Town's fight against Tartan Army
IF YOU happened to walk past the stone wall enclosing the old Parish Church of Bolton at some time before 1701, the following inscription would have caught your eye:
"The bolt shot well I ween,
From arablast of yew tree green;
Many nobles prostrate lay
At glorious Flodden Field."
And in those days you would have understood it!
"Ween" means "think", an "arablast" is a "bow", and "glorious Flodden Field" is the place where, on September 9, 1513, the English army under Thomas Howard, Early of Surrey, inflicted on the Scots under King James IV, the worst defeat ever suffered by that nation of warriors. The inscription tells us that Boltonians fought in that battle, and so does the Ballad of Flodden Field.
In 1513 the King was young Henry VIII, still handsome, gallant, dashing, staunchly Catholic and happily married to Catherine of Aragon. Henry had, early in that year, invaded France with a huge army and was happily employed burning farms and striking poses. His brother in law, James IV King of Scots rallied to his French friends' cause and invaded the North of England.
The veteran soldier Thomas Howard led the English force to meet them, which included among the northern levies a consignment of lusty lads from the small town of Bolton in the Moors. What sort of place did the lads leave? For a start the town had a stone built parish church constructed in first half of the 15th century (1412 is the traditional date).
If, on a Sunday afternoon in 1513 one of lads had
taken a walk out of town along the cart track which led to Westhoughton
he would have come, in time, to the village of Deane which boasted
its own fine stone Church of St Mary. It is still there, and seems
to date from about the same time as the old Parish Church.
"Thomas, parson of Deane" appears in a legal document
from the 13th Century, but alas we do not know who the incumbent
was in 1513. The lord of the manor in 15I3 was Thomas Stanley, Earl
of Derby. He received the manor as a reward from King Richard III
on September 17, 1484, for helping "in the suppression and
termination of false and malicious rebellion".
Eleven months later, on August 22, 1485, this same loyal Stanley turned his coat at the Battle of Bosworth Field, taking his men over to the side of Henry Tudor. Richard was killed, and, so legend has it, Stanley discovered the royal crown hanging in a hawthorn bush and placed it on Henry's head.
The first Earl of Derby was an amazing man, not least because of his judgement -- he always knew the right way to jump. Other big noises in town at the time included Robert Bolton, master of Little Bolton and living in his Hall on the bank of the River Tonge, while Roger Brownlow owned the Hall In The Wood, a newish house then, built of timber and plaster over a stone base. The Brownlows as early as 1483 owned at least one fulling mill. To "full" cloth is to clean it of grease, a process in which Fuller's Earth is used.
We see that by the 15th century the woollen trade was established in Bolton. And even then traders were going down to London to sell their wares.
Roger Haulgh, of the Haulgh, died on November 25, 1513. He had 200 acres of land which he rented from Robert Bolton, and was succeeded by his son Richard, who was then 15 years old.
The Sharples, Hollands, Bradshaws and Wards held land in Sharples.
In Little Lever there was Giles Lever, who had served on the Scottish Border at Berwick in 1505, and his sons Adam and William.
Breightmet was in the possession of Miles Gerard, Elizabeth his wife, and Peter Gerard, a priest. The manor of Harwood belonged to the Traffords of Trafford.
In Bradshaw, Alexander Bradshaw ruled the heap and had married his son and heir John to Ellen Holland.
At Turton, living in their massive grindstone Peel Tower, a building originally constructed in about 1400, was William Orrell, his widowed mother Margery, and his son Ralph. Edmund Entwistle held land in Entwistle, Edgworth,Turton, Bolton, Radcliffe and Manchester.
In Rivington in 1513, Richard Pilkington was 29 years old. He built or rebuilt the Chapel at Rivington and fathered several sons.
One of them, James, Bishop of Durham, founded Rivington Grammar School in 1566.
The manor of Lostock was owned by the Athertons at this time and was not sold to the famous Andertons of Lostock until 1562.
The Norrises were top dogs in Blackrod and selected the priest of the Chapel of St Catherine, which had been endowed, by Dame Mabel Bradshagh, in 1338.
In Horwich in 1473 there were only four tenants -- Ralph Radcliffe, Edward Greenhalgh, Edward Hulme and William Heaton. A chapel existed at Horwich before 1550.
The Heatons, not surprisingly, had the manor of Heaton.
In 1513 John Barton was top of the pecking order in Smithills, but in 1516 he signed his lands over to his 18 year old son Andrew, who was married to Agnes Stanley and became a brother in the order of Observant Friars.
Andrew and Anne had Smithills Hall to live in, which must have been some compensation. Their son Robert was the Justice who interrogated George Marsh, the Martyr, in 1554.
In 1516, when John Barton was making his will he left £10 to "Father Nicholas" so that the cleric should either study divinity at Cambridge or "teach grammar at Bolton upon the Moors".
It seems likely that the Grammar School at Bolton was up and running by 1513. It may have been founded as early as 1475 when Sir Ralph Radcliffe established a chantry at the Parish Church -- a chantry is an endowment left so that a priest will say a daily mass for the soul of a dead person.
From 1516 the school was taken over and run by a trust, the first trustees being James olton, vicar of the Parish Church since 1514, Robert Bolton, his nephew, and, as we have seen, lord of Little Bolton, Richard Ward of Sharples, John Walsh, Thomas Glasebrook, Ralph Orrel of Turton and John Lever.
Adam Hulton was Squire of Hulton and in 1523 he raised 40 men to join an army that was about to invade Scotland. He may well have done the same in 1513.
Again we have been concentrating on the top hamper of society, because, they left records.
But we can tell that the town the lads left on their way to fight the Scots was a flourishing little place and not just some hole in the back of beyond.
It had trade, a school, solid churches and fine halls. It also had big, ancient Yew Trees.
From these trees were cut six foot long staves to make into longbows. Strung with hemp impregnated with beeswax such a bow could shoot an Ash wood, steel tipped arrow with goose feather flights accurately over a range of 300 yards.
Long bow practice, conducted at targets set up in the churchyard on Sunday afternoon was mandatory under the law. But thankfully, it was also fun.
see papers From the Evening News, January 17, 1951