A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 



overjoyed was he that he gave a free pardon to the messenger of all his 

 offences. 1 Judgment was pronounced against the earl on 3 March by 

 Geoffrey le Scrope, the king's justiciar, and on the same day the sword 

 of the county was wrested from his hand and the golden spurs of 

 knighthood were torn from his heels. He was then dragged to the 

 gallows at Harraby and hanged, drawn and quartered, his head being 

 sent to London, and his quarters to Carlisle, Newcastle, York, and 

 Shrewsbury. To the last he professed he had acted only in the best 

 interests of the kingdom. 11 It may well have been so, for two months 

 after his disgrace, Edward himself was obliged to come to terms, and 

 made a truce with the Scottish king to last for thirteen years.' At a 

 subsequent date, during the regency which governed in the time of the 

 minority of Edward III., the English claims on the northern kingdom 

 were abandoned and a fresh truce 4 was concluded on terms very similar 



i Cal. Doc. Scot. (Scot. Rec. Pub.), iii. 149. 



* On 8 January 1322-3 the king sent a mandate to the inhabitants of Cumberland and Westmor- 

 land, forbidding them to enter into any truce with the Scots, and on the same day he requested the earl 

 to inform him personally of the reported truce that he had made (Pat. 16 Edw. II. pt. i. m. 8 ; Close, 

 16 Edw. II. m. i6d ; Rymer, Foedera, ii [i.], 502). On 13 January he ordered a search for the terms of 

 the earl's commission to treat with the Scots and its endurance (Cal. Doc. Scot. iii. 148), and on 19 January 

 a transcript of the articles of the agreement between Hartcla and Bruce was sent to the council at York, 

 with the remark that in the king's opinion the truce was fraught with great danger (ibid. iii. 148-9). 

 The arrest took place on 25 February by Lucy, with the assistance of Sir Hugh de Lowther, Sir Richard 

 de Denton and Sir Hugh de Moriceby, who entered the great hall of the castle for that purpose without 

 arousing suspicion (Chron. de Lanercost, 249-50). The king ordered his condemnation and degrada- 

 tion on 27 February, and the sentence was pronounced and carried into execution on 3 March (Parl. 

 Writs [Rec. Com.], ii. [ii.], 262-3 ; Abbrev. Placit. [Rec. Com.], 351). In the record of the judgment, the 

 destination of portions of the earl's body was ordered as above, but the author of the Chronicle of Lanercost 

 (Maitland Club, 251) has substituted Dover and Bristol for York and Shrewsbury. There seems to be an 

 error in both authorities, for on 10 August 1328 Sir Andrew's sister Sarah, widow of Roger de Leyburn, 

 obtained royal licence to gather his bones and commit them to ecclesiastical sepulture, orders to that effect 

 having been issued to the keeper of Carlisle castle, the mayor and sheriffs of London, the mayor and 

 bailiffs of Newcastle and Bristol, and the bailiffs of Shrewsbury (Close, 2 Edw. III. m. 2od). Opinions differ 

 whether the earl was actuated by patriotic or treacherous motives in concluding the peace with Bruce. 

 The Chronicle of Lanercost (pp. 250-1) states that his confessors after his capture ' iustificabant et ex- 

 cusabant ab intentione et nota proditionis et vitam suam priorem notabiliter commendabant." His 

 unsuspicious conduct in allowing himself to be captured so easily is a strong point in his favour. In 1327 

 Henry, his nephew and heir, petitioned Edward III. for a restoration of his lands on the ground that he 

 had never been regularly convicted of treason, he and his forefathers having served the king and his 

 ancestors since the Conquest (Anct. Pet. No. 2500). The Scots, who were impressed with the renown 

 of his ' beaux faites d'armes,' attributed his fall, when Earl of Carlisle, to pride (Scala Cronica, 149). 

 In the wardrobe accounts of Edward III., under the year 1338, a notice appears of thirteen silver dishes 

 marked on the border with the arms of Hartcla, valued at 16 (Cal. Doc. Scot. iii. 234). According to 

 Sir Harris Nicolas in A Roll of Arms of the Reign of Edward the Second, compiled between 1308 and 1314, 

 the arms of the Hartcla family were, ' Sire Michel de Herteclaue de argent a une crois de goules : Sire 

 Andrew de Herteclaue meisme les armes e un merelot de sable.' The initial letter of a charter of Edward II. 

 to the city of Carlisle, dated 12 May 1316, is embroidered with a well-executed vignette, representing 

 the siege of a walled town and showing two groups of figures outside the frame of the letter. The chief 

 of the defenders is a knightly figure in complete armour, in his right hand a lance in the act of striking, 

 and on his left a shield bearing the arms of Hartcla ; the scene, no doubt, was intended to depict the 

 gallant defence of the city by Sir Andrew de Hartcla against the Scots in 1315 (Trans. Cumb. and 

 Westmld. Arch. Soc. vi. 319; Royal Charters of Carlisle, 13). 



Close, 16 Edw. II. m. d ; Rymer, Fosdera, ii. 521-2. 



4 Pat. I Edw. III. pt. i. m. 19 ; Fcedera, ii. (ii.), 696. There is a very interesting account of this 

 treaty in Chron. de Lanercost (Maitland Club), 261, where it is stated that the policy of Edward I. was 

 reversed, and the claim to the sovereignty of Scotland was abandoned. ' Reddidit etiam eis partem 

 crucis Christi, quam vocant Scotti Blakerode, et similiter unum instrumentum sive carta msubjectionis 

 et homagii faciendi regibus Angliae, cui appensa erant sigilla omnium magnatum Scotias, quam fecerant 

 avo regis, et a Scottis, propter multa sigilla dependentia, Ragman vocabatur.' 



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