Under the reign of Ethelred II. the supremacy of the Anglo-Saxons had already passed away. As a people they sank, and left only a part of their civilisation and institutions to their successors, the Danes and Normans. The development of a maritime skill unknown before, of a bold manly spirit of enterprise, and of a political liberty which, by preserving a balance between the freedom of the nobles and of the rest of the people, ensured to England a powerful and peaceful existence.
Danish settlers in England conferred a great benefit on the country, from a political point of view, by the introduction of a numerous class of independent peasantry. These people formed a striking contrast to the oppressed race of Anglo-Saxons. Turner says: "The Danes seem to have planted in the colonies they occupied a numerous race of freemen, and their counties seem to have been well peopled." The number of these independent landowners was consequently greatest in the districts which were earliest occupied by the Danes, where they naturally sprung up from the Danish chiefs parcelling out the soil to their victorious warriors. Twenty years after the Norman Conquest there was a greater number of independent landed proprietors, if not, in the strictest sense of the word, freeholders, in the districts occupied by the Danes, and under "Danelag," than in any other of the Anglo-Saxon parts of England. The smaller Anglo-Saxon agriculturists were frequently serfs, while the Danish settlers, being conquerors, were mostly freemen, and in general proprietors of the soil.
Domesday Book mentions, under the name of "Sochmanni," a numerous class of landowners or peasants in the Danish districts of the north, while in the south they are rarely to be found. They were not freeholders in the present sense of the term. They stood in a feudal relation to a superior lord, but in such a manner that the "Sochmanni" may best be compared with our present "hereditary lessees." Their farm passed by inheritance to their sons, they paying certain rents and performing certain feudal duties; but the feudal lord had no power to dispose of the property as he pleased.
The following is an abstract of a paper on Tithe and Tenure in the North, by the Rev. J. H. Colligan:—
Danish Influence on Land Tenure
was originally a military one. In Westmorland the manors were granted round several great baronies or Fees. The barons held their estates "in capite" from the king, upon conditions that were mainly military, while the lords of the manors held of the barons, their chief duty being, to keep a muster-roll of their tenants for the discharge of the military claims of the barons. The tenants held of the lord by fines and services, the latter being, until the close of the XVIth century, of a military character. This baronial system, perfected by William the Conqueror, gave enormous power into the hands of the barons.
The Hudlestons, of Millum Castle, Lancashire, exercised the prerogative of "jura regalia" for twenty-two generations. They also had the privileges of "wreck of the sea." Some of the barons had the power of capital punishment, others, again, had the right to nominate sheriffs. They held their own courts and could be either friends or rivals of the king, to whom alone they owed homage, with service at home or abroad. The authority thus obtained by the barons was distributed to the knights and lords of the manors, who, in their turn, levied conditions upon their dependants.
This system of devolution of power received from the king was enjoyed also by the church, and kept the counties always ready for war. When the martial spirit began to forsake the land, and peaceful and sporting pleasures arose, we find a new form of tenure. Lands and tenements are given for the apparently trifling conditions of keeping up eyries of hawks for the baron, or of providing a gilt spur, or of producing a rose, sometimes out of season but generally in the time of roses, or of making presents of pepper, ginger, cloves, or some other tasty trifle. A number of these rents require no explanation, as they are only the reflex of the passion of the age. Horses, dogs and hawks for the knight, pepper, ginger and cloves for the monks, are easily understood. The reasons for the rose and stirrup, the spur and the glove are not so apparent. It is possible that originally they were symbolical of real rent or service. The transition from the actual to the symbolical must have taken place in the XIVth and XVth centuries.
We have hitherto been speaking of the relationship between the barons and the monks, the knights and the lords of the manor. There is no reference to tenants, because there was no such thing as a free individual tenure before the middle of the XVIth century. The soldier-tenants clung round the barony of the manor, and their position was defined as "tenantes ad voluntatem." It was only in Elizabeth's reign that the demands of the tenants began to be formulated, and the unique form of tenure called "tenant right" appeared on the border. It is difficult to discover when and how the movement for freedom on the part of the tenants began, but it certainly is associated with the Reformation, and is seen plainly in those places where protestantism was vigorous.
We shall examine the growth of this form of tenure as it appeared in a Cumberland manor. In the neighbourhood under consideration we find three kinds of tenants. At the one extreme were the Drenges, who were probably Saxon slaves; at the other were tenants by right, who were probably equal in dignity and privilege in the early days to the lord of the manor himself. In Cumberland and Westmoreland traces of the Drengage tenements may be found, and the Bondgate, Appleby, is an illustration of Drengage dwellings. The tenants by right are found in Cumberland, where they are now called yeomen, and in Westmorland, where they are known as statesmen (steadsmen), and in North Lancashire, where, to the regret of the writer in the Victoria County History, the yeomen are gradually disappearing. Mr. J. Brownbill says that tenant right was frequently urged all over Furness and Cartmel and in Warton and the northern border of Lancashire. He refers to the particulars in West's "Antiquities of Furness."
