A famous name in the North. The most ancient of all the time­worn towers of Raby bears two gigantic sculptured b’s for Bertram de Bulmer, placed there when it was restored and heightened in the fourteenth century by John Lord Nevill; and the same letter is shown on his seals, and appears on the bordure of his shield in Durham Cathedral. This was in memory of the vast inheritance that, seven generations before, the daughter of Bertram de Bulmer had brought to Geoffrey de Nevill (whose heiress Isabel married the Lord of Raby): comprising the castles of Middleham and Sheriff Hutton in Yorkshire, and Brancepeth in the county of Durham, with a whole train of estates and manors, dependent on these great fees.

Bertram de Bulmer was the eldest of the three sons of Asketil or Anchitel, a benefactor of the canons of Nostel, who is mentioned in 1131 (Rotul. Pip.), and the great-grandson of a more hazy Henry de Bulmer, living in the previous century. Hutchinson, who gives the pedigree somewhat differently, styles them Lords of Bulmer and Brancepeth; though “from what early period the Bulmers were seated at Brancepeth”he is unable to inform us. Their Christian names, however, sufficiently indicate that they were not of Saxon lineage. “One matter,” he adds, “points out the great antiquity of this castle; that our records furnish us with no licence for fortifying and embattling, which is not the case of any other in the county.” The present castle, “Stronglie sett and buildid”with “two Courtes of highe Buildyng,” as Leland describes it, is the work of the Nevills. According to tradition, its name of Brancepeth or Brawn’s-path was derived from a huge wild boar or brawn, “a formidable animal which made his lair on Brandon (Brawn’s den) Hill, and walked the forest in undisputed sovereignty from the Wear to the Gaunless.” A similar beast had been the terror of the same neighbourhood in very remote times. There is still extant “a beautiful altar inscribed to Silvanus by a Roman officer, for assisting him to destroy a wild boar which ranged in Weardale, and had escaped his predecessors in authority.” - Surtees. - Surtees.

Bertram de Bulmer’s chief residence, however, would seem to have been beyond Tees, though his wife - a Surtees - was a daughter of the Bishopric. He was Viscount of Yorkshire for the first nine years of Henry II.’s reign; whence the castle he built at Hutton was called Sheriff-Hutton. Although the lion’s share of his splendid domain accrued to the Nevills through his daughter Emma, he left behind him a nephew of his own name, the son of his brother Anchitel, who was Lord of Bulmer in Yorkshire, and the ancestor of a great feudal house, for several centuries seated at Wilton in Cleveland. The hamlet of Thorp-Bulmer, co. Durham, also continued to be held by his descendants, till, with all their other estates, it was forfeited under Henry VIII. They were of high rank and reputation in the county, and intermarried with the best blood of the North. In the 14th century, Sir Ralph Bulmer, who had served in the Scottish wars, and been employed as Commissioner of Array and Chief Inspector of the Army in the North and East Ridings, was summoned to parliament at the accession of Edward III. The King afterwards appointed him Constable of York, and gave him licence to castellate his manor house at Wilton. During the previous reign, he had received a special charter of free-warren in all his demesne, enabling him to “hold deer in his park at Risborough, and keep dogs to hunt therein.” He died in 1357, leaving a son of the same name, “but none of his successors,” says Dugdale, “were ever after Barons of the realm.” His grandson Sir William, followed Henry V. through his French campaigns, and by a curious indenture, still preserved, and bearing date 1416, placed his wife under the charge of Sir Thomas Surteys while he was away from home. For a covenanted payment of ten marks, Dame Elizabeth Bulmer was “to be received into Sir Thomas’ house at Dinsdale for the space of one year, and be well and honourably entertained with her waiting- maid and page (being of decent and sober behaviour).” This Sir Thomas, undoubtedly the “personage of great gravity and decorum”he is reputed to have been, was the custodian of more than one of his neighbour’s wives, for Dame Claxton was, at the same time, and under the same conditions, domiciled at Dinsdale during the absence of her husband, “whose youthful blood or more active spirit had called him to the wars of France.” Another Sir William, Sheriff of Yorkshire, 9 Hen. VIII., led the Durham men at Flodden, where “the forces of the Bishopric were placed in the foreward of the English army, and after the victory, the shrine of St. Cuthbert, in addition to its ancient trophies, was decorated with the banners of many of the Scottish nobility, won on that memorable day.” - Surtees.

