William Marshal, King Henry II and the Honour of Chateauroux
By Nicholas Vincent
Archives: The Journal of the British Record Association Vol.25 No.102 (2000)
Chance plays a large part in the survival of medieval charters. Written on parchment, and in many cases discarded as expendable ephemera within a few weeks, let alone years, of their writing, an incalculable number of charters have perished without trace. Those that survive represent but a tiny fraction of those that once existed, and in many cases have been preserved more by accident than by design. Thomas Martin, the eighteenth-century antiquary, was able to rescue at least part of a volume of Southwark charters that had been recycled as drum-heads by a toy-maker from Exeter.1 In 1845, when large numbers of medieval charters were seized from northern French municipal archives for use as wadding by the artillery school at Metz, local historians were able to recover some 10 kilograms of charters in exchange for blank modern parchment purchased at 10 francs the kilo.2 The document published below has survived in similarly remarkable circumstances. Discarded eight centuries ago as a piece of waste parchment, it chanced to catch the eye of a contemporary scribe who employed it as a tag with which to attach a seal to another charter. Most scribes would use fresh parchment for this task, but on occasion, as in the present instance, when materials were short, or to save on expense, an older document or draft might be recycled to provide a sealing strip.3 As a parchment seal tag, our document has weathered the storms of the past eight centuries and at last reached haven in the Lancashire Record Office at Preston. This in itself would make for an interesting story, but when we bear in mind that this humble piece of parchment adds significantly to our knowledge of the political history of both England and France in the late twelfth century, its survival can be accounted not merely extraordinary but little short of miraculous.
The document in question is a copy of a royal writ, addressed to a man named William Marshal, summoning him to attend the King with men and arms. Having served its immediate purpose, and before being destroyed, the original writ came into the hands of a scribe who copied it out together with various other letters, at some time between 1188 and 1200, almost certainly as part of a formulary, intended to provide models for future correspondence. The author of this formulary, we must assume, was a professional scribe or letter-writer, living in the north-west of England. The formulary itself was in turn swiftly discarded, but at least one of its leaves, rather than being thrown away, was cannibalized, cut up and recycled as seal tags. Again, only one of these fragments now survives, attached to the award of a man named Ketellus the clerk of Kirkby Lonsdale, who around the year 1200 granted land to the canons of Cockersand for the soul of Heixstilda his wife, sealing his charter with an impressive wax seal, showing two twin billets, the seal being attached to the charter by means of our seal tag, cut from the destroyed scribal formulary.4
Charter and tag survived the Reformation, and at some time in the eighteenth century found their way into the collection of the Catholic antiquary and historian, Father Thomas West of Tytup Hall near Dalton-in-Furness.5 At West’s death in 1779, they passed together with West’s other literary remains to the Rev. Thomas Butler and thence into the library of the Roman Catholic mission at Hornby in Lancashire.6 Here, early in the present century, they were noticed by William Farrer, who transcribed what he could of the writing on the charter’s seal tag, realizing that it shed light upon an otherwise poorly documented chapter in the history of the feudal honour of Kendal.7 To make his transcription Farrer arranged for the removal of Ketellus’ seal, which was subsequently reattached with a blob of modern, red sealing wax. Since Farrer’s day, the charter with its tag and seal has passed from Homby Presbytery into the keeping of the Lancashire County Record Office, to which it was traced in 1997. On that latter occasion, in seeking to improve upon the somewhat inaccurate transcript made by Farrer, I caused consternation to the Record Office’s staff by breaking the modern wax that Farrer had put in place – a procedure that would normally result in criminal prosecution. The tag has now been removed from its seal, and as a result reveals portions of at least three separate texts. All of these have been severely cropped, cut into a v-shape at either end in order that, when folded, they might pass through the slits at the bottom of the charter of Ketellus of Kirkby, and mutilated elsewhere to produce a sufficiently narrow tag. As a result, only fragments of the three texts are now legible.
The first text, which occupies one entire side of the tag, preserves part of a letter written to the abbot of Furness in Lancashire by John parson of Kirkby (Lonsdale), notifying the abbot of a forthcoming visit by The(o)bald the vice-archdeacon, due to begin on the coming Friday, lamenting the probable expense and requesting that the abbot command his fishermen to obtain fish for Theobald’s table. John the parson of Kirkby Lonsdale can be identified with a namesake who witnesses several Furness Abbey charters from c.1200 to at least 1214.8 Theobald the vice-archdeacon, otherwise unrecorded, must have been a deputy to the then archdeacon of Richmond, in whose jurisdiction the church of Kirkby lay.9 The relationship between the rectors of Kirkby Lonsdale and Furness, although well attested elsewhere, is less easy to explain, since by the 119os the church of Kirkby was undoubtedly in the possession of the monks of St Mary at York.10 The existence of a forged charter of Henry II, supposedly confirming Kirkby church to St Mary’s at some time before 1166, may suggest that the award itself was a contentious one, perhaps disputed by the monks of Furness.11
The second text, which occupies the lower portion of the other side of the tag, is a notification from William de Wicheton’ to Matilda of Kirkby Lonsdale, informing her of an order, whose tenor is now lost, received from William’s lord, Reiner sheriff of Yorkshire. Reiner, a native of Waxham in Suffolk, served as de facto sheriff of Yorkshire for much of the 1170s and 80s, acting as deputy and at one time as steward to the great courtier Ranulf de Glanvill, titular sheriff from 1175 to 1189.12 In 1177, as Glanvill’s steward and deputy, Reiner accounted for the farm of the county of Westmorland for the previous three years, including various sums which suggest that for a time Glanvill himself had custody of a manor and fishery within the lordship of Kendal.13 Their interest here is somewhat obscure, but it may be either than Ranulf and Reiner served as custodians of the honour of Kendal during the minority of William II of Lancaster (d.1184), or that they their acquisition of the county, in 1174, was accompanied by the introduction of royal keepers to Kendal, perhaps because William II of Lancaster had in some way been implicated in the great rebellion of 1173-74 that undoubtedly attracted support from others of the county’s barons.14
The third text, undoubtedly the most significant of the three and by great good fortune the least severely mutilated, survives as the upper portion of the second side of the tag. Written by a king of England to William Marshal, it commands William to attend the King with as many knights as he can muster, to serve in the King’s war. The Marshal, so the letter states, had frequently complained to the King about the ‘small fee’ which the King had already granted him. If he serves the King faithfully, the letter continues, the King will reward him further with the entire honour of Castellum Raul. Farrer, with his expertise in the feudal history of northern England, recognized that this writ related to the honour of Kendal, which in the 1180s was briefly in the hands of William Marshal, the future earl of Pembroke, chief governor of England from 1216 until his death in 1219. The Marshal’s contacts with both Kendal, and with the neighbouring manor of Cartmel, which he received from the King in the late 1180s and whose lordship he was to retain for the remainder of his life, would explain why his summons from the King found its way into a north country scribal formulary. Here, however, Farrer’s interest flagged. He made no attempt to provide a precise date for the royal writ, and above all, he showed no concern with the identity of the castle and honour of Raul which William was apparently promised. Farrer would no doubt have been mortified to discover quite what a discovery he had let slip, since there can be no doubt that Castellum Raul can be identified as the great castle and honour of Chatearoux in Berry, in central France, the subject of almost continuous warfare between the kings of England and France after 1176. Just as no previous writer on the career of William Marshal has noticed Chateauroux amongst the Marshal’s early interests, so none of the many accounts of Anglo-French rivalry over Chateauroux and Berry has allowed for an interest there by the Marshal, the greatest knight and warrior-courtier of his day. To bring the Marshal and Chateauroux, into conjunction with one another is to add a small but significant piece to our knowledge of Anglo-French history.
