History of Skipton ... With illustrations, etc

Preface

. Before IJbegan the preparation of this book, it had always been to me matter for surprise that the history of Skipton had continued so long unwritten. The annals of our ancient town being so remarkable, aud the material so abundant, it seemed unaccountable that a History of Skipton was not in existence even before Dr. Whitaker gave to the world his inimitable History of the Antiquities of Craven. As a compre hensive history of the district, that learned and laborious work will long hold an undisputed position. But necessarily it fails to do adequate justice to individual places, and least of all does it meet the want of Craven's capital. It was the knowledge, therefore, that a separate aud full History of Skipton was felt to be a real need which led to the undertaking of the present work.

Moreover, since the time when Dr. Whitaker wrote, eighty years have run their course, and in that period the material available for topographical works has greatly increased. It would, indeed, have been an act of presumption, to say the least, to have projected this work if I had been unable to record anything further regarding our town than has been before the reading world for eighty years. But in undertaking the present History, it was a very gratifying circumstance that I came across a large amount of what may be termed new information about Skipton, as well as about the many stirring events, military and otherwise, of which it has been the scene in bygone years, and about those worthy men and women who, issuing from this secluded district, have in various ways gained for themselves enduring fame and honour.

My aim has throughout been to avoid, as much as might be, repetition of matter already well known, and to introduce facts and incidents with VI which only very few can be acquainted. It should here be stated that the second edition of Whitaker's Craven (1812) has been made the standard in case of reference. It would serve no good purpose to particularise here the many sources of information to which I have been led in the preparation of this History; and this is the less necessary as my authority is usually given in the case of matters of more than ordinary im portance. I must, however, acknowledge great indebtedness for the permission I have had to go through the accumulation of MSS. belonging to Baron Hothfield, in Skipton Castle, and to consult the valuable Library at Eshton Hall, the residence of Sir Mathew Wilson, Bart., M.P. The invaluable aid obtained from the Castle Evidences will be best seen from the frequent reference made to them through out this work.

Nor must I omit to acknowledge the kindness and courtesy of other known and unknown friends. I would express my obligation, for suggestions and information, to Mr. B. H. Sidgwick, J.P., of Skipton ; Mr. T. Brayshaw, of Settle, and others who are named hereafter ; while for the loan of engravings I have to thank Mr. J. Dodgson, of Leeds, the publisher of the third edition of Whitaker (pages 51, 79, 170, and 171) ; Mr. J. A. Busfeild, J.P., of Upwood, Bingley (page 211); Mr. W. Smith, F.S.A.S., of Morley (page 223), and Mr. W. Andrews, F.H.S., of Hull, (pages 292 and 296.) Thanks are also due to a numerous body of subscribers, a list of whom is regretfully yet unavoidably excluded. To conclude. This book has not been written with the idea of satisfying any literary ambition. The project was conceived, and it has been carried iuto effect, with the single desire that my native town might have its history recorded in a form worthy of its importance and its fame; and this is my only claim — that strict impartiality and honesty have guided the pen as it has run over every line and every page.

Of the research and labour involved in this under taking, I will only say that they have all along been a source of pure pleasure. W. H. D. Skipton, 1882. CONTENTS. PAGE Chapter I. UNDER SAXON AND NORMAN 1 Chapter II. A LEGEND OF THE ROMILLE FAMILY 15 Chapter III. THE HOUSE OF CLIFFORD 21 Chapter IV. MANORIAL GOVERNMENT: THE RELATIONS BETWEEN LORD AND TENANT 53 Chapter V. SKIPTON CASTLE— PAST AND PRESENT 65 Chapter VI. BARONIAL LIFE AT SKIPTON IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 87 Chapter VII. MILITARY HISTORY OF SKIPTON 99 The Scottish Incursions 99 Battle of Flodden Field 103 The Pilgrimage of Grace 106 The Rising in the North 112 Three Years' Siege during the Civil War 119 Scottish Rebellions of 1715 and 1745 CONTENTS. Chapter VIII. PAGE SKIPTON PARISH CHURCH 143 The Church 148 The Monuments I66 The Vicars 181 The Parish Registers 191 Chapter IX.

