Memorials of the Counties of England
General Editor:
Rev. P. H. Ditchfield, M.A., F.S.A., F.R.S.L., F.R.Hist.S.
Memorials of Old Durham

Durham Cathedral.

From the Picture by J. M. W. Turner, R.A.

MEMORIALS OF OLD
DURHAM

EDITED BY
HENRY R. LEIGHTON, F.R.Hist.S.
With many Illustrations

LONDON
GEORGE ALLEN & SONS, 44 & 45, RATHBONE PLACE, W.
1910
[All Rights Reserved]

TO THE
RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF DURHAM, K.G.,
Lord-Lieutenant of the County Palatine of Durham,
THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED BY
HIS KIND PERMISSION

PREFACE

THE Palatinate of Durham possesses special claims to the attention of students of history. It alone amongst the English counties was for centuries ruled by Sovereign Bishops possessing their own peers, troops, mint, and legal courts. In every respect it was a miniature kingdom, in its constitution like only to the well-known Prince-Bishoprics of the Continent.

In the past the county has been favoured by a succession of historians, who have dealt more or less fully with its parochial history. More recently Dr. Lapsley and the contributors to the "Victoria History" have minutely examined the various phases of its early constitution. In the publications of the local archæological societies, the greater mansions and most of the more interesting churches have been dealt with in detail.

In view, therefore, of the now considerable accumulated literature upon the county, it has been a matter of no small difficulty to select subjects which should be helpful to the scholar as well as interesting to the general reader.

It has been endeavoured to make this volume serve a twofold purpose. Firstly, to awaken a greater interest in the past of this most historic district, and secondly, to serve as an introduction to the greater histories of the county. Some day, perhaps, we may hope to see an edition of Surtees’, revised to a recent date, and covering those portions of the county which he did not live to deal with.

Through the courtesy of the Earl of Durham we are enabled to reproduce for the first time the portrait of William James, sometime Bishop of Durham. Lord Strathmore has kindly enabled us to include the very interesting photograph of Streatlam Castle. Thanks are also due to Mrs. Greenwell, of Greenwell Ford, for the photograph of Fen Hall. Mr. J. Tavenor-Perry has supplied the sketches of the cathedral sanctuary knocker and the dun cow panel, besides the valuable measured drawings of Finchale Priory. The remaining sketches in pen and ink have been contributed by Mr. Wilfrid Leighton.

In conclusion, in addition to thanking the contributors of the various chapters for the care with which they have treated their subjects, thanks are due to the Rev. William Greenwell and to the Rev. Dr. Gee, who have both made useful suggestions.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
By the Rev. Henry Gee, D.D., F.S.A., Master of University College, Durham

IN the older maps of England, that portion of the country which we call the county of Durham is generally described as "Episcopatus Dunelmensis," or the Bishopric of Durham, or simply the Bishopric. A further glance at the adjacent districts of Northumberland and Yorkshire shows that there are portions larger or smaller of those counties which are marked as integral parts of Durham. These members of the Bishopric are Norhamshire, Islandshire, and Bedlingtonshire in Northumberland, with the Manors of Northallerton, Howden, and Crayke, and certain lands adjacent to them in Yorkshire. These portions of the Bishopric were only cut off from it and merged in their own surrounding counties within the memory of persons still living. Indeed, the distinction between Bishopric folk and County folk—that is to say, people of Durham and people of Northumberland—is not yet quite forgotten, and looks back to a very interesting piece of English history that has to do with a state of things in the North of England which has now passed away.

Visitors who come to the city of Durham to-day and look on cathedral and castle have some vague idea of a time when the Bishop of Durham had "the power of life and death," as it is popularly called; but what this means, and what the peculiar constitution of the neighbourhood was, they do not, as a rule, understand. It may be worth while to try and get a clearer view of the Bishopric of Durham, and more especially of the main portion between Tyne and Tees, which forms the modern county. We to-day are so much accustomed to a strong central Government controlling the whole of England, that we find it hard to think of a time when certain districts had a large independence, and were ruled by a local Earl or by Bishop, rather than by the King in the capital. Yet there were such times both in England and upon the Continent. The district so ruled is known as a franchise or liberty, and the history of its independence, won, maintained, or lost, generally forms an attractive subject of study, with many exciting episodes in it. The assertion is certainly true of Durham; and although it is not possible to go into detail within the space of an introductory article like this, it may be possible to explain what the Bishopric was, and how it came to get its distinctive characteristics and its later modification.

The franchise of the Bishop of Durham may be most aptly understood if we try to regard all the members of it mentioned above as a little kingdom, of which Durham City was the capital. The Bishop of Durham was virtually the King of this little realm, and ruled it, not only as its spiritual head, but as its temporal head. As its spiritual head, he was in the position of any ordinary Bishop, and possessed exactly the same powers as other prelates. As its temporal head, he had a power which they generally did not possess. Dr. Freeman has explained his position in the following words: "The prelate of Durham became one and the more important of the only two English prelates whose worldly franchises invested them with some faint shadow of the sovereign powers enjoyed by the princely Churchmen of the Empire. The Bishop of Ely in his island, the Bishop of Durham in his hill-fortress, possessed powers which no other English ecclesiastic was allowed to share.... The external aspect of the city of itself suggests its peculiar character. Durham alone among English cities, with its highest point crowned, not only by the cathedral, but by the vast castle of the Prince-Bishop, recalls to mind those cities of the Empire—Lausanne, or Chur, or Sitten—where the priest, who bore alike the sword and the pastoral staff, looked down from his fortified height on a flock which he had to guard no less against worldly than against ghostly foes."[1] And this sovereignty was no nominal thing, for the Bishop came to have most of the institutions that we connect with the thought of a kingdom. He had his own courts of law, his own officers of state, his own assemblies, his own system of finance, his own coinage, and, to some extent, he had his own troops and his own ships. As we understand all this, we shall appreciate the significance of the lofty throne erected by Bishop Hatfield in Durham Cathedral. It was placed there in the flourishing days of the Bishop’s power, and is not merely the seat of a Bishop, but the throne of a King. So too, hard by, in the Bishop’s castle, as the chronicler tells us, there were two seats of royalty within the hall, one at either end. No doubt it was before the Bishop, sitting as Prince in one of these, that the great tenants of his franchise—the Barons of the Bishopric, as they were actually called—did homage in respect of their lands. Perhaps, when he sat in the other from time to time as Bishop, his clergy and others recognized his spiritual authority, or submitted themselves to his "godly admonitions."

The county of Durham has been marked out by nature, more or less distinctly, as separate from the neighbouring counties. The Tees on the south, and the Tyne on the north, with the Derwent running from the western fells to the Tyne, sufficiently differentiate it. In what follows we will keep mainly to the district represented by the modern county, leaving out of view the members outside to which reference has been made. Its history, until modern times, is largely ecclesiastical, owing to its peculiar constitution, in which the Bishop plays so important a part. It had, indeed, virtually no history until the Church became the great civilizer in Northumbria. Its prehistoric remains are few, if interesting. Its occupation by Brigantes, a Celtic tribe, is a large fact with no details. In the days when Romans made the North of Britain their own, there is still no history beyond the evidence of Roman roads, with camps at Binchester, Lanchester, and Ebchester. Certainly no Roman Christian remains have been found as yet; but when in the seventh century Christianity came to the Anglian invaders who settled in these parts after the departure of the Romans, the history of the English people was born within the confines of the modern county. Bede, the first of English scholars and writers, compiled his history in the monastery of Jarrow. He tells us all we know of the earliest Durham Christians—of Benedict Biscop and of Hilda, who, with himself, are the first three historic personages in the district. In one pregnant sentence he tells us how churches were built in different places, how the people flocked together to hear the Word, and how landed possessions were given by royal munificence to found monasteries. These monasteries became the centres of religion, civilization, and learning all over Northumbria; and, in particular, the monasteries of Jarrow and Wearmouth, twin foundations of Benedict Biscop, were the commencement of everything best worth having between Tyne and Tees.

Thus religion, art, and literature, were born in Durham. In the last years of the eighth century a terrible calamity fell upon the wider province, of which Durham was only a part, when the Danes raided Lindisfarne, where had been the starting-point of the Northumbrian Church. When the mother was thus spoiled and laid desolate, the daughters trembled for their safety, but they were left for awhile, not unassailed, yet not destroyed. In those days of disturbed peace further gifts of land were made to the Church, and in these we trace large slices of Durham handed over in the ninth century to the monks of Lindisfarne by those who had the power to give. And here we must notice that the great treasure of the monastery at Lindisfarne was the body of St. Cuthbert, the great Northumbrian saint, to whom the endowments named were most solemnly dedicated. They formed the nucleus of the Bishopric—the beginnings of the Patrimony of St. Cuthbert, which is only another name for the Bishopric. Repeated invasion of the Danes at last drove the monks out of Lindisfarne, and destroyed the Durham monasteries of Jarrow and Wearmouth. The Lindisfarne monks left their island, and bore away for safety’s sake the body of St. Cuthbert, and after various wanderings brought it back to rest within the fortified enclosure of Chester-le-Street, and so within the confines of Durham. Here the Danish conquerors confirmed previous gifts, and added others to them, until the lands of St. Cuthbert increased very widely, whilst Chester-le-Street became a centre of pilgrimage.

For 113 years Chester-le-Street was the Christian metropolis of the North, until the final fury of the Danes began to fall upon Northumbria. In 995 another exodus began, and the clergy bore off the body to Ripon, returning a few months later when the tempest seemed to have abated. Many legends cluster round this return, but in any case the fact is clear that the Bishop and his company took up their abode, not at Chester-le-Street, but on the rocky peninsula of Dun-holm, or Durham, which the River Wear nearly encircled. In this way the seat of ecclesiastical authority was changed for the second time, and Durham City now became the centre of the still-expanding Bishopric. Great prestige gathered round the Saxon cathedral in which the shrine of the saint was placed, for Kings and Princes vied with one another in doing honour to it. So Canute, walking to the spot with bare feet, gave fresh donations of Durham land and confirmed what others had bestowed.

But again dark days fell upon the North. To say nothing of Scottish encroachments upon the Bishopric, which were sustained in the eleventh century, the worst blow fell when the Norman Conquest took place. In no part of England was a more determined patriotism opposed to William than in Durham. Submission was nominal, and desperate efforts were made to keep Northumbria as a separate kingdom by placing Edgar Atheling upon an English throne in York. When the Conqueror made a Norman called Cumin his Viceroy in these parts, the men of Durham rose and murdered him within their city. It was an act that William never forgave and never forgot. He wrought such a deed of vengeance that the whole of the smiling district from York to Durham was turned into a wilderness. When he came to die he is represented to have said of this ruthless episode: "I fell on the English of the Northern counties like a ravening lion. I commanded their houses and corn, with all their tools and furniture, to be burnt without distinction, and large herds of cattle and beasts of burden to be butchered wherever they were found. It was thus I took revenge on multitudes of both sexes, by subjecting them to the calamity of a cruel famine; and by so doing, alas! became the barbarous murderer of many thousands, both young and old, of that fine race of people."

William placed foreigners in most positions of importance. To the See of Durham he appointed Walcher from Lorraine, and the new prelate came from his consecration at Winchester, escorted across the belt of depopulated, ravaged land, until he reached Durham. North of the Wear the Patrimony of St. Cuthbert was as yet largely untouched, but the men of Durham had no love for the foreigner, and no wish to regard him as their lord. Fortunately for him the Earl of Northumbria stood his friend, and built for him in 1072 the Norman castle overlooking

the Wear, which was destined to be the Bishop’s fortress for seven and a half centuries. Within that castle Walcher was safe, and, helped by the Earl, he ruled his recalcitrant flock, not always wisely, but with all his power, until an insurrection which he strove to quell cost him his life. He died, however, not as mere Bishop of Durham, but as Earl of Northumbria as well, for when Waltheof the Earl died, William appointed Walcher in his place. Thus in the hands of the first Bishop after the Conquest was held the double authority of Bishop and of Earl. Whatever may have been the powers of the prelate in the Bishopric until this time, it is certain that from this point he claims a double authority within the Patrimony of St. Cuthbert. As for Walcher, stern example was made of what resistance to the Bishop’s lawful authority would mean, when William laid waste the land that had escaped ten years before, and extended his ravages north of the Wear and towards the Tyne.

