ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



A few words will be sufficient to indicate the miserable condition 

 of the diocese during the progress of hostilities between the two 

 kingdoms. Seldom had the land absolute rest from the fear of invasion. 

 There is little occasion to turn to the pages of chronicles for adequate 

 language to describe the sufferings of clergy and laity on both sides of 

 the Border in those barbarous struggles. From the pens of the Bishops 

 of Carlisle pictures of woe and desolation have been handed down to us 

 which no chronicler could imitate, unless he was a witness of the miseries 

 he described and a sufferer in the spoliation. In pleading for an indul- 

 gence in the payment of a royal tenth in 1301, Bishop Halton pointed 

 to the miserable state of the diocese for the past four years and more, 

 owing to the depredations of the treacherous Scots. Some of the 

 religious were scattered, as their monasteries were destroyed, and several 

 of the churches with their parishes were reduced to ashes, insomuch 

 that the clergy were unable to live on the fruits of their benefices, 

 but were forced to beg alms from place to place. 1 In 1318 the 

 same bishop bewailed the dreadful injuries which his diocese had 

 suffered for more than twenty-four years from cruel invasions. The 

 Scots had slain men and women, old and young, orphans and widows, 

 burnt nearly all the churches, houses and buildings, driven off their 

 cattle, carried away their treasure, ornaments and every movable of 

 value, and destroyed the whole country, so that the lands of the 

 bishopric lay uncultivated, the sources of his revenues were wasted, 

 and he himself was reduced to a state of indigence and want. For 

 the relief of his urgent need he begged the pope to sanction the 

 appropriation of the church of Horncastle in Lincolnshire to his see. 2 

 Afflictions of this nature afforded a common theme of complaint to 

 the bishops of Carlisle in the fifteenth century as well as the four- 

 teenth, though of course the frequency of hostilities and the amount 

 of damage depended on the recurrence of international disputes. Few 

 indeed of the medieval bishops escaped losses or troubles from the Scots. 

 The remains of the ancient defences at Rose Castle, their official residence, 

 about seven miles to the south-west of Carlisle, are a witness to the 

 present day of its former strength. 3 



The poverty of the diocese, caused chiefly by the Scottish wars, 

 drove the bishops and the monastic corporations to cast covetous eyes 

 on the wealthier of the parish churches, with the view of encompassing 

 their appropriation. It was no new policy, for the religious houses had 

 ample experience of this method of increasing their revenues. Priories, 

 like Carlisle, Wetheral and St. Bees, were endowed with advowsons and 



1 Carl. Epis. Reg. Halton MS. f. 59; Letters from the Northern Registers (Rolls Series), 151. In 1309 

 Bishop Halton excused his attendance at parliament ' propter distanciam, temporis brevitatem, timorem 

 invasionis Scottorum, necnon corporis infirmitatem qua affligimur ' (Carl. Epis. Reg. Halton MS. 

 f. 120). 



1 Carl. Epis. Reg. Halton MS. f. 211 ; Letters from the Northern Registers, 282-3. The bishop 

 had obtained licence from the Crown to appropriate the church in 1314 (Pat. 8 Edw. II. pt. i. m. 17). 



3 John de Kirkby, the warrior bishop, had a licence to crenellate his house of ' La Rose ' in 1336, 

 and the same liberty was repeated to Bishop Welton at a subsequent date (Pat. 10 Edw. III. pt. i. m. 27, 

 29 Edw. III.). 



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