¹ It will be observed that this list omits the Bishops of London and Winchester and the Earls of Huntingdon and Chester, but adds the Abbot of Cerne.

² An excellent instance of this practice is found, ten years later, in the case of Bishop Nigel, who attested three charters in 1133, before the king's departure, as Bishop of Ely, though he was not consecrated till some months later. They are those found in Monasticon, vi. 1174, 1274, and that which granted the chamberlainship to Aubrey de Vere.

³ It has found its way, under 'Baldwin', into the Dictionary of National Biography.

⁴ The Guido de Totteneys of this charter seems to be identical with the Wido de Nunant of the charter granted by Henry II to this priory. This conjecture is confirmed by the entry in the Pipe-Roll of 31 Hen. I: 'Wido de Nunant reddit comp. de x. marcis pro concessione ferie de Totneis' (p. 154). There is a story quoted by Dugdale, under Totnes priory, from the records of the abbey of Angers, that Juhel 'of Totnes', the Domesday baron, was expelled by William Rufus, and his lands given to Roger de Nunant. I certainly find Roger de Nonant attesting in 1091 the foundation charter of Salisbury Cathedral in conjunction with William fitz Baldwin (see pp. 256, 358); and Manors belonging to Juhel in 1086 are found afterwards belonging to Valletort, Nonant's successor, as part of his honour of Totnes. But it would seem that Juhel retained part of his honour of Barnstaple, while the Nonants held the rest as the honour of Totnes. Indeed, he must have held both capita so late as 1113, when, say the monks of Laon, 'venimus ad castrum, quod dicitur Bannistaplum, ubi manebat quidam princeps nomine Joellus de Totenes', etc. (Hermannus, ii. 17), adding that they afterwards visited Totnes 'præfati principis castrum' (ibid., 18).

⁵ Reprinted, with additions, from English Historical Review.

THE ORIGIN OF THE NEVILLES

It is difficult to believe that so interesting a genealogical question as the origin of this famous house should have remained as yet undetermined. I have shown above (p. 137) that we can identify in Domesday Gilbert and Ralph de Neville, the earliest bearers of the name in England, as knightly tenants of the Abbot of Peterborough; but the existing house, as is well known, descends from them only through a female. It is at its origin in the male line that I here glance. The innumerable quarters in which, unfortunately, information of this kind has been published makes it impossible for me to say whether I have been forestalled. So far, however, as I can find at present, two different versions are in the field.

First, there is Dugdale's view that Robert fitz Maldred, their founder, was 'son of Dolfin, son of Earl Gospatric, son of Maldred fitz Crinan by Algitha daughter of Uchtred, Earl of Northumberland, who was son-in-law to King Æthelred'. This was, apparently, Mr Shirley's view, for, in his Noble and Gentle Men of England he derives the Nevilles from 'Gospatric, the Saxon Earl of Northumberland', though he makes Robert fitz Maldred his great-grandson, as Rowland had done in his work on the House of Nevill (1830), by placing Maldred between Dolfin and Robert fitz Maldred. Even that sceptical genealogist, Mr Foster, admitted in his peerage their descent from this Earl Gospatric. The immediate ancestry, however, of their founder, Robert fitz Maldred, can be proved, and is as follows:

Drummond's Noble British Families (1842) set out a new origin for the family without any hesitation, and this was adopted by the Duchess of Cleveland, whose elaborate work on the Battle Abbey Roll has much excellent genealogy. Their patriarch Dolfin was now made the son of that Uchtred, who was a grandson and namesake of Dugdale's Earl Uchtred, temp. King Æthelred. A chart pedigree is required to show the descent of the earls:

No authority, unfortunately, is given for the identity of this Uchtred with Uchtred, father of Dolfin, and the assumption of that identity involves the conclusion that Eadwulf 'Rus', who took the lead in the murder of Bishop Walcher (1080), was brother to Dolfin who received Staindrop in 1131, and uncle to a man who died in 1195 or 1196! We cannot therefore accept this descent as it stands, or carry the pedigree at present beyond Dolfin fitz Uchtred (1131). But as this Dolfin, when doing homage to the Prior of Durham for Staindrop, reserved his homage to the kings of England and of Scotland, as well as the Bishop of Durham, he was, no doubt, a man of consequence, and was probably of high Northumbrian birth. It may be worth throwing out, as a hint, the suggestion that his father Uchtred might have been identical with Uchtred, son of Ligulf, that great Northumbrian thegn who was slain at Durham in 1080. But this is only a guess. One cannot, in fact, be too careful, as I have shown in my two papers on 'Odard of Carlisle' and 'Odard the Sheriff',¹ in identifying two individuals of the same Christian names, when, in these northern districts, the names in question were so widely borne. The Whitby cartulary, for instance, proves that Thomas de Hastings was (maternal) grandson of Alan, son of Thorphin 'de Alverstain', son of Uchtred (son of Gospatric), which Uchtred gave the Church of Crosby Ravensworth to the abbey in the time, it would seem, of William Rufus. But who Gospatric, his father, was has not been clearly ascertained. The skilled genealogists of the north may be able to decide these points, and to tell us the true descent of 'Dolfin, the son of Uchtred'.

¹ Genealogist, N.S., v. 25-8; viii. 200.

THE ALLEGED INVASION OF ENGLAND IN 1147

When Mr Richard Howlett, in the preface to his edition of the Gesta Stephani for the Rolls series, announced that we were indebted to its 'careful author' for the knowledge of an invasion of England by Henry FitzEmpress in 1147, 'unrecorded by any other chronicler', and endeavoured at considerable length to establish this proposition,¹ it was received, from all that I can learn, with general incredulity. As, however, in the volume which he has since edited, he reiterates his belief in this alleged invasion,² it becomes necessary to examine in detail the evidence for a discovery so authoritatively announced in the pages of the Rolls series.

The accepted view of Henry's movements has hitherto been that, by his father's permission, in the autumn of 1142 he accompanied the Earl of Gloucester to England; that he remained there about four years; that, by his father's wish, at the end of 1146 or beginning of 1147 he returned from England; that he then spent two years and four months over sea; that in the spring of 1149 he again came to England, and was knighted at Carlisle by the king of Scots on May 22nd. As to the above long visit, commencing in 1142, Gervase of Canterbury is our chief authority, but the other chroniclers (omitting for the present the Gesta Stephani) harmonize well with his account. Gervase and Robert of Torigni alike mention but one arrival of Henry (1142) and one departure (1146 or 1147), thus distinctly implying there was then only one visit—namely, that visit which Gervase tells us lasted four years. The only slight discrepancy between Gervase and Robert is found in the date of Henry's departure. Robert places that event under 1147, and mentions that Henry visited Bec May 29th in that year. There is also, Mr Howlett has pointed out, charter evidence implying that Henry was back in Normandy in March or April. Now Gervase says distinctly that he was away from England two years and four months. The chroniclers, Gervase included, say that he returned to England in the middle of May 1149. Counting back the two years and four months, this would bring us to January 1147, as the date of his departure from England. But there is a charter of his to Salisbury Cathedral, tested, as Mr Howlett observes, at Devizes, April 13, 1149. If this evidence be trustworthy, it would take us back to December 1146, instead of January 1147. It is easy to see how Gervase may have included in 1146, and Robert in 1147, an event which appears to have taken place about the end of the one or the beginning of the other year.

Much has been made of the alleged circumstance that Gervase assigned the Earl of Gloucester's death to 1146, whereas he is known to have died in 1147. But reference to his text will show that he does nothing of the kind. Writing of Henry's departure at the close of 1146, he tells us that the earl was destined never to see him again, for he died in November [i.e. November 1147]. He is here obviously anticipating.

