wards so widely and severely felt. The first formidable invasion of these tribes is supposed to have occurred about the year 446. With its advantages the partial civilization effected by the Romans had carried this evil, that the subjugation to which the Britons tamely submitted for so many centuries had unfitted them for warlike pursuits, and exposed them a comparatively easy conquest to their terrible assailants. Diffident, therefore, of their own untried strength, they made submissive and repeated applications for the return of the Roman soldiery to protect them against those barbarians who, they said, drove them into the sea, whilst the sea thrust them back upon the barbarians; but the appeal was ineffectual, and, writhing under the scourge of one despotism, they had recourse to the desperate remedy of calling in the Saxons to expel the Picts and Scots. The succour from this quarter was prompt and effectual: the Saxons did expel the invaders, but no sooner had they done so than they set up a claim to, and forcibly established themselves in possession of the lands and fastnesses which they had been the means of re-conquering. The fort at Manchester was among those of which they thus retained occupation. The Britons, therefore, finding at last that their dependance must be upon themselves, prepared for a desperate struggle with their late perfidious allies. The instigator and chieftain of this renowned warfare was Prince Arthura name high in the rolls of fame--who performed many of his most brilliant achievements in Lancashire, and fought several desperate battles on the banks of the river Douglas-two near Wigan, where, in modern times, masses of human bones aud the remains of horses have been discovered. Four great battles were thus won in Lancashire, the fruit of which was that the Angles were driven northward. It is recorded that Manchester had been infested by the presence of a ferocious giant, Sir

Torquil or Tarquin, who kept no less than sixty-four brave knights in bondage in the Castle of Manchester until they were liberated by one of Arthur's knights, Sir Launcelot de Lake. The graphic description of this monster by Mr. Hollingworth partakes strongly of the nature of poetical fiction. "It is sayd that Sir Tarquine, a stout enemie of King Arthur, kept the castle, and neere to the ford in Medlock, about Mabhouse, hung a bason, on which bason whosoever did strike, Sir Tarquine or some of his company would come forth and fight with him, and that Sir Launcelot du Lake, a knight of King Arthur's Round Table, did beate upon the bason, fought with Tarquine, killed him, and possessed himself of the castle and loosed the prisoners. Whosoever thinketh it worth his paines to reade more of it may reade the history of King Arthur. It is certaine that about A.D. 520 there was such a prince as King Arthur-it is not incredible that he or the knight might contest about this castle when he was in this county, and (as Ninius sayth) hee put the Saxons to flight in a memorable battell neere Wigan about twelve miles of." *

At Arthur's death, however, the miseries of the country were renewed; endless swarms of Germans poured in, until at length this county was almost covered by them. The northern provinces, however, were the last to submit, Urien, "the glory of Lancashire," having kept the invaders at bay until he fell by the hand of an assassin, in or about the year 593. Then, two hundred and twenty-six years after the evacuation of the fortress by the Romans, and one hundred and seventy-four from their final abandonment of the island, the people of this district submitted to the Saxon power under Edwin, with the proud satisfaction of having struggled to the last and

* The terror of this Sir Tarquine was carried so far that people actually believed a report which was current about him, that he eat a child for his breakfast every morning!

succumbed to one of the greatest of the Saxon chieftains: Lancashire was then apportioned to one of the Heptarchy -the tide of amelioration gradually set in again, and the spirit of enterprize, which had been partially smothered amid the ruins of civil war, in some degree revived. The county received large colonies of the Saxons, who penetrated the forests, and planted castles or stations at Rochdale, Bury, Middleton, Wigan, Standish, and in more distant quarters.

