Читать книгу History of the Fylde of Lancashire онлайн

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 Whiteside, Robt., of Thornton, gent.

In the Registers of Kirkham is the annexed statement, from which it appears that a few years from the death of James I. the Fylde, or at least a considerable tract of it, was visited by some fatal epidemic, but its peculiar nature cannot be ascertained:—“A.D. 1630. This year was a great plague in Kirkham, in which the more part of the people of the town died thereof. It began about the 25th of July and continued vehemently until Martinmas, but was not clear of it before Lent; and divers towns of the parish was infected with it, and many died thereof out of them, as Treales, Newton, Greenall, Estbrick, Thistleton. N.B.—The great mortality was in the year 1631; 304 died that year, and were buried at Kirkham, of whom 193 in the months of August and September”. Charles I. soon after ascending the throne in 1626, provoked a breach with his parliament by endeavouring to enforce subsidies, with which to carry on his foreign wars, and further, he alienated the affections and respect of the Puritan section of his subjects by confirming the regulations of the “Book of Sports.” Dissatisfaction and murmurings were quickly fermented into rebellion, and the closing of the gates of Hull against the king in 1642 initiated those fearful wars, which desolated and disorganised the country for so many years. In 1641, Alexander Rigby,[37] esq., of Layton Hall, Sir Gilbert de Hoghton, with eight other gentlemen, were removed from the commission of the peace, by order of parliament, on suspicion of being favourably disposed towards the royal party. The chief supporters of the king in the ensuing conflicts were the nobility, in great numbers; the higher orders of the gentry, and a considerable portion of their tenantry; all the High-churchmen; and a large majority of the Catholics. The parliamentarian army, on the other hand, was mainly composed of freeholders, traders, manufacturers, Puritans, Presbyterians, and Independents. An engagement near Wigan roused up the people in our vicinity to a sense of the dangers menacing them, and a public meeting of royalists was called at Preston under the presidency of the earl of Derby. Amongst other gentlemen who took a prominent part in the assembly were Thomas Clifton, esq., of Lytham, and Alexander Rigby, esq., of Layton. Several resolutions were adopted, the most important being that a sum of money, amounting to £8,700, should be raised and devoted to the payment of a regiment, consisting of 2,000 foot and 400 horse, in the following scale of remuneration:—