Part 3

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

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

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

TOPOGRAPHY OF DURHAM

BY MISS M. HOPE DODDS

_Hist. Tripos, Cantab._

_The Great North Road._

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

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

[Illustration: THE MARKET-CROSS AT DARLINGTON.]

Passing by this haunted place the road leads on to Darlington, a borough full of historical relics, from the Bulmer Stone in Northgate to the first locomotive at Bank Top Station. The Bulmer Stone is a large boulder of Shap granite, which was borne down to its present resting-place on a glacier in the Ice Age. Lying in the midst of the level, marshy plains of the Skerne, it formed a landmark for the men of the Bronze Age, and was perhaps the origin of the town. An Anglian burial-ground, probably pre-Christian, was discovered in the town in 1876. After the conversion of the North a church was built, and two Saxon crosses from it are preserved in the present Church of St. Cuthbert. The history of this beautiful building does not come within the scope of the present section. To the west of the church lies the market-place, where in 1217 Stephen de Cantuaria purchased half a pound of pepper at the fair on the Feast of All Saints, which he rendered to Roger Fitzacris as service for this land in Milneflach and elsewhere. From the market-cross in 1312 was read the Bishop’s order that a tournament which had been proclaimed at Darlington should not be held, as it was forbidden by the laws of the land. That market-cross is not standing now, but its successor may be seen in the modern covered market, a plain column surmounted by a ball, which was erected in 1727 by Dame Dorothy Brown, the last descendant of the family of Barnes, whose members had held the office of bailiff of Darlington for over a hundred years. The old toll-booth, in which the bailiffs held their courts, was pulled down in 1806 and replaced by the present Town Hall. Ever since 1197, Darlington enjoyed the title of borough, and yet it possesses no early charters and had no corporate government; it was not visited by the municipal commissioners in 1833, and was only incorporated in 1868. Until its incorporation the Bishop of Durham appointed a bailiff, who held the old manorial court of the borough. Darlington enjoys the distinction of having retained its bailiff until the middle of the nineteenth century, whereas in the other Durham towns the Bishop had ceased to appoint bailiffs by the end of the seventeenth century. The fame of Darlington rests on the fact that the first passenger railway-line in England was laid between Darlington and Stockton by George Stephenson, who was supported by the capital and influence of Edward Pease of Darlington; the line was opened in 1825. This is surely glory enough for any town!

[Illustration: AN OLD TITHE-BARN AT DURHAM.]

Great Aycliffe, lying five miles north of Darlington on the highroad, was once one of the lesser forests of the Bishopric. About four miles north of Aycliffe the road crosses a little stream by the hamlet of Rushyford. This was a desolate spot in 1317, when on September 1 Lewis Beaumont, Bishop-elect of Durham, and the Cardinals Gaucelin John and Luke Fieschi, with a numerous train of attendants, travelled towards Durham, Beaumont to be consecrated in the cathedral, the Cardinals to negotiate a truce between England and Scotland. They had been warned at Darlington that the road was beset, and this warning, which they disregarded, proved only too true, for as they crossed the gloomy little burn at Rushyford, they were set upon by the notorious freebooter, Sir Gilbert Middleton, and his men. The Cardinals and their servants were stripped of their goods and allowed to continue their journey, but the borderers carried off the Bishop-elect to their fortress of Mitford Castle, and there held him to ransom, until the Prior and Convent of Durham by great sacrifices succeeded in redeeming him.

The next place of importance on the road is Ferryhill, a large modern village six and a half miles south of Durham. Few traces of the past survive here, except the fragment of an old stone cross, Cleve’s Cross, which is traditionally held to commemorate the slaying of a great wild boar, which ravaged Durham once upon a time, by a certain valiant Roger de Ferry, whose family long dwelt in the neighbourhood in great honour. About a mile to the south-east of Ferryhill is Mainsforth, the estate of Robert Surtees, the historian of Durham.

Midway between Ferryhill and Durham the highroad crosses the River Wear by Sunderland Bridge, and passes through the suburbs into the city of Durham.

A bird’s-eye view of the city of Durham even at the present day is surprisingly beautiful. In the Middle Ages it would have served as a model for one of those fascinating little Jerusalems or Bethlehems, walled, towered, and pinnacled, which the old Italian masters loved to perch on the craggy hills in the background of some sacred picture. The river sweeps round three sides of the crag, which is crowned by the cathedral and the castle, and the narrow neck of land on the fourth side was defended by a moat. The Prior’s borough of Elvet and the merchants’ quarter of Framwellgate lay on the opposite bank of the river, and were connected with the citadel itself by their bridges.

