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INTRODUCTION |
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| Northumbria originally included the district between the Humber and
the Frith of Forth, but in the year 975 the northern portion was
ceded under conditions to Kenneth Macalpine, the Scotch king, and
after the battle of Carham, in 1018, the Tweed became the distinct
boundary between the two kingdoms. In 959 there was an earl of York
in distinction to the earl of Northumberland, the present county,
but this distinction was not always maintained until after the
Conquest. It appears, however, that the present county has held a
certain distinctive difference to the rest of ancient Northumbria.
Aeneas Silvius, afterwards Pope Pius II., when sent ambassador into Scotland in 1448, gives the following character to the people of the county:-, That coming to a large village about sunset, he alighted at a countryman's house where he supped with the curate of the place and his host. The table was plentifully furnished with pottage, hens and geese, but had neither wine nor bread. All the men and women in the town flocked to see him as some strange sight, asking the curate who he was, what he came for, and whether he was a Christian. Aeneas, being forewarned of the scarcity of the county, had procured of a monastery adjoining, a rundlet of wine and some loaves of bread; the people were astonished at them, because they had never seen any before . . . . women came to the table, and having handled the bread and smelt on the wine, begged a taste, so that there was no avoiding to deal the whole among them. After supper, a fear of an invasion from the Scots, who often at low water crossed the Tweed to pillage and rob, dispersed the company, all but the women-many of whom were very beautiful-whom they left behind because they thought the Scots would not harm them . . . Camden says that this description is not the due of the Northumbrians in his time . . . . he informs us also that the mosstrooping trade in robbing and pillaging is very much laid aside, so that persons and their goods are as safe on the borders as elsewhere, and 'In a word, the gentry of Northumberland are generally persons of address, and breeding, and preservers of the old English hospitality in their houses, and the peasants are as knowing a people and courteous to strangers as the people usually are in any other county.’ (Camden, vol. iii., p. 240.) Fuller, writing in 1799, says, 'The English gentry who live southward near London (which for the lustre thereof I may fitly call the sun of our nation), in the warmth of wealth and plenty of pleasure, quickly dissolve themselves of their estates and inheritance, whilst the gentry living in this country in the confines of Scotland, in the wind of war (daily alarmed with their blustering enemies), buckle their estates as their armour the closer unto them, and since have no less thriftily defended their patrimony in peace than formerly they valiantly maintained it in war.' .. Grey, in 1649, writing in his 'Chronographia,' says, 'The nobility and gentry of the north are of great antiquity, and can produce more ancient families than any other part of England; many of them gentry before the Conquest, the rest came in with the Conqueror. The nobility and gentry or the north have been always employed in their native country in the wars of the |
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kings or England against the Scots, all or them holding their lands
in knight's service, to attend the wars in their own persons, with
horse and spear, as the manner or fighting was in those days. Not a
gentleman amongst them that hath not his castle or tower, and so it
was divided into a number of baronies, the lords whereat in time
past, before Edward 1st's days went commonly under the name or
barons, although some of them were of no great living. The two great
princes of the north were the earl of Northumberland, famous for the
overthrow of Malcolm and his son Edward at Alnwick, and the earl of
Westmoreland, for the taking or David, king at Scots, at Neville's
Cross.' Grey enumerates thirty-seven families as then existing and dating from the Conquest, in which he places the Greys first, but of these .John Murray, in his handbook, I890, states only ten remain, viz.:- 'The Ogles or Ogle castle, now or Eglingham and Kirkley; Ridleys of Willimoteswick, now or Blagdon and Parkend; Middletons at Belsay; Mitfords of Mitford; Swinburnes of Capheaton; Cra'sters (indirectly) of Cra'ster; De Lisles or Felton (indirectly), now Lisles or Acton; Selbys or Biddleston, commonly known as "the proud Selbys " from the Northumbrian fancy that they kept a boat of their own at the flood and so were under no obligation to Noah; Cresswells (indirectly) or Cresswell; Haggerstons or Haggerston, now of Ellingham. 