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(Signature.)”

The foregoing statute was amended two years later, and the modified enactment continued in force for some time, when it was repealed. In the registers of old churches, such as Bispham, Poulton, Kirkham, and St. Michael’s-on-Wyre, where they have been preserved, notices of burials according to this regulation during the two years it was in operation, may be seen; and amongst the records of the Thirty-men, or governing body of Kirkham, is an entry of expenses incurred when they went “to justice Stanley” to obtain his authority to “demand 50s. for Tomlinson’s wife buried in linen,” contrary to the law.

Three years from the accession of James II., his repeated attempts to curtail the civil and religious liberties of his subjects had so far incensed them against him that William, Prince of Orange, was invited over to free them from his rule. In 1688 James abdicated the throne, and the following year William and Mary were crowned at Westminster. Annexed is a list of the gentry residing in the Fylde from the reign of Henry VIII., to their accession, as prepared from original records and private manuscripts:—