■ ■ ^■1 I EVAS I I ■ HI Hi m be »*tw ; 'v'v^j^ taw v-i ■ ft '*^, 1 1 . B nKH ■ ■ > ■■ lv 5*58 ■ 33K3 ■W«Pv ; B ■ . ■ hmhW HUH ■|B9BVBHBMHi H H Kg H8 B8B mi IB M HroroW i l RVJ hV 111 HI BvfflHHHvHnH Bh r '"*■ faz^/*-?^ t/p^^/tj^/^ 4%{£: ^^'^d7^aj^//j//^f / ofFlackweU If all, EsqfJ.F., F S.J- . Hufh Shiri/r <•? tke Coitntv of Durham THE HISTORY AND ANTIQUITIES THE PARISH OF DARLINGTON, IN THE BISHOPRICK. S BY a®. I^glton Mm Eonptaffe, IBsq., JF. *.&. " Enquire, I pray thee, of the former age, and prepare thyself to the search of their fathers : for we are of yesterday, and know nothing. — Shall not they teach thee, and tell thee, and utter words out of their heart." — (Job, viii.) 9 R 1 *^V * DARLINGTON : THE PROPRIETORS OF THE DARLINGTON AND STOCKTON TIMES. LONDON : J. HENRY PARKER, 377, STRAND ; AND J. B. NICHOLS AND SON, 25, PARLIAMENT-STREET. NEWCASTLE : G. B. RICHARDSON, CLAYTON STREET-WEST. 1854. /' ^^^ lanhert fenj Matt, $% f t $. %., % %., OF BLACK WELL HALL, IN THE PARISH OF DARLINGTON, AND OF BARTON, IN RICHMONDSHIRE, ONE OF HER MAJESTY'S JUSTICES OF THE PEACE FOR THE COUNTY OF DURHAM, AND NORTH RIDING OF YORKSHIRE, THIS VOLUME, DEVOTED TO THE HISTORY OF THE PARISH IN WHICH HE IS THE MOST EXTENSIVE LANDOWNER, AND THE VERY GROUNDWORK OF WHICH HAS BEEN FURNISHED BY HIS LARGE COLLECTION OF ARCHIVES, IS, FROM FEELINGS OF THE DEEPEST GRATITUDE FOR HIS UNIFORM GENEROSITY, DEDICATED. PEEF ACE. In presenting my patrons the conclusion of ray labours, I have to apologise for that delay in their appearance which is so often and unavoid- ably the case in topographical works. It has greatly added to my facilities for the pictorial illustration and elaboration of my materials, but it is a grief to me when I reflect upon the number of those subscribers who looked upon my pursuits with the eye of kindness, and who are now beyond the sphere in which I could have laid their results before them. Death has laid his cold touch on some I looked up to, with the reverence due to the aristocracy of talent. Sir Eobert Peel, Sir Outhbert Sharp, and Colonel Wilham Havelock, K. H., giants all in diverse walks, are silent and in still- ness. My dear friends and fellows in the quiet walks of letters, Thomas Eastoe Abbott, William Bymer, and John Wilkinson, have died in the fulness of faith and hope. And the gentlemanly and landless scion of the great house of Ogle, who, almost all unheeded, came to Darlington to die, and with whom I forgot canker and care, lies low in the cemetery of St. Cuthbert. Yet I have left me many to reprove or congratulate me with a loving voice. " There is but one society on earth — the noble living and the noble dead/' Had not the materials alluded to in my dedication, and referred to in almost every page, been laid before me, my book would have been a lifeless skeleton; and had it not received the pictorial illustrations which have proceeded from the same hand, its appearance would have been comparatively melancholy. I have, as I conceive, consulted the feelings of the valuable friend I thus dimly refer to, by thanking him in a less ostentatious place, and in the text itself I have pursued the same course with almost all other kindly helps. The references tell their own tale. If my memory is not equal to my wishes, I rely on forgiveness from the injured. I have however, reserved this place to state that the archives of His Grace the Duke of Cleveland and Edward Pease, Esq., in addition to those at Blacfcwell Hall, Clervaux Castle, the Bodleian Library, the Dean and Chap- ter's Library at Durham, and the Auditor's office, with the Halmot Eolls, the Parochial Eegisters and accounts, and the Borough Books, have, in the most handsome manner been placed at my service, and I have thankfully used them as far as my limited means and time permitted. It would be viii PREFACE. most ungrateful not to add that the courtesy of their custodiers has ever been exercised to me ; and that in addition to the above records, those of Newcastle have been fully as open to me, through the able agency of Mr G. Bouchier Richardson, who grudged his friend no amount of labour, where his excellent abstracts were likely to elucidate a subject. In the composition of this history, I soon found that if the value of my book was to depend on its authority as a book of reference, and a faithful record of the mouldering MSS. I have had before me, it could not be of the light, sketchy, and amusing character I once chalked out. I saw that the first history of every place is necessarily a magazine of evidences, to which the more popular writer can at every turn allude, to bear out his generalities. New matter has started up at every turn, and in my very pleasure at its occurrence, has harassed me in the alteration of my plans ; and I have been compelled, at a greatly increased cost of production and occupation of time, to crowd as many facts into every page as my type would allow, to avoid remarks, and allow the reader to form his own conclusions. It is the charm of Archaeology that the field of enquiry is never exhausted. This work does not form an exception to the rule. It is necessarily im- perfect. Nay, it is doubtless inaccurate in some particulars. Though no document has been tampered with, and I have spared no pains in sifting evidence, information is sometimes unintentionally based on false or exag- gerated premises, and tradition is notoriously a corrupt source of history. But where no contemporaneous written proof exists, the experienced reader will be on his guard. I have related traditions sans colour, and sans alteration ; friendship has been broken with me for my zeal on this very point ; and I can safely put forth my book as an honest enquiry after, if not an absolute arrival at, truth. LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS. Tht name* of Subscribers who have died since the commencement of the Work are printed in Italics. His Grace the Duke of Cleveland, K.G., 12 copies, 2 large paper. Right Hon. Sir Robert Peel, Bart., M. P., laTge paper. Sir Cuthbert Sharp, Knt., F.S.A., Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Lieut- Col. Wm. Havelock, K. H., 14th Light Dragoons. Lieut-Col. H. Havelock, C. B., 53rd Regiment of Foot. The Archaeological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. The Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The Society of Antiquaries, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The jDarlington Mechanics' Institution. The Stockton Subscription Library. Robert Henry Allan, Esq., F. S. A., Blackwell Hall, 12 copies, 6 on large paper. Miss Allan, Harewood Grove, Darlington. William Allan, Esq., Blackwell Grange, large paper. George Allison, Esq., Darlington. "William Aldam, Esq., Doncaster. Rev. 'William Atthill, Horsford, St. Faith's, Norwich, large paper. Thos. Eastoe Abbott, Esq., Rose Villa, Darlington. Freville Lambton Burne, Esq. Mrs. Anstey, .Norton, near Stockton-upon-Tees. The Rev. Dr. Bandinell, Bodleian Library, Oxford, large paper. William Backhouse, Esq., Darlington. John Church Backhouse, Esq., Blackwell, large paper. Edmund Backhouse, Esq., Middleton Tyas, large paper. Sir John Bernard Burke, Ulster King of Arms. Henry Belcher, Esq., Whitby. Wm. Bewick, Esq., Haughton-le-Skerne, near Darlington. Thomas Bowes, Esq., Darlington. Mrs. Barclay, Blackwell. Mr, John Bewick, Eldon Cottage, Bermondsey. Mr. Matthew Bell, jun., Richmond. Thomas Bouch, Esq., C.E., 1, Hanover Street, Edinburgh. W. G. J. Barker, Esq., Harmby, near Leyburn. Augustus F. Bellasis, Esq., St. John's Wood, London. LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS. Thomas Bell, Esq., Newcastle-upon-Tyne, large paper. W. R. Bell, Esq., Norton Grammar School, near Stockton. Mr. John Buckton, Darlington, large paper. Mr. A. C. Birchall, Darlington. Mr. Thomas Blyth, Darlington. Henry Brady, Esq., Gateshead. W. H. Brockett, Esq., Gateshead. Francis Bennett, Esq., Gateshead. Rev. Dr. Collingwood Bruce, F.S.A., Newcastle-upon-Tyne. W. C. Copperthwaite, Esq., F.S. S., Borough Bailiff of Malton. Mr. G. J. Crossley, Manchester. Mr. T. A. Cockin, London. Mrs. Cudworth, Coniscliffe Lane, Darlington, 2 copies. Captain Collyer, large paper. Henry Chaytor, Esq., Croft, large paper. Captain Colling, Redhall, Haughton-le-Skerne. Mr. W. W. Child, Bank, Stockton. Mrs. Dunn, Hurworth, large paper. H. C. Dakeyne, Esq., 34, Hamilton Terrace, St. John's Wood, London. Joseph Dodds, Esq., Stockton-upon-Tees. Mr. James Dees, C. E., Esk Meals, Ravenglass, Cumberland. Mr. Thomas Dobson, jun,, Darlington. Mr. Hugh Dunn, Darlington. J. Dean, Esq., Staindrop. Edwin Eddison, Esq., Leeds. Mr. Geo. Elwin, Old Hall, Darlington. John Fenwick, Esq., F.S.A., Newcastle-upon-Tyne, large and small paper. Mr. Fossick, Darlington. Mr. Joseph Forster, land agent, Durham. Mr. Joseph Forster, Harewood Hill, Darlington. Mr. James Ferguson, Helmsley Blackmoor. Robert Fothergill, Esq., Bedale. W. S. Grey, Esq., Barrister at Law, Norton, large paper. Wm. Grey, Esq., Norton, near Stockton. John Grey, Esq., Stockton. Mr. David Grey, Bank Top, Darlington. Matthew Gaunt, Esq., Barrister at Law, Leek, Staffordshire. Matthew Gaunt, Esq., Alderman of Leeds, Yorkshire. Francis Gibson, Esq., Saffron Walden, two copies, one on large paper. Mr. Oswald Gilkes, Darlington. John Hogg, Esq., Barrister at Law, Norton. The Rev. A. J. Howell, Incumbent of Darlington. William Harker, Esq., Theakstone Villa, Bedale. John Harris, Esq., C.E., Darlington, two copies, one on large paper. Richard Hollon, Esq., York. Thomas Horner, Esq., Darlington. Mr. John Harrison, High Row, Darlington. Mr. Robert Heslop, Darlington. Richard Hodgkinson, Esq., Pennerley Lodge, Beaulieu, Southampton. Joseph Hill, Esq., Stockton. Timothy Hutton, Esq., Clifton Castle, Bedale. "William Hepple, Esq., Bishop Auckland. John Hodgson Hinde, Esq., Acton House, Felton, Northumberland. Henry Ingledew, Esq., Newcastle-upon-Tyne. LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS. x i Miss lanson, West Terrace, Darlington. T. Hayes Jackson, Esq., Darlington. Henry Robt. Allan Johnson, Esq., Bishop wearmouth, large paper. R. H. Keenlyside, Esq., M.D., Stockton. Mr. William Kitching, Darlington. Mr. John Kay, Darlington, large paper. William Kell, Esq., F. S. A., Gateshead. The Rev. R. W. Lloyd, Wilnecote, Tamworth. Mrs. Livick, Darlington. John Bailey Langhorne, Esq., Richmond, large paper. Francis Mewburn, Esq., Borough Bailiff of Darlington. M. M. Milburn, Esq., Sowerby, near Thirsk. Mrs. Milbank, Blackwell. The Rev. E. J. Midgley. Medomsley, Gateshead, two large paper copies. George Milner, Esq., F. S. A., Hull. John Moore, Esq., Sunderland. John Middleton, Esq., Architect, Darlington. Mr. Thomas Mac Nay, Darlington. Mr. Thomas Maclachlan, Darlington. Mr. George Mason, C.E., Darlington. W. Crawford Newby, Esq., Stockton. Charles Wallace Ogle, Esq., Hundons. Henry Ornsby, Esq., Darlington. Mr. John Ord, Newtown, Darlington. Mr. John Robert Ord, High Terrace, Darlington. Mr. Richard Ord, Stockton. Mr. William Oliver, Darlington. Edward Pease, Esq., Darlington, 5 copies, I large. Mrs. Pease, Feethams, Darlington. Joseph Pease, Esq., South End, Darlington, 3 copies, 1 large. John Pease, Esq., East Mount, Darlington, 2 copies. Henry Pease, Esq., Pierremont, Darlington, 2 copies. John Beaumont Pease, Esq., North Lodge, Darlington. James Pallister, Esq., Little Burdon, 2 copies, 1 on large paper. The Rev. J. C. Plumer, Elstree, Herefordshire. George Peirson, Esq., Marske, Cleveland. Nathaniel Plews, Esq., Darlington, large paper. Henry Peckitt, Esq., Carlton Husthwaite, near Thirsk. J. S. Peacock, Esq., Darlington, large paper. W. H. Peacock, Esq., Barnsley, large paper. Thomas Peters, Esq., York. Mr. M. Potts, jun., Darlington. Mrs. Qnelch, Bowburn, near Durham. William Rymer, Esq., Darlington. Thomas Richardson. Esq., Ayton, near Stokesley. Thomas Richmond, Esq., Stockton. S. W. Rix, Esq., Beccles. The Rev. Thomas Robson, Grammar School, Darlington, Mr. W. Robson, High Row, Darlington. Mr. James Readman, Stockton. Mr. Robert Robson, Sunderland, large paper. Mr. Jervis Robinson, Blackfriars Road, London. Mr. William Richardson, Darlington. The Rev. J. Raine, Crook Hall, large paper. xii LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS. H. Pasco© Smith, Esq., Hall Garth, near Darlington, two copies. G. J. Scurfield, Esq., Hurworth, near Darlington, large paper. Mr. Joseph Stephenson, C. E., Darlington. Henry Stapylton, Esq., Judge of the County Courts, Durham. A. T. Steavenson, Esq., Darlington. Mr. Joseph Sams, Darlington and London. Mr. T. C. Sheppard, Darlington. Mr. Storey, St. Cuthhert's Schools, Darlington. Jonathan Thompson, Esq., Stubbing Court, Chesterfield. The Rev. W. S. Temple, Leamington. John Thompson, Esq., Wooler. Mrs. J.Brough Taylor, St. Thomas' Street, Newcastle. Mrs. Todhunter, Harewood Hill, Darlington. Messrs. R. Thompson and Co., Darlington, ten copies. Mr. Edwin S. Thompson, London, large paper. Nicholas Trant, Esq., Bedale. George Taylor, Esq., High Bailiff of the County Courts, Durham. The Rev. Geo. Thompson, Wisbeach, large paper. Robert Wise, Esq., Highfield House, Malton. T. G. "Wright, Esq., M. D., Wakefield. H. R. E. Wright, Esq., Stockton. Albert Way, Esq., F. S. A., Wonham Manor, Reigate. O. B. Wooler, Esq., Darlington. The Rev. R. H. Williamson, jun., Lamesley. Mr. John Wilkinson, Darlington ; two copies, one on large paper. Mr. G. J. Wilson, Darlington. Mr. Thomas Watson, Darlington. J. R. Wilson, Esq., Stockton. Thomas Wilson, Esq., Fell House, Gateshead. DIRECTIONS TO THE BINDER. : acing the Title-page. ... facing page 38."" »j „ 218. ,, » 247. )» „ 249. ,, „ 263. > „ 276. „ „ xxi. The Binder will place the separately-printed Illustrations in the following order : — St. Cuthbert's Church Darlington in 1790 '..♦ . Stalls and Misereres in St. Cuthbert's, 2 plates Trinity Church St. John's Church Hylton Castle Local Tokens, Seals, and Autographs Portrait of George Allan. Esq., M.P. AllanArms Blackwell Grange Autographs „ „ xxxui."' Immediately after the termination of the divisions paged in Arabic numerals, he will place the pedigrees (which are unpaged) as they now stand in Part IV. To follow them he will transfer Division VI (which is paged in Roman numerals) from Part III. The Roman numerals then follow consecutively to the end of the Index. The Title, Preface, and List of Subscribers, to commence the volume, will be found at the conclusion of Part IV. DARLINGTON ITS ANNALS AND CHARACTERISTICS DIVISION I. SOTTATOSTs, 22T&SOL MTID WAIEEELSa HE RIVER TEES, after dashing for some distance through rocks vast and wild, receives the " rosy flow " of the Greta, and meandering through fields and green plan- tations, with ever and anon a peaceful village or stately mansion on its banks, arrives at a point of soft and deli- , a cate beauty. The Skerne, a sluggish, but withal, in some parts, a pretty stream, rushes through a single arch into Jj the larger course, on a shelving bed of red sandstone, and gliding through a deeply-recessed and noble bridge, of enormous Gothic arches, with some opposition loses its colour, and becomes one and the same with the Tees. At the confluence, it constitutes a boundary between two parishes, Darlington and Hurworth. The former is an irregular district, boundering the Tees for some distance, and skirted by the parishes of Coniscliffe, Heighington, Haughton-le-Skerne, and Hurworth, in the palatinate, and by Cleasby and Croft in Yorkshire. It is divided into four townships : Darlington, Arch- deacon Newton, Blackwell, and Oockerton ; that of Darlington being sub- divided into the constableries of Darlington Borough, Bondgate, Priestgate or Prebend-row, and Oxen-le-field. ETYMOLOGY OF THESE NAMES. Lambarde, in his Dictionary, p. 91, mentions " Darnton, ©eartmgtun, antiquitus, and ©cartngton," as "a market towne in the byshoprike of Durham, which one Styr, by lycence of Kinge Etheldred, gave to Aldhune, B 2 ETYMOLOGY OF THE Byshop of Durham, imediately after that he came to eattle the sea at Durham." Allan adds, " Darningtun, Derlyngton, Darneton, Darrhton, and Darlington {as the name of this town is variously spelt or written), .... Query, if any derivation from the Saxons." {Allan MSS.) Not to mention the popular joke of the name of Darlington having arisen from the circumstance of there having been originally only three farm-houses tm the site, called Bar, Ling, and Ton, the derivations given are amusingly numerous. Behold ! cum notis : 1. Deor or deorling, dilectus, and tun or ton, villa, the chosen town, built on holy land, •and the favourite place of the prelates. — Hutchinson. 2. " I have somewhere seen that the Skerne was called the Dare, and Dare-inge-tun would very well represent the actual site of the place, amidst the deep rich inges or meadows of the Skerne." Surtees. — 4 Edw. VI. Demise to Lawrence Thornell, Gent., of the Low Parke of Darlington and the Medoives on the Skerne. — " The These, heyng past Ramforth, it runneth betwene Persore and Cliffe, and in the way to Croftes Bridge taketh in the Skerne, a pretye water which riseth above Trimdon, and goeth by Fishburne, Bradbury, Preston, and Darlington : and finally meeting with the Cocke becke, it falleth into the These beneath Stapleton, before it come to Croftes bridge Leland, writing of the These, repeateth the names of sundry riuerets, whereof in the former Treatize I have made no mencion at all, notwithstanding that some of their courses may be touched in the same, as the Thurisgill, whose heade is not farre from the Spittle that I do reade of in Stanmoore ; the Grettey commeth by Barningham and Mortham, and falleth into the These above Croftes bridge. The Dare or Dere runneth by Darlington, and likewise into the These above the aforesayd bridge." Harrison's Description of England, prefixed to Hollinshed's Chronicles, edit. 1577, pp. 30, 68. — 37 Eliz. A close of Nun-Stainton Manor on the Skerne is described as Darlyng-close. 3. The same derivation, substituting the Cockerbeck as identical with the Dare. " Now, in the winter months, this stream, from being swollen, and rushing directly at right angles into the Skerne (which is then also much enlarged), overflows its banks, and causes a separate stream to run parallel with the Skerne for a considerable distance, causing, however (though much improved of late), a quantity of wet and marshy ground; this gives rise to the ing, which is the Danish fo* a low and wet ground ; therefore, the name signifies the town on the Ings of the Dare, the letter (I) being merely interposed for euphony" (Darlington and Stockton Times, No. 1). — " The These, a river that beareth and feedeth an excellent salmon in the waie to Croftsbridge taketh in the Skerne, a pretie water, which riseth above Trimdon, and goeth by Fishburne, Bradburie, Preston, Braforton, Skirmingham, the Burdons, Haughton, and Darlington, and there finallie meeting with Cocke-becke or Dare, it falleth in the These beneath Stapleton, before it come to Croftsbridge, and (as it should seeme) is the same which Leland calleth Gretteie or Grettie." Such is Hutchinson's quotation of Hollinshed, from some appa- rently later edition, very different from that of 1577 now before me. It seems to be an awkward attempt by a stranger to this country to incorporate Leland 's description with Harrison's ; and the Cockerbeck as little fulfils the former description of the Dare as the ^Skerne corresponds with the Greta. It does not flow into the Tees, as the Dare of 1577 did ; nor could it be said to run by Darlington. As to Ing, it seems originally to have meant an in or inclosure, as distinguished from the common field (Brockett's Glossary), and is used for any low flat ground. Hire says CEng is a flat meadow between a town and a river, on which the market or fair is held, which is an exact description of the Ings on which the great fortnight fair for cattle is held at Wakefield. 4. Dare, water, ing, a meadow, ton, a town, the Town on the watery meadows, " from 'the quantity of water which formerly overflowed the banks of the Skerne, -covering TOWNSHIP NAMES. % many acres of ground for upwards of a mile." (E. S. Thompson, in Darlington and Stockton Times, 1847.) Leland's Dare was, however, clearly a river. 5. Dar, water, ling, diminutive (gosling, &c.) and ton, the town on the small stream. (Same paper. " Veritas.") But the I is modern. 6. The town ofDeorn's son, Ing, in Saxon, being equivalent to son in modern times. J. R. It may already have been surmised that I incline to Surtees's opinion ; and this I do in consequence of the very clear identification in the Hollinshed of 1577 of the Dare and Skerne. In the earliest records, however, the name occurs as Dearningtiin, Demington, Demigntune, forms correctly contracted in Darnton and Demton. Now, Derne, in names of rivers, has a tendency to change into Dare. Thus, on the Severn, Harrison mentions Dour or Doum- steir-fall, Damt, which runneth to Darington (a common spelling also of our Darlington), and into the sea at Darntmouth, and the Dame in the West Riding of Yorkshire (now Derne), which cometh to Darton (another ortho- graphy of my subject place) ward, to Derfielde, &c. The word which, in its form Darnt or Dernt, Harrison in describing a stream of the name which falls into the Thames, makes identical with Darwent, is very common in names of rivers ; witness the secluded Derness which flows into the Wear. In all probability the Skerne or Dare was anciently the Derne. It may have connection with water, or with derne, deamenga, Sax : secret, dark, hidden, or it may be to point out the sluggishness of the water, and be identical with the northern Terne or Derne, a standing pool. Helhecke, in Westmoreland, so called " bycause it commeth from the derne and elinge mountaines by a town of the same denomination." Harrison. Bailey gives Ellinge (alleine, alone, Teut.) as solitary, lonely, &c. ; and truly many of the Westmoreland streams are derne and elinge. " The Terne riseth in a mere nere unto Terne Mere in Staffordshire." Harrison. " Flass Hall stands low and sequestered, within a reach of the Derness,'" &c. Surtees. In a cliff on Hartside, Northumberland, is a strong cavernous fissure called Darney Hall, probably, says Hodgson, from the water, which in some parts of the fissure can be ascertained to be in it by the splashing noise made at its bottom by throwing stones into it. [Qu. from Derne, hidden, and ey or ea, water,] Parson and White's Directory mentions that Darlington is " said to have derived its name from the lingering stream of the old Dar or Der, which evidently formed a pool and morass from opposite the church to the mill-holme." A Darlington, in Devonshire, occurs 1 Edw. I. (Ing. p. m.) and a Darling- ton in Nott, 4 Edw. III. (Abb. Bot. orig.) Darrington, near Pontefract, oddly has Stapleton and Smeaton near it, like our Darlington. Bondgate. — " Unde Framwellgate ? It is, at any rate, a corrupt ortho- graphy, and has nothing to do with a well. Leland, I observe, calls it Framagate, and mentions a street of the same name at Kendal. Now, will you have my conjecture ? for a fool's bolt, they say, is soon shot. It should be written Framengate (as it is in one place by Leland), and was, originally, a street set apart for the habitation of foreigners, or persons not entitled to the franchise of the city : from Frem or Fremd, alienus, extraneus. It was certainly a custom, in ancient times, for people of the same description to 4 ETYMOLOGY OP THE reside together, as the Jews do in most places to this day ; and hence your Bondgate in Darlington, Auckland, &c. You may overturn this fine system if you can/' (Ritson to Mr Harrison, 1797). It is merely necessary to add, for the information of strangers, that Bondgate in Darlington includes those portions of the town not enjoying the franchise of the Borough and Prebend-row. In Hatfield's Survey (about 1380), Cokyrton-gate occurs as the name of the street now bearing the appellation of Bondgate in particular. Prebend Row, or PriestgaTe. This little district takes its name from its including the possessions of the Prebendary of Darlington, in the colle- giate church. Row is Rsewa, Saxon. "Row and Raw" observes Mr Hodgson, in his History of Northumberland, " are akin to the French rue ; but in the upland part of the northern counties were formerly chiefly confined to those lines of dwelling-houses which lay along the fell sides, and had between them and the beck, or river of the dale, the inclosed ground, of which the houses were the several messuages/' As to gate in Priestgate and other streets, the word has no reference to fortifications, but simply means a way or road. In many northern villages the public road passing through is still called the towngate ; and we have the expressions, " Gang your gate" (go your way) ; " What gate are ye ganging?" " How many gates (journies) have ye taken T " To go agatewards " (to accompany a short way). The word is Saxon. Families of the names of Wood and Wright were living at Darnton Yatts, parish of Haughton, in the last century. Oxenhale, Oxenhall, Oxen-le-Field, or Oxeneyfield. A veryproper name for a detached portion of Darlington township, locally situated in that of Blackwell, and containing the famous Hell-Kettles. Ea is water. In its singular number it occurs in Heaton on the Ewsbum ; Eaton, Water-^aton (pleonastic), the river Eymo\t, &c. In its plural, in the rivers Ex, Ax, EsJc, Ouse (on which is Odborough), in Jesmond (originally Jesmouth, the mouth of the Ewsbum, the j being nothing but the Saxon particle ge, so long retained in our language, sometimes also pronounced hard, as in Gosbeck), Ouse-mere (part of Ulleswater), and a long string of places, deriving from the various forms of the word. Egglescliffe sometimes occurs as ExcW and JU'^cliffe. Brewster remarks, that wherever " aix " occurs in names of towns in France, it implies the presence of waters, particularly mineral waters. Oxen-le-Field is the field of waters ; Oxenhale, the low place of waters. There is an Oxen- field in Lancashire, near Winander-meer, and an Oxenhall in Gloucestershire. Oxney Island, in Kent, is surrounded by the river Bother. The name extended to the township of Blackwell. In Hatfield's Survey, it is stated, under " Blackwell/' that Peter Thomesson, in right of his wife, held half an acre and half a rood in Oxenhal-flat, 16c?. Cockerton, from the Cockerbeck. Archdeacon Newton. " The new town/' where the Archdeacon of Durham has a manor. TOWNSHIP NAMES. 