Chapter I: Part 1

MEMORIALS OF THE COUNTIES OF ENGLAND

General Editor:
REV. P. H. DITCHFIELD, M.A., F.S.A., F.R.S.L., F.R.Hist.S.

MEMORIALS OF OLD DURHAM

_From the Picture by J. M. W. Turner, R.A._]

MEMORIALS OF OLD
DURHAM

EDITED BY
HENRY R. LEIGHTON, F.R.HIST.S.

WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON
GEORGE ALLEN & SONS, 44 & 45, RATHBONE PLACE, W.
1910

[_All Rights Reserved_]

TO THE

RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF DURHAM, K.G.,
_Lord-Lieutenant of the County Palatine of Durham_,

THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED BY

HIS KIND PERMISSION

PREFACE

The Palatinate of Durham possesses special claims to the attention of students of history. It alone amongst the English counties was for centuries ruled by Sovereign Bishops possessing their own peers, troops, mint, and legal courts. In every respect it was a miniature kingdom, in its constitution like only to the well-known Prince-Bishoprics of the Continent.

In the past the county has been favoured by a succession of historians, who have dealt more or less fully with its parochial history. More recently Dr. Lapsley and the contributors to the "Victoria History" have minutely examined the various phases of its early constitution. In the publications of the local archæological societies, the greater mansions and most of the more interesting churches have been dealt with in detail.

In view, therefore, of the now considerable accumulated literature upon the county, it has been a matter of no small difficulty to select subjects which should be helpful to the scholar as well as interesting to the general reader.

It has been endeavoured to make this volume serve a twofold purpose. Firstly, to awaken a greater interest in the past of this most historic district, and secondly, to serve as an introduction to the greater histories of the county. Some day, perhaps, we may hope to see an edition of Surtees’, revised to a recent date, and covering those portions of the county which he did not live to deal with.

Through the courtesy of the Earl of Durham we are enabled to reproduce for the first time the portrait of William James, sometime Bishop of Durham. Lord Strathmore has kindly enabled us to include the very interesting photograph of Streatlam Castle. Thanks are also due to Mrs. Greenwell, of Greenwell Ford, for the photograph of Fen Hall. Mr. J. Tavenor-Perry has supplied the sketches of the cathedral sanctuary knocker and the dun cow panel, besides the valuable measured drawings of Finchale Priory. The remaining sketches in pen and ink have been contributed by Mr. Wilfrid Leighton.

In conclusion, in addition to thanking the contributors of the various chapters for the care with which they have treated their subjects, thanks are due to the Rev. William Greenwell and to the Rev. Dr. Gee, who have both made useful suggestions.

CONTENTS

PAGE

Historical Introduction By the Rev. HENRY GEE, D.D., F.S.A. 1

Topography of Durham By Miss M. HOPE DODDS 24

Folk-lore of the County of Durham By Mrs. NEWTON W. APPERLEY 44

The Legends of Durham By Miss FLORENCE N. COCKBURN 65

Place-names in the Durham Dales By W. MORLEY EGGLESTONE 79

Durham Cathedral By the Rev. WILLIAM GREENWELL, M.A., etc. 108

Finchale Priory By J. TAVENOR-PERRY 130

Monkwearmouth and Jarrow By the Rev. DOUGLAS S. BOUTFLOWER, M.A. 146

The Parish Churches of Durham By WILFRID LEIGHTON 162

Monumental Inscriptions By EDWIN DODDS 182

The Castles and Halls of Durham By HENRY R. LEIGHTON 198

Durham Associations of John Wesley By the Rev. T. CYRIL DALE, B.A. 229

The Old Families of Durham By HENRY R. LEIGHTON 239

Index 257

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Durham Cathedral _Frontispiece_

(_From the picture by J. M. W. Turner, R.A._)

PAGE, OR FACING PAGE

Portrait of William James, Bishop of Durham, 1606-1617 6

(_From the painting at Lambton Castle_)

The Market-Cross at Darlington 25

An Old Tithe-barn at Durham 27

Bishop Pudsey’s Charter to the City of Durham, and Pope Alexander III.’s Confirmation thereof 30

(_From a copy made by Christopher Fawcett, of Newcastle, originally issued as one of the Allan Tracts_)

Jack Crawford’s Birth-place, Sunderland 35

The Palace, Bishop Auckland 38

(_From a drawing by W. Daniell, R.A._)

Barnard Castle 40

(_From a drawing by E. Dayes_)

Brancepeth Castle in 1777 42

(_From an old Print_)

The Palace Green, Durham 64

(_From an old Print_)

The Dun Cow Panel, Durham Cathedral 67

Hilton Castle from the North 70

Lambton Castle, 1835 74

(_From the picture by T. Allom_)

The Kepier Hospital 90

The Crypt, Durham Cathedral 112

The Sanctuary Knocker, Durham Cathedral 119

Durham Cathedral: The Western Towers from a window in the Monks’ Library 120

(_From a drawing by R. W. Billings, 1844_)

Piscina in Choir, Finchale Priory 135

Choir, Finchale Priory 137

The Church from the North-west, Finchale Priory 139

Plan of the Ruins of Finchale Priory 140

Front of the Chapter House, Finchale Priory 141

Crypt under Refectory, Finchale Priory 142

The Prior’s Lodging, Finchale Priory 143

Monkwearmouth Church 146

Old Stone, Monkwearmouth 148

Ornamental Stonework, Monkwearmouth Cathedral 153

Jarrow Church 154

(_From a photograph by G. Hastings_)

