“Being then sixty years old,” says his great-grandson, “he was with difficulty persuaded to accept the offer, when it came to him from authority. The persuasion of his friends, particularly Sir Orlando Bridgeman, at length overcame his repugnance; and to that see, though very moderately endowed, he for ever after devoted himself, and resisted every offer of translation, though repeatedly made and earnestly recommended. To such of his friends as pressed an exchange upon him he was accustomed to reply, that Peterborough was his first espoused, and should be his only one.”
“Being then sixty years old,” says his great-grandson, “he was with difficulty persuaded to accept the offer, when it came to him from authority. The persuasion of his friends, particularly Sir Orlando Bridgeman, at length overcame his repugnance; and to that see, though very moderately endowed, he for ever after devoted himself, and resisted every offer of translation, though repeatedly made and earnestly recommended. To such of his friends as pressed an exchange upon him he was accustomed to reply, that Peterborough was his first espoused, and should be his only one.”
He discharged his new duties with energy and kept up his episcopal visitations till his eightieth year. His charges to the clergy are described as plain and unambitious, the earnest breathings of a pious mind. When Dr Wilkins (David Wilke) published the New Testament in Coptic he presented a copy to the bishop, who began to study the language at the age of eighty-three. “At this age,” says his chaplain, “he mastered the language, and went through great part of this version, and would often give me excellent hints and remarks, as he proceeded in reading of it.” He died in 1718, in the eighty-seventh year of his age; he was found sitting in his library, in the attitude of one asleep, and with a book in his hand.1His great-grandson was Richard Cumberland, the dramatist.
Bishop Cumberland was distinguished by his gentleness and humility. He could not be roused to anger, and spent his days in unbroken serenity. The basis of his ethical theory is Benevolence, and is the natural outcome of his temperament. He was a man of a sound understanding, improved by extensive learning, and left behind him several monuments of his talents and industry. His favourite motto was that a man had better “wear out than rust out.”
The philosophy of Cumberland is expounded in the treatiseDe legibus naturae. The merits of the work are almost confined to its speculative theories; its style is destitute of strength and grace, and its reasoning is diffuse and unmethodical. Its main design is to combat the principles which Hobbes had promulgated as to the constitution of man, the nature of morality, and the origin of society, and to prove that self-advantage is not the chief end of man, that force is not the source of personal obligation to moral conduct nor the foundation of social rights, and that the state of nature is not a state of war. The views of Hobbes seemto Cumberland utterly subversive of religion, morality and civil society, and he endeavours, as a rule, to establish directly antagonistic propositions. He refrains, however, from denunciation, and is a fair opponent up to the measure of his insight.
Laws of nature are defined by him as “immutably true propositions regulative of voluntary actions as to the choice of good and the avoidance of evil, and which carry with them an obligation to outward acts of obedience, even apart from civil laws and from any considerations of compacts constituting government.” This definition, he says, will be admitted by all parties. Some deny that such laws exist, but they will grant that this is what ought to be understood by them. There is thus common ground for the two opposing schools of moralists to join issue. The question between them is, Do such laws exist or do they not? In reasoning thus Cumberland obviously forgot what the position maintained by his principal antagonist really was. Hobbes must have refused to accept the definition proposed. He did not deny that there were laws of nature, laws antecedent to government, laws even in a sense eternal and immutable. The virtues as means to happiness seemed to him to be such laws. They precede civil constitution, which merely perfects the obligation to practise them. He expressly denied, however, that “they carry with them an obligation to outward acts of obedience, even apart from civil laws and from any consideration of compacts constituting governments.” And many besides Hobbes must have felt dissatisfied with the definition. It is ambiguous and obscure. In what sense is a law of nature a “proposition”? Is it as the expression of a constant relation among facts, or is it as the expression of a divine commandment? A proposition is never in itself an ultimate fact although it may be the statement of such a fact. And in what sense is a law of nature an “immutably true” proposition? Is it so because men always and everywhere accept and act on it, or merely because they always and everywhere ought to accept and act on it? The definition, in fact, explains nothing.
The existence of such laws may, according to Cumberland, be established in two ways. The inquirer may start either from effects or from causes. The former method had been taken by Grotius, Robert Sharrock (1630-1684) and John Selden. They had sought to prove that there were universal truths, entitled to be called laws of nature, from the concurrence of the testimonies of many men, peoples and ages, and through generalizing the operations of certain active principles. Cumberland admits this method to be valid, but he prefers the other, that from causes to effects, as showing more convincingly that the laws of nature carry with them a divine obligation. It shows not only that these laws are universal, but that they were intended as such; that man has been constituted as he is in order that they might be. In the prosecution of this method he expressly declines to have recourse to what he calls “the short and easy expedient of the Platonists,” the assumption of innate ideas of the laws of nature. He thinks it ill-advised to build the doctrines of natural religion and morality on a hypothesis which many philosophers, both Gentile and Christian, had rejected, and which could not be proved against Epicureans, the principal impugners of the existence of laws of nature. He cannot assume, he says, that such ideas existed from eternity in the divine mind, but must start from the data of sense and experience, and thence by search into the nature of things discover their laws. It is only through nature that we can rise to nature’s God. His attributes are not to be known by direct intuition. He, therefore, held that the ground taken up by the Cambridge Platonists could not be maintained against Hobbes. His sympathies, however, were all on their side, and he would do nothing to diminish their chances of success. He would not even oppose the doctrine of innate ideas, because it looked with a friendly eye upon piety and morality. He granted that it might, perhaps, be the case that ideas werebothborn with us and afterwards impressed upon us from without.
Cumberland’s ethical theory (seeEthics) is summed up in his principle of universal Benevolence, the one source of moral good. “No action can be morally good which does not in its own nature contribute somewhat to the happiness of men.” The theory is important in comparison (1) with that of Hobbes, and (2) with modern utilitarianism.