UNDER THE LATER CLIFFORDS 195 Chapter X. WORTHIES OF OLD SKIPTON 218 Henrt Lord Clifford, the Shepherd Lord 218 Canon William Ermtsted 224 George Earl of Cumberland 230 Anne Clifford, Countess of Pembroke 238 Nathaniel Simpson 246 William and Sylvester Petyt 247 George Holmes 253 John Wainman 257 Rev. George Croft, D.D 258 Edward Burtenshaw Sugden, Lord St. Leonards 259 Stephen Bailey Hall 262 William Oldfield 262 Richard Waller 263 William Cartwright Newsam 264 Chapter XI. COMMERCIAL HISTORY OF SKIPTON 267 Agriculture 267 Manufactures 275 Trades 282 The "Plug Drawing" Riots of 1842 285 Chapter XII. OLD MODES OF PUNISHMENT IN SKIPTON 289 Chapter XIII. THE RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS OF SKIPTON 297 The Quakers 297 The Wesleyan Methodists 304 The Congregationalists 309 The Primitive Methodists ....

CONTENTS. IX PAGE The Roman Catholics 314 The Episcopalians (Christ Church) 317 The Baptists 322 The Free Methodists 324 The Inghamites 324 Chapter XIV. SKIPTON PARISH CHARITIES 325 Miscellaneous Benefactions 325 The Free Grammar School 333 Charities of Thomas Earl of Thanet 342 The Petyt Library 346 The Corn Charities of 1795 and 1812 350 Chapter XV. MODERN SKIPTON 352 Chapter XVI. LOCAL CUSTOMS AND SUPERSTITIONS 373 Customs 373 Superstitions 387 Timothy Crowther, Astrologer and Wiseman 390 INDEX 395-408 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE Skipton in 1830 (Frontispiece) Arms of Clifford 25 Entrance Gateway of Skipton Castle 51 Skipton Castle Gateway 77 Conduit Court, Skipton Castle 79 Sklpton Parish Church 149 Brass on Slab of Clifford Tomb in Skipton Parish Church ... 170 Brass on Clifford Tomb in Skipton Parish Church 171 Plan of Altar-tomb in Skipton Parish Church 174 Epigraph on Carleton Hall Front 211 Epitaph on Ferrand Brass in Beverley Minster 213 Barden Tower 223 Lady Anne Clifford 239 Lady Anne Clifford's Signature 249 Ancient Ducking Stool 292 Riding the Stang 296 Christ Church, Skipton 319 Skipton Grammar School

Chapter I. Under Saxon And Norman

can hest conceive of the condition of Skipton in Saxon days JBKJnMi by deriving the name. Skipton is evidently sheep-town, Bo» Isl %li "^'^ sceP' anc^ (""' " r^un " or town as we now under lie^1* »SJi™ stand the word may appear a presumptuous title to apply to the handful of herdsmen's huts which made up the Skipton of those early days. But we must bear in mind the original meaning of the affix. The tun or ton was a space of ground surrounded, for purposes of security, by a hedge, and it might comprise but several homesteads. "The English town," remarks one, "was in its beginning simply a piece of the general country, organised and governed precisely in the same manner as the townships around it. Its existence witnessed, indeed, to the need which men felt in those early times of mutual help and protection.

