Charles Howard, 1st earl of Carlisle in the Howard line (1629-1685), was the son and heir of Sir William Howard, of Naworth in Cumberland, by Mary, daughter of William, Lord Eure, and great-grandson of Lord William Howard, “Belted Will” (1563-1640), and was born in 1629. In 1645 he became a Protestant and supported the government of the commonwealth, being appointed high sheriff of Cumberland in 1650. He bought Carlisle Castle and became governor of the town. He distinguished himself at the battle of Worcester on Cromwell’s side, was made a member of the council of state in 1653, chosen captain of the protector’s body-guard and selected to carry out various public duties. In 1655 he was given a regiment, was appointed a commissioner to try the northern rebels, and a deputy major-general of Cumberland, Westmorland and Northumberland. In the parliament of 1653 he sat for Westmorland, in those of 1654 and 1656 for Cumberland. In 1657 he was included in Cromwell’s House of Lords and voted for the protector’s assumption of the royal title the same year. In 1659 he urged Richard Cromwell to defend his government by force against the army leaders, but his advice being refused he used his influence in favour of a restoration of the monarchy, and after Richard’s fall he was imprisoned. In April 1660 he sat again in parliament for Cumberland, and at the Restoration was made custos rotulorum of Essex and lord-lieutenant of Cumberland and Westmorland. On the 20th of April 1661 he was created Baron Dacre of Gillesland, Viscount Howard of Morpeth, and earl of Carlisle; the same year he was made vice-admiral of Northumberland, Cumberland and Durham, and in 1662 joint commissioner for the office of earl marshal. In 1663 he was appointed ambassador to Russia, Sweden and Denmark, and in 1668 he carried the Garter to Charles XI. of Sweden. In 1667 he was made lieutenant-general of the forces and joint commander-in-chief of the four northernmost counties. In 1672 he became lord-lieutenant of Durham, and in 1673 deputy earl marshal. In 1678 he was appointed governor of Jamaica, and reappointed governor of Carlisle. He died on the 24th of February 1685, and was buried in York Minster. He married Anne (d. 1696), daughter of Edward, 1st Lord Howard of Escrick; his eldest son Edward (c. 1646-1692) succeeded him as 2nd earl of Carlisle, the title descending to his son Charles (1674-1738) and grandson Henry (1694-1758).
Frederick Howard, 5th earl (1748-1825), son of the 4th earl, was born in 1748. During his youth he was chiefly known as a man of pleasure and fashion; and after he had reached thirty years of age, his appointment on a commission sent out by Lord North to attempt a reconciliation with the American colonies was received with sneers by the opposition. The failure of the embassy was not due to any incapacity on the part of the earl, but to the unpopularity of the government from which it received its authority. He was, indeed, considered to have displayed so much ability that he was entrusted with the vice-royalty of Ireland in 1780. The time was one of the greatest difficulty; for while the calm of the country was disturbed by the American rebellion, it was drained of regular troops, and large bands of volunteers not under the control of the government had been formed. Nevertheless, the two years of Carlisle’s rule passed in quietness and prosperity, and the institution of a national bank and other measures which he effected left permanently beneficial results upon the commerce of the island. In 1789, in the discussions as to the regency, Carlisle took a prominent part on the side of the prince of Wales. In 1791 he opposed Pitt’s policy of resistance to the dismemberment of Turkey by Russia; but on the outbreak of the French Revolution he left the opposition and vigorously maintained the cause of war. In 1815 he opposed the enactment of the Corn Laws; but from this time till his death, in 1825, he took no important part in public life. Carlisle was the author of some political tracts, a number of poems, and two tragedies, The Father’s Revenge and The Stepmother, which received high praise from his contemporaries. His mother was a daughter of the 4th Lord Byron, and in 1798 he was appointed guardian to Lord Byron, the poet, who lampooned him in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.
