Chapter Three TUDOR ROCHDALE : 1485-1603 THE MANOR AND THE BYRONS . FTER the death of Sir Nicholas Byron in 1504 there were five successive John Byrons, all of whom were eventually knighted . The first Sir John had a bastard son by Elizabeth Halgh of A Moston, whom he afterwards married, dying in 1567 .1 This Lady Elizabeth, now twice widowed, survived him by some thirteen years ; her personal possessions reveal her as a fashionable and practical lady, with a red petticoat, a kirtle of velvet with a purple satin forepart, a gorget of taffeta at her throat, and a gown of damask, furred with lamb . Both her husband and her son lived at Royton Hall ; perhaps she rode there in her grey mantle, on her horse with a velvet-covered lady's saddle . As was usual, she drank beer, and also owned a spinning-wheel, worth Is . l0d . Her husband's stewardship of the Manor was one long battle to enclose and encroach on land-then greatly in demand for sheep-grazing and the supply of wool . According to a copy of a certificate dated 1519-20, he enclosed part of Buersill common with a dyke, but this was " in peaceable manner " cast down again by certain women and children . Some time before 1552 he set up boundary stones well within the Crompton district .2 (One of these massive stones still stands near the hawthorn lane which leads from Snipe Leach to Moorgate West Farm and to Broad Lane . During recent perambulations of the boundaries it has been the custom to climb over the Moorgate Farm roof, since a through door has been stopped up) . Eventually, after disputes and lawsuits he bought houses and about 300 acres in Buersill in 1554.3 In 1543 Henry VIII granted, at a rental, the subordinate Manor of Spotland to the powerful Holts of 30 ROCHDALE RETROSPECT Gristlehurst,4 near Bury, with whom the Halts of Stubley were connected . For 20 years Sir John Byron was unable to collect rents from the Holts ; he also complained that they would not go to the Scotch wars under him and that they held a Court Leet of their own . Charles Holt of Stubley held Naden, which was said to contain a manor house . In 1573, accor- ding to a deed quoted by Fishwick, a Court was reported as having been held in Spotland . In 1575 Francis Holt of Gristlehurst became the High Sheriff of Lancashire. The second Sir John Byron (known as " Little Sir John with the Long Beard "), succeeded in 1567, on the death of his father. Being twice made High Sheriff, in 1572 and 1581, he was knighted in 1579 . Apart from inheriting his father's troubles with the Hells he became embroiled with Sir John Savile and many others over the question of enclosing the wastes . For many years there had been an unsystematic acquiring of land in Rochdale-in many cases without warrant . In 15865 a Duchy Com- mission granted to Sir John Byron the right to search out " ancient cus- tomary lands and tenements " which had been escaping their proper dues . Byron was allowed to re-grant these lands at a rental and also to grant out the wastes to copyholders, i.e. to tenants who would hold a written copy of their grants as recorded in the Manor Court Rolls . This naturally caused much discontent . In 15876 Byron was obliged to buy out Sir John Savile's rights in the wastes for £1,000, but in 1588, after complaints, Byron's rights were limited to one half of the wastes ; the other half was to remain free ; moreover, copyholders with at least 12 acres of land were to be allowed to build on it . The position was now clearer, but revolts still followed ; Sir John's new fences continued to be pulled up and when, in 1595, the Byron representatives, headed by Gabriel Gartside, went to drive strangers' sheep from the Byron lands and into the Manor fold they were attacked by the swords, rapiers and daggers of the Halts and their supporters and forced to give up the sheep .7 It may here be mentioned that there might once have been a " Manor House . now commonly called by the name of the Castlehill " in Rochdale . A . P. Wadsworth instances a 1696 Chancery document which so describes one,s but the 1610 Inquisition of Rochdale states that the Courts had " always been kept " in inns in Rochdale town. However, in 1610 the Lord of the Manor owned the Castle Hill (as he still does today) and the house which stood upon it, then occupied by a Gabriel Taylor. This Sir John Byron died during the last year of the Tudor era and two years after the passing of the 1601 Poor Law Act which gave to those prominent but unpaid local gentry, the Justices of the Peace, power to appoint Overseers in each parish, and to enforce taxes towards the relief of the poor . Some indication of the change in money values is shown by the TUDOR ROCHDALE : 1485-1603 31 Manor Court Rolls : in those of 1366 the fine for breaking the peace was usually between 3d . and 6d., but in 1566 fines of 20d . and 3s . 