| Held at: | Internet |
| Reference: | https://archive.org/ |
| Source: | Original Publication |
| Title: | Digital Archive: The History of Ewias Harold, its Castle, Priory and Church, by Rev. AT Bannister MA |
| Place name: | Golden Valley |
| Date: | 1902 |
Description:
THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD, ITS CASTLE, PRIORY, AND CHURCH, WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND AN APPENDIX CONTAINING TRANSLATIONS OF MANY OF THE MSS. (LATIN AND NORMAN-FRENCH), ON WHICH THE HISTORY IS BASED.
BY
THE REV. A. T. BANNISTER, MA
(VICAR OF EWIAS HAROLD).
PRINTED BY JAKEMAN & CARVER,
THE BIBLE AND CROWN PRESS, 4 AND 5, HIGH TOWN. HEREFORD :
MDCCCCII.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I . The Silures and the Romans.
CHAPTER II . The English in Ewias.
CHAPTER III . Earl Ralph and the First Castle of Ewias.
CHAPTER IV . William Fitz-Osbern and the re-building of the Castle.
CHAPTER V . Ewias in Domesday.
CHAPTER VI . Harold of Ewias.
CHAPTER VII . The Tregoz Lords of Ewias.
CHAPTER VIII . The Custom of the March.
CHAPTER IX . The Lands of Ewias.
CHAPTER X . The Priory of Ewias.
CHAPTER XI . The Abbey of Dore.
CHAPTER XII . The Cartulary of the Priory.
CHAPTER XIII . The Suppression of the Priory.
CHAPTER XIV . Village life in the middle ages.
CHAPTER XV . The War of Owen Glyndwr.
CHAPTER XVI . The Church and the Vicarage.
CHAPTER XVII . Ewias in the Civil War.
CHAPTER XVIII . The later history of Ewias.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
| The Arms of Harold of Ewias, and of Tregoz . . . | On Cover (in Colours).
|
| Ground Plan of the Castle ... | Frontispiece.
|
| The Castle Hill ... | To face Chapter III.
|
| Tomb of Robert de Ewias, Abbeydore … | To face Chapter VI.
|
| Tomb of Clarissa Tregoz, in St. Michael's Church … | To face Chapter VII.
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| Abbeydore Church … | To face Chapter XI.
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| The Village of Ewias Harold from the Castle Hill … | To face Chapter XIV.
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| Owen Glyndwr's Tower, Kentchurch Court … | To face Chapter XV.
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| St. Michael's Church, Ewias Harold … | To face Chapter XVI.
|
LIST OF NOTES IN THE APPENDIX.
A. Chief authorities for the history of Ewias.
B. The origin of the name Ewias.
C. Roman remains in Ewias.
D. The parentage of Earl Ralph.
E. Pentecost's Castle.
F. Harold's camp in " Straddele."
G. The Castle mound.
H. The Customs of the Welsh in Domesday.
I. Genealogical table of the House of Ewias.
J. Knights' fees of Robert of Ewias and of Robert de Tregoz.
K. Account of the family of St. Thomas Cantilupe, by his sister.
L. List of the Lords Marchers in 1277.
M. Law suits between the Lords of Ewias and their tenants.
N. References to Ewias in the " Inquisitions post-mortem."
O. Deed of I Henry IV. to Sir Philip Vache.
P. The Court of the Marches.
Q. Survey of a Manor tempore Edward I.
R. The Herefordshire lands of Ewias in 1300.
S. The Wiltshire fees of Ewias in 1 300.
T. Division of the Ewias lands in 1300.
U. Harold's grant to the Priory of Ewias.
V. The lands of Dore Abbey.
W. The " Red Book of Ewias."
X. Delimitation of the Vicarage, from the Cartulary.
Y. Heliston and Pontrilas.
Z. Terrier of Ewias Harold Parish in 1772.
AA. The Plunderings of the Scotch.
BB. The Trust Deed of the School.
CC. The Priors and Vicars of Ewias Harold.
DD. Abbey Dore and Bacton.
THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
THE SILURES AND THE ROMANS.
PERHAPS one of the most interesting as it certainly is one of the prettiest tracts of country in England is that network of hills, and valleys, and streams which stretches to the North-East of the Black Mountains, as far as the Golden Valley " Ewyas lond qu'est terre marche adjoinant al dite Countee de Hereford" as it is described when first mentioned in the Parliament Rolls. It is a land to rejoice the heart of an antiquary, and to hold the fancy of a poet, since from the earliest times it has been the scene of fierce border-fights, and still can shew, in ruined castle and pre-historic mound, the wrecks of these forgotten wars. It is some account of this district or rather of one portion of it, the Lordship of Ewias Harold that I, greatly daring, now venture to set forth, though I am neither antiquary nor poet, but merely one who, living day by day among the hills and streams of Ewias land, has come under its spell; and, in the spare moments of a busy life, I have strung together these fragments of its story. The name itself, Ewias or Ewyas as it begins to be spelt in the i3th century need not detain us, as all attempts to explain it are purely conjectural. The really competent scholars to whom I have applied confess that they have no idea of the derivation of the name, though they all think it is Celtic, or possibly pre-Celtic. We may, therefore, leave such ingenious theorists as love to draw over-definite conclusions from insufficient premisses to decide as they please the question whether Ewias means “Vale of the yew-trees" or one of the half-dozen other purely conjectural interpretations of the word. For the true origin of the name of Ewias is lost, probably beyond all possibility of recovery.
1 i See Appendix, Note B.
2 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
In the earliest days of which anthropological and archaeological investigations give us any knowledge, this land of Ewias, like the rest of Herefordshire, and several of the surrounding shires, was inhabited by the Silures, whom the history-books of our nursery days used to call " a tribe of Ancient Britons." We now know, however, that they were not Britons at all, if by Britons we mean the old Celtic inhabitants of Britain, who spoke a language akin to modern Welsh. They were the remains of a pre-Celtic race, who came into England in a distant age, when as yet a broad bridge of land connected what is now the island of Great Britain with the mainland of France and Belgium. So far from being Celts, they were not even Aryans. They were akin to the people whose type still predominates in the east, centre, and south of Spain, and are therefore often called Iberian : some use the term " Euskarian," from the proper name of the Pyrenean people and language that we call Basque, whose prevailing type however is not quite the same. It is this pre-Celtic race, and not the " Ancient Britons," whose remains we dis-inter when the long mounds, or barrows, which are especially frequent in Herefordshire, are opened. They were a short, dark race, speaking, as we said, a non-Aryan tongue, and sharply marked off from their later conquerors, the Celtic Britons, by the elongated form of their heads, the back part of the skull being much prolonged. From this feature the race is called by anthropologists " dolicho-cephalic " or long-headed. They were an agricultural and pastoral people, who had learned to make pottery and cloth, but still only used stone implements, which, however, they fashioned most beautifully, and highly polished. This race was scattered, in little independent settlements, all over England, probably for many centuries. Then, at an unknown period after Britain had been severed from the Continent, a new race, tall, stalwart, broad-headed, and harsh- featured, made its way across the sea into the island. They were almost certainly of fair complexion, and are believed to have spoken a Gaelic dialect of the Celtic language ; but it is just possible that this was not introduced until the arrival of the next succeeding wave of conquerors. They had learned on the Continent the method of making bronze weapons, and, thus armed, they soon subdued the dark, long-headed race, with their stone hatchets and wooden clubs, In parts of Southern Britain the Silures, protected by their hills, seem to have kept more or less of independence ; and ethnologists still trace, in the dark complexions, long, oval heads, and prominent cheek-bones, which are exceptionally common amongst the men of Herefordshire, the remnants of this pre-historic stock. Gradually, however, the Silurians adopted from the dominant race their Celtic language, manners, and customs ; the fair or red-haired Celt, and the dark-haired Silurian slowly coalesced, but always with the Celt as master. This Celtic invasion was in at least two distinct
THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 3
waves the Goidelic and the Brythonian. The Goidelic-Celts had already estab- lished themselves as masters of the whole of Britain, when their Brythonic kinsmen followed them from the Continent. A bitter struggle between the two kindred races followed, and the superior might of the Brythons drove the Goidelic-Celts to associate more and more intimately with their subject Iberians. Hence the Silurians of Herefordshire, when the Roman legions under Ostorius Scapula came against them, probably represented the old Iberian stock slightly admixed from Goidelic inter-marriages ; and curiously enough, in the last long fight with Rome, they were led by the great Brythonic chief, Caractacus ; who, after fighting thirty battles against the ever victorious legions, had taken refuge with the western tribes he had once dreamed of subduing and welding into a united Britain under Brythonic supremacy. It may well be that Iberian warriors from the hills and valleys of Ewias helped to throw up that great range of earthworks on the Malvem Hills, which probably marks the first line of defence against the advance of Ostorius, or fought in that last desperate battle near the head waters of the Wye, of which we read in Tacitus. Before the year 78 A.D. Frontinus had crushed the long and bitter resistance of the Silures, and from the important station of Ariconium, at Weston-under-Penyard, he commanded the whole district from the Forest of Dean to the Banks of the Usk. The tribesmen who had not been slain were pressed for road-makers, and a long straight cause-way was built across the land of Ewias, carrying the great road from Kenchester to Abergavenny, of a strength and solidity which must have astonished the poor Silurians. A portion of this road is still to be traced, within two miles of the present village of Ewias Harold. The tattooed barbarians of Ewias and the Doyer valley must have wondered at the magnitude of the " Street," at the making of which their taskmasters compelled them to toil. But in time they saw " stations " springing up along the line. Traces are even yet to be seen of strongly-fortified Roman posts at Longtown and at Oldcastle in Ewias ;* and everywhere within reach of the road, Roman villas, built of stone, and decorated with mosaics and frescoed walls, rose on the sunny hill-sides. Iron-works were opened or extended in the Forest of Dean, and traders introduced new arts and new commodities, whilst Italian stewards organised new methods of agriculture. Lastly the strange new religion of the Christ came along the road to our Ewias valleys. For more than 300 years the land lay under foreign masters, much as India now is, under English rule. The Roman sternly kept the peace between the tribes-
i See Appendix, Note C.
4 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
men ; he introduced the arts and luxuries of civilization ; but he never mixed with the subject race. Exactly as the Englishman to-day holds himself apart from the native Hindoo, so to the last the Roman held himself apart from the native Silurians. Living as serfs in the wretched huts which clustered round his villa on the hill-side, they only tilled his land, and kept in order his great road. He learned probably sufficient of their Celtic tongue to give his orders ; but they for their part learned nothing of his Latin speech, save, here and there, the name of his strange new works, the " Street " and the " Chester," or Stationery Camp of the Legions.
THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
THE ENGLISH IN EWIAS.
DURING the centuries of unbroken peace under Roman rule the material wealth of the province of Britain had steadily grown. But the despotic system of the Roman government had crushed out all the vigour 'of the native tribes. Men had forgotten how to fight for the country which was no longer theirs. Hence when, in 41 1. Rome recalled her legions from Britain, the English from Schleswig-Holstein the " sea-wolves that live on the pillage of the world," as a Roman poet of that day called them, raided the coasts for years, and finally conquered and settled in the land, mercilessly wearing down the Celts through two centuries of bitter warfare. By the year 600 Britain had become England, the land, that is not of Celtic Britons, but of Teutonic Englishmen. The English settlers on the border-land marked as yet by the Severn stream bore the name of " Mercians," men, that is, of the March or Border-land. Beyond the Severn however the Welsh lived undisturbed as yet The district of Ewias was even then known by its present name. And the Liber Landavensis gives us some curious pictures of life in Ewias, in the 5th and 6th centuries. King Clydawg, we read, was " King in Ewias, a man of holy life, with the palm of carnal chastity, who became a martyr through his virtue, being killed, innocent as a lamb, near the Mynwy (Monnow) while he was waiting for the meeting of the hunters and meditating with great devotion on sacred subjects." His friends, having joined oxen to the carriage, began to take away the body from the place. But the oxen could not move the carriage onward ; the yokes broke, and afterwards ropes and chains. The people therefore, recognizing the will of God, buried him on the spot, and built an oratory there, where miracles soon began to be wrought at the grave of the blessed martyr. The surrounding land, called Merthyr Clydawg (now Clodock), was devoted to God "as an island placed in the sea, free from every service and without an inheritor ; and with refuge according to the will of the refugee, without limit and as long as he should choose to remain." A certain rich man in Ewias, Ithael, son of Eddilwyrth, having defrauded the shrine of St. Clydawg of a meadow, was paralysed, until at the sepulchre of the holy martyr, he yielded up the meadow, and " with promise of future amendment of life, in fasting and prayer and almsgiving, he was restored before all the people, and returned thanks and praises to God for his recovery." This was towards the end of the Sixth Century. Early in the Seventh Century, the new King of Ewias, Erbig, son of ElfTin, " for inscribing 6 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. his name in the Book of Life " granted to St. Dubricius " in the hand of Trychan, Bishop of Llandaff," the village of " Elchon on Dulais " (i.e. Ewias Harold on the river Dulas). This is, as far as I can find, the earliest mention of our village. With the coming of the English Conquerors, the name Elchon was apparently lost, and the district name Ewias alone remained in use. Under Offa whose long reign covers nearly the whole of the second half of the eighth century the Mercian Kingdom became the strongest of the English powers. Beating back the Welsh, Offa secured his new conquest by the great dyke which bears his name. This dyke ran probably some three miles to the East of Ewias, which remained unsubdued for another century. But Archenfield " Yrcinga-felda" as the Saxon Chronicle calls it, converting some corrupted form of " Ariconium " into a typical Teutonic clan-title was annexed to Mercia, though its half-Celtic, half-Iberian inhabitants, were still allowed to hold it, and became in time loyal subjects to the English, bearing arms against their fellow countrymen beyond the dyke. Early in the Tenth Century, however, the English seem to have pushed beyond the dyke, and established themselves in Ewias. It is alike impossible and unprofitable to try to trace out every detail of the border warfare which was always going on along the Mercian frontier. The English Chroniclers scarcely ever con- descend to speak of these endless skirmishes, while the Welsh Chronicles are full of them. And as time passed on we read not merely of incursions of the " Saxons," but much more of the ravages of the " Black Pagans," that is the Danish pirates. These Northmen in 915 harried all Ewias and Archenfield, carrying off as prisoner Camelgeac, the Bishop of Llandaff, who was making the tour of this furthest portion of his Diocese. It may have been this inroad which suggested to the Mercians in Ewias the need of a stronger defence. At any rate within a few years after this irruption of the Northmen, the great mound, on which afterwards was built the Castle of Ewias Harold, was raised, evidently with an immense expenditure of human labour probably, as in the Roman days, the forced labour of the unhappy Ibero- Celts. This mound and its earth-works are of a type not uncommon in the Marches. Very similar works are to be seen at Kilpeck and Builth, Caerleon and Cardiff, Brecon, Abergavenny and other places in the district. They were probably intended to serve the double purpose of places of refuge against Danish inroads, and strong- holds from which the English chiefs could keep the Welsh in check. The first half of the Tenth Century saw the gradual establishment of the West-Saxon rule over all England. Edward the Elder annexed Mercia, and THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 7 Edgar or rather his great minister Dunstan ruled, for seventeen years of glory and prosperity, an England that for the first time was one, never again to be per- manently divided. The subject Kingdoms, Mercia, Northumbria and the rest, were now governed by a Governor-General, or Viceroy, with the title of Ealdorman, or its Danish equivalent Earl. These Earls were appointed by the King and his Council ; they could be removed by the King, and they were responsible to him for the exercise of their authority. But within his Earldom, the Viceroy exercised full royal power. He was not usually removed except for grave reasons, but his office was not hereditary. At his death his son had no claim to succeed him though often, if the family was a powerful one, the King was driven to appoint the son whether he wished to do so or not. The only Earl of Mercia we need here refer to is Leofric, husband of the Lady Godiva of romance, founder and chief benefactor of Leofric's Minster (now Leominster), and many other religious houses. He succeeded his father about 1 030, in what was practically the supreme rule of all the central counties of England. On the accession of Edward the Confessor, in 1042, Herefordshire, with its as yet only half-attached dependencies of Archenfield and Ewias, was severed from Leofric's dominion, and erected into an independent Earldom. This dismemberment was due to the ambition of Godwin, who, through the first ten years of Edward's reign, was king in all but the name, leaving his practical sovereignty at his death to his son Harold. Of the four great Earldoms into which England was divided, Godwin himself held Wessex, his son Harold ruled East Anglia, and now, out of Leofric's Mercia, he carved a new Earldom for his son Sweyn. It was Sweyn's lawlessness and foul crime, which roused an ill-will in his new dominions that mere greed and ambition would not have excited. He first seduced the Abbess of Leominster, and then sent her back with what was, in the eyes of the men of that day, the yet more outrageous demand of her hand in marriage. The outraged religious sentiment of a whole nation called for satisfaction. The Nunnery was dissolved, and Sweyn banished, in 1046. And now appears on the scene one of the leading names connected with our history, Ralph, the father of Harold of Ewias, who, on the banishment of Sweyn, was created Earl of Hereford by the King.
8 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
EARL RALPH AND THE FIRST CASTLE OF EWIAS.
EARL RALPH AND THE FIRST CASTLE OF EWIAS. "/1I7ITH the accession of Edward the Confessor to the English throne, the Norman W Conquest really begins. The son of a Norman mother, carried to Normandy in his childhood, brought up at the Norman court, Edward was a Frenchman in habits, feeling, language, and heart. He was a really good man, but a thoroughly incapable king. His natural place was not on the throne of England, but at the head of a Norman Abbey. Like his father, Ethelred the Unready whose character he reproduced, so far as a good man can reproduce the character of a bad one he was constantly under the dominion of favourites. Naturally, since Normandy was ever the land of his affection, he surrounded himself with companions who came from the beloved land, and spoke its tongue ; and these he enriched with English estates, and invested with the highest offices of the English Kingdom. Chief among these Norman favourites of Edward was his nephew, Ralph, the son of his sister Goda, by her first husband Drogo. 1 Even when, in the reign of Hardicanute, Edward came over to England as a private man, he brought Ralph with him, the fore-runner of the gang of foreigners who were soon to be quartered on the country, and gorged with English wealth and honours. When Edward came to the throne, he sought the first opportunity of promoting his nephew and favourite. The oppor- tunity came in Earl Sweyn's banishment in 1 046. Ralph was appointed in his place as Earl of Herefordshire to which it almost seems that Worcestershire was now added. This was the first appointment of a foreigner to a great temporal office in England. Four years later, however, Sweyn's outlawry was reversed, and he was restored to his Earldom. During the four years of Sweyn's absence the " Normanizing " of Hereford- shire had proceeded apace. Among the Frenchmen who had flocked after Edward into the land of promise were Richard, son of Scrob, and "Osbern surnamed Pentecost." These each received from Earl Ralph grants of land in his new province, the one in the extreme north of Herefordshire, the other in the outlying district of Ewias. Here they each built for themselves a Castle, after the Norman model, as yet unknown in England. 2 In Ewias, Osbern found the ground plan ready to his hand in the mound and earth-works of the English burh, which had been constructed more than a century earlier, after the great inroad of the Danes. i See Appendix Note D. 2 See Appendix Note E. THE CASTLE HILL. THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 9 On the mound he built his keep, and the earth-works defending the platform of the lower ward he surmounted with a wall. The English writers of this age always speak with horror of the building of castles. 1 To fortify a town, or to build a citadel to protect a town, was an obviously necessary precaution. But for a private land- owner to build a private fortress, that he might lord it over his neighbours, was a thing which the freedom-loving Englishmen had never known as yet. The French favourites were already deeply hated by the English people. But now that these impregnable keeps became a centre of all kinds of oppression " working all the harm and besmear to the King's men there-abouts that they might," as the Peterboro' chronicler puts it the position became intolerable. " Richard's Castle " as the village is still called, though the fortress itself has vanished and the Castle of Ewias were a constant menace to English freedom. Men felt that the time was come to make a stand against the foreign favourites, who swarmed round the puppet King. Sweyn, on his return to his Earldom, found the men of Herefordshire in a state of furious indignation against the garrison of Pentecost's Castle in Ewias, who had committed foul outrages in the neighbourhood. He at once made an attempt to get the grants to Richard, son of Scrob, and to Osbern Pentecost revoked, and, failing in this, appealed to his father. Godwin had another and even greater grievance in the murder of some English citizens at Dover by Eustace of Boulogne (of whom we shall hear once again as over-lord of some at least of the Ewias lands). Gathering after him the men of Wessex, Godwin marched upon Gloucester, de- manding the expulsion of the foreign favourites, and the destruction of Norman castles on English soil. The Earls of Mercia and Northumberland, Leofric and Siward, jealous of the growing power of Godwin and his house, took Edward's side, and, uniting their forces with those of the King, enabled him safely to defy Godwin. Sweyn was once more banished, and Godwin, declining a useless struggle, went into voluntary exile in Flanders (September 1051). The vacant Earldom of Hereford was once again conferred upon Ralph, but he himself was for the present kept in the South-East, in command of a fleet at Sandwich, to watch for a possible return of the exiles in force. Taking advantage of the absence of the Earl, the Welsh invaded Herefordshire. The levies of the county and the Norman garrison of Ewias met them at Leominster. The English and foreign troops failed to act together, and the Welsh King had the victory, "slay- ing many worthy Englishmen, and many of the French," says the Chronicle, markedly omitting to give any honourable epithet to the latter. i For this hatred of castle-building cf. Schiller, WiUulm Tell. I., 3. 10 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. News of this defeat, reaching Godwin in Flanders, encouraged him to attempt to secure his return, if need be, by force of arms. He was satisfied that if he once landed in England, the great majority of Englishmen would side with him rather than with the foreign priests and courtiers who surrounded the King. Gather- ing a fleet, therefore, on the Flemish coast, he sailed for England, but was driven back by a violent storm. Earl Ralph meanwhile had gone out from Sandwich to meet him, and either shirked the battle or failed to find his whereabouts in the storm. This failure roused such discontent among the men-at-arms, that the King removed his nephew from the command of the fleet, which, strangely enough in view of the threatening danger, was disbanded ; or, according to another account, the crews forsook their ships, and returned home, either in disgust at Earl Ralph's incompetence, or from sympathy with Godwin. With that helpless incompetence which always marks him, Edward summoned his favourite to him, and took him with him, at this crisis of their fate, on a hunting expedition in Wiltshire. Godwin, mean- while, joined by a fleet brought by his son Harold from Ireland, sailed into the Thames without opposition, and was hailed by the men of London as a deliverer from the foreign yoke (September, 1052). When he heard that Godwin's fleet was in the Thames, the King, with the Earls Ralph and Odo, and other Norman nobles, hastened to London, which he reached about the same time as Godwin reached it. It seemed as if a battle was inevitable : Godwin had only to give the word, and Earl Ralph, Osbern Pentecost, and all their tribe would have been annihilated by the English warriors, who had fought in every fight since Assandun. But Godwin, wishing to secure a bloodless return, obtained from the King that the matter should be referred to the Witan, to be called together the next day. The result of the meeting was already certain ; Godwin would be restored, and the French favourites banished, or even executed, such was the temper of the people. That night the whole company of Normans, priests and knights alike, mounted their horses and rode for their lives. The Bishops of Canterbury and London got over to France in an old, crazy ship. " Some went north," says the chronicler, " to Robertes Castle, some west to Pentecost's Castle " in Ewias. Next day the expected happened ; Godwin and his sons except Sweyn were restored, and the Norman gang, with a few exceptions, banished. Among the exceptions was Ralph, who was left undis- turbed in his government of Herefordshire the only foreigner who retained an Earldom. But Osbern Pentecost and the friends who had taken refuge with him in the Castle of Ewias were outlawed, one and all. Conscious of guilt, or fearful of popular vengeance, they fled, save only Osbern himself, and a comrade named Hugh, who threw themselves on the mercy of Earl Leofric the Peace-maker of those THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. II unquiet times and surrendered the castle into his hands. With Leofric's safe conduct they passed into Scotland, and took service with King Macbeth. The Castle was dismantled, and the lands that had been Osbern's, including Ewias, were either then or later given to his nephew, Alured of Marlborough, who, at the Conquest, was allowed by William Fitz-Osbern to retain them, and who still held them twenty years later, at the time of the Survey. On the death of Godwin, which took place in the following year, many of the Norman favourites returned, including Richard, son of Scrob, and his son Osbern, who was made Sheriff of Herefordshire. But Osbern Pentecost seems never to have returned. Possibly he died with Macbeth, some six years later, in his last great fight at Dunsinane. The returned exiles, however, were in a far different position than they had been before the outlawry of Godwin. No Norman held any high office during the last thirteen years of Edward's reign, when Harold was King in all but the name. Only Ralph retained his Earldom, owing this exceptional favour to his royal blood, and his position of especial favourite with the King. Indeed he was very widely looked upon as a possible successor to the throne. The King was childless, Ralph was his sister's son, and if Edward's personal inclinations had decided the succession, it certainly would have been Ralph's. But Ralph was a Norman of the Normans, detested by the English, and himself despising them and their ways ; and, more important still, he was, if not the coward men believed him to be, yet at any rate strangely unlucky as a warrior. He was shortly now to prove this in an adventure which won for him the title of " Ralph the Timid." Early in 1055, Alfgar, Earl of the East Angles, was banished for treason. He gathered a force in Ireland and allied himself with Gruffydd, Prince of North Wales. The combined host prepared for a devastating inroad into Herefordshire. Marching through Ewias, they entered Archenfield inhabited, as we shall see in a succeeding chapter, by Welshmen living under English allegiance, and bound to service against their independent brethren and ravaged with special delight the lands of their recreant kinsmen. So thoroughly did they complete their work, that in the Domesday Survey 30 years later, it is mentioned that the effects of this ravaging were still to be seen. Slowly the destroyers advanced north, harrying as they went, until they came within two miles of the City of Hereford. It is worth while here to quote Freeman's word-picture of the city on the Wye, as it was in those days : " By the banks of the Wye rose the Minster, low and massive, but crowned by one or more of those tall, slender towers, in which the rude art of English masons strove to reproduce the campaniles of Northern Italy. Around the Church were gathered the houses of the 12 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. Bishop, the Canons, the citizens, the last at least mainly of wood. Over all rose the square mass of the Norman Donjon, an ominous foreboding of the days which were soon to come." This Donjon had been built by Earl Ralph, for the protection of the town, and from it at last he issued to meet the invading forces of Alfgar and Gruffydd. His army was composed partly of levies from the district, partly of his own French and Norman following. He had, however, insisted on the English being mounted, as were his Normans. Accustomed to fight on foot, the English protested in vain. Ralph despised them and their methods of warfare, and without previous training in the Earl's new continental tactics, a hastily gathered levy was taken into battle mounted on horses brought from the plough, and all unaccustomed to the sights and sounds of battle. The natural consequence followed ; the whole force took to flight before the battle was well begun. The monk of Worcester adds that Ralph himself was the first to fly, a statement which may be due to national dislike. In any case the flight soon became a rout. The active Welsh, though on foot, easily overtook the clumsily-mounted English, of whom some 500 were slain, while of the victors not a man was wounded. Thus Earl Ralph earned his nickname of " Ralph the Timid." The victorious Welshmen entered Hereford the same evening, sacked and set fire to the whole town, slew seven of the Canons as they stood in the great western door of the Cathedral, burned the beautiful building, with all its relics and ornaments, and killed or carried into captivity numbers of the citizens. Even the strong walls of the Citadel were demolished. Laden with rich booty, the Welsh went back to their hills, leaving nothing standing in the town. The saintly Bishop Athelstan, old and blind, died of a broken heart within three months. Blinded by partiality though he was, it was now clear even to King Edward that the defence of the border could no longer be left to his incapable nephew. Harold, Godwin's son, now Earl of the West Saxons, was sent to Hereford to set matters right again. He followed the Welsh into the hills and drove them to take refuge in South Wales. Then he set himself to re-build and strongly to fortify the city of Hereford, which he surrounded with a wall. Two years later (December, 1057) Ralph the Timid died, and was buried in the distant minster of Peterborough, to which he had been a benefactor. He left a young son Harold, who afterwards was to give his name to Ewias. The Earldom of Hereford, however, was added to that of the West Saxons, held, as we have seen, by Harold, son of Godwin, whose great campaign against the Welsh in 1063 is beyond the limits of our history. 1 i See Appendix, Note F.
THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 13
WILLIAM FITZ-OSBERN AND THE RE-BUILDING OF THE CASTLE.
WITHIN six months of his victory over Harold, near Hastings, King William re- turned to Normandy, leaving as his Viceroy William Fitz-Osbern,whom he had created Earl of Hereford (with whom was associated Odo, Bishop of Bayeux). The new Viceroy was the son of that Osborn the Seneschal, who had been the loyal guardian of the infant Duke, and had paid for his fidelity with his life, defending his ward (in 1040) against a treacherous attempt at murder. William never forgot this faithful act of devotion, and adopted his name-sake, Osbern's son, as his familiar friend through life. It was William Fitz-Osbern " the bold of heart " Li filz Osber el cuer hardi, as the Roman de Rou calls him who bade Duke William when the news came of Edward the Confessor's death, and Harold's succession to the throne of England, not mourn, but be up and doing, and wrest the Kingdom from the usurper. Fitz-Osbern's appointment as Earl of Hereford shows the important position the county held in the early years of the Conquerer's reign. Not merely was it the Welsh border, which needed a strong man in command, but the King as yet was King only of the South. Mercia and Northumbria still were unsubdued, and the new Earl of Hereford was to keep watch against the Mercians also. Of his adminis- tration we have two very opposite views in our original authorities. The Norman historian of William paints a glowing picture of the just government of Fitz-Osbern, while the English Chronicler speaks with loathing of his cruelty and oppression. This loathing was increased by the diligence with which the new Viceroy pressed on with the work of castle-building. He had been specially bidden to be diligent in this great work of securing the obedience of the land by the building of castles ; and memories of Osbern Pentecost, and of Richard, son of Scrob, made the men of Herefordshire look with special horror on a castle. And now they saw not merely the hated castle of Pentecost in Ewias re-built, but others like it, planted on every point of vantage along the whole border. Well was it for the new Earl that he lost no time in thus strengthening his defence. For Edric, surnamed by the Normans " The Savage," holding practically all the North of the county, refused submission to the new King. He did not scruple to call in the Welsh, and once again the unhappy districts of Ewias and Archenfield were laid waste, in August, 1067. Only the town of Hereford itself, the Castle of Ewias in the South, and Richard's Castle in the North were held by their Norman garrisons, and that with difficulty ; for it is plain that at one time they were reduced to great straits. On the arrival of Norman reinforcements, the Welsh as usual fled back into their hills. For two or 14 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. three years longer Edric, with the support of his Welsh allies, held out amongst the hills and woods of the border against the new rulers of the land. In 1070, how- ever, he made his submission to the King, and was pardoned, anticipating by only a few months the better known submission of Hereward " the Wake " at Ely. But after the Welsh invasion of 1067, it was only on the far western border that Fitz- Osbern met with opposition. For the four short years during which he held his Earldom, it is not too much to say that he " reigned " over the country from Severn's mouth to Richard's Castle, as the petty sovereign of a feudal principality. Follow- ing the precedent already set in Ewias and Richard's Castle, he divided the whole country-side into " Castelries," organised on the quasi-military system which cha- racterized the Marches for some centuries. From Chepstow to Shrewsbury, along the whole border, there arose in less than two years one continuous chain of fortresses. It is to William Fitz-Osbern, more than to any other man, that we owe the exceptional status of the Lords Marchers. By lavish pay and grants of land, he attracted a large following of Norman Knights, and extended to them and to all Burgesses of Hereford of French birth certain privileges which had been customary in his Norman Lordship of Breteuil " leges et consuetudines qua sunt in Hereford et in Bretuill" says Domesday. The most important of these privileges was that Burgesses of French birth should not be fined more than twelve pence for any offence save three reserved pleas (pacem regis infractam et heinfaram et forestellum). Attracted by these privileges granted to " Francigena burgenses" many Norman adventurers settled on favourable terms in the borough of Hereford. So valuable was this Norman element, or so welcome were the rights conferred by the " Laws of Breteuil," that they spread to many new places in the March, Ludlow, Shrewsbury, Montgomery, and even distant Rhuddlan. Thus gradually arose those " Customs of the March " which two centuries later were pleaded by the Lords Marchers as valid even against the direct orders of King Edward I. in person. Another trace of the short " reign " of William Fitz-Osbern is to be found in the many grants of land in Herefordshire to the two monastic houses that he founded in Normandy, at Cormeille, and at Lyra. To the latter he gave lands near Ewias, at Kentchurch. In 1071 he was called away from the work which he was accomplishing with such wondrous energy as if already he foresaw how short his time was to the war in Flanders, where he lost his life. Such was the reign of the great ruler whom the Conqueror made his nearest personal friend. " Stark man he was and great awe men had of him," says the Chronicler of Duke William : and the same may be truly said of his great name-sake THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 15 and lieutenant, who rebuilt our castle in Ewias Harold, and built another at Ewias Lacy. Of the masonry of the castle of Ewias Harold, scarcely a stone now remains. But the plan can easily be traced. The extremity of a tongue of high land, rising abruptly in the angle where two streams meet, had been already cut off by a ditch, and, by the addition of a mound and an outer circle of earth-works, turned into a.burh in or about 915 A.D. Some time between 1046 and 1051, Osbern Pentecost had built his Norman castle there, which was demolished in 1052 or 1053. In all probability, William Fitz-Osbern and Alured of Marlborough, in rebuilding the castle in 1067, followed the lines of the previous building, adding such improve- ments as the then rapidly advancing science of military architecture had arrived at in the intervening time. The ground plan may be roughly described as a circular platform of about two hundred yards diameter, with a mound sixty or seventy feet high, touching the circumference on the side where the ditch cuts off the castle from the high ground of the original ridge. On this, the weakest side, a couple of towers were placed, to command the approach from the ridge. The keep itself was some thirty yards in diameter, built of the old red sand-stone of the district, and probably many-sided. The ascent from the lower ward to the keep was, it would seem, by a flight of steps. The crescent-shaped platform of the lower ward, strengthened by large earth-banks and encircled by a curtain wall, contained a number of domestic buildings, and a chapel dedicated to St. Nicholas. Some considerable remains of the castle were still standing in Leland's day (about 1550), but before the days of the Civil War as we learn from Richard Symonds the neighbouring farmers had grubbed up even the foundations for building their barns and lime-kilns. One of the latter, hard by the mound, is all that can now be seen of the masonry of the castle. 1 i See Appendix, Note G.
