A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 



and Westmorland regiments were more closely allied on i July 1881, 

 under the name of the Border Regiment, which is now composed of 

 the old corps, the 34th and 55th, the former being styled the first 

 battalion, and the latter the second battalion, together with the militia 

 and volunteer battalions of the two counties. Up to the present time 

 the localization of the regiments has not borne much fruit in the 

 encouragement of recruiting from these districts. It is stated on good 

 authority that the young men of Cumberland and Westmorland show 

 little disposition to adopt soldiering as a profession. 



The early years of the reign of George III. witnessed the rise of a 

 powerful force in local politics, which, for ambition and daring, has been 

 seldom equalled and never surpassed in the north-western counties. 

 The conspicuous part that Sir James Lowther played in parliamentary 

 constituencies for almost a generation may be regarded as a great era in 

 the political history of Cumberland. Sir James had succeeded not only 

 to the Lowther property, but also to the accumulated wealth of the 

 Whitehaven branch of the family. He had been returned for Cum- 

 berland in 1757, and for Cumberland and Westmorland in 1761, but 

 decided to serve for the latter county. In this year he married a 

 daughter of the Earl of Bute, and though originally a Whig he was 

 soon drawn into closer alliance with the Tories. In 1762, on the death 

 of Sir Wilfrid Lawson, fearing that a Whig might be elected in his 

 stead, Sir James resigned his seat for Westmorland, and was returned 

 again for Cumberland. The Duke of Portland, who was strongly op- 

 posed to Lord Bute, was Lowther's rival in territorial influence in the 

 north. The duke was fourth in succession to the Bentinck who had 

 come over with William III., and had received from him in 1694 a grant 

 of the Honor of Penrith and of land in the parishes of Great Salkeld, 

 Langwathby, Gamelsby, Scotby, and Castlesowerby, called the Queen's 

 Hames, the property in fact which had been given to the Scottish king 

 in 1 242, in compensation for the abandonment of his claims, and which 

 had subsequently reverted to the English crown. The grant was held 

 to include the forest of Inglewood, with the lordship of Carlisle Castle 

 and the socage manor thereof, and successive dukes had always acted on 

 that assumption. In the course of an action which the duke had 

 brought against Sir James in relation to some interference with a fishery 

 at Carlisle, the legal advisers of the latter discovered that in the original 

 grant to the first Earl of Portland by King William, the forest and 

 manor of Carlisle had been expressly excluded. As rights of owner- 

 ship had been exercised by the Bentincks for more than sixty years, that 

 period constituted a valid title to possession which no one could impugn 

 but the Crown. According to a legal maxim, however, nullum tempus 

 occurit regi, no lapse of time could prejudice the right of the sovereign, 

 and Sir James Lowther, in order to put himself into a position to test 

 the claim of the Portlands to the property, applied to the government 

 for a lease of it to himself. The lease was granted and notice given to 

 the tenants on the estates to pay no further rents to the Portland agents. 



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