Chateauroux, `the Castle of Raoul’, takes its name from the family of the lords of Deols who served as its castellans from the tenth century onwards.15 Raoul de Deols, a subject of the dukes of Aquitaine, died in November 1176, in Italy, returning from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He left no male heir, but only a daughter, Denise or Dionisia, whose wardship was claimed by her overlord, King Henry II of England, Duke of Aquitaine by virtue of his wife Eleanor, seeking to impose an Anglo-Norman custom of wardship upon the lords of Aquitaine, where wardship was traditionally the right of the ward’s family.16 The attempt was resisted by Denise’s uncle, Raoul’s brother, Eudes de Deols who carried her off to his nearby castle of La Chatre, claiming that the family, rather than the overlord, had the better right to serve as Denise’s guardians and hence as keepers of her great estate. An assault upon Chateauroux by Henry’s eldest son having failed, the King assumed personal command of an army which in October 1177 invested Chateauroux, forcing the garrison to surrender before obtaining the submission of Eudes at La Chatre and custody of the heiress, Denise.17 For the next ten years, in the face of constant harassment from the Capetians who had themselves only recently acquired a toe-hold in Berry through their purchase of the lordship of Bourges, Henry II and his local officers administered Chateauroux and its outlying dependencies at La Chatre, Montlucon and Issoudun as parts of the wider Plantagenet dominion. Royal castellans were appointed to keep the region’s castles, and through negotiations with the canons of Bourges, the King acquired direct lordship over others of Denise’s feoffs, formerly held by her ancestors as tenants of Bourges Cathedral.18 This intrusion of Plantagenet power into Berry, coinciding with Henry’s acquisition of the lordship of La Marche, a little further south, marked the high point of Henry’s territorial expansion in central France.19 It was bitterly resented by the French King Louis VII and his successor, Philip Augustus, so that disputes over Berry were specifically excluded from the terms of the Anglo-French treaties negotiated after 1177.20
In the meantime, Denise herself was promised by the King in marriage to Baldwin de Redvers, claimant to the earldom of Devon.21 Baldwin, however, did not come of age until 1179, whilst his intended bride was even younger: probably no more than three or four at the time of the Plantagenet subjection of Chateauroux. As a result, there is no clear proof as to whether a formal marriage, as opposed to a mere promise of betrothal, took place between them. The probability is that they were never formally betrothed, since after Baldwin’s death in May 1188, there is nothing to suggest that Denise claimed dower, as she would otherwise have been entitled to, in Baldwin’s estate.22 To this extent, Baldwin received no real control over Chateauroux, which continued to be administered by the King and by royal castellans.
During the last months of Baldwin’s life, the Anglo-French rivalry over Chateauroux once again led to warfare.23 In May 1187, Philip Augustus launched an offensive against Berry, seizing various minor castles and laying siege to Chateauroux itself. The siege was pressed hard, but without success, and in the following few months a truce was patched up between Philip and Henry II, both Kings pledging themselves to depart on crusade and in the meantime to desist from further hostilities for at least two years.24 But Henry II was by now growing old, and his health was failing. There was great uncertainty over the succession to his lands, so that his eldest surviving son, Richard, the future King Richard I, proved all too receptive to the suspicions, whispered in his ear by King Philip, that Henry intended to deprive him of at least part of his continental estate or even to disinherit him entirely. In June 1188, despite the truce agreed in the previous year, and in response to raids by Richard and his men further south, Philip launched a second assault upon Chateauroux, which this time fell within a matter of days. Henry II, who was in England, sent a powerful deputation to voice his complaints at the French King’s court, and himself crossed overseas, braving a violent storm in the Channel on 10 July. Threatened with a full-scale war, Philip offered to exchange his recent gains in Berry in return for the restoration of lands that Richard had taken in the south. Henry, however, refused these terms, so that at the end of three days of fruitless discussion at Gisors on the frontier between France and Normandy, Philip commanded that the great elm tree, which had traditionally marked the place of Franco-Norman negotiations, be felled.25 Subsequent parleys, at Chatillon, on the frontiers of Berry, in October, were disrupted by signs of growing disaffection between Henry and Richard, and this tension eventually exploded at Bonmoulins, in November 1188, when Philip cleverly exploited Richard’s fears of disinheritance, requiring Henry to give Richard guarantees over the succession to the Plantagenet lands: guarantees which Henry pointedly refused to grant, propelling Richard into rebellion against his father. A further six months of skirmishing, for much of which time King Henry lay prostrated by illness and old age, was followed by a swift campaign in June 1189, in which, on 12 June, Henry was very nearly captured by Philip and Richard at Le Mans. Henry fled, accompanied by only a few close followers, but on 2 July, with the surrender of many castles to the rebels, including the vitally important city of Tours, sued for peace. Having accepted humiliating terms, he retreated to Chinon, where, four days later, on 6 July 1189, he died.26
All of this is a familiar story, many times retold, in which the two sieges of Chateauroux, in May 1187 and June 1188, stand as significant landmarks. But how is this story to be reconciled with the King’s supposed promise of Chateauroux to William Marshal? For the Marshal we possess a narrative source almost as detailed as our sources for the King: the epic Histoire de Guillaume le Marechal, written in French rhyming couplets, and itself rediscovered only in recent times, having been purchased in 1861 at auction from the Savile family by the great manuscript collector Sir Thomas Phillipps.27 For the 1180s, before the Marshal’s rise to greatness, the Histoire provides our principal source for William’s career, supplemented by only a few stray charters and witness lists. According to the Histoire, William had sailed for the Holy Land shortly after the death of his one-time lord, Henry the young King, who died in 1183. He spent two years overseas before returning to the court of Henry II, meeting the King at Lyons-la-Foret east of Rouen, a meeting that must be dated to some time between April 1185 and April 1186, the only appropriate period when the court was in Normandy. Henry, as the Histoire states, rewarded the Marshal with custody of the heiress to the honour of Kendal, Hawise or Helewise daughter of William of Lancaster, whom William protected as a dear friend but whom he did not marry.28 Surviving charters issued by the King show that William must have accompanied the court on its return to England in the spring of 1186, being found thereafter witnessing royal awards made at Westminster, Wallingford, Geddington, Woodstock, and Kempsey.29 The Woodstock, Geddington, and Kempsey charters were probably issued as late as January X July 1188, demonstrating that the Marshal was with the King for part of Henry’s final stay in England.30 The Histoire tells us nothing of this period, but skips instead from the grant of Kendal (at some time after April 1185), to the negotiations that took place in the aftermath of Philip’s invasion of Berry, at Gisors in August 1188, by which time the Marshal was undoubtedly at court, remaining with the King thereafter throughout the final months of the reign.31 With the intervening events, states the author of the Histoire, ‘I have no wish to burden this tale, save to state that the French took Chateauroux’.32
In this reticence, the Histoire has been followed by the Marshal’s more recent biographers, one of whom refers to these years as ‘a bewildering maze of raids, sieges, battles, conferences and truces’.33 In fact, there is far more that can be said of the Marshal’s doings at this time. To begin with, our fragmentary seal tag demonstrates that the Marshal’s aid was keenly sought by the King, even to the extent of an offer of the chief causus belli between France and England, the fortress and lordship of Chateauroux. The King was in no position to offer Chateauroux to the Marshal prior to the death of Baldwin de Redvers in May 1188, so that our writ cannot relate to the army mustered against Philip’s first attack in May 1187. It must have been issued after the death of Baldwin in May 1188, and hence in the aftermath of Philip’s invasion of June 1188, when news of the fall of Chateauroux first reached England, and when Henry was hurriedly mustering an expeditionary force to counter the French attack. This would supply a firm date for the writ, at some time in early July 1188, probably before the King’s sailing from Portsea on 11 July.34 Neither the Marshal, nor Earl Baldwin, might seem a natural candidate for the lordship of Chateauroux. Baldwin was an Anglo-Norman, whose chief estates lay in Normandy and south-west England. The Marshal was a Wiltshire man, who by 1188 was slowly establishing an estate for himself in Westmorland and northern Lancashire. However, just as the Marshal’s promotion in the far north of England can be regarded as part of a wider strategy by the King, to introduce loyal courtiers to the furthest-flung corners of the Plantagenet dominion, so the offer of Chateauroux might be seen as bringing Chateauroux and Berry closer within the orbit of Henry’s court. As the Marshal’s later promotion to estates in Wales and Ireland was to prove, there were distinct advantages for the King in introducing outsiders to the more distant outposts of empire. For the King to promote a local man might be to increase the risk of provincial separatism. By contrast, an outsider such as the Marshal would be more dependent upon royal favour and hence less tempted to engage in local conspiracies against the King.