1 6 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
EWIAS IN DOMESDAY.
" A S a historical monument," says Mr. Freeman, " the value of the Domesday [* cannot be over-rated." It gives us a sort of map and picture of England as it was in 1086, at the completion of the Norman Conquest. It sets before us the whole life of the age, with a thousand local and personal details which no chronicler could give. The survey is wonderfully complete ; we are told who held the land when the survey was made, and who held it in the time of King Edward : we are told the number of inhabitants, the extent of the estate, how much was arable land, how much wood, and how much pasture. " So very narrowly he caused it to be traced out," complains the English Chronicler, " that there was not a single hide, nor one yard of land, nor even it is shame to tell, though it seemed to him no shame to do an ox, nor a cow, nor a swine was left that was not set down in his writ." We may obtain a very fair idea of our Ewias Lordship in the time of King William from the following passage, translated from the Herefordshire Survey : "Alured of Merleberge holds the Castle of Ewias from King William. For the King himself granted to him the lands which Earl William [Fitz-OsbernJ, who rebuilt the Castle, had given him, that is five carucates of land in Ewias, and another five carucates at Manetone. The lands pertaining to the Castle, which had belonged to Ralph of Bernai, the King granted to him [i.e. to Alured]. There he has in demesne two carucates, and nine Welshmen with six carucates, paying seven sextaries of honey [each year], and twelve bordarers working [for their Lord] one day a week. There are four Ox-herds, and one other man paying six-pence [each year]. Five Knights, Richard, Gilbert, William, and William and Hernold have five carucates in the demesne and twelve bordarers, and three fisheries, and twenty-two acres of pasture. Two others, William and Ralph, 1 hold two carucates of land. Turstan holds lands bringing in nineteen pence [each year] and Warner lands bringing in five shillings. These have five bordarers. This castelry is worth ten pounds." In trying to make out the full significance of this entry, let us begin by explaining a few of the terms. A carucate, usually called in the days of the Confessor " a hide," is "as much land as was sufficient to be cultivated by one plough," and is generally taken to be equal to one hundred and twenty acres. This was supposed to be the amount necessary for the support of one tenement. None of this land was i It is possibly from this Ralph that the parish of Rowlstone derives its name. In the earlier references to it, Rowlstone is always called " Villa Radulphi," i.e. Ralph's or Raoul's town. THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 17 inclosed, save here and there a few acres of meadow, mowed for hay. The great stretches of arable were divided into narrow strips, a furlong in length and some two perches in breadth, separated by turf-balks. (The furlong or furrow-long is " the distance which a team of oxen can conveniently plough without coming to rest "). The holding of each tenant was made up of one or more score of these strips, scattered about in the three huge plots into which the estate was divided. One of these plots lay fallow every year, another grew a crop of corn, and the third was planted with vetches, beans, or peas. The lands of the manor or castelry consisted of the demesne lands, or home farm, the lands held by free tenants, and the lands held by villans or bordarers : the difference between these two seems to have consisted mainly in the amount of land they held. The villans, corresponding to the Saxon ceorls, were the most important class of unfree tenants, holding perhaps thirty acres, scattered about in the way we have described. The bordarers were cottagers who held from one to ten acres. Both of these, in return for their holdings, gave their lord a certain number of days' work in each year on his home farm, which was entirely cultivated by this unfree labour. As money became more plentiful, and its use crept even into the country districts, the practice of commutation of service began, the villans paying money instead of their services. (In reading of money payments, we must constantly keep in mind that money was at the time of the Conquest more than thirty times its present value). They were not, however, farmers in the true sense of the word, a farmer being originally that particular villan who held his land on condition of being bound to supply feorm i.e. food and entertainment to the non-resident lord when he visited the manor. All lands whatever were held ultimately from the King himself, who granted them in fee to his tenants in capite, the greater barons, who rendered military service in return. These barons sub-let their land to others. These, keeping a portion in their own hands as a home farm in demesne as it is called let out the rest, some in " Knights-fees," to Knights rendering military service for forty days each year : some to free tenants, socmen or yeomen, paying in service, or in kind, or in money": some to villans and " bordarers " (i.e. dwellers in boarded huts or cottages) paying in service. Coming now to the castelry of Ewias, we find that Alured l of Marlborough kept some two hundred and forty acres as his home farm, the land immediately round the castle, where now is the village of Ewias Harold. This was worked by the unfree service of twelve " bordarers " working each one day a week. (It would seem that the Lord of Ewias let off his " bordarers " on easy terms, for usually they i Alured is a Norman-French proper name corresponding to the Old English Alfred, our modern Alfred. 1 8 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. rendered two days and sometimes three days a week.) The rest of his land Alured let out on varying tenures. The land nearest to the home farm, called actually in demesne in the Survey, he let out to five knights, whose names are given, on a strictly military tenure. These also had twelve " bordarers " to work their land. Other lands possibly the distant portions at Manetone were held by William, Ralph, Turstan, and Warner, who were free tenants or Socmen unless William and Ralph were knights, for the wording of this passage is somewhat ambiguous and they had five " bordarers." This land of Manetone was situated " in valli Stradelie"^ now called the Golden Valley. Manetone had been seized soon after the Conquest by Ralph of Bernai, one of the most unscrupulous of the Norman adventurers who swarmed into the borderland. He seems at one time to have been Sheriff of Here- fordshire. Whether as Sheriff or as a private adventurer, he laid unjust hands on all he could, sparing not even the Church. He carried out a series of systematic aggres- sions on the lands of the monastery of Worcester, which spoliation, later on, his heir compounded for by giving a portion to a Norman religious house. Most of his unjustly acquired lands in Manetone, however, the King took from him, and restored to the Lordship of Ewias, though as we find from a later entry in the Survey Ralph got back one carucate, which he is expressly stated to have taken unjustly (abstulit injuste). Quite apart from the other tenants scarcely indeed bound to the Lordship at all, save for the annual quit-rent of honey were the nine Welshmen, who shared seven hundred and twenty acres between them. They, like their kinsmen in Archen- field, lived under laws and customs of their own, sanctioned by the King himself, and written at length in the Survey. 2 These Welshmen of the Border lived under English allegiance, and were bound to military service against their independent brethren. Indeed, they claimed the right, in any expedition into Wales, to form the van in the march, and the rear in the retreat. They neither understood nor were interested in the English system of local government by Shire-Mote and Hundred-Mote, which was fitfully at work even in these unsettled border districts. And a fine of two shillings, or an ox, was imposed on them if they were not represented in these little local parliaments. They paid their dues entirely in honey, of which large quantities were always needed for making the mead, or sweetened beer, in which our forefathers delighted. The bordarers no villans are mentioned as holding land in Ewias were also probably of Ibero-Celtic race, though with some English admixture ; but they had passed completely under the dominion of the Norman lords, whilst those i See Appendix, Note F. 2 See Appendix, Note H. THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 19 referred to as ' Welshmen" had preserved a certain amount of independence. They all spoke Welsh, however, and continued to speak it for some centuries though English blood, and the English language were gradually introduced. As late indeed as the Act of Uniformity, the Bishop of Hereford is joined with the Welsh Bishops in the duty of providing a Welsh translation of the Prayer Book. At the time of the Survey, Welsh and Norman-French were virtually the only languages spoken in Ewias, save the Latin of the Churches. In the Pipe Rolls, as late as the reign of Henry II., the official title of the whole county is given as " Herefordshire in Wales."
20 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
HAROLD OF EWIAS.
WE have seen in a previous chapter that Earl Ralph, the nephew of the^Confessor, at his death in December, 1057, left a young son Harold. Had this son been older, he might certainly, as Freeman suggests, have been a claimant to the throne on Edward's death in 1066. He was the nearest of kin to the dead King, and it would seem that he did not inherit his father's timid nature as certainly his son Robert did not. But, though we do not know his exact age, he could only have been a boy in January, 1066. For he was then a minor in the wardship of Queen Edith, widow of the Confessor and daughter of Earl Godwin. Hence it was that while the ill-starred Atheling, grandson of Edmund Ironsides, was obliged to flee and join the Danes, the great-grandson of Ethelred the Unready, thanks to his guardian's Norman sympathies, was left in possession of his father's lands. From this it would seem that Harold's mother, Gytha or Gueth, was dead ; and this being so, it is natural that the boy should be placed in the wardship of the house of Godwin. For in spite of Earl Ralph's love of all things French, he not only had married an English woman, probably of Godwin's house or kin, but Godwin's greatest son, Harold the Earl, had become Godfather to the child of this marriage. It was the influence of his guardian that prevented the boy Harold's claims to the throne from being brought forward, as those of the Atheling were. For Queen Edith, though Godwin's daughter, was the avowed partizan of the Normans. When, a fortnight after the battle of Hastings, William appeared before Winchester, then held by the Do wager- Queen, she welcomed him with gifts and offers of submission. Strangely enough, the lands which the Queen's ward held lay, as yet, not in that Hereford- shire where his name was to survive through so many centuries, but in the shires of Gloucester, Worcester, Warwick, and Middlesex. One of his manors in the latter county was lost to him while still a minor, through the carelessness or actual unfaithfulnes of the Dowager-Queen, his guardian. For it is recorded in Domesday that at Edward's death the manor of Eia in Middlesex was in her hands as Harold's guardian, and that soon afterwards she leased it for ^"3 a year to William the Chamberlain, who at her death in 1074 held it directly from the King. Harold never recovered the estate, and it passed later into the hands of Geoffrey de Mandeville. It is possible that after the Conquest the new King would have given to Harold the Hereford Earldom which his father held, had it not been that this border Earldom, beyond all others, needed a trusty soldier, and a statesman of great tact TOM P. OF ROBERT DE EVVIAS, ABBEYDORE. THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 21 and ripe experience. At his majority, however, which he attained in or about 1070, Harold came into very considerable estates in the counties above-mentioned. The Herefordshire land which was to be his, was still held in 1086 by Alured of Marl- borough. Exactly how or when Harold became possessed of this Ewias land it is not possible to explaim. Nor does it seem quite clear why one who was already " Lord of Sudeley," and other more important manors, should at once begin to take his name from his last acquired lordship. At any rate, he soon begins to be called in all official documents " Harold of Ewias," and the lordship itself begins to be called Harold's Ewias as distinguished from the Ewias of the Lacy family and the village retains the name to this day. It may be that the castle of Ewias was his favourite home, and hence in a long life for he lived to be at least seventy he became closely identified with the place. It is interesting, and possibly significant, to note that Harold succeeded Alured of Marlborough, not merely in the lands of Ewias, but also in four manors in Somerset, part of the " Honour of Boulogne." Possibly we have here a clue to the connection of Harold with Alured. * For the latter held some of his lands, at any rate, from Eustace of Boulogne, the second husband of Goda, Harold's grandmother. Of the vast estates held in England by the Count of Boulogne, many had come to him from his royal wife. And though she had long been dead (she died circ. 1056) it is most likely that when the lands held by Alured of Marlborough lapsed to the " Honour," Count Eustace granted them to the only surviving grandson of his wife. At any rate, under Henry I. " Harold of Ewias " is found among the Knights of Count Eustace, and in the reign of John, Harold's then heir, Robert de Tregoz, is returned as holding lands from the " Honour of Boulogne," by Knight-service. 2 Of Harold's foundation of the Priory of Ewias, and his gifts to it, we shall speak in later chapters. Of the time of his death we know nothing. But as late as 1 1 20, we find Count Eustace in the Colchester Cartulary confirming a gift of ten manors to St. John's Abbey, Colchester. Among the witnesses to this charter are two of the Count's own sons, and " Harold of Ewias and his son Robert," with other tenants of the manor. The wife of Harold of Ewias is unknown. I conjecture her to have been the "Alveva uxor Heraldi," who is mentioned in Domesday as holding lands in Buck- inghamshire, near to the lands once held by Harold's mother Gueth. He left five sons, Robert, Roger, John, Alexander, and William. Dugdale and others make i Alured's daughter Agnes married Turstin, of Wigmore, Lord of Great Cowarne, ancestor of the Hereford- shire family of Lingen. a See " Red Book of the Exchequer," p 577. 22 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. I John the eldest son. But the list in the Charter founding Ewias Priory must be taken as our final authority on this point. * Robert inherited the Lordship of Ewias, and John that of Sudeley and Toddington. The Worcestershire land went also to John ; and we find him, later on, granting one hide of land in Droitwich to his nephew Richard, the younger son of Robert of Ewias. It is not within our plan to follow the history of the Sudeley Lordship. But we may note that nearly two hundred years afterwards, in April, 1282, a later John de Sudeley brings a troop of eight lances to a gathering at Chester for the Welsh war. Of the three remaining sons of Harold, Roger, Alexander, and William, we know nothing. The Lordship of Ewias, which fell to Robert, contained, according to one account, no less than forty-seven fees held in capite (that is, direct from the King), with others held from the " Honour of Boulogne." Of these lands we may mention, besides Ewias and Manetone in Herefordshire, the manors of Pontington and East Chelworth in Somerset, Upton and Teffont Ewias in Wiltshire, and Essendene in Buckinghamshire. Robert of Ewias, unlike his grandfather, " Ralph the Timid," was a warrior from his youth, and lived only to fight the Welsh. We are told in the Gesta Stephani that Robert of Ewias was not only a man of the very noblest birth, but also of the highest courage. In 1135, when the strong hand of Henry I. was withdrawn from Wales, the Welsh rose in revolt, and attacked the Flemish settlements in Pembrokeshire and Glamorgan. They destroyed most of the castles, and slew many of the foreign settlers, both Norman and Flemish. King Stephen got together a strong force and sent it against the revolted Britons, under the command of Robert of Ewias. Starting not probably from Ewias, but from Gloucester, Robert crossed into South Wales, and there gained a great victory over the Welsh. He " re-built and made impregnable," one of the castles dismantled by the Welsh, which is not, unfortunately, mentioned by name. Then, leaving a chosen band as garrison, resolute to hold out to the last, Robert returned to England with a few followers to recruit his forces. The Castle was immediately invested by a large body of the enemy, and after a long siege the garrison was obliged, by famine, to surrender, Robert not being able to bring up his re-inforce- ments in time to save them. Whether or not the Lord of Ewias took part in the fierce civil warfare, which marked the twenty years of Stephen's reign, we have no means of discovering. From what we know of Robert's character, we may conclude, in the absence of any scrap of direct evidence, that he held himself apart from the pillage, bloodshed, and misrule of that terrible time, ruling righteously his i See appendix, Note I. . THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 23 own domain, and fighting only the ever restless Welsh on his Western border. Of the lands which he left to his son, Robert the Second of Ewias, we are able to make out from the Red Book of the Exchequer a fairly complete return, which will be found in the appendix. 1 Robert seems to have been even more generous in his gifts to the Church than his father Harold had been. For the cartulary of the Priory of Ewias contains no less than five grants from Robert to the monks of Ewias. He founded also in the year 1147 the Cistercian Abbey at Dore, in which he was buried, and he was a benefactor also to the alien Priory of Craswall. His tomb with recum- bent figure in full armour, is still to be seen in Abbeydore Church. When he died is not certain, but by his wife, Sibilla, he left four sons, Robert, Richard, William, and Herbert. Of these Robert, the eldest, succeeded his father in the Lordship of Ewias. Sibilla de Ewias survived her husband, and in her last illness if we may believe the scandal-loving Gerald de Barri was made a monk of Dore Abbey in the following manner : The monks of Dore, knowing that she was rich, and would leave much money, and was now very near her end, visited her assiduously, and more suo carmina dira susurrantes never ceased from their solicitations until "with all the solemnity of psalms and prayers, with which men were wont to be made monks, they made her a monk, with tonsure and cowl complete." " The question is left open," says the scornful Gerald, " whether in their Latin phrase, the newly initiated one should be called ' hie monachus ' or ' hsec monacha,' and whether if she had recovered she would have been taken to the Abbey and left with the other brothers in the refectory and the dormitory." The Prior of Ewias, always somewhat jealous of the newer religious house, which was already so much more wealthy and powerful than his own, was fiercely indignant at this proceeding ; but, nevertheless, " although she had been made a monk and forcibly snatched away from him by outside monks as though by open robbers, he buried her as his parishioner in the graveyard of Ewias, together with the habit thus fraudulently put upon her." " It is strange," sneers Gerald in conclusion, " that these monks, though they will not receive women alive within the enclosures of their houses, seem yet so anxious to welcome them in their death, not however the poor and destitute, but those only for whom Queen Money coming before them throws open the doors." Of the next Lord of Ewias, Robert Fitz-Robert, we know very little. His wife's name was Petronilla, but of what family she came is unknown. The story of Robert's dispute with the Abbot of Gloucester concerning the Priory of Ewias i See Appendix, Note^J.
24 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
(1194-1196) will be narrated in a later chapter. He had no male issue ; and his only daughter, Sibilla, became the heiress of Ewias. She had married, during her father's life-time, in the year 1194 or earlier, Robert de Tregoz. By him she had a son, John, who died young, and another son, Robert, who inherited Ewias after her. Her husband is found executing a deed in his own name in 1196 or early in 1197. From this we gather that Robert Fitz-Robert, his father-in-law, must have died very shortly after the settlement of his dispute with the Abbey of Gloucester. Whether in fear that the monks of Dore might get hold of her, as they had done in the case of his mother, Sibilla, or for some other reason, Robert P'itz-Robert left to his wife, Petronilla, for her life-time, the manor of Eton Foy, at some distance from the dangerous neighbourhood of Dore. We find her, in 1204, carrying into the King's Court her dispute with the Abbot of Gloucester concerning the advowson of Foy, which she claimed. The Justices (William de Cantilupe and Simon de Pateshull) gave the advowson to the Abbot, who is ordered, however, to pay to Petronilla de Ewias four marks of silver. Late in 1196 or early in 1197, Robert de Tregoz followed Richard I. to Normandy, and never returned. He was with Richard at Andelys in 1197 helping at the building of Chateau Gaillard, Richard's " pretty child," as he lovingly called it, the most perfect of the fortresses of the middle ages. Early in 1198, Robert de Tregoz is witness, at Andelys, to a Charter of King Richard, granting to Hubert, Bishop of Sarum, license to inclose and empark a wood. But he must have died very shortly after this, for in 1198 or early in 1 1 99 we find Sibilla married again to William de Newmarch, a kinsman of the Lord of Talgarth, and Brecon, and Elwel by him she had no children. This second husband died in or about 1 2 1 1 ; and Sibilla, still well under forty, and, we may presume, attractive both in her person and her estates, within a year or two married Roger de Clifford, 1 by whom she became the ancestress of the Earls of Cumberland. She seems to have been a strong and masterful woman, executing deeds in her own name and ruling Ewias and her three husbands with a firm, vigorous hand. She died in or about 1235, leaving Ewias to Robert de Tregoz, her son by her first husband. i His tomb, with statue in chain armour, is still to be seen in Abbeydore Church, and a charter of his will be found in Dugdale : s " Monasticon," under Dore Abbey
THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 25
THE TREGOZ LORDS OF EWYAS.
AS to the origin of the family of Tregoz or Tresgoz, I have not been able to find any evidence. The earliest mentioned of the family is William de Tregoz, who in 1131 was Lord of Tolleshunt Tregoz (in Essex). Of his son John de Tregoz we know nothing save that he was alive in 1167. His son Robert Tregoz was Sheriff of Wilts 3 Ric. I. (1192); and shortly afterwards, certainly before 1194, he married Sibilla de Ewias. We have seen in the previous chapter that he was Lord of Ewias for only two or three years. He left three sons, John, Robert, and William. Of these John died young (or at any rate before 1235). The third son, William, took orders, and became Rector of Kentchurch. Robert married probably not before his mother's death Juliana, daughter of William de Cantilupe, and sister of Bishop Thomas of Hereford, afterwards canonized. There is still existing a curious manu- script in Norman-French, written by this Juliana in her old age, giving an account of the origin of her family. As this account has never yet appeared in print, I give a translation of it in the appendix. 1 Of the life of Robert de Tregoz the Second, very little is known, save that he was the devoted friend and follower of Earl Simon de Montfort, and died with him at Evesham in 1265, as will be seen more fully in the next chapter. It may have been the influence of his wife and her brother which led Robert de Tregoz to side with De Montfort, for Thomas Cantilupe was a strong partizan of the great reformer, and was appointed by him Chancellor of England. Robert's wife, Juliana, survived her husband for more than twenty years. After Bishop Cantilupe's death in 1282, we find her receiving from his executors the proceeds of the manor of Earley. The deed still exists in which her son John Tregoz gives to her, as her dower, the manors of Alington and Eton. Robert's son, John Tregoz, had served as Seneschal of Ewias during the later years of his father's life. After Robert fell at Evesham, the son made his peace with the king, did homage, and was received into such favour that the fine incurred by his father's treason was in whole or in part remitted. To the lands inherited from his father, he began to add new possessions from the first. Among others, the manor of Holme Lacy, which then belonged to the See of Hereford, was granted to him by Bishop Cantilupe, his uncle, by the service of one knight's fee. The Lacy family, after whom it was called, had held it by the same service from earlier Bishops, as the " Testa de Nevill" shews. i See Appendix, Note K. 26 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. John Tregoz was a warrior from his boyhood. As Seneschal of Ewias he served an early apprenticeship to the art of war as did, a century later, the victor of Agin- court in the neighbouring castle of Grosmont. No better place could have been, in which to train a man for war ; for the holder of Harold's Castle was called upon almost daily to take part in one or other of the border skirmishes which never ceased in the unquiet land of Ewias, where no man ever went unarmed. He must, even in his youth, have won for himself a certain reputation, or the redoubtable Fulk Fitz-Warine would have scorned to give him his daughter, Mabilia, in marriage. The marriage took place probably in 1257 or 1258. Fitz-Warine gave his manor of Tretire as his daughter's dowry, but the title was disputed, and, more than twenty years later (in 1292), Walter de Huntley, and the other heirs of Walter de Muce- gros, impleaded John Tregoz for the manor, as having been the property of the said Walter. How the trial ended is uncertain. As a matter of course, the young Lord of Ewias fought through all the Welsh campaigns. These Welsh wars, which occupy so large a space in the history of Edward the First's reign, were really little more than a scientific organizing of the guerilla warfare which was always being waged in one or other of the border lord- ships. The Conquest of Wales is not a series of big actions, but a slow 'process of hemming in and wearing down the Welsh, and then erecting new castles to keep them in subjection. Already in 1274, when Edward returned from the Crusade, the whole border was in more than its usual state of unrest. It was clear that serious war was close at hand, though it did not break out till 1277. Through the greater part of the first campaign (1277-1278) John Tregoz and most of the Lords of the Middle Marches fought in Radnor and Brecknock, merely holding the Welsh in check, while the King's forces literally cut their way through the pathless forests of Flintshire. l The Knights-fees of the Ewias lands in Herefordshire and Wiltshire were nineteen, and there were others in other counties. But in 1277 the Lord of Ewias only brought with him three lances. He contributed however perhaps in place of the missing men, and even more acceptable a number of horses for the campaign. One of the greatest difficulties of the King was the procuring of horses. Officials were sent in 1277 to France to purchase war-horses at prices varying from five pounds for an ordinary trooper's horse, to eighty, one hundred, or even one hundred and twenty marks, for the splendid animals of the Barons themselves. When the war broke out again in 1282, John de Tregcz apparently with a force of ten or twelve lances joined, on the 3oth of June, i See Appendix, Note L. THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 2^ the King's muster at Rhuddlan, for the last great campaign against Llywelyn. He and his troop, however, were assigned to the division led by Roger Mortimer, whom they joined at Whitchurch, in Salop. Hence they did not share in the terrible march of that autumn along the Menai Straits, but were occupied in subduing the Welsh of the Upper Severn and Radnor. On Edward's retreat to Rhuddlan, Llywelyn, with a small force, entered Radnorshire, intending to stir up the Welsh tenants of the Mortimers, or, it may be, to win over the Marcher Lords. Mortimer had died in October, and John Giffard had succeeded to the command. Early in December Llywelyn was slain in a petty skirmish on the banks of the Wye, not far from Builth. Next spring John Tregoz was almost certainly present with Roger L'Estrange and the young Mortimers at the seige of Bere, which practically ended the war. Four years later (January 2oth, 1286), a claim for scutage was made upon John Tregoz for this Welsh campaign. Whether it was due to some in- accuracy on the part of the officers of the Exchequer, or was as it seems a deliberate attempt at extortion, the attempt was resisted, and payment refused. In 1298 the claim was again revived on the part of the Exchequer, and an inquisition held before the King himself at York, on July i8th in that year, at which, it being proved that the service in 1282 had been duly performed, the claim was finally dropped. This war of 1282-3 led to quarrels between the Lords Marchers, which gave the King the opportunity, for which he had long been seeking, of taking strong measures to break down the March customs. The story of this struggle is given at length in the next chapter. John Tregoz joined the other Marcher Lords in the passive resistance they offered to the King at the trial of the Earls of Gloucester and Hereford. But throughout the long and bitter quarrel which followed, he sided with the King. In 1294 John Tregoz served, together with his brother-in-law, Fulk Fitz- Warine, in Gascony. It was apparently for his services in this Gascon campaign that the Lord of Ewias was rewarded by a writ of summons to Parliament. It was in the reign of Edward I. that the distinction between Greater and Lesser Barons, which had existed from the days of Henry I., was legally recognised. For more than a century before the Writs of 23 Edward I., the Great Council of the Realm had been usually composed of the Greater Barons only. But the Lesser Barons (who formed the bulk of the tenants of the Crown) though for various reasons rarely or never attending, yet possessed legally the right to appear. After the three Writs of 23 Edward I., a legal distinction is drawn between those who merely held a Barony by Tenure, and those whom the King, in the exercise of his 28 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. discretionary power, summoned to his Council by Writ. The Writs of this year (i 295) contain the names of fifty-three Barons out of about 250. John Tregoz is not one of the fifty-three, and, therefore, in that year he must still have been reckoned one of the Lesser Barons. But being now a man of some considerable mark, a tried soldier, and a staunch supporter of the Crown, he could no longer be left outside the Council. We find his name, therefore, as one of the Barons summoned by Writ to the Parliaments of 1297 and 1299. In 1297 came the unfortunate expedition to Flanders, which caused the rankling sense of wrong, on the part of the Earls of Norfolk and Hereford (Gloucester was already dead), to burst out into open defiance. Their feudal tenures did not bind them to foreign service, and they would not follow the King to Flanders. " By God, Sir Earl," said the King, bitterly playing on the Bigod's name, " you shall either go or hang." " By God, Sir King," was the cool reply, " I will neither go nor hang." Both the Bigod and the Bohun were deposed from their offices, and the King sailed for Flanders, leaving, however, lest the two Earls might break out into open war, some of his staunchest supporters and best fighting men as members of the Council of Regency. These included John Giffard, Alan Plokenet who gave his name to Allensmore and John Tregoz, who was made " Constable of the Tower and Guardian of London." He was chosen also, with Geoffrey de Genville, to bear to the recusant Earls the King's message : " If the Earls choose to accompany me, it will please me much ; but, if not, I request that they will not injure me, or at least my kingdom, in my absence." On the King's departure both sides prepared for war, and Hereford and Norfolk appeared in arms at the gates of London, demanding the confirmation of the Charter. Civil war was only averted by the news of Wallace's rising in Scotland. The Charter was hastily confirmed, Edward hurried back from Flanders, and an army was got together for service against the Scotch. On this expedition John Tregoz served with a troop of thirteen lances, and his son-in-law, William de Grandison, with ten. This campaign of Falkirk was apparently the last in which John Tregoz took part. He does not seem to have gone to Scotland in 1299, in which year he attended the Councils in February and in April. Next year (August 2ist, 1300) the greatest of the Lords of Ewias died. John Tregoz left no son, but two daughters. The elder of these, Clarissa de Tregoz, 1 early in the reign of Edward I. certainly before 1277 had married Roger la Warr, by whom she had a son, John la Warr. The second daughter, Sibilla, born in 1262, had married William de Grandison, younger brother of that i She died before her father, and was buried in Ewias Harold Church, where her tomb is still to be seen. THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 2Q Otto de Grandison, who, having served with distinction through the Welsh Wars, was created in 1284 Justiciar of North Wales. Otto does not seem, however, to have discharged the duties of the post, since almost from the first he was absent abroad, and was represented in Wales by a deputy. In 1288 William de Grandison was appointed to the deputy Justiciarship. In 1300 the estate of John Tregoz by escheat reverted to the Crown, and a writ was issued (Jan. 25th, 1301) directing that an " Inquisition/^/ mortem" should be held, and the estate divided between John la Warr and Sibilla, wife of William de Grandison. This valuable document of portentous length, filling some 124 folios gives in minutest detail the possessions of the Barony of Ewias at the death of John Tregoz. It is fully described in a later chapter. It is sufficient here to say that a division was made (Dec. 21, 1301), by which the Manor and Castle of Ewias Harold were assigned to John la Warr, who, his mother Clarissa being dead, at once became Lord of Ewias, though his father, Roger la Warr, did not die until 1320. The new Lord began with an act of grace to his tenants, releasing them from the ancient service of repairing the mill- dam of the Castle Mill (amunder le estanke del molyn ke est apele Castelmelne ke esta devant la porte de la Priorie de Ewias). In spite of this act of grace, both the new heirs of the Ewias lands seem to have had difficulties with their tenants, who, the strong hand being removed which had ruled them so long, neglected their customary dues. In 1304 William de Grandison was driven to seize several of the beasts of one of his tenants and the ox of another, which led to legal proceedings in the King's Court. In the following year another case, in which both the heirs should have appeared before the Justices of the Bench at York, was postponed, because both William de Grandison and John la Warr were serving with the King in Scotland. Even as late as 1342, a few years before his death, John la Warr was still obliged to seize the oxen of his defaulting tenants. 1 This case enables us to see how the Castle of Ewias was defended. For it seems that a certain William of Leykesworth held a manor in the Barony by the service of providing two esquires for the ward of the Castle of Ewias. This service had not been performed since the death of John Tregoz. John la Warr died in 1347, having survived his eldest son John, whose son Roger, aged only 18, succeeded to the Lordship. He it was who made, in 1358, the Agreement with the Abbot of Gloucester and the Bishop of St. David's, sup- pressing the Priory. Neither John nor Roger la Warr seem to have lived much in Ewias. For in 1331 we find that John la Warr enfeoffed John de Claydon in I See appendix, Note M. 30 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. the Castle and Manor of Ewias Harold. Nine years later, both Castle and Manor were transferred to Warine Latimer. Roger la Warr the second died in Gascony in 1370, leaving two sons, John and Thomas : the former inherited his father's lands, the latter was a priest. From this time to the end of the century the history of the Lordship is somewhat obscure. We have an abundance of references to Ewias, 1 but they are perplexing, sometimes almost contradictory. In 1375 Edward la Despenser 2 died holding Ewias Harold (possibly in feof from John la Warr the second). In 1390 Sir John Montacute holds some of the Ewias lands in Herefordshire, together with three Wiltshire fees in the Barony : five years later these same lands are held by his widow. Early in 1399 John la Warr the younger has the Castle and Manor once more in his own hands. But in this same year the King commissions Sir Philip la Vache and others to enfeof William Beauchamp, Lord of Bergavenny, and others in the Ewias lands. 3 Here, for the first time since 1370, we are on firm ground again, or nearly so. William Beauchamp had inherited Bergavenny, as it was then called, from John de Hastings, Earl of Pembroke ; and by the deed we have referred to (i Henry IV.) the Castle and Manor of Ewias Harold were added to the Bergavenny lands. Other Ewias holdings seem to have been left in the hands of the Montacutes, who (now Earls of Salisbury) are mentioned as having lands in Ewias in 1409 and in 1429. William Beauchamp garrisoned both his Castles (of Abergavenny and of Ewias Harold) against Owen Glyndwr, as we shall see in a later chapter. He died in 1411 ; and, as late as 1436, his widow, Johanna, still held the Castle and demesne of Ewias Harold. His only son Richard (created Earl of Worcester in 1420) died in 1422, leaving a daughter and heiress Elizabeth. She married Edward Neville, son of Ralph, Earl of Westmoreland, and brought to him the Barony of Bergavenny, and (on the death of her grandmother, Johanna) the " Castle, ville, and lordship " of Ewias Harold. These possessions have been held by the Neville family without interruption to this day. ->3JC3J6-- i See appendix, Note N. 2 About 150 years earlier than this date a certain Philip de Dispenser is a witness toa charter in the cartulary of the Priory. See Chap, xii., No. 34.) 3 See appendix, Note O. THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 31
THE CUSTOM OF THE MARCH.
