DESCENT.
Cockermouth was the “caput” of the barony of Allerdale, usually called in the Inquisitions the Honour of Cockermouth. There is no collected list of the lands held of the Honour, but they seem to have been extensive, and are specified in divers inquisitions from time to time, with the names of their holders. The original grantee seems to have been William, brother of the well-known Ranulph de Meschines, Earl of Chester. He received, either from the Conqueror or from Henry I., the territory of Copland, between the Dudden and the Derwent, and was probably the founder of the castle of Cockermouth, as he was of the Monastery of St. Bees. His son Ranulph died childless, and his heir was Cicely, who married Robert de Romilly, Lord of Skipton. Cockermouth came to Alice, their third daughter and co-heir, who married William FitzDuncan, Earl of Moray, in Scotland, nephew to King Malcolm. Amabel, their second daughter and co-heir, had Egremont, and married Reginald de Lucy, living 20 Henry II.; while Cicely, the elder daughter, married William le Gros, Earl of Albemarle, who died 1179. Their second daughter, Hawise le Gros, married, first, William de Mandeville, Earl of Essex, and secondly, William de Fortibus, in her right Earl of Albemarle, and who (1215) had restored to him by King John the manor of Cockermouth, and (1216) certain confiscated lands held of the Honour. In February, 1221, King Henry ordered the Sheriff of Westmoreland to summon his forces to lay siege to, take, and utterly destroy the Castle of Cockermouth; but later in the year the manor was granted again to the Earl. It is said that this Earl held half the castle, which escheated to the Crown, and was granted in 1323 by Edward II. to Anthony, Lord Lucy, who held the other moiety. The descent, however, is exceedingly obscure. It appears that Richard de Lucy, Amabel’s son, had Egremont, and died about 15 John, leaving Amabel and Alice. His wife, Ada de Morville, married secondly, Thomas de Multon, and left issue, while Multon’s two sons by a former wife married—1. Lambert de Multon to Amabel; and 2. Alan de Multon to Alice, the co-heirs.
Lambert’s great-granddaughter, the heiress of Egremont, married Thomas de Lucy, and Alan’s son, Thomas de Multon, took the name of Lucy, and died 33 Edward I., and probably held the Castle of Cockermouth. He was followed by his sons, Thomas, who died childless, 2 Edward II., and Anthony de Lucy, a great baron and military leader in the Western marches. He died 17 Edward III., leaving Thomas de Lucy, who died seized of Cockermouth Castle and Honour 39 Edward III., having married his remote cousin, Margaret de Multon, the heiress of Egremont, and thus reunited the whole inheritance, the second moiety of Cockermouth having been acquired by his father.
Thomas and Margaret had Anthony de Lucy, aged twenty-four, 39 Edward III., and Maud. Anthony had Joan, who died young, 43 Edward III., seized of the castle and Honour, when Maud became the heiress. She married Gilbert de Umfranville, Earl of Angus, who died 4 Richard II. They had but one son, Sir Robert, who predeceased his father, childless. The earl died 4 Richard II., seized of the castle and Honour, and Maud then, 8 Richard II., married Henry de Percy, Earl of Northumberland. The inheritance, failing the heirs of her body, was settled upon the heirs male of her husband, who were to bear the arms of Percy and Lucy quarterly. This remainder took effect, and Cockermouth passed to the descendant of Percy by his first wife, Margaret, daughter of Ralph Lord Neville, whose arms appear over the gateway of Cockermouth, as do those of the Earl of Angus.
Earl Henry was slain at Braham Moor, 1408. Hotspur, his valiant son, fell at Shrewsbury. Henry, the next earl, and lord of Cockermouth, fell at St. Alban’s, 1455, as did his son Henry, at Towton, in 1461. Henry, the next earl, met a violent death in the Tower in 1489, being the fifth lord of Cockermouth of that brave, brilliant, and unfortunate race. Henry, the next earl, died a natural death in 1527, as did his son Henry, childless, in 1537. The next inheritors were his nephews, sons of his brother, Sir Thomas; the earl Thomas, who was beheaded, leaving an only daughter, 1572, and Earl Henry, who died 1585. Henry, the next earl, died 1632, and was followed by Earl Algernon, who died 1668, whose son, Earl Jocelyn, was the last male of the ancient race, his son Henry having died young. Elizabeth, Baroness Percy, the daughter and sole heir, married Charles Seymour, Duke of Somerset. Algernon, their son, created Earl of Egremont and Baron Cockermouth, died 1750, and was father of Elizabeth, the Seymour-Percy heiress; but Duke Algernon had also a sister, Katherine, upon whose son, Sir Charles Wyndham, the earldom and barony, and the castle of Cockermouth, were settled, and so descended to George, the last earl, who died without a successor in 1845, bequeathing Cockermouth to his natural son. Cockermouth Castle, therefore, having descended through the houses of De Meschines, De Fortibus, Multon, Lucy, and Percy, can boast a connexion with some of the most celebrated of the northern barons. It has, however, another, and certainly not less brilliant, association. In the adjacent town was born William Wordsworth, and the green court, flower-crowned walls, and gloomy dungeons of the castle are commemorated in one of the sweetest of his sonnets:—
FROM THE SPIRIT OF COCKERMOUTH CASTLE.
“Thou look’st upon me, and dost fondly think,
Poet! that, stricken as both are by years,
We, differing once so much, are now compeers,
Prepared, when each has stood his time, to sink
Into the dust. Erewhile a sterner link
United us; when thou, in boyish play,
Entering my dungeon, didst become a prey
To soul-appalling darkness. Not a blink
Of light was there; and thus did I, thy tutor,
Make thy young thoughts acquainted with the grave,
While thou wert chasing the wing’d butterfly
Through my green courts; or climbing, a bold suitor,
Up to the flowers whose golden progeny
Still round my shatter’d brow in beauty wave.”