4d. were imposed for such " frays."9 DISSOLUTION AND CONFISCATION . The struggle for land ownership was stimulated by Henry VIII's dissolution of the smaller and then the larger monasteries in 1536 and 1539 respectively . In 1541 Lancashire became part of the See of Chester ; in 1548 Edward VI suppressed the chantries (i.e . privately endowed chapels) . Most of the property of the monasteries and of the chantries was sold to speculators and others ; the proceeds went to the Crown . Here was the end of Stanlaw and of Whalley-only a stone or two remains of the former, but the roofless ruins of the latter still stand . John Paslow, last Abbot of Whalley, took part in the great northern rising, the Pilgrimage of Grace, being afterwards imprisoned in Lancaster Castle, where in 1537 he was hanged, drawn and quartered . In the north of England, ever conservative, the sympathies of the people were with the monks, who had been at least reasonable landlords and employers, as well as learned, hospitable and charitable. Never- the less they had lived richly and at the expense of the parochial clergy, whose morale had deteriorated . Between 1522 and 1554, Gilbert Haydock was the Vicar of Roch- dale. Until 1547 the clergy were still required to be celibate, yet Hay- dock's will (now, with many other Rochdale documents, in the Lancashire Record Office at Preston) names " Johane, my basterde doughter and Anne the doughter of Richarde Haydocke my hasterde sonne " as his executors. He died leaving debts of over £80, nearly as much as the total value of his goods . (At this time a couple of shillings would buy a whole sheep or about 500 eggs .) The suppression of the chantries caused, in Rochdale, a pitiful state of affairs . Men who had seen small chapels built were obliged to watch their confiscation together with vestments and chalices, although finally they were allowed to buy them hack . In the Parish Church the Trinity Chapel (north) had been founded in 1487, and St . Katherine's (south) at about the same time ; a chapel at Littlehorough was built some years earlier, those at Todmorden and Milnrow a little later, and a Whitworth Chapel was built in about 1529 . In the inventories of church possessions there is a mention of an early " payre of orgaynes " and " fyve grete belles " belonging to the Parish Church .'() Only two other churches in Lancashire had one of these 16th century organs, which customarily had two keyboards . "ALL CHANGE" AT THE HALLS . It is difficult to establish the dates when the earliest halls were first built in some durable form, but from a wealth of material quoted by Fishwick and by the Victoria County History it is clear that during the first half of the 16th century there were certain well-established " mess- uages " and also that there was an almost general " all-change " between 3 2 ROCHDALE RETROSPECT the intermarrying families who lived in these dwelling-places . which were probably made of timber, filled in with wattle and daub, with no chimneys and with wicker " panes " to the windows, instead of glass . Stubley and the Holts . Stubley Hall, the seat of the Rochdale Holt family, is said to have been rebuilt in about 1529, by the first of three successive Robert Holts; the 16th century timber frame of the north and west wings are still visible from the outside of the house . This Robert Holt owned doublets (or waistcoats) of satin and " saye " (or serge, probably mixed with silk), also a damask-lined gown . He appears to have been a little unreasonable with the herald who came to record Lancashire pedigrees in 1533 and who wrote down tersely that Robert Holt had married an old woman by whom he had no issue and that therefore he would not have her name entered . A nephew, Robert Holt, succeeded him, leaving a will dated 1556, two years later than his uncle's, after which Robert Holt of Whitwell, (near Walmersley, Bury) inherited . It is this third Robert's 1561 will which gives details of " my lord's chamber, the great chamber, the chapel chamber, the inner chamber, the new parlour, the hall, the inner parlour, the old parlour, or Sr . Myghell's chamber, the chamber without and the closet," also mentioning an iron chimney in the hall, " sylyng tymbre " or wainscoting, a " sylver " salt and 14 spoons, etc.