IT is all but impossible to realize the position of Robert de Tregoz, and that of his son, John de Tregoz, in Ewias, without making some effort to understand that difficult and troublesome question, the custom of the March a question that still awaits full investigation by a competent scholar. Beset with difficulties as the whole subject is, we can only sketch, in briefest outline, the rise of the Custom of the March, and the struggle of the King to break it down. The Marcher Lordships had their origin, as we have seen in an earlier chapter, in the granting to the adventure-loving Normans, who had come over with the Conqueror, of licenses to hold as much of the border-lands as they could conquer. This was advantageous to the King in two ways. In the first place, it helped to form a strong barrier against the ever-present fear of inroads into England by the Welsh ; and, secondly, it diverted the high-spirited Normans, whose love of adventure and fighting might prove dangerous to the royal power, into a country where they had plenty to do, and little opportunity of giving trouble to the King. Here, in the "no- man's land" of the West, they built their grim Norman fortresses, surrounded them- selves with grim Norman men-at-arms, and became, in a short time, each the absolute ruler of a little independent Principality. Thus it came about that the Welsh Marches were the most thoroughly Normanised part of the kingdom. In the Northern Welsh border the Conqueror himself created the two counties Palatine under practically independent Earls of Chester and Shrewsbury. The latter of these, in the time of Henry I., had become so powerful that its Earl, Robert of Montgomery, dared to dictate to the King. Henry's vigorous action, however, crushed the power of the Palatine Earl, removed Snrewsbury from its position as a County Palatine, and gave the vast estates of the Montgomery family to others, to be held by Knight-service as were the English lands. Chester was left in its exceptional position, and has little to do with our story. It was a single strong power, pitched over against another single strong power the Prince of Gwynedd or North Wales and little came of their conflicts. But further south we have, on the one side, native tribes scattered and disunited, at war with one another as often as with the Normans, and, on the other side, bands of greedy adventurers, always pushing ahead, each fighting for his own hand, each eager to grasp more lands, to build new castles, and to attract new fighting men to his standard by granting new privileges. Hence, it is in the Middle Marches and the South that the custom of the March grew up, by the rise of Lordships whose independence, though not legalised as
32 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. /
that of Chester, yet gradually became in practice as real, since for two centuries the King could spare very little time for looking into the condition of the Marches. We have seen, in the customs of Breteuil, that from the first the tenants of the March lived in the enjoyment of certain rights and privileges, sanctioned and even introduced by the Viceroy of the King himself. In the next place, there gradually arose the custom of conquering and annexing new land from the Welsh, without any reference to the Crown oi England ; and the tenants of the land thus annexed had no appeal from the Lord-Marcher to the King as overlord. (One right only was preserved by the Crown. If a Lord Marcher lost his land again to the Welsh, and called in the aid of the royal forces to recover them, the lands thus re-conquered reverted to the Crown.) Thus the first custom of the March is the power of the Lord to govern his own tenants absolutely, without reference to the King. Each Lordship had a court of its own, with jurisdiction completely independent of the King. The Clares in Glamorgan had all the authority of an absolutely independent monarchy. When King Edward passed through Glamorgan in 1284, Gilbert de Clare entertained him as though he were a brother sovereign. He certainly was as independent as the Earl Palatine of Chester. He had his own Curia Comitatus and compelled Henry III., and later on Edward I., to recognise it as independent of the Curia Regis; he appointed his own vice-comes or deputy ; had in short a complete imperium in imperio. This of Glamorgan is an extreme instance, but all the Marcher Lordships approximated more or less closely to this model. Being thus for all practical purposes in complete independence, it follows that the second of the March Customs was the right, claimed by the Lords Marchers, to make private war on one another, instead of referring their disputes to the King. In the Baron's war of 1264 the Lords Marchers held the balance of power between Earl Simon and the King, It must be confessed that in this struggle most, if not all of them, played a mean and selfish part. Devoid of any feeling of loyalty to the Crown, and incapable even of understanding Earl Simon's lofty patriotism, the Barons of the March fought entirely for their own hand, intent solely on maintaining their position as semi-independent magnates, privileged by March custom to raise their own armies, and to make war at will. This explains the otherwise meaningless changes of front by the Marcher Lords, as they thought either side was becoming too strong. Gilbert de Clare, for instance, fought side by side with Simon at Lewes, served with Prince Edward at Evesham, and took up arms against the King to prevent the proscription of the Baronial remnant after the battle. Roger de Mortimer was at first on the side of the Barons, and was even put upon THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 33 his trial by the King for treason. Obtaining his pardon he fought thenceforth for the King. John Giffard, too, was a Montfortian at Lewes, and did splendid work for the King at Evesham. We may conclude, perhaps, that Robert de Tregoz, the Lord of Ewias, was less selfish than the rest, and possibly even felt something of Earl Simon's passion for reform. At any rate he consistently supported the great patriot, and was one of the little band, who, " having no will to live, if he died," fought round Simon to the last, falling one by one till the Earl was left alone, to be struck down by a blow from behind. When Edward I. came to the Throne he determined from the first to break the power of the Lords Marchers. Never again should they hold the balance of power between the King and his subjects. To secure this, his first need was to get together an army largely composed of paid professional soldiers, which would make him independent of all Feudal service. Hence we see, in the Welsh wars of 1282 and 1283, a curious struggle between the King and the Barons. The King wished to pay them and their men for their services ; but they stood on their rights, and insisted on the performance of their feudal obligations, bringing unpaid troopers even more than their quotas, and serving longer than their forty days. It was only by bribing the Earls of Gloucester and Hereford with high commands that the King induced them to agree to the raising of a paid force. This beginning of a standing army was the first serious blow at the power of the Lords Marchers, as it rendered the King, to some extent at any rate, independent of their unpaid feudal quotas. When the King was now feeling strong enough to try conclusions with the Lords of the March, chance gave him the opportunity, in a private war which arose between the two most powerful of the Lords, the Earls of Gloucester and Hereford. They had quarrelled about a strip of " no-man's land " at the foot of the Brecon Beacons, which each claimed as belonging to his March : and Gloucester's men had raided the Bohun lands. In January, 1290, the King issued a strongly worded proclamation calling on the Earls to abstain from active hostilities. Within a month, Gloucester's men, as if in open defiance, had once again raided Breconshire, and, by the custom of the Marches, the Earl received a third part of the loot, thus definitely becoming particeps criminis. This was the King's chance of introducing legal process into the March, and early in 1291 the two Earls were summoned to appear before a Royal Court of four judges, with a jury to be empanelled from the Lords Marchers them- themselves. The Earl of Hereford appeared, but not Gloucester. Of the Marcher
34 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
Lords John de Hastings, the two Mortimers, Theobald de Verdun, John Tregoz, and Geoffrey de Camville answered to their writs of summons ; but one and all refused to be sworn on the jury, pleading that such a trial was against the custom of the March. Next an attempt was made to empanel a jury of their tenants ; but, by pleading distance, or some flaw in the writ, most of the Lords evaded the claim. The two Lords of Ewias, John Tregoz of Ewias Harold, and Theobald de Verdun of Ewias Lacy, made no excuse, but simply declined to produce either steward or tenants. The trial, however, was carried to an end somehow. Gloucester was condemned in damages of ^100, and a renewal of the raids stringently forbidden in the King's name. The raiding, however, being continued as before in the debatable land, Edward himself in full Council tried the case again at Abergavenny. At this second trial both Hereford and Gloucester were condemned to imprisonment and confiscation of their estates. Bnt the King's honour having been vindicated, restitution was made to both Earls in the July following. Gloucester died some three years after this humiliation, but Hereford lived to revenge himself in the triumph of October, 1297, when, the King being absent in Flanders, the Earls of Hereford and Norfolk appeared at the gates of London with 1 500 mounted troops, and a vast army on foot, and extorted from the Prince Regent and his Council the promise that the new clauses of the Charter should be confirmed, which was done shortly afterwards by the King at Ghent. When the second Edward came to the throne, the Lords Marchers, finding him weaker and less resolute than his father, resumed their March privileges, which, slightly modified by the Court of the Marches created at Ludlow in 1478, they retained until 1535, when Henry VIII. abolished the whole system. 1 i See appendix, Note P
THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 35
THE LANDS OF EWIAS.
AS WE have already seen, in Chapter VI., that, at the time of the Domesday Survey, the lands of Harold of Ewias lay in the counties of Gloucester, Worcester, Warwick, and Middlesex. The Middlesex land was lost to him while he was still a minor ; and at his death his lands in Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, and Warwick shire went to his third son, John de Sudeley. The lands which his eldest son, Robert of Ewias, inherited, had all been acquired by Harold after 1086. Of these we can get some idea from the entries in the Red Book of the Exchequer, which will be found in the appendix. 1 From these entries it appears that in 1 166 Robert of Ewias held 19 Knights-fees in Herefordshire (which throughout is called "Hereford in Wales,") and an uncertain number in Wiltshire. In the same year more land seems to have been added to his possessions. For amongst others Godfrey de Scudamore, who had the largest Wiltshire holding under Robert, has four Knights-fees early in n 66, and towards the end of the year is said to hold these four de antiquo feodo, and one de novo. Some difficulty seems, however, to have arisen between the tenant and his lord ; for next year we are told that Godfrey de Scudamore holds his five Knights-fees from the King direct " q uia Robertus de Ewias noluit recipere homagium suum;" and in 1201 Peter de Scudamore holds the same five fees "which had belonged to Robert of Ewias." When Robert de Tregoz the younger came into the lordship of Ewias, he must have received back from the King the five Knights-fees, which had been so long in dispute. For an entry in the Testa de Nevill (undated, but after 1234 and earlier than 1265) mentions a later Godfrey de Scudamore as holding 5^ Knights-fees from Robert Tregoz. The Wiltshire Fees in this entry amount to over eleven. The Herefordshire Fees lay in and around the " ville " of Ewias Harold, at Monnington Stradel in the Golden Valley, at Eton Tregoz, and at Pencombe. John Tregoz considerably increased the lands of the Barony during the thirty-five years of his vigorous rule. He died on August 2ist, 1300, and since he left no male issue, his lands by escheat reverted to the King. On January 25th, 1301, a writ was issued " apud Neteleham" ordaining that an "Inquisition/^/ mortem" should be held to decide " how much land the said John held on the day of his death in his domain, as in fee from the King in capite, and how much he held from others, and for what service, and how much it was worth per annum with all its profits, and who was the nearest heir and of what age." This inquiry was to be held i Sec appendix, Note J.
36 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
in each district where John Tregoz had held lands, taking the evidence on oath of certain of the tenants and others. In an anonymous work bearing the title of " Fleta," written in the reign of Edward I. as a sort of Vade Mecum for landlords, we have a complete statement of the details into which enquiry was made at such a survey of a manor. This statement will be found in the appendix. l Like his predecessors in the Lordship, and all the Barons of that day, John Tregoz held lands in many counties. This resulted from the settled policy of the Norman and Plantagenet Kings, who rewarded their followers with wide estates, but for their own safety did not allow these estates to be concentrated. Hence a Baron might hold a hundred or more manors, but they would be in a dozen different counties. We have in this an explanation of the apparent restlessness of the Barons in these early days. They roamed with a huge train of followers from one estate to another ; in each there was a great bustle of preparation for their coming. In a stay of a few days or weeks they consumed the produce stored up during the year, and then passed on to their next manor. Until money was plentiful enough to enable produce to be sold, they were kept continually on the move. The Tregoz lands in 1300 lay in Herefordshire, Wiltshire, Shropshire, Northampton, Somerset, and Surrey. In each of these counties an enquiry was held before the Escheator of the King : In Herefordshire at Hereford (June 2oth), at Ewias Harold (Oct. i8th), and at Eton Tregoz (Oct. 2Oth) ; in Wiltshire at Salisbury (June 27th), and at East Kennett (Oct. 25th); in Shropshire at Allbrighton (Thursday, Oct. 27th); in Northampton at Dodington (Saturday, Oct. i5th) ; in Somerset at "Chywton" (Oct. 22nd); and in Surrey at "Sende juxta Ripele" (May 3oth). It was proved on oath that the two nearest of kin to the deceased Baron were John la Warr, now aged twenty-three, son of Clarissa, the elder daughter of John Tregoz, and Sibilla de Grandison, his younger daughter, now aged twenty-eight (the men of Shropshire, however, returned her as " thirty years old and more"). The Escheator made the partition of all the lands between the two heirs at Trent on December 2ist, 1301. The record of this enquiry, a voluminous manuscript of one hundred and twenty-four folios of closely written Latin with contractions, gives a complete account not merely of the acreage of the lands, but of every house and cottage, with the names of every tenant; it gives also the rent, or other service which each tenant rendered for his holding. I propose here to give a brief summary of this return, adding in the appendix a full translation of the Herefordshire portions, viz., the lands of Ewias and Eton. 2 i See Appendix, Note Q. 2 See Appendix, Note R
THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 37
Dealing first with Herefordshire, we are told that the Manor of Ewias Harold, comprising some seven Knight's-Fees, was held by John Tregoz from the King in Capite per Baroniam. It is said to be in partibus Wallice, and with its members consisted of the "ville"of Ewias Harold itself ;> place called Mulstonton or Mulstoneston, which I cannot identify ; " Puston in Straddel," now Poston near Peterchurch ; Pencumbe with Caldewell near Bromyard, where he held fifteen hides (eighteen hundred acres) belonging to the " Honour of Ewias " ; and Monnington Straddel in the Golden Valley, still so called. In the demesne or home farm of the Castle, there were four carucates of arable land (" every one of which contains one hundred acres by the short hundred "), twenty acres of meadow, six acres of pasture, and fourteen acres of wood. There were nine tenants-in-chief, hold- ing between them six Knights-fees. In the village of Ewias Harold itself, there were thirty-seven freeholders, and seventy-five custumarii, rendering " aids " and other services. Allowing for their families this would represent a popula- tion very much the same in number as at the present day. There were in the village the Castle garden, and the garden of the Prior. There were two water-mills, one bringing in twenty-six shillings and eight-pence a year, and the other thirteen shillings and four-pence. Of the freeholders each held a house and a certain amount of land, varying from a carucate to a few acres. The dues which they paid to the Lord varied very much in the different holdings. Thus Richard of Ewias for his house and one hundred acres paid nothing in money, but owed many feudal services, " suit of Court every three weeks, Castle-ward, marriage dues, heriot and relief when it should fall." Henry de Eylston for a holding of the same extent renders all the above services and twelve pence a year. Then again Madoc ap Jeverard for a house and nine-and-a-half acres pays three shillings and nine- pence halfpenny each year ; while Jeverard ap Adam for an exactly similar holding pays only fourteen-pence. Hugh Gilbert pays five shillings and sixpence, and " one sparrow-hawk at the feast of St. John the Baptist, or two shillings instead thereof." The customary tenants paid partly in money, and partly in work for the Lord, mowing and reaping, lifting hay, ploughing and the like. In Kentchurch which is a " member " of the manor there is a manor-house, with a garden (and a dovecote worth eighteen-pence a year), and in the demesne one hundred acres of arable, one-and-a-half acres of meadow, and one acre of pasture. There are in Kentchurch seven free tenants, and twenty customary tenants. In Eton Tregoz there are nineteen free and thirty customary tenants. Here also, as in Ewias Harold and Kentchurch, there is a perplexing diversity in the services and payments rendered for holdings of equal extent. 38 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. Coming now to Wiltshire, we find that there was in the " Honour " of Ewias the Manor of Alyngton, (now Allington, four miles North-East of Devizes) containing in demesne three hundred and fifty acres of land, together with pasture for twenty- four oxen and four hundred sheep. There are in Alyngton four free and twenty- three customary tenants Next in the hamlet of Est-Kenete (East-Kennett, five miles South- West of Marlborough) there are in demesne eighty acres of land with pasture, four free tenants and twelve cottars. Then follow particulars of thirteen and-a-half Knights-Fees, in places as far apart as Allcannings, between Marlborough and Devizes, Upton Scudamore near Warminster, and Teffont Ewias near Wilton. 1 The Shropshire lands of Ewias lay at " Albriton " (Albrighton) and were held from the King by the service of one Knights-fee. There were in demesne eighty acres of arable and four of pasture, with manor-house and garden. The rest of the estate was held by free tenants, who rendered only suit of Court. In Northampton John Tregoz held the manor of Great Doddington from John de Hastings by the service of quarter of a Knights-fee. The demesne lands were four virgates, with eleven virgates in villanage. (The virgate or yard-land was the normal holding of one villan supplying two oxen to the common plough of eight oxen ; a virgate contained usually thirty acres.) In Somerset there were in the Barony the manors of Chaleworth and Burnham, held from the King by the service of quarter of a Knights-fee. Chaleworth had in demesne seventy acres of arable and ten acres of pasture. There were three free tenants, two villans, and two cottars. Then come four Knights-fees in Comwich, Lekesworth, East Chelesworth, and Pontington. Of these the two former possibly all four had been held by Harold of Ewias from Count Eustace, under the Honour of Boulogne. The Surrey manor was at Sende, near Guildford. It consisted of two Knights- fees held by three tenants. How the division of these lands was made between the two heirs will be seen in the appendix. 2 It is sufficient here to have given in roughest outline a sketch of the various holdings of a typical i3th Century Baron of moderate estate. i See Appendix, Note S. 2 See Appendix, Note T.
THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 39
THE PRIORY OF EWIAS.
WHEN William of Normandy established himself on the English throne the fortunes of the ancient Abbey of Gloucester had reached their lowest ebb. Founded in 68 1, the Monastery had for close on four centuries struggled in vain against difficulties from without and from within, until, in the sixth year after the Conquest, there were left only two monks and eight young boys. To infuse new life into the concerns of the house, William appointed as Abbot his own chaplain Serlo, who to a vigorous and energetic nature added the ample experience in the adminstration of monastic affairs which he had acquired in Normandy. In less than twenty years Serlo's vigorous rule raised the Abbey from its impoverished condition into wealth and splendour. Lands and other possessions were given to it by royal and other benefactors, its church was rebuilt with great magnificence, and in noo it had more than one hundred monks. As distant farms and manors were bestowed on the Abbey, sometimes with the condition that the monks undertook to serve churches or chantries therein, it became necessary to establish in these distant manors " Cells," or small Priories, to which a Prior and a few Monks were sent. Attached to the Abbey of Gloucester were six of these dependent houses, at Hereford, Bromfield, Ewias, Stanley, Kilpeck, and Ogmore (Ewenny). Of these the Priory of Ewias was the earliest, being the first- fruits of the enthusiasm for making benefactions to St. Peter's at Gloucester generated by the famous dedication, in the summer of noo, of the new Church, which had taken eleven years to build. Four bishops and many nobles were present, and the Bishop of Hereford, immediately after the ceremony, was the first to make a grant of lands to the Abbey, his example being followed by Harold of Ewias, and by many others of those present, who made their gifts in full chapter, laying them on the Altar of St. Peter. Harold endowed the monks of Gloucester with the tithes of his demesne and with the lands and other possessions of St. Michael's Church in Ewias ; he gave them also the advowson of several other churches, including Eton Foy, Kentchurch, and Burnham. l In return for these gifts the monks undertook to serve the Church of St. Michael, and to provide a chaplain for the Chapel of St. Nicholas in the Castle of Ewias. For some years, however, the monks had no regular monastic buildings in Ewias. It was only after Harold's death which, as we have seen, probably took place shortly after 1120 that the monks sought from Robert, the new Lord of Ewias, that he should supply them with a site. This he readily did, granting to the monks i See Appendix, Note U. 40 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. of Ewias " all that land in Ewias where stood my father's barns and mine " for building a church " in honour of God and of the Holy Apostles, James and Bartholomew " and for monastic buildings (officinae monachorum). He granted them also free use of his mill. During the terrible twenty years of Stephen's reign it would seem that the newly-built Priory of Ewias was all but deserted. And even when things improved under Henry's able rule, the monks do not seem to have returned. For Robert, the son of Robert, when he had succeeded his father in the Lordship of Ewias, entered at once on a long and bitter quarrel with the Abbot of Gloucester, refusing to confirm the gifts of his father and grandfather, unless due provision were made for serving the churches. This dispute only ends in 1196, when Robert confirmed the grants on this condition " that the Abbot, at the next coming feast of St. Michael, shall appoint at least a Prior and one monk to Ewias." It was agreed also that the revenues of the churches of Eton Foy, of Lydiard, and of Burnham, for three years from their next vacancy, should be set apart for the re-building of the Priory. As early as 1178 the Priory secured from the monks of Lyra, who had a cell at Kent- church, all the tithes they claimed in Ewias, paying them half a mark of silver a year. About this time severe friction arose between the Priory and the chaplains at the Castle. The latter, according to the deed of the Bishop of St. David's confirming Harold's gift, were to be appointed by the monks, who could also remove them. This claim was resisted by Robert Fitz-Robert, who, by a further grant of tithes, bought from the monks the right of appointing his own chaplains, who were to receive, however, out of these new tithes, twenty-four shillings a year. Feeling them- selves strong under Robert's protection, the chaplains seem to have encroached some- what upon the rights of the Prior in the parish church of St. Michael. This being hotly resented by the monks, the dispute was finally taken before the Archdeacon of Brecon, who, summoning a chapter of the Deanery of Ewias one Kenegen being then Dean adjudged the whole parish of St. Michael to the Priory, " the clerks of the Castle to interfere in nothing, great or small.'"' Richard, the chaplain, swore before the altar of St. James and St. Bartholomew to observe this injunction. In 1204, however, or a few years later, the Prior managed to insert in a deed of confir- mation by the Bishop of St. David's the words "ut /monachf/ haberent potestatem ponere et amovere capellanum." But this revival of the old claim to appoint the chaplain only led to another defeat for the Prior ; and the chaplains of the Castle remained outside his authority.
THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 41
The Rectory of Kentchurch (ecclesia de Sancta-Keyna], which had been granted to the Priory by Harold, falling vacant shortly after Robert de Tregoz the younger succeeded to the Lordship of Ewias Harold (which he did in 1235), the new Lord secured the appointment of his brother William as Rector. Thereupon a dispute arose between the Rector of Kentchurch and the Prior of Ewias touching the apportionment of the tithe. This led at last to an appeal to the Pope himself, who appointed the Abbot and Prior of Evesham to settle the matter. It is impossible to determine the exact date of this settlement ; but it must have been before 1265, since Robert de Tregoz the younger is a witness to the deed of settlement, and he fell at Evesham, in that year, one of the thirteen Bannerets who died round Simon de Montfort. William de Tregoz, it appears, relying on the powerful support of his brother, had wrongfuly laid claim to the whole tithe ; but he is compelled by this agreement to revert to the old arrangement for the division of the tithe. The right of presenting to the churches given by Harold to the Priory of Ewias, Eton Foy, Kentchurch, Lidiard, and more especially Burnham, was a constant occasion of discord between the new Lords of Ewyas and the Abbot of Gloucester. In 1280 the Abbot laid a plaint against John de Tregoz, raising all the questions that had so long been at issue. The case was tried at Somerton Assize, before the Itinerant Judges. The Jury decided that the Abbot should have the presentation to Burnham and Kentchurch ; that the Priory and monks of Ewias should present to Foy paying to the Abbot, however, every year out of its revenues "centum solidos libere et integre " ; and John de Tregoz to Lidiard. This would seem to have been a most equitable arrangement. But the Abbot, Reginald de Hamme although the Chronicler of Gloucester, at his death, calls him " vir prudens et discretus in opere et sermone" was dissatisfied with the verdict, and took out a writ of attaint, to inquire by a jury of twenty-four whether the jury of twelve had given a false verdict. This brought the good Abbot "prudent and discreet" though he was into serious trouble. For, finding that he had no case, he applied for permission to withdraw the writ, but, failing to obtain this, he was committed to gaol, his two sureties with him, and only released "pro centum soltdis" The Abbot's vexations, however, concerning Burnham were not yet over. For it appears that the Rector of Burnham was bound to pay each year to the Priory of Ewias Harold ten silver pounds (decem librae argenti). But now the monks complain to Abbot Reginald that the present Rector, Thomas Stede, has not paid this due since his appointment, and at present owes them sixty marks sterling of arrears (sexaginta marcas sterlingorum nomine arreragiorutri). The case is referred to the Bishop of 42 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. Bath and Wells, and tried before him on December ist, 1283. At first Magister Thomas Stede was very bold, and gave the lie direct to the monks : " dico narrata in eodem libello prout narrantur non esse vera." But in the end he is compelled to confess his indebtedness, and promises to pay his dues regularly in half-yearly instalments " infesto Paschce et in octabis omnium sanctorum" Let us hope that the Priory got also its sixty marks sterling of arrears. Another dispute arose about the same time over the tithes of the mill at Eton Foy, which the Prioress of Acornbury claimed. This case was tried at Gloucester, July iQth, 1281, before the Papal Legate; by his decision the tithes of the mill were assigned to Acornbury, and the tithes of the fishery to the Prior of Ewias, who also was to receive from the nuns half a mark of silver a year. In September, 1284, Abbot Reginald died, and Richard de Beybury, one of the few Priors of Ewias whose names are certainly known, was summoned to Gloucester to take part in the election of the new Abbot. The choice fell upon John de Gamages, Prior of Hereford. Towards the end of the century, Ruald of Calna, Lord of " Herdwika- Juxta-Ewias," granted to the Priory certain lands, with tithes of his mill and of his house, on condition that the monks said mass " in my chapel of Herdwika three days a week." This chapel, he, or his predecessor Archembald, had built " with the consent of Alured, the priest of St. Kenedrus [Kenderchurch], in whose parish the said chapel was." About this time the Priory was in a state so flourishing that, though they had acquired in or before 1196 a certain " curtilagium" belonging to Walter de Welynton, " ad augmentum curia SUCK" they now, at some date before 1300, once again enlarged their buildings. In 1301, Robert, Archbishop of Canterbury, issued injunctions for the better governance of the Abbey of Gloucester, and its dependent Priories. This document provides, in regard to the Priories, that when the Abbot visited them, he was not to have with him more than nineteen horses, and that no Prior was to give money to him, or to any of his retinue. We gather, too, from this document that the monks were sent to the Priories from the parent monastery, either as a punishment or for the sake of their health ; and it is provided that no monk shall stay in one Priory for more than one year. The Prior under a heavy penalty was to give to all the brethren, both the sound and the infirm, all necessaries, including clothing and shoes, such as they had been accustomed to receive from the principal monastery. The brethren, for their part, " that the honour of the monastery might not suffer," were
THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 43
to be careful to use their clothes properly, and not to tear them. Any Prior neglect- ing to observe these ordinances was to be deposed from his office by the Abbot on his visitation. It would seem, however, that the Priors, or some of them, did neglect these ordinances. For, in 1317, Abbot John Thoky was compelled to send a circular letter to the six Priors, pointing out that well-founded complaints (non sine magna causa) have come to him from the brothers in the Priories that even the merest necessaries are not provided for them. He stringently commands, therefore, that the Prior shall publicly pay to each brother dwelling with him one mark of silver each year, half at Christmas, and half at Easter. It may be that, in Ewias at any rate, this want of provision for the brethren was due to the growing poverty of the Priory. The revenues diminished steadily during the early part of the i4th Century, until there was not sufficient to provide even for the Prior and one monk. The Abbot of Gloucester, there- fore, was compelled, at his own expense, to supply the Prior and his fellow monks in Ewias not only with clothing, but also with a great part of their food. And so the little Priory struggled on for thirty or forty years longer. How the end came we shall see in a future chapter.
44 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
THE ABBEY OF DORE.