5 Blackwell. Black is often applied to water, as in Blackmere, Blackburn, from the blackness of the Derwent on which it stands, &c, ; but the word is of very extensive meaning. In such names as Black Banks (in this town- ship), Black Blakehope, &c, it evidently means bleak, the former being part of Blackwell-moor ; but blake, in the western parts of the north of England, includes all the shades of terra di sienna, from dark-coloured gold to the brown of mahogany. It is yellow, tinged with red, but free from any blue. But in the Saxon blacian or blcecan, which mean to blacken, to grow pale, to bleach, all warmth is taken out, and the hue becomes chilled with blue or black shades (Hodgson). A wound in the North is said to be blakening when it puts on an appearance of healing. As to well, in this case it probably has reference to the sweeping turn of the river ; wellen, in German, signifying to turn. Thus the Latins have who, and wel implies waves, which are con- tinually coming and going. If it refers to water, it is simply the old word, elle, water, aspirated by w, in the same manner as it is by h in Holland, Hull, &c. There were certainly some wells at Blackwell, famous enough to give names to fields. LOCAL FAMILIES NAMED AFTER THE TOWNSHIPS. Residence or birth at Darlington, of course gave name to families. A great number of ecclesiastics were named after it, some of which will here- after occur. In an early Denton charter among the witnesses occur " Ricardo de Holynsede ; Bernardo filio et haerede de Derlyngton," A local race of the name occurs in the first register, and the plague of 1597 carried off Robert Darnton, or Darlington, his wife, William Darnton or Darlington, and .... Darnton. The name stra^les on anions: the registers and lists of freeholders, till 1622, when John Darlington, son and heir of Robert, lately deceased, was admitted to his father's burgage, in Blackwellgate, and excused the payment of his relief on account of poverty. John Darnton, par. Winston, was married by license to Jane Richardson, par. Haughton, in 1665, and William Darnton, a stranger, was buried here in 1727-8. The name occurs again in full vigour at that period, and continues to this day in the towTi. A family of Darnton has been settled in Leeds for between 200 and 300 years past, of which race Darnton Lupton, and John Darnton Luccock, were respectively mayors of that town in 1845 and 1846. But the name occurs elsewhere in the West Riding, and its owners may be sprung from Darrington. 1568. John Docketh, clark curat, in Whitworth, leaves " to Annes Darneton a gemer lambe, and Alleson Pickering, my seruands, a gemer lamb." There were some very respectable booksellers of the name in Darlington, Vesey and Darnton occur in 1762, and Thomas Darnton and William 6 DARNTON FAMILY, Darnton separately occur in 1779. The latter was printer and seller of some Pastoral Poems, by J. Richardson, Yarm, in that year. The poems are full of Damons and Chloes, and are tiresome enough, but the printing is bold and good. In 1776, one of these Darntons occurs in partnership with one Smith, as printer of a sketch of the life of Bishop Trevor, but the tract was, in fact, one of George Allan's, and the following passage from his son's lively paper, in Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, will sufficiently explain the circumstance. "Being thus set up, as above, with a regular apparatus, he hired a devil, a poor fellow that occasioned him more trouble than if he had done all the drudgery himself ; but he believed the man to be honest, and as he was friendless, so far from dismissing him without remuneration, he enabled him to enter into partnership with a bookseller in Darlington ; and on finishing the Legend of St. Cuthbert, he permitted George Smith to be placed in the title as the printer, with a view to gain him some credit in his profession. [Darlington: Printed by George Smith, 1777.] This partner- ship did not last long ; but, during its continuance, my father very kindly corrected the press, even of every common handbill that went from the office ; and though he did not condescend to correct ballads, the printing of which was the chief part of the business, a copy was always brought to him. He had a bundle of these performances, which I am not able to find ; but I recollect it contained a vast display of ribaldry and typographical error, which were equally amusing. After Smith's failure, he was again retained for the private press ; but he was the perpetual cause of trouble and anxiety, for my father never went into the printing-room without being irritated by the dirty manner in which the forms were kept, and the filthy state of the types when distributed. Besides this, more time was lost in correcting repeated proofs, than he could well bear ; and the fellow becoming shamefully addicted to cock-fighting, a vice very prevalent in this county, which my father, if possible, held in greater abhorrence than drunkenness, he was dismissed. He was, however, never totally abandoned by him ; and is now living at Dar- lington, obtaining occasional employment, having some relief from the parish, and sometimes partaking of a share of my bounty. The amusement was carried on afterwards by the assistance of a relation, whose time was his own ; and the correction of the press was latterly the only part my father performed." Many of my older readers will recollect the good for nothing retainer to the Allans, Geordie Smith, and both old and young may still picture the last of his partner's family, that " ancient lady" Miss Darnton, who so long was bookseller and sole newspaper agent for the town, in the ^shop now Mr. Charge, the sadler's, next to the Fleece. Her success made her rather saucy, and a gentleman told me once, that when a blushing modest youth, he cautiously went into her shop to ask for Shakspeare's Works, the answer he got was " Why, I think you're like one of Shakspeare's characters yourself," which made him blush still more, nor did he ever discover what sort of character was alluded to. NEWTON FAMILY. 7 The following coats are given by Burke, under the name of Darlington: I. Az. guttee ar. or a fesse or, three crosses crosslet gu. Crest, a winged pillar. 2. The same arms, adding in chief a leopard's face of the second. 3. Az. guttee ar. on a fesse between three leopards' heads or, as many crosses crosslet gu. The arms given for Barling, of London, are nearly similar, Az. guttee ar. on a fesse of the last three crosses crosslet fitchee gu. In the seal of John de Derlyngtone, Canon in Lanchester Collegiate Church and Prebendary of the Prebend of Esh, 1380, he displays a shield bearing a plain cross, charged with five objects like eagles displayed, and surrounded by the legend, " * Jstgtihr : iotyi& : tit : ton'Iyngtoiu :" Qu. if not the arms of Duresme. Ar. on across gu. 5 fleur-de-lis or. The seal is engraved in Surtees. In a collection of armorial bearings begun by Geo. Allan, and continued by Mr. Edw. Kobson, there is a description in the hand of the latter of a coat for " Darlington town," without any authority quoted, viz., six lioncels rampant or, 3, 2 and 1. The heading of the Darlington Mercury in 1773, however, only displays the arms of the see. The old seal of the Grammar School presented a rebus, a rude D and a tun, and the same idea occurs in Foun- tains Abbey, in those parts which were built by John Darneton, abbot from 1478 to 1494. In the Nine Altars' Chapel, on a keystone of one of the older lights, is the bust of an angel holding a tun, with the word dern inscribed on its breast ; above this is a large bird, a scroll, containing another allusion B'n'd' fontes d'no (0 fountains, bless the Lord). Above the large window, over the western door, is a niche, supported by the figure of a bird, holding a crosier, and perched on a tun, from wmence issues a label inscribed dern, and the date 1494. In both cases, if, says Walbran, in his capital little Guide to Ripon, &c, the bird represents a thrush, there was exhibited a second rebus for the founder Thurstan, but if an eagle, it may, as the symbol of St. John, signify only the christian name ot Darneton. Archdeacon Newton. Hugo ds Newton held a burgage in le Chares (Post House Wynd) by fealty, and three suits at the Borough Court Richard Northman, son of Dionisia Orre, nephew and heir. 10 Hatfield. Blackwell. In 8 Bury, Ralph Blacwell held a messuage and five score acres in Blackwell, by homage, fealty, and 24s. Richard, his son and heir, aged 22. 5 Hatfield, Richard Blacicell, jointly with Sibil, his wife, a messuage and five ox-gangs, by 23s. 8d., value 40s. Ralph, son and heir, aged twenty-six weeks. At the time of Hatfield's Survey, (about 1380) this property (which shows that twenty acres went to the ox-gang at Blackwell) is holden by John Middleton, in right of his wife, by the description of one messuage and five ox-gangs, which were once John of Blackwell's, and were granted by charter to hold by knight's service, and the 16th part multure [at Blackwell Mill] et cooperabit* molas supra le Louthre, 23s. 8d. rent * Surtees, sub tit. Blackwell. 8 BLACKWELL AND OXENHALE FAMILIES. The same John holds a parcel of tillage called Gromball, containing 16 acr. and 3 roods, and 2 parcels of tillage called Lynholme * and Elstantoftes ; and one tenement called Le Castle Bill, with the herbage of Bathley, containing four acres of meadow and pasture : also, the same John holds one plot or parcel, which is built upon, and half an ox-gang ; a toft, with a croft of half a rood, 12d., and the toft which was once William of OxenhaWs, with a croft of one acre, by charter, 2d. The family long continued at Blackwell. 1575. June 31. John Myddleton of Blackwell, to be buried in Darneton churche Eldest son John Myddleton; son Robert xx£. over his porc'on — daughters Ellen and Jane yd. over their porc'ons — to the poore xs. — to the repayre of Darneton Church iiis. iiiid. — to James Whyte of London, my brother-in-lawe, and Anne his wyfe, to eyther a ryall — to Mr. Hall xiis. — Francis WyclyfFe a goulde ryall, trusting he will be frendly to my children — my wife Elizabeth, Mr. Frauncis Wyclyffe, and Mr. Harrison to see my will performed. Witness, James Thorneton, clerke, Leonard Dodsworth, John Harrison. Proved 7 Oct. 1575. 5 Dec. 21 Eliz. Elizabeth, widow of John Middleton, held half a close called Stick- bitch, when she died, 29 June, 17 Eliz. John, son and heir, aged 18. (Stick-a-bitch is a farm between Darlington and Croft. At Hatfield's Survey Emma Morrell held three acres at Spyklyt. Qu. Stickabitch ?) Thomas, son of John Midleton of Blackwell Feildhouse, bap. Oct. 21, 1631. — Same day, Elizabeth Midleton, wife of the said John, bur. — John Midleton, senior, of Black- well, bur. Feb. 29, 1631-2.— Katherine Midleton, widow, of Blackwell, bur. Sep. 26, 1632.^ John Middleton of Blackwell, gent., bur. Dec. 30, 1659.— William Middleton of Blackwell, the elder, bur. 20 July, 1671.— Mr. John Middleton of Cleseby, bur. 22 April, 1686.— William, s. William Middleton of Blackwell, bap. 24 July, 1656.— Thomas, &c, 24 April, 1663.— ( Darlington Par. Beg. J 1633. Ralph Blackwell, adm. to Tresham (Stressholmes.) — (Halmot Court Books, Blackwell. J 1642. John Middleton demises to Thomas Swinburne, executor to James Bellasis, Esq., deceased, all right in a close called Tresham and some townland. — (lb.) 22 Cha. I. Eleanor Winteringhton, next of kin, (consang.) and heiress of Ralph Blackwell, adm. to premises at Cockerton. Ralph is called her uncle in the body of the admittance. — (Ralph Blackwell of Cockerton, bur. 2 Dec, 1644. — Bar. Reg.) The name is found straggling previously both in Darlington and Haughton Registers. Most of the property of the Blackwells and Middletons eventually came to the Allans. Oxenhalb. Under Boldon book, William held Oxenhall under certain services, and the same tenure is recited in the inquest on Nicholas de Oxen- hale, who died seized of the manor in 1337, leaving Richard his son and heir. The local name occurs no more, and the manor passed to the Nevilles. * Elizabeth, wife of Francis Wardel, of Linnam-House, near Blackwell, buried 20th December, 1695. SCENERY. SITUATION AND CHARACTER OF SCENERY. When Raumer visited England in 1835, Richmond and Darlington, as well as Durham and the vale of the Wear, reminded him of the countries on the Elbe and the valley of the Elbe between Pillnitz and Dresden. The nearest mountains swell in but a distant view, " clad in colours of the air/' no castles proudly tower in the skies, the vallies are not confined by steep rocks, and there is an utter want of romance about the scenes near Dar- lington, but then all this leads to a quietness of beauty which is on no account to be overlooked. The calm of mind produced by the silent shade of numberless varieties of trees, and by the sweet river side scenes, which as Howitt remarks, abound, and yet are so little observed by travellers in the north-eastern counties of England, arises from a more pleasing, though less nervous tone of admiration, than that caused by the rugged elegance of more broken country. There is a rich and comfortable appearance about the hidden vale of Tees, and the ideas produced on my mind on my first approach to Darlington, on a pedestrian excursion in 1842, w T hen I left Stapleton and gazed on the various dyes of the woods of Baydale, have not yet departed, although now writing, immediately after a morning's walk, on this cold 22nd day of December. The snugness of the woody bounds of Grange, the sullen and half-congealed Tees, the waning moon and stars, and the crisp line formed by the leafless trees against the gradually reddening grey of the East, rising from a bosom of the hoar frost's silver, gave an effect to the appear- ance of Blackwell, which in no way yielded to its autumnal dress. The day scene from Woodside, and the unveiling of the West, near the Nunnery, are two delicate morsels for any one w r ho finds Books in running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in every thing. But I leave all details for my rural chapters, my distant readers will gather an inkling of what I want to be at, and picture a soft, fertile, and extensive valley. Fill ye up the scene with one or two rivers on their journey to the deep, a steeple on a height, a spire in a hollow, with pleasant seats and warm plantations ; such are the suburbs of Darlington. The old part of the town stands on a steepish declivity, facing the East, with the Skerne slowly wandering Like human life, to endless sleep, at its foot. It is a very central station, is on the course of the great line of road from London to Berwick, one of the eight grand thoroughfares set out in Harrison's Description of England, prefixed to Hollinshed, and in his instructions, " How a man may journey from any notable towne in England, c 10 VICTIMS OF to the citie of London, or from London to any notable towne in the Realme," it occurs in the way from Barwike to Yorke, thus : From Durham to Darington, xiij. mile. From Darington to Northalerton, xiiij. mile. In our days, these distances would stand as 18 and 16 miles. Darlington is distant 12 miles from Stockton, 16 from Barnard-castle, 12 from Richmond., 32 from Newcastle (39f by rail), 48 from York (45 by rail), and 241 from the metropolis. Dibdin in his Tour (ii. 247), says that " Upon the whole the county of Durham all through, cannot boast, I think, a large aggregate of riches. Darlington would be nothing if it were not a post town. Har- tlepool is a poor inconsiderable fishing town ; and if it were not for the clerical revenue and patronage of Durham, I should think that Sunderland might buy the whole county." The present state of affairs shows how very little Dibdin knew of the resources of Darlington, when he says that it would be nothing without its posting. It is true that the new mode of transit has brought great wealth to some of its inhabitants, but independently of that, its markets and manufactures have ever made it a place of some con- sequence. In Leland's time it was " the best market-town in the Bishop- rick, saving Duresme," and in later times " the most noted town in England for the linen manufacture, especially Hugabacks/'* nay more, if we adopt another writer's zealous assertion, for such manufactures it was " the most noted place in the whole world /"f THE WATERS OF THE PARISH OF DARLINGTON. The parish is watered by three rivers, the Tees, the Skerne, and the Cockerbeck. The first of these eccentrically winds from Tees Cottage to Blackwell and thence to Croft bridge, near which, as before mentioned, it receives the sluggish Skerne. The Cockerbeck flowing from Walworth, on its arrival at the Darlington territories, divides in times of flood, and causes a large portion of the parish to become an island, one branch assuming the name of Bay dale Beck, J and falling into the Tees near Tees Cottage, the other retaining its name and meandering along until it runs into the Skerne, at right angles, at the head of Northgate. ANNALS OE THE WATERS. And, first, their victims claim our notice. A long and dreary list might be presented to my readers, were I to include all that have been chronicled, * John Dyer's MSS. + Universal Magazine, 1 749, " from an ingenious correspondent, who subscribes himself Conyers." X This beck only carries off the waste or overflowing waters of the Cockerbeck; its head being on a higher level than the bed of the larger brook. THE WATERS. 11 but knowing how harrowing it is to have the memorials of their deaths dragged before eyes but newly tearless, I have confined the melancholy catalogue to the earlier entries of the register and one or two of the more remarkable of the modern records. 1608. May 23. — Agnes Thompson, a servant of John Watson, drowned in Tees, and buried. 1613. July 3. — John Horner, who was drowned, the son of Robert Horner of Dar- lington, buried. 1620. May. — An infant drowned in the river of Skerne, buried. June 1. — Barbary Rutter, dau. of Ralph Rutter of Black well, drowned and buried. 1621-2. March 1. — Henry Wetherelt of Aldbrough, drowned in Tees, buried. — 15. — A certain old woman called Old Agnes, drowned in Skerne, buried. 1623-4. January 18. — Agnes Thompson of Black well, drowned under the mill wheel, buried. 1624. Oct. 12. — Katherine Lawsonn, wife of Lancelot Lawsonn of Gainforde, drowned in Tees, buried. 1624-5. March 10. — Bartholomew Langestraffe and Margaret Langstraffe, sons (filii! ) of John Langstraffe of Blackwell, drowned, buried. 1626. March 25. — Thomas Dent of Midleton a rawe, drowned in the river of Skerne, buried. * 1628. June 6. — Margaret Simpson of Ovington, drowned in Tees, buried. 1638. July 22. — William Allanson of Darlington, drowned in the river of Skerne, buried. 1639-40. March 11. — Thomas Branson, of Darlington, drowned in the river of Skerne, buried. 1641. Oct. 12. — Cuthbert Birde of Midleton tires, drowned in Tees, buried. 1652. April 8. — Isabell Sympson, the daugter of Anthony Sympson of Blackwell, who was supposed to be slaine, bap. 1652. April 20. — Anthonye Sympson of Blackwell, was Burried when he was found in Blackwell mill damme, and had not been sene for 18 weeke. 1652-3. Feb. 26. — Francis Sympson, late wife of Anthnie Sympson of Blackwell, buried. 1653. Dec. — Henry Firbanke of Forcet, in the countie of Yorke, who was found lying drowned in Blackwell Holme, buried. Blackwell Holme is the low ground lying South of the new road leading down to Blackwell bridge, under Holme Wood. It is probable that the unfortunate man was crossing the horse ford which was close to the place where the bridge now stands (the ferry being lower down, opposite Stapleton), and that his body was swept round the bold curve of the river into the Holme and left there. A holme signifies land overgrown with natural trees in the vicinity of water (as the Holmes at Thirsk) no matter whether flat or steep. In the latter character are the Holme Bank and the High Holmes near Hill House. Blackwell Holme, which sometime belonged to Baby Vane, by marriage with the daughter of Archdeacon Sayer, is copyhold, and appears to have formed part of the vast district called Baydales, as in 1640 mention is made of "Badell banU in Black well field alias BlacJavel Holme," and in 1644, If VICTfMSOF " Blackwell Holme within Badell alias Badell Flatt?'* At present, Baydale Banks and Baydale Bank Bottom are names in Mr. K. H. Allan's freehold estate of Bay dales. Both it and Black well Holme were the estates of George Allan, Esq., M.P.,but Blackwell Holme was subsequently sold to the Bowers of Welham. In draining the morass of Baydale bottoms, numbers of gnarled oaks were found, either fallen from the banks above, or swept to that position by the river. They were huge patriarchs of the forest, black as ebony, but sound at the heart withal. 1653-4. March 2. — -A stranger was buried who was found drowned in Skearne about Glassen-Sikes. Glassensikes is the name of certain closes of which (with Windmill Hill) Christopher Barnes (Borough Bailiff) died seised in 1630-1, and which were purchased from the family of Bowes of Thornton Hall, by Miss Allan. The Allans sold a portion of them piecemeal, but the lots were subsequently bought up and reunited by the late Jonathan Backhouse, Esq. This territory is watered by a small runner of the same name which flows past the new parsonage house and Harewood Grove, crosses under the Croft road (being formerly an open stell upon it) and joins the Skerne at the place to which it gives name. The word is probably composed of Glassene, blue or grey, and sike, the old legal term for anything less than a beck, which in its turn is anything less than a river. The former word is still used for blue or grey in Wales, and the following extract from the valuable notes to the Lays of the Deer Forest, <$•&, by the Stuarts is too appropriate to be omitted. After remarking that grey was anciently the badge of the churl and peasant, they observe that there was another cause for which it was peculiarly disagreeable to the Highlanders when first introduced among them. " Among them grey was to their imagination what black is to their neighbours, a personification of sombre, superstitious and ghostly ideas, and hence associated with phantoms and demons. Thus, an apparition is called an Riochd — the grey or wan; the spectre foreboding death, am bodach glas — the grey carl; a phantom in the shape of a goat, an Glastig or Glasdidhf — the grey; and as in the South, the great enemy is named familiarly " the black gentleman," so in the Highlands he is called Mac-an- Riochda — ' the son of the Grey! In the ideas of the old wives and children of the last century, all these personifications, except one, were as nearly as possible those of the modern dubh-ghall deer-stalker in his hodden grey — wanting only the Jim Crow, ruffian, or crush hat, enormities which had not then completed the masquerade of Death and Satan. " It is easy to trace the origin of this association. The ancient Caledonian hell, like that of Scandinavia, was a frozen and glassy region, an island named Ifrinn, far away .among the 'wan waters' of the Northern ocean, and inclosed in everlasting ice, and snow, and fog. In this dim region the appearance of the evil spirits, like that of mortals in similar circumstances, was believed to be wan and shadowy, like men seen through a frosty mist." * Hahrrot Court Books. + " It lias pleased a writer of the Cockney school of Highlanders to convert this word into Glaslig, which, we take leave to observe, is unknown in the Highlands, and did not exist before the year 1841." THE WATERS. 13 Sir Walter Scott, in his " Lady of the Lake/' alludes to the same super- stition : •'* His dazzled eyes Beheld the river-demon rise ; The mountain-mist took form and limb, Of noontide-hag or goblin grim ;" and adds, in a note, that " the noontide-hag, called in Gaelic Glas-lich, a tall, emaciated, gigantic female figure, is supposed, in particular, to haunt the dis- trict of Knoidart." Now, though I by no means intend to assert that the glassene gentleman or lady (for I am unable to define the ghost's gender) haunting Glassensikes is seen at noonday,* I will maintain that Glassensikes has goblins as grim as any river-damions of Scottish land. Headless gentlemen, who disappeared in flame, headless ladies, white cats, white rabbits, white dogs, black dogs ; " shapes that walk at dead of night, and clank their chains ;"-(• in fact, all the characteristics of the Northern Barguest were to be seen in full perfection at Glassensikes. It is true that these awful visions occasionally resolved them- selves into a pony, shackled in an adjoining field, or Stamper's white dog, or a pair of sweethearts " under the cold moon," (Qy : Did poets ever hear of persons walking above the moon, be she hot or be she chill T) but still a vast amount of credible evidence exists about the fallen glories of the night-roaming ghost of Glassensikes. The Glassensikes witnesses are not all thoughtless, and superstitious men. An old gentleman of Darlington was, at the witching hour of midnight, returning from Oxeneyfield. It was a bright moonlight night, and the glories of the firmament led him, as he says, to possess a more contemplative turn of mind than he ever felt before or since. In such a frame he thought that if nothing was to be seen in the day, nothing could well haunt Glassensikes by night, and in firm faith, but without any wish to exercise an idle curiosity, he determined to look to it very narrowly, and satisfy himself as to the fallacy of the popular notion. Accordingly, when he came to the place where the road to Harewood Hill now turns off, he looked back, and was greatly surprised to see a large animal's head popped through the stile at the commencement of the footpath, leading by the pre- sent Woodside to Blackwell. Next came a body. Lastly, came a tail. Now my hero, having at first no idea that the unwelcome visitant was a ghost, was afraid that it would fly at him, for it bounced into the middle of the road and stared intently at him, whereupon he looked at it for some minutes, not knowing well what to do, and beginning to be somewhat amazed, for it was much larger than a Newfoundland dog, and unlike any dog he had ever seen, though well acquainted with all the canine specimens in the * There is a noontide ghost not very far off, however,— of whom hereafter, i* What does Grose mean by saying that " dragging chains is not the fashion of English ghosts; chains and black vestments being chiefly the accoutrements of foreign spectres, seen in arbitrary governments: dead or alive, English spirits are free?" for iu the North, the chain-dragging is one of the grand characteristics of uuhouselled spirits. 