Forest of Rossendale. 95 



and beating them back to Leigh, killed some, and wounded many ; 

 where you would wonder to have seen the forwardness of the 

 young youths, farmers' sons. ... The nailers of Chowbent, 

 instead of making nails, have busied themselves in making bills 

 and battle-axes ; and also this week the other part of the country 

 meet, and not only intend to stand upon their guard, but to disarm 

 all the Papists and malignants within their precincts, and to send 

 them prisoners to Manchester, to keep house with Sir Cecil Trafford, 

 who is there a prisoner. The men of Blackburn, Padiham, Burn- 

 ley, Clitheroe, and Colne, and those sturdy churls in the two forests 

 of Pendle and Rossendale, have raised their spirits, and are re- 

 solved to fight it out rather than their beef and fat bacon shall be 

 taken from them." (/) 



The interest which we feel in perusing the names of the 

 Greaves does not abate during the years of the Protectorate, and 

 after the Restoration, down through the reign of Charles II. and 

 his successor, James II., to the next Revolution, and the en- 

 thronement of the third William ; and, after the latter, to the days of 

 the "Good Queen Anne," and the victories of the illustrious 

 Marlborough. 



This interest increases rather than otherwise during the time of 

 the two rebellions of the Stuarts in the i8th century, and when the 

 first and second Georges occupied the throne ; because, in addi- 

 tion to the names of the Greaves, we possess some local MS. 

 records of the times, to which reference will be made. 



The appointment of Greave of the Forest from any particular 

 Booth recurred every 17 years. At first the interval was 18 years, 

 but that was due to the circumstance that during the earlier period 

 the nomination of a Greave was omitted for some one year. There 

 were really twenty Booths in the Forest under the jurisdiction of 

 the Lord of the Honor, in addition to Brandwood Higher and 

 Lower Ends which belonged to the Abbots of Whalley Abbey ; 

 but it would appear that the three \Volfendens, viz : Wolfenden 



(/) Cited by Baines, vol. II. p. 17. 



