Chapter IX: Part 9

Margaret Dale no doubt made the acquaintance of John Wesley through his devoted adherent, Margaret Lewen. Miss Lewen, the only child of Thomas Lewen of Kibblesworth, while still a girl of about twenty-two, was attracted by the preaching of John Wesley during his visit to the North in the year 1764. Wesley, in his famous "Diary," speaks of her as being "a remarkable monument of Divine mercy. She broke through all hindrances, and joined heart and hand with the children of God." She was "a pattern to all young women of fortune in England." Margaret Lewen was certainly exceedingly liberal. "In works of benevolence and Christian zeal, she cheerfully expended an ample income" (Stamp: Orphan House of Wesley, London, 1863). Wesley says she had about £600 a year "in her own hands." On one of his visits to the North she gave him a chaise and a pair of horses. Now, Margaret Lewen was very intimate with the Dale girls, and it was probably through her influence that they came into contact with the great preacher. Whether any letters were written to the other sisters is not known, but they can hardly have been so numerous or more intimate than those written to Margaret Dale.

The first letter extant is written from Portpatrick, and is dated June 1, 1765, when Margaret Dale was still two or three months short of twenty-one. It begins: "My Dear Miss Peggy," and ends, "I trust you will be happier every day; and that you will not forget, my Dear Sister, your Affectionate Brother, J. Wesley." The letter is occupied with spiritual counsels, and questions about her spiritual health. He inquires: "How far do you find Power over your Thoughts? Does not your imagination sometimes wander? Do those imaginations continue for any time?" It is clear, from Wesley’s next letter, written from Kilkenny, dated July 5, 1765, that Miss Peggy had found she was guilty of wandering thoughts, for the letter begins: "My dear Sister,--Altho’ it is certain the kind of Wandering Thoughts wch you mention, are consistent with pure Love, yet it is highly desirable to be delivered from yᵐ, because (as you observe) they hinder profitable thoughts." Miss Lewen is mentioned. "I hope Miss Lewen and you speak to each other, not only without Disguise, but without Reserve." The letter ends, "My Dear Sister, your affectionate Brother."

Letters 4 and 5 are missing. The next, numbered 6, is dated from London, November 6, 1765. Peggy has a fixed idea that she will not live beyond the age of three and twenty. Wesley, in this letter, asks many questions about this conviction. He wants to know when it began, and whether it continues the same, whether her health is better or worse. The subject is continued in the next letter, written December 31 in the same year. This letter begins "My dear Peggy," and ends, "I cannot tell you how tenderly I am, my Dear Sister, your affectionate Brother, J. Wesley."

Wesley had evidently a tender paternal regard for the girl. He was in 1765 sixty-two years of age, fifteen years older than her father would have been if he had survived. Peggy was mistaken in her conviction. She did not actually die till November, 1777, when she had completed her thirty-third year, so she was just ten years out. Letter 9, written April, 1766, from Manchester, contains nothing of interest. Numbers 10 and 11 are unfortunately missing. Number 12 shows that Peggy desired to go to Leytonstone, where there was a considerable colony of Wesleyans, and whither perhaps Margaret Lewen had already gone. Wesley was very anxious she should not go. "I am afraid," he writes, "if you go to Laton-Stone you will give up Perfection. I mean by placing it so high, as I fear none will ever attain. I know _not one_ in London that has ever largely conversed with Sally Ryan, who has not given it up, that is, with regard to their own Experience. Now this, I think, would do you no good at all. Nay, I judge, it wou’d do you much hurt: it would be a substantial Loss. But I do not see how you _cou’d_ possibly avoid that loss, without a free intercourse with me, both in Writing and Speaking. Otherwise I know and feel, I can give you up, tho’ you are exceeding near and dear to me. But if you was to be moved from your Stedfastness that wᵈ give me pain indeed. You will write immediately to, my Dear Peggy, your Affectionate Brother, J. Wesley."

The next two letters are missing, so that we do not know if Peggy obeyed John Wesley or no, though from the tone of the next letter it seems probable that she did so. The next letter is dated November 7, 1766. Margaret Lewen had died at Leytonstone, October 30. By her will, dated November 21, 1764, she left many legacies to various Methodist good works, and to John Wesley £1,000, and her residuary estate to be applied as he should "think fit for the furtherance of the Gospel." She left Mary Dale £1,000, and to her sisters Margaret and Ann Dale, £100 apiece. Her father threatened to dispute the will, and the matter was compromised by the surrender to him of the residuary estate.

John Wesley refers to Margaret Lewen’s death in the fifteenth letter: "How happy it is to sit loose to all below! Just now I find a paper on wch is wrote (in Miss Lewen’s hand), ‘March 24, 1762, Margaret Dale, Ann Dale, Margaret Lewen, wonder in what state of life they will be in the year 1766.’ How little did any of you think at that time that she would then be in Eternity: But she now wonders at nothing and grieves at nothing." He ends: "And sure neither Life nor Death shall separate you from, my Dear Sister, your Affectionate Brother, J. Wesley."

In the eighteenth letter--the sixteenth contains nothing of especial interest, the seventeenth is missing--Wesley speaks of his followers at Newcastle: "Those you mention are Israelites indeed to whom you will do well to speak with all freedom. A few more in Newcastle are of the same spirit: Altho’ they are but few in whom ye Gold is free from dross. I wish you could help poor Molly Stralliger. I am often afraid for her lest she shᵈ be ignorant of Satan’s devices, and lose all that GOD had wrought in her."

The twentieth letter we give in full, not because it is more interesting than the other letters, but because it has not before appeared in public print.[23] The other letters will be found in the _Life and Letters of Thomas Pelham Dale_, by his daughter, Helen Pelham Dale, published by George Allen, 1894. The whereabouts of this letter was not then known, but it has since been unearthed from a collection of autographs made by a connection of the family. Possibly the other missing letters may be in other collections. The letter is dated from Athlone, June 19, 1767: "My dear Peggy, By conversing with you, I should be overpaid for coming two or three hundred miles round about. But how it will be I know not yet. If a ship be ready for Whitehaven, then I shall arrive at Whitehaven or Newcastle, otherwise I must sail for Holyhead or Chester. I hope you now again find the increased witness that you are saved from sin. There is a danger in being content without it, into which you may easily reason yourself. You may easily bring yourself to believe there is no need of it, especially while you are in an easy and peaceful state. But beware of this. The Witness of Sanctification as well as of Justification, is ye privilege of God’s Children, and you may have the one always clear as well as ye other if you walk humbly and closely with God. In what state do you find your mind now? Full of Faith and Love? Praying always? Then I hope you always remember my Dear Peggy, Your affectionate Brother, J. Wesley."