14 VICTIMS OF neighbourhood ; moreover it was as black as a hound of hell. He thought it best to win the affections of so savage a brute, so cracked his fingers invit- ingly at it, and practised various other little arts for some time. The dog, however, was quite immovable, still staring ferociously, and as a near approach to it did not seem desirable, he turned his back and came to Dar- lington, as mystified about the reality of the Glassensikes ghost as ever. Of late years, this harmless sprite has seemingly become disgusted with the increased traffic past its wonted dwelling, and has become a very well- behaved domestic creature. The stream, however, loves to make new ghosts, and by its stagnant nature does every thing in its power to obtain them. The headless man who vanished in flame, was, of course, the many-named imp, ycleped Robin Goodfellow, Hobgoblin, Mad Crisp, Will-the-Wispe,* Will-with-a-wisp, Will-a-Wisp, Will-and-the-wisp, William-with-a-wispe, Will-o'-the-wisp, Kitty-with-a-wisp, Kit-with-the-canstick (candlestick), Jack- with-a-lanthorn, Jack-w'-a-lanthorns, Fire-drake, Brenning-drake, Dicke- a-Tuesday, Ignis fatuus, or Foolish Fire (because, says Blount, it only feareth fools), Elf-fire, Gyl-burnt-Tayle, Gillion-a-burnt-taile, Sylham lamps (being very frequent at Sylham in Suffolk), Sylens (Reginald Scot), Death- fires, Wat (seen in Buckinghamshire prisons), Mab (mab-led or mob-led in Warwickshire, signifies being led astray by a Will-o'-the-Wispe) with all the varieties of Puck. When seen on ship masts it is styled a complaisance, St. Helen's fire, St. Helmes fires, the Fires of St. Peter and St. Paul, St. Herme's fire and St. Ermyn ; in classic times Helen, and when two lights occurred, Castor and Pollux. The phenomenon is a forerunner of dearth in popular fancy, at sea it is a weather symbol, and in superstitious times the Romanist clergy persuaded the people that the lights were souls come out of Purgatory all in flame, to move them to give money, to say mass for them, each man thinking they might be some relations' souls, -j" The grand settlement of the Ignis fatuus (a natural marvel never yet satisfactorily explained) was in the little square field, now surrounded by roads. It revelled in its bogginess, the hedge near the Blackwell-lane was lit up by unearthly flames, and a woeful wight was unable to return from Black- well on one occasion, in consequence of a great gulph of fire there. I am given to understand that the Will-o'-Wisp has been seen even since Hare- wood Hill was built, and the field improved. I am not sure that the headless man of Prescott's stile (somewhat further up the bank, and hard by a little plantation of Nordykes, where the footpath to Blackwell turns out of the field into the lane) has quite disappeared from the ken of earthly eyes. I know not what the Prescotts did, but surely some dark deeds crossed their annals, or else their old deserted mansion at Blackwell, and their stile leading to it, would not have become the haunted spots they have. Lady ghosts are favourite accompaniments of water in the North. Both my former residences, Norton and Thirsk, had white ladies near them, on * A torch composed of a twist of straw. t Ellis's Brand, 1842, iii. 218. THE WATERS. J 5 melancholy streams ; indeed, in the latter ease, the runner took a name from the circumstance, and is called the White-lass-beck. Like the Glassensikes spirit, the White-lass is rather protean in her notions, turning into a white dog, and an ugly animal which comes rattling into the town with a tremen- dous clitter-my-clatter, and is there styled a barguest. Occasionally, too, she turns into a genuine lady of flesh and blood, tumbling over a stile. The Norton goblins are equally eccentric. Two gentlemen (one, a very dear friend of mine, et est mihi scepe vocandus, now deceased) saw near a water an exquisitely beautiful white heifer turn into a roll of Irish linen, and then, when it vanished, one of them beheld a fair white damsel. The Thirsk maid was murdered ; and, some years ago, when a skeleton was dug up in a gravel pit near the beck, it was at once said to be that of the poor girl. Glassensikes has a rival in a streamlet running across a most uncanny- looking little glen between Darlington and Haughton, near Throstle Nest, where the maiden, the cat, and other shapes, gathered around the luckless traveller. But though they have not builders to blame for intrusion, they have fallen into the pet, and are now heard of even less than their cousins of the glassene sike. So much de albis puellis : on, on with the records of death. 1714. Ma}" 14. — Joyce Habbs of Blackwell, drown 'd in the Teaze, bur. 1721. Dec 19. — William Hall, servant to Christopher Wardel of Blackwell, drown'd i'th' Tees, buried. 1722. July 10. — The corpse of one supposed to have been a man cast up by the Tees near Blackwell, buried. 1722. Dec. 31. — Robert Lnck of Darlington, bricklayer, buried, he was drown'd in the Tees at Nesham. 1724. April 1. — John Longstaff of Darlington, drown'd in the Mill-pott, buried. 1725. July 1. — Mr. John Child of Blackwell, (who was drown'd in that part of the Tees call'd Consclif Caldron or Hob's hole on y e 2d of June), buried. Here are more ghostly associations. Hob is a name for many spirits of very varying characters. There was a Hob Hedeless (Headless) who infested the road between Hurworth and Neasham, but could not cross the running stream of the Kent, a little stream flowing into the Tees at the latter place. He was exorcised and laid under a large stone, formerly on the road side, for ninety-nine years and a day, on which stone, if any luckless personage sat, he would be glued there for ever. When the road was altered the stone was fearlessly removed. In the Conisclifle case, Hob was probably one of the kelpies or evil spirits of the waters, who, as in Wensleydale, generally appeared as a horse. Kelpies of Scotland sat by the lake sides and lured women and children to their subaqueous haunts, there to be immediately devoured, or swelled the water beyond its usual limits, to overwhelm the hapless traveller. The later name for the goblin of the Tees is ^eg^otoler, who is useful in keeping 16 VICTIMS OF children from going too near the river.* Some of my readers will doubtless have a faint recollection of being awfully alarmed in their youthful days, least when thev chanced to be alone on the margin of the stream, " Pes Powler, with her green hair/' should issue forth and snatch them into her watery chambers. The parental threat, " Peg-Powler will get you," is- synonymous with " the Boggly-bo will get you," which I well remember being frightened with by servants. The Bogle, however, like the Shelly-coat of the Scottish waters, and the brags and barguests of Durham is, I think, more plaguing than fatal. But who was BO, whose name is so terrific to children, and a test of manhood when addressed to a goose ? Warton gives him a Scandinavian origin, and describes him as a mighty cleaver of skulls ; while Chalmers has provided him with a Welsh pedigree.-f- Great must have been his fame. The name of Marlborough, who has been dead little more than a century, is no longer terrific to the children of France ; Richard of the Lion's heart has ceased to be a bugbear to the sons of the crescent ; but BO, tremendous BO, still rules with iron sway the scions of the oaken- souled sea-kings of the nursing soil whence those transitory heroes sprung. The legend of Peg-Powler bears much resemblance to the Irish superstition " embalmed in the affecting wail of the mother for her son, seduced by the daughters of the waters to drown in their coral caves/' and to the ideas attached to the Chippeway lake Minsisagaigoming, or "the dwelling place of the mysterious spirit," who, as a beautiful lady or an old woman, took away to the spirit-land those whom he loved. A benevolent spirit resided in Bob- hole, a natural cavern in Runswick Bay, Yorkshire, formed like the fairy corns at Hartlepool, and the recesses near Sunderland, by the constant action, of the tide. Hob was supposed to cure the hooping-cough ; and an impious and idolatrous charm, till late years, was considered efficacious. The patient was carried into the cave, and the parent, with a loud voice, invoked its deity, $?ob4)oIc &o& ! $fto batrn's gcttcn 't funfe-rougf), CaVt off, tak't off.* 1730. June 22.— William, son of William Groves, of Darlington (drown'd by acci- dent), bur. 1730. June 25. — Elizabeth Lee, of West Auckland, a young woman (drowned), bur. 1734. December 15. — Anna, wife of Leonard Lakenby, of Darlington, unfortunately drowned. 1735. December 25. — Phillis, wife of Wm. Herd, of Darlington, accidentally drowned, 1737 — 8. March 23. — John Nateby, of Blackwell, farmer, unfortunately drowned in * Her Pegship does not, however, confine herself to the running waters. Neighbouring ponds are also honoured by her presence. t Rambles in Northumberland. The author assumes that Sir Walter Scott's barguest of Durham and Newcastle is a mistake for feoguest. I know nothing about these two particular instances, but all the spirits of a similar name which have occurred to me in Yorkshire were certainly called ftarguests; and the likeness to the words brag, and the German barg- geist, satisfies me that this pronunciation is correct. % Ord's Cleveland, 303. THE WATERS. 17 the Tees, upon the 30th of January last, and not taken up till 21st of this instant, buried. 1746. April 8. — John Thompson, of Darlington, flax dresser, who had drowned him- self, buried. 1751. August 5. — Ann Jackson, a servant-maid, who was drowned at Blackwell, buried. 1762. November 9. — William Leighton, of the parish of Shotley, in Northumberland, stonemason, who was drowned in the river Teese, about Winston, and carried by the force of the stream down to Blackwell. and there thrown out, buried. 1773. August 27. — James Teasdale, a labouring man, from Durham, and who was unfortunately drown'd in the river Tees, buried. 1794. March 9. — Jane Patterson, of Bedale, who was drowned in the river Tees, nigh Blackwell, buried. 1796. February 17. — Lewis Hammond, cabinet-maker, an itinerant, drowned in the mill-dam, buried. 1798. Joanna Husband, of Darlington, spinster, daughter of Edward Husband, glover. — March 14th, This poor woman was missed. Buried April 10, aged forty-two. Drowned in the mill-dam. 1804. Martin Brown of Darlington, batchelor, aged 22 years, drowned in the Skerne, December 25, buried 27. 1818. February. — An infant drowned in the Skern, found near Skem-House, about the age of one month, buried. This is the first of a series of records of similar outrages on humanity. Three children were found in one week in the sullen mill-dam. 1825. May 2. — John Newton, Barton, found drowned at Blackwell, aged 47, buried. 1832. Nov. 5. — George Stout (drowned at Neesham Ford), Darlington, aged 42, buried. In the churchyard is the following inscription : " Sacred to the memory of John Morton, of Liverpool, who was unfortunately drowned whilst bathing in the Tees, the 10th of July, 1838, aged 27 years." January 5, 1840. Sunday afternoon. As Mr. John Chisman of Black- well mill, and Mr. Rutter were walking on the shore of the river Skerne, about three hundred yards from the mill, on the way to Darlington, they observed something in the water like a flannel petticoat ; a fork was procured and a substance raised which proved to be the body of a female. It was carefully removed, with further assistance, to a granary at the mill, where an inquest was held before William Trotter, Esq., coroner for Darlington Ward, on the following day and, by adjournment, on the day succeed- ing. The evidence went to show that the deceased was a young woman named Susan Dagley, a native of Coventry, who had worked at Messrs. Pease s mill for about nine months, and was missed from her lodging at Priestgate, in Darlington, about five weeks previous, since which period every effort for her discovery had been unsuccessful. Thomas Brownrigg, a fellow lodger, had been taken into custody on the suspicion arising from the circum- stance that, on the night of Friday, the 29th of November, about half-past seven in the evening, she threw her tea-tin on the table of her lodgings and Went out without speaking a word to any one. Brownrigg, who lodged in D 18 VICTIMS OF the same house, went out ahout seven and returned at half-past nine o'clock the same evening when he said to another lodger, named Woodhams, " Woodhams, have you seen anything of Susan ¥' And before he had time to reply he asked the same question of the old woman, Jane Scott, who kept the lodging-house. On the Sunday, Brownrigg told Woodhams he had been seeking all over for her ; and a female named Margery Newton deposed that about seven that morning she saw Brownrigg coming up from the water in a stooping position. Mr. Arthur Strother had examined the body and found the arms and hips to be very much bruised, the lungs healthy, the brain much gorged with blood, no appearance of pregnancy, and considered that the murder must have been committed, before the body was thrown into the water. The deposition of Brownrigg went to account for the use he made of his time on the night in question, the particulars of which coincided with the statements which two or three other witnesses made as to the times when they saw him. Verdict of " Wilful murder against some person or persons unknown/'* 1844. August 2. A boy, of Black well, named Fen wick, about 11 years old, while crossing the Tees, was carried away by a flood, which came down suddenly in consequence of the late rains. It is singular that in the same month in 1845, an inquest was held on the body of his brother Joseph, aged 10, who had been an inmate of the Victoria Asylum, Newcastle, and was, at the time of his death, on a visit to his friends. Although blind, he could go about and had strayed on the high road at the time the Richmond omnibus and Cook's circus carriages were passing each other. He was knocked down by the omnibus horses, and run over before it could be stopped, it being on the declivity of the hill leading down to Blackwell bridge. Whit-Tuesday, 1846. A youth 13 years old, son of Mr. Wm. Nicholson, comber, of this town, while bathing a little above Tees Cottage, got out of his depth and was drowned, though the most strenuous efforts were made by his fellows to save him, (one of whom nearly experienced the same fate). " The river Tees is exceedingly unsafe for inexperienced people to bathe in : the bottom, being chiefly of a sandy nature, is by the frequent floods continually shifting, and it is not an unfrequent thing for a person unacquainted with the water to slip from a place not knee-deep into a hole eight or ten feet in depth."f 1846. November 26. Great excitement pervaded the town this day on the intelligence being received that the conductor of the mail cart from the York and Newcastle Railway Station was drowned in the Skerne, and the bags lost. The poor man whose name was Henry Nesbit, but who was better known by the cognomen of Harry Boots, set off from the station as usual, with the night mail bags, but not arriving at the King's Head Inn, inquiries were made, and one of the omnibus drivers said he had seen some- * Richardson's Local Historian's Table Book. f Durham Advertiser. THE WATERS. 19 thing like a cart upside down in the Mill-pot. The cart and horse were Found, but poor Harry was not discovered till the morning of the 27th, the body having been moving about in the Mill-pot the whole of the previous day, as the place where it was found had been dragged previously without success. The river was considerably swollen, and it would appear that the deceased must have attempted the narrow and dangerous passage called the Mill Bank ; w T here there is no railing, and slipped off the bounding wall into the water. The mail-bags were found in a tolerable condition by Mr. Gent, of Polam, a considerable distance from the stream. " Harry Boots" was buried with much respect, and is commemorated by a tombstone in the churchyard. Many of the melancholy accidents I have mentioned were doubtless in the time of FLOODS, which rapidly rush down the Tees and Skerne. In February, 1753, the former rose in some parts fifteen feet above high water mark, washing the turnpike house at Croft down, whereby £50 of the road money was lost in the water. In a letter* dated from Bedmarshall, in March, Mr. Johnson writes to Dr. Birch, that "it drowned almost entirely all the village of Neesham, having destroyed every house except one, to which all the people resorted, and by good luck saved their lives, though with the loss of all their cattle, and stacks of hay and corn." " The great flood," however, was par eminence, that of November, 1771, which caused most disastrous conse- quences on the Tyne, Wear, and Tees.-f The water passed through Gain- ford, and carried away about seven yards of the churchyard, with the coffins and corpses ; some of them stopped at Mr. Hill s ground at BJackwell. The Castle-hill at BlackwellJ was washed away. The water was above six feet high in William Allison's house at Oxenhall Field ; it spoiled the corn stacks, drowned two of his fat oxen, a mare and a foal, and [another ?] with foal, of the Traveller's breed, with a four years' old one of the same sort, very valuable ; a draught horse, and a ram that cost him ten guineas, and spoiled all the household property below stairs ; 'twas as high as the centre of his clock pointer. He saved his stallion, which was in a stable built on purpose for him, that stood on the highest ground, though he was up to the rump in water. The family at Slip Inn abandoned the house, and escaped with much difficulty to William Jolly's ; had they stayed three minutes longer they had been drowned. At Croft, the flood was in the church, and the * Bibliotheca Topograpliica Britan. + See Richardson's Local Historian's Table Book, sub 1771, — Brewster's Stockton, and a small reprint of the accounts of the terrible inundations of 1771 and 1815, published by Charnley, of Newcastle, in 1818, from which the following remarks are taken. % This expression must be taken cum grano salis. The flood, doubtless, was very destruc- tive to this venerable remain, but its utter desolation has been in very gradual progress, and a remnant still remains.— AV. H, L, 20 FLOODS. gates carried away. There a man and a wife forced to the house top, clung by the rigging tree a long time, but at last the old woman, being no longer able to bear herself up, took leave of her husband and dropped, but he out of lasting affection, replied, " no, my dear, as we have lived forty years happily together, so let us die in peace and love," and instantly leaving his hold, resigned himself to the Will of Providence. It happened, however, that the upper floor of the house was left standing, and they were happily saved thereon, the Water having subsided. In this flood, the Tees rose twenty feet higher than the oldest man living could remember, and as the quantity of water in it and the Tyne and Wear, appeared so much more than the apparent quantity of rain which had fallen, incessantly, but not heavily, on two previous days, many conjectured that a water-spout must have broken near the sources, which are very near to each other. At Barnard-castle the water ejected a dyer from his cellars, just as a few tammies in the kettle were receiving their last process. After the torrent had subsided, he visited his kettle in great anxiety, when, removing the sand and mud at the top, his goods were found to have attained a colour beyond his most sanguine expectations. They were sent to London, and gave such satisfaction, that orders were forwarded for a further supply of the same shade, but the dyer, not being again assisted by the genius of the river, failed in every attempt to produce it. Great damage was also done at Darlington and along the banks of the Tees, by the floods of December, 1815. On February 2, 1822, a most tem- pestuous wind, with heavy rain, was the precursor of more heavy floods in the north. The Tees began to rise at nine o'clock on Saturday evening, and the road from Croft Bridge to Darlington was impassable. On Sunday morning the water was seven feet deep in the main street of Stockton, and the mail passed through Hurworth. The water stood fifteen feet on Croft Bridge. Another severe flood happened in July, 1828, and in October, 1829, the Tees rose to a height not exceeded within the memory of the oldest inhabitant of Barnard-castle, sweeping away the new bridge, then building at Whorlton, to the ruin of the unfortunate builders. The Tees was also very high in August, 1832* This river is frequently frozen, notwithstanding the tides and rapid current. In 1 780 it was frozen eight weeks, and in 1 784, when the ice was eight and a half inches in thickness, a sheep was roasted upon the river at Portrack. One of the most remarkable CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEES, is its fancy for winding in eccentric curves. From this circumstance, indeed, it derives its name, the Celtic Taoi, signifying winding, We have * Sykes's Local Records, edit. 1833. THE TEES. 21 more rivers than one of this name in Her Majesty's dominions, and the Thiess, a large river, flows into the Danube. In " the winding Tay," we have the word in nearly its original form, and a pleonasm strikingly expres- sive of the propriety of its appropriation. Dyer fell into the same venial error when he talks about " the shady dales of winding Towy, Merlin's fabled haunt," Towy being only a modification of Tay. Every one recollects the Tajo (pronounced Tayo) flowing past Lisbon ; there is a Tava flowing into the Danube, and another river of the same name in Moravia ; nay, there is even a Tay in China ! The following popular sayings connected with the Tees may amuse: An otter in the Wear, You may find but once a year ; An otter in the Tees, You may find at your ease. The Tyne, the Tees, the Till, the Tarset and the Tweed, The Alne, the Blyth, the Font, the Tarret and the Read. The Tees, the Tyne, and Tweed, the Tarret and the Till, The Team, the Font, and Pont, the Tippal and the Dill * Escaped the Tees and was drowned in the Tyne. So the Welsh say " To escape Cluyd and be drowned in Conway," in general proverbial speech, " out of the frying-pan into the fire," and " out of God s blessing into the warm sun." Here are two more locals of the same meaning. Out o'Bisho'brigt into Yorkshire. " Tutef again" — made the lad leave Yorkshire, And when he gat into Bisho'brigg he was niwer dune.§ The Tees has, however, been celebrated in more polished numbers. It is introduced by "the gentle Spenser" into his "Marriage of the Thames and Medway," thus : Then came the bride, the loving Medway came, Her gentle lockes adowne her back did flowe Unto her waste, with flowers bescattered, The which ambrosial odours forthe did throwe To all about, and all her shoulders spred As a new-spring ; and likewise on her head A chapelet of sundrie flowres she wore : On her two pretty handmaids did attend, One cal'd the Theise, the other cal'd the Crane ; Which on her waited, things amisse to mend, And both behinde upheld her spredding traine. * The principal Northumbrian rivers. + Bishopric-^par eminence— of Durham. t Do it. § This and the proceeding ancient saws are from my friend Mr M. Aislabie Denham, of Piercebridge's extensive collection of popular sayings of the five Northern counties. May they successfully increase and at length see the light of the world! 22 THE TEES. Mason exclaims, Rejoice! as if the thundering Tees himself Reigned there amid his cataracts sublime. However, near Darlington, the poet's idea is not realized. This noble stream "that beareth and feedeth an excellent salmon" has passed the terrible grandeur of its falls ; flown by the castle of the Baliols, which " standeth stately" on its crags ; and reached the vale where sloping banks and shady groves hang over it with rapture, and where, rolling amidst laughing meads in all the majesty of pride, it was first cheered by early civilization, as shown by the minute distribution of parishes, and gave name to the gallant race, who, first taking the salmon as their ensign, showed their deep reverence for the waters of their home "super Teysam." How Father Tees meanders ! by the rich woods of Baydale ; by Castle Hill and the sweep of Blackwell Holme ; through 'the time-worn arcade of Croft ; jutting round Rock Cliff ; kindly saluting Hurworth and Neasham ; hurry- ing south to embrace the soft lawns of Sockburn ; and then dashing back again, entranced by the luxuriant walks of Dinsdale ; really one might almost suppose he was seeking some fair streamlet to woo and win, remem- bering his sweet union with the Greta : Where issuing from her darksome bed, She caught the morning's eastern red, And through the softening vale below Rolled her bright waves, in rosy flow, All blushing to her bridal bed Like some fair maid in convent bred. " After Derlington," says Camden,* the Tees has no towns of more~note on its banks, but washes the edges of green fields and country villages with its winding stream, and at length throws itself at a wide mouth into the sea." Yarm is, however, described as bigger and better built than Darlington by him,-f- to which character we need only apply De Foe's remark on it ; " it has seen much better days" as it now merely contains 1500 inhabitants, while Darlington has nearly 11,000. The Tees abounds with fishes of the salmon kind, consisting in popular diction, of sparling, brandling, trout, salmon-trout or scurves, summer-cock, and salmon. The convent of Durham occasionally procured their fresh water fish from the Tees. 1508. To Edward Smyth for sparling and place apud Teass ; 1539-40. For 300 sparlinge from Teys against Christmas, \2d.% The fishery of salmon is now, of course, confined to certain periods. The * Gough's edit. t Britannia, ii, 943. % Bursar's books. THE SKERNE. 23 fence days fixed by the North Riding and Durham Sessions, in 1848, are Sept. 17, and Feb. 14, the fish being taken in summer. Near Dinsdale are the celebrated Fish-locks, for intercepting them in their migrations. This opposition to the natural disposition of the salmon, to go some thirty miles further up the river in spawning season, is exceedingly destructive to the race, and projects have been set on foot to procure its abolition, but they have always failed. Among the various other fish inhabiting the brave river called Teeze* some belonged to the Bishop, by virtue of his regal privileges. That the Bpp has the royaltyes of the river of Tease, as Whales, Sturgeon, Purposes, or the like, taken on that side the river next the county of Durham, within the manor of Stockton, and all wracks of the sea, hut know not what they are worth : — not 5^. per ann. — Survey of Stockton Manor, taken when the Parliament sold the possessions of At this day " not one shilling" possibly would be a more correct return. Whales we have none, the porpoises uselessly gambol near the sandbanks at the river's mouth, and a sturgeon is a rarity. A remarkably large one, caught below Yarm, was exhibited alive at Darlington, in 1848 ; it mea- sured 7 ft. 5 in. in length, and weighed about 8J st. In former days this " Royal Fish" would very probably have grieved the pious soul of good old Cosin. The charges of catching; and curing five sturgeon at his manor of Howden, in 1662, what with dill and rosemary, eleven gallons of white wine at 2s. 8d. the gallon, 16^ gallons of vinegar at Is. 8d. the gallon, and one thing and another, came to 51. 17s. Id, which the Bishop reasonably thought rather a costly matter, as the fish were chiefly given away to my Lord Clarendon, my Lady Gerard, &c So he desired his Howden steward to catch no more sturgeons, and sharply adds " you need not have item'd me for your dill and rosemary." For the first assizes after this prelate's con- secration, held at Durham, Aug. 12, 166T, when all men's hearts were full of joy at the restoration, we have the following charges : For afatt oxe, bought of Win. Man, of Peircebridge, III. 6s. Od. To the carrier, for bringing a case of sturgeon fro' Darenton, 4s. lOd. Truly might Mr. Arden exclaim, " We are prepared to receive the Judges nobly" and doubtless Mr. Neile was equally true in asserting, " We eat and drink abominably." * Brewster's Stockton, edit. 1796, p. 22. 24 THE SKERNE. THE SKERNE Is almost as amusing as the Tees in its twistings, as the low grounds adjoining the foot road from Darlington to Haughton, and near Blackwell Mill (where the ancient course conducts the waste water), may well testify, but in all other respects it widely differs, being a small, still, sluggish stream, flowing through cars and marshes. From the Well-springs to the north of Trimdon, rises Hur worth-Burn, which runs east for nearly two miles, then turns south, crosses the Hartlepool road, and at the distance of half a mile to the south-west, sinks entirely, and disappears in a swallow-hole in the lime- stone rock. Near this spot the South Skerne rises and meets the North Skerne near Nunstainton. The latter has its source in the marsh which separates Thrislington from Ferry-hill wood, and is soon augmented by powerful feeders from the limestone rock skirting the morass. At Ferry-hill the Convent of Durham had a swanpool, but the silver swans have long ceased to oar their way across their loch, and the swannery is now occupied by railroads and station-houses.