Early English Snakes, Monkwearmouth Church 157

Norton Church 172

Boldon Spire 176

Anglo-Saxon Stone at Chester-le-Street 184

Witton Castle in 1779 198

(_From a contemporary print by Bailey_)

Lumley Castle 202

Hilton Castle: West Front 206

Old Tower at Ravensworth Castle 210

The Cross at Ravensworth 212

Streatlam Castle 214

(_From a photograph by E. Yeoman, Barnard Castle_)

Raby Castle in 1783 218

(_From a contemporary Print_)

Gainford Hall 222

The Old Hall at Thorpe Thewles 223

Fen Hall 224

(_From a photograph by Mrs. Greenwell_)

A Corner of Washington Hall 225

The Doorway, West Rainton Hall 227

General John Lambton, 1710-1794 244

(_From the portrait by G. Romney at Lambton Castle_)

Hoppyland Park 248

Portrait of Sir George Bowes 254

(_From the painting at Streatlam Castle_)

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION

BY THE REV. HENRY GEE, D.D., F.S.A., MASTER OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, DURHAM

In the older maps of England, that portion of the country which we call the county of Durham is generally described as "Episcopatus Dunelmensis," or the Bishopric of Durham, or simply the Bishopric. A further glance at the adjacent districts of Northumberland and Yorkshire shows that there are portions larger or smaller of those counties which are marked as integral parts of Durham. These members of the Bishopric are Norhamshire, Islandshire, and Bedlingtonshire in Northumberland, with the Manors of Northallerton, Howden, and Crayke, and certain lands adjacent to them in Yorkshire. These portions of the Bishopric were only cut off from it and merged in their own surrounding counties within the memory of persons still living. Indeed, the distinction between Bishopric folk and County folk--that is to say, people of Durham and people of Northumberland--is not yet quite forgotten, and looks back to a very interesting piece of English history that has to do with a state of things in the North of England which has now passed away.

Visitors who come to the city of Durham to-day and look on cathedral and castle have some vague idea of a time when the Bishop of Durham had "the power of life and death," as it is popularly called; but what this means, and what the peculiar constitution of the neighbourhood was, they do not, as a rule, understand. It may be worth while to try and get a clearer view of the Bishopric of Durham, and more especially of the main portion between Tyne and Tees, which forms the modern county. We to-day are so much accustomed to a strong central Government controlling the whole of England, that we find it hard to think of a time when certain districts had a large independence, and were ruled by a local Earl or by Bishop, rather than by the King in the capital. Yet there were such times both in England and upon the Continent. The district so ruled is known as a franchise or liberty, and the history of its independence, won, maintained, or lost, generally forms an attractive subject of study, with many exciting episodes in it. The assertion is certainly true of Durham; and although it is not possible to go into detail within the space of an introductory article like this, it may be possible to explain what the Bishopric was, and how it came to get its distinctive characteristics and its later modification.

The franchise of the Bishop of Durham may be most aptly understood if we try to regard all the members of it mentioned above as a little kingdom, of which Durham City was the capital. The Bishop of Durham was virtually the King of this little realm, and ruled it, not only as its spiritual head, but as its temporal head. As its spiritual head, he was in the position of any ordinary Bishop, and possessed exactly the same powers as other prelates. As its temporal head, he had a power which they generally did not possess. Dr. Freeman has explained his position in the following words: "The prelate of Durham became one and the more important of the only two English prelates whose worldly franchises invested them with some faint shadow of the sovereign powers enjoyed by the princely Churchmen of the Empire. The Bishop of Ely in his island, the Bishop of Durham in his hill-fortress, possessed powers which no other English ecclesiastic was allowed to share.... The external aspect of the city of itself suggests its peculiar character. Durham alone among English cities, with its highest point crowned, not only by the cathedral, but by the vast castle of the Prince-Bishop, recalls to mind those cities of the Empire--Lausanne, or Chur, or Sitten--where the priest, who bore alike the sword and the pastoral staff, looked down from his fortified height on a flock which he had to guard no less against worldly than against ghostly foes."[1] And this sovereignty was no nominal thing, for the Bishop came to have most of the institutions that we connect with the thought of a kingdom. He had his own courts of law, his own officers of state, his own assemblies, his own system of finance, his own coinage, and, to some extent, he had his own troops and his own ships. As we understand all this, we shall appreciate the significance of the lofty throne erected by Bishop Hatfield in Durham Cathedral. It was placed there in the flourishing days of the Bishop’s power, and is not merely the seat of a Bishop, but the throne of a King. So too, hard by, in the Bishop’s castle, as the chronicler tells us, there were two seats of royalty within the hall, one at either end. No doubt it was before the Bishop, sitting as Prince in one of these, that the great tenants of his franchise--the Barons of the Bishopric, as they were actually called--did homage in respect of their lands. Perhaps, when he sat in the other from time to time as Bishop, his clergy and others recognized his spiritual authority, or submitted themselves to his "godly admonitions."