1. Cumberland’s Benevolence is, deliberately, the precise antithesis to the Egoism of Hobbes. To this fact it owes its existence and also its extravagance. Feeling that the most forcible method of attacking Hobbes was to assert the opposite in the same form, he maintained that the whole-hearted pursuit of the good of all contributes to the good of each and brings personal happiness; that the opposite process involves misery to individuals including the self. If, then, Hobbes went to the one extreme of postulating selfishness as the sole motive of human action, Cumberland was equally extravagant as regards Benevolence. The testimony of history shows,prima facieat least, that both motives have operated throughout, and just as self-interest has been increasingly modified by conscious benevolence, so benevolence alone does not explain all personal virtue nor love to God. But it is essential to notice that Cumberland never appealed to the evidence of history, although he believed that the law of universal benevolence had been accepted by all nations and generations; and he carefully abstains from arguments founded on revelation, feeling that it was indispensable to establish the principles of moral right on nature as a basis. His method was the deduction of the propriety of certain actions from the consideration of the character and position of rational agents in the universe. He argues that all that we see in nature is framed so as to avoid and reject what is dangerous to the integrity of its constitution; that the human race would be an anomaly in the world had it not for end its conservation in its best estate; that benevolence of all to all is what in a rational view of the creation is alone accordant with its general plan; that various peculiarities of man’s body indicate that he has been made to co-operate with his fellow men and to maintain society; and that certain faculties of his mind show the common good to be more essentially connected with his perfection than any pursuit of private advantage. The whole course of his reasoning proceeds on, and is pervaded by, the principle of final causes.
2. To the question, What is the foundation of rectitude?, he replies, the greatest good of the universe of rational beings. He may be regarded as the founder of English utilitarianism, but his utilitarianism is distinct from what is known as the selfish system; it goes to the contrary extreme, by almost absorbing individual in universal good. Nor does it look merely to the lower pleasures, the pleasures of sense, for the constituents of good, but rises above them to include especially what tends to perfect, strengthen and expand our true nature. Existence and the extension of our powers of body and mind are held to be good for their own sakes without respect to enjoyment. Cumberland’s views on this point were long abandoned by utilitarians as destroying the homogeneity and self-consistency of their theory; but J. S. Mill and some recent writers have reproduced them as necessary to its defence against charges not less serious than even inconsistency.
The answer which Cumberland gives to the question, Whence comes our obligation to observe the laws of nature?, is that happiness flows from obedience, and misery from disobedience to them, not as the mere results of a blind necessity, but as the expressions of the divine will. Reward and punishment, supplemented by future retribution, are, in his view, the sanctions of the laws of nature, the sources of our obligation to obey them. To the other great ethical question, How are moral distinctions apprehended?, he replies that it is by means of right reason. But by right reason he means merely the power of rising to general laws of nature from particular facts of experience. It is no peculiar faculty or distinctive function of mind; it involves no original element of cognition; it begins with sense and experience; it is gradually generated and wholly derivative. This doctrine lies only in germ in Cumberland, but will be found in full flower in Hartley, Mackintosh and later associationists.
Bibliography.—Editions of theDe legibus naturae(Lübeck, 1683 and 1694); English versions by John Maxwell, prebendary ofConnor,A Treatise of the Laws of Nature(London, 1727), and John Towers (Dublin, 1750); French translation by Jean Barbeyrac (Amsterdam, 1744); James Tyrrell (1642-1718), grandson of Archbishop Ussher, published an abridgment of Cumberland’s views inA Brief Disquisition of the Laws of Nature according to the Principles laid down in the Rev. Dr Cumberland’s Latin Treatise(London, 1692; ed. 1701). For biographical details see Squier Payne,Account of the Life and Writings of R. Cumberland(London, 1720); Cumberland’sMemoirs(1807), i. 3-6; Pepys’sDiary. For his philosophy, see E. Albee,Philosophical Review, iv. 3 (1895), pp. 264 and 371; F. E. Spaulding,R. Cumberland als Begründer der englischen Ethik(Leipzig, 1894); and text-books on ethics.
Bibliography.—Editions of theDe legibus naturae(Lübeck, 1683 and 1694); English versions by John Maxwell, prebendary ofConnor,A Treatise of the Laws of Nature(London, 1727), and John Towers (Dublin, 1750); French translation by Jean Barbeyrac (Amsterdam, 1744); James Tyrrell (1642-1718), grandson of Archbishop Ussher, published an abridgment of Cumberland’s views inA Brief Disquisition of the Laws of Nature according to the Principles laid down in the Rev. Dr Cumberland’s Latin Treatise(London, 1692; ed. 1701). For biographical details see Squier Payne,Account of the Life and Writings of R. Cumberland(London, 1720); Cumberland’sMemoirs(1807), i. 3-6; Pepys’sDiary. For his philosophy, see E. Albee,Philosophical Review, iv. 3 (1895), pp. 264 and 371; F. E. Spaulding,R. Cumberland als Begründer der englischen Ethik(Leipzig, 1894); and text-books on ethics.
1The care of his posthumous publications devolved upon his domestic chaplain and son-in-law, Squier Payne, who soon after the bishop’s death edited “Sanchoniato’s Phoenician History, translated from the first book of Eusebius,De praeparatione evangelica: with a continuation of Sanchoniato’s history of Eratosthenes Cyrenaeus’s Canon, which Dicaearchus connects with the first Olympiad. These authors are illustrated with many historical and chronological remarks, proving them to contain a series of Phoenician and Egyptian chronology, from the first man to the first Olympiad, agreeable to the Scripture accounts” (London, 1720). The preface contains an account of the life, character and writings of the author, which was likewise published in a separate form, and exhibits a pleasing picture of his happy old age. A German translation appeared under the title ofCumberlands phönizische Historie des Sanchoniathons, übersetzt von Joh. Phil. Cassel(Magdeburg, 1755). The sequel to the work was likewise published by Payne—Origines gentium antiquissimae; or Attempts for discovering the Times of the First Planting of Nations: in several Tracts(London, 1724).
