MEMORIALS OF THE COUNTIES OF ENGLAND
General Editor:
REV. P. H. DITCHFIELD, M.A., F.S.A., F.R.S.L., F.R.Hist.S.
MEMORIALS OF OLD DURHAM
[Illustration]
[Illustration: DURHAM CATHEDRAL.
_From the Picture by J. M. W. Turner, R.A._]
MEMORIALS OF OLD
DURHAM
EDITED BY
HENRY R. LEIGHTON, F.R.HIST.S.
WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS
[Illustration: colophon]
LONDON
GEORGE ALLEN & SONS, 44 & 45, RATHBONE PLACE, W.
1910
[_All Rights Reserved_]
TO THE
RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF DURHAM, K.G.,
_Lord-Lieutenant of the County Palatine of Durham_,
THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED BY
HIS KIND PERMISSION
PREFACE
The Palatinate of Durham possesses special claims to the attention of
students of history. It alone amongst the English counties was for
centuries ruled by Sovereign Bishops possessing their own peers, troops,
mint, and legal courts. In every respect it was a miniature kingdom, in
its constitution like only to the well-known Prince-Bishoprics of the
Continent.
In the past the county has been favoured by a succession of historians,
who have dealt more or less fully with its parochial history. More
recently Dr. Lapsley and the contributors to the "Victoria History" have
minutely examined the various phases of its early constitution. In the
publications of the local archæological societies, the greater mansions
and most of the more interesting churches have been dealt with in
detail.
In view, therefore, of the now considerable accumulated literature upon
the county, it has been a matter of no small difficulty to select
subjects which should be helpful to the scholar as well as interesting
to the general reader.
It has been endeavoured to make this volume serve a twofold purpose.
Firstly, to awaken a greater interest in the past of this most historic
district, and secondly, to serve as an introduction to the greater
histories of the county. Some day, perhaps, we may hope to see an
edition of Surtees’, revised to a recent date, and covering those
portions of the county which he did not live to deal with.
Through the courtesy of the Earl of Durham we are enabled to reproduce
for the first time the portrait of William James, sometime Bishop of
Durham. Lord Strathmore has kindly enabled us to include the very
interesting photograph of Streatlam Castle. Thanks are also due to Mrs.
Greenwell, of Greenwell Ford, for the photograph of Fen Hall. Mr. J.
Tavenor-Perry has supplied the sketches of the cathedral sanctuary
knocker and the dun cow panel, besides the valuable measured drawings of
Finchale Priory. The remaining sketches in pen and ink have been
contributed by Mr. Wilfrid Leighton.
In conclusion, in addition to thanking the contributors of the various
chapters for the care with which they have treated their subjects,
thanks are due to the Rev. William Greenwell and to the Rev. Dr. Gee,
who have both made useful suggestions.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Historical Introduction By the Rev. HENRY GEE,
D.D., F.S.A. 1
Topography of Durham By Miss M. HOPE DODDS 24
Folk-lore of the County of Durham By Mrs. NEWTON W.
APPERLEY 44
The Legends of Durham By Miss FLORENCE N.
COCKBURN 65
Place-names in the Durham Dales By W. MORLEY EGGLESTONE 79
Durham Cathedral By the Rev. WILLIAM
GREENWELL, M.A., etc. 108
Finchale Priory By J. TAVENOR-PERRY 130
Monkwearmouth and Jarrow By the Rev. DOUGLAS S.
BOUTFLOWER, M.A. 146
The Parish Churches of Durham By WILFRID LEIGHTON 162
Monumental Inscriptions By EDWIN DODDS 182
The Castles and Halls of Durham By HENRY R. LEIGHTON 198
Durham Associations of John Wesley By the Rev. T. CYRIL
DALE, B.A. 229
The Old Families of Durham By HENRY R. LEIGHTON 239
Index 257
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Durham Cathedral _Frontispiece_
(_From the picture by J. M. W. Turner, R.A._)
PAGE, OR FACING PAGE
Portrait of William James, Bishop of Durham, 1606-1617 6
(_From the painting at Lambton Castle_)
The Market-Cross at Darlington 25
An Old Tithe-barn at Durham 27
Bishop Pudsey’s Charter to the City of Durham, and
Pope Alexander III.’s Confirmation thereof 30
(_From a copy made by Christopher Fawcett, of Newcastle, originally
issued as one of the Allan Tracts_)
Jack Crawford’s Birth-place, Sunderland 35
The Palace, Bishop Auckland 38
(_From a drawing by W. Daniell, R.A._)
Barnard Castle 40
(_From a drawing by E. Dayes_)
Brancepeth Castle in 1777 42
(_From an old Print_)
The Palace Green, Durham 64
(_From an old Print_)
The Dun Cow Panel, Durham Cathedral 67
Hilton Castle from the North 70
Lambton Castle, 1835 74
(_From the picture by T. Allom_)
The Kepier Hospital 90
The Crypt, Durham Cathedral 112
The Sanctuary Knocker, Durham Cathedral 119
Durham Cathedral: The Western Towers from a window
in the Monks’ Library 120
(_From a drawing by R. W. Billings, 1844_)
Piscina in Choir, Finchale Priory 135
Choir, Finchale Priory 137
The Church from the North-west, Finchale Priory 139
Plan of the Ruins of Finchale Priory 140
Front of the Chapter House, Finchale Priory 141
Crypt under Refectory, Finchale Priory 142
The Prior’s Lodging, Finchale Priory 143
Monkwearmouth Church 146
Old Stone, Monkwearmouth 148
Ornamental Stonework, Monkwearmouth Cathedral 153
Jarrow Church 154
(_From a photograph by G. Hastings_)
