distance, or immediately beneath, his eye must have caught vast tracts of forest ground, stagnating with bog, or darkened by native woods, where the wild ox, the roe, the stag, and the wolf, had scarcely learned the supremacy of man; when directing his view to the intermediate spaces, to the windings of the valleys, or the expanse of plain beneath, he could only have distinguished a few insulated patches of culture, each encircling a village of wretched cabins, among which would still be remarked one rude mansion of wood, scarcely equal in comfort to a modern cottage, yet then rising proudly eminent above the rest, where the Saxon lord, surrounded by his faithful Cotarii, enjoyed a rude and solitary independence, owning no superior but his sovereign.”() To the southward and eastward of the part where Liverpool now stands, there were extensive forests, and with but a limited space cultivated, and that in a rude and imperfect manner; and there is every reason to believe that it remained in the same state until after the commencement of the 14th century.2) Long after the Norman Invasion, Lancashire abounded with forests, the haunts of wild animals of the chace; and it will perhaps surprise a modern sportsman, who never pursued nobler game any than foxes or hares, to be informed, that more than a century after that event, the hunter (1) Whitaker's History of Whalley, book 3, chap. 1, page 171; 3rd edition. About a fourteenth part of the Parish of Whalley was cultivated at the date of Domesday Book-Hallam's View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages, vol. 2, page 421, (in notis); 8th edition, 8vo. (2) In the 2nd year of Edward the 3rd, (1328,) the forests of Toxteth, Croxteth, and Simmonswood, are mentioned in the proceedings in Parliament of that year.— Rotuli Parliamentorum, anno 1328, vol. 2, page 29. Even as late as the year 1485, (and probably much later,) we find that a person filled the office of Master Forester, in respect of those forests, and that Thomas Scaresbreke, servant to Sir Edward Stanley, Knight, then held that office by letters patent.-Rotuli Parliamentorum, 1st Henry the 7th, vol. 6, page 363. might have roused the wild boar from his lair, and the stag and the roe-buck from their coverts, in Lancashire. The fact, however, cannot well be disputed, for we have the evidence of the Parliamentary Rolls," that in the reign of Edward the Second, a petition, in Norman French, was presented from the inhabitants of Lancashire, stating that the Earl of Morton, afterwards King John, by his Charter, granted to them the privilege of cutting wood, and of pursuing and taking every kind of wild animal, except the stag, the hind, the roe-buck, and the wild hog, "forpris cerf, e bisse,(2) chevereil, e pork salvage," in his forest, in that county.(3) Leland, the antiquary, who wrote in the reign of Henry the Eighth, mentions Blakeley, which is near Manchester, in his "Itinerary," and states that wild boars, bulls (by which he is usually considered to mean wild cattle), and falcons bred there, "in times paste."(4) He also mentions, that at (1) Rot. Parl. 18th Edward the 2nd, A.D. 1324 and 1325, vol. 1, page 421. (2) Biche, in modern French, is the word for the hind, the female of the stag. (3) "A n're seigneur le Roi monstre ses liges de Counte de Lancastre, qe com le Roi Johan tant com il estoit Conte de Moreton, par sa chartre les graunta, qe eus e lour heires, sans chalenge de luy e de ses heires, lour propres boys poient assarter, vendre e doner, a lour voluntez, e que eus fuissent quitts de reward de forest; e ensement q'il puissent chaser e prendre, levre, e gupyl, e chescune manere de beste de salvagine, forpris cerf, e bisse, chevereil, e pork salvage, tutes partes dedeinz sa forest en le dit Counte, dehors ses demeynes hayes. Est puys apres, mesmes cele chartre en le primer an de son regne conferma. E ensement le Roy Henry, l'an de son regne trezisme, les dites chartres recita e confirma. Dount il prient a n're Seigneur le Roi, q'il luy pleise celes chartres confermer, e commander p: Bref a ces Ministres en celes parties, qe eus ne soient sur les ditz pointz grevez ne chalengez." Responsio." Veignent en Chauncellerie, & monstrent lur chartres, & les confermements, et le Roy se avisera. Coram Rege."-Rotuli Parliamentorum, 18th Edward the 2nd, A.D. 1324 and 1325, vol. 1, page 421. (4) Leland's Itinerary, vol. 7, folio 57. Dr. Whitaker, in his History of Whalley, 3rd edition, page 205, states that tradition records, that the wild cattle, mentioned by Leland, were transported from Blakeley into the Dean's or Abbot's Park of Whalley, and that they were removed, after the dissolution of Whalley Abbey, to Gisburne Park, in Yorkshire, where their descendants still remain. Dr. Whitaker also adduces the time when he wrote, there were in Lancashire three forests of red deer, Wyersdale, Bowland, and Bleasdale, which were partly woody and partly heathy;" and we learn from Dr. Whitaker, that the last stags of Bowland Forest many reasons for the belief, that not only wild cattle, but wolves, stags, fallow deer, and roe deer, were to be found wild in various parts of England, long after the period of the Norman Conquest. Those persons who are curious upon such a topic will find it dwelt upon by Dr. Whitaker, in his History of Whalley, 3rd edition, page 197 to 205. The Author does not consider it digressing too far from the subject, to mention here, though not particularly relating to Lancashire, that however King Edgar might have flattered himself with the idea, that the annual tribute of wolves' heads, which, it has been said, he imposed upon the Welsh princes, if indeed the account be not an exaggerated or idle tale, had effected the destruction of the race of those animals, it is certain, that in the reign of Edward the 1st, they existed, and had so increased, in many parts of