AMOUNDERNESS HUNDRED 



PRESTON 



election of a member was left to the choice of Sir 

 Robert Cecil. 8 



The position of the town in the centre of the 

 county and on a great road from south to north 

 has occasioned its being the scene of many stormy 

 events. On 4 November 1315 Adam Banastre and 

 his confederates led their force to Preston, and, having 

 overcome Sir Adam de Huddleston and others sent 

 to check them, captured the place and made levies 

 on the townsmen. Later in the same day, however, 

 they were overthrown by Edmund de Nevill, the 

 sheriff, who led the main force of the county. 9 Some 

 seven years later the parish was laid waste by the 

 Scots, who probably burnt the town. 10 A minor 

 disturbance took place in 1338, when John, Nicholas 

 and William Deuyas, with a number of armed com- 

 rades, having crossed the Ribble, made sundry assaults 

 at Ribchester and then went on to Preston. Here 

 they lay hid in the fields near the Grey Friars' house, 

 and when Thomas Starkie and others came near 

 those in ambush set upon them, shooting arrows and 

 driving them into the Friars' church. The rioters 

 afterwards went to Kidsnape in Goosnargh. 11 



In 1332 a total of <) 4*. j^d. was raised in the 

 parish by a subsidy, the hundred paying 53 1 8/. ^ \d. 

 The amounts for the various townships li are much 

 the same as those fixed for the ' fifteenth ' ls ; while 

 the county lay of 1624, considered a fair tax at the 

 time, required the parish to contribute 15 ijs. \\d. 

 towards jioo for Amounderness. 14 This shows a 

 reduction in the relative value of Preston in the 

 300 years' interval. 



About 1340 the borough had not only the parish 

 church, but an old leper hospital with its chapel and 

 A house and church of Grey Friars 15 ; the chapel at 

 Broughton probably existed, and one or two minor 

 oratories. In the centre of the parish was the forest 

 district of Fulwood, in which the burgesses had 

 secured certain rights. The parish suffered from the 

 plague in 134950 ; the Archdeacon of Richmond 

 in a claim for probate dues alleged that 3,000 men 

 and women had succumbed to it, and the jury, in 

 allowing him 10, seem to have estimated the number 

 of wills proved as about fifty in the period defined, 

 viz. from 8 September i 349 to 1 1 January following. 16 

 Some trouble with the labourers appears to have 

 followed the plague. 17 



The Guild meetings are known to have been held 



early in the I4th century, for Kuerden has preserved 

 certain regulations of a mayor's court held in June 

 I328, 18 in which reference was made to an order 

 decreed 'in the time of our last Guild Merchant.' 

 It was agreed that the mayor, bailiffs and burgesses 

 might ' set a guild merchant at every twenty years,' 

 if necessary, the fees to 'go whole to the mayor at 

 the renewing of the guild and refreshing of our 

 town,' the object being the preservation of the guild, 

 and therefore of the royal charter, by a regular 

 purging of the roll and admission of new burgesses. 19 

 The earliest roll extant is that of 1397, and in spite 

 of the order quoted the Guilds were held at irregular 

 intervals; from 1542, however, they have been 

 celebrated every twenty years without a break, the 

 latest being that of 1902.* From 1562 the time of 

 holding the festival has been the Monday after 

 29 August, the Decollation of St. John Baptist, 

 patron of the guild. The roll of 1397 gives first 

 the In Burgesses ' those who are in the forenamed 

 guild and whose fathers were in ' it ; then the 

 Foreign Burgesses knights and gentry of the county 

 in many cases " ; and then ' the names of those whose 

 fathers were not in the forenamed guild and there- 

 fore made fine.' M The entries afford information 

 as to the trades practised in the town, for there are 

 named chaloner, coaler, draper, fleshewer, glover, 

 mason, mercer, miller, saddler, souter, spicer, tailor, 

 webster and wright. At the back of the roll are 

 names of women members, being widows or daughters 

 of members. 13 



The class of foreign burgesses was at first very 

 small, but in the 1 7th century and later ' wholesale 

 admissions of the neighbouring gentry and others 

 seeking connexion with Preston as a matter of honour 

 or social advantage . . . and the promotion of many 

 Out Burgesses of long standing to the class of In 

 Burgesses with its larger privileges,' made the number 

 of non-resident burgesses larger than that of the 

 townsmen enrolled, and ' it became necessary to check 

 the process of appropriation of these franchises by 

 non-residents and strangers.' " An inferior class 

 named Stallingers first appeared in the roll of 1562 ; 

