Page:History of the Fylde of Lancashire (IA historyoffyldeof00portiala).pdf/81



and thereupon approved—we have this day solemnly set him apart to the office of presbyter and work of the ministry of the gospel, by laying on of hands by us present, with fasting and prayer, by virtue whereof we declare him to be a lawful and sufficiently authorised minister of Jesus Christ. In testimony whereof we have hereunto put our hands the 27th Nov., 1651."

(Here follow the signatures.)

In 1648 General Langdale, a royalist officer, appealed to the loyalty of the northern counties to attempt a rescue of the imprisoned monarch from the hands of his enemies. Many rushed to his standard, and the parliamentarians of the Fylde shared the general consternation which pervaded Lancashire at the success of his effort to rekindle the still smouldering embers of civil war. There is no necessity to trace the steps of this ill-judged enterprise to its disastrous issue, but suffice it to say that the defeat and routing of the little army was followed at a very short interval by the execution of Charles I., after a formal trial in which he disclaimed the jurisdiction of the court.

On the 22nd of June, 1650, a meeting of Commissioners under the Great Seal of England was held at Preston—"for inquiring into and certeifying of the certeine numbers and true yearely value of all parsonages and vicariges presentative, of all and every the sp'uall and eccli'call benefices, livings, and donatives within the said countye"; and after examining the good and lawful men of Kirkham and Lytham, it was recommended by the assembly that Goosnargh and Whittingham should be formed into a separate parish on account of their great distance from the church at Kirkham. At this inquiry it was also stated that—"the inhabitants of Newsham desired to be annexed to Woodplumpton; the inhabitants of Clifton and Salwick, together with the inhabitants of Newton-cum-Scales, and the upper end of Treales, desired to be united in one parish. Singleton chappell, newly erected, desired that it might be made a parish. The inhabitants of Weeton-cum-Preese desired that that township might be made a parish, and the inhabitants of Rawcliffe desired to be annexed to it. The townships of Rigby-cum-Wraye, and of Warton, and of Kellamore-cum-Bryning, and Westbye-cum-Plumpton, all humbly desired to be made a parish. The several townships of Eccleston Parva-cum-Labrecke, and the inhabitants of Medlar and Thistleton, and the inhabitants of Rossaker-cum-Wharles, desired to be annexed to Elswick, and that it might be made a parish." Al