THE first local reference to England's 'wickedest king' is appropriately cruel.

It dates from 1199 when 'Gilbert Fitz-Reinfrid, lord of Kentdale and Westmarieland, proffers to King John £100 for having a gallows and a pit in his fee'.

A reminder of the sinister execution site lives on in the name of the residential area 'Gallowbarrow', off Natland Road in Kendal.

Other documentary links to the period include the 1189 charter granted by Richard the Lion Heart to 'Gilbert son of Roger Fitz-Reinfrid for 20 marks to hold a weekly market on Saturday at Kyrkebi in Kendal', an award of six stags annually by Gilbert and Helwise his wife to St Mary's Abbey, York, and permission to forage in the forests between the Kent and 'Wynandermere'.

More tangible reminders are the towers of Burton and Kendal Parish Churches which date from around the time of Roger and Gilbert de Reinfrid's lordship as does Kendal Castle where, on the 20th and 21st of August 1208, Gilbert entertained King John himself.

By 1210 King John's extortionate taxation required to pay for a war against France led Gilbert to join a revolt of Northern Barons.

They, in conjunction with southern opponents, forced John to concede to 'the Great Charter of liberties', sometimes seen as the basis of English democracy.

Although Gilbert was not one of the 25 barons who sealed the 'Great Charter' he, having waged war from the northern reaches of the kingdom to the south, probably attended the sealing ceremony at Runnymede on 15 June 1215.

Nevertheless, he continued to oppose John until, along with his son William de Lancaster, and two other local knights Ralph de Aencourt and Lambert de Busay, he was taken prisoner, when Rochester Castle, after a long siege, fell to the royal forces.

John's death shortly afterwards probably saved the Kentdale rebels from being hanged, drawn and quartered as traitors. Even so Gilbert and William were held hostage until he had paid '12,000 marks to the king for remission of his rancour for confederacy against his enemies'.

As the fine had not been paid when Gilbert died in 1220 his land was 'taken into the king's hands until his heir William does what is due to the king'.

By 1222 William had been re-invested with the Lordship of Kentdale which consisted of Levens, Farleton, Preston Richard, Preston Patrick, Holme and Hincaster. On the domain's edge, the Kendal Barony also included Burton which thanks to arrangements made around '1215 and all that' is still officially known as Burton-in-Kendal.