* A flat of marshy land, peat bottoming on clay, extends along the whole upper course of the Skerne, and has been much fertilized by draining, retaining its verdure in the most parching drought. At Mainsforth the peat lies uniformly about eleven feet deep, below that is blue clay of great depth ; nearer the edge of the level the peat bor- ders on limestone, through which constant springs, which never vary in winter or summer, burst with great force. The roots of the trees which have been planted on these grounds have run almost entirely along the surface, never venturing to plunge a fibre into the wet peat. The roots of the willow in particular (of large growth), are one complete mass of fibres closely inter- woven, and as regularly spread on the surface of the peat as if levelled by a carpenter's plane. The Scotch fir has reached fifty feet in height, with a girth of six or seven feet, the root meanwhile, not striking two feet below the turf. This little water of Skerne contains twelve species of fish: 1, roach; 2, dace ; 3, chub ; 4, gudgeon ; 5, minnow ; 6, miller's thumb ; 7, stickleback ; 8, trout, rare; 9, pike; 10, barbut or eelpout ; 11, eel; 12, lamprey (petromyzon branchialis). Of these the barbut, gadius lota, is not of very common occurrence ; it is an inhabitant of still lazy streams like the Skerne, where it frequents the deepest pools or hollows under bridges ; it is seldom caught by an angle, nor is more than one usually found in any one pool. It is not uncommon in the Wiske, near Northallerton. The whole skin seems like shagreen, or marked with the impression of small pin-heads. A barbut taken in the Skerne, near Hardwick-mill, June 21, 1811, measured sixteen inches, and * Raine, in the Glossary to the Durham Household Book. Surtees Society. THE SKERNE. 25 weighed 1 4£ ounces The stomach contained a minnow and some weed. The Saxon fisherman in Elfric's Dialogues, names among his fishes eels and eelpouts. The latter name seems now to be confined to the north. Both Plott and Morton mention this fish as of very rare occurrence, the latter saying that in Northamptonshire it is found only in the Nen. Plott states that only four had been taken in Staffordshire, in his memory, and gives a good description of the fish from a specimen twenty inches long, taken in Faseley Dam, in the Tame, Aug. 1654, and presented to Colonel Comberford, of Comberford,* " who caused it to be drawn to the life and placed in his hall/' These general remarks are culled from Surtees, who feared the Nymphcea Alba, the beautiful white water lily, was extirpated, he certainly remembered seeing it in the Skerne, near Mordon, and mentions it as being preserved in ponds at Mainsforth. The yellow still exists. The Isle, a gloomy residence of the LTsles and Tempests, is completely insulated by the Skerne and small streams, and is always liable to be inun- dated. The capabilities of the Skerne, for such amusement, have been tested in a costly manner by the Railway Company, who, from their piling bills, must have become well satisfied with the truth of the old adage, When Roseberry Topping wears a hat, Morden-Carrs will suffer for that.t The Scotch have a similar saw anent a stream, with a similar name. When Cairnsmuir puts on his hat Palmuir and Skyreburn laugh at that. The Skerne, in records, is frequently the Skyren. The following odd com- pound of Law-Latin and English, is too curious to be omitted. Carta Ricardi Prioris, de manerio de Woodham, concesso Thome de Whitworth per divisas. Omnibus, &c, Ricardus, Prior Dunelm- et ejusd. loci conventus. Noveritis nos dedisse, &c. dilecto et fideli nostro Thome de Whitworth, pro homagio et fideli servicio suo, manerium de Wodum, cum omnibus suis pertin. per metas et divisas subscriptas, viz. " a fforth versus Aclemore quod (fount a Windleston usque Derlj/tigton, per petras ex parte orientali vie, ascendendo usque Dissyngtrelawe, et fa dicto Lawe usque parvum Tcerre per unam petram jacentem juxta dictum kerre, et sic tunc ultra viam ex parte * A truly honourable race, who I find stuck close to their hall of Comberford, from the days of Stephen, till their extinction in the male line in 1 671 , and who little need the mar- vellous proof of their antiquity, in possessing a sort of banshee, in the shape or rather sound of three knocks heard in the hall before the decease of any of the family, though the party might be at never so great a distance. One branch was represented by the Ensors of Wilnecote, par. Tamworth, the ancestors of Sarah Ensor, " whose grandmother was a Shakspear, descended from a brother of everybody's Shakspear" according to the assertion of her husband, John Dyer, the gentle author of Grongar Hill. f Benham's MSS. E : 26 THE SKERNE. occidentali usque Wyndlilston Stotfald, per petras ex parte orientalidi cti Stotfald et a dicto Stotfald usque Holmeslawe et a dicto Lawe usque magnam petram, et a dicta petra usque blakdobb juxta unam semitam que ducit a Wyndleston usque Wodom. Et a dicta semita usque ad antiquam fossam per unam petram et unam sike quod extendit usque rivulum versus Chilton more ex parte occidentali le Reshefforthe, et sic per dictum rivulum descendendo usque Staynton-Milne per unum sike usque Skerne. et sic per aquam de Skj/ren usque Wodomburn-mouthe, et sic per Wodomburn equaliter ascendendo usque predictumfforthe, quod ducit a Wyndilston usque Dertyngton r^ro,habendum 3 &c. The monks had also a fish-pool at Ferry Hill, and as late as 1631, a lease of Cleves Cross farm mentions the Eel-ark, a device it is presumed to take eels, still so abundant. In 1364-5, the Bursar paid " the expenses of a chaplain for two days at Ketton, about the fishing against the feast of S. Cuthbert, in March, 4s. 3d." The fishery was probably for eels in this instance. The Skerne was also famous for its pikes.* Small as this rivulet is, it is extremely important in a commercial point of view. Its water is so famous for bleaching linen, that great quantities have been sent hither for that purpose from Scotland, -f besides the vast manufac- tured stock at Darlington. In 1810, in the course of thirteen miles adjacent, the Skerne turned twelve mills ; seven for corn, two for spinning linen yarn, one for woollen, one fulling mill, and one for grinding optical glasses. The sike running past Favordale joins it at Coatham Mundeville. There is a remarkable pentagonal field to the N.E. of Newton Ketton, in which four considerable rivulets arise, and during a great part of the year water may be seen running in four different directions, occasionally in great quantities. The first runs from its S.E. corner to Byersgill, Stainton, Bishopton, Thorp and Blakeston, and passing between Norton and Billing- ham, flows into the Tees near Portrack. The second springs from the south fence only a few yards from the first, and falls into the Skerne, below Ketton County Bridge. The third proceeds from the S.W. corner, and penetrating the gloomy gill of Lovesome Hill, augments the Skerne near the factory of Coatham Mundeville. The fourth rises in the N.W. corner, and gliding past Preston Lodge, through the Earl of Eldon's estates, mixes with the waters of Morden Carrs, before Eicnall Grange, after passing beneath the Clarence and York and Newcastle Railways. Pity that sucli a singular close does not exist in the east, there it would have established the fame of some geographical speculator, and fixed the site of Eden at once. * Gough's Camden. f Luckombe's Gazeteer, 1790. THE COCKERBECK. 27 THE COCKERBECK OR COCKE-BECK. Flows from Walworth and joins the Skerne in Northgate. Many rivers bear similar names. Thus we have in Cumberland, The Cocker and the Calder, The Dutton and the Derwent, The Eden and the Ellen, The Eamont and the Esk, The Greta and the Gelt, The Leven and the Liddal, The Irving and the Irt, The Mite and Peteril, The Waver and Wampool * Camden takes the etymology of cockney from the Thames, which he says was of old time called Cockney. A wicked writer in the Literary Gazette,-)" says, " There was formerly a little brook by Turnmill-street, called Cockney. Perhaps the ducking bath of the noisy Cyprians on the cucking-stool ? May not cockney and also cucking-stool be from the term coquean ? If so, certainly a most unenviable derivation/' In our case, I sincerely hope the cucking- stool {alias ducking-stool) in the town was amply sufficient for all our " scolding queans" without any Cuck-her-becks being called into requisition. All joke aside, we may presume a cocke-boat is from the same source, what- ever it may be, as Cocke-beck. As before stated, Badle-beck in time of floods carries off the waste water of the Cocker-beck. It has its own resources in other seasons, in the shape of various gutters intersecting the low lands near, and which, with the main channel, form a pool at the roadside, near Moudon Bridge, which may perhaps, properly be called the head of Badle-beck. In the hot days of summer, however, in spite of all its gutters, pools, springs, and drains, it is almost if not completely dry. At the bridge near Badle-beck Inn, it forms a very pretty little gill. THE HELL-KETTLES. Then I do bid adieu To Bernard's battelled towers, and seriously pursue My course to Neptune's Court; but as forthwith I runne, The Skern, a dainty nymph, saluting Darlington, Comes in to give me ayd, and being prowd and ranke, Shee chanc'd to looke aside, and spieth neere her banke, * Denham's MSS. + 1846, p. 426. 28 HELL-KETTLES. (That from their lothsome brimms do breath a sulpherous sweat) Hell-Kettles rightly cald, that with the very sight, This water-nymph, my Skerne, is put in such affright, That with unusuall speed she on her course doth hast, And rashly runnes herselfe into my widened waste. Drayton's Polyolbion, 29th song, Tees loquitur. An article in the Newcastle Magazine, for 1826, fancifully endeavoured to discover Homer's Hell in New Zealand ! but our Hells at home are quite as perplexing as those of Grecian bards. Spiritually, Hell is the place of the doomed ; temporally, it is the same, but in the one case it is the receptacle of those who steal, in the other, the stronghold of the stolen. Don't you recol- lect, good reader, the man who had, as well As the bold Trojan knight, seen Hell: Not with a counterfeited pass Of golden bough, but true gold lace* And the note explaining that tailors call that place hell where they put all they steal ? Again, Hell spiritual is sometimes Paradise ; so, in a minor way, is Hell temporal : BARLEY-BREAK, OR LAST IN HELL. We two are last in Hell : what may we fear To be tormented, or kept prisoners here : Alas ! if kissing be of plagues the worst, We'll wish, in Hell we had been last and first. A verse from Herrick's Hesperides, alluding to a pleasant forfeit in the old game of Barley-break, in which three couples played. One went to each end of the ground, and ran across, when the couple in the middle (or Hell) caught, if they could, one of the running couples and placed them in Hell instead. In names of places the word is equally various in its signification. It may mean a hill, or a hole, or water, and as a place may be seated on a hill by the side of water, or vice versa, and if by water, in nine cases out of ten, must be low also, in the same proportion it is almost impossible to state the origin of a name with Hell in its composition. The confusion is made still worse by the word being often corrupted into hill, as in Hylton (anciently Heltun) by the Wear; Hellegate afterwards Hylgate, now Water-row, in Morpeth, leading from the Wansbeck ; Hilton, near Staindrop, formerly Helton (on a hill) ; Hilton Beacon, in Westmoreland, formerly Helton Bacon (under a hill), &c. Again, lielle is still used as a verb, " to pour out in a rapid manner/' hence probably Helvellyn, a cascade on the Glaamaen, * Hudibras. HELL-KETTLES. 29 in Norway, and Helvellyn, in Cumberland, down which a cataract rushes. Lastly, it means solitary, lonely, as in Hellebeck. I have referred to this latter word in p. 3. Thoresby, in his Diary for 1694, thus mentions it. " On the left nothing but a ghastly precipice to the Fell-foot, which, I think, may as well be called Hell-foot, as those riverets (which Camden mentions, p. 727) Hell-becks, because creeping in waste, solitary, and unsightly places, amongst the mountains upon the borders of Lancashire." Hodgson, in his Northumberland, decidedly says that the name of our Hell- Kettles means water-kettles (being in Oxen-le-field, the Field of Waters), in illustration of which I throw together half a dozen names in the parish. North and South Helmer Arm, the names of two closes of 'the Wharton land between Darlington and Haughton, in 1771. Helmer, Elmer, or Aylmer, is a pleonastic expression, signifying the lake of waters. Elstantoftes, at Blackwell, see p. 8. ElesbanJces, at Darlington, mentioned in Hatfield's Survey, and probably on the Skerne. Ellyngmedowe, wherein the Punder, of Darlington, had half an acre at the same period. Le Elling, a copyhold close in Bondgate, to which Jane Sober, widow of William Sober, was adm. in 1621* Ellms, in Darneton, a copyhold parcel of land mentioned, 1642.t 19 Feb. 42 Eliz. Wm. Helcoat held one ox-gang in Cockerton, late Edward Perkin- son's, by knight's service, leaving Michael his son and heir, who alienated to Marshall, Smith, and Lewlin. Pardon to John Marshall for 20 acr. of land, 20 of meadow, and 20 of pasture, from Michael Helcoates, 9 Jac. 1611. John Smith, 10 acr. of meadow, from Helcoates, 26 July, 44 Eliz. Anthony Gilpyn had pardon for acquiring the same from John Smith, 20 Aug. 1628. 14 Feb. 42 Eliz. Richard Lewlin d. seized of lands purchased of Michael Helcotes, held by the 40th part of a knight's fee. Henry, his son and heir, aged 6 years. John Marshall d. seised of 20 acr. of meadow, as much of pasture and as much of arable, 1634, leaving Robert his s. and h. aet. 38. % Francis Helcott and Helenor Todd, married 1594-5, Jan. 26. Par. Reg. 10 Skirlaw, John Tesedale died, seized of lands in the Westfield of Darlington, in a certain place called Hell, which in Bishop Langley's time, were the possession of the Eures (Inq. p. m. Rad. Eure, 17 Langley) and Hutchinson thinks it not unreasonable that the Hell-Kettles took their name from being situate in this land, but I scarcely think it can be identified with the territory of Oxen-le-field, which lies nearly due south of the town. The Punder held half an acre in the Westfield, at Hatfield's Survey. Another writer derives the name from the British hal, an alkali (whence halen, salt) and kiddle, or kidle, a dam : Hal-Kiddles, salt pits.§ But the most elaborate idea is that in Hutchinson. " Most of our lime works, marle-pits, and allum-pits are wrought much deeper than six yards ; water standing in hollows, from whence marie has been gotten, will taste * Halmot Court Bks. t Ibid.— I Geo. 1, Wm. Davison and Eliza ux. to George Allen, merchant. Elvis alias Ellings alias Le Ings. % Surtees. 3() HELL-KETTLES. pungent on the tongue, and curdle milk and soap [as that of these pools does] : we know of no allum being wrought here, though it abounds in Cleveland, not many miles distant, but the use of marie was very early, and it is probable these were marle-pits : they resemble the workings in other counties, where marling is still practised. Marie was known to the Romans, and by them exported hence to foreign countries ; we have statues mentioned by our antiquaries, dedicated to Nehallennia or the new moon, particu- larly some inscribed by Negociator Cretarius Britannicianus, a dealer in marie, chalk, or fuller's earth, to the British territories ; and these being called Nehallennia' s Kettles, or of Nie-Hel, in the old German tongue, from the trader's dedication, might be corrupted to, or called Hell's Kettles, and the monastic writers, to efface the memory of the old superstition, might devise the miraculous account." And yet, after all these solemn devices for a name, I verily believe that the earthquake origin, is, in the main, true, though it may be handed to us in an exaggerated form, and that the name has merely a reference to the infernal character of the production and water of these marvellous kettles. Such was the popular idea of it in Harrison's time, as appears from the following singular passage : " What the foolish people dreame of the Hell-Kettles, it is not worthy the rehersall, yet to the ende the lewde opinion conceyved of them maye growe into contempt, I will say thus much also of those pits. Ther are certeine pittes or rather three litle poles, a myle from Darlington, and a quarter of a myle distant from the These bankes, which the people call the Kettes of Hell, or the Devil's Ketteles, as if he shoulde seethe soules of sinfull men and women in them : they adde also that the spirites have oft beene harde to crye and yell about them, wyth other like talke, savouring altogether of pagane infidelitye. The truth is, (and of this opinion also was Cuthbert Tunstall, Byshop of Durham) that the colemines in those places are kindled, or if there be no coles, there may a mine of some other unctuous matter be set on fire, which beyng here and there consumed, the earth falleth in, and so doth leave a pitte. In deede the water is nowe and then warme as they saye, and beside that it is not cleere, the people suppose them to be an hundred faddame deepe, the byggest of them also hath an issue into the These. But ynough of these woonders least I doe seeme to be touched in thys description, and thus much of the Hel-Kettles." — Harrison in Hollin- shed, 1577, i. 94. Oertes, the idea of the spirits being boiled is most horrible ! The kettles next morning were boiling and foaming, A groan in their deeps was full ghastily booming, A sulphureous stench was ymixt in the air, And the carles they were cowed and said many a prayer. But the days when the peasants could boil their pottage in the Hell-Kettles have long fleeted, and travellers by rail may not say like those by road of 1634,* " The three admired deepe pitts, called Hell Kettles, we left boyling by Darlington/'* * A Relation of a short Survey, begun at the city of Norwich, on Monday, August 11th, 1634, and ending at the same place. By a captain, a lieutenant, and an ancient ; all three of the Military Company in Norwich. HELL-KETTLES. 31 Neither do authors write thus : In the country hereabouts (in hujus agro, in a field belonging to this place, G.) are three pits of a surprising depth, commonly called Hell-Kettles, from the water heated in them by the compression (Antiperistasis, Reverberation, G.) of the air[!]* And notwithstanding Daniel De Foe says so decisively " As to the Hell- Kettles, so much talked up for a wonder, which are to be seen as we ride from the Tees to Darlington, I had already seen so little of wonder in such country tales, that I was not hastily deluded again. 'Tis evident they are nothing but coal pits filled with water by the River Tees/' — we do not find that coal or other-f* mineral has been dug thereabouts, and certainly pits of 114 and 75 feet diameter bear no very great resemblance to coal pits drowned. Besides the depth, notwithstanding the superstitions and the proverb occasionally applied to convey the idea of an unfathomable mystery, is very moderate. Dr. Jabez Kay wrote to Bishop Gibson : — " The name of bottom- less pits made me provide myself with a line above 200 fathoms long, and a lead weight proportionable. But much smaller preparations would have served. For the deepest of them took but fifteen fathom or thirty yards of our line." According to the measurement of Mr. Grose and Mr. Allan, however, October 18, 1774, the figures stand thus : Diameter of the three larger kettles about . . .38 yards. Ditto smallest about . . . .28 ditto. Depth of the four kettles respectively, 19j, 17, 14, and 51 feet. Another class of popular ideas includes a number of floating traditions ot passages from the kettles to the Skerne and Tees having been discovered. One legend connects itself with some eastern diver, or " man of colour" who dived and passed from one of the pools to the Skerne, but the story is more common of a goose or duck, which found its way into the Tees. In Leland's time there lived a prudent wary man, ycleped Anthony Bellasyse, a doctor in civil law, master in Chancery, and one of the council of the North, who was younger brother of Richard Bellasyse, Esq., and laid the foundations of the Newburgh House of Bellasyse, by obtaining a grant of the scite of the abbey there, which he settled on his nephew. Of this worthy, Leland notes§ in this wise, " Mr. Doctor Bellazis tolde me that a dukke, markid after the * Gough's Camden. An old translation of Camden has it thus :— " In this Townefield are three pitts of a wonderful depth, the common people tearme them Hell-Kettles, because the water in them by the Antiperistasis or reverberation of the cold air striking thereupon waxeth note." + I have somewhere seen the Hell-Kettles supposed to be lime-pits. X Denham MSS. § Itin. vi. 24. 32 HELL-KETTLES. fascion of dukkes of the Bishopricke of Duresme, was put into one of the pooles called Hel Ketelles, betwixt Darlington and Tese bank, and after was found at [Crofte] Bridge, upon Tese thereby, wher Gervalx* duelleth, and that be it the people had a certain conjecture, that there was specus subterr. betwixt the ij places/' Surtees-f- shrewdly remarks that nothing is more natural than that the duck should leave the sulphureous brackish pool in which she was placed, and walk across two or three green fields, to the Tees. Camden attributes this discovery to Bishop Cuthbert Tunstall, and calls the animal he had marked a goose. Gibson makes a sad mistake when he says that the tradition has ceased in the neighbourhood. The fact is, that any subterranean passage is impossible, and the legend ridiculous. The opening of such would be visible in a river, though it is not in the kettles, and the latter would rise in floods to the same level with the stream. But there they are, sable, solemn, still, sulphureous. Floods and droughts come and go with their effects on the Tees and Skerne, but the Hell-Kettles rest the same evermore. They are, in reality, fast flowing springs. Three of them are joined by a surface channel, and the water is carried away by a stell or streamlet which supplies the neighbouring farms with water, and runs into the Skerne, the fourth and smallest pool is detached and close to the road. The water is drunk by the cattle, and does not seem to be at all injurious to them, but the pike and eels frequenting the kettles, always eat soft and watery, as if out of season, being in truth, natural prisoners, where a freeborn fish would certainly fret awa^ all his fatness.f Surtees mentions the following plants as growing at Hell-Kettles, Hippuris Vulgaris, mare's tail ; Chara hispida; Utricularia Vulgaris, common hooded milfoil ; Schamus mariscus, prickly bog-rush ; Potamogeton pectinatum, fen- nel-leaved pondweed ; Lemna trisulca, ivy-leaved duckweed ; and carex stricta. The ponds are much choaked with vegetation. The chronicles of Henry IFs. reign§ are full of " uncouth wonders," and the year 1178 must have been a most marvellous one. * Cler'vaux of Croft. + Vol. i. 202. + Gordon's Guide to Croft, &c, 1834. § I do not think the following has been added to any of our county histories, though it forms a capital gloss on the grant by this king to Bishop Flambard, of a market at Norton, on the Lord's Day, and is extremely curious in a literary point of view, to boot: — In Brompton's Chronicle, it is related that as Henry was passing through Wales, on his return from Ireland, in the Spring of 1172, he stopped at Cardiff Castle, on a Sunday, to hear massj after which, as he was mounting his horse to be off again, there was presented before him a somewhat singular apparition, a man with red hair and a round tonsure, a distinction which would seem to imply that there were still in Wales some priests of the olden church who held out against tlomish innovations, and retained the ancient national crescent- shaped tonsure. He was lean and tall, attired in a white tunic, and barefoot- This indi- vidual began in the Teutonic tongue, " Gode olde Kinge," and delivered a command from Christ, as he said, and his mother, from John the Baptist, and from Peter, that he should suffer no traffic or servile works to be done throughout his dominions on the Sabbath-day, except only such as pertained to the use of food ; which command, if he observed, what- ever he might undertake, he should easily accomplish. Although only the three first words are chronicled in what the writer calls Teutonic (i. e. Saxon or English) there can HELL-KETTLES. 33 *• This yeare,'" says old Holliushed, "on the Sunday before the nativitie of S. John Baptist, being- the eighteenth of June, after the setting of the sunne, there appeared a marvellous sighte in the aire vnto certaine persons that beheld the same. For whereas the newe moone shone foorth veiy faire, with his horns towardes the east, straighte wayes the upper home was devided into two, out of the middes of whiche devision, a brenning brand sprang up, casting from it a farre off coales and sparkes, as it had bin of fire. The body of the moone in the meane time that was beneath, seemed to wrast and writh in resemblance like to an adder or snake that had bin beaten, and anone after it came to the olde state aga}Tie. This chanced above a dosen times, and at length from home to home it became halfe blacke* In September following, the moone beyng about seven and twentith dayes olde, at sixe of the clocke, the sunne was eclipsed, not universally, but particularly, for the body thereof appeared as it wer horned, shoting the homes towards the west, as the moone doth, being twentie dayes olde. The residue of the compasse of it, was covered with a blacke roundell, whiche comming downe by little and little, threw about the horned brightnesse that remained, til both the homes came to hang down on eyther side to the earth wards, and as the blacke roundell went by little and little forwardes, the homes at length were turned towards the west, and so the blacknes passing away, the sunne received hir brightnesse againe. In the meane time, the aire being ful of cloudes of divers coulours, as red, yellow, greene, and pale,holp the peoples sight with more ease to discerne the maner of it. (A strange eclips of the sunne, in the margin.) The K. thys yeare held his Christmas at Winchester, at whiche time, newes came abroade of a great wonder that hadde chaunced at a place called Oxenhale, icithin the Lordship of Derlington, in which place a part of the earth lifted it selfe up on height in apparance like to a mighty Tower, and so it remained from nine of the clocke in the morning, till the even tyde, and then it fell downe with an horrible noise, so that all suche as were neighbours thereabout, were put in great feare. That peece of earth with the fall, was swallowed up, leaving a greate deepe pitte in the place, as teas to be seene many yeares after."t It does not seem to have struck the chronicler that the pit still remained in the shape of Hell-Kettles, nor does he account for its disappearance. The event is more minutely detailed in Brompton's Chronicle.