lated, and the trade of merchandise decayed there. Eden points out that the decay of many towns at this time was caused by handicraftsmen leaving corporate towns whose protection they no longer needed, and removing to country districts or unincorporated towns where fewer restrictions were placed upon their industry. Probably the coverlet makers were leaving York, and a statute was necessary to regulate an industry which was passing out of the jurisdiction of the company. 1 In 1551 another important Act was passed which not only regulated the measurement and weight of cloth throughout the country, but dealt specially, in three sections, with the northern trade. It enacted namely that "all cottons called Manchester, Lancaster and Cheshire cottons, full wrought to the sale," and all cloths" called Manchester rugs or Manchester friezes" should be of a certain length, breadth and weight, and that they should not be unduly stretched. All these cloths therefore were now subject to regulation, just as the cloths made in other parts of the country were. The Manchester cottons and friezes however were not so wide as the ordinary cloth, and northern cloths were about half the length and proportionally lighter than others. From this time, regulations of this kind continued in the northern trade, which probably shows that the cloth was becoming more and more an article of export. The duties per piece of woollen cloth were calculated with a view to producing the same revenue as would have been obtained from exporting the wool it contained. The northern cloths contained less wool than the others, and did not pay even a proportionate duty, but less, because the wools of which they were made were not staple wools, but coarse wools which had been used previously only for cloths for home consumption. Such at least is the reason continually given, and no doubt at first the cloths were made of this wool, the so-called "cottons" being coarse cloths, sometimes with a warp of hemp or flax, but not cottons in the modern sense. After 1551 therefore the northern trade was no longer quite unregulated, but in many respects, perhaps the most important for the spread of the industry, it still occupied a very different position to that in the south. The Act 2 and 3 Philip and Mary c. II. ordained that no clothier (outside a corporate town) should keep above one woollen loom, nor a weaver above two, nor should a weaver have a tucking mill, nor take more than two apprentices, and every weaver was to serve an apprenticeship. This Act was designed to prevent the increase of clothiers outside corporate towns, but from 1 5 and 6 Edw. VI., c. 6. it " any person or persons who doth or shall dwell in the counties of York, Cumberland, Northumberland and Westmoreland" were exempted. They were at liberty to keep as many looms as they pleased, and to take up the trade of clothing without serving an apprenticeship. In the same year another Act1 was passed which gave special privileges to a section of the northern trade which was rapidly growing in importance-the woollen trade of Halifax. By an Act of Edward VI.'s reign middlemen had been forbidden to engage in the buying and selling of wool. Wool was to be sold by the grower either to the merchant of the staple or to the weaver or clothier actually engaged in the manufacture of cloth, not to an intermediate person. Apparently the statute was intended to apply to the whole country, though there is evidence that it was not put in force in some of the northern districts. The Act of II. and III. Philip and Mary c. 13 exempted the neighbourhood of Halifax from its operation, and stated in the preamble that the barrenness of the country round Halifax and the poverty of the clothiers who could not afford to travel far and buy a large stock, rendered it unwise to prohibit middlemen. The description of the Halifax clothiers is of poor men, each working for himself. The large clothier who provided material and paid wages for workmanship did not exist probably. Though Halifax remained the only place where broggers might lawfully carry on their trade for some time, they seem to have. existed in Lancashire and elsewhere.2 In 1577 the clothiers of Lancashire petitioned for their allowance. They described themselves as "poore cotegers whose habylitye wyll not stretche neyther to buye any substance of wolles to mayntayne worke and labor, nor yet to fetche the same (the growyth of wolles being foure or fyve score myles at the leaste distant)." They declare that the middleman's trade had been usual, and "no exception taken to it tyll now of late the inhabytants of Halyfax would winne the trade of enye countrye for buying and selling of wolles into their owne hands." They feared that if the statute were inforced "the trade will be driven into a fewe riche men's hands, so that the poore shall not be paid for their worke, but as it pleaseth the riche." Apparently the law was not enforced. The broggers continued to buy the wools of the northern farmers to sell again, and brought 1 2 and 3 Phil. and Mary, c. 13. 2 Add. MSS., Brit. Mus., 34, 324. to the north too the coarse wools of Lindsay, Kesteven and other places. They were often accused of introducing "deceitfull and naughty stuffs such as flocks and hare" into their wares, and in time the northern clothiers grew dissatisfied with them.1 In 1585 a petition against broggers was signed by eighteen northern clothiers among others. It described them as exacting exorbitant prices from poor men, who were compelled to buy from them as there was no market for small quantities. 