Page:Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, Etc., with an Appendix Containing a Rare Tract.djvu/23

 produced these events are therefore studiously concealed by the personages concerned; but after ages have passed away, some zealous antiquary carefully examines all the documents relating to such transactions; and then proceeds to assign to each his due meed of praise or blame, as in his opinion they deserve. It is by such examinations into the public archives, or into the collections of private individuals, that modern generations have been led to reject many of the stereotyped assertions of our popular histories. Not a few of our kings, queens, and great personages, have suffered materially by the process; whilst others have regained their proper positions and legitimate characters, of which they ought never to have been deprived. National changes, both in religion and politics, have thus been assigned to their true causes; and even now we are beginning to learn that the political liberties which we are so rapidly acquiring involve nothing more than a return to those privileges which our ancestors enjoyed nine centuries ago under ancient Saxon rule.

When such results have followed from an examination of our national records; it is not too much to expect that similar modifications of opinion, in a less degree, must have been produced by an inspection of our local collections. Such is manifestly the case; and the many excellent local histories issued during the present century bear ample testimony to the fact. Local antiquaries have been silently, but effectually, at work, and the result is a mass of evidence with regard to local events and social polity which cannot be overlooked by any future historian. In the County of Lancaster the Chetham and Historic societies have issued numerous volumes, which lay open to our gaze both the public and the private lives of the principal personages who figure in our county history; and not