The writ of July 1188 is remarkable, not only for the offer of Chateauroux which it contains, but as possibly the first genuine writ of military summons to a tenant-in-chief to have survived in all of Anglo-French history. On every occasion when the King sought to muster an army, hundreds or even thousands of such writs had to be sent out to his barons and other tenants-in-chief, summoning them for war. By fitting coincidence, the Histoire de Guillaume le Marechal provides one of our earliest and most detailed accounts of such a summons, in reporting an attempt made by the Marshal to mediate between King Henry and the rebellious Richard in the winter of 1188. On that occasion, the Marshal is said to have come within a few miles of Richard’s camp at Amboise, only to turn back, discouraged, having heard that the previous night Richard had dispatched more than two hundred writs, summoning his knights to war.35 Two hundred writs in a single night may include some element of poetic licence, but even so the frantic activity that war produced amongst the chanceries of any twelfth-century lord can hardly be exaggerated. Precisely because such writs were so routine and so much the product of a single moment, they have only rarely survived. In England, and with the exception of our present document, only one other example is known for the entire period from the Conquest to the reign of King John, addressed by William I to the abbot of Evesham, commanding the abbot to issue a summons to all who owed service to the King to attend, and for the abbot to attend in person with the five knights owed as his abbey’s military service. John Horace Round, the first historian to make use of this Evesham writ, assigned it to 1072 and quite rightly judged it of crucial significance in determining the process by which fixed military quotas were introduced into post-Conquest England.36 Other aspects of Round’s argument, over the relation of military service to the Domesday enquiry, have proved more difficult to sustain, and in recent years the true date and even the authenticity of the Evesham writ have both been called into question.37 David Bates, its most recent editor, seeks to dismiss it, on both linguistic and historical grounds, as a forgery of the early thirteenth century.38 Without it, the letter published below to William Marshal would rank as the first genuine survivor of its kind.
What is immediately striking about the Marshal’s writ is its failure to demand or specify any particular quota of service. That such quotas existed is not in question, but the extent to which they played any part in the summoning of fighting men, as opposed to the imposition of military taxation and scutages, is quite legitimately a matter for debate. In a charter for the abbot of Cerne, for example, issued in June 1175, Henry II had precisely distinguished between the quota of two fees for which the abbot should pay scutage, and the single knight that he should send to the King’s army if he preferred to render his service in men rather than in money.39 In commanding Archbishop Hubert Walter to summon the barons of England to attend him in France in 1196, King Richard I specifically required that no tenant-in-chief, whatever his theoretical quota, attend with more than seven knights, ‘least they be burdened with a crowd of knights’: presumably a crowd containing many men ill-equipped for real fighting.40 A similar distinction, between quotas for scutage and the far smaller number of knights who were expected to attend if a tenant-in-chief discharged his service in person, was clearly in operation by the time of the first surviving enrolments of military summons, preserved from the reign of King John.41 However, although we must assume that precise figures, both of scutage and of fighting knights, were known to the tenants-in-chief – for example, that in 1213-14 Philip de Columbers was aware that if he attended in person he should come accompanied by only one other knight, rather than the quota of ten knights for whom he would be charged scutage 42 – the surviving writs of summons from John’s reign are entirely silent on this point, merely requiring that the keeper of an escheated honour summon ‘all the knights of the honour . . . well equipped with horses and arms’;43 that a sheriff ensure attendance by ‘all the knights of your bailiwick (balliue tue) who have been summoned’44 or, in the case of a summons issued in 1205, following negotiations between King and barons, that the sheriffs ensure that every nine knights in their county supply a tenth knight with his wages so that he might come to the King’s army to discharge the service of all ten.45 To this extent, and by contrast to the supposedly very early evidence from Evesham, the writ published below suggests that the exact details of military service were often, if not invariably, omitted from the writ of summons.
The Marshal, in 1188, was summoned to attend King Henry ‘prepared and with as many knights as you can provide, to stand with me in my war’. On a more personal note, he was reminded of the ‘small fee’ which he previously received from the King. Above and beyond this, he was promised the glittering prize of Chateauroux itself, should he serve the King faithfully. But in the writ of summons, nothing whatsoever was said of quotas, due service or the exact terms of William’s existing enfeoffment.
Was this because in July 1188 William held no land directly from the crown? The answer to this is clearly no. To begin with, as keeper of the honour of Kendal, William bore responsibility for the service of two knights’ fees which that honour traditionally owed to the King’s army.46 In addition, at some time after his return from the Holy Land, and before the summons of 1188, he had been enfeoffed by the King with the manor of Cartmel in Furness: in all probability the ‘small fee’ referred to in the writ of 1188. The charter recording the King’s gift of Cartmel, referring both to Cartmel and its fisheries, was still in existence in 1207 when it was cited as evidence in the King’s court.47 It has since been lost, but given that the land was granted to the Marshal and his heirs in hereditary fee, there seems little doubt that the Marshal was expected to render military service in return. When Cartmel was confirmed to him, at some time after Midsummer 1189, by charter of the King’s youngest son, John, it was as land owing the service of one knight.48 This service was further reserved, after 1190, when the Marshal transferred his estate to the monks of Bradenstoke in Wiltshire, the burial-place of his father, so that they might establish a daughter house at Cartmel.49
The precise date at which William acquired Cartmel is very hard to establish. He undoubtedly held the land for the entire year from Michaelmas 1157, when it was valued as £32 of the King’s estate in Lancashire. In addition, the outstanding debts owed by the sheriff for the previous year, Michaelmas 1186-87, were written off against the £24 and 10 shillings which William is said to have received from Cartmel ‘for a year and three parts of a year’.50 These arrears do not tally with the £32 allowed in 1187-88. Possibly the arrears were really for three quarters of a year, rather than for the stated year and three quarters, in which case the Marshal received Cartmel at Christmas 1186. If the account is correct, then it suggests that Cartmel, previously valued at only £14 a year, had been awarded to William as early as Christmas 1185.51 Whatever the precise truth here, by the time of his summons in July 1188 William held Cartmel as a tenant-in-chief, having received it either at Christmas 1185 or Christmas 1186.