Just before the eleventh century expired, an event of considerable importance took place when Bishop Carileph began the great cathedral which still crowns the height above the Wear at Durham. About the same time an understanding was reached between the Earl of Northumbria and the Bishop, by which all the rights and the independence of the Bishopric seem to have been recognized and confirmed, so that henceforward the Bishop was the undisputed lord of the lands of St. Cuthbert.[2] When in 1104 the cathedral was sufficiently advanced to receive the body of the saint within its eastern apse, a great ceremony took place, which served to carry the prestige of Durham beyond anything it had yet reached. Henceforward the stream of pilgrims which had steadily flowed to the shrine, whether at Lindisfarne, or Chester-le-Street, or Durham, swelled in volume until the attractiveness of Durham exceeded that of any place of pilgrimage in England. Only when the shrine of St. Thomas at Canterbury drew to it so large a share of patronage from the end of the twelfth century did a serious rival manifest itself. Carileph had divided the territory of St. Cuthbert, reserving part for the Bishop, and part for the Benedictine monks whom he placed in the new cathedral. Thus the Bishop had his estates henceforward, and the monks had theirs. At first the portion belonging to the monastery seems to have been disappointingly poor, a fact very probably due to recent ravages whose brand was not yet effaced. By degrees, however, the lands of prior and convent improved, and the gifts of pilgrims made the monks prosperous.

The Bishop who presided when the body of St. Cuthbert was translated in 1104 was Ralph Flambard. He was not the character to allow the prestige of the Bishopric to decline. Under him the resources of the county were ably administered, and the organization of his dominions was carefully developed. By degrees the traces of the Norman harrying were obliterated. How fair a country Durham was in the early twelfth century we may discover from the poetry of a monk from the monastery who was called Lawrence, and wrote a description of events and localities connected with Durham. He speaks of its scenery, its excellent products, its fine breed of horses, its open-air amusements, to say nothing of indoor revels at Christmas. The twelfth century, with sparse population, open moor and plain, and increasing prosperity, is far away from the noise of anvil and forge, the smoke of endless coke ovens, the squalor of congested towns, as they exist in the county to-day. But the scene changed too soon. After the accession of Stephen in 1135 fierce dynastic feuds broke out, and the Scots joined in the anarchy of the time, attempting to annex the territory of St. Cuthbert to the Lowlands of Scotland. Durham suffered severely in the conflict, and a mock-bishop, supported by the Scots, actually held Durham Castle and City against the lawful prelate. At length more quiet days came, and in the reign of Henry II. Bishop Pudsey, the King’s own cousin, succeeded in resisting the centralizing efforts of the monarch, and although he had to bow to the imperious Henry on more than one occasion, he carried on in the main the liberties and rights of the Bishopric. A little later he was enabled to round off the Bishopric lands when he bought the wapentake of Sadberge from King Richard, the only important part of the county which had never yet been included in the territory of St. Cuthbert. From this time the Earl of Northumbria disappears, and at last there is no rival whatsoever to powers which had been steadily growing. The Bishopric is now complete in head and members, and the Bishop is virtual sovereign of it, whilst the King is supreme outside. At this stage we may freely call the Bishop’s dominions the Palatinate of Durham—a name which continues to be usual until the power so described is, in 1836, annexed to the Crown. The word "Palatinate" is a conventional legal title which the lawyers brought into fashion to describe a great franchise with its independent jurisdiction.[3]

We are able to get a very much clearer notion of the Palatinate in Pudsey’s days, when the hitherto scanty materials of Durham history begin to swell. We have some of his buildings before us yet—St. Cuthbert’s, Darlington, the Galilee of the cathedral, the rich doorway in the castle; we have seal and charters and writs of his episcopate; and, in short, are able to trace in outline the way in which Pudsey developed the Bishopric on the analogy of a little kingdom, with institutions and officers of its own. Moreover, some notion is gained in the famous Boldon Book[4] of the episcopal lands and how they were held. There we get a Domesday, as it were, of the Bishop’s holdings, to which those who desire to study the intricate methods of medieval land tenure on the Bishop’s property must be referred. A little later on we find somewhat similar information about the lands of the monastery, so that, as the centuries wear on, a fairly detailed picture is gained of the conditions of life in the medieval Bishopric. Thus we see the lands divided up into a large number of manors, which vary largely in character, for some are pastoral, others agricultural, others moor-land, or forest, and others still are connected with townships like Gateshead or Sunderland. The Bishop’s or Prior’s steward makes a circuit at different times, visiting all the units in some special locality, and looking to his lettings or his rents. The holdings vary very much in size and in tenure, and the tenants likewise differ in status and in service. There are villeins who are not free, and are bound to render certain dues of personal service, mowing, or reaping, or ploughing, or sowing, for so many days, and receiving perhaps doles of food, a cottage, and some land, but no money wage. There are farmers who take a manor or farm on condition of rendering so much agricultural produce to the lord. There are cottiers who work so many days in the week, and have to give so many eggs, or so many fowls for the table, in return for the little home that they occupy. In Durham itself certain houses were let to tenants, who had to defend the North Gate, or help act as garrison, or render herbs and other necessaries for the Bishop’s kitchen. The conditions of service among the villeins were often onerous, and a tone of deep discontent is marked in the medieval villages of Durham. In time of war external service might be demanded of the men, and a rally to join the Bishopric troops was no unfamiliar incident of life in those days. If it extended beyond the bounds proper of the territory of St. Cuthbert, pay was claimed, though it was not always given. Small quarrels and differences were probably adjusted by steward or bailiff, but more serious cases came before justices of the peace specially appointed, whilst murder and other grave offences were reserved for judges whom the Bishop appointed to sit at various centres, of which Durham was the chief. And this power of appointing judges to try criminals and to convict or acquit them is what is meant by the popular and inexact phrase, "the power of life and death." The Bishop’s revenue was managed by special officers of his own appointment, who got returns from the local bailiffs, and then recorded them at Durham, where a special audit was held. A special set of buildings were erected near Durham Castle, with various adjacent offices, for the management and arrangement of all the mass of business—financial, judicial, and administrative—which was entailed by the Bishopric.

In this way the conditions of life, and the administration of the Palatinate, followed roughly the general order of the kingdom outside, and the Bishopric was, as has already been said, virtually a little kingdom ruled by a Bishop instead of a King. The Bishops who followed Pudsey maintained and developed his organization, but not without strife. The thirteenth century, in particular, presents a long record of obstinate struggle between the Bishop and those who tried to limit his power or to gain concessions which he was unwilling to make. Indeed, the struggle between the King and the people, which is the great feature of English history in that century, finds a close parallel on a small scale in Durham. At one time it is a long feud between the Bishop and the Monastery over their respective lands, a feud which was at last ended by an agreement between the contending parties. At another time the Bishop is trying to curb the independence of the Barons of the Bishopric, who held large estates for which they were supposed to yield homage, or to perform some kind of service. In this way Nevilles and Balliols, two of the great Bishopric families, held out against the crusading Bishop Bek, and in the end they had to give way. And once more there was strife on more than one occasion with the King, who now and then attempted to restrain the exuberant independence of the Bishop of Durham; and here, in the main, the Bishop was successful in asserting his rights and powers as inalienable.

Over this scene of complex organization and activity dark shadows came in the fourteenth century. The Scots, who had been quiescent for some time, fell upon the Bishopric with great ferocity during the reigns of the first three Edwards, and the years were seldom free from the record of invasion or pillage. It had come to be regarded as a prime duty of the Bishop to repress all northern incursions, and, as a contemporary document puts it, to serve as a wall of brass against the Scots. He had his fortified castles, Norham in Norhamshire, Durham in its own county, and Northallerton in Yorkshire. These three lay on one of the chief routes by which the invaders entered England, and were kept in threatening times well defended and provisioned. In 1312 Bruce pushed his forces right through Northumberland, and advanced into the heart of the Bishopric, delivering a blow against Durham itself, which must have been severe. Two years later in Scotland the troops of England were beaten at Bannockburn, and the humiliation of Edward II. was only effaced some years later by Edward III. in the victories of Halidon Hill, and more particularly of Neville’s Cross in 1346. The latter battle was the great glory of the men of Durham until it was forgotten in the greater prestige of Flodden nearly 200 years later. The tomb of Ralph Neville, badly battered by Scots in later days, still stands in Durham Cathedral as a local memorial of Neville’s Cross, in which he led the Bishopric troops.

The joy caused by these successes was soon dimmed when the terrors of the Black Death overwhelmed the district. Perhaps no part of England suffered much more severely. The pestilence rolled up towards the North in the year 1349, and at last made its dreaded appearance in the south-east of the county. From this point it spread with frightful rapidity, carrying off all orders and conditions of men, for none escaped. Sometimes a whole household perished, and here and there an entire village was obliterated. "No tenants came from West Thickley, because they are all dead," is the steward’s entry at one manorial court or halmote, as the local word is. In the winter that followed there was no sowing, and when the spring came men had not the heart to go to work on the fields, for the plague was renewed with increasing virulence, and everything was thrown out of gear. Villeins had run away from sheer terror; even madness was not unheard of; and whilst there was little to eat famine and misery stalked unchecked.[5] The Bishop’s lands and the Prior’s lands were going out of cultivation, for it was impossible to find labourers, or to bind them down in the old way. Grotesque attempts were made to keep up the former conditions of service, until by degrees stewards and bailiffs found out that they were face to face with the greatest economic difficulty which had ever appeared in the Bishopric. The Black Death practically brought to an end the rigid system of land tenure which had been kept up so long, for it gave the death-blow to serfdom, and the old services in kind, of which mention has been made. Discontent had long lurked in the manors of Durham, but from this time it became active and aggressive, until it pushed the peasants out to assert themselves and to seek for more congenial conditions of life. Elsewhere the transition was effected by bloodshed; in the territories of St. Cuthbert it came more peacefully, but to the accompaniment of much mutual mistrust and variance.

It is possibly in connection with all this covert rebellion on the part of the masses that Cardinal Langley built or finished the great gaol in the North Gate in Durham. This large building running up to the castle keep on one side, and down towards the river on the other, spanned Saddler Street for four centuries, until it was taken down in 1820. It was often filled with criminals who were imprisoned here for various offences in its gloomy dungeons. There was another gaol at Sadberge, but it does not seem clear what relation this bore to the more important building in Durham. But the fifteenth century brought its own special anxieties. In the dynastic troubles which led to the Wars of the Roses, the Palatinate was generally Lancastrian in sympathy. Henry VI. (only one of many English Kings who visited Durham) came to the shrine of St. Cuthbert at a time when his dominions had been cut short upon the Continent, and were still further menaced by the Scots. In the bitter days that followed, when he was driven from his throne, he took refuge in the Bishopric, whilst his brave wife went to the Continent to seek for troops to enable him to regain the crown. Even rectories were fortified in those days, for men had to take one side or the other, and to defend their property against bands of marauders. Of religious trouble and dispute, Durham had no large share at that particular time, though elsewhere the ferment caused by the Lollard Movement was producing much unrest. The Bishopric was too much under the control of the Church to allow much freedom of thought. Yet there were isolated instances of Lollard sympathy, exceptions to prove the rule, which were instantly repressed by ecclesiastical authority.

