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 entitled 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 shilling 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
entitled 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 Glassonby, 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 entitled 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 entitled 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
Cumwhitton no admittances are granted, but the property passes 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 entitled 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, entitled to claim a God'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
Cumberland; 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
Cockermouth, 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:--
COCKERMOUTH TOLLS.
At a Meeting of the INHABITANTS of COCKERMOUTH, holden at the COURT
HOUSE, on SATURDAY the 13th Instant, to take into consideration the
unjust and illegal manner in which
The TOLL of GRAIN,
brought into Cockermouth 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 Cockermouth, 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 ASSOCIATION for the purpose of PROSECUTING any Person or
Persons TAKING MORE TOLL than is allowed by the Ancient Prescription.
_Cockermouth, March 15th, 1830._
The lordship of Millom was anciently exempted from the jurisdiction of the
Sheriff of Cumberland; 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 township
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 L6 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 cumin 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 cumin 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 parishioners, in consideration of his having
tithes of calves and pigs. Such a condition held in certain parishes in
Cumberland, 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 Cumberland 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 horsemen 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 tithes 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 cockatrice, which the vulgar at this day call a crack-a-Christ as
they rehearse the simple fable." The document 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 L2 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
township 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 Cockermouth chosen at the Michaelmas
Courts were a bailiff, assessors, assessors 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 assessors 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 punishing 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 principal 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 fortitude, 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 God." 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 petitioned Edward the Third
for the restitution 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 Cumberland 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 asserted 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 passing 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 Cockburn 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 assertion.
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 Manuscripts Commission. Writing from Rydal on November
24th, 1671, to Sir Joseph Williamson, Sir Daniel Fleming said:--
"Being lately in Lancashire I received there--as a justice of the
peace of that county--an information against one Thomas Lancaster,
late of Threlkeld in Cumberland, 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 Lancashire,
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 arsenic--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 assizes, 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 Assizes 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 arsenic, for a bribe of L24 from the heir
to her estate, worth L16 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 assizes 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 Cumberland 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
assize 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 passed
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 assaulting 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.