March Muster

The ancient parish levy. Every man from sixteen to sixty is bound to appear armed at the sheriff's warrant within three days, and parish quotas are recorded in the muster book (nine hundred and forty men on paper). Its third clause, for dangers ordinary officers cannot meet, is the march's nearest thing to an emergency power.

The Crown's muster liability in the March, with a roll of men owed and returns of those actually found; it can take parish men north in an emergency.

Named with it

• Josiah Hebden · clerk of the muster
• Nehemiah Silsden (clerk of the hundreds
• reader of the nineteen returns)

Ties

• raised by the Crown
• called by the shrievalty
• Harrowgate corporation commutes its quota for money
• its clerk has compared findings with the sub-prior of Harrowgate Priory

At the table

The roll says nine hundred and forty are owed but the last hard return brought under six hundred; upland parishes drop out of the returns as their bound walks shorten. Service with the muster is a lawful excuse from a parish walking. The Ganthwaites attend faithfully. It has been called nineteen times in the century but not in the last eleven years. Turnout has fallen to under two thirds, and four high upland parishes send no one, saying they cannot spare men from their nightly watching. Harrowgate always pays money instead of its hundred and sixty men. Mustered men have never entered interdicted, closed or given-up ground. Crowdyke, Stang Head and the Rigg Head losses are part of its record.