Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/47

 1920 EARLDOM OF CHESTER 59 of the county palatine. The Hastings similarly received Bolsover with its castle (Derbyshire), the manors of Worfield, Stretton, and Condover (Shropshire), Wigginton and Wolverhampton (Stafford- shire), Bromsgrove (Worcestershire), and Mansfield (with the soke) and Oswaldbeck (Nottinghamshire), as security for a permanent exchange.^ This is stated some years later to have consisted of the manors of Leyrton (? Leverton) (Nottinghamshire) and Oswaldbeck, Condover, Worfield, Wolverhampton, and Wiggin- ton ,2 and to have been an exchange for a third part of the comitatus of Chester.^ No arrangement of this kind was made with de Forz, whose right to be earl of Chester remained to be dealt with, and of course the whole of the allotments by way of exchange depended upon whether the co-heirs became entitled to a share by partition of the county of Chester, or not. This was now to be decided. The Earldom of Chester Case The contest which ensued, laiown as ' the earldom of Chester case ', has attracted little notice,* although the records of the case were printed in 1887 by Maitland in Bracton's Note Book.^ Beyond pointing out the importance of the suit, and that it (with another case) was Coke's oldest authority for his statement of the law as to abeyance in titles of honour, he makes little comment in this book, though there are numerous incidental references to the case in the History of English Law, which show that he had given it considerable attention.^ The struggle was com- menced before the magnates of England, at the king's council. But we learn that the issues raised (to be detailed below) were unprecedented : the court had never seen such a case ; they wondered if there was anything in the Charter of Liberties on the matter ; they were not prepared to decide it upon foreign 27 April 1241 ; ibid., 17 July, 27 August 1243. 11 March 1244/5 ; Cai. of Close Rolls, 29 April 1246 ; for Wigginton see Cal. Inq. Miscell. i. 105 ; for Condover see also Cal. of Close Rolls, 20 June, 19 July 1246; ibid., 28 December 1248. » Cal. of Pat. Rolls, 4 May 1265 (two entries). hence Complete Peerage (ed. Gibbs), iv, app. H. ' Cases 1227 and 1273. Maitland found the former on Coram Rege [Curia Regis] Roll, no. 45 (22 Hen. III). The roll for the latter (23 Hen. Ill) is not extant. See also Maitland *s introduction, i. 128. index (2nd edition). I drew attention to the deficiencies of this index in The Times Lit. Suppl., 16 January 1919. The more important references to this case are : i. 183, 184, 188, 190, 208 n., 410 n., 514 ; ii. 265, 277, 306.
 * Cal. of Pat. Rolls, 11 June 1238; Cal. of Close Rolls, 13 June, 15 July 1238; ibid.,
 * Cal. of Close Rolls, 20 March 1244/5; for Stretton see Excerpta e Rot. Fin.,
 * Mr. Round had dealt with one aspect of the case in Peerage and Pedigree, i. 128 ;
 * Only two out of some twenty references to Chester and its earls are given in the