The information has been collected from many sources, public, private, and traditional. The earliest comes from the Record Office, where there are treasures still to be explored. For the seventeenth century--and particularly the period of the Civil Wars--the MSS. at Rydal Hall have yielded facts of great interest, especially those culled from the account-sheets of Mr. Richard Harrison, who was agent and executor of Squire John Fleming. From all sources, however, the information obtained is fragmentary, and facts are disappointingly isolated. Always there is something beyond, that we want to know and cannot find out; and so the story of the great Restoration Tithe Dispute has no ending. The Presentments have been only available for a limited number of years. The church registers are defective. Even the church-wardens' accounts, which begin at the Restoration, are not complete. It is fortunate, however, that the second volume of these accounts, long missing, and strangely recovered from papers found at the house of descendants of a former parish clerk, was copied before it was again lost. There is a gap of seven years between the third volume and this copy, owing no doubt to the last leaves of the second volume having been torn off.[1] [1] Vol. I. ends in 1735. Vol. II. overlaps four years and begins in 1732, but the pages from 1734 to 1739 and from 1743 to 1750 are missing, and no entries are made for 1778 and 1779. The vol. ends in 1883.--ED. The writer has received more help and kindness than can well be acknowledged. Thanks are specially due to Mr. Stanley le Fleming and Sir Gerald Strickland for granting ready access to their muniments; to Dr. Magrath, author of _The Flemings in Oxford_; to the Revs. W. Jennings, J. H. Heywood, and M. F. Peterson for permitting the church documents to be consulted; to Messrs. W. Farrer, J. A. Martindale, and George Browne for their kind contributions of antiquarian knowledge; to Mr. W. Buckton I am indebted for the plan of the church. INTRODUCTORY HOW THE CHURCH WAS FOUNDED IN NORTHUMBRIA All history begins with geography. Grasmere was from early times the centre of a parish that embraced the twin valleys of Rothay and Brathay, whose waters drain into the lake of Windermere, while the lake empties itself into the great bay of Morecambe. Therefore Grasmere has always belonged politically to the fertile region round about the bay, and the history of that region--from the time when the Celt enjoyed it, onward through its conquest by the Angle, its aggregation with the province of Deira and the kingdom of Northumbria, still onward through its conversion to Christianity and its connection with the central church government at York as part of the Archdeaconry of Richmondshire--is the history of Grasmere herself: and to understand the origin of her church, it is necessary to briefly indicate the main events in the kingdom of Northumbria and the Church of York.