Page:VCH Herefordshire 1.djvu/429

 POLITICAL HISTORY supporter Robert de Beaumont, earl of Leicester, whose wife Amicia was the granddaughter of WiUiam Fitzosbern. He granted De Beaumont to hold the town, castle, and county as freely as William Fitzosbern had done. There was no reservation of any of the revenue from the city or the pleas of the county for the crown. This, together with the judicial immunity enjoyed by William Fitzosbern, gave the earldom a palatine character. The fiefs of four great tenants in chief were, however, expressly excepted from his grant, those, namely, of Hugh de Mortimer, Osbert Fitzhugh, William de Braose, and that of Gotso or Joce de Dinan, which had formerly belonged to Hugh de Lacy, with the provision that if the earl of Leicester could accomplish against Joce what he wished, Joce should hold his fiefs from him. Joce, it may be noted, was at this time holding Ludlow Castle for the empress. '^^ De Beaumont, however, never entered into posses- sion, and on 25 July, 1141, Matilda created^" Miles of Gloucester earl of Hereford in reward for his services to her cause. In his case the earldom was a new creation without palatine powers. He was granted the third penny of the revenue of the borough of Hereford and the third penny of the pleas of the whole county. He received the mote of Hereford, with the castle and the three royal manors of Marden, Lugwardine, and Wilton. ^^' Miles's office was not an easy one. In 1143, being in want of money for his troops, he demanded large sums from the church lands. He was resisted by Robert of Bethune, bishop of Hereford. When the earl in- vaded his lands the bishop excommunicated him and his followers and laid the diocese under an interdict.^*"* A little later, on Christmas Eve, Miles was accidentally shot with an arrow by a knight while hunting deer.'" He was succeeded by his son Roger, who on the retirement of the empress in 1 148 apparently enjoyed complete independence during the remainder of Stephen's reign. His power in the central Marches was shared by Hugh de Mortimer, who had taken little part in the conflict for the crown. Mortimer's power, however, was rather centred in southern Shropshire, where he held Cleobury and the royal castle of Bridgenorth, than in Herefordshire, though in that county lay his great castle of Wigmore. His relations with the earls of Hereford were far from friendly during Stephen's reign, but the accession of Henry U, who was supported by all the influence of the earl of Gloucester, the greatest magnate of the west, threatened a common danger to their independence, and, in consequence, they allied themselves against him. From Roger were demanded the castles of Hereford and Gloucester. Early in 11 55 he was induced by the persuasions of the bishop of Hereford to make his submission and to surrender the two castles to the crown,'^* receiving in return from Henry a grant for himself and his issue of all the fiefs of his father. Miles of Gloucester, and of his maternal grandfather, '" The original charter is among the MSS. of the Duchy of Lancaster in the Record Office {Dtp. Keeper's Rep. ixxi, App. z). It has been partially reprinted in Vincent's Discoverie (1622), 237, and in Duncumb's Herefordshire, i, 232. Between them Vincent and Duncumb have reprinted almost the whole charter. See also the ' Genealogy and Armorial Bearings of the earls of Hereford,' by J. R. Planche, in the Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc. June, 1 87 1. '" Sciatis Tacfecisse, Sec. '" Rymer, Foe Jera (i 816), i, 14; Cont. Fhr. Wore. (ed. Thorpe), i, 132; Gesta Stephani (Rolls Ser.), 79-80. '" Ibid. 101-3. "'Ibid. 16, 95, 103 ; Simeon of Durham, Opera, ii, 315 ; Brut y Tyzvysogion (Rolls Ser.), 165. "' Gervase of Cant. Opera (Rolls Ser.), i, 16 1-2. 359