K. Hen.

   —"From Scotland am I stolen, even of pure love,

    To greet mine own land with my wishful sight."

    King Henry VI.

   It shall bless thy bed, it shall bless thy board,

    They shall prosper by this token;

   In Muncaster Castle good luck shall be,

    Till the charmed cup is broken."

    Gamel de Pennington is the first ancestor of the family of whom there is any recorded account; he was a person of great note and property at the time of the Conquest, and the family, having quitted their original seat of Pennington in Lancashire (where the foundation of a square building called the Castle is still visible), he fixed his residence at Mealcastre, now called Muncaster. It is said that the family originally resided nearer the sea, at a place not far from the town of Ravenglass, where at present are the ruins of an old Roman castle, called Walls Castle. The old tower of the present mansion-house at Muncaster was built by the Romans, to guard the ford called St Michael's Ford, over the river Esk, when Agricola went to the north, and to watch also the great passes into the country over the fells, and over Hard Knot, where is the site of another fortress constructed by them, apparent from the traces existing to this day.

    Muncaster and the manor of Muncaster have long been enjoyed by the Penningtons, who appear to have possessed it about forty years before the Conquest, and ever since, sometimes collaterally, but for the most part in lineal descent by their issue male, to this very time.

    There is a room in Muncaster Castle which still goes by the name of Henry the Sixth's room, from the circumstance of his having been concealed in it at the time he was flying from his enemies in 1461, when Sir John Pennington, the then possessor of Muncaster, gave him a secret reception.

    The posts of the bed in which he slept, which are of handsome carved oak, are also in the same room in good preservation.

    

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