The Marshal’s modern biographers, besides omitting any reference to Chateauroux or the King’s summons to the Marshal to attend him in France have missed at least one important detail concerning William’s custody of the northern barony of Kendal, held independently of Cartmel, as the inheritance of the heiress Helewise of Lancaster. They make no mention of a charter, published long ago by Farrer, in which as lord of Kendal, presumably in his capacity as guardian of the heiress Helewise, the Marshal confirmed an award made by Helewise’s late father, William of Lancaster, granting land at Sizergh in Westmorland to Gervase de Aincourt. This award, which must have been made in England at some time between April 1186 and July 1188, and which therefore deserves recognition as the very earliest of the Marshal’s charters to have been preserved, is significant in at least two respects.52 Not only does it strengthen our suspicion that William originally intended to marry Helewise, and so establish himself as lord of Kendal, but its witness list, which survives, is remarkable for the way that it shows the Marshal to have been in possession of a military following, later to benefit from the riches that came his way, but already at this early stage in his career, attached to his household. Several of the witnesses to the Sizergh charter are north-country men, presumably tenants of the honour of Kendal, but there are at least two outsiders amongst them – Geoffrey fitz Robert and William Waleran – Wiltshire men, who occur later in the Marshal’s career, granted lands in William’s new estates in Ireland and the Marches, but here, as early as the 1180s, already attached to him by their shared taste for adventure and their common Wiltshire ancestry.53 To this extent, the Sizergh charter suggests that in 1188 Henry II was quite correct to approach the Marshal as a man who had loyal knights at his disposal, for all William’s apparent lack of wealth or great estates.
When precisely did the Marshal abandon his ambitions over Kendal, and in what circumstances? Key evidence here is provided both by the Histoire which states that before his death Henry II promised Kendal to Gilbert son of the courtier Roger fitz Reinfrey, and by the King’s own charter, recording the gift of Kendal to Gilbert.54 The place of issue of this charter has been lost, omitted in the sole surviving copy.55 However the fact that it is addressed to the King’s son Richard – an otherwise unique feature amongst the nearly 3000 surviving charters of Henry II – suggests that it was granted in the aftermath of Henry’s humiliation at the hands of Richard and Philip Augustus in July 1189. In all probability it was issued at Chinon, after the King’s submission on 2 July and before his death four days later.56 This is strongly suggested by another charter, dated at Chinon, which shares the same witnesses as the Fitz Reinfrey charter, and by which Henry bestowed the castle and forest of Lillebonne in Normandy upon Reginald de Dammartin, future count of Boulogne.57 As with the Fitz Reinfrey award, the grant of Lillebonne to Reginald de Dammartin is mentioned in the Histoire de Guillaume le Marechal as one of the dying King’s final acts.58 In neither case does the Histoire state that the King had issued charters to support these awards, and were it not for the fortuitous survival of the charters themselves, we might assume that the awards were merely verbal promises, with no written warrant.
Both charters, to Gilbert fitz Reinfrey and to Reginald de Dammartin, are witnessed by William Marshal, suggesting that it was not until the final days of the old King’s reign that William relinquished his claim to Kendal, but that he was fully reconciled to the loss. Possibly, by July 1189 he had already negotiated an arrangement whereby he was to retain some authority within the Kendal estates, even after their transfer to Gilbert fitz Reinfrey. A number of the charters of Cockersand Abbey record the activities of a man named William Marshal, including one in which, for the sake of his own soul and that of Helewise of Lancaster, William confirmed the canons in possession of land at Mansergh, between Kendal and Kirkby Lonsdale, previously held by John fitz Bernard from G(ilbert) fitz Reinfrey.59 If the William Marshal of this charter is indeed the same William who had previously served as Helewise’s guardian, then it must have been issued within a few years of 1189, since by 1199 at the latest William was styling himself an earl.60 If the two Marshals, of Mansergh and Pembroke, are indeed one and the same, then the Mansergh charter provides clear proof that even after the transfer of Kendal to Gilbert fitz Reinfrey, William retained both his affection for Helewise and at least a mesne tenancy in her estate.
In the meantime, what of the King’s promise to reward the Marshal with Chateauroux? Despite the French invasion of 1188, the castle’s heiress, Denise, if not her lands, remained in Henry’s gift. Late in 1188, when the King paid her tailor’s bill, Denise of Chateauroux was being lodged together with the two greatest heiresses in Henry’s custody: Alice, the daughter of King Louis VII of France, who had long been expected to marry Henry’s son Richard, and Isabella, daughter of the late Earl of Gloucester, who was shortly to be married to Henry’s youngest son, the future King John.61 In practice, rather than being granted to the Marshal, by the summer of 1189 Denise and her claim to Chatearoux had come to form one element in an even more ambitious scheme for self-advancement involving the Marshal and various others amongst the small band of courtiers who remained loyal to King Henry as the old man stumbled towards his grave. According to the Histoire, by the time of Henry’s death, promises had been obtained that Gilbert fitz Reinfrey would be married to the heiress to Kendal, previously offered to William Marshal. In return, the Marshal himself was pledged an even richer prize: marriage to Isabella, the heiress to Richard Strongbow and to the Clare and Giffard estates in Ireland, Wales, England, and Normandy. In this proposed scheme of things, Denise of Chateauroux was now free to be married, not to the Marshal, but to the Marshal’s close friend and fellow courtier, Baldwin of Bethune.62 In short, the Marshal and his companions were engaged in a potentially lucrative but, at least to a later age, unseemly degree of horse trading for possession of three of the more attractive heiresses in the King’s gift. These transactions may well have taken place at Chinon, around 2 July, when all three men – Gilbert, William, and Baldwin – were in attendance upon the dying King.
