Bygone Cumberland and Westmorland Part 3

Nicolson says it was "perhaps heretofore for the use of the foresters, this part being within the forest of Inglewood." That this was probable is also shown by a rule which existed in the barony of Greystoke, which was held of the King _in capite_ by the service of one entire barony, rendering 4 yearly at the fairs of Carlisle, suit at the County Court monthly, and serving the King in person against Scotland. The lord's tenants, of whom there were some hundreds early in this century, had to pay "a 20d. fine on the death of lord or tenant, and a 30d. fine upon alienation; also to pay foster rents, foster corn, mill rents, greenhue, peat silver, and boons for mowing and leading peats."

There are many curious regulations bearing upon local tenures, but there is not lacking evidence that some of a still more noteworthy character have either been allowed to drop out of recognition, or the duties have been compounded for. Silver-penny fines are still enforced occasionally.

In Mr. J. E. Hasell's manor of Dacre, when a mortgagee of real estate is admitted to the court roll, he has to pay a fine of a silver penny for each. Heriots is a manorial impost about which some curious information has at various times been published. Many lords of manors and landlords have during the last half century allowed many of their rights in this direction to drop, while others have put on small money payments in lieu both of heriots and services. All customary property in the barony of Greystoke, except in the manor of Watermillock, is subject to heriots.

A curious custom obtains in Mr. H. C. Howard's manor of Newbiggin (Dacre), as shown by a case which arose about thirty years ago. A married woman, seized in fee of customary lands, died, leaving a husband and child. The query was raised whether the husband was ent.i.tled to the estate for his own life "as tenant by the curtesy." It was decided that by the custom of the manor, there being no will, the child or heir at law of a deceased married woman should take the property absolutely, to the exclusion of the husband. In the adjoining manor of Barton there is another interesting rule. A Pooley Bridge man, who held certain property of the manor by payment of a rent of a s.h.i.+lling per annum, died intestate and a bachelor.

His nearest relatives were two nieces, daughters of a deceased brother.

The question was asked whether the two women would be co-heiresses, as in some other manors, but the eldest was found to take all, to the exclusion of her sister. The custom of the manor of Inglewood is to the same effect, the eldest daughter, sister, or other female descendant inheriting.

A question arose some forty-five years ago as to a peculiar custom existing in the barony of Greystoke. Mr. William Bleaymire, the then steward, stated that by custom of that barony a customary tenant might convey such tenement without concurrence of his wife, as no widow was ent.i.tled to free bench in lands disposed of by her husband in his lifetime, he not dying seized thereof. Three or four years later a very similar question arose in the manor of Gla.s.sonby, the particular point being whether an owner could devise his customary land to his children so as to deprive his wife (to whom he was married prior to 1834) of her dower or free bench therein. The late Mr. Lawrence Harrison, the steward of the manor, decided that "the man dies seized of the customary tenement; therefore, notwithstanding his will, she is ent.i.tled to free bench according to the custom. The Dower Act in nowise affects the custom." It is a well-known fact that the manorial customs in one village may be exactly contrary to those obtaining in an adjoining one. In some manors daughters are practically unnoticed, and in this connection an interesting point connected with the manor of Watermillock once came up. Mr. Bleaymire decided that an eldest daughter would be ent.i.tled to certain property in that manor, subject to her mother's free bench, which was one half.

A fruitful source of litigation, and of disputes of a less costly character, may be found in the demands made even in quite recent times, that purchasers should personally attend the Manorial Court in order to have admittance. In some local cases such attendance is rigidly enforced, but in others--the manor of Edenhall for instance--the purchaser is admitted on production of deed of bargain and sale. The law books contain many cases in which this point has been stubbornly fought. In the manor of c.u.mwhitton no admittances are granted, but the property pa.s.ses by deed of bargain and sale with the licence of the steward endorsed on the deed, and a simple enrolment of the purchaser. In the manors of Morland, Plumpton, and Croglin, the parties seeking to be admitted must attend in person or by attorney.

