Holford Matthew, Stringer Keith. Border Liberties and Loyalties in North-East England, 1200-1400 (ENG)
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BORDER LIBERTIES AND LOYALTIES
396
granted.
153
In these examples at least, litigants who wanted to take the royal
route to justice received a sharp reminder of the authority of the liberty and
its lord; and most defendants presumably welcomed the opportunity to
plead locally before their friends or associates – though their pleas did not
invariably succeed.
154
Such evidence suggests that the liberty’s governmental role may not have
undergone radical changes in the course of the fourteenth century; but a
rather di erent line of argument has to be followed when fuller consid-
eration is given to the various forces shaping its history during these years.
Undoubtedly the most serious problems for the liberty resulted not from
any policy of ‘state centralisation’, but from its descent into a ‘land of war’.
is meant that the Umfravilles exercised a form of local lordship that was
o en loose and precarious; and that for long periods the liberty was not
only less than secure in the power of its rulers, but also less than e ective
in its internal machinery and in its value to local society. ese at least are
the main conclusions indicated by the sources about to be discussed; and
under such conditions no liberty could hope to realise its full potential as a
structure of authority, governance and loyalty.
e ‘Lanercost’ chronicle, for instance, recounts how in 1311 King
Robert I marched into Northumberland through upper Coquetdale and
Redesdale.
155
Nor does it surprise that the only battle in fourteenth- century
Northumberland was fought at Otterburn (1388). Regular warfare was
of course intermittent; but Redesdale’s strategic importance as a major
cross- Border thoroughfare made it exceptionally vulnerable to harrying
raids or worse. According to a Yorkshire chronicler, writing in the 1390s,
Redesdale and Tynedale were ‘coerced into Scottish obedience’ in 1316 –
though earlier sources refer only to north Tynedale as falling to the Scots
in Bannockburn’s a ermath.
156
ey clearly treated Redesdale as hostile
territory in 1318, when Harbottle castle was besieged and taken. If this rep-
resented the nadir of the liberty’s fortunes, it was by no means the end of
the story. e nuns of Holystone had to place themselves under Edward II’s
protection and occupy temporary quarters in Newcastle in 1322. A large
Scottish raiding party attacked the liberty in 1335; there was another inroad
153
JUST 1/1453, m. 3; 1/1460, m. 4; 1/1464, mm. 22, 39; CPR 1343–5, pp. 356–7; C
260/55/90.
154
The outcomes of most of the actions mentioned are unknown; but the liberty court did
find in favour of Elizabeth Gunnerton and (probably) Ingram Umfraville: Rot. Abbrev.,
ii, p. 252; CDS, iii, no. 721.
155
Chron. Lanercost, p. 216.
156
Chronica Monasterii de Melsa, ed. E.A. Bond (RS, 1866–8), ii, p. 333; above, Chapter 7,
p. 323.
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397
in 1337.
157
In 1375 Earl Gilbert recommended to the Pope that Holystone
should be permitted to appropriate the church of Alwinton because the
priory’s properties ‘were wasted by constant hostile incursions’. Nor does
such language lose any of its force when we see that a Coldtown deed of
1375 allowed for a rent- rebate in the event of ‘general war’.
158
Indeed, such was the reality or threat of warfare that its pressures have
provided our best evidence of local communal cooperation, for by 1380 ‘the
people of Redesdale’ were paying y marks yearly to have a truce with the
Scots.
159
is, however, is the sole explicit record of a ‘liberty community’ in
action; and the only other relevant information for the fourteenth century
concerns the ninth of 1340–1. e king’s taxers could make no collections
from the parishes of Corsenside and Holystone, which claimed to have
been ‘wholly devastated and destroyed by Scottish enemies’. Elsdon, on
the other hand, initially agreed to meet its assessment; but it subsequently
campaigned to secure respite in concert with parishes outside Redesdale.
160
us, while the times might compel people to collaborate, it cannot be
said that they did so regularly; nor was such collective activity necessarily
structured by, or con ned to, the liberty itself.
