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James VI and I

The accession of James VI and I meant the Union of the Crowns. James "saw border areas of England and Scotland as 'The Middles Shires' rather than a meaningful frontier, and sought to ensure that the 'verie hart of the country shall not be left in ane uncertainte'." Trouble broke out following the death of Elizabeth (the so-called 'busy week'), but this was put down and plans were made to remove the more troublesome reivers - some were sent to Ireland, others to serve in the English army in the Netherlands.

In addition, aristocratic interests were strengthened: Lord William Howard married into the Dacre family and was instrumental in suppressing trouble in the region. A 'Middle Shires Commission' was established which included gentry from both the English and Scottish borders. Sir Richard Graham, 1st Baronet, whose father was a reiver, was an example of the way in which clan members could turn to respectability during this time. Despite aristocratic feuding, such as that between the Cliffords and the Howards, and although thieving still went on, the region seemed to be more settled and trouble looked upon as something more unusual than before.

Charles I, the Civil War and the Interregnum

In general, the gentry of the region were anxious to avoid any interference in their business, whether royal or Parliamentary. During the English Civil War, most leading gentry supported the King. Parliament found little support amongst the existing landowning class, and the two Parliamentary county committees (for Cumberland and Westmorland) relied upon merchants and other non-aristocratic men to staff them. Their functioning only worked properly when backed up by Scottish or other Parliamentary troops.

Little fighting took place in Cumbria during the Civil War. However, Carlisle was besieged during 1644-45, only succumbing when the populace were reduced to eating cats and dogs due to starvation.

In general, the landowning class came through the Civil War and Interregnum (1649-1660) largely unscathed, managing, by various means, to hold on to their estates even having been supporters of the king.

Georgian and Victorian times, (1714-1901)

The repercussions of the Glorious Revolution continued to have an effect on Penrith as its citizens were caught up in the subsequent Jacobite rising of 1715 and the later rising of 1745. In 1715, the local posse comitatus and militia, under the command of Viscount Lonsdale and Bishop Nicolson of Carlisle, failed to stop the southwards-heading Jacobite force on Beacon Fell (not wooded in those days). There is little evidence of pro-Jacobite sympathy in Penrith at the time. The Jacobite army's overnight billeting in the town was peaceful, however.The 1745 incursion saw Prince Charles Edward Stuart staying at the George in Devonshire Street on November 21st during the Jacobite army's route south through England. Local animosity towards the Jacobites' "living off the land" broke out and there was a disturbance at Lowther Hall. After the retreat from Derby, the pro-Hanoverian sentiment of Penrithians showed itself in the so-call "Sunday hunting" harassment of the Scots by local forces, along with delaying tactics at Thrimby. With the Prince back again in Penrith on 21st December, elements of the army of Prince William, Duke of Cumberland caught up with the retreating Jacobites at Clifton Moor, supposedly the last military engagement on English soil.

Penrith in the eighteenth century had about 2,000 rising to about 4,000 people. It was still governed by the landed aristocracy, many of whom built town houses (often in the Palladian style) in the town during this period: Hutton Hall (c.1720), and the Mansion House (c.1750) being examples. The re-built St Andrew's Church (1722) was also subject to change. The nave of the old medieval church was totally demolished and re-built, partly because it was deemed to be beyond repair, partly to prevent the increasingly prevalent private take-over of space by local landowning families, and partly to improve the accommodation, and better to fit the changed liturgical practice and artistic views of the period.

St Andrew's Church, Penrith. 12th-13th-century tower with 15th-century top stage; nave built 1721-22

Industrialization failed to make any headway during this time, the economy continued to rely on agriculture, both pastoral and arable. Services and marketing, and, as the century wore on, tourism, were the main non-farming economic elements.