From the Saxons also the new town of Manchester is said to have had its origin, on or near the site of the summer camp of the Romans, (a supposed station, no traces of which have yet been found, and the existence of which is questioned) and in contiguity with the present Market Place. The Aldport or Old Town had become much dilapidated by incessant warfare and the lapse of time. Lancashire generally was assuming a new aspect. In this district Salford, Cheetham, Ardwick and Chorlton Row were first recovered from the forest, and in the early part of the seventh century the more remote townships of Rusholme, Stretford, Chorlton, Withington, Gorton and Droylsden, were disencumbered of their ancient oaks. The lands conquered by Edwin were apportioned among his followers, and Manchester became the residence of a Lord or Thegn, who erected his "Baron's Hall" on the present site of the College. This chieftain held a greater and lesser leet, where offenders were fined or punished by the pillory, the cucking-stool, or even the gallows; and to encourage a settlement in the new borough, certain privileges were granted to the burgesses, among which was that of allowing burgage tenants, on paying twelve pence a-year to the Thegn, to have all causes (but not felonious charges) tried by their own Reeve in his court.

In the meantime Christianity had advanced throughout the county, and in Manchester no less than two churches.

existed at a very early period: the first, that of St. Michael, in Aldport, of which mention is made in Domesday Book; and the second that of St. Mary, which had a more recent date. Manchester was constituted a parish as early as the year 446, and included Ashton: its boundaries were Eccles and Flixton, on the west; Prestwich, on the north; the Mersey and Tame rivers, on the south; and the Saddleworth hills, on the east; covering a space of fifty or sixty miles in circumference. The southern parts of Lancashire were then embraced in the diocese of York, whence they were transferred to that of Litchfield, and so continued till 1541, when the whole county was reunited and appended to the province of York. In the seventh century Manchester and Warrington were made deaneries, and invested with great powers over their respective districts, a Rector being then the highest ecclesiastical functionary. In the deanery of Manchester were included Eccles, Middleton, Rochdale, Bury, Prestwich, Blackburn, and Whalley.

The church of St. Mary, erected near the end of the existing St. Mary's-gate, afforded an evidence of the increase of Manchester during the tranquil era of the Saxon supremacy. The town, in fact, had continued to advance until it spread from Aldport along Deansgate, which formed the communicating link, towards Aca's Field (now St. Ann's-square) and the Market-place, (the modern Smithy-door) to which there was a passage by Toll-lane, so called from being the point for taking toll. Deansgate was so named from being the residence of the Dean, and consisted chiefly of Church lands: the site of the "Parsonage" is still well known; in process of time the Parsonage-house was converted into a bake-shop. In the vicinity of the Baron's Hall there existed a mill for the accommodation of the inhabitants, of which more hereafter. It stood at the foot of Old Millgate. In these

early times the popular festival of a "wake" was periodically held, Aca's-field and Knott-mill being the scenes of rejoicing. They were appointed to commemorate the erection of the churches, the first of which was built of oak. It seems, too, that our forefathers were as prone to sin as ourselves, and, accordingly, the means for their castigation. were close at hand: the cucking or ducking stool being planted in Pool-fold, and the pillory near the Marketplace.

Britain being doomed once more to pass through the fiery ordeal of a foreign invasion more dreadful than those already encountered, the ravages of the Danes fell heavily upon the land, and not more lightly, it would seem, on Lancashire than on other parts. "They held the country about 60 yeares," says Hollingworth. "Certainly, at that time, Manchester was either totally or in a great measure ruined, as Chester allso and other cities, where their destroying feete trampled downe the beauty of the land." The Danes seized "Manigceastre" A.D. 870, after an obstinate resistance on the part of the Anglo-Saxon population, to aid which they cut a trench (so says a manuscript authority) from Ashton Moss to Ouse Moss, its traces being visible in Denton, Gorton, Birch, &c. After the expulsion of these northmen from Lancashire by Edward the Elder, in 920, that "noble Prince," in the twentieth year of his reign, "repayred the city of Manchester, that sore was defaced with the warre of the Danes."

The next era, from which, indeed, may be dated the modern history of Manchester, occurs at the period of the Norman conquest, when William, in satisfying the claims of his hungry followers, handed over the simple citizens of this place to William of Poictou, who received at the hands of his royal master the hundreds of Amounderness, Lonsdale and Furness, and the whole tract of country between the Mersey and the Ribble, as well as various