• 1307: The death of Edward II began the period of border raids.
• 1311: Robert the Bruce 'burnt all the land of the Lord of Gillesland'. Inhabitants of Irthington and other parts may have been forced into subjection to the Scots.
• 1314: After English defeat at Bannockburn, the English borders were defenceless and victorious Scots poured into and devastated northern Cumbria and Northumberland, ravaging Tynedale. Robert the Bruce came again but was bought off with money.
• 1315: High Crosby raided by Scots.
• 1315-22: Sustained economic decline in the North in 1300's and 1400's, particularly after harvest failures and famine in 1315-1317 and then livestock plagues in years 1315-22.
• 1317: Dacres gained Gilsland by marriage.
• 1318: The Abbott of St Mary's, York, asked to sell surpluses of his tithes of grain from Westmoreland to keeper of the king's victuals at Carlisle.
• 1319: Scots raided again, devastating north-west England and burning Gilsland and carrying off inhabitants. 'The best and richest of the country about Gillesland and Lidell' reported as having changed sides and allied themselves to Scots, following Scots invasion and their abandonment by the English king. Protection extended by Scots to men of Gilsland and Liddel.
• 1322: Widespread devastation by Scots including Skelton, Greystoke & Blencow.
• 1328: Treaty of Edinburgh concedes Scottish independence.
• 1333: Particularly savage burning and ravaging of Gilsland by Scots led by Archibald Douglas. The Douglas heart is on our crest speared by a Blencowe sword.
• 1334: Naworth became main seat of the Dacres for next two centuries; an impregnable castle.
• 1337: Lord of Gilsland raided and burned into Scotland with counter attacks on his lands.
• 1341: Inquisitiones Nonarum blames county's impoverishment at this time upon many men having become horsemen and archers in wars against the Scots, and also extensive disease of murrain affecting sheep in all parts of the county except in Crosby and Stanwix parishes.
• 1345: Great Scots raid on Gilsland and the Eden Valley, with burning of Penrith, Blencow, Greystoke and Skelton.
• 1346: Lanercost Priory ransacked by Scots.
• 1349: First outbreak of Black Death, which killed at least a third of Carlisle's people by 1352.
• 1350: Production of wool goods concentrated in southern Cumbria around Kendal and subsequently ceased to be an extensive cottage industry in northern Cumbria.
• 1352: Income from demesne land at High Crosby remained low because it could not be demised better after the pestilence.
• 1357: Arms awarded to Adam.
• 1361-62: Second major outbreak of the Black Death, whose worst effects may have been limited to the Carlisle area and the Eden Valley.
• 1369: Plague revisited Cumbria.
• 1377: Poll Tax return records 678 names of over-14 year olds living in suburbs as well as inside Carlisle city walls. Ropes made at Naworth.
• 1379: Almost entire population of Newton in Northumberland killed by the Black Death, which had reached Durham in 1349.
• 1388: Cumberland and Westmoreland devastated by Scots. Irthington and at other settlements destroyed.

Alan Blencowe,
Western Australia