Dynastic trouble did not end when Henry VII. and his wife, Elizabeth, united the Red and White Roses. The Bishopric men, indeed, had no desire to rise against the strong government which the King set up in England; but they were caught in the tide of rebellion which was set going by Simnel and Warbeck. It was to stem this tide that Henry placed Richard Fox as Bishop of Durham in 1494. This prelate, the King’s tried friend, fortified afresh the castles of the see, and placed garrisons in them to check the advance of Warbeck through the northern counties. Fortunately, the invasion followed another line to the Battle of Stoke, and the men of Durham were spared the anxiety of decision. But Fox, keeping vigilant guard in his fortresses, was instrumental in concluding that alliance which was destined eventually to unite the English and the Scots as one nation. Henry’s young daughter, Margaret, was affianced to James IV. of Scotland, and in 1503 passed right through the Bishopric on her way to her northern home. Nowhere in all the long progress did the Princess receive a warmer welcome than in Durham, from the moment she entered the Bishopric at the Tees to the moment she crossed Tyne Bridge from Gateshead into Newcastle. A mighty banquet was given in her honour in Durham Castle, to which all the nobles and important personages of the district were invited. Little Margaret’s great-grandson was James VI. of Scotland and I. of England; and in his days border feuds passed away for ever. And yet at the moment of the banquet that consummation was a long way off. Ten years later the Scots invaded England at a time of grave national anxiety, when the King and his troops were warring in France. But the Bishopric musters turned out. Bishop Ruthall rushed up to Durham, and his men at Flodden contributed not a little to the great English success as they bore the banner of St. Cuthbert into the battle.

The century that had so recently dawned was destined to witness great changes in the Bishopric. Henry VIII. laid ruthless hands upon the power of the Church, and the monarch who extorted the submission of the clergy was not likely to allow the great power and independence of the Bishop of Durham to pass unchecked. Accordingly, in 1536, he cut short the judiciary authority of the prelate. This, as we have seen, was one of the most characteristic privileges of the Bishop, and neither Henry II. nor Edward I. had interfered with it. From this date the King was the authority who appointed the judges; and although in practice the old forms and methods were largely followed, the sanction was royal, and not episcopal. And next year, when the Council of the North was set up for the purposes of defence, execution of justice, and finance, in the northern counties, a still further blow was aimed at the Bishop’s power, for this court could, if it willed, supersede the Palatinate machinery. As a matter of fact, its first President was Tunstall, Bishop of Durham, who prevented such degradation of the Palatinate for the present. Yet one thing of large importance was carried out under the Council’s authority, when the great Abbey of Durham was dissolved in 1539. The monastery had stood unassailed for 450 years, but Henry set going the process of destruction which ended in the total suppression of every religious house in the land. It had been a wealthy foundation, a kindly landlord, an influence for good in the district, with its library, and its schools, and its varied means of usefulness. Yet every good object that it had served was eventually carried on. Prior and convent became Dean and Canons; monastic lands were now capitular estates; its chief school and library were maintained with greater efficiency; its solemn offices soon became the familiar vernacular service of the Church of England. Otherwise there was little monastic destruction in the county of Durham, for the great monastery had brooked no rivals; and a friary or two with a single nunnery were scarcely rivals. The dependent cells of Jarrow, Wearmouth, Finchale, however, shared in the fall of Durham Abbey.

Three or four years before the surrender of the monastery the people of Durham had taken part in the Pilgrimage of Grace—that exciting demonstration in which popular resentment against the fall of the smaller houses was exhibited. When Durham Abbey fell, there was no repetition of that rising, for severe punishment had been meted out in 1537; whilst in 1540 pestilence was desolating the district, and the gloom in consequence was depressing. But there was no sympathy with the changes which soon began to hurry on, and Durham was probably more opposed to the Reformation than any other district. Under Edward VI. the Bishopric became the object of the ambitious designs of Northumberland—one of the noblemen whom the rapid religious and political revolution of the time placed in power. He cast a longing eye on the Patrimony of St. Cuthbert; and in building up the fortunes of his upstart family (he was a Dudley, not a Percy, for the true Northumberland title was at the moment suspended) he probably intended to lay hands upon the whole Bishopric, and to arrogate for himself the Palatinate jurisdiction. He succeeded in getting the Bishop thrown into prison on false charges of treason, and then forced a Bill through Parliament which abolished the power of the Palatinate, and created two sees—one at Durham, the other at Newcastle. There can be little doubt that he intended to secure the Palatinate power for himself, and to rule in Durham as Duke of Northumberland; whilst his son, Guildford Dudley, recently married to Lady Jane Grey, was to be Prince Consort, and to share the throne of England. This most daring scheme fell to the ground when Mary came to the throne, and the recent legislation was at once abolished, and things went back to the conditions obtaining before the reign of Edward.

Under Elizabeth the Bishopric underwent a process of reconstruction in various ways. It was not a pleasant process. Socially the old system of land-tenure, which had been breaking up since the Black Death, was abolished, and a new method of leaseholds was evolved after much friction between the tenants on the one side, and the Dean and Chapter, or the Bishop, on the other. The power of the Bishop was now further attenuated, for the Queen laid hands upon large estates which were the undoubted possession of the see, with a history of many centuries’ attachment to the Patrimony of St. Cuthbert. The settlement of religion carried out in the early years of the Queen’s reign was largely unpalatable in Durham. Certainly the majority of the clergy acquiesced, but the acquiescence was largely external. So the people at large tolerated the changes that were wrought in churches and services, when the English liturgy took the place of the Latin offices restored by Mary, and when altars were broken down, and the church furniture in general was destroyed. The great Bishopric families—Nevilles, Lumleys, and others—scarcely concealed their dislike of the new régime in Church and in State, and after some years of endurance, they rose at last in 1569. Feeling sure of wide sympathy in Northumberland and Durham, the Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland gathered retainers together, and restored the old order in Durham Cathedral, whilst the people of Durham, lowly kneeling, were absolved from the guilt of schism. But inferior leadership caused the rising to collapse outside the Bishopric, and when the Queen’s army marched through Durham it swept the undisciplined forces of the Earls across the Tyne to be dissipated in the rigours of a cold Northumbrian winter. But, although the rebellion came to nothing, passive resistance was maintained. As the reign proceeded, this quieter condition was roused into greater activity by the seminary priests and the Jesuit missionaries who came into the country from institutions abroad, which sent over into England, and not least into Durham, a long succession of these emissaries. They went up and down the district, welcomed and protected by friends who received their ministrations, but not seldom hunted down by the vigilance of the Ecclesiastical Commission, which increased the stringency of its measures as the century drew to its close.

The last years of the great Queen witnessed a rather distressing condition of things in the county. Pestilence was a frequent visitor in times that were insanitary, and the transition to happier conditions in religion and in society was not complete. The villages were frequently unpopulated, and tillage was decayed, whilst the starving families wandered into the neighbouring towns in search of food. Probably the depressing state of affairs was worse in the Bishopric than in other parts of England, for it received a special aggravation in the Scottish inroads, which were renewed towards the end of the reign before their final extinction at the accession of James. When the Elizabethan Poor Law began its work, the county of Durham benefited by its operation, for regular collectors for the poor were appointed, and sometimes rates were levied, in place of the very uncertain alms of the "poor man’s box" in the church, to which parishioners were asked to contribute under the Injunctions of Elizabeth.

The Stuarts showed more regard for the Palatinate of Durham than did the Tudors. No Tudor sovereign, it seems, entered the county, but James I., Charles I., and James II. when Duke of York, paid ceremonious visits to Durham, and in general upheld the prestige of the see, though they never completely restored its independence. One of the most interesting episodes of the seventeenth century is the religious revolution carried out during the first forty years. Bishop Neile is credited with introducing to Durham a series of prebendaries who altered the aspect of the cathedral and produced great changes in the services. These "innovations" caused much comment, and although Charles in 1633 paid a special visit, and by his presence and countenance sanctioned what had been done, frequent remonstrance was made. The long reign of Elizabethan Churchmanship had accustomed the people to one uniform type of worship and ornament, and they were not prepared for the alterations now made in ritual and in the appearance of the churches. When the Scots entered England in 1640, by way of remonstrance against the King’s policy in Church and State, the Bishopric was not altogether unsympathetic; but when the armed demonstration proved to be an armed occupation extending over a year in duration, the royalism of Durham re-asserted itself. At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1642 it was warmly royalist. A second Scottish occupation after Marston Moor in 1644 kept this spirit in check, whilst the Long Parliament virtually superseded the Palatinate and governed the district by committees. Bishop, prebendaries, and other high ecclesiastics had fled when the Scots entered Durham in 1640. Parliament now seized upon the lands of Bishop and Chapter, and sold them or let them as opportunity offered. Thus for several years the old ecclesiastical constitution of Durham was destroyed, and in the parish churches, carefully cleared in 1644 from all "monuments of idolatry," a Presbyterian system was set up. It was not, however, fully carried out, and all manner of ministers were in possession when the Protectorate was set up in 1653. The cathedral services had long been silenced, and in 1650 Cromwell used the buildings as a convenient accommodation for the Scottish prisoners captured at Dunbar. On the petition of the people of the county, the Protector undertook to establish a college in Durham and to devote the cathedral and castle buildings to that purpose. Resentment and discontent smouldered during these years of tyranny. Indeed, more than one Royalist rising had to be repressed. When, at the beginning of 1660, there was talk of restoring the King, no voice of dissent was heard in the county.

Exuberant loyalty greeted the Restoration. Cosin was made Bishop. He was one of the group of influential men appointed by Neile forty years before, and now for twelve years he repaired the breaches of the city and diocese, and carried out the principles which he had formed in earlier life. The Palatinate jurisdiction was revived, with perhaps greater lustre than it had exhibited for a century past. In these days of royalist triumph Nonconformist and Puritan scarcely ventured at first to show their heads, but in Durham they were only biding their time. They found opportunity to promote a formidable rising, which was known as the Derwentdale Plot, aiming at some kind of overthrow of the restored Church and Crown. It was badly managed, and speedily collapsed; but Anabaptists, Quakers, and other parties managed to maintain their existence despite strenuous measures, and more particularly despite the vigorous working of the Conventicle Acts which were intended to crush Nonconformity.

Generally speaking, the county of Durham accepted the Revolution in 1688, though here and there some reluctance was manifested, and notwithstanding the efforts of Bishop Crewe and Dean Granville to promote allegiance to King James. Jacobitism, indeed, was spasmodic in the Bishopric, and it does not appear that in 1715 or in 1745 very wide sympathy was exhibited in the district when elsewhere the excitement was considerable. The eighteenth century witnessed two events of the greatest importance in Durham history. In the first place, after a period of long stagnation, industrial development caught the whole district and entirely changed its character. The coal trade had been prosecuted continuously since the thirteenth century at least, and the mines had proved a considerable source of revenue to the owners. Lead was an ancient industry, and the salt-pans of the county have a connected history, ranging over many centuries. These and other operations had increased in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, more particularly when a great development of shipping at Sunderland and at Hartlepool took place after the Restoration. A large export trade by sea spread rapidly. In the early part of the eighteenth century 175,000 tons of coal was the annual output on the Wear, and the history of the collier convoys at that time is a large chapter in the general history of North Country shipping. All this meant a considerable increase of prosperity, and by degrees the county which had been thinly populated, for the most part, became a hive of industry, in which rapid fortunes were made. The mines and the shipyards attracted labour from other parts of England, and the population of the county, returned as 58,860 in the early days of Elizabeth, amounted to 149,384 in 1801, a figure which has been multiplied by ten in the last hundred years. The Bishop and the Dean and Chapter largely shared in the vast increase of wealth which the working of coal-mines in particular produced. It cannot, however, be said with truth that the Church authorities neglected the cause of charity. A list of the benefactions directly due to the various Bishops, and also to Dean and Chapter, shows how much they did in various ways for the cause of education as well as for the spiritual well-being of the people. Indeed, subscription lists of the early nineteenth century, which still survive, prove that the clergy gave the chief proportion of what was given when some public call was made. It must not be forgotten that Durham University and Durham School were the direct foundations of the Church within the Bishopric.

