The hall was afterwards rebuilt, but in an inferior style to its predecessor. This building subsequently acquired some slight military reputation, from a troop of cavalry being quartered here during the Scottish rebellion. The room in which their commander slept was afterwards called the captain's chamber.* After the lapse of hardly two hundred years the second hall had become ruinous, when it was pulled down, and the present good substantial farm-house, yet bearing the name of Swinden. Hall, was built about the year 1830. The hall is surrounded by groves of fine timber, and seated in a fair and fertile spot; and now, with the whole of the district, belongs to the Earl of Harewood. At Low Sneap House, a farm adjoining the road over Walton Head to Kirkby Overblow, are the remains of another forest peel, or fortress, consisting of moated enclosures. The smaller area, where, we suppose; some building has stood, is about forty-five yards in length, by thirty in breadth; the moat may have been twelve feet wide, within which is a mound formed of the earth thrown out of it. The outer enclosure is about one hundred yards by eighty yards, surrounded also by a trench and mound, similar to the other, which it encloses. At the time of its formation it has evidently been intended for defensive purposes. The situation is a commanding one, immediately on the verge of the forest, and overlooking the country to a considerable distance north, west, and south. We can easily imagine a time "When 'neath the peel's rude battlement "Jones' Harewood." DUNKESWICK. THIS township for a long time has formed part of the great manor or fee of Harewood; until recently it also formed a part of that parish; now it belongs to the district church of Weeton. The river Wharfe forms its southern boundary; on the east and north it adjoins the parish of Kirkby Overblow, and the township of Weeton on the west, comprising an area of 1,467 acres, the whole of which belongs to the Earl of Harewood. In the Domesday survey (A.D. 1086), this township is entered as two manors, among the lands of the king's thanes. "In Chesvic, Ulchel had four carucates of land to be taxed. Land to two ploughs. The same and his wife have now there one plough and one villane, and two acres of meadow. Value in King Edward's time, eight shillings; now five shillings."* This township is chiefly memorable as the place of residence of the family of De l'Isle, or Insula, a family of great importance and distinction, in very early times; owners of the manor of Harewood, and of great influence in the country around. Of their first settlement at Rougemont† we have no direct informa "Bawdwen's Dom. Boc.," p. 228. +In the Latin Rubeo Monte, in French Rougemont; both meaning the Red Hill, and derived, we suppose, from its situation upon a cliff or hill of reddish clay. The present name is Ridgeman Scar. tion. The following brief sketch will give some idea of their antiquity and importance About the year 1180, Prior John of Hexham witnessed a grant of the manor of Gosforth, from Walter Fitzwilliam to Robert de Insula. In or about the year 1189, Thomas Insula was witness to a charter of Kirkstall Abbey. In 1205, Brian de l'Isle, or Insula, was appointed by King John constable of the Castle of Knaresborough, which office he held in 1211, when he victualled and manned that fortress by an order from the king. In 1222, he paid to the king £50, as the rent of the lordships of Knaresborough and Boroughbridge. The commonly received pedigrees of the family state that Robert, Lord Lisle of Rougemont, inherited the manor of Harewood on the demise of William de Fortibus, in 1260,* and that he married Alicia Fitzgerald, grand-daughter of Warine Fitzgerald, by whom he had issue Robert, Lord Lisle of Rougemont, who married Albreda, Lady of Settringham, in the county of York, and had issueWarine, eldest son and heir. Baldwin de Lisle, who had lands in Chatteris, by gift of his brother. By Inquisition post mortem, 47th Henry III. (1262), we learn that Baldwin de Insula, of the county of Devon, held, in the county of York, the manor of Harewood and The Inquisition post mortem of William de Fortibus, Earl of Albemarle, was taken in the 44th of Henry III., his next heir being his son Thomas, then seven years old, who was the last earl, and died, without leaving issue, before the 21st of Edward I. The widow of the above William de Fortibus, Isabella, Countess of Albemarle and Devon, and Lady De l'Isle, died November 10th, 1293. the village of Lofthouse. He was succeeded by his sister, Isabella de Fortibus, widow of William, Earl of Albemarle. Warine, Lord Lisle of Rougemont, was living 13th Edward I. (1285). He married Matilda, daughter and co-heiress of Robert de Mucegros, and had issue Robert, eldest son and heir. His other children were Margery, Warine, Gerald, John, Mary, and Joanne. By Inquisition post mortem, 3rd Edward II. (1309), Warinus de Insula and Hugo de Courtenay, heirs of Isabella de Fortibus, Countess of Albemarle, held the manor of Harewood, the manor of Kirkby Oerblower, Lofthouse, parcel of the manor of Harewood, one messuage, and one carucate of land. In Nomina Villarum (1315), Keswick and Kearby are entered together, of which Robert de Lisle was the lord. Robert, Lord Lisle of Rougemont, son and heir of Warine, born in 1292, was summoned to Parliament in 1312, and again in 1316. He married Margaret Peverill, after whose death he took upon him the habit of a monk. He had issue-Robert, John, Peter, and others. Robert de Insula, Lord of Rougemont, in the 18th year of Edward III. (1345), released all his manorial rights to his brother, John de Insula, who became in consequence Lord of Rougemont. He was the most distinguished of his race. His father being disposed to give him one hundred marks, per annum, of land, to enable him to serve the king in his wars, with six men-at-arms. The king granted the said John license to give "31st Edward I., two and a half carucates in Kesewyk were of the fee of Baldwin de Insula, where ten carucates make a knight's fee."-Knights' Fees, Surtees' Soc., p. 206. "Towards the aid granted to King Edward I. on the marriage of his eldest daughter, Kesewick contributed 10s."-Ibid, p. 295. to his son the manor of Harewood, with other lands, to the a nual value of four hundred marks, during his life, but afterwards to return to the heirs of the said Robert. His brother Robert, as above related, released to him and his heirs the said manor, and the advowson of the church there.* Being thus provided for, he attended the king in his first voyage into France, by way of Flanders, in 1340, and took part in the battle fought near Vironfosse. Two years afterwards he served the king in Aquitaine, and, in 1843, he attended the king in Bretagne, when they ravaged the country, and laid siege to Dinant. For his good services the king granted him a pension of £200 per annum for his life, to support his dignity of banneret; of which sum £120 was assigned from the Priory of St. Neots, at Stoke, and £80 out of that of Eye; these were afterwards changed for other benefits. He was one of the Knights of the Garter, on the first foundation of that order. In 1852, the king made made him sheriff of the counties of Cambridge and Huntingdon, and granted him the custody of the Castle of Cambridge, for life. In the expedition of Edward, the Black Prince, into Gascoigne, in 1355, John de Insula accompanied him, and had command of the main body of the army; but in the three days' march into the enemy's country he was wounded by a bolt, shot from a cross-bow, from the effects of which he died on the 11th of October, in the same year. "The figure of John, Lord Lisle, one of the first knights of the Garter, was remaining entire in the east window of the north chapel of Harewood Church, distinguished by the arms of his family-a fess between two chevronels on his tabard-till the church was repaired in 1793. This nobleman, however, from the style of the building, appears to have been the restorer of the church."-Whitaker. |