• Chapter 8

The holders of the honour and Castle of Cockermouth

We have seen that, when Gospatric was expelled from the Earldom of Northumberland, Allerdale passed to his third son Waldeof. Waldeof had also received from William de Meschines the whole territory in

• “Kokyr et Derwent” of the five towns of “Brigham, Eaglesfield, Dene, Greysothen, Bramthwayt et duo Clifton et Stainburn”. [1]

This was the new Honour of Cockermouth, but de Meschines remained superior lord of this strip of land. Waldeof is reported to have brought from Jerusalem a bone of St. Paul, a bone of John the Baptist, two stones of Christ’s sepulchre and a piece of the Holy Cross. [2] These relics he gave to the Priory of Carlisle, which he had already liberally endowed. Initially he lived at and administered his lands from Papcastle, but before the end of his life he probably built Cockermouth Castle and moved there.

The succession here is rather uncertain. In the next fifty years or so the barony probably passed first to Waldeofs son Alan, one of the founders of Holmcultram Abbey. It is interesting that Alan made a gift from Cockermouth to the monks of St. Bees, which suggests that he was living there, but Wigton was still doing suit at the court of Pap castle in the 1280s. [3] As Alan apparently had no issue, the barony passed to his aunt Ethreda (Octreda), sister of Waldeof. Her husband had been Duncan n, King of Scotland, and from Ethreda the estate went to their son William Fitz Duncan, nephew of the reigning King of Scotland. (At that time the prefix ‘fitz’ meant ‘son of and did not imply illegitimacy as in later times.)

Meanwhile William de Meschines and his wife Cecilia (Cecily) de Rumelli, lady of Skipton in Yorkshire, had the barony of Coupland which eventually passed to their daughter Alicia (Alice). Alice married William fitz Duncan so the two baronies were joined, making William a very powerful lord.

William and Alice had two sons – first Gospatric who died in infancy, then William – followed by three daughters. Young William, always known as the Boy of Egremont, succeeded to these large estates. Not only was he closely connected with the King of Scotland but he was also second cousin to Henry 11 of England, so that if he had lived a holder of the Honour of Cockermouth might have gained a throne. Unfortunately he was drowned in the Strid, trying to jump this gorge in the River Wharfe, which, while only about four feet wide, is in places thirty feet deep. [4]

The three girls were still very young and Henry II appears to have assumed legal possession of the barony until they were of age to inherit. Their mother Alice presumably continued to live in Cockermouth and it may have been after her death that Henry granted the baronies of Allerdale and Coupland and other lands to the three sisters and their husbands as co-parceners. To the eldest Cecilia, given in marriage by Henry to William de Blois, Earl of Albemarle (known as ‘le Gros’), went the Barony of Skipton. Amabel (Amabilla, Annabel), wife of Richard de Lucy, inherited Coup land and Richard built Egremont Castle. Allerdale-below-Derwent and the five towns (the Honour) passed to the youngest sister Alicia (Alice) and her husband.

Alice had married Gilbert Pipard, being first his ward and then his wife. Gilbert was an itinerant justice of Henry n, Sheriff of Lancaster and holder of various important public offices. There is a record that in 1192 he held the forest of Allerdale from the Crown at a rent of three marks a year and he is also mentioned in the pipe roll of Richard I for 1193, probably the year of his death. Alice later married Robert de Courtenai, who took a turn as Sheriff of Cumberland. She outlived Robert (he died in 1209) and was childless from both marriages. After Robert’s death she paid King John £100, ten palfreys and ten oxen for the liberty of her inheritance, so that she had sufficient income from the estates of both husbands to make it unnecessary for her to marry again.

When Henry Il assigned to Alice the five towns, as a royal gift they ceased to be a part of the Barony of Egremont and this land became an honour in its own right.

The Sheriffs return for 1212 records that “Alice de Rumilly holds her land in Alredale of the king by rendering annually of cornage of £15-13s-4d.”

She must have died about 1215, for in that year King John delivered the estates of Cockermouth and Allerdale to her great-nephew William de Fortibus II pending the division of the property between the descendants of Alice’s two elder sisters.

The eldest of the three sisters, Cecily, had a daughter Harwise (Harwisia, Helewise) who married three times. By her first and third husbands she had no children, but by her second William de Fortibus to whom she was given in marriage by the king in 1195, she had a son – the William de Fortibus 11 just mentioned.

He succeeded as the Earl of Albemarle (from his grandfather) and to the Skipton estate, and married Avelina, daughter and coheir of Richard de Montfichet.

