pages 104-105

104                 Illustrations of Lancashire

ancient presence are some fragments of the "road" which led northwards over the present Kersal Moor, and which are commemorated in the names of certain houses. at Higher Broughton. The fact in the local history which connects the living present with the past is that the De Traffords of Trafford Hall possess lands held by their ancestor in the time of Canute. How it came to pass that the family was not displaced by some Norman baron, an ingenious novelist may be able perhaps to tell. Private policy, secret betrothals, doubtless lay in the heart of as many adjustments of the eleventh century as behind many enigmas of the nineteenth. The Traffords reside close to "Throstlenest," a name occurring frequently in Lancashire, where the spirit of poetry has always been vigorous, and never more marked than in appellations having reference to the simple beauty of unmolested nature. At Moston there is also Throstle-glen, one of the haunts, half a century ago, of Samuel Bamford. At the time spoken of the county was divided into "tithe-shires." The "Hundred of Salford " was called "Salford-shire," and in this last was included Manchester; so that whatever dignity may accrue therefrom belongs properly to the town, across the river, which was the first, moreover, to be constituted a free

Manchester                  105

borough, receiving its charter in the time of Henry III., who died in 1272, whereas the original Manchester charter was not granted till 1301. To all practical intents and purposes, the two places now constitute a social and commercial unity. Similar occupations are pursued in both, and the intercourse is as constant as that of the people who dwell on the opposite sides of the Thames.
The really important date in the history of Manchester is that of the arrival of the,Flemish weavers in the reign of Edward III. Though referable in the first instance, as above mentioned, to the action of the king and the far-seeing Philippa, their coming to Manchester seems to have been specially promoted by the feudal ruler of the time - De la Warre, heir of the De Grelleys, and predecessor of De Lacy - men all of great distinction in old Manchester records. Leading his retainers to the field of battle, De la Warre literally, when all was over, turned the spear into the pruning-hook, bringing home with him some of these industrious people, and with their help converting soldiers into useful artisans. A wooden church had been erected at a very early period upon the sandstone cliff by the river, where the outlook was pleasant over the meadows and the arriving Irk. By 1422, so much had the town increased,