Chapter 4 - The Chorleys in the 17th Century
On the accession to the throne in 1603 of James I an address of loyalty to that monarch was specially presented by seventy-nine of the Lancashire gentry. Among the signatures headed by that of John Ireland Esq., Hugh Sheriff of Lancaster, Sir Richard Mollineux, Sir Richard Hoghton, Sir Cuthbert Halsall, Sir Edward Warren, and Sir John Radcliffe, the name of William Chorley appears.
When King James made his famous visit to Hoghton Towers in August 1617 it is known that Sir Richard Mollineux invited all the leading gentleman, the “armigers” of the County Palatine, to help in serving and suitably entertaining His Majesty. It is likely therefore that William Chorley or his son Richard was present at the knighting of the Baron of Beef, as they were friends of Sir Richard and near neighbours.
A commission was given to Richardson, a tailor of Preston, to make the necessary garments and apparel and for this banquet the gentry honoured the Host by wearing the Hoghton livery and acting as servants at the royal table.
William Chorley, the fifth of that name in direct line was buried at Chorley on January 20th 1643-4 when all England was in the throes of civil war.
His brother Alexander Chorley who, like his Uncle Leonard had chosen the legal profession and was a bencher in Furnivalls Inn, was the first Protestant in the line. He married Anne daughter of Thomas Paris of London and had sixteen children. One John Chorley was the founder of the Chorleys of Rainhill, who were members of the Society of Friends.
William Chorley of Chorley was succeeded by his eldest surviving son Richard who appears to have been entrusted by William with the management of the estates before his demise. In 1623 at the age of 29 we find Richard acting as juror at an Inquisitionem Post Mortem held at Chorley on Robert Hesketh of Rufford. This Richard’s signature appears in the first volume of the Chorley Parish Registers.
In the List of Recusants in Leyland Hundred 1628, the names of Richard Chorley gent and Margarett, his wife are mentioned. Also in 1631 in the list of esquires and gentlemen in Cheshire and Lancashire who refused the order of knighthood at the coronation of King Charles I the name of Richard Chorley of Chorley appears. It seems that no Chorley died of the plague which was rampant in England during 1631. In 1634 Richard’s signature is affixed to the formal record of the foundation of Chorley Grammar School.
When the strife began between King Charles I and his Puritan Parliament Richard Chorley like most of his fellow co-religionists joined his monarch in the field and did his utmost for the royal cause thereby earning the resentment of the Puritans, who have previously disliked him as a “papist.”
The following is taken from a tract entitled “A true and perfect Diurnall of all the Chiefe Passages in Lancashire sent to five shopkeepers in London from a friend dated July 9th 1642.”
“Wednesday July 6, as I returned from Manchester to Preston, in Walton I overtook Mr. Kirbie, the Knight of our Shire, and there was in his company one Chorley of Chorley, (a seducing papiste, a fit companion for so lukewarm a Protestant) and these two were very familiar together." Chorley was the place where the Royalist force raised by Lord Molyneux had arrived in 1643 on its way to Manchester, then a Puritan stronghold, when it was summoned by King Charles to join the main body of his army at Oxford.
Whether Richard Charley took up arms then or immediately afterwards is not known. Chorley, like many other places in the country, found the leading families taking opposite sides in the great struggle. Whilst Standish of Standish, Chorley of Chorley, Charnock of Astley and Rigby of Burgh were loyal to their King, Richard Standish of Duxbury was on the side of Parliament, but his son and heir Thomas was a captain in the King's forces and as such was killed at Manchester.
In the Report of the Lancashire Church survey made in 1650, after the temporary overthrow of the established church, it is said that "Mr. Henry Welch doth supply the curé there (Chorley) and is a godly, painfull preaching minister.” He remained the curé at Chorley until the coming of the day known by his confrères as “Black Batholomew” when he and his brethren, who refused to comply with the Act of Uniformity, were expelled from the Anglican fold, just as loyal members of the clergy had years before been turned out by the Puritan victors.