“And under Bulmer’s banner brave The Bishopric of Durham came.”

He married Margery Conyers, and had three sons: 1, Sir John; 2, Sir Ralph, whose wife, a co-heiress of Aske, brought him only one daughter; 3, Sir William, who married the heiress of Elmedon, co. Durham, and eventually became the heir-male of the family.

Sir John, the eldest son, joined the ill-starred Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536. He was connected with Robert Aske through his brother’s marriage; but it needed no family ties to summon him to the field in the cause of the old religion. All Yorkshire was afoot. The “clash of the alarm bells” pealed all over the country; the beacons were on fire; and Aske’s letter, hung on the church doors or posted on the market cross of every town, “called upon all good Englishmen to make a stand for the Church of Christ, for the commonwealth of the realm, and their own livings.” There were none of the great Northern houses, with the exception of the Cliffords, the Dacres, and the Musgraves, that did not respond to the call, and wear the badge of the Five Wounds. Sir John was among the thirty-four peers and knights that met in the castle hall at Pontefract - the so-called Parliament of Pontefract - to pronounce against the Reformation; and with the other principal leaders, paid the penalty on the scaffold. On June 20th, 1537, he was hanged at Tyburn with Sir Thomas Percy, Sir Francis Bigod, Sir Stephen Hamarton, Sir Nicholas Tempest, young Lumley, and the Abbots of Fountains and Jerveaulx. Nor did the King’s vengeance stop there. Lady Bulmer - horrible to relate - was burnt at the stake. Yet the sole crime alleged against her was that she, with her husband and some others, had plotted to seize the Duke of Norfolk, and carry him a prisoner to Wilton Castle.

This martyred woman was the illegitimate daughter of Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham (himself beheaded in 1521), and became Sir John’s second wife. Her only child, John Bulmer of Pinchingthorp, died s. p.; but by his first marriage with Anne Bigod, her husband had had two other sons, Sir Ralph, and William, styled of Levennige. Sir Ralph, who was restored in blood and received back some of the forfeited estates at the accession of Edward VI., had only daughters. William had three generations of male descendants, but they had all disappeared or become extinct in the following century.

There remained the posterity of Sir William Bulmer of Elmedon (the youngest brother of the unfortunate Sir John), who were seated at Tursdale in the co. of Durham till 1638. In the beginning of James I.’s reign we find Sir Bertram Bulmer living there “in considerable splendour. He was probably one of the most gallant and expensive men of his age; he succeeded to the estate at an early age in 1598, and on the first coming in of King James received knighthood at Durham. He afterwards spent much of his time at Court, and would then be exactly the character described in the excellent old song - ‘With new titles bought with his father’s old gold, For which many of his father’s old manors are sold, Like a new Courtier of the King’s, and the King’s new Courtier.’ After his fortunes were broken, Sir Bertram led a troop, which he raised himself, in the Low Countries; where his men on one occasion deserted him, and he was taken prisoner. He returned to Durham, and died in 1638.” - Surtees. The burdened estate was then sold; but, besides his debts, the spendthrift knight left behind eight sons and five daughters, several of whom “were reduced, soon after his death, to very low conditions of life.” Though his eldest son married a Yorkshire woman with some fortune, the family never recovered from the ruin in which he had involved them, and gradually sunk into utter obscurity and oblivion. Surtees could only trace the descent to 1718. One Bertram Bulmer, in 1726, kept the cockpit and bowling-green in Gray’s Inn Lane, and had in his possession an ancient emblazoned family pedigree, extending beyond the Conquest.

Contemporary with Sir Bertram was a Sir Bevis Bulmer, sometimes described as “Bulmer the Projector,” who “engaged in mining expeditions - a frequent source, in that age, of adventurous wealth or total ruin,” and died in 1615. Probably it is to him that Ben Jonson alludes in one of his plays: - “I was bred i’ the Mines Under Sir Bevis Bullion.”