Robert, the son of Francis Bindloss, to whom also he bequeathed all his armour and furniture, provided for the service of the king. The will also mentions Francis Bindloss, a minor (probably his younger grandson), his daughter, Jane Bindloss, and his daughter-in-law, "the Lady Cicely Bindloss," the widow of his son Francis.'

Sir Robert Bindloss, the testator, is stated to have built a chapel at Borwick, and to have bequeathed a sum of £20 per annum "to a "preaching minister here to be nominated by the "Lord or Lady of Borwick: wch pension was to "be paid out of an estate at Wencedale, Yorksh., "and to continue as long as any of ye sd Sir "Robert's name or blood shall remain Lord or "Lady of Borwick." 2

The Church Survey, in 1650, states that the stipend left by Sir Robert Bindloss for Borwick Chapel was "withholden and not payed"; and, rather more than half-a-century later, Bishop Gastrell, in his Notitia, states that "the Pension is dropt, and ye Chapel is dropping."

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This

Returning to Sir Robert Bindloss, the testator, the Warton registers shew that his second wife predeceased him in 1625, and that his grandson Robert was baptized in the same year. grandson was the son of Francis Bindloss, by his marriage with Cecilia, daughter of Thomas West, Lord de la Warr. The arms of "Byndloss impaling West," carved above the fireplace in the hall at Borwick, have only recently been removed. Francis Bindloss was knighted in 1624, and was Member of Parliament for the borough of Lancaster in 1627-8. He died in 1628, in the lifetime of his father, and leaving two sons, Robert and Francis, and a daughter, Dorothy.

Robert, the elder son, was baptized on the 8th

1 Chetham Society, n.s., vol. xxviii, p. 204.

2 Notitia Castriensis, vol. ii, p. 562,

of August, 1624, and on the death of his grandfather, in 1629, became the owner of the Borwick estates. He was created a baronet on the 16th of June, 1641; was Member of Parliament for the borough of Lancaster from 1645 to 1653, and for the county in the Convention Parliament of 1660; and served the office of High Sheriff of the county in 1658, 1672, and 1673. Sir Robert Bindloss ranks as a Royalist, but although he received a baronetcy from Charles I, he does not seem to have drawn his sword on behalf of his king. In 1651 the Royalist army were on the march from Scotland to London. The king reached Kendal on the 10th of August, 1651, and the vanguard arrived at Lancaster the following day. Charles II, however, spent the night at Borwick Hall; but, beyond the mere record of the fact, nothing is known of the visit. The next morning the Royalists left for Lancaster, where Charles was proclaimed with all solemnity, and the march was continued as far as Worcester, where the Royalists met with disastrous defeat.

Whether Sir Robert Bindloss was an active Royalist or not, he certainly seems to have been zealous in the discharge of his duties as a magistrate. Little more than a year after Charles II visited the hall, Sir Robert was urging the exercise of the extreme power of the law against the followers of George Fox. The account of one escape of the founder of the Society of Friends from an assault said to be committed by the servants of Sir Robert Bindloss, may be given in Fox's own words :

"1652-3. From Lancaster I returned to Robert Widders's, and from thence I went to Thomas Lepers to a meeting in the evening; and a very blessed meeting we had there; after the meeting was done I walked in the evening to Robert Widders's again, and no sooner was I gone than there came a company of disguised men to Thomas Lepers with swords and pistols; who suddenly entering the house put out the candles, and swung

their swords about amongst the people of the house, so that the people of the house were fain to hold up the chairs before them to save themselves from being cut and wounded. At length they drove all the people out of the house, and then searched the house for me, who, it seems, was the only person they looked for; for they had laid wait before on the highway by which I should have gone if I had ridden to Robert Widders. And not meeting with me on the way they thought to have found me in the house, but the Lord prevented them. Soon after I was come in at Robert Widders, some Friends came from the town where Thomas Leper lived and gave us a relation of the wicked attempt; and the Friends were afraid lest they should come and search Robert Widders house also for me and do me a mischief, but the Lord restrained them that they came not. Though the men were in disguise the Friends perceived some of them to be Frenchmen and supposed them to be servants belonging to one called Sir Robert Bindlas; for some of them had said that in their nation they used to tie the Protestants to trees and whip and destroy them. And his servants used often to abuse Friends, both in their meetings and going to and from their meetings. They once took Richard Hubberthorn and several others out of the meeting and carried them a good way off into the fields; and there bound them and left them bound in the winter season. At another time one of his servants came to Francis Fleming's house and thrust his naked rapier in at the door and windows; but there being at the house a kinsman of Francis Fleming's, one who was not a Friend, he came with a cudgel in his hand and bid the serving-man put up his rapier; which, when the other would not, but vapoured at him with it, and was rude, he knocked him down with his cudgel, and took his rapier from him, and, had it not been for Friends, he would have run him through with it. So the Friends preserved the life of him that would have destroyed theirs." 3

Sir Robert's chaplain at Borwick was Dr. Richard Sherlock, who is described as "a person "of a most pious life, exemplary conversation, of

great charity, hospitality, and so zealous a man "for the Church of England that he was accounted, "by precise persons, Popishly affected and a Papist "in masquerade." Dr. Whitaker writes:

"It is very certain that during the usurpation the Service of the Church of England was performed, with great effect, in a chapel at Borwick, by an ecclesiastic of the best principles, who lived to see better days, and to be rewarded for his fidelity.