1The care of his posthumous publications devolved upon his domestic chaplain and son-in-law, Squier Payne, who soon after the bishop’s death edited “Sanchoniato’s Phoenician History, translated from the first book of Eusebius,De praeparatione evangelica: with a continuation of Sanchoniato’s history of Eratosthenes Cyrenaeus’s Canon, which Dicaearchus connects with the first Olympiad. These authors are illustrated with many historical and chronological remarks, proving them to contain a series of Phoenician and Egyptian chronology, from the first man to the first Olympiad, agreeable to the Scripture accounts” (London, 1720). The preface contains an account of the life, character and writings of the author, which was likewise published in a separate form, and exhibits a pleasing picture of his happy old age. A German translation appeared under the title ofCumberlands phönizische Historie des Sanchoniathons, übersetzt von Joh. Phil. Cassel(Magdeburg, 1755). The sequel to the work was likewise published by Payne—Origines gentium antiquissimae; or Attempts for discovering the Times of the First Planting of Nations: in several Tracts(London, 1724).
CUMBERLAND, RICHARD(1732-1811), English dramatist, was born in the master’s lodge of Trinity College, Cambridge, on the 19th of February 1732. He was the great-grandson of the bishop of Peterborough; and his father, Dr Denison Cumberland, became successively bishop of Clonfert and of Kilmore. His mother was Joanna, the youngest daughter of the great scholar Richard Bentley, and the heroine of John Byrom’s once popular little eclogue,Colin and Phoebe. Of the great master of Trinity his grandson has left a kindly account; he afterwards collected all the pamphlets bearing on theLetters of Phalariscontroversy, and piously defended the reputation of his ancestor in hisLetterto Bishop Lowth, who had called Bentley “aut caprimulgus aut fossor.” Cumberland was in his seventh year sent to the grammar-school at Bury St Edmunds, and he relates how, on the head-master Arthur Kinsman undertaking, in conversation with Bentley, to make the grandson as good a scholar as the grandfather himself, the latter retorted: “Pshaw, Arthur, how can that be, when I have forgot more than thou ever knewest?” Bentley died during his grandson’s Bury schooldays; and in 1744 the boy, who, while rising to the head of his school, had already begun to “try his strength in several slight attempts towards the drama,” was removed to Westminster, then at the height of its reputation under Dr Nicholls. Among his schoolfellows here were Warren Hastings, George Colman (the elder), Lloyd, and (though he does not mention them as such) Churchill and Cowper. From Westminster Cumberland passed, in his fourteenth year, to Trinity College, Cambridge, where in 1750 he took his degree as tenth wrangler. His account of his degree examination, as well as that for a fellowship at his college, part of which he underwent in the “judges’ chamber,” where he was born, is curious; he was by virtue of an alteration in the statutes elected to his fellowship in the second year of his degree.
Meanwhile his projects of work as a classical scholar had been interspersed with attempts at imitating Spenser—whom, by his mother’s advice, he “laid upon the shelf”—and a dramatic effort (unprinted) on the model of Mason’sElfrida, calledCaractacus. He had just begun to read for his fellowship, when he was offered the post of private secretary by the earl of Halifax, first lord of trade and plantations in the duke of Newcastle’s ministry. His family persuaded him to accept the office, to which he returned after his election as fellow. It left him abundant leisure for literary pursuits, which included the design of a poem in blank verse on India. He resigned his Trinity fellowship on his marriage—in 1759—to his cousin Elizabeth Ridge, to whom he had paid his addresses on receiving through Lord Halifax “a small establishment as crown-agent for Nova Scotia.” In 1761 he accompanied his patron (who had been appointed lord-lieutenant) to Ireland as Ulster secretary; and in acknowledgment of his services was afterwards offered a baronetcy. By declining this he thinks he gave offence; at all events, when in 1762 Halifax became secretary of state, Cumberland in vain applied for the post of under-secretary, and could only obtain the clerkship of reports at the Board of Trade under Lord Hillsborough. While he takes some credit to himself for his incorruptibility when in Ireland, he showed zeal for his friend and secured a bishopric for his father. On the accession to office of Lord George Germaine (Sackville) in 1775, Cumberland was appointed secretary to the Board of Trade and Plantations, which post he held till the abolition of that board in 1782 by Burke’s economical reform. Before this event he had, in 1780, been sent on a confidential mission to Spain, to negotiate a separate treaty of peace with that power; but though he was well received by King Charles III. and his minister Floridablanca, the question of Gibraltar proved a stumbling-block, and the Gordon riots at home a most untoward occurrence. He was recalled in 1781, and was refused repayment of the expenses he had incurred, towards which only £1000 had been advanced to him. He thus found himself £4500 out of pocket: in vain, he says, “I wearied the door of Lord North till his very servants drove me from it”; his memorial remained unread or unnoticed either by the prime minister or by secretary Robinson, through whom the original promise had been made. Soon after this experience he lost his office, and had to retire on a compensation allowance of less than half-pay. He now took up his residence at Tunbridge Wells; but during his last years he mostly lived in London, where he died on the 7th of May 1811. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, a short oration being pronounced on this occasion by his friend Dean Vincent.