The county of Durham has been marked out by nature, more or less distinctly, as separate from the neighbouring counties. The Tees on the south, and the Tyne on the north, with the Derwent running from the western fells to the Tyne, sufficiently differentiate it. In what follows we will keep mainly to the district represented by the modern county, leaving out of view the members outside to which reference has been made. Its history, until modern times, is largely ecclesiastical, owing to its peculiar constitution, in which the Bishop plays so important a part. It had, indeed, virtually no history until the Church became the great civilizer in Northumbria. Its prehistoric remains are few, if interesting. Its occupation by Brigantes, a Celtic tribe, is a large fact with no details. In the days when Romans made the North of Britain their own, there is still no history beyond the evidence of Roman roads, with camps at Binchester, Lanchester, and Ebchester. Certainly no Roman Christian remains have been found as yet; but when in the seventh century Christianity came to the Anglian invaders who settled in these parts after the departure of the Romans, the history of the English people was born within the confines of the modern county. Bede, the first of English scholars and writers, compiled his history in the monastery of Jarrow. He tells us all we know of the earliest Durham Christians--of Benedict Biscop and of Hilda, who, with himself, are the first three historic personages in the district. In one pregnant sentence he tells us how churches were built in different places, how the people flocked together to hear the Word, and how landed possessions were given by royal munificence to found monasteries. These monasteries became the centres of religion, civilization, and learning all over Northumbria; and, in particular, the monasteries of Jarrow and Wearmouth, twin foundations of Benedict Biscop, were the commencement of everything best worth having between Tyne and Tees.

Thus religion, art, and literature, were born in Durham. In the last years of the eighth century a terrible calamity fell upon the wider province, of which Durham was only a part, when the Danes raided Lindisfarne, where had been the starting-point of the Northumbrian Church. When the mother was thus spoiled and laid desolate, the daughters trembled for their safety, but they were left for awhile, not unassailed, yet not destroyed. In those days of disturbed peace further gifts of land were made to the Church, and in these we trace large slices of Durham handed over in the ninth century to the monks of Lindisfarne by those who had the power to give. And here we must notice that the great treasure of the monastery at Lindisfarne was the body of St. Cuthbert, the great Northumbrian saint, to whom the endowments named were most solemnly dedicated. They formed the nucleus of the Bishopric--the beginnings of the Patrimony of St. Cuthbert, which is only another name for the Bishopric. Repeated invasion of the Danes at last drove the monks out of Lindisfarne, and destroyed the Durham monasteries of Jarrow and Wearmouth. The Lindisfarne monks left their island, and bore away for safety’s sake the body of St. Cuthbert, and after various wanderings brought it back to rest within the fortified enclosure of Chester-le-Street, and so within the confines of Durham. Here the Danish conquerors confirmed previous gifts, and added others to them, until the lands of St. Cuthbert increased very widely, whilst Chester-le-Street became a centre of pilgrimage.

For 113 years Chester-le-Street was the Christian metropolis of the North, until the final fury of the Danes began to fall upon Northumbria. In 995 another exodus began, and the clergy bore off the body to Ripon, returning a few months later when the tempest seemed to have abated. Many legends cluster round this return, but in any case the fact is clear that the Bishop and his company took up their abode, not at Chester-le-Street, but on the rocky peninsula of Dun-holm, or Durham, which the River Wear nearly encircled. In this way the seat of ecclesiastical authority was changed for the second time, and Durham City now became the centre of the still-expanding Bishopric. Great prestige gathered round the Saxon cathedral in which the shrine of the saint was placed, for Kings and Princes vied with one another in doing honour to it. So Canute, walking to the spot with bare feet, gave fresh donations of Durham land and confirmed what others had bestowed.

But again dark days fell upon the North. To say nothing of Scottish encroachments upon the Bishopric, which were sustained in the eleventh century, the worst blow fell when the Norman Conquest took place. In no part of England was a more determined patriotism opposed to William than in Durham. Submission was nominal, and desperate efforts were made to keep Northumbria as a separate kingdom by placing Edgar Atheling upon an English throne in York. When the Conqueror made a Norman called Cumin his Viceroy in these parts, the men of Durham rose and murdered him within their city. It was an act that William never forgave and never forgot. He wrought such a deed of vengeance that the whole of the smiling district from York to Durham was turned into a wilderness. When he came to die he is represented to have said of this ruthless episode: "I fell on the English of the Northern counties like a ravening lion. I commanded their houses and corn, with all their tools and furniture, to be burnt without distinction, and large herds of cattle and beasts of burden to be butchered wherever they were found. It was thus I took revenge on multitudes of both sexes, by subjecting them to the calamity of a cruel famine; and by so doing, alas! became the barbarous murderer of many thousands, both young and old, of that fine race of people."

William placed foreigners in most positions of importance. To the See of Durham he appointed Walcher from Lorraine, and the new prelate came from his consecration at Winchester, escorted across the belt of depopulated, ravaged land, until he reached Durham. North of the Wear the Patrimony of St. Cuthbert was as yet largely untouched, but the men of Durham had no love for the foreigner, and no wish to regard him as their lord. Fortunately for him the Earl of Northumbria stood his friend, and built for him in 1072 the Norman castle overlooking

the Wear, which was destined to be the Bishop’s fortress for seven and a half centuries. Within that castle Walcher was safe, and, helped by the Earl, he ruled his recalcitrant flock, not always wisely, but with all his power, until an insurrection which he strove to quell cost him his life. He died, however, not as mere Bishop of Durham, but as Earl of Northumbria as well, for when Waltheof the Earl died, William appointed Walcher in his place. Thus in the hands of the first Bishop after the Conquest was held the double authority of Bishop and of Earl. Whatever may have been the powers of the prelate in the Bishopric until this time, it is certain that from this point he claims a double authority within the Patrimony of St. Cuthbert. As for Walcher, stern example was made of what resistance to the Bishop’s lawful authority would mean, when William laid waste the land that had escaped ten years before, and extended his ravages north of the Wear and towards the Tyne.

