Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 1.djvu/385

Rh, directing him to take with him proper and discreet persons who thoroughly understood carpentry and masonry, to examine the royal chamber in the castle of Rokingham in which repairs were necessary, and to order the same to be carried into immediate execution.

Henry III. orders (1226.) the sheriff of Northamptonshire to give William, son of Warin, the constable of Rokingham, twenty marks for the works at the castle, and Hugh de Nevill to let him have sufficient materials from a proper part of the forest to repair the royal chapel, and for other works then in progress. Three days afterwards Robert de Lexinton is ordered to allow him a load of lead for the gutters of the castle.

In the 34th of Henry III. (1249), it was certified that the last constable. Sir Robert Passelawe, had left the castle in a very ruinous state; the towers, waUlls, battlements, and lodgings, being in great measure fallen to the ground, and the chapel entirely destitute of vestments, books, and the necessary articles for the performance of divine service.

In the 36th of the same reign (1251), Geoffery de Rokingham was found seized of half a virgate of land in Rockingham, which he held by service of collecting the castle-guard rents, from such fees or lordships as were subject to that payment. He had also, by virtue of this tenure, right of husbote and haybote in the abbot of Peterborough's meadows, of fishing in the Welland, and his food in the castle whenever the king or the constable resided there.

He was succeeded by his son Geoffrey de Rokingham. It appears also by inquisition taken in this reign, that a virgate of land late in the possession of Simon le Wayte, who had fled for theft, had been held by him on the tenure of being castle-wayte, (Per servicium essendi Wayta in castro Rokyngham,) a kind of musical watchman, similar to those who disturb the nocturnal slumbers of citizens of the present day. The same custom was observed in other castles.

In the 20th of Edw. III., 1347, the king gave to his wife Philippa, sixty acres in the forest of Rokingham, for the term of her life, in aid of the reparation of the castle, which had been lately destroyed and thrown down.