Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/391

 9*s. vii. MAT is, low.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

383

"In the yeare 1236, certaine Marchant Strangers of Cities beyond the Seas, to wit, Amiens. Corby, and Nele, for priuiledges which they enioyed in this Cittie, gave 1UCM. towardes the charges of conueying water from the towne of Teyborne.

I lay some stress on Stow's expression " the town of Tyburn," because MR. LOFTIE, re- ferring to the date of Longbeard's execution, 1196, says "that we have evidence that then and much later there was no such town or village." Between 1196 and 1236 there is an interval of only forty years, so that it would be satisfactory to have the evidence for ME. LOFTIE'S assertion. But where was this " town of Tyburn " ? Stow goes on to say :

4 ' The first Cesterne of leade castellated with stone m the Citty of London, was called the Great Con- duit in west Cheape, which was begunne to bee builded in the yeare 1285. Henry Wales being then Mayor, the water course from Padington to James hed hath 510. rods, from James hed on the hil to the Mewsgate, 102. rods, from theMewsegate to the Crosse in Cheape 484. rods."

In the margin opposite this passage is the note, "Water conueyed from Teyborn to London," and on p. 267 is a similar passage relating to the great conduit from Paddington. The inference which I draw from these pas- sages is that "the town of Tyburn" was situated within the district known as Pad- dington, and that it probably occupied the spot on which Spring Street, Conduit Street, and the adjoining thoroughfares now stand.

Gilbert, like Brabantio, had one fair daughter, Alice de Sanford, the heiress of all his broad manors, and the " wardship and marriage" of this lady became an object of competition among the nobles of King Henry's Court. The result is briefly told by Morant and Lysons ('Environs,' second ed., vol. ii. part ii. p. 643). Hugh de Vere, fourth Earl of Oxford and Great Chamberlain of England, is stated in some records to have bought the wardship directly from the king for the sum of one thousand marks, while others seem to represent that the vendor was Fulk Basset, Bishop of London, who had purchased it of the king for the same sum, perhaps as a trustee. However this may have been, the earl bestowed the young lady in marriage on his eldest son Robert, who succeeded him as fifth Earl of Oxford in 1263. Thenceforward the group of manors inherited from the Sanfords, including Tyburn, ap- pears to have been regarded as an appanage for the female line. On this principle, the manors in question were not inherited with the earldom of Oxford by the eldest son Robert, but were granted in reversion to a daughter, Joan, on her marriage with William de Warren, eldest son of John de Warren,

Earl of Surrey and Sussex, and a great- grandson of Hamelin Plantagenet, an illegiti- mate brother of King Henry II. (Pat. 13 Ed- ward I. m. 15). In this patent the manors of Tyburn, Medmenham, &c., are distinctly stated to have been held in capite by the Earl of Oxford, as pointed out by MR. RUTTON (ante, p. 311) ; and this would seem to be the place in which I may avow myself as the correspondent of *N. & Q.' who was alleged by that gentleman to have tentatively suggested that the Earl of Oxford may have exercised his manorial right of the gallows at Tyburn, and that that locality may from that cause have become the general place of execution. MR. LOFTIE questioned this suggestion, on the ground that the De Veres were never lords of the manor of Tyburn, and that they were merely tenants of the Abbess of Barking. These views, based on Lysons's mistakes, have, I think, been disposed of, and I will now proceed to state my reasons for submitting the very conjectural opinion in question. In 1293, 22 Edward L, Robert, Earl of Oxford, was summoned by a writ of quo warranto to answer for his claim to the honours of his manors, Kensington and Tyburn, viz., the "view of frank-pledge," the "assize of bread and beer," " infangenethef, utfan- genethef, /ureas" To this the earl made reply, so far as regarded his liberties in the manor of Tyburn, that he and his wife Alice held them until the end of their lives, and that they would then be inherited by John, son and heir of William de Warren, who was then under age, his father having previously died. This reply not being deemed satisfactory, a further writ was issued, and the earl was compelled to admit that he had no liberty in Tyburn except the view of frank-pledge and those things which apper- tained to a view of that kind ('Placita de Quo Warranto,' pp. 478, 479).* It would appear from these writs that while the tenure on which he held the manor prohibited the earl from certain liberties, he nevertheless exercised the privilege of the gallows, until called to account for doing so. There is no reference whatever to the Abbey of Barking in these documents. W. F. PRIDEAUX.

(To be continued.)

[Gilbert de Sanford's grant is recorded in the ' Calendar of Letter-Book A,' pp. 14, 15, edited by Dr. Reginald R. Sharpe for the Library Committee of the Corporation. The grantor says : " Know ye that at the request of the lord the King, and for his honour and reverence and the common benefit

in Faulkner's ' Kensington,' 1820, p. 43
 * A copy of the first writ is given very erroneously