Part 19

Wesley had evidently a tender paternal regard for the girl. He was in 1765 sixty-two years of age, fifteen years older than her father would have been if he had survived. Peggy was mistaken in her conviction. She did not actually die till November, 1777, when she had completed her thirty-third year, so she was just ten years out. Letter 9, written April, 1766, from Manchester, contains nothing of interest. Numbers 10 and 11 are unfortunately missing. Number 12 shows that Peggy desired to go to Leytonstone, where there was a considerable colony of Wesleyans, and whither perhaps Margaret Lewen had already gone. Wesley was very anxious she should not go. "I am afraid," he writes, "if you go to Laton-Stone you will give up Perfection. I mean by placing it so high, as I fear none will ever attain. I know _not one_ in London that has ever largely conversed with Sally Ryan, who has not given it up, that is, with regard to their own Experience. Now this, I think, would do you no good at all. Nay, I judge, it wou’d do you much hurt: it would be a substantial Loss. But I do not see how you _cou’d_ possibly avoid that loss, without a free intercourse with me, both in Writing and Speaking. Otherwise I know and feel, I can give you up, tho’ you are exceeding near and dear to me. But if you was to be moved from your Stedfastness that wᵈ give me pain indeed. You will write immediately to, my Dear Peggy, your Affectionate Brother, J. Wesley."

The next two letters are missing, so that we do not know if Peggy obeyed John Wesley or no, though from the tone of the next letter it seems probable that she did so. The next letter is dated November 7, 1766. Margaret Lewen had died at Leytonstone, October 30. By her will, dated November 21, 1764, she left many legacies to various Methodist good works, and to John Wesley £1,000, and her residuary estate to be applied as he should "think fit for the furtherance of the Gospel." She left Mary Dale £1,000, and to her sisters Margaret and Ann Dale, £100 apiece. Her father threatened to dispute the will, and the matter was compromised by the surrender to him of the residuary estate.

John Wesley refers to Margaret Lewen’s death in the fifteenth letter: "How happy it is to sit loose to all below! Just now I find a paper on wch is wrote (in Miss Lewen’s hand), ‘March 24, 1762, Margaret Dale, Ann Dale, Margaret Lewen, wonder in what state of life they will be in the year 1766.’ How little did any of you think at that time that she would then be in Eternity: But she now wonders at nothing and grieves at nothing." He ends: "And sure neither Life nor Death shall separate you from, my Dear Sister, your Affectionate Brother, J. Wesley."

In the eighteenth letter--the sixteenth contains nothing of especial interest, the seventeenth is missing--Wesley speaks of his followers at Newcastle: "Those you mention are Israelites indeed to whom you will do well to speak with all freedom. A few more in Newcastle are of the same spirit: Altho’ they are but few in whom ye Gold is free from dross. I wish you could help poor Molly Stralliger. I am often afraid for her lest she shᵈ be ignorant of Satan’s devices, and lose all that GOD had wrought in her."

The twentieth letter we give in full, not because it is more interesting than the other letters, but because it has not before appeared in public print.[23] The other letters will be found in the _Life and Letters of Thomas Pelham Dale_, by his daughter, Helen Pelham Dale, published by George Allen, 1894. The whereabouts of this letter was not then known, but it has since been unearthed from a collection of autographs made by a connection of the family. Possibly the other missing letters may be in other collections. The letter is dated from Athlone, June 19, 1767: "My dear Peggy, By conversing with you, I should be overpaid for coming two or three hundred miles round about. But how it will be I know not yet. If a ship be ready for Whitehaven, then I shall arrive at Whitehaven or Newcastle, otherwise I must sail for Holyhead or Chester. I hope you now again find the increased witness that you are saved from sin. There is a danger in being content without it, into which you may easily reason yourself. You may easily bring yourself to believe there is no need of it, especially while you are in an easy and peaceful state. But beware of this. The Witness of Sanctification as well as of Justification, is ye privilege of God’s Children, and you may have the one always clear as well as ye other if you walk humbly and closely with God. In what state do you find your mind now? Full of Faith and Love? Praying always? Then I hope you always remember my Dear Peggy, Your affectionate Brother, J. Wesley."

