A History of Lancashire. Fishwick Henry

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СКАЧАТЬ the country in a very unsettled state in consequence of fresh invasions by the King of Denmark and Norway, and on the death of Ethelred, in April, 1016, London proclaimed Edmund King, whilst a council at Southampton accepted Canute the Dane; ultimately the English nobles compelled a division, and Northumbria, Mercia, and East Anglia fell to Canute, who a month later, on the death of Edmund, became King of England. Canute (or Cnut) during his reign did much to remove the hatred felt towards the Danes, but the tyranny and oppression exercised by his two sons, who succeeded him,43 revived the old feelings, and on the death of Harthacnut in 1043, after five–and–twenty years of Danish rule, the people elected one of the old English stock as the King, and Edward the Confessor ascended the throne.

During these six centuries Lancashire had many rulers, and must have been the scene of many a pitched battle. Its people were never long at peace, but rebellions, invasions, and wars of every kind fast followed each other. At one time they were governed by kings of Northumbria, at another by kings of England; at one time they were ruled by only tributary kings, or even only by tributary earls; sometimes the Christian religion was upheld, and sometimes they were referred back to Woden and Thor and Oden. Nevertheless, churches were built (see Chapter IX.), religious houses endowed, and castles erected. Many of its parishes were now formed, and its hundreds and tithings were meted out. Many of the parish and township names in Lancashire are suggestive of Saxon or Danish origin. Thus, Winwick, Elswick, Fishwick, Chadwick, Poulton, Walton, Sephton, Middleton, Eccleston, Broughton, Preston, Kirkham, Penwortham, Bispham, Cockerham, Oldham, Sowerby, Westby, Ribby, Formby, and a host of others, all point to their having once been held by the early settlers, as do also the terminative “rods” and “shaws” so common in the south of the county. In the old maps of the county a tract of land on the west side of the Wyre, between Shard and Fleetwood, is called Bergerode, which is a combination of the Anglo–Saxon words “Beor grade” – a shallow harbour. No doubt many of these places were held by Saxon Thanes, of which there were three classes; the highest of these held their lands and manors of the King, and probably had some kind of a castle or fortification erected on the manors, as well as in many cases a church, though probably only built of wood. To many places in the county have been assigned Saxon castles; Baines, in his “History of Lancashire,”44 has enumerated no less than twelve of these south of the Ribble, but for only two of them is there any absolute authority for the assumption, viz., Penwortham and Rochdale. At Penwortham William the Conqueror found a castle, and around it were six burgesses, three radmen (a class of freemen who served on horseback), only eight villeins (who were literally servants of the lords of the soil), and four neat–herds, or cattle–keepers; and amongst other possessions its owner had a moiety of the river–fishing, a wood, and aeries of hawks. The castle was occupied in the time of Henry III., when Randle de Blundeville, the Earl of Chester and Baron of Lancaster, held his court within its walls.45 All trace of it has now disappeared, but Castle Hill is its traditional site.

      In the time of Edward the Confessor (A.D. 1041–1066) most of the land in Rochdale was held of the King by Gamel the Thane; part of this land was free from all duties except danegeld.46 There can be little doubt but that a Saxon Thane of this order had both his castle and its accompanying church. As to the existence of the former, it is placed beyond dispute by the name Castleton, which occurs in many very early deeds, and by the fact that in a charter, without date (but early in the thirteenth century), reference is made to “the land lying between” a field “and the ditch of the castle” (fossatum castelli), and the right of way is reserved for “ingoing and exit to the place of the castle” (locus castelli), and the right of footway to lands “in Castleton in the north part of Smythecumbesrode and an assartum called Sethe.” The boundaries detailed in the charter show that this castle, probably then in ruins, stood on the elevated ground still known as Castle Hill.47

      There is a local tradition that at Bury, on the site called Castle Croft, once stood a Saxon castle; but there is no evidence to support this, and from the character of a portion of the foundations discovered in 1865, it seems more probable that the building which gave its name to the place was of much more recent date.

      Winwick, near Warrington, has also its traditional Saxon castle, and also lays claim to having within its parish the site of the battle–field where Oswald, King of Northumbria, fell on August 5, A.D. 642. Bede48 records that the Christian King was slain in a great battle against the pagan ruler over the Mercians at a place called Maserfield, and adds that such was his faith in God that ever since his death infirm men and cattle are healed by visiting the spot where he was killed; some, taking the dust from the soil and putting it in water, were able to heal their sick friends; by this means the earth had been by degrees carried away, so that a hole remained as deep as the height of a man.

      This Maserfield, or Maserfeld, was by Camden and others supposed to be near Oswestry, in Shropshire, but there are many good reasons for assuming that the engagement took place in Makerfield, near Winwick; the very ancient parish church is dedicated to St. Oswald, and half a mile to the north of it is St. Oswald’s Well, which is at the present day in a deep ditch, and until within quite recent times was in the charge of a paid custodian, whose duty it was to keep the water from contamination;49 an ancient inscription on the wall of the south side of the church also appears to confirm the opinion.

      In Aldingham Moat Hill (in Furness) we have an example of the moated mound or “burh” of a Saxon lord, which probably dates from the tenth century.50 The earthwork consists of three divisions. The rectangular camp, is surrounded by a ditch nearly 40 feet wide, and 4 or 5 feet deep, the space thus enclosed being about 100 feet square. About 100 yards south of this there is a straight piece of ditch which runs almost at right angles to the sea–cliff for some 250 feet. South again of this ditch, but separated from it by about 40 yards, stands the moated “burh” itself, on the very edge of the cliff; the ditch and part of the mound have been washed away by the sea. The “burh” is about 30 feet high, and 96 feet above the sea–level. The ditch is about 10 feet deep, and between 15 and 20 feet broad at the bottom. This was the fortified home of the Anglo–Saxon clan settled in this place. The rectangular enclosure may have been the meeting–place of the folk–moot of the settlement. Pennington Castle Hill is a somewhat similar mound, but some of the characteristics of a “burh” are wanting; nevertheless, it was doubtless the fortified ton of the Pennings. Near to it is a place called Ellabarrow, which takes its name from a large tumulus 400 feet in circumference, known as Coninger or Coninsher.

      The remains which from time to time have been discovered, and which can with certainty be classed as Danish or Anglo–Saxon, are not nearly so numerous as one would have expected. Saxon stone crosses (or portions of them) have been found at Bolton, Whalley, Burnley, Halton, Heysham, Lancaster, and Winwick, and the ornamentation of several of them is beautiful and interesting. The so called “hog–backed” stone in Heysham churchyard has given rise to much controversy, and is undoubtedly of very great antiquity.51 Saxon tumuli have been opened at Langho, Winwick, and some few other places, and coins belonging to this period have occasionally been exhumed; notably at Cuerdale, where nearly 2,000 coins were found which were believed to have been struck by one of the Danish rulers of Northumbria, and large numbers of very similar coins have been dug up at Harkirke, in the parish of Sefton. Some of these coins were of King Alfred’s time, others were of Guthred, or Gulfrith (son of Ivan), who was King of Northumbria A.D. 883 to 894, who was supposed to have on embracing Christianity taken the name of Cnvt, which is engraved on the coins.52

      It is believed that at Billington, near Whalley, in A.D. 798, King Ethelred met the conspirator Wada, and defeated him in a battle in which on both sides great numbers were slain.СКАЧАТЬ