In the event, only two of the three proposed marriages were to be solemnized. As we have seen, Gilbert fitz Reinfrey obtained Helewise and the honour of Kendal shortly before the old King’s death. The Marshal likewise achieved his ambition to marry Isabella of Pembroke, but only after some anxious days following the accession of the new King, Richard, when it was feared that Richard would set aside the old King’s promises. In fact, far from punishing those who had supported Henry during the late unrest, Richard actively rewarded them for their loyalty. Gilbert fitz Reinfrey was not only permitted to retain Kendal, but in the first few months of the new reign, granted various royal privileges for his new estate.63 The Marshal was married to Isabella of Pembroke and served throughout the ensuing reign as one of Richard I’s most loyal courtiers. Only Baldwin of Bethune was to be disappointed, since Richard declared that he had already promised the marriage of Denise of Chateauroux, Baldwin’s intended bride, to his own cousin and close supporter, the Poitevin Andrew de Chauvigny.64 Baldwin had to rest content with a grant of the rich royal manors of Luton and Wantage, until, in 1195, he was married to the heiress to the Anglo-Norman count of Aumale.65
Only a few weeks before the death of Henry II, on 12 June 1189, Baldwin of Bethune, the Marshal and Andrew de Chauvigny had come face to face in battle, at Le Mans, as the Marshal and Baldwin fought to prevent the old King from being overwhelmed by the rebel army commanded by his son. In this melee, Andrew de Chauvigny was taken prisoner by the Marshal, only to escape when his horse was felled beneath him. Andrew’s arm was broken in the struggle.66 Marriage to Denise and accession to her lordship at Chateauroux might seem to have offered Andrew more than ample compensation for these indignities: an appropriate riposte to the Marshal who at one time had been promised Chateauroux for himself. But in the event, Andrew’s career was to prove a brief if a brilliant one.67 In 1202 he sided with those other barons in France who supported the claims of the young Arthur of Brittany, King Richard’s nephew, against Richard’s brother John. Together with Arthur, Andrew was taken prisoner by John at Mirebeau and carried off to captivity at Rouen.68 From Rouen, Andrew is said to have been released, in order that he might rejoin his wife.69 Others of his companions at Mirebeau were less fortunate, including Arthur of Brittany, murdered by, or at the instruction of King John, in one of the most infamous acts of brutality in all Plantagenet history. The disappearance of Arthur was in due course to spark rebellion by many others of John’s French subjects, leading after 1203 to the loss of John’s entire French dominion from Normandy to the Loire. Quite what role the Marshal played in all of this has long been a topic of speculation. The Marshal had undoubtedly been instrumental, following Richard’s death, in ensuring that it was John rather than Arthur who obtained recognition as King. He had been at court at much the same time as Arthur’s disappearance in 1202‑03, and therefore may well have been aware of the prisoner’s true fate. Over the death of Arthur, however, the Marshal’s Histoire maintains a complete, and, as some would argue, a somewhat guilty silence.70 To know, as we now know, that William had at one time been promised the lordship of Chateauroux, held in 1202 by the captive Andrew de Chauvigny, is to add yet a further twist to William’s supposed complicity in the evil deeds after Mirebeau.
From the Lake District to the Loire, and from the deathbed of King Henry II to the murder of Arthur of Brittany, the trail left by our one, seemingly insignificant piece of parchment has carried us far from our point of departure. Judged upon its outward appearance, our seal tag, now lodged in the Lancashire Record Office, might seem a far from prepossessing document. Properly interpreted, however, it emerges as perhaps the earliest writ of military summons to have survived for the Anglo-Norman realm, shedding significant new light upon the history of Plantagenet military activity in France and upon the career of one of the greatest courtiers of the Middle Ages. For all of this, we can thank Ketellus of Kirkby Lonsdale, the Lancashire clerk who used scrap parchment to seal his charters. In doing so, Ketellus may have acted out of no more high-–minded motive than thrift. But such are the accidents upon which our knowledge of the past depends, that Ketellus’ thrift has saved an entire chapter of history which a less penny-pinching man might have consigned to oblivion.
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End Notes
For access to manuscripts in their possession, I am indebted to Mr C. H. Bagot of Levens Hall, and Mrs Hornyold-Strickland of Sizergh Castle. For comments and suggestions, I am grateful to Christopher Brooke, David Crouch, Diana Greenway, Sir James Holt, Daniel Power and Michael Prestwich.
1. G. R. C. Davis, Medieval Cartularies of Great Britain (London, 1958), p. 103, no. 908.
2. C. Brunei, ‘Les Parchemins de la collection Salis aux archives historiques de la ville de Metz’, Bibliotheque de l’Ecole des Chartes, 75 (1914) 351-52.
3. For seal tags cut from preliminary drafts of the charter to which they were later attached, or for parchment drafts recycled in the making of a charter, even amongst the lavishly equipped chanceries of kings and bishops, see for example Acta of Henry II and Richard I Part 2, ed. by N. Vincent, List and Index Society Special Series, 27 (1996), 104-05 no. 112; English Episcopal Acta IX: Winchester 1205-1238, ed. by N. Vincent (Oxford, 1994), nos. 48, 52-53. For seal tags cut from entirely distinct charters, see for example, Z. E. Rokeah, `Shtar fragment in a sealing strip’, Tarbiz, a Quarterly for Jewish Studies, 40 (1971), 515-16, noting the use of Jewish bonds, cut up as seal tags in the late thirteenth century. An early account was recycled in the thirteenth century as a seal tag to Canterbury Cathedral Library MS Chartae Antiquae C573. Such cannibalization of parchment can be compared to the much more familiar practice of recycling parchment deeds as paste-downs or as the outer covers in the binding of later books and manuscripts. For early records salvaged from bindings, see for example C. R. Cheney, `Papal Privileges for Gfbertine Houses’, and `A Papal Privilege for Tonbridge Priory’, in Cheney, Medieval Texts and Studies (Oxford, 1973), chs 3-4.
4. Preston, Lancashire Record Office MS RCHy/3/3/z3, as printed in The Chartulary of Cockersand Abbey, ed. by W. Farrer, 3 Vols. 1.n 7 parts, Chetham Society n.s., XXXVIII-XL, XLIII, LVI-VII, LXIV (1898-1909), III part I, pp. 912-73, with further evidence on Ketellus and Adam his son, hereditary incumbents of Kirkby Lonsdale, at pp. 911-14. The charter to Cockersand is witnessed by a man named Willelmus compositor karte, presumably the scribe responsible for the charter’s drafting.
5. For West, author of The Antiquities of Furness (London, 1774), and A Guide to the Lakes (London, 1778), see North West Catholic History, V (1950), 14 ff.
6. For West and St Mary’s Presbytery at Homby, see Lancashire Record Office Report for 1952, 11-15, with (at p. 15) a facsimile of another of West’s early charters (now Preston, Lancashire Record Office MS RCHy/3/6/I), an award by Henry I to Guisborough, noticed only from later copies in the standard edition of Henry I’s charters: Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum II ed. by C. Johnson and H. A. Cronne (Oxford, 1956), no. 1568.
7. Records relating to the Barony of Kendale, ed. by W. Farrer and J. F. Curwen, 3 vols, Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society Record Series, iv-vi (1923-26), I, 130, and again as an appendix below.
8. The Coucher Book of Furness Abbey Volume 2, ed. by J. Brownbill, 3 parts, Chetham Society n.s. LXXIV, LXXV, LXXVIII (1815-19), 11, 313, 571,111, 711-12, 783.
9. For Master William de Chemille, Archdeacon of Richmond 1189-96, see Chronica Magistri Rogeri de Houedene, ed. by W. Stubbs, 4 vols, Rolls Series (1868-71), III, 16, IV, 12. A vice-Archdeacon named Master Roger of Richmond occurs c.1191-1203: Beverley Minster Fasti, Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series CXLIX (1990), 59-60; Early Yorkshire Charters, vols I-III ed. by W. Fatter (Edinburgh 1914-16), iv-x, ed. by C. T. Clay, Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series, extra series (1935-55), v, nos 275, 277-8, 317-18, all references courtesy of Diana Greenway.