The burh or borough was probably a more defensible place thau the common village ; it may have had a ditch or mound about it instead of the quickset hedge or ' tun ' from which the town ship took its name." Camden, the historian, goes far out of his way in deriving the word Skipton. He remarks : — " The river Are issuing from the root of the Mountain Pennigent (which is the highest in these parts) at first seeming doubtful whether it should run forwards into the Sea, or return into its Spring, is so winding and crooked that in travelling this way I had it to pass over seven times in half an hour upon a strait road. It's course is calm and quiet, so easie that it hardly appears to flow ; and I am of opinion this has occasion'd its name. For I have already observ'd that the British word ara signifies slow and easie ; and hence that slow river Araris in France takes its name.

That part of the Country where the head of this river lyes is call'd Craven, possibly from B British word Crage, a rock ; for what with stones, steep rocks, and rough ways, this place is very wild and unsightly. In the very middle of which, and not far distant from the Are, stands Skipton, hid (as it were) with those steep precipices, lying quite round ; just like Latium in Italy, which Varro thinks was really so call'd from its low situation under the Apennines, and the Alps." Regarding this far-fetched derivation Whitaker remarks that " Either this reference to Varro was impertinent, or Camden must be understood to mean that the verb ' skip ' anciently meant ' to be hid,' which assuredly it never did. But in Domesday, and in all the early charters I have seen, the word is spelt Sciptone, Sceptone, or Scepetone; evidently from the Saxon ' seep,' a sheep.

Skipton, therefore, is the Town of Sheep : a name which it must have acquired from the vast tracts of sheep-walk which lay around it before the Norman lords appropriated the wastes of Crokeris and Elso to the range of deer." The word Skipton is spelt variously in old charters and documents. Among other forms are Scepton, Scepetone, Schipton, Scipeden, Scipton, Sciptone, Skipden, Scipdon, Skibeden, Skybeden, Skypton (the most modern). In the later Saxon times Skipton formed part of the inheritance of Earl Edwin, whose possessions were among the last to remain in the hands of tbeir Saxon owners. At this time Bolton was a principal seat of Earl Edwin, and Skipton was still a mean, dependent village. The earl was son of Leofwine, and brother of Leofric, both Earls of Mercia. In an account of the manor of Malham, taken by Whitaker from the evidences of the Lambert family, the last Saxon lord is thus referred to : — " This erle Ed wyn, long before the Conquest, was seazed of the man' of Bodleton, in demeyn, and all the soke y^o belongyng in s'vice ; and had in demene and s'vice in Malghom p'cell of the same soke a carue and an halfe londe and an oxgange, and was a man'r. For at thos days all lordships and man's was geven and t'nslate de uno in aliu' by the name of Caraes, Hides, Yerdes, Knyghtes' Fees, or such hke.

The same erle contynued his possession in the seid man' of Bolton cu' soka in the day of the Conquest, and fyve yeres aft'; the which fist yere he fled the courte of Will'm Conqueror, and in going to Scotland was slayn by the way, and his brother Morcarus, erle of Northumber lande, and the bishop of Doreham fled into the Ile of Ely, and was y'r takyn, and Morcarus was comyt to ye Toure, and y' laye duryng the lys of Will'm Conq'ror, and at his deth he delyv'yd hym, and king Harold's son, and the biwshop of Doreham was pyned to deth in Abyngdon Abbey, or wold not ete, and than was all ther' londes forfet and seazed to and for the kynge." With the change from Saxon to Norman lordship a new order of things was instituted. The moated grange of the Saxon earl gives place to the feudal castle of the Norman baron.

Robert de Romille becomes lord of the fair domains of Bolton, and erects his castle at Skipton, and where had been "the sheep-fold of Craven" there sprang up a thriving market-town. The path of local history becomes henceforth illumined by many records. First, and most important of all, comes the great Survey, known as Domesday Survey, completed in 1086. This great territorial inquest was ordered by the Conqueror in order that he might have a basis upon which to levy fines and fix money services. " It shows us the woods, where the swine fed on the mast and acorns, the droves of wild horses in the marsh lands, the forests of the king, and the parks of his barons, and the fisheries of the hall and the abbey. It sets before us .... in fact, the whole daily hfe of the Old-English nation." In addition it gives all the different tenures and services upon which land was held at the time, and affords insights to the criminal and civil jurisdiction.