Before Wesley wrote again he had been to Newcastle and had seen Peggy. The letter is dated from Witney, August 27, and is, as usual, very affectionate in tone: "I thought it was hardly possible for me to love you better than I did before I came last to Newcastle. But your artless, simple, undisguised Affection exceedingly increased mine. At the same time it increased my Confidence in you so that I feel you are unspeakably near and dear to me." He adds in a postscript, "Don’t forget what you have learnt in Music." Possibly Peggy had been showing her friend her accomplishments. Possibly, too, she had learnt her music from a certain young man, Edward Avison, afterwards organist of St. Nicholas’ Church, Newcastle. If this were the case, her teacher taught Peggy something else beside music, for she afterwards married him.

In the next letter we get glimpses of two people famous in the Methodist world of the day, George Whitefield, and Darcy, Lady Maxwell. Of George Whitefield it is unnecessary to speak. Lady Maxwell was the daughter of Thomas Brisbane of Brisbane in Ayrshire, and the widow of Sir Walter Maxwell, fourth Baronet, of Pollock. Left a childless widow in 1757, she became a follower of John Wesley, though she did not formally join the Methodists till many years later. She provided the money for building the school at Kingswood.

Wesley writes: "I hope Mr. Whitefield was an instrument of good at Newcasle, and a means of stirring up Some. He is very affectionate and very lively and his word seldom falls to the ground: tho’ he does not frequently speak of the deep things of GOD, or the Height of ye Promises. But you say not one word of Lady Maxwell? Did she call at Newcastle going and coming? Did you converse with her alone? And did she break thro’ her Natural and habitual Shyness? How did you find her? Seeking Heavenly things alone, and all athirst for _God_? It will be a miracle of miracles if she stands, considering the thousand snares that surround her. I have much satisfaction when I consider in how different a situation you and my Dear Molly Dale are. You have every outward Advantage for Holiness wch an indulgent Providence can give."[24]

The correspondence now begins to slacken. Peggy has accused him of not answering her last letter; in reply Wesley writes from Liverpool, April 1, 1768. "I do not understand what Letter you mean. I have answer’d (if I do not forget) every letter which I have receiv’d, and I commonly answer either of you within a day or two. In this respect, I do not love to remain in your debt. In others I must always be so, for I can never pay you the Affection I owe. Accept of what little I have to give.... I hope to be at Glasgow on Wednesday the 19th instant, at Aberdeen ye 28th, at Edinburgh May 5th, at Newcastle on Friday May 20th."

The next letter dated June 30, 1768, may be described as a very brief treatise on Sanctification. Then there is a gap of nearly a year, the next letter being dated May 20, 1769. Peggy has had to endure a great trial. Her sister Molly married a Mr. John Collinson of London. The _Newcastle Courant_ of April 29, 1769, thus announces the fact: "Thursday, was married at St. Andrew’s, Mr. John Collinson of London to Miss Dale of Northumberland Street, daughter of the late Mr. Dale of Tunstall, near Sunderland, a most agreeable young lady, endowed with every qualification to render the marriage state happy, with a fortune of £2,000." But Peggy felt her sister’s defection much. Wesley was strongly in favour of the single life both for men and women. He had published a treatise in favour of celibacy, entitled _Thoughts on a Single Life_. It is true that he himself afterwards married in the year 1751, but, as his matrimonial experiences were distinctly unfortunate (he separated from his wife for ever after five years of married life), he was not unnaturally more than ever firmly convinced of the advantage of celibacy.[25] Peggy was as yet quite sure that John Wesley was right in this as in everything else.

He comforts her thus: "The hearing from my Dear Peggy at this critical time gives me a particular satisfaction. I wanted to know, How you bore such a trial, a wound in the tenderest part. You have now a first proof that the God whom you serve, is able to deliver you in every trial. You feel and yet conquer.... I hope you are delivered not only from _repining_ with regard to Her, but from _reasoning_ with regard to yourself. You still see the more excellent way, and are sensible of the advantages you enjoy. I allow _some_ single women have fewer Advantages for Eternity than they might have in a married State. But, blessed be GOD you have all the Advantages wch one can well conceive.... O may you improve every advantage to the uttermost. And give more and more comfort to, my Dear Peggy, your Affectionate Brother, J. Wesley."

There is one more letter from London, November 17, 1769, encouraging Peggy to persevere in her work for others. Then the letters cease. Perhaps there were more letters which have been lost, or were perchance destroyed by the recipient. Wesley, with his zeal for celibacy, can hardly have liked the news of his Peggy’s engagement to Edward Avison. He was organist of St. Nicholas’, Newcastle, in succession to his father, Charles Avison,[26] once a well-known musician in the North of England. He was three years younger than Peggy. Their married life was short. They were married March, 1773: Edward Avison died October, 1776, aged twenty-nine; and Peggy in November, 1777, aged thirty-three. They left no children. Their monument in the churchyard of St. Andrew’s Church, Newcastle, says: "They were eminent for piety and primitive simplicity of manners; having each borne a lingering disease with the most exemplary patience and resignation, they rejoiced at the approach of death." Perhaps Wesley visited Newcastle during the last year of his dear Peggy’s life, and was able to minister spiritual consolation to her. Let us hope that any breach that Peggy’s marriage may have made between her and one who loved her with so tender and paternal an affection was cured by the approach of Death, the great Healer.