Cumberland’s numerous literary productions are spread over the whole of his long life; but it is only by his contributions to the drama, and perhaps by hisMemoirs, that he is likely to be remembered. The collection of essays and other pieces entitledThe Observer(1785), afterwards republished together with a translation ofThe Clouds, found a place amongThe British Essayists. For the accounts given inThe Observerof the Greek writers, especially the comic poets, Cumberland availed himself of Bentley’s MSS. and annotated books in his possession; his translations from the Greek fragments, which are not inelegant but lack closeness, are republished in James Bailey’sComicorum Graecorum(part i., 1840) andHermesianactis, Archilochi, et Pratinae fragmenta. Cumberland further producedAnecdotes of Eminent Painters in Spain(1782 and 1787); aCatalogue of the King of Spain’s Paintings(1787); two novels—Arundel(1789), a story in letters, andHenry(1795), a “diluted comedy” on the construction and polishing of which he seems to have expended great care; a religious epic,Calvary, or the Death of Christ(1792); his last publication was a poem entitledRetrospection. He is also supposed to have joined Sir James Bland Burges in an epic, theExodiad(1807), and inJohn de Lancaster, a novel. Besides these he wrote theLetter to the Bishop of O[xfor]din vindication of Bentley (1767); anotherto the Bishop of Llandaff(Richard Watson) on his proposal for equalizing the revenues of the Established Church (1783); aCharacter of the late Lord Sackville(1785), whom in hisMemoirshe vindicates from the stigma of cowardice; and an anonymous pamphlet,Curtius rescued from the Gulf, against the redoubtable Dr Parr. He was also the author of a version of fifty of the Psalms of David; of a tract on the evidences of Christianity; and of other religious exercises in prose and verse, the former including “as many sermons as would make a large volume, some of which have been delivered from the pulpits.” Lastly, he edited, in 1809, a short-lived critical journal calledThe London Review, intended to be a rival to theQuarterly, with signed articles.
Cumberland’sMemoirs, which he began at the close of 1804, and concluded in September 1805, were published in 1806, and a supplement was added in 1807. This narrative, which includes a long account of his Spanish mission, contains some interesting reminiscences of several persons of note—more especially Bubb Dodington, Single-Speech Hamilton, and Lord George Sackville among politicians, and of Garrick, Foote and Goldsmith; but the accuracy of some of the anecdotes concerning the last-named is not beyond suspicion. The book exhibits its author as an amiable egotist, careful of his own reputation, given to prolixity and undistinguished by wit, but a good observer of men and manners. The uneasy self-absorption which Sheridan immortalized in the character of Sir Fretful Plagiary inThe Criticis apparent enough in this autobiography, but presents itself there in no offensive form. The incidental criticisms of actors have been justly praised.
Cumberland was hardly warranted in the conjecture that no English author had yet equalled his list of dramas in point of number; but his plays, published and unpublished, have beencomputed to amount to fifty-four. About 35 of these are regular plays, to which have been added 4 operas and a farce; and about half of the whole list are comedies. The best known of them belong to what he was pleased to term “legitimate comedy,” and to that species of it known as “sentimental.” The essential characteristic of these plays is the combination of plots of domestic interest with the rhetorical enforcement of moral precepts, and with such small comic humour as the author possesses. These comedies are primarily, to borrow Cumberland’s own phraseology, designed as “attempts upon the heart.” He takes great credit to himself for weaving his plays out of “homely stuff, right British drugget,” and for eschewing “the vile refuse of the Gallic stage”; on the other hand, he borrowed from the sentimental fiction of his own country, including Richardson, Fielding and Sterne. The favourite theme of his plays is virtue in distress or danger, but safe of its reward in the fifth act; their most constant characters are men of feeling and young ladies who are either prudes or coquettes. Cumberland’s comic power—such as it was—lay in the invention of comic characters taken from the “outskirts of the empire,” and professedly intended to vindicate from English prejudice the good elements in the Scotch, the Irish and the colonial character. For the rest, patriotic sentiment liberally asserts itself by the side of general morality. If Cumberland’s dialogue lacks brilliance and his characters reality, the construction of the plots is as a rule, skilful, and the situations are contrived with what Cumberland indisputably possessed—a thorough insight into the secrets of theatrical effect. It should be added that, though Cumberland’s sentimentality is often wearisome, his morality is generally sound; that if he was without the genius requisite for elevating the national drama, he did his best to keep it pure and sweet; and that if he borrowed much, as he undoubtedly did, it was not the vicious attractions of other dramatists of which he was the plagiary.
His début as a dramatic author was made with a tragedy,The Banishment of Cicero, published in 1761 after its rejection by Garrick; this was followed in 1765 by a musical drama,The Summer’s Tale, subsequently compressed into an afterpieceAmelia(1768). Cumberland first essayed sentimental comedy inThe Brothers(1769). The theme of this comedy is inspired by Fielding’sTom Jones; its comic characters are the jolly old tar Captain Ironsides, and the henpecked husband Sir Benjamin Dove, whose progress to self-assertion is genuinely comic, though not altogether original. Horace Walpole said that it acted well, but read ill, though he could distinguish in it “strokes of Mr Bentley.” The epilogue paid a compliment to Garrick, who helped the production of Cumberland’s second comedyThe West-Indian(1771). The hero of this comedy, which probably owes much to the suggestion of Garrick, is a young scapegrace fresh from the tropics, “with rum and sugar enough belonging to him to make all the water in the Thames into punch,”—a libertine with generous instincts, which in the end prevail. This early example of the moderndramewas received with the utmost favour; it was afterwards translated into German by Boden, and Goethe acted in it at the Weimar court.The Fashionable Lover(1772) is a sentimental comedy of the most pronounced type.The Choleric Man(1774), founded on theAdelphiof Terence, is of a similar type, the comic element rather predominating, but philanthropy being duly represented by a virtuous lawyer called Manlove. Among his later comedies may be mentionedThe Natural Son(1785), in which Major O’Flaherty who had already figured inThe West-Indian, makes his reappearance;The Impostors(1789), a comedy of intrigue;The Box Lobby Challenge(1794), a protracted farce;The Jew(1794), a serious play, highly effective when the character of Sheva was played by the great German actor Theodor Döring;The Wheel of Fortune(1795), in which John Kemble found a celebrated part in the misanthropist Penruddock, who cannot forget but learns to forgive (a character declared by Kotzebue to have been stolen from hisMenschenhass und Reue), while the lawyer Timothy Weasel was made comic by Richard Suett;First Love(1795);The Last of the Family(1795);False Impressions(1797);The Sailor’s Daughter(1804); and aHint to Husbands(1806), which, unlike the rest, is in blank verse. The other works printed during his lifetime includeThe Note of Hand(1774), a farce; the songs of his musical comedy,The Widow of Delphi(1780); his tragedies ofThe Battle of Hastings(1778); andThe Carmelite(1784), a romantic domestic drama in blank verse, in the style of Home’sDouglas, furnishing some effective scenes for Mrs Siddons and John Kemble as mother and son; and the domestic drama (in prose) ofThe Mysterious Husband(1783). His posthumously printed plays (published in 2 vols. in 1813) include the comedies ofThe Walloons(acted in 1782);The Passive Husband(acted asA Word for Nature, 1798);The Eccentric Lover(acted 1798); andLovers’ Resolutions(once acted in 1802); the serious quasi-historic dramaConfession; the dramaDon Pedro(acted 1796); and the tragedies ofAlcanor(acted asThe Arab, 1785);Torrendal;The Sibyl, or The Elder Brutus(afterwards amalgamated with other plays on the subject into a very successful tragedy for Edmund Kean by Payne);Tiberius in Capreae; andThe False Demetrius(on a theme which attracted Schiller). Cumberland translated theCloudsof Aristophanes (1797), and altered for the stage Shakespeare’sTimon of Athens(1771), Massinger’sThe BondmanandThe Duke of Milan(both 1779).
