A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



demanded." 9 Attendance was compulsory on all bur- 

 gesses on penalty of a fine of is. tM The assembly 

 elected freemen, 1 " and occasionally expelled them 

 from the liberties. 1 " Distinct from the assembly was 

 the Portmoot and Great Leet, held twice yearly. 

 The Great Portmoot immediately followed the annual 

 assembly, and elected all the minor officers, among 

 whom may be named the serjeant at mace, two 

 churchwardens two leve-lookers, two moss-reeves, 

 four mise-cessors and prysors, two stewards of the 

 common-hall, a water-bailiff, a hayward, two ale- 

 testers." 5 The portmoot was the lineal descendant 

 of the old manorial court, and as such the right to 

 hold it was claimed by the lessee of the farm. When 

 this right was exercised, as in 1555, portmoot and 

 assembly were at war," 4 but normally almost all 

 business was indifferently transacted at either. At 

 the portmoot presentments of breaches of burghal 

 custom were made by a jury of twenty -four or twelve 

 burgesses impanelled by the bailiffs ; they also * ap- 

 pointed and set down ' all sorts of orders or by-laws, 

 indistinguishable in character from those passed by the 

 assembly of burgesses, and including many affairs not 

 properly coming within the sphere of a manorial court, 

 but rather belonging to the sphere of the gild- 

 merchant. 



The mayor exercised supreme control over the 

 whole executive business of the borough, the bailiffs 

 and other officers being under his orders. He was 

 always either a leading merchant, or a country gentle- 

 man of the neighbourhood. He presided over the 

 ordinary sessions of the borough court, now called the 

 mayor's court, which does not seem to have been 

 claimed by the lessees. With him acted * the Mayor's 

 Brethren ' or aldermen, who were not popularly 

 elected, but seem to have consisted of the ex-mayors. 

 It is clear that this system of government was breaking 

 down ; and it was to undergo great changes in the 

 next period. 



In the second half of the century it becomes possi- 

 ble to trace in more detail the movement of popula- 

 tion and the development of trade. In 1565 there 

 were 144 names on the burgess rolls, 2 " but some of 

 these were non-resident, and the number of resident 

 burgesses was probably about izo. In the same year 

 the number of householders is given as ijS. 256 In 

 1572,*" of 159 names in the burgess roll about 130 

 may have been resident, while in 1589 * 58 there were 

 190 names on the roll, of whom over 150 were 

 resident. The number of houses rated for a subsidy 

 in 1581 was 202. K9 Including therefore resident 

 burgesses and other non-burgess inhabitants, we may 

 estimate the population at about 700 or 800 in the 

 middle of the century, increasing slowly to about 

 1,000 or 1,200 at its close. In other words, the i6th 

 century only succeeded in bringing the population 

 back to the figure it had already attained in 1346. 

 The explanation of this slow growth is to be found 



largely in the ravages of the plague which repeatedly 

 attacked Liverpool during the period. The visitation 

 of 1558 was so virulent that the fair was dropped in 

 that year, no markets were held for three months, and 

 over 240 persons, or one-fourth of the population, 

 are said to have died.* 60 



The progress of shipping was equally unsatisfactory. 

 A return of I 5 5 7 Kl shows that there were in the port 

 one ship of 100 tons and one of 50 tons, 161 together 

 with seven smaller vessels, while four vessels of 

 between 10 and 30 tons were at sea ; there were 200 

 sailors connected with the port. In 1565 16S there 

 were fifteen vessels, three of which belonged to 

 Wallasey ; the largest was of 40 tons burthen, and 

 the number of seamen was about eighty. In 1586 184 

 sixteen vessels can be counted in the entrances and 

 clearances for a single month ; probably the list is 

 not exhaustive. The character of the port's trade 

 continued unchanged. Manchester, Bolton, and 

 Blackburn men frequented the market to buy Irish 

 yarns,* 65 and sell ' Manchester cottons ' (coatings) ; 18S 

 the outgoing trade was mainly to Ireland, and consisted 

 of mixed cargoes of coals, woollens, Sheffield knives, 

 leather goods, and small wares. The return cargoes 

 from Dublin, Drogheda, and Carlingford were invari- 

 ably of yarns, hides, and sheep skins or fells. The 

 foreign trade was of small proportions, and seems 

 mainly to have been conducted by foreigners. But we 

 hear of a Lancashire family sending to Liverpool to buy 

 ' 44 quarts of sack, 8 5 quarts of claret, 4 cwt. of iron, 

 4 lb. of pitch.' K7 French and Spanish ships were 

 sometimes brought as prizes into Liverpool, but not 

 by Liverpool captains. 263 Piracy was rampant, and 

 government had much ado to keep it in check even in 

 the Irish Sea. 169 There were, it is true, one or two 

 merchants in Liverpool who traded with Spain ;*" 

 one of these spent twelve months in a Spanish prison 

 in 1585-6, and on returning was the first to give 

 details of the preparation of the Armada. 171 But the 

 trade with Spain was on so small a scale that when 

 the monopolist Spanish trading company was estab- 

 lished in 1578,*" the Liverpool merchants were con- 

 temptuously excused from submission to its regulations 

 on the ground that they were only engaged in small 

 retail trade. Even from the payment of tonnage and 

 poundage duties Liverpool was exempt until the 

 reign of Elizabeth, 173 no doubt because the yield 

 would be so small as not to be worth the cost of 

 collection. 



It was probably for this reason that during the 

 reign of Elizabeth the central government treated 

 Liverpool as part of a large customs district which 

 included the ports of North Wales, and had its centre 

 at Chester. Orders of various sorts were frequently 

 transmitted to the Mayor of Liverpool through the 

 Mayor of Chester ; * 74 in one writ Liverpool and 

 Chester were treated as a single port, 875 while in 

 another Liverpool was actually catalogued with Chester 



**' Mun. Rec. i, pattim. 

 **e.g. Ibid, i, izb, ijA. 

 " Ibid, i, 6a, yb. 

 Ibid. i, 12*. 



** See especially the elections of 1551 

 and 1558 ; Munic. Rec. i, 34, and 394. 

 254 Mimic. Rec. i, iza, 13*. 

 855 Ibid, i, 131*. 



* Ibid, i, 32*. M7 Ibid, ii, 21. 



M Ibid, ii, 375. 

 *** Ibid, ii, 210. 

 *o IbiJ. i, 39.. 



961 Ibid, i, 320. 



363 These may have come from other 

 ports, as there is no mention of ships of 

 this size in Liverpool later in the cen- 

 tury. 



Ks Munic. Rec. i, 144. 



964 This list of clearances is printed 

 from the Munic. Rec. by Raines, Liver- 

 pool, 242 ff. 



868 Picton, Munic. Rec. i, 76. 



868 Acts of P.C. 1558-70, p. 308; 

 Picton, Munic. Rec. i, 88. 



16 



267 Stewards Accts. of the Shuttlewortht 

 (Chet. Soc. xxxv), 1 8. 



M8 Act: of P.C. 1 558-70, pp. 271, 305 } 



1580-1, p. 212. 



269 Ibid. 1558-70, pp. 278, 288. 



270 Picton, Munic. Rec. i, 39. 



271 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. v, App. i, 

 57 8. 



272 Picton, Munic. Rec. i, 44. 

 278 Munic. Rec. i, 15611. 



274 e.g. Acts of P.C. 1580-1, p. 214, 



275 Acts of P.C. 1589-90, p. 298. 



