POLITICAL HISTORY 



After the execution of Charles I., Cumberland was the first English 

 county to welcome his successor. Charles II. having made terms with 

 his Scottish subjects and become their covenanted king was crowned at 

 Scone on New Year's day, 1651. He determined to invade England, 

 and started in July accompanied by Leslie. Their spirits rose as they 

 crossed into Cumberland. ' As soon as we came into England, his 

 Majesty was by an Englishman, whom he made king-at-arms for that 

 day, proclaimed king at the head of the army with great acclamation 

 and shooting of cannon.' Passing from Dalston, they were greeted at 

 Hutton by the rector of that place and the widow of Sir Henry Fletcher, 

 who had been slain at Rowton Heath. At Penrith the king was again 

 proclaimed and 'will be in all the market towns where we march.' But 

 so broken was the spirit of the county, few joined his ranks. People 

 saw his army pass, but there was no flocking to his standard. The 

 young king, we are told, as he came through Hutton, looked pale and 

 pensive, seated in a coach with some of the Scottish nobility.* His 

 depressed feelings were but the premonition of coming disaster, for his 

 cause was lost for the time on the field of Worcester, and England, 

 Scotland and Ireland lay at Cromwell's feet. 



During the Commonwealth, Cumberland was placed under the 

 government of Sir Arthur Haselrig and left to settle down after its 

 troubles as best it might. Many of the county families had suffered in 

 lives and property for their devotion to the king. In 1651, for instance, 

 Sir Timothy Fetherstonhaugh, v/hose two sons had been slain at 

 Worcester, was named among the nine persons who were adjudged by 

 the Council of State as ' fit to be brought to trial and made examples of 

 justice.' Three only appear to have been brought to execution, of whom 

 Sir Timothy was one. Before his execution at Chester in October 1651, 

 he stated in a farewell letter to his ' unparallelled wife ' that, 'though his 

 death be fatal, and some would make it scandalous, yet posterity, truth 

 and other generations might not call it so, nor would our age have 

 called it so ten years since. God knows he had nothing.' * His losses 

 amounted to 10,000, and the only recompense his family received at 

 the Restoration was a pageship for his son and a portrait of Charles I. 

 Sir Patrick Curwen was fined 2,000 ; Charles Howard, the great- 

 grandson of Lord William Howard, was cleared of his delinquency for 

 having borne arms against the parliament by the payment of 4,000. 

 The towns were equally in distress. The state of the whole county is 

 described as lamentable, and no less than 30,000 families are said to 

 have been without seed or bread, corn or money. Parliament ordered 

 a collection to be made for them, but the amount raised was quite 

 inadequate to meet their needs. 



In the Long Parliament, as it is termed, which assembled in 1 640, 

 and the ' rump ' of which was not dissolved until the memorable 20 



Jefferson, Leath Ward, pp. 23, 425-6, quoting Dr. Todd's MS. history of the diocese of Carlisle, 

 which cannot now be traced. 



a Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. (Rydal MSS.), xii. App. vii. 20. 



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