^ be no doubt that the rest, though recorded in Latin, was in the same, and it appears that the king understood English, though he might not be able to speak it, for he, speaking in French, desired his attendant soldier to ask the rustic if he had dreamed all this. The soldier (who must have spoken both languages) made the enquiry accordingly, in English, when the man replied to the king in the same language as before. " Whether I have dreamed it or no, mark this day ; for, unless thou shalt do what I have told thee, and amend thy life, thou shalt within a year's time hear such news as thou shalt mourn to the day of thy death." Then he vanished, and calamities thickened on the perverse king. His profane market at Norton waned and fell, and like the heap at Oxenhale, the place of the Market Cross is marked by a large pool, called Cross Dyke, which, as dyke is applied to any thing formed by digging, may have been artificially caused. Some years ago I remember its being perfectly dry in a hot summer, but was too young to observe whether any remains of the Cross foundations existed. * Gerua. Dors, in margine. t An. Reg. 25. Rog. Houe. 1179. in margine, i. e. the year 1179 began at the Christmas in mention. Roger Hoveden wrote at the end of 12th and beginning of the 13th centuries. £ Brompton was abbot of Jorevale or Jerveaux, in Yorkshire, and Selden has shewn that the book was by no means written by him, but merely procured for the house while he presided. The chronicle begins with St. Augustine's mission, and ends in 1199, though the author (who wrote it in or after 1 328) intimates at the commencement his design of bringing it down to the time of Edward I. It is compiled from earlier authorities, some of which we do not now possess* F 34, HELL-KETTLES. 1179. About Christmas, a wonderful and unheard of event fell out at Oxenhale, viz., that in the very domain of Lord Hugh, Bishop of Durham, the ground rose up on high with such vehemence, that it was equal to the highest tops of the mountains, and towered above the lofty pinnacles of the churches ; and at that height remained from the ninth hour of the day even to sunset. But at sunset it fell with so hor- rible a crash, that it terrified all who saw that heap, and heard the noise of its fall, whence many died from that fear ; for the earth swallowed it up, and caused in the same place a very deep pit.* Camden, quoting a nearly similar passage from the Chronicles-)- of Tyne- mouth, says that the earthquake origin of Hell-Kettles was at his time adopted by " the wiser sort and men of better judgment/' Lord LyttletonJ observes that in the account " only one pit is mentioned, and naturally the falling in of an heap of soil so raised would form but one. This hill probably was puffed up by subterraneous fires, like that in the Lucrine Lake, now called Monte-novo ; but what has filled up the chasm caused by its sinking, or divided it into different cavities, it is not easy to say/' Gordon adds that " as modern philosophy has ascertained that sulphur and water are active agents in the production both of earthquakes and volcanoes, it seems highly probable that the water of the spring having found its way into the bed of sulphur, which impregnates the Spas at Croft and Dinsdale, excited the vol- canic action described by the chronicler ; then as soon as the pent up vapours got vent, the ground would, of course, sink down, and the spring having thus gained the surface, would produce the hollows which subsist to this day. In fact we learn from Sir William Hamilton's account of the great earthquake in Calabria, in 1 783, that circular hollows filled with water were produced in the plain of Rosarno, during that awful convulsion of nature/' When roads were bad and communication slow, events would become much altered in their transmission from mouth to mouth, before they reached the chronicler's ears, and if the phenomenon was of irregular extent, and caused more hills and pits than one, the largest would probably only be recorded. Allowing that there is a difficulty in the identification, is there not a much greater one in answering the question, " If Hell-Kettles are not the vestiges of the earth- quake, where was the deep pit, and what has blotted its trace from Oxen-le- field V In Cheshire, a.d. 165.., " a quantity of earth foundered and fell down a vast depth,"§ and near Leeming a similar occurrence took place about a cen- tury ago. The ground gave way and a deep pond appeared. Men with * Ann. 1179. Infra vero idem natale Domini contigit apud Oxenhale quoddam mirabile a seculo inauditum, exilicet, quod in ipsa Domini Hugonis Episcopi Dunelmensis cultura, terra se in altum ita vehementer elavit quod summis montium cacuminibus absequaretur, et quod super alta templorum pinnacula, emineret, et ilia altitudo ab hora diei nona usque ad occasum solis permansit. Sole vero occidente, eura tarn horribili strepitu cecidit, quod omnes cumulum ilium videntes, et strepitum casus illius audientes perterruit ; unde multi timoi'e illo obierunt ; nam tellus eum absorbuit, et puteum profundissimum ibidem fecit. f They mention the " deep pit" as being " to be seene for a testimony unto this day." X Life of King Henry II. Appendix, p. 24. 4to. edit. § Aubrey's Wiltshire, Roy. Soc. p. 106'. HELL-KETTLES. 35 teams were employed to fill it up, and had almost succeeded, when one day, on their return from dinner all had disappeared, and the hole was as deep as ever. It is said to be unfathomable, is nearly full of water, and now sur- rounded by a strong hedge to prevent accidents. A man is reported to have sunk with the earth, and the field is called Clje (£artl) quake dftclfc.* By the way, some fifty years ago, a gentleman lodging at Jamie Trenholme's, in Blackwellgate, leaped into one of the Hell-Kettles, and was drowned. Thrice happy associates, who keep up the sport, To the field haste away, to Hell-Kettles resort ; And crown, boys, and crown all confusion's dear joys, With rancour, and malice, and nonsense, and noise. Derry down, &c. And whilst you are drinking from Cocitus' cup, And Lucifer laughs as you quaff the toast up, The muse who hangs loitering upon your dull heel, Will further descriptions and characters steal. Derry down, &c. Such are the two last stanzas of " Nimrod's Garland : or, Darlington Chace," a desperately personal tract from George Allan's press, a piece of no incident, and whose allusions are too local to be very interesting. It was succeeded by " A Tail-piece to the Darlington Chase," and " The Dismal Lamentations of a Monopolist of Game, some time since mournfully sung on the banks of the Don ; at present applied by Christopher Fungus, Esq., to himself and his brother, Nimrod Fungus, Esq., and bellowed out with greater pathos on the banks of the Tees, to the tune of " Babes in the Wood." Mutato nomine, de te Fabula narratur. London : Printed in Blackwall Close, 1783. Licensed and entered according to order." This latter is not without spirit, but in the present excitement on the game ques- tion, may not be exactly suitable to the pages of a book for all readers, though withal highly amusing. H [i] 11 had a great ox — sheep I've in store, Hare or mutton, our dinner's the same ; Our servants will not think of neck-beef, When their bellies are filled with Game. An odd tract was published by M. Darnton, in 1791, entitled " Hell- Kettles, with The Origin or Darlington : a Dramatic pastoral," prefaced by a short and rather important description of the place. Then comes an apology from the author in lines of a peculiar construction : His work, devoid of rhetorical charms. But aims at narrative — not stage alarms. * Ex inf. Nicholai Trant de Bedale, Chirurg. 3G HELL-KETTLES. The Dramatis Personam are, Minerva ; Sylvia, a shepherdess ; Arcadius, a shepherd betrothed to Sylvia, and the Genius of Darlington. Sylvia, in a grove, pensive and terrified at the convulsions of nature, is approached by Arcadius, who, in horror asks if his hapless absence has " forced hesperion drops from those adorable luminaries/' whereupon she gives an account of the direful presages which had happened near the confluence of the Dare and Tisa, and the tremendous sounds which " reechoed from the neighbouring mountains/'* Arcadius informs her that these things were pronounced at Acley's sacred grove, and is interrupted by Minerva, who calms their fears and explains in a way not very relevant to the catastrophe, how the Naiads, Neptune, Sol, and Vulcan, would combine to bless Deira. The Genius of Darlington sings about Mercury visiting " the sweet banks of the Dare/' and with Ceres, Pan, Bacchus, and Silenus, forming a mart at Darlington, which Jove approves : • Old Cuthbert, whose miracles fill the dull page Of monastic transcribers from Rome ; His bones claim the merit our pains to assuage, His veiled courtesy softens our doom. Appalled by this pretext, the son of great Ulph, Adds the town to his patron's domains, In hopes of avoiding Charybdis' feigned gulph And the torment of Chimera's flames. Grave Leland in after-times prancing this way, The archives of famed Albion to trace, 'Tis meet, said the Sire, to my Prince to convey A picture so apt for his grace : He noted the Temple, the Palace, and Mart, With the soft-flowing stream of old Dar : All Phcenix-like risen, not harmed by the smart Of frenzy, disaster, and jar. The happy association of the stately Cuthbert, with Bacchus and Silenus, the idea of Styr son of Ulphus having ever dreamed of Charybdis and Chimera, and the gallant contempt of vulgar chronology, displayed in the genius of 1179 recalling Leland and bluff Hal in his narration, all are as refreshing in these iron days as a cucumber in summer, and exhibit a vigour of conception well deserving of a guerdon from the Pastoral Aid Society. There is, after all, something curious, considering how Darlington has caused railways to spread over the globe, in Minerva's bouncing prophecy of a time when "this fertile district shall be the luminary of agricultural science; distant empires shall profit by her instructions ; and the Scythian deserts be ameliorated with her implements." One note more as to marle-pits. I have just been to Hell-Kettles, tasted * Where are they % WELLS. 37 all their waters, and could not distinguish any pungency whatever, they were slightly favoured with iron,* and by no means unpleasant to the taste. A dog drank them readily, and completely nullified the popular notion that the canine species will not venture to swim across these pits of Avernus. The water of the large pool was beautifully clear round the margin, discovering a bed lined with vegetation of an exquisite green, indeed it merits the appella- tion of a very pretty little mere, the two conjoined were darker, and the smallest quite muddy. There was something about all these pits, neverthe- less, unearthly and solemn, producing an effect upon the mind, peculiar and lasting. A friend adds one more origin for them, viz., that they were workings for iron stone. Poor old chroniclers, what liars we modern sceptics would make you ! WELLS. In 1545 when Henry VIII. granted the messuage in Darlington which had belonged to the Priory of Mountgrace to Thomas Whytehed (nearly related to the last Prior and first Dean of Durham), in free socage, it is described as " all the messuage formerly in the tenure of Rich. Aleynson, now of Chris- topher Hogge and Agnes his wife in Darlington otherwise Darneton upon the welV'f This was, doubtless, the spring which gave name to Tubwell Row, more anciently le well rawe, juxta Tubbwell,\ and which was, like the well in Skinnergate, of sufficient consequence to need annual overseers. The overseers of le Tubbwell and SMnnergaite Well (two for each) occur from 1612 when the Borough books commence, and cease during the hiatus (163«3-1710) in them, for in 1760 the overseers of the Highways were amerced for not repairing the Tubwell. It is now covered by a pump. 1612. The Jurors lay a paine that none shall wash cloathes, fish, or such like things at the Tubwell to putrifie the same upon paine of 6s 8d. 1621. A paine none shall washe any clothes, fyshe, or scower any skeles§ tubbes or other vessels, but at or below the title well at the tubwell upon paine of 3s. 4d. (Borough Books.) The well in Hundegate || is mentioned in the charter by which Bishop Beke gave to the Church of Darlington a messuage as a vicarage house, near the gate of his mansion, with one venell ^[ which formerly led to the well, by * The presence of iron is very visible near them, and a spring strongly impregnated with it originates a stell in a neighbouring field. f Surtees. J Borough Books, 1612. § A skele is a small round tub of wood, with an upright handle of the same material, rising at one side instead of an arched one across of iron. || Fontem de Hundegate. If Narrow Passage. A venell, called Hundgate Well, is mentioned as a boundary in 1507. 38 BRIDGES. the taking in of which the messuage was enlarged. This was in 1309. In 1621 the daughter of Mrs. Hearyn and the wife of Henry Shawe were amerced for abusing the well in Hungate.* In the Nessfield estate, close to the Skerne, is the Drop-well, covered by a brick arch by the Allans and of very tardy flow, which, accompanied by a group of cattle in the summer, constitutes a happy picture. Between Dar- lington and Haughton also, near the foot-path from Northgate is the Rock- well, which springs from rock seemingly formed of small stones united by a limey substance. This, with its canopy of trees, is also a beautiful little scene, but it has been much injured in latter years by a wholesale plunder of part of the rock, to the great regret of all lovers of nature's elegance. 16 Jas. I. Surrender of a close in Cockerton, called Capsay-hill, bounded on the S. by Cole-street, and on the W. by Capsay well close. — (Halmot Booh.) 1642. Thomas, Lord Faulconbridg Baron of Yaram, nephew and heir of James Bellasis, Esq. deceased, adm. to Grasse Inn Moore, Kilnegarth, Kay Close, Cheisley, East and West Myers, Well leezes, Annat Thorne, Annat well, and Huntersheile field, in Blackwell, which belonged to his uncle, James. In the next court, James's widow, Isabella, adm. to some of the Towne land, Blackwell, and his executor, Thomas Swin- borne, to all the closes specified above. {Halmot Books.) James Bellasis lived at Owton, and in Stranton church is a costly monument to him, displaying his effigy as rising from the tomb and throwing off a winding sheet, with a long epitaph in the usual ful- some style of the period. One of the springs in the Baydales estate flows down a grim little glen called Grimsley Gill (a most appropriate cognomen), and uniting with a larger runner which proceeds from another spring rising in the middle of a field and is never dry, finds its way to the Tees. BRIDGES. In some old charter at Durham I remember mention being made ot a ford at Darlington, but a Bridge existed here in very early times. In 1343, Cecilia Underwood-f- leaves "ponti ultra aquam de SJcyrryn 13s. 4d. Item ponti de Halghton 6s. Sd. Item qui vocatur Walkebrigg 2s. Item pontibus inter villam de Norton et Herdewyk 3s." Leland says, " Darington Bridge of stone is, as I remembre, of three arches/' but, in after times, it possessed nine goodly arches, which are very conspicuous in Bailey's print of 1 760, and which Defoe, in 1727, mentions as "a high stone bridge over little or no water." In fact at that time and until a very recent period the river was wide and shallow and formed a vast morass along its banks on the eastern side. At the October sessions, 1751, a view and report were ordered of * In 1666, land called Houndwells is mentioned in Haughton. Hutch, iii. 181. f Of whom hereafter. BRIDGES. 39 Haugliton and Burdon* Bridges, and also the road at the N.E. end of Darling- ton Bridge ; and in April, 1752, the report of Tho. Davison, Geo. Allan, W. Sutton, John Emerson, and Henry Thorpe, justices, who, with the county surveyor, had viewed the premises, certified : " That the said Bridges and road are very insufficient and Dangerous in the winter sea- son for Carts, Carriages, and Persons passing on horseback along the same, by reason of the Deepness of the said Road and the overflowing of the River Skearn upon the same, and at the said bridges (even in very small floods) whereby not only carriages but also laden horses are frequently stopt for several days together ; and we do also certify that • the said Bridges and Road have been, time immemorialy, used for Carts and Carriages, and (as it appears to us) have been constantly Repaired and Amended by the County of Durham ; and we do also certify that it will (in our opinion) be absolutely necessary, and for the Publick good, to enlarge the said Bridges and Road, viz., by Building another large Arch at the East End of Burdon Bridge sufficient for Carriages, and to raise the road at each end of the said Bridge ; also, by taking down and widening the Arch of the Bridge at Haughton, and raising the Road at the East End thereof; also, by raising the Road at the North-East End of Darlington Bridge with a Battlement or Flank Wall on the side thereof, so as to make the same sufficient, and fit for Carts and Car- riages to pass along the same with safety.'' The estimate in 1753 of John Hunter for building the proposed wall, for "10 cundels to take off the springs in that part of the road/' for levelling the road to the height of the wall and paving a " causey " in front of the houses was i?50 7s. The wall was to be 1 yard high and 1 2 yards distant from the houses. In 1767 Messrs. R. and W.Nelson, of Melsonby, contracted to build a new bridge for ^860, of Gatherley Moor stone. In this estimate, the para- pet was to be of brick, but in 1 768 Counsel moved that at an extra cost of i?140 (making the total cost ^1000) a stone parapet should be erected by Nelsons on the ground of the insecurity of a 140 yards line of brick which would be a perpetual charge to the county " as it was in the old Bridge where repaired with bricks/' Six out of ten magistrates consented.-f- This bridge is a plain one of 3 arches, much too narrow (especially in the footpaths) for the traffic upon it as an approach from the Railway station, and shamefully encroached upon by ugly sheds, &c, built upon the parapet walls. It stands at the foot of Tub well Row (which is called Briggate by Hutchinson) by the side of the scite of the old nine-arched bridge, which, after all, had a very gallant effect. The Skerne is also crossed by iron bridges at the feet of Priestgate and Workhouse lane, and by sundry smaller bridges communicating with North- gate, none of which deserve mention. Those by which the two railways pass over it are, however, fine structures, that on the York and Newcastle line is * In 1430 Bishop Langley granted indulgences to all those who should give alms and monies for making a bridge between Halghton and Burdon. f Papers penes R. H. Allan, Esq. 40 BRIDGES. indeed a most elegant object near the Drop-well, consisting of light elliptical arches on lofty piers. Between the town and the Tees, the Skerne runs under Nought or Snipe Bridge and Oxenfield Bridge ; the latter being almost at its estuary, over it the Croft road passes. Snipe bridge is of brick, very narrow, and apparently built upon the remains of a wider one of stone. It has two arches, the Skerne running through one, and a little sike flowing by the terri- tory of Humble-sykes, through the other, joining the Skerne under a willow's shade just after. Snipe House is close by, and the place has a degree of beauty about it. 1649. That Francis Goundry, piiider, of Darnton, shall scoore and dresse the stell nere Darnton Bridge before Whit Sonday. (Halmot Books.) 1592. The Dean and Chapter of Durham bestowed out of their funds for repairing highways and bridges, " To the highway between Cottom and Darlington £1 10s. To Skerne Oxen bridge £1." £20 a-year was spent by the Chapter for this purpose, upon their foundation. 1710. John Dent, of Nought bridge, par. Darlington occurs. (Borough Books.) Nought (neat) is a general word for cattle. We have a Nought Fair. The Cockerbeck after leaving the head of Badle-beck (which is crossed by Moudon Bridge, near Moudon House, and the Barnard-castle road) flows under a good stone bridge (near which is Stepping-stone Close), and another in Northgate, which has recently been widened, and near which John, the son of Robert Hutchinson, of Thurslington Hall, a young man, was slain by a fall from his horse in 1713, {Par. Beg.) 1620. Bridgend house and Bridgend close, Cockerton, occur. ( Halmot Books.) 1627. Christopher Skepper adm. to Cockerton Briggs Close (Halmot Books.) This fellow was son of Christopher Skepper, of Durham, who was clerk of the Halmot Court, steward of Darlington Borough Court, 1612, and "the 13th son of his father." He died 1623. Young Kit was a " prodigal," and when he was admitted to his father's lands, by order of Mr Justice Hutton, in 1625, it was only on giving security to pay his father's debts, for which he was then imprisoned, and to keep harmless his two brothers, William and Moses. The latter was clerk of the Halmot Courts, and Christopher Sher- wood, Rector of Bishopwearmouth, preached his funeral sermon (1641), from the odd text, " Moses my servant is dead." (MicMeton's MSS.) There are Skepper's Closes in the Hill Close House estate, which are leasehold of the Bishop, an unusual tenure here. Chr. Skepper was amerced in 1621 for keeping undersitters in his house. ( Borough Books. * # * 1619. A paine of 39.?. that Richard Patteson shall, before the feast of St. John Baptist next, eyther joyne with Hurwoorth and make a bridge betwixte the Lordshipp of Hurwoorth and the grounde belonging the Borrough of Darlington in the usuall way on Brankin Moore, or otherwise avoyde his cowegaite before that tyme of the said moore for ever hereafter, for which charge he hadd the said cowegait formerlie graunted. (Borough Books.) A small runner divides the townships of Hur worth and Darlington. Formerly the coaches from Richmond, &c, came round by Croft, but, in 1832 the foundation-stone of a bridge of Gatherley-moor freestone was laid. It consists of 3 light elliptical arches, the centre one being 78 feet and the BRIDGES. 41 two side arches each 63 feet span, and was designed by Mr. Green, of New- castle. A Toll is exacted on both horse and foot passengers. On Dec. 16, 1833, the Tees rose with great rapidity to an unusual height, and, as a labourer was attempting to secure some timber* at the new bridge, it was swept away with the man upon it, and carried down the stream. On arriving at Croft Bridge, the dangerous situation of the man was observed by a gentle- man on horseback, who immediately galloped to Hurworth, and gave the alarm ; and, on the timber arriving at that place, the man was removed by a boat, in a state of great agitation, and safely landed ashore. Croft bridge is one of the noblest bridges of ancient date that we have in the North. It has 6 large arches and 1 smaller arch on the Southern side, each of which is boldly ribbed, and the widening of the bridge instead of de- teriorating from their beauty has added greatly to their richness, the new part being similar to the old, though the bounding line is very visible on close inspection. The North Riding of Yorkshire repairs 95 yards 2 inches, and Durham 53 yards and 2 inches. The blue boundary stone is on the pier of the 3rd arch from the Durham side, and is inscribed :_" Due.) contribvat north rid. com. ebor. et com. dunel. statv. apvd sess. VTRQ e gen. PAC. an. do. 1673/' In former times, however, the metes and bounds on a Tees bridge when thieves " took Darn- ton Trod" were matters of life and death as much as of £. s. d. now, a cir- cumstance seized by Surtees in his excellent ballad founded on the fact of James Manfield, of Wycliff, gentilman, claiming sanctuary at St. Cuthbert's door in 1485, for having, with others, assaulted and slain the Rector of Wy- cliff with a Wallych bill (Welsh bill or axe.) He twirled till lie wakened brother John ; " ho," the friar cried, " We set lyg'ht by these mad pranks on the Tees, If they keep the southern side. " But hadst thou done so in Darnton Ward, At the Blue-stone of the Brigg. By'r Lady, thou had far'd as hard As Dallaval did for his pigge.f " Ho, penancer ! here's a jolly fellow Has slain a Tees- water priest." " Gramercy," quoth he, " if the 'vowson be ours, The damage will be with the least. * The wreck of a jetty swept down by the flood. The labourer's name was Jeffrey Butterfield. f I have heard it oft told, that one morning of old, Seaton Delaval Hall was a Tynemouth monk's stall: This fat monk he did prig the roast head of a pig, just about to be eaten by the gay lord of Seaton, who whacked him so sore that he eat little more, and died, as they say, in a year and a day. But the prior and each monk, put the knight in a funk, and made him give lands to add to their sands, and cut on a cross, now scarce worth a toss, their own rhyme on the guilt he had done with his hilt. Now, thus ran that note on the rassal he smote — <© Ijorrfo 'nttit ! 