What, furthermore, was the impact of war on the liberty’s ability to
uphold government and justice? is question must be approached with
some caution. It cannot simply be taken for granted that fourteenth-
century Redesdale was the lawbreakers’ utopia it has o en been assumed
to be. Admittedly we do not know how regularly the liberty court sat, and
there is scant documentation on local crime patterns. But, overall, it seems
di cult to argue that Redesdale was a signi cantly greater threat to peace
than it had been in the later thirteenth century. On the one side, eleven of
Redesdale’s sixty- seven taxpayers in 1336 had been sued in Common Pleas
between 1328 and 1331 for trespasses in the county; and the liberty may
have sheltered them, since none appears to have been brought to trial.
161
In
1381 a sizeable group of Northumbrians from Glendale, who were accused
of murdering John Muschamp of Barmoor, did take refuge in Redesdale.
162
157
NCH, xv, p. 463; Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I and Edward II, ed. W. Stubbs (RS,
1882–3), ii, p. 121; Chron. Lanercost, p. 292.
158
DCM, Reg. Hatfield, f. 158v; NDD, p. 17. Hexham Priory’s lands in Chesterhope were
said in 1379 to have been waste for almost forty years: Hexham Priory, ii, p. 21.
159
Below, pp. 404–5.
160
E 179/158/14, mm. 2, 3; CPR 1343–5, p. 409; CCR 1349–54, p. 613; 1354–60, pp. 71, 120,
185, 409.
161
CP 40/273, m. 98; 40/276, m. 201d; 40/281, m. 186; 40/282, m. 220; 40/283, m. 207d;
40/284, m. 303d. One of the accused, Walter Russell, also avoided prosecution in a plea
of contempt and trespass in King’s Bench in 1349: KB 27/356, m. 10.
162
KB 27/481, m. 16d.
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BORDER LIBERTIES AND LOYALTIES
398
Yet, on the other side, merely one Redesdaler was indicted at a coroner’s
inquest into o ences committed outside the liberty in Tynedale ward
between 1348 and 1356.
163
Regional law- and- order discourses also tended
to target Tynedale more than Redesdale, and only in the 1340s was the
liberty speci cally criticised, notably in petitions presented to Edward III
by the counties of Northumberland and Cumberland in 1342. Moreover,
such tendentious articulations are hardly trustworthy sources, and it is
clear from the crown’s answers to the complaints then made that a more
complex situation existed than is usually appreciated.
164
At root a ‘franchise’ like Redesdale was not in itself the problem; rather,
it was seen as part of a bigger dilemma a ecting the welfare of all the king’s
loyal subjects in the Marches. Cross- Border violence had exacerbated
local criminality; but in the crown’s view there was no precise correlation
between liberties and lawlessness. Liberty men might (allegedly) cooperate
with Scottish felons and plunder the counties; by contrast, though, it was
recognised that Redesdale (as well as Hexhamshire and Tynedale) was as
much sinned against as sinning. Jurisdictional boundaries were being criss-
crossed at will by wrongdoers of both nationalities; and the law- abiding had
no automatic remedy for the assaults, abductions or other crimes carried
out against them. us liberties were understood to su er no less than other
parts of the Borders from the twin problems of mobile predators and the
lack of a unitary justice system. Unfortunately, however, it remains hard to
say exactly how far Redesdale’s social order was thereby undermined. e
wider judicial powers periodically invested in Earl Gilbert by royal commis-
sions possibly provided a useful antidote. Nevertheless he found it necessary
in 1350, and again in 1353, to resort to the crown’s courts over trespasses
in Harbottle; and if the lord could experience di culty in obtaining justice
locally, it seems improbable that the liberty’s tenants could regularly rely on
its legal system to defend their interests.
165
All told, therefore, any upsurge
in regional disorder was likely to emphasise the liberty’s shortcomings in
upholding law and social cohesion.
e loss of Harbottle castle raises even more awkward issues about the
liberty’s relevance as a source of collective security and solidarity. In April
1318 the Scots had granted the garrison a respite in which to seek Earl
163
NCS, ZSW/1/70. It should also be noted that in 1364 John Coupland’s killers were
received not in Redesdale but near Linbriggs ‘in Coquetdale’: JUST 1/661, m. 5; cf. CPR
1361–4, p. 539.
