After Manchester, the next largest town was Preston, which was the capital of the duchy and one of the oldest incorporated towns in the county. Before the time of Elizabeth it had had no less than ten royal charters, and within it were two religious houses and its very ancient parish church; moreover, its "guild merchant" had been held every twentieth year for centuries. The guild roll of 1542 contains the names of over 200 burgesses, that of 1562 exceeds 350, and the one of 1602 gives 537 in burgesses, and 561 foreign or out burgesses. In the lists for 1562 and 1582 we find enumerated drapers, pewterers, cordwainers, glovers, masons, websters (weavers), tailors, mercers, butchers, carpenters, barbers, tanners, saddlers, flaxmen, leadbeaters, cutlers, schoolmasters, and other occupations which accompanied a well-to-do town of this period. The sale of woollen cloth and fustians was at this time a branch of Preston trade. Here also strict regulations were enforced as to the accommodation at inns, no one being allowed to retail ale unless he could lodge four men and find stabling for four horses. It was such regulations as these that enabled Holinshead (in 1577) to record that "the inns in Lancaster, Preston, Wigan and Warrington" are so much improved "that each comer" is "sure to lie in clean sheets wherein no man hath lodged; if the traveller be on horseback his bed-cloth cost him nothing, but if he go on foot he hath a penny to pay." Preston was one of the four Lancashire towns which in 1547 recommenced to send members to Parliament. Toward the end of the sixteenth century Preston had a population of something like 3,000. The chief town of the county for many centuries was Lancaster, though in size and importance it had now been excelled by several other towns. The old castle was the county gaol, and in this town until quite recently the assizes were held, and, moreover, it was the oldest corporate borough, dating back to the twelfth century; yet for all this, in an Act of Parliament passed in 1544, it is reported as to Lancaster that though there were many "beautiful houses" there, they were all "falling into ruin," and in 1586 Camden reported that "it was thinly peopled and all the inhabitants farmers, the country round it being cultivated, open, flourishing, and not bare of wood." As a town it consisted of only eight or nine streets, but there was a school, fishmarket, pinfold, etc.[111] Lancaster returned two members in 1529, and from 1547 continued to send that number. Liverpool in the time of Henry VII. had begun to fall off in importance, and we find that that monarch made a grant of the "Town and Lordship of Litherpoole" at a rental of £14 a year; this was renewed in 1528.