POLITICAL HISTORY 



In its beginning the council does not appear to have been injurious to 

 Lancashire, which had not much part or lot in its deliberations. There seem 

 to have been no Lancashire members, and there were no sessions held in the 

 county.^ This was in some respects an advantage, and in others a disadvan- 

 tage, since any causes affecting the county had to be pleaded at York, Hull, 

 Newcastle, or Durham, wherever the council happened to be sitting.* 



A northern lieutenancy comprising several counties grouped together 

 (as in the ancient Norman shrievalty) had been actually instituted earlier in 

 the reign of Henry VHI, but after the unrest and disaffection which culmi- 

 nated in the Pilgrimage of Grace it assumed greater power and importance. 

 The office, which was at first closely associated with the presidency of the 

 Northern Council, was held by the duke of Norfolk, by the earl of 

 Shrewsbury, and lastly by the earl of Derby, in whose family it has 

 remained, with one or two exceptions, down to the present time. It is not 

 exactly clear when the lieutenancy of Lancashire became separated from 

 the general lieutenancy of the north, but it was probably from the time 

 when it was taken over by the earl of Derby, who as a great county 

 magnate had almost paramount power in the palatinates of Cheshire and 

 Lancashire.' 



Politically regarded the institution of the lieutenancy of the county is 

 important, as it marks the beginning of a period of strong centralization. 

 The lord lieutenant was an extraordinary officer sent by the monarch, a latere 

 so to speak, to rule the county on behalf of the crown. As the sovereign's 

 direct representative he took precedence of, and partially superseded, that 

 ancient provincial governor, the sheriff, whose authority had hitherto been 

 supreme in all matters of law and order affecting the county. . 



It is necessary to insist upon the extraordinary character of the two 

 political expedients to which the Tudors resorted, because these powerful 

 presidencies came to have a predominating influence on the history of the 

 north and of the palatinate of Lancashire in particular. Gradually departing 

 from the raison d'etre of their inception, which was to administer justice and 

 to preserve law and order, they ended in becoming the local instruments 

 of the king's tyranny, and so defeated the purpose for which they were 

 originated, and by their strongly partisan and persecuting character became 

 definite sources of oppression. 



From the very first the law of political expediency and of subserviency 

 to the crown was, as might be expected from a crown officer, pursued by the 

 lieutenancy. It was not merely that, on account of the firmness and caution 

 of the earl of Derby, the county was kept out of the northern rebellion, but it 

 was equally due to the earl's recognition of the necessity of bending to the 

 strong current of the times that the lieutenancy met the requirements of the 

 advanced Edwardian reformers, just as the earl afterwards accommodated his 

 policy to the orders of the Marian bigotry. This pliant acquiescence, though 

 it saved trouble at the time, prepared the way for later disasters. By giving 

 each party its head alternately, both grew strong enough to wrestle with 



' Quoted Lanes. Lieutenancy (Chet. Soc. xlix, 1), pt. i, Introd. p. xviii. 



' Burnet, Hist, of the Reformation, pt. ii, bk. i, No. 56. 



' The earl had a commission from Hen. VIII to raise forces and suppress insurrections on the border of 

 the county, but this was at the very time when the earl of Shrewsbury held the northern lieutenancy ; vide 

 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. vi, App. x, 445. 



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