164
CPR 1343–5, pp. 67, 88; Rot. Scot., i, p. 644. For discussion regarding Tynedale, see above,
Chapter 7, pp. 327–30.
165
CDS, iii, no. 1554; CP 40/375, m. 122. For precedents supporting the lord’s right to hear
pleas touching himself, see above, pp. 370–1, 376.
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399
Robert’s aid, but it was obliged to surrender ‘because relief did not arrive
by the appointed day’.
166
Inevitably the earl’s failure to protect Harbottle
delivered a major reverse to his local reputation and authority; and the
castle’s subsequent slighting had still more signi cant consequences. e
curtain wall was evidently demolished; indeed, the inquisition post mortem
on Earl Robert in 1325 alludes merely to the ‘site of the castle’. Nor is there
any sign that Harbottle was back in use until the mid- 1340s;
167
and, what is
more, by 1351 the castle had again been rendered unserviceable – expressly
‘by the war of Scotland’ – so that it was unavailable until the mid- 1350s at
the earliest.
168
For lengthy intervals, the liberty was therefore deprived of its
main centre of governance; the lord lacked an obvious means of bolting his
rule on the countryside and its inhabitants; and they in turn had no mili-
tary/policing strongpoint to protect them from Scottish raiders and English
felons.
But that is not all. In 1336 Earl Gilbert informed Edward III that whereas
prisoners arrested in the liberty used to be kept in Harbottle castle, there
was now no secure building where captives could be detained. He requested
permission to hold them in Prudhoe castle until the repair of Harbottle,
and estimated that this would take twelve to fourteenth years. A licence was
duly granted, though for ten years only; and it was renewed by Edward III
in 1351.
169
ese are model examples in microcosm of the crown’s ability to
cooperate with liberty- owners: their respective rights might clash; but the
king could still show basic consideration for a liberty’s jurisdiction and aid
its enforcement. Nonetheless the removal of the liberty gaol to Prudhoe,
twenty- eight miles from Harbottle, meant that making arrests in Redesdale
now entailed long cross- country journeys and related problems such as
nding escorts and greater risk of escapes. e new order represented at
best a major inconvenience to the liberty’s o cers, and their diligence
must have been tested. It is also most unlikely that suspects were returned
to Redesdale for trial. Delivery presumably took place at Prudhoe, and it
may well have been di cult to secure participation from Redesdale at the
sessions. All these circumstances suggest that felons operating in Redesdale
were less likely to be brought to justice; that they would ‘increase in
166
Chron. Lanercost, p. 235.
167
J. Crow, ‘Harbottle castle: excavation and survey, 1997–9’, in P. Frodsham (ed.),
Archaeology in Northumberland National Park (Council for British Archaeology, 2004),
pp. 249, 258; CIPM, vi, no. 607; CPR 1343–5, pp. 356–7; NCS, ZSW/1/64.
168
CPR 1350–4, p. 42. Harbottle was perhaps damaged by the Scots in 1346 before Neville’s
Cross; for in 1347 Earl Gilbert recovered by exchange the castle- mound of Elsdon: CPR
1345–8, p. 364. There is, however, no evidence that it was ever refortified. For Harbottle’s
return into service by c. 1360, see below, p. 402.
169
Northumb. Pets, no. 101; CDS, v, no. 754; CPR 1334–8, p. 238; 1350–4, p. 42.
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BORDER LIBERTIES AND LOYALTIES
400
boldness in wrongdoing’;
170
and that a serious blow was dealt to the liberty
and its social well- being.
Moreover, when Redesdale lost its own gaol it was stripped of a major
symbol of its authority and identity as a jurisdiction. A liberty’s head-
quarters castle was likewise something more than a hub of governance;
it was, or had the potential to be, an a rmation of both the lord’s pre-
rogatives and ‘the community of the liberty’. As for Redesdale, however,
it is conceivable that the liberty not only failed to maintain its right to
internal delivery, but had all pleading touching it held (albeit before its
own justices) in Prudhoe castle. To one degree or another, the liberty’s
e ectiveness and cohesion were compromised: it had no independent
administrative or communal focus; and the historic tendency to see it as
part of a broader power- system was no doubt accentuated. Indeed, when
Harbottle was (it seems) temporarily re- established as a gaol in 1345, Earl
Gilbert gave a suspect awaiting trial on bail the option of surrendering to
Harbottle or to Prudhoe.