3 Journal of George Fox, seventh edition, vol. i, pp. 143-4.

This was Mr. (afterwards Dr.) Sherlock. In my author's time," continues Dr. Whitaker, citing Lucas as his authority, "about eighty years ago, stood an ancient domestic chapel on a green near the hall, of which, on a visit to the place this year (1819), I could not find either a trace or tradition, and I doubt not that for obvious reasons it has been industriously removed. Being purely domestic it was unendowed, and, according to the restrictions of the canon law, without a bell. Since the accession of the Standish family it appears that no service was performed at this Chapel, but in the latter part of Lady Bindloss's days, the Vicar of Warton usually read prayers and preached here once or twice every year, and not oftener, as the good lady chose rather to afford a good example by attending regularly at the parish church; but in the beginning of her husband, Sir Robert's days, it had the honour of being constantly and zealously served by Richard Sherlock. . . Sir Robert Bindloss returning from his travels, and being in want of a chaplain of his own principles, Mr. Sherlock was recommended to him. This young baronet, like many of the Royalists, professed a high veneration for the Church of England, then in a persecuted and suffering state, while they disgraced its precepts and its discipline by their licentious lives. He had succeeded to a large estate, the income of which he had spent and far exceeded in promiscuous hospitality. Mr. Sherlock, though no Puritan, abhorred prodigality and excess; he saw with deep concern his patron's fortune diminishing, his morals relaxed, and probably his principles undermined by the company which crowded Borwick Hall to partake of the wasteful festivities of the place. To counteract these various courses, he first tried to awaken his conscience by oblique hints and warnings, and, when he found that these had no effect, he addressed a letter of admonition to him, couched in the most respectful terms, but exposing with courage and fidelity the errors of his life and their consequences. Above all, he urged the scandal which such conduct, in an age of hypocritical austerity, brought upon that suffering Church to which he professed himself so much attached. In conclusion, he boldly desired rather that his representations might be attended to, or that he might be discharged from a service which had become so irksome to him; and this, it must be remembered, at a time when the regular clergy were starving, and he himself would not have known where to have procured a subsistence. Sir Robert Bindloss had too much generosity to take him at his word, though it is not unlikely that he wished him in a better situation."

Dr. Sherlock entered into a controversy with one of the principal members of the Society of Friends, Richard Hubberthorne, a native of the village of Yealand, distant about two miles from Borwick

Hall. In 1656, Dr. Sherlock published a pamphlet entitled, The Quakers' Wilde Questions objected against the Ministers of the Gospel, and many Sacred Acts and Offices of Religion, with brief Answers thereto. This treatise is dedicated to Sir Robert Bindloss, and one discourse is inscribed to the Lady Rebecca, his wife. In answer to this, Richard Hubberthorne issued a tract entitled, A Reply to a Book set forth by one of the Blind Guides of England, who is a Priest at Barwick Hall, in Lancashire, who writes his name R. Sherlock, Bachelor of Divinity, but he is proved to be a Diviner and Deceiver of the People; which Book is in answer to some Queres set forth to him by them whom he calls Quakers. The details of the controversy are now of little interest, and, indeed, Dr. Sherlock seems to have declined to reply to the latter pamphlet.

While at Borwick, Dr. Sherlock "was compelled, "in order to prevent his being silenced by the governing powers, to decline the literal use of the "Common Prayer, but he digested out of it a "formula of worship as nearly approaching to it "as he thought safe, and constantly used it to the "great edification of his hearers." (Richmondshire, vol. ii, p. 312.)

Dr. Sherlock was presented by Charles, eighth Earl of Derby, to the Rectory of Winwick, where

"He was so constantly resident that in an incumbency of nearly thirty years he was scarcely absent from his benefice as many weeks; so constant a Preacher that, though he entertained three curates in his own houses, he rarely devolved that duty upon any of them; such a lover of monarchy, that, like Mephibosheth, he never shaved his beard after the murder of Charles I; so frugal in his personal habits that the stipend of one of his curates would have provided for him; and so charitable that out of one of the best benefices in England he scarcely left behind him one year's income, and that for the most part to pious uses."

He died on the 15th of June, 1689, aged 76. By his will he gave £30 to the poor of Borwick, and