3 Another Act,2 of Philip and Mary's reign dealt with the northern clothing trade. It allowed Manchester friezes and cottons to be made in half pieces, and,-still more important-while it aimed at preventing the increase of small master clothiers outside corporate towns it expressly permitted all cloth makers living in counties north of the Tweed to live and carry on their trade where they pleased. Whether this legal permission to practice the trade of clothing in country districts increased the number of clothiers in the north who did it, or whether the Act was merely permissive of a state of things which already existed, it was found necessary, early in the reign of Elizabeth, to take measures for securing that the regulations as to length and breadth of cloth should be carried out in the country districts of south-east Lancashire. One aulnager of cloth was not enough for the county -he would probably be stationed at Preston or Lancaster. He was now ordered to appoint deputies at Manchester, Rochdale, Bolton, Blackburn and Bury, who were to weigh, measure and seal every piece of cloth made in those towns. The regulations were altered at the same time, and "cottons" were allowed much lighter than before. The question may arise whether this increase of aulnagers and the lighter weight do not both point to the introduction of some cotton wool in the manufacture having taken place. The northern trade was prospering, but the cloth seems by common report, to have been very deficient in weight and falsely made. In 1576 Leake wrote: "A Discourse against Clothiers, Aulnagers Searchers, Merchants, and Retaylers" in which, while he stated generally that he was fully of opinion "that for all cloth in this realm the laws were never yet observed in any one place,' he singled out for special condemnation all kinds of northern cloths which were "worst of all for false dyeing," for shortness of weight, and for stretching. 1 Lansdowne MSS., 48, 66. 2 4 and 5 Phil. and Mary, c. 5. 4 D.S. P. Eliz., vol. iii., 38. A very large export trade in northern cloth grew up. Among the domestic State Papers is one1 professing to be "a special direction for divers trades of merchandise for sundrie places upon advertisement as well for the chusinge of the time and wares for every of those places most beneficiall, for those that use the trade of merchandize." Manchester cottons and northern half cloths were to be sent to Galicia, and all sorts of the latter cloths to Rouen, Morlaix, and S. Malo," so they be fine and mingled colours," fine sorting Manchester cottons and northern half cloths also to Bayonne and Portugal. A list of woollen goods, exported with the duty on them, at the end of Elizabeth's reign includes "30,000 peeces of Lancaster newe devised carseyes," and among the pieces of cloth entered for export in year 1594-53 are 53,942 northern cottons, 19,669 Manchester cottons, and 34 Manchester friezes. The principal ports for shipping northern cloths were Hull, Newcastle, and Chester. A very large proportion of the Lancashire trade seems to have been done from Chester, and from a return of shipping at different ports in 1586, Chester appears to have been then the most important of the three. In 1580, on petition to the Council, it had been allowed to be the only port from which Manchester cottons might be shipped. From whatever port they were shipped the northern cloths paid light duties. In 1591 Queen Elizabeth sent special instructions to Hull and Newcastle that 2s. in the £ of the usual customs should still be abated, and that every fifth cloth should be passed free as a wrapper because "they are made of coarse wool and fflaxe and thrummes." As would seem almost necessary for the growth of an export trade, the clothiers of Lancashire were growing more wealthy. No doubt a great number were still small men, owning a few looms (which their wills published in the Chetham Society's volumes show that they did). These clothiers sold their goods. to the merchant, but some of the clothiers carried on a large trade themselves. The will of Anthony Mosley, clothier of Manchester, which was proved in 1607, gives an inventory of cloth at home and abroad, and the total value was £1,856 2s. 8d. -a very large sum.1 It does not appear, however, that the increase of trade had been caused by particular attention to the requirements of the 1 D.S.P. Eliz., vol. 255, 56. 3 D.S.P. Eliz., vol. 253, 122. 2 D.S.P. Eliz., vol. 250, 76. Lancashire Wills, Chet. Soc., vol. 28, new series. 1 law. The Act, 39 Eliz., c. 20, "against the deceitful stretching and tentering of Northern cloth," states that, "notwithstanding the many good and wholesome laws heretofore made for the true making of good and true clothes, . . . which laws, either by some wants in the statutes already made, or for lack of the due execution of the said laws, have not only not restrained the great abuse in making of cloths and kersies, but rather have encreased the same; insomuch that the said Northern cloths and kersies do yearly and daily grow worse and worse, and are made more light, and much more stretched and strained than heretofore." The remedy was the prohibition of all tenters or engines for stretching cloth in counties north of the Trent, and overseers of cloth-making were to be appointed by Justices of the Peace to see that the regulations were enforced as to length and weight of cloth, &c. This Act did not produce any immediate improvement. In the following year (1597) a despatch was sent to the Council of the North setting out that sundry letters had been written to justices of the peace in the counties of Lancashire and Yorkshire pointing out their duty in enforcing the statute, but these "had not been effected, nor put in execution, but the Cloth cometh to the market rather worse than better." The writer goes on to say that the French ambassador has had the statute translated into French," so for the avoyding the execution of Or owne Lawes in ffrance; it is needfull that some reformation be had, else we shalbe bannished altogether for bringing in of any cloth into ffrance." Possibly considerations of this kind led to some improvement, for several instances in which the Act was enforced occur soon afterwards, and in 1601 the regulations as to stretching cloth were applied to the manufacture throughout the country.2 During the seventeenth century very little alteration was made in the regulations for the northern cloth trade. In 1606 the clothiers who made kersies, including many Yorkshire men, applied to the House of Lords for a repeal of the Act which settled the length of the piece at eighteen yards. The reasons against the making of longer kersies were, they said, that by so doing, "the Queen was deceyved of her custome, the workmen not answered for their worke, and ye merchant strangers. comodityes only advanced." They offered to pay an additional subsidy if the cloths might be made longer, for the short cloths were so unsaleable that the clothiers "had been forced to peece 2 43 Eliz., c. 10, § 7. 1 D.S.P. Eliz., vol. 269, 45. |