Coming down to a much later period, but still connected with the protection of the two counties, a curious incident may be recalled, if for no other reason than that it is impossible for such a contretemps ever to occur again. In 1807, after a ballot for the Cumberland Militia, Penrith being the headquarters, an order arrived for the recruits to be marched up to the regiment. They were, wrote an eye witness, accordingly mustered for that purpose in marching order, and, followed by many of the populace, arrived at Eamont Bridge, where the sister counties of Cumberland and Westmorland divide. Here there was a sudden halt. They would not cross the bridge without their county guinea. After some altercation, and promises by Colonel Lacy and other gentlemen that they should be paid on joining the regiment, which promises were of no avail, they were counter-marched to Penrith. For three successive days they were thus marched, and still halted at the division of the counties. The lower orders of the populace took part with the soldiers, and a riot ensued, in which Colonel Lacy, the commanding officer, was very roughly handled. The consequence was that a troop of Enniskillen Dragoons was sent for from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and arrived in Penrith on the morning of the third day. A hard black frost was set in at the time, and the horses being “slape shod,” they were falling in every direction. They were marched along with the recruits, who again stopped at the bridge. The populace was still unruly; the dragoons loaded their firepieces; the Riot Act was read, and the word “March” was given; but it was of no avail. A general cry was then raised that they would be satisfied with the promise of Colonel Hasell of Dalemain, but of no other man. Mr. Hasell came forward, and in a short, manly address, gave his promise that they should be paid on joining the regiment, and with cheers for the Colonel, they at once marched off.
Fighting Bishops and Fortified Churches.
The ecclesiastical history of Cumberland and Westmorland is curiously interwoven with that of secular affairs. This to a large extent arises from the geographical position of the diocese of Carlisle—and particularly of the diocese before its extension in 1856, up to which year it was the smallest in England. The Bishop of Carlisle in bygone centuries had always to take a leading part in fighting schemes, and as the churches would be the only substantial structures in some villages, they naturally came to be put to other uses than those of worship.
The bishopric was indeed a unique district. Carlisle was the great Border fortress of the West Marches; the Bishop was invariably a Lord Marcher, and often Captain of the Castle. In copies which Halucton (Halton) caused to be extracted from the Great Roll of the Exchequer, frequent references are made to expenses incurred during a siege. These are believed to refer to 1295-6, when the Earl of Buchan and Wallace assailed the city, and when the Bishop was apparently Warden. The ecclesiasts during many hundreds of years must have been almost as familiar with the touch of armour as with that of their sacred robes. Writing on this subject over a century ago a Cumberland authority said:—
“As an example of the prevailing humour of those martial times, what sort of priest must we suppose Cressingham to have been, who never wore any coat that is accounted characteristic of a profession, but that in which he was killed, namely, an iron one. Beck, the fighting Bishop, was so turbulent a mortal that the English King, in order to keep him within bounds, was obliged to take from him a part of those possessions which he earned in battle, and in particular the livings of Penrith and Symond-Burne. But not to mention Thurstan, who fought the battle of the Standard, there are sufficient reasons for believing that most of the priests in the northern parts of England had a double profession, and they are so often mentioned as principals in these continual wars that one cannot help concluding that the martial one was more attended to. When the pastors are such, what must the people be?”
There was a very interesting quarrel—the facts being too numerous to be stated here—concerning the manor of Penrith, and those in some other parts of East Cumberland. They were in the possession of John de Baliol, by virtue of an agreement come to between the Kings of England and Scotland, but afterwards Edward the First quarrelled with Baliol, seized his lands, and granted them to Anthony Beck, the military Bishop of Durham already mentioned. That prelate had assisted the King at the battle of Falkirk, with a considerable number of soldiers, and was greatly instrumental in obtaining the victory. When the Parliament met at Carlisle, however, the grant was disapproved, and as the Bishop did not attend to show by what title he had taken the lands, they were adjudged to belong to the Crown.
The manuscripts of the Dean and Chapter of Carlisle contain many references to the knowledge of war required by the early Bishops. When Linstock was the episcopal residence, it lay exposed to the incursions of the Scots, whose respect of persons, as Mr. C. J. Ferguson has reminded us, was small. In April, 1309, Bishop Halton excused himself from obeying a summons to Parliament, pleading both fear of a Scots invasion and bad health as reasons. Later correspondence showed that the Bishop had been employed by the King as his deputy in suppressing outrages in the West March, and desired to be freed from some of his duties. The King therefore absolved the prelate from the duties to which he objected, but begged him to assume the remainder of the offices in his commission, so as to restrain the lawlessness prevailing on both sides of the Border.
The difficulties of defence, or the constant annoyance, became so great that in 1318 Edward the Second obtained from the Pope the appropriation to the bishopric of Carlisle of the church of Horncastle, Lincolnshire, to be a place of refuge for the Bishop and his successors during the ravages of the northern enemy. Thomas de Lucy, upon the invasion of the Scots in 1346, “joined his strength with the Bishop of Carlisle [Welton], and so alarmed the enemy in the night-time, by frequent entering into their quarters, that at length they fled into their own country. And a truce shortly after ensuing, he was again joined in commission with the same Bishop and others to see the same duly observed.” The Bishop was soon afterwards constituted one of the commissioners for the arraying of men in the counties of Cumberland and Westmorland for the defence of the Borders, the French then threatening an invasion. With the growth of these troubles from abroad, pressure was put upon those who could raise funds, of whom Bishop Appleby was not the least important. “Brevia de privato sigillo quickly succeed one another at this time,” wrote the Rev. J. Brigstocke Sheppard, in 1881,[3] when he had gone carefully through the muniments of the Dean and Chapter. “The King, in an agony of apprehension, occasioned by the threat of invasion, backed by a large fleet collected in the northern ports of France, begs the Bishop again and again to raise a defensive militia, to cause prayers to be offered in all churches, and finally to advance him as much money as he can upon security of the clerical disme which would soon be due.” In a further letter, the King being determined to borrow from such of his subjects as could best afford to lend, ordered the Bishop to send for six of the richest clergy and six of the most affluent laymen in each county, and upon these twenty-four to impose a loan of fifty marks on an average—more upon those who could afford it, and less upon those less able to bear the tax. In 1373 Bishop Appleby was enjoined by the King to reside continually in his diocese upon the Marches, and to keep the inhabitants in a state of defence as a protection to the rest of the kingdom against the Scots.
And so through all the long list of Border troubles the Bishops had to take a conspicuous share in the proceedings, until the ludicrous incident on Penrith Fell, which was the last occasion on which a Bishop took part in fighting on English soil. Various local chroniclers have given different versions, but there seems to be no room for doubt that the one by Chancellor Ferguson is accurate. When in 1715 the Jacobites marched from Brampton to take Penrith, the people from all the country side (though whether the number was 4,000 or 14,000, as variously stated, is not material), armed with guns, scythes, pitch-forks, and other handy if not always military weapons, went on to the fell to meet the rebels. The “posse comitatus were under Lord Lonsdale and Bishop Nicolson, the latter seated in his coach, drawn by six horses. So soon as the Highlanders appeared, the posse comitatus went away; in plain words they skedaddled, leaving the two commanders and a few of their servants. Lord Lonsdale presently galloped off to Appleby, and the Bishop’s coachman, whipping up his horses,