page_title: History of Cumbria
section_title: Early Tudor Cumbria, 1485–1558
hierarchical_section_title: History of Cumbria / Early Modern period, 1485-–1714 / Tudor Cumbria, 1485–1603 / Early Tudor Cumbria, 1485–1558
caption_attribution_description: English: Lanercost Priory, Cumbria: tomb of Thomas Dacre, 2nd Baron Dacre. The central escutcheon quarterly of four shows: 1: three cushions (Greystoke ancient); 2: Barry, three chaplets (Greystoke modern); 3: Gules, a fess chequy argent and azure between six cross crosslets fitchee or (Baron Ferrers of Wem, formerly Baron Boteler of Wem; 4: Chequy (?).
context_page_description: The history of Cumbria as a county of England begins with the Local Government Act 1972. Its territory and constituent parts however have a long history under various other administrative and historic units of governance. Cumbria is an upland, coastal and rural area, with a history of invasions, migration and settlement, as well as battles and skirmishes between the English and the Scots.
context_section_description: As regards the Anglo-Scottish Wars of the sixteenth-century and their effect on Cumbria, the English policy was often one of either fomenting trouble for the Scottish Crown, sometimes using the reiving clans to do this, or else promoting open warfare. The attempt to further the Protestant cause in Scotland, either by support or coercion, was also a part of Tudor policy (with the exception of Mary I of England). The focus on Mary, Queen of Scots as a potential, Catholic, successor to Elizabeth I of England had implications for the Catholic nobles of Cumbria.
  Fraser highlights the career of Thomas Dacre, 2nd Baron Dacre to illustrate the response to Scottish troubles in the early Tudor period. Having fought against Henry Tudor at the Battle of Bosworth, Henry nevertheless made Dacre deputy-Warden of the West March once he was King, because he was distrustful of the intentions of the Percies in supporting the Tudor cause in future. Dacre and his Cumbrian riders were prominent in fighting for Henry at the Battle of Flodden in 1513, and in the subsequent harrying of the Scots across the border. Thereafter, he became an effective Warden of the West March until his death in 1524.
  The most notable incident, in terms of open warfare, was probably the Battle of Solway Moss in 1542. This came about after James V of Scotland, the nephew of Henry VIII, refused to follow his uncle's pro-Reformation policy in religious affairs. Local gentry, including Musgraves, Curwens, Dacres and Lowthers were involved in defeating the Scots. They were led by Lord Wharton, from a minor Westmorland family, one of the Tudors' "new men" who were in place to lessen the grip of the local nobles. (Wharton had been made steward of Cockermouth, a former Percy stronghold that had been relinquished to the Crown). The subsequent Rough Wooing and the battles of Ancrum and Pinkie Cleugh no doubt included Cumbrian forces as well.
  When the horrors of the Anglo-Scottish war of the 1540s were at last over, the opportunity was taken to define, once and for all, which country was to have which bit of the Debatable land, a lawless area and refuge of fugitives . A Commission of 1552 drew the (straight) line, marked by a trench and dyke, that defined the border in this area hence forward.
  The Pilgrimage of Grace rebellion of 1536/37, (Bigod's Rebellion of February 1537 involved Cumbrian participation), had many causes: high prices, harvest failure, the loss of charitable help due to the Dissolution of the Monasteries, resentment against tithes, against grasping landlords and against religious changes. In Cumbria, especially around the Cockermouth and Penrith areas, the main factor seems to have been rapacious landlords, with the added animosity between the Dacres and the Cliffords preventing an early stop to trouble. (The Tudor policy of 'divide and rule' as regards the northern nobility helped to further local animosities and weak rule such as this). Clark, however, thinks that religious motivations were more involved in Cumbria than economic ones. The rebels reopened the monasteries that had been shut down in 1536, for example. Eventually, the two main noble families came together and Henry Clifford raised the rebel siege of Carlisle with Dacre help. Most of the Cumbrian gentry and clergy refused to back the rebels, of whom 74 from Cumbria were executed.
caption: Tomb of Thomas Dacre, 2nd Baron Dacre at Lanercost Priory
exif: {"Image Model": "DMC-G3", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2012:10:20 23:46:05", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "154", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "300", "Thumbnail YResolution": "300", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "470", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "32139", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF FNumber": "559/100", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "3200", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:10:15 15:34:59", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF FocalLength": "14", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "640", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "480", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "\u0001\u0001\u0001\u0001", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[3, 0, 0, 0]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "329"}