'Grey, Earl Grey, the Riddles or Felton, the Illdertons of Illderton, the Roddams (indirectly) of Roddam, and the Charltons of Hesleyside, are all also very ancient stocks.' A diligent study of this work will show that the above is not correct and apparently, improper influence has been exercised to make it so. In the hall or the keep of the fine old castle or X Newcastle are kept the banners or those families who did their duty to their county and country, and amongst them are the banners or Percy, Nevill, Bertram and Ogle who are all ancestors of those who in this present work are descended from Ralph, Lord Ogle. The Ogles of Kirkley are now, however, once more the Ogles of Ogle castle, the properly having been reacquired, but the building can hardly be called a castle having only a part of the west wall standing to which has been attached a farm house. Education and its refinement made slow advances in Northumberland, as an instance, only a small proportion of landowners could sign their names even in the time of Queen Elizabeth, naturally spelling, generally phonetic, was very defective, so that it is often difficult to know exactly what place is spoken of. As an example 'Kirkley,' one of the Ogles' seats, is written Crikelach, Crekelawe, Cricklawe, Ercklaw, Kirkelaw, Kreklawe. Christian and surnames differ very much from their foreign equivalents and other causes, viz., Elizabeth and Isabel or Isabella are often the same, also Maud and Matilda are taken as equivalent names. Mistakes occur between Agnes and Ann; Margaret, Margery and Mary, etc. Then as to surnames, De Insula, De L'isle, De Lisle, are equivalents, etc. Many surnames are simply their father’s Christian name with the prefix fitz, and their names then appear as Walter fitz William, Roger fitz ,Walter, etc., these two names representing three generations, but sometimes the names fitz William, fitz Walter descend, as a whole, as a surname. |
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ORIGIN OF NAME. A paper entitled 'Researches into the origin of the name Ogle,' was read before the Society of Antiquaries, Newcastle (Arc. Ael., vol. xxiii.), the subject was treated, incidentally, as to the meaning of the word but primarily as to its use as a personal and place name, the following is a summary of both aspects with additions:-- (1) The tentative derivation from Hog and hill cannot be entertained, there being no real hill at Ogle and had there been the place would certainly have been called Hogllon and not Hoghill, which besides is not the original spelling of the place name but Hoggel and Hoggal, if unsupported fancy is to guide derivations one might even suppose, with more reason, that the word came from Hoog and Gall, meaning high stranger, or Og and Gall, fearful stranger, or even the Irish, Ogal, fearful. (2) As a matter of fact a writer in 'Notes and Queries' supposes the name to be derived from a Teutonic word having the meaning of fear, dread, awe, and Glen Ogle in Scotland is said to translate ‘terrible glen,' from the Gaelic eagalach from eagal, fear: but Ogle, he says, appears also to be an Anglo-Saxon or Danish personal name, as it occurs in composition with topographical expressions in several family names, as Ogilvie. Oglewy, Ogilby, Oglesby, meaning the residence of Ogle, and Oglethorpe, meaning the village of Ogle. (3) Joyce, in his ‘Irish place-names,' discusses the name under the form Oghill, which, he says, is the name of about twenty townlands, the meaning being yew wood. The forms he gives, however, vary very much, some are plurals as Oghilly, Oghly and Aghilly, others occur as Youghal, Aughall, etc., and the compounds as Cloonoghill in Sligo and Clonoghell in Roscommon, King and Queen's county, meaning the meadow of the yew wood. (4) Although place and personal names had, no doubt, originally a meaning, it is impossible, if the derivation is very remote, to give any certainty to it, but if the word can he found used in a local sense and also in a personal sense then it may be possible to show some relation between the two. It was shown that one of the tribes that roamed over the seas in the later Roman period were Jutes who had a settlement between the Firth of Forth and the Tweed. and that they had also, probably, a settlement in the Aran islands on the west of Ireland. one of which Inishmore has evidences from its magnificent monuments and forts, of being, at that time, a stronghold which a seafaring population might have used as a base for subsequent expeditions. It is now generally conceded that Hengist was a Jute and by the authority of Nennius, who is thought by Haigh to have transcribed a manuscript of Gildas, a writer in 471-- this Hengist when he had agreed to assist Vortigern, the British king, is mentioned as having come from the island of Oghgul and as having sent for Ochta, who, with forty ships, 'sailed round the country of the Picts, laid waste the Orkneys and came and occupied several territories across the Frisian sea. that is to say, the country between us and the Scots as far as the boundaries of the Picts. And Hengist continually sent for fresh ships a few at a time and the islands from which they came were left without inhabitants' the settlement appears to have been somewhere between the Forth and the Tweed, the language used clearly shows that Ochta came