Gateshead and Whickham, which she soon transferred to the Earl of
Leicester. He assigned it to his secretary, Sutton, the founder of the
Charter-house, who also made assignment of it to Sir W. Riddell and
others, for the use of the Mayor and Burgesses of Newcastle. Duties
were laid upon this article to assist in building St. Paul's Church,
and fifty parish churches in London after the great fire; and in 1677,
Charles II. granted to his natural son, Charles Lenox, Duke of
Richmond, and his heirs, a duty of one shilling a chaldron on coals,
which continued in his family till it was purchased by government in
1800. The collieries in the vicinity of Newcastle are perhaps the most
valuable and extensive in Europe, and afford nearly the whole supply
of the metropolis, and of those counties on the eastern coast
deficient in coal strata; thus--

"The grim ore
Here useless, like the miser's brighter hoard,
Is from its prison brought and sent abroad,
The frozen horns to cheer, to minister
To needful sustenance and polished arts--
Hence are the hungry fed, the naked clothed,
The wintry damps dispell'd, and social mirth
Exults and glows before the blazing hearth."

_Iago's Edge Hill_, p. 106.

P.T.W.

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