A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 



who refused the oath. 1 In a short time the scare passed away and the 

 rigour of the penal laws was relaxed. 



The accession of George I. was the signal for a renewal of plots 

 on behalf of the pretender and a revival of the law. In obedience to 

 the king's proclamation the justices of the county at the Hilary Sessions 

 1715 issued warrants to the high constables to summon certain 'papists 

 or soe reputed or soe suspected to be, and all others as they shall know 

 or suspect to be papists or nonjurors' to appear at the Town Hall, 

 Cockermouth, on i February, that they may be dealt with according to 

 law. The activity of the justices in holding adjourned courts in various 

 parts of the county for the purpose of putting the penal laws in force 

 betokens their anxiety to prepare for the coming danger. The first 

 note of warning that the pretender was meditating an invasion of the 

 kingdom was conveyed to Lord Carlisle, the lord lieutenant of Cumber- 

 land, on 20 July 1715, when he was commanded to enforce the law 

 against suspects, to take from them their horses and arms, and to confine 

 them to their usual habitations.* It is no exaggeration to say that the 

 news of the rising in Scotland threw the local authorities of Cumberland 

 into a panic, and found them unprepared to withstand an invasion. On 

 1 6 September orders came down from the privy council for the em- 

 bodiment of the militia, and in a few days after for the seizing of the 

 persons and horses of papists and nonjurors. The confusion and dismay 

 which had taken possession of the local gentry may be gathered from 

 Lord Lonsdale's letter, dated 8 October, to the Earl of Carlisle. The 

 deputy lieutenants had given instructions for seizing the persons and 

 arms of papists, but did not meddle with the horses, for it would be 

 doing a great hardship to several papist gentlemen who kept running 

 horses for their diversion which were fit for no other service whatever ; 

 and it would be as much security to the country, for when their persons 

 and arms were secured, such horses as they had could be of no danger 

 to the government. In the matter of the militia orders were given 

 for a muster, but there was a difficulty about the officers' commissions. 

 For a like reason the raising of the light horse was postponed. One 

 thing at least the justices and deputy lieutenants agreed upon doing, 

 and that was to seize the papists and immure them in Carlisle. 3 The 

 bishop seems to have been the only person in authority who had his 

 wits about him, for on 15 October he sent a circular letter 4 to his 

 clergy, informing them of a most unnatural and dangerous rebellion 

 raised in the neighbourhood of this diocese by several papists and other 

 wicked enemies to our happy establishment in church and state, and 

 urging them to animate and encourage their respective parishioners in 

 defence of their religion, laws and liberties against all such traitorous 

 attempts towards the destruction of his Majesty's royal person and 



1 Letters of Bishop Nicolson, pp. 380-7 



Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. (Lord Carlisle's MSS.), xv. App. vi. 14. 



' Ibid. pp. 15-7. 



4 Letters of Bishop Nicolson, p. 432. 



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