168 DR. CHARLTON ON THE 



XVI. — The Sessions of the Liberty of Tynedale, held at Wark, in 

 the Thirteenth Century. By Edward Charlton, M.D. 



The little village of "Wark was once the capital of the Franchise 

 or Liberty of Tynedale. It was a royal manor, and for a con- 

 siderable time it was, with the rest of Northumberland and 

 Cumberland, held by the Scottish kings, having being originally 

 granted to them by King Stephen, to purchase their neutrality. 

 Henry II of England, however, resumed the royal demesnes 

 alienated by his predecessor; bnt in 1159 the Liberty of Tyne- 

 dale was re-granted to Scotland, being given to William, son of 

 Earl Henry, and father of Alexander II. Tynedale was a manor 

 held by the Scottish crown of the kings of England by homage 

 only, and the Scottish monarchs enjoyed their jura regalia here 

 as much as in their own proper domains. Here, at Wark, and 

 on the very spot where we now stand, they held their judicial 

 courts, on the ancient Mote Hill or ;Hill of Assembly, which had 

 no doubt been used for that purpose in Saxon, and perhaps even 

 in British, times. There is no record of a castle or stronghold 

 having existed here ; but there was, no doubt, a building for the 

 purposes of the Court. And in the fifteenth year of Edward I 

 there was at Wark a capital messuage, with a garden and a park 

 of ninety-six acres, containing various sorts of game, and also 

 eight acres of meadow land attached to the house. The mill of 

 Wark, of which no vestige now remains, was also the property 

 of the Crown, and produced the enormous rent of seventeen 

 pounds a year, while the herbage of the whole park only brought 

 in two pounds annually. At that time William Conne was the 

 keeper of the park, at a salary of three -half- pence per day. 

 There was of course a prison here, and the repairs of the prison 

 door in the year above specified cost tenpence. It is said to have 

 stood nearly in the centre of the square of the present village. 

 It does not seem to have been a very safe place of custody, for 

 numerous entries in the documents we shall generally allude to 

 are to the effect, that the prisoner was lodged there "et postea 

 evasit." Robert de Insula or De Lisle, the then proprietor of 

 Chipchase, was probably the lessee of the mill at Wark, as he 



