Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/59

 1920 EARLDOM OF CHESTER 51 the royal lands in Cheshire and in North Wales (Rhos, Rhuvenioc, Dyffrjmclwyd, and Englefield). He paid 500 marks a year and kept the castles up and paid the accustomed alms himself ; he was to grieve no tenant, but was to maintain the local laws and customs.i Some valuable things, such as advowsons, reliefs, wards, forest offences, tallage of free towns and escheats, were reserved and placed in custody of Fulk de Orreby.^ Later farms to Alan la Zuch, de Grey's successor, were at double rent, but with the same exceptions.^ So we may assume that the annexation was being found a profitable investment, though an attempt to tallage the city of Chester with the royal demesnes in the county seems to have been successfully resisted.* A list of complaints ^ by the * barons ' and community of Cheshire, forwarded in 1249 to the king, and his answers thereto, illustrate the jealous eye with which any encroachments upon their ancient privileges and those granted by Earl Ranulph in 121 6 were regarded. To a statement that the county had never been let to farm before the lease to de Grey,® nor had the custody of wards, escheats, and forest trespasses ever been diverted from the office of the justiciar, the king's mild reply merely pointed to his possession of the county and consequent freedom to act in such matters as he pleased. Other grievances were met with promises to observe the customs of Earl Ranulph's time. The justiciar should hold his eyres at the regular county courts and not else- where ; all trespasses should be dealt with within the county ; sheriffs should not exact unprecedented fines from disseisors or sureties ; private owners of land and woods within the forest of Lyme should have their liberties ; the rights of king and community on the common pasture and ancient meeting- place at Saltney must be respected even by such local magnates as the steward of Cheshire. Some of these promises were of rather a vague nature and led to later trouble, but on the whole the king was quite conciliatory. A royal order to bring coram Rege, wherever he was, the record of proceedings pending by royal writ in the county court of Cheshire between William de Coudray and the abbot of Dieulacres, and that the proceedings should in the meantime stand over, was resented as an infringement of the liberties of the county and non-compliance had resulted in a fine coram Rege ; ' nor had the community obeyed an order » Cal. of Pat. RoUa, 17 January 1248/9, and Close Roll, 16 February 1248/9. » Ibid., 2 July 1250, 24 September 1252, 12 March 1252/3. » Close Roll, 30 July 1249. See also 3 and 8 November, 17 December, 1249, 7 February 1249/50, 15 July 1250, 5 March 1250/1, &c. according to the Pipe Roll. ' Close Roll, 1 February 1249/50, 14 May 1251. E 2
 * Cal. o/ Pai. RoUs, 28 April and 1 May 1249.
 * Ihid.y 21 November 1245 ; Cal. of Close RoUs, 12 January 1245/6,
 * There appear to have been leases of the county during the minority of the earls,