171
e Scottish wars thus had a direct and injurious impact on the liberty
as a unit of power and identi cation; and this becomes clearer still because
the dislocation they in icted on its governmental structures and integrity
almost certainly provides the main reason for the di culties it experienced
in keeping English royal authority at bay. It was a er all in 1336, when Earl
Gilbert formally acknowledged the liberty’s institutional weaknesses, that
its townships began to be taxed as part of the county. Nor was Harbottle’s
protracted incapacity unconnected with the erosion of Umfraville revenues
due to war. In about 1320 Earl Robert reported that all his estates had been
despoiled by the Scots, and asked for Edward II’s help in maintaining both
his dignity and Prudhoe castle.
172
War- damage provided an obvious pretext
for special pleading of this sort; but beneath any embroidery lay harsh reali-
ties. at much was conceded when in 1328 Gilbert III, though under- age,
was granted his inheritance ‘in consideration of the losses his ancestors have
sustained for the weal of the kingdom’. It may be added that it was also a
signi cantly truncated inheritance, for not until 1368 was Gilbert able to get
control of the dower lands of his step- mother Countess Eleanor.
173
Gilbert’s
unsuccessful bid to recover the earldom of Angus, in alliance with Edward
Balliol in the 1330s, tightened the nancial screws: two manors had to be
sold o from the barony of Prudhoe; the advowson of Kirkwhelpington
was alienated to Newminster Abbey for £100; and two Rutland manors
170
Quoted from PROME, iii, p. 79, which concerns a parallel case.
171
NCS, ZSW/1/64.
172
Northumb. Pets, no. 138.
173
CPR 1327–30, p. 330; CCR 1364–8, pp. 439–40.
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were disposed of for 1,100 marks.
174
Here was a magnate who lost heavily
from Anglo- Scottish warfare in more ways than one; and the restoration of
Harbottle was evidently beyond the young earl’s means.
A properly run liberty, especially on a militarised frontier, required
not only capital investment; it needed a lord with ‘presence’. Yet how the
Umfravilles adjusted to the problems posed by war ensured that the asser-
tion of a vigorous personal lordship locally was not an overriding prior-
ity. When magnates ran into di culties, one obvious step was to marry
well, and this was a stratagem from which Earl Gilbert reaped handsome
dividends. Between 1338 and 1362 he gained in stages, in right of his
mother Countess Lucy, the entire Lincolnshire barony of Kyme, whose
ample manors made him one of that county’s richest landowners.
175
is
valuable windfall a orded a more stable and inviting power- base; it like-
wise drew Gilbert into Lincolnshire society and government. In 1341 he
headed a major investigation into lawbreaking, and his continued promi-
nence in county a airs is indicated by his appointment to numerous
commissions of the peace, of array and of sewers. Nor can it be doubted
that he o en conducted such business in person.
176
e axis of the lord’s
world was shi ing, and he ceased to provide his dependants in Redesdale
or elsewhere in the Borders with a sustained focus for their loyalties.
From 1369 Earl Gilbert’s estates also included the small barony of Langley
in Northumberland and the large honour of Cockermouth in Cumberland,
acquired through his second wife Maud, sister and heiress of Anthony
Lucy. But Lincolnshire still exercised its attractions. Gilbert was at least
as concerned to defend his rights in his adopted shire as he was to uphold
his authority as lord of Redesdale.
177
Above all, South Kyme near Boston
became and remained a favoured seat. us, in the 1340s or 1350s, a ne
residence with a four- storey tower was built there for the earl’s pleasure, and
to broadcast the fact that a powerful newcomer had arrived in Lincolnshire
society. Gilbert also took a special interest in Kyme Priory, of which he was
patron, and presented to the canons a set of vestments decorated with his
arms.