Little remains to be said. Mary Collinson lived to 1812, and left a family of two sons, George Dale and John Collinson, and three daughters, Ann Collinson, Thermuthis Collinson, and Mary, the wife of Christopher Godmond. It is not known if any of her descendants are alive to-day; if there be any such, they may very likely possess the missing letters. Ann Dale never married, and lived till 1820. Edward, their brother, died in 1826, having seen five of his six sons die before him without issue. His eldest and only surviving son, also Edward, lived till 1862, and then died childless. With him died out the senior branch of the family of Dale of Dalton-le-Dale and Tunstall. Since his death there have been no Dales of this family residing in the Bishopric. How the letters written by John Wesley came into the possession of Canon Dale, or Canon Dale’s father, William Dale, is not known. Possibly Anne Dale gave them to William Dale, or her brother may have given them to his son. It is certain that to that son’s careful preservation of them we owe this intimate revelation of the great revivalist’s affection for a Durham girl.

THE OLD FAMILIES OF DURHAM

BY HENRY R. LEIGHTON

The evil fate that has attended the old houses in this county has followed equally relentlessly the families who once dwelled therein. Here and there, it is true, a family still exists that has weathered the storms of long centuries; one or two, perhaps, may be pointed out that have increased their acreage as the long years went by; and perhaps another two or three whose lands remain with daughters’ heirs.

With few exceptions, almost all the families of importance in feudal days have passed away. The great House of Neville,[27] that once threatened to overshadow the Lords Palatine themselves, survives only in several southern branches, and their name is almost forgotten in their native land. The baronial houses of Eure,[28] Conyers, Hylton, and FitzMarmaduke have all passed away. So, too, have nearly all the names recorded in the Heralds’ Visitations at intervals from 1530 to 1666. Of the latter, eight only retain their patrimonial acres. These are the Chaytors, Edens, Lambtons, Liddells, Lumleys, Salvins, Vanes, and Whartons. To these may be added the Williamsons, who came from Nottinghamshire, and the Shaftos from Northumberland.

The Visitations of Durham[29] are, like those of the sister county of Northumberland, notoriously incomplete. Of the latter, Surtees wrote: "The Northumbrian gentry, many of whom probably never heard of the Visitation, would scarcely leave their business or amusements to attend an Officer of Arms for a purpose of which few then saw the utility, and which, it is plain, in many instances was considered an extreme nuisance." In the adjoining county to the south there was a similar state of affairs. Of Dugdale’s _Visitation of York_, Mr. Davies wrote: "Nearly one-third of the whole number of gentry whom the herald called upon to appear before him with proofs of their arms and pedigrees treated his summonses with neglect."

In this county both a long and a strong list of families of gentle blood can easily be enumerated who, for one reason or another, make no appearance in the Heralds’ books. No one familiar with the history of the county can have helped remarking the absence of families formerly so well known, and in many cases still well known, as the Allgoods of Bradley, Blacketts of Hoppyland, Bromleys of Nesbitt, Dales of Dalton, Douthwaites of Westholme, Emersons of Westgate, Goodchilds of Pallion, Greenwells of Greenwell and Stobilee, Holmeses of Wearmouth, Hunters of Medomsley, Ironsides of Houghton, Meaburns of Pontop, and others whose names spin out too long a list to give in full. Now, most of these families had intermarried with families who registered and had written themselves as "gentlemen" for several generations; and, as an interesting sidelight upon the Visitations, we believe it could be shown that more than one family who registered was in debt pretty heavily to others who didn’t register. So it does not appear to have been altogether a matter of means.

It may perhaps be as well, before proceeding farther, to notice the principal material we have, in addition to the Visitations, for proving the succession to estate in this county.

Durham, being a separate regality, is not included in the Domesday Book, and our earliest record is the Boldon Book, dated some years later, being compiled by order of Bishop Pudsey in 1183. Later there is a survey of the county, made by order of Bishop Hatfield, who ruled from 1345 to 1381. From the time of Bishop Beaumont (1318-33) the succession may be proved by the inquisitions post-mortem taken upon the death of every owner. These documents were formerly kept at Durham, but are now, with many other local records, in London.

With these must be mentioned the Halmote Rolls, commencing in 1349, containing a record of all holders of the Bishop’s lands and other records of the cursitors. The Durham Chancery Proceedings, also now in the Record Office, are full of the most interesting information respecting local families.

The wills of residents in the Bishopric from the sixteenth century onwards are of great value. A few also of the parish registers within the diocese commence towards the end of the same century, but the majority do not date with any regularity until another hundred years had passed.

Limited space forbids any lengthy account of the families individually, and a few passing notices must suffice. Amongst the existing "indigenous" families, as Surtees calls them, the Lumleys must bear the palm, not for length of pedigree, but for the long period they have ranked amongst the greater nobility.

Probably for some generations before, and certainly from, the days of Uchtred, Lord of Lumley, _temp._ King Stephen, the family has held high rank. Marmaduke de Lumley, who was in right of his mother one of the coheirs of the barony of Thweng, made an interesting change in the family arms. His father had borne a scarlet shield with six silver popinjays, whilst his mother’s family arms were a golden shield, thereon a fess gules. Marmaduke dispensed with three of the popinjays, and placed his mother’s fess between the remaining three, two above it and one below. His son Sir Ralph, the builder of the castle at Lumley, was summoned to Parliament as a Baron in the eighth year of Richard II.’s reign. Yorkist in sympathy, he joined in an unfortunate attempt to overthrow the fourth Henry in the year that monarch grasped the throne, and was killed at Cirencester in a skirmish. One of his younger sons, Marmaduke, was successively Bishop of Carlisle and Lincoln, and Lord High Treasurer of England. John de Lumley, Sir Ralph’s second but eldest surviving son, was restored to his father’s estates by King Henry, became a distinguished leader in the French wars, and was slain on the field of Baugé in 1421. The successor, his only son Thomas, was summoned to Parliament in his grandfather’s barony in 1461, the attainder of the latter being reversed upon petition.

Third in descent from the last-named peer, John, the fifth Baron, took part in the great victory of Flodden. He lived to see his son and heir, George Lumley, beheaded for high treason, and attainted, for taking part in the Pilgrimage of Grace.

