e. 
137 
Now, where all is conjecture only, there can be no harm in 
hazarding two or three conjectures more. First: He may not 
have been a born Strickland at all, but only a native of Strickland, 
who on coming into public life was known as William of Strickland, 
in accordance with the general custom of the time. Secondly: 
He may have been a Strickland from a distant branch struck off 
from the old stock before the main family settled at Sizergh, the 
Bishop’s family remaining in this neighbourhood. Thirdly: Not- 
withstanding the absence of documentary evidence of the fact, he 
might have been the son of Sir Thomas Strickland and his wife 
Cicely Wells of Sizergh, which fits in well enough chronologically 
with the known dates of his various preferments, supposing him to 
have been between twenty-five and thirty years of age when made 
rector of Stapleton, and from seventy-five to eighty at his death. 
The absence of his name from the archives of Sizergh, and his 
evident attachment to this neighbourhood, may possibly be ac- 
counted for in this way. The manor of Hackthorpe belonged to 
the Stricklands, and was settled on Cicely Wells on her marriage 
with Sir Thomas; and the possession of the manor carried with it 
_ the right of alternate presentation to the rectory of Lowther. 
Possibly then Cicely’s son William, when a boy, might be sent to 
Hackthorpe to be educated and trained for priestly duties by the 
rector of Lowther ; and then to bring in the little bit of romance 
about the alleged daughter who was married to a Lancaster (pre- 
sumably of Sockbridge), we may suppose that William, forsaking 
his priestly intentions, fell in love with a fair heiress on the banks 
of the Lowther or Eamont and married her; lost her early ; was 
_ left with a baby daughter; returned to his first love—the Church, 
and took holy orders; in this way he may have become owner of 
those lands at Penrith out of which Burn and Nicolson say he 
endowed his chantry at Penrith, And may he not have built his 
watch tower upon his own land, before the Nevill’s acquired it as 
_asite for Penrith Castle. 
It is difficult, however, to reconcile the Bishop’s entire isolation 
_ from the archives of Sizergh with the supposition that he belonged 
to that family. Again, his devotion to the see of Carlisle, instead 
