Northumberland

The term Northumberland is first used in its contracted modern sense in 1065 in an entry in the Saxon Chronicle relating to the northern rebellion. The county is not mentioned in the Domesday Survey, but the account of the issues of the county is entered in the Great Roll of the Exchequer for 1131. In the reign of Edward I. the county of Northumberland comprised the whole district be tween the Tees and the Tweed, and included liberties belonging to the bishop of Durham, archbishop of York, the king of Scotland, the earl of Lancaster and the earl of Angus. These franchises were all held exempt from the ordinary jurisdiction of the shire. By statute of 1495-96 the lordship of Tynedale was annexed to Northumberland on account of flagrant abuses of the liberties of the franchise; that of Hexham in 1572; Norhamshire, Islandshire and Bedlingtonshire continued to form detached portions of Dur ham until 1844, when they were incorporated with Northumber land. The division into wards existed at least as early as 1295, the Hundred Roll of that year giving the wards of Coquetdale, Bamburgh, Glendale and Tynedale.

The shire-court for Northumberland was held at different times at Newcastle, Alnwick and Morpeth, until by statute of 1549 it was ordered that the court should thenceforth be held in the town and castle of Alnwick. The assizes were held at Newcastle, and the itinerant justices, on their approach to the county, were met by the king of Scotland, the archbishop of York, the bishop of Durham and the prior of Tynemouth, who pleaded their liberties either at a well called Chille near Gateshead, if the justices were proceeding from York, or, if from Cumberland, at Fourstanes. In these franchises the king's writ did not run, and their owners performed the office of sheriff and coroner. The burgesses of Newcastle claimed return of writs in their borough and the town was made a county by itself by Henry IV. in 1400, and has juris diction in admiralty cases. The county was in the diocese of Durham. But in 1882 Northumberland was formed into a sep arate diocese with its see at Newcastle. Northumberland has been the scene of perpetual inroads by the Scots and the churches were often so built as to form refuges against the invaders. Norham, Alnwick and Wark were captured by David of Scotland in the wars of Stephen's reign, and in 1290 it was at Norham castle that Edward I. decided the Scottish succession in favour of John Baliol.

In 1295 Robert de Ros and the earls of Athol and Menteith ravaged Redesdale, Coquetdale and Tynedale. In 1314 the county was ravaged by Robert Bruce, and in 1382 by special enactment the earl of Northumberland was ordered to remain on his estates in order to protect the county from the Scots. In 1388 Henry Percy was taken prisoner and I,Eoo of his men slain at the battle of Otterburn. Alnwick, Bamburgh and Dunstanborough were

garrisoned for the Lancastrian cause in 1462, but after the York ist victories of Hexham and Hedgley Moor in 1464, Alnwick and Dunstanborough surrendered, and Bamburgh was taken by storm. In 1513 the king of Scotland was slain in the battle of Flodden Field on Branxton moor. During the Civil War of the 17th century Newcastle was garrisoned for the king by the earl of Newcastle, but in 1644 it was captured by the Scots under the earl of Leven, and in 1646 Charles was led there a captive under the charge of David Leslie. The county of Northumberland was represented by two members in the parliament in 129o, and in 1295 Bamburgh, Corbridge and Newcastle-upon-Tyne each returned two members. Today, the parliamentary divisions of the county are Berwick upon-Tweed, Hexham and Wansbeck, each returning one member; while the parliamentary borough of Newcastle-upon-Tyne returns four members, and Morpeth, Wallsend and Tynemouth one each.

Industries and Agriculture.

The early industrial develop ment of Northumberland was much impeded by the constant ravages of internal. and border warfare. Again Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (Pope Pius II.) who passed through the county dis guised as a merchant in 1436, leaves a picture of its barbarous and desolate condition, and as late as the 17th century, Camden, the antiquary, describes the lands as rough and unfit for cultiva tion. The mineral resources, however, appear to have been ex ploited to some extent from remote times. It is certain that coal was used by the Romans in Northumberland. In a 13th-century grant to Newminster abbey a road for the conveyance of seacoal from the shore about Blyth is mentioned, and the Blyth coal-field was worked throughout the 14th and 15th centuries. The coal trade on the Tyne did not exist to any extent before the 13th century, but from that period it developed rapidly, and New castle acquired the monopoly of the river shipping and coal trade. The building of ships to carry the coal laid the foundations of the great modern shipbuilding industries. Lead was exported from Newcastle in the 12th century, probably from Hexhamshire, the lead mines of which were very prosperous throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. In a charter from Richard I. to Bishop Pudsey creating him earl of Northumberland, mines of silver and iron are mentioned, and in 1240 the monks of Newminster had an iron forge at Stretton. A saltpan is mentioned at Warkworth in the 12th century; in the 13th century the salt industry flourished at the mouth of the river Blyth, and in the 15th century formed the principal occupation of North and South Shields.