As I have said, a large portion of Craven was in the later Saxon days owned by Earl Edwin, but this earl had been dispossessed of all his estates before the making of the Domesday Survey ; wherefore his lands are classed as Terra, Regis, or king's land. All these, in extent seventy-seven carucates, lay waste, not having recovered from the ravages of the Danes. Of these lands, as the record goes : — M In Bodeltone comes Eduuin hb' vicar' træ ad gld. B In Altonc vicar'. In Embesie III car' inland, nl car' soca. me. me. unc. vie. xc. B In Dractonc, Scipcdcn, Sciptone, Snachehale, Toredderbi. nc. me. S Bedmeslcia, Holme. Or:— "Manor,— In Bodeltone (Bolton) Earl Edwin had six carucates of land to be taxed. " Berewick.— In Altone (Halton) six carucates. In Embesie (Embsay) three carucates inland, and three carucates soke.

"Berewick. — In Dractone (Draughton) three carucates, Scipeden (Skibeden) three carucates, Sciptone (Skipton) four carucates, Snachehale (Snaygill) six cam cates, Toredderbi (Thorlby) ten carucates. "Soke.— Bedmesleia (Beamsley) two carucates, Holme three carucates." The earl had possessions also in Gargrave, Stainton, Addingham, Otterburn, Scosthrop, Malham, Coniston, Hellifield, Hanlith, &c. first grantee after the forfeiture of Earl Edwin was Robert de Romille, a follower of the Conqueror, who is described by an old French historian as a descendant of a "famille ancienne et considerable en Bretagne et en Normandie." It has been seen that before the Conquest the honour and fee of Skipton originally belonged to Bolton, but Robert de Romille made Skipton the centre of his barony, and of whatever nature the residence at Bolton, it was now discarded as inadequate as a place of defence.

On the precipitous rock lying to the north of their little Saxon village, the herdsmen of Skipton beheld the frowning walls of a Norman castle rise. What a change was to come over their mode of life ! The mean sheep-town quickly grew into a place of comparative importance. Yet those were days of unceasing warfare, and oftentimes the folk of Skipton were fain to enjoy the shelter and the security, always free to them, of the fortress under whose walls they lived. Advantages they doubtless enjoyed as the outcome of their new dependence — advantages strange to them before. The name of the first Norman owner of Skipton will always be perpetuated from the fact that the extensive stretch of moorland lying to the east of the town bears his name — Romille's Moor.* It is indifferently spoken of as Rumble's, Rombold's, and Roumel's Moor.

A hundred and fifty years ago the word had yet another form. Gent, the historian, writing of his visit to Skipton, says : — " I have now stray'd a considerable way westward, about thirty miles from York over Rummo?is-Moor (tho' I think more properly to be called Romely- Moor from the name of the first Founder of Skipton Castle), and so down a dismal large Mountain or Precipice to this beautiful Town." Robert de Romille had but one child, a daughter, Cecily, who married William de Meschines, Lord of Copeland in Cumberland, and owner of Cockermouth and Egremont, and it was by these that the Priory of Embsay was founded, 21 Hemy Lt It is an interesting fact that by this marriage the lands of which Earl Edwin, the Saxon, was dispossessed, came again into the hands of his family. This will be seen from the following table ; — ■ * "The first owner since the Norman Conquest was Robert Rumelii, . of whose residence there the great mountain hanging over the town of Skipton doth take the name of Rumbles Moor."— Castle Evidences. t Castle Evidences, also Dugdale, &c, Leofwine, Earl of Mercian Edwin (of Domesday) Leofric, Ermenilda= Matilda = Ranulph de Meschines, Earl of Chester, William de Meschines = Cecily, daughter died 1129. and heir of Robert de Romille.

