A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 



If all the parishes of Cumberland felt the scourge when the valu- 

 able portion of their church furniture was confiscated, several of them 

 were notoriously wronged in the matter of religious ministrations after 

 the dissolution of the chantries and endowed curacies. The district of 

 Mosser, which had its own chapel and priest, was absorbed into the 

 extensive parish of Brigham. The staff of clergy which served Grey- 

 stoke and the outlying chapelries, comprising an area of nearly eighty 

 square miles with a population of 3,000 communicants, was reduced from 

 seven priests to three. Of the eight clergy who ministered in the 

 associated parishes of Kirkoswald and Dacre only two were left. The 

 two parishes of Carlisle, embracing large areas around the city, were 

 stripped naked of religious services except what could be afforded by 

 two minor canons of the cathedral. Three stipendiary curacies in 

 Torpenhow and three in Wigton were abolished ; in fact every endow- 

 ment for the maintenance of assistant clergy in the larger parishes of the 

 county was gathered into the royal treasury. 1 



The religious changes during the reign of Edward do not appear to 

 have troubled the consciences of the clergy of the diocese. At least 

 there is not much evidence to show that they warmly favoured or 

 violently opposed the new Prayer Book. The progressive party was 

 fortunate in securing the compliance of Robert Aldridge, bishop of 

 Carlisle, for though he was not in sympathy with many of the liturgical 

 innovations 2 we may well believe that his scholarly abilities exerted a 

 moderating influence on the extravagances of some of the reformers. 

 There can be little doubt that the bishop reflected the general attitude 

 of the clergy of Carlisle. In 1540 King Henry had ordered him home 

 to his diocese ' there to remain for the feeding of the people both with 

 his preaching and good hospitality,' * and if he continued to cultivate 

 in mature age the charm of eloquence which in his earlier years had 

 captivated Erasmus, 4 we may be sure that his advocacy of the Reforma- 

 tion on the old lines must have produced an impression on the northern 

 clergy. We have not met with any cases of deprivation for resistance 

 to the Second Book, but there was one notable figure in the diocese, 

 Lancelot Salkeld, the last prior and first dean of Carlisle, who was 

 unable to accept the new ecclesiastical position. As soon as the 

 religious policy of Edward's reign became manifest, he took the wise 

 step of resigning his deanery. At Christmas 1548, Sir Thomas Smith . 

 was appointed to succeed him with the obligation to pay the late dean ' 



in the Public Record Office. The Marian inquiries went back to the spoliation of the lead and bells of 

 cathedrals and monasteries in the reign of Henry VIII. 



The Survey of the chantries (Augmentation Office, Chantry Certificate, No. II, Cumberland) 

 should be compared with Bishop Best's report on the clerical staff of his diocese in 1563 (Harl. MS. 594, 

 f . 9), in order to see how the number of the parochial clergy had been reduced in the intervening period. 



2 Strype, Memorials, ii. 466. 



3 Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council (Rec. Com.), vii. 88. 



4 Erasmus was much attached to Aldridge when he was master of Eton. In his letters he used such 

 terms as ' Mi Roberte in Christo charissime,' and spoke of him as the ' blandae eloquentiae juvenis ' 

 (Erasmi Epistolae, edition 1642, xxi. 26, 55, xxiii. 8). The two friends visited together the shrine of Our 

 Lady of Walsingham (Life and Letters of Erasmus, ed. Froude, p. 229). 



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