Expelled from the Parish Church Harry Welch, it is said, like so many others of his brethren, opened a meeting house somewhere in the town. Some say it was on the site of the present Unitarian Chapel.
But to return to Richard, in the siege and capture of Liverpool by the Royalists under Prince Rupert, Richard Chorley was an active participant. After that important seaport was occupied by the King’s forces in June 1644 no more is heard of him as a soldier. It can only be conjectured what sorrow and chagrin filled the breast of this staunch Cavalier at Chorley Old Hall when at Chorley Market Cross at one o’clock on February 6th a few days after the execution of King Charles, the proclamation was read prohibiting any other person being styled as King of England. Another trouble of a more personal nature awaited him and his Catholic compatriots. On May 7th 1649 by a Parliamentary Committee it was resolved “That £10,000 be allotted for the satisfaction of the town of Liverpool because of their losses out of Sir William Gerard of the Bryn, Mr. Blundell of Ince, Mr. Chorley of Chorley, etc. Papists in arms and whose estates are not otherwise disposed of and were at Liverpool at taking of it and were commissioners of array and captains of the King.”
In 1652 the estates of Chorley of Chorley were sequestrated along with those of William Melling, Thomas Gillibrand, John Tootle and other Chorley Royalists. The Chorley estates were sold to an Edward Robinson. When in August 1653, an act of Parliament was passed ordering that all marriages were to be celebrated before a Justice of the Peace, Edward Robinson of Buckshawe and Richard Standish of Duxbury were two of the magistrates who officiated in that new office.
The downfall of the King brought disaster to other members of the Chorley family as well. In the Royalist Composition Papers of 1651 we find Bridgett Chorley, spinster, the sister of Richard, presenting a petition to the Committee for Compoundings for the County of Lancaster shewing that her brother Richard by a deed dated August 27th 1626 granted her an annuity of £20 for her life, which had been paid until four years previously, when two thirds thereof became sequestrated for petitioners recusancy.
On May 5th 1652 she petitioned again desiring that a report be made in a short time so that she “should be allowed according to Justice, she having noe other estate for her livelihood.” It appears that when her brother’s estates were seized she was deprived of her annuity altogether. In answer to this lady’s plea a third part of her annuity was allowed her.
Another Bridgett Chorley, a widow, figures in the Royalist Composition Papers. In her petition she states that although she had never done anything against the cause of the Parliament her whole estate had been sequestrated. She prayed that she may have a third part of it for the maintenance of her children. Her request was granted.
To return to Richard Chorley. The contract for the purchase of his estates by Edward Robinson is dated March 23rd, 1652-3. They are described as being in the townships of Chorley, Heley, Walton, Charnock Richard, and Walton-le-Dale. Richard’s wife Margaret petitioned for a fifth of her husband’s rents but it was not recorded that it was granted.
A Prayer-book actually used by Richard Chorley and bearing his signature is in existence in the library of the Presbytery at Ulveston, Lancs. The book is a collection of prayers in latin selected by the compiler whose name was Verepeum. It was printed in Antwerp in 1603 by the widow and heirs of John Belleri at the sign of the Golden Eagle.
The book was a favourite one with the educated Catholics in penal times. It is a stout little book an inch and a half thick. Bound in leather, only one half of the original back remains with the hinges of two brass clasps. It is most interesting that the portion of the book most used is the one dealing with the Lord’s Prayer. The book contains two letters written to Richard Chorley and also a fragment of a legal document fastened inside its cover. To make them fit into the book the edges of the letters have been cut away. The paper on which the letter is written bears a water mark, a pitcher or vase with one handle surmounted by a crown. It was addressed “to my well worthie friend and cousin Richard Chorley of Chorley.”
Richard Chorley did not live long after the execution of his ill-fated monarch and the sequestration of his own estates by the victorious Puritans. He was buried in the family vaults in Chorley church, February 18th, 1654-5. By his wife Margaret (they were married 40 years) he had issue William who succeeded him. Among other children – his family was ten sons and three daughters, was a daughter Elizabeth who married John Gillibrand. Two of Elizabeth’s sons became members of the Society of Jesus and her only daughter Agatha a Benedictine nun. She was Prioress of her convent in Paris and died in 1726.