Such being the evidence on which is based the accepted view of Henry's movements, let us now turn to the Gesta Stephani. Though Mr Howlett's knowledge of the period is great and quite exceptional, I cannot but think that he has been led astray by his admiration for this fascinating chronicle. Miss Norgate sensibly observes that 'there must be something wrong in the story' as actually preserved in the Gesta,³ but Mr Howlett, unwilling to admit the possibility of error in his chronicle, boldly asserts that the 'romantic account'⁴ of Henry's adventures which it contains does not refer to his visit in 1149, but to a hitherto unknown invasion in 1147. He appears to imagine that the only objection in accepting this story is found in the fact that Henry was but just fourteen at the time.⁵ But this is not so. Putting aside this objection, as also the silence of other chroniclers, there remains the chronological difficulty. How is the alleged visit to be fitted in? Its inventor, who suggests 'about April 1147', for its date, must first take Henry back to Normandy (why or when he does not even suggest) and then bring him back to England as an invader, neither his alleged going or coming being recorded by any chronicler. Then he assigns to his second return to Normandy (after the alleged invasion) the only passages in Gervase and Robert which speak of his returning at all. Surely nothing could be more improbable than that Henry should rush back to England just after he had left it, and had returned to his victorious father, and this at a time when his cause seemed as hopeless there as it was prosperous over the sea.

The evidence of the Gesta Stephani would have, indeed, to be beyond question if we are to accept, on its sole authority, so improbable a story. But what does that evidence amount to? The Gesta, unlike other chronicles, not being arranged chronologically under years, the only definite note of time here afforded in its text is found in the passage, 'Consuluit [Henricus] et avunculum [sic] Glaorniæ comitem, sed ipse suis sacculis avide incumbens, rebus tantum sibi necessariis occurrere maluit'.⁶

As Earl Robert is known to have died in the autumn of 1147, the word avunculus does, undoubtedly, fix these events as prior to that date. But is not avunculus a slip of the writer for cognatus? Is not the reference to Earl William rather than to his father, Earl Robert?⁷ Such a slip is no mere conjecture; the statement that Earl Robert was too avaricious to assist his beloved nephew in his hour of need is not only absolutely contrary to all that we know of his character, but is virtually discredited by the Gesta itself when its author tells us, further on:

Comes deinde Glaorniæ ut erat regis adversariorum strenuissimus et ad magna quevis struenda paratissimus, iterum atque iterum exercitum comparare, jugi hortaminis et admonitionis stimulo complices suos incitavit; illos minis, istos promissis sibi et præmiis conjugare; quatinus omnes in unam concordiam, in unum animum conspirati, exercitum e diverso ad idem velle repararent, et collectis undecumque agminibus, vive et constanter in regem insurgerent.⁸

How can such language as this be reconciled with the statement as to Earl Robert's apathy at the very time when Henry's efforts offered him a unique opportunity of pursuing his war against the king? Mr Howlett does not attempt to meet, or even notice, this objection. Moreover, when the Gesta proceeds to describe Earl William of Gloucester as devoted to his own pleasures rather than to war,⁹ we see that the conduct so incredible in his father would in him be what we might expect.

I will not follow Mr Howlett in his lengthy argument relative to the knighting of Eustace and Henry, because he himself admits that it is based only on conjecture.¹⁰ It is sufficient to observe that if the 'romantic' narrative in the Gesta refers to the events of 1149,¹¹ then the knighting of Eustace, which is a pendant to that narrative, belongs, as the other chroniclers assert, to 1149. The statement, I may add, that Henry applied for help to his mother, by no means involves, as Mr Howlett assumes, her presence in England at the time.

I would suggest, then, that the whole hypothesis of this invasion in 1147 is based on nothing more than a confusion in the Gesta. Mr Howlett, indeed, claims that 'mediaeval history would simply disappear if the evidence of chroniclers were to be treated in this way,¹² and detects 'among some modern writers a tendency to incautious rejection', etc.¹³ But he himself goes out of his way to denounce, in this connection, as a 'blundering interpolation' a passage in John of Hexham, which he assigns to notes being 'carelessly misplaced' and 'ignorantly miscopied'.¹⁴ The Gesta, to my knowledge, is by no means immaculate; its unbroken narrative and vagueness as to dates render its chronology a matter of difficulty; and the circumstance that the passage in dispute occurs towards its close renders it impossible to test it as we could wish by comparison with later portions. The weakness of Mr Howlett's case is shown by his desperate appeal to 'the exact precedent' set by Fulk Nerra, and no talk about the contrast presented by 'physical science' and that 'fragmentary tale of human inconsistencies which we term history' can justify the inclusion of this alleged invasion as a fact beyond dispute in so formal and authoritative a quarter as the preface to a Rolls volume.