Early English Snakes, Monkwearmouth Church 157
Norton Church 172
Boldon Spire 176
Anglo-Saxon Stone at Chester-le-Street 184
Witton Castle in 1779 198
(_From a contemporary print by Bailey_)
Lumley Castle 202
Hilton Castle: West Front 206
Old Tower at Ravensworth Castle 210
The Cross at Ravensworth 212
Streatlam Castle 214
(_From a photograph by E. Yeoman, Barnard Castle_)
Raby Castle in 1783 218
(_From a contemporary Print_)
Gainford Hall 222
The Old Hall at Thorpe Thewles 223
Fen Hall 224
(_From a photograph by Mrs. Greenwell_)
A Corner of Washington Hall 225
The Doorway, West Rainton Hall 227
General John Lambton, 1710-1794 244
(_From the portrait by G. Romney at Lambton Castle_)
Hoppyland Park 248
Portrait of Sir George Bowes 254
(_From the painting at Streatlam Castle_)
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
BY THE REV. HENRY GEE, D.D., F.S.A., MASTER OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE,
DURHAM
In the older maps of England, that portion of the country which we call
the county of Durham is generally described as "Episcopatus
Dunelmensis," or the Bishopric of Durham, or simply the Bishopric. A
further glance at the adjacent districts of Northumberland and Yorkshire
shows that there are portions larger or smaller of those counties which
are marked as integral parts of Durham. These members of the Bishopric
are Norhamshire, Islandshire, and Bedlingtonshire in Northumberland,
with the Manors of Northallerton, Howden, and Crayke, and certain lands
adjacent to them in Yorkshire. These portions of the Bishopric were only
cut off from it and merged in their own surrounding counties within the
memory of persons still living. Indeed, the distinction between
Bishopric folk and County folk--that is to say, people of Durham and
people of Northumberland--is not yet quite forgotten, and looks back to
a very interesting piece of English history that has to do with a state
of things in the North of England which has now passed away.
Visitors who come to the city of Durham to-day and look on cathedral and
castle have some vague idea of a time when the Bishop of Durham had "the
power of life and death," as it is popularly called; but what this
means, and what the peculiar constitution of the neighbourhood was, they
do not, as a rule, understand. It may be worth while to try and get a
clearer view of the Bishopric of Durham, and more especially of the
main portion between Tyne and Tees, which forms the modern county. We
to-day are so much accustomed to a strong central Government controlling
the whole of England, that we find it hard to think of a time when
certain districts had a large independence, and were ruled by a local
Earl or by Bishop, rather than by the King in the capital. Yet there
were such times both in England and upon the Continent. The district so
ruled is known as a franchise or liberty, and the history of its
independence, won, maintained, or lost, generally forms an attractive
subject of study, with many exciting episodes in it. The assertion is
certainly true of Durham; and although it is not possible to go into
detail within the space of an introductory article like this, it may be
possible to explain what the Bishopric was, and how it came to get its
distinctive characteristics and its later modification.
The franchise of the Bishop of Durham may be most aptly understood if we
try to regard all the members of it mentioned above as a little kingdom,
of which Durham City was the capital. The Bishop of Durham was virtually
the King of this little realm, and ruled it, not only as its spiritual
head, but as its temporal head. As its spiritual head, he was in the
position of any ordinary Bishop, and possessed exactly the same powers
as other prelates. As its temporal head, he had a power which they
generally did not possess. Dr. Freeman has explained his position in the
following words: "The prelate of Durham became one and the more
important of the only two English prelates whose worldly franchises
invested them with some faint shadow of the sovereign powers enjoyed by
the princely Churchmen of the Empire. The Bishop of Ely in his island,
the Bishop of Durham in his hill-fortress, possessed powers which no
other English ecclesiastic was allowed to share.... The external aspect
of the city of itself suggests its peculiar character. Durham alone
among English cities, with its highest point crowned, not only by the
cathedral, but by the vast castle of the Prince-Bishop, recalls to mind
those cities of the Empire--Lausanne, or Chur, or Sitten--where the
priest, who bore alike the sword and the pastoral staff, looked down
from his fortified height on a flock which he had to guard no less
against worldly than against ghostly foes."[1] And this sovereignty was
no nominal thing, for the Bishop came to have most of the institutions
that we connect with the thought of a kingdom. He had his own courts of
law, his own officers of state, his own assemblies, his own system of
finance, his own coinage, and, to some extent, he had his own troops and
his own ships. As we understand all this, we shall appreciate the
significance of the lofty throne erected by Bishop Hatfield in Durham
Cathedral. It was placed there in the flourishing days of the Bishop’s
power, and is not merely the seat of a Bishop, but the throne of a King.
