A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



religious character. As Elizabeth logically conjectured, Puritanism implied 

 a tendency to resist authority, particularly where that authority was pre- 

 sumptuous enough to require 'unreasoning obedience. The king, who was a 

 strong High Churchman, occupied the Elizabethan position midway between 

 Roman Catholics and Puritans. His wife was a Roman Catholic, but, though 

 this fact may have mitigated his resentment against the recusants, it was unable 

 to turn him from his own Church. Still, the queen's influence may have 

 indirectly affected the protection afforded in 1639 to the Lancashire recusants 

 from the unjust imposition of fines, which they complained were exacted by 

 the under sheriff and other agents of Sir Edward Stanley, then sheriff of 

 Lancashire." 



In August, 1 640, a summons came to the earl of Derby as lord-lieu- 

 tenant, to raise all the horse and foot he was able to find and to bring 

 them ' in person ' to join the king, who is leading his army against the 

 rebel Scotch. The country generally was by this time in a state of ferment, 

 and Lancashire equally so with the rest of the counties. The continual 

 mustering of armed men by the lieutenancy upon the plea of reported attacks 

 from the king's enemies by land and sea, the pressing of Lancashire soldiers 

 for the Scotch war," the constant prosecutions of recusants and Puritans by 

 the High Commission Court and the northern Star Chamber, the illegal 

 demands of ship money, and, almost more than anything, the high-handed 

 behaviour of the king's great county officers, had irritated some sections in 

 nearly all classes against the crown. So disturbed was the county, so full of 

 wandering soldiers and idle persons that a convoy had to be demanded for the 

 escort of the king's revenue in the county.'* 



On 3 November, 1640, the famous Long Parliament met in London. 

 The Lancashire members " were as follows : — 



For the shire, Roger Kirby, esq., and Ralph Assheton, esq. (of Middleton) 



For Lancaster, Sir John Harrison, knt., and Thomas Fanshaw, esq. 



For Pre^ton, Richard Shuttleworth, esq. (of Gawthorpe Hall), and Thomas Standish, esq. 



For Newton, William Ashhurst, esq., Sir Roger Palmer, knt. 



For Wigan, Orlando Bridgeman, esq., and Alex. Rigby, esq. (of Preston). 



For Clitheroe, Ralph Assheton, esq. (of Whalley) son of Sir Ralph Assheton of Downham 



Hall. 

 For Liverpool, John Moore, esq., and Sir Richard Wyn, knt. and bart. 



Owing to some confusion from similarity of names it may be helpful to 

 intimate that the above-mentioned Asshetons were all for the Parliament, 

 Ralph of Whalley being one of those who had purchased the abbey there, 

 and the shire member of that name being the Colonel Assheton who was 

 subsequently commander-in-chief of the Parliamentary forces in the county. 

 One or two Rigbys were found in the later struggle on either side, but the 

 member for Preston was the Colonel Rigby who commanded for the Parlia- 

 ment, and must not be confounded with the royalist Alexander Rigby of 

 Burgh, who was dismissed from his office of justice of the peace in 1641 by 

 order of the Long Parliament. Richard Shuttleworth was the ex-sheriff, and 

 a strong Parliamentarian. He took, as will be seen, a very prominent part 

 in the county's support of the Parliament.*' The fate of the county, and as 



" Order of the Commissioners for Recusancy 21 Dec. 1639. Cal. S.P. Dam. 1639-4.0 p 141 

 "Ibid. p. 295. '•Ibid. 1640, p. 66. 7t.r- 



" Civil JTar Tracts for Lanes. (Chet. Soc. 2), I. 



" For account of Richard Shuttleworth see Lanes. Lieutenancy, pt. ii, p. 272-3, note 15. 



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