In the manor of Renwick, by an indenture mutually agreed upon in 1676, the tenants, in addition to a variety of financial payments, were obliged to scour and cleanse the water course to the lord's mill from the bottom up to the mill trough head, and maintain the mill with wall and thatch; bring millstones thereto, and grind their corn thereat, paying a twenty-fourth multure. They were ent.i.tled to such house-boot as the steward might be pleased to allot. Some of the mills were of considerable value, a fact which will be readily understood when it is remembered how tenaciously lords of manors clung to the right almost down to our own time. The lord of Drigg had a mill, to which, as was so frequently the case, the tenants were bound. In these days, fortunately, this and other requirements are not enforced. The same manor had flotsam, jetsam, and lagan, "and so it was adjudged upon a trial at bar between Henry, Earl of Northumberland, and Sir Nicholas Curwen in Queen Elizabeth's time, and afterwards a decree in Chancery for conforming the said prescription and securing that right to the sea against the lord paramount."

The rector of Caldbeck is, or was, ent.i.tled to claim a G.o.d's penny upon the change of tenant by death, in his manor in the lower part of the parish. Multure ("mooter") was formerly a common form of tax in c.u.mberland; very many instances of its imposition by lords of manors might be quoted, but sometimes it extended to the markets. The following is a copy of a bill relating to a revolt on the part of the inhabitants of c.o.c.kermouth, but the writer has not been able to discover to what extent, and whether immediately, the residents in the old borough succeeded in their protest:--

c.o.c.kERMOUTH TOLLS.

At a Meeting of the INHABITANTS of c.o.c.kERMOUTH, holden at the COURT HOUSE, on SAt.u.r.dAY the 13th Instant, to take into consideration the unjust and illegal manner in which

The TOLL of GRAIN,

brought into c.o.c.kermouth Market, has for some years past been taken; and it having been admitted by the Lord of the Manor, that the Toll of Corn is

ONE HANDFUL _Out of each Sack sold in the Market, and no more_;

It was unanimously resolved, that the undermentioned Gentlemen be appointed to attend the Corn Market, for the purpose of observing the mode in which the Toll is taken in future; also that the Landowners, Farmers, and others, be requested to give information to them, if more than the Legal Toll be hereafter required or taken by the Lessees of the Tolls, or if they take it from Grain _not actually sold_, in order that such measures may be pursued by and for the Parties aggrieved as the Law allows.

Messrs. JOSEPH STEEL, Messrs. JOSHUA SIM, WILLIAM WOOD, JOHN FISHER, JOHN HODGSON, THOMAS WILSON.

THAT a Meeting of the Inhabitants of c.o.c.kermouth, together with the Landowners and Farmers of its Vicinity, be holden in the Court House,

On MONDAY the 22d Inst. at Two o'Clock IN THE AFTERNOON,

to form an a.s.sOCIATION for the purpose of PROSECUTING any Person or Persons TAKING MORE TOLL than is allowed by the Ancient Prescription.

_c.o.c.kermouth, March 15th, 1830._

The lords.h.i.+p of Millom was anciently exempted from the jurisdiction of the Sheriff of c.u.mberland; the lords had power to licence their own ale-houses, and wreck of the sea was enjoyed until a comparatively recent period--certainly up to near the end of last century--"whereof," says Nicolson, "much benefit is frequently made, it being almost surrounded by the sea."

A very unusual tenure has been noted as being in existence in the towns.h.i.+p of Kirkland, a few miles from Wigton. It was stated thus a century and a quarter ago:--"The tenants have a lease granted to them generally by Mr.

Lancelot Salkeld, father of Sir Francis, for 999 years, paying a certain yearly rent for every tenement, amounting in the whole to 6 15s. 1d.

yearly, and every twenty-one years they are to pay a fine to the lord, viz., a twenty-penny fine, which they call a running gressom, and then take new leases, but pay no general fine upon the lord's death, nor upon change of tenant, but they pay a heriot upon the death of every tenant."

Tenures of c.u.min do not appear to have been common in the two counties.

The best known of the kind was in the time of Henry the Eighth, when a yearly rent of 2-1/2d., and one pound of c.u.min and services was paid by the heirs of John Reede to Fountains Abbey, for the fish garths in Crosthwaite, Keswick.

By the custom of some places a parson might be obliged to keep a bull and a boar, for the use of the paris.h.i.+oners, in consideration of his having t.i.thes of calves and pigs. Such a condition held in certain parishes in c.u.mberland, but as the stipulation said nothing as to the quality of the animals to be maintained, many farmers, with the progress of agriculture and education, began to keep their own, and the requirement gradually became a dead letter.

