Bygone Cumberland And Westmorland - The Original Classic Edition. Daniel Scott

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СКАЧАТЬ enable them to decide. The popular name for the helmet, however, is "the Rebel's Cap," and following the account of Machell, who was living at the time, various writers have given different versions of a story which, though doubtless correct in its main points, is open to question on others. The version given by the late

       Mr. Cornelius Nicholson[5] may be quoted, as it is the briefest:--

       "In the Civil Wars of the Commonwealth, there resided in Kendal one Colonel Briggs, a leading magistrate, and an active com-

       mander in the Cromwellian army. At that time, also, Robert Philipson, surnamed from his bold and licentious character, Robin the

       Devil, inhabited the island on Windermere, called Belle Isle. Colonel Briggs besieged Belle Isle for eight or ten days, until the siege of Carlisle being raised, Mr. Huddleston Philipson, of Crook, hastened from Carlisle, and relieved his brother Robert. The next day,

       being Sunday, Robin, with a small troop of horse, rode to Kendal to make reprisals.

       "He stationed his men properly in the avenues, and himself rode directly into the church in search of Briggs, down one aisle and up another. In passing out at one of the upper doors, his head struck against the portal, when[Pg 36] his helmet, unclasped by the blow, fell to the ground and was retained. By the confusion into which the congregation were thrown, he was suffered quietly to ride out. As he left the churchyard, however, he was assaulted; his girths were cut, and he himself was unhorsed. His party now returned upon the assailants; and the Major, killing with his own hands the man who had seized him, clapped the saddle upon his horse, and, ungirthed as it was, vaulted into it, and rode full speed through the streets, calling to his men to follow him; and with his party made

       a safe retreat to his asylum on the lake. The helmet was afterwards hung aloft, as a commemorating badge of sacrilegious temerity."

       The episode was used by Sir Walter Scott for some particularly spirited lines in "Rokeby" (stanza 33, canto vi.), and in his notes Sir Walter explained that "This, and what follows, is taken from a real achievement of Major Robert Philipson, called from his desperate and adventurous courage Robin the Devil." A reference to the poem will show that this, as dealing with fact, can only be applied to the first sixteen lines, which run:--

       "The outmost crowd have heard a sound Like horse's hoofs on hardened ground; Nearer it came, and yet more near,--

       The very death's-men paused to hear.

       'Tis in the churchyard now--the tread

       Hath waked the dwelling of the dead!

       [Pg 37]Fresh sod and old sepulchral stone

       Return the tramp in varied tone.

       All eyes upon the gateway hung,

       When through the Gothic arch there sprung

       A horseman armed, at headlong speed--

       Sable his cloak, his plume, his steed.

       Fire from the flinty floor was spurned;

       The vaults unwonted clang returned!--

       One instant's glance around he threw,

       From saddle-bow his pistol drew."

       Mr. Stockdale, in his "Annals of Furness," says there was a tradition in his time that the Parliamentarians in 1643 stabled three troops of horse in the nave of Cartmell Church; and there can be no doubt that to similar base uses other ecclesiastical structures in the diocese were occasionally put in turbulent times. Carlisle Cathedral was often used for purposes of war, and it was not free from

       other exciting scenes. During the Commonwealth it was the centre of much rioting. George Fox preached there, and files of musket-

       eers had to be brought in to clear the place of the rioters. After the ill-fated rebellion of '45, the cathedral was still further degraded,

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       being made into a prison for captured Highlanders.

       [Pg 38]

       Some Church Curiosities.

       UNDER a great variety of divisions many curious facts connected with the old-time churches of the northern counties might be noted that cannot here be touched upon. Some of them--especially those associated with the personal aspect--had their origin

       solely in the circumstances of the time; others may be traced to personal idiosyncracies; while geographical reasons may be found for a third class. With a few exceptions it has not been deemed necessary in this chapter to go beyond the Reformation. Among the records concerning Kendal Church is a reference in the Patent Rolls of 1295, in which Walter de Maydenestane is described as "parson of a moiety of the church of Kirkeby, in Kendale." An inquiry in Notes and Queries[6] brought the suggestion that probably this

       was one of the places which used to have both a rector and a vicar, several instances of that arrangement having been in force being mentioned. No information was, however, forthcoming as to the Kendal case.

       [Pg 39]Boy bishops are not unknown, and Westmorland affords an instance of an infant rector, the following appearing in the list for Long Marton, as compiled by Dr. Burn:--"1299. John de Medburn, an infant, was presented by Idonea de Leyburne, and the Bishop committed the custody of the said infant to a priest named William de Brampton, directing him to dispose of the profits of

       the rectory in such manner as to provide for the supply of the cure, and the education of the young rector in some public school

       of learning." If John de Medburn ever took up the duties of his office, it could not have been for any extended period, as another

       rector was instituted in 1330.

       There was a curious dispute at Holme Cultram in 1636. The Rev. Charles Robson, who five years previously had become vicar, being a bachelor of divinity, demanded that the parish should provide him with a hood proper to his degree. The parishioners objected on the ground that such a claim had never been made before, the previous vicars having provided their own hoods, and that Mr. Rob-son had on all proper occasions, as required by the canons, worn a hood of his own until within half a year of the dispute arising. A[Pg 40] case was stated and a legal opinion taken; the result was entirely against the vicar, who made his position worse, inasmuch

       as it was laid down that while the churchwardens were not to provide the hood, they could be the means, through the ordinary, of compelling a priest who was a graduate to wear his hood, according to the 58th canon. Another instance of a clergyman going to law with his parishioners was that of the Rev. John Benison, vicar of Burton, who was dissatisfied with the payments of the vicarial revenues. The dispute found its way into Chancery, and Benison, in 1732, secured the following scale of payments:--"For burial in the church or churchyard shall be paid 1s., except for women who die in childbirth, for whom nothing is due. The modus for tithe

       lands shall be double for the two first years after the induction of a new vicar, and every person keeping a plough shall pay yearly 1d. in lieu and full satisfaction of agistment of barren cattle."

       Bishop Nicolson has left some curious pictures of the parsons in the diocese of Carlisle at the time when he made his visitation in the early years of the eighteenth century. The clergy of that time were for the most part not remarkable[Pg 41] for their learning, although there were some notable exceptions. These were the victims of circumstances; they lived in what was really a dark age,

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