Oct. Adam Fisher & young Jarrat for Inning the tith corne at Gresmere this yeare 1645 1 0 0 Adam Fisher was the Rydal blacksmith, and doubtless a strong man. Clearly no farmer could be found to take up a contract for the tithes of corn; and as we have seen, a barn had been hired for its housing. In 1648 Harrison went into Cumberland, and spent a week getting the "tith-rents" due on St. Mark's Day; and he enters:-- li s d geaven my cosen Lamplougs man for his paynes in comeinge to meete me there with directions from [parliamentary] comittee to pay there rents unto me, otherwise I had gotten none payd 0 5 0 Harrison was subjected to another imprisonment, and squeezed by the hostile government of many further sums. His account-sheets close in 1648-9, when the hall--soon to lie under the ban of sequestration--was itself closed. THE COMMONWEALTH The year 1645 marked the beginning of a great change in the church government of Grasmere. Already the new system devised by the Presbyterian party (which was now in the ascendant after the success of the Scotch at Newcastle) was being put into force as a substitute for episcopal rule. The division of the country into sections, each called a _classis_--to be administered by a committee of laymen empowered to nominate for each parish a minister and four elders--was very rapidly carried out. The following answer was sent to the Parliament's demand, by letter from the Speaker, that _classes_ for South Westmorland should be formed:--[110] [110] Shaw, in his _Church under the Commonwealth_, says that the scheme was already working in Northumberland and Durham at the close of 1645, and that it seems to have been put in force in Westmorland early in 1646. This letter explains the delay. Honourable Sir