The Lancashire Witches | Page 2

or parks within the forest, appertaining to some of the halls
before mentioned, offered the only evidences of cultivation. All else
was heathy waste, morass, and wood.
Still, in the eye of the sportsman--and the Lancashire gentlemen of the
sixteenth century were keen lovers of sport--the country had a strong
interest. Pendle forest abounded with game. Grouse, plover, and bittern
were found upon its moors; woodcock and snipe on its marshes;
mallard, teal, and widgeon upon its pools. In its chases ranged herds of
deer, protected by the terrible forest-laws, then in full force: and the
hardier huntsman might follow the wolf to his lair in the mountains;
might spear the boar in the oaken glades, or the otter on the river's
brink; might unearth the badger or the fox, or smite the fierce
cat-a-mountain with a quarrel from his bow. A nobler victim
sometimes, also, awaited him in the shape of a wild mountain bull, a
denizen of the forest, and a remnant of the herds that had once browsed
upon the hills, but which had almost all been captured, and removed to
stock the park of the Abbot of Whalley. The streams and pools were
full of fish: the stately heron frequented the meres; and on the craggy
heights built the kite, the falcon, and the kingly eagle.
There were eight watchers by the beacon. Two stood apart from the
others, looking to the right and the left of the hill. Both were armed
with swords and arquebuses, and wore steel caps and coats of buff.
Their sleeves were embroidered with the five wounds of Christ,
encircling the name of Jesus--the badge of the Pilgrimage of Grace.
Between them, on the verge of the mountain, was planted a great
banner, displaying a silver cross, the chalice, and the Host, together
with an ecclesiastical figure, but wearing a helmet instead of a mitre,
and holding a sword in place of a crosier, with the unoccupied hand
pointing to the two towers of a monastic structure, as if to intimate that
he was armed for its defence. This figure, as the device beneath it
showed, represented John Paslew, Abbot of Whalley, or, as he styled

himself in his military capacity, Earl of Poverty.
There were eight watchers by the beacon. Two have been described. Of
the other six, two were stout herdsmen carrying crooks, and holding a
couple of mules, and a richly-caparisoned war-horse by the bridle. Near
them stood a broad-shouldered, athletic young man, with the fresh
complexion, curling brown hair, light eyes, and open Saxon
countenance, best seen in his native county of Lancaster. He wore a
Lincoln-green tunic, with a bugle suspended from the shoulder by a
silken cord; and a silver plate engraved with the three luces, the ensign
of the Abbot of Whalley, hung by a chain from his neck. A hunting
knife was in his girdle, and an eagle's plume in his cap, and he leaned
upon the but-end of a crossbow, regarding three persons who stood
together by a peat fire, on the sheltered side of the beacon. Two of
these were elderly men, in the white gowns and scapularies of
Cistertian monks, doubtless from Whalley, as the abbey belonged to
that order. The third and last, and evidently their superior, was a tall
man in a riding dress, wrapped in a long mantle of black velvet,
trimmed with minever, and displaying the same badges as those upon
the sleeves of the sentinels, only wrought in richer material. His
features were strongly marked and stern, and bore traces of age; but his
eye was bright, and his carriage erect and dignified.
The beacon, near which the watchers stood, consisted of a vast pile of
logs of timber, heaped upon a circular range of stones, with openings to
admit air, and having the centre filled with fagots, and other quickly
combustible materials. Torches were placed near at hand, so that the
pile could be lighted on the instant.
The watch was held one afternoon at the latter end of November, 1536.
In that year had arisen a formidable rebellion in the northern counties
of England, the members of which, while engaging to respect the
person of the king, Henry VIII., and his issue, bound themselves by
solemn oath to accomplish the restoration of Papal supremacy
throughout the realm, and the restitution of religious establishments and
lands to their late ejected possessors. They bound themselves, also, to
punish the enemies of the Romish church, and suppress heresy. From

its religious character the insurrection assumed the name of the
Pilgrimage of Grace, and numbered among its adherents all who had
not embraced the new doctrines in Yorkshire and Lancashire. That such
an outbreak should occur on the suppression of the monasteries, was
not marvellous. The desecration and spoliation