*Maupin 1980 says that Mary Richardson was the daughter of Margaret Ewing and Bonnie Prince Charlie (1720-1788). This is an error, although there is certainly a connection to Charlie...

*Penfold says that Mary's son William Barton (1785-1846) was "a grandson on his maternal side of George Richardson of Easby near Brampton & his spouse Margaret Ewing who came over & left at Brampton Prince Charlie's army in 1745".

*Wheatley 1903 (p19) mentions "the story of Margaret Ewing, a young girl 17 years of age, who arrived with the Highlanders, and there took up her permanent abode. Three years after her arrival she married John Richardson, of Easby, a township of Brampton, where, after the death of his father, he inherited a small estate. She died in 1813 at the age of 85, and left her estate to her grandson, Richard Richardson.
Mr. Penfold, from whose Guide to Brampton these particulars are taken, throws no light on the circumstances under which this remarkable old lady came in her girlhood to be associated with the Highland army. She was of superior education, held herself aloof from her neighbours, and was not one to “wear her heart upon her sleeve.” The only personal record of her connection with the period, which she left at her death, was a small pocket Bible in 2 vols., published by Richard Watkins, Edinburgh, 1743, and as it bears on the title page the name of the owner at the same date it must have come into her possession immediately on publication. The Bible is now in the possession of her great grandchildren, Mr. and Miss Barton, Carlisle."



*Transactions CWAALS n12 1887 tells the story in more detail:

"Some accounts of the '45 represent the prince as having made his entry into Carlisle on November 17. But it is clearly shown by his household book that he spent that Sunday in Brampton. It may therefore have been on that day that he received the keys of Carlisle from the deputy-mayor and the corporation. The late Mr. G. Hetherington, of Brampton, who died in 1881, aged eighty-three, told me that he had often heard his grandmother, Elizabeth Smith, who died in 1813, aged eighty-nine, describe the crowd and commotion in High Cross Street, Brampton, on that occasion.

Among that crowd she said she well remembered having seen one Margaret Ewing, a girl of sixteen, who had come with the army from Scotland. That girls did accompany the army we know whom what is recorded as having happened at the crossing of the river Esk, then much swollen from recent floods, on their way back to Scotland:

'None were lost, except a few girls, who, for love of the white cockade, had followed the army, throughout the whole of its singular march, with an heroic devotion which deserved a better fate' (Chambers' Histoy of the Rebellion in 1745, 1st ed., vol. i, p. 238).

From such a fate, at all events from the risk of it, Margaret Ewing saved herself, when, on the departure of the Highlanders from Brampton, she voluntarily chose to be the girl they left behind them. Penrith parish register in 1748 has this entry:

'Dec. 28. John Richardson and Margaret Ewing both of Brampton married.'

John Richardson was of the ancient yeoman family of the Richardsons of Easby, a township of Brampton; and on the death of his father in 1759 he succeeded to the small estate at Easby, about forty-five acres, which is known from the "Book of the Barony of Gilsland" to have been in the possession of his ancestors in 1603, and may have been so for centuries earlier. He died in 1799, aged seventy-three. His wife, Margaret, was a remarkable woman, believed by her Brampton contemporaries to have been of a noble house. "But if so," says a local record, "she kept her secret well, as she was in no way communicative to those about her, not even to her husband, who always stood in great awe of her" (Cheesbrough's Brampton Almanac). She died in 1813, aged eighty-four, leaving the estate to her grandson, Richard Richardson; and it is said that she left it to him on the condition that he inscribed on her tombstone the following epitaph:

'Here rest my old bones; my vexation now ends;
I have lived far too long for myself and my friends.
As for churchyards, and grounds which the parsons call holy,
'Tis a rank piece of priestcraft, and founded in folly;
In short I despise them; and as for my soul,
It may rise the last day with my bones from this hole;
But about the next world I ne'er troubled my pate;
If no better than this, I beseech thee, O Fate,
When millions of bodies rise up in a riot,
O, pray, let the bones of old Margaret lie quiet!'

The record goes on to say that "the then vicar of the parish, his attention having been called to this epitaph, sent a copy of it to the chancellor of the diocese, who at once hastened to Brampton, and actually stood over the mason, one George Rowell, until he had picked out the objectionable lines with a chisel and mallet". That the vicar knew nothing about the epitaph until his attention was called to it may to some appear strange. But the churchyard is a mile and a half from the church, vicarage, and town; and in later times a tombstone has occasionally been placed there without the knowledge of the vicar. The chancellor, however, I think, must have ordered the stone to be altogether broken up; for the stone which now surmounts Margaret Richardson's grave does not look as if it had ever borne any other inscription than her present epitaph, which consists of ten lines, orthodox enough to have been composed by the chancellor himself, beginning thus :

'Throughout the world's immeasurable space
Go, sinful man, and learn thy God to trace!'

Mr. A. Ormiston, Carlisle diocesan surveyor, writing to me about the original epitaph, says :

'An old friend of mine, Elizabeth Story (nee Burgess), born August 26, 1772, who lived for many years at Irthington, and died at Warwick in 1856, often informed me that she had seen the tombstone, and that it was a common practice amongst young folk to gather together in Brampton churchyard for the purpose of reading the strange epitaph on old Margaret. Her testimony was borne out by another old person whom I knew, Elizabeth Armstrong, who died in 1858, aged seventy-four, and was buried at Lanercost.'

Mrs. Story's version of the epitaph, copied from her dictation by Mr. Ormiston, is identical with that given in the local almanac with the single exception of the word "lie" instead of "rest" in the first line. Mrs. Barton, of the Crescent, Carlisle, whose late husband was a grandson of John and Margaret Richardson, has a version which, besides differing as to several words from that received by Mr. Ormiston from Mrs. Story, omits altogether the two middle lines*.

*Mr. J. C. Jeaffreson, who in his "Book about Doctors" (p. 203) says that this epitaph was written by Dr. Messenger Monsey, physician to Chelsea Hospital, who died in 1788, aged ninety-five, also omits the two middle lines, and gives the last four thus:

What the next world may be I ne'er trouble my pate ;
And, be what it may, I beseech thee, O Fate,
When bodies of millions rise up in a riot,
To let the old carcase of Monsey lie quiet.

The first four lines as given by Mr. Jeaffreson agree exactly with the version quoted by me from the local almanac."


Children


With Robert Barton (1747-1795):


Grave


According to Denis Perriam, the stone in Wigton churchyard, which carries a crest, reads:

"Sacred to the memory of Robert Barton of Wigton, who died Nov 24 1795 aged 48 years. Also Mary his wife, who died August 19 1821 aged 70 years" [70, not 75 as she would be if born in 1746. Which birth year is correct?]

The same stone also commemorates "William Barton of Carlisle, their son who died Octr 22 1846 aged 61 years" and names some of the children of William and Mary up to 1852.