Before Wesley wrote again he had been to Newcastle and had seen Peggy. The letter is dated from Witney, August 27, and is, as usual, very affectionate in tone: "I thought it was hardly possible for me to love you better than I did before I came last to Newcastle. But your artless, simple, undisguised Affection exceedingly increased mine. At the same time it increased my Confidence in you so that I feel you are unspeakably near and dear to me." He adds in a postscript, "Don’t forget what you have learnt in Music." Possibly Peggy had been showing her friend her accomplishments. Possibly, too, she had learnt her music from a certain young man, Edward Avison, afterwards organist of St. Nicholas’ Church, Newcastle. If this were the case, her teacher taught Peggy something else beside music, for she afterwards married him.

In the next letter we get glimpses of two people famous in the Methodist world of the day, George Whitefield, and Darcy, Lady Maxwell. Of George Whitefield it is unnecessary to speak. Lady Maxwell was the daughter of Thomas Brisbane of Brisbane in Ayrshire, and the widow of Sir Walter Maxwell, fourth Baronet, of Pollock. Left a childless widow in 1757, she became a follower of John Wesley, though she did not formally join the Methodists till many years later. She provided the money for building the school at Kingswood.

Wesley writes: "I hope Mr. Whitefield was an instrument of good at Newcasle, and a means of stirring up Some. He is very affectionate and very lively and his word seldom falls to the ground: tho’ he does not frequently speak of the deep things of GOD, or the Height of ye Promises. But you say not one word of Lady Maxwell? Did she call at Newcastle going and coming? Did you converse with her alone? And did she break thro’ her Natural and habitual Shyness? How did you find her? Seeking Heavenly things alone, and all athirst for _God_? It will be a miracle of miracles if she stands, considering the thousand snares that surround her. I have much satisfaction when I consider in how different a situation you and my Dear Molly Dale are. You have every outward Advantage for Holiness wch an indulgent Providence can give."[24]

The correspondence now begins to slacken. Peggy has accused him of not answering her last letter; in reply Wesley writes from Liverpool, April 1, 1768. "I do not understand what Letter you mean. I have answer’d (if I do not forget) every letter which I have receiv’d, and I commonly answer either of you within a day or two. In this respect, I do not love to remain in your debt. In others I must always be so, for I can never pay you the Affection I owe. Accept of what little I have to give.... I hope to be at Glasgow on Wednesday the 19th instant, at Aberdeen ye 28th, at Edinburgh May 5th, at Newcastle on Friday May 20th."

The next letter dated June 30, 1768, may be described as a very brief treatise on Sanctification. Then there is a gap of nearly a year, the next letter being dated May 20, 1769. Peggy has had to endure a great trial. Her sister Molly married a Mr. John Collinson of London. The _Newcastle Courant_ of April 29, 1769, thus announces the fact: "Thursday, was married at St. Andrew’s, Mr. John Collinson of London to Miss Dale of Northumberland Street, daughter of the late Mr. Dale of Tunstall, near Sunderland, a most agreeable young lady, endowed with every qualification to render the marriage state happy, with a fortune of £2,000." But Peggy felt her sister’s defection much. Wesley was strongly in favour of the single life both for men and women. He had published a treatise in favour of celibacy, entitled _Thoughts on a Single Life_. It is true that he himself afterwards married in the year 1751, but, as his matrimonial experiences were distinctly unfortunate (he separated from his wife for ever after five years of married life), he was not unnaturally more than ever firmly convinced of the advantage of celibacy.[25] Peggy was as yet quite sure that John Wesley was right in this as in everything else.

He comforts her thus: "The hearing from my Dear Peggy at this critical time gives me a particular satisfaction. I wanted to know, How you bore such a trial, a wound in the tenderest part. You have now a first proof that the God whom you serve, is able to deliver you in every trial. You feel and yet conquer.... I hope you are delivered not only from _repining_ with regard to Her, but from _reasoning_ with regard to yourself. You still see the more excellent way, and are sensible of the advantages you enjoy. I allow _some_ single women have fewer Advantages for Eternity than they might have in a married State. But, blessed be GOD you have all the Advantages wch one can well conceive.... O may you improve every advantage to the uttermost. And give more and more comfort to, my Dear Peggy, your Affectionate Brother, J. Wesley."