We have not been able to ascertain the origin of the tenure as it applies to North Lancashire, but on the borders it is the outcome of an interesting and unique form of service called Cornage. It is still a disputed point as to the origin of the word. Some holding it to from the fact that the lord gave notice of the enemies' approach by winding a horn; others that it was much earlier in its origin, and arises from the horn or cattle tax, still known in Westmorland as neat- or nowt-geld. Whichever origin be taken, it is clear that, from the time of Queen Elizabeth, the keeping of the borders was an important service, and is seen from the fact that the tenant could not hire another to take his place.
In regard to this border service, known as Cornage, the lord had several privileges which included wardship or control over the heir, until he was 21 years of age; marriage, which gave him the right of arranging a marriage if the inheritance had devolved upon a female; and relief, which was the payment of a certain sum by the heir upon taking possession of the inheritance. The chief privilege which the "tenant-by-right" possessed for his border service was that of devising his tenement by will, a privilege which is much prized until this day. At the Restoration the "Drengage tenure" was raised into a Socage tenure, and it was under this tenure, with that of Cornage, and sometimes with a combination of these forms, that most of the tenements of the manors of Cumberland and Westmorland were held. These holders came to be described as customary tenants. The customary tenant is distinguished from the freeholder, and the copyholder, in that he is not seised of his land in fee simple, as is the freeholder, and is not subject to the disabilities of the copyholder, nor are his customary dues considered derogatory to the nobility of his tenure. The customary tenant is therefore between the freeholder and the copyholder, with a number of well defined privileges. The two most important duties of the average tenant in Cumberland and Westmorland were those of warfare and the watching of the forests. The former depended entirely upon the attitude of the other kingdoms, especially Scotland; the latter was a long and laborious service laid upon the tenant until the middle of the XVIth century. The counties of Cumberland and Westmorland were dense forests until long after the Norman Conquest, and the timber for the royal shipyards was grown in these highlands of England. The forests were full of game, and the regulations in connection with the preservation of game and the upkeep of the forests were most exacting upon the people.
From the middle of the XVIth century, however, these ancient laws and services began to lose their force, and a new set of regulations arose to meet the new environment. Slowly but surely the feudal system had passed away. Here and there a relic remained, but it was impossible to ignore the rights of men who could no longer be bought and sold with a tenement. From the first year of the reign of Elizabeth the border service is well defined and the claims of the tenants became fixed. Several years before, Lord Wharton, as Deputy-General of the West Marches, drew up a series of regulations for the protection of that part of the border. In an interesting article by Mr. Graham, we find how the men of Hayton, near Carlisle, turned out every night with their spears, and remained crouched on the river bank in the black darkness or the pouring rain. It is a typical example of borderers engaged upon their regular service. This system had superseded the feudal system. The feudal tenure survived in many instances where a power. Like one of their own tumultuous forces, when once directed into the right stream, they went to form that new product which we call an Englishman. The documents, which were discovered at Penruddock in the township of Hutton Soil—the "kist" is in the possession of Mr. Wm. Kitchen, Town Head, Penruddock—relate to a struggle between the lord and the tenants of Hutton John, Cumberland, on the subject of tenant right. So far as we are aware these documents are unique. The various authorities on Cumberland history give reference to a number of these disputes but no mention is made of the Hutton John case, so that we have here for the first time a full knowledge of what was probably the most important of all these trials. In addition, while there are no documents relating to the other cases, we have here every paper of the Hutton John case preserved. The story of the discovery is that the writer (the Rev. J. Hay Colligan) was searching for material for a history of the Penruddock Presbyterian Meeting House when he came across a kist, or chest, containing these documents. (A calendar of these documents may be found in the Cumberland and Westmorland Transactions for 1908.) The manor of Hutton John had long been in the possession of the Hutton family when it passed in 1564 to a son of Sir John Hudleston of Millum Castle by his marriage with Mary Hutton. Her brother Thomas had burdened the estate on account of his imprisonment lasting about fifty years. It was the son of this marriage, Joseph by name, who became the first lord of the manor, and most of the manorial rights still remain with the Hudleston family. After Joseph Hudleston came three Andrews—first, 1603–1672; second, 1637–1706; third, 1669–1724—and it was with these four lords that the tenants carried on their historical dispute. The death of Thomas Hutton took place some time after 1620 and was the occasion for raising a number of questions that agitated the manor for almost a century afterwards. It flung the combustible topic of tenure into an atmosphere that was already charged with religious animosity, and the fire in the manor soon was as fierce as the beacon-flare on their own Skiddaw.