England, that a commission was issued by him, to Peter Corbet, for the destruction, by means of men, dogs, and engines, of wolves, in all forests, parks, and other places, in Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire, and Staffordshire, and a royal mandate or precept was issued in 1281, the 9th of Edward the 1st, to all bailiffs, &c. commanding them to be aiding and assisting Peter Corbet in the destruction of wolves, in those counties. The commission is alluded to by Bingley, the naturalist, but he has omitted to give the date, or any reference where an account of it was to be found. Dr. Whitaker has not noticed it in his work above mentioned. As the mandate is a curiosity, it is considered advisable to publish it, precisely as it appears in the Foedera A.D. 1281. An: 9 Edwd. I. Pat: 9 Edwd. I. m 20. "Rex omnibus Ballivis etc: Sciatis quod injunximus dilecto & fideli nostro Petro Corbet, quod in omnibus forestis, & parcis, & aliis locis, infra comitatus nostros Gloucestr' Wygorn' Hereford' Salop' & Stafford' in quibus lupi poterunt inveniri, lupos, cum hominibus, canibus & ingeniis suis, capiat, & destruat, modis omnibus quibus viderit expedire. in Turr: Lond: "Et ideo vobis mandamus quod eidem Petro in omnibus, quæ ad captionen luporum in comitatibus prædictis, pertinet, intendentes sitis & auxiliantes, quotiens opus fuerit, & prædictus Petrus vobis scire faciet ex parte nostra. "In cujus &c. duratur' quamdiu nobis placuerit. Teste Rege apud Westm' Foedera (modern edition) Tome 1, pt. 2, p. 591; (1) Leland's Itinerary vol 5, folio 84. He also mentions a large inclosed Park at Myerscough, on the Moor side, stocked with red deer.-Ibid. were destroyed within the memory of the then keeper, a fine old forester of more than four-score.") In consequence of the barbarous state of England, immediately before the Norman Conquest, it would be in vain to expect to find many traces of commercial pursuits, at that period, in Lancashire. The higher classes of the Anglo-Saxons, consisting of the great landowners, were a powerful body; there was no middle class; for the small landowners or inferior thanes, were too insignificant to merit such an appellation; and the common people were the vassals of the great landowners, by whom they were considered of no account, except so far as they could be made useful to them, and contributed to their power, or to the cultivation of their lands. The mutual relation of lord and vassal, strongly partaking of the nature of the feudal system, appears to have existed ; the natural effect of which, was to give almost despotic power to the owners of large possessions, and to depress and reduce the common people to a very low state of degradation. Under whatever form, and wherever the feudal system prevailed, it followed as a necessary consequence, that true liberty, the rational freedom of all classes, could not exist; and the only class who possessed even a semblance of it, was that of the great landowners who enjoyed, in the plenitude of their power, a wild and turbulent licence, which induced them to consider themselves rather as the equals, than the subjects of the sovereign. Liberty was unknown to the common (1) Dr. Whitaker's History of Whalley, 3rd edition, published in 1818, page 235, (note*). He also states, ibid. page 237, that in the year 1805, a fine herd of wild deer, the last vestage of feudal superiority in the domains of the Lacies, were destroyed at Bowland. (2) Hallam's View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages, vol. 2, page 85 and 89; 8th edition, 8vo. people, who ranked no higher in the scale, than "hewers of wood, and drawers of water," and it may well be more than doubted, whether they were sufficiently well informed, to appreciate such a blessing. Immediately before the Norman Invasion, so generally profound was the ignorance, and so universal was the mental darkness, which prevailed, that there is every reason to believe, that in the whole of England, Scotland, and Ireland, there then were very few individuals amongst the higher, and not one of the lower classes, who could read or write." After the Norman Conquest, the common people of England were much more oppressed than before. The feudal system, and forest laws were carried out in a most severe and cruel manner. (2) Human beings were transferred as appertinent to the land which they tilled, much in the same manner in which cattle change hands; nearly all the lower classes were serfs or vassals; and instances have occurred, where freemen were so oppressed and degraded, and their condition rendered so intolerable, that many of them in despair surrendered their liberty, and voluntarily consented to become the vassals of some powerful noble, in order to ensure protection against more dangerous individuals, and (1) See Hallam's View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages, vol. 2, 8th edition, 8vo. pages 66, 68 and 79, for various proofs of the barbarous and degraded state, in which the Anglo-Saxons were with respect to their laws. See also, on the same subject, Robertson's Charles the 5th, vol. 1, page 16 and page 451, (in notis :) and also Carte's History of England, edition of 1747, vol. 1, page 366, and the authorities there cited. (2) The penalty for killing a stag or boar, was the loss of eyes.-Hallam's View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages, vol. 2, page 94, 8th edition. The destruction of a deer, within the limits of the forest, was as penal as the death of a man. -2 Blackstone's Com. chap. 27, page 416, 14th edition. In the Charter of the Forest of the 9th Henry the 3rd, chap. 10, A.D. 1224-5, it was declared, that thenceforth no man should lose life or limb for killing the King's deer, but that a grievous fine should be imposed on him, if he had any means of payment; and if not, that he should lie a year and a day in prison. C |