George Howard, 6th earl (1773-1848), eldest son of the 5th earl, entered parliament as Lord Morpeth in 1795 as a Whig. He was appointed to the Indian board in 1806, when the “Ministry of all the Talents” took office, but resigned in 1807, though he remained prominent in the House of Commons. After his elevation to the House of Lords (1825), he held various cabinet offices under Canning and Grey. He made some minor contributions to literature and left the reputation of an amiable scholar.
George William Frederick Howard, 7th earl (1802-1864), was born in London on the 18th of April 1802. He was the eldest son of the 6th earl by his wife Lady Georgiana Cavendish, eldest daughter of the duke of Devonshire. He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, where (as Lord Morpeth) he earned a reputation as a scholar and writer of graceful verse, obtaining in 1821 both the chancellor’s and the Newdigate prizes for a Latin and an English poem. In 1826 he accompanied his uncle, the duke of Devonshire, to Russia, to attend the coronation of the tsar Nicholas, and became a great favourite in society at St Petersburg. At the general election of the same year he was returned to parliament as member for the family borough of Morpeth. In one of his earliest speeches he undertook, at the risk of forfeiting the good opinion of the Liberal party, the defence of the Russian emperor against severe attacks made on him in reference to the suppression of the Polish insurrection of 1830. In the agitation for parliamentary reform he took the side of Earl Grey; and after the dissolution of parliament, which took place about that time, he was elected member for Yorkshire. This seat he held till after the passing of the Reform Bill in 1832. He was then returned for the West Riding; and in 1835 he was appointed by Lord Melbourne chief secretary for Ireland, a position at that time of great difficulty, O’Connell being then at the height of his reputation. This post he held for about six years (being included in the cabinet in 1839), winning great popularity by his amiable manners and kindly disposition. Losing his seat at the election of 1841, he visited the United States, but in 1846 he was again returned for the West Riding, and was made chief commissioner of woods and forests in Lord John Russell’s cabinet. Succeeding to the peerage in 1848, he became chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster in 1850. The great event of his life, however, was his appointment by Lord Palmerston to the lord-lieutenancy of Ireland in 1855. This office he continued to hold till February 1858, and again from June 1859 till within a few months of his death. His literary tastes and culture were displayed in various popular lectures and in several published works. Among these may be mentioned a lecture on The Life and Writings of Pope (1851); The Last of the Greeks, a tragedy (1828); a Diary in Turkish and Greek Waters (1854), the fruit of travels in the East in 1853 and 1854; and a volume of Poems, published after his death. In 1866 appeared his Viceregal Speeches, collected and edited by J. Gaskin. He took warm interest in the reformation of juvenile criminals, and established on his own estate one of the best conducted reformatories in the country. Lord Carlisle died at Castle Howard on the 5th of December 1864. He was never married, and was succeeded in the peerage by his brother, the Rev. William George Howard (d. 1889), as 8th earl.
George James Howard, 9th earl, born in 1843, was the son of Charles, fourth son of the 6th earl. He was educated at Eton and Trinity, Cambridge, and, then being only Mr Howard, married in 1864 Rosalind, daughter of the 2nd Lord Stanley of Alderley. He sat in parliament as a Liberal in 1879-1880, and again from 1881 to 1885; and succeeded his uncle in the peerage in 1889. His wife, a more active Liberal politician than himself, took a prominent part in the temperance movement and other advanced causes; and Lord Carlisle became best known as an art patron and an artist of considerable ability, whose landscape painting had considerable affinity to the work of Giovanni Costa. His position as a connoisseur was recognized by his being made one of the trustees of the National Gallery. His son, Viscount Morpeth (b. 1867), had a distinguished career at Oxford, and after various defeats in other constituencies was returned to parliament for South Birmingham as a Unionist supporter of Mr Chamberlain in 1904.