The other important event to which allusion has been made was the appearance of the Wesleyan Movement in Durham. Bishop Butler wrote his famous work, the Analogy, in the western parts of the county, and published it in 1736. It may be doubted whether its local effect was considerable. Within a few years John Wesley passed and repassed through the county, and established his societies in Durham, Sunderland, Darlington, and elsewhere. They prospered exceedingly, and left a permanent impression upon the district, and this was deepened and extended when a fresh wave of Methodism travelled over the North of England early in the nineteenth century in connection with the spread of Primitive Methodism. There can be no manner of doubt that the Methodist Movement deeply stirred and influenced some classes of the increasing population which the Church left untouched.

The real dividing-line between Old Durham and the present day is to be found in the series of changes which took place in the reign of William IV. The spirit of reform was operating in various directions, and it was not likely that Durham could escape. The increasing wealth of the Church and the still independent powers of the Bishop attracted the attention of the party of change. The Dean and Chapter rose to their opportunity, and founded the University of Durham. The newly formed Ecclesiastical Commission reduced the large staff of the cathedral, and reduced the stipends of those who were left. The Bishop was henceforth to be no longer a great landowner, managing his own revenues and estates, but a prelate, like any other, drawing a fixed stipend. His officers went, and the Palatinate jurisdiction which Dudley had coveted was finally annexed to the Crown. Thus to-day George V. is, within the confines of the Bishopric, Earl Palatine of Durham.

TOPOGRAPHY OF DURHAM
By Miss M. Hope Dodds
Hist. Tripos, Cantab.

The Great North Road.

THE Great North Road crosses the Tees by Croft Bridge, on which the boundary between Yorkshire and Durham is marked by a stone dated 1627. This road is the "Darnton Trod," along which criminals from the South sought refuge all through the Middle Ages. Once across the Tees the fugitive was safe, for the King’s writ did not run in the Bishopric. Moreover, this was the road to the great sanctuary of St. Cuthbert at Durham, where a man was safe from the vengeance of his enemies; and so it happened that Darlington became a great resort of evil-doers, and in 1311 Bishop Kellaw issued a proclamation threatening with the terrors of excommunication all those who molested merchants going to and returning from Darlington market. The ill-name of the neighbourhood was not lost after the Bishop had been deprived of his own writs in 1536. The little inn of Baydale was the resort of the gentlemen of the road in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the rendezvous of Catton’s gang, the haunt of Barwick and of Sir William Browne, all noted highwaymen of the North.

The first hamlet in Durham through which the road passes is Oxneyfield, where, in the fields by the wayside, may be seen the Hell Kettles, four dark, still pools, formed by the natural sinking of the soil over the salt measures in the north bank of the Tees. There is a tradition that an Eastern diver, a black man, plunged into one of the pools, and reappeared in the Skerne, having discovered a subterranean connection between the two waters. The Black Man in North Country legends is usually the devil, and this story may be connected with the belief that the Hell Kettles sometimes grow boiling hot, and that the devil "seethes the souls of sinful men and women in them," at which times the spirits may be heard to cry and yell about the pools.

The Market-Cross at Darlington.

Passing by this haunted place the road leads on to Darlington, a borough full of historical relics, from the Bulmer Stone in Northgate to the first locomotive at Bank Top Station. The Bulmer Stone is a large boulder of Shap granite, which was borne down to its present resting-place on a glacier in the Ice Age. Lying in the midst of the level, marshy plains of the Skerne, it formed a landmark for the men of the Bronze Age, and was perhaps the origin of the town. An Anglian burial-ground, probably pre-Christian, was discovered in the town in 1876. After the conversion of the North a church was built, and two Saxon crosses from it are preserved in the present Church of St. Cuthbert. The history of this beautiful building does not come within the scope of the present section. To the west of the church lies the market-place, where in 1217 Stephen de Cantuaria purchased half a pound of pepper at the fair on the Feast of All Saints, which he rendered to Roger Fitzacris as service for this land in Milneflach and elsewhere. From the market-cross in 1312 was read the Bishop’s order that a tournament which had been proclaimed at Darlington should not be held, as it was forbidden by the laws of the land. That market-cross is not standing now, but its successor may be seen in the modern covered market, a plain column surmounted by a ball, which was erected in 1727 by Dame Dorothy Brown, the last descendant of the family of Barnes, whose members had held the office of bailiff of Darlington for over a hundred years. The old toll-booth, in which the bailiffs held their courts, was pulled down in 1806 and replaced by the present Town Hall. Ever since 1197, Darlington enjoyed the title of borough, and yet it possesses no early charters and had no corporate government; it was not visited by the municipal commissioners in 1833, and was only incorporated in 1868. Until its incorporation the Bishop of Durham appointed a bailiff, who held the old manorial court of the borough. Darlington enjoys the distinction of having retained its bailiff until the middle of the nineteenth century, whereas in the other Durham towns the Bishop had ceased to appoint bailiffs by the end of the seventeenth century. The fame of Darlington rests on the fact that the first passenger railway-line in England was laid between Darlington and Stockton by George Stephenson, who was supported by the capital and influence of Edward Pease of Darlington; the line was opened in 1825. This is surely glory enough for any town!

An Old Tithe-Barn at Durham.

Great Aycliffe, lying five miles north of Darlington on the highroad, was once one of the lesser forests of the Bishopric. About four miles north of Aycliffe the road crosses a little stream by the hamlet of Rushyford. This was a desolate spot in 1317, when on September 1 Lewis Beaumont, Bishop-elect of Durham, and the Cardinals Gaucelin John and Luke Fieschi, with a numerous train of attendants, travelled towards Durham, Beaumont to be consecrated in the cathedral, the Cardinals to negotiate a truce between England and Scotland. They had been warned at Darlington that the road was beset, and this warning, which they disregarded, proved only too true, for as they crossed the gloomy little burn at Rushyford, they were set upon by the notorious freebooter, Sir Gilbert Middleton, and his men. The Cardinals and their servants were stripped of their goods and allowed to continue their journey, but the borderers carried off the Bishop-elect to their fortress of Mitford Castle, and there held him to ransom, until the Prior and Convent of Durham by great sacrifices succeeded in redeeming him.

The next place of importance on the road is Ferryhill, a large modern village six and a half miles south of Durham. Few traces of the past survive here, except the fragment of an old stone cross, Cleve’s Cross, which is traditionally held to commemorate the slaying of a great wild boar, which ravaged Durham once upon a time, by a certain valiant Roger de Ferry, whose family long dwelt in the neighbourhood in great honour. About a mile to the south-east of Ferryhill is Mainsforth, the estate of Robert Surtees, the historian of Durham.

Midway between Ferryhill and Durham the highroad crosses the River Wear by Sunderland Bridge, and passes through the suburbs into the city of Durham.

A bird’s-eye view of the city of Durham even at the present day is surprisingly beautiful. In the Middle Ages it would have served as a model for one of those fascinating little Jerusalems or Bethlehems, walled, towered, and pinnacled, which the old Italian masters loved to perch on the craggy hills in the background of some sacred picture. The river sweeps round three sides of the crag, which is crowned by the cathedral and the castle, and the narrow neck of land on the fourth side was defended by a moat. The Prior’s borough of Elvet and the merchants’ quarter of Framwellgate lay on the opposite bank of the river, and were connected with the citadel itself by their bridges.

The monastic chroniclers of the see were chiefly interested in the doings of the Bishop in his castle and the Prior in his cathedral, and the occasional interventions of the Lord King in the quarrels of these august persons; they tell comparatively little of the life and affairs of the burgesses themselves, the descendants of the men from between Coquet and Tees, who obeyed the summons of Earl Ucthred in 995, and hastened to Durham to raise a shrine worthy of St. Cuthbert, who cleared the thick forest on the crag of Durham, divided the land by lot, and became the Haliwerfolc, the people of the Saint. Twice during the eleventh century they were besieged by the Scots, and each time the enemy was routed. The heads of the slaughtered Scots were exposed in the market-place, where the great fair of Durham was held on September 4, the Feast of the Translation of St. Cuthbert. There was also a fair on the saint’s other festival, March 20; but the September fair was the more important. The laws of the special peace of St. Cuthbert, which was proclaimed by the thanes and drengs before the fair opened, were written in an ancient Gospel-Book, and a copy of them is still preserved.

In the winter of 1068-69 Robert Cumin, the newly created Norman Earl of Northumberland, advanced to Durham with his troops, but as the Normans lay there they were surprised by a sudden rising of the whole population, and slain almost to a man. A year later news came that William himself was approaching Durham to avenge the death of Cumin, whereupon Bishop Egelwin and the priests took the sacred body of St. Cuthbert and such of the treasures of the church as they could carry and fled to Lindisfarne, followed by the people of the city, who dared not remain without the sacred relic. The whole multitude took refuge on the island while William devastated Durham and Northumberland. At length peace was made, and St. Cuthbert and his followers returned to the desolate city. In 1072 William visited Durham, and installed the foreigner, Bishop Walcher, in the see. About this time also the first Norman castle was built in the city to keep the people in check; but when Bishop Walcher ventured out of his stronghold in 1080 he was murdered. Again William ravaged Durham, and the see was filled by Bishop William de St. Carileph, who began to build the present cathedral, and who founded the Benedictine monastery connected with it. To the new monastery he gave forty merchants’ houses in Elvet, which formed the nucleus of the Prior’s borough of Elvet. The troubles of Durham recommenced in 1140, when, the see being vacant, Durham Castle was seized by William Cumin, a nominee of King David of Scotland, who hoped through Cumin to annex the Bishopric. In the course of the struggle between the usurper and the new Bishop, William de St. Barbara, the greater part of the city of Durham was reduced to ashes. There were four years of desperate warfare before Bishop William entered his cathedral town, and at last received the submission of Cumin. Even then there could be no true peace while England was torn with civil war, and it was not until after the death of Bishop William that a brighter day dawned with the election of Bishop Hugh Pudsey. Bishop Hugh rebuilt the ruined city, restored the fortifications, and added to the cathedral. He granted the burgesses a charter, by which the customs of Newcastle-on-Tyne were confirmed to them, besides freedom from merchet, heriot, and toll. The city of Durham stands first in Bishop Pudsey’s great survey of the Bishopric (Boldon Book, compiled in 1183), when the city was at farm for 60 marks. Records which relate to the actual life of the citizens do not begin until the fourteenth century. The earliest are various charters of murage, dated 1345, 1377, 1385, which authorized the citizens to levy certain tolls, and to devote the proceeds to the repair of the walls and streets. The city was governed

Bishop Pudsey’s Charter.

by a bailiff, appointed by the Bishop, in the same way as Darlington. It is not until the fifteenth century that gilds are heard of in Durham. In 1436 Bishop Langley granted a licence to several of the principal inhabitants to form the religious gild of Corpus Christi in the Church of St. Nicholas, in the market-place. This gild was closely connected with the craft gilds of the town, which must have been in existence at the beginning of the century. The first records of the gilds occur in 1447, when the Shoemakers (Cordwainers) and the Fullers each gave recognizances to the Bishop that they would forfeit 20s. to him and 20s. to the light of Corpus Christi if any member took a Scot as an apprentice. The ordinances of the Weavers were enrolled and confirmed by the Bishop in 1450, and in them reference is made to the play which was to be played when they went in procession on Corpus Christi Day. The gilds were not merely a picturesque feature of town life, they had also a powerful influence on the development of the city. The corporation granted by Bishop Pilkington’s charter of 1565—the first charter of incorporation which the city obtained—was probably modelled on the governing body of the Corpus Christi Gild. The governing charter of the city until 1770 was granted by Bishop Toby Matthew in 1602, and by this charter the Common Council of the town was to consist of twenty-four persons, two being chosen from each of the twelve principal companies by the mayor and aldermen. When the city of Durham obtained Parliamentary representation in 1678, the franchise of the borough could only be obtained by membership in one of the companies, and the procedure of admission was therefore carefully regulated by the mayor and corporation. But in 1761 Durham experienced two elections within a few months of each other, and the political excitement completely demoralized the city. All restraints were thrown to the winds, and numbers of new freemen were admitted in a most irregular manner. The reaction of this exciting time on municipal affairs was such that, in 1770, more than half the number of the twelve aldermen had resigned or been removed, and it was therefore impossible to elect a mayor under the charter of 1603, which consequently lapsed. The various feuds having been cooled by an interval of ten years, Bishop Egerton granted a new charter in 1780, with provisions closely resembling those of the old one, and under this charter Durham was governed until it was included in the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835.