George Lumley’s son, John Lumley, was recreated a Peer in 1547, his father’s attainder being reversed. This John, Lord Lumley, must have been something of an Oriental in his philosophy. He was strongly imbued with the spirit of ancestor-worship. It was he who brought two stone monuments from Durham Abbey under the belief that they were of his forefathers, and set them up with a long line of effigies representing every generation of his house from a remote period. The rooms at Lumley were also hung with a series of portraits of the same individuals by his direction. About the origin of these the late Mr. Planché advanced an interesting theory, printed in 1866, in the _Journal of the British Archæological Association_.

Lord Lumley appears to have impressed his family importance upon William James, the contemporary Bishop of Durham, whose repetition of the pedigree so astonished that modern Solomon, King James I., that the latter evidently thought the Bishop was taking a rise out of him. "By my saul, I didna ken Adam’s name was Lumley!" said the Sovereign. Doubtless this was a natural exclamation, for it was the King’s first meeting with a pedigree drawn up by an Elizabethan Herald. He would meet others as he travelled farther South!

The estates passed on the death of this peer to a second cousin, Sir Richard Lumley. Created in 1628 a Viscount in the Peerage of Ireland, Sir Richard in later years was known as a gallant Royalist, and one of Prince Rupert’s trusted officers.

His son, another Richard, one of the commanders of the Royal army at Sedgemoor, was advanced in 1690 to the Earldom of Scarborough. Little more remains to be said, beyond that Lumleys have taken part in almost every war since that date (one, Sir William, commanded the cavalry at Albuera; and another, a captain in the navy, was killed on the _Isis_ in 1782), and that Lumley Castle is still the seat of the Earls of Scarborough.

Closely allied to the Lumleys by marriage, the Lambtons have owned the adjoining estate of Lambton from the twelfth century. Their connection with the curious legend of the Lambton Worm has made the name widely known in the North. From the fifteenth century onwards the family were perhaps most remarkable for the brilliant series of marriages the successive owners of the estate made. Matches with Rokeby of Rokeby, Lumley of Ludworth, the Lords Eure, the Tempests of Stella, and the Curwens of Workington, each either bringing additional lands to the house, or else widening and extending the family influence, came to a climax with the marriage of Ralph Lambton, in 1696, with Dorothy Hedworth, heiress to great estates on the north bank of the river. The great-grandson of this marriage was the celebrated Radical Earl of Durham, whose life has been told in recent years by Mr. Stuart Reid.

The Greenwells are the third ancient house in this county who still dwell on the lands from which they take their name. At the time our earliest record, the Boldon Book, was compiled, William the Priest[30] held lands at Greenwell, in the green valley of Wolsingham, and his sons, James and Richard de Greenwell, took their surname from their home. From their generation through long centuries Greenwell succeeded Greenwell, until the death of Henry Greenwell in 1890. The estate then passed to his brother’s daughter, Mrs. Fletcher, who sold Greenwell within the last few years to her kinsman, Sir Walpole Eyre Greenwell, Bart.

Like other families, as the years passed by, younger sons founded branches, some of which flourished and became even more influential than the parent stem.

Anthony Greenwell, a son of Peter Greenwell of Wolsingham, and grandson of Peter Greenwell of Greenwell, living in the reign of Henry VIII., is stated to have settled at Corbridge, in the adjoining county of Northumberland. His son Ralph became allied by marriage to a number of influential families; the administration issued after the death of his father-in-law, Ralph Fenwick of Dilston, in

1623, showing that the latter left five daughters, his coheirs. Of these, Isabel, the eldest, married Ralph Greenwell, Mary married John Swinburne, Agnes was wife to John Orde, Margaret to George Tempest of Winlaton, and Barbara married William Harrison.

Ralph’s grandson Nicholas, so named after his mother’s father Nicholas Leadbitter of Warden, married, in 1683, Frances Whitfield, and their son, Whitfield Greenwell, a captain in the army, was killed at the Battle of Glenshiels in 1719. From his grandson, John Greenwell, of the India House, the present Sir Walpole Greenwell is lineally descended.

A second branch of the family has long been known as the Greenwells of Greenwell Ford, thus curiously taking their name from the old home in Wolsingham parish and giving it to the new (though its very newness has now grown green with age) home near Lanchester.

Thomas Greenwell, probably a younger son of John Greenwell of Greenwell, living _circa_ 1440, took up his abode at Stobilee, in the parish of Satley (the vill of which had been held in chief in the early days of the fourteenth century by Robert de Greenwell), and there his descendants resided until the time of the Commonwealth, when the then head of the family, William Greenwell, was sequestered as a Royalist, his lands being taken from him, and let to Henry Blackett by the Parliamentary Commissioners.

Nicholas Greenwell, a younger brother of the Royalist William, founded the house of Ford, purchasing that estate in 1633. He married at Medomsley, in 1623, Mary Kirkley, probably a near relative of Michael Kirkley of Newcastle, whose daughter married the first Sir William Blackett. This Michael Kirkley mentions in his will, which he made in 1620, amongst other relatives, his cousin, Mr. William Greenwell the elder, of London, merchant, to whom William Camden, the Herald, had confirmed in 1602 "the antient armes of the worshipfull family of Greenwell, of Grenewell Hill, in the County Palatine of Duresme, from which the said William Greenwell is descended." This London branch of the family ended with an heiress, who married Thomas Legh, of Ridge, in Cheshire.

Returning to Nicholas Greenwell of Ford, he died in 1640, and was buried amongst his ancestors at Lanchester. His son, another William, added lands at Kibblesworth to the paternal estate by marriage with an heiress of the Cole family. He died at an advanced age in 1701, when his eldest son, Nicholas, succeeded to Greenwell Ford, whilst Kibblesworth passed to his younger son, Robert. The latter was great-grandfather of the late Major-General Sir Leonard Greenwell, K.C.B., who, in 1820, acted as godfather to the present venerable head of the family, the author of Greenwell’s Glory, one of, if not, the best trout flies known.

Other branches of the family have flourished for awhile and then disappeared. In 1697 William Greenwell of Whitworth acquired a moiety, including the mansion-house of Great Chilton, where his descendants lived for some three generations. One of his daughters married Cuthbert Smith, whose brother Ralph became his heir. This hunting squire bequeathed his property, for no other reason but that they had often ridden together

"From the drag to the chase, from the chase to the view,
From the view to the death in the morning,"

to Robert Surtees of Milkwellburn.