A peculiar obligation concerning Sparket Mill was laid on the tenants in the hamlet of Thackthwaite, in Watermillock parish, as is explained in the following "Verdict of the Head Jurie of Weathermelock, May 9th, 1709":--"As for the controversie betwixt the Tennents of Thackthwaite and ye miller of Sparkhead Mill concerning the repairing of the Mill Dam and the race, we find upon Oath and upon notice given by ye miller the tennents of Thackthwaite are to make ye race sufficient to carry water from the Dam to the Trough Head, upon condition that the miller give them every time they meet to work it a Pott of ale and a pennyworth of tobacco as they have had formerly. And as for the Dam we likewise find upon Oath that the repairing of the same belongs to the Lord of ye Mannor."

What would owners of dogs in these days think and say were such regulations in force as used to be enforced at the ancient c.u.mberland town of Egremont? The old ordinances of Richard Lucy for the government of the borough declared that "those who hold burgage tenure in Egremont shall find armed men for the defence of the fortress forty days at their own charge; shall find twelve men for the lord's military array, and be bound to aids for his redemption from captivity, and hold watch and ward; and that they shall not enter the forest with bow and arrow, nor cut off their dogs' feet within the borough." The explanation of the last item is that the inhabitants of the forest, who kept dogs to defend their dwellings, were obliged to cut off one foot to prevent their chasing the game, but the precaution was not considered necessary in the town.

Among the local peppercorn rents the following is interesting. The Gill estate, in the parish of Bromfield, is said to have belonged to the Reays "as long as any other estate in the kingdom has been in one family." The tradition is that the head of the family had the then extensive lands of Gill granted to him and his heirs by William the Lion, King of Scotland in the twelfth century, not only in reward for his fidelity to his prince, but as a memorial of his extraordinary swiftness of foot in pursuing the deer; outstripping in fleetness most of the hors.e.m.e.n and dogs. The conditions of the grant were that he should pay a peppercorn yearly, and that the name of William should, if possible, be perpetuated in the family. There were several eminent men among the descendants, but the distinctive Christian name is no longer strictly adhered to.

An estate enjoying exemption from payments of t.i.thes is that of Scale Houses, in the parish of Renwick. This arose, declared a writer early in the present century, "owing to an ancient owner of the land having slain a noxious c.o.c.katrice, which the vulgar at this day call a crack-a-Christ as they rehea.r.s.e the simple fable." The doc.u.ment which gives this exemption is believed to be still in existence. Among the dues to which the abbot and convent of Shap could claim were services and money payments from Bampton as "alms corn," and there was a similar tribute from Mauld's Meaburn and Hoff. Burn mentions in his chapter on Bewcastle a tenant's duty not publicly noted in any other local manor, the people having to pay yearly customary rent, quit rents for improvements, and 2 1s. 4d.

_carriage money_, whatever that may have been.

There was a curious regulation in one of the divisions of Windermere parish, which lasted up to about 1780:--"It was anciently customary in the towns.h.i.+p of Applethwaite for every tenant's wife who lived below the highway to pay 5d. yearly rent to the lord of the manor, and every other woman above 16 years of age 2d., above the road every tenant's wife paid 3d., and every other woman above 16, a penny. How this custom originated, or why the ladies on the low side of the road were rated higher than their contemporaries in the opposite division, we are unable to say."[9]

Among the old manorial officers at c.o.c.kermouth chosen at the Michaelmas Courts were a bailiff, a.s.sessors, a.s.sessors of bread and ale, mill-lookers, moor-lookers, hedge-lookers, leather searchers, swine-ringers, and appraisers. The jury of the Leet formed the special jury for the government of the borough, and the bailiff was the returning officer for elections, as well as clerk of the market. At Egremont the officers chosen annually were a borough serjeant, two bailiffs, four constables, two hedge and corn-viewers, and a.s.sessors of damages. Most of the old manors, indeed, would furnish examples of quaint offices, whose purpose is now scarcely known. A good deal might be written concerning the old manorial and other Courts of the two counties. Occasionally these still afford interesting proceedings, but the real purpose for holding them has ceased to exist. The Courts of Pie Poudre, at Appleby and several other places; the Court of Conscience, or, as it was commonly called, the Wapentake Court, and the Court of Record at Kendal; and the many Court Leets, are now merely matters of local history.

Old-Time Punishments.

If one feature is more prominent than another in connection with former methods of repressing crime, or of punis.h.i.+ng those who had been declared guilty of breaches of the law, it is that of brutality. Refinement, even in retribution, is perhaps not to be expected, having regard to the habits of the people and the conditions under which they lived. In the neighbourhood of the Border, "Jeddart justice"--to hang a man first and try him afterwards--was doubtless often found a convenient arrangement for dealing with those who were supposed to be delinquents. There is at least one case on record, too, of the drowning of a supposed witch at Carlisle, though the unfortunate woman was probably guilty of no more serious offence than being insane.

