57 



Vindication of Bishop Betts disposition of the Barony of 

 A Inuuick. By the late Rev. W. Procter, M.A., Doddington ; 

 Hon. Canon of Durham. 



Camden, in his Britannia, has published a slanderous tale, 

 which, being against a bishop, has been oft repeated, and has 

 been stated as an undoubted fact by Mr George Tate, in his 

 "History of Alnwick," and again in his " Account of Lesbury 

 Parish," printed in the Proceedings of this Club, for 1875, pp. 

 441-2. This tale, however, was proved to be false, by Arthur 

 Collins, in his " Peerage of England," vol. ii., pp. 303 and 489, 

 fifth edition. 



Camden's words are, "William, the last of the Vescies, made 

 Anthony Beck, Bishop of Durham, trustee to his castle and the 

 demesne lands belonging to it, for the use of his natural son, the 

 only child he left behind him. But the bishop basely betrayed 

 his trust, alienated the inheritance, selling it for a present sum of 

 money to Henry Percy, since whose time it has always been in 

 the possession of the Percies." Tate says, " The deed by which 

 William de Vescy infeofed Bek seems now not to be in exist- 

 ence." But Collins found it in the Great Chartulary of the 

 Percy family at Sion House, fol. 129,2, and prints it "fully to 

 refute the story," as it certainly does, and so shakes our confi- 

 dence in Camden's general accuracy, shewing him not to have 

 been free from the prevailing infirmity of believing confident 

 assertions oft repeated, especially if they are slanderous. 



This deed shews that " William de Yescy levied fines, by which 

 he conveyed all his manors of Malton, Langton, Wyntringham, 

 and Brumpton, in the county of York ; and of Calthorp, in Lin- 

 colnshire, to the bishop in trust, for the use of his natural son, 

 named William de Vescy of Kildare, who afterwards enjoyed the 

 same ; and that he gave the manors of Alnwick and Tughall, in 

 Northumberland, absolutely to the said bishop and his heirs for 

 ever." Besides, Henry Lord Percy, the purchaser, had his title 

 confirmed by Sir Gilbert de Ayton, cousin and heir of William de 

 Vesci. And who can suppose that the Percies, ever since 1309, 

 have been quietly possessing the barony of Alnwick on a title 

 founded in fraud ? 



Collins gives in the original French an exact copy of the Deed 

 by which William de Vesci infeofed Bishop Bek, accompanied 