THE Cistercian Abbey of Dore, as we have seen, was founded in 1147 by Robert Fitz-Harold, of Ewias. No complete Cartulary of the Abbey has survived ; indeed, much of our knowledge of Dore and its monks is derived from their bitter enemy, Gerald de Barri, better known as Giraldus Cambrensis, Archdeacon of Brecon, and Bishop-elect of St. Davids. It is obvious that the monks of Ewias, founded as their Priory was by Robert's father Harold, must have looked with suspicion and jealousy upon the newer religious House which from the first was so much wealthier and more important than their own little House could ever hope to become. The Cistercians, moreover, were new comers, not merely into Herefordshire, but into England, having been introduced scarcely twenty years before, in 1128, by William Giffard, Bishop of Winchester. They were the rigid precisians, the stern Puritans of the Cloister. Their rules contained the severest enactments against everything in the shape of self-indulgence, luxury, and display. And yet, if Gerald de Barri is to be believed, they were, of all the monastic orders, the most grasping, avaricious, and self-indulgent. It is true that Gerald, in common with all the secular clergy of his day, shows himself in all his works hostile to monks, of whatever Order. But of all the monks he hated most cordially and he was a good hater those of the Cistercian Order; and of the Cistercians he seems to have hated most the monks of Dore, of whose evil-doings he collected all the scandalous tales he could get together, in a treatise which he calls " The Mirror of the Church." But so far from giving us in this work a true picture of the Church in his day, he gives us a somewhat distorted reflection of the seamy side of life in the abbeys and priories, not so much of England, as of Wales and the Marches, the district he was best acquainted with. Many of these scandalous stories, he tells us, he got from his friend, Walter Map, Archdeacon of Oxford, scholar, poet, and satirist undoubtedly the greatest genius Herefordshire has produced who himself also mercilessly attacked the abuses of the Church in the celebrated " Bishop Goliath" poems. The Abbot who raised Dore Abbey to the highest pitch of prosperity was a certain Adam, who ruled the Abbey during the closing years of the i2th century, and seems to have been to Dore what Abbot Samson was to St. Edmundsbury. Exactly when he was elected Abbot is uncertain, and as his successor was also named Adam, it is not possible, in the case of one or two of Gerald's stories, to say which of the two is the hero of the tale. Abbot Adam the second, in or about 1212, wrote a metrical defence of himself and his monks against the attacks of Giraldus, but unhappily it is no longer extant. THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 45 The newly-founded Abbey was already becoming rich and prosperous when Adam became the Abbot ; for, in addition to the grants of land from Robert, the founder, other gifts were shortly afterwards made by Walter de Scudamore, Alan of Kilpeck, and others. 1 Giraldus asserts that though the Cistercians prided themselves on their austerity their rules prescribing for the greater part of the year one rude and scanty meal a day, and flesh-meat never yet at Dore they fared sumptuously every day. When the brethren came in from the farm buildings for the Cistercians, beyond all the monastic orders, devoted themselves to the culture of soil they brought with them fatted pigs, fatted calves, capons, geese, and tender chickens in great abundance, and then, " in little companies of four and six, or ten and twelve, they feasted on flesh, boiled and roast, fried and well stuffed." It happened one Christmas Day that two of the monks of Dore were at Hereford, at the palace of the Bishop, William de Vere. And the Bishop asking his servants whether the two monks had plenty of fish, and such other food as suited the rule of their order, Giraldus himself, sitting at the Bishop's side and hearing this, said, " Unless I am mistaken, the monks want your dispensation to eat flesh to celebrate the day." A servant having been sent to inquire, " the said monks, amid the con- temptuous laughter of all," were feasted according to their gluttonous desires. An excellent priest also, vicar of a neighbouring parish, who had again and again been of service to the Abbey of Dore, once went to pass the night there. After being received without honour and entertained on the scantiest fare, he wandered through the rooms and offices, and came at last upon an inner chamber, where he found the Abbot and eight or ten monks feasting royally on fatted capons, geese, and flesh of all kinds, and drinking the choicest wine and mead out of silver cups. The good priest departed with much indignation, resolved never to return, and never again to do a service to the monks of Dore. But what Giraldus calls the gastrimargia of Abbot Adam was one of the least of his offences. He was always seeking to enlarge his domain, and dared any crime to add a few acres to the Abbey lands. It was a misfortune to Ewias Harold on the one side, and to Bacton on the other, says Giraldus, that they lay so close to the Abbey of Dore. The Abbot's usual practice was to send his monks to find out the sick in the neighbourhood, " especially the Welsh, as they were simpler-minded and more easily deceived," and promise to open the gate of Paradise in return for a gift suitable to the means of each. How these new Apostles went to Robert's widow and made a monk of her on her death-bed we have told in a previous chapter. See Appendix, Note V.
46 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
Exactly the same thing the monks of Dore did in the case of the mother of John of Monmouth, and the custom seems to have been imitated elsewhere ; for shortly afterwards the sister of the same John of Monmouth was made a monk of Flaxley, which was also a Cistercian house. Gerald pathetically records that on account of these and the like iniquities he was often driven most devoutly to breathe the prayer " A monachorum malitia, maxime vero Cisterciensitim, libera nos, Domine." Even forgery the Abbot did not shrink from if the need arose. For a certain knight named Gilbert owned a piece of land at Bacton, which the monks had long coveted. The Abbot often invited him to Dore, and entertained him with choice dishes and wines. Then, seizing the opportunity, he one day made the knight drunk beyond all measure, and himself signed a deed of gift already prepared, making over to the Abbey the rich farm so long desired. Using this document for evidence, and bribing the judges, the monks obtained possession of the land, " which they hold to this day." Not content, however, with the land, they fraudulently acquired a splendid Grange also in Bacton. But, worse even than this, religious scruples did not check the Abbot's greed. Being in the neighbourhood of this house is a grievous loss, says Gerald, not only to laymen but also to the religious. For the Abbot seized the church of Bacton apparently from the Gilbert mentioned above and wrested a church bringing in thirty marks a year or more from the Canons of Llanthony, " to whose lands and pastures also the monks of Dore do not cease to stretch out greedy claws." And most profane of all 'bribing the patron, and even the Bishop himself, Abbot Adam seized the Abbey of Treschoit, which had been solemnly dedicated to God, and turned it into a barn. It is not to be wondered at that in all the country-side it became a proverb " They are bad neighbours, like the white monks." Having thus robbed, with impartial greed, rich and poor, laymen and clerks, the Abbot now turned his attention to the King himself. Adjoining the Abbey lands was the royal forest of Treville, which the Abbot had coveted for many years. His opportunity came in this way. In the year 1198 a great slaughter of the Welsh was made at Eluel, in Radnorshire, situated, our story, says, " in South Wales close to the province of Hereford." In this victory three thousand and seventy Welsh were slain, and only one English soldier lost. One of the Herefordshire Lords who had been present at the battle, knowing the unscrupulousness of Abbot Adam, proposed to him that he should at once cross to Aquitaine to King Richard and tell him of the fight, skilfully suggesting, without naming names, that the victory was mainly due to this particular lord. The Abbot, in return, was to have a letter of introduction from the
THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 47
Lords Marchers to the King. Adam hastened with his news across the sea, trusting says Giraldus, to the letter of recommendation, and still more to the power of money, in which he had the greatest faith. His message delivered, and his letter presented, the Abbot mentioned to the King that some three hundred acres of the royal domain, wild and rough, adjoining the Abbey lands, were a peril to the neighbourhood, inaccessible to all save Welshmen and robbers, to whom they offered a secure refuge. He proposed to the King that this land should be made over to the Abbey, offering in return three hundred marks. The King, who had not been in those parts, wished for further information; whereupon the Abbot bribed one Ralph of Arden, a soldier of Hereford, serving with the King, to support his assertion that the land was useless, and a peril to the neighbouring villages. So the King, who was needy and covetous, took the three hundred marks, and the Abbey got a splendid tract of fertile land, flat as a threshing-floor, with excellent timber, which, when cut down and sold in Hereford for building purposes, brought back the three hundred marks more than three times over. Encouraged by the success of this venture, the greedy Abbot per se vel per nuntios efficaces again crossed the sea, and bought an additional two hundred acres, with a stream for a mill, the finest piece of land in all the royal forests. Soon after this King Richard died ; and John, who had often hunted in this very spot, and knew the value of the land, at once stripped the Abbot of his new possession. But after a few years, the royal power being broken by the advent of the French, and the Church being strengthened by the coming of the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, John was compelled, by ecclesiastical censure, to give back the land he had taken away. 1 He seems, however, to have done this only under protest, and the monks were not secure in their possession until 1216, when John, broken in health and in fortune, and now close upon his death, spent the month of August wandering in the neighbourhood of Dore, and the new Abbot for the redoubtable Adam had recently died extorted from the royal fugitive a confirmation of the grant. To follow the later story of the Monks of Dore is impossible within the limits of this work. The bare list of some of the best-known of the Abbots is to be found in Dugdale, but it remains for some future historian to make these, the dry bones of history, alive again. Nor can we enter upon that new chapter in the history of Dore, which begins with the noble generosity of Lord Scudamore, and has not yet reached its end. i See his charter granting this land, in Dugdale's " Monatticon."
48 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
THE CARTULARY OF THE PRIORY.
THE Cartulary of the Priory of Ewias consists of 81 documents, varying in length A from a few lines to many pages, and covering, in date, the whole period during which the Priory existed, from the foundation in 1100 to the final absorption into Gloucester in 1358. I have added a brief notice of the Ewias grants to Acon- bury. The dates in brackets are the extreme limits within which, from internal evidence, the deed must have been written.
1. Charter of Harold of Ewias [noo, see Gloucester Cartulary, I. 76], printed in the Gloucester Cartulary, I. 285.
2. Confirmation by Bernard, Bishop of St. David's [i 115-1 147], gives to the Priory the right of appointing and removing the Chaplains of the Castle ; also the tithes of Belboga [now Bilbo, a farm on the Glebe].
3. Charter of Robert, son of Harold [1120-1150?], printed in the Gloucester Cartulary, I. 287. In addition to the witnesses mentioned in the Gloucester Cartulary, the Ewias Harold MS. gives "Hilarius the chaplain, Richard of Ewermod, Nigel of Mord, John of Ewias, and others."
4. Charter of Robert, son of Harold [1120-1150 ?], seems a variant of the deed in the Gloucester Cartulary, i. 287.
5. Confirmation of Robert, son of Harold [i 1 20-1 150 ?], follows very closely Harold's original Charter, as printed in the Gloucester Cartulary, I. 285. Witnesses Hugo Forester, of Kilpeck, and Henry his son ; confirmed by David, Bishop of St. David's.
6. Concession of Robert, son of Harold, concerning tithes [1120-1150?], follows part of Harold's original Charter, as printed in the Gloucester Cartulary I., 285. Witnesses Hugo de Caples, Eustachius de Penicumbe, Helbode and his brother.
7. Certificate from Robert, son of Harold, to Bledien, the Dean of Ewias, that he has granted these tithes [i 1 20-1 1 50 ?].
8. Charter of Robert, son of Robert, printed in the Gloucester Cartulary, I. 287 [1150?-: 196).
THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 49
9. Charter of John of Ewias [No date ; but Richard, son of this John, is alive after 1265, and one of the witnesses is Robert Tregoz, Senior or Junior, 1194-1265] gives to the Priory three acres of land in Ewias. Witnesses Lord Robert de Tregoz, LordHamo de Bachampton, and others. (Who this John of Ewias was I have not been able to discover).
10. Charter of Robert of Ewias [1150?-! 196], gives to the Priory the tithes of " my assarts," but the monks to pay therefrom to the Chaplains, " whom I choose," 24 shillings a year. Also gives a tract of land " assartandum" Witnesses " Petronilla, my wife, Sibilla, my daughter, William and Herbert, my brothers."
11. Charter of Robert Tregoz [1196] remits the payment of the 24 shillings to the Chaplains. Alexander, ex-chaplain, now parson of Lidiard Tregoz, to receive, however, 12 shillings a year for life. This Charter mentions " John, my son," otherwise unknown ; he probably died young. He could only have been three or four years old in 1 196. Witnesses Seisil, Dean of Ewias, Adam the chaplain, and others.
12. Confirmation of G/eoffrey/ Bishop of St. David's [1203-1214], follows very closely No. n. Witnesses G., Archdeacon of Brecon (nephew of Giraldus Cambrensis, whom he succeeded in the archdeaconry in 1203), and others.
13. Charter of Sibilla de Ewias [1198-1 235] gives to the Priory tithes of all the mills in her domains, on condition that the monks serve daily in the Chapel of St. Nicholas, at all the canonical hours. Witnesses William of Ewias, Thomas of Kenecth " tune Senescallo meo" and others. [The Testa de Nevill, under Upton, Wilts, says that Thomas of Kenet holds 3 hides from Robert de Tregoz, "per Seneschaliam "].
14. Agreement between the Monks of Gloucester in Ewias, and the Clerics of the Castle, concerning the rights in the Parish ChurchofSt. Michael/_i 150-1 175]. Jordan, dei gratia Archdeacon of Brecon, in the Chapter of Ewias Kenegen the Dean being present adjudges the Church of St. Michael to the Priory. Witnesses Kenegen the Dean, Hugo de Aberlenen, and others.
50 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
15. Charier of Walter de Welynton. [Before 1196. See 19.], gives to the Priory " medietatem totius burgagii met." He confirms his gift by an oath on " the red book of Ewias." 1 Witnesses William de Wycumba " tune cappellano in Ewias" Robert Drue " tune cons tabu lario" and others.
1 6. Confirmation by Walter de Welynton of the above gift 'in the presence of H[enry Blount], the Abbot of Gloucester, and Adam, the Prior of Ewias. [1205- 1224.] He adds that it is the half " near the barn of the said monks."
17. Confirmation of Peter of Pontint, concerning the Mill and Fishery of Helyston, confirms the gift which Galfrid de Pontint made. (86650.) [1194-1196. For the Seneschal of Robert de Tregoz (the elder, since his grant follows) is a witness]. Witnesses Robert Cotele, Seneschal of Lord Robert Tregoz in Ewias, and others.
1 8. Charter of Agnes of He Us ton, daughter of Galfred of Ponf , once wife of Baldwin Martel [about 1206] gives to the Priory the mill of Heliston, with the fishery, and the new fosse, and two acres of land, " to the left of the road which leads from Heliston Bridge to Monmouth." Witnesses Robert Mandut, Constable of Ewias, and others.
19. Charter of Robert de Tregoz [1196] gives to the Priory all the tithes of " my assarts already cleared and hereafter to be cleared," and confirms the gift of the mill at Heliston by Galfrid of Pontintuna, Lord of Heliston [see 50] and that of Walter de Welynton " ad augmentum curice." Witnesses Sibilla, my wife, William of Chelleworth, and others.
20. Charter of Robert Tregoz, the younger [1235-1265] grants to the Priory " the whole fosse which is between the land which belonged to Walter de Welynton and the water which is called Duneleis " [Dulas]. Witnesses " William, my brother, Hugo deCulpek [Kilpeck], and others."
21. Confirmation of Robert Tregoz, the younger [1235-1265] grants to the Priory " the curtilage which they acquired from Walter of Welynton, " tempore matris mece" [i.e. 1198-1235. See Nos. 15 and 16]. Witnesses "William, my brother, John de Tregoz, ' tune senescallo meoj and others." i See Appendix, Note W.
THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 5!
22. Confirmation of John Tregoz [1265-1300] gives to the Priory a certain piece of land which once belonged to Basilia, daughter of Gilbert Lewante [called "LeGanf'in No. 31]. Witnesses Richard Hoke, Richard of Ewias, and others.
23. Charter of John Tregoz [1265-1300] gives to the Priory a footpath leading from " frocgelane " to the Churchyard. Witnesses Richard Hoke, Henry de Ewias, and others.
24. Charter of John Tregoz [1265-1300] gives to the Priory an acre of land " on the left hand of King Street (regia via) towards Llangua (versus languen) and " Bradelee." [In this document the wife of John Tregoz is given as " Margeria," which unless he married twice, of which we have no evidence is a scribe's mistake for " Mabilia "]. Witnesses Richard of Ewias, Richard his son, and others.
25. Charter of John Tregoz [dated Ewias, June 6th, 1283] gives to the Priory of Ewias " reasonable herieta " at every death among his tenants. (Quod recipiant et pacifice possideant racionabiha herieta sua de omnibus hominibus meis et eorum uxoribus quum contingat eos in fata decedere sine contradictione aliqud).
26. Charter of John Tregoz [1265 1300] gives to Richard le Normon, Priory of Ewias, " a certain road leading from my garden, which I had from John Tregoz, my uncle, to the Street which is called Vriogis-strete." Witnesses John de Danhurste, Seneschal of Ewias, Roger of Marcle, con- stable of Ewias, and others. [From this document we gather that John Tregoz, the eldest son of Robert Tregoz the elder, did not die in infancy. (See No. n). There is, however, some difficulty with regard to the passage " which I had from John Tregoz, my uncle." For John Tregoz the uncle was quite certainly born about 1 195, and unless he was disinherited must have died before 1235 or there- abouts. And John Tregoz, the nephew, even if his father had married at twenty, could not have been more than nine years old when his uncle died. Possibly though there is no scrap of evidence to support the idea John Tregoz, the uncle, may have been Lord of Ewias for a few years after the death of his mother, Sibilla, in 1235]. 52 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
27. Licence of John Tregoz [1265 1300] allows Richard le Noremon, Prior of Ewias, to buy a certain burgage, which William Croc once held "near my wood, which is called Haya." Witnesses John de Danhurste, Seneschal of Ewias, Roger of Marcle, Constable of Ewias, and others.
28. Charter of Richard de Ewias, son of Richard of Ewias [after 1272 ? if it is the Richard de Ewias who was tried for poaching in that year] grants the " curtillage " referred to in 27 [but there called " burgage"]. Witnesses Roger of Marcle, Constable of Ewias, and others.
29. " Quietaclamancia " of Margery, daughter of Madoc ap Jorwent, widow of Richard, son of Richard of Ewias [dated September i8th, 1305], gives up her claim to the third part of the above-mentioned " curtillage," on payment by the monks of five shillings of silver. Witnesses John de Bederoynde, seneschal of the lord, and others.
30. Quietaclamancia of Thomas, son of Henrv the Weaver, of Ewias [1272-1307, since Richard of Ewias is a witness], renounces, on behalf of himself and wife Petronilla, all claim to his share in a certain curtillage, on payment by the monks of ten shillings of silver. Witnesses Richard Fouks, Richard of Ewias, and others.
31. Quietaclamancia of Basilia, daughter of Gilbert Le Gant [1272-1307, since Richard of Ewias is a witness (see No. 28)], follows very closely No. 30. Witnesses As in 30.
32. Charter of Walter of Ewias [dated 1206] gives to the Priory, with the consent of Basilia, his wife, and William and Roger, his sons, an acre of land " versus Haiam." Witnesses Richard de Grusci, constable of Ewias, Philip the chaplain, and others.
33. Charter of William, son of Walter of Ewias and Basilia de Carneville [after 1206] confirms the gifts of land by his father and mother, viz., one acre near the Church and one acre " super Stanihurstam." Witnesses " Roger my brother, Walter the Clerk, and others."
34. Charter of William, son of Walter of Ewias and Basilia de Carneville [after 1206] confirms the gift of one acre of land by his brother Roger. Witnesses Robert Drue, Constable of Ewias, Philip de Dispensar, and others.
THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 53
35. Charter oj Roger of Ewias [after 1206] gives to the Priory one acre of land t: with the consent of William of Ewias my Lord." Witnesses " William of Ewias, my brother and lord, Robert Drue, Constable of Ewias, and others."
36. Charter of Basilia, daughter of Richard de Carneville and wife of Walter of Ewias [after 1206] gives to the Priory three acres of land. Witnesses " William and Roger, my sons, Richard Scin, and others."
37. Release of Bernard Bras [dated Ewias, August 28th, 1352] resigns to Walter of Monmouth, the Prior of Ewias, all claim to the land which he had held on the tenure of paying four pence a year " ad lumen capella sanctce crucis sitce in cimiterio sancti Michaelis quod quieta terra vocatur, aliter nominata Miles londe" Witnesses John ap Wylym, Philip Scudamore, and others.
38. Confirmation of Ruald Maublanch [about 1250, since William Tregoz, rector of Kentchurch, is a witness] grants to the Priory all the lands which they held from " my predecessors." Witnesses William de Tregoz, John de Tregoz, and others.
39. Confirmation of William Maublanch [after 1250] grants to the Priory "the gift which they had from my father Rualdus, of Kauma [Calna?], viz., three acres of land once held by Mahel of Grosmont ; three acres [ ] : four acres near the land of William the Irishman : one acre under the road which goes down above the meadow : and four acres near the field above the ash : " grants also tithes of his mills, of his house, fish, flesh, &c. The monks in return to serve " my chapel of Herdewika three days a week." Witnesses Robert my son, [Kedrus the son of Urban ?], and others. [The site of this " chapel of Hardwick " is unknown, but that it was in the parish of Kenderchurch is stated in the next deed.]
40. Ordinance ofG., Dean of Hereford [1282-1316] settles a dispute between the monks of Ewias and " Roald the Knight who is called of Calna," about the tithes of the demesne of Herdewika-juxta-Ewias. It was decided by the Dean of Hereford, since the Bishop, Richard Swinfield, was absent, having been summoned to Rome, ut Romano concilia interesset. Roald is ordered to pay the tithes demanded, " in accordance with the ancient gift of Harold of Ewias and the grant of Archembald, then his knight, of the same fee,
54 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
with 1 5 acres of land and the tithes of his mill. These he granted to the monks of Gloucester, giving also the chapel, which he had recently built, with the consent of Alured, the priest of St. Kenedrus, in whose parish the said chapel is. The monks will find for it a chaplain." Witnesses Peter, Archdeacon of Hereford, Master Jordan, and others
41. Charter of Sibilla de Lacy [1130-1139] warns all her Bailiffs and Foresters that she has granted to "my Uncle, Walter, Abbot of Gloucester, for the soul of myself and of my husband, Payne Fitz-john, the land of Leghe, near the church of St. Michael." It extends "from [foman?] to pistel, and from Duneleis and [fuman] to the top of the mountain of Maischoit." She grants also to the monks the right of pasture " in my forest of Maischoit " and all the wood they need for building their houses. [This Sibilla de Lacy was the daughter of Hugh de Lacy, and heiress of Ewias Lacy. 1 Giraldus Cambrensis mentions her husband, Payne Fitz-john, as Lord of Ewias (" in cujus manu tune Ewias fuerat"/ and says of him and Milo, Earl of Hereford, " qui duo tune temporis inter regis secretarios et prcecipuos consiliarios pro magnis habebantur"] Witnesses Walter de Scudemer, Gilbert de Eschet, and others.
42. Confirmation of Gilbert de Lacy [1143 ?] successor of Sibilla de Lacy in the Lordship of Ewias Lacy, follows very closely No. 41. Witnesses Hugo de Eschet, brother of Robert, and others.
43. Charter of Gilbert de Lacy [1143 ?] follows very closely No. 41, with further rights of pasture " in my forest of Maischoit." Witnesses Hugo de Eschet, brother of Robert, and others.
44. Confirmation of Hugh de Lacy, son of Gilbert de Lacy [? 1185], " Hugh de Lacy to his servants, whether French, English, or Welsh" rest as No. 41. Witnesses Hugo de Lancap, William le Miners, and others.
45. Confirmation of Henry, King of England [1154-1170] enjoins on the Earl of Hereford and Hugh de Lacy the observance of the rights of the monks of Ewias in Leghe. Witness Thomas [a Becket] the Chancellor, at Woodstock. i. It is usually said as in the Dictionary of National Biography that Hugh de Lacy died childless. But Mr. St. Clair Baddeley has proved beyond all reasonable doubt that he was not childless ; and this charter is part of the chain of proof. THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 55
46. Agreement between the monks of Lyra /zvho had a cell at KentchurcK/ and the Abbot of Gloucester [dated 1178] provides that the Priory of Ewias should have all the tithes in Ewias due to the monks of Lyra, paying them in return a mark of silver each year.
47. Confirmation of G/eoffrey/ Bishop of St, David's [1203 1214] confirms the gifts of Robert Tregoz in No. 19. Witnesses Gerard, Archdeacon of Brekinon [nephew of Giraldus Cambrensis], Master Walter, Osbert the Chaplain, Elias the Clerk, Matheu the Marshal, and others.
48 Confirmation of G/eoffrey/ Bishop of St, David's [1203 1214] publicly ratify- ing in a Chapter of Ewias the deed of his predecessor Bernard (see No. 2). Witnesses William, Prior of Llanthony, Edward, Canon [of Llanthony], G, Archdeacon of Brecon.
49 Confirmation of W/illiam de Vere/ Bishop of Hereford [1186 1199] ratines Harold's gift of the advowsons of Kentchurch and Eton Foy to the Priory. Witnesses Richard the Dean, Gilbert the Treasurer, and others.
50 Charter of G. Parson of Pont/ and Lord of Helistona [before No. 18, which was about 1 206] gives to the Priory "with the consent of Agnes and Margaret, my sisters and heirs," the mill and fishery of Helistona (see Nos. 18 and 19). Witnesses Richard de Grosci, Constable of Ewias, and others.
51 Confirmation of Baldwin Marcel^ [about 1206] gives, with his wife Agnes, the mill of Heliston, the new fosse, and two acres of land between the new fosse and the road which leads to Orcop. The monks give in return one mark of silver, and agree to pay to Baldwin and his heirs two shillings a year. This is sworn to on the " Red Book of Ewias " : and " whatever we have to grind, we will have it ground at the said mill, paying toll." Witnesses Stephen the Chaplain, Richard de Grosci, Constable of Ewias, and others. i. Among the Hill MSS at Belmont is the following deed of Henry Martel, son (or more probably grandson, since there is at least fifty years between the dates of the two deeds) of this Baldwin : " Henricus Martel filius Baldwyni Martel dedit Gilberto de Boys burgagium in Ewias Harold in Kjrngestrete et terras juxta terras Prioris de Ewias, Wilhelmi filii Alani. liberas ab omni exactione .... salvis domino de Ewias annuatim pro burgagio duobus denariis ad Lewayte poni. Testibus domino Johanne Tregoz, Ricardo Fuke, Johanne Murdac, tune Senescallode Ewias, Griffydd Goch, Roger de Ewias, loreforth ap lorwau, Johanne filio loreforth, Seycil filio Ketheric, Johanne de Hope, et aliis.
56 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
52. Delimitation of the Length and Breadth of the Churchyard of Ewias [dated 1266], "Richard [de Carew] being Bishop of St. David's and John de Barri [possibly a nephew of Giraldus Cambrensis] Dean of Ewias," the limits of the Churchyard of St. Michael upon Duneleis were fixed as follows : It extends from the two ways which lead towards Dore, to the course of the stream which is called Duneleis. It is ordered also that the two houses inhabited by a certain Elias, of St. Michael, and Henry, the Weaver, should be removed before the next following feast of All Saints under pain of the greater excommunication. Signed by Henry, Abbot of Dore, Walter, Prior of Llanthony Prima, Philip de Barri, Rector of Cladoc, and Richard of Tergebige, Archdeacon of Hereford.
53. Exchange between Margeria, daughter of Richard of Ewias, widow of Philip Kenewreyge, and William de Londiniis, Prior of Ewias [1265-1300]. [Two acres which her husband had given to the Priory are taken back by Margeria, who gives in exchange two others adjoining the Prior's land. She binds herself " by oath on the Holy Gospels and by pledges " that she will pay half a mark sterling, for every breach of this agreement, to the Bailiff Constable of Ewias, who is to enforce observance. There is the following significant addition, " And we, the said Margeria, and the said John my son, have signed this deed with full, clear, and express knowledge and understanding, all having been clearly explained to us in our mother tongue."] Witnesses John of Ardarne, Seneschal of Ewias Harold, Thomas of Snailhum, constable of the same, and others.
54. Quietaclamancia of Margeria Kenewreke [1265-1300] resigns all claim to the two acres of land, " versus Michaeleschirche," which her husband Philip gave to the monks. Witnesses John of Arderne, Seneschal of Ewias, Thomas of Snailham, constable of the same, and others.
55. Agreement between the Abbot of 'Gloucester and G., Vicar of Foy [about 1267] made before William, Prior of Llantony-near-Gloucester, with authority from Octobo, Apostolic Legate in England. [Ottobon, Legate of Pope Clement IV., was in England in 1267 arranging peace between Henry III. and Llywellyn.] The Vicar recognised the claim of the Abbot to one- third part of the tithes of Foy. THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 57
56. Agreement behveen the Abbot of Gloucester and the Prioress of Aconbury [dated July i gth, 1281], made before the " Prior of St. Oswald's, Gloucester, of the Order of St. Augustine, Comissary of Pionya of the same Order, principal judge of the Diocese of Hereford, Delegate of the Apostolic See." [The nuns are to have all the tithe of the mill (decimam thelonii de dicto molendino), the Prior of Ewias to have all the tithes of the fishery of the said mill and half a mark a year from the nuns.]
57 Final agreement betu'een Petronilla de Ewias /widow of Robert Fitz-Roberi/ and the Abbot of Gloucester, concerning the Advowson of Eton [dated October 28th, 1204], made before the King's Justices, William de Cantelupe, Simon de Pateshull, Henry de Northampton, and Richard de Feing. [Petronilla resigns all claim to the advowson on payment by the Abbot of four marks of silver].
58. Quietaclamancia of John de Tregoz [1265-1300] resigns to the Prior of Ewias all right in the land at Foy once held by Hugo Murdac. Witnesses John of Ardarne, Seneschal of Ewias Harold, Thomas of Snaylham, and others.
59. Confirmation of Robert [de Bethuti/ Bishop of Hereford [1139-1148] grants to the Abbot of Gloucester the full right of presentation to the church of St. Faith of Eton ; and institutes as Vicar one Alured, on the presentation of the Abbot Gilbert [Foliot]. Witness " Alured, whom on the presentation of the Venerable Gilbert, Abbot of Gloucester, I have instituted vicar."
60 Agreement between Philip Langebrigge, parson of the Church of St. Keyne, and William, cleric of the same [1205-1243], gives to William, the cleric, with the consent of Henry [Blount, 1205-1224, or Foliot, 1228-1243,] Abbot of Gloucester, the Church of St. Keyna, and the chapelry of Canelros, on an annual payment of forty-seven shillings, by the hand of the Prior of Ewias, to the said Philip or his procurator in Gloucester, to be paid, twenty shillings at Christmas, twenty shillings at Easter, and seven shillings to remain in the hands of the Prior. William, of St. Keyna, tactis sacrosanctis, swore that he would faithfully make these payments, and, if ever he failed, the said Prior should use diligence to compel payment. Witnesses the Abbot of Eynsham, R. Archdeacon of Stafford, and Lord Martin Pateshull. 58 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
61. Agreement between William de Tregoz, Rector of Kentchurch and the Prior of Ewias [earlier than 1265], printed in Gloucester Cartulary III. 269. [The document in the Ewias Harold Cartulary is styled " Renunciatio," in the Gloucester Cartulary " Compositio."]
62. Confirmation of Harold's gift by Jocelin, Bishop of Sarum [1142-1184] gives to the Priory of Ewias the tithes of Lydiard, Clive, Athelyntone [Allington], and two-thirds of the tithe of Teffunda [Teffont Ewias]. Witnesses Clement, Abbot of Sherborne, Baldwin Chancellor of Sarum, and Azone (?), Archdeacon of Sarum.
63. Confirmation of John [de Chishull/ Bishop of London [1273-1279] ratines the charters of the Priory without specification.
64 Confirmation of 'David, Bishop of St. David's [dated 1299], follows No 63 very closely.
65. Agreement between Robert, Rector of Elmerton, in the Sarum Diocese, and the Prior of Ewias [dated Hilary Term, 1300], made before Walter de Merton, Archdeacon of Wilts. [The Rector of Elmerton claimed the tithes of certain lands which Robert of Dudeford held in Clive. The tithes were, however, assigned to the Prior of Ewias, who was to pay to the Rector of Elmerton one pound of wax every year on the feast of St. Lawrence.]
66. Confirmation of Savaricus Bishop of Bath and Wells [1192-1205] grants to the Priory of Ewias 100 shillings a year from the Church of Burnham. Witnesses " R. of Lichlade, and William of Cirencester, our chaplain."
