A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



House, and thence southwards by way of Bewsey.'" Great festive prepara- 

 tions were made in hospitable Lancashire to receive the king, and hunts, 

 banquets, rustic merrymakings, and country sports were arranged for his 

 amusement. The Lancashire people took the opportunity of the king's 

 presence among them to solicit the withdrawal of the Puritan restrictions 

 against Sunday wakes and festivals, which petition the king was graciously 

 pleased to receive and intimate his royal pleasure that henceforth all honest 

 and harmless Sunday sports might continue, except bull or bear baiting, 

 interludes and bowls. The recreations which were to be permitted included 

 those Whitsun Ales, morris dancing, maypole gatherings, and rush-bearings 

 for which Lancashire was exceptionally famous, but which, having proved a 

 source of great local disorder, had been prohibited in 1579. 



The provision of grammar schools was one of the features of the sixteenth 

 century. The Manchester school had been founded in the sixteenth year 

 of Henry VIII,"" and there was one already established at Liverpool.'" 

 Reference occurs during the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth to the grammar 

 schools of Penwortham, Lancaster, Preston, Bolton, Clitheroe, Prescot, 

 Whalley, and Blackburn.'*' Kirkham School is first mentioned in the local 

 records for the year 1585, and was subsequently helped by charitable donations 

 and subscriptions from the gentlemen of the county.*'" 



The Stuart period, like the Tudor period before it, was characterized by 

 many charitable bequests, and one of the greatest of these was the endowment 

 of a school for the sons of honest parents by the will of Humphrey Chetham, 

 a great cloth merchant of Manchester, who died in 1651. The historic 

 buildings of the college, the ancient hall of the barons of Manchester, were 

 secured for the purpose, and to the hospital was attached an admirable library. 

 Lancashire, and Manchester in particular, was thus educationally equipped for 

 the intelligent part it was shortly destined to play in the drama of religion, 

 politics, and industry. Some Martin Marprelate Tracts had originated from 

 a Manchester press, and in the reign of Charles I Lancashire divines were 

 well to the front in protesting against the excesses of the king's party and of 

 the Papists. 



The economic disturbances caused by the Civil War affected Lancashire 

 in a greater degree than many other counties because party feeling on both 

 sides ran very high there. The men of Salfordshire fighting for the Parlia- 

 ment had, according to their petition of 1646, 'with the assistance of 

 Blackburn Hundred,' reduced ' the rest of the whole county ; ' and this, as 

 they go on to recount, ' with as little foreign assistance either of men, moneys 

 or arms, nay less than any county whatever invested like them in like 

 measure.' ''* 



How Lancashire was called upon to suffer for her support not merely 

 of the Parliamentary party but of the royal cause, is set forth in another 



'*' See Joum. of Nicholas yissheton (Chet. Soc). 



^'' Referred to in Duchy of Lane. Plead, clviii, H. 12 (34. Eliz.). 



"' Referred to ibid, iv, C. 2. 



'^' Penwortham, Duchy of Lane. Plead, xlv, F. 20 ; Lancaster, ibid, xxxviii, C. 16 ; Bolton, ibid. Ixxxv, 

 B. II ; Clitheroe, ibid, cxxxvi, N. 3; Prescot, ibid, xl, T. 18; Whalley, see Clitheroe; Blackburn, ibid, 

 xixvi, L. 8. The schools of Lancaster are mentioned as early as 1339 ; ^^^- P"'- 1338-40, p. 330. 



^' Fishwick, Hist, of Kirkham (Chet. Soc), 92. 



'^ Petition of 1646, from 12,500 and upwards of the 'well affected' gentlemen, ministers, freeholders, 

 and others of the county Palatine of Lancaster, 5, 8, &c. 



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