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 principal seat of the Mowbrays. In the struggles between John and his barons Lincoln in 1216 made peace with the king by surrendering hostages for the payment of a fine of 1000 marks, but after the landing of Louis the city was captured by Gilbert de Gant, then earl of Lincoln. After his disastrous march to Swineshead Abbey, John journeyed through Sleaford to Newark, where he died, and in the battle of Lincoln in 1217 Gilbert de Gant was captured and the city sacked. At the time of the Wars of the Roses the county, owing to territorial influence, was mainly Lancastrian, and in 1461 the Yorkist strongholds of Grantham and Stamford were sacked to such effect that the latter never recovered. The Lincolnshire rising of 1470 was crushed by the defeat of the rebels in the skirmish known as “Losecoat Field” near Stamford. In the Civil War of the 17th century, Lindsey for the most part declared for the king, and the Royalist cause was warmly supported by the earl of Lindsey, Viscount Newark, Sir Peregrine Bertie and the families of Dymoke, Heneage and Thorold. Lord Willoughby of Parham was a prominent Parliamentary leader, and the Isle of Axholme and the Puritan yeomanry of Holland declared for the parliament. In 1643 Cromwell won a small victory near Grantham, and the Royalist garrisons at Lynn and Lincoln surrendered to Manchester. In 1644, however, Newark, Gainsborough, Lincoln, Sleaford and Crowland were all in Royalist hands, and Newark only surrendered in 1646. Among other historic families connected with Lincolnshire were the Wakes of Bourne and the d’Eyncourts, who flourished at Blankney from the Conquest to the reign of Henry VI.; Belvoir Castle was founded by the Toenis, from whom it passed by the Daubeneys, then to the Barons Ros and later to the Manners, earls of Rutland. In the Lindsey Survey of 1115–1118 the name of Roger Marmion, ancestor of the Marmion family, who had inherited the fief of Robert Despenser, appears for the first time.

At the time of the Domesday Survey there were between 400 and 500 mills in Lincolnshire; 2111 fisheries producing large quantities of eels; 361 salt-works; and iron forges at Stow, St Mary and at Bytham. Lincoln and Stamford were flourishing centres of industry, and markets existed at Kirton-in-Lindsey, Louth, Old Bolingbroke, Spalding, Barton and Partney. The early manufactures of the county are all connected with the woollen trade, Lincoln being noted for its scarlet cloth in the 13th century, while an important export trade in the raw material sprang up at Boston. The disafforesting of Kesteven in 1230 brought large areas under cultivation, and the same period is marked by the growth of the maritime and fishing towns, especially Boston (which had a famous fish-market), Grimsby, Barton, Saltfleet, Wainfleet and Wrangle. The Lincolnshire towns suffered from the general decay of trade in the eastern counties which marked the 15th century, but agriculture was steadily improving, and with the gradual drainage of the fen-districts culminating in the vast operations of the 17th century, over 330,000 acres in the county were brought under cultivation, including more than two-thirds of Holland. The fen-drainage resulted in the extinction of many local industries, such as the trade in goose-feathers and the export of wild fowl to the London markets, a 17th-century writer terming this county “the aviary of England, 3000 mallards with other birds having been caught sometimes in August at one draught.” Other historic industries of Lincolnshire are the breeding of horses and dogs and rabbit-snaring; the Witham was noted for its pike; and ironstone was worked in the south, now chiefly in the north and west.

As early as 1295 two knights were returned to parliament for the shire of Lincoln, and two burgesses each for Lincoln, Grimsby and Stamford. In the 14th century Lincoln and Stamford were several times the meeting-places of parliament or important councils, the most notable being the Lincoln Parliament of 1301, while at Stamford in 1309 a truce was concluded between the barons, Piers Gaveston and the king. Stamford discontinued representation for some 150 years after the reign of Edward II.; Grantham was enfranchised in 1463 and Boston in 1552. Under the act of 1832 the county was divided into a northern and southern division, returning each two members, and Great Grimsby lost one member. Under the act of 1868 the county returned six members in three divisions and Stamford lost one member. Under the act of 1885 the county returned seven members in seven divisions; Lincoln, Boston and Grantham lost one member each and Stamford was disfranchised.