67. Confirmation of the same Savaricus [1192-1205] grants to the Priory of Ewias 15 marks a year of the tithes of Burnham for ever. Witnesses R., Prior of Bath, and William the chaplain.
68. Confirmation of S/tephen Langton/ Archbishop of Canterbury [dated October, 1227], follows very closely No. 67.
69. Ratification of Jordan, Rector of Burnham [1192-1205] consents to the gift of Savaricus to the Priory of Ewias, mentioned in No. 67. Witnesses R., Prior of Bath, and William, chaplain of the Lord Bishop Savaricus.
70. Agreement between Walkelin, the cleric of Burnham, and the Prior of Ewias [1244-1292] made before R[oger of Salisbury, 1244-1247, or Robert Burnell, 1274-1292]. [Walkelin had refused payment of the two-thirds of the tithes of Burnham, which it was proved that he owed. He agrees to pay regularly hereafter.]
THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 59
7 1 . Certificate of the Archdeacon of Wells. [There is no Thomas, Bishop of Bath, in the time of John Tregoz, 1265-1300. The probable date of this document is 1279-1280, when Robert Burnell was Bishop.] "To Walter Helynn, and Roger le Rus, King's justices, and to Thomas, Bishop of Bath, the Archdeacon of Wells greeting. The case of the Abbot of Gloucester against John Tregoz, concerning the Church of Burnham, has been tried before the Chapter of Wells, and John Tregoz has appealed to the next Assizes."
72. Agreement made between the Abbot of Gloucester and John Tregoz before the King 's Justices [dated Somerton, June 28th, 1280]. Printed in the Gloucester Cartulary II., 211.
73 Charter of William de Keneta [ ? ] gives to the Priory of Ewias, a messuage forty-one feet in length and twenty-five feet in breadth in " my croft of Aliggeton." Witnesses Jordan, Chaplain of Kenet, Galfrid of Kenet, and others.
74. Agreement between the Abbot of Gloucester and the Rector of Alkannynges [dated July 5th, 1359]. [This is by far the longest document in the Cartulary, filling many pages. William, Apostolic delegate in England, states that he has received a letter (given in full) from the Pope (Innocent VI., 1352- 1362), dated Avignon, December 2nd, 1356, informing him that the Abbot of Gloucester and William, Prior of Ewias, have complained to the Holy See that Thomas de Berghame, Rector of Algekanning ignores them in the matter of tithes. The Pope had determined to try the matter, but the witnesses who had been summoned did not appear. The Apostolic Delegate therefore hears the case at Algekanning, at great length, and decides that the right of receiving the tithes is to the monks. He, therefore, restores the tithes to them, and condemns " the said Thomas de Berghame, Rector of Algekanning, to pay the expenses of the said ' religious ' in this trial." There is a difficulty about the " William the Prior " mentioned in this document. It is probably a scribe's error for " Walter the Prior," since Walter of Monmouth was Prior from 1352 to the suppression of the Priory in 1358.]
75. Agreement between Thomas /Horton/ Abbot of Gloucester, and Robert de Wych- ford. Rector of Allekanyn [dated Gloucester, July 5th, 1362] grants all the tithes, greater and less, of Alyngton, to the Abbey of Gloucester, as representing the Priory of Ewias, and the Rector of Allekanning to pay four marks sterling to the Abbey each year.
60 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
7 6 Agreement between the Abbot of Gloucester and William de Poterne, Prior o/Ewias on the one side, and Walter of Radnor, Rector of Lidiard Tregoz, on the other [dated Malmesbury, February 2 7th, 1311] made before the Abbot of Malmesbery, sole judge. The Rector of Lidiard Tregoz confessed that the Prior and monks of Ewias were entitled to two-thirds of the greater and lesser tithes, and was ordered to pay the said two-thirds henceforth.
77 Agreement between Thomas /Horton/, Abbot of Gloucester, and Robert of Burton, Rector of Lidiard Tregoz [dated August 8th, 1366]. The Rector agrees to pay two-thirds of the tithes yearly to the Abbot.
78 Indenture between Roger la Warr de Ewias and /Thomas Horton/ Abbot of Glou- cester, concerning the recall of the Prior and Monks of Ewias [dated Oxen- hale, May 7th, 1358.] [This document is in Norman-French ; all the other deeds in the Cartulary are in Latin. Roger la Warr, in view of the finan- cial difficulties of the Priory of Ewias, consents to the recall of the monks to Gloucester, on condition that a secular vicar perpetual is appointed to serve in the Church of St. Michael, and in the Chapel of St. Nicholas in the Castle. The Abbot agrees to appoint and provide for the maintenance of the Vicar, and to pay Roger la Warr eighty marks.] Witness Piers de Grauntsoun [Peter de Grandison.]
79. Deed of Thomas /Falstajf e/, Bishop of St. David's, recalling the Monks [1358]. Printed in Dugdale's " Monasticon"
80 Licence from Roger la Warr permitting the Abbot and Convent to recall the Monks [1358]. [For many years the Abbot has been obliged to provide the monks with clothing, and the greater part of their food free ; the neighbour- hood is unquiet ; the surrounding people difficult to deal with ; and religion all but disappeared. Therefore the Abbot is empowered to recall his monks to the parent monastery.] Witnesses Thomas de Berkeleye, Peter de Grandison, Thomas Moygne, and others.
8 1. Delimitation of the Vicarage and Church of St, Michael [dated Gloucester, June 2oth, 1359]. Translated in full in the Appendix. 1 See Appendix, Note X.
THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 6 1
EWIAS GRANTS FROM THE ACONBURY CARTULARY. XIII. Charter of Richard de Ewias, son of John de Ewias, to Juliana de Tregoz, widow of Robert de Tregoz, of certain rents in Foy [1265-1285 probably after 1272], XIV. Charter of Juliana de Tregoz [1265-1285], of the rents so conveyed to her. XXIX. Agreement between Sibila de Ewias [1198-1235] and William the Miller, of Ewias. XXX. Charter of Sibila, Lady of Ewias Harold [1198-1235], of certain rents in her manor of Ewias. XLI. Charter of Sibila de Ewias [1198-1235] grants tithe of toll of mill at Eton. [Among the witnesses to this grant are Walter de Lacy, Roger de Clifford, and " Robert Tregoz and his brothers."] XLII. Charter of Sibila de Ewias [1198-1235] grants a rent payable by Stephen de Plessy in Ewias.
62 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
THE SUPPRESSION OF THE PRIORY.
TWO causes contributed to bring about the suppression of our Priory : First the growing poverty of the little community, and, secondly, the lax and even dissolute life of the brethren, which drove the Abbot of Gloucester to refuse any longer to supply their needs from the parent house. Realistic descriptions of the evil lives of the monks are almost a common-place in the satires of the Middle Ages, and these descriptions have been received by later writers as a fair picture of life as it was lived in a typical religious house of that day. Of our border monasteries and priories these accounts do give us a more or less true picture, the picture being perhaps omewhat darker in colour than the reality, but not, it is to be feared, very much darker. But the religious houses of England, as a whole, were not nearly so bad as these accounts would lead us to suppose. For, curiously enough, the three writers from whom we learn most of this feature in monastic life, Giraldus Cambrensis, his friend Walter Map, and the author of " Piers the Plowman," were all in one way or another closely connected with the Herefordshire Border. Giraldus was Archdeacon of Brecon, Walter Map was Rector of Westbury, in the Forest of Dean, and held land at Wormsley, and William Langland lived close under the Malvern Hills. All these writers paint for us the " seamy side " of monastic life, as they saw it in the religious houses of the border. But these border monasteries were not a fair sample of the whole, partaking somewhat of the wild and irregular character of the Marches generally. The picture of a monk, as all three writers agree in drawing it, is, it must be confessed, repellent and disgusting in the extreme. Many of the stories they relate are so coarse that they cannot be printed in modern English, and I can give little more than a rough outline of their very detailed accounts. Something of what Giraldus tells may be gathered from the story of Dore Abbey, given in a previous chapter, He charges the monks usually with three vices only, gluttony, avarice, and hypocrisy. Walter Map adds to these drunkenness, and the grossest lasciviousness. In biting verse he draws for us a terrible picture of the corruptions of the Church, taken undoubtedly from what he had seen in his own neighbourhood. The priest coming drunk to celebrate the Mass, and going straight from church to a bawdy house ; the monk, whose mind should be set on holy things, haggling over forbidden merchandise, and selling his books to keep his bastard children ; the Abbot, sitting at his drink, " lest if he stood, his foot should fail to support the weight of his paunch " these and other like pictures are painted in realistic language that will not THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 63 bear translating. And to complete the picture, we have the figure of Bishop Goliath, void of conscience, sunk in sensuality, drunken and unchaste, trolling out his famous drinking song : " Meum est propositum in taberna man, Et vinum appositum sitienti ori, Ut dicant quum venerint angelorum chori, Deus sit propitius isti potatori." ^ Coming now to William Langland, we have a very similar picture. He introduces one priest who says, " By Mary, if any silver is to be gained, I think no more of going against my conscience than of drinking a draught of good ale ; and there are 60 others like me in my country side." And another border priest thus frankly admits his faults, " I cannot always get my pater-noster right, but I can sing the latest ballad about Robin Hood. What I say with my tongue is often ten miles from my heart. I am occupied each day holy day and other with idle tales over my ale. As for God's pain and His Passion, but seldom do I think thereon. I have been priest and parson, passing 30 years, yet I can neither sol-fa, nor sing, nor read Saints' lives. I can find a hare in a field better than I can expound the Psalms to my parishioners." Such is the picture a Herefordshire man draws of a Herefordshire parson in the i4th century, and such, it is to be feared, was the character of some at least of the later Priors and monks of Ewias. The state of things, in a Priory which was a " cell " of a larger house, was always worse than elsewhere. For the Prior and his few monks, removed from the stricter discipline of the larger house, with its vigilant supervision, and no longer restrained by that public opinion of the monastery, which was a mighty force for good in the parent house, soon abandoned the rigid rules of their order, gave themselves up to the pleasures and pursuits of a country life, and, only too often, to the indulging of their carnal appetites. They lived like lay- men ; or worse, says Giraldus, " they lived like beasts." Even when they did not become open evil-livers, it was not an edifying sight for the laity to see monks who professed to have bidden adieu to earthly vanities " engaged in the sale of dogs and horses, visiting markets, and chaffering for wool and hides, or driving bargains for worn out oxen." Chaucer good-humouredly describes a monk of this class, whose i Countless attempts have been made to produce a good translation of this celebrated song. The following is perhaps the best of these renderiugs " Die I must, but let me die drinking in an inn 1 Hold the wine-cup to my lips sparkling from the bin ! So, when angels flutter down to take me from my sin, ' Ah, God have mercy on this sot ! ' the cherubs will begin." 64 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. whole delight was in field sports. " In hunting for the hare was all his joy " ; he loved a good horse and knew how to ride one. " And when he rode, men might his bridle hear Jingle in a whistling wind so clear And eke as loud as doth the chapel-bell Where he, as Lord [Prior] was keeper of the cell." It will be easily understood that those who had once enjoyed the delights and liberties of this country life used every effort to avoid being recalled to the secluded life and strict discipline of the cloister. Giraldus tells us, indeed, that it was a proverb among the monks of these little Priories, speaking of what they most dis- liked, " Rather than do that, I would return to my monastery." The injunctions of the Archbishop for the governance of the Abbey of Gloucester and its cells (issued July 2 8th, 1301) stringently provided that no monk was to remain in a Priory cell longer than a year, nor were they after their recall to be sent again to a cell, unless it were necessary for the sake of health. This regulation, however, seems to have been practically a dead letter from the first, and intrigues of every kind were entered into, to win from the Abbot permission to remain in the Priory. In Ewias the state of things, in the early part of the i4th century, seems to have been even worse than elsewhere, for the Abbot of Gloucester complains to the Bishop of St. Davids that the character of the neighbouring people (fopuli circumvictni] has so completely changed that religious zeal is " not only diminished, but absolutely destroyed." And " not only has the fear of the Lord perished there, but, when monks well-trained in the life and conversation of the monastery are sent one after the other (successive) to stay at Ewias, they bring back such wordly and as it were boorish habits (sceculares et quasi silvestros mores} that, the contagion spreading to their brethren, the religious tone of the said monastery is seriously wounded (damnabiliter in monasterio prtzdicto religio vulneratur}" Here then we have one of the Abbot's reasons for suppressing the Priory. The other was the difficulty, in face of increasing poverty, of practising the monks' one great virtue of hospitality to all and sundry. To monks, indeed, who lived among the wild Welsh of Archenfield and Ewias, this hospitality was not so much a virtue as a necessity, if they wished to escape spoliation or even worse. And the financial strain of entertaining these constant and not entirely welcome guests was the reason why all the border Priories dwindled away and disappeared long before the suppression under Henry VIII. As early as 1136 the monks of Llanthony had THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 65 been driven to migrate to Gloucester because " they cannot procure food nor celebrate divine service with accustomed reverence in consequence of the vain insolence of their ungrateful guests." Kilpeck again was discontinued " propter excessivum concur sum populi adeorum mensam." And the Prior of Clifford, seeking to appropriate the revenues of the Rectory of Dorstone, alleges that his Priory is situated " in the lower parts of the March of Wales, where daily a multitude of Welshmen come together, to whom hospitality cannot be denied without grave risk." The Abbot of Gloucester, considering the scandalous lives of the monks of Ewias, and also " propter populi circumvirini infestam inquietationem et inquietam infestationem" as he punningly phrases it, refuses any longer to continue his supplies to Ewias. And, on February ist, 1358, the Bishop of St. Davids, with the consent of Roger la Warr, the Lord of Ewias, signs and seals a document permitting the Abbot to recall to Gloucester, and there retain Walter of Monmouth, the last Prior of Ewias, and his monks ; annexing to Gloucester all the goods spiritual and temporal which had belonged to the Priory, save only such portion as would support a Vicar for St. Michael's Church.
66 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
VILLAGE LIFE IN THE MIDDLE AGES.
I PROPOSE in this chapter to try to give some idea of what the ordinary every- day life in our village was like in the far-away days of which I have been writing. To begin with we must remind ourselves how much the general aspect of the land has been changed by the clearing away of the forests which then covered the whole country-side, save where a clearing had been made, or a road cut. In the conquest of Wales the one great obstacle was not the enemy, but the woods. The invading forces were armed with axes as well as spears, and were compelled literally to cut their way through the otherwise inpenetrable forests. The earliest English village was simply a clearing in the forest, where a few families felled the trees, built rude houses of wood, made a few enclosures for rearing calves, or baiting the farm stock, and laid out the three large common fields of arable land. Outside these came the common pasture land, into which each family turned their cattle ; and, beyond that, the woodlands, where they cut their timber, gathered their fuel, and pastured their pigs. Add to this, as time went on, the Church, the Castle of the Norman conqueror, and its all but inevitable accompaniment, the Priory, together with new clearings in the neighbourhood, and new roads, and you have the rough plan of our village of Ewias Harold in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries. These new clearings are called Assarts, and the right of making them is eagerly sought for, often grudgingly given, and sometimes refused, even to the owner of the land. For the Forest is subject to the strictest Forest Laws, by which the rights even of the manorial Lord were grievously limited. The Charters of our Ewias Priory often mention these " Assarts," and in one deed a tract of Forest land is handed over "assartandam," i.e., to be turned into an Assart. The position of the tenants in our village has already greatly changed since the days of the villans, bordarers, and slaves of the Domesday Survey. There is now a class of free tenants (libere tenentes) holding land from the Lord, as he held it from the King, by certain limited services (sometimes, though not always, military) other than the one, two, or three days work each week, which the Domesday tenant for the most part rendered. These services were usually commutable into money payments, and were clearly a mitigated service fast growing into a fixed money rent. The villans and bordarers of Domesday are now called custumarii, rendering for their holdings various services, usually less honourable than those rendered by the free tenants. Thus in Ewias Harold the free tenants paid usually a certain sum in money each year, half on Lady Day and half at Michaelmas, together with " suit of THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 67 court every three weeks, castle-ward, marriage, heriot, and relief, when it shall fall." The customary tenants also paid a small rent, but rendered mainly work on the Lord's demesne in return for their holdings. They were bound, each of them, to reap for one day, to mow for two days, to give " six ploughings a year, to wit, two plough- ings at the Feast of St. Michael, and two at the Feast of the Annunciation, and two at the Feast of St. John the Baptist." It is very noteworthy, however, as shewing the gradual breaking up of the feudal system of land tenure, and the rise of the modern system of rents paid in money only, that all or any of the above services can be com- muted for a money payment. In Ewias Harold, if a man did not wish to take his turn at castle-ward, he could pay " Wayte-penny," i.e. ward penny, a penny a day for each day he ought to be on duty at the Castle. For a day's reaping he paid a half-penny, for a day's mowing a penny, for a day's lifting of hay a half-penny, and for a day's ploughing threepence. Both the free tenants and the " customary " tenants pro- vided that the appointed services were duly rendered had absolute security of tenure. Their holdings passed by re-grant from the Lord, always to a single successor, usually the eldest or the youngest son, according to the custom of each individual manor. " They possessed all the unity and indivisibility of an entailed estate, and were sometimes known, apparently for generations, by the family name of the holders." So completely was the right of the holder in his land recognised, that a grant to the Priory of an acre or two acres, as the case may be, is made directly by the tenant and " his heirs." The Lord, or his seneschal, or his constable, was sometimes a witness to the deed of gift, but equally often it was done without this formal act of consent. As an example of the way in which before the days of maps or plans the delimitation of the various holdings was made, we may take at random from the Cartulary the following, as typical of a score or more detailed descriptions. It is a feoffamentum of two acres infeodo de Ewias " towards Michael Church, between the land of Richard de Ewias and the land of Richard his son, and extending in length from the land which once was Robert Lowe's to the land of Hugh the Miller." As we have already seen, there were in our village, at the end of the Thirteenth Century, 38 of these holdings in the hands of free tenants, and 75 in the hands of " custumarii." The holdings of the free tenants in Ewias Harold varied from one carucate (i.e. 120 acres) to eight acres to each man; with some few holdings of "a burgage," "a piece of land," or "two crofts." Of the customary tenants some held as many as twenty acres, but the greater number held only from three to eight acres each man. 68 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. We turn next to a question of very great difficulty the topography of our village and neighbourhood in the Thirteenth Century. The Cartulary supplies us with most exact details on this point ; but it is not always possible to identify the "messuages" " burgages" " curtillages" and " fosci," which were the points of departure for the delimitation of the lands referred to in the various deeds. There are many references, however, which we can at once locate with certainty. The Castle, of course, stood upon what we still call the "Castle Tump," its strong keep frowning down upon the wattled, thatch-roofed houses of the villagers, its chapel of St. Nicholas, and the other buildings standing round the basse cour> its curtain wall encircling the whole platform of the lower ward, its entrance flanked with turrets, and crowned with a high guard-house. This main entrance was on the south or King-street side ; but there was a postern on the north side also. Below the castle, on the side looking to the village, was the " Lord's garden," through which ran a path (modica semitd) from the postern gate of the Castle to the village, with a little stream running beside it. As it neared the village, this path divided, one branch skirting the wall of the Priory, and crossing the Dulas stream to the churchyard, the other passing between the curtilage of the monks and the curtilage which William Croc once held into Frog-lane or Frog-street (usque ad vicum qui vocatur vriogis-strete). Richard le Norman, Prior in the second half of the Thirteenth Century, wishing to enlarge the Priory, obtained from John de Tregoz a grant of that branch of this path which led to the churchyard, closed it to the village, and built over it. On the other side of the Dulas brook was the Lord's mill, which had a monopoly of grinding for the tenants at fixed charges ; it was supplied with water by an artificial channel, the bed of which can still be traced. Near the mill was the Priory barn. Where the Lord's new barns were situated I cannot discover ; but the Priory itself was built on the spot where Harold's barns had stood, these being granted to the monks as a site for their new buildings by Robert Fitz-Harold. On the other side of the Castle from the village ran the King- street (regia via), still so-called, leading to Llangua (Languen). Round the height still called Cae-flwyn, past what was at any rate in the Seventeenth Century called the " Potter's field," ran, then as now, the road to Dore. On the other side of this road from the Potter's-field was " boscus meus qui vocatur Hay a" as John Tregoz calls it in a Charter. The high ground between the village of Ewias Harold and Abbey Dore, where now stretches a treeless common, was then a thick forest called the Lord's wood. Indeed all the hills and valleys were densely wooded. Robert Tregoz, about the middle of the Twelfth Century, gave to the Priory " assartandam" (i.e., to be cleared, and turned into arable or pasture) a stretch of land from the THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 69 river Dulas " ad supercilium montis" Below the village at what is still called "the Weir," though no weir has been there in the memory of man was the " new mill " of the Lord. About a mile lower down, near where the Dulas joins the Dore, but on the latter stream, was the mill of Heliston. This raises an interesting question discussed at length in the appendix as to the date when " Heliston " became "Pontrilas." 1 Such is the outline map of our village about the year 1300, as far as we can make it out. What sort of life was lived in it ? On the whole, I should conclude that the villagers, whether free or customary tenants, were at least as well off as the villagers of to-day. They had each his own house built it is true merely of wattles, smeared inside and out with mud or clay, but not much inferior in comfort to the Castle of the Lord. They had land, some more, some less, but all a few acres ; and when their rent of twelve or sixteen pence a year was paid, the small holders' property was as secure as the Lord's demesne. At East Kennet alone, in the whole Barony, we read of twelve " Cotarii" whose holdings are said to be " ad ' voluntatem domini." It was only in Tudor days that a beginning was made of building a labourer's cottage without its few acres of land. And so grievous an evil was this new custom felt to be, that an Allotments Act was passed (31 Eliz., Cap. 7), forbidding any cottage to be built without four acres of land attached, to be cultivated by the peasant on his own account. But, besides his land, the villager had common rights of pasture, in proportion to his holding, and pannage of pigs in the Lord's wood. Then, too, he was able, after doing the work on his small holding, and his work of so many days each year for the Lord, to take other work for wages; or since each village was an isolated little community providing everything for itself to work as an artizan. Thus we find in Ewias Harold in 1300, besides the miller who, after the Lord's Seneschal, and the Prior, was the chief man in the village a carpenter, a tailor, three weavers, a shoemaker, a cooper, a dyer, two laundresses, and a most important man in every village a carrier. But one and all of these had their holding, and cultivated it. It seems certain that, in the main, the means of life, for a villager, were relatively more abundant in the Middle Ages than they are in our day. There was absolutely no abject poverty in the village. The villager, as truly as the Lord himself, had a stake in the land, was even a joint-proprietor with the Lord, and, therefore, had more self-respect, a greater feeling of responsibility than the peasant of to-day. This sense of reciprocal responsibility was fostered by the Manor Court, at which, three times a year, the villagers appeared, some presenting offenders, and i See Appendix, Note Y.
70 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
some sitting on the jury of Compurgators, thus acquiring a valuable training in habits of self-government. The village assembly, too, often held in the nave of the Church had almost as much actual power as the Parish Council of to-day, and more of indirect influence. We have, in the Cartulary, an account of one of the meetings of this assembly called together by Geoffrey, Bishop of St. David's, 1203-1214. (He had been Prior of Llanthony, and so probably knew Ewias well). There were present in the church of St. Michael, besides the villagers, " William, the new Prior of Llanthony, and Gerald, Archdeacon of Brecon," with many other persons clerical and lay. The Bishop read the deed by which he proposed to confirm the various gifts of benefactors to the Priory, " and they all with one voice cried ' Amen, Amen. ' " The fairs (twice a year in Ewias) were a great feature in the life of the mediaeval villager, since at them he had to get all he wanted, beyond what he procured by his own labour. Only occasionally he went into Hereford to market, or to sell some of his surplus stock or produce. We read of timber, also, cut near our village, being sold in Hereford for building in the Twelfth Century. The farming of the arable land was somewhat primitive ; deep ploughing was impossible with the rude wooden ploughs, which the villagers were compelled to use, owing to the prohibitive price of iron. The ground was only scratched, the crops were not large, and, rotation of crops being as yet unknown, one-third of the land was always lying fallow. The farms, however, were quite as heavily stocked in the Thirteenth Century as to-day, though the cattle were small and stunted, and no attempt was made to improve breeds. But every villager had his two oxen, and perhaps a cow or two, with a few sheep and pigs, whilst on the demesne lands, the Lord had, quite often, very numerous flocks and herds. What amount of cattle John Tregoz had, I have not been able to discover, but Dore Abbey, in 1291, had fifty-four cows, and two thousand seven hundred and forty sheep ; and mowed fifty-one waggon- loads of hay. In 1290, in the raid which the Earl of Gloucester's men made upon the lands of the Earl of Hereford, in Breconshire, they carried off one thousand and seventy head of cattle, fifty horses and bulls, and " countless sheep and pigs." I find also that Herefordshire was celebrated in the Middle Ages, not so much for its cattle as for its wool. This wool usually called Leominster wool was eight times dearer than wool from the Eastern Counties. From all these details it will be readily admitted (and the evidenc e could be multiplied, even from the records of this one little village) that the lot of the average THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 71 villager was certainly not harder or more precarious than it is now. His life, too, had more interests, and more variety than that of the present or later days. On the other side of the account, however, we must reckon certain less satisfactory points. The diet of the villagers, owing to the lack of vegetables, and the necessity of living largely on salt provisions, was, for large portions of the year, monotonous and unwholesome ; hence leprosy and scurvy were common diseases in the mediaeval village. A failure in the harvest meant all but certain famine, since it was difficult or impossible to import food. The village street in which all the houses were crowded, there being very few outlying homesteads was unclean and unwholesome. The general conditions of health were thus somewhat unsatisfactory, and the average duration of life certainly shorter than it is now. We must add to this, in Ewias, the wild and lawless character of the border folk, who did not scruple to shed blood on slight provocation. For these Marcher lordships were the lands in which the King's Writ did not run, where, as late as 1535, " murders and house-burnings, robberies and riots are committed with impunity, and felons are received, and escape from justice by going from one lordship to another." (See Statute, 27 Henry VIII.). Even churches were not safe. At Turnastone, in the Golden Valley, in 1298, Hugh Devereux, with an armed band, seized the church (then dedicated to St. Leonard), and only with difficulty could he be driven out, after some weeks, by the forces of the Sheriff in arms. But, in spite of these drawbacks, there were, in these early days, none of those extremes of poverty and wealth living side by side, which are now so common as to pass unobserved, while of the poverty which perishes unheeded, or the poverty which goes to the workhouse, there was little or none. Even in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, our villagers, like the Welsh generally, seem to have been fond of music. Giraldus says that all the Welsh of his day considered playing on the harp the greatest of all accomplishments. " Those who arrive in the morning," he adds, " are entertained till evening with the conver- sation of young women, and the music of the harp ; for each house has its young women and its harps allotted for the purpose." Throughout Archenfield and Ewias, strolling harpers were constantly to be found. John de Tregoz had, attached to the Castle of Ewias Harold, a harper who was evidently of high repute for his skill, since, in June, 1290, he was asked to play before Bishop Swinfield at Sugwas, and received two shillings as his reward. The Church and the Clergy were, as an element in the social life of the mediaeval village, even more important than they are in our day. To begin with,
72 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
the nave of the Church was the Parish Hall, where meetings were held, and where sometimes valuable agricultural produce, such as wool, was stored. (A survival of this secular use of the church is to be seen in the fact that before 1846, when the National School was built, a dame school was held in the belfry of Ewias Harold Church.) The number of clergy was immensely greater, in proportion to the population, than it is in our day. Here in Ewias, we had the Prior and always two monks, sometimes five or six. In the castle there was always one chaplain, some- times two ; one of whom, "John the Clerk," had become a householder in 1300, and paid twelve pence a year rent. A village boy of promise, even if the son of a serf, could himself become a priest, if he wished ; as William Langland, the son of a Herefordshire peasant, did ; and he might even rise to be a Bishop, as Grosteste did, the son of a Suffolk labourer. In the immediate neighbourhood there was, on the one side of Ewias, the Abbey of Dore,with its Cistercian monks, and at Kentchurch, on the other side, the alien Priory of the monks of Lyra. Then at Rowlston, and a little farther afield, at Garway and at Wormbridge, were Preceptories of the Knights Templars. At Llanthony was a house of Augustinian Canons, at Kilpeck another Benedictine Cell, at Clifford a Cluniac Priory, and at Craswell a Priory of Grand- montane monks. These, with the priests of the several parishes, and many itinerant priests, and Lollard preachers, formed a distinctly marked feature in the life of the country side. The visits of the Abbot of Gloucester, or of the Bishop of St. David's, were great events in Ewias. For, instead of coming for an hour or two to a Confirma- tion, and disappearing when the service was over, these Lords of the Church arrived with a great train of eighteen or twenty horses, for a stay perhaps of a week or longer. We have records of several visits of the Abbot, and of the Bishop of St. David's to Ewias. In 1282 the Archbishop of Canterbury (John Peckham) visited the neigh- bouring Abbey of Dore, on his way home from Wales. He seems to have rested at Dore where the Abbot entertained him royally for more than three weeks glad to get out of the wild hills through which he had so painfully journeyed. (A hundred years before, in 1188, Archbishop Baldwin, of Canterbury, journeying in the same wild land, and being told that no nightingales were ever found in Wales, had wearily murmured, " Wise bird, the nightingale.") King John used often to hunt in the Forest of Treville, when his brother, Richard I., was alive ; and, in the last year of his life, a fugitive, broken in health and in fortune, he spent the month of August in our neighbourhood, at Kilpeck, at Grosmont, and elsewhere. THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 73
It cannot fail to strike the reader of the Cartulary that the villagers of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries gave to the Church, in proportion to their means, very much more than any of us do, in our day. And yet the study of the Cartulary leaves one with the vague idea, whether well-founded or not I cannot say, that most of the gifts to the Priory, two acres here, one acre there, a curtilage, or the tithes of a fishery were half-compulsory, extorted possibly by threats or promises to be made effective in another life. For why should a free gift so often need to be confirmed by oath " on the Holy Gospel," or more often " on the Red Book of Ewias ?" In one case pledges are exacted, as well as the oath ; and it is significant that this is the case of a Welshwoman, Margery Kenrick, and her sons. For Giraldus Cambrensis, himself a Welshman, or Norman- Welsh at any rate says of the Welsh of that day ' They never scruple at taking a false oath for the sake of any temporary advantage." There is also in one deed a sadly significant phrase, " And we the said have signed this deed with full, clear, and express knowledge and understanding, all having been clearly explained to us in our mother tongue." This surely points to complaints on the part of donors that, not understanding the Latin of the deed which they had signed, they had inadvertently given more than they intended to give. (Sometimes even the clergy were thus tricked. For Giraldus tells us of a poor Priest, somewhat weak in his Latin, who asked his Bishop to accept a small offering of what he called " tres oves." He had meant to offer a few fresh eggs, but the Bishop held him to his words, and exacted sheep). The language question must have presented considerable difficulties in our village in the Eleventh, Twelfth, and Thirteenth Centuries. We are familiar enough in Welsh towns with bi-lingual folk. But in Ewias there were four languages commonly spoken. In the Priory they, to some extent at any rate, spoke and wrote Latin ; in the Castle Norman-French (almost the last document in the Cartulary, dated as late as 1358, is in French) ; while, of the tenants, some spoke English, some French, and others Welsh. What proportion of the villagers spoke each of these languages it is difficult to determine, as many of the names give no clue to the race of their owners. From such comparison as I have been able to make of what is practically the census of the village in 1 300, I gather that in that year there were in Ewias Harold about three Englishmen, and two Frenchmen to every two Welshmen. 1 In Kentchurch, however (which was in Archenfield, the boundary being the Worm to where it joins the Dore, then the united stream, and after- i There was a certain " William the Irishman" holding land in Ewias Harold, about 1250. Probably also there was a little colony of Jews near Abbeydore (where the name " Jewry " still survives). They would not, how- ever, have been there in 1300, as all Jews had been expelled from England in 1290, and thenceforward there was no Jew in England until the days of Cromwell. 74 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. wards the Momiow) every holder is expressly stated to be Welsh. It seems clear, then, that the Welsh race and language remained almost untouched by outside influences in parts at least of Archenfield down to the beginning of the Fourteenth Century, if not later ; while in Ewias, the Castles of Ewias Harold and of Longtown attracted many English settlers, in addition to the Norman retainers, whose prowess against the Welsh had been rewarded with grants of land. * But, in other parts of Archenfield, French immigrants were settling throughout the Thirteenth Century. For, of the three entries in the " Testa de Nevill," which refer to Archenfield, the first says that " Archenfield in Wales is bound to supply fifty Walenses serving at their own expense for fifteen days." The second entry says, " The Frenchmen and Welshmen of Archenfield /Franci et Walenses de Urchenesfeld/ are bound to supply forty-nine servientes." The third entry says, " The whole community is bound to supply fifty homines" That these different races retained each their own language is to be gathered from the instructions issued about the year 1180 by Hugh de Lacy, " to my servants, whether French, English, or Welsh." The notice was writteiij presumably, in all three languages ; and the monks of Ewias translated it into Latin for laying up in the Cartulary. During the two centuries and a half covered by the Cartulary (1100-1368) we are able to watch the slow beginning and gradual adoption of the use of surnames by the villagers of Ewias Harold. In the earlier documents there is scarcely a trace of what we can call a family name. The most clumsy circumlocutions are resorted to where exact specification is needed, such as "Hugh the son of William the son of the Norman " ; while for a Welshman the family tree is given for generations. The more usual designation, however, was by the place of birth or residence, as " Roger of Marcle," " Mahel of Grosmont." The calling is sometimes added, as " Hugh the forester, of Kilpeck," " Thomas the smith, of Ewias." Occasionally even the personal appearance suggests the appellation as " Walter with the beard." By the end of the Thirteenth Century, however, real surnames have come into fairly common use, in very many of our village families. Such names as " Thomas Ball," " John Hughes," and " William Russell " are sufficient to shew how far removed we already are from " Walter with the beard," or " Roger the Welshman." From the year 1300 onwards the modern usage in the matter of names is increasingly prevalent. There is yet one important feature in the life of the village to be briefly touched upon poaching. It seems clear that every one poached, lay and cleric, i There had been, however, as we saw in Chapter II., English settlers in Ewias, even before the first building of the Castle in 1048.
THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 75
and even the Lord himself. For it must be remembered that all the Forest was the King's, and was subject to the strictest Forest law. The beasts preserved by statute were in two classes I. Beasts of the Forest ; the red deer, the fallow deer, the hare, the wild boar, and the wolf. II. Beasts of the Chase, the fox, the marten, and the roe. It would seem, however, that the hare was not very strictly preserved ; the wild boar was already scarce in the Thirteenth Century ; and the wolf, so far from being preserved, was treated as a noxious beast. By letters patent, dated May i4th, 1281, Peter Corbet is directed by the King to take and destroy all wolves in the counties of Hereford, Worcester, and Salop. The Forest officers were many and various. There were, first, two Justices of the Forest (one to the north, the other to the south of the river Trent), who supervised the whole Forest administration. Next in authority were the Wardens of the Forest, usually powerful nobles, having each the custody of a forest in his neighbourhood. Then came the Verderers, knights or considerable landowners, who received no salary and had no perquisites, but attended the Forest Courts (something between a Justice of the Peace, and a member of a Grand Jury). The ordinary gamekeepers' work was done by the Foresters an office so much coveted that, so far from receiving wages, they paid the wardens for appointing them, remunerating themselves by various extortions from the dwellers in the " Assarts," taking tolls of corn, lambs, young pigs, and the like. Besides the " Kings' Forest " there were Chases," (e.g., the Chase of Malvera) in which the beasts of the Forest were preserved, but which were not subject to the whole body of the Forest Laws. A private subject was sometimes licensed by the King to make " a Park," that is " a district enclosed within a paling " ; or he was granted the exclusive right of hunting in a particular district, which was called " a warren " ; the holder of such a charter was said to " have warren " in that district. The public had the right of hunting in all unenclosed land, save the above-mentioned forest, chase, or warren. But, as we said, every one poached, from the lord to the slave ; though the penalties were severe, summary imprisonment for a year and a day without trial for a poacher caught with venison in his possession, and heavy fines even for trespass not in pursuit of game. Round Ewias Harold were three forests. There was to the north the forest of Treville containing (15 John) 2,014 acres, extending from Kingston to the River Dore. 1 Then to the west came the forest of " Mascoyt " (Maes-y-coed) ; and there was another near Grosmont, in which, says a charter of Dore Abbey, was a hermitage i In the Domesday Survey the only service of the tenants of the manor of Kingston is to carry the game to Hereford, (yillani tempore regis Ediuirdi ibi manentes portabant venntionem ad Hereford, ntc aliud strvitium faciebant).
76 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
called Lanneir [Llanfair, the church of the Virgin]. The Black Mountains too were full of game. The monks of Llanthony, sitting in their cloister, says Giraldus, " beheld the tops of the mountains, covered with deer, of which here are plenty, feeding on the summits which bound the horizon." With such surroundings, and the character of the people being such as we know it to have been, it is little wonder that the men of Ewias were poachers. Robert Fitz-Robert, the Lord of Ewias himself, was fined one hundred marks in 1176 for " tresspassing in the King's forest." The owners of parks frequently made contrivances called " deer-leaps," by which the beasts of the forests could enter the park, but were prevented from coming out again. The owners of such parks were often " presented " to the Forest Court for robbing the King in this way. With such examples in high places, it is little wonder that the villagers poached, knights, monks, and villans alike. And when they went into other counties they took their poaching habits with them. For Richard of Ewias, an important man in the village in 1300 (as his father, Richard, had been before him) had, in his youth, gone as page to William Tuluse in Northamptonshire. He persuaded Simon, his lord's son, and the Chaplain at Wootton to go with him hunting. They " entered the King's forest, with bows and arrows, killed three deer, cut off the head of a buck, and put it on a stake in the middle of a certain clearing, placing in the mouth of the aforesaid head a certain spindle, thus making the mouth gape towards the sun, in great contempt for the King and his foresters. And the foresters hailed them, and the evil-doers shot at the foresters, so that they fled, and could not resist them." For this little escapade, Richard of Ewias appeared before the Justices at the Northampton Eyre, on September 3oth, 1272, "and being convicted is detained in prison." The Chaplain was handed over to the Bishop of Lincoln for punishment. I have tried to gather together in this chapter such facts as, with some exercise of the imaginative faculty, might enable us to picture to ourselves the ordinary life of our village in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries. Of all this busy life for village life, I fancy, was then busier and more full of incident than in our day nothing now remains. The lord in the Castle, the monk in the Priory, retainers, custumarii, foresters, poachers, Franci et Walenses, all are gone ; there is nothing left but the Castle Tump, and cattle, sheep, and antiquarians pasturing thereon.
OWEN GLYNDWR'S TOWER, KENTCHURCH COURT.
THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 77
THE WAR OF OWEN GLYNDWR.
THE greatest event in the history of the Border during the first half of the * Fifteenth Century is the war with Owen Glyndwr. Owen is closely connected with the county of Herefordshire in peace as well as in war. Years before the trouble with England began, when he was still the quiet country gentleman of Glyndyfrdwy (of which Glyndwr is the corruption), he had married three of his five daughters into Herefordshire families ; Alice to Sir John Scudamore, of Kentchurch and Holme Lacy, Janet to John Croft, of Croft Castle, and Margaret to Roger Monnington, of Monnington. In all probability Owen Glyndwr would have led this quiet life of a country gentleman on his estates of Glyndyfrdwy and Sycherth to the end of his life, had it not been that, in the year 1400, Lord Grey of Ruthin, perhaps the worst of the fierce, unscrupulous, and pitiless Lords of the Marches, unjustly attempted to con- fiscate his estates. Contriving to get him proclaimed as a rebel, the Lord Marcher collected his forces, and, attacking Glyndwr in his home at Sycherth, drove him to the woods and hills. Owen was now forty-one, or according to some authorities fifty-one years of age, a polished and a courtly gentleman, well versed in the art of war and in all the knowledge of his day, and a born leader of men, though, like Cromwell in later times, he had lived more than half his life without discovering this. Above all, his appeal to the hearts of his fellow countrymen was that the blood of Powys and of Llywelyn the Great flowed in his veins. Needing only a leader, the restless Welshmen flocked in crowds to the Dragon Standard which the heir of Llywelyn raised at Corwen. Thus began the fifteen years of warfare, in which Wales and Herefordshire suffered such ravages as they scarcely recovered from in a century of peace. Owen's first act, as might have been expected, was the sack of Ruthin, after which he crossed the English border into Shropshire and Herefordshire, harrying and burning everywhere on his way. In the autumn the King, Henry IV., to whom Owen had once been esquire, gathering levies from Hereford, Shropshire, and Cheshire, made an expedition into North Wales ; but, as the Welsh took to their strongholds in the hills which he did not venture to attack, he was compelled by want of supplies to return without striking a blow. Through the whole of the next summer Owen ruthlessly ravaged Mid- Wales and the border, only the castles being
78 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
able to hold out against him. Even these were sorely pressed ; and when, here and there, one was stormed, or starved into surrender, its garrison was hung from the ramparts, as happened to Sir John Grendor's sixty men at New Radnor. By October, 1401, the King got another army together at Worcester, and made another fruitless march through North Wales. Scarcely had he returned to England, when Glyndwr defeated and captured Lord Grey in the Vale of Clwyd, carried him off to the impregnable fortresses of Snowdon, and only after months of rigorous imprisonment released him, on payment of a ransom which left him a poor man for life. It was in May, 1402, that Owen made his first descent in force upon the county of Hereford, his celebrated lieutenant, Rhys ap Gethin, winning on the way the great battle of Pilleth, near Knighton, where one thousand one hundred of the English were slain. After ravaging the county with pitiless severity, till little more was left for him to burn, outside the castles and the town of Hereford itself, he marched south, and utterly destroyed Abergavenny and Cardiff, save one street in the latter town, where he had friends. Late in August King Henry got together at Hereford an army, said to consist of one hundred thousand men ; but, as before, the invasion of Wales was profitless, the army being driven back this time by terrible floods and storms, raised, as it was on both sides believed, by Glyndwr's magic arts. Early in 1403 the King empowered William Beauchamp, Lord Bergavenny, to fortify the Castle of Ewias Harold and hold it against the inroads of Owen Glyndwr. For the next four years William Beauchamp, in one or other of his two strongholds of Abergavenny and Harold's Ewias, was almost unceasingly beset by the Welsh. On the approach of the King's army each summer, the beseigers fled into the mountains, and the castles had time to get in provisions, and to strengthen themselves before the next attack. More than once both Ewias Harold and Abergavenny were hardly pressed and almost lost. And Archdeacon Kingston's letter quoted below, shows that the whole country looked upon Beauchamp's two castles as their first and greatest line of defence, throughout the struggle. Though often almost driven to surrender, both castles contrived, nevertheless, to hold out until the better days. The summer of 1403 was spent by Owen and his forces in carrying fire and sword once more through the unhappy Marches. Herefordshire, Breconshire, and South Wales were full of ruin, fire, and slaughter ; and an urgent appeal for help was sent to the King, signed by " Your humble lieges the Sheriffs, Knights, Esquires, THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 79 and Commons of your county of Hereford." Hugh de Waterton, William de Beauchamp, and Richard Kingston, Archdeacon of Hereford, sent also to the King in support of the appeal private letters which are still existing. The Archdeacon says, " If you do not come in your own person, you will not find a single gentleman that will stop in your said county of Hereford. . . For the salvation of your shire trust you naught to any lieutenant. Written at Hereford in very great haste." Close following this petition came the news to the King that Hotspur had allied himself with Owen, and was marching south from Northumberland to join him. So the King, leaving Hereford to its fate, hastened to Shrewsbury, where young Prince Hal was watching the Marches with a small force. The future hero of Agincourt, though but a boy, had been appointed Lieutenant of the Marches, and for the next six or seven years he learnt, in almost daily fighting with the Welsh, the art of war, making his headquarters sometimes Shrewsbury, but oftener Hereford, or Grosmont. And now near Shrewsbury was fought the bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil. Hotspur and his army were defeated with immense slaughter, while Owen, all unconscious of his ally's need, was ravaging in distant Carmarthen. Then rapidly marching north, Glyndwr reached Leominster, where the much-harried authorities of the county of Hereford, despairing of help from the King, made special terms with him, and paid a heavy fine. A few days after Owen's departure, the King and his victorious army arrived at Hereford, and spent some days there. He ordered stores to be sent from Bristol to relieve the hardly-pressed garrisons of Abergavenny, Goodrich, and Ewias Harold, and then marched to Carmarthen and back accomplishing the return journey to Hereford in four days and of course seeing no trace of an enemy anywhere. But Owen and his men were pressing hard upon the Castle of Cardiff even before the King had reached Hereford again. In 1404 Archdeacon Kingston once again writes to the King : " The Welsh rebels in great numbers have entered Archenfield, and there have burnt houses, killed the inhabitants, taken prisoners, and ravaged the country, to the unsupportable damage of the county. We pray our Sovereign Lord that he will come in his Royal person, otherwise we shall be utterly destroyed, which God forbid. And for God's sake remember that honourable and valiant man, Lord Abergavenny, who is on the very point of destruction. Written in haste at Hereford, June loth." It is evident from this letter that in the summer of 1404 the Castles of Abergavenny and Ewias Harold must have been beseiged in force, since only when they were completely invested would the invasion of Archenfield be safe. It is clear also that on June loth both castles must have been reduced almost to the last extremity.
80 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
A fortnight later Prince Henry himself writes an urgent letter to the King that " the Welsh have made a descent upon Herefordshire, burning and destroying the county with very great force," and that he is assembling an army to save Hereford, but can- not keep his men together without pay or provisions. Whether he got pay and provisions we do not know, but no relief was to come to the distressed county for many months yet. Early next year (1405) Glyndwr went himself to South Wales, but sent his formidable captain, Rhys Gethin, with 8,000 men, by way of Abergavenny, to harry Herefordshire once more. But in Grosmont Castle Prince Hal was waiting to win his first great victory over the Welsh. After the battle, in the late afternoon, the Prince rode hastily to Hereford, and the same night despatched to his father the news of his success : " On Wednesday, the nth of the present month of March, your rebels of Overwent to the number of 8,000 burnt your town of Grosmont. Presently went out from the Castle my well-beloved cousin the Lord Talbot, and the small body of my household, and by the aid of the blessed Trinity vanquished all the said rebels, and slew of them some say 800, others 1,000. Of prisoners none were taken except one, a great chief among them, whom I would have sent to you, but he cannot yet ride at ease. Written at Hereford the said Wednesday at night." This is the first serious defeat which Glyndwr's forces had received, and it was followed within a week by another defeat on the Breconshire border, in which one thousand five hundred Welshmen were killed or taken. These successes by the young Prince encouraged the King to make another personal expedition into Wales. Early in May he arrived once more in Hereford full of determination to crush the accursed magician who for now five years had so entirely got the better of him. But scarcely had he begun his preparations when news of another rebellion of the Percies in the North made him set off in haste to Yorkshire, leaving the sorely-tried county to do the best it could without him. In July a French force of some five thousand men landed at Tenby, and they were joined by Owen with ten thousand Welsh. It is almost wearisome to tell the tale of their march through Herefordshire, burning and destroying what little was left unburnt and undestroyed in the unhappy county. The King, hastening back from the North, met the combined force at Woodbury Hill, but did not dare to venture a battle. Glyndwr and his allies, with an immense amount of booty, retired across the border, and Henry came once more to Hereford to prepare for his fifth invasion of Wales. This, however, proved little more than an idle promenade, through a country by this time practically a desert, to Glamorgan and back. THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 8 1 In this year the Court of Exchequer (Trinity Term, 6 Henry II.) called upon William Beauchamp to prove how many Knights fees he owed to the King for the castle and manor of Ewias Harold, and to offer the King " rational aid " for the same (ad respondendum regi de rationali auxilio pro eisdem Feodis). Does this mean perhaps that William Beauchamp had grown tired of his long and all but hopeless fight, and had made some sort of terms with Owen ? Little is known of the movements of the next two years [1407-1408], Glyndwr and his captains were still active, but their power was declining. Prince Henry, a better and more experienced soldier every year, was now learning to defend the Marches to some purpose ; and large districts, even of Wales, were declaring for the King. In the summer of 1407, the King and Prince Henry gathered all the nobility of Western England and the Marches to Hereford, and invaded Wales as far as the strong castles of Aberystwith and Harlech, the first of which they all but captured. In June, 1408, the indefatigable Prince again gathered his forces at Hereford, and marched on Aberystwith, which, after holding out until winter, capitulated on terms. Harlech also was captured in the following spring. The power of Owen was now so broken almost entirely through Prince Henry's splendid energy and persistence that he becomes from this time little more than a guerilla chieftain in the hills. The Prince was at last relieved from his long guard at Hereford, and only Talbot was left with a large force to watch the hills, which even now they did not dare to enter. Of the last six years of Owen's life (1410-1416) little need be said. The wasted country and ruined homesteads were there as reminders of the long years of fighting, but Herefordshire began at length to enjoy the calm of returning peace. When Prince Henry came to the throne in 1413 he issued a pardon to all Welsh rebels, and, with a generosity rare in that or any age, he included Glyndwr him- self in this general amnesty. But the old hero clung to his mountains, and refused to accept a favour from his foe. He continued to make raids on the Marchers' lands whenever he saw his opportunity, until at last, old and feeble, he was left absolutely alone, and, wandering down into Herefordshire in disguise, he passed the last years of his stormy life in the quiet homes of his married daughters at Kentchurch and at Monnington. At Kentchurch Court a tower of the building is still pointed out as the lodging of the great guerilla chief; but it was at Monnington that he died, and his tomb is even yet to be seen in the churchyard.
82 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
With the end of this war the life story of the Castle of Ewias also comes to an end. Wales being now completely reduced, the border castles were no longer needed. There is a curious MS. among the muniments of Kemes, referred to the year 1587, which professes to give "the cause of the buildinge and decayeinge of so manie Castells" in Wales and the border. While the Lords Marchers were strong and half-independent, they lived for the most part in England ; and each " used his castell only as a house of deffence and not of pleasure or profyte." But when their power was broken, and " Wales became willingly subject to the crowne of England," the English Lords "finding neyther profytte nor pleasure to dwell in their castells in Wales, became careless to maynteyne theire said castells and thereby the said castells and houses, as things unnecessary, were suffered in tyme to runne in decay and spoyled of the ledde and tymber by the neighbours." Of Ewias Harold Castle very considerable remains, including the chapel of St. Nicholas, were still to be seen in the time of Leland rather more than a hundred years after Owen Glyndwr. Another century passed, and Richard Symonds, in 1645, could find nothing left ; all was now " ruined and gone."
.
THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 83
THE CHURCH AND THE VICARAGE.
SI. MICHAELS CHURCH, EWIAS HAROLD
FROM the terms of Harold's deed of gift to the Abbey of Gloucester, it is certain that in 1100, when the deed was executed, the Church of St. Michael already existed in Ewias, though of its building and earlier history we know nothing. By this deed of gift Harold handed over " to God and St. Peter, and the monks of Gloucester, the church of St. Michael in Ewias with its lands and tithes and all things pertaining thereto." Of the church thus handed over no trace remains to be seen in the present building. This consists of a tower, nave, south porch, and Chancel. Of these the nave has been so completely " restored " that nothing of old work is to be seen. Fragments of the mullions and tracery, however, remain to show that the windows of the nave were of Decorated pattern. The windows which have replaced them are beyond all doubt of the debased style of architecture, unhappily prevalent in the middle of the Nineteenth Century. The South Porch is new and has no striking feature. The chancel has in the North wall a recess, in which, under a decorated arch, is the recumbent figure of a female with hands reposing on the breast, holding a covered vessel or cup. The canopy is evidently of much later date than the figure, and the mason, having carved on one label-stop of the canopy a conventional angel, has on the other given us a carefully-rendered head which re-produces, in features and in its quaint head-dress, the head of the recumbent figure below. This is with much probability supposed to be the tomb of Lady Clarissa Tregoz, wife of Roger la Warr. And it has been ingeniously suggested that this is a case of heart interment ; the heart alone being sent, in those days of difficult transport, for burial under the effigy, in the church with which the person was in any way closely connected. When the effigy was raised in 1 865, a stone cavity was found, about five inches in diameter, in which were fragments of a metal vessel lined with some woven fabric, which may have contained the heart. In the south wall of the chancel are two lancet windows, and between them a decorated window of two lights. The tower is the most interesting feature in the church, and the one which has suffered least from restoration. ^' It is large and massive, square and strangely low, suggesting that it was once higher or that it had at least been intended to carry it higher. In the south side is a large door of eight feet opening, with pointed arch. Above this is a small window of two lancet lights ; above this again a small single light and above all a striking Early English window of three lights. There is a window similar to this but of two lights in the north wall, and another, of later date, in the east wall of the tower. 84 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. This tower a mixture of the Early English and Decorated Styles dates probably from the second half of the Thirteenth Century, when John Tregoz was Lord of Ewias, but of its building we have no record. St. Michael's was not the only church in Ewias. There was already, in noo, a chapel of St. Nicholas in the Castle; and the monks, in the early years of the Twelfth Century, built a Priory church dedicated to St. James and St. Bartholomew. We find also, from a curious document in the Cartulary, that there was " in the cemetery of St. Michael's " a chapel of the Holy Cross, and that a certain Bernard Bras held from the Prior a certain piece of land called Mileslonde, paying in rent fourpence a year " for lighting the said chapel of the Holy Cross " (reddendo tiij denarios ad lumen dictce capellce sanctce cruets). As the chapel is said to be in cimiterio, it cannot have been a side chapel to the church, but must have been an independent building. Of all these buildings, as of the Priory itself, no trace now remains. From 1 1 oo to 1358 the Church of St. Michael was served by the Prior and Monks of Ewias. Giraldus Cambrensis refers to the people of Ewias Harold as " Parishioners " of the Prior. The parish was in the diocese of St. Davids, in the Archdeaconry of Brecon, and in the Rural Deanery of Ewias, in which Clodock was then apparently the most important church. In earlier times, however, both Ewias and Archenfield had belonged to Llandaff. Both continued to form part of that diocese until the time of Bishop Herwald, towards the close of the Eleventh Century. As this Bishop grew old, advantage was taken of his increasing infirmities to deprive the see of many of its possessions, Archenfield being annexed to Hereford, and Ewias to St. David's. Herwald's successor, Urban, complained to the Pope against the Bishops of Hereford and St. David's for this invasion of his Diocese. The dispute dragged on for more than twenty years. At length all the Bishops and their witnesses were summoned to Rome, and in 1129, the two offenders not appearing, the Pope provisionally restored Archenfield and Ewias to Llandaff. Shortly afterwards, however, Bernard, Bishop of St. David's, arrived in Rome with his witnesses, and the trial was begun afresh. Urban's death, on his way to Rome for the third time, in 1133, put an end to the dispute. No final decision was given, and the see of Llandaff never recovered the lost Deaneries. 1 In the year 1288 Pope Nicholas IV. granted the tithes of all England to King Edward I. for six years, towards defraying the expenses of an expedition to the Holy Land. And, that these tithes might be collected in their full value, a "Taxation" i Ewias was transferred from the Diocese of St. David's to that of Hereford in 185*. THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 85 by the King's precept was begun in that year, and finished in 1292. From this taxation we find that the Deanery of Ewias consisted of six churches (I give the original spelling), Cladoc (worth ^20), Comyoy (^2), Llandesylion (^2), Newtone (;i), Villa Radulphi 1 (2 133. 4d.), and St. Michael (%). It is added that the Prior of Ewias has temporalia in the Archdeaconry of Brecon to the value of i ; but the rest of the temporalia of the Priory are omitted. The following churches in the gift of the Prior were bound to make payments annually to the Priory : Eton Foye (^3 6s. 8d.), Teffont Ewyas (133. 4d.), Albecaning (^2), Helmerton (2), and Lydiard Tregoz (^i los. od.). In reading these amounts we must remember that money was still more than twenty times its present value. When the Priory was broken up in the spring of 1358, and all its possessions spiritual and temporal annexed to the Abbey of Gloucester, such portion was left as would support the Vicar of St. Michael's. This is one of very many instances in which long before the great pillage under Henry VIII. parishes were despoiled of their rectorial tithes. At first the Bishops often lent a helping hand in this spoliation of the parish ; afterwards, however, they had to interfere to secure an adequate portion for the Vicar. To legalise these appropriations it was often necessary to appeal to the Papal Court; and the religious houses give as reasons for their appropriations, their poverty, the repair of their buildings, and other such causes. The wishes and needs of the parish, whose interests were at stake, were entirely ignored in these negotiations. In the case of Ewias Harold the Bishop of St. David's insisted on the monastery assigning ten marks a year to the Vicar ; and, a year later, he further insisted on an exact specification of the particular possessions of the church in which the Vicar's portion should consist. The document making this apportionment is unique as a record of parish finance in the Fourteenth Century, and a translation will be found in the appendix. 2 Even after securing the rectorial tithes and the advowson, the religious houses often conducted unseemly trafficking in the presentation to these livings. The Cartulary of Ewias supplies us with a curious instance of these more or less simoniacal transactions. The Rector of Kentchurch, at the beginning of the Thirteenth Century, was one Philip of Langebrigge. He, with the consent of the Abbot of Gloucester, and of the Prior of Ewias, "gave the Church of St. Keyne and the Chapelry of Canelros to William of St. Keyne, to be held as long as he lived, on payment of a sum of forty-seven shillings each year, by the hand of the Prior of Ewias to the said Philip or his procurator at Gloucester, seven shillings of the said
i Rowlstone, a See Appendix, Note X.
86 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
forty-seven shillings to remain in the hands of the Prior." William of St. Keyne swore tactis sacrosanctis to make the payment faithfully, and, if he ever failed in his payment, the said Prior was to use diligence to compel him. The younger sons of noble houses for the most part held the good livings, being sometimes appointed to them even before they were ordained as priests. Thus we have already seen William de Tregoz, brother of the Lord of Ewias Harold, appointed as Rector of Kentchurch. Of the ordinary parish priest, however, in the Middle Ages, his education, his character, and the social stratum from which he came, we know very little. The history of these days comes, for the most part, from the monkish writers ; and they were indifferent, often even hostile to the secular clergy, to whom they never refer. It would seem, however, that the clergy, in proportion to the population, were at least as numerous as now. The lists of ordinations in the Fourteenth Century, which have come down to us, show that then, as now, vast numbers of the clergy were inevitably unbeneficed. For ordination a definite title was required, or a statement of the amount of private income the candidate possessed, five marks being the minimum. The number of these unbeneficed men, celibates, and, therefore, managing to exist upon the merest pittance, enabled the beneficed clergy to obtain assistance and companionship on very easy terms. In many cases the Rector or Vicar obtained a license to spend a year or two at the University, entrusting the work of the parish to two or even three of these " Chaplains." There were also in most parishes " Chantry-priests," paid from an endownment to say masses regularly at some altar in the Parish Church, or in a side chapel adjoining it, for the souls of the founder and his family. Some of these priests, it must be admitted, were mere loafers, a disgrace to their profession. Walter Map's picture of the hedge priest, Golias,was drawn from observation of the clergy of the Hereford Diocese. But there were, we cannot doubt, many quiet, devout, and conscientious parish priests, doing their duty, day by day, among their people ; approaching, it may be, the exquisite ideal of a " Priest of Christ " which the poet of " Golias " gives us by way of contrast. Of the history of our parish during the next three Centuries, we know practically nothing. We may conjecture, however, that with the rest of Here- fordshire it came under the influence of the Lollards, many of whom were maintained as itinerant preachers in the Diocese of Hereford by Sir John Oldcastle. Of the influence of the Reformation in Ewias we know nothing. Our only record of any change in the parish consequent upon the new movement is the Letters Patent, 33 Henry VIII (1542), making the Bishop of Gloucester patron of
THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 87
the living of Ewias Harold, in place of the Abbot of St. Peter's at Gloucester, whose Abbey had been recently suppressed. A hundred years later we get another interesting notice of our parish. There exists in the library of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, a MS. dated 1640, entitled " a Survey of the Ministry in Hereford- shire," which gives a very dark picture of most of the parishes in the county. The quaint entry for Ewias Harold, and its neighbouring parish of Dulas (then, as now, served by the same priest), is as follows : " Ewas Harroll. A vicareidge per annum ^"30. One Sir Jasper Powell, vicar, neither preaches nor is of honest conversation. The personage impropriate to the Bishop of Gloucester, worth per annum ;6o. Dulas. A vicareidge belonging to the Bishop of Gloucester ; supplied by the said simple curate, Sir Jasper Powell." Of the parish in the Eighteenth Century we have a curious notice in the "Terrier" of which a full account is given in the last chapter of this book. It appears that in 1772, there was a vicarage house with stables. They would seem, however, to have fallen into ruin, since in the early part of the Nineteenth Century there was no residence for the Vicar, and the present vicarage was built only some sixty years ago. A list of all the known Priors and Vicars of Ewias Harold will also be found in the appendix. 1
i See Appendix, Note CC.
88 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
EWIAS IN THE CIVIL WARS.
FOR two centuries after the War of Owen Glyndwr the land of Ewias had enjoyed settled quiet. It is evident that, in these two centuries, the history of our village was little more than "the short and simple annals of the poor." For the new Lords of Ewias resided elsewhere, and the Castle does not seem to have been occupied after the early part of the Fifteenth Century. Leland, in the reign of Henry VIII., found it already falling into ruin, though much was still left. Perhaps it was well for Ewias that it was thus left to itself through the savage battles, the ruthless executions, and the shameless treasons of that brutal strife which we call the Wars of the Roses. Ewias lay close to the Mortimer lands ; the " King-maker," besides being Warden of the Marches, was married to a Beauchamp, and was the nephew of Edward Neville, Baron Bergavenny, the new Lord of Ewias. Yet, through all that chaos of treason and bloodshed, the tranquil life of our country side was undisturbed. So also in the next century, Ewias was left, even more than the rest of Herefordshire, in a back-water of the stream of English life. New worlds were discovered, new religious doctrines introduced by fire and sword (a battle being fought as near as Leominster in Queen Mary's reign), great deliverances wrought by the English fleet ; yet the only event which seems to have interested our villagers was the suppression of Dore Abbey in 1536, and that only because its deserted buildings afforded for nearly 100 years to come a convenient quarry, when the farmers needed building stone a lucky chance which was the more acceptable, as the stone of Ewias Harold Castle, their previous resource, was already running short. But once again, before settling down into that sleep of centuries which has lasted until our day, Ewias was to see " grim-visaged war," On that " stormy and tempestuous day" in August 1642, when Charles I. raised his standard at Notting- ham, Herefordshire was almost wholly for the King. From leading men in the county, such as Lord Scudamore, and Sir Walter Pye, of the Mynd, down to small squires like Thomas Cardiffe, of the Helm, l Ewias Harold, all were royalist, with one or two notable exceptions, as Sir Robert Harley, of Brampton Bryan, and Sir Richard Hopton, of Canon Frome. The war began, as far as Herefordshire was concerned, with the occupation of Hereford by the Earl of Stamford, commanding a regiment of infantry and two troops of cavalry, on behalf of the Parliament. One
i Now " the Elms," a farm owned by Captain Percy Clive : once the " Heaume " of John's Charter to Dore Abbey. See Dugd. Mon. V., 553.
THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD 89
of these troops of horse was commanded by Colonel Robert Kyrle, grandfather of the " Man of Ross." The Royalists of the county seem to have been taken unawares, as the city was occupied without resistance. In spite of a slight success at Presteign (in which Captain Charles Price, the "Prince of Radnorshire," was captured), Stamford's position at Hereford soon became difficult. Powder was scarce, and he could not pay his men ; while a Royalist force from Raglan, under Lord Herbert, overran the county, pillaging those who were suspected of favouring the Parliament. A strong detachment of this force held Ewias Harold, through the whole month of October and part of November. The village had acquired a certain importance, which it held through the greater part of the war. For the north road through Salop being insecure, merchandise and military stores seem to have been commonly conveyed by a circuitous route from Ewias Harold up the Golden Valley, and so into Radnorshire ; thus reaching Chester and North Wales without passing near Hereford or Ludlow. The garrison of the village naturally harried the few supporters of the Parliament in the neighbourhood, amongst whom were William Newport, Minister of Kenderchurch, and Richard Greenleafe, Vicar of Kilpeck. These and others asked help from Stamford at Hereford against the " barbarous cavaliers of the Welsh parts." Colonel Kyrle was commanded to go out from Hereford with a party and surprise the village, which he did on a Sunday morning in the middle of November. Killing the little guard of six Raglan soldiers at the entrance of the village, they rushed into the place, and, taking the defenders by surprise, shot fifteen men, the rest escaping to the hills on either side. Hanging upon a tree near the church the body of one of the slain, they marched back to Hereford. This was the first skirmish of the war, involving bloodshed, in our county. The speedy retreat of Colonel Kyrle showed only too clearly that the garrison of Hereford were powerless to take the offensive. The situation daily became more intolerable ; until, on December 3rd, the Parliamentarian force evacuated the city, and withdrew to Gloucester, a detachment of the Royalists from Raglan immediately taking possession of Hereford. (The Vicar of Kilpeck, and others, who had signed the petition to the Earl of Stamford, were now imprisoned by the Bishop). Early next year (1643) Lord Herbert planned an expedition against Gloucester, in which many of the leading gentlemen of Herefordshire took part. They were, however, on March 2ist surprised and captured at Highnam, some two miles out of Gloucester, by Sir William Waller, who was already earning his nickname of " William the Conqueror." It is said that some one hundred and 9O THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. fifty Herefordshire gentlemen and nearly fifteen hundred soldiers were made prisoners on this occasion. Waller followed up this success by an invasion of Herefordshire, reaching Ross and Goodrich. But the advance of Prince Maurice from Tewkesbury compelled him to retire. A month later, however (April 24th), " the Conqueror " again advanced through Ross and Fownhope, and compelled Hereford itself to surrender, Lord Scudamore, Sir Walter Pye, Sir William Croft, and many others, being taken prisoners. Being now sole master of Herefordshire, Waller proceeded to tax the county for the expenses of the War, assessing its con- tribution at ^5,000 a month. In May, with a force of three thousand men, he advanced to Worcester, but failing in his attack upon that town, he returned to Hereford, and early in June marched to the West, where " the Conqueror " was checked at Landsdowne Hill, and signally defeated at Roundway Down (July). Meanwhile, in Herefordshire, most of the Royalist leaders having been captured, the chief command devolved upon Henry Lingen, of Sutton Frene, who was now made High Sheriff. He was descended from Turstin of Wigmore, who had married Agnes, daughter of Alured of Marlborough, Lord of Ewias ; and his wife was a daughter of Sir Walter Pye, of the Mynd. Associated with Lingen in the Royalist leadership was Sir William Vavasour, who was made Governor of Hereford. The Royalist forces proceeded to lay siege to the castle of Brampton Bryan, held for the Parliament by Lady Brilliana Harley. The siege, which lasted seven weeks, was abandoned in October, Vavasour and his forces being called off to the siege of Gloucester. The splendid defence of that city by Massey is outside our story. When the approach of Essex compelled the Royalists to raise the siege, Vavasour returned to Hereford. His Welsh and Herefordshire levies, however, seem to have made poor fighting material. The pamphlets and newspapers of the day are full of gibes against the Welsh, such as the following : " We will allow you all the Welsh you have, provided her bring not her great mountaines along with her for breast works, and provided that her trouble not the armies too much, but run out of the way and make room for Ap Rupert ap Maurice ap Essex ap Waller to fight in." The winter (1643-1644) was spent in skirmishes between Vavasour's Here- fordshire forces and Massey's garrison at Gloucester. In the spring of 1644, Sir William Vavasour was removed from the Herefordshire command by Prince Rupert, who appointed Colonel Nicholas Mynne in his place. Skirmishing, round Ross and Tewkesbury, went on all the spring and early summer, Massey for the most part being the superior both in force and in strategy ; and on July 27th Colonel Mynne
THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 9 1
and the best of his soldiers were slain near Ledbury. Massey did not, however, feel himself strong enough to attack Hereford, and no military movement of any importance was carried out in the county for the next few months. But far more effective than any victory was the financial pressure brought to bear upon the gentry of the county by the Parliamentary Committee for sequestration. Holding out every encouragement to early submission, and increasing the rigour of their terms progressively beyond certain appointed dates, they induced many of the land- owners to compound, in order to save their estates. Among those who thus compounded in the summer of 1644 was Thomas Cardiffe, of the Helm, Ewias Harold. (What part Humphrey Baskerville, of Pontrilas Court, took in the war, I have not been able to discover. He was probably very young, but many mere boys fought on both sides. His relative, Henry Vaughan, was for the Parliament, while one of the Baskervilles, of Canon Pyon, shifted from side to side no less than three times). In September, 1644, Colonel Barnabas Scudamore, brother of Lord Scudamore, was made Governor of Hereford, on behalf of the King; but little action was taken in the county for the rest of the year. Little indeed could be done at present ; for the men of Herefordshire were feeling so severely the drain upon their resources that they were growing daily more disaffected towards the King. In March, 1645, open insurrection broke out in the hundred of Broxash, which was easily crushed, however, by Prince Rupert, who was passing through Hereford with his troop of horse. In April Rupert defeated Massey in an engagement fought out in the long street of Ledbury ; but on June i4th the King lost his last and greatest fight at Naseby, arriving five days afterwards at Hereford little more than a fugitive. On July istthe King set out for Abergavenny, escorted to Pontrilas by Barnabas Scudamore and Henry Lingen (who was knighted before returning to Hereford). Charles and his attendants rested and dined at Campston, near Kentchurch (the King borrowing from his hosts a sum of money, which was never repaid). Among the King's attendants was Richard Symonds, a cavalier officer of antiquarian tastes, who took occasion, during the halt, to ride into Ewias Harold and climb the Castle Tump, where he found, as he records in his diary, " not a vestige of wall above the ground, though I was informed that they had been dug up, and were three yards in breadth in some parts." On the 3rd of July, the King arrived at Raglan, where he stayed, with occasional absences, till the 24th. On July 3oth, an army of fourteen thousand Scotch under the Earl of Leven, laid siege to Hereford,which was resolutely defended by Colonel Scudamore for thirty- six days. During the siege parties of plunderers scoured the villages in every direction, 92 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD seizing all they could find, especially, says an eye-witness, " neere all the horses, mares, and colts that ever they set their eyes upon, as well from their friends as from others." The total loss to the county from these plunderings was estimated at ;6o,ooo. 3 The King, meanwhile, had gathered a force together, and early in September he relieved the town, " the Scotch mist," says Barnabas Scudamore, "vanishing out of sight." A great gathering of the Royal army was fixed for September i7th at Arthur's Stone, near Dorstone, the King intending to pass through Radnorshire to the relief of Chester. But, with characteristic irresolution, Charles, having with difficulty got together a little force in this remote spot, marched them back to Hereford, and slept that night at Holme Lacy. Six days later, how- ever, he did reach Chester, in time to see, from a tower on the walls, his last army defeated on Rowton Moor. Colonel Scudamore, left at Hereford with a discontented garrison (whom he could scarcely maintain from day to day, so impoverished was the neighbourhood), and a city crowded with sick and destitute, fell an easy prey to a sudden attack of the Parliamentary forces under Colonel Birch, in the darkness of the early morning, on December i8th. Goodrich Castle, which held out bravely under Sir Henry Lingen, was the last of the royal strongholds in Herefordshire to fall (July 3ist, 1646), Raglan, in the adjoining county, holding out some three weeks longer.
See Appendix, Note AA-
THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 93
THE LATER HISTORY OF EWIAS.
WITH the end of the Civil War, I could wish to end this History, were it not for the conventional necessity of bringing the story up to date. For, in truth, like most villages in the land (especially those in ' which there were no resident gentry), Ewias Harold has no history through the Eighteenth Century, and very little, and that uninteresting, through the Nineteenth Century also. The stirring days " When every morning brought a noble chance, And every chance brought out a noble knight," are the days which make history. The prosaic, hum-drum days of that prosaic and most hum-drum of Centuries, the Eighteenth, may possibly though even that is open to doubt have been more comfortable to live in, in the material sense, than those earlier and more stirring times, but they certainly are less interesting to read of. If we would know what life in our village or any other English village in the Eighteenth Century was like, we can get a more or less correct idea, by reading first the cheerful descriptions of rural life in Robert Bloomfield's poems the " trifling incidents that grace my song," the peasant whose life was " constant cheerful servitude," the fields his study, nature his book, to whom " each new duty brought its share of joy " and, in the second place, the sternly realistic picture which George Crabbe gives of the same, in which we see village life in its worst form the old poor law, the unreformed game law, the non-resident clergy, erring damsels, brutal labourers, poachers and paupers, gipsies and gamblers, vice and misery undisguised, in their very darkest forms. The true village life of that day was probably something like the mean between these two extreme views. 1 In any case it has no history. Ewias was too remote even to be disturbed by the rumours of a French invasion, which, at intervals through the closing years of the century, threw into alarm the villagers of the more southern counties. We have one interesting document, surviving from this century, a Terrier of the glebe lands, with " an account of ye Tythes and offerings " received by the Vicar. We learn from this account that, as late as the year 1772, any parishioner
i This difficulty of finding out what is the real nature of village life is not confined to England, nor to the Eighteenth Century. Which, lor example, is the true picture of French peasant life, the beautiful idyl's of George Sand, " La Mare au Diable"and "La Petite Fadette," or the unspeakable brutalities of only see what it takes with it.
94 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
could be buried in the body of the church, or even in the chancel, on payment of a very small fee. The document will be found in the appendix, 1 and may be compared with the earlier account of the Vicar's tithes and offerings in the year 1359. In 1797 there was sold "a seat or pew in the Parish Church of Ewias Harold, together with the reversion and reversions, remainder and remainders, rents, issues, and profits thereof." Unfortunately I have not been able to discover the price at which this eligible property changed hands. It was bought by one John Williams, shoemaker. Coming now to the last century of our history, we have only a few dry dates to offer to the reader, of whom perhaps it may by this time be said, in the words of the poet, ''Jam lector queriturque deficitque" The present vicarage was built in 1845 ; and, in the same year, certain exchanges of glebe lands were effected with the parish of Dulas. Until 1 846 a dame school was kept in the belfry of the church ; and it speaks well for the instruction given in this school that, of the eighteen villagers whose names are appended to the Terrier of 1772, ten were able to sign their own names. In 1 846, with the help of the National Society, the present school was built. A copy of the Trust deed will be found in the Appendix. 2 There was no bridge over the Dulas stream until 1850, when the bridge on the road to Pontrilas was built ; in 1862, that on the road to the village of Dulas was made ; and the third, on the King Street road, in 1886. In the year 1852 the parish, which had since the Eleventh Century formed part of the Diocese of St. David's, was trans- ferred to the Diocese of Hereford. The church was " restored " in 1868, when the unsightly " churchwarden " windows of the nave were put in. The bells were re-cast in the same year, and increased to six. Of the Parish Registers, which so often are a valuable source of information to the local historian, nothing need be said, as they have been very inaccurately kept, and contain nothing save the bare records of births, deaths, and marriages, and these carelessly and irregularly entered. The earliest entry is in 1734. And now my task is done. If anyone derives as much pleasure from the reading of this history as I have had in spite of much dissatisfaction with the result in compiling it, he will, at any rate, have a few pleasant hours to look back upon.
J See Appendix. Note Z. 2 See Appendix. Note BB.
APPENDIX.
NOTE A. CHIEF AUTHORITIES FOR THE HISTORY OF EWIAS. In writing this book I have taken my materials where I could find them, without any special acknowledgement or reference in the text. I therefore give here a list of some of the more important books and manuscripts which I have consulted. I wish also to acknowledge much kind help which has been given to me privately by Mr. J. Horace Round, Dr. Edward J. L. Scott, (of the British Museum), Dr. Beddoe, and more especially by Mr. Egerton Phillimore. The Illustrations are from Photographs taken by Mr. C. J. Nicholson, and the measurements of the Tump (Note G) were made for me by Mr. H. E. Jones. Allen, Grant, Anglo-Saxon Britain. ,, County and Town. Archaeologia Cambrensis. Archseologia (London) Vol. IL Banks, Dormant and extinct Baronage. Barnard, Companion to English History. Bradley, Owen Glyndwr. Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society's Transactions (Vol. IV.) Capes, The English Church in the 14th Century. ,, Scenes of Rural Life in Hampshire. Carlyle, Past and Present. Cartulary of Acornbury (MS. ) ,, Colchester (Printed by the Roxburgh Club). ,, Ewias Harold (Cole MSS., British Museum). Gloucester. (Rolls Series). Clarke, Mediaeval Military Architecture. Dodsworth MSS., The. (Bodleian Library). Domesday, The Herefordshire. Doyle, Official Baronage of England. Dugdale, Baronage. ,, Monasticon. Duncombe, Herefordshire. Edwards, Wales. (History of the Nations). Ellis, Letters illustrating English History. Fosbroke, British Monasticism. Freeman, Norman Conquest. Gesta Stephani. Gibson, Door, Holrne Lacy, &c. Giraldus Cambrensis, Speculum Ecclesise. Itinerarium Kambriae. 96 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. Gough's Edition of Camden. Green, Short History of the English People. ,, Making of England. Hill MSS., The. (Belmont Library). Hill, Miles, " The Plundering of Herefordshire by the Scotch." Hingeston, Royal Letters. Inquisitio post mortem Johanis Tregoz, 28 Edward I. (MS. Public Record Office). Jessop, Before the Great Pillage. ,, The Coming of the Friars. Jusserand, English way -faring life in the Middle Ages. Leland, Itinerary. Liber Landavensis. Little, Lectures on Welsh History. Ludlow, History of. ,, Olive's Documents connected with the History of. Morris, The Welsh Wars of Edward I. Nicolas, Historic Peerage. Ormerod, Strigulensia. Parliamentary Writs. Parry, Royal Visits to Wales. Pedrick (Gale), Monastic Seals of the 13th Century. Phillips, The Civil War in Wales. Phillott, Diocesan History of Hereford. Red Book of the Exchequer. (Rolls Series). Rhys and Jones, The Welsh People. Robinson, Castles of Herefordshire. Manors of Herefordshire. Rogers, Thorold, Economic Interpretation of History. ,, History of Prices. Round, Feudal England. ,, Peerage and Family History. Rymer, Fcedera. Scarth, Roman Britain. Strong, Heraldry of Herefordshire. Tanner, Notitia Monastica. Taxation of Pope Nicholas IV., The Testa de Nevill. Turbervill, Ewenny Priory. Turner, Select pleas of the Forest. Valor Ecclesiasticus, The. Webb, The Civil War in Herefordshire. ,, Household Roll of Bishop Swinefield. Welldon, Chronological Notes of the Benedictine Monks. Wright, The Celt, The Roman, and The Saxon. Wylie, History of Henry IV. Year Books of Edward I. (Rolls Series).
APPENDIX. 97
NOTE B. THE OBIGIN OP THE NAME EWIAS. The study of place-names is one of the most baffling, and at the same time one of the most fascinating pursuits in which a man can indulge. It has its occasional rewards and its ever- present dangers. Being very conscious of the risks involved in the inquiry as to the origin of the name Ewias, I have consulted some of the greatest authorities on English and Welsh place-names. They all, without hesitation, pronounce it to be not of English origin, and the Welsh authorities seem more than half inclined to make the word pre-Celtic as well as pro- English. In any case no serious student will even hazard a conjecture as to the derivation and meaning of the name. It only remains then to say something of the forms the word has assumed at various times. Mr. Egerton Phillimore, to whom Professor Rhys referred me as an authority upon Welsh place-names, has kindly supplied me with the following particulars as to the various forms of the name. Its first occurrence in a writing which can be authentically dated is in Domesday, A.D. 1087, where it is written " Ewias." In the " Book of Llandaff," of which the original manuscript was written between 1125 and 1225, the word is spelt in a variety of ways, "Euwias," "Euias," "Ewias," "Eugias,"and sometimes "Heuias." The most usual spelling is "Euias" ; "Ewias"and "Ewyas" are rarer; whilst "Euyas," "Eugias," "Eeuias," and " Euwias " each only occur once. Practically the only form known in purely Welsh writings is "Euas." The earliest occurrence of this form is in the " Black Book of Carmarthen," in an enumeration of Welsh districts in a poem addressed to Hywel ab Goronwy, who was slain in 1103. (The oldest manuscript of the poem, however, is of late 12th or early 13th Century). In the " Mabinogion " also the form " Euas " is found. In the Welsh translation of Geoffrey of Monmouth, of which the oldest manuscript dates from about 1225, the well-known name for the West Saxons, "Ckwissi" is very curiously translated "Euas." Thus " Octaviiis, dux Wisse&rum" becomes, in the Welsh translation," "Eudaf iarll Erging ac Euas" (Eudaf, earl of Archenfield and Ewias.} In the best manuscript of Giraldus Cambrensis' " Itinerary of Wales " (which is contemporary with the author), the forms used are "Ewias" and "Ewyas." This occurrence of the form "Ewyas" is perhaps older than the instances of it in the "Book of Landaff." Trying to compare these various spellings etymologically, it would almost seem that the oldest form of the word is that found in the latest portion of the original manuscript of the "Book of Llandaff," "Euwias." This form Eu-wias (pronounced probably as a dissyllable, making the "i" a semi- vowel) gives us the point of departure for both the other forms. It is so difficult to pronounce that some part would have to go. Hence, on the one hand, the "u" is dropped and we get "Ew-ias," and, on the other, the "wi" is dropped, leaving Eu-as. The old form Eu-wias, however, is found again in the " Inquisitio post mortem Johannis Tregoz " as late as 1300, where also (and occasionally in the Cartulary of the Priory) the form Ewyas begins to occur. In the year-books of Edward I. and III. we find usually Ewyas, and since that date the two spellings Ewias and Ewyas have existed side by side. The present pronunciation of the word is something like "Ew-is," with the accent on the first syllable, Leland uses the form Ewis more than once in his Itinerary.
98 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
NOTE C. ROMAN REMAINS IN EWIAS. It is certain that one of the great Roman roads ran through the land of Ewias, though the line it followed cannot now be traced. A portion of this road, however, was discovered at Abbeydore, when the Golden Valley Railway was being constructed. In the Itinerary of Antoninus (circ. 320 A.D.) the distances on the road from Isca Silurum (Caerleon) to Uriconium, or Viroconium as the Itinerary spells it (Wroxeter in Shropshire), are given thus : Burrium (Usk), nine miles from Isca. Gobannium (Abergavenny), twelve miles from Burrium. Magna (Kenchester), twenty-two miles from Gobannium. Bravinium (Leintwardine), twenty-four miles from Magna. Viriconium (Wroxeter), twenty-seven miles from Bravinium. In Ewias Harold parish is a farm which bears (and bore in the Thirteenth Century) the strange name of King Street. There was also in the Thirteenth Century a road called Vriogis-strete (corrupted later into frocgelane). It may well be, considering the tenacity with which names cling to places through century after century, that in these names we have another trace of the great road or one of its vicinal ways. For, in addition to the great military roads described in the itineraries, there were in Roman Britain vice vicinales, or branch roads, privates, private roads, agrarice, country roads, and device, or bye-roads. Of Roman buildings in Ewias nothing is left. It has, however, been established beyond reasonable doubt that there was a " station," probably military, at Lougtown. Some authorities have identified this station as "Blestium." Remains of this were still standing at the time of the Conquest ; from these remains William Fitz-Osbern obtained some of the materials used in the building of Ewias Lacy Castle. The village of Oldcastle, in Ewias Lacy, under the Black Mountains the reputed birth-place of the Lollard leader, Sir John Oldcastle is so called from the fact that it stands upon the site of an old Roman Camp. A few Roman coins have been found in the neighbourhood.
NOTE D. THE PARENTAGE OP EABL RALPH. The mother of Earl Ralph grandmother, therefore, of Harold, the eponymous Lord of Ewias was Godgifu, or Goda, daughter of Ethelred the Unready, and sister of Edward the Confessor. But authorities differ as to Ralph's father, and consequently as to how many times Goda was married. It is admitted on all sides that when she died, her husband was Eustace, Count of Boulogne. But, of our original authorities, William of Malmesbury says that her previous husband, father of Ralph, was Walter, Count of Mantes, while Orderic says that he was Drogo, Count of the Vexin (i.e., the March-land between France and Normandy, which, like our Herefordshire border, was in a state of continual unrest and confusion). Freeman, in his Norman Conquest, by inadvertence calls Ralph in one place son of Walter, in another son of Drogo. Mr. Eyton and Mr. Ellis, two of our ablest writers on the Domesday tenants, adopt both Walter and Drogo as Goda's husbands, and hold that Goda was married three times. Mr. Horace Round, however, in his "Peerage Studies," proves beyond all reasonable doubt that Drogo, Count of the French Vexin, was Ralph's father, and also father to Walter, who, from APPENDIX. 99 one of the towns in his father's lordship, was called Count of Mantes. William of Malmesbury, mixing up Drogo with his son and successor, Walter, has been the cause of all the confusion. And thus was evolved G-oda's imaginary husband " Walter, Count of Mantes." It is worth mentioning that Earl Ralph, who of all the Norman followers of the Confessor, was most antipathetic to everything English, had yet so far identified himself with England as to take a wife of English birth. She was Gytha or Gueth, a connexion of the house of Godwin, and, still more strangely, a kinswoman of Leofric of Bourne, father of that Hereward, who, last of all the English, held out against Duke William in the Isle of Ely.
NOTE E. PENTECOST'S CASTLE. I have here followed the guidance of Mr. J. Horace Round, rather than that of Mr. Freeman. Freeman holds that Osbern Pentecost was the same with Osbern, son of that Richard, who built Richard's Castle in the North of Herefordshire. This involves the improbable supposition that the Castle, to which even in our own day the name of Richard clings, should in his lifetime have been called by the name of his son. Moreover, when the " Pentecost's Castle " complained of was at length dismantled by the English, Richard, son of Scrob, goes unpunished, while Osbern Pentecost is exiled. Then, too, it is certain that (1) Alured of Marlborough was nephew of Osbern Pentecost, (2) that this Alured in Domesday holds Ewias, and (3) that the castle of Ewias was dismantled in or about 1052. There is, however, considerable uncertainty as to the date at which Osbern's nephew, Alured of Marlborough, became possessed of the Castle of Ewias. It may have been immediately after Osbern's banishment in 1052-3. Or it may have been at some later period. The entry in Domesday (Ipse rex enim concessit ei [i.e. to Alured] terras quas Wilhemus comes ei dederat) would almost lead us to suppose that it was only in 1067 that Alured recovered his Uncle's lands, by a grant from William Fitz-Osbern, the new Earl of Hereford. These facts seem to shew that Mr. Horace Round's assumption, which I have followed in the text, is much more than merely probable, it is all but certain. Those who wish to see the argument set forth at length are referred to Mr. Round's "Feudal England," pp. 317-326.
NOTE F. HAROLD'S CAMP IN STKADDELE. Harold, we are told by Florence of Worcester, gathered his army at Gloucester, passed the Welsh border, and pitched his Camp, in or rather beyond "Straddele." The name is, I presume, a corruption of the Welsh Ystrad, a valley, with an ending of uncertain origin. 1 The word " Straddele " has been absurdly misread into "Stradclwyd" (i.e. Ystrad Clwyd, the Vale of Clwyd) by Powel, in his " History of Wales " (1584). And Matthew of Westminster still more unaccountably made the word into " Snaudunam," i.e. Snowdon. [The Billingsley where, i See Note Y. 100 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. at the end of this campaign, peace was arranged between Gruffydd, Algar, and Harold, is now taken to be the place of that name near Boulstone, in Archenfield(and therefore not far from Strad- dele) rather than (as once held) the distant Billingsley, near Bridgnorth]. We find *' Stradele" mentioned in Domesday as being a border district reckoned with Herefordshire, as Ewias was. Alured of Marlborough, Lord of Ewias, is said to hold land "in Valle Stradelie," as also does Roger de Lacy. Alured's lands "in Valle Stradelie " lay chiefly at " Manetune " or Monnington. And near Vowchurch in the Golden Valley is a farm, called in 1300 by its present name, Monnington Stradel. Certainly there is nothing to connect Alured of Marlborough with the Vale of Clwyd, which was conquered (circ. 1073-4) by Hugh Lupus of Chester. We may conclude then with certainty that the " Vallie Stradelie " was part of, or included part of the Golden Valley, and that it was in or beyond the Golden Valley that Harold and the men of Gloucestershire and Herefordshire encamped against Prince Gruffydd and Earl Algar. What were the limits of the " Vallis Stradelie" it is difficult to determine, as many of the places mentioned in it cannot now be identified. It included, according to Domesday, the following places : MORE ^(said to be in Stradel Hundred, all the others being in voile Stradelie, Stratelie, Stradelei, Stradilie, or Stratelei) held by the Church of Hereford. BACHETUNE, ELNODESTUNE, and EDWARDESTUNE, held by Roger de Lacy. POSCETENETUNE held by William de Scohies. MANETUNE and BBOCHEUEDIE held by Alured of Marlborough. BECCE, MIDEWDE, and HAREWDE held by Gilbert, son of Thorold. BEI/TROU, WILVETONE, WILMESTUNE, ALMUNDESTUNE, and ALCAMESTUNE, held by Hugo Lasne.
NOTE G. THE CASTLE MOUND. The site of Harold's Castle in Ewias has been examined by Mr. G. T. Clark, who has given the results of his investigations in his work on Mediaeval Military Architecture, and at somewhat greater length in the " Archseologia Cambrensis." I can only venture here to give a few additional particulars and measurements. Beginning with the platform of the lower ward, the most noticeable feature is its unevenness and irregularity of surface, due, as it would seem, to the foundations of the various buildings it contained having been dug up, to be used for building purposes. This must have been done in the close of the 16th and the early part of the 17th centuries, since Leland saw considerable buildings standing, including the Chapel of St. Nicholas, while Richard Symonds a century later found not even the foundations (though he was told that the walls had been more than three yards thick in places). The irregularities are most observable in theN.E. angle of the platform (near the point marked E in the Plan), where very large holes have evidently been dug. One of these holes a little to the S.E. of the gap marked E in the Plan is sixty feet long and twenty-two feet broad, and of an average depth of about seven feet. Fragments of stone, of no great size, with mortar here and there visible upon them, can still be dug out in these holes. We may perhaps venture to conclude, from all this, that the chief buildings of the basse cour were on this N.E. side. Round the edge of the
APPENDIX. 10 1
platform there is no well-defined trench marking the line where the foundations of the walls have been grubbed up, such as we shall see on the top of the mound : but most clearly marked on the E side a sort of raised dyke runs round the outer edge of the platform. On the S.E. side the ground falls away very steeply from the platform, and though, at the bottom of the slope, there is a slight depression (complicated, however, by a modern hedge-row on its outer rim) where a ditch may have been, this ditch could never have been of any great width or depth. On the N.E. and S.W. sides no trace of a ditch is to be found. On the N. side, between the mound and the high ground from which it has been artificially cut off, the ditch is between sixty and seventy feet wide, and about thirty feet deep, with steep sides, which it is all but impossible to climb. The ground falls steeply at each end of this deep trench ; and there is no trace of a dam at the lower (N.E.) end. There is still a water-course near to, and coming down from above the S.W. end ; this stream, tiny in summer, but often swollen into a river in winter, now runs round the South side of the Castle hill, joining the Dulas brook in the village itself In the absence of any trace of a dam and a huge one would have been needed at the N.E. end, I should almost doubt whether this enormous ditch was ever filled with water. The only practicable approach to the Castle is at the point (marked D in the Plan) which Clark supposes to have been the main entrance. The descent at the spot marked E, where possibly was a Postern Gate, is very steep ; but, at some time in the last century, it was rendered passable for rough carts, which crossed the platform to the Quarry (marked F on the Plan) now disused. Let us now turn to the mound itself which in places is thickly overgrown with bushes and brambles. It rises some seventy or eighty feet above the level of the platform, with sides so steep that Mr. Clark's conjecture that the keep must have been reached by a flight of steps is rendered almost certain. When we reach the top we find for some sixty -six feet on the S.E. edge (i.e. the side looking to the village) a well marked trench between two and three feet deep and about twelve feet wide. This trench, less strongly marked, however, can be traced at intervals all round the top of the mound, giving us evidently the line of wall, and being itself the result of the digging up of the stone foundations. On the N.W. side, running out from the presumed line of wall, are five projecting ridges, each some four to six feet broad at the top, with hollows between. The most northerly of these projections extends twenty-one feet from the outer rim of the trench (which here is about fourteen feet wide). The next, and following projections, are about the same length, but cannot be exactly measured owing to the thorns and brambles. The internal measurements of the keep (i.e from inner rim to inner rim of the trench) are, from E. to W. seventy-two feet, and from N. to S. seventy feet.
NOTE H. THB CUSTOMS OP THE WELSH IN DOMESDAY. The following is a translation of the entries in Domesday which relate to the Welsh holders of land in Archenfield. It is possible that these customs held in Ewias also. For the Welsh called Ewias "one of the two real sleeves of Ergyng" (i.e. Archenfield), the other being the valley of Ystradyw, in which is Crickhowell. " In Archenefelde the King has three churches. The priests of these churches bear the King's Embassies into Wales, and each of them chants two masses each week for the King.
102 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
If any one of them die, the King has 20 shillings from him by custom. If any Welshman steal man or woman, horse, ox, or cow, he restores, upon conviction thereof, first the property stolen, and gives 20 shillings forfeit. For a stolen sheep, however, or a bundle of sheaves of corn he pays 2 shillings compensation. If any one kill one of the King's vassals and commit heinfare he gives the King 20 shillings in payment for the man and 100 shillings forfeit. If he shall slay the vassal of any Thane he gives 10 shillings to the dead man's lord. So, if a Welshman shall slay a Welshman, the relations of the slain meet together and plunder the slayer and his kinsmen, and burn their houses until about noon on the morrow, when the dead man's body may be buried. Of this plunder the King has a third but of all the rest they are quit. So, also, who-ever shall set fire to a house, and be there-of accused, shall defend himself by 40 men. The which if he be unable to do, he shall pay 20 shillings to the King. If anyone shall conceal from custom a sextary of honey, upon proof there-of, for one sextary he shall return five : if he hold as much land as ought to give it. If the Sheriff call them out to a Shire-mote, six or seven of the best among them to go with him. Who-ever, after having been called, does not go, gives 2 shillings or an ox to the King, and who-ever remains away from the Hundred pays as much. He pays in like manner, who, being commanded by the Sheriff to go with him into Wales, does not do so. For if the Sheriff does not go, not one of them will. When the army marches against the enemy, they form by custom the vanguard, and on its return the rearguard. These were the customs of the Welsh in the time of King Edward in Archenefelde." These customs lasted, with slight modifications, for two centuries or more after the Norman Conquest. From an entry in the "Testa de Nevill," dated 1243, we learn that " Urchenefeld in Wallia " was held from the King in sergeantry by a community of Welshmen living according to the " customs of Urchenefeld." The Community was bound to furnish once a year when the King required them to join the army in Wales, 50 men for 15 days' service, at their own expense. If the King requires them for a longer period, he must provide them with necessaries. And if he wishes them to serve in England, they must serve at their own expense for one day and one night, and if he wishes to have them in England for a longer period, he must provide them with necessaries as above. And they are bound to render to the King 19 marks a year. And they do not owe any other service " nisi tantitm scctam hundredi secundum eon- suetudines de Urchenefeld."
