This book gives the first full account of the liberty of Penrith in the thirteenth century, and sets it within the wider context of medieval British history. The liberty was created for the kings of Scots in return for abandoning claims to the northern English shires in 1237. What part did they play in Cumbrian society, did their tenants regard them as 'good lords', and what characterised their dealings with the English crown? Such questions are explored against a backdrop of the light-touch royal governance typical of Scotland and the highly intrusive royal governance typical of England. A rich array of sources show that the Scottish king's rights as lord of Penrith were repeatedly contested or ignored by the English crown's officers. They also illuminate the precise nature of the liberty's prerogatives in theory and practice, how and why lawful privileges and customs were challenged, and the consequences for the exercise of lordship and the welfare of the liberty's inhabitants. The main conclusions stress that the liberty's misfortunes helped to generate within Scottish political society a profound distrust of rule according to English norms, and thus shed new light on the reasons for the outbreak of the Wars of Independence in 1296.

Keith Stringer is Professor Emeritus of Medieval British History at Lancaster University. His most recent publications include substantial contributions to Norman Expansion: Connections, Continuities and Contrasts (Farnham, 2013); North-West England from the Romans to the Tudors: Essays in Memory of John Macnair Todd (CWAAS, Extra Series, 2014); and Northern England and Southern Scotland in the Central Middle Ages (Woodbridge, 2017).

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