In 1092, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle MS E, a Dolfin was expelled from Carlisle by William Rufus, king of England:[3] William followed up by constructing a castle in the city, and importing settlers from England:[4]
[s.a. 1092] In this year king William with a great army went north to Carlisle and restored the town and built the castle; and drove out Dolfin, who ruled the land there before. And he garrisoned the castle with his vassals; and thereafter came south hither and sent thither a great multitude of [churlish] folk with women and cattle, there to dwell and till the land.[5]
Although it is generally thought that this Dolfin was the son of Earl Gospatric, this has been occasionally disputed, notably by historian William Kapelle.[7] Gospatric appears to have been ruler of Cumberland himself in the time of Earl Siward, though Alan Orr Anderson and others have suggested that Dolfin had been placed in the region by Malcolm III of Scotland.[8]
Anderson, Alan Orr, ed. (1922), Early Sources of Scottish History A.D. 500 to 1286 (2 vols), Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd
Anderson, Alan Orr, ed. (1908), Scottish Annals from English Chroniclers A.D. 500 to 1286 (1991 revised & corrected ed.), Stamford: Paul Watkins, ISBN1-871615-45-3
Kapelle, William E. (1979), The Norman Conquest of the North: The Region and Its Transformation, 1000–1135, London: Croom Helm Ltd, ISBN0-7099-0040-6
Sharpe, Richard (2006), Norman Rule in Cumbria, 1092–1136: A Lecture Delivered to Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society on 9th April 2005 at Carlisle, Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society Tract Series No. XXI, Kendal: Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, ISBN1-873124-43-0