¹ Chronicles, Stephen, Henry II, Richard I, vol. iii. pp. xvi-xx, 130.

² ibid., vol. iv. pp. xxi-xxii.

³ England under the Angevin Kings, i. 377.

⁴ ibid.

⁵ 'The invasion of England by Henry in 1147, when he was but a boy of fourteen, a piece of history which has hitherto been rejected solely on the ground of improbability.'—Preface (ut supra), p. xxi.

⁶ Gesta (ed. Howlett), p. 131.

⁷ There is a precisely similar slip, by John of Salisbury, in the Historia Pontificalis (Pertz, xx. 532), where the 'Duke' of Normandy is referred to in 1148 as 'qui modo rex est' (i.e. Henry). Mr Howlett himself has pointed out (Academy, November 12, 1887) that the author 'slipped in the words "qui modo rex est", and thus transferred to Henry a narrative which assuredly relates to his father'. The slip in question, as he observed, had sadly misled Miss Norgate.

⁸ Gesta (ed. Howlett), p. 134.

⁹ 'Successit in comitatum suum Willelmus filius suus, senior quidem ætate, sed vir mollis, et thalamorum magis quam militiæ appetitor' (Gesta, ed. Howlett, p. 134).

¹⁰ Mr Howlett incidentally claims that knighthood was a necessary preliminary to comital rank, and appeals to the fact that the younger Henry was even carefully knighted before his coronation (Gesta, p. xxii). But what has he to say to the knighting of Earl Richard of Clare, by Henry VI, and more especially to the knighting of Malcolm, already Earl of Huntingdon and king of Scots, by Henry II, in 1159? (Robert of Torigni, p. 203).

¹¹ Mr Howlett asserts (Gesta, p. 130, note) that 'when Henry made his better known visit in 1149 his acts were quite different' from those recorded in the Gesta. But if, as he himself admits, in 1149 Henry visited Devizes on his way to Carlisle, what more natural than that he should pass by Cricklade and Bourton (the two places mentioned in the Gesta), which lay directly on his road?

¹² Preface to Gesta, p. xx.

¹³ Preface to Robert of Torigni, p. xxii.

¹⁴ Preface to Gesta (ut supra), p. xvi.

THE ALLEGED DEBATE ON DANEGELD (1163)

The great importance attached by historians to the financial dispute at the council of Woodstock in 1163 renders it desirable that the point at issue should be clearly stated and understood. As I venture to believe that the accepted view on the matter in dispute is erroneous, I here submit the reasons which have led me to that conclusion. 'Two most important points,' writes Dr Stubbs, 'stand out' on this occasion: (1) 'this is the first case of any express opposition being made to the king's financial dealings since the Conquest'; (2) 'the first fruit of the first constitutional opposition is the abolition of the most ancient property-tax [danegeld] imposed as a bribe for the Danes'.¹ It is with the second of these points that I propose especially to deal.

The passage which forms our best evidence is found in Grim's Life of St Thomas, and its relative portion is as follows:

Movetur quæstio de consuetudine quadam quae in Anglia tenebatur. Dabantur de hida bini solidi ministris regis qui vicecomitum loco comitatus servabant, quos voluit rex conscribere fisco et reditibus propriis associare. Cui archiepiscopus in faciem restitit, dicens, non debere eos exigi pro reditibus, 'nec pro reditu', inquit, 'dabimus eos, domine rex, salvo beneplacito vestro: sed si digne nobis servierint vicecomites, et servientes vel ministri provinciarum, et homines nostros manutenuerint, nequaquam eis deerimus in auxilium.' Rex autem aegre ferens archiepiscopi responsionem, 'Per oculos Dei', ait, 'dabuntur pro reditu, et in scriptura regis scribentur'.

