A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 
truce or repel an invasion. In that case it was the precursor of the 
March court, a feature of Border law so conspicuous in subsequent 
centuries, to which tenants were bound to give suit by virtue of their 
tenure! The special military service entailed by the defence of the 
frontier will account at once for the exemption from scutage and the 
doing of service beyond the limits to which the tenure applied. If not, 
why should the Border tenants be free from scutage unless they were 
bound to do some other service of equal value to the state? That is 
the question we have been trying to answer all along in explanation 
of the exceptional nature of Border institutions. The belt of territory 
stretching across the island from sea to sea was a conquered country : 
the Norman kings had driven the Scotic race across the Solway and 
the Tweed. As the new dominion had to be maintained, the tenure 
of the new settlers was adapted to the necessities of the situation, and 
their lands were granted to them with the military burden of Border 
defence. It was no novel expedient. The same principle was in force 
in the marches of Normandy, for when a military tenant served accord- 
ing to rota on castle-guard in one of the fortresses on the frontier, he 
was not liable to pay scutage in that year for the general defence of the 
country.” 
If we take into consideration the military aspect of the frontier 
tenure, apart from the payment of noutgeld, which was a distinct burden 
upon the land, it will not be difficult to understand the various phases 
under which it is presented to us. At one time we meet with it as a 
grand serjeanty in holding the post of danger in the royal army on its 
progress through Cumberland and Westmorland ; then as a service of 
castle-ward within a Border fortress ; and lastly as suit to the Border 
court ; but all of them are expressive of the same military obligation. 
The territorial position was unique and needed differential treatment 
from the other counties of the commonwealth. For which reason, 
there seems to be no doubt, the foreign service due to the Crown 
was confined to defensive duty at home.’ It is not to be expected 
1 This obligation inherent in Border tenure needs not to be laboured. On days of Marche, all 
lords, knights, esquires and gentlemen, with their tenants, were obliged to repair to the Marche bank 
with the lord warden, defensibly arrayed, with their best horses and nags, as time and service required 
(Richard Bell MS. f. 1420). In the preamble of a Bill read in both Houses of Parliament in 1571, it is 
stated that the tenants of lands in Cumberland were bound to defend the country against the Scots and 
to invade Scotland when required by the lord warden of the West Marches, for which service their 
lands were held without rent on payment of small fines on change of tenant (State Papers, Dom. EAizaberh, 
Add. xX. 28, 29). 
2 ‘«Castellania Vernonis. Philippus de Blarru tenet unum feodum lorice de rege, unde debet unum 
annum et dimidium diem de custodia apud Vernonem ad costum suum et ad submonitionem domini 
regis, et in anno quo facit custodiam non debet escuagium, et debet exercitum et equitatum ad suum 
costum, excepto quod ipse in propria persona debet esse ad costum domini regis ad os suum, et hernesium 
suum debet esse ad costum proprium’ (Bouquet, Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France, xxiii. 
622). In this feodary, service in the marches of Normandy occupies a distinct place. The bishop 
of Bayeux, for instance, held one hundred fees, of which he owed the service of twenty knights in marchia 
and only ten knights to the king of France (idid. xxiii. 612). 
8 Compare the charter of Edward I. on the immunity of the men of the bishopric of Durham, < ut 
non compellantur transire ad pugnandum extra Libertates Sancti Cuthberti,’ and also that of Edward IIL, 
‘ne homines episcopatus transeant extra ad pugnandum’” (Raine, North Durham, p. 7, quoting Surtees, 
History of Durham, i. App. Nos. xv. xvi.). 
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