CARLISLE, a city, municipal and parliamentary borough, and the county town of Cumberland, England, 299 m. N.N.W. of London, and 8 m. S. of the Scottish border. Pop. (1901) 45,480. It lies on the south bank of the river Eden, a little below the point where it debouches upon the Solway Plain, 8 m. above its mouth in the Solway Firth, at the junction of two tributaries from the south, the Caldew and the Petteril. The city grew up originally on and about the two slight eminences of the peninsula enclosed between these three streams. To the north of the Eden lies the suburb of Stanwix, connected with the city by a handsome bridge (1812-1815). The rivers are not navigable, and a canal opened in 1823, connecting the city with Port Carlisle on the Solway Firth, was unsuccessful, and was converted into a railway. Silloth, on the Irish Sea, is the nearest port of importance (21 m.). Carlisle, however, is one of the principal railway centres in Great Britain. The London & North-Western and the Midland railways of England, and the Caledonian, North British and Glasgow & South-Western of Scotland, here make a junction for through traffic between England and Scotland; and the city is further served by the North Eastern (from Newcastle) and the Maryport & Carlisle railways.
Carlisle is the seat of a bishop. Bede, in his life of St Cuthbert, alludes to a monastery here, and the saint was also believed to have founded a convent and school. But all was swept away by the Northmen, and though William Rufus, who rehabilitated the town, doubtless made provision for an ecclesiastical foundation, it was left for Henry I., in 1133, to create a bishopric out of the house of Augustinian canons, founded in 1102. This was the sole episcopal chapter of regular canons of St Augustine in England. It was dissolved in 1540. Between 1156 and 1204 the bishop’s throne was unoccupied, but thereafter there was a continuous succession. The diocese covers the whole of Westmorland, and practically of Cumberland, with Furness and the adjacent district in the north of Lancashire. The cathedral as it stands is a fine cruciform building with a central tower, but it is incomplete. Of the Norman nave, built by Aethelwold, the first prior and bishop, only two bays are standing, the remainder having been destroyed by the Parliamentarians in 1646. The south transept, and the lower part of the tower piers, are also of this period. Remarkable distortion is seen in the nave arches, owing to the sinking of the foundations. The thinness of the aisle walls, and the rude masonry of the foundations of the original apse which have been discovered, point to native, not Norman, workmanship. The choir is ornate and beautiful, and the huge Decorated east window, with its wonderful elaborate tracery, is perhaps the finest of its kind extant. The reconstruction of the Norman choir was begun in the middle of the 13th century, but the work was almost wholly destroyed by fire in 1292. The north transept and the tower also suffered. Building began again c. 1352, and the present tower, erected with some difficulty on the weak foundations of the Norman period, dates from 1400-1419. The conventual buildings are scanty, including little more than a Perpendicular gateway and refectory. A stone inscribed with runes, and a well, are among the objects of interest within the cathedral. Among the numerous memorials is one to Archdeacon Paley; and a stained-glass window commemorates the five children of Archibald Campbell Tait, dean of the cathedral, and afterwards archbishop of Canterbury. Of the two eminences within the three rivers, the cathedral occupies one, the castle the other. It was moated and very strong; but has been so far altered that only the keep is of special interest. A tower in which Mary, queen of Scots, was imprisoned was taken down in 1835. The castle serves as barracks. Fragments of the old city walls are seen on the western side over against the river Caldew. At Carlisle are the county gaol and the Cumberland infirmary, in connexion with which there is a seaside convalescent institution at Silloth. Other notable public buildings are the city hall, the court-houses, museum and art gallery. The grammar school, of very early foundation, received endowment from Henry VIII. Industries include the manufacture of cotton and woollen goods, and there are iron foundries, breweries, tanneries and large railway works. There is also a considerable agricultural trade. The parliamentary borough returns one member. The municipal borough is under a mayor, 10 aldermen and 30 councillors. Area, 2025 acres.
This was the Romano-British Luguvallium, probably rather a town than a fort, being one of the few towns as distinct from forts in the north of Britain. It lay a mile south of Hadrian’s wall. There are no traces above ground in situ; but many inscriptions, potsherds, coins and other such-like relics have been discovered.
