Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/417

 1920 THE FORGERY OF FINES 409 cases which enable us to view the progress of the art and to appreciate the excellence of the device of the tripartite fine as a precaution against fraud. In 1272 an assize of darrein present- ment was brought against the prior of Coventry and others, and in the final stage of the action the plaintiff challenged the genuineness of the fine upon which the prior based his claim.^ The court ordered the records to be consulted : the chamberlains of the exchequer thereupon searched not only the feet of fines for the precise term in which the alleged fine was levied, but for that whole year, for five years previous, and for four years subsequent, ten years in all, as well as the rolls for three years ; but they could find no corresponding foot of a fine nor anything whatsoever upon the rolls which would indicate that such a fine had been levied. The case of the prior of Coventry was a note- worthy one, but whether or not it was recollected a century later, the difficulties attending the forgery of a fine must everywhere have been appreciated ; if the foot could not be forged and Introduced into its appropriate place on the files, it was of little use forging the counterparts. This was the problem which a certain chaplain, William de Houghton (or Hoton), set himself to solve in 1369.^ Some three years earlier he had been presented by the king to the church of Awre in Gloucestershire,^ but although he had endeavoured by means of a writ of quare impedit to gain possession of the benefice, the case had dragged on for a long time and he had himself become greatly impoverished in the process. The chief obstacle in the way was apparently a fine levied in 1278 by which the right of presentation to the church was to be enjoyed alternately by Gilbert de Clare and his heirs and William de Valence and Joan his wife and her heirs ; * and William de Houghton seems to have believed that if he could produce a later fine setting the earlier one aside, he would succeed in his action. Of the genuine fine he possessed either a counterpart or a transcript, and with this and some other 1 An abstract of this case is given in Abbreviatio Placitorum, p. 182. It omits, however, many details of great interest, particularly in the postea which is here printed in full, document no. i. ' See document no. ii, printed below. There is a brief note of this case in Hale, Jurisdiction of the Lords House, p. 52 n., and in Agarde's Indexes, vol. 36, pt. i, fo. 114. » Cat. of Pat. Rolls, Edw. Ill, xiii. 307 (26 August 1366). the Purification. The forgery, allowing for some blunders, clings as far as possible to the original. The introduction into the forgery of John de Bohun and William Paynel is explained by the endorsement on the genuine fine : Et lohannes de Bohun apponit clamum suum Et Willelmus Paynel apponit clamum suum. The episcopal registers of Hereford do not appear to throw any light on this case. Nicholas atte Hooke is mentioned as vicar of Awre in 1372 on an exchange with John Cade, vicar of Haresfield {Reg. W. de Gourtenay, p. 13).
 * Feet of Fines, 75/31, no. 30. It was levied 9 February, the octave of the feast of