Cumberland

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Situated some 25 miles south west of Carlisle, close to the confluence of the rivers Cocker and Derwent and also to the dividing line between the Cumbrian Mountains and the lowlands along the coast, seventeenth-century Cockermouth occupied an important position both topographically and economically. The town’s economy was based largely on its markets and fairs and the trade they served between the arable lands to the west and the pastoral region to the east. W. Camden, Britannia ed. E. Gibson (1695), 822; R.

Carlisle was the principal administrative centre and stronghold of the West March with Scotland, guarding a crossing on the River Eden a few miles south of the Anglo-Scottish border. Until the accession of James I, the inhabitants had lived chiefly by hosting and catering for those who repaired to the city to attend the warden of the West March, and as late as 1655 it was reported that ‘the greatest part of the city’ consisted ‘wholly of alehousekeepers’. SP14/22/3, f. 3v; SP18/123/42, f.