26 A HISTORY OF LONGRIDGE. [Chap. 1. 



found very hard ; and that he battered Clitheroe Castle down from the 

 end of Longridge Fell, Kemple End, but it is probable these are only- 

 some of the many legendary stories which have attached themselves to 

 the name of the great Protector/ 



The Earl of Derby set out, in April, 1643, to put down disaffection 

 in East Lancashire. Moving up the valley of the Eibble, he, " with 

 all the other great Papists in this County, issued out of Preston, and 

 on Wednesday noon [April 19th] came to Eibchester with eleven 

 troops of horse, 700 foot, and infinite of clubmen, in all conceived to 

 be 5,000. From Eibchester he marched, with discretion, over Eibble 

 at Salesbiu-y boat and by Salesbury Hall, and he was well neare 

 gotten to Whaley before he was discovered, his clubmen, according to 

 their practice, plundering in most of the towns they passed by or 

 through. But the Cavaliers were no match for the Eoundheads, the 

 result of the expedition being a heavy defeat at Whaley, and were 

 finally driven out of the district by way of Eibchester and Salesbury. 

 This ' affair at Eibchester ' would, perhaps, be more correctly 

 described as the ' Battle of Blackburn.' " 



The Pbotectorate. 



After the suppression of the Chantries, Longridge became the 

 parochial chapelry of a poor district. In 1650 its poverty came forcibly 

 before the Commissioners of the Parliamentary survey during the 

 Commonwealth, when it was stated that it had neither minister nor 

 maintenance, although the district contained 140 families, who, 

 deploring their spiritual destitution, humbly desired the Legislature to 

 afford them a competent endowment, to appoint a minister, and to 

 constitute their district a distinct parish. The sequel to this petition 

 wiU be found in chapter II. 



1 One extract from the parish registers cavalier, aged 122, de Alston.' This 



of Ribchester Church may he given here man had a horse killed under him at the 



with Dr. Whittaker's remarks:— "At battle of Edge HiU. How long he re- 



the Church of Ribchester was interred, tained his mental faculties I do not 



in all probabiHty, the last survivor of all know; if nearly to the close of life he 



who had borue arms in the war between must have been a living chronicle 



Charles I. and the Parliament, for in extremely interesting and curious." — 



the parish register is this entry : ' 1736. (" History of Richmondshire," ii., 465.) 

 Jan. 13, buried William Walker, a 