At a much earlier date another William Greenwell owned a fair estate at Neasham, and dying in 1619 left two daughters, Margaret aged three and Eleanor two years, as his heirs. His widow married Marmaduke Wyville, and the daughters respectively became the wives of John Taylor of Appleton, and Ralph Hedworth of Pokerley.

One other branch, still surviving, must not be passed over. The estate of Broomshields near to Satley has belonged to Greenwells from as far back as 1488, when one of the many Peters lived there. The representation of the Maddisons of Hole House in the Derwent Valley, a family celebrated in local history and ballad, passed into this family by marriage in 1774. A later owner of Broomshields, John Greenwell, married Elizabeth, daughter of Alan Greenwell of Ford, and thus re-united the two families.

Many years have passed since Robert Surtees wrote: "_Sic transit._ We know not what are become of the descendants of Bulmer, whose ancestors held Brancepeth and Middleham Castles. The family of Conyers, which has had Parliamentary lords, and once consisted of nine or ten flourishing branches (excepting some remains in the South), is reduced to a single Baronet’s title without a fortune, and the probable descendants of Surtees of Dinsdale are ignorant of their own origin, whilst the chief male line is either extinct or steeped in poverty and oblivion."

The great house of Surtees derives, as its name implies, its origin from a family resident to a remote period on the banks of the River Tees. William, the son of Siward, was living there in the reign of Henry II., and his son Ralph was the first to style himself Sur Tees, the family residence being then, as for many long years afterwards, at Dinsdale, the adjoining seat to Sockburn where the Conyers family dwelt.

Of the dissolution of this head house of the race, Mr. Surtees added: "I discovered by a remarkable deed at Durham (unknown to Hutchinson) how the estates went to Brandling in prejudice of Marmaduke, heir male of the half-blood; and that Marmaduke’s grandson Thomas sold most of what remained in the male line; but I cannot find further as to this Thomas except that his younger brother Richard married and had two sons, Robert and Richard, who are the last I can trace of this branch, the undoubted direct heirs."

The existing branches of this old family now resident at Redworth Hall, Mainsforth, and Hamsterley, derive their descent from a William Surtees who, in the year 1440, acquired lands in Whickham under the Halmote Court, his sureties being Robert Boutflower and Thomas Gibson.

His descendants for some generations resided within the parishes of Whickham in this county, and Ovingham in Northumberland.

Edward Surtees strengthened the family by marrying in 1617 Margaret Coulson, whose mother was sister and heir of Robert Surtees, Alderman and twice Mayor of Durham.

The eldest son of this marriage was ancestor of the famous beauty, Bessy Surtees, who ran away with and married John Scott, afterwards Lord Eldon and Chancellor of Great Britain.

The second son, Robert Surtees of Ryton, added to his inheritance by marrying an heiress of the Hauxley family. He purchased Mainsforth and founded the two families now owning that seat and Redworth, and amongst his descendants was Robert Surtees the historian, to whom his native county owes an everlasting debt.

The Surtees of Hamsterley Hall trace their descent from a Cuthbert Surtees of Ebchester who died in 1622, and whose relationship to the Ovingham family is not at present clear. His son Anthony, however, held the Hollins in Ovingham parish in 1629, and that property in 1586 was in the possession of Rowland Surtees, who died the following year, and who was brother of William Surtees, ancestor of the families already mentioned.

Hamsterley descended to Robert Smith Surtees, the author of some well-known sporting novels.

The Edens are almost certainly an indigenous family, for there can be but little doubt that they derive their name from the village of Eden, now called Castle Eden. The family for a number of generations resided at Preston-on-Tees,

where lands were held by Robert de Eden in 1413. A succession of Thomases and Williams bring the pedigree into the sixteenth century, when John Eden married an heiress of the Lambtons. After the heads of the house successively increased the family patrimony by marrying heiresses of the Hutton, Welbury, and Bee families, John Eden’s great-great-grandson, Robert by name, followed his ancestor’s example by marrying another Lambton heiress. He was Member for the county and was created a Baronet in 1672. Sir Robert Eden, the third Baronet, had a large and distinguished family. His second son Robert was Governor of Maryland, and created a Baronet in 1776. He was ancestor of the present Sir William Eden, who succeeded also to the inheritance of the first-named Sir Robert’s eldest son, and is thus doubly a Baronet. The Governor’s next brother, Sir Robert’s third son, was the distinguished statesman, William Lord Auckland, and the fifth son, Sir Morton Eden, an eminent diplomatist, was created Baron Henley, and was ancestor of the present peer. One of the sisters of this talented trio married John Moore, Archbishop of Canterbury, and another married the Rev. Richard Richardson, Chancellor of St. Paul’s.

Several old families have for many generations dwelt in the Valley of the Derwent, and were all more or less intermarried with each other.

Thomas Hunter, about the end of the fourteenth century, married Margaret Layton, heiress, through her mother, of the family of Alanshields of Alanshields. A century later quite a small clan of the Hunters were resident up and down the valley, but principally at Medomsley. Here in 1675 was born Dr. Christopher Hunter, the celebrated antiquary; and here nearly a century later, in 1757, General Sir Martin Hunter, G.C.M.G., first saw the light.

The Stevensons were another Derwentside family, whose name is best known through John Hall, the _Eugenius_ of Sterne, having taken it when he married the heiress of Ambrose Stevenson of Byerside.

The Shaftos have in various branches been closely connected with the county for many centuries. The late Rev. John Hodgson, in an early volume of the _Archæologia Æliana_, throws doubt upon the traditional descent of the Shaftos in the male line from the Folliots. He overlooked, however, several important facts that at least render the assertion possible. The Fenwick of which the Folliots were Lords is not the Fenwick in Northumberland as he assumed, but the place of that name in Yorkshire which passed by the marriage of Margaret Folliot to her husband, Sir Hugh Hastings, and long continued in his family.