The Allerdale lands which William II was holding were divided in 1224 into two shares of equal value. To him as senior parcener (and incidentally one of the signatories of Magna Carta) went the manor of Cockermouth and the manor house of Papcastle, where the tenants of Allerdale still attended to do suit. The other portion passed to Thomas de Multon, guardian of the infant daughters Amabilla and Alicia of Richard de Lucy, lord of Coup land. By his second marriage he was stepfather to the girls and they married the two sons he already had, Lambert and Alan, and from these marriages came the Multons of Egremont and the Lucies of Cockermouth.

In 1216 Henry III came to the throne and after his coronation made a tour of the country to ascertain the state and custody of the royal castles and probably to find if any had been newly erected or crenellated without his permission. (He introduced licencing for crenellation.) William II opposed this inspection and refused to open the castle at Rockingham, on the border of Northamptonshire and in the de Fortibus Lincolnshire estates.

Later William rebelled more openly. The degree of Henry’s displeasure was shown by the command he sent to the Sheriff of Westmorland in 1221 that

• “without any delay he should summon the earls, barons, knights and freeholders of his bailiwick, and that they should hasten to Cockermouth to besiege the castle there, and when they had taken the same, should destroy it, to its very foundations.” [5]

Richard de Umfraville of Prudhoe Castle, and of a family to have connections with Cockermouth later, was summoned with other barons to assist in the siege.

There is no record of the instructions being fully carried out, but the western tower of the castle has 14th century superstructure on early 13th century foundations. The original building on these foundations may have been destroyed under Henry’s orders or may have been purposely demolished in the course of rebuilding.

Developments in the next few years are confused. In the same year as the above order, 1221, Henry III granted to William a charter to hold a market. If this was before the order to besiege, then Wil1iam would still be lord of the manor. That he may have been deprived of his position is suggested by the following note of 1241, the year of his death

• “Mandate to Henry de Nekcton, Escheator beyond Trent, the King having taken homage of William, son of William de Fortibus, sometime Earl of Albemarle, for all the lands, tenements and castles which the earl held in chief, to deliver to him the castles of Cockermue, Skipton in Craven and Skipse in Holdemess.” [6]

This was William Ill, son of William 11 and Avelina.

A flaw in the argument that the inheritance was held by the king until William Il died, is that in 1222 he gave permission for the Cockermouth market to be held on Mondays instead of Saturdays, and this order was addressed to William. Was William II then still acting as lord of the manor? Finding circumstances were against him, did he relent and decide to obey Henry? There is a suggestion that the Archbishop of York interceded on his behalf. If this is the course that events took, then the mandate to de Neketon must have been merely for his information that the inheritance of the barony by William III was approved and confirmed.

William III married Isabel, heiress of Baldwin de Redvers, Earl of Devon, and when William died in 1260 she received a share of Cockermouth and Allerdale as her dower. Isabel lived until 1293, but in the Record of Pleas for 1268 there is an account of an interesting incident. Isabel made

• “complaint against Roger de Lancaster, Richard de Fleming and others, that, vi et armis, they had come to her castle at Cockermouth, and seized and carried away a goshawk, three doves, and consumed her goods to the amount of forty marks.”

Were Lancaster and Fleming and their friends just taking advantage of a widow and ‘throwing their weight about’? There was a sequel. Isabel and William UI had first three sons, all of whom died in infancy, then two daughters, the elder of whom was Aveline.

In 1269, the year after the above incident, A veline was given in marriage by Henry III to Edmund – and Edmund was Edmund Plantagenet, Earl of Lancaster! In 1273 Edward I made an order for Aveline and Edmund (who was his brother) to have seisin of her inheritance as she was now old enough to receive what had been in the king’s keeping during her minority.

She died soon afterwards, probably in 1274, without having children. Her younger sister must have already died, for Aveline’s part of Allerdale-below-Derwent escheated to the Crown for thirty years.

The first half of the 14th century saw continuous efforts by Edwards I, II and III to find tenants for the castle. Sometimes it was granted as a reward for loyalty to the crown, sometimes in payment of a debt. Frequently it was awarded for life, but either the tenant died soon afterwards or for some reason surrendered it to the king – Edward II’s worthless favourite Piers Gavestone received it in July 1309 and gave it back in August! There were long periods when Cockermouth escheated to the crown and a constable was appointed to manage the estates for the king, who periodically issued orders for the castle to be repaired and well maintained, as when Edward II told the constable to “safely and securely keep and defend the castle of Cockermouth so that no damage or danger happen to the same, for the greater security and tranquillity of his people” [7] while he was abroad.

