A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 



The statement in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle * about the expedition 

 of 1092 may be regarded as a summary of the work of William Rufus 

 in reclaiming the land of Carlisle and incorporating it into the English 

 kingdom. The Solway was accepted as the international boundary. 

 The remaining portion of the reign was employed in rebuilding the 

 city and colonizing the district in its neighbourhood. The king never 

 visited the north again. It rested with his successor, Henry I., to 

 secure the permanence of the work by the appointment of Ranulf 

 Meschin, 8 a Norman nobleman, to the lordship of the recovered pro- 

 vince with ample powers of jurisdiction and defence. The new ruler 

 fixed his residence at Appleby 3 in the valley of the Eden, where his 

 castle commanded the passes into Yorkshire. For the defence of his 

 charge on the north Ranulf created two baronies which stretched almost 

 the whole length of the frontier, that of Burgh by Sands on the southern 

 banks of the estuary of the Eden as it falls into the Solway, and that of 

 Liddel on Esk, a strip of territory which lay athwart the outlet into 

 Scotland, and committed them to the care of trusty men, the former 

 to Robert de Trivers and the latter to Turgis Brundas. As a supple- 

 ment to the gift of Burgh by Sands, the custody of the forest of Cumber- 

 land was added to the benefice of Robert de Trivers at an annual rent of 

 ten marks. These are the only acts of infeudation ascribed to Ranulf 

 Meschin, while he was lord of Cumberland, in the great Inquest of 

 Fees of 1212.* There appears to have been no displacement of the 

 original territorial owners, except perhaps in those instances when it 

 was necessary at the outset for defensive purposes. It is probable that 

 Dolfin, who was expelled by William Rufus in 1092, had opposed that 

 king's policy of annexation ; but taking the district as a whole there 



early as the eleventh century (Norm. Conq. i. 6445). He attributes the allocation of the names 

 for the present area to the predominance of the English settlement between Tyne and Tweed, 

 which had been undisturbed by Danish power. If we accept this explanation, it will afford a 

 strong reason for the adoption of Cumberland on the western coast as the name of a region which 

 had continued subject to the English traditions of Northumbrian rule (E. W. Robertson, Early Kings, 

 ii. 436-7). 



1 Anglo-Saxon Cbron. (Rolls Ser.), i. 359. 



3 The date of Ranulf Meschin's appointment to the lordship of Cumberland is not known, but it 

 must have been early in the reign of Henry I. His foundation charter of the priory of Wetheral cannot 

 have been granted later than 1112, when Stephen, Abbot of St. Mary's York, died, to whom the manor 

 of Wetheral was conveyed for the endowment of the new institution (Dugdale, Man. iii. 529, 538, 583). 

 It was Henry I., and not an earlier king, who confirmed this donation (Reg. of Wetherhal, 14-19). Ranulf 

 is frequently associated with Henry I. when his tenure of Carlisle is referred to. For instance, in 1175 

 Pope Alexander speaks of the Island of Holmcultram/sicut fuit forestata tempore Henrici Regis et Radulphi 

 comitis Cestrie ' (Reg. of Holmcultram MS. f. 245), and Pope Lucius repeated the same phrase in 1 185 

 (Harl. MS. 3911, f. 138). For the disputed passage in the foundation charter of Wetheral in which 

 the name of William has been substituted for that of Henry, thus antedating the issue of the charter to 

 the reign of Rufus, see 7.C.H. Cumb. i. 301-2. 



Ranulf gave to St. Mary's, York, for the endowment of Wetheral, ' ecclesiam sancti Michaelis et 

 ecclesiam sancti Laurentii castelli mei de Appelby cum omnibus quae ad eas pertinent sicut Radulphus 

 capellanus meus tenuit quietas et liberas ab omni terreno servicio ' (Reg. of Wetherhal, 10-12). The word 

 caitellum in this charter must be understood in its archaic sense of a fortified town or enclosure, whether 

 surrounded by walls or earthworks, as it included the two ancient parish churches which remain to this 

 day. For the distinction between ' tower and castle ' in early documents, see Round, Geoffrey de Man- 

 deville, 328-46. In 1130 the ' castellum de Aplebi ' was in the king's hand (Pipe R. 31 Hen. I. p. 143, 

 Rec. Com.) 



Exch. K. R. Knights' Fees, , m. 2 ; V.C.H. Cumb. i. 421. 



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