The first recorded instance of parliamentary representation in Lancashire was in 1295, when two knights were returned for the county and two burgesses each for the boroughs of Lancaster, Preston, Wigan and Liverpool. The sheriff added to this return “There is no city in the county of Lancaster.” The boroughs were, however, excused one after another from parliamentary representation, which was felt as a burden owing to the compulsory payment of the members’ wages. Lancaster ceased to send members in 1331 after making nineteen returns, but renewed its privileges in 1529; from 1529 to 1547 there are no parliamentary returns, but from 1547 to 1867 Lancaster continued to return two members. Preston similarly was excused after 1331, after making eleven returns, but in 1529 and from 1547 onwards returned two members. Liverpool and Wigan sent members in 1295 and 1307, but not again till 1547. To the writ issued in 1362 the sheriff in his return says: “There is not any City or Borough in this County from which citizens or burgesses ought or are accustomed to come as this Writ requires.” In 1559 Clitheroe and Newton-le-Willows first sent two members. Thus in all Lancashire returned fourteen members, and, with a brief exception during the Commonwealth, this continued to be the parliamentary representation till 1832. By the Reform Act of 1832 Lancashire was assigned four members, two for the northern and two for the southern division. Lancaster, Preston, Wigan and Liverpool continued to send two members, Clitheroe returned one and Newton was disfranchised. The following new boroughs were created: Manchester, Bolton, Blackburn, Oldham, returning two members each; Ashton-under-Lyne, Bury, Rochdale, Salford and Warrington, one each. In 1861 a third member was given to South Lancashire and in 1867 the county was divided into four constituencies, to each of which four members were assigned; since 1885 the county returns twenty-three members. The boroughs returned from 1867 to 1885 twenty-five members, and since 1885 thirty-four.
Antiquities.—The Cistercian abbey of Furness (q.v.) is one of the finest and most extensive ecclesiastical ruins in England. Whalley abbey, first founded at Stanlawe in Cheshire in 1178, and removed in 1296, belonged to the same order. There was a priory of Black Canons at Burscough, founded in the time of Richard I., one at Conishead dating from Henry II.’s reign, and one at Lancaster. A convent of Augustinian friars was founded at Cartmel in 1188, and one at Warrington about 1280. There are some remains of the Benedictine priory of Upholland, changed from a college of secular priests in 1318; and the same order had a priory at Lancaster founded in 1094, a cell at Lytham, of the reign of Richard I., and a priory at Penwortham, founded shortly after the time of the Conqueror. The Premonstratensians had Cockersand abbey, changed in 1190 from a hospital founded in the reign of Henry II., of which the chapter-house remains. At Kersal, near Manchester, there was a cell of Cluniac monks founded in the reign of John, while at Lancaster there were convents of Dominicans and Franciscans, and at Preston a priory of Grey Friars built by Edmund, earl of Lancaster, son of Henry III.
Besides the churches mentioned under the several towns, the more interesting are those of Aldingham, Norman doorway; Aughton; Cartmel priory church (see Furness); Hawkshead; Heysham, Norman with traces of earlier date; Hoole; Huyton; Kirkby, rebuilt, with very ancient font; Kirkby Ireleth, late Perpendicular, with Norman doorway; Leyland; Melling (in Lonsdale), Perpendicular, with stained-glass windows; Middleton, rebuilt in 1524, but containing part of the Norman church and several monuments; Ormskirk, Perpendicular with traces of Norman, having two towers, one of which is detached and surmounted by a spire; Overton, with Norman doorway; Radcliffe, Norman; Sefton, Perpendicular, with fine brass and recumbent figures of the Molyneux family, also a screen exquisitely carved; Stidd, near Ribchester, Norman arch and old monuments; Tunstall, late Perpendicular; Upholland priory church, Early English, with low massy tower; Urswick, Norman, with embattled tower and several old monuments; Walton-on-the-hill, anciently the parish church of Liverpool; Walton-le-Dale; Warton, with old font; Whalley abbey church, Decorated and Perpendicular, with Runic stone monuments.