178
Kyme’s signi cance as a lordship centre is further indicated by
174
CPR 1330–4, p. 381; Newminster Cart., pp. 82–3; CCR 1337–9, pp. 102–3.
175
CIPM, xv, nos. 435–6.
176
The 1341 Royal Inquest in Lincolnshire, ed. B. W. McLane (Lincoln Record Society, 1988),
p. xv. See also, for example, Notts. Archives, DD/FJ/1/164/2; Records of Some Sessions
of the Peace in Lincolnshire, 1360–1375, ed. R. Sillem (Lincoln Record Society, 1936), p.
lxxviii; SC 1/40/161.
177
See especially CPR 1340–3, pp. 361–2; DL 27/295; Public Works in Mediaeval Law, ed. C.
T. Flower (Selden Society, 1915–23), i, no. 118; SC 8/162/8091.
178
A. Emery, Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales, 1300–1500 (Cambridge, 1996–
2006), ii, pp. 296–7; Lincolnshire Archives, Dean and Chapter Muniments, Dij/62/iii/12.
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402
the deeds he issued there, which suggest an increasingly regular pattern of
visits and lengthy stays – and the ‘earl of Angus’ also called himself ‘lord of
Kyme’; rarely was he ‘lord of Redesdale’.
179
is excursus serves to underscore that any liberty’s history was contin-
gent on its broader context, and how far its e ectiveness as a source of local
governance and identity might be a casualty of ‘events’. More speci cally, it
reminds us that the lord’s failings or successes, and his policies, were crucial
to a liberty’s development and its role in society. But it would neverthe-
less be misleading simply to dwell on Earl Gilbert’s semi- disengagement
from the Borders. All magnates were non- resident in varying degrees; and
compared with fourteenth- century Tynedale, the earl’s Northumbrian
estates su ered far less from the problems of absenteeism. In fact, in
the 1340s Gilbert received, and perhaps executed, more commissions in
Northumberland than he did in Lincolnshire; and in the 1360s and 1370s
he was as likely to be commissioned for one shire as for the other. Nor did
any of Gilbert’s Lincolnshire o ces rival in responsibility and power his
authority as a March warden on various occasions from 1352. And, more
importantly, steps were in due course taken to renew Redesdale’s adminis-
tration, with the result, no doubt, that the liberty became more successful
in organising people’s a airs and meeting their needs. In 1355, 1357 and
1359 civil suits were apparently heard at Harbottle; in about 1360 omas
Horsley is recorded as its constable. is would indicate that the castle had
been fully reinstated, thanks probably to Lincolnshire revenues; and at
some date in the later fourteenth century, Harbottle was indeed renovated
by adding a drawbridge and a barbican to the inner bailey gatehouse.
180
e earl’s concern for Redesdale’s management was also displayed when in
1380, by an indenture drawn up in Kyme, he entrusted its governance to his
half- brother, omas I Umfraville, as constable of Harbottle and ‘warden
and governor of . . . his lordship of Redesdale and Coquetdale’.
181
But the
fact remains that while Gilbert was keeping his distance in Lincolnshire,
the Scots were harassing Redesdale and its people had largely to fend for
themselves.
Gilbert also displayed his allegiance to Lincolnshire by founding a chantry at Dogdyke
near Kyme and arranging for his obit to be celebrated in Lincoln Cathedral: CCR 1377–81,
pp. 491–2; CPR 1381–5, p. 412.
179
See, for instance, BL, Harley Ch. 57.D.3, 7–9; CCR 1377–81, pp. 232, 491–2; CIPM, xvii,
no. 1243; xxi, no. 833; DCM, Reg. Hatfield, f. 159r; E 210/1159, 9213, 9627.
180
C 260/78/16; JUST 1/1453, mm. 3, 5d; 1/1460, m. 4; Rot. Abbrev., ii, p. 252; NDD, p. 17
(misdated); Crow, ‘Harbottle castle’, pp. 252–3, 259. Harbottle is depicted on the Gough
map (c. 1360).
