Excerpt from History of the County Palatine and Duchy of Lancaster, Vol. 1<br><br>The labours of ten years have at length enabled the Author of these volumes to present to his readers the history of his native county. The baronial family desig nated by the illustrious title of The House of Lancaster, which ranks amongst its early members the renowned John of Gaunt, has imparted a dignity to this portion of the kingdom, which will be as durable as the national records; and the transmis sion of the title, in the person of Henry of Lancaster, Earl of Derby and Duke of Hereford, from the ducal family of Lancaster to the Royal Family of England, serves to shed additional honour on the early history of the county.<br><br>Subsequent to the Reformation, the conflicts of parties arising out of that memorable event, and, at a still later period, the wars of the Commonwealth, have rendered this county the theatre of transactions of the highest political interest; and, in our own times, the rapid rise of commerce and manufactures in the towns of Liverpool and Manchester, with their extensive ramifications through the hun dreds of West Derby, Salford, and Blackburn, has accumulated within a narrow space more wealth, population, and enterprise than are to be found in any other division of the kingdom, the metropolitan county of Middlesex alone excepted.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.