Carlisle (Caer Luel, Karliol) is first mentioned in 685, when under the name of Luel it was bestowed by Ecgfrith on St Cuthbert to form part of his see of Lindisfarne. It was then a thriving and populous city, and when St Cuthbert visited it in 686 he was shown with pride the ancient walls and a Roman fountain of marvellous construction. Nennius, writing in the 9th century, mentions it in a list of British cities under the name of Caer Luadiit, Caer Ligualid or Caer Lualid, but about this time it was either wholly or in part destroyed by the Danes, and vanishes completely from history until in 1092 it was re-established as the political centre of the district by William Rufus, who built the castle and sent husbandmen to dwell there and till the land. During the centuries of border-strife which followed, the history of Carlisle centres round that of the castle, which formed the chief bulwark against the Scots on the western border, and played an important part in the history of the country down to the rebellion of the young Pretender in 1745. In 1292 a great fire destroyed nearly all the buildings and muniments of the city, so that no original charter is extant before that date. A charter from Edward I., dated 1293, however, exemplifies two earlier grants. The first, from Henry II., confirmed the liberties and customs which the city had theretofore enjoyed, granting in addition a free gild merchant, with other privileges. This grant is exemplified in the second charter, from Henry III., dated 1251. By a writ dated 5 Henry III. the citizens were allowed to hold the city direct from the king, paying a fee-farm rent of £60, instead of the former rent of £50, paid by the medium of the sheriff. A charter from Edward II., dated 1316, grants to the citizens the city, the king’s mills in the city, and the fishery in the Eden, at a fee-farm rent of £80 a year. A charter from Edward III. in 1352 enumerates the privileges and liberties hitherto enjoyed by the citizens, including a market twice a week, on Wednesday and Saturday; a fair for sixteen days at the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin (15th of August); free election of a mayor, bailiffs and two coroners; and the right to hold their markets in the place called “Battailholm.” It also mentions that the city was greatly impoverished by reason of the devastations of the Scots and by pestilence. Confirmations of former privileges were issued by Richard II., Henry IV. and Henry VI. A charter from Edward IV. in 1461, after reciting the damage sustained by the city through fire, reduced the fee-farm rent from £80 to £40, and granted to the citizens the fishery called the sheriff’s net, free of rent. Further confirmations were granted by later sovereigns. Although the city had been under the jurisdiction of a mayor and bailiffs at least as early as 1290, the first charter of incorporation was granted by Elizabeth in 1566; it established a corporation under the style of “a mayor, eleven worshipful persons, and twenty-four able persons.” A charter of James I. confirmed former liberties, and in 1638 Charles I. granted a charter under which the town continued to be governed until 1835. It declared Carlisle a city by itself, and established a corporation consisting of a mayor, 11 aldermen, 24 capital citizens, 2 bailiffs, 2 coroners and a recorder; the mayor, the recorder and 2 senior aldermen to be justices of the peace, and the mayor to be clerk of the market; other officers were a common clerk, a sword-bearer and three serjeants-at-mace. Two charters from Charles II. in 1664 and 1684 were never accepted. The latter granted a three days’ fair or market on the first Wednesday in June. Much valuable information relating to the early history and customs of Carlisle is furnished both by the Dormont Book, which contains an elaborate set of bye-laws dated 1561, and by the records of the eight craft gilds—weavers, smiths, tailors, tanners, shoemakers, skinners, butchers and merchants. The defensive and offensive warfare in which the citizens were constantly engaged until the union of the crowns of England and Scotland left little time for the development of commercial pursuits, and Fuller, writing in the 17th century, says that the sole manufacture, that of fustian, though established shortly after the Restoration, had met with scant encouragement. In 1750 the manufacture of coarse linen cloth was established, and was followed in a few years by the introduction of calico stamperies. The commercial prosperity of Carlisle, however, began with the railway development of the 19th century. In 1283 the citizens of Carlisle were summoned to send two representatives to parliament, but no return is recorded. From 1295 Carlisle continued to return two members until the Redistribution Act of 1885. At the time of the Scottish wars Edward I. held two parliaments at Carlisle—in 1300 and in 1307.