Liberties and Franchises

The territory which the Umfravilles acquired was not an ordinary barony like their other Northumbrian fief centred on Prudhoe. Instead it belonged to a class of lordship variously termed regalities, franchises or liberties, where the baron was responsible for performing the administrative and judicial tasks undertaken elsewhere by the sheriff and other royal officials.

There were several of these in Northumberland, covering much of the county, including the Palatinate of Durham with its northern districts of Norhamshire, Islandshire and Bedlingtonshire, the liberty of Tynedale, and the ecclesiastical liberties of Hexhamshire and Tynemouthshire.

This viceregal authority did not confer any right to alter or make laws, and its continuance was always conditional on the goodwill of the Crown, symbolised on the death of each baronial incumbant when the liberty automatically reverted to the state until a successor had been acknowledged. For the Crown this clearly represented a pragmatic and economical means of administering and policing the remote uplands of Northumberland.