So too, hard by, in the Bishop’s castle, as the chronicler tells us,
there were two seats of royalty within the hall, one at either end. No
doubt it was before the Bishop, sitting as Prince in one of these, that
the great tenants of his franchise--the Barons of the Bishopric, as they
were actually called--did homage in respect of their lands. Perhaps,
when he sat in the other from time to time as Bishop, his clergy and
others recognized his spiritual authority, or submitted themselves to
his "godly admonitions."
The county of Durham has been marked out by nature, more or less
distinctly, as separate from the neighbouring counties. The Tees on the
south, and the Tyne on the north, with the Derwent running from the
western fells to the Tyne, sufficiently differentiate it. In what
follows we will keep mainly to the district represented by the modern
county, leaving out of view the members outside to which reference has
been made. Its history, until modern times, is largely ecclesiastical,
owing to its peculiar constitution, in which the Bishop plays so
important a part. It had, indeed, virtually no history until the Church
became the great civilizer in Northumbria. Its prehistoric remains are
few, if interesting. Its occupation by Brigantes, a Celtic tribe, is a
large fact with no details. In the days when Romans made the North of
Britain their own, there is still no history beyond the evidence of
Roman roads, with camps at Binchester, Lanchester, and Ebchester.
Certainly no Roman Christian remains have been found as yet; but when in
the seventh century Christianity came to the Anglian invaders who
settled in these parts after the departure of the Romans, the history of
the English people was born within the confines of the modern county.
Bede, the first of English scholars and writers, compiled his history in
the monastery of Jarrow. He tells us all we know of the earliest Durham
Christians--of Benedict Biscop and of Hilda, who, with himself, are the
first three historic personages in the district. In one pregnant
sentence he tells us how churches were built in different places, how
the people flocked together to hear the Word, and how landed possessions
were given by royal munificence to found monasteries. These monasteries
became the centres of religion, civilization, and learning all over
Northumbria; and, in particular, the monasteries of Jarrow and
Wearmouth, twin foundations of Benedict Biscop, were the commencement of
everything best worth having between Tyne and Tees.
Thus religion, art, and literature, were born in Durham. In the last
years of the eighth century a terrible calamity fell upon the wider
province, of which Durham was only a part, when the Danes raided
Lindisfarne, where had been the starting-point of the Northumbrian
Church. When the mother was thus spoiled and laid desolate, the
daughters trembled for their safety, but they were left for awhile, not
unassailed, yet not destroyed. In those days of disturbed peace further
gifts of land were made to the Church, and in these we trace large
slices of Durham handed over in the ninth century to the monks of
Lindisfarne by those who had the power to give. And here we must notice
that the great treasure of the monastery at Lindisfarne was the body of
St. Cuthbert, the great Northumbrian saint, to whom the endowments named
were most solemnly dedicated. They formed the nucleus of the
Bishopric--the beginnings of the Patrimony of St. Cuthbert, which is
only another name for the Bishopric. Repeated invasion of the Danes at
last drove the monks out of Lindisfarne, and destroyed the Durham
monasteries of Jarrow and Wearmouth. The Lindisfarne monks left their
island, and bore away for safety’s sake the body of St. Cuthbert, and
after various wanderings brought it back to rest within the fortified
enclosure of Chester-le-Street, and so within the confines of Durham.
Here the Danish conquerors confirmed previous gifts, and added others to
them, until the lands of St. Cuthbert increased very widely, whilst
Chester-le-Street became a centre of pilgrimage.
For 113 years Chester-le-Street was the Christian metropolis of the
North, until the final fury of the Danes began to fall upon Northumbria.
In 995 another exodus began, and the clergy bore off the body to Ripon,
returning a few months later when the tempest seemed to have abated.
Many legends cluster round this return, but in any case the fact is
clear that the Bishop and his company took up their abode, not at
Chester-le-Street, but on the rocky peninsula of Dun-holm, or Durham,
which the River Wear nearly encircled. In this way the seat of
ecclesiastical authority was changed for the second time, and Durham
City now became the centre of the still-expanding Bishopric. Great
prestige gathered round the Saxon cathedral in which the shrine of the
saint was placed, for Kings and Princes vied with one another in doing
honour to it. So Canute, walking to the spot with bare feet, gave fresh
donations of Durham land and confirmed what others had bestowed.
