Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/35

 1920 END OF NORMAN EARLDOM OF CHESTER 27 of Dugdale and Leycester on the subject of the Norman earls. Not a great deal can be expected even when the records of the palatinate are thoroughly explored, as regards this period of the earldom of Chester, since few of the mass of Cheshire documents (as yet barely looked at) are earlier in date than the middle or end of the thirteenth century. But recent publication of general records of the kingdom has resulted in bringing to the surface a quantity of information and data bearing upon the question we have referred to, and as a study of this kind may be of use when the history of Cheshire comes to be written, and is not without general interest, there is collected here what can be found to throw light upon it. No attempt is made to rewrite the history of the last Norman earls, or of the county palatine at this period. These must be dealt with in another way, and in their bearing with the history of the times. Here we shall deal only with the events which we have mentioned. The Partition of 1232 The eventful career of Earl Ranulph de Blundeville (so called, it is said, from the place of his birth, ' Blonde Ville', Album Monasterium, i.e. Oswestry), his military life and his vast terri- torial acquisitions, have all been ably described,^ and there is no need to say anything here about them. Neither the will nor the inquisition post mortem of Earl Ranulph is extant. Among his executors were John de Lacy and Stephen de Segrave, and possibly WiUiam de Cantilupe the Younger. A coffer containing certain things dealt with by the earl's will had been committed to the custody of the prior of Northampton, and the king's order was required to enable the executors to regain possession of it ^ and also to enable them to pay £200 still owed by the earl in 1237 to Peter of Savoy .^ In the castle of St. James de Beuvron in Avranches were some armour and weapons belonging to the earl, and an order was issued to the constable of the castle to hand them to Philip d'Aubeny to be valued for the king in the interest of the earl's executors.^ The earl's widow survived him for many years, but he left no children. His co-heirs ^ were as follows : 1. Maud, his eldest sister, had married David earl of Huntingdon, brother of William the Lion of Scotland (a mar- riage which had its effect upon the throne of Scotland later on). David died in 1219, and Maud was alive at the time of the ' By Mr. Round in the Diet, of Nat. Biogr., sub Blundeville. ^ Col. of Pat. Soils, 4 November 1234. » Ibid., 6 June 1237. " The Complete Peerage (ed. Gibbs), svb Chester, Arundel, Derby, &o. The famous Amicia, if, as seems probable, she was legitimate, was yet only a half-sister in blood and could not share in the earl's inheritance.
 * Cal. of Close Soils, 12 January 1232/3.