The North Road, on leaving Durham, follows the course of one of the Roman roads which passed through the county. It leads northward over Framwellgate Moor, and six miles from Durham passes through Chester-le-Street, which lies on the banks of the Cone Burn. As the name indicates, a Roman camp was situated here, and numerous Roman remains have been found. The monks who had fled from Lindisfarne in 876 with the body of St. Cuthbert settled at Chester-le-Street after seven years’ wandering, when peace had been confirmed by the agreement between Alfred and Guthred the Dane. It was the principal city of the see until 995, when Bishop Aldhune fled once more before the renewed invasions of the Danes. In Chester-le-Street the old custom is still kept up of playing a football-match, in which the whole village takes part, on Shrove Tuesday.

The borough of Gateshead lies on the Tyne, eight miles north of Chester-le-Street. The south end of Tyne Bridge was the site of a Roman camp, and afterwards, in the seventh century, of a Saxon monastery, which was destroyed by the Danes. A little church which stood there in 1080 was the scene of the murder of Bishop Walcher, who was killed by the infuriated populace while he was trying to pacify a feud between his Norman followers and the Saxon nobles. The church was set on fire, and the Bishop was killed as he rushed from the burning building. The traces of early Norman work in the present building show that it must have soon been rebuilt. The new church is first mentioned in 1256, when a prisoner who had escaped from the castle of Newcastle took refuge in Gateshead Church. Gateshead’s only charter was granted by Bishop Hugh Pudsey at some time between 1154 and 1183, and confirmed by his successor, Bishop Philip of Poitou. The little borough lay on the outskirts of the Bishop’s forest of Gateshead, and the charter freed the burgesses to some extent from the tyranny of that very great man, the Bishop’s Head Forester. In its form of government the borough was similar to Darlington. Gateshead has always been one of the principal commercial centres of the county, and, though there are no signs of craft gilds there, trade companies second in importance only to those of Durham existed from the reign of Elizabeth till the end of the eighteenth century. The prosperity of Gateshead very early excited the alarm of Newcastle, and the history of the town is studded with the attempts of its jealous neighbour to suppress its trade. In the fourteenth century the efforts of the Newcastle Corporation were directed against the fisheries and staithes on the south bank of the Tyne, which were frequently destroyed by "the malice of the men of Newcastle." In 1553 the two towns were united, but the Act was repealed by Queen Mary, who came to the throne in the same year. It was proposed to renew the union in 1568, but the anxious petitions of Gateshead, and the opposition of several influential persons in the Palatinate, frustrated the scheme. There are, however, several cases in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries of the interference of Newcastle with the trade of Gateshead. These troubles were the price that Gateshead had to pay for its advantageous position by the side of the greater town. Gateshead was given one representative in the House of Commons by the Reform Act of 1832, and was incorporated by its inclusion in the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835.

The boundary of Durham is now the south bank of the Tyne, but formerly the Bishop’s jurisdiction extended over one-third of the river, and was marked by a blue stone on Tyne Bridge. The old bridge, which stood where the Swing Bridge is now, was built in 1248 to replace the Roman bridge, Pons Ælii, which dated from circa 119. In 1389 the burgesses of Newcastle carried off the Blue Stone, seized the whole of the bridge, and built a tower on the south end, which they held against the Bishop. It was not until 1415 that Bishop Langley at length obtained judgment against the Corporation of Newcastle, and took possession of the tower with all his chivalry. The tower stood until the great flood of 1771, when part of the bridge was swept away. After this catastrophe the whole was rebuilt, the new bridge being completed in 1781. The High-Level Bridge was built in 1849, and the present Swing Bridge replaced the old stone one in 1876. Meanwhile, the conservation of the River Tyne had been placed in the hands of commissioners, and the jurisdiction of the Bishop over the river came to an end.

Durham to South Shields.

The city of Durham, lying almost in the centre of the county, is an excellent point of departure from which to visit the other towns and places of interest in the Bishopric. The road which leads from the city to the mouth of the Tyne runs north-east from Framwellgate Bridge. The principal village through which it passes is Houghton-le-Spring, six and a half miles from Durham. The place is closely associated with the name of Bernard Gilpin, the Apostle of the North, who in the reigns of Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth, was Rector of Houghton-le-Spring, and the chief instrument in spreading Protestant doctrines through the North. From here it is seven miles to the mouth of the Wear, where stands the flourishing port of Sunderland. In early records the town

Jack Crawford’s Birth-place, Sunderland.

is usually called Wearmouth. It possesses two very interesting charters, dated respectively 1180-83 and 1634; nevertheless, it did not rise above the level of a manorial borough until 1835, when it was included in the Municipal Corporations Act. During the Civil War Sunderland was the principal centre of the Parliamentarians in Durham, which was on the whole a Royalist county. The fact that Sunderland was an exception was due to the influence of the family of Lilburne in the town, George Lilburne, the uncle of the famous John Lilburne, being the only magistrate in the borough during the war. At the same time the siege of Newcastle diverted the coal trade to Sunderland, and thus laid the foundation of its present prosperity. The town is famous in naval and military history as the birthplace of two heroes—Jack Crawford, who "nailed the colours to the mast" at the Battle of Camperdown, 1797, and Sir Henry Havelock, who relieved Lucknow in 1857. The Sunderland Orphan Asylum was founded in 1853 by the Freemen and Stallingers of Sunderland, and endowed with the proceeds of the sale of the Town Moor, which had become exceedingly valuable in consequence of the building of the railway. The road crosses the Wear, and enters the parish of Monkwearmouth.

The history of Monkwearmouth goes back to 674, when Benedict Biscop founded there the monastery of St. Peter. The early history of the monastery was recorded by the Venerable Bede, who relates how Benedict brought over foreign masons and glass-workers to build his church, and beautified it with sacred pictures brought from Rome. It was destroyed by the Danes towards the end of the ninth century, refounded by Bishop Walcher, circa 1075, and finally annexed to the Convent of Durham by Bishop William de St. Carileph in 1083. A cell of the convent was maintained there until the Reformation, and Monkwearmouth continued to be a manor belonging to the Dean and Chapter of Durham until it was incorporated with Sunderland.

From Monkwearmouth the road runs parallel with the coast-line to South Shields. Shield Lawe, at the mouth of the Tyne, was occupied in pre-Roman times; an important Roman camp was built there; and later it was one of the fortresses of the Saxon Kings of Northumbria, and the site of St. Hilda’s first religious house, founded circa 650. The little convent was overshadowed by Benedict Biscop’s great monastery of St. Paul at Jarrow, and both fell before the onslaughts of the Danes. Jarrow subsequently became a cell of the Convent of Durham, and the Chapel of St. Hilda at South Shields kept alive the name of the foundress. After centuries of struggle with the burgesses of Newcastle, who put down the trade of South Shields with a high hand, the borough obtained Parliamentary representation in 1832, and incorporation in 1850. In the seventeenth century the salt-pans of South Shields were a flourishing industry, but its chief importance is now its harbour. The first lifeboat was built and used there in 1790.

Durham to Hartlepool.

The twenty miles of road between Durham and Hartlepool is of an uninteresting character; but the town of Hartlepool itself has a long history, which begins in 640, when St. Hieu founded a convent there, of which St. Hilda was afterwards abbess. The house was destroyed by the Danes, and Hartlepool disappears from history, to reappear at the end of the twelfth century as a flourishing port belonging to Robert de Bruce, Lord of Annandale. Hitherto it had not been included in the Bishopric of Durham, but in 1189 the overlordship of the whole district of Hartness was bought by Bishop Hugh Pudsey from Richard I. The succeeding Bishop, Philip de Poitou, obtained possession of the town, but not until the burgesses had bought a charter from King John in 1200, granting to them the customs of Newcastle-on-Tyne, while the same King granted to William de Bruce, Lord of Hartlepool, the right to hold a weekly market and a fair at the Feast of St. Lawrence (August 10). The burgesses obtained another charter from Bishop Richard le Poore in 1230, in which he conceded to them the right to form a Merchant Gild and to elect a mayor. From this time the burgesses of Hartlepool were able to manage their own affairs in their own way, and enjoyed more independence than there was in any of the other towns of Durham. Their chief misfortunes befell them after Robert de Bruce became King of Scotland in 1305. Hartlepool escheated to the King of England, and in consequence the Scots felt a special enmity against it. The town was attacked more than once in the ensuing wars, but the walls and ramparts, which had been built by Robert de Bruce (1245-95) made it one of the strongest places in the Bishopric. At the beginning of the nineteenth century these fortifications were still among the finest specimens of Edwardian architecture in the kingdom, but when the trade of the town revived later in the century, the ancient walls were pulled down to make way for the new pier and docks, and hardly any trace of them now remains. In 1599, by the good offices of Lord Lumley, the burgesses of Hartlepool obtained from Queen Elizabeth a charter of incorporation, under which the town was governed until 1834, when the conditions of the charter were not fulfilled, and it lapsed. The present governing charter of the town was obtained in 1850. The borough of West Hartlepool has grown up in the nineteenth century on the south side of the bay on which Hartlepool stands.

Durham to Stockton.

The Durham and Stockton road passes through Bishop Middleham, where one of the Bishop’s manor-houses used to stand, and through Sedgefield, about eleven miles from Durham, a market-town which received the grant of a weekly market and fair at the Feast of St. Edmund the Bishop (November 16) from Bishop Kellaw in 1312.

The borough of Stockton lies on the north bank of the Tees, twenty miles south of Durham. It is situated in the district which in early times formed the wapentake of Sadberg, and comprised all the lands lying along the north bank of the river. The wapentake, which was purchased by Bishop Pudsey in 1189, at the same time as Hartlepool, had a separate organization from the rest of the Bishopric, and its courts were held at Sadberg, which is now a small village about three miles east of Darlington. Stockton itself, however, seems to have come into the Bishop’s hands before the purchase of the wapentake, as it is included in the Boldon Book, 1183. The date of the incorporation of the borough is unknown, but there are grants by several of the Bishops, dated 1310, 1602, and 1666, of a weekly market and a fair at the Feast of St. Thomas à Becket (December 29). There is also an interesting letter relating to the customs practised both at Newcastle and at Stockton, which was sent by the Mayor of Newcastle

The Palace, Bishop Auckland.

to the Mayor of Stockton in 1344 in reply to certain questions which the people of Stockton had addressed to Newcastle as their mother town. The municipal government of the borough was in the hands of the mayor and the borough-holders, seventy-two in number, until Stockton was included in the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835.

Durham to Barnard Castle.

The road to Barnard Castle branches off from the North Road about a mile south of Sunderland Bridge, and travels south-west into Aucklandshire. This district included Binchester, Escomb, Newton, and all the Aucklands, Bishop Auckland, St. Andrew’s Auckland, St. Helen’s Auckland, and South Auckland. Aucklandshire lay on the borders of the Bishop’s great forest of Weardale, and the services of the tenants, as described in Boldon Book, were closely connected with the Bishop’s great hunting-parties in the forest. All the tenants had to provide ropes for snaring the deer, and to help to build the Bishop’s hall in the forest, with a larder, a buttery, a chamber, a chapel, and a fence round the whole encampment, when the Bishop went on the great hunt. They also kept eyries of falcons for the Bishop, and attended the roe-hunt when summoned. In return for their services at the great hunt they received a tun of beer, or half a tun if the Bishop did not come, and 2s. "as a favour." The little town of Bishop Auckland was called a borough in the fourteenth century, when the weekly markets and the fairs held on Ascension Day, Corpus Christi Day, and the Thursday before October 10, formed the chief commercial centre of the neighbourhood, but it has never been incorporated, and is now an urban district.

