RECORDS AND TRADITIONS OF DEANE CHURCH, VILLAGE, AND PARISH, &c. RECORDS & TRADITIONS OF Deane Church, Village, and Parish, IN LANCASHIRE, A.D. 597 to 1904. Together with the Histories of THE SAXON KINGDOM OF DEIRA, OF WHICH LANCASHIRE FORMED A PART AND ITS CONVERSION TO CHRISTIANITY; THE MONKS OF WHALLEY ABBEY, TO WHOM BELONGED SAYNTE MARIDEN, THE EARLY CHAPEL OF DEANE; THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE, THE DOWNFALL OF THE ABBEY OF WHALLEY AND ALL OTHER ABBEYS; AND THE LIFE AND TIMES OF GEORGE MARSH, THE DEANE MARTYR. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. Compiled and Edited by JAMES BOARDMAN, Warden of Deane Church, 1867-72; St. Bartholomew’s, London, E.C., 1879-90: and for eighteen years one of the Governing Body of the City of London College, B.C. 1904. “Be just and fear not; Let all the ends thou aim’st at be thy country’s, Thy God's, and truth’s.” Shakespeare. [ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.] PREFACE. IT has been said that a man need not be very clever to write history, provided he has ascertained his facts. Encouraged by this observation, founded probably on the well-known saying that “facts speak for themselves”; and without any pretension to literary ability, the humble collector of historical facts connected with his native village, church, and parish, now ventures to publish in two volumes the result of his many years’ patient research. This work is the outcome of “a labour of love,” a sentiment ever cherished by the writer for the old place of his birth and the venerable church which adorns it. He owes its accomplishment, he is thankful to say, to opportune leisure and continued health, granted by an ever-gracious Providence—blessings always to be held in grateful remembrance. The Rector of Barkham, author of “English Villages,” tells us that “to write a complete history of any village is one of the hardest literary labours which anyone can undertake. “ The soil is hard, and the crop, after the expenditure of much toil, is often very scanty; in many cases, the records are few and difficult to discover, buried amidst the mass of papers at the Record Office, or entombed in some dusty corner of the Diocesan Registry,” and, we may add, the library of the British Museum. “Days may be spent in search for these treasures of knowledge with regard to the past history of a village, without any adequate result; but sometimes fortune favours the industrious toiler, and he discovers a rich ore which rewards him for all his pains. “Shortly his store of facts grows, and he is at last able to piece together the history of his little rural world, which time and the neglect of past generations had consigned to dusty oblivion. “In recent years several village histories have been written, with varied success, by both competent and incompetent scribes; but such books are few in number, and we still have to deplore the fact that so little is known about the hamlet in which we live. “All writers seem to join in the same lament, and mourn over the ignorance that prevails in rural England with regard to the treasures of antiquity, history, and folk-lore, which are to be found almost everywhere. “There are few villages in England which have no objects of historical interest, no relics of the past which are worthy of preservation. “ And a great service may be rendered, not only to the cause of history, but also to the villages of rural England, by those who have time, leisure, and learning sufficient to gain some knowledge of bygone times; it adds greatly to the interest of their lives to know something of the place where they live. “ To live in memory of what has gone before, of the lives and customs of our forefathers, of the strange events that have happened on the very ground upon which we are standing—all this will make us love our village homes and delight in them exceedingly.” These notes by the Rector of Barkham are very interesting, and we are glad to say that our own notes throw some light, not only on the history of Deane village, church, and parish, in the old days, but also upon the times generally to which they refer. And it is not without pleasure that, to use another’s words, “ we rescue some quaint old document from the dust of ages, and that we arrest the floating memories of men and things as they pass down the stream of time toward the ocean of oblivion.” Our hobby—for so we may call it—has been to rescue from oblivion whatever may tend to elucidate the history of bygone days, and to show us what our village, church, and parish were in the past. With the study of our local history we have, whenever it seemed desirable, combined that of our country so far as it relates to the times and events contemporaneous with those herein recorded under Deane, Church, and Parish. And in compiling this