In 1275, 1307 and 1316 claims were made to the Cockermouth estates by claimants arguing their descent from earlier owners [8] the last of the three being Anthony de Lucy. He eventually acquired them as a reward. In 1318 Andrew de Harcia, Earl of Carlisle, was made governor of Cockermouth Castle for life, in return for defeating the Earl of Lancaster at Boroughbridge. He was either too ambitious or very concerned to quieten down the northern counties, for he made an alliance with Robert Bruce which led to his downfall.

De Lucy visited de Harcia in Carlisle Castle, to all appearances a friendly call. His retinue had arms hidden under their cloaks and at each defended point of Anthony’s entry he left some of his men to chat to the guards. At a given time all were overpowered, Anthony and his last companion taking de Harcia himself. De Harcla was tried and hung, drawn and quartered. With a callousness characteristic of the times his remains were displayed at Carlisle, Newcastle, York and Shrewsbury before being handed over to his sister.

So we find in 16 Edward U(1323) a Royal Charter of Anthony’s reward for services rendered:

• “King to Anthony de Lucie: castle and honour of Cockermouthe, and manor of Papcaster in Allerdale said to be appurtenant thereto, with knight’s fees, advowsons of churches, fairs, markets, free chases, warrens and all other royal liberties in castle, honour and manor, and return of royal writs in the honour; for service of one knight’s fees: witness WiIliam Archbishop of York [and several others] given at Bishopthorpe”

Thus Anthony gained Cockermouth.

There hangs in Cockermouth Castle a document bearing a large seal depicting a knight on horseback, the caption to which reads:

• Letters Patent 4 June 16 Edward II (1323) Grant to Anthony Lord Lucy of the Castle and Honour of Cockermouth and the Manor of Papcastle.

The Lucy Cartulary, which contains the charter quoted on the previous page, also has an entry for 1324 recording a marriage settlement because

•  “Thomas de Lucy had agreed at the King’s request to marry the King’s kinswoman, Agnes.”

This would presumably be Anthony’s son, the only Thomas alive at that time. Anthony not only gained Cockermouth, but he was also made Sheriff of Cumberland and Warden of Carlisle Castle – he stepped into de HarcIa’s place.

On his death in 1343 Cockermouth passed to the Thomas mentioned above and in 1365 to the next generation, Anthony again. Anthony died in the Holy Land three years later and his sister Maud (?r Matilda) inherited. This was the end of the Lucy owners. One writer stated his opinion that

• “As far as I can leme, the nobilist house of the Lucies were they of Cokerrnuth, yn Cumbreland; and these Lucies were also Lordes ofWreschil Castel, about the mouth of Darwent river, in Yorkshire. “[9]

Maud brought two well known names into the history of the castle.

Her first husband was Gilbert de Umfraville, Earl of Angus, who died in 1381, and her second, whom she married four years later, was Henry Percy, first Earl of Northumberland.

William Percy came from Normandy with Willam the Conqueror, when he received an estate and a Saxon heiress. He was a great Yorkshire baron by the time he died in 1096. His descendants were primarily soldiers, though on occasion they were also good statesmen.

Maud

• “did by a ffine levied in the year 1384, settle this town and castle upon the said husband and his heirs upon condition that they shall bear the arms of Lucy.“

The son of Maud and Gilbert died before his father and she had no children by Henry. After Maud’s death in 1398 Henry married Margaret Neville. His son and heir, Henry (Hotspur), was killed in the Battle of Shrewsbury in 1403, five years before his father lost his life in the Battle of Bramham Moor. By this time he had already forfeited his estates to the Crown. The Percies were a great power in the north and were frequently involved in treasonable plots. This father and son had visions of dethroning Henry IV and holding England north of the Trent for themselves they already had great possessions in Cumberland, Northumberland, Yorkshire and the Isle of Man.

The estates were restored to the second earl, son of Hotspur and again “Henry”, in 1416. When he was killed at St. Albans in 1455 the title passed to his son, yet another Henry, who died in the Battle of Towton in 1461. Neither of these holders of the title saw much of Cockermouth, living mostly in Northumberland and Yorkshire.

The Crown took possession of the Percy estates because of the activities of the family and the honour was granted in 1465 to Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, known as the King-maker. Since the Percies had been actively engaged in working for and against claimants for the throne, Cockermouth thus had two families of king-makers within a few years. On Neville’s death the estates were returned (in 1471) to the Percy family, to Henry the 4th earl, who was murdered at Cock Lodge on his Yorkshire estates. They passed to Henry “the magnificent”, who was the first Percy owner to die a natural death. Again these two owners spent little time at Cockermouth.