On this passage Dr Stubbs thus comments:

A tax so described can hardly have been anything else than the danegeld, which was an impost of two shillings on the hide, and was collected by the sheriffs, being possibly compounded for at a certain rate and paid by them into the exchequer. As the danegeld from this very year 1163 ceases to appear as a distinct item of account in the Pipe-Rolls, it is impossible to avoid connecting the two ideas, even if we may not identify them. Whether the king's object in making this proposition was to collect the danegeld in full amount, putting an end to the nominal assessment which had so long been in use, and so depriving the sheriffs of such profits as they made from it, or whether he had some other end in view, it is impossible now to determine; and consequently it is difficult to understand the position taken by the archbishop.²

The attempt to identify the payment in dispute with the danegeld does indeed lead to the greatest possible difficulties, and Miss Norgate, who follows closely in Dr Stubbs' footsteps, is no more successful in answering them;³ for, in the first place, the words of Grim do not apply to the danegeld if taken in their natural sense; and in the second the proceeds of the danegeld were already royal revenue, and were duly paid in, as such, at the exchequer. To meet this latter and obvious difficulty Dr Stubbs suggests that:

as the sums paid into the exchequer under that name (danegeld) were very small compared with the extent of land that paid the tax, it is probable that the sheriffs paid a fixed composition and retained the surplus as wages for their services (etc.).⁴

So, too, Miss Norgate urges that the danegeld 'still occasionally made its appearance in the treasury rolls, but in such small amount that it is evident the sheriffs, if they collected it in full, paid only a fixed composition to the crown, and kept the greater part as a remuneration for their own services'.⁵ Now this suggestion raises the whole question as to the revenue from danegeld. We are told that 'the danegeld was a very unpopular tax, probably because it was the plea on which the sheriffs made their greatest profit ... having become in the long lapse of years a mere composition paid by the sheriff to the exchequer, while the balance of the whole sums exacted on that account went to swell his own income'.⁶

As against this view I venture to hold that the danegeld was in no way compounded for, but that every penny raised by its agency was due to the royal treasury, leaving no profit whatever to the sheriff. The test is easily applied: let us take the case of Dorset. The Domesday assessment of this county, according to the late Mr Eyton, who had investigated it with his usual painstaking labour, and collated it with the geld-rolls of two years before, was about 2,300 hides.⁷ This assessment would produce, at two shillings on the hide, about £230. Now the actual amount accounted for on the Pipe-Roll of 1130 is £228 5s; on that of 1156 it is £228 5s; and on that of 1162, the last levy, it is £247 5s.⁸ There is certainly no margin of profit for the sheriff here. In other counties, we find that the proceeds of the danegeld in 1130, 1156, and 1162, whilst slightly fluctuating, roughly correspond, as, indeed, they were bound to do, the Domesday assessment remaining unchanged.⁹ I can, therefore, find no ground for the alleged discrepancy between the amounts accounted for by the sheriffs and those which the assessment ought to have produced.

This being so, the solitary explanation suggested for Henry's action falls to the ground, and it becomes clear that the payment in dispute could not have been the danegeld, as the proposed change could not increase the amount it produced already. As a matter of fact, the last occasion on which danegeld eo nomine was levied was in 1162, but to connect that circumstance with the Woodstock dispute of 1163 is an instance of the post hoc propter hoc argument, more especially as the danegeld was not in dispute, still less its abolition. On the contrary, the primate desired to keep things as they were. What, then, was this mysterious payment but the auxilium vicecomitis, or 'sheriffs' aid'? Garnier distinctly states that this is what it was,¹⁰ and Grim's words no less unmistakably point to the same conclusion. To institutional students of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the auxilium vicecomitis is familiar enough. It was, writes Dr Stubbs, a 'payment made to the sheriff for his services',¹¹ and was, it may be added, a customary charge, varying in amount,¹² paid over locally to the sheriffs. It may fairly be said to have stood to the danegeld in the relation of rates to taxes.

On this hypothesis the difficulties of the case vanish at once, and Henry's object is made plain. To add this regular annual levy to his own revenues would be all clear gain, and would relieve him pro tanto from the necessity of spasmodic and irregular taxation. As for the sheriffs and the districts beneath their sway, they were possibly to be left to their own devices to find a substitute for the lost 'aid', like a modern county council bereft of its wheel tax; for the thought suggests itself that Henry was attempting to reverse the process that we have lately witnessed, by relieving the taxes at the expense of the rates, instead of the rates at the expense of the taxes. Whether, therefore, the attitude of the primate can be described as 'opposition to the king's will in the matter of taxation' is perhaps just open to question. He took his stand on the sure ground of existing 'custom', recognized at that time as binding on all.¹³ One is tempted to discern a grim irony in Henry's action when he promptly proceeded to turn the tables on his old friend by appealing to the avitæ consuetudines as obviously binding on so rigid a constitutional purist as the primate.¹⁴