To the south of Aucklandshire lies the barony of Evenwood, about a quarter of a mile west of the road. This was one of the early baronies of the Bishopric, held by the family of Hansard. Evenwood was bought by Bishop Bek in 1294, and his successors maintained a manor-house and park there. After passing by Evenwood, the road leads through Raby Park to Staindrop.

Staindrop was one of the vills over which the Bishop and the Convent of Durham disputed at the beginning of the twelfth century. Bishop Ralph Flambard restored it to the monks by the charter of restitution which he executed on his death-bed; and they kept it out of the clutches of succeeding Bishops by granting it in 1131 at an annual rental of £4 to Dolphin, son of Ughtred, one of the progenitors of the family of Neville. Henceforward, Staindrop remained part of the Neville estates in the Bishopric. In 1378 Bishop Hatfield granted to John Lord Neville the right to hold a weekly market and a fair there at the Feast of St. Thomas the Martyr (December 21). The whole of the Neville estates were confiscated in 1570, after the rebellion of the Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland in 1569, and Staindrop remained in the hands of the King until 1632, when it was purchased by Sir Henry Vane, from whom the present owner, Lord Barnard, is descended.

Barnard Castle is twenty-five miles from Durham, and lies on the north bank of the Tees. It did not form part of the Bishopric at the time of the Conquest, and was granted by William Rufus to Guy Balliol in 1093. Barnard Balliol, his son, built the castle circa 1132, and apparently founded the borough, for the first extant charter, granted by his son Barnard to the burgesses of Barnard Castle circa 1167, refers to the elder Barnard’s concessions to them. By this charter the burgesses were granted the customs of Richmond (Yorks). Barnard Castle was a manorial borough, and is now an urban district. The burgesses obtained charters from Hugh (1212-28), John (circa 1230), and Alexander, third son of John. All the Balliol estates in England were forfeited by John Balliol, sometime King of Scotland, in 1295. Barnard Castle was claimed by Bishop Bek, but Edward I. granted it to Guy

Barnard Castle.

Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. The Bishops of Durham made frequent efforts to obtain possession of the town, and although they were unsuccessful, they obtained Parliamentary recognition of the fact that Barnard Castle was part of the Bishopric. Richard III., by his marriage with Lady Anne of Warwick, became lord of the town, which Lady Anne inherited from her father, the King-maker. Barnard Castle escheated to the crown in 1485, and was finally granted to the Earl of Westmorland. In 1569, on receiving the news that the northern Earls had risen against the Queen, Sir George Bowes of Streatlam seized and garrisoned the castle, where he was besieged by the rebels; and although he was forced to surrender after a ten days’ siege, the delay had given the royal troops time to come up, and insured the defeat of the insurgents. After the rebellion Barnard Castle escheated to the crown again, and was leased to the valiant Bowes. It was finally purchased by Sir Henry Vane in 1632 (see above).

Durham to Alston.

The road from Durham to Alston, in Cumberland, passes by the field of the Battle of Neville’s Cross, fought on St. Luke’s Eve, October 17, 1346, in which David of Scotland, who had invaded England while Edward III. and all his forces were in France, was defeated by the troops which he contemptuously called "an army of women and priests," because they were raised by Queen Philippa, and the four divisions were commanded by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the Bishops of Lincoln and Durham. The cross which Ralph, Lord Neville, erected on the battle-field was destroyed in 1589.

The next place of interest on the road is Brancepeth, which lies four and a half miles south-west of Durham. The family of Bulmer of Brancepeth held one of the early baronies of the Bishopric (see under Evenwood); the estate finally descended to an heiress, the first of the many noble ladies whose stories lend interest to the place. She married Geoffry de Neville, circa 1150. Sixty years after, in 1227, there was again a sole heiress to Brancepeth; she married Robert FitzMeldred, Lord of Raby, and her son assumed his mother’s name, becoming the first Neville of Raby and Brancepeth. When the Neville estates were forfeited in 1570, the Countess of Westmorland was allowed to remain at the castle, and there, though beset by spies, she contrived her husband’s escape to Flanders. The surveys of the estate that were made in 1597 and 1614 mention that wild cattle were preserved in Brancepeth Park, as they still are at Chillingham. The escheated lands passed from one owner to another. In 1769 they were again inherited by an heiress, Bridgit, the only daughter of William Bellasis. She died five years after coming into her inheritance. The story goes that she pined away for love of a neighbouring squire, Robert Shafto, who had wooed and forsaken her; and the old Bishopric song of "Bobby Shafto" is said to be the record of the brief happiness of the lovelorn lady.

The market-town of Wolsingham lies sixteen miles west of Durham. It was one of the Bishop’s forest vills, lying on the moors of Weardale; and in the entry about it in Boldon Book mention is made of Ralf the Beekeeper, who held six acres for his service in keeping the bees, which were sent out on to the blossoming heather in the twelfth century, as they are to this day. Wolsingham lies on the north bank of the Wear, and, after passing through the village, the road follows the course of the river westward to Stanhope, which lies in the lead-mining district of West Durham. Half-way between Wolsingham and Stanhope lies Frosterley, where are the quarries of Frosterley marble.

Stanhope itself lay in the heart of the forest of Weardale, and was the spot to which all those who owed hunting-service must make their way when the Bishop’s great hunt was proclaimed. In 1327 the English and

Brancepeth Castle in 1777.

Scottish armies, commanded on the one side by Edward III., and on the other by the Earl of Murray and Sir James Douglas, lay encamped for some days over against each other on the hills round Stanhope. No battle was fought, and the Scots withdrew by night, having deceived Edward by false intelligence. The remains of the earthworks in which the two armies entrenched themselves may still be seen.

St. John’s Chapel, seven miles west of Stanhope, is the last considerable village on the road to Alston before it crosses the boundary of Durham. The chapel is mentioned in the fifteenth century, and a market and annual fair were held there, but there were few inhabitants until the end of the eighteenth century. From St. John’s Chapel the road leads up over the moors, past the sources of the Wear, and crosses the county boundary on Killhope Moor.

FOLK-LORE OF THE COUNTY OF DURHAM
By Mrs. Newton W. Apperley

WHOEVER makes a study of the folk-lore of a county will find that its customs, beliefs, and superstitions, have their origin in immemorial antiquity. To find out the reason for many a curious and apparently frivolous observance it is necessary to go back many centuries, to the time when a nature-worship, already immeasurably old, was practised; when the sun and moon, fire, water, and earth, were personified by gods and goddesses. Festivals were held in honour of each, and stones and trees, wells and rivers, had their temples and devotees. These were overlaid by and mingled with the successive rituals of Roman, Saxon, and Dane, and finally were almost, but not quite, conquered by Christianity. The older faiths made a stubborn resistance to the reformer, and though adapted and altered, many of their usages survive to this day.

The four great Fire Festivals of Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter were Christianized and dedicated anew; some of the gods and goddesses were re-named as saints; and many of the rites belonging to their worship were modified into Christian observances.

But the people kept their old superstitions, and placed their faith in the charms and amulets belonging to the ancient worship. In the North especially the old beliefs lingered long, and even now, in the twentieth century, many quaint customs are to be found. Most of the people who practise them could give no reason for so doing, and have certainly no knowledge of their origin. It is "lucky" to do this, and "unlucky" to do that, is all they can say.

The county of Durham, though the especial patrimony and property of St. Cuthbert, is particularly rich in legends and traditions, in places both haunted and hallowed, and in old-world observances of all kinds. Many are the stories of giants, brownies, fairies, ghosts, witches, and "worms" or dragons, told of and in it.

The Gabriel Hounds—those monstrous human-headed dogs, whose pause over a house is said to bring death or misfortune to its inmates—are still heard traversing the air, though they are seldom seen.

Tales of the Hand of Glory—that unhallowed taper made of the hand of a hanged man, holding a candle made of the fat of a murderer, whose light would send all the inhabitants of a house to sleep, and enable a burglar to make his easy way throughout it—are still told.

And the Fairy Hills near Castleton, Hetton-le-Hole, Middridge, and other places where fairies used to dance their nightly rounds, are still pointed out. Cattle were often shot by their tiny arrows, and children frequently wore necklaces of coral or of peony seeds, as otherwise they might have been stolen and taken away to Fairyland.

Mr. Henderson, in his Folk-lore of the Northern Counties, is convinced that there is firm faith in ghosts and their power of revisiting the earth throughout the whole county of Durham.

Witchcraft is to some extent believed in. It is not long since an old woman reputed to be a witch died at Aycliffe, and charms against their power have been, and are still, practised; indeed, they are still "crossed-out" by those who make the sign of the cross on loaves before they are put in the oven, and by the butchers who make, or used to make, a cross on the shoulder before selling it. A crooked sixpence, a piece of rowan-wood, or a four-leaved clover worn in the pocket, will keep them away. A self-bored stone or a horseshoe hung over the bed or in the byre will prevent their evil influence from harming either person or property; and should you be so unfortunate as to meet a reputed witch, it is well to close your fingers round your thumb, and repeat the rhyme:

"Witchy, witchy, I defy thee,
Let me go quietly by thee!"

And there were wise men, and especially wise women, who knew many spells of might to be used against them and against fairies.

It is clear that a child born into this haunted country, and surrounded from his birth by signs, portents, and auguries, must carry through his life a belief in the superstitions of his forefathers.

The day of birth is most important, for it always influences the character and fortunes of the child.

"Monday’s child is fair of face,
Tuesday’s child is full of grace,
Wednesday’s child is full of woe,
Thursday’s child has far to go,
Friday’s child is loving and giving,
Saturday’s child works hard for its living;
But the child that’s born on Sabbath-day
Is wise and bonny and good and gay."

Children born during the hour after midnight see spirits, and this uncanny gift continues through life. If born with a caul, the child will always be lucky. Children born in May are said to be seldom healthy.

A cake and cheese should always be provided before the birth of an infant. These are cut by the doctor, and all present partake of them, on pain of the poor child growing up ugly. The nurse keeps some of this cake and cheese, and when she takes the child to be christened she gives them to the first person whom she meets of opposite sex to that of the child. If boys and girls are being christened at the same time, the boys must be christened first, as otherwise the girls would have beards, the boys none!

Baptism is thought to be good for a child, and it is often said that children never thrive till they are christened. It is well if they cry during the ceremony, for it means that "the devil is going out of them." There is some warrant for this belief, for until the time of Edward VI. a form of exorcism, in order to expel the evil spirit from the child, was still used in the Baptismal Service.

A child who does not cry at baptism will not live.

It is unlucky to call a child by its future name until it has actually received it, and most especially should one avoid naming it after a dead brother or sister. The child will probably die also, or, if it lives, will never prosper.

Some nurses will never put a child’s dress over its head until it is christened, but always draw it up over the feet. I never could hear why. And the inside of the hands should not be washed during this time. Some go so far as to say that the right hand should not be washed for a year, so as not to "wash the luck away."

But before taking a child out of its mother’s room the careful nurse will see that it does not go downstairs first, as that would mean a descent in life for it. If it is impossible for it to go upstairs, she must take it in her arms, and mount a chair or stool with it, thereby assuring it of a rise in life.

The mother should go nowhere till she has been churched, as she would carry ill-luck to the house she entered.

The baby should receive three, sometimes four, presents when it first visits another house. These are its "almison," and consist of an egg, bread, salt, and sometimes a piece of money. The bread and salt are things used in sacrifices; the egg has always been a sacred emblem; the money is for luck, and should be carefully kept.

Never rock a cradle when empty, or you may rock another baby into it. And this is very likely to be the case if the reigning baby cuts its teeth very early, for, as the proverb says, "Soon teeth, soon toes" (another set of them). If it tooths first in the upper jaw, that means death in infancy. Later, on losing a tooth, the cavity should be filled with salt, and the tooth thrown into the fire with the words:

"Fire, fire, burn bane,
God send me my tooth again!"