Meanwhile Agnes de Percy, a daughter of the fourth earl, had married Jocelyn, Lord of Petworth and constable of Arundel Castle, and so formed the link between the Petworth and Cockermouth estates which still exists today.

The fifth earl was followed for a short time by another Henry, who died in poverty in Hackney about 1537. He had assigned some of his property and revenues to Sir Thomas Wharton, comptroller of his household, in 1530 and in the following year gave to the Crown the rest of his Cumberland estates. The nickname of “the unthrifty” given to this sixth earl was the result of his inability to manage his financial affairs, but circumstances were often against him. The Tudor policy of centralisation affected estates in the north and in other ways he had an unfortunate life. Attached to Wolsey’s household, he fell in love with Ann Boleyn. Wolsey and the King were always jealous of him, forced him into a marriage although the attraction of Ann lasted throughout his life, and constantly interfered in his household and in his work as warden of the Scottish borders, a post which he fulfilled well. Although he had been disgraced and arrested by Wolsey, Henry refused to join his brothers in the Pilgrimage of Grace of 1536-7, a rising in the north against Henry VIII’s treatment of the church and others of his actions, even though he was head of the Roman Catholics in the north of the country. His estates were restored to him shortly before his death, but it was not until 1739 that the Wharton estates were regained.

The sixth earl had no son and his brother and heir had already been attainted for his part in the Pilgrimage of Grace, so once again the estates passed to the Crown. Twelve years later Philip and Mary restored them to Henry’s nephew Thomas, “the simpleton”. He became earl in 1557 and when he was beheaded in 1571 for taking part in the Rising of the North three years earlier the estates passed back to the Crown, to go to brother Henry in 1572.

The eighth earl, who gained the nickname ‘Cruel Henry’, was another absentee lord, but it was he who was responsible for the great 1577-8 survey of his Cumberland estates. The Percies were frequently in trouble with the Tudors because of their Catholic sympathies and it was royal policy to keep them in the south, at Petworth or Syon, where a watchful eye could be kept on their activities.

When they did travel north it was usually to Leconfield, Wreschil or Alnwick and not to Cockermouth. This earl was imprisoned in the Tower for his alleged part in plots supporting Mary Stuart and in 1585 he died mysteriously from a pistol shot while still imprisoned.

The ninth earl, Henry, was a mixture of heroism and shrewdness, of simplicity and learning. At his own expense he equipped several vessels (the family fortunes had apparently revived) and personally helped in the destruction of the Annada. Although a soldier and sailor, he was also a man of science and a patron of learning. Nicknamed the ‘Wizard Earl’ because of his interest in alchemy and scientific experiments, he also built up a fine library. He had friends in learned circles, being praised for example by Bacon, but was unhappily married to Dorothy Devereux. Shortly after his marriage he found a mistress in London and openly flaunted his ‘affair’ before the Court. It was he who built ‘Percy House’ near Cocker Bridge, which has in an upstairs room a decorated plaster ceiling which includes the Percy motto ‘Esperiance en Dieu’ (Hope in God). Henry was allegedly involved in the gunpowder plot and consequently imprisoned in the Tower from 1605 to 1621, when he was released on paying a huge fine of £ 11,000. His wife remained true to him and frequently visited him in prison until her death in 1619. Henry died a natural death in 1632.

Henry Percy’s son Algernon succeeded. Some say he hated the Stuarts because of their treatment of his father and as a result Cockermouth Castle was garrisoned for Parliament in the Civil War. Others maintain that he was respected by both sides in the War and that Parliament gave the children of Charles I into his keeping, to whom he was very kind. [11]

The 11th and last Earl of Northumberland, for only two years, was Algernon’s son Joscelyn. He died in 1670 when 26, one of the four earls not killed. His sole heiress was daughter Elizabeth who, thanks to her mother’s efforts, was married three times before she was 16 – when only 13 to Harry, Lord Ogle, heir to the Earl of Newcastle, who died a year later; to Thomas Thynne of Longleat, killed by her lover in 1682; and thirdly the unhappy girl married Charles Seymour, the sixth Duke of Somerset. When she came of age in 1688 she brought him the vast Percy estates which had been taken by the Crown on JosceIyn’s death.

Charles, the ‘Proud Duke’, agreed on his marriage to take the name Percy but refused when he came of age. He bought back the Wharton lands on 18th January 1738-9 for £13,300, gave large endowments to Cambridge and founded the University Press in 1696. He retired from public life in 1716 and lived until 1748. His outstanding characteristic was his pride in his rank and birth, which according to Macaulay “amounted almost to a disease”. He is reputed to have cut one daughter out of his will because he awoke to find her sitting in his presence, a relaxation forbidden to his children.

