[39] ‘A good old aunt of mine—mother of the present Mr Fawcett of Scaleby Castle—took particular pride in shewing a certain very large room in her Castle. Her theory was that this was one of the great attractions of the place in Dr Gilpin’s view: for here he would have room enough to preach to as many people as were likely to attend, and liberty also: Scaleby, as she observed, being at just such a distance from Carlisle as to place him beyond the operation of the Conventicle Act.’—Charles Bernard Gilpin, Esq., Juniper Green, Edinburgh.
[40] Ibid., p. 9.
[41] That is James Fawcett, Esq. I do not know how sufficiently to acknowledge the courtesy and kindness of Mr and Mrs Fawcett in furthering my Gilpin inquiries. Besides early drawings and recent photographs of the Castle and grounds, I have had an ancient unpublished family-volume of rare interest confided to me. It is entitled ‘An Accompt of the most Considerable Estates and Families in the County of Cumberland, from the Conquest unto the beginning of the Reign of K. James the First.’ The original MS., an inscription informs us, is supposed to have been ‘writ by an ancestor of Mr Denton’s of Cardow during ye time of his imprisont. (as ‘tis said) in ye Tower upon a Contest yt happ’ned to be betwixt him and Dr Robinson, then Bp. of Carliell.’ This ‘copy’ seems to have been taken about 1687. I cull the following memoranda concerning Scaleby from this precious little volume: ‘Ye Castle ... took name first of ye buyldings there wch they call Scheales or Scales, more properly of ye Latin word Scalinga, a caban or cottage. When King Henry 1st had established Carliell [Carlisle] he gave yt lordship unto one Richard the Ryder, whose surname was Tylliolf, who first planted there habitations. From him it descended by one or two degrees unto Symon Tylliolf in ye later end of King Henry 2d’s tyme. His son, Piers Tylliolf or Peter, was ward to Geoffrey de Lucy by the king’s grant about ye tyme of K. John. This Geoffrey de Lucy did bear ye cap of maintenance before K. Richard 1st at his coronation. Sr. Peter de Tilliol, kt., son of Sr. Robt., dyed, A.D. 1434: 13 Henr. 6, having enjoyed his estate 67 years. He had issue one son who dyed without issue in 1435, when the estates were divided between two sisters and co-heirs, Isabella and Margaret. Isabella had married one John Colville, and his son Wm. succeeded and died 1479, leaving two daughters, Phillis and Margaret. The eldest was married to Wm. Musgrave. Margaret, the 2d daughter, married to Nicholas Musgrave, and transferred Scaleby, Haydon, and other Lands to his posterity. Sr. Edwd. Musgrave, Kt., son of Wm., married Katherine Penruddock: he built or repaired part of ye Castle at Scaleby A.D. 1606.... Sir Wm. Edwd. Musgrave, Bart., of Nova Scotia, who afterwards suffering great losses on ye account of his faithful service to K. Charles I and K. Charles ye 2d, he was forced to dismember a great part of his estate. He sold Kirklevington to Edmund Appelby, Houghton to Arthur Forster, Richardby to Cuthbert Studholm, and Scaleby to Richard Gilpin, who now [1687] enjoys ye same together wth Richardby, wch he also purchased of Michael Studholm, fil Cuthberti,’ [p. 432.] [On Scaleby, cf. pp. 429-435.] There are similar interesting notices of Greystoke, or Graystock, or Graistock, which is explained to mean ‘a badger,’ [cf. pp. 311-315,] going back with old lore to Syolf, and Phorne, and Ranulph in the days of the 1st Henry, on to the Dacres, and Norfolks, and Arundel. Scaleby Castle has been much enlarged, together with the Estates, and the visitor of the district will find it a delightful pilgrimage. The older trees are all the more venerable that one knows Dr Gilpin himself ‘planted’ them.
To shew the way Royalists suffered themselves to speak of even so ‘moderate’ and so inestimable a man as our Worthy, simply because he continued conscientiously a Nonconformist at enormous sacrifices, I add here a quotation from the ‘County’ History: N. and B.’s Westmoreland and Cumberland, as before, vol. ii. p. 459: ‘Scaleby: Mr Sandford—in the true spirit of those times—speaking of Scaleby, says, “It was sometime the estate of Sir Edward Musgrave of Hayton, baronet; but now sold to Mr Gilpin, a quondam preacher of the fanatical parliament, and his wife, Mr Brisco’s daughter, of Crofton, brethren of confusion in their brains; knew what they would not have, but knew not what they would have, if they might chuse.”’ This ‘reviling’ is High Church charity; and it is wondered at that Nonconformists retort sharply when occasion offers.
[42] As before, pp. 6, 7.
[43] ‘Life’ of Bernard Gilpin, as before, p. 128, seq. The coincidence is certainly striking of the double offer, at the distance of fully a century, of a bishopric, and the same bishopric, to two Gilpins, and a double declinature and actualisation of the ‘nolo episcopari.’ This and even more remarkable, because more intricate and manifold, repetitions, in the Lives of the elder and younger Edwards of America, [Cf. Memoir of the latter, prefixed to his Works, Vol. i. pp. xxxiii, xxxiv. Andover, U.S. 1842.] have been turned to excellent account in refuting the so-called objections of scepticism and rationalism to the repetition of the incidents and miracles and sayings of the Lord in the Gospels.
[44] Further on, and in his epitaph, we shall find allusions to the declined bishopric, as having greatly added to the influence of Dr Gilpin, as the acceptance of one by Reynolds neutralised even his worth, and stains his memory indelibly.
[45] As before, pp. 9-11.
[46] For information on Hammond, consult Calamy, Palmer, Longstaffes’ Barnes, as before, and the different Newcastle ‘Histories,’ &c.
[47] ‘Peace and Holiness: in Three Sermons upon Several Occasions.’ By Ignatius Fuller, [of Sherrington, Bucks,] 1672, 12mo, pp. 3, 4, 6, 8.