The position of the parties in the manor may be summed up by saying that Joseph Hudleston insisted that the tenants were tenants-at-will, and the tenants on the other hand claimed tenant right. Whatever may have been the origin of cornage, it is clear that by the XVIIth century it was synonymous with tenant right. The details in the dispute cannot here be treated, but the central point was the subject of a general fine. This fine, frequently called gressome, was the entrance fine which the tenant paid to the lord upon admittance. In some manors it was a two years' rent, in others three. An unusual form in the manor of Hutton John was a seven years' gressome, called also a running fine or a town-term. This was the amount of two years' rent at the end of every seven years. The contention of the tenants was, that as this was a running fine, no general fine was due to the lord of the manor on the death of the previous lord. From this position the tenants never wavered, and for over seventy years they fought the claim of the lord. Upon the death of Thomas Hutton the tenants claiming tenant right refused to pay the general fine to Joseph Hudleston. After wrangling with the tenants for a few years, Joseph brought a Bill against them in 1632. He succeeded in obtaining a report from the law lord, Baron Trevor, which plays an important part in the case unto the end. He apparently disregarded the portion which applied to himself, and pressed the remainder upon the tenants. The tenants thereupon decided to send three of their number with a petition to Charles I. and it was delivered to the king at Newmarket. He ordered his judges to look into the matter. The civil war, however, had begun, and the whole country was about to be filled with smoke and flame. Needless to say the tenants took the side of Parliament, while the lord of the manor, the first Andrew, was described in the records as a Papist in arms. During the civil war the whole county of Cumberland was in action. The manor of Hutton John was mainly for the Parliament. Greystoke Castle, only two miles from the manor, surrendered to the Parliamentary troops. The termination of the civil war in 1651 was the date for the beginning of litigation between the Hudleston family and the Parliament on the subject of the manor. After this was over the struggle between the lord and the tenants began again. In their distress the tenants sent a letter to Lord Howard of Naworth Castle, whose Puritan sympathies were well known. This is a feature of the case that need not be dwelt upon, but without which there can be no complete explanation of the story. The struggle was in fact a religious one. The occasion of it was the entrance into a Cumberland manor of a Lancashire family, and the consequent resentment on the part of the adherents of the manor, who boasted that they had been there "afore the Hudlestons." The motives which prompted each party were those expressed in the words Puritan v. Papist. The year 1668 was a memorable one in the history of the dispute. In that year the tenants brought a Bill of complaint against the lord at Carlisle Assizes. The judge, at the opening of the court, declared that the differences could be compounded by some gentlemen of the county. All the parties agreed, and the court made an order whereby Sir Philip Musgrave, Kt. and Bart., and Sir John Lowther, Bart., were to settle the case before September 21st. If they could not determine within that time they were to select an umpire within one week, who must make his award before Lady-day. Sir Philip Musgrave and Sir John Lowther accepted the responsibility placed upon them by the court and took great pains to accommodate the differences, but finding themselves unable to furnish the award within the time specified they elected Sir George Fletcher, Bart., to be umpire. Sir George Fletcher made his award on March 3rd, 1668. The original document, written, signed and sealed with his own hand, is here before us. Its tattered edges prove that it has been frequently referred to. Sir George Fletcher's award was on the whole in favour of the tenants, and especially on the subject of the general fine, which he declared was not payable on the death of the lord. Other important matters were dealt with, including heriots, widows' estates, the use of quarries on the tenements, the use of timber, the mill rent, together with the subject of boons and services. All the tenants acquiesced in the award, and the lord paid the damages for false imprisonment to several of the tenants.
In the year 1672 Andrew Hudleston the first died, and Andrew the second, 1637–1706, succeeded to the lordship. He immediately began to encroach. He demanded the general fine in addition to rents and services, contrary to the award. The struggle therefore broke out afresh as fiercely as ever, and both parties returned to the old subject of tenure. The matter became a religious one owing to the Restoration and the rigid acts which followed between 1662–1689. An extraordinary incident occurred at this time in the conversion of the lord to the protestant cause, but this did not affect the dispute between him and the tenants. In 1699 the tenants moved again. They requested the court to put into operation the award of Sir George Fletcher. From that year until 1704 the strife was bitterer than ever, and the kist contains more documents relating to this period than to any other. In the year 1704, after several judgments had previously been made against the third Andrew Hudleston and his late father, the former appealed to the House of Lords, and the case was dismissed in favour of the tenants.
Although the struggle lasted until the year 1716, the climax was reached in 1704. The historical value of the case is the way in which it illustrates the conditions of tenure in the North-West of England, and at the same time pourtrays the pertinacity in spite of serious obstacles of the yeoman class in asserting its rights.