In 1806-1807 appearedMemoirs of R. Cumberland, written by himself. Cumberland’s novel,Henry, was printed in Ballantyne’s Novelists’ Library (1821), with a prefatory notice of the author by Sir Walter Scott. A so-calledCritical Examinationof Cumberland’s works and a memoir of the author based oh his autobiography, with the addition of some more or less feeble criticisms, by William Madford, appeared in 1812. An excellent account of Cumberland is included in “George Paston’s”Little Memoirs of the Eighteenth Century(1901). Hettner well characterizes Cumberland’s position in the history of the English drama inLitteraturgesch. d. 18. Jahrhunderts(2nd ed., 1865), i. 520. Cumberland’s portrait by Romney (whose talent he was one of the first to encourage) is in the National Portrait Gallery.
In 1806-1807 appearedMemoirs of R. Cumberland, written by himself. Cumberland’s novel,Henry, was printed in Ballantyne’s Novelists’ Library (1821), with a prefatory notice of the author by Sir Walter Scott. A so-calledCritical Examinationof Cumberland’s works and a memoir of the author based oh his autobiography, with the addition of some more or less feeble criticisms, by William Madford, appeared in 1812. An excellent account of Cumberland is included in “George Paston’s”Little Memoirs of the Eighteenth Century(1901). Hettner well characterizes Cumberland’s position in the history of the English drama inLitteraturgesch. d. 18. Jahrhunderts(2nd ed., 1865), i. 520. Cumberland’s portrait by Romney (whose talent he was one of the first to encourage) is in the National Portrait Gallery.
(A. W. W.)
CUMBERLAND, WILLIAM AUGUSTUS,Duke of(1721-1765), son of King George II. and Queen Caroline, was born on the 15th of April 1721, and when five years of age was created duke of Cumberland. His education was well attended to, and his courage and capacity in outdoor exercises were notable from his early years. He was intended by the king and queen for the office of lord high admiral, and in 1740 he sailed as a volunteer in the fleet under the command of Sir John Norris; but he quickly became dissatisfied with the navy, and early in 1742 he began a military career. In December 1742 he was made a major-general, and in the following year he first saw active service in Germany. George II. and the “martial boy” shared in the glory of Dettingen (June 27), and Cumberland, who was wounded in the action, displayed an energy and valour, the report of which in England founded his military popularity. After the battle he was made lieutenant-general. In 1745, having been made captain-general of the British land forces at home and in the field, the duke was again in Flanders as commander-in-chief of the allied British, Hanoverian, Austrian and Dutch troops. Advancing to the relief of Tournay, which was besieged by Marshal Saxe, he engaged that great general in the battle of Fontenoy (q v.) on the 11th of May. It cannot now be doubted that, had the duke been supported by the allies in his marvellously courageous attack on the superior positions of the French army, Fontenoy would not have been recorded as a defeat to the British arms. He himself was in the midst of the heroic column which penetrated the French centre, and his conduct of the inevitable retreat was unusually cool and skilful.
Notwithstanding the severity of his discipline, the young duke had the power to inspire his men with a strong attachment to his person and a very livelyesprit de corps. As a general his courage and resolution were not sufficiently tempered with sagacity and tact; but he displayed an energy and power in military affairs which pointed him out to the British people as the one commander upon whom they could rely to put a decisive stop to the successful career of Prince Charles Edward in the rebellion of 1745-1746. John (Earl) Ligonier wrote of him at this time: “Ou je suis fort trompé ou il se forme là un grand capitaine.”
He was recalled from Flanders, and immediately proceeded with his preparations for quelling the insurrection. He joined the midland army under Sir John Ligonier, and was at once in pursuit of his swift-footed foe. But the retreat of Charles Edward from Derby disconcerted his plans; and it was not till they had reached Penrith, and the advanced portion of his army had been repulsed on Clifton Moor, that he became aware how hopeless an attempt to overtake the retreating Highlanders would then be. Carlisle having been retaken, he retired to London, till the news of the defeat of Hawley at Falkirk roused again the fears of the English people, and centred the hopes of Britain on the royal duke. He was appointed commander of the forces in Scotland.
