صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

new name which points out to us a burgh. It must owe the recovery of the name to others not to me, though I have sought it with unwearied diligence; nor is the reader to expect that I should point out the name of every town in Britain mentioned by Ptolemy, Antoninus, the Notitia, and the classic authors. If, however, I might be allowed to conjecture, I should readily suppose it from the distance from Coccium or Riblechester to be BREMETONACVм, which Hieronymus Surita the Spaniard has justly in his notes on Antoninus distinguished from BREMENTV RACVM.

"From this Burgh the river Lone passes by Thurland, a castle of the Tunstalls, built by Thomas Tunstall knight of the garter, in Henry VI. when the king had given him leave to fortify and kernell, i. e. embattle his house:' and Hornby a noble castle, founded by N. de Mont Begon, and owned by the Harringtons and Stanleys, barons Mont Eagle, descended from Thomas Stanley first earl of Derby*. The 3d and last of them William Stanley left Elizabeth his only daughter and heiress, wife of Edward Parker lord Morley, mother of William Parker, whom king James invested with his grandfather's title of

* And advanced to that title by Henry VIII. H.

Mont Eagle, and we and our posterity must acknowledge to have been born for the good of the whole kingdom. For, from an obscure letter privately sent to him, and by him most opportunely produced, the wickedest plot which the most accomplished villany could contrive, was detected when the kingdom was on the eve of destruction, when certain wretches, under the cursed mask of religion, lodged a great quantity of gunpowder under the parliament house, and waited to fire it and blow up their king and country in a moment."

The Borough of Preston in Amounderness.

Theobald Walters, son of Henry, son of Hubert, and brother to Hubert Walter, a bishop of Canterbury, obtained a grant of the fee of the Lordship of Preston, and the whole wapentake or forest of Amunderness, of Richard I. to hold by three Knight's fees. This grant bears date, 22d April, 1st Richard I. (being the Friday next ensuing his coronation.) In 6th Richard I. having such large possessions in this county, he was made sheriff thereof, in which office he continued till the 1st of John inclusive. He contributed very largely towards the redemption of king Richard I. as may be seen in Maddox's History of the Exchequer, page 412. His son Theobald,

who married Maud, sister to Thomas Becket, a bishop of Canterbury, took upon himself the surname of Butler, upon being appointed butler of Ireland. Tosti, fourth son of Godwin, earl of Kent, being made earl of Northumberland, by Edward the Confessor, in the thirteenth year of his reign, anno 1056, then held Preston in Agmunderness, with divers hamlets thereunto belonging, which Featherston afterwards held, 28th Henry VIII.

Preston was made a burgh or borough by Henry II. in the twenty-sixth year of his reign, when the men thereof gave one hundred marks, to have by charter the same liberties that the men of Newcastle had, for the confirmation of which, they paid 2nd king John sixty marks and four chascurs or dogs. And in the next year the men of Preston were fined in ten marks and a palfrey, to have peace, touching a plaint which Theobald Walter had brought against them concerning the gibbet and gaol in Preston: their grants and liberties were also confirmed by Henry III. and Edward III.; all the distinct charters, with the recitations, are contained in charter granted by Elizabeth; two charters were subsequently granted by Charles II.

The church of Preston, dedicated to St. Wilfrid, was impropriated to the college of Leicester, and is now

in the patronage of Sir Henry Hoghton, Bart. and has in its parish the chapels of Broughton, St. Lawrence new chapel, which, having no certain endowment, the Rev. Samuel Peploe, vicar of Preston, procured the queen's bounty for it in 1717. This Mr. Peploe was promoted from the vicarage of Preston to the see of Chester in 1725, and was succeeded at Preston by his son, who, in 1727, was presented by the Dean and Chapter of Chester, to the rectory of Northenden, or Northen, in that diocese, worth about 150l. per annum.

In 1322, 16th Edward II. in the octaves of the nativity of St. John the Baptist, Robert Bruce, entering into England, by Carlisle, kept on his way through Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Lancaster, to Preston, which town he burnt, as he had done others in the countries he had passed through; and, after three weeks and three days, says Mr. Holinshed, returned into Scotland without engaging.

Modern description of Preston.

Preston is an ancient borough town in Lancashire, pleasantly situated on a gentle elevation above the Ribble, about fifteen miles from the confluence of that river with the Irish sea, and in the centre of a country abounding

in rich and varied landscapes. According to the opinions. of some antiquaries, this town rose into existence on the decay of the ancient city of Ribchester, a city which is now reduced to the humble condition of a village, about eleven miles distant from Preston; a priory was anciently erected here under the auspices of the earl of Lancaster, A.D. 1221, for the grey friars. The building which formed the seat of the institution was, subsequently to the dissolution of religious foundations, converted into a house of correction, and is now occupied in distinct private dwellings of the lowest description. The town was incorporated by Henry II. in 1160. By a subsequent charter granted in the reign of Henry III. the officers of the burgh were authorised to hold a guild merchant for the renewal of freedom to the burgesses and for other purposes. This privilege is made the occasion of great festivity. For a long time after their first institution the guilds were held at irregular periods, but they have now, for more than a century, been uniformly celebrated every twentieth year, commencing on the Monday next after the decollation of St. John, which generally happens in the last week of August; the last was held in 1802, and the ensuing guild will commence on the 2nd of September, 1822. The amusements, which

C

« السابقةمتابعة »