Just before the eleventh century expired, an event of considerable importance took place when Bishop Carileph began the great cathedral which still crowns the height above the Wear at Durham. About the same time an understanding was reached between the Earl of Northumbria and the Bishop, by which all the rights and the independence of the Bishopric seem to have been recognized and confirmed, so that henceforward the Bishop was the undisputed lord of the lands of St. Cuthbert.[2] When in 1104 the cathedral was sufficiently advanced to receive the body of the saint within its eastern apse, a great ceremony took place, which served to carry the prestige of Durham beyond anything it had yet reached. Henceforward the stream of pilgrims which had steadily flowed to the shrine, whether at Lindisfarne, or Chester-le-Street, or Durham, swelled in volume until the attractiveness of Durham exceeded that of any place of pilgrimage in England. Only when the shrine of St. Thomas at Canterbury drew to it so large a share of patronage from the end of the twelfth century did a serious rival manifest itself. Carileph had divided the territory of St. Cuthbert, reserving part for the Bishop, and part for the Benedictine monks whom he placed in the new cathedral. Thus the Bishop had his estates henceforward, and the monks had theirs. At first the portion belonging to the monastery seems to have been disappointingly poor, a fact very probably due to recent ravages whose brand was not yet effaced. By degrees, however, the lands of prior and convent improved, and the gifts of pilgrims made the monks prosperous.

The Bishop who presided when the body of St. Cuthbert was translated in 1104 was Ralph Flambard. He was not the character to allow the prestige of the Bishopric to decline. Under him the resources of the county were ably administered, and the organization of his dominions was carefully developed. By degrees the traces of the Norman harrying were obliterated. How fair a country Durham was in the early twelfth century we may discover from the poetry of a monk from the monastery who was called Lawrence, and wrote a description of events and localities connected with Durham. He speaks of its scenery, its excellent products, its fine breed of horses, its open-air amusements, to say nothing of indoor revels at Christmas. The twelfth century, with sparse population, open moor and plain, and increasing prosperity, is far away from the noise of anvil and forge, the smoke of endless coke ovens, the squalor of congested towns, as they exist in the county to-day. But the scene changed too soon. After the accession of Stephen in 1135 fierce dynastic feuds broke out, and the Scots joined in the anarchy of the time, attempting to annex the territory of St. Cuthbert to the Lowlands of Scotland. Durham suffered severely in the conflict, and a mock-bishop, supported by the Scots, actually held Durham Castle and City against the lawful prelate. At length more quiet days came, and in the reign of Henry II. Bishop Pudsey, the King’s own cousin, succeeded in resisting the centralizing efforts of the monarch, and although he had to bow to the imperious Henry on more than one occasion, he carried on in the main the liberties and rights of the Bishopric. A little later he was enabled to round off the Bishopric lands when he bought the wapentake of Sadberge from King Richard, the only important part of the county which had never yet been included in the territory of St. Cuthbert. From this time the Earl of Northumbria disappears, and at last there is no rival whatsoever to powers which had been steadily growing. The Bishopric is now complete in head and members, and the Bishop is virtual sovereign of it, whilst the King is supreme outside. At this stage we may freely call the Bishop’s dominions the Palatinate of Durham--a name which continues to be usual until the power so described is, in 1836, annexed to the Crown. The word "Palatinate" is a conventional legal title which the lawyers brought into fashion to describe a great franchise with its independent jurisdiction.[3]

We are able to get a very much clearer notion of the Palatinate in Pudsey’s days, when the hitherto scanty materials of Durham history begin to swell. We have some of his buildings before us yet--St. Cuthbert’s, Darlington, the Galilee of the cathedral, the rich doorway in the castle; we have seal and charters and writs of his episcopate; and, in short, are able to trace in outline the way in which Pudsey developed the Bishopric on the analogy of a little kingdom, with institutions and officers of its own. Moreover, some notion is gained in the famous Boldon Book[4] of the episcopal lands and how they were held. There we get a Domesday, as it were, of the Bishop’s holdings, to which those who desire to study the intricate methods of medieval land tenure on the Bishop’s property must be referred. A little later on we find somewhat similar information about the lands of the monastery, so that, as the centuries wear on, a fairly detailed picture is gained of the conditions of life in the medieval Bishopric. Thus we see the lands divided up into a large number of manors, which vary largely in character, for some are pastoral, others agricultural, others moor-land, or forest, and others still are connected with townships like Gateshead or Sunderland. The Bishop’s or Prior’s steward makes a circuit at different times, visiting all the units in some special locality, and looking to his lettings or his rents. The holdings vary very much in size and in tenure, and the tenants likewise differ in status and in service. There are villeins who are not free, and are bound to render certain dues of personal service, mowing, or reaping, or ploughing, or sowing, for so many days, and receiving perhaps doles of food, a cottage, and some land, but no money wage. There are farmers who take a manor or farm on condition of rendering so much agricultural produce to the lord. There are cottiers who work so many days in the week, and have to give so many eggs, or so many fowls for the table, in return for the little home that they occupy. In Durham itself certain houses were let to tenants, who had to defend the North Gate, or help act as garrison, or render herbs and other necessaries for the Bishop’s kitchen. The conditions of service among the villeins were often onerous, and a tone of deep discontent is marked in the medieval villages of Durham. In time of war external service might be demanded of the men, and a rally to join the Bishopric troops was no unfamiliar incident of life in those days. If it extended beyond the bounds proper of the territory of St. Cuthbert, pay was claimed, though it was not always given. Small quarrels and differences were probably adjusted by steward or bailiff, but more serious cases came before justices of the peace specially appointed, whilst murder and other grave offences were reserved for judges whom the Bishop appointed to sit at various centres, of which Durham was the chief. And this power of appointing judges to try criminals and to convict or acquit them is what is meant by the popular and inexact phrase, "the power of life and death." The Bishop’s revenue was managed by special officers of his own appointment, who got returns from the local bailiffs, and then recorded them at Durham, where a special audit was held. A special set of buildings were erected near Durham Castle, with various adjacent offices, for the management and arrangement of all the mass of business--financial, judicial, and administrative--which was entailed by the Bishopric.