Cuthbert, son of John Folliot of Fenwick, is said to have acquired lands at Shafto in Northumberland by marrying one of the heirs of Roger Welwick of that place, and his descendants took the local name; another daughter of Roger is stated in the Visitation of Rutland, 1618, to have married a Bryan Harbottle. A comparison of the arms of the respective families shows that the Shafto coat is merely the Folliot arms differenced. Jordan Folliot in 1295 bore _gules a bend argent_, and Robert de Shaftowe, a contemporary, bore _gules on a bend argent, three mullets azure_.

The Shaftos of Tanfield Leigh in this county recorded their pedigree at the Visitation of 1615. Le Neve continued the family for several generations. James Shafto, aged eight, in 1615 married a sister of Sir John Jackson of Harraton, and his son was living in 1707, and then described as very poor. His son, again, a third James, married a daughter of Sir Thomas Sandford, and had three sons, after whom the descent is not clear.

The family now resident at Whitworth Park are an early offshoot of the Shaftos of Bavington in Northumberland. They have several times intermarried with the Edens, and, like that family, are very rich in quarterings. Their escutcheon includes the arms of the Cavendishes, Dukes of Newcastle; the Lords Ogle, and many other great houses. Within the last century Beamish Park, near Chester-le-Street, has become the seat of another branch of the same family.

The Salvins of Croxdale are another of our old historic families who have held the same acres for generations. They have lived at their present home from the early days of the fifteenth century. In the time of King Charles they were gallant Loyalists, and two of them were killed in the King’s service.

The Whartons have also resided near to Durham for a good many centuries. They descend from the Whartons of Wharton in Westmorland, and their armorial insignia is interesting both in its origin and as illustrating the close alliance often existing between families bearing similar arms. Amongst the Normans who settled in this country after the Conquest was a family named Flamanville, often abbreviated into Flamville, who took their name from their lordship of that name in the province of La Manche in Normandy, and gave it as a suffix to their new Leicester estate of Aston. Their coat of arms was simply _la manche_, the sleeve, and so the name originally applied to the curious geographical shape of a peninsula came to be a familiar term in English heraldry. They intermarried with the Conyers and the Hastings, and both these families adopted the _manche_ as their emblem. An heiress of the latter family married a Wharton, and to this day a silver _manche_ or _maunch_ on a black field is the Wharton arms.

Dr. Wharton of Old Park, a lineal ancestor of the Dryburn family, is celebrated as one of the courageous physicians who continued to visit the sick during the Great Plague of London. One of his descendants, Dr. Thomas Wharton, was the friend of the poet Thomas Gray, who visited him at Old Park.

The name of Burdon is an old one in the county, and probably derived from one or other of the local villages of that name. There were Burdons at Helmdon centuries ago, and for a number of generations Burdens have owned Castle Eden. The curious articles on the family arms, described by some writers as organ-pipes, are said to be in reality palmers’ staffs, and are so used by the present family.

One branch of the Ords, who are a Northumbrian, or more correctly a North Durham, family, must not be passed over. In the reign of James I. John Ord acquired property at Fishburn, and founded the house who have for so long dwelt at Sands Hall, beside Sedgefield.

Another family of Northumbrian extraction are the Blenkinsopps of Hoppyland, who are, however, in the male line descended from the Leatons or Leightons of Benfieldside. Hoppyland was purchased from the Blacketts in 1768 by William Leaton of Gibside, agent to the Bowes family.

The Blacketts, who now reside at Wylam in Northumberland, held Hoppyland for several generations. Their ancestor, Edward Blackett, of Shildon, married for his second wife a daughter of the famous Lilburne family of Thickley-Puncharden, and a near relative of "Freeborn John." The Baronet family, who now own the old Conyers estate of Sockburn, are also descended from this Edward, and are rather curiously derived from the latter family. The first baronet’s wife was a daughter of Michael Kirkley of Newcastle, whose wife’s grandmother, Marion Anderson, was a lineal descendant of William Conyers of Wynyard.[31]

Ravensworth Castle, near Gateshead, has been the home of the Liddell family since 1607. The third owner of the name was created a Baronet by King Charles I. in 1642, and was a strong Royalist during the troubled years of that King’s reign. Since then the family has twice held peerages. Sir Henry Liddell was created Baron Ravensworth in 1747, but as he had no children the title became extinct at his death in 1784. His great-nephew, Sir Thomas Henry Liddell, took the same title on his elevation to the peerage in 1821.

Two members of the Ravensworth family have left names well known in the literary world. The second Baron, son and namesake of the first, was the author of a translation into English lyric verse of the _Odes of Horace_, and, in conjunction with Mr. Richards, he published in blank verse a translation of the last six books of Virgil’s _Æneid_. He was created Earl of Ravensworth, a title that died with his son, when the Barony passed to a cousin. The Very Rev. Henry George Liddell, Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, and some time Vice-Chancellor of that University, was one of the compilers of the well-known Greek lexicon.

The Bowes family was once as widely scattered over Durham as the Conyers. Streatlam Castle and Gibside, Bradley Hall, Biddick, and Thornton Hall, were all residences of the Boweses at one time. One branch only in the male line survives, and is now resident at Croft. Streatlam and Gibside, however, still belong to descendants in the female line--the Earls of Strathmore--who have added the name of their Durham ancestors to the paternal surname of Lyon.

One of the most celebrated members of this family was _Old_ Sir William Bowes, whose devotion to the young wife he lost, when he was about twenty-eight years old, has caused him to be celebrated amongst true lovers. He lived to a great age, and never remarried.

A descendant of his, Sir George Bowes, is celebrated in local rhyme as--

"Cowardy! cowardy! Barney Castle,"

a most erroneous term, for he was, in very truth, a loyal and gallant gentleman, whose brave defence of Barnard Castle in a time of strife and rebellion perhaps saved England for Queen Elizabeth. But the Boweses have always, like most of our real old families, been a brave old race, and fully up to their motto: _In multis, in magnis, in bonis expertus_.

The Chaytors are descended from a certain John Chaytor, of Newcastle, merchant, whose widow remarried William Wilkinson, another merchant in the same old city.

The widow of both made her will on March 23, 1558-59, and in it, after desiring to be buried in All Saints’ Church, Newcastle, beside her last lord, mentions her two sons, Christopher and John, and her daughter, Jane Kirkhouse. John Chaytor the younger married a daughter of James Perkinson, and left two children, Elizabeth and John, living in 1579.

