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Dramatic Boggaets. " - 



There were at least two boggarts associated with the Towneley's, 

 aiid although one of the two can scarcely be considered strictly 

 local the name entitles it to consideration here. " Towneley's 

 Ghost " was an essentially dramatic boggart. There used to be 

 a tradition in Burnley that a Towueley reviewed his men in front 

 of the Old Sparrow Hawk on the morning previous to starting to 

 join the ill-iated army of Prince Charles Edward. That Towneley 

 became a Colonel in the Manchester Regiment. He it was whose 

 head, with that of Captain Fletcher, was exposed upon Temple 

 Bar, seeing which, Goldsmith, passing under it with Johnson, 

 whispered to the illustrious Jacobite doctor, " Our heads yet may 

 shine with theirs." Colonel Towneley underwent a most cruel 

 and barbarous death. On the BOth July, 1746, he, with a num- 

 ber of other officers, was executed on Kenniugton Common. 

 Five minutes after suspension, and even before signs of life had 

 ceased, the body of tliis brave man was cut down. Stripped and 

 being laid on a block the hangman with a cleaver severed the 

 head and put it into a box. Then taking out his bowels and 

 heart he threw them into a fire of faggots kindled for the purpose, 

 exclaiming, " So perish all the king's eneniies." This use of 

 boggarts in literature was no new invention. Some nameless 

 Jacobite writer, fired by the unquenchable hatred of " the Butcher 

 Cumberland," which was as justified as it was ever possible lor 

 hatred to be, invoked the Shade of the gallant Towneley who 

 capitulated at Carlisle, in order to add intolerable sufferings to 

 the richly-merited agonies of that abominable political monstros- 

 ity. The ballad of " Towneley's Ghost " will ever have a 

 place amongst the literature and philosophy of Lancashire 

 Boggarts. 



Political Boggabts. 



If some boggarts originated from the play of the affections, 

 others in fireside variations of authentic tragedies, and some in 

 the literary skill of strong political partisans, a. still greater 

 number were invented by the poor oppressed peasantry in the 

 hope of winning for themselves protection against wrongdoers in 

 high places who in the old times were left free by contending 

 political factions to do as they liked with those beneath them in 

 station, so long as they did not interfere with the political - 

 arrangements of their social superiors. There is at least one- 

 good example of this kind of boggart in East Lancashire. Every- 

 body in Burnley knows where the Boggart Brig is, for it is on the ■ 

 very confines of the thriving and still extending borough. Des-- 

 pite collieries and factory smoke it is still a picturesque spot, and 

 the fit resting-place for the Towneley boggart which was reported 

 to come every seven years, and before being appeased demand the 