Nicholson, the Airedale poet, has put this incident into verse : — " How changed, since Skipton's tower3 arose, Their country's strength, and terror of its foes ! Where Meschines, the long-ejected heir, Led to the altar Cecily the Fair, Obtaining thus, what many a life had cost, With his fair bride, the lands his father lost ; — All those domains which Edwin once possessed, Where famed Romilli fixed his place of rest." William de Meschines and Cecily de Romille had a daughter, Alice de Romille, the heiress, who married William Fitz Duncan, son of Earl Murray, and nephew of David, King of Scotland. This Fitz Duncan was the chief actor in a dreadful outrage fourteen years before his marriage. At that time the northern counties of England were frequently invaded by Scottish marauders, who appear almost to have studied how most brutally to accomplish their work of desolation.

A raid of an unusually revolting nature is thus recorded by a chronicler :—" In the year 1138, while David, King of Scotland, was engaged in the siege of Norham, he detached the Picts, and part of his [Scottish] army, under the command of William, son of Duncan, his nephew, into Yorkshire. Here they laid waste the possessions of a famous monastery, called Suthernesse [? Furness], and the province called Crafna, with fire and sword. In this work of destruction no age or rank, and neither sex, was spared ; children were butchered before the faces of their parents, husbands in sight of their wives, and wives of their husbauds ; matrons and virgins of condition were carried away indiscriminately with other plunder, stripped naked, bound together with ropes and thongs, and goaded along with the points of swords and lances.

Similar outrages had been committed in former wars, but never to the same extent. In their march northward, however, some of the captors, touched with compassion, set their prisoners at' liberty, as offerings to the church of St. Mary, at Carlisle ; but the barbarous Picts dragged away their wretched captives without mercy into their own country. In short, these brutal savages, to whom adultery and incest were familiar, after having fatigued themselves with acts of lust aud violence, either retaiued the females as slaves in their own houses, or sold them like cattle to the other barbarians." It was in this expedi tion that a battle was fought at Clitheroe, wherein Fitz Duncan successfully repulsed the attacks of King Stephen's troops. In the year 1152 this same Fitz Duncan was established by the Scottish king in the honour of Skipton in Craven.

The historian who is quoted above adds that in this latter expedition the Scots despoiled some of the Craven churches, and King David as atonement presented to each a silver chalice.* William Fitz Duncan and Alice de Romille had issue one son, or as some say two, and three daughters. The son known as the Boy of Egremond is said by tradition to have been drowned at the Strid in Bolton Woods. Fitz Duncan's eldest daughter, Cecily, who succeeded to the estates, married William le Gross,! son of Stephen, Earl of Albemarle, and Lord of Holderness (ob. 1179). This William had a daughter, the heiress, named Hawise, who married first William de Mandevill, Earl of Essex, and also Earl of Albemarle, who died 1189; then William de Fortibus, Earl of Albemarle, J who died 1195; and as a third husband Baldwin de Betun, then ' Earl of the Isle of Wight,' who died 1212.

Of this triple marriage came issue one son, William de Fortibus,§ Earl of Albemarle, aud lord of Skipton (ob. 1241), who * "Peccaverunt ibi Scoti in direptionibus ecclesiarum, pro quibus rex dato unicuique ecclesiæ calice argenteo satisfecit." — Johannes Prior Hagustald. t "Which earl, William le Grosse, was a person of no small note in his time, whether we look upon him in reference to his Secular Actions or those tending to his soul's health (as then was taught). He was cheif of those great Peers that gave Battle to the Scots at North Alverton in an. 1138." — Dugdale's Baronage. 7*2\ t Dugdale says that in 1191, " upon collection of the Scutage for Wales, he answered Six pound Ten shillings for the Barony of Skipton, and Ten pound for the Knights' Fees apper taining to his Earldom of Albemarle." § "Divers men presuming upo' their former services to the State, or thinking the olde bad World would either continue still, or soone returne if justice grew confident against Tres passors, or for what other corrupt motives soever, did dare intollerable things.