It is an ancient custom, when a family is sold up, to except the cradle, and leave it in the possession of its original owner.

The nails should not be cut for a year, or the child will become a thief. Bite them off, and all will be well.

When the child grows older, the nails should never be cut on Friday or Sunday. These are unlucky days, but, as the rhyme tells us, other days do very well:

"Cut them on Monday, cut them for health;
Cut them on Tuesday, cut them for wealth;
Cut them on Wednesday, cut them for news;
Cut them on Thursday, a pair of new shoes;
Cut them on Friday, cut them for sorrow;
Cut them on Saturday, a present to-morrow;
But he who on Sunday cuts his horn,
Better that he had ne’er been born!"

Still later in life, another verse says:

"Sunday shaven, Sunday shorn,
Better hadst thou ne’er been born!"

The hair should always be cut when the moon is waxing, and all clippings and combings should be burnt, or "the birds will take it for their nests." Probably the original idea, like that attached to the clippings of the nails, was that they should be destroyed, lest some enemy should use them to work an evil spell against the owner.

If the hair burn brightly when thrown into the fire, it means long life to the owner; if it smoulder, it is a sign of death.

If you swallow a hair, it will wrap itself round your heart and kill you. Howitt tells this seriously as having caused the death of Herbert Southey.

The mother should be careful to see that no child is allowed to jump over the head of another, as in that case the overleapt infant would never grow. The Kafirs have the same idea, and some tribes will not play leap-frog for that reason.

When a seventh son is born, it is still said that he ought to be a doctor. He was anciently supposed to be able to cure the "king’s evil" by touching; and the seventh son of a seventh son had still higher and more Divine attributes. If a seventh daughter appeared without any boy intervening, she was to be a witch.

When the boy is old enough to put his instilled and inherited beliefs into practice, he may charm the butterfly to alight on his hand by saying (it must be said often enough!):

"Le, la let, ma bonnie pet!"

If he wishes for fine weather, he may sing:

"Rain, rain, go to Spain!
Fair weather come again!"

The snail will look out from its shell if he says:

"Snail, snail, come out of your hole,
Or else I’ll beat you as black as a coal!"

And when stung by a nettle, dock-leaves are laid on the stung place, and this rhyme chanted:

"Nettle in, dock out;
Dock in, nettle out;
Nettle in, dock out;
Dock rub nettle out!"

If he puts a horse-hair into water, it will turn into an eel.

Durham schoolboys used, when they saw a rainbow, to make a cross of straws or twigs upon the ground, in order to send it away, or, as they said, to "cross out the rainbow."

Borrow tells of "the gipsy mystery of the trus’hul, how by making a cross of two sticks the expert in occultism could wipe the rainbow out of the heavens"; and the charm might have its roots still farther back in the cross of Thor, anciently used to dispel rain and thunderstorms.

In Confirmation, those who are touched by the Bishop’s left hand will never marry.

When the time for marriage comes, it is important to choose a lucky day and season. The days of the week are thus fated:

"Monday for wealth, Tuesday for health,
Wednesday the best day of all;
Thursday for losses, Friday for crosses,
And Saturday no luck at all."

It is well to avoid marriage in Lent, for

"If you marry in Lent,
You’ll live to repent."

And May is an unlucky month for weddings, as for births. But the time being happily settled, the bride must not hear the banns given out, or her children will be deaf and dumb, and neither she nor any of the guests must wear anything green. She should wear

"Something old, something new,
Something borrowed, and something blue."

The day of the marriage should be fine, "for happy is the bride whom the sun shines on." The bridal party is escorted to church by men armed with guns, which they continually fire. After the ceremony it is the clergyman’s privilege to kiss the bride; and outside the church people are probably waiting with "hot-pots," of which the whole party must taste.

At St. Helen’s Auckland, and other villages, the "race for the bride-door" for a ribbon or kerchief is still customary.

And it was formerly the custom to address complimentary verses to the bridal couple before they left the church. This was called "saying the Nominy." The verses differed, were of no great poetical merit, and always ended with, "Pray remember the Nominy sayer."

The word is evidently derived from nomen, the bride having received a new name.

The loss of the wedding-ring means the loss of the husband’s love, and its breaking forbodes death.

Of portents of death there are many. The howling of dogs; the flight of jackdaws or swallows down the chimney; "a winding-sheet" in the candle; the crowing of a cock at the dead of night; the hovering of birds round the house, or their resting on the window-sill, or flapping against the pane; and three raps given by an invisible hand, are all auguries of death.

If thirteen persons sit down to a meal together, one of them will die before the year is out.

The custom of keeping the Vigil of St. Mark is not unknown. They who wish to know who of their fellow-parishioners will die during the coming year must keep watch in the church porch from eleven to one, on St. Mark’s Eve, for three successive years; then the doomed company will pass into the church. But if the watcher fall asleep during his vigil, he will himself die during the year.

At the time of death the door should be left open to afford free passage to the departing spirit. It is held that no one can die on a bed or pillow containing the feathers of pigeons or of game of any kind; and all along the East Coast it is said that people usually die during the falling of the tide.

When the corpse is "laid out," the death-chamber is shrouded in white, the clock is stopped, and the looking-glass covered, to show that for the dead time is no more and earthly vanity departed. There is also the dread that if the mirror were left uncovered the ghost of the dead man might be reflected in it.

A plate of salt is also placed upon the breast as an emblem of eternity.

Those who come to see the corpse are expected to touch it, in token that they are in peace with the dead. It is often said that if you do not touch it you will dream of it. The coffin must be carried to the church by the old-established "church-road," and the notion still prevails that the way over which a body is carried to its burial thereby becomes a highroad. Therefore in the case of private roads or bridges (the Prebend’s Bridge at Durham, certainly) a small toll is levied when a funeral procession passes over it. The coffin-bearers are usually chosen so as to correspond with the deceased in sex, age, and position. In the case of children and young girls, white scarves and gloves are worn; and if the dead person were a young unmarried woman, a "maiden garland" used to be laid on the coffin, and hung up in the church after the funeral. There are, or were, some of these garlands hanging in the church of Witton-Gilbert, near Durham. These have a glove, cut out of white paper, in the midst.

When arrived at the churchyard, the dead must be carried to the grave the way of the sun (east, by south, west, and north, for "ye wad no hae them carry the dead again the sun; the dead maun aye go wi’ the sun." This is an old British usage, and in the Highlands is called "making the deisul." It is practised to bring good luck; to go round in the opposite direction (or "withershins") is an evil incantation, and brings ill-fortune.

It should rain a little during the procession, for "happy is the corpse that the rain rains on!"

It used to be customary for anyone meeting a funeral to stop for a moment and take his hat off. This is still occasionally done.

The survivors should not grieve too much for the dead, as this hinders their repose.

When the head of a house dies, the bees should be told of their master’s death, and asked to accept the new one, or they will all die.

It is said that if a loaf of bread weighted with quicksilver be allowed to float in the water, it will swim towards, and stand over the place where the body of a drowned person lies.

There is a remedy for most diseases in the shape of a spell or charm.

Whooping-cough may be cured by passing the child under an ass; or by taking some milk, giving half to a white ferret, letting the child drink the rest. In Sunderland, the crown of the head is shaved and the hair hung upon a bush, so that the birds, carrying it to their nests, may take the cough with it.

For epilepsy, a half-crown may be offered at Communion and then asked for again, and made into a ring to be worn by the person affected.

For cramp, garter the left leg below the knee, or tie an eel’s skin round it.

A more unpleasant remedy is that for a wen, for the touch of a corpse’s hand will cure it. "Andrew Mills’s stob" (gibbet) was once thought sovereign against toothache.

Warts can be charmed away by taking a piece of raw meat (it ought to be stolen), rubbing the warts with it, and throwing it away. As the meat decays the warts will vanish.

If anyone is bitten by a dog, the animal should be destroyed, for, should it go mad at any time, the person bitten would be attacked by hydrophobia.

St. Agnes’s Fast (January 21) is thus practised: Two girls, each wishing to see their future husbands, must fast and be dumb through the whole of St. Agnes’s Eve. At night, in the same silence, they must make "the dumb cake," aided by their friends, then divide it in two parts, one of which each girl takes, walks backwards upstairs, cuts the cake, and retires to bed. Then dreams of the future husband should follow.

And girls will stick a candle-end full of pins to bring their lovers to them. Or, taking an apple-pip, and naming the lover, will put it in the fire. If it burst with a noise he loves, but if it burns silently his love is nought.

If a girl wishes to meet her future husband, she must carry an ash-leaf having an even tip, and say—

"The even ash-leaf in my hand,
The first I meet shall be my man."

If it is found difficult to rear calves, the leg of one of the dead animals should be hung in the chimney. In Yorkshire, the dead calf is buried under the threshold of the byre, either practice being (unconsciously) a sacrifice to Odin.

"To work as though one was working for need-fire," is a common proverb in the North, and refers to the practice of producing fire by the friction of two pieces of wood. This was done when the murrain prevailed among cattle, and the diseased animals were made to pass through the smoke raised by this holy fire. This was considered a certain cure. When cattle have foul in the feet, the turf on which the beast treads with the affected foot is taken up and hung in the open air. As it crumbles away, so will the diseased foot recover.

And the water in which Irish and other stones have been steeped has been used in the Bishopric as a cure for disease for cattle.

If you seize the opportunities, which are many, you may have what you please by wishing for it. But the condition is in every case the same: the nature of the wish must be kept secret. You may journey to Jarrow, and sitting in Bede’s chair, make your wish; or, nearer at hand, there is a stone seat at Finchale Priory credited with the same power. If you see a horseshoe or a nail, pick it up, throw it over your left shoulder and wish; and wish also if you see a piebald horse, but you must manage to do so before you see its tail.

You may wish, too, when you first hear the cuckoo, and when you see the new moon.

Much reverence has in all ages been paid to wells. The Worm Well at Lambton was once in high repute as a wishing-well, and a crooked pin (the usual tribute of the "wishers") may be sometimes still discovered sparkling among the clear gravel of the bottom of the basin.

As late as 1740 children troubled with any infirmity were brought to the Venerable Bede’s Well, at Monkton, near Jarrow. A crooked pin was put in, and the well laved dry between each dipping.

Pins may sometimes be seen in Lady Byron’s Well at Seaham. There was a custom (which cannot now be practised, as the monument is railed in) of walking nine times round Neville’s Cross. "Then if you stoop down, and lay your head to the turf, you’ll hear the noise of the battle and the clash of the armour."

The weather-wise will tell you that if the leaves remain long upon the trees in autumn it is going to be a hard winter, and will bid you notice how the wind blows on New Year’s Eve:

"If on New Year’s Eve the night wind blow south,
It betokeneth warmth and growth;
If west, much milk and fish in the sea;
If north, much cold and storms there will be;
If east, the trees will bear much fruit;
If north-east, flee it, man and brute."

Candlemas Day (February 2) should also be observed:

"If Candlemas Day be fair and bright,
Winter will have another flight;
If Candlemas Day be clouds and rain,
Winter is gone, and will not come again."

Some pretend to prophesy the coming weather from that of the last three days of March. These are called the "borrowing days."

"March borrowed from April
Three days and they war ill;
The first o’ them war wind and weet,
The next o’ them war snaw and sleet,
The last o’ them war wind and rain,
Which gar’d the silly puir ewes come hirpling hame."

Of Michaelmas Day it is said: "So many days old the moon is on Michaelmas Day, so many floods after."

If it rains on Friday it is sure to rain on Sunday—“wet Friday, wet Sunday."

Watch the cat as she washes her face, and if she passes her paw over her ear it will rain to-morrow.

The oak and ash-trees are considered to prophesy the weather:

"If the oak bud before the ash,
We shall be sure to have a splash;
But if the ash bud before the oak,
We shall have weather as hard as a rock."

If you will begin the year auspiciously, be careful that your first foot "is a fair man." Men still go about to "bring the New Year in," and their guerdon is usually a glass of whisky. On no account should a woman be the first foot, for she would bring misfortune. But before this the New Year has been ushered in by the ringing of church bells, and sounding of buzzers from all the collieries.