There is one more letter from London, November 17, 1769, encouraging Peggy to persevere in her work for others. Then the letters cease. Perhaps there were more letters which have been lost, or were perchance destroyed by the recipient. Wesley, with his zeal for celibacy, can hardly have liked the news of his Peggy’s engagement to Edward Avison. He was organist of St. Nicholas’, Newcastle, in succession to his father, Charles Avison,[26] once a well-known musician in the North of England. He was three years younger than Peggy. Their married life was short. They were married March, 1773: Edward Avison died October, 1776, aged twenty-nine; and Peggy in November, 1777, aged thirty-three. They left no children. Their monument in the churchyard of St. Andrew’s Church, Newcastle, says: "They were eminent for piety and primitive simplicity of manners; having each borne a lingering disease with the most exemplary patience and resignation, they rejoiced at the approach of death." Perhaps Wesley visited Newcastle during the last year of his dear Peggy’s life, and was able to minister spiritual consolation to her. Let us hope that any breach that Peggy’s marriage may have made between her and one who loved her with so tender and paternal an affection was cured by the approach of Death, the great Healer.

Little remains to be said. Mary Collinson lived to 1812, and left a family of two sons, George Dale and John Collinson, and three daughters, Ann Collinson, Thermuthis Collinson, and Mary, the wife of Christopher Godmond. It is not known if any of her descendants are alive to-day; if there be any such, they may very likely possess the missing letters. Ann Dale never married, and lived till 1820. Edward, their brother, died in 1826, having seen five of his six sons die before him without issue. His eldest and only surviving son, also Edward, lived till 1862, and then died childless. With him died out the senior branch of the family of Dale of Dalton-le-Dale and Tunstall. Since his death there have been no Dales of this family residing in the Bishopric. How the letters written by John Wesley came into the possession of Canon Dale, or Canon Dale’s father, William Dale, is not known. Possibly Anne Dale gave them to William Dale, or her brother may have given them to his son. It is certain that to that son’s careful preservation of them we owe this intimate revelation of the great revivalist’s affection for a Durham girl.

THE OLD FAMILIES OF DURHAM

BY HENRY R. LEIGHTON

The evil fate that has attended the old houses in this county has followed equally relentlessly the families who once dwelled therein. Here and there, it is true, a family still exists that has weathered the storms of long centuries; one or two, perhaps, may be pointed out that have increased their acreage as the long years went by; and perhaps another two or three whose lands remain with daughters’ heirs.

With few exceptions, almost all the families of importance in feudal days have passed away. The great House of Neville,[27] that once threatened to overshadow the Lords Palatine themselves, survives only in several southern branches, and their name is almost forgotten in their native land. The baronial houses of Eure,[28] Conyers, Hylton, and FitzMarmaduke have all passed away. So, too, have nearly all the names recorded in the Heralds’ Visitations at intervals from 1530 to 1666. Of the latter, eight only retain their patrimonial acres. These are the Chaytors, Edens, Lambtons, Liddells, Lumleys, Salvins, Vanes, and Whartons. To these may be added the Williamsons, who came from Nottinghamshire, and the Shaftos from Northumberland.

The Visitations of Durham[29] are, like those of the sister county of Northumberland, notoriously incomplete. Of the latter, Surtees wrote: "The Northumbrian gentry, many of whom probably never heard of the Visitation, would scarcely leave their business or amusements to attend an Officer of Arms for a purpose of which few then saw the utility, and which, it is plain, in many instances was considered an extreme nuisance." In the adjoining county to the south there was a similar state of affairs. Of Dugdale’s _Visitation of York_, Mr. Davies wrote: "Nearly one-third of the whole number of gentry whom the herald called upon to appear before him with proofs of their arms and pedigrees treated his summonses with neglect."