Christopher Chaytor became an important public man, and, besides acquiring the Manor of Butterby, near Durham, gathered into the family fold the great estate of the noble old house of Clervaux, of Croft, and founded the present Baronet Chaytors. His son Thomas married a daughter of Sir Nicholas Tempest, Bart., of Stella; and his son again, Nicholas Chaytor, was a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Royal Army under the famous fighting Marquess of Newcastle, and by his wife, a Lambton heiress, was father of Sir William, created a Baronet in 1671. This baronetcy became extinct on the death of the first holder in 1720, but was again revived when Sir William Chaytor was created a Baronet in 1801.

The Tempests, as already mentioned, were relatives of the Chaytors. They came into the county from Yorkshire, when Sir William Tempest, of Studley, married the heiress of the Washingtons of Washington. His natural son, Rowland, acquired a considerable estate by marrying one of the many coheirs of the great baronial family of Umphreville, and was ancestor of the various families of the name seated in this county.

Sir Nicholas Tempest, of Stella Hall, in the reign of James I., was created a Baronet, and was buried at Ryton in 1625.

Portrait of Sir George Bowes

(_From the painting at Streatlam Castle_)]

His younger brother, Rowland Tempest, was ancestor of the Tempests of the Isle and Old Durham, whose representative some hundred years later, John Tempest, who was many years M.P. for the city of Durham, left a daughter Frances, who became eventually heiress of this branch of the family. She married the Rev. Sir Henry Vane, Bart., Prebendary of Durham Cathedral, a descendant of the famous Sir Henry Vane the elder, and her son, assuming his mother’s name, became Sir Henry Vane-Tempest. He left an only daughter, Frances Anne Emily, who married the third Marquess of Londonderry as his second wife, and was grandmother of the present Marquess.

The Vanes, who descend from a common ancestor with the Earls of Westmorland, have only been connected with Durham since the reign of James I., when Sir Henry Vane, of Hadlo Castle, a Kentish knight, acquired Raby Castle by grant from the Crown. His youngest son was ancestor of the Marquesses of Londonderry, and his eldest son was ancestor of the late Duke of Cleveland and of the present Lord Barnard.

The Williamsons came into this county through a strange decree of fate. The estate of Monkwearmouth passed from its purchaser, Colonel George Fenwick, of Brinkburn, the well-known Puritan, to his daughter Dorothy, who married Sir Thomas Williamson, of East Markham, in Nottinghamshire. Sir Thomas belonged to a Cavalier family that had lost much in the Royal cause.

Sir William, the fourth Baronet, married a sister of Mrs. Lambton, of Lambton, and co-heiress of John Hedworth, of Harraton, whose wife was a descendant of William James, sometime Bishop of Durham. Whitburn Hall has for several generations been the family residence, and the present Baronet is the ninth.

Lord Boyne’s family are only recent settlers in Durham, and came here when Brancepeth Castle passed to the seventh Viscount upon his marriage with an heiress of the Russells. They have been Barons of Brancepeth since 1866.

Other old families still existent in the shire who should at least be mentioned are the Pembertons[32] of Belmont Hall, the Wilkinsons of Durham, the Fogg-Elliots of Elvet Hill, the Bateses of Wolsingham, the Trotters of Helmdon, and the Hutchinsons.

The Claverings of Axwell, a noble old race, have within the last few years died out in the male line, but the name and blood continue in the present owners of the old home.

Descendants of other old families doubtless linger on: Byerleys and Fawcetts, Darnells and Croudaces, Muschamps and Emersons, Morgans and Marleys, Ewbankes and Raines, Rippons and Maddisons, and many another race, inheriting to the full the traditions of our country, are to be found scattered up and down the county.