But again dark days fell upon the North. To say nothing of Scottish
encroachments upon the Bishopric, which were sustained in the eleventh
century, the worst blow fell when the Norman Conquest took place. In no
part of England was a more determined patriotism opposed to William than
in Durham. Submission was nominal, and desperate efforts were made to
keep Northumbria as a separate kingdom by placing Edgar Atheling upon an
English throne in York. When the Conqueror made a Norman called Cumin
his Viceroy in these parts, the men of Durham rose and murdered him
within their city. It was an act that William never forgave and never
forgot. He wrought such a deed of vengeance that the whole of the
smiling district from York to Durham was turned into a wilderness. When
he came to die he is represented to have said of this ruthless episode:
"I fell on the English of the Northern counties like a ravening lion. I
commanded their houses and corn, with all their tools and furniture, to
be burnt without distinction, and large herds of cattle and beasts of
burden to be butchered wherever they were found. It was thus I took
revenge on multitudes of both sexes, by subjecting them to the calamity
of a cruel famine; and by so doing, alas! became the barbarous murderer
of many thousands, both young and old, of that fine race of people."
William placed foreigners in most positions of importance. To the See of
Durham he appointed Walcher from Lorraine, and the new prelate came from
his consecration at Winchester, escorted across the belt of depopulated,
ravaged land, until he reached Durham. North of the Wear the Patrimony
of St. Cuthbert was as yet largely untouched, but the men of Durham had
no love for the foreigner, and no wish to regard him as their lord.
Fortunately for him the Earl of Northumbria stood his friend, and built
for him in 1072 the Norman castle overlooking
[Illustration: Portrait and Signature]
the Wear, which was destined to be the Bishop’s fortress for seven and a
half centuries. Within that castle Walcher was safe, and, helped by the
Earl, he ruled his recalcitrant flock, not always wisely, but with all
his power, until an insurrection which he strove to quell cost him his
life. He died, however, not as mere Bishop of Durham, but as Earl of
Northumbria as well, for when Waltheof the Earl died, William appointed
Walcher in his place. Thus in the hands of the first Bishop after the
Conquest was held the double authority of Bishop and of Earl. Whatever
may have been the powers of the prelate in the Bishopric until this
time, it is certain that from this point he claims a double authority
within the Patrimony of St. Cuthbert. As for Walcher, stern example was
made of what resistance to the Bishop’s lawful authority would mean,
when William laid waste the land that had escaped ten years before, and
extended his ravages north of the Wear and towards the Tyne.
Just before the eleventh century expired, an event of considerable
importance took place when Bishop Carileph began the great cathedral
which still crowns the height above the Wear at Durham. About the same
time an understanding was reached between the Earl of Northumbria and
the Bishop, by which all the rights and the independence of the
Bishopric seem to have been recognized and confirmed, so that
henceforward the Bishop was the undisputed lord of the lands of St.
Cuthbert.[2] When in 1104 the cathedral was sufficiently advanced to
receive the body of the saint within its eastern apse, a great ceremony
took place, which served to carry the prestige of Durham beyond anything
it had yet reached. Henceforward the stream of pilgrims which had
steadily flowed to the shrine, whether at Lindisfarne, or
Chester-le-Street, or Durham, swelled in volume until the
attractiveness of Durham exceeded that of any place of pilgrimage in
England. Only when the shrine of St. Thomas at Canterbury drew to it so
large a share of patronage from the end of the twelfth century did a
serious rival manifest itself. Carileph had divided the territory of St.
Cuthbert, reserving part for the Bishop, and part for the Benedictine
monks whom he placed in the new cathedral. Thus the Bishop had his
estates henceforward, and the monks had theirs. At first the portion
belonging to the monastery seems to have been disappointingly poor, a
fact very probably due to recent ravages whose brand was not yet
effaced. By degrees, however, the lands of prior and convent improved,
and the gifts of pilgrims made the monks prosperous.
The Bishop who presided when the body of St. Cuthbert was translated in
1104 was Ralph Flambard. He was not the character to allow the prestige
of the Bishopric to decline. Under him the resources of the county were
ably administered, and the organization of his dominions was carefully
developed. By degrees the traces of the Norman harrying were
obliterated. How fair a country Durham was in the early twelfth century
we may discover from the poetry of a monk from the monastery who was
called Lawrence, and wrote a description of events and localities
connected with Durham. He speaks of its scenery, its excellent products,
its fine breed of horses, its open-air amusements, to say nothing of
indoor revels at Christmas. The twelfth century, with sparse population,
open moor and plain, and increasing prosperity, is far away from the
noise of anvil and forge, the smoke of endless coke ovens, the squalor
of congested towns, as they exist in the county to-day. But the scene
changed too soon. After the accession of Stephen in 1135 fierce dynastic
feuds broke out, and the Scots joined in the anarchy of the time,
attempting to annex the territory of St. Cuthbert to the Lowlands of
Scotland. Durham suffered severely in the conflict, and a mock-bishop,
supported by the Scots, actually held Durham Castle and City against
the lawful prelate. At length more quiet days came, and in the reign of
Henry II. Bishop Pudsey, the King’s own cousin, succeeded in resisting
the centralizing efforts of the monarch, and although he had to bow to
the imperious Henry on more than one occasion, he carried on in the main
the liberties and rights of the Bishopric. A little later he was enabled
to round off the Bishopric lands when he bought the wapentake of
Sadberge from King Richard, the only important part of the county which
had never yet been included in the territory of St. Cuthbert. From this
time the Earl of Northumbria disappears, and at last there is no rival
whatsoever to powers which had been steadily growing. The Bishopric is
now complete in head and members, and the Bishop is virtual sovereign of
it, whilst the King is supreme outside. At this stage we may freely call
the Bishop’s dominions the Palatinate of Durham--a name which continues
to be usual until the power so described is, in 1836, annexed to the
Crown. The word "Palatinate" is a conventional legal title which the
lawyers brought into fashion to describe a great franchise with its
independent jurisdiction.[3]
We are able to get a very much clearer notion of the Palatinate in
Pudsey’s days, when the hitherto scanty materials of Durham history
begin to swell. We have some of his buildings before us yet--St.