One of the most remarkable executions on record was that of Sir Andrew de Harcla, whose place in North-Country history is too well known to need further reference. He offended Edward the Second--whether he was as guilty as some historians have endeavoured to show is certainly a matter of opinion--and that monarch sent commissioners to Carlisle to seize de Harcla for treason. "The law" in those days was merely another name for the caprice of the King, and de Harcla had no trial. The cedula, or judgment, ran that Sir Andrew de Harcla, Earl of Carlisle, should be stripped of his Earl's robes and ensigns of knighthood, his sword broken over his head, his gilt spurs hacked from his heels, and that he should be drawn to the place of execution, and there hanged by the neck; his heart and bowels taken out of his body, burnt to ashes and winnowed, his body cut into four quarters, one to be set upon the princ.i.p.al tower of Carlisle Castle, another on the tower of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a third upon the bridge at York, and the fourth at Shrewsbury, and his head upon London Bridge.

There has been doubt thrown upon the extent to which this revolting sentence was obeyed. Dr. Burn says "it was performed accordingly," while the monks of Lanercost record that de Harcla "suffered in the ordinary place of execution with great fort.i.tude, affirming to the end that in his transactions with the King of Scotland he had meant no hurt to his own King or country." On the scaffold, they add, he said, "You have disposed of my body at your pleasure; my soul, which is above your disposal, I give to G.o.d." It was customary to allow a sledge or hurdle on which persons condemned for high treason were dragged to the gallows; there is nothing in local records to show in what way the Earl was conveyed to the place of execution.

A question which has occupied a good deal of the attention of local antiquaries at various times is whether the body was dismembered and the parts dispersed as ordered. De Harcla's sister pet.i.tioned Edward the Third for the rest.i.tution of her brother's body for burial, and the order addressed to de Lucy, who had been de Harcla's executioner, is still in existence. It runs thus:--"The King to his faithful and beloved Anthony de Lucy, Warden of Carlisle Castle, greeting. We command that you cause to be delivered without delay the quarter of the body of Andrew de Harcla, which hangs by the command of the Lord Edward, late King of England, our father, upon the walls of the said Castle, to our beloved Sarah, formerly the wife of Robert de Leyburn, sister to the aforesaid Andrew, to whom we of our grace have granted that she may collect together the bones of the same Andrew, and commit them to holy sepulture, whenever she wishes or her attorney. And this you shall in no wise omit. Witness the King at York, the 10th of August (1337), by the King himself." A portion of the body is believed to have been buried in Kirkby Stephen Church; the tradition was strengthened by the discovery of part of the bones of a man under peculiar conditions when the church was rebuilt half a century ago.

Although there are several Gallows Hills in c.u.mberland and Westmorland, there only seems to be one place which has retained any particular story, and it is thus told in Mr. William Andrews' third book relating to punishments[10]:--"It has been a.s.serted by more than one local chronicler that John Whitfield, of Cotehill, a notorious North-Country highwayman, about 1768 was gibbeted alive on Barrock. He kept the countryside in a state of terror, and few would venture out after nightfall for fear of encountering him. He shot a man on horseback in open daylight; a boy saw him commit the crime, and was the means of his identification and conviction. It is the belief in the district that Whitfield was gibbeted alive, that he hung for several days in agony, and that his cries were heartrending, until a mail coachman pa.s.sing that way put him out of his misery by shooting him."

There is a contemporary record of the execution to be found in the _St.

James's Chronicle_, for August 12th, 1768, as follows:--"Wednesday, John Whitfield, for murdering William c.o.c.kburn on the Highway, near Armithwaite, was executed at Carlisle, and afterwards hung in Chains near the Place where the Fact was committed." It will be seen that the record makes no mention of the culprit having been put into his iron cage when alive, and one can only hope that there is nothing beyond tradition to support the a.s.sertion.