In this way the conditions of life, and the administration of the Palatinate, followed roughly the general order of the kingdom outside, and the Bishopric was, as has already been said, virtually a little kingdom ruled by a Bishop instead of a King. The Bishops who followed Pudsey maintained and developed his organization, but not without strife. The thirteenth century, in particular, presents a long record of obstinate struggle between the Bishop and those who tried to limit his power or to gain concessions which he was unwilling to make. Indeed, the struggle between the King and the people, which is the great feature of English history in that century, finds a close parallel on a small scale in Durham. At one time it is a long feud between the Bishop and the Monastery over their respective lands, a feud which was at last ended by an agreement between the contending parties. At another time the Bishop is trying to curb the independence of the Barons of the Bishopric, who held large estates for which they were supposed to yield homage, or to perform some kind of service. In this way Nevilles and Balliols, two of the great Bishopric families, held out against the crusading Bishop Bek, and in the end they had to give way. And once more there was strife on more than one occasion with the King, who now and then attempted to restrain the exuberant independence of the Bishop of Durham; and here, in the main, the Bishop was successful in asserting his rights and powers as inalienable.

Over this scene of complex organization and activity dark shadows came in the fourteenth century. The Scots, who had been quiescent for some time, fell upon the Bishopric with great ferocity during the reigns of the first three Edwards, and the years were seldom free from the record of invasion or pillage. It had come to be regarded as a prime duty of the Bishop to repress all northern incursions, and, as a contemporary document puts it, to serve as a wall of brass against the Scots. He had his fortified castles, Norham in Norhamshire, Durham in its own county, and Northallerton in Yorkshire. These three lay on one of the chief routes by which the invaders entered England, and were kept in threatening times well defended and provisioned. In 1312 Bruce pushed his forces right through Northumberland, and advanced into the heart of the Bishopric, delivering a blow against Durham itself, which must have been severe. Two years later in Scotland the troops of England were beaten at Bannockburn, and the humiliation of Edward II. was only effaced some years later by Edward III. in the victories of Halidon Hill, and more particularly of Neville’s Cross in 1346. The latter battle was the great glory of the men of Durham until it was forgotten in the greater prestige of Flodden nearly 200 years later. The tomb of Ralph Neville, badly battered by Scots in later days, still stands in Durham Cathedral as a local memorial of Neville’s Cross, in which he led the Bishopric troops.

The joy caused by these successes was soon dimmed when the terrors of the Black Death overwhelmed the district. Perhaps no part of England suffered much more severely. The pestilence rolled up towards the North in the year 1349, and at last made its dreaded appearance in the south-east of the county. From this point it spread with frightful rapidity, carrying off all orders and conditions of men, for none escaped. Sometimes a whole household perished, and here and there an entire village was obliterated. "No tenants came from West Thickley, because they are all dead," is the steward’s entry at one manorial court or halmote, as the local word is. In the winter that followed there was no sowing, and when the spring came men had not the heart to go to work on the fields, for the plague was renewed with increasing virulence, and everything was thrown out of gear. Villeins had run away from sheer terror; even madness was not unheard of; and whilst there was little to eat famine and misery stalked unchecked.[5] The Bishop’s lands and the Prior’s lands were going out of cultivation, for it was impossible to find labourers, or to bind them down in the old way. Grotesque attempts were made to keep up the former conditions of service, until by degrees stewards and bailiffs found out that they were face to face with the greatest economic difficulty which had ever appeared in the Bishopric. The Black Death practically brought to an end the rigid system of land tenure which had been kept up so long, for it gave the death-blow to serfdom, and the old services in kind, of which mention has been made. Discontent had long lurked in the manors of Durham, but from this time it became active and aggressive, until it pushed the peasants out to assert themselves and to seek for more congenial conditions of life. Elsewhere the transition was effected by bloodshed; in the territories of St. Cuthbert it came more peacefully, but to the accompaniment of much mutual mistrust and variance.

