A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 



taken to resist the Scottish claims, but as time went on more was to be 

 feared from the exasperation of the inhabitants than from any external 

 enemy. The wave of constitutional movement, which reached its 

 highest water mark in the signing of the Great Charter in 1215, had 

 swept the kingdom to its northern limits and awakened the baronage of 

 Cumberland to the historic character of their tenemental services. Not 

 scared by the arbitrary nature of the Inquest of 1212 the jurors boldly 

 appended the significant clause to their return of knights' fees that the 

 tenants by cornage, the prevailing tenure of the county, were obliged 

 at the king's precept to occupy the post of danger in the royal army to 

 Scotland, in going in the vanguard and in returning in the rearguard, 

 thus declaring that their obligations exempted them from service abroad 

 in consideration of their extraordinary services in the protection of the 

 frontier at home. 1 The men of Carlisle were urged by the baronage 

 of England to make common cause with them for the assertion of 

 their ancient liberties/ Alexander the young King of Scotland favoured 

 the constitutional movement in the hope of regaining the northern 

 counties. Crossing the border he laid siege to Carlisle and eventually 

 took both the city and the castle. 3 It is undoubted that the sympathies 

 of the people of Cumberland were at this crisis favourable to Alexan- 

 der and alienated from their own sovereign. The canons of Carlisle 

 were on the baronial side and voluntarily submitted themselves to the 

 King of Scotland. Despite the interdict of the pope they elected a 

 Scotsman to the vacant bishopric and celebrated divine offices with 

 excommunicated persons.* During the anarchy a portion of the Scottish 



1 A translation of the Inquest of 1212 for Cumberland has been printed (F.C.H. Cumb. 1.421-2). 

 Mr. J. H. Round has pointed out the historical interest of this remarkable survey. Politically, he says, it 

 illustrates John's exactions by its effort to revive rights of the Crown alleged to have lapsed, a grave and 

 alarming feature selected for mention by the annalist of Waverley. Institutionally, it is of great interest, 

 not only as an instance of ' the sworn inquest ' employed on a vast scale, but also for its contrast to the 

 inquest of knights in 1166 and its points of resemblance to the Domesday inquest of 1086. Of far wider 

 compass than that of 1166, it was carried out on a different principle. Instead of each tenant-in-chief 

 making his own return of his fees and sending it in separately, the sheriff conducted the inquiry Hundred 

 by Hundred for the county ; and out of these returns the feudal lists had to be subsequently constructed 

 by the officials (Commune of London, etc., 274-5). 



In the ' Catalogus Munimentorum ' delivered to Edward I. at Berwick in 1291 we have suggestive 

 abstracts of the lost Scottish evidences which are relevant to the troubles of this period. Some of these 

 may be quoted : I. Charta baronum Angliae probis hominibus de Karleol' contra Johannem regem 

 Angliae de civitate Karl' reddendo regi Scotiae. 2. Charta baronum Angliae missa tenentibus North- 

 umbrian!, Cumbriam, Westmerlandiam contra Johannem regem Angliae ' (Ayloffe, Cal. of Ancient 

 Charters, 327-8). This catalogue has been often printed : see it in the Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, 

 vol. i., appendix to Preface, No I. Edward I. has been accused by the Scottish historians, Hector Boece 

 and Buchanan, of having burned the original charters, but for the disappearance of those early Records 

 of Scotland, the temperate judgment of Mr. Bain may be referred to (Cal. of Scot. Documents, i. pref. 

 v.-iz.) 



3 It is stated in the Chronicle of Melrose (in anno, 1216) that Alexander did not obtain possession of 

 the castle of Carlisle at that time, a statement adopted without demur by the chronicler of Lanercost 

 ' castellum tamen ilia vice non oppugnavit ' (Cbron. de Lanercost [Bannatyne Club], 1 8). There is evi- 

 dence, however, to show that the castle was in the hands of the Scots. On 23 September 1217 Alexander 

 was ordered to restore to Robert de Vipont the castle of Carlisle and all the lands he had seized and all 

 the prisoners taken by him during King John's troubles with his barons (Pat. I Hen. III. m. 3). 



Cal. of Papal Letters, i. 48, 57. The king's complaint to the pope against these rebellious church- 

 men was couched in emphatic terms. He informed him that the canons of Carlisle were favourers and 

 adherents of the King of Scotland, the enemies of pope and king, and despisers of the legate's authority ; 



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