Ill ENTEENTH CENTURIES 69 



to increase their revenues rather than to evict, is rendered 

 all the more probable because we find James I, who we 

 know was ever in financial straits, pursuing the same course 

 on the royal manors. Owing to the consequent complaints 

 a statute was passed in 1609 l declaring that where any 

 tenement on a royal manor has been established by decree 

 of the Lord Treasurer and Chancellor of the Exchequer or 

 duchy (of Lancaster) as a copyhold of inheritance, it shall 

 thenceforth be so holden, and we find in the following year 

 a decision in favour of the tenants in the case of Tyne- 

 mouth, Northumberland. 2 



In the North the controversy was complicated by the 

 question of border service, and on this point, notably in 

 Cumberland and Westmoreland, a very curious controversy 

 arose. In those counties Kingf James attempted to prove 

 that, as military service on the border had ceased since the 

 Union, the so-called tenant-right of the nnsfnmary -tenant B_ 

 had ceased, and that they should bp hpnopfm-frh f.nateri *.* 

 were tenants for years or at will. He further encouraged 

 other lords of manors to adopt the same view with regard to 

 their tenants. In the case of the royal barony of Kendal 

 the case came into the Court of Chancery and was com- 

 promised by Sir Francis Bacon. The tenants paid a lump 

 sum down and gained a confirmation of their copyholds. 



In the case of other manorial lords the matter did not 

 stop there, and a long struggle ensued which threatened the 

 peace, and in which the King by his Proclamation took the 

 side of the lords. Eventually, however, the Star Chamber, 3 

 before which the matter was brought, decided in favour 

 of the tenants, declaring that their tenures had not in the 

 past been based solely or especially on border service, and 



1 7 Jac. I, c. xxi. 2 Hist, of Northumberland, viii. 239. 



3 Nicholson and Burn, Hist, of Westmoreland and Cumberland, 

 vol. i. 51 ff. 



