Lanarkshire - Lancashire

Do not confuse the similar names of two different counties - different in nationality, in status and in history.

• Lanarkshire, in Scotland, was a large and populous county in the Centre Belt of the lowlands. It was the area that hosted two of the most powerful families in Scotland, before the Act of Union - Douglas and Hamilton. In 1975, Lanarkshire was subsumed into the Region of Strathclyde, and in 1996, the name was used for two of the Council Areas: North Lanarkshire andSouth Lanarkshire. The former Lanarkshire also contained what have become the Council Areas of East Dunbartonshire and Glasgow City Council.

Etymological note: the name of the county town Lanark probably comes from the Cumbric Lanerc (~ 'clear space', 'glade'.

• Lancashire is a county in England to the east of the Irish Sea, south of Morecambe Bay and the River Lune, west of the Pennines and north of the Manchester Ship Canal. Before the 1899 and 1974 reforms of local government, Lancashire used to be larger, including parts of current Cumbria, Liverpool, and Greater Manchester. The first Duke of Lancaster was granted palatinate power over the county in 1351; his successor, via Henry IV, son of John of Gaunt, the second Duke of Lancaster, is the current monarch of England. Thus Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is a post in the British parliamentary cabinet.

Etymological note: Lancashire is the county of [the town of] Lancaster, 'the fort (ceaster) [at the mouth of] the River Lune.

• • The Wars of the Roses are seen as conflicts between Yorkshire and Lancashire, and are often referenced in writing about sporting contests between the two. The Wars of the |Roses werean expression of the dynastic problem between the families of the fourth son (John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster) and fifth son (Edmund of Langley, 1st Duke of York) of Edward III.