ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



being neglected, threatened to take it from him ; ^^^ while Northburgh made 

 at least one personal visitation of this portion of his diocese (ijso)/"" and 

 four years later corrected some disorders at Holland Priory.''''' His successor, 

 however, was the illiterate Robert de Stretton, whom the Black Prince forced 

 into the see after a good deal of resistance on the part of the pope and the 

 archbishop of Canterbury, who both at first rejected him propter defectum 

 literaturae ; he was unable to read his profession of obedience to the arch- 

 bishop, and most of his episcopal work during the twenty-five years (i 360-85) 

 he held the see was done by suffragans."'* Richard le Scrope, on the con- 

 trary, who presided over the diocese in the later years of the century until 

 he became archbishop of York, was a man of learning and high character. 



The list of archdeacons of Richmond in the early part of the period 

 affords good instances of the way in which foreigners were still provided 

 for in England. This important ofRce was held in close succession by 

 Gerard de Vyspeyns, subsequently bishop of Lausanne ; Francesco Gaetani, 

 Cardinal of St. Mary in Cosmedin, and Elias son of Elias de Talleyrand, 

 count of Perigord and afterwards (1328) bishop of Auxerre.**'^ Of any 

 opposition to the church system and doctrines there is in Lancashire no trace. 

 LoUardy never got a footing so far north. In 1337, while WyclifFe was still 

 a boy. Sir William de Clifton refused to allow those of his tenants who were 

 living in open sin to be corrected or punished by the parish clergy of Kirk- 

 ham, and had his infant baptized without the baptismal font of the church, 

 but these were mere incidents in a bitter quarrel with the abbot of Vale 

 Royal over the payment of tithe."'" 



The unshaken attachment of the county to the existing ecclesiastical 

 establishment is amply "attested by the many benefactions bestowed on it in 

 the fifteenth century. It benefited largely by the prosperity which the 

 landed gentry of Lancashire derived from the new and close connexion of 

 the county with the crown, a prosperity of which the most conspicuous 

 instances were the rapid rise of the house of Stanley and the high positions 

 in Church and State attained by members of the local families of Booth and 

 Langley. Three sons of John Booth of Barton rose to episcopal rank ; John 

 became bishop of Exeter *'*'' (1465), William bishop of Coventry and Lich- 

 field (1447-52) and archbishop of York (1452-64), and Laurence, bishop 

 of Durham (1457-76), archbishop of York (1476-80), and Lord Chan- 

 cellor. Thomas Langley of the Middleton family was bishop of Durham 

 (1406-37), Lord Chancellor and a cardinal. With the exception of John 

 Booth they were considerable benefactors to the Church of their native 

 county. Langley rebuilt Middleton church, in which he founded a chantry, 

 and William and Laurence Booth endowed two chantries in the church of 

 Eccles. The foundation of chantries was more than ever the favourite form 



"^ Lich. Epis. Reg. Langton, fol. 2z. 

 Ibid. Northburgh, vol. i, fol. 1 5 83. 



933 



Ibid. vol. ii, fol. 6oi. "* Diet. Nat. Biog. Iv, 47. 



^^ Cat. Pap. Letters, ii, 53, 218 ; Le Neve, Fasti Eccl. Angl. iii, 137. 



^' Hist, of Kirkham (Chet. Soc), 34-5. Clifton and his tenants drove the tithe collectors away by force 

 of arms, assaulted the priests and clerks in the church, and scourged the abbot's clerk in the streets of Preston 

 even to effusion of blood. In the end Clifton had to make restitution and seek absolution, while the tenants 

 had to present a large wax candle to the church, which was carried round it on the feast of palms, and to swear 

 never more to injure Kirkham church. 



^'' He was previously rector of Leigh and warden of Manchester. 



2 33 S 