It is possibly in connection with all this covert rebellion on the part of the masses that Cardinal Langley built or finished the great gaol in the North Gate in Durham. This large building running up to the castle keep on one side, and down towards the river on the other, spanned Saddler Street for four centuries, until it was taken down in 1820. It was often filled with criminals who were imprisoned here for various offences in its gloomy dungeons. There was another gaol at Sadberge, but it does not seem clear what relation this bore to the more important building in Durham. But the fifteenth century brought its own special anxieties. In the dynastic troubles which led to the Wars of the Roses, the Palatinate was generally Lancastrian in sympathy. Henry VI. (only one of many English Kings who visited Durham) came to the shrine of St. Cuthbert at a time when his dominions had been cut short upon the Continent, and were still further menaced by the Scots. In the bitter days that followed, when he was driven from his throne, he took refuge in the Bishopric, whilst his brave wife went to the Continent to seek for troops to enable him to regain the crown. Even rectories were fortified in those days, for men had to take one side or the other, and to defend their property against bands of marauders. Of religious trouble and dispute, Durham had no large share at that particular time, though elsewhere the ferment caused by the Lollard Movement was producing much unrest. The Bishopric was too much under the control of the Church to allow much freedom of thought. Yet there were isolated instances of Lollard sympathy, exceptions to prove the rule, which were instantly repressed by ecclesiastical authority.

Dynastic trouble did not end when Henry VII. and his wife, Elizabeth, united the Red and White Roses. The Bishopric men, indeed, had no desire to rise against the strong government which the King set up in England; but they were caught in the tide of rebellion which was set going by Simnel and Warbeck. It was to stem this tide that Henry placed Richard Fox as Bishop of Durham in 1494. This prelate, the King’s tried friend, fortified afresh the castles of the see, and placed garrisons in them to check the advance of Warbeck through the northern counties. Fortunately, the invasion followed another line to the Battle of Stoke, and the men of Durham were spared the anxiety of decision. But Fox, keeping vigilant guard in his fortresses, was instrumental in concluding that alliance which was destined eventually to unite the English and the Scots as one nation. Henry’s young daughter, Margaret, was affianced to James IV. of Scotland, and in 1503 passed right through the Bishopric on her way to her northern home. Nowhere in all the long progress did the Princess receive a warmer welcome than in Durham, from the moment she entered the Bishopric at the Tees to the moment she crossed Tyne Bridge from Gateshead into Newcastle. A mighty banquet was given in her honour in Durham Castle, to which all the nobles and important personages of the district were invited. Little Margaret’s great-grandson was James VI. of Scotland and I. of England; and in his days border feuds passed away for ever. And yet at the moment of the banquet that consummation was a long way off. Ten years later the Scots invaded England at a time of grave national anxiety, when the King and his troops were warring in France. But the Bishopric musters turned out. Bishop Ruthall rushed up to Durham, and his men at Flodden contributed not a little to the great English success as they bore the banner of St. Cuthbert into the battle.

The century that had so recently dawned was destined to witness great changes in the Bishopric. Henry VIII. laid ruthless hands upon the power of the Church, and the monarch who extorted the submission of the clergy was not likely to allow the great power and independence of the Bishop of Durham to pass unchecked. Accordingly, in 1536, he cut short the judiciary authority of the prelate. This, as we have seen, was one of the most characteristic privileges of the Bishop, and neither Henry II. nor Edward I. had interfered with it. From this date the King was the authority who appointed the judges; and although in practice the old forms and methods were largely followed, the sanction was royal, and not episcopal. And next year, when the Council of the North was set up for the purposes of defence, execution of justice, and finance, in the northern counties, a still further blow was aimed at the Bishop’s power, for this court could, if it willed, supersede the Palatinate machinery. As a matter of fact, its first President was Tunstall, Bishop of Durham, who prevented such degradation of the Palatinate for the present. Yet one thing of large importance was carried out under the Council’s authority, when the great Abbey of Durham was dissolved in 1539. The monastery had stood unassailed for 450 years, but Henry set going the process of destruction which ended in the total suppression of every religious house in the land. It had been a wealthy foundation, a kindly landlord, an influence for good in the district, with its library, and its schools, and its varied means of usefulness. Yet every good object that it had served was eventually carried on. Prior and convent became Dean and Canons; monastic lands were now capitular estates; its chief school and library were maintained with greater efficiency; its solemn offices soon became the familiar vernacular service of the Church of England. Otherwise there was little monastic destruction in the county of Durham, for the great monastery had brooked no rivals; and a friary or two with a single nunnery were scarcely rivals. The dependent cells of Jarrow, Wearmouth, Finchale, however, shared in the fall of Durham Abbey.

Three or four years before the surrender of the monastery the people of Durham had taken part in the Pilgrimage of Grace--that exciting demonstration in which popular resentment against the fall of the smaller houses was exhibited. When Durham Abbey fell, there was no repetition of that rising, for severe punishment had been meted out in 1537; whilst in 1540 pestilence was desolating the district, and the gloom in consequence was depressing. But there was no sympathy with the changes which soon began to hurry on, and Durham was probably more opposed to the Reformation than any other district. Under Edward VI. the Bishopric became the object of the ambitious designs of Northumberland--one of the noblemen whom the rapid religious and political revolution of the time placed in power. He cast a longing eye on the Patrimony of St. Cuthbert; and in building up the fortunes of his upstart family (he was a Dudley, not a Percy, for the true Northumberland title was at the moment suspended) he probably intended to lay hands upon the whole Bishopric, and to arrogate for himself the Palatinate jurisdiction. He succeeded in getting the Bishop thrown into prison on false charges of treason, and then forced a Bill through Parliament which abolished the power of the Palatinate, and created two sees--one at Durham, the other at Newcastle. There can be little doubt that he intended to secure the Palatinate power for himself, and to rule in Durham as Duke of Northumberland; whilst his son, Guildford Dudley, recently married to Lady Jane Grey, was to be Prince Consort, and to share the throne of England. This most daring scheme fell to the ground when Mary came to the throne, and the recent legislation was at once abolished, and things went back to the conditions obtaining before the reign of Edward.