10. For the church, see Records of Kendale, I, 381-82.
11. For Henry II’s supposed award, see Preston, Lancashire Record Office, MS Townley-O’Hagan Muniments DDTo H/ 2/un-numbered, and for disputes involving Furness over another church of Kirkby (Ireleth) (Lancs.), see The Coucher Book of Furness Abbey Volume 1, ed. by J. C. Atkinson, 3 vols, Chetham Society n.s. IX, xi, xiv (1886-88), 111, 652-53 no. 422; Victoria County History Lancashire, VIII, 389; The Register or Rolls of Walter Gray, ed. by J. Raine, Surtees Society, 56 (1872), 47-48, 161.
12. Early Yorkshire Charters, I, 256, 290‑91, 479, 11, 313, 336, 111, 120, 283, 374, 399, 448; Leiston Abbey Cartulary and Butley Priory Charters, ed. by R. Mortimer, Suffolk Records Society Suffolk Charters, I (1979), pp. 3, 131.
13. Records of Kendale, I, I; Pipe Roll 23 Henry II, Pipe Roll Society, 26 (1905), 123.
14. For Westmorland, omitted from the accounts of the King’s Exchequer before 1173 because of the absence of royal landholding in a county divided between the great baronies of the families of Lancaster and Morville, thereafter accounted for by Glanvill following the seizure of the Morville lands during the civil war of 1173-74, and administered very much at Glanvill’s private command, see J. C. Holt, The Northerners, 2nd edn. (Oxford, 1992), pp. 199-200. In 1171/2, Richard de Morville offered 200 marks to have recognition of his claim to the lands of his wife Avicia, a daughter of William I of Lancaster, perhaps at the time of William I’s death: Pipe Roll 18 Henry II, Pipe Roll Society, 18 (1894), p. 65, and for Avicia, see Furness Coucher Book Volume 2, part 11, 334-38. Richard served as hereditary constable to King William I of Scotland, and together with his brother Hugh undoubtedly participated in the rebellion of 1173-74 against Henry II. Hugh faced forfeiture of his Westmorland barony of Burgh-by-Sands and Appleby, and, in August 1175, Richard was delivered up as a hostage to Henry II under the terms of the treaty of Falaise. In the same year he was persuaded to pay the outstanding 120 marks of his fine first offered in 1172; Pipe Roll 21 Henry II, Pipe Roll Society, 22 (1897), 10; Chronica Rogeri de Houeden, II, 81, and in general, see G. W. S. Barrow, The Anglo-Norman Era in Scottish History (Oxford, 1980), 70-79. William II of Lancaster may be the William fitz William who in 1176 fined 3 0 marks for a duel against Gospatrick fitz Orm in Westmorland: Pipe Roll 22 Henry II, Pipe Roll Society, 25 (1904), 121, and for Gospatrick fitz Orm, William’s cousin, see The Register of the Priory of St Bees, ed. by J. Wilson, Surtees Society, 126 (1915), 248-49 note.
15. For what follows, the best and most detailed account, not previously employed by historians in England, is that by E. Hubert, Cartulaire des seigneurs de Chateauroux 917-1789 (Chateauroux, 1931), 30 ff, which supplies both a narrative and a full edition of sources.
16. For legal custom here, see J. C. Holt, Colonial England 1066-1215 (London, 1997), 128; J. Yver, ‘Les caracteres originaux du groupe de coutumes de fouest de la France’, Revue Historique de Droit Francais et Etranger, 4th series 30 (1952), 18-79, at pp. 40-41. To this extent, the marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine to Louis VII in 113 7 can no longer be regarded as the legitimate exercise of the rights of the French King Louis VI to serve as guardian of Eleanor following the death of her father Duke William X: J. Martindale, `Eleanor of Aquitaine’, Richard Coeur de Lion in History and Myth, ed. by J. L. Nelson (London, 1992), p. 28.
17. Cartulaire de Chateauroux, pp. 31-34.
18. For Plantagenet administration in Berry, see J. Boussard, Le Gouvernement d’Henri II Plantagenet (Paris, 1956), pp. 21-23, 304 n., 328-29. For the Capetian acquisition of Bourges, see G. Devailly, `Comment les Capetiens sont devenus maitres du Berry’, Cahiers d’Archeologie et d’Histoire du Berry, v (1966), 9-21. For Henry II’s negotiations with the canons of Bourges, see Recueil des Actes de Henri II roi d’Angleterre et duc de Normandie concernant les provinces francaises et les affaires de France, ed, by L. Delisle and E. Berger, 3 vols (Paris, 1916-27), n, no. 538.
19. For La Marche, purchased in December 7177 from count Adalbert V in return for 6000 marks to assist Adalbert in a projected expedition to the Holy Land, see W. L. Warren, Henry II (London, 1973), 146-47, 585, and for its administration, see N. Vincent, ‘Isabella of Angouleme: John’s Jezebel’, King John: New Interpretations, ed. S. Church (Woodbridge, 1999), p. 170.
20. Cartulaire de Chateauroux, p. 34; Warren, Henry II pp. 145‑46.
21. Chronica Rogeri de Houedene, II, 101; Charters of the Redvers Family and the Earldom of Devon, 1090-1217, ed. by R. Bearman, Devon and Cornwall Record Society n.s., 37 (1994), 13 and note.
22. Charters of the Redvers Family, p. 13, which supplies the date of Baldwin’s death
23. For the background here, which involved French interventions in disputes between Henry’s son Richard and the count of Toulouse, see Warren, Henry II, pp. 613-15.
24. Warren, Henry II, pp. 615-19; Cartulaire de Chateauroux, pp. 34-35, including an account of the so‑called `miracle of Deols’, in which a stone thrown by one of the Platagenet soldiers at an image of the Virgin Mary returned to earth covered in blood. The image was thereafter proclaimed as a wonder-working relic.
25. Warren, Henry II, pp. 617-20.
26. Ibid., pp. 621-26.
27. For an account of the auction, in which the Histoire’s eventual editor, Paul Meyer, let slip the opportunity to buy the manuscript, see L’Histoire de Guillaume le Marechal, ed. by P. Meyer, 3 vols (Paris, 1891-1901), in, pp. cxxxiii-iv. A new edition of the Histoire is currently being prepared under the supervision of Professors Tony Holden and David Crouch.
28. Histoire, I, 263-64 II, 7289-7318. William of Lancaster was dead by Michaelmas 1184, at which time the King’s sheriff answered for his men: Pipe Roll 30 Henry II, Pipe Roll Society, 33 (1912), 37. For modern retellings of this period of the Marshal’s life, see the two outstanding biographies by S. Painter, William Marshal: Knight-Errant, Baron, and Regent of England (Baltimore, 1933), 61 ff, and D. Crouch, William Marshal: Court, Career and Chivalry in the Angevin Empire 1147-1219, (London, 1990), 53 ff. Painter (p. 61) dates the Marshal’s return from Crusade to the spring of 1187. Crouch (p. 53) prefers a date in the spring of 1186. In fact, as the grant of Cartmel, considered below, makes plain, William could have returned as early as the spring of 1185. For the King’s movements, see R. W. Eyton, Court, Household and Itinerary of King Henry II (London, 1878), 263 ff. A revised itinerary of Henry II has been prepared under my direction by Dr Judith Everard and will eventually form part of my forthcoming edition of the King’s letters and charters, sponsored by the British Academy and by Trinity College Cambridge.
