107 



the effect of thirty years of neglect had to be remedied : and all 

 this was the work of many years, and for a woman of sixty was 

 indeed a Herculean labour. 



Her castles of Skipton, Pendragon, Brough, Appleby, Brougham, 

 and Barden Tower, and some seven churches, were repaired or 

 entirely rebuilt, and a commemorative inscription placed upon 

 each, always ending with Laus Deo. 



She also built and endowed the St. Ann's Almshouses at 

 Appleby for twelve poor women ; she built the bridge at Appleby, 

 and endowed, with land at Templesowerby, a trust for the repair 

 of the bridge, the church, and the grammar school in that town. 



The Countess found her manorial rights, from long abeyance, 

 all but lost, and she was obliged to institute a series of lawsuits 

 before she got her affairs placed upon a proper basis. An amusing 

 incident in these suits was the disputed payment of the boon hen, 

 claimed in addition to certain rents. Her opponent was a retired 

 clothier from Halifax, Mr. Murgatroyd, who positively refused the 

 Countess her hen. But the woman who had held her own against 

 king, judges, and husbands, was not likely to give in to a Halifax 

 clothier. A suit at law won the lady the hen, and it was paid, 

 whereupon the Countess invited the clothier to dinner, when, lo ! 

 the first dish served was the hen ! and as the hostess helped him 

 to a good plateful, she said, " Come, Mr. Murgatroyd, let us now 

 be friends ; since your hen is served at my table, I will give you 

 half" 



The Countess never revisited London, and after the Restoration 

 she was as much disgusted with the profligacy of the court, as she 

 had been with the rule of Cromwell ; and when pressed to go to 

 court, she answered, " By no means, unless I may be allowed to 

 wear bhnkers !" 



Her powers of self-assertion — always, as we have seen, of the 

 first order — certainly did not wane in her age; and when Sir 

 Joseph Williamson, secretary to Charles II., wrote dictating a 

 Member of Parliament for Appleby, she replied, " I have been 

 bullied by a usurper, and neglected by a court, but I will not be 

 dictated to by a subject. Your man shan't stand." 