Under Elizabeth the Bishopric underwent a process of reconstruction in various ways. It was not a pleasant process. Socially the old system of land-tenure, which had been breaking up since the Black Death, was abolished, and a new method of leaseholds was evolved after much friction between the tenants on the one side, and the Dean and Chapter, or the Bishop, on the other. The power of the Bishop was now further attenuated, for the Queen laid hands upon large estates which were the undoubted possession of the see, with a history of many centuries’ attachment to the Patrimony of St. Cuthbert. The settlement of religion carried out in the early years of the Queen’s reign was largely unpalatable in Durham. Certainly the majority of the clergy acquiesced, but the acquiescence was largely external. So the people at large tolerated the changes that were wrought in churches and services, when the English liturgy took the place of the Latin offices restored by Mary, and when altars were broken down, and the church furniture in general was destroyed. The great Bishopric families--Nevilles, Lumleys, and others--scarcely concealed their dislike of the new régime in Church and in State, and after some years of endurance, they rose at last in 1569. Feeling sure of wide sympathy in Northumberland and Durham, the Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland gathered retainers together, and restored the old order in Durham Cathedral, whilst the people of Durham, lowly kneeling, were absolved from the guilt of schism. But inferior leadership caused the rising to collapse outside the Bishopric, and when the Queen’s army marched through Durham it swept the undisciplined forces of the Earls across the Tyne to be dissipated in the rigours of a cold Northumbrian winter. But, although the rebellion came to nothing, passive resistance was maintained. As the reign proceeded, this quieter condition was roused into greater activity by the seminary priests and the Jesuit missionaries who came into the country from institutions abroad, which sent over into England, and not least into Durham, a long succession of these emissaries. They went up and down the district, welcomed and protected by friends who received their ministrations, but not seldom hunted down by the vigilance of the Ecclesiastical Commission, which increased the stringency of its measures as the century drew to its close.

The last years of the great Queen witnessed a rather distressing condition of things in the county. Pestilence was a frequent visitor in times that were insanitary, and the transition to happier conditions in religion and in society was not complete. The villages were frequently unpopulated, and tillage was decayed, whilst the starving families wandered into the neighbouring towns in search of food. Probably the depressing state of affairs was worse in the Bishopric than in other parts of England, for it received a special aggravation in the Scottish inroads, which were renewed towards the end of the reign before their final extinction at the accession of James. When the Elizabethan Poor Law began its work, the county of Durham benefited by its operation, for regular collectors for the poor were appointed, and sometimes rates were levied, in place of the very uncertain alms of the "poor man’s box" in the church, to which parishioners were asked to contribute under the Injunctions of Elizabeth.

The Stuarts showed more regard for the Palatinate of Durham than did the Tudors. No Tudor sovereign, it seems, entered the county, but James I., Charles I., and James II. when Duke of York, paid ceremonious visits to Durham, and in general upheld the prestige of the see, though they never completely restored its independence. One of the most interesting episodes of the seventeenth century is the religious revolution carried out during the first forty years. Bishop Neile is credited with introducing to Durham a series of prebendaries who altered the aspect of the cathedral and produced great changes in the services. These "innovations" caused much comment, and although Charles in 1633 paid a special visit, and by his presence and countenance sanctioned what had been done, frequent remonstrance was made. The long reign of Elizabethan Churchmanship had accustomed the people to one uniform type of worship and ornament, and they were not prepared for the alterations now made in ritual and in the appearance of the churches. When the Scots entered England in 1640, by way of remonstrance against the King’s policy in Church and State, the Bishopric was not altogether unsympathetic; but when the armed demonstration proved to be an armed occupation extending over a year in duration, the royalism of Durham re-asserted itself. At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1642 it was warmly royalist. A second Scottish occupation after Marston Moor in 1644 kept this spirit in check, whilst the Long Parliament virtually superseded the Palatinate and governed the district by committees. Bishop, prebendaries, and other high ecclesiastics had fled when the Scots entered Durham in 1640. Parliament now seized upon the lands of Bishop and Chapter, and sold them or let them as opportunity offered. Thus for several years the old ecclesiastical constitution of Durham was destroyed, and in the parish churches, carefully cleared in 1644 from all "monuments of idolatry," a Presbyterian system was set up. It was not, however, fully carried out, and all manner of ministers were in possession when the Protectorate was set up in 1653. The cathedral services had long been silenced, and in 1650 Cromwell used the buildings as a convenient accommodation for the Scottish prisoners captured at Dunbar. On the petition of the people of the county, the Protector undertook to establish a college in Durham and to devote the cathedral and castle buildings to that purpose. Resentment and discontent smouldered during these years of tyranny. Indeed, more than one Royalist rising had to be repressed. When, at the beginning of 1660, there was talk of restoring the King, no voice of dissent was heard in the county.

Exuberant loyalty greeted the Restoration. Cosin was made Bishop. He was one of the group of influential men appointed by Neile forty years before, and now for twelve years he repaired the breaches of the city and diocese, and carried out the principles which he had formed in earlier life. The Palatinate jurisdiction was revived, with perhaps greater lustre than it had exhibited for a century past. In these days of royalist triumph Nonconformist and Puritan scarcely ventured at first to show their heads, but in Durham they were only biding their time. They found opportunity to promote a formidable rising, which was known as the Derwentdale Plot, aiming at some kind of overthrow of the restored Church and Crown. It was badly managed, and speedily collapsed; but Anabaptists, Quakers, and other parties managed to maintain their existence despite strenuous measures, and more particularly despite the vigorous working of the Conventicle Acts which were intended to crush Nonconformity.