Nothing should be allowed to go out of the house on this day, for that would mean a year of poverty, but as much as possible should be brought in, as that will insure a year of plenty; and for the same reason a new dress should be worn with money in its pocket.

Be careful to avoid seeing the first moon of the year through glass; courtesy to her, and wish.

The day before Shrove Tuesday is known as Collop Monday, and on it eggs and bacon should be eaten.

Pancakes, of course, are appropriate to Shrove Tuesday; in fact, it is better known in the North as Pancake Tuesday. Durham children still believe that on this day pancakes fall out of the mouth of the great medieval knocker fixed on the north door of the cathedral, and are sometimes seen bringing plates or baskets to receive the dole, and sugar with which to eat it.

The Pancake Bell still rings from the cathedral to call the faithful to confession, though neither confessional nor pancakes are existent.

Football usually begins now and continues till Easter.

Carlings, or grey peas soaked in water and fried in butter, are eaten on Carling Sunday.

"He who hath not a palm in his hand on Palm Sunday must have his hand cut off," so "palm crosses" were always made for Palm Sunday of willow catkins, tied up with ribbon, and kept till next year.

On Good Friday "hot cross buns," a sort of teacake made with spice and sugar, and marked with a cross, are always made; and fig pudding, or "fig sue," is eaten, in memory of the fig-tree cursed by our Lord when He rode to Jerusalem.

No blacksmith in the county of Durham would at one time drive a nail on this day, in memory of our Lord’s crucifixion.

Good Friday and Easter Sunday were both thought lucky days on which to cast the coats and caps of young children, or to short-coat them.

You must put on something new on Easter Sunday, or the birds will spoil your clothes.

Paste-eggs boiled hard and dyed with ribbons or wool, whinblossoms or onion peelings, are rolled on the grass, or "jauped" against each other till broken, and tansy puddings should be eaten.

Balls are often given to children and played with by them, this being a relic of the custom of playing at "handball" at Easter.

On Easter Sunday the boys may pull off the girls’ shoes; but on Easter Monday the girls may retaliate by pulling off the caps of the boys.

"All Fools’ Day" is still kept to some extent, chiefly by schoolboys, who send their victims to the chemist for oil of hazel, or "strap oil," which they receive in a dry form from the irate shop-keeper!

They also wear oak-leaves on Royal Oak Day; and the choristers of Durham Cathedral go to the top of the central tower and sing anthems. This, though now done in honour of the Restoration, was originally in thanksgiving for the victory of Neville’s Cross, and used to take place in October.

And it is schoolboys, too, who keep Guy Fawkes’ Day in remembrance, for the noise of crackers and fireworks and the excitement of a bonfire do very much appeal to them. Guys are now seldom carried about, but are sometimes burnt.

The "mell-supper" in the county of Durham (from the Norse melr, corn) is akin to the Northumbrian "kirn-feast," and is held when the last sheaf is brought in. When this is done, the farmer’s headman proceeds to "shout the mell":

"Blest be the day that Christ was born.
We’ve getten mell o’ Mr. ——’s corn.
Weel won and better shorn.
Hip, hip, hip, huzza, huzza!"

This last sheaf used to be dressed in finery and crowned with wheatears, hoisted on a pole, and all the harvesters danced round this "kern-baby," or harvest-queen, who afterward presided over the supper. Mummers, or "guisers," used to attend the feast, but all these usages are dying out, and the master often gives the harvesters money or ale instead of the supper. This is the old autumn feast of the ingathering of the corn, and in Brito-Roman times the image was that of the goddess Ceridwen, answering to Ceres. Later, it stood for the Virgin Mary.

You must not gather brambles after October, or the devil will come after you! He is evidently about at this time, for when the brambles are spoilt at the end of the season, it is said that "the devil has set his foot on the bummelkites," this being their local name.

Hallow E’en sports are still practised, the mystic apple so often appearing in Celtic fairy-lore, playing a great part in them. Apples are ducked for in a tub of water with the mouth, the hands being clasped behind the back. A small rod of wood is sometimes suspended from the ceiling, a lighted candle being fixed at one end, and an apple at the other. The apple has to be caught by the teeth when it passes before them, and if it is carefully pared, so that the peel comes off in one strip, and this is flung over the left shoulder, it will form the initials of the loved one’s name. Or it may be eaten before a mirror, and the lover’s face will be reflected therein; but on no account must the worker of this spell look backwards.

At Christmas-tide Yule cakes and "Yule dollies" are made, these last being quaint figures made of dough, with currants to mark their features and the outlines of their dress. Furmety (wheat boiled in milk) is eaten, the Yule log is burnt, and the Christmas stocking is hung up that gifts may be placed in it. Candles are still given by grocers; the fruiterer presents a bunch of mistletoe; children come round and sing carols, bearing a box containing figures of the Virgin and Child. The sword-dancers or "guisers" come, perform a dance and sing a song, the words of which vary considerably.

Finally, as many mince-pies as you eat at Christmas, so many happy months will you have.

Here is "a copious catalogue of things lucky and unlucky," at least of those considered as such in the Bishopric:

If you accidentally put on a stocking, or indeed any garment, inside out, it is most fortunate, and the mistake should not be rectified, you will turn the luck.

But if you put a button or hook into the wrong hole while dressing in the morning, something unpleasant will happen to you during the day.

"Sing before breakfast, cry before supper," is an oft-quoted proverb, perhaps deduced from the common belief that unusually high spirits portend coming misfortune.

When a child first puts on a dress with a pocket in it, its father should put some money into it; this means lifelong riches.

On putting on a new dress, a well-wisher will say to the owner, "I wish you health to wear it, strength to tear it, and money to buy another."

Similarly, when a young tradesman first dons his apron, it is well to say to him: "Weel may ye brook your apron." This, if said by a lucky person, will insure the young man’s success in life.

If a spider is found on the clothes, it means that money is coming to you; and if clothes must be mended while being worn, you will lose money.

If the hem of your dress persistently turns up, a letter is coming to you.

If your apron falls off, someone is thinking of you.

Those who can always guess the time accurately will never be married.

If the nose itches, you will be annoyed; if the foot, you will travel.

Itching of the right hand, money is coming to you; of the left, that you will have to pay money; of the ear, hearing sudden news.

If the right ear tingles, someone is defaming you.

If you shiver, someone is walking over your grave.

A blessing is still invoked on people when they sneeze.

Meeting eyebrows are fortunate; so is a mole on the neck, at least, it means health to the owner, but some say that it brings him in danger of hanging.

Always enter a house with your right foot first; to enter with the left foot brings ill luck to the inhabitants, and you must go back and repair the mistake.

If you stumble, by accident, in going upstairs, you will be married the same year; the same if you snuff out the candle (this omen is becoming rarer with the decline of tallow candles).

If two people wash their hands in the same basin, they are sure to quarrel before bedtime, but this may be prevented by making the sign of the cross over the water.

If your eyes are weak, have your ears pierced, it will benefit them.

If a loaf be turned upside down after cutting, it is unlucky. Along the coast they say that it causes a ship to be wrecked. The same if three candles are placed upon the table.

If a loaf breaks in the hand while cutting it, you part man and wife.

And spilling the salt is as ominous here as elsewhere, but you may amend your luck by throwing a pinch three times over your left shoulder with your right hand.

"Help me to saut, help me to sorrow," would be the answer to the person who should offer to place salt on the plate of another.

To cross the knife and fork is a sign of bad luck. To give a knife cuts love; it should always be paid for. Only last Christmas I gave a knife to an old friend, and she punctiliously sent a penny to me in payment for it.

Do not lend a pin, your friend may take one, but it is unlucky to give it.

Never begin anything on Friday, it will not prosper.

If you must pass under a ladder, cross your fingers and wish. The unsophisticated spit; and if you are walking with anyone wait for him to speak first, and any ill luck that may be coming will fall on his head.

"Spitting for luck" is still common enough. Hucksters and fish-women spit on the handsel (the first money they receive), and many horsedealers do the same. Colliers, when considering a strike, used to spit on one stone together, by way of cementing their confederacy, and schoolboys used to spit their faith when making a challenge to fight. This was considered a sacred pledge which it was thought a point of honour to fulfil.

It is wrong to point at the stars, or even to count them; you may be struck dead for doing so.

Hawthorn blossoms should not be brought into the house; they are as unlucky as peacock’s feathers, which also should never be brought indoors.

And evergreens should not be burnt.

"If you burn green,
Your sorrow’s soon seen."

The luck of three is much believed in. If you fail twice in trying to do a thing, you will probably succeed in the third trial. "The third time’s catchy time."

Servants say that if they break one thing they are sure to break three, a foreboding which not seldom comes true.

And when the minute-bell of the cathedral rings once it is bound to ring three times.

If you break a looking-glass, you will have no luck for seven years. Some say that it betokens a death in the house, probably that of its master.

If a black cat enters the house, it must by no means be turned away, for it brings good luck.

"Wherever the cat of the house is black,
The lasses of lovers will have no lack."

Kittens born in May are unlucky and useless, never keep them.

It is lucky, when you see the first lamb of the year, if its head is turned towards you; but unlucky, if its tail.

It is thought that hedgehogs suck cows as they lie asleep.

A toad is poisonous; do not touch it.

In all ages the flight and behaviour of birds have been thought worthy of notice.

When setting hens, the number of eggs should be odd (generally eleven or thirteen); if the number be even, you will have no chickens. A hen that crows brings ill luck, just as does a woman who whistles.

If the hens come into the house, or if the cock crows on the threshold, a visitor is coming. If you have money in your pocket and turn it when you first hear the cuckoo you will be rich all that year; but if your pocket be empty so it will remain. There is a small bird attending on the cuckoo, generally a meadow-pipit. It is called in Durham the cuckoo’s sandy, and is supposed to provide its patron with food.

When the peacock screams, it is going to rain.

The magpie is an unlucky bird because it would not go into the ark with Noah, but sat outside, "jabbering at the drowned world."

"One is sorrow, two mirth,
Three a wedding, four a birth,
Five heaven, six hell,
Seven the de’il’s ain sel’!"

But if you have the misfortune to see one magpie you may nullify the omen by making the sign of the cross, or, as some do, by waving a hand at the evil bird, and saying, "Mag, I defy thee."

The raven is thought to be an unlucky bird, though here in Durham city we should think better of it, for one made the fortune of Sir John Duck by dropping a gold piece at his feet when he was a poor out-of-work butcher-boy. He became a rich coal-owner, and in his memory coals are often called "ducks" in Durham; and the "Old Duck Main" still exists at Rainton.

If rooks, or crows, as we call them here, desert a rookery, it means the downfall of the family on whose property it is. Swallows, once sacred to the Penates, and honoured as the heralds of the spring, are lucky, and their nests must never be pulled down, as they bring good fortune to the place where they build, and it bodes ill luck if they leave a place they have once tenanted.

Naturally, much local lore has gathered round the cathedral, the great Mother-Church of the diocese. The death superstition relating to the minute-bell, the ringing of the Pancake Bell, and the legend of the knocker, have already been mentioned. The Curfew Bell still rings at nine (the hour of compline), not at eight, as in other places, but never on Saturday, because on the night of that day a man, who went alone to ring, was spirited away, and never seen again.

When, on May 29, the choristers go to the central tower, they sing anthems on three sides only, and except the western side, because it was from this point that the man leaped whose tombstone is seen below. It is a mutilated effigy of Frosterly marble, and is said to represent Hob of Pelaw, holding the purse of money for which he risked and lost his life, and the fossils in the marble are said, by schoolboys, to be the coins contained in it. Country people come, for some unknown reason, to draw their foot over the purse.

Curiously, the churchyard here is on the north side of the church. The cloisters are ceiled with Irish oak, so that they never harbour dust or cobwebs, and the saying goes that if the Protestants were not always doing something to the cathedral the Catholics could take it away from them!