136 
In 1239 the Strickland of the day married Elizabeth Deincourt, 
heiress of Sizergh, and settled there; and from that time to the 
present there has been an unbroken line of Stricklands at that 
place. The Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian Society 
visited Sizergh last year, when Mr. E. Bellasis, Lancaster Herald 
of H.M. College of Arms, read an interesting paper on the Strick- 
lands, which, with a pedigree chart, will be published in the 
forthcoming “Transactions” of that Society. Being desirous of 
obtaining some biographical account of Bishop Strickland, to find 
out if possible to what circumstances Penrith was indebted to his 
consideration, I wrote to Mr. Bellasis asking for particulars. It so 
happened that my letter reached him at Sizergh, where he was 
visiting at the time; and from there he kindly replied, surprising 
me with the fact that William Strickland’s connection with the 
Sizergh family was only suppositious. He says, “I am sorry to 
say there is nothing here (Sizergh) bearing on Bishop Strickland of 
Carlisle. He is supposed to be a member of the Sizergh people. 
Sir R. Bigland, Garter at the College of Arms last century and 
this, notes him as son of a Robert Strickland, whose father, 
Sir William Strickland, married Miss Deincourt. Making these 
latter the Bishop’s grandparents, puts him rather earlier as to dates 
than we should expect. 
“Phillippe’s Yorkshire makes a Thomas to be the Bishop, which 
is of course an error; but the position assigned to the Bishop 
herein as a son of Sir Thomas Strickland and Cicely Wells fits in 
better chronologically were there any William among Thomas and 
Cecily’s sons, which no pedigree asserts there to have been. All 
this will be noted on the chart pedigree of S. now printing for 
our local Archzological Society. I am sorry that there should 
be conjecture only as to the Bishop’s place on the tree. I have 
seen no proofs as to his position thereon.” 
Mr. Bellasis gives me another interesting item about the Bishop. 
He says, “I observe that St. George’s Westmorland 1615 visitation 
makes a daughter and heir of Bishop Strickland marry a Lancaster, 
and the Strickland quartering is put in.” Mr. Bellasis adds, “I 
should have questioned this ; later Lancaster pedigree say no more 
about it armorially or genealogically,” 