Having arrived in Edinburgh on the 30th of January 1746, he at once proceeded in search of the young Pretender. He diverged, however, to Aberdeen, where he employed his time in training the well-equipped forces now under his command for the peculiar nature of the warfare in which they were about to engage. What the old and experienced generals of his time had failed to accomplish or even to understand, the young duke of Cumberland, as yet only twenty-four years of age, effected with simplicity and ease. He prepared to dispose his army so as to withstand with firmness that onslaught on which all Highland successes depended; and he reorganized the forces and restored their discipline and self-confidence in a few weeks.
On the 8th of April 1746 he set out from Aberdeen towards Inverness, and on the 15th he fought the decisive battle of Culloden, in which, and in the pursuit which followed, the forces of the Pretender were completely destroyed. He had become convinced that the sternest measures were needed to break down the Jacobitism of the Highlanders. He told his troops to take notice that the enemy’s orders were to give no quarter to the “troops of the elector,” and they took the hint. No trace of such orders remains (seeMurray, Lord George), and it is probable that Cumberland had merely received word of wild talk in the enemy’s camp, which he credited the more easily as he thought that those who were capable of rebellion were capable of any crime. On account of the merciless severity with which the fugitives were treated, Cumberland received the nickname of the “Butcher.” That the implied taunt was unjust need not be laboured. It was used for political purposes in England, and his own brother, the prince of Wales, encouraged, it appears, the virulent attacks which were made upon the duke. In any case there is a marked similarity between Cumberland’s conduct in Scotland and that of Cromwell in Ireland. Both dared to do acts which they knew would be cast against them for the rest of their lives, and terrorized an obstinate and unyielding enemy into submission. How real was the danger of a protracted guerrilla warfare in the Highlands may be judged from the explicit declarations of Jacobite leaders that they intended to continue the struggle. As it was, the war came to an end almost at once. Here, as always, Cumberland preserved the strictest discipline in his camp. He was inflexible in the execution of what he deemed to be his duty, without favour to any man. At the same time he exercised his influence in favour of clemency in special cases that were brought to his notice. Some years later James Wolfe spoke of the duke as “for ever doing noble and generous actions.”
The relief occasioned to Britain by the duke’s victorious efforts was acknowledged by his being voted an income of £40,000 per annum in addition to his revenue as a prince of the royal house. The duke took no part in the Flanders campaign of 1746, but in 1747 he again opposed the still victorious Marshal Saxe; and received a heavy defeat at the battle of Lauffeld, or Val, near Maestricht (2nd of July 1747). During the ten years of peace Cumberland occupied himself chiefly with his duties as captain-general, and the result of his work was clearly shown in the conduct of the army in the Seven Years’ War. His unpopularity, which had steadily increased since Culloden, interfered greatly with his success in politics, and when the death of the prince of Wales brought a minor next in succession to the throne the duke was not able to secure for himself the contingent regency, which was vested in the princess-dowager of Wales. In 1757, the Seven Years’ War having broken out, Cumberland was placed at the head of a motley army of allies to defend Hanover. At Hastenbeck, near Hameln, on the 26th of July 1757, he was defeated by the superior forces of D’Estrées (seeSeven Years’ War). In September of the same year his defeat had almost become disgrace. Driven from point to point, and at last hemmed in by the French under Richelieu, he capitulated at Klosterzeven on the 8th of the month, agreeing to disband his army and to evacuate Hanover. His disgrace was completed on his return to England by the king’s refusal to be bound by the terms of the duke’s agreement. In chagrin and disappointment he retired into private life, after having formally resigned the public offices he held. In his retirement he made no attempt to justify his conduct, applying in his own case the discipline he had enforced in others. For a few years he lived quietly at Windsor, and subsequently in London, taking but little part in politics. He did much, however, to displace the Bute ministry and that of Grenville, and endeavoured to restore Pitt to office. Public opinion had now set in his favour, and he became almost as popular as he had been in his youth. Shortly before his death the duke was requested to open negotiations with Pitt for a return to power. This was, however, unsuccessful. On the 31st of October 1765 the duke died.
A Life of the duke of Cumberland by Andrew Henderson was published in 1766, and anonymous (Richard Rolt)Historical Memoirsappeared in 1767. See especially A. N. Campbell Maclachlan,William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland(1876).
A Life of the duke of Cumberland by Andrew Henderson was published in 1766, and anonymous (Richard Rolt)Historical Memoirsappeared in 1767. See especially A. N. Campbell Maclachlan,William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland(1876).
CUMBERLAND,the north-westernmost county of England, bounded N. by the Scottish counties of Dumfries and Roxburgh, E. by Northumberland, S. by Westmorland and Lancashire, and W. by the Irish Sea. Its area is 1520.4 sq m. In the south the county includes about one-half of the celebratedLake District(q.v.), with the highest mountain in England, Scafell Pike (3210 ft.), and the majority of the principal lakes, among which are Derwentwater and Bassenthwaite, Buttermere and Crummock Water, Ennerdale, Wastwater, and, on the boundary with Westmorland, Ullswater. From this district valleys radiate north, west and south to a flat coastal belt, the widest part of which (about 8 m.) is found in the north in the Solway Plain, bordering Solway Firth, which here intervenes between England and Scotland. The valley of the Eden, opening upon this plain from the south-east, separates the mountainous Lake District from the straight westward face of a portion of the Pennine Chain (q.v.), which, though little of it lies within this county, reaches its highest point within it in Cross Fell (2930 ft.). A well-marked pass, called the Tyne Gap, at the water-parting between the rivers Irthing and South Tyne, traversed by the Newcastle & Carlisle railway, intervenes between these hills and their northward continuation in the hills of the Scottish border. Besides the waters of the Eden, Solway Firth receives those of the Esk, which enter Cumberland from Scotland. Liddel Water, joining this river from the north east from Liddisdale, forms a large part of the boundary with Scotland. The Eden receives the Irthing from the east, and from the Lake District the Caldew, rising beneath Skiddaw and joining the main river at Carlisle, and the Eamont, draining Ullswater and forming part of the boundary with Westmorland. The principal streams flowing east and south from the Lake District are the Derwent, from Borrowdale and Derwentwater, the Eden from Ennerdale, the Esk from Eskdale, and the Duddon, forming the greater part of the boundary with Lancashire. There are valuable salmon fisheries in the Eden, and trout are taken in many of the streams and lakes.