In this county both a long and a strong list of families of gentle blood can easily be enumerated who, for one reason or another, make no appearance in the Heralds’ books. No one familiar with the history of the county can have helped remarking the absence of families formerly so well known, and in many cases still well known, as the Allgoods of Bradley, Blacketts of Hoppyland, Bromleys of Nesbitt, Dales of Dalton, Douthwaites of Westholme, Emersons of Westgate, Goodchilds of Pallion, Greenwells of Greenwell and Stobilee, Holmeses of Wearmouth, Hunters of Medomsley, Ironsides of Houghton, Meaburns of Pontop, and others whose names spin out too long a list to give in full. Now, most of these families had intermarried with families who registered and had written themselves as "gentlemen" for several generations; and, as an interesting sidelight upon the Visitations, we believe it could be shown that more than one family who registered was in debt pretty heavily to others who didn’t register. So it does not appear to have been altogether a matter of means.

It may perhaps be as well, before proceeding farther, to notice the principal material we have, in addition to the Visitations, for proving the succession to estate in this county.

Durham, being a separate regality, is not included in the Domesday Book, and our earliest record is the Boldon Book, dated some years later, being compiled by order of Bishop Pudsey in 1183. Later there is a survey of the county, made by order of Bishop Hatfield, who ruled from 1345 to 1381. From the time of Bishop Beaumont (1318-33) the succession may be proved by the inquisitions post-mortem taken upon the death of every owner. These documents were formerly kept at Durham, but are now, with many other local records, in London.

With these must be mentioned the Halmote Rolls, commencing in 1349, containing a record of all holders of the Bishop’s lands and other records of the cursitors. The Durham Chancery Proceedings, also now in the Record Office, are full of the most interesting information respecting local families.

The wills of residents in the Bishopric from the sixteenth century onwards are of great value. A few also of the parish registers within the diocese commence towards the end of the same century, but the majority do not date with any regularity until another hundred years had passed.

Limited space forbids any lengthy account of the families individually, and a few passing notices must suffice. Amongst the existing "indigenous" families, as Surtees calls them, the Lumleys must bear the palm, not for length of pedigree, but for the long period they have ranked amongst the greater nobility.

Probably for some generations before, and certainly from, the days of Uchtred, Lord of Lumley, _temp._ King Stephen, the family has held high rank. Marmaduke de Lumley, who was in right of his mother one of the coheirs of the barony of Thweng, made an interesting change in the family arms. His father had borne a scarlet shield with six silver popinjays, whilst his mother’s family arms were a golden shield, thereon a fess gules. Marmaduke dispensed with three of the popinjays, and placed his mother’s fess between the remaining three, two above it and one below. His son Sir Ralph, the builder of the castle at Lumley, was summoned to Parliament as a Baron in the eighth year of Richard II.’s reign. Yorkist in sympathy, he joined in an unfortunate attempt to overthrow the fourth Henry in the year that monarch grasped the throne, and was killed at Cirencester in a skirmish. One of his younger sons, Marmaduke, was successively Bishop of Carlisle and Lincoln, and Lord High Treasurer of England. John de Lumley, Sir Ralph’s second but eldest surviving son, was restored to his father’s estates by King Henry, became a distinguished leader in the French wars, and was slain on the field of Baugé in 1421. The successor, his only son Thomas, was summoned to Parliament in his grandfather’s barony in 1461, the attainder of the latter being reversed upon petition.

Third in descent from the last-named peer, John, the fifth Baron, took part in the great victory of Flodden. He lived to see his son and heir, George Lumley, beheaded for high treason, and attainted, for taking part in the Pilgrimage of Grace.

George Lumley’s son, John Lumley, was recreated a Peer in 1547, his father’s attainder being reversed. This John, Lord Lumley, must have been something of an Oriental in his philosophy. He was strongly imbued with the spirit of ancestor-worship. It was he who brought two stone monuments from Durham Abbey under the belief that they were of his forefathers, and set them up with a long line of effigies representing every generation of his house from a remote period. The rooms at Lumley were also hung with a series of portraits of the same individuals by his direction. About the origin of these the late Mr. Planché advanced an interesting theory, printed in 1866, in the _Journal of the British Archæological Association_.