3To kill a ma« for a pt'3's' Ijette. G 42 BRIDGES. " These rascals are neither streight, nor strict ; They keep not St. Cuthbert's rule ; He that follows not Benedict I count him for a fule. * # * 1598. Bishop Matthew writes to Archbishop Hutton informing- him that the pledges lately delivered by Sir Robert Kerr, Warden of the Middle marches of the Scottish border, were to be conveyed to York, and be received at Alnwick by Mr. Wm . Fenwick, from whom the Sheriff of Durham was to receive them at Gateshead and deli- ver them to the Sheriff of Yorkshire at Croft Bridge, "being the usuall place betwene that countie and this to deliver and receave all maner of prisoners ." However, the event was that the Under-Sheriffof Durham received them " at the Blewe Stone upon Tine brigg" and conducted them all the way to York* The prior circumstances are curious. Sir Robert Carey, deputy- warden of the East marches of England, wrote to Kerr to fix a day to take order for quieting the Borders till his return from London. Kerr made Carey's man drunk, left him and came to an English village, broke up a house, took a poor fel- low whom he murdered, went home to bed, and sent the messenger next day with the appointment. On the day fixed Carey left Kerr in the lurch and rode to London, and on his return sought redress in vain. The Scotch Borderers, glad of the quarrel, stole in all directions, Carey often caught them and coolly hanged them, and says " All this while we were but in jest." At last Kerr's favourite Geordie Bourne was taken, and though on the representation of the Borderers, who feared Kerr's fury, Carey suspended his execution and posts were sent to Kerr that he might make terms, yet Carey on hearing from the thief's own lips what a villain he had been, in the meantime executed him, and Kerr's coming was a second time a mere hoax. A Commission of the two kingdoms now sat and found many malefactors guilty on both sides who were to be delivered as pledges till satisfaction for the thefts was made. Kerr failing in bringing his prisoners yielded himself and actually chose Carey for his guardian. The two became good friends. Kerr was delivered to the Archbishop but his pledges were got and he set at liberty. Carey thenceforth obtained justice at his hands, and the friendship so curiously formed was lasting. There are some good old bridges, too, at Barnard-castle, Piersebridge, and Yarm on the Tees. Formerly a great number of travellers crossed at Neasham Ferry and drank a naulum with Charon-f- there, who, when I crossed a year or two ago, was represented by a sort of Flibbertigibbet of im- portance and impertinence the most comical that could well be imagined. Dear Reader, did you ever see the soldier on Darnton Bridge, who, when you approached, gave a jump on the wall and dashed headlong to the waters below with a gurgle and splash ? If you have not, others have, that is all. * Hutton Correspondence, Surtees Society, 137- 139. + Tour of Thomas Kirk, of Cookridge, co. York, 1677. Richardson's reprints, No. 25. ^iITJwk [Arch in the Old Hall, Darlington.] DIVISION II. adapter $. annals from ti^e i&arltest ^moir to tije ©eati) of 1&tri)artr MBL A little rule, a little sway, A sun-beam in a winter's day, Is all the proud and mighty have Between the cradle and the grave. — Grongar Hill. Let me on entering upon this field of labour, trespass somewhat on my ecclesiastical division, and drag from thence the possible cause of Darlington's standing higher than its neighbours. In 893 the Lindisfarne clerks thought it high time to look about them, for they began to understand " that the 44 ST. CUTHBERT'S Danes would not (like the Devill) be affrighted away with holy water, and saw by the bad successe of other monasteries, that it was not safe trusting to the protection of a Saint/'* So, forthwith wandering -from Holy He, O'er northern mountain, marsh, and moor, From sea to sea, from shore to shore, Seven years Saint Cuthberfs corpse they bore. " While these things were going on," says Prior Wessington,f " Saint Cuthbert ceased not from performing miracles ; for which reason, in those parts, at a distance from the eastern coast (in partibus occidentalibus), where the said Bishop and Abbot for a while sojourned, through fear of the Danes, many churches and chapels were afterwards built in honor of Saint Cuthbert — the names of which are elsewhere contained." J The Prior here refers to a list of these churches which he had compiled and placed over the choir door of his Church of Durham. Of course among them is Ecclesia Collegiata de Darlington,^ The Bishop and clergy would rest here on their way from Westmoreland, Cutherston|| (Cuthbert's Town), and Barton, to Cleveland. They selected their places of safety with great judgment, and we cannot wonder that the hidden pastures on the verge of the Derne should tempt their sojourn. Barton is, I think, popularly noted for its two bridges and two churches, St. Mary's and St. Cuthbert's, and concerning these latter an odd legend is kept up respecting two sisters, whose hatred of each other was so intense, that they would not worship their Creator under the same roof; so instead of building none at all, as would now be the case, they built two churches. Of course 1 do not guarantee the occurrence of any truth at all in so unlikely a story. The wanderers after visiting Cowton (Cudton, the town of Cuthbert, as spelt in Domesday) and divers places in Cleveland, arrived at Craike, (a lonely hill there, surrounded by deep forests, so thick, that according to old tradition, a squirrel could hop from thence to York from bough to bough.) They probably passed through Sessay, a little detached parish of Allerton- shire, whose church is dedicated to St. Cuthbert, though not mentioned in the * Hedge's Legend, &e. f MS. D. and C Lib. B. III. 30. The assertion is amply borne out by tradition. % Raine's St. Cuthbert, 44. § Sanderson's transcript. || " Cotherston, where they christen calves, hopple lops, and kneeband spiders." Some hot-headed fanatics of the 17th century actually did perform the profane rite alluded to, in contempt of baptism, but I do not know whether Cotherston was pre-eminently famed for such doings. The latter characteristics of Cotherston are inexplicable. On the south side of the road, near Doe Park (Ledger Hall) stands the pedestal or socket of what has been probably a cross ; it resembles a trough, and here it was where they christened calves as they say. Others state that it was for resting coffins upon. This reminds me of a rude trough near Borrowby, co. York, where Roman Catholic funerals stop in their procession ■to the auld kirk -yard of Leek. WANDERINGS. 45 list. The old church of Sessay has been pulled down and a new one erected ; it was a miserably Italianised structure, but had points of interest. Zigza^ mouldings built up here and there testified its Norman origin, and the stained glass was curious. On entering, you saw in the West window, first and foremost, a bird composedly playing the bagpipes, and the arms of Eng- land and France. Then in the North windows was a chest or coffin contain- ing bones of ghastly hue (relics ?) a noble Tudor crown, and the rebus of Thomas Magnus, an Agnus* Dei with M thereupon-f- and his motto above, $te <&ott fopll. But who was this great man whose brasses alone kept their place in the midst of blue flags marked with the matrices of others ? The in- scription under his noble figure tells you that he was " Archideacon of thest Eydyng in the Metropolitan Chyrche of Yorke and parson of this Chyrche whiche Dyed the xxviij° day of August Anno domini M°ccccc° 1." but the villagers will tell you something more. They will tell you how " Master Thomas Magnus " was found an infant in a basket on the morning of St. Thomas's day, and brought up jointly among the inhabitants of Sessay where he was found— how the Saint's day furnished a Christian name for the embryo parson, and his bringing up a surname, CfjomaS &man(j tiS— how being a steady youth, he was noticed by the respectable family of Dawnie (ancestors of Lord Downe, present owner) and was engaged as a servant to one of the young gentlemen, which afforded him an opportunity of obtaining some learning— how he improved his abilities and rose to high preferment, and then growing ashamed of his style changed it to Thomas Magnus or Thomas the Great — how pious a man he was, (for all effigies in churches are said by peasants to have represented good men) — but not how he imagined that according to his motto " As God will/' when God had decreed the disgrace of Wolsey it was proper for all good men to shun and insult him, and how he excused himself from receiving the Cardinal at his official residence, as his house was too poor for such a guest! Magnus was Rector of Bedale also, and according to Camden, (who places his finding at Newark, and doubtless he would know the truth from " our fathers/') he was a most dreadful pluralist. " Schollers pride hath wrought alterations in some names which have been sweetned in sound, by drawing- them to the Latine Analogie. A s that notable non-resident in our fathers time, Doctor Magnus, who being a foundling at Newarke upon Trent, where hee erected a grammar schoole, was called by the people T. Among us, for that hee was famous among them. But he profiting in learning, turned Among us, into Magnus, and was famous by that name, not only here, but also in forraine places, where hee was Ambas- sadour."J Camden's Remaines, Ed. 1637, p. 146. * " Doctor quam magnus ! gravis his, his mitis ut agnus" f The herbage is full of columbines, and the corner brasses of the tombstone bear colum- bines and iambs alternately. Query, if the former does not allude to his origin ? The Columbine, in tawny often taken, Is then ascribed to such as are forsaken. Browne's Britannia's Pastorals, 1613, b. i. song 2. i He was at Flodden Field. 46 STYR'S GIFT Wherever it be localized, the legend is probably quite true. Names for foundlings were often manufactured in like manner, thus Cuthbert Godsend was christened 17 Feb., 1565, at St. Nicholas, Durham. But such a name in a Darlington case was far too humble for our worthies of 1601 to register, so Godsend was latinized, and the following stately entry inserted : C^oma3 a tito mteaitfii, pucr cjjmu£, SepttltuS. in plain English :— Thomas Godsend (sent by God) a destitute boy, buried. To return to Saint Cuthbert, whose travelling propensities were of a dis- gustingly modern stamp (not to speak of his trip down the Tweed from Mel- rose to Tilmouth in a stone coffin*), as much so as those teetotal feasts of his votaries at Blencogo in Cumberland, where nothing was drunk save the beverage furnished by the Naiad of Hetty (Holy) Well nigh &t. Cutjfcert'g ^taiu. Another of his wells exists at Scorton near Richmond, and is called Citiffli) Htlt. It is said that it is good for cutaneous diseases and rheumatism, and that there was a monastery or church to the Saint near the spot, though no vestiges remain, being probably a site chosen as his resting place. As to Darlington, it may be matter of conjecture whether, as we gather from "ould wrytynges very pythye and pytyfull for to reade," that women were excluded from all churches and cemeteries where St. Cuthbert's body had rested,-)- the Western bays of the church nave might possibly serve as a Lady Chapel, in the same way as the Western chapel or Galilee of Durham, built by the same " joly byshop," Hugh Pudsey. They were never pewed, and there is some tradition about a carved oak screen which divided them from the remainder of the church. Sed qucere, how could fair maidens enter this suppositious chapel of theirs without treading the cemetry with their unhallowed feet ? I am afraid my suggestion must fall through. The monks on returning from Craike, settled at Chester-le-Street, but the Danes ejecting them again in 995, they briefly sojourned at Bipon, and finally settled at Durham. All this I have introduced here, simply because here we have our first recorded event at Darlington, and perhaps one reason for Styr's gift of Darlington to the church. The earliest direct occurrence of the name of Darlington is found between 1003 and 1016, when four magnates met at the fair city of York. These were Ethelred the unready king, Archbishop Wulstan, Bishop Aldhune of Durham, and Styr, son of Ulphus, cwis dives, who had obtained licence from the hapless monarch, that he might give Dearningtun with its dependencies to Saint Cuthbert ; and now before the king, archbishop, and bishop, with many others of the chief personages of the realm, the donation was solemnized * This legend I slur over, because it is probable that it emanated from the fertile brain of Master Lambe, Vicar of Norham, whose song of the Laidley worm was printed by Hutchinson, as " a song 500 years old, made by the old mountain Bard, Duncan Frasier, living on Cheviot A. D. 1270, from an ancient MS." f Richardson's Table Bk. Leg. Div. ii, 344. OF DARLINGTON. 47 with a heavy curse on all who should violate the patrimony of the Saint.* In those good old days, grants were made in some worshipful presence, and at some solemn tide or assembly, and in the absence of charters a visible token was frequently added to witness the fact before all men for ever, like Jacob's pillar, round which his brethren cast an heap of stones.-)- Witness the gallant horn of Ulphus, who in Canute's time was prince of Deira (in which division of Northumbria Darlington generally seems to have been situate) still to be seen in the metropolitical cathedral of the province. As this worthy was very probably the father of Styr, I give Camden's account of the transaction. " By reason," says he, " of the difference which was like to rise between his sons about the sharing of his lands and lordships after his death, he resolved to make them all alike ; and thereupon coming to York with that horn where- with he was used to drink, filled it with wine, and kneeling devoutly before the altar of God and Saint Peter, prince of the Apostles, drank the wine, and by that ceremony enfeoffed this church with all his lands and revenues." Nor did the offering of tokens cease with the general usage of written docu- ments. Bishop Flambard, dying and sorrowful, made restitution to the con- vent of Durham of the lands he had withheld from them by a charter, but not content with that, the conscience stricken prelate commanded his atten- dants to carry him to the high altar, resting upon w T hich he publicly lamented his transgressions, and offered a ring on the altar in restitution of all things. A gold ring was frequently placed in the w r ax seal, and I now look at a deed of as late a date as 1628, wiiereby John Oswolde, sen. of Darlington, yeoman, settles all his effects on his 3 daughters " as yet of tender years/' to which as a seal a perforated half groat of James I. is attached and sewed to the pen- dant slip of parchment.^: Styr, then, with a swinging long curse on all possible future violators ot the church's privileges, which was a very necessary part of the ceremony, " Terras Cutliberti qui non spoliare verentur Esse queant certi quod morte mala morientur."$ gave to St. Cuthbert, Dearningtun or Darlington with its appendages, || to- gether with lands in Coniscliffe, Cockerton, Haughton, Normanby, and Seaton, and by this grant it is presumed the manors of the Bishops in this town arose. " These," says Hegge, " were the beginnings of the church of Durham, where Ald- winus (the last Bishopp of Chester and the first of Durham) first ascended the episcopal! chayre, anno Dom. 996, in the reigne of King Ethelred, who (whiles St Dunstan was baptizing him,) * * * * at which St. Dunstan sware by God, and his mother, that he would prove a lazie fellow. * Simeon iii. 4. + Genesis xxxi, 45. $ This document is the property of R. H. Allan, Esq. § Engraved on a beam in Trinity College, Oxford. Hegge's Legend of St. Cuthbert, edit. I. B. Taylor, p. 31. II " Illis diebus quidam nomine Stir filius Alfi, tempore Ethelredi Regis, contulit S. Cuth- berto Derlington cum suis appendiciis." — Lei. Coll. i. 42.5. 48 STYR'S DESCENDANTS. " However, to maintaine the lazines of the Monks of Durham, he gave St. Cuthbert Darlington, with the appurtnances : where, afterwards, Hugh Pudsay built both a mannour and a church. To these possessions, Snaculfus, one of the nobilitie, added Bridbyrig (Bradbury) Mordun, and Socceburge (Sockburn). So ready was the devotion of those times to give all to the church and to become poor, to be made rich in the world to come, as if, forsooth, the monks were only the men that must be happie in both worlds."* It has been mentioned that Coniscliffe was a locality where Styr gave lands,-)- and it may be that his father Ulphus was the son of Thoraldus and identical with Ulphus,J from whom the Greystocks professed to descend. Certainly they long held the manor of Coniscliffe, having a manor house at Nether or Low Consicliffe, described in the 15th century § as "the site of the manor house, 12 messuages, value 20s.; a close called the Hallgarth 6 acr., value 20s." &c. The present Hallgarth is a field facing the traveller on passing down the town street full of mounds and foundations. In 1292 Lord John of Greystock had " within Cunoisclyve Gallows and Ingfangenethef, chattels of felons condemned in the court of the same franchise, &c. But whatever might be his origin, Styr is known as the father of Sigen, who was the third wife of Uchtred, Earl of Northumbria. Uchtred had been formerly married to Ecgfrida, daughter of Aldhune the Bishop, but, tiring of her, he sent her back to her father ; she married, secondly, Kilvert, a Yorkshire thane, who also sent her back ; at last she became a nun, and was buried in the cemetery of Durham. Aldhune had gilded his daughter with Barmton, Skerningham, and Elton, but they were returned to the church on her re- pudiation by Uchtred. Sigen is stated to have been given by her father to the earl as a bribe for killing his great enemy, Turebrand;|| but, after marrying a third wife, Elgiva., daughter of King Ethelred, Uchtred was himself treacherously slain by a rich and noble Dane, of that name, after submitting to Canute, who is said to have winked at the plot. His son Aldred (by Ecgfrida) slew Turebrand Hold, the murderer, but was himself murdered by Carle, Turebrand's son, in a wood called Risewood, and was succeeded by Eadulph, his half-brother, son of Sigen, who made sad depre- dations on the Welch, and gave great displeasure to Hardicanute. He submitted to that monarch, but was slain immediately afterwards by Siward who " reigned in his stead/' 1041. — In this year also Hardicanute betrayed Eadulf, the earl, while under his pro- tection: and he became thus a belier of his " wed." — Anglo Saxon Chronicle. * Taylor's edit. I have left Ethelred's offence to the reader's imagination. Hegge gives the credit of the subject's generosity to the monarch it seems. *f* According to the Red Book of Durham, these lands were given by Snaculph, son of Cykell, who also gave Sockburn, &c, as above. X The name has survived the wreck of ages. Henry Hix Ulph, of West Ham, Essex, has just crossed my eye in a newspaper. § Inq. p.m. Joh. Graystock, mil. 30 Langley. || Simeon Dun. 80. The whole history of the Northumbrian earls is full of difficulties. I have referred to Hodgson's Northumberland, on the subject throughout. STYR'S DESCENDANTS. 49 The hapless earl's son, Osulph, was in after years made Earl, north of the Tyne, by Earl Morcar, but being deprived of his office by the Conqueror, and succeeded by Oopsi, he collected around him a band of desperadoes in the like circumstances, with whom he beset a house where Copsi was at a feast, and pursuing him to a church, whither he fled for sanctuary, they fired it, and he was slain by his expelled predecessor at the gate. In the following au- tumn Osulph himself received a mortal wound by the spear of a robber whom he imprudently attacked. The blood of Styr however still flowed, but in a more quiet channel. Gospatric, Sigen's younger son, who never at- tained to the honor of the earldom, had a son Ucthred, lord of Eaby in the time of the Confessor and Conqueror, who had two sons, Dolfin the progeni- tor of the Fitz-Meldreds and gallant Nevilles, and Eadulf, surnamed Eus, who seems to have inherited all the fiery disposition of his race, %txt tollotoetf) tlje 3Stef)op'£ Cracrrtfp, or a narration of a fctefjop frnnp; Slain iu foocfitl fotee up imdutf men fof)o took vttit too Sljort. It appears that on the death of Earl Waltheof, son of Siward, who was beheaded 1075, more that the king might get his riches than for anything else, Walcher,* the first Norman bishop, bought the earldom of Northum- berland in the same manner as Hugh Pudsey did in after days. The offices of Earl of Northumberland and Earl Palatine of Durham, were distinct. The latter was a perpetual right, the former a granted one for life only. The people viewed Walcher's exercise of the spiritual and temporal powers united with very little reverence, and his severities under the usurper made the union still more detestable. Liulph, a Saxon nobleman who had married Aldgitha, a granddaughter of Uchtred, was in great favour with the Bishop, and his estates suffering dreadfully from the oppression of his deputy and kinsman Gilbert, he complained to the prelate of his officer's misdeeds. The latter in resentment beset the Saxon's house in the night-time and put him and the greatest part of his family to death. The popular odium was in- creased to perfect madness at this event, and the bishop's useless anger against the offence, the perpetrators being allowed to go at large ; and at his council held at Gateshead, it brought forth fruit. Nothing could save him, all his promises, all his threats were in vain, and under the leadership of Liulph's kinsman, Eadulf Eus, the mob gathered round the doomed assembly with the watchword JHjort wfcc, croofc rcOe, glea gt tije fcteljoppt-f- The few guards and the hated Gilbert at once met their fate, but the bishop's end was solemn and dignified. The church to which he had retreated was fired and all who rushed out were instantly slain. The last of the assembly was the venerable prelate. The fire urged him to the enemy's sword ; the enemy drove him back to the flames. But the time was none for irresolution. The * Pronounced Walker, as the word is in fact spelt in Hollinshed. f That is, the shortest advice is the best. H 5() STYR'S DESCENDANTS. lire blazed upon him on every hand. Short was his prayer to Heaven, he advanced to the howling multitude. With one hand he made a fruitless signal to command silence ; with the other he sanctified himself with the sign of the cross ; and, folding himself in his robe, he veiled his face, and was in- stantly pierced to the heart with a lance, when his awful remains were inhu- manly mangled with many a sword. The hand that held the lance is said to have been that of Eadulf, the hand by which Eadulf was soon after slain was that of a woman. He was buried at Jedburgh, but his body was cast out by the command of Turgot, when prior of Durham, and left to rot upon the earth*; while the Bishop rested in his own chapter-house. He had gone with but few guards, it seems, in spite of a prediction by one Eardulf, who rose from the dead at Eavensworth for the express purpose. At his funeral he started up, and after his friends were recovered from their fright by a proper quantity of holy water, he told them all that he had seen, during a trance of 12 hours.-)- He had seen many of his old acquaintances blessed in flower- covered mansions, but, oh, as to the torments he witnessed for the incorrigi- bles then alive, and especially for the murderers of Walcher, let me breathe them not. You might almost smell brimstone, his flames were so blue. And so much for the blood-stained descendants of Styr the donor of Der- ningtun. Few and evil were the days of the earls of Northumbria, yet fancy loves to linger round some of their memories ; as that of Oslac, hoary-haired and prudent hero, driven in 975 over the rolling tide — over the gannet's bath — over the water's throng— over the whale's domain — of home bereaved ; and Si ward the noble giant (albeit his grandfather was a [ lover disguised as a ?] bear), who lives in Shakspere's rhythm, founded on a popular anecdote, Siward. Had he his hurts before ? Rosse. Ay, on the front. Siward. Why, then, God's soldier be he ! Had I as many sons as I have hairs I would not wish them to a fairer death. and who rose from his death bed and once more buckled on his armour, say- ing " That it became not a valiant man to die lying like a beast/'' and there- with gave up the ghost. In one of the English versions of the popular romance of Horn, the hero's father is called Hatheolf, and he ruled over all England north of the Humber. Horn's companions were "eight knave childer," whom the king intrusted to the care of his steward Arlaund, who was "to lern hem to ride." Meanwhile * Hutch, vol. i. f If this were the whole time elapsed since his death, how quickly was the poor man to be hurried to his long home. STYR'S DESCENDANTS. 51 the Danes invaded the northern counties of England, and had collected their plunder ready to be borne to their ships in Cleveland : Alle her pray to schip thai bere, In Clifland bi Tese side. King Hathelof thereupon assembled his army on " Alerton More ", hastened to attack the invaders while they were still in Cleveland ; and gained a com- plete victory over them. Whoso goth or rideth ther-bi, Yete may men se ther bones ly Bi Seynt Sibiles kirke. After this success the King hunted on " Blakeowe more/' and having given a feast at Pickering, he went to York, and there met Arlaund with Horn, and caused his subjects to swear fealty to the latter as his successor. Nine months afterwards came three kings out of Ireland : — Out of Yrland com Kings thre ; Ther names can y telle the Wele withouten les. Ferwele and Winwald wern ther to, Malkan king was on of tho, Proude in ich a pres : Al Westmorland stroyed thay. The word com on a Whissonday To king Hatheolf at his des. He met the Irish on "Staynes more," when two of the three kings were slain, but Hatheolf fell by the hand of the remaining one Malkan, after having been overpowered by the multitude of his assailants, who withdrew to their own country, but " an earl of Northumberland," taking occasion of the death king, and of the minority of his son, seized upon his kingdom, and Arlaund fled with Horn to the court of Honlac, a king who reigned " fer southe in Inglond." Here his intercourse with the king's only daughter, Bimneld, was discovered by Wigard and Wikele, and he was obliged to fly, under the name of Godebounde/to Wales. He there met a knight in a forest who con- ducted him to King " Elydan " who held a court at "Snowedoune." Here he obtained favour, and Elydan's son " Tinlawe," a king in Ireland, having sent to request aid against the same Irish who had invaded Horn's own country, he accompanied the messengers back with a favorable answer. The king of Wales with his men were however detained by contrary winds ; Horn and the two sons of the Irish king, with their army, were obliged to fight against superior numbers ; the two princes were taken and put to death and Horn wounded, but he had slain Malkan, and his death was followed by 52 THE PERCYS. the defeat of the invaders. Finlak's daughter, Acula, tended Horn's wounds, and became deeply enamoured of him. She declared to him her love, but he was faithful to Rimneld, and, the seven years he had made the term of his absence being passed, with a hundred knights he set out, rescued her from King " Moging," who would have married her, slew Wigard, and compelled Wikele to confess his treason. He then returned to Northumberland to re- cover his hereditary possessions which it appears had been usurped by Thorobrond. Here the poem ends abruptly by a defect in the MS. It agrees in general plot with the French and older English versions, but the names and places are in it so essentially English that it appears to have been formed on a more ancient model, and may be the last form of a purely Saxon legend.