Bygone Cumberland and Westmorland

by Daniel Scott

In the reign of Richard the First there was given to the church of Carlisle, “lands in Lorton, with a mill there, and all its rights and appendages, and namely the miller, his wife, and children”—apparently clear evidence of the servitors being regarded as part of the property.

Several manorial lords claimed for their tenants the right to go toll-free throughout England. This was the case with Armathwaite, while the privilege also pertained to the prioress and nuns at Nunnery. The manor of Acorn Bank, near Temple Sowerby, used to have the right, or rather the privilege was claimed. In the time of the late Mr. John Boazman (the immediate predecessor of Mr. Henry Boazman, the present owner), the following was written:—“The lords of this manor can still claim and exercise for themselves and tenants all the privileges granted to the Knights Templars, the most important of which is exemption from toll throughout England. The tenants when travelling carry a certificate, signed and sealed by the lord of the manor. This certificate, after reciting part of the old charter, concludes as follows:—‘Which charter [that of Henry the Second] was confirmed by King Charles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, in the fourth year of his reign, in witness whereof I, the said John Boazman, as lord of the manor, have executed and set my manorial seal.’” The burgesses of Appleby also possessed under their early charters privileges of a like character, and these would doubtless be of very appreciable value.

The ancient family of Hoton, or Hutton, were by Edward the Third, in consideration of the service rendered to him by Thomas de Hoton in the wars against Scotland, restored to the bailiwick and office of keeping the King’s land or forest in Plumpton, which was first bestowed upon them prior to the time of Edward the First. It is believed that this led to the family taking a horn as their badge. Besides the monetary payment of something under £2 yearly, it was found in the reign of Henry the Seventh that the lands were also held by the service of holding the stirrup of the King’s saddle while his Majesty mounted his horse in the Castle of Carlisle. The adjoining manor of Newton Reigny was held in the early days of the Lowthers by the service of finding for the King in his wars against Scotland one horseman with a horse of the value of forty shillings, armed with a coat of mail, an iron helmet, a lance, and a sword, abiding in the war for forty days with the King’s person. At a later date the terms were varied; there was then the paying of two shillings per annum for cornage, and the providing, for the King’s army, “one horseman with habiliments, one lance, and one long sword.” Penrith and five other manors were once held by the Kings of Scotland by paying one soar-hawk yearly to the constable of the Castle of Carlisle, with some privileges concerning rights in Inglewood Forest. The manor of Cargo, near Carlisle, was held for many generations by the family of de Ross, by the rendering of a hawk or a mark of silver yearly. When the same manor was the property of the Lacys, it was held by cornage, and afterwards by the Vescys for a mew’d hawk yearly in lieu of all services.

In the manor of Gaitsgill and Raughton were twenty-two freehold tenants in 1777, who paid 28s. 8¾d. yearly free rent, did suit and service at the lord’s court when called upon, and paid yearly to the Duke of Portland as chief lord of the Forest of Inglewood £2 13s. 2d., besides sending a man to appear for them at the Forest Court at Hesket every St. Barnabas’s Day, and that representative was to be on the inquest. This manor was at the Conquest “all forest and waste ground,” and was enclosed by one Ughtred, who held of the King “for keeping the eyries of hawks which bred in the Forest of Inglewood.” The posterity of Ughtred took their surname from Gatesgill, and adopted the sparhawk for their cognisance. The neighbouring manor of High Head (Higheved) was held of Edward the Third by William English by the service of one rose yearly. Later, in the time of Henry the Eighth, it was held by William Restwold as an approvement of the forest by fealty and the service of rendering at the King’s exchequer of Carlisle one red rose yearly at the feast of St. John the Baptist.

In the reign of Philip and Mary, Alexander Armstrong was granted a considerable amount of property, including a mill, in the parish of Gilcrux, at a very low rental, on condition of finding and maintaining five horsemen “ready and well-furnished, whenever the King and Queen and the successors of the Queen shall summon them within the county.” In documents belonging to the abbey of Holme Cultram, whereby Flemingby (now known as Flimby, between Maryport and Workington) was handed over to the monks, Gospatric, the donor, inserted a clause that he would himself do for the monastery “noutegeld and the like due to the King; and also to the lord of Allerdale of seawake, castleward, pleas, aids, and other services.” The nutgeld tax—an impost apparently peculiar to the Border counties—was even last century frequently enforced in Cumberland and Westmorland.

