POLITICAL HISTORY 



ordinary tribunals.''^* But as the terror of the plague receded and the Peace 

 of Bretigni and the rapid loss of territory which followed the resumption of 

 the war brought back to England a crowd of fighting men, who, if not 

 criminals to start with ^^^ had learnt no respect for law and order on the fields 

 of France, the old complaints of lawlessness reappear. This demoralization 

 was not limited to any part of the kingdom, and the weakened central 

 government of Edward Ill's old age and Richard IFs minority was ill-fitted 

 to cope with it, but the exempt jurisdictions of the palatine counties of 

 Chester and Lancaster gave special scope to disturbers of the peace. 

 , Petitions to the Gloucester Parliament of October, 1378, reveal an extra- 

 ordinary state of anarchy on their borders. Armed bands invaded the 

 adjoining shires, killed or held to ransom their inhabitants, carried off their 

 daughters to those franchises, exacting a third of their property as dower, 

 and sending them back when it was spent, and descended upon fairs and 

 markets to the terror and impoverishment of the commons and the loss of 

 their lords.'** Commissions were promised, with power to imprison the 

 offenders without indictment and keep them there without bail till the 

 coming of the justices, but six years afterwards things seem to have been 

 little better. The Cheshire men had a bad pre-eminence and did not spare 

 their fellow offenders, for in 1384 the commons of Lancashire joined with 

 those of other counties in a demand that such ill-doers should forfeit their 

 Cheshire lands as well as those they held elsewhere, the privileges of the 

 palatinate notwithstanding.^" The king's evasive reply illustrates the obstacles 

 which such franchises opposed to the effective enforcement of the law. 



Among the incidents which throw light upon the internal state of the 

 county during the last years of Edward and the early years of Richard, are 

 the murder of a coroner ^^^ and of a justice of the peace,^^' and the conviction 

 of Henry de Chadderton, bailiff of West Derby wapentake, of extortion, 

 maintenance, perversion of justice, accepting bribes to remove archers from 

 the roll and substituting unfit persons, collecting corn by colour of his office, 

 and exacting 20s. too much towards the expenses of the knights of the shire 

 on the occasion of each Parliament for twenty years back.^^" 



The Poll Tax returns of 1377 afford data for a rough estimate of the 

 population of Lancashire at this date. The number of persons over fourteen 

 years of age in the county was returned as 23,880. According to this 

 estimate it had the same population as Shropshire or London, and rather 

 more than a fourth of that of Norfolk, the most populous shire. Four years 

 later, when a new poll tax was levied upon all persons over fifteen years of 

 age, the number returned for Lancashire was only 8,371. Nearly all the 

 figures in 1381 show a drop so great as to admit of no other explanation than 

 widespread collusion or evasion, which, as might be expected, was greater in 

 Lancashire than in any other county except Cornwall.'" In the ensuing 



'" Baines, Hiit. of Laws. (ed. Croston), s, 145-6. 



^ Numerous pardons were granted to homicides and other felons who were going abroad on the king's 

 service. 



"" Rot. Pari, iii, 42-3. *»' Ibid. 201. 



'^ Coram Rege R. 463, m. 28 d. ; Cal. Put. 1377-81, p. 313. ^*' Ibid. 1385-8, p. 73. 



*" Coram Rege R. 454, m. 13 (1374). 



"■ E. Powell, The Rising in East Anglia in 1381, 122. Mr. Powell suggests that a large portion took to 

 the woods and wastes to escape the tax collectors. The connivance of the collectors, however, in the falsifica- 

 tion of the returns seems established ; Oman, The Great Revolt ofii^x, pp. 27, 183. 



2 209 27 