William Chorley who now came into possession of the ancestral estates of which his father had been deprived for the term of his life, was one of those married under the new order of things introduced by the Little Parliament summoned by Cromwell in 1653 and commonly called “Barebone’s Parliament.” By an Act of Parliament of 1653 the ancient ceremonies of marriage were abolished, people were no longer to be united in matrimony by priest or minister, but by a Justice of the Peace in the presence of two witnesses, after the banns of marriage had been published three several market days in the market place or three sabbath days in the church. In the Chorley marriage registers, “William Chorley of Chorley and Kathrin Culcheth of Hindly” appears.
William left two sons Richard, baptized at Chorley January 27th, 1659-60 and John baptized February 5th, 1660 who died young. So this Richard became the Chorley of Chorley at the early age of two. During his minority his kinsman Robert Holden of Holden granted leases in conjunction with his mother Catherine. Richard married very young. In the second volume of the Chorley registers is the following entry written in very minute characters, “Richard Chorley of Chorley generosus et Katherina Walmesley de Buckshaw matrimonio conjuncti, 23 September 1676.” Richard and Catherine Chorley had a large family. The first child William was born on December 23rd, 1677. The second child, Catherine, born September 4th, 1679 was buried March 19, 1698-9. The third, John Edward became a member of the order of St. Benedict. In the list of students at the College at St. Gregory’s Monastery, Douai, his name is mentioned as professed in 1698. Ordained in 1704, he was rapidly promoted to the highest posts in the Order. Subsequently he retired to England and died in 1718. His name occurs with that of his father among the foreign burgesses at the Preston Guild of 1682. The fourth child Anne did not marry. She was the last to be interred in the family vault at Chorley Church in 1721. On January 30th, 1684-85, the anniversary of the execution of Charles I, the fifth child was born and was given, not undesignedly, the name of Charles. Baptised on the 22nd of February he lived to take part in the ill-fated rising of 1715. After his capture at Preston he died of fever contracted in prison in Liverpool.
All the accounts that remain seem to point out that he was a young man of good talents, generous disposition and much esteemed. He was educated at the English College at Douai where owing to the cruel penal laws in force, the Catholics were forced to resort for learning. He is mentioned in the College Diary for 1705 as being in the highest class of humanities, “rhetores.” This gives us a sure indication that his abilities were of no mean order. At certain times of the year it was the custom of the authorities of the various colleges attached to the university to select the most promising students to defend publicly in the Aula Maxima of the university philosophical and theological theses, and answer objections propounded by the most learned professors and theologians. It is recorded that in 1705 Charles Chorley acquitted himself brilliantly. Other sons were Thomas, Richard, and William; a daughter named Bridget died young. Later twins were born named James and Edward. Robert died in infancy. There was another daughter named Mary who became a nun at Cambrai. Several other children were born but died in infancy.
The year 1688 saw the downfall of James II. From this date the Chorley records contain little of interest.
In the year 1700 Richard and his wife were the recipients of a gift which is now in the Chorley Free Library. It is a folio bible bound in leather with gilt edges, its title-page read “The Holy Bible, By His Majestie’s Special Command, Appointed to be read in Churches.” On the fly-leaf appear the following names and dates:
Robert Hawkshead 1810
Ellen Hawkshead 1813
It is thought that this gift was made to Richard to point out to him the errors of the Catholic church. Whatever the donors’ intentions, the book failed to move the firm faith of Richard and Catherine in the church of their fathers. The Hawksheads were a well-known Church of England family in the district.
The following additional facts were given to the writer by Mr. William H. Hall of Chorley, a local historian interested in the family.
In 1664 John Chorley of Ormskirk married Ellen, daughter of William Hale of Little Woolton.
In 1666 their son William Chorley was born.
In 1678 John Chorley was Mayor of Liverpool, and there is a Chorley St. in that City.
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