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 until 1897 the seat of a Church of England theological college. The grammar school here, founded in 1533, is liberally endowed, with scholarships and exhibitions. Cumberland is in the northern circuit, and assizes are held at Carlisle. It has one court of quarter sessions and 12 petty sessional divisions. The city of Carlisle has a separate commission of the peace and court of quarter sessions. There are 213 civil parishes. Cumberland is in the diocese of Carlisle, with a small portion in that of Newcastle. There are 167 ecclesiastical parishes or districts within the county. There are four parliamentary divisions, the Northern or Eskdale, Mid or Penrith, Cockermouth and Western or Egremont, each returning one member; while the parliamentary boroughs of Carlisle and Whitehaven each return one member.

History.—After the withdrawal of the Romans (of whose occupation there are various important relics in the county) little is known of the region which is now Cumberland, until the great battle of Ardderyd in 573 resulted in its consolidation with the kingdom of Strathclyde. About 670–680 the western district between the Solway and the Mersey was conquered by the Angles of Northumbria and remained an integral portion of that kingdom until the Danish invasion of the 9th century. In 875 the kingdom of the Cumbri is referred to, but without any indication of its extent, and the first mention of Cumberland to denote a geographical area occurs in 945 when it was ceded by Edmund to Malcolm of Scotland. At this date it included the territory north and south of the Solway from the Firth of Forth to the river Duddon. The Scottish supremacy was not uninterrupted, for the district at the time of its invasion by Ethelred in 1000 was once more a stronghold of the Danes, whose influence is clearly traceable in the nomenclature of the Lake District. At the time of the Norman invasion Cumberland was a dependency of the earldom of Northumbria, but its history at this period is very obscure, and no notice of it occurs in the Domesday Survey of 1086; Kirksanton, Bootle and Whicham, however, are entered under the possessions of the earl of Northumbria in the West Riding of Yorkshire. The real Norman conquest of Cumberland took place in 1092, when William Rufus captured Carlisle, repaired the city, built the castle, and after sending a number of English husbandmen to till the land, placed the district under the lordship of Ranulf Meschines. The fief of Ranulf was called the Power or Honour of Carlisle, and a sheriff of Carlisle is mentioned in 1106. The district was again captured by the Scots in the reign of Stephen, and on its recovery in 1157 the boundaries were readjusted to include the great barony of Coupland. At this date the district was described as the county of Carlisle, and the designation county of Cumberland is not adopted in the sheriff’s accounts until 1177. The five present wards existed as administrative areas in 1278, when they were termed bailiwicks, the designation ward not appearing until the 16th century, though the bailiwicks of the Forest of Cumberland are termed wards in the 14th century. In the 17th and 18th centuries each of the five wards was under the administration of a chief constable.

Owing to its position on the Border Cumberland was the scene of constant warfare from the time of its foundation until the union of England and Scotland, and families like the Tilliols, the Lucies, the Greystokes, and the Dacres were famous for their exploits in checking or avenging the depredations of the Scots. During the War of Independence in the reign of Edward I. Carlisle was the headquarters of the English army. In the Wars of the Roses the prevailing sympathy was with the Lancastrian cause, which was actively supported by the representatives of the families of Egremont, Dacre and Greystoke. In 1542 the Scottish army under James V. suffered a disastrous defeat at Solway Moss. After the union of the crowns of England and Scotland in 1603, the countries hitherto known as “the Borders” were called “the Middle Shires,” and a period of comparative peace ensued. On the outbreak of the Civil War of the 17th century the northern counties associated in raising forces for the king, and the families of Howard, Dalston, Dacre and Musgrave rendered valuable service to the royalist cause. In 1645 Carlisle was captured by the parliamentary forces, but in April 1648 it was retaken by Sir Philip Musgrave and Sir Thomas Glenham, and did not finally surrender until the autumn of 1648. Cumberland continued, however, to support the Stuarts; it was one of the first counties to welcome back Charles II.; in 1715 it was associated with the rising on behalf of the Pretender, and Carlisle was the chief seat of operations in the 1745 rebellion.

In 685 Carlisle and the surrounding district was annexed by Ecgfrith king of Northumbria to the diocese of Lindisfarne, to which it continued subject, at least until the Danish invasion of the 9th century. In 1133 Henry I. created (q.v.) a bishopric. The diocese included the whole of modern Cumberland (except the barony of Coupland and the parishes of Alston, Over-Denton and Kirkandrews), and also the barony of Appleby in Westmorland. The archdeaconry of Carlisle, co-extensive with the diocese, comprised four deaneries. Coupland was a deanery in the archdeaconry of Richmond and diocese of York until 1541, when it was annexed to the newly created diocese of Chester. In 1856 the area of the diocese of Carlisle was extended, so as to include the whole of Cumberland except the parish of Alston, the whole of Westmorland, and the Furness district of Lancashire. In 1858 the deaneries were made to number eighteen, and in 1870 were increased to twenty.

The principal industries of Cumberland have been from earliest times connected with its valuable fisheries and abundant mineral wealth. The mines of Alston and the iron mines about Egremont were worked in the 12th century. The Keswick copper mines were worked in the reign of Henry III., but the black-lead mine was not worked to any purpose until the 18th century. Coal-mining is referred to in the 15th century, and after the revival of the mining industries in the 16th century, rose to great importance. The saltpans about the estuaries of the Esk and the Eden were a source of revenue in the 12th century.

Cumberland returned three members for the county to the parliament of 1290, and in 1295 returned in addition two members for the city of Carlisle and two members each for the boroughs of Cockermouth and Egremont. The boroughs did not again return members until in 1640 Cockermouth regained representation. Under the Reform Act of 1832, Cumberland returned four members for two divisions, and Whitehaven returned one member. The county now returns six members to parliament; one each for the four divisions of the county, Egremont, Cockermouth, Eskdale and Penrith, one for the city of Carlisle and one for the borough of Whitehaven.

Antiquities.—Very early crosses, having Celtic or Scandinavian characteristics, are seen at Gosforth, Bewcastle and elsewhere. In ecclesiastical architecture Cumberland is not rich as a whole, but it possesses Carlisle cathedral, with its beautiful choir, and certain monastic remains of importance. Among these are the fine remnants of Lanercost priory (see ). Calder Abbey, near Egremont, a Cistercian abbey founded in 1134, has ruins of the church and cloisters, of Norman and Early English character, and is very beautifully situated on the Calder. The parish Church of St Bees, with good Norman and Early English work, belonged to a Benedictine priory of 1120; but according to tradition the first religious house here was a nunnery founded c. 650 by St Bega, who became its abbess. Among the parish churches there are a few instances of towers strongly fortified for purposes of defence; that at Burgh-on-the-Sands, near Carlisle, being a good illustration. Castles, in some cases ruined, in others modernized, are fairly numerous, both near the Scottish border and elsewhere. Naworth Castle near Brampton is the finest example; others are at Bewcastle, Carlisle, Kirkoswald, Egremont, Cockermouth and Millom. Among many notable country seats, Rose Castle, the palace of the bishops of Carlisle; Greystoke Castle and Armathwaite Hall may be mentioned.

See J. Nicolson and R. Burn, History and Antiquities of the Counties of Westmorland and Cumberland (London, 1777); W. Hutchinson, History of Cumberland (Carlisle, 1794); S. Jefferson, History and Antiquities of Cumberland (Carlisle, 1840–1842); S. Gilpin, Songs and Ballads of Cumberland (London, 1866); W. Dickinson, Glossary of Words and Phrases of Cumberland (London, English Dialect