Antiquities.—At the time of the suppression of the monasteries in the reign of Henry VIII. there were upwards of one hundred religious houses; and among the Fens rose some of the finest abbeys held by the Benedictines. The Gilbertines were a purely English order which took its rise in Lincolnshire, the canons following the Austin rule, the nuns and lay brothers that of the Cistercians. They generally lived in separate houses, but formed a community having a common church in which the sexes were divided by a longitudinal wall. These houses were at Alvingham, Catley, Holland Brigg, Lincoln, before the gate of which the first Eleanor Cross was erected by Edward I. to his wife, Newstead in Lindsey, Sempringham, the chief house of the order, founded by St Gilbert of Gaunt in 1139, of which the Norman nave of the church is in use, Stamford (a college for students) and Wellow. There were nunneries of the order at Haverholme, Nun Ormsby and Tunstal.

The following are a few of the most famous abbeys. Barlings (Premonstratensian), N.E. of Lincoln, was founded 1154, for fourteen canons. The tower, Decorated, with arcading pierced with windows, and the east wall of the south wing remain. The Benedictine Mitred Abbey of (q.v.) was founded 716, and refounded in 948. Part of the church is still in use. Thornton Abbey (Black Canons) in the north near the Humber was founded in 1139. There remain a fragment of the south wing of the transept, two sides of the decagonal chapter-house (1282) and the beautiful west gate-house, Early Perpendicular (1332–1388), with an oriel window on the east. Kirkstead Abbey (Cistercian) was founded in 1139. Little remains beyond an Early English chapel of singular beauty.

In the Parts of Lindsey several churches present curious early features, particularly the well-known towers of St Peter, Barton-on-Humber, St Mary-le-Wigford and St Peter at Gowts, Lincoln, which exhibit work of a pre-Conquest type. Stow church for Norman of various dates, Bottesford and St James, Grimsby, for Early English, Tattershall and Theddlethorpe for Perpendicular are fine examples of various styles.

In the Parts of Kesteven the churches are built of excellent stone which abounds at Ancaster and near Sleaford. The church of St Andrew, Heckington, is the best example of Decorated architecture in the county; it is famed for its Easter sepulchre and fine sedilia. The noble church of St Wulfram, Grantham, with one of the finest spires in England, is also principally Decorated; this style in fact is particularly well displayed in Kesteven, as in the churches of Caythorpe, Claypole, Navenby and Ewerby. At (q.v.) there are five churches of various styles.

It is principally in the Parts of Holland that the finest churches in the county are found; they are not surpassed by those of any other district in the kingdom, which is the more remarkable as the district is composed wholly of marsh land and is without stone of any kind. It is highly probable that the churches of the south part of this district owe their origin to the munificence of the abbeys of Crowland and Spalding. The church of Long Sutton, besides its fine Norman nave, possesses an Early English tower and spire which is comparable with the very early specimen at Oxford cathedral. Whaplode church is another noteworthy example of Norman work; for Early English work the churches of Kirton-in-Holland, Pinchbeck and Weston may be noticed; for Decorated those at Donington and Spalding; and for Perpendicular, Gedney, together with parts of Kirton church. Of the two later styles, however, by far the most splendid example is the famous church of St Botolph, (q.v.), with its magnificent lantern-crowned tower or “stump.”

There are few remains of medieval castles, although the sites of a considerable number are traceable. Those of Lincoln and Tattershall (a fine Perpendicular building in brick) are the most noteworthy, and there are also fragments at Boston and Sleaford, Country seats worthy of note (chiefly modern) are Aswarby Hall, Belton House, Brocklesby, Casewick, Denton Manor, Easton Hall, Grimsthorpe (of the 16th and 18th centuries, with earlier remains), Haverholm Priory, Nocton Hall, Panton Hall, Riby Grove, Somerby Hall, Syston Park and Uffington. The city of Lincoln is remarkably rich in remains of domestic architecture from the Norman period onward, and there are similar examples at Stamford and elsewhere. In this connexion the remarkable triangular bridge at Crowland of the 14th century (see ) should be mentioned.

See Victoria County History, Lincolnshire; Thomas Allen, The History of the County of Lincoln (2 vols., London, 1834); C. G. Smith, A Translation of that portion of the Domesday Book which relates to Lincolnshire and Rutlandshire (London, 1870); G. S. Streatfield, Lincolnshire and the Danes (London, 1884); Chronicle of the Rebellion in Lincolnshire, 1470, ed. J. E. Nicholls, Camden Society, Camden Miscellany, vol. i. (London, 1847); The Lincolnshire Survey, temp. Henry I., ed. James Greenstreet (London, 1884); Lincolnshire Notes and Queries (Horncastle, 1888); Lincolnshire Record Society (Horncastle, 1891). 