The Crown Suits Act 1769 (9 Geo. III., c. 16) was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain passed in 1769. In 1765 William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland, brought against James Lowther, 1st Earl of Lonsdale and the corporation of Carlisle bills in chancery for the perpetuation of testimony, believing that he was the owner of a fishery on the River Eden in right of the socage manor of Carlisle. However, because of the type of fishing carried on by the defendants it had become useless. Lonsdale's team discovered in the original grant from William III to the first Duke of Portland that the socage manor of Carlisle and the forest of Inglewood had been expressly omitted in the grant. An Act from the reign of James I, however, had laid down that the title for lands in undisturbed poss