170 DE. CHARLTON OM THE 



held much of the land higher up the Tyne, in and around the 

 town of Bellingham. There were the de Bellinghains, Foresters 

 to the Kings of Scotland, by which title they claimed the manor 

 of Bellingham. Much of the time of the justices itinerant seems 

 to have been taken up at Wark in adjusting the claims of these 

 two potentates, and deciding on the complaints made against 

 them by their inferiors, of illegal seizures of land and goods from 

 their poorer neighbours. The de Bellinghains are now repre- 

 sented by Sir Alan Bellingham, of Castle Bellingham, in Ireland; 

 the Swinburne's still retain their position in Northumberland ; 

 while among their opponents not a few are to be found whose 

 descendants are still landed proprietors here. It is singular, that 

 in the only Scottish Iter of Wark that has come down to us, the 

 title to the lands of Hesleyside, still possessed by the Charlton 

 family, is proved against William de Bellingham, by Adam de 

 Charlton; while the second or English Iter of 1293, shows us 

 that the grandfather of Adam de Charlton was William, who 

 held the same lands as his grandson and successor, and whose 

 tenure is consequently to be dated from the commencement of 

 the thirteenth century. How long the Abbots of Jedburgh held 

 lands in North Tyne we know not, but in 1279 the said Abbots 

 held the farm of Ealingham, and the boundaries between that 

 and Hesleyside are the same, or nearly so, as at the present day. 

 Some of the tenures of pasturage are very curious. Thus in the 

 plea between Bartholomew Pratt and Robert de Insula, the latter 

 pleads that his flocks and herds had the right to pasture as far 

 as Tymberschawe Burn, and as far beyond it as they could, if 

 they returned over Timberschawe Burn the same day. We have 

 fines, too, inflicted for selling wine without a license, and in 

 1298 there is a complaint, made against certain parties, of their 

 having broken open the dwelling house at Sewingshield, on the 

 Northumbrian lakes, of their having torn away the iron fasten- 

 ings of the door, and having helped themselves to half a dolium 

 of wine, which William de Halton had for his own use. They 

 departed, carrying with them a cowskin of the value of sixpence, 

 and the " ferrum de porta sua tarn in Hamis et Haspis et li- 

 gulis." John of Boston, brother of the Vicar of Haltwhistle, 



