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and the building now includes the governor's house and the crown and nisi prius courts. To the north-east of the castle is the church of St Mary, in the Early English style, originally erected by Roger de Poictou, but partly rebuilt in 1759, when the present lofty tower was added. The church contains several old monuments and brasses. A large Gothic Roman Catholic church, with a convent and schools adjoining, was erected in 1859, and there are also several other churches and chapels of some architectural pretensions. There is a grammar school, completed in 1853. Among the charitable institutions are the county lunatic asylum, the Ripley orphan hospital, opened in 1864, erected and endowed at a cost of £100,000, the dispensary and infirmary instituted in 1781, and the Royal Albert asylum for idiots and imbeciles. The town possesses a large market and a handsome town-hall. The principal industries of the town are cotton and silk spin ning, cabinetmaking, and the manufacture of oil-cloth table- covers; and there are also iron-foundries, marble-polishing works, and a manufactory for railway carriages and waggons. The bulk of the shipping is engaged in the coasting trade, and large vessels require to unload at Glasson, 5 miles down the river, the cargoes being carried up to the town by lighters. The population of the municipal borough in 1871 was 17,245, and in 1881 it was 20,724.
From discoveries of celts, flint arrow-heads, and other similar remains, it is probable that Lancaster was an old British town. Its Roman name is unknown, but inscribed Roman altars, tombstones, Samian ware, and other pottery, and the remains of the old fortress preceding the castle, and of other buildings, leave no doubt that it was a Roman station of great importance. It was constituted a borough in the fourth year of Richard I., and it first returned members to parliament in the twenty-third year of Edward I. The privilege was withdrawn for some years before 1547, but from that time was enjoyed without interruption until 1867, when it was disfranchised for corrupt practices. The town was plundered and burned by the Scots in 1329 and 1389, was nearly depopulated during the Wars of the Roses, was captured by the Parliamentary forces in 1643, and retaken by the Royalists under the earl of Derby in the same year, was held by the Parliamentary troops in 1648, and was partly destroyed by fire in 1698. It was entered by the rebels in 1715, and again by a larger force of them in 1745.
See Clarke, Lancaster, 1807, 2d ed. 1811; Lancaster Records, 1869; Hall, Lancaster Castle, 1843; Simpson, History and Antiquities of Lancaster, 1852; and a paper on "Roman Lancaster," by W. Thompson Watkin, in Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 1876.
LANCASTER, the shire city of Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, U.S., is situated on the Conestoga river, G8 miles west of Philadelphia by rail. It was founded in 1730 and incorporated as a borough in 1742, was the State capital from 1799 to 1812, and in 1812 became a city. It is laid out on the rectangular plan, and is un usually well built. The city is the seat of numerous charitable and educational institutions. Among the latter is Franklin and Marshall College, the chief educational establishment of the Reformed Church, which also main tains a theological seminary in connexion with it. The court-house is an imposing edifice, erected in 1853 at a cost of $166,000. The county jail is a massive sandstone structure, with a tower 110 feet high, built at a cost of $110,000 in 1851. Lancaster is the centre of one of the wealthiest agricultural regions in the United States. Its cotton, iron, and other mills are numerous and large, and it contains one of the most extensive watch factories in the country. Its tobacco trade requires nearly 100 large warehouses for its accommodation. A valuable trade in coal, lumber, leather, and grain is also carried on. James Buchanan, the fifteenth president of the United States, lived in Lancaster, and is buried there. The population in 1880 numbered 25,846.
LANCASTER, the chief city in Fairfield county, Ohio, United States, is situated on the Hocking river, about 30 miles south-east of Columbus. It is a well-built little manufacturing town, busy with foundries, flouring-mills, and various manufactures, such as agricultural implements and machinery. The court-house cost $150,000; and the city hall and public schools are also fine buildings. The neighbouring country is fertile, being especially noted for its grain, live stock, and vineyards. The population in 1880 was 6803.
LANCASTER, House of. The name House of Lancaster is commonly used to designate the line of kings immediately descended from John of Gaunt, fourth son of Edward III. But the history of the family and of the title goes back a whole century further 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 Spensers, and was beheaded for treason at Pontefract. At the com mencement of the following reign his attainder was reversed and his brother Henry restored to the earldom, who, 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, for his greater honour, advanced to the dignity of a duke. The title was new in those days, for only one duke had ever been created in England before, and that was fourteen years previously, when the king's son Edward, so well known in history as the Black Prince, was made duke of Cornwall. This Henry Wryneck died in 1361 without heir male. Of his two daughters, Maud, the elder, was twice married, but died childless little more than a year after her father. The second, Blanche, be came the wife of John of Gaunt, who thus succeeded to the duke's inheritance in her right; and on the 13th November 1362, when King Edward attained the age of fifty, he 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 only his fourth, it ought to have followed in ordinary course that 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 cir- cumstances, 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 repre sentatives 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 some what 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