29 London, British Library MS Additional 37770 (Fountains cartulary) fol. 216; Calendar of Charter Rolls 1327-41 pp. 225-26 337; Delisle, Recueil des Actes de Henri II, 11, no. 672; Calendar of Patent Rolls 1461-7, pp. 376-78, and see below. The charter of Henry II printed as Delisle, Recueil des Actes, it, no. 481, witnessed by William Marshal and dated at Rouen, is a forgery.
30. For the charter issued at Geddington, see Eyton, Itinerary, p. 285. The charter issued at Woodstock: London, Public Record Office C115/Li/6689 (Llanthony cartulary) fol. 217(194), also in ibid. C115/K1/6681 fols. 229-30, confirming an exchange made by Margaret de Bohun, can probably be dated after January 1188 on the basis of Margaret’s own charter: `Charters of the Earldom of Hereford, 1095-1201′, ed. by D. Walker, Camden Miscellany XXII, Camden 4th series, I (1964), 62-63 no. 105. The charter dated at Kempsey: Calendar of Charter Rolls 1327-1341, p. 337, can be dated c. March 1188, after the recognition of Ranulph as Earl of Chester, for which see English Episcopal Acta V11: Hereford 1079-1234, ed. by J. Barrow (Oxford, 1993), p. 315.
31. For his attestation to a charter of Henry 11 issued at Ballon near Le Mans, almost certainly on to June 1189, when the court is known to have been established there, see Delisle and Berger, Recueil des Actes de Henri II, 11, no. 765; Histoire, I, 302 lines 8361-71.
32. Histoire, I, 264-65, lines 7319-58, esp. 7354-55: Ne voil de ce creistre mon conte, fors qu’il prist le Chastel Raol.
33. Painter, William Marshal, p. 61.
34. Eyton, Itinerary, 286-89.
35. Histoire, I, 296-98 lines 8217-8254, esp. 8248-49, as retold by Painter, William Marshal, pp. 65-66.
36. J. H. Round, `The Introduction of Knight Service into England’, in Round, Feudal England (London, 1895), 303-05.
37. For the best modem account of the introduction of military quotas, demonstrating that the process was not haphazard or pre-Norman, but was masterminded by the Conqueror and his immediate successors, see J. C. Holt, `The Introduction of Knight Service into England’, Anglo-Norman Studies, vi (1983), 89-rob, repr. in Holt, Colonial England, pp. 81-101.
38. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum: the Acta of William I 1066-1087, ed. by D. Bates (Oxford, 1998), pp. 449-52. no. 131.
39 Calendar of Charter Rolls 1257-1300, p. 143, with discussion by T. K. Keefe, Feudal Assessments and the Political Community under Henry II and His Sons (Berkeley, 1983), pp. 60-61.
40. The Historical Works of Master Ralph de Diceto, ed. by W. Stubbs, 2 vols, Rolls Series (1876), u, pp. lxxix-Lxxx: summoneatis etiam omnes illos qui debent nobis seruicium militis in Anglia … quod scilicet non grauent se multitudine militum, nec aliquis plures adducat quam vii. ad plus, as drawn to my attention by Michael Prestwich.
41. For these new, reduced quotas, see especially I.J. Sanders, Feudal Military Service in England (Oxford, 1956), pp. 59-90, 139-54; J. C. Holt, introduction to `Prestita Roll 14-18′, in Pipe Roll 17 John, ed. by R. A. Brown and J. C. Holt, Pipe Roll Society n.s., 37 (1964), 81-82, and for further examples, see N. Vincent, `A Roll of Knights Summoned to Campaign in 1213′, Historical Research, 66 (1993), 89-97, esp. 96-97.
42. For Philip, see Holt introduction to `Prestita Roll 14-18 John’, 81; I.J. Sanders, English Baronies (Oxford, 1960), p. 67.
43. Vincent, `Roll of Knights’, p. 97.
44. W. Stubbs, Select Charters, ed. by H. W. C. Davis, 9th edn (Oxford, 1921), p. 282.
45. Rotuli Litterarum Patentium, ed. by T. D. Hardy (London, 1835), p. 55, also in Stubbs, Charters, pp. 275-77. As noted by Stubbs, in 1157 Henry II is said to have commanded every two knights in the realm to equip a third knight to fight against the French, prefiguring the scheme of 1205 by nearly half a century. A similar scheme, for every nine knights to equip a tenth, is said to have been proposed by Richard I in 1197, for service in Normandy: The Chronicle of Jocelin of Brakelond, ed. by H. E. Butler (London, 1949), pp. 85-86, 154-55. For the subsequent history of feudal quotas, see M. Prestwich, War, Politics and Finance under Edward I (London, 1972), ch. 3, esp. pp. 78-82. I am grateful to David Carpenter and to Michael Prestwich for discussion on these points, and for various additional references.
46. Sanders suggests that there is no evidence of the military service of Kendal before 1199, by which time the barony answered for two fees: Sanders, Baronies, 57 n. In fact, a return inserted into The Red Book of the Exchequer, ed. by H. Hall, 3 vols, Rolls Series (1896), I, 444-45, which must date after 1189, although included amongst the returns to the enquiry of 1166, refers to 2 knights’ fees, specifying their extent.
47. Curia Regis Rolls of the Reigns of Richard I, John and Henry III, 18 vols (London, 1922-), v, 93.
48. The Lancashire Pipe Rolls and Early Lancashire Charters, ed. by W. Farrer (Liverpool, 1902), pp. 343-44.
49. Ibid., pp. 341-42, 344-45.
50. Pipe Roll 34 Henry II, Pipe Roll Society, 38 (1925), 50.
51. Lancashire Pipe Rolls, 69-70 n. 342 n.
52. Records of Kendale, I, 131, 383 no. II, from an original charter still amongst the muniments of Mrs Hornyold‑Strickland at Sizergh Castle, Book of Charters fol. I no. 3, witnessed by Thomas fitz Gospatrick, Gilbert of Lancaster, Roger de Croft, Roger fitz Adam, Henry fitz Norman, Geoffrey of Preston, Geoffrey fitz Robert, William Waleran, Matthew Gemet, William de Kettovilla, Richard fitz Alard, William de Bevilla, and Gamellus the forester; sealed on a tag, tag and seal impression missing. For the beneficiary, Gervase de Aincourt, see The Register of the Priory of Wetheral, ed. by J. E. Prescott, Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society Record Series, I (1897), 339 n. 6. I am extremely grateful to Mrs Hornyold‑Strickland and her family for permitting me to consult their remarkable collection of early deeds.
53. For Geoffrey and William, see Crouch, William Marshal, pp. 196-97.
54. Histoire, I, 338, li.9380-84.
55. Levens Hall, MS of C. H. Bagot Esq., Box 12, no.4 (Register of Charters) fol. 791, printed in Lancashire Pipe Rolls, 395; Records of Kendale, I, 378 no. 3, witnessed by Geoffrey Plantagenet the chancellor, William Marshal, and Richard du Hommet.
