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io
Rev. James Wilson
At a later stage of Denton's career, it was given in charge
against him that in the time of Queen Elizabeth he claimed to
entitle her to the lands of Sir Wilfrid Lawson, under which pretence
he obtained leave to search all the records of the Crown,
and that thereby he was stored to fill his country full of broils,
without any benefit to the Queen.
We have little to do here with the merits of our antiquary's
disputes with successive Bishops of Carlisle respecting
the feudal
status of his property. Denton maintained that Cardew was a
manor of itself, independent of the lordship of Dalston, which
was an appurtenant
of the see of Carlisle. Throughout this
controversy he appears to have manifested a churlish distemper
and a lack of intelligence not to be expected of him. In an
unguarded moment he alluded to Bishop May (1577-1598) in
the hearing of two of the bishop's friends as '
little John May.'
When reminded of this irreverent treatment of ecclesiastical
dignities, he pleaded that his reference was not meant to be
contemptuous : it was only a pleasantry on the bishop's shortness
of stature.
Denton's repudiation of the services due to his feudal superior
was at last grappled with in earnest by Bishop Henry Robinson
(1598-1616), his kinsman. The depositions on commission,
taken at Raughtonhead 1 on 5 Oct., 1612, and at Dalston church 2
on 14 April, 1613, afford exhaustive evidence on the tenurial
problem. But with this aspect of the litigation we are not concerned.
The legal proceedings which followed are much more to
our purpose. John Denton in the witness box, examined on his
dealings with local and historical evidences, is an interesting
figure. The Elizabethan archivist was at bay, and he had to face
the music.
When the bishop's legal
advisers were preparing the case for
the it prosecution, was found that many charters and other evidences
of the see of Carlisle were missing, and suspicion of
malfaisance, having regard to his former associations with Rose
Castle, fell on Denton. Descriptive particulars of the lost deeds,
as entered on counsel's brief, are as follows :
Charters lost or embezelled from the Bishops of Carlile wherof mencon
is made in both ancient and nue repertories.
Carta H. 3 super concess[ione] 14 ac[rarum] in Haithuaite et Fornscale
Hailme. 3
1
Excheq. Depositions by Commission, io James I., Michaelmas, No. 17.
id. ii James I., Easter, No. i.
3
Chart. Roll, 36 Hen. III. m. 7.