Cuthbert’s, Darlington, the Galilee of the cathedral, the rich doorway
in the castle; we have seal and charters and writs of his episcopate;
and, in short, are able to trace in outline the way in which Pudsey
developed the Bishopric on the analogy of a little kingdom, with
institutions and officers of its own. Moreover, some notion is gained in
the famous Boldon Book[4] of the episcopal lands and how they were
held. There we get a Domesday, as it were, of the Bishop’s holdings, to
which those who desire to study the intricate methods of medieval land
tenure on the Bishop’s property must be referred. A little later on we
find somewhat similar information about the lands of the monastery, so
that, as the centuries wear on, a fairly detailed picture is gained of
the conditions of life in the medieval Bishopric. Thus we see the lands
divided up into a large number of manors, which vary largely in
character, for some are pastoral, others agricultural, others moor-land,
or forest, and others still are connected with townships like Gateshead
or Sunderland. The Bishop’s or Prior’s steward makes a circuit at
different times, visiting all the units in some special locality, and
looking to his lettings or his rents. The holdings vary very much in
size and in tenure, and the tenants likewise differ in status and in
service. There are villeins who are not free, and are bound to render
certain dues of personal service, mowing, or reaping, or ploughing, or
sowing, for so many days, and receiving perhaps doles of food, a
cottage, and some land, but no money wage. There are farmers who take a
manor or farm on condition of rendering so much agricultural produce to
the lord. There are cottiers who work so many days in the week, and have
to give so many eggs, or so many fowls for the table, in return for the
little home that they occupy. In Durham itself certain houses were let
to tenants, who had to defend the North Gate, or help act as garrison,
or render herbs and other necessaries for the Bishop’s kitchen. The
conditions of service among the villeins were often onerous, and a tone
of deep discontent is marked in the medieval villages of Durham. In time
of war external service might be demanded of the men, and a rally to
join the Bishopric troops was no unfamiliar incident of life in those
days. If it extended beyond the bounds proper of the territory of St.
Cuthbert, pay was claimed, though it was not always given. Small
quarrels and differences were probably adjusted by steward or bailiff,
but more serious cases came before justices of the peace specially
appointed, whilst murder and other grave offences were reserved for
judges whom the Bishop appointed to sit at various centres, of which
Durham was the chief. And this power of appointing judges to try
criminals and to convict or acquit them is what is meant by the popular
and inexact phrase, "the power of life and death." The Bishop’s revenue
was managed by special officers of his own appointment, who got returns
from the local bailiffs, and then recorded them at Durham, where a
special audit was held. A special set of buildings were erected near
Durham Castle, with various adjacent offices, for the management and
arrangement of all the mass of business--financial, judicial, and
administrative--which was entailed by the Bishopric.
In this way the conditions of life, and the administration of the
Palatinate, followed roughly the general order of the kingdom outside,
and the Bishopric was, as has already been said, virtually a little
kingdom ruled by a Bishop instead of a King. The Bishops who followed
Pudsey maintained and developed his organization, but not without
strife. The thirteenth century, in particular, presents a long record of
obstinate struggle between the Bishop and those who tried to limit his
power or to gain concessions which he was unwilling to make. Indeed, the
struggle between the King and the people, which is the great feature of
English history in that century, finds a close parallel on a small scale
in Durham. At one time it is a long feud between the Bishop and the
Monastery over their respective lands, a feud which was at last ended by
an agreement between the contending parties. At another time the Bishop
is trying to curb the independence of the Barons of the Bishopric, who
held large estates for which they were supposed to yield homage, or to
perform some kind of service. In this way Nevilles and Balliols, two of
the great Bishopric families, held out against the crusading Bishop Bek,
and in the end they had to give way. And once more there was strife on
more than one occasion with the King, who now and then attempted to
restrain the exuberant independence of the Bishop of Durham; and here,
in the main, the Bishop was successful in asserting his rights and
powers as inalienable.
