Page:History of the Fylde of Lancashire (IA historyoffyldeof00portiala).pdf/79

 marsh was the rendezvous, and there the entire forces assembled on the morning of Monday, but were compelled to remain until one o'clock at noon before the Ribble was fordable, when they took their departure, to the intense joy of all those who had trembled for their lives and suffered ruin in their small properties during their brief sojourn. Sir John Meldrum appeared in the district only a few hours after the royalists had left, and thus the Fylde had again a narrow escape of adding one more to the long list of unnatural battles, most truly described as suicidal massacres of the nation, where men ignoring the ties of friendship or kinship imbrued their swords in the blood of each other with a relentless and inhuman savagery, reviving as it seemed the horrid butcheries of the dark ages. Sir John Meldrum hastened in the direction of the retreating foe, but failed to overtake them.

"In 1645," writes Rushworth, "there remained of unreduced garrisons belonging to the king in Lancashire only Lathom House and Greenhalgh Castle." This castle was erected about half a mile eastward of Garstang, overlooking the Wyre, by Thomas, the first earl of Derby, in 1490, after the victory of Bosworth Field, as a protection from certain of the outlawed nobles, whose estates in that vicinity had rewarded the services of the earl to Henry VII. The castle was built in a rectangular form almost approaching to a square, with a tower at each angle. The edifice was surrounded and protected by a wide moat. The garrison occupying the small fortress at the date under consideration held out until the death of the governor, when a capitulation was made, and, about 1649, the castle was dismantled. In 1772 Penant spoke of the "poor remains of Greenhalgh Castle."

The fall of Lathom House and other strongholds of the king and the surrender of Charles himself to the Scotch army of Puritans, brought the contests for a time to a close in 1647, and Sir Thomas Tyldesley, with several more, received instructions to disband the troops under his command. During the foregoing struggles parliament, in order to provide the necessary funds for the increased expenditure, had allowed "delinquents, papists, spies, and intelligencers" to compound for their sequestered estates, and amongst those connected with this locality who had taken