Lord Lumley appears to have impressed his family importance upon William James, the contemporary Bishop of Durham, whose repetition of the pedigree so astonished that modern Solomon, King James I., that the latter evidently thought the Bishop was taking a rise out of him. "By my saul, I didna ken Adam’s name was Lumley!" said the Sovereign. Doubtless this was a natural exclamation, for it was the King’s first meeting with a pedigree drawn up by an Elizabethan Herald. He would meet others as he travelled farther South!

The estates passed on the death of this peer to a second cousin, Sir Richard Lumley. Created in 1628 a Viscount in the Peerage of Ireland, Sir Richard in later years was known as a gallant Royalist, and one of Prince Rupert’s trusted officers.

His son, another Richard, one of the commanders of the Royal army at Sedgemoor, was advanced in 1690 to the Earldom of Scarborough. Little more remains to be said, beyond that Lumleys have taken part in almost every war since that date (one, Sir William, commanded the cavalry at Albuera; and another, a captain in the navy, was killed on the _Isis_ in 1782), and that Lumley Castle is still the seat of the Earls of Scarborough.

Closely allied to the Lumleys by marriage, the Lambtons have owned the adjoining estate of Lambton from the twelfth century. Their connection with the curious legend of the Lambton Worm has made the name widely known in the North. From the fifteenth century onwards the family were perhaps most remarkable for the brilliant series of marriages the successive owners of the estate made. Matches with Rokeby of Rokeby, Lumley of Ludworth, the Lords Eure, the Tempests of Stella, and the Curwens of Workington, each either bringing additional lands to the house, or else widening and extending the family influence, came to a climax with the marriage of Ralph Lambton, in 1696, with Dorothy Hedworth, heiress to great estates on the north bank of the river. The great-grandson of this marriage was the celebrated Radical Earl of Durham, whose life has been told in recent years by Mr. Stuart Reid.

The Greenwells are the third ancient house in this county who still dwell on the lands from which they take their name. At the time our earliest record, the Boldon Book, was compiled, William the Priest[30] held lands at Greenwell, in the green valley of Wolsingham, and his sons, James and Richard de Greenwell, took their surname from their home. From their generation through long centuries Greenwell succeeded Greenwell, until the death of Henry Greenwell in 1890. The estate then passed to his brother’s daughter, Mrs. Fletcher, who sold Greenwell within the last few years to her kinsman, Sir Walpole Eyre Greenwell, Bart.

Like other families, as the years passed by, younger sons founded branches, some of which flourished and became even more influential than the parent stem.

Anthony Greenwell, a son of Peter Greenwell of Wolsingham, and grandson of Peter Greenwell of Greenwell, living in the reign of Henry VIII., is stated to have settled at Corbridge, in the adjoining county of Northumberland. His son Ralph became allied by marriage to a number of influential families; the administration issued after the death of his father-in-law, Ralph Fenwick of Dilston, in

1623, showing that the latter left five daughters, his coheirs. Of these, Isabel, the eldest, married Ralph Greenwell, Mary married John Swinburne, Agnes was wife to John Orde, Margaret to George Tempest of Winlaton, and Barbara married William Harrison.

Ralph’s grandson Nicholas, so named after his mother’s father Nicholas Leadbitter of Warden, married, in 1683, Frances Whitfield, and their son, Whitfield Greenwell, a captain in the army, was killed at the Battle of Glenshiels in 1719. From his grandson, John Greenwell, of the India House, the present Sir Walpole Greenwell is lineally descended.

A second branch of the family has long been known as the Greenwells of Greenwell Ford, thus curiously taking their name from the old home in Wolsingham parish and giving it to the new (though its very newness has now grown green with age) home near Lanchester.

Thomas Greenwell, probably a younger son of John Greenwell of Greenwell, living _circa_ 1440, took up his abode at Stobilee, in the parish of Satley (the vill of which had been held in chief in the early days of the fourteenth century by Robert de Greenwell), and there his descendants resided until the time of the Commonwealth, when the then head of the family, William Greenwell, was sequestered as a Royalist, his lands being taken from him, and let to Henry Blackett by the Parliamentary Commissioners.