109 XIV. The Richmonds of Highhead Castle. Reprinted from the Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archæological Society, Vol. II., p. 108. T is not a little remarkable that two kinds of information which we regard so very differently should be so closely allied as to be nearly identical. What to the popular mind can seem drier than a pedigree? What more fascinating kind of reading is there than family history? But, indeed, the first is imperfect without the second. The pedigree is, as it were, the osseous structure, and the other the muscular covering which gives vitality to the whole. And now, even as the believers in Spiritualism tell us that the disciple must have a certain measure of faith before he can enter into their mysteries, so I beg of you to throw yourselves, as it were, en rapport with me, and whilst honouring me with your attention, to remember that nearly every individual I shall name certainly lived, that most were born and died, within these walls,* and that the names are, as it were, the symbols which mean all the hopes, joys, and sorrows that constituted the human lives which animated for centuries either "that worm-eaten hold of ragged stone," a portion of which still remains, or the noble specimen of Italian architecture in which we stand, "the promise of whose life so soon decayed." The family of Richmond was of great local importance in the West Riding of Yorkshire from a very early period, in virtue of their hereditary Constableship of Richmond Castle, a position, in the absence of the great feudal lords of that fee, scarcely less * This Paper was read at Highhead Castle. important than that of absolute ownership. The original name of the family was Musard, but the official finally supplanted the family name. Roald de Richmond became possessed of the manor of Corby and certain lands in, if not of, the manor of Torcrossock, through his marriage with Isabella the daughter and heiress of Robert de Corby. The prominent position in the kingdom occupied by their son and heir, Thomas de Richmond, is evidenced by his being named, and his valour especially signalized, in the ancient poem, written in Anglo-Norman, on the siege of Carlaverock, which occurred in the year 1300. In this record we are told "Thomas de Richmond comes once more, One gallant charge he led before : Gold chief with twice twin bars, his shield. On head and neck the ceaseless shower." He was rewarded for his exploits at this siege by a grant of the Castle and Honour of Cockermouth for life. He had two sons, Thomas and John; the former is said to have died without issue, but I doubt the statement. Elizabeth, the heiress of the latter, married Sir Nicholas de Stapleton. In the year 1323, Richard and Rowland Richmond combined to alienate Corby to the unfortunate Sir Andrew de Harcla, who, it is especially worthy of notice in connection with our subject, was also Lord of Highhead at the time of his seizure. After this alienation a night of two centuries closes over the name so far as regards Cumberland. I have been favoured by Colonel Moore, of Frampton House, Boston, with an elaborate pedigree of another branch of this family, from which he traces descent. This offshoot migrated at a very early period into Wiltshire, and secured a prominent local position there; but either they broke off from the parent stock before the latter blazoned the chief and bars gemelles, or they adopted the arms of some Wiltshire family whose heiress they married, and which probably led to their settlement there. The arms are, argent, a cross patonce azure, between four estoiles gules. The crest, a tilting spear argent, headed or, broken in three parts, one piece erect, the other two in saltire, enfiled with a ducal coronet. Motto, "Resolve well and persevere." It is in favour of the supposition that these might be the arms of the Webb heiress, when we find a family of that name bearing a very similar coat; it is against it, that they quarter arms professedly those of Webb-on a bend three crosses fitchée. It is certain that there was a conflict for several generations which should be their surname, and that some branches took one and some the other name. It may not be uninteresting to state that an heiress of this family married William Makepeace Thackeray, whose son of the same name has rendered it illustrious in the annals of English literature. I am indebted to Miss Frances Maria Richmond for information which proves that her grandfather, the Rev. Legh Richmond, of pious and literary memory, belonged to a branch of the Wiltshire house, which, through intermarriages with the Leghs of Cheshire, and the Athertons of Lancashire, had become naturalised in the latter county, and produced several learned ecclesiastics, Rectors of Sefton, Walton, etc., and a Bishop of Sodor and Man, in the person of the Rev. Richard Richmond. This latter branch substituted mullets for estoiles in their otherwise identical arms, crest, and motto. The surname of Richmond meets us in the earliest pages of the parish register of St. Bees (A.D. 1543), and I believe that families of that name, still flourishing at Cross Canonby, were