City, administrative district (pop., 2001: 100,734), and seat of the administrative county of Cumbria , northwestern England.
It was founded as Luguvallium by the Romans on the River Eden opposite a fortified camp on the line of Hadrian's Wall . Destroyed by Norse invaders 0441; 875, it was restored when claimed from the Scots by William II in 1092. Mary, Queen of Scots , was imprisoned there in 1568. It was besieged during the English Civil Wars , and its Royalist defenders eventually surrendered to Parliamentary forces in 1645. Its cotton textile industry grew in the 18th19th centuries, and it has remained the centre of northern England's cotton industry.