Over this scene of complex organization and activity dark shadows came
in the fourteenth century. The Scots, who had been quiescent for some
time, fell upon the Bishopric with great ferocity during the reigns of
the first three Edwards, and the years were seldom free from the record
of invasion or pillage. It had come to be regarded as a prime duty of
the Bishop to repress all northern incursions, and, as a contemporary
document puts it, to serve as a wall of brass against the Scots. He had
his fortified castles, Norham in Norhamshire, Durham in its own county,
and Northallerton in Yorkshire. These three lay on one of the chief
routes by which the invaders entered England, and were kept in
threatening times well defended and provisioned. In 1312 Bruce pushed
his forces right through Northumberland, and advanced into the heart of
the Bishopric, delivering a blow against Durham itself, which must have
been severe. Two years later in Scotland the troops of England were
beaten at Bannockburn, and the humiliation of Edward II. was only
effaced some years later by Edward III. in the victories of Halidon
Hill, and more particularly of Neville’s Cross in 1346. The latter
battle was the great glory of the men of Durham until it was forgotten
in the greater prestige of Flodden nearly 200 years later. The tomb of
Ralph Neville, badly battered by Scots in later days, still stands in
Durham Cathedral as a local memorial of Neville’s Cross, in which he led
the Bishopric troops.
The joy caused by these successes was soon dimmed when the terrors of
the Black Death overwhelmed the district. Perhaps no part of England
suffered much more severely. The pestilence rolled up towards the North
in the year 1349, and at last made its dreaded appearance in the
south-east of the county. From this point it spread with frightful
rapidity, carrying off all orders and conditions of men, for none
escaped. Sometimes a whole household perished, and here and there an
entire village was obliterated. "No tenants came from West Thickley,
because they are all dead," is the steward’s entry at one manorial court
or halmote, as the local word is. In the winter that followed there was
no sowing, and when the spring came men had not the heart to go to work
on the fields, for the plague was renewed with increasing virulence, and
everything was thrown out of gear. Villeins had run away from sheer
terror; even madness was not unheard of; and whilst there was little to
eat famine and misery stalked unchecked.[5] The Bishop’s lands and the
Prior’s lands were going out of cultivation, for it was impossible to
find labourers, or to bind them down in the old way. Grotesque attempts
were made to keep up the former conditions of service, until by degrees
stewards and bailiffs found out that they were face to face with the
greatest economic difficulty which had ever appeared in the Bishopric.
The Black Death practically brought to an end the rigid system of land
tenure which had been kept up so long, for it gave the death-blow to
serfdom, and the old services in kind, of which mention has been made.
Discontent had long lurked in the manors of Durham, but from this time
it became active and aggressive, until it pushed the peasants out to
assert themselves and to seek for more congenial conditions of life.
Elsewhere the transition was effected by bloodshed; in the territories
of St. Cuthbert it came more peacefully, but to the accompaniment of
much mutual mistrust and variance.
It is possibly in connection with all this covert rebellion on the part
of the masses that Cardinal Langley built or finished the great gaol in
the North Gate in Durham. This large building running up to the castle
keep on one side, and down towards the river on the other, spanned
Saddler Street for four centuries, until it was taken down in 1820. It
was often filled with criminals who were imprisoned here for various
offences in its gloomy dungeons. There was another gaol at Sadberge, but
it does not seem clear what relation this bore to the more important
building in Durham. But the fifteenth century brought its own special
anxieties. In the dynastic troubles which led to the Wars of the Roses,
the Palatinate was generally Lancastrian in sympathy. Henry VI. (only
one of many English Kings who visited Durham) came to the shrine of St.
Cuthbert at a time when his dominions had been cut short upon the
Continent, and were still further menaced by the Scots. In the bitter
days that followed, when he was driven from his throne, he took refuge
in the Bishopric, whilst his brave wife went to the Continent to seek
for troops to enable him to regain the crown. Even rectories were
fortified in those days, for men had to take one side or the other, and
to defend their property against bands of marauders. Of religious
trouble and dispute, Durham had no large share at that particular time,
though elsewhere the ferment caused by the Lollard Movement was
producing much unrest. The Bishopric was too much under the control of
the Church to allow much freedom of thought. Yet there were isolated
instances of Lollard sympathy, exceptions to prove the rule, which were
instantly repressed by ecclesiastical authority.
Dynastic trouble did not end when Henry VII. and his wife, Elizabeth,
united the Red and White Roses. The Bishopric men, indeed, had no desire
to rise against the strong government which the King set up in England;
but they were caught in the tide of rebellion which was set going by
Simnel and Warbeck. It was to stem this tide that Henry placed Richard
Fox as Bishop of Durham in 1494. This prelate, the King’s tried friend,
fortified afresh the castles of the see, and placed garrisons in them
to check the advance of Warbeck through the northern counties.
