A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



by her unfortunate successor, the second Stuart, whose final and completest 

 overthrow, as will presently be seen, was largely effected by the resistance of 

 this very county. In addition to this general muster of the county's armed 

 streni^th, special levies were raised in it to serve in Ireland. Fifty archers 

 had been levied from Lancashire to serve in that county in 1567 ; '* and now 

 again in 1574 the earl and other commissioners were required to raise, 

 furnish with arms, clothing, and money, a composite force of archers, 

 billmen, and calivers, making a total of 100 men. Next year a levy of 

 thirty labourers and soldiers was taken for service in Ireland by the queen's 

 command." 



While taking good order for the military efficiency of the county, the 

 queen and her advisers lost no time in pressing on the campaign against the 

 recusants. In a letter of 1570 the bishop of Carlisle had remarked that 

 ' in Lancashire the people fall from religion, revolt to Popery, and refuse to 

 come to Church.' '' In 1576, in reply to a letter received from the council 

 urging strong measures against such, the bishop of Chester, Dr. Downham, 

 wrote a letter which is an indictment of the Roman Catholic members of 

 the population, who would not attend the Church service, or pursue the 

 ' godly exercises of Religion allowed and set forth by the Laws of this 

 Realm.' He incloses a list of the principal offending recusants, classed as 

 ' obstinate ' or ' conformable.'" The matter was sufficiently serious to engage 

 the attention of the queen and her council, and to be referred to a new 

 ecclesiastical commission acting in concert with the president and Council of 

 the North, which acted as the Northern Star Chamber. In June, 1580, the 

 lords of the council wrote to Henry earl of Huntingdon, lord president of 

 the North, signifying that many gentlemen and others in Lancashire being 

 fallen away to ' the Popish rehgion,' the queen had thought fit to send down 

 an ecclesiastical commission into the diocese of Chester (which at that time 

 included Lancashire in its scope) directed to the archbishop of York, the 

 earl of Derby, the bishop of Chester and others, to proceed against the said 

 parties. As the defection referred to was thought to be ' principally begun 

 by sundry principal gentlemen of that county ' (Lancashire), 'by whom 

 the meaner sort of people are led and seduced, so it is thought meeter that in 

 the execution of the commission you begin first with the best of the said 

 Recusants.'*' 



The first measures of the High Commission Court were the levying of 

 greater penalties upon non-attendance at church, and the imprisoning of 

 recusants. If the persons fined did not appear in court to answer the 

 summons against them the sheriff was empowered to effect a distringas on 

 their goods and lands." In July this year Lord Burghley himself wrote to 

 the bishop of Chester ' touching the ill state of Lancashire on the Lords of 

 the High Commission's first repair thither' ; and that at the bishop's request 

 he had procured the queen's letter of thanks to Henry earl of Derby for his 

 great pains in endeavouring to reform the same.'' A letter of 26 July 



« Shntdeworth MSS. ; Harl. MS. 1926, art. 9, fol. 28,^, quoted Lanes. Lieutenancy, pt. i, 22, No. 7. 



Shuttleworth MSS. quoted Lanes. Lieutenancy, pt. i, 66, No. 14, 1575. 

 '* Quoted ibid, i, 31, note. 



" Harl. MSS. Cod. 286, fol. 28. Quoted Lanes. Lieutenancy, pt. i, 67, No. 14*. 1576. 



'° Peck, Desiderata Curiosa, i, 85 ; Lib. iii. No. xi, June 1580. 



" Ibid, i. Lib. iii, No. xii, 3 July, 1580 ; No. xiv, 15 July. ^j 1^;^. 23 July, 1580, No. xvi. 



224 



