Clitheroe was one of northern England’s smallest and most isolated boroughs. Nestled in the Ribble Valley on the road from Preston into Yorkshire via the Craven Gap, it commanded (at that time) neither a crossing of the river nor a site of any great strategic importance. W.S. Weeks, Clitheroe in the Seventeenth Century (Clitheroe, 1927), 7; VCH Lancs. vi. 360. According to Richard Blome, writing in the 1670s, it was known only for its ‘white-lime’ and its castle. R.
‘Commodiously seated on the goodly River Mersey, where it affords a bold and safe harbour for ships’, Liverpool was the region’s ‘chief port ... a place of great resort’ and one of the main embarkation points for trade and troops to Ireland. R. Blome, Britannia (1673), 133-4; Liverpool Town Bks. 1649-71 ed. M. Power (Lancs. and Cheshire Rec. Soc. cxxxvi), 26; R. Muir, Hist.
Preston was described in the 1670s as ‘a great, fair and well inhabited and frequented borough town’. R. Blome, Britannia (1673), 135. Situated at the centre of Lancashire, where several major routes crossed the River Ribble, it was the seat of government for the duchy of Lancaster and a focal point for county society. The town was also the commercial centre for a considerable area of northern Lancashire, stretching from the coastal plain – the Fylde – eastwards into the Pennine valleys.
Located slightly to the north of, and roughly equidistant between, Manchester and Liverpool, Wigan commanded the point where the Great North Road from London crossed the River Douglas. Wigan parish had around 4,000 inhabitants in the early Stuart period, while the town itself contained 458 households in 1664, suggesting a population of approximately 2,000. Wigan was therefore Lancashire’s largest town after Manchester, although its Ship Money assessment was the highest of any urban centre in the county.
Newton-in-Makerfield – or Newton-le-Willows as it is known today – was described as a ‘little, poor market [town]’ in the 1530s, and it was still ‘hardly more than a village’ a century later. VCH Lancs. iv. 132; C.G. Bayne, ‘The first House of Commons of Queen Elizabeth’, EHR xxiii. 679. Situated within Winwick parish, about half way between Liverpool and Manchester, it lay on the main road between Warrington and Wigan and was the administrative centre for the fee or barony of Makerfield. VCH Lancs. iv.
Lying ‘in the centre and heart of the shire ... in a most rich, delicate and pleasant soil and delicious air (it wants only a navigable river)’, Leicester was ‘one of the ancientest and greatest towns’ belonging to the duchy of Lancaster and the only borough constituency in Leicestershire. E.
Situated in the east midlands, Leicestershire enjoyed relatively good connections with London and the rest of the country via Watling Street and the Fosse Way, which intersected close to the county’s south western border with Warwickshire. It was noted during the Stuart period for being ‘exceedingly fertile for all sorts of grain’, producing ‘great abundance of peas and beans, more than any other country [i.e. county]’.
Situated in the southern midlands and bounded by no fewer than nine other counties, Northamptonshire was described in the Restoration period as ‘of a fat and rich soil both for tillage and pasturage, bearing excellent grain and feeding great store of sheep and cattle ...[and] honoured with the seats of as many (if not more) of the nobility and gentry as any county in the kingdom, especially as to its extent’. R. Blome, Britannia (1673), 174. The county was divided by the River Nene into two main administrative units, the western and eastern divisions.
Lying in the south-western corner of Northamptonshire, close to the border with Buckinghamshire, early-Stuart Brackley was notable only for past glories. A staple for wool and major commercial centre in the medieval period, it had little more than its (small) weekday market and its corporate status to show for its former size and prosperity. R. Blome, Britannia (1673), 178; Bridges, Northants. i. 143; Baker, Northants. i.
Lying on the main London to Leicester road where it crossed the River Nene, Higham Ferrers was part of the duchy of Lancaster and, from the mid-1620s, parcel of Queen Henrietta Maria’s jointure. HP Commons 1509-1558, ‘Higham Ferrers’; VCH Northants. iii. 268; A.N. Groome, ‘Higham Ferrers in 1640’, Northants. Past and Present, ii. no. 5, pp.