¹ Early Plantagenets, pp. 69, 70. So, too, Miss Norgate: 'It seems, therefore, that for the first time in English history since the Norman Conquest the right of the nation's representatives to oppose the financial demands of the crown was asserted in the Council of Woodstock, and asserted with such success that the king was obliged not merely to abandon his project, but to obliterate the last trace of the tradition on which it was founded' (Angevin Kings, ii. 16).

² Const. Hist., i. 462; so, too, Early Plantagenets, pp. 68-70; and Select Charters, p. 29, where it is described as 'Henry's proposal to appropriate the sheriffs' share of danegeld'.

³ Angevin Kings, ii. 15, 16.

⁴ Early Plantagenets, p. 69.

⁵ But the Auctor Anonymus makes it clear that the king was not asking for the balance of the sums raised, but for the entirety: 'duo illi solidi ... si in unum conferuntur immensum efficere possunt cumulum'.

⁶ Stubbs' Const. Hist., i. 381, 582.

⁷ Dorset Domesday, p. 144.

⁸ Thus accounted for (Rot. Pip., 8 Hen. II):

N.B. The roll sums up the remissions as £21 [sic] 1s 2d, but the total of the items is £20 1s 2d.]

⁹ Oxfordshire, for instance, where the amounts were £239 9s 3d, £249 6s 5d, £242 0s 10d; or Wiltshire, where they run £388 13s 0d, £389 13s 0d, £388 11s 11d.

¹⁰ L'Aide al Vescunte, as quoted by Miss Norgate, who observes thereon, 'This payment, although described as customary rather than legal, and called the "sheriffs' aid", seems really to have been nothing else than the danegeld.... His (Garnier's) story points directly to the danegeld.'

¹¹ Const. Hist., i. 382.

¹² In this detail alone Grim appears to have confused it with the uniform two shilling rate of the danegeld. The record in the Testa de Nevill (pp. 85, 86) of the 'auxilium vicecomitis', due from the Vills in the Wapentake of Framelund (Leic.), illustrates well the payment.

¹³ Thus the statement that he 'declared at Woodstock that the lands of his church should not pay a penny to the danegeld' (Const. Hist., i. 578) misrepresents his position by making him repudiate his undoubted obligation.

¹⁴ This and the preceding and succeeding papers are reprinted from the English Historical Review.

A GLIMPSE OF THE YOUNG KING'S COURT (1170)

The charter given below is cited by Madox as evidence that in the days of Henry II the exchequer was still 'sometimes holden in other places' than Westminster. Contrary to his usual practice, he does not print the charter; so, wishing to ascertain what light it might throw on the private transaction it records, I referred to its original enrolment.¹ Finding that its evidence would prove of some historical value, I decided to edit it for the use of students.²