Geology.—The mountainous portion of Cumberland is built up of two different types of rock. The older, a sedimentary slaty series of Ordovician age, the Skiddaw slates, surrounds Bassenthwaite, Saddleback, Crummock Water, Keswick and Cockermouth and the western end of Ennerdale Water. The same formation is found in the northern flanks of Ullswater also north and east of Whitbeck. The other type of rock is volcanic; it gives a more rugged aspect to the scenery, as may be seen in comparing the rough outlines of Scafell and Honister Crags or Helvellyn with the smoother form of Saddleback or Skiddaw. These volcanic rocks, owing to muchalteration, are often slaty; they have been called the “green slates and porphyries” or the Borrowdale Series. The Skiddaw slates are usually separated from the newer green slates above them by a plane of differential movement, for both have been thrust by earth-pressures from south to north, but the former rocks have travelled farther than the latter which have lagged behind; hence Messrs Marr and Harker describe the plane of separation as a “lag-fault.” Much general faulting and folding have resulted from the movement; the thrusting took place in Devonian times. About the same period great masses of granitic rock were intruded into the slates in the form of laccolites, which often lie along the lag planes. Such rocks are the granophyre hills of Buttermere and Ennerdale, the microgranite patches on either side of the Vale of St John, and the great mass of Eskdale granite which reaches from Wastwater to the flanks of Black Combe. At Carrock Fell, N.E. of Skiddaw, is an extremely interesting complex of volcanic rocks, and in many other places are diabase and other forms,e.g.the well-known rock at Castle Head, Keswick.From Pooley Bridge, Ullswater, on the east, by Udale round to Egremont on the west, the mountainous region just described, is surrounded by the Carboniferous Limestone series, with a conglomerate at the base. Upon these rocks the coalfield of Whitehaven rests and extends as far as Maryport. The coal seams are worked for some distance beneath the sea. The vale of Eden between Penrith, Hornsby and Wreay is occupied by Permian sandstone, usually bright red in colour. Red Triassic rocks form a strip about 4 m. broad east of the Permian outcrop; a similar strip forms a coastal fringe from St Bees Head to Duddon Sands. The same formations are spread out round Carlisle, Brampton, Longtown, Wigton and Aspatria. East of Carlisle they are covered by an outlier of Lias. A great dislocation, the Pennine Fault, runs along the eastern side of the vale of Eden; it throws up the Lower Carboniferous limestones with their associated shales and sandstones to form the elevated ground in the north and north-east of the county. Several basic intrusions penetrate the limestone series, the best known being the Whin Sill, which may be traced for a number of miles northward from Crossfell. Evidences of glacial action are abundant; till with sands and gravel lie on the lower ground; striated rocks androches moutonnéesare common; perched blocks are found on the plateau by Sprinkling Tarn and elsewhere. Moraine mounds are quite numerous in the valleys, and have frequently been the cause of small lakes.
Geology.—The mountainous portion of Cumberland is built up of two different types of rock. The older, a sedimentary slaty series of Ordovician age, the Skiddaw slates, surrounds Bassenthwaite, Saddleback, Crummock Water, Keswick and Cockermouth and the western end of Ennerdale Water. The same formation is found in the northern flanks of Ullswater also north and east of Whitbeck. The other type of rock is volcanic; it gives a more rugged aspect to the scenery, as may be seen in comparing the rough outlines of Scafell and Honister Crags or Helvellyn with the smoother form of Saddleback or Skiddaw. These volcanic rocks, owing to muchalteration, are often slaty; they have been called the “green slates and porphyries” or the Borrowdale Series. The Skiddaw slates are usually separated from the newer green slates above them by a plane of differential movement, for both have been thrust by earth-pressures from south to north, but the former rocks have travelled farther than the latter which have lagged behind; hence Messrs Marr and Harker describe the plane of separation as a “lag-fault.” Much general faulting and folding have resulted from the movement; the thrusting took place in Devonian times. About the same period great masses of granitic rock were intruded into the slates in the form of laccolites, which often lie along the lag planes. Such rocks are the granophyre hills of Buttermere and Ennerdale, the microgranite patches on either side of the Vale of St John, and the great mass of Eskdale granite which reaches from Wastwater to the flanks of Black Combe. At Carrock Fell, N.E. of Skiddaw, is an extremely interesting complex of volcanic rocks, and in many other places are diabase and other forms,e.g.the well-known rock at Castle Head, Keswick.
From Pooley Bridge, Ullswater, on the east, by Udale round to Egremont on the west, the mountainous region just described, is surrounded by the Carboniferous Limestone series, with a conglomerate at the base. Upon these rocks the coalfield of Whitehaven rests and extends as far as Maryport. The coal seams are worked for some distance beneath the sea. The vale of Eden between Penrith, Hornsby and Wreay is occupied by Permian sandstone, usually bright red in colour. Red Triassic rocks form a strip about 4 m. broad east of the Permian outcrop; a similar strip forms a coastal fringe from St Bees Head to Duddon Sands. The same formations are spread out round Carlisle, Brampton, Longtown, Wigton and Aspatria. East of Carlisle they are covered by an outlier of Lias. A great dislocation, the Pennine Fault, runs along the eastern side of the vale of Eden; it throws up the Lower Carboniferous limestones with their associated shales and sandstones to form the elevated ground in the north and north-east of the county. Several basic intrusions penetrate the limestone series, the best known being the Whin Sill, which may be traced for a number of miles northward from Crossfell. Evidences of glacial action are abundant; till with sands and gravel lie on the lower ground; striated rocks androches moutonnéesare common; perched blocks are found on the plateau by Sprinkling Tarn and elsewhere. Moraine mounds are quite numerous in the valleys, and have frequently been the cause of small lakes.