seated there as early, perhaps much earlier, than the commencement of the sixteenth century, and that their kin extended thence up the valley of the Ellen to Oughterside and Brayton; for numerous wills belonging to individuals of that name resident in this district occur in the registry of Carlisle, from the earliest period those records have been preserved; whether they were connected with, or descended from, the Corby Richmonds, I cannot say, and it is equally uncertain from what source the John Richmond sprang, who, about the year 1550, purchased from William Restwold, the Castle of Highhead, which had remained in his family from about the year 1375. We must be content also to remain in ignorance of how John, or his father, perhaps, amassed the money which enabled the former to purchase this ancient castle and manor. The license to crenellate "manerium suum de Heyvehead," which Parker, in the list of licenses given in his work on Domestic Architecture, very strangely and erroneously places in Essex, had been granted 200 years before, in 1343, to "Willielmus Lengleys dilectus valletus noster," as he is called in the instrument of Edward III., but it had, no doubt, been fortified long previously, and perhaps dismantled after the Harcla rebellion and forfeiture. He may have been, and most probably was, a descendant of the old constables of Richmond, for he bore the arms of that ancient family; but then he may have assumed them without due warrant, as we learn from Dugdale it was by no means unusual to do even at that early period, though the assumption was scarcely so common as it is in our day. Perhaps he may have made his fortune in trade, just as the Fletchers were doing at this very time, and who were as rapidly received into the ranks of the gentry as numerous other industrious and successful men. Be that as it may, he married the daughter of Hugh Lowther, whose wife, Dorothy, was a daughter of Henry Clifford, the "Shepherd Lord;" another sister married Thomas Wybergh, and a third, Thomas Carleton of Carleton. Their brother, Richard Lowther, is well known as the first custodian of Queen Mary when she landed in Cumberland. Either John died young, or he was advanced in years when he married, for he was buried at Dalston, January 18th, 1574, his brother-in-law, Richard Lowther, surviving him thirty-three years; and as he makes no mention of his wife in his will, I presume that she pre-deceased him. I am able to append a copy of this document, extracted from the registry at Carlisle, which, with its inventory, is a good specimen of one of that time, and enables us to extend a little the genealogy of the family. Though it does not give the names of the daughters, it corroborates the statements of the Braddyll and Martin pedigrees that he had daughters, and I have therefore had no difficulty in copying the names of themselves and their husbands, especially as the sources seem independent of and consistent with each other. The son and successor of this founder or refounder of the line, another John, married, Burn and Nicolson say, "a daughter of Dacre, younger brother of the Lord Dacre, by whom he had no issue." The Dalston register confirms this statement so far as the name is concerned, for it records that "December 13, 1576, John Richmond and Magdalen Dacre were married;" but I confess that after some research I am unable to fix her paternity, about which I am curious; for the Dacres were in great trouble at this period, and the bride coming to her husband to be married, as she did, is noteworthy. The statement of Burn and Nicolson that she had no issue is not literally true, as will be perceived from the table, but probably Frances, her daughter, died young. When Magdalen died, and when John Richmond married his second wife, Mary, daughter of Thomas Dalston, of Uldale, we are uninformed; but, in the face of all the published pedigrees, I am bound to enter her as Mary, and not Margaret, for so she is called in the register of Dalston. True, this Mary might be a third wife, but there is no record of a third marriage, and genealogists know well that, so far from mistakes in female names being uncommon, it is almost exceptional to find them correctly given at this remote period, and this pedigree will furnish other instances of the frequency of this kind of error. John Richmond was himself buried at Dalston, October 29th, 1597. The will of Christopher Richmond, his brother, of Feddon Well, in the parish of Castle Sowerby, informs us of the existence of a connection with the Orfeures of High Close, in the parish of Plumbland, and also supplies other genealogical information. Feddon Well, where he lived and died, is not to be found even on the Ordnance maps; but I am informed that there is a place called "The Well" near the parish church, which most likely marks the site of Christopher's dwelling. It is a matter for regret that the inventory once no doubt attached to this will no longer exists. The marriage of Francis Richmond, the eldest son of John, who probably succeeded his father, but who left no family, furnishes a wonderful conflict of evidence, which, as a specimen of |