The principall Lords of this mis-rule were WUliam, Earle of Auniarl, Falcasius de Brent, with his Garrison Souldiers, Robert de Veipont, with others," &c. In the year 1221 the same Earl of Albemarle, "incited by Falcasius de Brent and the like riotous Gentlemen," is said to have " sodainely departed from the Court without leave, and (whither it were upon discontentment because the King had against the Earle's mil the last yeare taken some Castles into his hands, or out of an evill ignorance how to live in quiet) he uiannes the Castle of Biham, victuals it with the Corne of the Chanons of Bridlington, spoyles the Towne of Deeping, and under shew of repayring to the Parliament, seiseth on the Castle of Fotheringhay, committing many other furious riots in contempt of the King, & breach of his peace ; many others in other places following his lewd example." — Speed.

Dugdale says that in 1221, when the king levied scutage, this earl " answered Forty pounds for Twenty Knights' Fees, as also Six pounds Ten shillings for those Fees which he had hy Inheritance from his Grandmother Alicia de Rnmelli, viz., the Barony of Skipton in Craven." married Aveline, daughter and co-heir of Richard, Lord Mountfichet. They had a son, William de Fortibus, the last of the family of Albe marle, who married Isabel, daughter of Baldwin de Rivers, Earl of Devonshire, by whom he had several children, only one of whom lived beyond youth. This was Aveline, who married Edmund Planta genet, Earl of Lancaster, and second son of Henry III., who is known by the surname of Crouch-back or Crutch-back. No issue came of this union, and at the death of Aveline and Edmund the earldom of Albe marle, along with the castle and honour of Skipton, passed into the hands of the crown by way of escheat.

This Edmuud was born in 1245, and at the age of ten years was created Earl of Lancaster. Not long after this he was invested with the barren title of King of Sicily and Naples by the Pope. An old chronicler records his marriage in the following words : — " Upon the nynth day of Apyll,* 1269, Edmund the King's sonne, surnamed Crouchebacke, maryed at Westmynster Aulina, the daughter of the Earle of Aumarl." Speed says of this Planta genet: — "Edmund, borne Jan. 26, a. 1245, aud of his Father's raigne 29, was surnamed Crouched-backe, of bowing in his backe, say some, but more likely of wearing the signe of the Crosse (anciently called a Crouch — so wee call the wooden supporters of impotent men, made like a crosse at the top, and Crouched Friers for wearing a Crosse) upon his backe, which was usually worne of such as vowed voyages to Jeru salem, as he had done.

He was invested titular King of Sicilia and Apulia, and created Earle of Lancaster (on whose person originally the great contention of Lancaster and Yorke was founded), and having of the grant of his Father the lands of Simon Montfort and Robert Ferrers (disinherited in the Barons' warres) was by vertue of the same graunt Earle of Leicester and Derby, and high Steward of England. He had two wives : the first was Avelin, daughter and heire of William, Earle of Albemarle, by whom he left no issue; the second was Queene Blanch, daughter of Robert, Earle of Artoys (brother of Saint Lewis, King of France), widow of Henry of Champaigne, King of Navarre. This Earle Edmund died at Bayton in Gascoigne, June 5, an. 1296, and of King Edward his brother's raigne twenty-foure, when he had lived fifty yere, foure moneths and nineteene dayes."

Grose, in his Antiqui- The earl appears to have grown loyal again, for in 1230, after Henry Ill's, fruitless invasion of Normandy, he left Brittany in charge of "the three great Earls of Chester, Pembroke, and Aumarl, with forces answerable."— Speed and Dugdale. 1 Whitaker says July 6th. " Edmund, second son to King Henry the Third, took her to wife, the King and Queen with almost all the Nobility of England being at the wedding."— Dugdale's Baronage. ties, says that Crouchbach and Aveline de Fortibus " had issue a son, Thomas, who succeeded to this castle and honour, but he joining in a rebellion against King Edward IL, and being taken in arms at Bur rough-bridge, was beheaded at Pontefract, when all his estates escheated to the crown, and were by that king granted to Robert Lord Clifford, on condition that he should perform the same services to the crown as the Earls of Albemarle had formerly done."