Climate and Agriculture.—The climate is generally temperate, but in the higher parts bleak, snow sometimes lying fully six months of the year on Cross Fell and the mountains of the Lake District. As regards rainfall, the physical configuration makes for contrast. At Carlisle, on the Solway plain, the mean annual fall is 30.6 in. At Penrith, on the north-eastern flank of the Lake District, it is 31.67; on the western flank 42.3 in. are recorded at Ravenglass, close to the coast, and 51.78 at Cockermouth, some miles inland. In the heart of the district, however, the fall is as a rule much heavier, in fact, the heaviest recorded in the British Isles (seeLake District). Somewhat less than three-fifths of the total area of the county is under cultivation, the proportion being higher than that of the neighbouring counties of Northumberland and Westmorland, but still much below the average of the English counties. Black peaty earth is the most prevalent soil in the mountainous districts; but dry loams occur in the lowlands, and are well adapted to green crops, grain and pasture. Wheat and barley are practically neglected, but large crops of oats are grown. Turnips and swedes form the bulk of the green crops. Hill pasture amounts to nearly 270,000 acres, and a good number of cattle are reared, but the principal resource of the farmer is sheep-breeding. The sheep on the lowland farms are generally of the Leicester class or cross-bred between the Leicester and Herdwick, with a few Southdowns. Throughout the mountainous districts the Herdwicks have taken the place of the smaller black-faced heath variety of sheep once so commonly met with on the sheep farms. They are peculiar to this part of England; the ewes and wethers and many of the rams are polled, the faces and legs are speckled, and the wool is finer and heavier in fleece than that of the heath breed. They originally came from the neighbourhood of Muncaster in the Duddon and Esk district, and tradition ascribes their origin variously to introduction by Scandinavian settlers, or to parents that escaped from a wrecked ship of the Spanish Armada. In general they belong to the proprietors of the sheep-walks, and have been farmed out with them from time immemorial, from which circumstance it is said they obtained the name of “Herdwicks.” Long after the Norman Conquest Cumberland remained one of the most densely forested regions of England, and much of the low-lying land is still well wooded, the Lake District in particular displaying beautiful contrasts between bare mountain and tree-clad valley. The oak, ash and birch are the principal natural trees, while sycamores have been planted for shelter round many farmsteads. Plantations of larch are also numerous, and the holly, yew, thorn and juniper flourish locally.
Landed property was formerly much divided in this county, and the smaller holdings were generally occupied by their owners, who were known as “statesmen,”i.e.“estatesmen,” a class of men long noted for their sturdy independence and attachment to routine husbandry. Most of these estates were held of the lords of manors under customary tenure, which subjected them to the payments of fines and heriots on alienation as well as on the death of the lord or tenant. According to theAgricultural Surveyprinted in 1794, about two-thirds of the county was held by this tenure, in parcels worth from £15 to £30 rental. On large estates, also, the farms were in general rather small, few then reaching £200 a year, held on verbal contracts, or very short leases, and burdened like the small estates with payments or services over and above a money rent. In modern times these conditions have changed, the “statesmen” gradually becoming extinct as a class, and many of the small holdings falling into the hands of the larger landed proprietors.
Other Industries.—Carlisle is the seat of a variety of manufactures; there are also in the county cotton and woollen industries, pencil mills at Keswick, and iron shipbuilding yards at Whitehaven. But the mining industry is the most important, coal being raised principally in the district about Whitehaven, Workington and Maryport. Side by side with this industry much iron ore is raised, and there is a large output of pig-iron, and ore is also found in the south, in the neighbourhood of Millom. Gypsum, zinc and some lead are mined. Copper was formerly worked near Keswick, and there was a rich deposit of black lead at the head of Borrowdale. Granite and limestone are extensively quarried. Stone is very largely used even for housebuilding, a fine green slate being often employed. Shap and other granites are worked for building and roadstones.
Communications.—The chief ports of Cumberland are Whitehaven, Workington, Maryport, Harrington and Silloth. The London & North-Western railway enters the county near Penrith, and terminates at Carlisle, which is also served by the Midland. The Caledonian, North British and Glasgow & South-Western lines further serve this city, which is thus an important junction in through communications between England and Scotland. The North-Eastern railway connects Carlisle with Newcastle. The Maryport & Carlisle, the Cockermouth, Keswick & Penrith, and the Cleator & Workington Junction lines serve the districts indicated by their names, while the Furness railway passes along the west coast from the district of Furness in Lancashire as far north as Whitehaven, also serving Cleator and Egremont. The Ravenglass & Eskdale light railway gives access from this system to Boot in Eskdale. Coaches and motor cars maintain passenger communications in the Lake District where the railways do not penetrate.
Population and Administration.—The area of the ancient and the administrative county is 973,086 acres, with a population in 1891 of 266,549 and in 1901 of 266,933. The county contains five wards, divisions which in this and neighbouring counties correspond to hundreds, and also appear in Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire in Scotland. The municipal boroughs are Carlisle (pop. 45,480), a city and the county town, Whitehaven (19,324), and Workington (26,143). The other urban districts are Arlecdon and Frizington (5341), Aspatria (2885), Cleator Moor (8120), Cockermouth (5355), Egremont (5761), Harrington (3679), Holme Cultram (4275), Keswick (4451), Maryport (11,897), Millom (10,426), Penrith (9182), Wigton (3692). Of these all except Keswick, Millom and Penrith are in the industrial district of the west and north-west. The urban district of Holme Cultram includes the port of Silloth. Among lesser towns may be mentioned St Bees (1236), on the coast south of Whitehaven,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 878 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 Carlisle (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 (seeBrampton). 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 foundedc.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.