The monastic chroniclers of the see were chiefly interested in the doings of the Bishop in his castle and the Prior in his cathedral, and the occasional interventions of the Lord King in the quarrels of these august persons; they tell comparatively little of the life and affairs of the burgesses themselves, the descendants of the men from between Coquet and Tees, who obeyed the summons of Earl Ucthred in 995, and hastened to Durham to raise a shrine worthy of St. Cuthbert, who cleared the thick forest on the crag of Durham, divided the land by lot, and became the Haliwerfolc, the people of the Saint. Twice during the eleventh century they were besieged by the Scots, and each time the enemy was routed. The heads of the slaughtered Scots were exposed in the market-place, where the great fair of Durham was held on September 4, the Feast of the Translation of St. Cuthbert. There was also a fair on the saint’s other festival, March 20; but the September fair was the more important. The laws of the special peace of St. Cuthbert, which was proclaimed by the thanes and drengs before the fair opened, were written in an ancient Gospel-Book, and a copy of them is still preserved.

In the winter of 1068-69 Robert Cumin, the newly created Norman Earl of Northumberland, advanced to Durham with his troops, but as the Normans lay there they were surprised by a sudden rising of the whole population, and slain almost to a man. A year later news came that William himself was approaching Durham to avenge the death of Cumin, whereupon Bishop Egelwin and the priests took the sacred body of St. Cuthbert and such of the treasures of the church as they could carry and fled to Lindisfarne, followed by the people of the city, who dared not remain without the sacred relic. The whole multitude took refuge on the island while William devastated Durham and Northumberland. At length peace was made, and St. Cuthbert and his followers returned to the desolate city. In 1072 William visited Durham, and installed the foreigner, Bishop Walcher, in the see. About this time also the first Norman castle was built in the city to keep the people in check; but when Bishop Walcher ventured out of his stronghold in 1080 he was murdered. Again William ravaged Durham, and the see was filled by Bishop William de St. Carileph, who began to build the present cathedral, and who founded the Benedictine monastery connected with it. To the new monastery he gave forty merchants’ houses in Elvet, which formed the nucleus of the Prior’s borough of Elvet. The troubles of Durham recommenced in 1140, when, the see being vacant, Durham Castle was seized by William Cumin, a nominee of King David of Scotland, who hoped through Cumin to annex the Bishopric. In the course of the struggle between the usurper and the new Bishop, William de St. Barbara, the greater part of the city of Durham was reduced to ashes. There were four years of desperate warfare before Bishop William entered his cathedral town, and at last received the submission of Cumin. Even then there could be no true peace while England was torn with civil war, and it was not until after the death of Bishop William that a brighter day dawned with the election of Bishop Hugh Pudsey. Bishop Hugh rebuilt the ruined city, restored the fortifications, and added to the cathedral. He granted the burgesses a charter, by which the customs of Newcastle-on-Tyne were confirmed to them, besides freedom from merchet, heriot, and toll. The city of Durham stands first in Bishop Pudsey’s great survey of the Bishopric (Boldon Book, compiled in 1183), when the city was at farm for 60 marks. Records which relate to the actual life of the citizens do not begin until the fourteenth century. The earliest are various charters of murage, dated 1345, 1377, 1385, which authorized the citizens to levy certain tolls, and to devote the proceeds to the repair of the walls and streets. The city was governed

[Illustration: BISHOP PUDSEY’S CHARTER.]

by a bailiff, appointed by the Bishop, in the same way as Darlington. It is not until the fifteenth century that gilds are heard of in Durham. In 1436 Bishop Langley granted a licence to several of the principal inhabitants to form the religious gild of Corpus Christi in the Church of St. Nicholas, in the market-place. This gild was closely connected with the craft gilds of the town, which must have been in existence at the beginning of the century. The first records of the gilds occur in 1447, when the Shoemakers (Cordwainers) and the Fullers each gave recognizances to the Bishop that they would forfeit 20s. to him and 20s. to the light of Corpus Christi if any member took a Scot as an apprentice. The ordinances of the Weavers were enrolled and confirmed by the Bishop in 1450, and in them reference is made to the play which was to be played when they went in procession on Corpus Christi Day. The gilds were not merely a picturesque feature of town life, they had also a powerful influence on the development of the city. The corporation granted by Bishop Pilkington’s charter of 1565--the first charter of incorporation which the city obtained--was probably modelled on the governing body of the Corpus Christi Gild. The governing charter of the city until 1770 was granted by Bishop Toby Matthew in 1602, and by this charter the Common Council of the town was to consist of twenty-four persons, two being chosen from each of the twelve principal companies by the mayor and aldermen. When the city of Durham obtained Parliamentary representation in 1678, the franchise of the borough could only be obtained by membership in one of the companies, and the procedure of admission was therefore carefully regulated by the mayor and corporation. But in 1761 Durham experienced two elections within a few months of each other, and the political excitement completely demoralized the city. All restraints were thrown to the winds, and numbers of new freemen were admitted in a most irregular manner. The reaction of this exciting time on municipal affairs was such that, in 1770, more than half the number of the twelve aldermen had resigned or been removed, and it was therefore impossible to elect a mayor under the charter of 1603, which consequently lapsed. The various feuds having been cooled by an interval of ten years, Bishop Egerton granted a new charter in 1780, with provisions closely resembling those of the old one, and under this charter Durham was governed until it was included in the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835.