Willelmus comes de Essex' omnibus hominibus ⁊ amicis suis, Francis ⁊ Anglis, clericis ⁊ laicis, tam futuris quam presentibus, salutem. Sciatis me dedisse ⁊ concessisse ⁊ hac carta mea confirmasse Rogero filio Ricardi ⁊ suis heredibus villam de Aynho cum omnibus pertinen[ciis] in escambio pro Cunctonia hereditarie tenendam de me ⁊ heredibus meis sibi ⁊ heredibus suis per servicium unius militis ⁊ dimidii, libere et quiete ⁊ honorifice sicut unquam antecessores mei liberius ⁊ honorificencius eam tenuerunt ⁊ habuerunt; scilicet in bosco ⁊ in plano, in pratis et pascuis, in viis ⁊ semitis, in aquis, ⁊ molendinis, ⁊ in omnibus predicte ville adjacentibus. Et insuper dedi ⁊ concessi predicto Rogero filio Ricardi terram de Wlauynton' quam pater meus comes Gal[fridus] dedit Willelmo de Moretonio, per servicium michi faciendum quod predictus Willelmus patri meo facere debuit, hereditarie tenendum [sic] de me ⁊ heredibus meis, illi ⁊ heredibus suis. Quare volo ⁊ firmiter precipio quod ista donacio rata ⁊ inconcussa permaneat. Et notum sit omnibus quod istud eschambium factum fuit apud Wynconiam [sic] ad Scaccarium coram domino Rege Henrico filio regis Henrici Secundi ⁊ Baronibus suis. Tes⁊e [sic] Reg' comite, Bac'³ de Luc[i], Willelmo de Sancto Johanne, Galfrido Archidiacono Cantuar', Ricardo Archidiacono Pick[tavensi], Hunfrido de Buh[un] constant[e],⁴ Manser' Biset dap[ifero], Gilberto Malet dap[ifero], Hugone de Gundvil[la], Alano de Nevill[a], Thoma Basset, Willelmo filio Audel[ini], Johanne Mereschal, Roberto de Bussone, Johanne const[abulario] Cestr[iae], Ranulpho de Glanvile, Gaufrido de Say, Gerard de Kanvill[a], Oseberto filio Ricardi, David de Jarpenvilla, Ricardo filio Hugonis, Johanne Burd, Willelmo filio Gill[eberti], Roberto de Sancto Claro, Johanne de Roch, Hasculfo Capellano, Henrico clerico, Roberto clerico, qui hanc cartam scripsit, ⁊ multis aliis.

The purpose of the charter is soon disposed of; it records a grant by the Earl of Essex to Roger fitz Richard (who had married the earl's aunt 'Alice of Essex'⁵) of Aynho, Northants, in exchange for Compton, co. Warwick. Both Manors were in the Mandeville fief, and the former was to be held, as the latter had been (in 1166⁶), 'per servicium unius militis et dimidii'.

The interest of the document is to be sought in its witnesses, and its place of testing, and above all in the date which, I hope to show, they suggest. The mention of the two inseparable archdeacons proves that this date cannot be later than 1174, and consequently, as the young king was present, must have been previous to his revolt in 1173, and therefore to his departure from England about the close of 1172. On the other hand, the date must be subsequent to June 1170, when the young king was crowned, and therefore probably to the meeting at Fréteval (July 22, 1170), at which the Archdeacon of Canterbury was present.

Thus we obtain a limit of date. Within this limit we may exclude the young king's stay in England after the departure of the two archdeacons (December 1170), as also his subsequent presence in England in 1171-2 while his father was in Ireland, for William fitz Aldelin was in Ireland with him. Indeed, we are told by Giraldus (v. 286) that when the king left Ireland (April 1172) William was left behind in charge of Wexford.⁷ As the young king then accompanied his father over sea, the only period remaining (except July-December 1170) to which we could assign the document is August-November 1172, when he visited England, with his consort Margaret, for his second coronation. This ceremony took place at Winchester, but we cannot tell whether William fitz Aldelin had yet returned from Ireland, or whether any other of our witnesses were present on that occasion.⁸

But if we turn to the other possible period, the latter half of 1170, we find an occasion when six of the witnesses to the above charter can actually be shown to have been present, under circumstances of peculiar interest, with the young king at Winchester.

The evidence of charters is so deficient at this period of the reign that from August 1170 to June 1171, Mr Eyton could only adduce two charters 'quite problematically' and one more 'safely', as he claims, but erroneously, as his own pages show.⁹ If, then, our charter belongs to this period, its evidence is proportionately valuable. Now all that we know of the movements of the young king at the time is that he was at Westminster on October 5th, and that he kept his Christmas at Winchester. Mr Eyton's book must here be used with great caution. He has been misled by R. de Diceto (i. 342)¹⁰ into the statement that Henry was at Woodstock when Becket sought to visit him in December; and adds—by a confusion, it would seem, with his October movements—'The young king is at Windsor' (December 4th¹¹). Henry was neither at Woodstock nor Windsor at this time, but at Winchester. Becket's biographers are unanimous in stating that he sent his envoy before him to the young king at Winchester.