 they were permitted to live and trade in the town, 

 but not admitted to be burgesses. The new borough 

 created seventy years ago destroyed the political im- 

 portance of the guild, but it remains in full vigour 

 as a popular festival. 



8 Cecil MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com.), xi, 

 443- 



9 Coram Rege R. 254, m. 52. Adam 

 de Bury and William the Marshal were 

 among the townsmen whose goods were 

 taken by the insurgents. 



10 Preston was taken by the Scots in 

 1322; see V.C.H. Lanes, ii, 199. The 

 extent of 1346, quoted later, mentions a 

 house which had been burnt by them. 



11 Assize R. 430, m. 22. Thomas 

 Starkie and others in 1343 terrified the 

 bailiffs in order to prevent the execution 

 of writs and caused disturbances ; ibid, 

 m. 21 d. 



12 Preston, 53*. 4^. ; Ribbleton, 

 I2J. i J</. ; Grimsargh and Brockholes, 

 H*. lod. ; Elston, 141. Bd. ; Fishwick, 

 8i. ; Broughton, z6s. %d. ; Haighton, us.; 

 Barton, 241. ; Lea and Ashton, each 

 Us. 6d.; Exch. Lay Subs. (Rec. Soc. 

 Lanes, and Ches.), 54-72. 



18 Gregson, F ragments (ed. Harland), 19. 

 14 Ibid. 23. The townships paid thus: 



Preston, 4 us. i\d.; Ribbleton, 

 i 2s. i\d. ; Grimsargh and Brockholes, 

 ijt. \\d. ; Elston, i 9s. 6d. ; Fishwick, 

 17*. i \d. ; Broughton, z 51. -j\d. ; 

 Haighton, 1 31. nj</. ; Barton, 

 1 181. 9j</. ; Lea, 151. z^d. 5 Ashton, 

 &c., 171. %d. In addition Myerscough 

 paid 3 is. \\d. 



14 Leland (/'. iv, 22) states that the 

 Friars' house was built on ' the soil of a 

 gentleman named Preston,' and that 

 several of his family were buried there, as 

 also some of the Shireburnes and Daltons. 



16 Engl. Hist. Rei>. v, 526-7. 



17 Ibid, xxi, 534, citing Anct. Indict- 

 ments, Lane. 54. 



18 Kuerden MSS. iv, P 23 ; printed by 

 Abram, Memorials of the Preston Guilds, 8. 



19 It was ordered that ' all manner of 

 burgess the which is made burgess by 

 court roll and out of the Guild Merchant, 

 shall never be mayor nor bailiff nor scr- 

 jeant ; but only the burgess the which the 

 name be in the Guild Merchant last 



73 



made before ; for the king give* the free- 

 dom to the burgesses which are in the 

 Guild and to none other.' 



20 Guilds are known to have been held 

 in 1397, 1415, 1459 and 1500; this is 

 believed Ito be a complete list for the 

 period covered. The rolls of the three 

 former and those of the guilds from 1542 

 to 1682 have been printed by the Record 

 Society of Lancashire and Cheshire( vol. ix). 

 The originals are preserved at Preston. 

 The roll of 1500 has been lost, but there 

 are notes of it in Kuerden MSS. iv, P 36. 



21 The 1397 list is headed by Sir 

 Richard de Hoghton. 



22 The fines were of various amounts, 

 from zs. up to 40*. 



23 In 1562 it was ordered that widows 

 should 'have and enjoy such liberties and 

 freedoms during their widowhood as their 

 husbands in lifetime had and enjoyed by 

 reason of their burgess-ship.' 



24 W. A. Abram in introduction to 

 Guild R. 



10 