Generally speaking, the county of Durham accepted the Revolution in 1688, though here and there some reluctance was manifested, and notwithstanding the efforts of Bishop Crewe and Dean Granville to promote allegiance to King James. Jacobitism, indeed, was spasmodic in the Bishopric, and it does not appear that in 1715 or in 1745 very wide sympathy was exhibited in the district when elsewhere the excitement was considerable. The eighteenth century witnessed two events of the greatest importance in Durham history. In the first place, after a period of long stagnation, industrial development caught the whole district and entirely changed its character. The coal trade had been prosecuted continuously since the thirteenth century at least, and the mines had proved a considerable source of revenue to the owners. Lead was an ancient industry, and the salt-pans of the county have a connected history, ranging over many centuries. These and other operations had increased in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, more particularly when a great development of shipping at Sunderland and at Hartlepool took place after the Restoration. A large export trade by sea spread rapidly. In the early part of the eighteenth century 175,000 tons of coal was the annual output on the Wear, and the history of the collier convoys at that time is a large chapter in the general history of North Country shipping. All this meant a considerable increase of prosperity, and by degrees the county which had been thinly populated, for the most part, became a hive of industry, in which rapid fortunes were made. The mines and the shipyards attracted labour from other parts of England, and the population of the county, returned as 58,860 in the early days of Elizabeth, amounted to 149,384 in 1801, a figure which has been multiplied by ten in the last hundred years. The Bishop and the Dean and Chapter largely shared in the vast increase of wealth which the working of coal-mines in particular produced. It cannot, however, be said with truth that the Church authorities neglected the cause of charity. A list of the benefactions directly due to the various Bishops, and also to Dean and Chapter, shows how much they did in various ways for the cause of education as well as for the spiritual well-being of the people. Indeed, subscription lists of the early nineteenth century, which still survive, prove that the clergy gave the chief proportion of what was given when some public call was made. It must not be forgotten that Durham University and Durham School were the direct foundations of the Church within the Bishopric.

The other important event to which allusion has been made was the appearance of the Wesleyan Movement in Durham. Bishop Butler wrote his famous work, the _Analogy_, in the western parts of the county, and published it in 1736. It may be doubted whether its local effect was considerable. Within a few years John Wesley passed and repassed through the county, and established his societies in Durham, Sunderland, Darlington, and elsewhere. They prospered exceedingly, and left a permanent impression upon the district, and this was deepened and extended when a fresh wave of Methodism travelled over the North of England early in the nineteenth century in connection with the spread of Primitive Methodism. There can be no manner of doubt that the Methodist Movement deeply stirred and influenced some classes of the increasing population which the Church left untouched.

The real dividing-line between Old Durham and the present day is to be found in the series of changes which took place in the reign of William IV. The spirit of reform was operating in various directions, and it was not likely that Durham could escape. The increasing wealth of the Church and the still independent powers of the Bishop attracted the attention of the party of change. The Dean and Chapter rose to their opportunity, and founded the University of Durham. The newly formed Ecclesiastical Commission reduced the large staff of the cathedral, and reduced the stipends of those who were left. The Bishop was henceforth to be no longer a great landowner, managing his own revenues and estates, but a prelate, like any other, drawing a fixed stipend. His officers went, and the Palatinate jurisdiction which Dudley had coveted was finally annexed to the Crown. Thus to-day George V. is, within the confines of the Bishopric, Earl Palatine of Durham.

TOPOGRAPHY OF DURHAM

BY MISS M. HOPE DODDS

_Hist. Tripos, Cantab._

_The Great North Road._

The Great North Road crosses the Tees by Croft Bridge, on which the boundary between Yorkshire and Durham is marked by a stone dated 1627. This road is the "Darnton Trod," along which criminals from the South sought refuge all through the Middle Ages. Once across the Tees the fugitive was safe, for the King’s writ did not run in the Bishopric. Moreover, this was the road to the great sanctuary of St. Cuthbert at Durham, where a man was safe from the vengeance of his enemies; and so it happened that Darlington became a great resort of evil-doers, and in 1311 Bishop Kellaw issued a proclamation threatening with the terrors of excommunication all those who molested merchants going to and returning from Darlington market. The ill-name of the neighbourhood was not lost after the Bishop had been deprived of his own writs in 1536. The little inn of Baydale was the resort of the gentlemen of the road in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the rendezvous of Catton’s gang, the haunt of Barwick and of Sir William Browne, all noted highwaymen of the North.

The first hamlet in Durham through which the road passes is Oxneyfield, where, in the fields by the wayside, may be seen the Hell Kettles, four dark, still pools, formed by the natural sinking of the soil over the salt measures in the north bank of the Tees. There is a tradition that an Eastern diver, a black man, plunged into one of the pools, and reappeared in the Skerne, having discovered a subterranean connection between the two waters. The Black Man in North Country legends is usually the devil, and this story may be connected with the belief that the Hell Kettles sometimes grow boiling hot, and that the devil "seethes the souls of sinful men and women in them," at which times the spirits may be heard to cry and yell about the pools.