Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/502

 494 THE EARLY SHERIFFS OF NORFOLK October Montchensy, who held of the honour no fewer than twelve knights' fees. I have shown that this Hubert was not even born till 1164, and that his father Stephen was the holder under Henry II.* The name of Robert Fitz Roger is, we have seen, decisive ; for he cannot have obtained possession before his marriage to Margaret, its holder, in 1189. The returns to the great inquest of service in 1212 show him holding (in her right) a considerable number of knights' fees, in addition to his large holdings on the honours of Boulogne and of Eye. His wife Margaret, who survived him, had a son and heir by her former husband, Hugh de Cressy, and by Robert Fitz Roger, a son, John Fitz Robert, ancestor of the Claverings. The Pipe Roll of 1214 (16 John) records her payment to the Crown, after her husband's death, of no less than a thousand pounds for seisin of her whole inheritance, as her husband had held it, and for her dower, according to the custom of the realm, if her son should refuse to give it her, &c. This record is of so much importance, not merely for its actual contents, but also for its date and circumstances, that I here give it in extenso from Madox's Exchequer (ed. 1711, p. 340 6). Margareta quae fuit uxor Roberti filii Rogeri [debet] Mille libras, pro habenda saisina de tota hereditate sua, de qua predictus Robertus vir suus fuit saisitus die quo obiit ; ita tamen quod stet recto si quia versus earn loqui voluerit ; retento in manu Regis Castro de Norwiz quamdiu Regi placuerit ; ^ et per sic quod habeat ius in Curia Regis de hereditate sua quam pater suus habuit die quo obiit [i.e. 1174], et de tota hereditate sua quam viri sui aliis dederunt ; ' et per sic quod non distringatur ad se mari- tandam ; et per sic quod omnibus diebus vitae suae quieta sit de debitis ludaeorum quae pater suus debuit ludaeis in vita sua ; et quod habeat dotem suam secundum consuetudinem Regni Angliae, si fiUus suus eam ei dare noluerit. The charter by which Margaret secured these concessions was dated 22 December 1214, according to Stapleton, who gives an English abstract of it.^ I have claimed importance for the date of this transaction, because the charter was granted only six months before Magna Carta, and for its circumstances, because the breach between the king and the barons was already open and acute. One of the principal causes of this widening breach was the extortionate treatment of barons' widows by the king. Even so far back as 1185, Margaret, countess of Warwick, was called upon to pay 700 marcs" ' pro habenda terra patris sui et dote sua et ut non » Botuli de Dominabua (Pipe Roll Soc), pp. xlv, 61. ' The italics are mine.
 * i. e. which her husbands might have alienated while she was under coverture.
 * Magn. Rot. Scacc. Norm. n. cxviii-cxix.