Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 4.djvu/678

 66o APPENDIX H she grants him " the third penny of the pleas of the county as an earl ought to have in his county; "(*) and other charters containing similar grants. Whatever may be the correct view as to the right of all earls to have the third penny, it seems clear that no man who was not an earl was entitled to it. Hugh de Courtenay, heir of the Earls of Devon, who succeeded Isabel, Countess of Devon {J. 1293), in the estates of the earldom, was paid the third penny although he had not assumed the earldom. The Exchequer eventually refused to pay it to a man who did not claim it as an earl, whereupon Hugh petitioned the King, who issued the following letter close, 22 Feb. (1335/6) 9 Edw. Ill: To Hugh de Courtenay the elder, earl of Devon. Order to assume the name and honour of Earl of Devon, because the inheritance which belonged to Isabella de Fortibus, late countess of Devon, and of her ancestors the earls of Devon, descends to him by hereditary right, and he holds that inheritance; and the King will cause 18/. 6j. ?>d. of the yearly fee of co. Devon to be paid to him, as it was wont to be paid to his ancestors, the earls of Devon, which fee Isabella and her ancestors received yearly by the hands of the sheriff of Devon, and Hugh also received it after the death of the countess for some time, and it was detained from him because he had not styled himself earl.('') This entry on the Close Roll is of great value not only as showing that none but earls were entitled to the third penny, but as contributing an item of evidence on the relation of women to the third penny, with which our enquiry is closely concerned; and it also shows how little Hugh can have realised, when he succeeded to the Devon estates, that the earldom was his for the asking.('') The legal view of official earldoms to which reference has been made above is based on this grant of the third penny, which, it has been argued, is payment for the earl's official duties; and that as a woman cannot perform those duties, she does not, and could not be expected to, receive the payment. We have noted that historians do not agree with the legal opinion that an earldom was primarily an office after the 12th century. Do the facts of history bear out the legal proposition as regards women and the third penny } It would appear not. The following cases suggest that women who were of comital rank could and did receive the third penny. {a) When William de Mandeville, Earl of Essex, died in 1228, his heir was his sister Maud, Countess of Hereford (who had married, istly, Henry de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, d. 1220), then wife of Roger de Dauntsey. William de Mandeville had been in receipt of the third penny, and at his death Maud and Roger de Dauntsey were credited with the third penny to set against the debt due to the Exchequer by Maud as William's heir. Roger de Dauntsey was never an earl. Are we not to conclude that Maud was recognised as entitled to the Earldom of Essex ^ As sister of an earl, widow of an earl, and mother of an earl, her position may have given her a (^) See/w/, p. 663. C") Cal. Clou Rolls, 1333-1337, p. 466; see also Idem, p. 376. (*) See as to this, past, p. 686.