The estates passed to Algernon, son of Charles. In addition to being the seventh Duke of Somerset he was created the first Earl of Egremont and received also the revived Earldom of Northumberland. Charles’s second daughter, Lady Catherine Seymour, married Sir William Wyndham of Orchard-Wyndham in Somerset. When Algernon died without male issue in 1750 Petworth, Cockermouth and the Earldom of Egremont passed to his nephew Charles Wyndham, the eldest son of Catherine and William. The rest of the estates, including Alnwick and the Earldom of Northumberland, went to Algernon’s son-in-law Sir Hugh Smithson, later created the first Duke of Northumberland. This Charles was a prominent politician, succeeding Pitt as Secretary of State for the Southern Department in 1761-3, and through him the Cockermouth estates came to the present family, the Wyndhams.

After a period during which the owners showed little interest and rarely if ever visited Cockermouth, the family now began to regard it as one of their homes. The third Earl of Egremont, George O’Brien Wyndham, son of Charles, inherited also the estates of the Duke of Thomond and took the family name of O’Brien.

He served on the Board of Agriculture and was interested in progressive fanning methods, but is remembered most for his patronage of the arts and his hospitality. A cultured man, he was a close friend of Turner and other painters and men of letters and entertained some of them at Cockermouth.

Turner was a guest in 1809 and his oil painting of Cockermouth Castle hangs in the Turner Room at Petworth. When George died in 1837 he was survived by only illegitimate children. A nephew, George Francis Wyndham, became the fourth Earl of Egremont and on his death in 1845 the title became extinct. Some of the possessions passed in 1837 to the third Earl’s adopted heir, his eldest natural son George, but his second son General Sir Henry Wyndham was given a life interest in the Cumberland estates and was responsible for Cockermouth from 1837 to 1860. This George was created the first Baron Leconfield in 1859.

Sir Henry had been an ADC to the Duke of Wellington in the Peninsular Campaign and was remembered for his success with four other young officers in closing the door of the Chateau of Hougoument after it had been forced by French troops. Years later one of his nieces stayed with him in Cockermouth Castle, where, seated in an icy draught, she was heard to remark that no Wyndham had ever closed a door since Hougoument!

When Sir Henry died Cockermouth went to George, the first Lord Leconfield, and on his death it passed successively to his son Henry (1869), this Henry’s son Charles Henry (1901), Charles’s brother Hugh Archibald Wyndham (1952) and then the nephew of Charles and Hugh (1963). This sixth Baron Leconfield, John Edward Reginald Wyndham, was created the first Baron Egremont, a title revived in 1963.

At the beginning of the century the castle was “frequently visited by the present owner” [12] then for many years it was little used except during the grouse shooting season. The family resided at Petworth, given by Charles Henry to the National Trust in 1947 with a large endowment and the Wyndhams continuing to live in a part of the building. The same Lord gave the Scafell area of the Cumberland estate to the Trust about 1920.

His nephew and successor, John, was for many years private secretary to Harold Macmillan, following him to the Ministry of Supply in 1940, the Colonial Office, Allied HQ in Algiers and then the Air Ministry. He became head of the economic section of the Conservative Research Department while the party was out of office, then returned to Macmillan in 1955 when he became first Foreign Secretary and later Prime Minister. It has been written that

• “their friendship and collaboration, that of statesman and private secretary, had no counterpart in modern history”.

John died in 1972 and his elder son Max became second Baron Egremont and seventh Baron Leconfield. The castle is again regarded as a home, the mother of the present lord spending a considerable amount of time in Cockermouth.

It is interesting to realise how the lords of Cockermouth, a town so often apparently outside the main stream of events, have been involved in royal affairs or held high office in government. Admittedly this was sometimes the result of the owners’ more prominent possessions elsewhere and sometimes these other possessions have dragged Cockermouth into a conflict. The Castle has seen action on a number of occasions and this will be the theme of a later chapter.

We have seen that since the lord had other homes there were long periods when he was not resident in Cockermouth. Consequently careful records were kept by the steward, not only for the efficient running of the estates but for examination by the lord if he wished. Estate accounts, leases, farm records. etc., survive from the mid-fifteenth century, letters from the time of Elizabeth I and detailed plans and documents of iron and lead mining from the 1640s. There is a wealth of economic and social history stored in the castle records.

The stewards and other officials who wrote these records were important men in the life of Cockermouth, representing the lord and having power to deal with many matters on his behalf.