The North Road, on leaving Durham, follows the course of one of the Roman roads which passed through the county. It leads northward over Framwellgate Moor, and six miles from Durham passes through Chester-le-Street, which lies on the banks of the Cone Burn. As the name indicates, a Roman camp was situated here, and numerous Roman remains have been found. The monks who had fled from Lindisfarne in 876 with the body of St. Cuthbert settled at Chester-le-Street after seven years’ wandering, when peace had been confirmed by the agreement between Alfred and Guthred the Dane. It was the principal city of the see until 995, when Bishop Aldhune fled once more before the renewed invasions of the Danes. In Chester-le-Street the old custom is still kept up of playing a football-match, in which the whole village takes part, on Shrove Tuesday.

The borough of Gateshead lies on the Tyne, eight miles north of Chester-le-Street. The south end of Tyne Bridge was the site of a Roman camp, and afterwards, in the seventh century, of a Saxon monastery, which was destroyed by the Danes. A little church which stood there in 1080 was the scene of the murder of Bishop Walcher, who was killed by the infuriated populace while he was trying to pacify a feud between his Norman followers and the Saxon nobles. The church was set on fire, and the Bishop was killed as he rushed from the burning building. The traces of early Norman work in the present building show that it must have soon been rebuilt. The new church is first mentioned in 1256, when a prisoner who had escaped from the castle of Newcastle took refuge in Gateshead Church. Gateshead’s only charter was granted by Bishop Hugh Pudsey at some time between 1154 and 1183, and confirmed by his successor, Bishop Philip of Poitou. The little borough lay on the outskirts of the Bishop’s forest of Gateshead, and the charter freed the burgesses to some extent from the tyranny of that very great man, the Bishop’s Head Forester. In its form of government the borough was similar to Darlington. Gateshead has always been one of the principal commercial centres of the county, and, though there are no signs of craft gilds there, trade companies second in importance only to those of Durham existed from the reign of Elizabeth till the end of the eighteenth century. The prosperity of Gateshead very early excited the alarm of Newcastle, and the history of the town is studded with the attempts of its jealous neighbour to suppress its trade. In the fourteenth century the efforts of the Newcastle Corporation were directed against the fisheries and staithes on the south bank of the Tyne, which were frequently destroyed by "the malice of the men of Newcastle." In 1553 the two towns were united, but the Act was repealed by Queen Mary, who came to the throne in the same year. It was proposed to renew the union in 1568, but the anxious petitions of Gateshead, and the opposition of several influential persons in the Palatinate, frustrated the scheme. There are, however, several cases in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries of the interference of Newcastle with the trade of Gateshead. These troubles were the price that Gateshead had to pay for its advantageous position by the side of the greater town. Gateshead was given one representative in the House of Commons by the Reform Act of 1832, and was incorporated by its inclusion in the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835.

The boundary of Durham is now the south bank of the Tyne, but formerly the Bishop’s jurisdiction extended over one-third of the river, and was marked by a blue stone on Tyne Bridge. The old bridge, which stood where the Swing Bridge is now, was built in 1248 to replace the Roman bridge, Pons Ælii, which dated from _circa_ 119. In 1389 the burgesses of Newcastle carried off the Blue Stone, seized the whole of the bridge, and built a tower on the south end, which they held against the Bishop. It was not until 1415 that Bishop Langley at length obtained judgment against the Corporation of Newcastle, and took possession of the tower with all his chivalry. The tower stood until the great flood of 1771, when part of the bridge was swept away. After this catastrophe the whole was rebuilt, the new bridge being completed in 1781. The High-Level Bridge was built in 1849, and the present Swing Bridge replaced the old stone one in 1876. Meanwhile, the conservation of the River Tyne had been placed in the hands of commissioners, and the jurisdiction of the Bishop over the river came to an end.

_Durham to South Shields._

The city of Durham, lying almost in the centre of the county, is an excellent point of departure from which to visit the other towns and places of interest in the Bishopric. The road which leads from the city to the mouth of the Tyne runs north-east from Framwellgate Bridge. The principal village through which it passes is Houghton-le-Spring, six and a half miles from Durham. The place is closely associated with the name of Bernard Gilpin, the Apostle of the North, who in the reigns of Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth, was Rector of Houghton-le-Spring, and the chief instrument in spreading Protestant doctrines through the North. From here it is seven miles to the mouth of the Wear, where stands the flourishing port of Sunderland. In early records the town

[Illustration: JACK CRAWFORD’S BIRTH-PLACE, SUNDERLAND.]