Page:History and characteristics of Bishop Auckland.djvu/94

 HISTORY OF BISHOP AUGKLANB. 71 parliaments, and became possessor of, and lived at Brancepeth Castle. He was a lieutenant-general in the British forces inFlanders^imder ELing WiUiamllL^and was for some time Grovemor of Galway, in Ireland, and Berwick-upon-Tweed. He was succeeded in the above estates, in 1 7 1 9, by his only son, William Bellasis, who, dying in 1769 without male issue, the property devolved upon his only daughter, Miss Bellasis, to whose excessive love for Eobert Shafto, Esq., of Whitworth — ^for whom, we are also told, she died — ^the following popular, characteristic, and well-known bishopric song is said to owe its origin : — Bobby Shafto, fat and fair, Combing down his yellow hair ; He's my ain for evermair. Hey for Bobby Shafto ! Bobby Shafto's gone to sea, Wr silver buckles at his knee ; When he comes back hell many me, Bonxgr Bobby Shafto. Another branch of the family — Sir William Bellasis — ^lived at Morton House, in the parish of Houghton-le-Spring. " In the church at that place," says Hutchinson, " there is yet remaining a figure of a knight in armour, in a praying posture, with his sword by his side, reposing his head on a cushion, and at his feet a lion. This is said to be for Sir Rowland Bellasis, of Bewly, Knight, knighted at the Battle of Lewes, in Sussex, 48th, King Henry UL, when the King was taken prisoner by Simon Montfort, Earl of Leicester, and other barona'' In the same church, on a brass plate, over a raised monument, fixed in the south wall of the chancel, whereon are engraven the portrait of a woman and her eleven children, and also the arms of Bellasis and Lilbum in pale, we find the following inscription : — Here under restithe the bodyye of Margery Behissis wife to Richard Belassis, of Henknol Who had unto him vii sons and 4 daughters Then she becominge widow so continued The rest of her life the space of 5S years be- stowing her whole tyme onlye in hospitality And releif e of the poore and being of the Age of Izzxz deceased the zx of August 1587. The eflSgy, in wood, lying under the tower of St Andrew's Church, representing a Knight in a coat of chain armour, cross-legged, with the feet resting on an animal supposed to be a boar, is, no doubt, a monumental fragment of one of the Pollards, one of the most ancient families in this neighbourhood In Bishop Pudse/s time a Pollard is mentioned as holding lands in Bishop Auckland A few years later, another Pollard signs a document as a witness, conveying a certain portion of land in Auckland Park to the Prior and Convent of Durham. The Pollards are also mentioned in Bishop Hatfield's Survey. Prom the following entry, in the Eegister of St Andrew's, in the year 1675, we find one of that family mentioned as godfather at a christening : — March 6th, 1575. — ^Anthony Downes, Sutti$. — ^Anthony Wren, Lennardo Pollard, FUUuB Balph Downes. Margrie Downes. Th^re is a tradition relating to the efiBgy above-mentioned, which sayeth that the Enight whom it is said to represent, had as much land granted to him by one of the Bishops of Durham as he could ride round whilst the grantor dined, in reward for slaying a wild boar, which infested this neighbourhood; the Bishop stipulating that those lands were to be held by the service of presenting a falchion, or short sword, to each Bishop at his first coming into the diocese. Hutchinson says " that the first notice we find taken of this falchion is in the Digitized by Google —