In point of fact, the castle remained intact, till the end of the civil war, when the only recorded instance of its ever having been even seriously threatened with a siege, occurred. An ordinance, disbanding the militia generally throughout the country, did not, it seems, meet with the approval of the Puritan warriors who held possession of the Clitheroe fortress, and who, instigated, it was said, by clerical advisers, "professed for the Covenant," and, in the first instance, flatly refused to disband until their terms were accepted. After the enforcement of the law, however, had been entrusted to Major-General Lambert, these chivalrous champions of the Covenant thought, under such circumstances, discretion was unquestionably the better part of valour, and they surrendered the castle to the Parliamentary general without further pressure. By an order of a Council of State, several of these strongholds throughout the country were dismantled, with a view to prevent their military occupation in case of a renewal of the war, and amongst those so doomed were the castles of Clitheroe and Greenhaugh, in the county of Lancaster. Thus ignominiously expires one element in the presumed historic truth of Cromwell's numerous castle and abbey battering exploits, referred to at length in the first chapter of this work, and on which the most remarkable and wide-spread legend of _modern_ and strictly historic times is based. A still more astounding instance of the appropriation of popular legends and famous names by localities that have no historical claims to them whatever, is found in connection with the ancient castle at Bury, Lancashire. Mr. Edward Baines says--"In the civil wars which raged in Lancashire in 1644, Bury Castle was battered by the Parliamentary army from an intrenchment called 'Castle-steads,' in the adjoining township of Walmersley; and from that period the overthrow of this, as well as of a large proportion of other castles of the kingdom, may be dated." Mr. Baines gives no authority whatever for this astounding statement. He evidently merely repeats a well-known local tradition. It would have been worth the while of a local historian, one would think, to have made some enquiry as to the history of the edifice at Bury during the century which had elapsed between Leland's reference to it, and the redoubtable exploit of the Parliamentary army in 1644. The earliest authentic record of the castle is no older than the reign of Henry VIII., but from the very nature of the record it must have been in existence for a long time previously. Leland, the "king's antiquary," when travelling through the country "in search of England's antiquities," _circa_ 1542-9, thus writes about the place--"Byri-on-Irwell, 4 or V. miles from Manchestre, but a poore market. There is a Ruine of a Castel by the paroch chirch yn the Towne. It longgid with the Towne sumetime to the Pilkentons, now to the Erles of Darby. Pilkenton had a place hard by Pilkenton Park, 3