A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



the castle, and wasting the country as far south as the Ribble,"' and even 

 penetrated to Chorley."* 



The inquisition taken of the late earl of Lancaster's lands is full of reference 

 to decays of farms, tofts, burgages, forges, crops, pastures destroyed by the 

 Scots, who stayed four days and nights both at Preston and Skerton burning 

 and plundering, so that at the last-mentioned place we read that ' all the goods 

 and chattels of the tenants there were sacked by the said Scots, and the corn 

 trampled down by their horses and beasts.'"' The vaccaries of Wyresdale 

 and Bleasdale were harried, and all the beasts there which had not been 

 previously sold by the king's writ were 'sacked by the Scots.'"" Such savage 

 attacks begot reprisals, and the war was prolonged into the first years of the 

 reign of Edward III. In the young king's first year a fresh invasion by the 

 Scots roused England to warlike enterprise, and levies were summoned from 

 Lancashire.'" The invasion was checked, but the county seems to have been 

 almost as badly used by its own turbulent soldiery as by the enemy. Terrible 

 depredations were made by armed bands, and special warrants had to be 

 issued to the sheriff in 1328"' and in the following year concerning the 

 breaking of the king's peace in Salfordshire and elsewhere. In the year 

 1332, and again in 1345, feared invasions from Scotland necessitated the 

 issuing of proclamations"' to the effect that the terrified inhabitants of 

 the threatened districts might withdraw themselves and their sheep and cattle 

 further south. 



Lancashire was called upon to furnish men for the French wars, and 

 not merely men, but her famed military material. In 1341 the sheriff had 

 been ordered to provide one hundred bows and one thousand sheaves of 

 arrows for the French expedition, and following this came another order for a 

 thousand sheaves of steel-headed arrows and a thousand bow-strings."" 



The Inquisition of the Ninth in 1341 "' revealed the poverty and distress 

 entailed in Lancashire by these repeated invasions. In all the northern 

 parishes assessed there was the same plea of excuse as at Lancaster, where 

 they could not contribute their quota ' propter destructionem ibi factam per 

 Scottos in detrimentum dicti taxationis per annum per xliiij marcas,' for, as 

 the complaint ran, 'jacent in eadem parochia . . . terre steriles et inculte ' 

 by reason of the aforesaid devastation."' With regard to the fifteenth to be 

 levied on the ' merchants ' at the same time we learn from the return that there 

 was no city in the wapentake of Amounderness, ' nor any borough except the 

 borough of Preston,' upon which the fifteenth could be levied. Similarly 

 m all Blackburnshire there were no merchants who ought to contribute to it, 

 nor indeed any man in those parts except those living by agriculture. In 



,„), '" ^'Jvf '^n'V^"'' ^r^f "u'-^'- "■ rf- ^'^T ''''")• ^'^°""" °^>'^" '^'^ Lancaster from ,5 July, in 

 .7th year (Edw^II) &c 'Of the sue of the said castle (of Lancaster) he does not answer becausi it was 

 burned by he Scots.' Cf a^so Rental de Lane. (,7 Edw. II), m. 4-Escheat3. Certain tenants pay L 

 than formerly because of the burning of the Scots.' Out of a total rent of £7 is. U. due for bureaus there 



" '1^<? tI^m"- %'■ "a"''"^ '°^ '^'^"'^ °' ^^°^"'^ '^^ "^y -^-"^ °f the burning of the sZ'the re 

 J-i. l.K. Misc. ilnr. Accts. 14. 



- Si It 1 Stfii^rS):'"^- '""'''' " '"^''''^ Earl of Lancaster's land, in Lancaster, Preston,' &c. 



'" Rot. Scot. I Edw. Ill, m. 4. va o. „ , t- , tti 



'■9 Ik.vi -, VA rn . ■ o T • ^, '-lose, 2 bdw. Ill, m. zo./. 



Ibid. 7 Edw. III. pt. 1, m. 18, and again 19 Edw III, pt. ii, m. lod. 



Quoted by Baines, Hisi. of Lane. (ed. Harland), i, 107. '81 ,c pj^ irT ,, w u 



-I.,. A>,.n,. (Rec. Com.). A^e plea w^ put 'forward in aU the' ^HsL" f ^Lnll \tid 

 Amounderness, as well as in Ribchester and Chipping. -i-unsaaie ana 



284 



