Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/60

 62 THE END OF THE NORMAN January to appear extra comitatum before the forest justices for an offence outside Cheshire.^ But the king forbore to press these matters, and even introduced for use in the county palatine the then new writ de homine replegiando, whereby the sheriff must release upon mainprise those suspected of certain kinds of felony .^ Matthew Paris, imder the year 1245, tells us of current gossip (which he did not credit) that Richard earl of Cornwall had abetted Prince David of Wales against the king in resentment at the refusal, through the intervention of the queen, of his petition to be given the honour of Chester.^ Whatever truth may be in this the whole county of Chester (with many other castles and lands) was in August 1243 assigned to Queen Eleanor for life, in dower, in substitution for a previous grant.* The king seems to have been uncertain as late as November 1246 what he was going to do with Cheshire, as a grant to the nuns of Chester of tithe of victuals from the royal table on his visits to Chester is framed to bind any earl of Chester to whom the king should grant the county, 'whether one of his sons or another'.^ In 1247 the king considered it necessary formally to notify the 'barons', knights, and free men of the county that he had decided to retain it (with the castles of Disserth and Deganwy) in his hands as always appur- tenant to his crown {ut semper spectancia ad coronam nostram), and to tell them that (in order that it might be a manifest sign to them that this was so) he had assigned the coimty to his queen in dower.® The final act in this phase of the history of the county was done at Bazas in the Gironde. On 4 February 1253/4 the whole county of Chester with its castles and the North Wales lands formed part of the vast gift by charter (in triplicate) to Edward, the king's first-bom son and heir, all to be his and his heirs' upon condition that they were never separated from the crown of England but remain wholly to the kings of England for ever.' On 14 March Bartholomew Pecche was sent to Chester to take seisin for the prince,® and the Annales Cestrienses record ' Close Roll, 14 May 1251. John de Grey the justiciar being before the king on the day of the eyre held by Geoffrey de Langley had successfully excused himself from a fine on the grounds that he could not be in two places at once (ibid., 28 May 1250); but presumably the county had found no substitute. • Ibid., 14 May 1251. For this writ see Pollock and Maitland, ii. 585 n. In- stead of the words secundum legem Angliae in Bracton's form, the version applied to Cheshire has simply de iure, and the reference to the king's capitalis iusticiarius is omitted. • M. Paris, Hist. Major ( 1640 edition), p. 685. « Ccd. of Pat. Rolls, 17 August 1243. • Ibid., 7 November 1246. • Ibid,, 10 May 1247. The community of Cheshire refused a demand i>ro aura regine (Close Roll, 14 May 1251). A feodary of 1252, according to an inquisition taken by the justiciar, exists (Red Book of the Exchequer (RoUs Series), i. 184). ' Cal. of Pat. Rolls, 14 February 1253/4 (charter in triplicate), 14 April 1254. • Ibid., 14 March 1253/4.