Читать книгу Bygone Cumberland and Westmorland - Daniel Scott - Страница 4

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For a period of 645 years—from 1204 to 1849—Westmorland, unlike other counties in England (excluding, of course, the counties Palatine), had no Sheriff other than the one who held the office by hereditary right. The first Sheriff of the county is mentioned in 1160, and nine or ten other names occur at subsequent periods, until in 1202, the fourth year of the reign of King John, came Robert de Vetripont. Very soon afterwards the office was made hereditary in his family “to have and to hold of the King and his heirs.” The honour and privileges were possessed by no less than twenty-two of Robert’s descendants. Their occupation of the office covers some very exciting periods of county history, the tasks committed to the Sheriffs in former centuries being frequently of an arduous as well as dangerous character.

The Sheriff had very important duties of a military character to carry out. Thus in the sixth year of Henry the Third we have the command from the King to the Sheriff of Westmorland that without any delay he should summon the earls, barons, knights, and freeholders of his bailiwick, and that he should hasten to Cockermouth and besiege the castle there, afterwards destroying it to its very foundations. This order was a duplicate of one sent to the Sheriff of Yorkshire concerning Skipton Castle and other places. It is not known, however, whether the instructions respecting Cockermouth were carried out or not.

The powers of Sheriff not being confined to the male members of the family, the histories of Westmorland contain the unusual information that at least two women occupied, by right of office, seats on the bench alongside the Judges. The first of these was Isabella de Clifford, widow of Robert, and, wrote the historian Machell, “She sate as is said in person at Apelby as Sheriff of the county, and died about 20 of Edward I.” The other case was that of the still more powerful, strenuous, and gifted woman, Anne, Countess of Pembroke. Of her it is recorded that she not only took her seat on the bench, but “rode on a white charger as Sheriffess of Westmorland, before the Judges to open the Assizes.” It will not be forgotten that territorial lords and ladies in bygone times held Courts of their own in connection with their manors and castles. The Rev. John Wharton, Vicar of South Stainmore, in a communication to the writer some time ago said: “From documents shown me by the late John Hill, Esq., Castle Bank, Appleby, the great but somewhat masculine Anne, Countess of Pembroke and Montgomery, seemed partial to Courts of her own. She sat upon many offenders as a judge, and it is handed down that she executed divers persons for treasonous designs and plotting against her estate.”

The Memoranda Rolls belonging to the Lord Treasurer’s Remembrancer, show the mode of presenting or nominating the Sheriff for Westmorland in the time of the Cliffords, his admittance to the office by the Barons of the Exchequer, and his warrant for executing it. From the Rolls of the 15th, 19th, and 23rd years of Edward the First, when the Sheriffwick passed into the family of the Cliffords, it seems that the right of appointment was the subject of litigation between the two daughters and heiresses of the last of the Vetriponts. This ended in an agreement that the elder sister should “present” to, and the younger should “approve” the appointment. In this way Robert de Moreville was admitted to the office of Sheriff in the fifteenth year of Edward’s reign, Gilbert de Burneshead three years later, and Ralph de Manneby in 1295, each swearing faithfully to execute his office and answer to both daughters. On the death of the sisters the Sheriffwick became vested in Robert de Clifford, son and heir of the eldest, and continued in the possession of his descendants until the attainder in 1461.

The list of Sheriffs is, of course, a very long one, and even allowing for the large number of individuals who have left nothing more than their names, there is much material for interesting study in the histories of the others. The actual work was rarely done by the holders of the office. “The functionaries who performed the duties were simply deputies for the Sheriff, and although we find them attesting many ancient charters and grants relating to the county, recording themselves as Vice-Comites (or Sheriffs), they simply executed the office as Pro-Vice-Comites (or Under-Sheriffs). The attainder of the Cliffords during the Wars of the Roses, until its reversal in the first year of Henry the Sixth, causes a void as regards their family, their places being filled from among the supporters of the House of York.”[1] For a considerable period Westmorland was treated as part of Yorkshire, the Sheriff of the latter county rendering an account of the two places jointly. From the time of John, however, the accounts rendered for Westmorland by Yorkshire Sheriffs would have been as Sub-Vice-Comites for the Vetriponts.

The High Sheriffs and their connections lived in considerable state when the country was sufficiently peaceable to permit of it. This is proved by the arrangement and size of their castles, while Sir Lancelot Threlkeld, half-brother of Henry Clifford, used to boast that he had three noble houses. One, at Crosby Ravensworth, where there was a park full of deer, was for pleasure; one for profit and warmth wherein to reside in winter, was the house at Yanwath; and the estate at Threlkeld was “well stocked with tenants ready to go with him to the wars.” The various “progresses” of the Countess Anne also afford evidence of the state kept up, for she frequently speaks of her journeys from one castle to another “escorted by my gentlemen and yeomen.”

Among the numerous pieces of patronage which became the prerogative of the High Sheriffs of Westmorland, was that of the Abbey of Shap, but there does not appear to be any record when this and other privileges passed from them, the property being granted by Henry the Eighth to the Whartons. Where so much power lay in the hands of one person, or of one family, differences with other authorities was perhaps inevitable. The interests of the burgesses of Appleby would seem to have clashed at times with those of the Sheriff, and for very many years the parties kept up a crusade against each other, especially during the reigns of the first three Edwards. What the cost of those proceedings may have been to the Sheriff cannot be told, but on the other side the result was the forfeiture of rights for a considerable time, because the fee farm rent had got into arrear. The Hereditary High Sheriff had the privilege of appointing the governor of the gaol at Appleby, but he had to pay £15 per annum towards the salary, while the magistrates appointed the other officials and made up from the county rates the remainder of the cost of the institution.

The long period during which the holders of the Sheriffwick held the privilege is the more remarkable—as Sir G. Duckett, Bart., reminded the northern archæologists in 1879—because of the way in which ancient grants and statutes have in almost all cases become a dead letter and obsolete.

A singular incident in connection with the Sheriffwick happened about seventy years ago, and is recorded in the life of Baron Alderson, father of the Marchioness of Salisbury. The Baron went to Appleby to hold the half-yearly assizes, but on arriving there found that he could not carry out his work because Lord Thanet was in France, and had omitted to send the documents for obtaining juries. The Judge had therefore to spend his time as best he could for several days, until a messenger could see the High Sheriff in Paris and obtain the necessary papers.

When the eleventh and last Earl of Thanet died in June, 1849, the male line of the family ceased, the estates passing by will to Sir Richard Tufton, father of the present Lord Hothfield. The office of Hereditary High Sheriff was claimed by the Rev. Charles Henry Barham, of Trecwn, nephew of the Earl, but a question arising as to the validity of a devise of the office, Mr. Barham relinquished his claim in favour of the Crown. An Act was afterwards passed—in July, 1850—making the Shrievalty in Westmorland the same as in other counties.