181
BL, Harley Ch. 57.D.9.
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403
e fourteenth- century evidence just reviewed has touched on both the lib-
erty’s governmental capacity and the overall nature of Umfraville lordship;
but it remains di cult to provide a straightforward summary of the wider
socio- political implications. On one level, here was a noble house whose
role in Northumberland was on the wane. It failed to compete e ectively
with brokers of patronage and power such as the Nevilles and Percies, who
(unlike the Umfravilles) were royal favourites as well as royal servants;
and we can be reasonably sure that the family’s ability to shape regional or
local loyalties deteriorated, even within its traditional heartlands. Nor did
Northumbrians pro t signi cantly from the surge in Earl Gilbert’s fortunes
elsewhere in England. Richard Ovingham became parson of Aswarby near
Kyme, and William Ilderton resigned the rectory of Alwinton for the richer
living of Waddingham near Lincoln. Yet the only Redesdale tenant known
to have bene ted was omas Reed, who in 1380 received a grant for
twenty years of the receivership of Allerdale in Cumberland.
182
Much else remains uncertain, but some tentative assessments concern-
ing ‘liberty society’ can at least be made. Most obviously, the good lordship
that might have made it a more recognisable and cohesive group was no
more guaranteed a er Earl Gilbert II’s death in 1307 than it had been in
his heyday, though for di erent reasons. us, just as Umfraville interests
branched out into Lincolnshire, so no doubt did gentry families participate
more fully in Northumbrian county society and its alternative networks of
service and allegiance. e career of Richard II Horsley o ers an instruc-
tive example. Redesdale was su ciently important to his interests for him
to acquire new lands in Coldtown in 1360;
183
but such were his ambitions
in the shire that he was MP in 1358, 1360 and 1363, and sheri in 1362–3
and 1367–70. Moreover, it appears that Redesdale’s tenants had few incen-
tives to identify with the liberty because its traditional disadvantage of
lacking the privileges and powers of a ‘royal liberty’ was compounded by
the damage done to its authority by Scottish aggression. Signi cantly, too,
nothing suggests that the ‘war- state’s’ increasing demands on and involve-
ment in Redesdale prompted collective local protests based on support for
its rights. By these yardsticks, therefore, it would be easy to conclude that
the liberty’s ability to act as an e ective local polity was modest indeed. But
there is nevertheless some need for a more measured assessment; there are
also good reasons for deferring a nal verdict. As to the second point, we
have yet to investigate Redesdale’s fortunes a er 1381. As to the rst, we
182
CIPM, xv, no. 435; DCM, Reg. Hatfield, f. 175v; E 210/1159. Thomas Reed ‘of Otterburn’
was a royal taxer in Northumberland in 1395 and 1398: CFR, xi, pp. 139, 265.
183
NDD, p. 17.
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404
may draw and expand on some of the issues already discussed in order to
take a rather more positive view of the modalities of lordship, liberty and
identity in the age of Earl Gilbert III (1331–81).
We must thus recall that Gilbert’s wardenship in the East March warns
against an over- simplistic interpretation of the Umfraville ‘decline’. His
commissions from 1352 (including six in 1367–72) gave him an unprec-
edented regional authority; they likewise entailed special judicial powers
for stabilising the localities by securing protection and redress from Border
brigands. ese powers are fully registered by the terms of Gilbert’s com-
mission of July 1370; nor did he execute it by deputy, for surviving deeds
place him at Prudhoe in November 1370 and at Harbottle in May 1371.
Reappointed in June 1371, he was also at Harbottle in the following
September.
184
At such times, the liberty court may in e ect have assumed
the functions of a warden’s tribunal, exercising a peacekeeping jurisdiction
beyond its normal scope and o ering better justice locally. One vector of
governance might thus reinforce another to their mutual bene t; and here
Redesdale’s experience was more in line with that of Tynemouthshire,
whose relevance as a power- structure was in some senses strengthened by
the requirements of the ‘war- state’.