Fortunately, the invasion followed another line to the Battle of Stoke,
and the men of Durham were spared the anxiety of decision. But Fox,
keeping vigilant guard in his fortresses, was instrumental in concluding
that alliance which was destined eventually to unite the English and the
Scots as one nation. Henry’s young daughter, Margaret, was affianced to
James IV. of Scotland, and in 1503 passed right through the Bishopric on
her way to her northern home. Nowhere in all the long progress did the
Princess receive a warmer welcome than in Durham, from the moment she
entered the Bishopric at the Tees to the moment she crossed Tyne Bridge
from Gateshead into Newcastle. A mighty banquet was given in her honour
in Durham Castle, to which all the nobles and important personages of
the district were invited. Little Margaret’s great-grandson was James
VI. of Scotland and I. of England; and in his days border feuds passed
away for ever. And yet at the moment of the banquet that consummation
was a long way off. Ten years later the Scots invaded England at a time
of grave national anxiety, when the King and his troops were warring in
France. But the Bishopric musters turned out. Bishop Ruthall rushed up
to Durham, and his men at Flodden contributed not a little to the great
English success as they bore the banner of St. Cuthbert into the battle.
The century that had so recently dawned was destined to witness great
changes in the Bishopric. Henry VIII. laid ruthless hands upon the power
of the Church, and the monarch who extorted the submission of the clergy
was not likely to allow the great power and independence of the Bishop
of Durham to pass unchecked. Accordingly, in 1536, he cut short the
judiciary authority of the prelate. This, as we have seen, was one of
the most characteristic privileges of the Bishop, and neither Henry II.
nor Edward I. had interfered with it. From this date the King was the
authority who appointed the judges; and although in practice the old
forms and methods were largely followed, the sanction was royal, and not
episcopal. And next year, when the Council of the North was set up for
the purposes of defence, execution of justice, and finance, in the
northern counties, a still further blow was aimed at the Bishop’s power,
for this court could, if it willed, supersede the Palatinate machinery.
As a matter of fact, its first President was Tunstall, Bishop of Durham,
who prevented such degradation of the Palatinate for the present. Yet
one thing of large importance was carried out under the Council’s
authority, when the great Abbey of Durham was dissolved in 1539. The
monastery had stood unassailed for 450 years, but Henry set going the
process of destruction which ended in the total suppression of every
religious house in the land. It had been a wealthy foundation, a kindly
landlord, an influence for good in the district, with its library, and
its schools, and its varied means of usefulness. Yet every good object
that it had served was eventually carried on. Prior and convent became
Dean and Canons; monastic lands were now capitular estates; its chief
school and library were maintained with greater efficiency; its solemn
offices soon became the familiar vernacular service of the Church of
England. Otherwise there was little monastic destruction in the county
of Durham, for the great monastery had brooked no rivals; and a friary
or two with a single nunnery were scarcely rivals. The dependent cells
of Jarrow, Wearmouth, Finchale, however, shared in the fall of Durham
Abbey.
Three or four years before the surrender of the monastery the people of
Durham had taken part in the Pilgrimage of Grace--that exciting
demonstration in which popular resentment against the fall of the
smaller houses was exhibited. When Durham Abbey fell, there was no
repetition of that rising, for severe punishment had been meted out in
1537; whilst in 1540 pestilence was desolating the district, and the
gloom in consequence was depressing. But there was no sympathy with the
changes which soon began to hurry on, and Durham was probably more
opposed to the Reformation than any other district. Under Edward VI. the
Bishopric became the object of the ambitious designs of
Northumberland--one of the noblemen whom the rapid religious and
political revolution of the time placed in power. He cast a longing eye
on the Patrimony of St. Cuthbert; and in building up the fortunes of his
upstart family (he was a Dudley, not a Percy, for the true
Northumberland title was at the moment suspended) he probably intended
to lay hands upon the whole Bishopric, and to arrogate for himself the
Palatinate jurisdiction. He succeeded in getting the Bishop thrown into
prison on false charges of treason, and then forced a Bill through
Parliament which abolished the power of the Palatinate, and created two
sees--one at Durham, the other at Newcastle. There can be little doubt
that he intended to secure the Palatinate power for himself, and to rule
in Durham as Duke of Northumberland; whilst his son, Guildford Dudley,
recently married to Lady Jane Grey, was to be Prince Consort, and to
share the throne of England. This most daring scheme fell to the ground
when Mary came to the throne, and the recent legislation was at once
abolished, and things went back to the conditions obtaining before the
reign of Edward.