Tithe. The subject of Tithe is one that can only be dealt with in a restricted way and from one point of view. It is well known that, through the influence of George Fox in North Lancashire, Quakerism spread with frenzied force through Westmorland and Cumberland. Many of those who had been previously content with Puritan doctrines seceded to the Quakers. The practice of declining to pay the tithe, in the case which the documents before us illustrate, was of a different character. It occurs in the parish of Greystoke, in which the manor of Hutton John was situated. Five years after the award of Sir George Fletcher on the tenure case, the nonconforming section of the tenants of Hutton John raised another question of a tithe called "Bushel Corn." This had been regularly paid to the Rector of Greystoke from time immemorial. Even the Puritan rectors had received this tithe down to that great Puritan, Richard Gilpin, who was ejected from the Rectory of Greystoke in 1661. The point in dispute was not a deliberate refusal of the tithe, it was a declaration of the parishioners that the measure was an unjust one. The contest was carried on by John Noble, of Penruddock, and Thos. Parsons, the steward of the Countess of Arundel and Surrey, Lady of the Barony of Greystoke. Associated with Parsons was John Robson, a servant and proctor of the rector. Parsons and Robson were farmers of the tithe, but the case had the full consent of the rector, the Rev. Allan Smallwood, D.D.
The immediate cause of the dispute was the question of the customary measure. It resulted in the settlement of a vexatious subject which was as to the size of a bushel. The matter was one of contention throughout the country until standard weights and measures were recognised and adopted. In Cumberland the most acute form was upon the subject of the corn bushel. The deviations in quantity were difficult to suppress, and several law cases upon this matter are on record. In the Parish of Greystoke the case was first begun in 1672. The bushel measure had been gradually increased from sixteen gallons, which amount the parishioners acknowledged and were prepared to pay, until it reached twenty-two gallons. The case passed through the assizes of three counties, being held at Carlisle, Lancaster and Appleby, and a verdict for the parishioners was eventually given.
The documents, apart from their intrinsic worth, have thus an inestimable value, in that they shed light upon and give information in regard to the doings in a Cumberland manor where hitherto there has been but darkness and silence, as far as the records of the people were concerned. We are able now to follow with interest and satisfaction a story that is equal in courage and persistence with the best traditions of English love of justice and fair play.
The documents in this case were numerous but small, and were in many cases letters and scraps of paper. As a piece of local history it is not to be compared with the tenure case, but it contains valuable items of parish life in the XVIIth century. Perhaps the best of the letters are those from Sir John Otway, the well-known lawyer. John Noble the yeoman has several letters full of fine touches. The depositions of the witnesses at Cockermouth in 1672 are picturesque. The lawyers' bills, of which there are many, are not so illuminating. There are several letters of Henry Johnes of Lancaster, who was Mayor of that town on two occasions.
Public men regard it as a great honour to represent the northern districts of England in Parliament, merely from the intelligent political character of the voters; and it was certainly through the adherence of the love of freedom in the north that Cobden and Bright were able to struggle so successfully for the promotion of Free Trade and for financial reform. Sir E. Bulwer Lytton, the great English writer, says: "Those portions of the kingdom originally peopled by the Danes are noted for their intolerance of all oppression, and their resolute independence of character, to wit, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Norfolk, and Cumberland, and large districts in the Scottish lowlands."
Memorials of the Danes are mixed up with England's freest and most liberal institutions; and to the present day the place where the candidate for a seat in Parliament addressed the electors bears throughout England the pure Danish name of the "Husting." When William I. began to conquer England, and to parcel it out among his warriors, it was the old Danish inhabitants who opposed him; who would have joined him, their kinsman the Norman, especially as he gave it out that one of their objects in coming to England was to avenge the Danes and Norwegians who were massacred by Ethelred, but the Normans aimed at nothing less than the abolition of the free tenure of estates and the complete establishment of a feudal constitution. This mode of proceeding was resented, which would rob the previously independent man of his right to house and land, and by transferring it to the powerful nobles shook the foundation of freedom. The Danes turned from them in disgust, and no longer hesitated to join the equally oppressed Anglo-Saxons. The Normans were obliged to build strong fortifications, for fear of the people of Scandinavian descent, who abounded both in the towns and rural districts. What the Normans chiefly apprehended was attacks from the Danes who, there was good reason to suppose, might come over with their fleets, to the assistance of their countrymen in the North of England.
The Norman kings who succeeded William the Conqueror dwelt in perfect safety in the southern districts, but did not venture north without some fear, and a chronicler who lived at the close of the twelfth century assures us that they never visited this part of the kingdom without being accompanied by a strong army.