185
Again, before and especially a er
the mid- 1350s, the liberty’s own institutional signi cance must not be
minimised unduly. Gilbert appears to have claimed court with reasonable
vigilance; more notably still, the number of litigants known to have used the
crown’s courts, even while Harbottle was out of action, does not suggest that
royal justice was automatically preferred. It thus needs emphasising that the
liberty court may well have been the main tribunal for most local landown-
ers – including members of the gentry, notwithstanding the weakness of
their social bonds with Redesdale. Nor can it be ruled out that the liberty’s
authority was important to such men for purposes besides their litigation
strategies, be it to compensate for their limited personal power at grassroots
level, or to protect their county estates from breakdowns of order.
So, despite all the liberty’s di culties, it might still have some in u-
ence on loyalty and identity; and, more particularly, it did provide a basis
for collective unity and action, however eetingly, when ‘the people of
Redesdale’ came together to purchase peace from the Scots. ey are men-
tioned in a petition to Richard II from the counties of Northumberland,
Cumberland and Westmorland, which can be dated to 1379 or 1380. It was
said that Berwick, Tweedmouth and the castle of Wark- on- Tweed had also
184
Rot. Scot., i, pp. 939–40, 945; BL, Harley Ch. 53.B.41; Notts. Archives, DD/FJ/4/26/11–13;
cf. CPR 1370–4, p. 35.
185
Above, Chapter 5, pp. 209–11.
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REDESDALE
405
bought truces, as had the king’s lieges of Roxburghshire, Dumfriesshire
and Cumberland. So Redesdale was the only liberty to organise a common
response, even though the petition complained of truce- violations ‘more
damaging than open war’.
186
is, then, was a notable stirring of a ‘liberty
community’; and, what is more, the lord was apparently in no position to
coordinate it. We do not know who the leaders were or how the money,
£33.6s.8d. a year, was raised. But reference can be made to Redesdale’s
recent experience of royal taxation. According to the county rolls for the
eenths and tenths of 1372–3, the king’s commissioners had continued
to tax each township separately.
187
Yet for the poll tax of 1377 they treated
the liberty as a single unit; and the le of receipts for Tynedale ward shows
that 510 (unnamed) taxpayers had been taxed together under ‘Redesdale
castle’ at the rate of £8.10s.
188
Earl Gilbert’s concern to restore the liberty’s
administration had evidently reasserted its institutional unity and identity,
as is underlined by its exemption in 1381 from paying towards the expenses
of Northumberland’s MPs, a concession displaying exceptional regard for
its privileges.
189
So in 1377 the ‘ scal- state’ had respected the liberty’s dis-
tinctive status; it had also reinforced Redesdale’s social cohesion by oblig-
ing its inhabitants to see themselves and act as a collectivity. Likewise the
procedures to assess and levy the poll tax doubtless supplied a ready- made
framework for organising the truce- payments. Yet if the king’s government
played its part in the 1370s in the mediation of a ‘liberty identity’, the fact
remains that it was the liberty and not the ‘state’ that provided people with
their unifying focus. us even a liberty like Redesdale might on occa-
sion mobilise a community; and in extremis that community could take
responsibility for its own common interests and security.
e Umfravilles’ dignity and power were profoundly a ected by Earl
Gilbert’s childless death in 1381, and the chief gainer was Henry Percy, earl
of Northumberland. His marriage to Gilbert’s widow Maud swi ly brought
Prudhoe under his thumb; and from 1398 he controlled the barony in his
own right, according to the terms of an entail purchased in 1375. Yet Earl
Gilbert had not entirely ignored the claims of the Umfraville cadets to the
Northumbrian patrimony. In 1378 Edward III had allowed him to re- entail
186
Northern Pets, no. 113.
187
E 179/158/25–6; 179/364/17/14.
188
The Poll Taxes of 1377, 1379 and 1381, ed. C. C. Fenwick (Oxford, 1998–2005), ii, pp. 259,
264.
189
J. Wallis, The Natural History and Antiquities of Northumberland (London, 1769), ii,
Appendix, p. 4. See also KB 27/481, m. 16d, for explicit acknowledgement by the sheriff
of Northumberland in 1381 of Redesdale’s authority as a jurisdiction distinct from the
county.
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