ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



When the scare of the Pretender's invasion had faded away, the Roman 

 Catholic body in Cumberland suffered little inconvenience from the penal 

 laws except during' the rebellion of 1745, when they were disarmed and 

 the sleeping laws were revived and put in force till the danger was passed. 

 Roman Catholicism never took deep root in Cumberland. Except 

 in a few families of distinction like the Howards, Curwens and Rad- 

 clifFes, with their tenants and servants, this form of religious belief had 

 almost died out before the Irish immigration at the beginning of the 

 nineteenth century. Bishop Leyburne, who visited the northern 

 counties in 1687, when papists were much favoured in high quarters, 

 reported that he had confirmed 22 persons at Greystoke, 127 at Corby, 

 and 426 at Brampton. But from the statistics sent to the Propaganda 

 by Bishop Petre on 8 September 1773, it may be gathered that 'few 

 Catholics ' were found. In Bishop Smith's account of his vicariate on 

 14 October 1830, there were only four stations or meeting places 

 for Roman Catholics in the county. The number of stations was 

 increased to six in 1839 during the vicariate of Bishop Briggs. 1 



An unfortunate broil among the members of the capitular body 

 about the administration of their domestic affairs disturbed the peace 

 of the diocese for some time during Bishop Nicolson's episcopate. 

 The appointment of Dr. Francis Atterbury to the deanery of Carlisle 

 in 1704 was warmly resented by the bishop, 2 and it was soon evident 

 that the old jealousies which existed between them as scholars and 

 antiquaries would be imported into their public concerns. It is not 

 necessary to follow step by step the unseemly wrangles between bishop 

 and dean. Another member of the chapter, Hugh Todd, also an 

 antiquary, had old scores to wipe out, and he lost no time in taking sides 

 against his diocesan. Occasions soon arose to fan the smouldering 

 embers into flame. A small matter of discipline among the minor 

 canons, who had behaved themselves indecorously in the vestry of the 

 cathedral, and the nomination of an incumbent to one of the benefices 

 in the patronage of the chapter were the pretexts on which Atterbury 

 and Todd set the city of Carlisle in an uproar and involved the heads of 

 the diocese in an altercation, the sounds of which had reached to every 

 corner of the kingdom. The quarrel was mainly concerned with the 

 position of the dean in the capitular body, about which there was 

 some doubt owing to an apparent discrepancy between the authority 

 of the statutes and the endowment charter. Denying the validity of 

 the statutes as not having received the sanction of the Crown and 

 parliament, Dean Atterbury claimed it as his sole right ' to take cogni- 

 sance of and punish offences and disorders ' in the church, and as the 

 majority of the chapter ignored his claims, he went further and formally 

 objected to everything that was done by the other members, in which 

 resistance he was supported by Dr. Todd. The dean withheld the key 

 of the box in which the chapter seal was kept and refused his consent 



1 Brady, Engl. Catholic Hierarchy, pp. 143-4, 2 ^3> 2 7^~7> 

 * Tram. Cumb. and WestmoT. Arch. Soc. new series, ii. 197. 



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