from the west and not from the east, as is generally supposed. This is supported by the statements that Hengist and Horsa were exiles and that Ochta, after the death of Hengist, crossed from the sinistral,' that is, the west of Britain, to the kingdom of Kent. In both localities similar names can be traced. In Inishmore the village near the centre of the island is still called Oghill and the fort. Dun Oghill: and it is contended that Inishmore, one of the Aran islands was once called Oghgul and it is also distinctly stated there were islands. It is true that in some manuscripts the race of Oghgul, instead of island, is spoken of and in others the spelling differs as Ochgul, Ongul and even Angul, but if for Oghgul we have the authority of the year 471 and if we are to suppose that the original names were written in Runic characters, then the former are the original names. Moreover, the runes do not lend themselves |
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easily for the two latter to be deduced from the former, and the
latter were probably introduced to suit the tribe of Angles who
afterwards settled in Britain. It is true that Anglesey might be
thought to be the island and it has been written Ongulsey for we
read' Ongulsey is one third of Bretland [Wales] (The Viking Age, Du
Chaillu, p. 19), but Hengist and his followers came from islands and
Anglesey is but one island which was conquered by the Romans and
where are the evidences of a settlement as are still to be found at
Inishmore, whose inhabitants are of a fairer type than that usually
found amongst the Irish and have been supposed to have been
descendants of the Danes.* The people are of an extremely primitive
race.ΐ In the Jutish settlement in the north we find the following
names, including' those having the aspirant H and those where the c
takes the place of g, these' characters, if originally Runic, being
often interchangeable: --The Ogle burn, Innerwick: Ogle and Ogleburgh, Northumberland; Ogleface, Linlithgow: Hoghill fort on the river Lyne flowing into the Tweed; a fort near Hoghill in the Lammermuir hills: the Ochil hills to the north of Edinburgh; somewhat more distant, the manor of Oglebird in Cumberland, a name now lost; Oghiltree, now written Ochiltree; Glen Ogle between Loch Earn and Killin, Coilantogle near Callander; Loch Ogle in Inverness; and the name Ogil or Ogill appears to have existed in Perthshire or Forfarshire. The spelling of the word since the Norman Conquest representing both place and surnames, is very varied. It occurs as Hoggel, Hoggal, Ogla, Hoghill, Oghell, Hoggill, Oghil, Oggehill, Oggille, Eggil, Iggell, D’Oggil, D’Ogle, de Oggle, de Ogle, Oggil, Oggell, Oggil, Oggel, Oggle, Ogyll, Ogill, Oggell, Ogele, Ogel. Hengist being a Jute or possibly a Frisian, where the Jutes may have had settlements and as a matter of fact, where the name as Oggel still exists as a surname: but this name has also been said to have been Common in Scandinavia and in the eighth century a family name Ogell were hereditary judges in the district of Bohuslän and the same name occurs in the Ogelstromen - the Ogel river - which flows into the Angermann near Liden. The name is thus found in Sweden as a place name, also as a personal and possibly a descendible personal name, which apparently as Oggel is now a surname. No such name occurs in history, but the fact that such names as Ogelby, Oglesby, Oglethorpe exist shows that in Danish times the Danes being the successors of the Jutes circa 800 to 1500, there were persons living called Ogle or its equivalent, for the terminations - by and thorpe - are Danish and the compound names mean, respectively, the residence of Ogle and the village of Ogle. The absence of the name may be accounted for in the fact that the name, even in 1269 and 1279, has been written Eggil and Iggel (Sur. Soc., vol. 88, pp. 152 and 293), and there are very early instances of names similar to these, Ǽgil, said by Haigh to he probably a common name: Egil, son of On (Haigh, pp. 43, 44, 135, 138); Egil or Egill, abbot of Fulda: and the well known Egil in the days of Athelstan (The Viking Age, Du Chaillu, vol. ii., pp. 469 to 478). Regarding this person Mr. Cadwallader J. Bates says, ‘The scene of the great battle fought in Northumberland against the Scots in the reign of King Athelstan (925-940) at “weondune" fits well in with the local conditions of the neighborhood of Wendon or Wandon near Chatton : and as the Icelandic “Egilsaga” represents Egil, or the great hero, whose valour gave the victory to Athelstan, the fact that Ogleburgh, Egil's camp, was in close vicinity seemed to afford additional proof of the correctness of the identification. Unfortunately, on what should he the best authority I was assured that the name Ogleburgh was not an ancient one, but was coined while the Fowberry estate was in the possession of a branch of the Ogle family' * Communicated by a Professor of Galway University. ΐ Scenery and Antiquities of Ireland by N. P. Willis" and V. Stirling Coyne, Vol. II., p. 107 |
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