POLITICAL HISTORY 



After the defeat and capture of Lancaster at Boroughbridge, where some 

 Lancashire men fought on his side (i6 March),'" and his execution at Ponte- 

 fract the county with all his other possessions was seised into the king's hand 

 as a forfeited estate, and was not restored to his heir until after Edward's 

 death. The same fate befell the estates of a number of his Lancashire 

 partisans, among them Robert de Holland, though he apparently deserted the 

 earl at the last moment and submitted to the king.''" He was imprisoned at 

 Dover and perhaps afterwards at Berkhampstead.'" 



Robert de Clitheroe, an old servant of the crown, and since 1303 rector 

 of Wigan and ex-officio lord of that town, was arraigned in 1323 for sending 

 his son and another man-at-arms, with four footmen, to Lancaster's army and 

 for preaching in his church the justice of the earl's cause. He denied the 

 greater part of the accusation, but only got off on payment of a fine of jTaoo.''* 

 In the next reign, when he could afford to be franker, he explained that by 

 the tenure of his land he furnished the earl of Lancaster with a man-at-arms 

 whenever he arrayed his people ' pur oster le venyme qui feust pres du Roy ' 

 and caused prayers to be said in his church for the earl and the other earls 

 that God would give them grace as pillars of the land to maintain the crown 

 and peace of the land ; ''' an illustration of the too favourable light in which 

 Thomas of Lancaster's motives and aims were regarded by many Englishmen 

 who were weary of Edward's misgovernment. 



With the earl dead and Lord Holland in prison those whom they had 

 crushed seven years before could now again raise their heads. Banaster's old 

 associate. Sir William Bradshaw, formed a confederacy with Thomas Banaster 

 and others against the Hollands, who united their forces under Sir Richard 

 de Holland. They attacked one another wherever they met, besieged one 

 another's houses, overawed courts of law, and kept a great part of the county 

 practically in a state of war for more than a year.''" The infection of disorder 

 became general. The forests and parks which had reverted to the crown by 

 the forfeiture of Lancaster and Holland were freely hunted in and destroyed 

 with the connivance of the keepers, goods taken from the king's enemies were 

 concealed, and a band of raiders from Craven and Airedale, headed by 

 Nicholas de Mauleverer, carried off several hundred pounds worth of 

 crown property from Ightenhill, Pendle, and Trawden. The sheriff and other 

 officials, if they are not maligned, were guilty of many oppressions and 

 extortions. Collectors of taxes, it is alleged, raised something for themselves 

 from each township. Coroners left bodies unburied if the heavy fees they 

 demanded were not paid.'" 



Early in 1 323 a startling development in the north called the king's 

 attention to the anarchy in Lancashire. This was the discovery that Andrew 



^" Coram Rege R. 254, m. 71. 



"^ Chron. of Edto. I and Edai. 11 (Rolls Ser.), ii, 267 ; Cal. Pat. 1327-30, p. 455 ; Leland, Collectanea, 

 ii, 453. His steward in Lancashire sent him 500 men to Ashbourne ; Coram Rege R. 254, m. 59 d. His 

 presence with this force at Ravensdale, a few miles north of Tutbury, is attested ; ibid. m. 61-2. For the 

 king's urgent summons to him on 4 March see Cal. Close, 1318-23, p. 525. Edward's bad faith to him and 

 others who submitted seems clearly established % Leland, op. cit. i, 274. The Chron. de Lanercost (247) alone 

 makes him fall into the victor's hands at Boroughbridge. 



™ Leland, op. cit. i, 274 ; Chron. Edza. I and Edzv. 11, i, 343. 



"» Hist, of the Ch. and Manor of Wigan (Chet. Soc), 42. ^'^ Rot. Pari, ii, 406. 



'"" Full details are given in Coram Rege R. 254, m. e,zd., 60 et passim ; Cal. Pat. 132 1-4, p. 374 ; Rot. 

 Pari, ii, 380. The names of the confederates are given in Assize R. 425, m. 24sqq. 



^" Ibid, passim. 



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