Landing on December 1st, and entering Canterbury next day, the primate (says William fitz Stephen), 'post octo dierum moram in sede',¹² sent Richard, prior of Dover (who was destined to be his own successor), to the young king to ask permission to visit him 'tanquam regem et dominum suum'. Richard 'veniens Wintoniam, regem invenit, ubi optimates regni ... coegerat'.¹³

The purpose of this special assembly was connected with the scheme for an irregular election to the vacant sees, at the court of the elder king, by deputations whom his son was to send over.¹⁴ Prior Richard was confronted by the young king's guardians (three of whom attest our charter).¹⁵ He himself, on receiving the application, sent (as I read it) to consult Geoffrey Ridel, who was believed to know his father's wishes, and who, with the Archdeacon of Poitiers, was at Southampton, waiting to cross.¹⁶ Turning, for their movements, to William fitz Stephen, we learn that, while on their way to cross from a Kentish port, the two archdeacons, on entering the county, learnt that the primate had arrived at Canterbury, and, turning their horses' heads, made for a more westerly port.¹⁷ Southampton clearly was the port they made for, and on their way thither they must have visited the young king at Winchester. This is admitted in the case of Geoffrey, who went there, says Becket, to lay before him the complaint of the excommunicated bishops.

I believe that our charter belongs to this occasion, when the two attesting archdeacons were at Winchester. Reg' no doubt is Earl Reginald of Cornwall, who was certainly present at the same time¹⁸ and who is probably referred to in 'li cunte' of Garnier. This will establish the presence of six of our witnesses. Of the others, Richard de Luci takes precedence as justiciar; Alan de Nevill, Thomas Basset, and the great Glanville were, like the two archdeacons and the three guardians of the king, members of the judicial body; Humfrey de Bohun, Gilbert Malet, and Manasser Bisset were present as officers of the household; John, constable of Chester, was (then or afterwards) son-in-law to the grantee's wife, and Geoffrey de Say was the son of the earl's aunt; Osbert fitz Richard and David de Jarpenville (probably John de Rochelle also) were among the earl's feudal tenants and are found attesting another of his charters; and Hasculf was the enterprising chaplain who had plotted to carry off the late earl's corpse and present it to the nuns of Chicksand. The only person whose presence need puzzle us is the Earl of Essex himself; for William fitz Stephen¹⁹ asserts that he was despatched from Henry's court after the arrival there of the excommunicated prelates and the Archdeacon of Poitou. Either, then, he had previously paid a flying visit to Winchester, or he must have been absent when this transaction was recorded.

¹ Madox gives a misleading reference. The charter occurs among the Clavering enrolments of m. 17 (not 19) of the L.T.R. Memoranda of the Exchequer, containing the Michælmas communia of 5 Edward II.

² Mr Hubert Hall, of the Public Record Office, kindly undertook to transcribe the charter for me.

³ Read Ric[ardo].

⁴ Read constab[ulo].

⁵ See my paper on 'Who was Alice of Essex?' in the Essex Arch. Transactions.

⁶ 'Rogerus filius Ricardi i. militem et tres partes unius militis.' Probably the quarter fee was a separate holding.

⁷ Humfrey de Bohun also and Hugh de Gundeville were left behind at Waterford.

⁸ Foss (Judges of England, i. 235) states positively that Hugh de Gundeville did not leave Ireland till 1173, at the time of the rebellion. This, if true, would dispose at once of an 1172 date for our charter; but, unfortunately, he does not give his authority, and I have not succeeded in finding it.

⁹ Court, etc., of Henry II, pp. 147, 154. The Archdeacon of Canterbury attests the Chinon charter, which Mr Eyton 'safely' assigns to the middle of October 1170, adding that he had 'apparently been with the king ever since the peace of Fréteval' (July 22nd). But he is known to have been with the young king at Westminster on October 5th, as indeed Mr Eyton elsewhere observes (p. 151).

¹⁰ Becket, he says, visited London on his way, 'ad videndam faciem novi regis, qui tunc temporis morabatur apud Wdestoc' [sic].

¹¹ 'Court of King Henry the Younger' (Eyton, pp. 151-2).

¹² Materials, p. 121. William of Canterbury places Richard's despatch 'post aliquot dies reditus sui' (ibid., i. 106).

¹³ ibid., i. 106; so Garnier (p. 166, Ed. Hippeua)—