* The names of Hatheolf and Thorobrond in this curious old ro- mance bear a strong resemblance to those of Waltheof (father of Styr's son- in-law), and Turebrand in real history, yet the incidents seem to refer to a date before the Danes gained any regular settlement in Northumbria. In 1086 Robert de Molbray was earl of Northumberland but was devested for rebellion in 1095. Henry, prince of Scotland, of the blood of Waltheof the last, was created earl by Stephen in 1138, and by a charter he apprises his barons and men of the monks of Durham (shewing that the church of Durham was still considered to be within the jurisdiction of the earldom), of all their possessions being " in his own hand and in his own protection and in his peace/' and he charges them to hold such in peace and preserve them from all harm. His son Malcolm, afterwards King, succeeded, but Henry II in 1157 wrenched from him the restitution of Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmoreland, and though William the Lion was proclaimed Earl, by Duncan earl of Fife and others, the inheritance had for ever gone from Scot- land. Simon de St. Liz. III. also of the blood of the old Earls then succeeded. Hugh Pudsey bought the earldom in 1192 for life, and in 1377 Henry Piercy was created Earl of Northumberland ; but all the ancient jurisdiction seems well nigh to have passed away. Yet never, in its palmist days, had the earldom seen a more gallant race than that which now gained its faded honours, and whose crescent badge graces'the initial on my first page. The Percys— heroes of chronicle, ro- mance, and song— were no mean successors of the warlike sons of Waltheof, and they seem almost to have succeeded to their bloody fete. The first earl of Northumberland and his brother the earl of Worcester, both served with honour in the French wars of Edward III : both long enjoyed the favour of his weak successor and were by him elevated to their earldoms ; both deserted his falling fortunes and combined to place the domineering Bolingbroke on the throne ; and both, unable to bear the rod they had given, endeavoured by open war to depose him, and perished. -f- Follow to "the Hotspur of the North ; he that kills me some six or seven dozen of Scots at a breakfast, * Wright's Essays on " Mediaeval English Literature," &c. i. 123. f W. E. Surtees, in " Richardson's Table Book." Leg. Div ii. 287. THE PERCYS. ;>3 washes his hands and says to his wife,__' Fye upon this quiet life ! I want work,'"*— to his death field of Shrewsbury, amidst the conflicting cries of "St. George" and " Esperance, Percy "f— and to the second earl, slain for the Red Rose at St. Albans— to his sons, Thomas, slain in the same cause at Northampton, Ralph, who fell at Hedgely Moor with the proud boast " I have saved the bird in my bosom" (his loyalty), and Richard, slain for Lan- caster at Towton — to the third Earl who met with the same fate— to the fourth Earl slain at his own manor-house of Cocklodge, near Thirsk, in up- holding the seventh Harry's oppressions— to his grandson Sir Thomas, be- guiled by those who raised the cry "Thousands for a Percy I" to a traitor's death at Tyburn__to the seventh Earl, betrayed by a Douglas (the name so oft opposed to Percy), and beheaded in the Pavement at York— to the eighth Earl, who shot himself in the Tower— to the scion of the race involved in Gunpowder Plot_to the betrothed of Elizabeth Percy, sole heiress of her house, Thomas Thynne, assassinated in 1682 ;— nay, do even more, look at that bold and bad man who for a time had possession of the dignity, John Dudley ; look back to the older earls of Northumberland, and say if ever title had been more luckless to its possessors and their families. Out of eight earls of the Percy race in two centuries, only two died in their beds. Craik notes also the reluctance of Percy blood to flow in other than female veins to the present day as a remarkable fact. If at any time more male births have taken place than have barely sufficed to keep up the descent of the title from father to son, they have usually proved unproductive. In- deed, this has been uniformly the case, with one exception, for more than three centuries, to go no further back. The seventh Earl of Northumberland, who succeeded to the title in 1537, left only four daughters. His brother, the eighth Earl besides three daugh- ters, had eight sons, but all of them died either unmarried or without issue. The ninth Earl left two sons and two daughters ; out of the sons only the eldest had issue. The tenth Earl had six daughters and only one son ; and that son who became the eleventh Earl, left only one child, a daughter. That daughter, the second heiress of her house, besides six daughters, had seven sons ; but of them all only the eldest had issue ; and he again left only a daughter, once more and for the third time to transfer the stream of descent to a new channel. Her eldest son, the second Duke, left two sons ; but the elder of the two, who became the third Duke, died without issue ; and the present Duke, who is the younger, has no family. Of the second son of the first Duke, however, who suc- ceeded his father as Baron Louvaine, and was afterwards created Earl of Beverley, the posterity in both sexes is very numerous. X — Romance of the Peerage. One more odd circumstance, if it were true, is disclosed in the proceedings relating to the claim of James Percy, the trunk maker, to the Earldom of * Shakspere. Henry IV. *f* The family motto is Esperance en Dieu, sometimes slightly varied. $ Some remarkable instances of this tendency occur to me. The estates of George Strong esq., of Sutton by Brough, co. Leic. descended through no less than five successive heiresses viz. those of Strong, Ensor, Dyer, Gaunt, and Franks. In like manner the manor of the monastery of Guisborough at Stranton, passed successively through the heiresses of Gibson, Kitchen, Weemes, and Hylton, and even after this female heirship had ceased, for two suc- cessions only one weakly son in each carried down the honours of the family. 54 THE PERCYS. Northumberland, in 1680, wherein he says, "when you came first to me, I shewed you a mold like a half-moon upon my body, ( born into the world with it,) as hath been the like on some of the Percys formerly. Now search William Percy, and see if God hath marked him so ; surely God did foresee the troubles, although the law takes no notice ; but God makes a true decision, even as he has pleased to make Esau hairy and Jacob smooth." The parlia- ment viewed this divine signature (as James called it) with much less re- spect, and he lost the Earldom. The origin of the name Algernon in the family, it seems, is to be found in the circumstance that William de Percy who came over with the Conqueror, was amongst his contemporaries surnamed Alsgernons, or William with the Whiskers. And the Percys of romance, what rhymes have they created, what lofty and soaring though simple stanzas. How " Chevy Chase/' and the " Battle of Otterburne " warm the chilliest soul ; how the sorrows of the " Nut-Brown Maid/' and the " Fair Flower of Northumberland " melt the roughest heart ! The former of these two ballads is supposed to relate to Lady Margaret Percy the daughter of the fifth earl, and her husband Henry Clifford, who is said to have lived the life of an outlaw before he succeeded as eleventh Baron Clifford, and is printed by Percy ; the latter narrates the dismal deceit practised by a false knight of Scotland whom the " Fair Flower" released from captivity in cells of her father the good Earl of Northumberland. It is a choice produc- tion of the hatred formerly shown to the Scotch on the Borders', and may be found in Richardson's Table Book.* All you, fair maidens ! be warned by me, (Follow my love, come over the strand ! ) Scots never were true, nor ever will be, To Lord, nor Lady, nor fair England. The days when such words of feud were sung, are happily passed away, and let me pass from the gallant Earls of Northumberland, into whose association Squire Styr has so lengthily led me, by throwing together a note or two about their lands in Darlington. 1617. The Earl of Northumberland, a freeholder in the Borough. 1627. Rowland Place, Esq. adm. to a burgage of arable land lately pertaining to the Earl of Northumberland. The old Percys occur no more. 1722. Sir Hugh Smithson of Stanwick, co. York, Barronett, leases to William Chipsis of Darlington, yeo. Vazie Close, containing 3 acres at Blackwellgate end. ( " The cor- ner close between Blackwell and Coniscliffe laines.") The close probably belonged to the Coniscliffe family of Vasey, a visitation family of 1615 ( no arms entered, though the family afterwards assumed those of the old Lords de Vesci), and of whom John Vasie, gen. was a freeholder in the Borough in 1617. In his inventory 1642, are men- tioned "one bugle horn, 105. ; his armour, 71. 10s. ; and 12 London drinking-glasses, 7s." * Leg. Div. i. 25. PALATINE POWERS. .~)5 He was son of Christopher. In 1638 John Kelsey was adm. to a burgage in Mather- garthes between the burgage of George Jackson of Bedall on the South, and a burgage formerly Xpofer Vasye's on the North, and being le nienth rigg a le Sowth Dike. (Va- zie Close is now occupied by new streets.) 1817. Hugh, Duke of Northumberland, settled to uses all that close or parcel of ground situate in Darlington, containing or reputed to be two burgages as it lyeth and adjoineth on a street called Bathgate ; and all those two closes or parcels of ground com- monly called Fassey's Closes lying at Black well-gate and in Darlington ; and all manner of pasture Gates in a Moor called Brankin Moor to the same belonging. And all those several closes or parcels of ground within the precincts and territories of Darlington ; commonly called Batthall alias Bathell Field, Turner Close, and Baidell closes, there- tofore purchased of Henry Garth, gent. ( These fields are situate on Bay dale Beck at its junction with the Tees.) 1773. July 2. The Duke and Dutchess of Northumberland arrived in this town, in their way to Alnwick, on which account a man, generally known by the name of Signior Pecketto, saluted them, as usual, with Ins patereroes ; the last he fired unluckily burst, and there being a number of spectators, some of the splinters flew among them and shat- tered the hand of one boy, and tore the leg of another in a shocking manner, and many others were slightly wounded. — Darlington Mercury. This seems no improper place to glance at the princely estate of the bishops of Durham, who will henceforth appear more as sovereigns than prelates. A work confined to one parish of their domains seems no fitting field for any dissertations as to whether the Palatine jurisdiction began before the conquest or after, or in what particulars it differed from the privileges of the earls of Northumbria. It is however extremely probable that though the office of the latter was not abolished, it was considerably modified as to Durham, and the Palatine powers then given to, or by tacit permission assumed by, Walcher and continued by his successors. At all events from that period we constant- ly find the maxim true that Quicquid Bex habet extra, Episcopus habet intra. £oIum Sunelmmse stola jufctcat et en.se. " The vicinity of Scotland, then an active and vigilant enemy, and, not less, the insecure state of the Northern province, always restless under the severity of the Norman yoke, demanded that at such a distance from the seat of Government a power should exist capable of acting on emergency with vigour and promptitude ; and the motives are apparent which would incline the Monarch to select for this important trust an enlightened ecclesiastic, ap- pointed by and attached to the Crown ; in preference to a hereditary noble, less easily conciliated, and already possessing a dangerous share of local influ- ence. Owning henceforth within the limits of the Palatinate, no earthly su- perior, the successive prelates of Durham continued for four centuries to exer- cise every right attached to a distinct and independent sovereignty. Of this 56 PALATINE POWERS. royalty, the limits were at all times co-extensive with the bounds of the Palatinate."* By this extraordinary franchise, the bishops levied taxes, made truces with their enemies, raised troops within the liberty, impressed ships for war, sate in judgment of life and death, and held execution of life and limb. They created Barons, who formed their council or parliament : the greater part of the lands within the liberty were held of the bishops in capite, as lords para- mount ; they coined money, built churches, instituted corporations by chart- er, and granted fairs and markets ; they had all manner of royal jurisdiction, both civil and military ; they were lord high admirals of the sea and waters, that lie within or adjoining the palatinate ; had vice-admirals and courts of admiralty, judges to determine according to the maritime laws, registers, ex- aminers, officers of beaconage, &c, &c.*f* The barons of the bishopric seem to have been generally the Prior, Hylton of Hylton, J Conyers of Sockburn, Bulmer of Brancepeth, Surtees of Dinsdale, Hansard of Evenwood, Lumley of Lumley, Fitz-Marmaduke of Ravensworth, and " two of the county of Lincoln/' but varied at different periods. Some of these families, such as Conyers, Hylton, and Bulmer, had a prescriptive right to supporters of their arms. John Fitz-Marmaduke (who dying in 1311 in Scotland, was boiled in a hugh cauldron, and his bones transported at leisure across the border) although apparently only a baron of the bishop- ric, subscribed in 1 300 the memorable letter of the English barons to Pope Boniface, asserting the independence of the English crown, and renouncing his interference in the dispute with Scotland. His daughter was styled Countess of Ravenshelm. These barons§ constituted a Chamber of Peers at Durham, under the presidency of the Bishop, who was by no means an arbi- tary Sovereign, his power being considerably limited by his barons who were consulted, or interfered of their own accord in matters of importance. Thus : when Bishop Beaumont had solicited vexatious bulls and instruments to an- noy the Monks, at one time procuring the sole and arbitary appointment to the Priorate, at another a fourth of the annual revenues of the church to de- fray the expences of the Scottish war ; the Council prevented the Bishop from putting these oppressive instruments into force. Having thus given to the reader the necessary information respecting the singular sovereignty exercised by the bishop and his barons over Darlington and the remainder of the Palatinate for many generations, I shall proceed to * Surtees, i. xvi. It will be remembered that the Scotch royal race claimed the North- umbrian jurisdiction by descent. The Conqueror also erected Chester into a Palatinate, as being on the hostile borders of Wales. f Sharpe's Hartlepool, 12. % Qui baroniam Hilton tenuer. de episc. Dur. The Hyltons were however more than once summoned to Parliament, perhaps as barons of the realm. John Hylton, Esq., " the last of the barons " of the bishopric, (for though the function was lost, popular courtesy al- ways gave the old title) died in 1746. § Amongst the charters of Pudsey, another baron is mentioned. " Habeat, &c. sicut ali- quis Baronum nostrorum." — Carta facta Will. fiL Will. fil. regis Stephani de terra de Parva Halcton. — Geoffrey d'Escolland was a baron of the bishopric in Flambard's time. SAXON BISHOPS. 57 give the remainder of this chapter in a chronological form, noticing all the way the successions of Bishops for purposes of reference, as many documents are dated according to the years of the pontificate of the bishop, rather than the reign of the monarch. 1018. Died, Aldhune, "first bishop of Durham, in whose episcopate Dar- lington had been given to the church by Styr. He seems to have been mar- ried, at all events he had a good-for-nothing daughter, sent home by two husbands as before mentioned. After his death the See remained vacant for three years ; at last while the ecclesiastics were sitting in chapter, a joking priest called EADMUND jestingly exclaimed, "why cannot you make me a bishop ? " a careless speech which was instantly considered to be produced by divine impulse, and St. Cuthbert from his shrine confirmed the idea; "or perchance a Monke his good friend, that lay hid under it : for I do not read that St. Cuthbert ever drank in his pottage that (by the proverb) he should speak in his grave/'* Eadmund however sorely lamented his jest, yet he proved himself a very proper man to be a Bishop. He was succeeded by EADRED in 1041. This fellow had by some means seized the treasures of the church and therewith bought the nomination of Hardicanute, however in a few months he died, and again undue influence of the crown was used in procu- ring the appointment of EGELRIC, a monk of Peterborough, in 1042, who abdicated in favour of Ins brother EGELWIN, 1069. Robert Cumin, whom William had placed over Northumbria, having provoked the people of Durham by his cruelties, they rose up and slew him and his seven hundred guards. William immediately marched North. A detachment met with a fog at Northallerton, winch with divers * Hegge. 58 THE CONQUEROR'S tales of the people* anent St. Cuthbert, drove them back. But the Con- queror cared not a whit for the Saint, and pressing forward, caused the monks to flee with his body to Lindisfarne. For 60 miles between York and Dur- ham, he destroyed houses, villages, monasteries, churches and all, reducing the tract to a horrible desert. A dreadful famine followed, and mortality un- heard of. Men were glad to eat horses, cats, dogs, and at last even human carcases. The lands lay untilled for nine years infested by robbers and beasts of prey, and the poor remnant of the inhabitants spared from the sword died in the fields, overwhelmed with want and misery.-f- 1070. Scarcely had the last plague passed ere another came. Malcolm, king of Scotland, made an inroad through Cumberland (then in his hands) and carrying dreadful devastation down the course of the crystal Tees, pene- trated into Cleveland and burnt and destroyed everything in his march. At Hunderthwaite, opposite Eggleston, the people of Teesdale made a stand and were routed with great slaughter. Meanwhile Gospatric, the earl of North- umberland, invaded Cumberland, and returning with many spoils, shut him- self up in Bambrough castle, and by sallies from thence, weakened and annoy- ed Malcolm's forces on their return by the eastern coast. Enraged by these sufferings the Scottish king committed most horrid cruelties upon the people, J and carried such multitudes into captivity, that for many years after scarce a cottage in Scotland was destitute of English slaves. § 1071. Egelwin, borne down with the miseries of his country and church, fled with considerable treasure for Cologne, but by adverse winds was driven into Scotland. He afterwards joined Morcar in the Isle of Ely, was taken prisoner, and died a miserable death of famine and a broken heart. Such was the end of the last Saxon bishop of Durham. From this time a much greater splendour attaches to the history of the Prelates, in conse- quence of the palatine jurisdiction becoming apparent. Shorn as it was by Henry VIII. of its attributes, it still preserved a wonderful degree of state in later times. In 1682 Pepys writes to Mr. Hewer, that he and Mr. Legg had "made a step to Durham, where the Bishop seems to live more like a * " God having pitie upon them," (the inhabitants.) Stowe. f Bad as the tyrant's conduct might be, I really think, from subsequent events, that the accounts are exaggerated. Hollinshed's language is more elegant than the majority of old chronicles : — " The goodly cities with theyr towers and steeples set up on a stately height, and reaching as it were into the aire : the beautifull fields and pastures, watered with the course of sweete and pleasant rivers, if a straunger shoulde then have behelde and also knowen before they were thus defaced, hee woulde surely have lamented. The King's army comming into the countrey that lyeth betwixt the Rivers Theise and Tyne, found nothing but voyde fieldes and bare walles, the people with their goodes and cattell being fled and withdrawen into the Wooddes and Mountaynes." X Ford, 1. v. c. 18. § The ti-adition that Ulnaby, Carlebury, Walworth, &c-, were burned on an incursion of the Scots perhaps refers to this raid. The old Norman chapel of Walworth remains as a barn, with a piscina, in Chapel-Garth, and the foundations of the old village are distinctly visible. DEVASTATIONS. 59 prince of this, than a preacher of the other world." And the Bishops would appear to have flourished in bodily estate in their prosperity. I have heard in Darling-ton, lads puffing off their " Herrings, fine herrings ! " in this style " Now, mistress ! here's harrings wiv bellies like bishops/ " but how far is it below that glorious old Newcastle cry : — " 'Ere's yer caller herrin' ! 'Ere's yer caller fresh herrin ! 'Ere's 'resh heerin, resh heerin ! Fower a penny ; fower a penny ; fower a penny, caller heerin ! ******* * 'Ere's yer caller ware, wi' bellies as big as Bishops' ! Fresh heerin ! fresh heerin ! ! " WALCHER who succeeded to the see, was invited over by the king in 1072 to take this episcopacy. 1072. The clergy of Durham having returned from Lindisfarne, the Conqueror on his return from a Scottish expedition, wherein he had forced Malcolm to propose terms of accommodation, determined to " see the incor- ruptible Saint so magnified. And never were the Monks so afraid to have their imposture discovered, for now they had not leisure to cheat the specta- tors, with a living Monk, instead of dead St. Cuthbert, but made so many delays and entreaties to the contrary, that the king in a fever of anger was strook with such an heat, that hastening out of the church, and taking his horse, the Monks (in their historie) make him never stay his course till he passed over the Teese, and out of the presincts of the bishoprick, where he received his former temper."* " The King, I fear, is poisoned by a Monk." Shakspere. 1080. May 14. Walcher was murdered in the manner before described, and the palatinate again felt the effects of William's displeasure administered by his brother Odo. After a vacancy of six months the king, on Nov. 9, nominated to the Bishopric WILLIAM DE CARILEPHO, a Norman Abbot and chief Justiciary of England, who was consecrated Jan. 3. His removal of the secular priests from his cathedral will be found under the Collegiate Church. He died Jan. 6, 1095, and after a vacancy-)* of more than three years the see was filled by * Hegge. + During which the king '" transferred into his treasurie 300?. by yeere forth of the Bishopricke." Stowe. £() BATTLE OF RALPH FLAMBARD, a most obsequious exactor of the Red-haired king, consecrated June 5, 1 099. On Henry's accession he was thrown into prison for his enormities. How- ever he was afterwards restored and his palatine franchise confirmed. His death happened on Sep. 5, 1128. GALFRID RUFUS, Chancellor of England, was consecrated Aug. 6, 1133, the see having been vacant for nearly five years. 1138. David of Scotland having penetrated into England as far as North- allerton, was routed on Cowton Moor (Battle of the Standard.) The river Tees full oft did sigh, As she rolled her winding flood, That ever her silver tide so clear Should be swelled with human blood. The English were led by the venerable archbishop Thurstan, and were great- ly assisted by another veteran, Walter de Gaunt, of great repute in arms, whose father was nephew to the Conqueror's Queen. " Now tell me yon hosts," the king he cried, " And thou shalt have gold and fee — And who is yon chief that rides along With his locks so aged grey ? '' " Oh, that is Sir Walter de Gaunt you see, And he hath been grey full long, But many's the troop that he doth lead, And they are stout and strong."* The Gaunts, or Gants, sometime Earls of Lincoln, held Hundmanby in York- shire, and their name is still kept up among the populace, Gilbert Gant Left Hundmanby moor To Hundmanby poor, That they might never want. * The Battle of Cuton Moor, a modern ballad in Evans's colb THE STANDARD. (ft Such is the rhyme formerly sung round the market cross there on every Shrove Tuesday, in everlasting remembrance of the good donor. Query if not " Gilbert the Good" who died 1241.* But his days were evil. Gilbert de Gant — And in those days good women were scant, Some said they were few and some said they were many But in the days of Robert Coultas One was sold at the Market Cross for a penny. Or, according to another version, which doubtless the ladies of Hundmanby would prefer to sing, Gilbert Gant — And in them days good men were scant, Some said they was scarce and some said they was many ; But when Robert Coultas was a Lord There was one sold for a penny. These odd and rather amusing remnants of olden verse are I think unpub- lished, and were lately gathered by Matthew Gaunt, esq., of Leek, from the lips of Hundmanby seniors. 1139. Peace was restored by the cession of the earldom of Northumber- land to Henry, prince of Scotland, who however was to have no jurisdiction over the palatinate. This seems to prove the non-existence of the franchise of the Bishoprick in early times, else why was it now so expressly reserved ? 1140. May 6. Died, Bishop Bufus. At his death a Scotch priest cal- led William Cumin usurped the see, and actually forged Apostolic letters. However the ecclesiastics would not elect him, and in obedience to genuine orders from the Pope, escaped to York and chose WILLIAM DE ST. BARBARA, Dean of York, March 14, 1143. The intruder's nephew attempted in vain to convert into a fortress the church of Merrington,-)- and Roger Conyers who had protected his lawful prelate in his fortress of Bishopton, by some means * In Heckington Church windows, Lincolnshire, was for years preserved the simple but appropriate sentence " TJie Lord love De Gaunt." + It was not unusual to make church towers serve as fortresses. Bedale Tower has a fire-place, portcullis groove, and even aforica of stone throughout. There is a strange tale about a fire-placed room in Middleham Steeple connected with a dean who is said to have lived there to avoid arrest. fi2 HUGH PUDSEY. had the address to bring the usurper to become prostrate at his feet. St. Barbara was enthroned Oct 18, 1144. Cumin had made Durham a perfect " Hell upon Earth/' and used every cruelty. Some of his prisoners were suspended across ropes, with heavy weights attached to their neck and feet, others were repeatedly plunged into the frozen bed of the river ; of others the naked feet, protruded through an aperture of the wall, were exposed to all the severity of the night, in fact his genius would have done honour to an Inquisi- tor-General himself. Barbara died 1152, Nov. 14, and was succeeded by the magnificent Elected Feb. 1152, consecrated 20 Dec. 1153, and with the monks who had chosen him, soundly whipped, naked, at the church of Beverley, for not ha- ving consulted the Archbishop. The good men soon regretted their choice and sufferings, for Pudsey was haughty, austere, and reserved. He was nephew to King Stephen. 1164. This is given* as the circiter date of the erection of the Manor- house or Hall of the Bishops at Darlington by Hugh Pudsey, and the archi- tecture of the Chapel would seem to confirm the truth of the appropriation. See a full description of this building hereafter. Pudsey 'a Bible in four vols., folio, remains in the Dean and Chapter's Li- brary, and is one of the finest MSS. there. The illuminations exhibit every variety of the Norman style of architecture. The books have, however, suf- fered sorely from Dr. Dobson's Lady or nurse, who on rainy days amused his child in the library and cut out the " bonny shows " for it to play with. 1183. Pudsey caused a general survey to be made of all the ancient de- mesne and villenage lands of his bishopric, in the manner and form of Dooms- day-book. This is called Boldon-Buke, probably either from being compiled at " Canny Bowdon/' or from the other manors being regulated according to Boldon Manor, which is the first in the record. I quote the entries relating to Darlington parish from the Record Commissioners' edition, taken from the very accurate transcript in the Bodleian Library, The variations in the co- pies kept at Durham are given in brackets. Derlington. In Derlington there are forty-eight oxgangs, which the villains hold as well of the old villenaget as of the new, and render for each oxgang 5s. and are to mow the whole of the Bishop's meadow and win and lead his hay, and to have a corrody^ * Hutchinson, i. 181. f " Tarn de veteri villenagio quam de novo quas villani tenent." Surtees says " which the tenants in villenage hold as well under the old as the new bailiwick." i An allowance for maintenance. BOLDON BUKE. (j£ once ; to enclose the plantation* and the court ; and to perform the accustomed services at the mill ; and for each oxgang to lead one wain of Wodeladet and carry loads in the Bishop's journies ; and besides to fetch three loads annually of wine, herrings and salt. Twelve farmers hold as many oxgangs and render rent as the villains, but do not work, nor go on the Bishop's embassies, [and they go on the Bishop's embassies.] Osbet Bate [Kate] holds two oxgangs and renders rent 32c?. [22c?. Surtees] and goes on the Bishop's embassies, [wanting in some copies.] The son [sons] of Wibert holds two oxgangs for winch William [Gilbert] used to ren- der 8s. and now renders for the same, with an increase of four acres, 10s. and goes on embassies. Odo holds a toft and sows thirty-three acres of tillage (unless they be barren) [where the beech grove+ was] and renders 10s. only [without services] and in another part 26i acres for which he renders 10s. until Robert son of William de Moubray, who is his ward, attains his age. Gaufloie [Galfrid Joie] twenty acres by 40c?. and goes on the Bishop's embassies. (Engeliamus, son of Robert Marescall, six acres by 12c?.) [Lambert holds six acres.] The smith holds eight acres ( by furnishing the iron-work for the ploughs of Little Halton, and the small iron- work within the court of Derlington ) [at the will of the bishop.] (Four cottagers render 18c?. for their tofts) [four cottagers render 35. and help in ma- king mullionsj of hay, and carry fruit and work at the mill for their tofts. 