The principal old castles are those of Lancaster; Dalton, a small rude tower occupying the site of an older building; two towers of Gleaston castle, built by the lords of Aldingham in the 14th century; the ruins of Greenhalgh castle, built by the first earl of Derby, and demolished after a siege by order of parliament in 1649; the ruins of Fouldrey in Piel Island near the entrance to Barrow harbour, erected in the reign of Edward III., now most dilapidated. There are many old timber houses and mansions of interest, as well as numerous modern seats.
See Victoria History of Lancashire (1906–1907); E. Baines, The History of the County Palatine and Duchy of Lancaster (1888); H. Fishwick, A History of Lancashire (1894); W. D. Pink and A. B. Beavan, The Parliamentary Representation of Lancashire (1889).
LANCASTER, HOUSE OF. The name House of Lancaster is commonly used to designate the line of English kings immediately descended from John of Gaunt, the fourth son of Edward III. But the history of the family and of the title goes back to the reign of Henry III., who created his second son, Edmund, earl of Lancaster in 1267. This Edmund received in his own day the surname of Crouchback, not, as was afterwards supposed, from a personal deformity, but from having worn a cross upon his back in token of a crusading vow. He is not a person of much importance in history except in relation to a strange theory raised in a later age about his birth, which we shall notice presently. His son Thomas, who inherited the title, took the lead among the nobles of Edward II.’s time in opposition to Piers Gaveston and the Despensers, and was beheaded for treason at Pontefract. At the commencement of the following reign his attainder was reversed and his brother Henry restored to the earldom; and Henry being appointed guardian to the young king Edward III., assisted him to throw off the yoke of Mortimer. On this Henry’s death in 1345 he was succeeded by a son of the same name, sometimes known as Henry Tort-Col or Wryneck, a very valiant commander in the French wars, whom the king advanced to the dignity of a duke. Only one duke had been created in England before, and that was fourteen years previously, when the king’s son Edward, the Black Prince, was made duke of Cornwall. This Henry Wryneck died in 1361 without heir male. His second daughter, Blanche, became the wife of John of Gaunt, who thus succeeded to the duke’s inheritance in her right; and on the 13th of November 1362, when King Edward attained the age of fifty, John was created duke of Lancaster, his elder brother, Lionel, being at the same time created duke of Clarence. It was from these two dukes that the rival houses of Lancaster and York derived their respective claims to the crown. As Clarence was King Edward’s third son, while John of Gaunt was his fourth, in ordinary course on the failure of the elder line the issue of Clarence should have taken precedence of that of Lancaster in the succession. But the rights of Clarence were conveyed in the first instance to an only daughter, and the ambition and policy of the house of Lancaster, profiting by advantageous circumstances, enabled them not only to gain possession of the throne but to maintain themselves in it for three generations before they were dispossessed by the representatives of the elder brother.
As for John of Gaunt himself, it can hardly be said that this sort of politic wisdom is very conspicuous in him. His ambition was generally more manifest than his discretion; but fortune favoured his ambition, even as to himself, somewhat beyond expectation, and still more in his posterity. Before the death of his father he had become the greatest subject in England, his three elder brothers having all died before him. He had even added to his other dignities the title of king of Castile, having married, after his first wife’s death, the daughter of Peter the Cruel. The title, however, was an empty one, the throne of Castile being actually in the possession of Henry of Trastamara, whom the English had vainly endeavoured to set aside. His military and naval enterprises were for the most part disastrous failures, and in England he was exceedingly unpopular. Nevertheless, during the later years of his father’s reign the weakness of the king and the declining health of the Black Prince threw the government very much into his hands. He even aimed, or was suspected of aiming, at the succession to the crown; but in this hope he was disappointed by the action of the Good Parliament a year before Edward’s death, in which it was settled that Richard the son of the Black Prince should be king after his grandfather. Nevertheless the suspicion with which he was regarded was not altogether quieted when Richard came to the throne, a boy in the eleventh year of his age. The duke himself complained in parliament of the way he was spoken of out of doors, and at the outbreak of Wat Tyler’s insurrection the peasants stopped pilgrims on the road to Canterbury and made them swear never to accept a king of the name of John. On gaining possession of London they burnt his magnificent palace of the Savoy. Richard found a convenient way to get rid of John of Gaunt by sending him to Castile to make good his barren title, and on this expedition he was away three years. He succeeded so far as to make a treaty with his rival, King John, son of Henry of Trastamara, for the succession, by virtue