Under Elizabeth the Bishopric underwent a process of reconstruction in
various ways. It was not a pleasant process. Socially the old system of
land-tenure, which had been breaking up since the Black Death, was
abolished, and a new method of leaseholds was evolved after much
friction between the tenants on the one side, and the Dean and Chapter,
or the Bishop, on the other. The power of the Bishop was now further
attenuated, for the Queen laid hands upon large estates which were the
undoubted possession of the see, with a history of many centuries’
attachment to the Patrimony of St. Cuthbert. The settlement of religion
carried out in the early years of the Queen’s reign was largely
unpalatable in Durham. Certainly the majority of the clergy acquiesced,
but the acquiescence was largely external. So the people at large
tolerated the changes that were wrought in churches and services, when
the English liturgy took the place of the Latin offices restored by
Mary, and when altars were broken down, and the church furniture in
general was destroyed. The great Bishopric families--Nevilles, Lumleys,
and others--scarcely concealed their dislike of the new régime in Church
and in State, and after some years of endurance, they rose at last in
1569. Feeling sure of wide sympathy in Northumberland and Durham, the
Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland gathered retainers together, and
restored the old order in Durham Cathedral, whilst the people of Durham,
lowly kneeling, were absolved from the guilt of schism. But inferior
leadership caused the rising to collapse outside the Bishopric, and when
the Queen’s army marched through Durham it swept the undisciplined
forces of the Earls across the Tyne to be dissipated in the rigours of a
cold Northumbrian winter. But, although the rebellion came to nothing,
passive resistance was maintained. As the reign proceeded, this quieter
condition was roused into greater activity by the seminary priests and
the Jesuit missionaries who came into the country from institutions
abroad, which sent over into England, and not least into Durham, a long
succession of these emissaries. They went up and down the district,
welcomed and protected by friends who received their ministrations, but
not seldom hunted down by the vigilance of the Ecclesiastical
Commission, which increased the stringency of its measures as the
century drew to its close.
The last years of the great Queen witnessed a rather distressing
condition of things in the county. Pestilence was a frequent visitor in
times that were insanitary, and the transition to happier conditions in
religion and in society was not complete. The villages were frequently
unpopulated, and tillage was decayed, whilst the starving families
wandered into the neighbouring towns in search of food. Probably the
depressing state of affairs was worse in the Bishopric than in other
parts of England, for it received a special aggravation in the Scottish
inroads, which were renewed towards the end of the reign before their
final extinction at the accession of James. When the Elizabethan Poor
Law began its work, the county of Durham benefited by its operation, for
regular collectors for the poor were appointed, and sometimes rates were
levied, in place of the very uncertain alms of the "poor man’s box" in
the church, to which parishioners were asked to contribute under the
Injunctions of Elizabeth.
The Stuarts showed more regard for the Palatinate of Durham than did the
Tudors. No Tudor sovereign, it seems, entered the county, but James I.,
Charles I., and James II. when Duke of York, paid ceremonious visits to
Durham, and in general upheld the prestige of the see, though they never
completely restored its independence. One of the most interesting
episodes of the seventeenth century is the religious revolution carried
out during the first forty years. Bishop Neile is credited with
introducing to Durham a series of prebendaries who altered the aspect of
the cathedral and produced great changes in the services. These
"innovations" caused much comment, and although Charles in 1633 paid a
special visit, and by his presence and countenance sanctioned what had
been done, frequent remonstrance was made. The long reign of Elizabethan
Churchmanship had accustomed the people to one uniform type of worship
and ornament, and they were not prepared for the alterations now made in
ritual and in the appearance of the churches. When the Scots entered
England in 1640, by way of remonstrance against the King’s policy in
Church and State, the Bishopric was not altogether unsympathetic; but
when the armed demonstration proved to be an armed occupation extending
over a year in duration, the royalism of Durham re-asserted itself. At
the outbreak of the Civil War in 1642 it was warmly royalist. A second
Scottish occupation after Marston Moor in 1644 kept this spirit in
check, whilst the Long Parliament virtually superseded the Palatinate
and governed the district by committees. Bishop, prebendaries, and other
high ecclesiastics had fled when the Scots entered Durham in 1640.
Parliament now seized upon the lands of Bishop and Chapter, and sold
them or let them as opportunity offered. Thus for several years the old
ecclesiastical constitution of Durham was destroyed, and in the parish
churches, carefully cleared in 1644 from all "monuments of idolatry," a
Presbyterian system was set up. It was not, however, fully carried out,
and all manner of ministers were in possession when the Protectorate was
set up in 1653. The cathedral services had long been silenced, and in
1650 Cromwell used the buildings as a convenient accommodation for the
Scottish prisoners captured at Dunbar. On the petition of the people of
the county, the Protector undertook to establish a college in Durham and
to devote the cathedral and castle buildings to that purpose. Resentment
and discontent smouldered during these years of tyranny. Indeed, more
than one Royalist rising had to be repressed. When, at the beginning of
1660, there was talk of restoring the King, no voice of dissent was
heard in the county.
Exuberant loyalty greeted the Restoration. Cosin was made Bishop. He was
one of the group of influential men appointed by Neile forty years
before, and now for twelve years he repaired the breaches of the city
and diocese, and carried out the principles which he had formed in
earlier life. The Palatinate jurisdiction was revived, with perhaps
greater lustre than it had exhibited for a century past. In these days
of royalist triumph Nonconformist and Puritan scarcely ventured at first
to show their heads, but in Durham they were only biding their time.
They found opportunity to promote a formidable rising, which was known
as the Derwentdale Plot, aiming at some kind of overthrow of the
restored Church and Crown. It was badly managed, and speedily collapsed;
but Anabaptists, Quakers, and other parties managed to maintain their
existence despite strenuous measures, and more particularly despite the
vigorous working of the Conventicle Acts which were intended to crush
Nonconformity.