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 POLITICAL HISTORY Winforton, Stapleton, Eardisley, Whitney, and Huntington in the west, that of Ewyas Harold on the south-west."' But the power of the sheriff extended over none of these districts, nor were they organized in hundreds. In 1 199 the sheriff, when ordered by the Curia Regis to take possession of Bred- wardine Castle on the Wye, protested his inability, it being outside his bailiwick. William de Braose, in whose land it lay, declared that neither king, sheriff, nor justice had any right to enter his liberty."^ The history of Herefordshire in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries forms part of the history of a group of great feudatories swayed by two powerful, but opposite, influences, which alternately obtained the ascendency — jealousy of the royal authority and desire for the support of the crown against the Welsh princes. The accession of John was followed by the revival of the earldom of Hereford, which was bestowed on Henry de Bohun, hereditary constable of England. Henry's grandfather, Humphrey de Bohun, had inherited the greater part of the possessions of Miles of Glou- cester on the extinction of his male issue, by marrying his eldest daughter Margaret.'*" He had consistently supported Henry II, notably in 1 173, when he assisted to defeat and capture the earl of Leicester at Fornham in Suffolk,'*' and his grandson was rewarded for the loyalty of his family on 28 April, 1200, by a charter granting him ^2.0 yearly from the third penny of the county of Hereford, thereby making him earl thereof, on condition that if King John should have any heir by his wedded wife, Henry de Bohun should claim nothing by the charter which Henry II gave to Roger of Gloucester. Roger's charter, it was stipulated, should remain in the custody of the bishop of Winchester to be destroyed if such heir should be born.'" The reason for this stipulation was that Henry II's charter had granted to Roger lands which since had been bestowed on the earls of Gloucester, and that John was married to Isabel, daughter and coheiress of William, the last earl of the first house of Gloucester. In addition Bohun was not entrusted with the custody of the castle of Hereford, which remained with the crown. John visited Hereford in November, 1200.'*^ A few years later the county was involved in the quarrel between him and William de Braose the younger, whose mother Bertha, younger daughter of Miles of Gloucester, had brought him the vast Welsh dominions of her grandfather, Bernard of Neufmarche. In the reign of Richard I he was sheriff of Herefordshire from I 191 to 1 198, and again in 1 199,'" after John's accession. He became involved in a financial quarrel with the king, and in November, 1 207, was compelled to resort to the king at Hereford and to surrender his castles of Hay, Brecknock, and Radnor. At a later date he endeavoured to regain them by surprise, and failing in his attempt stormed and sacked Leominster.'" But this insurrection was promptly suppressed by the sheriff Gerard de Atyes, "° The boundaries were ascertained in an inquisition made in the time of Hen. Ill, printed with some variations in Arch. Cambr. (ser. 4), x, 303-4; and in M. G. Watlcins, Cont. of Duncumb's Hist, of Here/., Hundred of Hunt. 2. "' Eyton, Ant'tq. ofShrops. i, 235. "" Liber Niger (1771), i, 167. '" Benedict Abbas, Gesta (Rolls Ser.), i, 61-2. "' The original of De Bohun's charter is in the Record Office ; see Dep. Keeper^! Rep. xxxi, 6, printed in Rot. Chart. (Rec. Com.), i, 53. '" Hardy, Itinerary (Rec. Com.). '" Lists and Indexes (P.R.O.), ix, 59. '" See ' Littera Regis Angliae, qua ordine narratur quam male se gesserat Willielmus de Breosa,' printed in Foedera (1816), i, 107-8. I 361 46