The custom of providing for gilt spurs was of a practical kind, the articles being peculiarly useful to the grantor. “Every knight (who served on horseback) was obliged to wear gilt spurs; hence they were called equites aurati.” The reservation, by Gospatrick, of homage to be performed by William de Lancastre has provided some interesting questions for past generations of historians and antiquaries. William de Lancastre the second gave thirty marks to the King that he might have the privilege of fighting a duel with Gospatrick, and the theory propounded was that this contest was caused because “the tenant’s proud spirit could not brook such a humiliation as that of doing homage.” Remembering the conditions of life, the supposition is not at all improbable, for what man of good birth would care to submit to perform the service described in the second paragraph of this chapter? In the same parish of Kirkby Lonsdale, William de Pickering had the manor of Killington granted to him for the yearly payment of a pair of gilt spurs, or sixpence, at the feast of Pentecost, and the service of the twentieth part of one knight’s service when occasion should require.

Alice Lucy, a member of the once very powerful family of that name, reserved out of Wythop a penny rent service, or a pair of gloves; and a long time afterwards it was found that Sir John Lowther, knight, held the same manor “by homage, fealty, and suit of court at Cockermouth ... and the free rent of one penny or one red rose.” The manor, now held by Sir Henry R. Vane, Bart., Hutton-in-the-Forest, was subsequently sold to the Fletchers under the services just mentioned. In addition to a heavy fine, and a rental of £10 yearly, Thomas de Multon paid “one palfrey for the office of forester of Cumberland,” granted to the family by King John. One of Multon’s ancestors, Richard de Lucy, also gave money and a palfrey in order to obtain the grant and other privileges.

At Hesket, yearly, on St. Barnabas’s Day, by the highway side under a thorn tree (according to the very ancient manner of holding assemblies in the open air), wrote Nicolson in 1777, was kept the Court for the whole forest of Inglewood, to which Court the manors within that vast circumference (above twenty in number), owed suit and service; and a jury was there impannelled and sworn for the whole forest. It is a shadow or relic of the ancient Forest Courts; and here they pay their compositions for improvements, purprestures, agistments, and puture of the foresters, and the jurors being obliged to attend from the several manors, seems to be part of that service which was called witnesman. “Improvements” in this case means permission to take up open lands belonging to the manorial lord.

Horn tenures, locally known as cornage, were common. At Brougham Hall is preserved the old and quaintly fashioned horn which was sounded by the former owners of the estates in complying with the requirement to blow a horn in the van of the King and his army, when the monarch went into Scotland, or at other times when the Scots made incursions to the southern side of the Border. An interesting relic of the same description is possessed at Carlisle—the “Horn of the Altar.” The Charter Horn has thus been described by Archdeacon Prescott:—“In the year 1290 a claim was made by the King, Edward the First, and by others, to the tithes on certain lands lately brought under cultivation in the Forest of Inglewood. The Prior of Carlisle appeared on behalf of his convent, and urged their right to the property on the ground that the tithes had been granted to them by a former King, who had enfeoffed them by a certain ivory horn which he gave to the Church of Carlisle, and which they possessed at that time. The Cathedral of Carlisle has had in its possession for a great number of years, two fine walrus tusks, with a portion of the skull. They appear in ancient inventories of the goods of the cathedral as ‘one horn of the altar in two parts,’ or ‘two horns of the altar’ (1674), together with other articles of the altar furniture. But antiquaries came to the conclusion that these were identical with the ‘ivory horn’ referred to above.... Such Charter Horns were not uncommon in ancient days.”

Blackmail used to bear a significance not fully understood by the modern use of the word. In the north of England it signified, especially in Cumberland, a certain rent of money, corn, or other things, anciently paid to persons inhabiting upon or near the Border, being men of name and power, allied with certain robbers within those counties, to be freed and protected from the devastations of those depredators. By 43 Elizabeth, cap. 13, it was provided that to take any such money or contribution, called blackmail, to secure goods from rapine, was made capital felony, as well as the offences such contribution was meant to guard against. Tenants in those old times had nearly all the privileges of paying; their opportunities for getting anything without cash or labour were few. One such concession which they enjoyed was “plowbote,” being the right of tenants to take wood to repair their ploughs, carts, and harrows; and for the making of such articles of husbandry as rakes and forks. Fire-bote was the term applied to a right enjoyed by many tenants, being the fuel for firing, and obtainable out of the lands granted to them. Timber-lode was a service by which tenants were to carry to the lord’s house timber felled in his woods. The Dean and Chapter of Carlisle were formerly obliged to provide the tenants of the manor of Morland with wood for the reparation of their houses. This was released by an endowment of £16 per annum, being given by the Dean and Chapter to the school.