56. As noted by Crouch, William Marshal, pp. 56-57 n.
57. London, British Library MS Additional Charter 11233, noticed (although misdated to 1185) by J.-N. Mathieu, `Recherches sur les premiers comtes de Dammartin’, Paris et Ile-de-France, Memoires publies par la Federation des Societes Historiques et Archeologiques de Paris et de Ile-de-France, 47 (1996), 55-56, witnessed at Chinon by Geoffrey Plantagenet the chancellor, J. abbot of Keur (unidentified), William Marshal, Maurice de Craon, Richard du Hommet, Robert de Breteuil, Baldwin de Bethune, Walter (?recte Gilbert) Pipard, and Gilbert fitz Reinfrey. Of these, the chancellor, the Marshal, Maurice de Craon, Baldwin de Bethune, Gilbert Pipard, and Gilbert Fitz Reinfrey are all referred to in the Histoire as having been present during Henry II’s final days: Histoire, I, 336-39. II. 9307, 9348, 9361, 9378 9380. Two further charters, also given at Chinon, in favour of Walter the doorkeeper, may date from this same occasion, witnessed by various of the above, and by Gerard Talbot, Robert Tresgoz and William dean of Mortain: Delisle and Berger, Recueil des Actes de Henri II, II, nos 739-40. William the dean, alias William de Ste-Mere-Eglise, was undoubtedly with the King on 3 July: Eyton, Itinerary, p. 296.
58. Histoire, I, 339, II.9389-90.
59. Cockersand Cartulary III, part 2, p. 1025, without witnesses, and see p. 1037. Mansergh goes unmentioned in surveys of feudal service until 1303, when land there was held from William son of Margaret de Ros, heiress to parts of the baronies of Skelton and Kendal: Lancashire Inquests, Extents and Feudal Aids 1205-1307, ed. by W. Farrer, Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 48 (1903), 311-12, no. 86, and for Margaret de Res, see Sanders, Baronies, 57, 77-78.
60. In witness lists, William appears with the title Earl as early as 1197, but there is no evidence for his own use of the tide before 1199: Crouch, William Marshal, pp. 77-8; L. Landon, The Itinerary of King Richard I, Pipe Roll Society n.s., 13 (193 5), 121-22; The Complete Peerage, ed. by G. E. Cockayne, rev. by V. Gibbs and others, 12 vols in 13 (London, 1910-57), x, 359-60. At least one William Marshal, referred to in the Cockersand Cartulary 1, part 2, pp. 325-26, married to Matilda the neice of Geofrey fitz Alan of Stalmine (for whom see ibid. I, part 1, pp. too, 104), is clearly to be distinguished from the later Earl of Pembroke. However, Stalmine, on the Wyre, lies many miles from Mansergh, so that we may well be dealing with two distinct Marshals, of Stalmine and of Mansergh. For Stalmine and its tenants, holding in thanage from the King, see Lancashire Inquests, p. 47.
61. Pipe Roll 34 Henry II, p. 21.
62. Histoire de Marechal, I, 338-39, II. 9374-90. For the relations between Baldwin de Bethune and the Marshal, see Crouch, William Marshal, pp. 158-59. The Histoire (I, 338-39 Il. 9386-9405) states that an heiress previously held by Gilbert fitz Reinfrey was to be awarded to Reginald fitz Herbert. Reginald was a younger son of the Hampshire knight Herbert fitz Herbert (d. 1204), tenant-in-chief in Wiltshire and Berkshire, and undertenant of various honours including the bishopric of Winchester, for whom see Winchester College Muniments nos. 10632-35, 10643; The Cartularies of Southwick Priory, ed. by K. A. Hanna, z vols, Hampshire Record Series, 9-10 (1988-89), II, 60 no. 191; Red Book, I, 199, 205, 207, 246, 291, 306-07; Sanders, Baronies, pp. 8-9. At Michaelmas 1190, Reginald fitz Herbert proferred Cioo for the Wiltshire manors of Calstone Wellington and Stanton FitzBernard, and Herbert fitz Herbert too marks for the inheritance of his wife: Pipe Roll 2 Richard I, Pipe Roll Society n. s., 1 (1925), 121. Reginald’s debt was transferred to his father at Michaelmas 1192 (Pipe Rolls 3-4 Richard 1, Pipe Roll Society n.s., 11 (1926), 282-83; Pipe Roll 5 Richard I, Pipe Roll Society n.s., III (1927), 80), by which time we can assume that Reginald was dead. The references in 1190 to the lands of Herbert fitz Herbert’s wife relate to the belated recognition of Lucy, Herbert’s wife, as coheiress to her father Miles of Gloucester Earl of Hereford, for which see `Charters of the Earldom of Hereford’, ed. by Walker, 3, 52-53 no. 89.
63. Records of Kendale, I, 2-3, 378-81.
64. Histoire I 338-40 esp. l. 9392-9432. For the kinship between the King and Andrew de Chauvigny, the son of Haois, the aunt of Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife of Henry II and mother of Richard I, see H. & J. Hubert, `L’origine de la parente entre la famille de Chauvigny et les Plantagenets’ Revue du Berry et du Centre (1927), part 2, 38-40. A seventeenth-century genealogy of the lords of Chauvigny (Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale MS Franqais 16789 fol. 37) presents a mythical account, in which Ralph de Deols was married to a sister of Henry II, so that Andrew de Chauvigny’s bride was Henry II’s niece.
65. For the award of Luton (Bedfordshire), Wantage (Berkshire), and Norton (Suffolk), early in Richard’s reign, c. Easter 1190, see London, Public Record Office MS C52/29 no. 27; Pipe Roll 2 Richard I, 31, 138. For Baldwin’s marriage, before 29 September 1195, to Hawise the Heiress of Aumale, see Complete Peerage, I, 353-54.
66. Histoire, I, 310-3.
67. Hubert, Cartulaire de Chateauroux, pp. 35-39.
68. Ibid., 39; W.L. Warren, King John (London, 1961), pp. 77-79.
69. Histoire des ducs de Normandie et des rois d’Angleterre, ed. by F. Michel (Paris, 1840), p. 95, drawn to my attention by Daniel Power, and contradicting the claim by Hubert, Cartulaire de Chateauroux, p. 39, that Andrew was amongst those murdered at Rouen. On 30 August 1202, within a few days of the seizure of Mirebeau, Andrew was promised a truce for his men and lands pending his release from captivity: Rotuli Litterarum Patentium, 17 b. He must have died shortly afterwards, being succeeded by William his son. For a charter of Andrew, Denise, and William de Chauvigny as lords of Chateauroux, dated 1202, perhaps after Andrew’s release, see Paris, Archives Nationales MS L987b no.15bis. Denise, who was pregnant at the time of Andrew’s death, rendered homage to the archbishop of Tours for the fees she held from him before April 1203, and by 1205 had remarried William Count of Sancerre: Cartulaire de l’archeveche de Tours, ed. by L. de Grandmaison, 2 vols Memoires de la Societe Archeologique de Touraine, 37-38 (1892-94), I, 196-98 nos. 72-73.
70. M. D. Legge, `William the Marshal and Arthur of Brittany’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 55 (1982), 18-24, with reservations expressed by Crouch, William Marshal, pp. 82-83.
This article was first published in Archives: The Journal of the British Records Association v.25 n.102 (April 2000). We thank Nicholas Vincent and The British Records Association for giving their permission to republish this article.
