50 



children and made them their common food". On his assuring 

 her that they did nothing of the kind "she opened a press, calUng 

 out with a loud voice : 'Come out, children, the gentleman will 

 not eat you'" (ib). 



But, if the sending away of children from Brampton was an 

 unnecessary measure, perhaps the precaution taken by Mr. Bell, of 

 the Townfoot farm, as related to me by his great-granddaughter, 

 was not out of place ; he hid his plate in a draw-well. Many 

 famihes in the northern counties have a tradition of the burying of 

 their ancestral plate in 1745. Churchwardens, too, in many 

 places concealed their communion plate ; as at Penrith, where the 

 church accounts record "expenses for securing church plate in 

 Rebellion", and at All Saints, Newcastle, where five shillings were 

 paid "to gravedigger for concealing and secreting church plate". 

 It may be hoped that it is not solely owing to such precautions 

 that nowhere in the diocese of Carlisle is there any tradition of 

 church plate having been plundered in 1745.* On November 11, 

 however, as related by Dr. Waugh, then chancellor of the diocese, 

 "a party that came to Stanwix, said to be commanded by Glen- 

 bucket", after gutting the vicarage, "destroyed the parish booksf 

 and registers" (Mounsey, p. 64); a "superfluity of naughtiness", 

 difficult to account for except by supposing that they were 

 disappointed at not finding the church plate. 



His object in marching to Brampton having been to encounter 

 Marshal Wade, who was believed to be coming from Newcastle to 

 the relief of Carlisle, but was not yet reported as near at hand, 



* Had there been any such tradition, it would not have escaped the knowledge 

 of the compilers of the book on "Old Church Plate in the Diocese of Carlisle", 

 published by Thurnam in 1882. 



t The then curate of Stanwix, Mr. Robert Wardale, writing to the chancellor 

 about the loss of the registers, said : "I should be glad of your directions how 

 to proceed in this particular" (Mounsey, p. 203). What directions, if any, the 

 chancellor gave, there is nothing to shew. If he gave the right directions, they 

 were not followed ; for there is still no copy at Stanwix of the missing registers. 

 It is not too late, however, to advise the present vicar "how to proceed in this 

 particular". He should get permission from the bishop's registrar to take a 

 copy of the transcripts ; which, from about the time of the Restoration, are 

 preserved in the episcopal registry at Carlisle. By so doing, as it is known 

 that even in 1703 there was no register extant at Stanwix of earlier date than 

 1662 (Bp. Nicolson's Visitation, p. 105), he will be able to recover all the 

 contents of the registers which Gorilon of Glenbucket's men destroyed. 