Next we come to the gibbeting of a Threlkeld man, one of the earliest recorded instances of that punishment being imposed in the County Palatine. The facts are contained in the Rydal papers, published in 1890 by the Historical Ma.n.u.scripts Commission. Writing from Rydal on November 24th, 1671, to Sir Joseph Williamson, Sir Daniel Fleming said:--

"Being lately in Lancas.h.i.+re I received there--as a justice of the peace of that county--an information against one Thomas Lancaster, late of Threlkeld in c.u.mberland, who, it is very probable, hath committed the most horrid act that hath been heard of in this countrey. He marryed the 30th of January last a wife in Lancas.h.i.+re, who was agreed to be marryed that very day, or soon after, to another; and her father afterwards conveyed all his reall estate to this Lancaster upon his giveing security to pay severall sums of money to himselfe and his other daughters. And through covetousness to pay these and other payments it is very probable that Lancaster hath lately poysoned--with white a.r.s.enic--his wife, her father, her three sisters, her aunt, her cosin-german, and a servant boy, besides poyson given to severall of his neighbours who are and have been sick, that people--as it is presumed--might think the rest dead of a violent fevor. I have committed him prisoner unto Lancaster Castle and shall take what more evidence I can meet with against the next a.s.sizes, that he may there have a fair triall, and--if he be found guilty--such a punishment as the law shall inflict upon such like offenders."

On April 3rd, of the following year, Sir Daniel, writing to Sir George Fletcher, at Hutton, returned to the subject, after he had discussed private affairs and the action of the Judges with regard to the Papists.

At the Lent a.s.sizes at Lancaster, he said, "Thomas Lancaster has been found guilty of poisoning eight persons, and is to be hanged in chains."

Three weeks later in a letter to Sir William Wilde, Justice of the Common Pleas, the same gossip recorded that "Thomas Lancaster has confessed that he poisoned the old woman with a.r.s.enic, for a bribe of 24 from the heir to her estate, worth 16 per annum." It is, however, to the church registers of Hawkshead that we must turn for an account of the final proceedings, the entry being under date April 8th, 1672:--

"Thomas Lancaster, who for poysonninge his owne family was adjudgt att the a.s.sizes att Lancaster to be carried back to his owne house att Hye-Wrey, where he liv'd, was there hanged before his owne doore till he was dead for that very facte, and then was brought with a horse and carr into the Coulthouse meadows and forthwithe hunge upp in iron chaynes on a gibbett, which was set up for that very purpose on the South syde, of Sawrey Casey, neare unto the Poole Stang, and there continued until such tymes as he rotted every bone from the other."

There are records of wholesale executions in c.u.mberland for what may be called political offences. When the authorities were subduing Aske's rebellion, for instance, little was thought of hanging a score of men, and many readers will no doubt remember the bravery of the victims' wives on some of those occasions, for at the risk of their own necks they removed their executed husbands from the gallows and buried the bodies by night.

At Appleby in former days doubtless many executed men were subjected to the further indignity of being drawn and quartered. In 1664 three of the men who supported Captain Atkinson, of Mallerstang, were, at a special a.s.size in the county town, convicted of high treason for their share in the Kaber Rigg rising, and all were hanged, drawn, and quartered. It was not until the autumn of 1675 that Captain Atkinson was sentenced to die the death of a traitor, and pursuant to sentence was hanged, drawn, and quartered on September 1st. It was once common to hand over the bodies of those who had suffered on the gallows to surgeons for dissection. Probably the last Gallows Hill victim thus dealt with was George Mackereth, of Kendal, who was hanged in 1748 for the murder of his sweetheart.

A more interesting study is to be found in the methods adopted by the clergy when dealing with refractory individuals. Of excommunication, as imposed in the diocese of Carlisle, much might be written from the records preserved in the registry, for not only were poor folks put under the ban.

Bishops and priors were declared "excommunicate," while rectors, vicars, and less important people by the score seem to have offended.

One case of post-mortem punishment at Penrith, by way of appeasing the wrath of a former Bishop, may be quoted. The latter required the Archdeacon of Carlisle to seek out and summon certain malefactors who had insulted him while on a visit to the town. Three years seem to have pa.s.sed before anything was done, and by that time one of the culprits had died and been buried. The Bishop ordered the body to be dug up, and to lie unburied until the form of absolution had been gone through. In connection, apparently, with the same affair, the Bishop "signified" to the Court of King's Bench that John de Agliunby, who had been excommunicated for a.s.saulting and wounding a priest, "after the term of forty days still remains impenitent and unabsolved," and so the aid of the secular arm was invoked to coerce him. What the result may have been does not appear.

There is a peculiar case, perhaps less known than any--that of the priest or friar who officiated at the Brunskill conventicle, and made a good harvest from the "miraculous" cures wrought by the strong iron water at the Holy Well, Brough. The vicar obtained the Pope's authority, and the offender was duly excommunicated.