burgesses, but deprived of their right as such; and the only privilege they appear to have enjoyed, was, that as freemen they could not be sold like the servile.

The burgesses now became subject to imposts and exactions, which were indefinite and arbitrary. The lord could tallage them at his pleasure; nor had they any redress. If they had not submitted to pay as an aid what he demanded, they would have been deprived of their houses and tofts. They could neither buy nor sell without his permission; nor was this permission granted without some pecuniary fee, or impost, denominated lastage.

A people who choose their own peace-officers can never be long oppressed; and William, by subjecting the burghs to feudal lords, put his finger on the great artery of the constitution, and by stopping the vital circulation, paralized and extinguished civil freedom. The burgesses, by this event were stripped of all their immunities, and for a series of years, remained without rights, corporate privileges, or political consequence.

The hostile chief, in conquest's laurels dress'd,
Sporting the trophy'd car and pompous crest,
But little thinks, or, thinking, little cares,
How hard the tenant of the cottage fares:
By him depriv'd of all his former toil,
And left to starve upon the fruitful soil:
Laughs at the churl, and revels o'er his wine,

Whilst flatt'rers rail each fiend like deed divine:

SECTION V

On the modern name of this Borough, and the building of the Castle.

HISTORIANS have differed as much respecting the name as the origin of this place. The fictions of superstition and the reveries of a wild imagination, have been united together to account for it. Hume conjectured, that it derived its name from the fertility of its soil, and the excellent produce of its orchards. From Pomo fero, he would make Pomfrete. This etymon would not be improbable, if this orthography was established; but is wholly inadmissable when it is considered, that in all the Latin charters, it is written Pontfractus, and not Pomfrete.

Thomas de Castleford, who was bred a Benedictine monk, and who wrote the history of this place, accounts for its present name from the following miracle. William, Archbishop of York, and son of the sister of king Stephen, being on his return from Rome, was met by such crowds of people, who were desirous to see him and receive his blessing, that a wood bridge over the river Aire, near to this place, gave way and broke down; by which accident vast numbers fell into the river. The bishop, who had been invested with the pall *, and who was

* The pall which popes were accustomed to send to archbishops, is an ornament worn on their shoulders. It is made of lambs wool, and spotted with purple crosses, and is considered as a token of their spiritual authority and jurisdiction:

deemed to have an interest equally as great in the court of heaven, as in the Vatican, affected at the danger of so many persons, poured out his prayers with such fervour and success, that not one perished. Whether this miracle consisted in dividing the stream, or in rendering the gross bodies of those who fell in, speciffically lighter than the fluid, we are not informed; and to reason or form conjectures on so mysterious a point, would be equally vain and impertinent. To perpetuate so striking and so signal a miracle, the pious Normans, says Thomas, gave the name of Pontefract, or Broken-bridge, to this place *.

It is unfortunate for the credit of this story, that the topography of the miracle (indulge me in the expression) has been disputed. The metropolis of the county, York, contends with us for the honour of it. Drake maintains that the bridge over the Ouse fell in, and that it was there the miracle was wrought. It must be acknowledged there is stronger proof of its belonging to York, than to this place, as Gent describes a representation of it painted in a window of a church near to which it happened.

What wholly destroys the credit of this legend,

*POLYDORE VIRGIL is the first who hath related this story, and Thomas implicitly follows him, though acknowledged to be an author of small credit. Thomas, in the genuine spirit of a monk, solely intent on the honour of the place where he resided, recites Polydore without noticing Brompton and Stubs, who refer it to the city of York.

+"The saint seeing the accident made the sign of the cross over the river, and addressed himself to God with many tears. All ascribed to the efficacy of his prayer, the miraculous preser vation of the multitude, especially of the children, who all escaped out of the water unhurt." BURTON'S Lives of the Saints.

is, that this town was called Pontefract half a century before St. William was made Archbishop of York. In the charters granted by Robert de Lacy, commonly called Robert de Pontefract, to the monks of St. John the Evangelist, it is stiled both Kirkby and Pontfract.-The words are " De Dominio suo de Kirkby, et deo et Sancti Johanni et Monachis meis de Pontfract." The first of which charters Robert says he made by the advice of Thomas Archbishop of York, and the second was signed by Thomas Archbishop of York, which must have been the first archbishop of that name, as Robert de Lacy died in the seventh of Henry I. anno 1107, and the second Thomas did not succeed to that see till the ninth of that reign. St. William, to whom this miracle is attributed, was not in possession of the see of York till the year 1153; from which it is evident that this town was called Pontefract, at least, fifty-two years before the above miracle is pretended to have been performed.

The opinion of a respectable antiquarian that the name Pontefract was originally given to Castleford, and that on the decay of the place, the inhabitants having fled here, gave the same name to their new abode, is equally unfounded and unsatisfactory. There is no evidence that a bridge had been built at Castleford, at so early a periods but on the other hand, its very name implies, that on account of the breadth of the stream it was fordable. When the navigation was cut, the old Roman road was found some feet below the surface of the ground, shelving down towards the bed of the river. From this circumstance it is evident, that no bridge was there in the time of the Romans; and the following fact proves there was none pre

vious to the conquest. Mortimer informs us that William the Conqueror, in the year 1070, receiving intelligence of great devastations committed in the north by the Danes, and the Northumbrian rebels, levied a formidable army, at the head of which he marched towards the kingdom of Northumberland, of which Yorkshire was a part, vowing in the fury of his wrath, that, " by the splendor of God's face". (his usual oath) he would not leave a Northumbrian alive to stir up future insurrections. On his march into Yorkshire he took Nottingham in his way, but when he came to Pontfret, or Pontefract (before this called Kirkby) he found that the enemy had broken down the bridge over the Aire at Ferrybridge, and the waters being at that time swelled, he despaired of being able to pass the river for a considerable time. He had waited three weeks with the greatest impatience, when one of his Norman knights called Lisois (probably the same person afterwards called Lacy, on whom he bestowed the town) discovered a ford, by which William aud his army passed the river.

Other historians assert, that the name is derived from the decay of an old bridge, which had been formerly built over an aqueous and marshy place, near to which the old town principally stood. Leland says, "the ruines of such a bridg yet ys seene scant half a mile est owt of old Pontfract, but I cannot justely say that this. bridge stoode ful on Watheling streete;" for the want of which the road was often impassable to travellers, till proper channels were made for the use of two mills, one called the upper mill, and the other the lower, or Bondgate mill *.

mill was situate within a few paces of the north