work, we have sought, in a plain and continuous narrative, to present a true and readable account of the records and traditions in question. Submitted, at sundry stages, to friends, the manuscript has met with encouraging comments, as may be seen from the following extracts taken from their letters :— “I have,” says a lady, “read your manuscript, and I am greatly interested in a lot of the information. “The part about the Cistercians I enjoyed immensely. “I think it very readable and a very concise manuscript, for I notice the knowledge has been picked up from so many sources which are utterly unreachable to the ordinary reader. “I trust we shall not have long to wait for its appearance in print.” A well-known and respected citizen of Bolton makes the following remarks:— “I have made a very careful perusal of your excellent work, and I do not know that I could suggest any amendment in any form. “ It is concise, easy to understand, and, I have no doubt, thoroughly accurate; and everything contained in the work, so far as it goes, leads up to what I have no doubt will be delightful reading when ready. “I must congratulate you on your wonderful perseverance and literary ability, for the amount and quality of what is already prepared is evidence of enormous effort. “Let me have the first opportunity, if possible, of saying I will gladly become a subscriber, and, when I get it complete, no book shall have a more honoured place on my bookshelves than this one. “May your great and praiseworthy efforts be crowned with abundant success.” “The more I see of these documents,” writes an old friend at a distance, “the more I wonder how you have managed to get together such a mass of valuable information, the result of research of the most persevering character, and which could only have been done by one who had possessed himself of the most intimate knowledge, and had a most heartfelt love for the place of which it treats in such a lucid and interesting fashion. “Sure I am that the good folks of Deane ought to treasure such a wealth of history and tradition regarding their old church and its vicinity.” Well, it has been said that “the dearest spot to any man was the spot in which he was born,” and the writer can truly say that in every place where he has been, in every post he has filled, the thought of Deane has always been at the back of his mind. J.B. Park Road, Lytham. ERRATA. Vol. I. Page 4, paragraph 3, line 3 - For county read country “ 81, “ 2, “ 3 - “ where “ were “ 110 “ 3, “ 6 - “ 1903 “ 1803 “ 142, “ 7, “ 1 - “ A report “ “A report “ 160, “ 2, “ 6 - “ Norfolk “ Darcy “ 320, “ 3, “ 1 _ “ bcother “ brother INDEX TO VOL, I. Records and Traditions of the ancient Parish of Deane date back to the Saxon Heptarchy:— Original This Edition Edition Smithills Hall, in the Parish—Palace of Ella, a Saxon king in time of the 1, 50-51 Heptarchy—Egbert, a later Saxon king,holds his Court at Smithills—Egbert’s den, a hill beyond Smithills Smithills Chapel, consecrated by Eanbald, Archbishop of York, and Ethelbert, 74 Bishop of Hexham, bishops who, two years before, crowned the Saxon king, Eardulf Blackrod, near Deane, the scene of four battles between Saxons and 1-2 Britons, led by King Arthur Deane, anciently written Dene, a Saxon settlement, probably in King Ella’s time— 2-3 Dene, Saxon for valley, and the name the Saxons gave to their settlements in valleys Asser from Wales, conducted to the “ Royal city of Dene in which King 4 Alfred dwelt,” now named East Dean Deane Village, the Dene of Domesday Book 5-18 History of the Saxon kingdom of Deira, and its conversion to Christianity:— Deira, a British kingdom, wrested from the Britons by Ella, a Saxon chieftain, 2, 18-19 becomes the sixth kingdom of the Heptarchy King Ella, a pagan, adds the evils of the slave trade to those of paganism —Fair 19-21 little subjects of his, exposed for sale at Rome, leads to the conversion of the Saxons—Pope Gregory sends Augustine with 40 missionaries to Kent—Ethelbert and his Queen Bertha welcome them Consecrated Bishop, Augustine becomes Archbishop of Canterbury— Meets 21-23 British bishops from Wales—He consecrates Millitus Bishop of East Saxons, and Justus Bishop of Rochester—Justus succeeds him as Archbishop of Canterbury King Ella dies and is succeeded by his infant son, Edwin—Ethelred, King of 23 Bernicia, usurping the throne of Deira, Edwin is carried to Wales for safety Edwin, after a long exile, regains his kingdom—Marries Ethelburga, Christian 24-26 daughter of Ethelbert and Bertha—Converted, Edwin is baptised by Paulinus, the Queen’s chaplain Lancashire embraces the true religion—Converts baptised by Paulinus in rivers 27 Ribble and Mersey—Saxon temples used for Christian worship Penda, pagan king of Mercia, with Cadwallon, British king of Wales, invading 28 Deira, Edwin and his two sons