By several accounts Edward I. is said to have used very questionable means to possess himself of a portion of the estates of Aveline. " There was one Stratton, a priest, who had great influence over the Countess Aveline. This man was engaged by the king to procure a grant of her inherit ance upon very unequal terms ; but, failing in his purpose, he is accused of having forged a charter, to which he affixed the Countess's seal after her decease." This story must, however, be received with due reserve. Dugdale amongst others refers to the story, but only in relation to the barony of the Isle of Wight. " It is said by some," says he, " that what was done as to the Isle of Wight was not real but fraudulent." Then comes an account of the ruse of Stratton. In the ninth year of the same king's reign, John de Eshton, Lord of the manor of Eshton, withiu the fee of Skipton, laid claim to the barony of Skipton, founding that claim upon direct descent from Amicia, daughter of William le Gross, Earl of Albemarle.

Au old record iu the Castle Evidences thus refers to the dispute : — " It doth appear in the Pleas of Edward II. that one John de Eston, Lord of the manor of Eston, commonly called Eshton, within the fee of Skipton, impleaded King Edward I. in the Oth year of his reigu for the earldom of Albemarle, aud derived his title there unto from Amicia, one of the daughters of the said William de Legrossc, aud sister to Haustia, countess of Albemarle, which Amicia was mother to Constance, [mother] to Reighunt, father of John, father of another John de Eston, y* did implead the king, whoso title the king could uot evade, but gave an hundred pounds lands a year in lieu of his right, to release his interest in the earldom and honour of Skipton unto him ; which the said Eston did accordingly, which grant aud release were lately in the castle of Skipton, and are recorded in the tower of London."

Among the lands assigned by the king to John de Eshton were, according to a record in the Herald's office : — " Hamlettum de Apletrewick, quod est niembrum Castri de Skipton, cum capitali mess, et VI car. terre qu. exteudit ad XVI. XII. VI. Et. Hamlettum de Broghton, quod est niembrum cast, p'dict'. quod exteudit ad XIII. II. X. exceptis sectis lib'm hom'm faoient. Sect, ad curiam de Skipton. Et Lacum de Eshton qui extendit ad XXX.* Et insuper III Acr. bosci de Elishow versus Aston, quas terras eidem Joh. concessimus pro jure hereditario quod habere clamabat in comitatu Albemarle, et in omu. terris quæ fuerunt Alicie de Fortibus." At the date of Kirkby's Inquest, 1284, Skipton was still in the hands of the Crown, and the town is thus referred to : — " Skypton. — Villa cum castro est in manu regis tanquam dominicum suum ; et sunt in eadem xn car. terrœ, quarum sex et di. sunt in dominico regis, et v et di. tenentur de rege ; et quælibet car. prædictarum v et di. redd, per ann. ad finem wap. uid. ob. q. ; unde summa est per ann. xxd. ob."

The translation i3 : — "Skipton. — This town with castle is in the hand of the king as his private demesne-land, and there are in the same 12 carucates of land, of which 6| are in the private demesne-land of the king, and the other 5| are held (in tenancy) from the king. And every carucate of the aforesaid 5 J yields a yearly rental of 3f pence, so that the total yearly income thence is 20Jpence." The barony of Skipton continued iu the hands of the crown from the time of the settlement of John de Eshton's claim until Edward II. became king (1307). Fifteen years before this its regal possessor had given temporary leave to the wife and family of William Lord Latimer - — then in Gascony on the king's service — to occupy the castle, " with allowance of fuel out of the woods there for her necessary use."