Note 21 — THE BRIDALS OF DACRE.

It has again and again been stated, that the Countess herself in the seventeenth century repeated this exhibition of her ancestress in the thirteenth: and not merely as an assertion of her right, but frequently and habitually. No evidence has been found, that she ever did so at all. She was, however, recognized as sheriff, and she exercised the authority of the office by deputy. Thus we have her recording that she appointed such a deputy sheriff in 1651. The office appears to have been regarded as attached to the estate of Brougham Castle, or the other lands which had originally belonged to the Veteriponts; it descended with those estates to the Earls of Thanet: but in 1850 a sheriff was appointed by the crown, under the authority of an Act passed in the previous session of Parliament, entitled "An Act to provide for the execution for one year of the Office of Sheriff in the County of Westmorland."