§ 5. The Conquest and Colonization of Carlisle.
1092.
William's conquest of Carlisle.
Mistakes as to the position of Cumberland and Westmoreland.
It was seemingly from this fruitless gathering at Lincoln
that William the Red went forth to what was in
truth the greatest exploit of his reign. He went on a
strange errand, to enlarge the bounds of England by
overthrowing the last shadow of independent English
rule. Hitherto the northern border of England had shown
a tendency to fall back rather than to advance, and a
generation later the same tendency showed itself again.
But Rufus did what neither his father nor his brother
did; he enlarged the actual kingdom of England by the
addition of a new shire, a new earldom—in process of
time a new bishopric—and he raised as its capital a renewed
city whose calling it was to be the foremost bulwark
of England in her northern wars. Whatever any other
spot on either side of the sea may be bound to do, Carlisle,
city and earldom, is bound to pay to the Red King the
honours of a founder. And the Saxon branch of the
English people must see in him one who planted a strong
colony of their blood on the lands of men of other races,
kindred and alien. There is a certain amusement in seeing
the endless discussions in which men have entangled
themselves in order to explain the simple fact that
Cumberland and Westmoreland are not entered in Domesday,
forgetful that it was just as reasonable to look
for them there as it would have been to look there for
- [Footnote: women Leofgifu and Ælfgifu; Remigius "huic præcipue languori se propitium
dedit." A Norman, Richard by name, who tried to pull a hair from the beard of the saint's uncorrupted body (cf. N. C. vol. iii. p. 32), became crippled himself. But a certain deaf and dumb Jewess, who came to blaspheme—doubtless mentally—was smitten to the earth and suddenly endowed with hearing and speech, beginning by uttering the name of Remigius in French. "Ex quo patet, quia non propter merita semper aut devotionem, sed ut manifestetur gloria Dei, miracula fiunt." She was baptized by Bishop Alexander, and was carried about by him hither and thither to declare the praises of his predecessor.]
