INDUSTRIES 



and examine the mines of copper and silver 

 at Caldbeck and the parts adjacent in the 

 presence of the sheriff of Cumberland, and to 

 make a report of what they had found there. 1 

 In the fifteenth century there can be no ques- 

 tion that they were known to the officers of 

 the Crown. In 1468 Richard, earl of War- 

 wick, and John, earl of Northumberland, had a 

 lease for forty years of all the mines of gold 

 and silver, and all the mines of lead contain- 

 ing gold and silver found north of the Trent, 

 with power to dig and search freely after 

 agreement with the owners of the soil. a 

 George Willarby, the prospecting engineer, 

 reported in 1474 that he had found three 

 notable mines in the north of England, one of 

 which yielded 27 Ib. of silver to the fodder 

 of lead. One of these was the mine of 

 ' Fletcheroos ' in Alstonmoor, and another 

 was the mine of Keswick in Cumberland. 

 In 1475 Walter Barsonhowson was appointed 

 master refiner of ' les ewres ' of the king's 

 four mines in the north, 3 and in 1478 the 

 old lease was surrendered and all the mines 

 of gold, silver, copper and lead in Northum- 

 berland, Cumberland and Westmorland were 

 granted to a colony of Dutch and German 

 miners for ten years, on condition that they 

 paid to the king a fifteenth part of the ore 

 and to the lord of the soil and curate of the 

 parish an amount to be agreed upon, with 

 power to appoint a steward born in the realm 

 to hold a court in the king's name in the 

 mines and to determine all pleas except those 

 of land, life and members. 4 



The foreign miners must have continued 

 working at Keswick with more or less success 

 till the great revival of mining operations at 

 that place in the beginning of the reign of 

 queen Elizabeth. As early as 1516 'the 

 Hugstettyrs and Belzers ' were in the service 

 of Henry VIII. 5 Joachim ' Hoegstre ' was the 

 principal surveyor and master of all the mines 

 in England and Ireland in 1528, in which 

 year he proposed the employment of six ex- 

 perienced Germans and 1,000 men for the 

 development of this industry, 8 but it was not 

 till 1565 that the Keswick mines jumped into 

 prominence as the most lucrative veins of 

 copper in the kingdom. The influx of foreign 



1 Orig. R. 12 Edw. II. m. 7. 

 3 Pat. 8 Edw. IV. pt. iii. m. 14. 



3 Ibid. 14 Edw. IV. pt. i. m. yd; 15 Edw. 

 IV. pt. i. m. 22 ; 15 Edw. IV. pt. i. m. 12. 



4 Ibid. 1 8 Edw. IV. pt. ii. m. 30. 



Cott. MS. Vitellius, B. xix. 234 ; L. and P. 

 Hen. mi. ii. 2310. 



6 Pat. 20 Hen. VIII. pt. i. m. 3 yd ; Cott. 

 MS. Titus, iv. 147 ; L. and P. Hen. VIII. iv. 

 5110. 



workmen at that time soon became a danger 

 to the peace of the community, and the war- 

 fare between the miners and the inhabitants 

 was often attended with disastrous results. It 

 was suspected that the attacks on the miners 

 were connived at by lady Ratcliffe, 7 who 

 resented the intrusion of the foreigners into 

 her neighbourhood. In 1566 a commission 

 was issued to lord Scrope and the local 

 magistracy to repress the assaults, murders 

 and outrages on the Almain miners, who had 

 lately come to Keswick for the purpose of 

 searching for and working minerals. 8 



But another opponent of the industry 

 arose when the earl of Northumberland had 

 ascertained in 1567 that the minerals dug up 

 at Newlands belonged without doubt to him 

 only, and that the workers were trespassers 

 on his land. A suit at law followed, but as 

 the mines yielded a proportion of gold and 

 silver they were adjudged to the Crown. 9 

 The principal overseer was Daniel ' Hech- 

 stetter,' no doubt a scion of the house of 

 Joachim above mentioned, who had brought 

 with him 400 men in I565- 10 Operations 

 were carried on in Newlands and Borrowdale, 

 and six smelting furnaces were at work daily 

 in Keswick and elsewhere. A piece of 

 ground was purchased in 1568 from Mr. 

 Curwen at Workington with the view of 

 building a wharf for the export of the ore. 11 

 Though coal la and wood were sometimes 

 used, peat was recognized as the staple fuel 

 for the supply of the furnaces. In 1597 Mar- 

 cus Stainbergus, Richard Ledes, and Emanuel 

 ' Hechstetter ' complained to Cecil, governor of 

 the royal mines, that there was a great lack 

 of peat owing to the wet summer at Keswick, 

 which hindered mining, and in consequence 

 the men had only poor wages. 13 But there 

 was a suspicion that the strangers were not 

 dealing fairly with the authorities, some think- 

 ing that the Dutchmen were only seeking 

 their own profit. Inasmuch as the mines 

 were becoming less productive and presuma- 

 bly going to decay, lord Scrope was instructed 

 in 1599 to pay a surprise visit to Keswick 

 and take the opinion of the local gentry on 

 the state of affairs. If the mines were worn 

 out as the Germans pretended, some course 



i Cat. S. P. Dom. Eliz. xl. 8 1. 



8 Ibid. Xl. 87. 



8 Ibid. xlii. 31, 35 ; Camden, Brit. (ed. Hol- 

 land), 767. 



10 Cat. S. P. Dom. E/iz. xxxvi. 59. 



11 Ibid, xlvii. 52. 



12 There was a great difficulty of procuring coals 

 for the Keswick mines in 1568 (ibid, xlviii. 13). 



" Ibid, cclxiv. 30. 



343 