INDEX

Abbey, Durham, 158

---- of Durham dissolved, 16

Acre, 107

Agnes’s Fast, St., 53

Alanshields of Alanshields, 249

Aldhun, Bishop, 109

"All Fools’ Day," 57

Alston, 41

Altars at Bolihope, Roman, 80

Altar-screen, Durham, 121-122, 138

Altar-tomb, Neville, 170

---- of Bernard Gilpin, 194, 195

Amiatinus, the Codex, 151

Anglo-Saxon memorial crosses, 183

Arms, Greenwell, 225

---- Lumley, 242

Associations of John Wesley, Durham, 229-238

Asylum, Sunderland Orphan, 35

Auckland, brasses in St. Andrew’s, 180, 189

---- brass in St. Helen’s, 180, 190

Aucklandshire, 39

Aycliffe Church, 171

Baker, Mrs. Sarah, 194

Bale Hill, 218

Balliol, Bernard de, 213

---- John, sometime King of Scotland, 213

Ballads, Robert Surtees’, 65

Bank, 105

Barbara, Bishop William de St., 30

Barnard Castle, 40, 213

---- ---- Church, 170, 185

Barnes, Mrs. Fridesmond, 189

Baronial houses, 239

Barons of the Bishopric, 3, 11

Barrow at Copt Hill, 182

Bateses of Wolsingham, 256

Battle of Neville’s Cross, 41

Baydale inn, 24

Bayley, K. C., 7

Beaumont, Lewis, Bishop-elect of Durham, 27, 28

Bede, Venerable, 4, 36

---- at Monkwearmouth and Jarrow, 146-151

Bede’s chair, Jarrow, 54

---- tomb, 123

---- Well, Monkton, 55

Bellasis, 218

Bell, Durham Curfew, 63

---- Pancake, 56

Billingham Church, 172

Binchester, Roman camp at, 4

---- Roman epitaph at, 183

Birthdays folk-lore, 46

Biscop, Benedict, 4, 36, 147, 149, 150

Bishop Aldhun, 109

---- Auckland, 39

---- ---- Palace, 200

---- Cosin, 20, 120, 179

---- Crewe, 21, 204

---- Flambard, 8, 40, 118, 133

---- James, 206

---- Middleham, 222

---- ---- Church, 180

---- Philip de Pictavia, 172

---- Pudsey, 9-33, 37, 38, 134, 166, 195, 202, 241

---- Walcher, 6-7, 30, 32, 36, 156

---- William of St. Carileph, 7, 30, 110, 114, 118, 158, 166

Bishopric, Barons of the, 3, 11

---- of Durham, 1, 2, 81

Bishop’s revenue, 11

Bishopwearmouth effigy, 185

Black Death, the, 12-13

Blackett family, 252

---- Sir Edward, 75

Blakeston of Blakeston, 188

Blakiston, 222

---- Sir William, 212

Blenkinsopps of Hoppyland, 252

Boar, the Pollard, 68-71, 74

Bogs, 101

Boldon Book, 9, 30, 38, 39, 42, 241

---- Church, 176

Bolihope, 91

---- Roman altars at, 80

Bowes of Streatlam, 253

---- Sir George, 41

---- Sir William, 214, 216

Boyne, Lord, 255

Bradley, Ralph, 194

Brae, 105

Brag, the Picktree, 76-78

Brancepeth, 41

---- Castle, 203

---- Church, 179

Brass, Chester-le-Street Church, 190

---- Haughton-le-Skerne, 191

---- Hoton, William, 168, 190

---- Houghton-le-Spring, 191

---- Brasses, monumental, 189

---- Sedgefield Church, 168, 190, 191, 192, 193

Bridge, Prebend’s, 52

---- Tyne, 34

Brigantes, occupation by, 4

Brocks, 91-92

Bronze Age, 182

Brow, 105

Brown, Dame Dorothy, 26

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 224

Bruce, Robert de, 37

---- tombs, 196

Brunskill, Thomas, 222

Bruses (De), tomb of, 165

Bulmer, Bertram de, 203

---- family, 247

---- stone, 25

Burdon family, 251

---- John, 224

Burns, 91-92

Butler, Bishop, 22

"Butterby churchgoer," 64

"Butter Cross," Ravensworth, 212

Byerley, Colonel Anthony, 224

"Byerley’s Bull Dogs," 224

Carileph, Bishop William of St., 7, 30, 110, 114, 118, 158, 166

Carling Sunday, 57

Castle Barnard, 213

---- Brancepeth, 203

---- Durham, 204-207

---- Eden, 216

---- Hilton, 187, 210, 211

---- Lambton, 74, 209

---- Lumley, 207-208

---- Raby, 214, 215

---- Ravensworth, 211, 212

---- Stanhope, 198

---- Streatlam, 213, 214

---- Walworth, 215

---- Witton, 199

Castles and Halls of Durham, 198-228

---- the, 79

Cathedral brasses, Durham, 190-191

---- Durham, 3, 7, 12, 18, 108-129

---- local lore of Durham, 63

Cau’d Lad of Hilton, the, 71-73

Cave, Heatheryburn, 79

Ceolfrid, Abbot, 149, 150

Chancery Proceedings, Durham, 241

Chanter, John the, 149, 161

Chapel, "Galilee," 122

---- Lady, 122, 138

---- Nine Altars, 125, 135

---- of St. Hilda, first, 36

---- St. John’s, 42

Charter, Bishop Hugh Pudsey’s, Durham, 30

Chaytor family, 240, 254

Chester-le-Street, 5, 32, 108, 109, 130, 131

---- Church, 177, 186

Cheyne, John, sculptor, 187

Christian the Mason, 195

"Churchgoer, Butterby," 64

Churches at Monkwearmouth and Jarrow, Saxon, 147

---- of Durham, parish, 162-181

Civil War, outbreak of, 20

Claverings of Axwell, 256

Cleatlam Hall, 221

Clergy, secular, 109

Cleughs, 95-96

Cleve’s Cross, 68

Clopton, John, 220

_Club, Hell-fire_, 204

Codex Amiatinus, 151

Coldingham, Richard de, 173

College, Ushaw, 192

Commission, Ecclesiastical, 18, 23

Common, 105

Coniscliffe, Church of St. Edwin, 172

Convent of SS. Peter and Paul, 147

Conyers falchion, 75, 217

---- family, 247

---- Nicolas, 195

Conyers, Ralph, 223

---- Sir John, 74

Copt Hill, Houghton-le-Spring, 182

Cosin, Bishop, 20, 120, 179

Cotham Conyers, 222

---- Stob, 222

Council of the North, 16

Cow, the Dun, 66-67

Coxhoe Hall, 224

Cradock family, 222

Craft gilds, 31

Craggs family, 83

Crawford, Jack, 35

Crayke, 108

Crewe, Bishop, 21, 204

Cross at Darlington Market, 25, 26

---- at Ravensworth, 212

---- Battle of Neville’s, 41

---- Butter, 212

---- Cleve’s, 28, 68

---- Neville’s, 55, 58

Crosses, 107

---- Anglo-Saxon memorial, 183

---- Billingham pre-Conquest, 172

---- Saxon, 26

Cumin, Robert, Earl of Northumberland, 29

Curfew Bell, Durham, 63

Cuthbert, St., 5, 133, 152, 155

---- Feast of the Translation of St., 29

---- Patrimony of St., 5, 6, 17

---- sanctuary of St., 24

Dalden Tower, 216

Dale, Helen Pelham, 234

---- _Life and Letters of Thomas Pelham_, 234

---- Miss Margaret, 230

---- of Dalton-le-Dale, family of, 238

---- of Tunstall, Edward, 230

---- Rev. Thomas, 229

---- Rev. Thomas Pelham, 229

Dales, name-places in the Durham, 79-107

Dalton Church, 175

Darcy, Lady Maxwell, 235

Darlington Church tower, 166

---- market-cross at, 25, 26

---- rood-loft, 167

---- St. Cuthbert’s Church, 165

"Darnton Trod," 24

Day, New Year’s, 56

Days, lucky, 57

Death, portents of, 51

"Death, power of life and," 1, 11

Delavale, Peter, 194

Denes, 91

Dens, 101

Derwentdale Plot, 21

Dinsdale, 217

---- Church brass, 190

Dog-tooth ornament, only instance of, 167

Douthwaite family, 222

Duck, Sir John, 63, 227

Dun Cow, the, 66-67

Durham, 5-6, 28, 109

---- Bishopric of, 1-2

---- Castle, 204-207