A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 



If the king was too unmindful of the trouble 

 and expense his prolonged stay had caused the 

 priory, the canons were not slow in refreshing 

 his memory. They begged him, having re- 

 gard to the reduced state of their house and 

 the damages they suffered by him and his at- 

 tendants, which a great sum would not suffice 

 to restore, that by way of recompense he would 

 grant them the church of ' Hautwyselle,' 

 worth about 100 marks a year, but as the 

 abbot of Aberbrothok, to whom the church 

 belonged, indignantly refused to accept an 

 allowance in exchange, the proposal fell 

 through. 1 Before his departure however 

 the king granted his licence for the appropria- 

 tion of the churches of Mitford in Northum- 

 berland and Carlatton in Cumberland, for the 

 relief of their necessities. In his letter to the 

 pope the king alleged, as reasons for his 

 liberality, the special devotion he felt to St. 

 Mary Magdalene in whose honour the con- 

 vent was founded, the long stay he was forced 

 to make on account of illness, the burning of 

 their houses and the robbery of their goods by 

 the Scots, insomuch that the priory was much 

 impoverished and depressed. 2 The same 

 motives were repeated in his letters patent. 3 

 In confirming the appropriations, the bishops 

 of Durham and Carlisle told the same mourn- 

 ful tale of the distressed condition of Laner- 

 cost.* It seemed as if, at that time, burnt 

 houses and an exhausted treasury were the 

 distinguishing characteristics of this once 

 flourishing foundation. 



The fate of Lanercost henceforward de- 

 pended on the political relations of the two 

 kingdoms. In times of truce the house was 

 at rest and employed the breathing space for 

 the repair of its waste places ; when hostili- 

 ties broke out, it was the objective of raid and 

 robbery. In August, 1311, Robert Bruce, 

 King of Scotland, came to the monastery with 

 a great army and made it his headquarters for 



of the priory, to be offered on the great altar of 

 the church of Lanercost (Liber Quot. Gardenbte 

 [Soc. of Antiq.], p. 40). 



1 Cat. of Doc. Scot. ii. 503. 



a Rymer, FaeJera (new ed.), i. 1012. 



a Pat. 35 Edw. I. m. 25. 



Carl. Epis. Reg., Halton, f. 140. This ap- 

 propriation involved the canons of Lanercost in 

 a dispute with the priory of Durham on the issue 

 whether the church of Meldon was a chapel depen- 

 dent on Mitford or a parish church separate from 

 it. In 1 3 10 an amicable arrangement was made 

 at Lanercost whereby Prior Henry on behalf of his 

 house acknowledged the independence of Meldon. 

 The deeds of this acknowledgment still exist at 

 Durham, and have been printed by Hodgson, 

 History of Northumberland, ii. pt. iii. 54-6. 



three days, imprisoning several (plurei) of 

 the canons and committing infinite evils. 

 At length however he set the canons at 

 liberty. 5 In fulfilment of the treaty be- 

 tween the same king and Edward III. in 

 1328, a mutual interchange of good offices 

 was effected between the priory of Lanercost 

 and the abbey of Kelso in respect of their 

 common revenues out of the church of 

 Lazonby. 6 One of the worst trials experi- 

 enced by the house occurred in 1346, when 

 David II. ransacked the conventual buildings 

 and desecrated the church. Fresh from the 

 overthrow of the fortalice of Liddel and the 

 unchivalrous slaughter of Walter of Selby, its 

 gallant defender, the Scots, with theatrical 

 manifestations of joy, David cum diabolo being 

 their leader, marched to the priory of Laner- 

 cost, where the canons, men venerable and 

 devoted to the Lord, dwelt. They entered 

 the holy place with haughtiness, threw out 

 the vessels of the temple, stole the treasures, 

 broke the doors, took the jewels, and destroyed 

 everything they could lay hands on. 7 One 

 of the priors was taken prisoner by the Scots 

 in 1386, and set at ransom at a fixed sum of 

 money and four score quarters of corn of 

 divers kinds. There was a difficulty in con- 

 veying the corn to Scotland, which added 

 somewhat to the prior's misery and the pro- 

 longation of his imprisonment. 8 



An effort was made in 1409 to retrieve 

 the fallen fortunes of the house by an appeal 

 to the Archbishop of York for letters of 

 quest ' throughout the northern province. 



6 Chron. de Lanercost, 218. 



Close, 2 Edw. III. m. 16 ; Cal. of Doc. Scot. 

 (Scot. Rec. Pub.), iii. 173-4. 



7 Chron. de Lanercost, 345-6. This reference 

 to Lanercost has been omitted from Stevenson's 

 argument on the authorship of the Chronicle. 

 It is certainly the description of an eye-witness. 



8 Rot. Scotitf (Rec. Com.), ii. 86. 



9 Abstracts of many of these letters of quest, re- 

 ferring to institutions at home and abroad, have 

 been recorded in the fourteenth century registers 

 of the Bishops of Carlisle. One of these, taken at 

 random, may be given here as an illustration : 

 ' Memorandum quod septimo die Novembris, 

 anno M'CCC'LIX", apud manerium de Rosa, 

 renovate fuerint littere pro questoribus fabrice 

 ecclesie collegiate beati Johannis Beverlacensis sub 

 sigillo domini Karliolensis episcopi, durature per 

 unum annum extunc immediate sequentem, ad 

 prosecucionem Thome de Coketon, procuratorem 

 dicte ecclesie Beverlacensis ' (Carl. Epis. Reg., Wei- 

 ton, f. 60). As the practice often led to great 

 abuses, it needed the constant vigilance of the 

 bishops. In 1342 Bishop Kirkby issued a warning 

 to the clergy of his diocese to beware of false and 

 fraudulent questors (Carl. Epis. Reg., Kirkby, f. 446). 

 A noble was the usual fee to the diocesan registrar 



158 