1 1] The Punder holds nine acres and has traves** like other Punders, and renders five score hens and five hundred eggs. (The Borough renders 5?. The Dyer of cloths half a mark) [The Borough, the Dyers, and the farm-rents render thirty marks. tt] The Mills of Derlington, Haluton and Ketton, render thirty marks. Blakewell. In Blakewell there are forty-six [forty-seven] oxgangs which the vil- lains hold, and render, and do service in all points as the villains of Derlington. Five farmers hold four oxgangs, and render and do service like the farmers of Der- lington. Thomas, the son of Robert, holds an oxgang and renders 40c?. Four acres which were of John Russey [Rufus] render 16c?. Adam, son of Ralph de Stapelton, holds four oxgangs and one parcel of tillage of six- teen acres and three roods, and renders 5s. 4c?., and shall be overseer of the keepers of the portion land^ and goes on the Bishop's embassies. The same Adam renders for the herbage of Batella 32c?. * " Virgultum" " The limits of the court, from whence the term, " TJie verge of the court " seems to be derived." Hutch. + That is, laden with wood for fuel at the Hall and other purposes. X Ubi fagina fuit. § Hay Ricks. || A Toft is a piece of ground whereon a house stood or stands. The Tofts at Piersebridge constitute a field at the entrance of the village on the river, and the small Roman brass coins found there are called Toft Pennies. A Croft is a piece of ground attached to the Toft. ** A trave or thrave of Corn is twenty-four bundles or sheaves. Hutch, iii. 217. ff Ten marks. Surtees. XX Surtees has it "and he shall look to the performance of the Bishop's autumn tillage." The original is " et erit sup' p'cac' custod'." Porcacio, a certain portion, one long ridge or rig, from porca, a rig of land rising like a hog's back. Thus we have the Four Rigs in Bondgate, and see p. 55. 64 BOLDON BUKE. (Seven Cottagers render 3s. lOd.) [Ten Cottagers render 5s. and assist in making mullions of hay, and carry fruit, and work at the mill."! Robert Blund for a little parcel of land near the Tees 6d. Hugh the Punder for one acre, 12c?. and one toft of the waste. Cokerton In Cokerton there are forty-seven oxgangs which the villains hold, and render and do service in all points as the villains of Derlington. Four farmers hold three and a half oxgangs and render and do service like the farmers of Derlington. Six cottagers render 3s. lOd. and do service in all points as those of Blakewell. Oxenhale. William holds Oxenhale, viz. : one carucate and three [two] portions of tillage within the territory of Derlington, which Osbert de Seleby used to hold under fee-farm in exchange for two carucates of the land of Ketton, which his father and him- self used to hold in drengage* and which he for himself and his heirs quit-claimed to the bishop and his successors for ever. He ought also to have a horse -mill and is quit of multure, he and his land, and of service at the mill, and renders 60s. per annum, besides doing the fourth part of one drenge, viz. : he ploughs four acres, and sows with the Bishop's seed, harrows, and tills four portions in autumn, viz. three with all his men, and all his household, except the housewife, and the fourth with one man from every house except his own proper house, which shall be free. He keeps a dog and horse for the fourth part of the year, carries wine with a wain of four oxen and performs utvarr when it shall be laid on the bishopric. William of Oxenhale evidently held the chief rank among the tenants in the Parish. As to utvarr'-f or outward as Hatfield's survey has it, Hutch- inson (who calls it Vaware) imagines that it "related to the chace, and im- plied an out-watch at the extremities of the chace, it being usual to make a kind of circumvallation, if the term may be allowed, or circle of watchmen, to prevent the game from escaping the bounds : it is still practised in some of the Northern counties, where the lords have a boon-hunt ; of which an in- stance is in Martindale, in Cumberland, a chace belonging to the Hasell family/' " Such a custom/' adds Surtees, " was certainly common from India to these Islands ; but the text rather seems to imply some service of only occasional occurrence. May not outward refer to the more serious op erations of war, and intend the keeping watch or scouting on the advance of an enemy." The expression " the Borough, the Dyers and the farm-rents" (furm) has also been very differently construed. Surtees thinks it a most curious con- clusion that the tolls of this ancient and prescriptive borough were farmed out and on lease, while Hutchinson says " The ferme, or fir ma, our best law expositors define to be a royal tribute, for the sovereign's entertainment for one night on his journies, and it was the badge of a royal borough or vill. * Spelraan says that those who hold under this servile tenure, were tenants in capite, and were such as at the Conquest, being put out of their estates were afterwards restored. The nature of the services in this country may be seen by the description of those performed by William for his fourth of a drenge at Oxenhale. f The term recurs as wt ware' in the drenge tenure of Robert Fitz Melred (lord of Raby) at Wessawe. HUGH PUDSEV. (>5 111 Doomsday-book Comes meriton tempore Regis Edwardi reddebat firmam unius noctis, it is also named in King Edgar's charter to Ely/' It may be remarked that under Durham, in Boldon Buke, it is stated that " Erat autem Civitas ad firmam." The Bishop evidently at the date of the record kept at least an occasional household here, and the tenants in villenage were charged with the carriage of wood and wine, to which are added two rather uncommon items, herrings and salt, the first probably from Hartlepool, the other from Seaton or the old salt-works at the Tees-mouth. Indeed with the beeves and mutton which the deep meadows of the Skerne would furnish to salt for winter store, there would be little else to lead for the hospitality of the house. A provision is also inserted for the transport of such articles of use or luxury as the bishop might require when he moved from manor to manor.* These extracts from Boldon Buke would not be complete without the fok lowing, under the head of Little Halughton, which was then in demense in the lord's hand. Pudsey afterwards granted it to the grandson of Stephen. (p. 56) Adam de Seleby holds at farm the demesne of this place with a stock of two ploughs and two harrows, and with the land sown sicut in cirograffo contained ; with the Grange and fold yard (curia clausa) and renders eight marks. And he finds a litter for the Lord Bishop in his journies at Derlington. And besides he has the custody of the house and court of the Lord Bishop at Derling- ton and those things that are brought thither, at his own cost, in consideration of a cer- tain parcel of tillage called Hacdale, which he holds in the fields of Derlington opposite the Hall on the E. side of it, across the water. (The pasture with the sheep is in the hands of the Bishop, but Adam, if he will, may have in the same pasture one hundred sheep during the term for which he shall hold the the said farm.) 1189. While Richard I. was preparing for his crusade, the bishop caught the military mania and took the vow also, making most splendid preparations at the expence of his grievously taxed people. He rued in time, but the king had heard of all this, and was graciously pleased to wish to borrow the money raised and now useless. This brought about a bargain for the pur- chase of the earldom, wapentake, and manor of Sadberge, to be annexed to the see of Durham for ever, together with the earldom of Northumberland for life, for which the prelate was to pay 11,000/. Henceforward the mitre of Durham was graced with an earl's coronet, and the sword accompanied the pastoral staff. The young king at his investiture of the vain man could not help laughing merrily at the inconsistent characters he was joining, saying "Am not I cunning, and nry craftsmaster, that can make a young Earl of an old Bishop ? " But this prelate was fit to be an earl, for the world (as one of that age said of him) was not crucifixus to him, but infixus in kim.f * Surtees. + Camden's Remaines. 66 HUGH PUDSEY. Hollinshed says that Richard " sold to hym the manor of Seggesfielde or Sadberge, with the wapentake belonging to the same, and also found means to perswade him to buy his owns province, which he did, giving to the King an inestimable summe of money, and was thereupon created an Erie by the King for the same : whereupon he was entitled both Bishoppe and Earle of Durham,* whereat the Kyng woulde jest afterwards and say, what a cun- ning craftsman am I, that have made a newe Earle of an olde Bishoppe/' One thousand marks more procured the appointment of chief justiciary of all England and regent north of the Humber, while similar means obtained a dispensation of his vow from the Holy see, " which fayleth no man that is surcharged with white or red mettall, and would be eased/' The regent of the North was however soon sorely handled, for Longchamp instead of al- lowing him to act in conjunction with him very coolly shut the prince-bishop up in the Tower. 1194. On Richard's return our bishop did not fare much better. Hugh had furnished 2000lbs. of silver towards his sovereign's ransom, and had even resigned his earldom on the king's coolness being manifest, but the latter learned that the bishop had only remitted a small portion of the sums he had extorted from his vassals on pretence of raising the ransom, on which account he devised repeated occasions to impose various fines and penalties on the em- bezzler ; and this he did with greater severity, as the Bishop did not in any way conceal his riches, and among all his mischances and troubles ceased not from the building of our church at Demington\ nor from other religious works. Soon after, William of Scotland being in treaty for the restitution of Northumberland, for a sum of money, the bishop outbid him, and set out for London with the money (2000 marks), but died at Howden, (having eaten at Craike too many good things at supper), Mar. 3. He made restitution to the monks of all lands he had illegally dispossessed them of, adding the vill of Newton, which he purchased and confirmed to them by charter, and left the 2000 marks to the king he had promised him. St. Godrick the holy saint of Finchale, had told him he should be seven years blind before his death, this the Bishop believed in a literal sense, and deferring his repentance till the time of his blindness, " dyed unprovided for death. But if good deeds be satisfactorie, then dyed he not in debt for his sinnes." If one may judge from the silly bargains he made, he was indeed blind. Throughout his life his ambition was unbounded, and the only reflections which can fill the mind on viewing the magnificent temple and the once handsome mansion which he erected at Darlington are those which point alike to his other works, and mark them all as monuments raised by pride to his memory, inscribed with * Stowe repeats this statement. Durham was therefore still in some respects included in the earldom of Northumberland. + Sic. Gaufridus de Coldingham. Surtees Society. RICHARD DE MARISCO. $7 the perpetuation of the vile extortions and grievous oppressions he committed on his distressed province.* Still he was a great man in his way. PHILIP DE POICTEU, a native of Aquitaine, was elected 30 Dec. 1195: consecrated 12 May, 1197. His quarrels with the monks exceeded all those of his predecessors in vio- lence, and give one a queer idea of episcopacy. He beset the cathedral with troops ; commanding fire and smoke to be put to the windows and doors, and exhibiting the most supreme contempt for St. Cuthbert, with a tumultuous mob interrupted the convent in the holy offices of his festival, breaking in upon the altar, laying impious hands on the sacred furniture and dragging forth the prior and monks ministering there. He died 22 April, 1208, and the see was vacant for nine years and a half. RICHARD DE MARISCO, Chancellor of England, consecrated 2 July, 1217. One of his seals repre- sents him standing on an insulated piece of ground, surrounded by bulrushes growing out of the water — de marisco. Two confirmatory charters of this Bishop, or possibly one of him and one of his successor, relate to Bishop Philip's grant of Mayland, Satley, to Bar- tholomew de Mariscis under the tenure of a fair of gilt spurs, to be presented to the bishop on St. Cuthbert's feast in September. One of these charters is dated " at Deryngton, 6 May, the first year of our episcopacy/'-f- He died 1 May, 1226, after a stormy reign spent in disputes with the monks : however one of them made him an odd epitaph of a dozen fines all ending in itis. He was found dead in bed at Peterborough Abbey after ha- ving daintily refreshed himself with costly meats, in going with a " great rowt of men of lawe " towards London, in maintenance of " his most filthy quarrell he picked against religious persons."]: RICHARD POOR Had the Royal assent 22 July, 1228 ; died 15 Apr. 1237. * I have adopted almost the very words of Hutchinson, I can devise none more effective. But let us give the prelate his due. He redeemed the plate of the church which, with that of other fanes, was called into requisition for the king's ransom. Richard was not very scru- pulous about sacrilege, and the punishment attendant on that sin overtook him at Chaluz. Christe, Tui cheilitis praedo fit prseda Chalucis : (Ere brevi rejicis qui tulit cera crucis. + Surtees. ± Stowe. (J8 SADBERGE CROSS. During his episcopacy, Peter de Brus, Lord of Skelton, whilst guardian of Hartness during the minority of the fifth Robert de Brus, opposed the pre- latical claim to the wreck of the sea, in his ward's lordship, and caused his servants to carry away a wrecked boat, for which they were fined 50*. by the Justices of Sadberge, and it seems that a burgess of Hartlepool named Gerard de Seton had on the occasion of the dispute been favourable to the prelate's claims. Peter, upon the fine being inflicted, sent one of his servants called Hugh de Haubgere and many others, who took the unfortunate bur- gess and lodged him in the dungeons of Skelton. The Bishop was not to be outdone. He pronounced all the pains and perils of excommunication by name against those who seized his supporter in the liberty between the Tyne and Tees, and compelled the mighty baron to disgorge his prey and allow poor Gerard to go quietly back to his own fire-side. And now came his revenge. For the capture &c. Peter de Brus was fined 201. by the Bishop's justices. However, William, Earl of Albemarle, and John de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, came to the Bishop at Derlyngton, where they remained three days for the express purpose of endeavouring to bring about a reconciliation ; and at their instance the Bishop relaxed in his demand of the fine, and the quarrel was brought to an amicable conclusion, upon condition that henceforth the bishop should have the wreck of the sea without contradiction. After this there was a dispute about another vessel wrecked, but the Bai- liffs of the Bishop seized it, and the Justices of Sadberge ordered that from its mast should be made a wooden cross as a memorial, which in"Bp. Kel- lawe's time, nearly a century afterwards, was yet standing in a place called Blakelawe, on the high road [alta strata] between Sadberge and Hetrepol, and from its yard was made a candlelabrum, upon which were placed the Wax and candles in the church of Sadberge.* " Three times tell an Ave-bead, And thrice a Paternoster say, Then kiss with me the holy reed, So shall we safely wend our way.' Sadbury Cross is now the name of a field between Sadberge and Long-New- ton, and a floating tradition states that in the time of the plague, all the trade of Sadberge was transacted at this place. There is a similar legend about Marske Cross in Cleveland, whither, it is said, the market of Guis- brough was removed, when the pestilence had well nigh depopulated the town. * Bp. Kellawe's register. NEWCASTLE BURGESSES. 69 NICHOLAS DE FARNEHAM, Elected 11 June, 1237 ; resigned 8 April, 1240. Before Lis election there was a repetition of the disgusting cont est between the convent and the crown which had distinguished many former elections. Whilst the Monks were pressing for the confirmation of their Prior, Melsonby, whom they had elected, one of them exclaimed, " Sire, it is no great matter of favour that we ask ; " "And if ye want no favour/' retorted the angry Monarch, "none shall ye have." WALTER DE KIRKHAM. Elected 21 Apr.; consecrated 5 Dec. 1259 ; died 9 Aug. 1260. On the re- verse of his seal he is seen praying to St. Cuthbert in this unscriptural verse. SrtSuI Cutperte, recjium super ttytra per U. Bishop Cuthbert, may I reign above the skies by thee, which is very different from Bishop de Insula's harmless superscription lignum Cutfjfctrtt Sujnat Secreta t&ofcertt. In Kirkham's time, the Durham monks were for long interdicted for oppo- sing the Pope's exactions. " Oh, (sayeth Matthew Paris) if in that their tribulation they might have had fellows, and in their constant doings aiders, how happily had the Church of England triumphed over her tormentors and oppressors/'* 1260. Henry III. was obliged this year to interfere with Kirkham's offi- cial, Roger de Siton, (master of Sherburn hospital). He had cited forty of the Burgesses of Newcastle to appear before him at Derlington on uncertain business, and with the Archdeacon of Northumberland, had made it a prac- tice to enforce them to appear at his courts and visitations, from day to day at distant places out of their borough, contrary to custom ; and to inquire into matters-)- against their will. From the expence and loss of time attend- ing this grievance, the merchants and artificers were so injured and worn out that some of them were actually reduced to the miserable necessity of beg- ging. The King, on application, issued two severe writs to the offenders and to the Bishop himself, commanding them at once to desist from their usur- pations against Ins crown and dignity. % Seyton or Siton however rose to * Hollinshed. t They considered themselves liable to sift causes of Matrimony and Testament only. $ Claus. 44 Hen. III., p. i. m. 12. Prynne ii. 826., a book extremely scarce, the greatest part of the impression being burnt in the Great Fire. Allan MSS. 70 ANTHONY BEKE. be a Judge of the Common Pleas in 1268, and in 1274 he was bound with Hugh de Derlington, Prior of Durham, for the executors of Bishop Stichill to pay his debts to the King. ROBERT DE STICHILL, Elected 30 Sep., 1260 ; consecrated 13 Feb., 1261 ; died 4 Aug. 1274. His seneschal Geoffrey Eussell founded, in 1274, a chantry in the chapel of St. Mary Magdalene, at Cotum Amundeville upon Scyrn, par. Haughton, for a chaplain to pray for the souls of Tho. de Amundeville, Ralph his father, and Clare his mother. This chapel is utterly demolished, but the cemetery was used for interment long after the reformation, as appears by entries in Haughton register. ROBERT DE INSULA, (ENGLISH, HALIELAND) ALIAS, DE COQUINA, Elected 24 Sep., 1274 ; died June, 1283. The bishop was of very humble origin, which he never hid. To his mother he gave an honourable es- tablishment, and once when he went to see her, he asked "And how fares my sweet mother ? " " Never worse/' quoth she. "And what ails thee, or troubles thee ? hast thou not men, and women, and attendants sufficient ? " "Yea/' quoth she, "and more than enough; I say to one 'Go/ and he runs ; to another, 'Come hither, fellow/ and the varlet falls down on his knees ; and in short all things go on so abominably smooth, that my heart is bursting for something to spite me, and pick a quarrel withal/' 1278. October. The charter of appropriation of the church at (Bishop) Middleham to Finchale Abbey by this bishop, is dated at Derlington. ANTHONY BEKE. Elected 9 July, 1283 ; consecrated 9 Jan. 1283 ; died 1310, March 3. In his time the court of Durham exhibited all the appendages of Royalty ; no- bles addressed the Palatine sovereign kneeling, and instead of menial ser- vants, knights waited in his presence chamber, and at his table, bareheaded and standing. He gave 40s.* for as many fresh herrings ; and hearing one say " this cloth is so dear that even Bishop Anthony would not venture to * The price even now would be exorbitant, but the reader must remember the much greater value of money at that time to arrive at the proper idea of the bishop's magnifi- cence. 40s. would perhaps now be about 80?. I EDWARD I. AT DARLINGTON. 71 pay for it ;" he immediately ordered it to be bought and cut up into horse cloths.* In this bishop's episcopacy begins the series of prelatical coins of Durham, which have been fully described by Mark Noble, in his Dissertations on the subject, in which he was ably assisted by Geo. Allan, (as acknowledged in his preface) and had access to the cabinets of that gentleman, Mr. Barker, and John Scott Hylton, Esq., from which he took some of his specimens. Several other types might now be added. A very curious penny of Bishop Sherwood with S on Richard Ill's bust is given in the Pictorial History of England. Mr. M. A. Denham has a penny struck in the reign of Henry IV., V., or VI., on which is a roundel (not an annulet) and a mullet at the sides of the king's bust. My father had one of Hatfield, with the pastoral staff turned to the left ; and in my own possession is a curious one of Beau- mont, found at South Kilvington, near Thirsk, in which the mint mark is a lion rampant with two fleur de lis at one side of it only. Many more varie- ties might be raked up.-f- Surtees in one placed makes this bishop builder of the episcopal palace at Darlington. I am not even aware of any material alterations made by him in it, and the historian was possibly confounding him with the other proud prelate, Hugh Pudsey, for the moment. I believe however that Beke paled the enclosed park belonging to the manor. § Anthony was a staunch member of the church militant, but sometimes went further than his talents warranted. At the battle of Falkirk against the Scots, he received a severe rebuke from Lord Ralph Basset, of Drayton, " My Lord Bishop, you may go and say mass, which better becometh you, than to teach us what we have to do, for we will do that which belongeth to the order of war."|| Indeed Beke lived in a degree of splendour and military pomp inferior to none but his sovereign. When Edward came down to Newcastle in ] 296, with an army of 30,000 foot and 4000 heavy armed horsemen, he was ac- companied by the forces of the bishop consisting of 1000 foot and 500 horse. In the war with Scotland he had with him twenty-six standards of his own family or principality, and his ordinary suit comprised 140 knights.^[ St. Cuthbert's banner floated over this princely array, and a monk of Durham was^the standard-bearer. At the battle of Falkirk, Beke had in his compa- ny thirty-two banners.** 1291. On the 16 April, Edward I. dated a summons at Derlyngton to fifty-seven of his military tenants of the northern comities, among whom are named John de Baliol, Robert de Brus, William de Vesey, Hugh de Lovall, * Graystones, c. 14. t Thomas Lincolne of Derlyngton, bondsman in 1490 for George Strayll, mintmaster of Bp. Sherwood. X Vol. i. p. cix. § Hutch, iii. 188. || Hoilinshed. If Graystanes. ** Scala Chronica. 72 BEKE EXCOMMUNICATED AT DARLINGTON. the lady de Ros, Margaret de Ros, and William de Heron, who were to ac- company him with horse and arms, and all the service they owed him, at Norham, for six weeks, reckoning from Easter ; and the sheriffs of the north- ern counties received orders to give notice to all within their districts, who owed the king military service, to give the same attendance.* At the as- sembly convened at Norham, the bishop of Durham addressed the states of Scotland, informing them that Edward's purpose in coming to tha borders was to maintain the tranquillity of that kingdom and to do impartial justice to the claimants of the crown, in the character of supreme lord of Scotland, and that he gave them three weeks to deliberate on the matter. At the close of that time his title was recognised, and in 1292 he gave judgment for Baliol. While Beke was employed in the service of his sovereign, the Archbishop of York renewed the claims of his predecessors to jurisdiction over the bishop- rick. He sent to Durham his notary-public and clerks by the pope's autho- rity with official letters of citation, who were immediately placed in close durance by the bishop's officers, and Beke sent word that they were to be detained in defiance of all admonitions to enlarge them. The archbishop thundered a sentence of interdict against him, and issued his precept (May, 1292) to the prior of Boulton to exco:nmunicate the bishop in his own churches of Alverton, Derlington, and other places, which the prior obeyed, and the case came before parliament. -f* The archbishop found himself in a much more awkward predicament than his predecessor, who fled from Dur- ham on a one-eared palfrey in an attempt at visitation ; for his high offences in presuming to enforce the release by ecclesiastical censures, instead of the king's process, and to excommunicate any person in the king's service or at- tending on his person, were adjudged by the parliament as worthy of being punished not only then but in all succeeding ages, by imprisonment of the ecclesiastics who should be guilty thereof, and by heavy fines and ransoms. Accordingly notwithstanding his pall, the archbishop found himself in the same sorry case as his officials, being committed to the Tower and obliged to find sureties for the payment of the large sum of four thousand marks to the king,* * Rymer, v. ii. fo. 525. f Placita Pari. 21. Edw. I. 1292. X In Bp. Beaumont's time, whenever the archbishop came to Allertonshire to visit, the bishop of Durham opposed him with an armed force. A compromise was come to in 1330 when the church at Leak was appropriated for the maintenance of the bishop's table, with the reserve of an annual pension to himself, and another to the chapter of York. Leak Church stands lonely amidst green fields near a solitary Hall. A north Chapel is screened off by a rich parclose of the 14th century retaining its original paintings of birds and flow- ers, and in the south chapel ( to which is attached the Cross Keys farm of some £150 per annum, appropriated to the repair of Five Sisters window at York) are two magnificently carved stall ends dated 1519. On an ancient bell, said to come from Rievaulx, is the hum- ble legend, + O : PATER : AELREDE : GRENDALE : MISERI : MISERERE. "O Father, commiserate the miserable Aelred Grendale" ANTHONY BEKE. 7;> 1293. An inquisition was taken touching the bishop's liberties before Hugh de Cressingham and his fellow justices, at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, under the statute de quo warranto. The bishop and those holding liberties in his palatinate, had neglected to justify their title, on the statutory proclamation, on which default the liberties were seized into the king's hands, until they should answer. However the bishop having pleaded in parliament various matters, as well in error as otherwise, had full restitution. The record, a- mon