1700 and 1800 feet. Along the southern and most accessible side of Lancas.h.i.+re the boundary is formed by the river Mersey, which is a considerable stream for much of the border; and the low-lying land to the north of the river was in the 17th century mostly undrained marsh, forming a strong barrier. Thus Lancas.h.i.+re was effectually isolated by its natural boundaries from the neighbouring counties.

These geographical conditions had two great effects on the war in Lancas.h.i.+re. In the first place they enabled the issue to be decided within the county without help or hindrance from outside. There was of course some connection with Yorks.h.i.+re and Ches.h.i.+re, but mostly in the later years of the war; at first the war was fought out by local troops within the county itself. This is no drawback to the study of our subject, for the Civil War was very largely a local war and can best be studied locally. It was not, like the Wars of the Roses, a dynastic struggle, in which the nation generally had no direct interest; but its causes, political, religious and social, went down to the primary divisions of opinion among Englishmen which have existed ever since, and to some extent do so to-day. The course of the Civil War in Lancas.h.i.+re shows the working out on a smaller stage of the main principles of the period. The religious question was of course very prominent. The local royalists were either in sympathy with the King's ecclesiastical policy, or they were Roman Catholics. Lancas.h.i.+re had been conservative in religion, and there was a very large Roman Catholic population; particularly the west coast and the Fylde adhered, as to some extent they still do, to the ancient faith. And though at first Catholics were not openly included in the royalist armies, and indeed Lord Strange's first warrants definitely excluded them,[1] the exclusion was only temporary. A pet.i.tion of the Lancas.h.i.+re recusants to the King to bear arms 'for their own defence' was granted, and paved the way for their admission to the royalist ranks. Some of the most prominent of the Lancas.h.i.+re 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 Lancas.h.i.+re. 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 Lancas.h.i.+re Parliament men were Presbyterians; indeed so strong was Presbyterianism as to produce in this county the most completely organized system in England of Presbyterian church government. This development occurred after the end of the first Civil War. The Parliament therefore had the steady support of the Lancas.h.i.+re leaders in the early part of the struggle; but with the growth of Independency, they became more and more out of sympathy with the ruling powers. By 1648 the relations between the two had become so strained that there was some doubt about the support of Lancas.h.i.+re being forthcoming against the Scotch Invasion. Eventually the differences were overcome because the invaders were Scots, and the Lancas.h.i.+re troops rendered valuable service at the battle of Preston. But there was no common ground for the Presbyterians and Cromwell; and in 1651, when Charles II. marched through Lancas.h.i.+re, the county was really in his favour. The Earl of Derby, Charles' general in Lancas.h.i.+re, had an interview with the leading Presbyterians, and it was only the impossibility of reconciling their opinions, and the exhaustion of the county after nine years of war which prevented Lancas.h.i.+re from being completely raised in Charles' favour.

The side of the war from which it appears as a cla.s.s struggle is also ill.u.s.trated in Lancas.h.i.+re. The head of the local royalists was James Stanley, seventh Earl of Derby, representing the great house of Stanley which had been for generations all-powerful in the north-west of England; the leaders on the other side were the lesser gentry who stood to gain by the weakening of his power, and behind them was the awakening spirit of the towns. The first event of the war in September, 1642, was Derby's unsuccessful siege of Manchester; the hardest fought engagement was the royalist capture of Bolton in 1644; the last scene, seven years later, was Derby's own execution in Bolton market place. These things are significant of the place which the towns were beginning to take.

And with the Earl of Derby in 1651 died the last of feudalism in Lancas.h.i.+re.

The geographical conditions had another effect in that as the two parties were divided the Parliament held in this respect the advantage.

Their territory was the south and south-east of the county which was the most accessible part of it. Thus the royalists were cut off from the neighbouring counties, and once at least, in August, 1644, when Newcastle had overrun all Yorks.h.i.+re and sent from Halifax a summons to Manchester, the moorland barrier saved the Lancas.h.i.+re Parliamentarians from having an invasion to face. Blackstone Edge was fortified and the difficulty of the ground was enough to secure the safety of the county.

Yet although the war in Lancas.h.i.+re was mostly fought out locally, the result had a considerable effect on the war in the north of England generally. This has been too much neglected in the general text books.

The north-west of England was in 1642 mainly Royalist; so was the neighbouring district of North Wales; and in 1642 Lancas.h.i.+re was mainly royalist too. The King's party thought themselves and their opponents thought them the stronger side. Yet in less than twelve months after Edgehill the Royalist party in Lancas.h.i.+re was completely defeated; and though Prince Rupert's hurricane descent on the county on his way to York in 1644 changed things for a little while, it was only a temporary change, and had no permanent result on the war in Lancas.h.i.+re. This meant much, for it was in the summer of 1643, when the Lancas.h.i.+re Parliamentarians were carrying all before them in their county, that the King's cause generally was at its height; and not only in the south of England but even in Yorks.h.i.+re and Ches.h.i.+re. In the spring of 1643 Sir Wm. Brereton was holding his own in Ches.h.i.+re with difficulty; after Newcastle's victory over the Fairfaxes at Adwalton Moor in July all Yorks.h.i.+re except Hull was royalist territory. If the royalists had kept Lancas.h.i.+re in 1642 as they expected, or had regained it afterwards as they were always hoping to do, the King would have been supreme in the north of England, and the war might have been considerably prolonged.

In mere numbers the royalists in Lancas.h.i.+re 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 Lancas.h.i.+re, 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; and several royalist gentlemen raised troops of horse for the King from among their tenants in Lancas.h.i.+re. No Parliamentarian troops were ever marched out of the county until the issue at home was decided. But when this allowance has been made it must be acknowledged that the Parliament's success was due to the greater ability of its supporters.

Derby was no leader though personally brave; no one could supersede him on account of his rank, and the conduct of the war in Lancas.h.i.+re for the King demanded far more ability than he possessed. On the other hand it happened that the Parliamentarian leaders, a.s.sheton, Shuttleworth, Moore, Rigby and others were if not brilliant generals at least capable men. And not only had the Parliament the advantage in leaders but in the rank and file. Its soldiers were better led but they were better soldiers also. Clarendon's words on this subject may be quoted:--

"the difference in the temper of the common people of both sides was so great that they who inclined to the Parliament left nothing unperformed that they might advance the cause, and were incredibly vigorous and industrious to cross and hinder whatsoever might provoke the King's; whereas they who wished well to him thought they had performed their duty in doing so, and that they had done enough for him that they had done nothing against him."[2]

This judgment of the relative zeal of the two parties is true at any rate of Lancas.h.i.+re.

Small as Lancas.h.i.+re 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. The next two years were occupied in reducing the last royalist strongholds, in meeting Rupert's invasion, and after he had gone in doing over again the work which his coming had undone. During the remainder of the period the outstanding military events are the coming of the Scots in 1648 and the rising when Charles II. invaded England in 1651. With the defeat and death of the last royalists at Wigan Lane, and the execution of the Earl of Derby the Civil War in Lancas.h.i.+re may be said to end.