NOTE I. GENEALOGICAL TABLE OP THB HOUSE OP EWIAS.
104 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
NOTE J. KNIGHTS' FEES OP ROBERT OP EWIAS, AND OP ROBERT DE TREGOZ. OARTA ROBERTI DE EWIAS. 1166. (From the Red Book of the Exchequer.) Hoc sciendum est quot milites sunt feodati de feodo Robert! de Ewias. Ruald v milites. Godefridus Escudor [Scudamore] iiij feoda militum. Adam de Celegord j feodum militis. Lucas de Tirintone [Tidrintone] j feodum militis. Osmundus de Sumerford j feodum militis. Neeldus de Mordune j feodum militis. Morel de Hedendone j feodum militis. De Oliva quam Rogerus de Wias [Ewias] tenet j feodum militis. Wilhelmus de Cheinetone j feodum militis. G-odefridus de Mamintone [Monnington] j militem de feodo castellariae mese de Ewias. Richardus de Carlevile [Carneville] j feodum militis. Rogerus de Pontonia j feodum militis. Et de illis qui sunt feodati de dominio meo post mortem Henrici regis. Godefridus di Tif ente [Teffont] j feodum militis. Wilhelmus Torrellus de Pencumbia ij feoda militum. A later entry says that Godfrey Scudamore holds four fees de antiquo feodo, and one de novo. " Et idem Godefridus de hoc servitio est attornatus in manu regis" [The Scudamore family came originally from Herefordshire, presumably from Kentchurch, or some other Herefordshire Manor in the Barony of Ewias. It seems, however, to have been the custom of the Lords of Ewias to move their tenants from one county to another. Thus we find Galfrid of Pontington (a .Somerset manor of Ewias) holding lands in Herefordshire, while Godfrey Scudamore holds four Ewias fees in that Wiltshire village which is still called by his name, Upton Scudamore.] KNIGHTS' FEES OP ROBERT TREGOZ. (From the Testa de Nevill, about 1242). Godfrey de Oscudemor holds in NORTHTON two knights fees and in UPTON two knights fees from Robert Tregoz, and he from the King in the honour of Ewias. William Drois holds in KAINGES and ALINGETON half a knight's fee of the new fee of Peter of Podinton, and he of the said Robert Tregoz, and Robert of the King in the same honour. Thomas Maudut holds in WIDIHULL WASTEVILL the fourth part of a knight's fee from the said Robert, and he from the King in the same honour. Godfrey de Escudemor holds in the same ville the fourth part of a knight's fee from the said Robert, and he from the King in the same honour. Petrus de Mordon holds in MOHDON one knight's fee from the said Robert, and he from the King in the same honour. William Whitford holds in the same ville half a knight's fee from the said Robert, and he from the King in the same honour. APPENDIX. 105 Godfrey de Escudemor holds in FISHIDE [? Fyfhide] one knight's fee from the said Robert, and he from the King in the same honour. Adam Lucas holds in TUDERINTON one knight's fee from the said Robert, and he from the King in the same honour. Thomas de Eodeford holds in CLIVE half a knight's fee, and the tenth part of a knights fee from the said Robert, and he from the King in the same honour. William Foliot and Ralph de Sterkel hold in CHEGGELEWE the fourth part of a knight's fee from Henry de Chelewurth, and he from the said Robert, and Robert from the Lord King in the same honour. Godfrey Huse holds one knight's fee in TEFUNTE and SWALECLTVE from the said Robert, and he from the King in the same honour. John Maltravers holds in SMETHCOT one knight's fee as guardian for the heir of Walter Fitz- Walter from the said Robert, and he from the King.
NOTE K. THE FAMILY OP ST. THOMAS CANTILBPE.
The account, in Norman-French, of which the following is a translation, is to be found in the Dodsworth MSS. (in the Bodleian Library), 64, 65, 66, fol. 87. The heading is in another hand, and is obviously a mistake. The account is written by Juliana Tregoz, but certainly not to her brother St. Thomas ; since, in the last few lines of the MS. she refers to our "father . . . Thomas, Bishop of Hereford, our brother, and us, and others." The Comte de Gobineau, in his "Histoire d'Ottar Jarl," devotes a long chapter to the Gourney family, which is descended from Ottar Jarl. In this chapter our document is referred to as "une lettre soi-disant" of Juliana de Tregoz. The author goes on to say : "Le faux est mete a tres-peu de vrai dans cette fiction. . . . Le document parait avoir surtout pour but d'elever aussi haut que possible 1'origine de Saint Thomas de Cantelou, apres que celui-ci eut e"t^ canonist." ACCOUNT WHICH DAME JULIANA TBEGOZ SENT TO HER BROTHER, SIR THOMAS OP CANTILUPE, THEN BISHOP OF HEREFORD, CONCERNING THEIR LINEAGE. Once there was a King of France named Lewis [Louis VIII. le Lion], who married Dame Blanche, daughter of the King of Castille, and by the said Queen Blanche he had a son named Lewis, who was King after his father. And when the said King Lewis the first died, Lewis his son was crowned after him, and his mother Blanche the Queen was left a widow. And then leaving the King of Castille, her brother, the said Queen Blanche was married to a noble Chevalier, one of the most valiant in the world of that day, Sir Hugh de Gornaie. The said Hugh had by his prowess aided the King of Castille to gain land from the Saracens, and for his valour was married to the said Queen, and had by her a son named Hugh after his father. And King Lewis, the son of Dame Blanche, loved much the said Sir Hugh de Gornay, who had
106 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
married his mother, and called him father. And it happened at that time, that King Lewis, son of Dame Blanche, was at Rouen for a Parliament, and with him King Henry of England, and the King of Navarre, and the King of Portugal, the Count of Toulouse, whom the daughter of the said King Lewis had married, and all the Lords of France. And it came to pass that Sir Hugh de Gornay, the father, died, and was brought to Rouen to be buried in the mother church. And the news was brought to King Lewis that the body of Sir Hugh de Gornay, the father, was hard by the town in a litter, drawn by two horses. And King Lewis swore by the sword of St. James that no beast should ever draw through the city of Rouen so noble a warrior as was Sir Hugh de Gornay, his step-father. And then he and the aforesaid Kings and the greatest lords of Parliament, going down into the mud, which came half-way up to their legs, drew the body of the said Hugh through the city of Rouen, in the winter, and buried it. After this Sir Hugh de Gornay, the son, married the sister of Count Renand [Raymond ?] of Boulogne ; and the said Count Renand of Boulogne was the son of the sister of King Lewis of France, the same who had married Dame Blanche ; and the said Count Renand had four sisters ; the one sister was married to the Duke of Brittany, and was named Peter, by whom she had a son, also named Peter. And this Peter the younger was father to Sir John of Brittany, who was at the Court of Pope Clement the Fifth. The other sister was married to Sir Ingram de Courcy, who had a daughter who was married to King Alexander of Scotland, by whom she had a son Alexander, King of Scotland. Which Alexander married Margaret, daughter of King Henry of England. Wherefore Alexander, King of Scotland, and we are third cousins the one to the other. The third sister was married to Sir Ingram de Penys, and by him had a son, another Sir Ingram, who .... The fourth sister, our grandmother, was named Juliana, and was married to Sir Hugh de Gornay, the son, our grandfather. And the said Hugh had a daughter Millicent, our mother, who was first married to Count de Everoys [Evreux] in Normandy, and had by him a son and daughter, and then our mother was married to William de Cantelupe, our father, by whom she had Thomas, Bishop of Hereford, our brother, and us and others. William de Cantelupe, our father, was twice Guardian of all England whilst Henry King of England was out of Englaud. THBiPOLLOWING NOTE TO THIS MS. HAS BEEN ADDED IN ANOTHER HAND. Dame Juliana Tregoz, sister of St. Thomas of Hereford, was daughter of Sir William Cantelupe and Dame Millicent, Countess of Everois, and married Sir Robert Tregoz the second, and his father, Robert the first, came from Normandy with William the Conqueror. [This statement is certainly wrong.] Their son was John Tregoz, who married Mabel, daughter of the noble and valiant Sir Fulke Fitz-Warren, whose wife was sister of Sir Robert [Roger] de Clifford. Sir John Tregoz left two daughters : Clarissa, the elder, married Sir Roger de Warre ; the second, named Sibill, married Sir William Grandison. The latter had six sons, Edmund, Peter, John, Otho, Thomas, William ; and four daughters, Agnes, Mabill, Maud, and Catherine. Agnes married Sir John Northwood ; Mabel, Sir John Pateshull ; Maud became a Nun, and was Prioress of Aconbury ; Catherine became Countess of Salisbury.
APPENDIX. 107
NOTE L. THE LORDS MARCHERS IN 1277. The following is a complete list of the Lords Marchers who supplied quotas for the Welsh war of 1277. I have added a brief explanatory note to each name. The number of Knights Fees is often incomplete, and in any case refers only to the March. All or most of the Lords held many English fees also. Thus the Earl of Gloucester, we know, held at least four hundred and forty -five Knights Fees, though he held only forty in his March. The Earls of Lancaster, Hereford, Norfolk, and Roger de Mortimer were nearly as powerful. It must be remembered that each Knight's Fee means three or four troopers, but the full quota was not always bought. Roger de Mortimer. Lord of Wigmore in Herefordshire, and of Cleobury Mortimer in Salop, held the March of the Upper ^Severn, with other lands in Radnorshire and Carmarthenshire. Twenty-six Knights' Fees in Builth and St. Clears (Cann.) alone. Robert de Mortimer. Lord of Richard's Castle, which came to him by marriage. Twenty- three Knights' Fees in Herefordshire. Peter Corbet of Caurs (W. Salop). Five Knights' Fees. Theobald de Verdun. Married the granddaughter and co-heiress of Walter de Lacy, and so inherited Longtown Castle and other lands in Ewias Lacy. Twenty -five Knights' Fees. Geoffrey de Genvitte. Lord of Ludlow, married the other co-heiress of Ewias Lacy. Twenty- five Knights' Fees. John de Tregoz. Lord of Ewias Harold. Twenty -four and a half Knights' Fees. Ralph de Tony. Lord of Elvael. Roger de Clifford. Held lands in Tenbury. John Giffard. Lord of Clifford Castle (through his wife) and of Llandovery. Nine Knights' Fees in Clifford alone. William de Braose. Lord of Brecknock and Abergavenny. Held lands also in Gower. Pain de Chaworth. Lord of Kidwelly. Forty-four Knight Fees. Geoffrey de CamviUe. Lord of Llanstephan. Nicholas Fitzmartin. Lord of Cemaes. Reginald Fitz-Peter. Lord of Talgarth. John de Hastings. Lord of Cilgeran (Cardiganshire). Twenty -six Knights' Fees. Edmund, Earl of Lancaster. Brother of King Edward I., Lord of Monmouth, and "The Three Castles," viz., Grosmont, Skenfrith, and White Castle. Fifteen Knight Fees for Herefordshire. Two hundred and sixty -three in all. Humphrey de Bohun. Earl of Hereford, Lord of Eardisley, Hun ting ton, and all the March between the Arrow and the Wye. One hundred and fifty -one Knights' Fees. Roger le Bigod. Earl of Norfolk, Lord of Strigul [ChepstowJ. Sixty-seven Knights' Fees in Strigul. Gilbert de Clare. Earl of Gloucester, Lord of Glamorgan. Forty Knights' Fees in Glamorgan.
05 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
NOTE M. LAW SUITS BETWEEN THE LORDS OF EwiAS AND THEIR TENANTS. (Abridged translations). I. Year-Book of Edward I. A.D. 1304. William Grandison and Isabella his wife were attached to answer Reginald Heusee in a plea why they had taken his beasts. They pleaded that Reginald Heusee held the manor of John Tregoz, father of the said Isabella and of Sybil [Clarissa ?] mother of John de la Warre, by various tenures, including ' ' ten shillings for the ward of Castle Ewias " (Xs par an a la guarde del Chastel Ewias). After the death of John Tregoz his lands and his fees were seised into the King's hands, because he held in chief of our lord the King, and that the said Reginald was then made to hold of Isabel ; and because the homage was in arrears, she avows, &c. Answer. True it is he held of John Tregoz, &c. But as to the service of ten shillings for the ward of Castle Ewias, we answer you and say, that he will do castle-guard by the body of a man, that is to say by his own body or by the body of some other who knows how and can do it, and that he ought not to pay ten shillings or any money. William Grandison and his wife Isabel also were attached to answer Roger Bavent why they had taken his ox. Answer. Because he held the manors of Norton and Bavent by the service of sixty shillings for the ward of Castle Ewias and this homage was in arrear. II. In the thirty -third year of Edward I. (1305) William de Grandison, Baron, and John le Warre, as heirs of John Tregoz, petition the King against the "Prior of New Place near Gildeforde " because he had wrongfully and by collusion impleaded Simon Pipard and Dyonisia his wife concerning the manor of Sende, which is held of the Barony of Ewias Harold. When the case came on before the Justices of the Bench at York, William de Grandison and John le Warre were serving with the King in Scotland and could not appear. The case was therefore postponed until the war should end, and I have not been able to come across any record of the second trial. III. Year Book of Edward III. A.D. 1342. Trinity Term. Margaret de Gary complained against John la Warre in respect of her oxen taken. John la Warre avows taking sixteen oxen, for that William de Leykesworth held the manor of Leykes- worth of John Tregoz by homage, &c., and by the service of finding two esquires armed for the ward of his Castle of Ewias Harold from such a day to such a day from year to year at his own cost ; whereof the descent was to Clarice and Sybil, two daughters. And from Clarice the descent was to John la Warre, son ; and in Chancery a partition was made in such a manner that the Castle of Ewias Harold and the fee of Leykesworth, to which the services of William were attached, were allotted to John la Warre. These were in arrears after the death of John Tregoz for thirty-four years. Hence he took the cattle from Thomas de Leykesworth, son of the said William, as his very tenant. Thomas however had made over the land to William de Gary and Margaret his wife for their lives. And ' ' what he calls the manor of Leykesworth is only one messuage, two carucates of land and ten shillings of rent, held of John Tregoz for homage, fealty, escuage and the service of three shillings and sixpence for all services."
APPENDIX. 109
IV. On the 13th May, 1486 (Henry VII.) Sir George Nevil, Knight, whose father, Lord Bergevenny, was seized of and by right of inheritance hath peaceably possessed the Lordship of Harold Ewias and Ewias Lacy in Walys, which of late he assigned to your said servant, writing from Worcester, complains that Mile ap Harry, Harry Mile, Walter Baskervyle, Thomas ap Watkyn, John ap Watkyn, Watkyn Vaghan, and Richard ap Thomas, tenants of the said lordships, will not pay their rents, and begging the King to grant a letter under the Privy Seal, " to enjoine thies personnes that they may .... show the causes why they wol not pay their dueties." (Materials for a History of Henry VII., Vol. I.) NOTE N. REFERENCES TO EWIAS IN THE INQUISITIONS POST-MOBTEM. 331. 4 Edw. III. (2d. Nos.) No. 33. Joh fil Rogi la Warre feoffavit Joh de Cleydon. Ewyas castrum et manerium March Walliae [and lands in Wilts and Northumb]. 1332. 5 Edw. III. (2d. Nos.) No. 18. Johes fil Rogi le Warre feoff arit Johaunes de Clayden. Ewyas Herald castrum ) Walliae et man. eidem Johi ) [and lands in Northton and Sussex]. 1339. 12 Edw. III. (2d. Nos.) No, 7. Johes la Warre pro Rogo la Warre et Eliz ux eidem. Ewyas Harald castr et manor, &c., Heref [and lands in Salop and Sussex]. 1340. 13 Edw. III. (2d. Nos.) Nos. 3. Johes la Warre pro Warino le Latimer. Ewyas castr, &c. Wallia et Wilts [and lands in Somerset]. 1345. 18 Edw. III. (2d. Nos.) No. 75. Roger Bavent chr feoffavit Simon Eliens epm. [Divers lands as of the honor of Ewyas, Wilts]. 1360. 33 Edw. III. (2d. Nos.) No. 47. Walterus de Park, Upton Skydmor ut de honor de Ewyas, Wilts. 1371. 44Ewd. III. (1st Nos.) No. 68. Rogus le Warre et ux Ewyas Harald, Hereford [and lands in divers counties]. 1376. 49 Edw. III. (2d. Nos.) No. 46. Edward le Despenser, Ewyas castr, Hereford [and lands in divers counties]. 1390. 13 Ric. II. No. 34. Johes de Monte Acuto, miles. Norton Bavent ) ut de honore V -oru Fyfhide f de Ewyas / ' Jts ' Eywas Han-el, &c., Heref [and lands in Sutht]. 1395. 18 Ric. II. No. 31. Marg ux Johis Mountagu. Norton Bavent 1 ut de honore ) -m-u... Fyfhide f de Ewyas f ' [and lands in divers counties]. 1399. 22 Ric. II. No. 53. Johes de la Warre et ux, Ewyas Harald castrum, &c., Wilts (?) [and lands in divers counties]. 110 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. 1409. 10 Hen. IV. No. 54 Thorn de Monte Acuto, Com Sarum, Ewas Harold med un f eod, &c. , Heref [and lands in divers counties]. 1429. 7 Hen. VI. No, 57. Thorn Com Sarum, Ewyas Harold, &c., Heref [and lands in divers counties]. 1436. 14 Hen. VI. No. 35. Johes ux Willi de Bello Campo [Beauchamp], Ewyas Harald castr et domin, Heref, &c. [and lands in divers counties]. 1477. 16 Edw. IV. No. 66. Edw. Nevill, Ewyas Harold castr vill et domin, Heref [and lands in divers counties]. [I add the following references from other sources]. 1315. INQUISIHO AD QUOD DAMNUM. 8 Edw. II. No. 21. Jhes la > Warre, lie feof, Chelworth maner parcell baron de Ewyas ) Ewyas harold maner, Heref. 1284. CHARTER ROLL. 12 Ed. 1. No. 38. Prior de Lanthonia, Ewyas, &c., libera waren. 1399. CHARTER ROLL. 1 Hen. 4. Pt. 1. Philip le Vache and others to William de Beauchamp and others, Ewyas Harrald. 1399. PATENT ROLL. 1 Hen. 4. Part 5. Mem. 4. Rex confirm Pho de Vache mil ac aliis in f eodo castr maner et dominium de Ewyas Harald in Marchia Walliae. 1405. EXCHEQUER. L. T. R. MEMORANDA ROLL. Trin. 6 Hen. 4. Rot. 7. De Willielmo Beauchamp, chevalier, occasionats ad ostendendum per quot Feodo Militaria tenet de Rege Castrum et Manerium de Ewyas-Harald, in comitatu Herefordice, and ad respondendum Regi de nationali Auxilio pro eisden Feodis. NOTE O. TRANSLATION OP A DEED OF HENRY IV. TO SIR PHILIP LA VACHE. (Fine Roll, Court of ^Chancery. Pt. %, Mem. ii.). The King, for twenty marks paid into Court, has granted and given licence to Philip la Vache, knight, Thomas Latymer, knight, and John Cheyny, knight, that they may enfeof William de Beauchamp, knight, John Prat, clerk, Thomas Rede, Thomas Walweyn, William Wenlok, and John Olney, in the Castle, Manor, and Lordship of Ewyas Harold, with all that pertains to them, in the Marches of Wales ; and in the Knights Fees pertaining to the same Castle and Manor, in the Counties of Wilts, Hereford, and Somerset, which are held of the King in capite ; to be had and held by the said William Beauch amp, John Prat, Thomas Rede, Thomas Walweyn, William Wenlok, and John Olney, and their heirs, from us and our heirs for the services thence owed, and customary. And to the same William Beauchamp, John Prat, Thomas Rede, Thomas Walweyn, William Wenlok, and John Olney it is granted that they shall receive the Castle and Manor, Lordship and Fees aforesaid, with all things pertaining thereto from the aforesaid Philip la Vache, Thomas Latymer, and John Cheyny, and shall hold the same from the King and his heirs by the aforesaid services for ever. Given at Westminster on the twentieth day of February.
APPENDIX. n
NOTE P. THE COURT OP THE MABCHES. The accession of Edward IV. to the throne was the virtual trinmph of the Marcher Lords, in the person of the representative of their greatest house, that of Mortimer. But the interests of Edward Plantagenet, King of England, were entirely opposed to those of the same man as heir of the Mortimers. He determined from the first to carry out the work which Edward I. had striven in vain to accomplish, the work, that is, of breaking the Custom of the March. It was with this object in view that he instituted, in 1469, the Court of the Lord President and Council of the Marches, ostensibly in honour of the Earls of March, as the Court of the Duchy of Lancaster had been instituted by Henry IV. in honour of the House of Lancaster. (There had previously been a Warden of the Marches ; but his office was little more than a sinecure, though he seems to have pretended to some judicial power). The first Lord President of the new Court was Lord Rivers, under whose care at Ludlow the two young princes afterwards murdered in the Tower of London were placed, and remained until the death of Edward IV. in 1483. The members of the Court were the President, the Vice-President, and the Chief Justice, assisted by a Council composed of the nobility of the border counties. Attached to the Court were the Clerk of the Council, the Clerk of the Signet, the Gentleman Porter, several Sergeants- at-Arms, and other officers. It was intended, says Hall in his Chronicle, "for justice to be doeen in the Marches of Wales, to the end that the wilde Welshemenne and evill disposed personnes should refrain from their accustomed murthers and outrages." How far the new Court succeeded in accomplishing the King's purpose is uncertain. Very possibly it helped to prepare the way for the Act of Parliament, 27 Henry VIII. , which abolished the Marcher system, and legally incorporated the Marcher Lordships into the English and Welsh counties to which they belonged, thus bringing them under the ordinary law of the realm. The Court of Ludlow, however, though its reason of being would seem no longer to have existed, was, by a new statute, 34 Henry VIII., confirmed in its power and authority. The Lord President had an allowance granted him to live in almost kingly state, and Ludlow became the wealthy and fashionable capital of the Marches. The Court seems, however, within a short time, to have become notorious for corruption ; the most open and shameless bribery was com- monly practised by wealthy suitors. In 1640, the Grand Jury of the County of Hereford declared in their Presentment that the Court of the Marches " is and hath bynne a burden and grevance to this County, from which the said Countie desire to be freed and eased." In spite of a petition from the inhabitants of Ludlow, who pleaded that the Court brought trade to the town, the Parliament, in 1642, exempted the counties of Salop, Hereford, Worcester, and Gloucester from the jurisdiction of the President and Council. They preserved, nevertheless, a shadow of their old authority for a few years longer, until, after the capture of Ludlow by the Parliamentary forces in 1646, the Court was suppressed. At the Restoration in 1660 it was revived, and the old abuses revived with it. On the accession of William III., however, "at the humble suit of all the gentlemen and inhabitants within the Principality of Wales," the Court was finally abolished by Act of Parliament, 1 William and Mary.
112 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
NOTE Q. SURVEY OF A MANOR, tempore EDWARD I. (From Fleta). Inquiry is to be made upon the testimony of " faithful and sworn tenants of the lord" : (I) Of castles and buildings in the demesne (intrinsecis) within and without the moat, with gardens, curtilages, dovecotes, fishponds, etc. (II) What fields (campi) and culturce there are in demesne, and how many acres of arable in each outturn of meadow and of pasture. (III) What common pasture there is outside the demesne (forinseca) and what beasts the lord can place there [he, like his tenants, being as to this limited in his rights by custom.] (IV) Of parks and demesne woods, which the lord at his will can cultivate and reclaim (assartare). (V) Of woods outside the demesne (forinsecis) in which others have common rights, how much the lord may approve. (VI) Of pannage, herbage, and honey, and all other issues of the forests, woods, moors, heaths, and wastes. (VII) Of mills [belonging to the lord, and having a monopoly of grinding for the tenants at fixed charges], fishponds, rivers (ripariis), and fisheries several and common. (VIII) Of pleas and perquisites belonging to the county, manor, and forest courts. (IX) Of churches belonging to the lord's advowson. (X) Of heriots, fairs, markets, tolls, day-works (operationes), services, foreign (forinseci) customs and gifts (exhenniis). (XI) Of warrens, liberties, parks, coneyburrows, wardships, reliefs, and yearly fees. Then regarding the tenants : (I) De libere tenentibus, or free tenants, how many are intrinseci and how many forinseci ; what lands they hold of the lord, and what of others, and by what service ; whether by socage, or by mili tary service or by fee farm, or ' in eleemosynam ' ; who hold by charter, and who not ; what rents they pay ; which of them do suit at the lord's court, etc. ; and what accrues to the lord at their death. (II) De custumariis, or villan tenants ; how many there are, and what is their suit ; how much each has, and what it is worth, both de antique dominico and de novo perquisite ; to what amount they can be tallaged without reducing them to poverty and ruin ; what is the value of their ' operationes ' and ' consuetudines ' their day-works and customary duties and what rent they pay ; and which of them can be tallaged ' ratione sanguinis nativi,' and who not. APPENDIX. 113
NOTE R. THE HEREFOKDSHIRE LANDS OP.EWIAS IN 1300. INQUISITION post mortem. 28 EDW. I. No. 43. JOHN DE TBEGOZ. Translation. Mem. 3. Inquisition concerning the true value of the knights' fees and advowsons of churches in the county of Hereford which belonged to John Tregoz, deceased, who held of the Lord King in chief, and which by reason of the death of the same are taken into the hand of the Lord King, made before the Escheator of the Lord King at Hereford on the 20th day of June in the 29th year of the reign of King Edward ; By the oath of John de [Callowe], Hugh de Asche, Ralph de Chaundoz, William ap [Owen], Robert de Bodeham, Philip de Ipre, Hugh de Wormbrugg, Nicholas de Capele, William de [Calowe], John Murdak, Henry ap Byrid, and John Wogan. Who say upon their oath that John Tregoz "the poor" held one knight's fee in the vill of Ewyas Harold, and it is worth by the year in all issues 30s., and was in the hand of the said John Tregoz on the day that he died. They say also that Henry de Elston holds half a knight's fee in Ewyas, and it is worth by the year in all issues 15s. They say also that Richard de Euwyas holds half a knight's fee in the same vill, and it is worth by the year 15s. They say also that Reginald de Mulstonton held half a knight's fee in Mulstoneston, of the said John Tregoz, and it is worth by the year in all issues 20s. And it was the escheat of the said John Tregoz, deceased, and in his hand on the day he died, through felony committed by the said Reginald. They say also that Roger Ragun holds half a knight's fee in Puston in Straddel, and it is worth by the year 30s. They say also that Eustace de Wytheneye holds one knight's fee and a half in Pencumbe and Caldewell, and it is worth by the year 50s. They say also that Robert de Bodeham holds one knight's fee in Monynton in Straddel and Euwyas, and it is worth by the year 40s. They say also that Henry de Penebrugg holds three parts of one knight's fee in Monynton in Straddell, and it is worth by the year 30s. They also say that [Elizabeth], who was the wife of Richard Foukes, holds a fourth part of a knight's fee in Foukesyate belonging to the aforesaid three parts of Monynton, and it is worth by the year 10s. They say also that whensoever the Priory of Euwyas Harald shall be vacant, the lords of the same place shall have one man in the said Priory during the time of the vacancy, and the Abbot of Gloucester another ; and when the aforesaid Abbot shall create a new prior there, the said prior shall be presented to the aforesaid lords of the place. And the aforesaid prior shall find a minister or a chaplain to celebrate divine service daily in the chapel of the castle of Euwyas Harald, which chantry is worth by the year five marks. They say also that the aforesaid Lords of Euwyas are the founders of the Abbey of Dore, but they take no service thereof. In witness whereof the aforesaid jurors have appended their seals to this inquisition. Mem. 4. HEBEFOBD. Inquisition of the lands and tenements which belonged to John de Tregoz, to wit, how much land the same John held on the day he died in his demesne as of fee of the Lord King in chief. And how much of others and by what service, and how much they are worth by the year in all issues, and who is his next heir, and of what age ; made at Eton Tregoz before the Escheator of the Lord King on the 20th day of October in the 28th year of the reign of King Edward ; by the oath of John de Bykerthon, John !e Walys, Walter de Dene, Walter de Kyngeston, John de Frome, John de Calowe, John de Netherthon, William
114 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
de Penedok, Hugh Brun, William Dyneby, Roger Russel, and John Benet. Who say that John Tregoz held in the county of Hereford the manor of Eton Tregoz, member of the manor of Euwyas Haral, which is in the parts of Wales, which same manor with its members he held of the Lord King in chief by barony, and did the service of two knights' fees. They say also that there is there one messuage, and the easements are worth 4s. a year. And there is there one garden, and it is worth by the year 12d. And there is there one water-mill, and it is worth by the year 75s. And there is there a fishery, and it is worth by the year 50s. And there are there thirty acres of outside wood, and the acre is worth 3d. Total, 7s. 6d. And there is there one park, and it is worth by the year as in herbage and pannage, besides the sustenance of deer, 20s. And there are there two carucates of land, each one whereof contains a hundred acres of land by the long hundred, price of the acre 4d. Total 4. And there are there sixty acres of meadow, price of the acre 18d. Total 4 10s. And there are there ten acres of pasture, price of the acre 12d. Total 10s. Total 16 17s. 6d. FREE TENANTS. And there are there nineteen free tenants, of whom Eustace da Wy theneye holds two carucates of land, and he owes 7s. 11 id. by the year, to wit, one moiety at the feast of St. Michael and the other moiety at the Annunciation of the Blessed Mary for all things. Elizabeth de Cokesey holds one carucate of land, and owes 12s. at the same terms, heriot and relief when it shall happen, for all things. William de Callowe holds eighteen acres of land, and owes 3s. at the terms aforesaid, suit of court every fortnight, &c., as above. John Murdak holds one messuage, eighteen acres of land, and owes Id. at the feast of St. Michael, &c., as above. John Benet holds one messuage, twenty acres of land, and owes 14d. at the terms aforesaid, &c., as above. Richard de Foye holds one messuage, half a virgate of land, and owes 6s. 3d. at the aforesaid terms, &c., as above. Thomas Gutte holds one messuage, half a virgate of land, and owes 3s. 6d. at the terms aforesaid, &c., as above. Philip de Brumfeld holds seven acres of land, and owes 2s. at the terms aforesaid, &c., as above. John Ivor holds one messuage, eighteen acres of laud, and owes 3s. 6d. at the aforesaid terms, &c. , as above. Walter Barun holds one messuage, twenty acres of land, and owes 4s. 7d. at the terms aforesaid, &c., as above. Robert Frommard holds one messuage, half a virgate of land, and owes 8s. at the terms aforesaid, &c., as above. Henry le Taylor holds one messuage, seventeen acres of land, and owes 3s. 6d. at the terms aforesaid, &c., as above. Robert Goerun holds one messuage, eight acres of land, and owes 3s. 2d. at the terms aforesaid, &c., as above. Luke de Staunford holds one messuage, thirty-four acres of land, and owes 4s. 6d. at the aforesaid terms, &c., as above. Juliana Barun holds one messuage, and owes 12d. at the aforesaid terms for all things. Margery Sutrix [the sempstress] holds one messuage, and owes 6d. at the terms aforesaid for all things. Edith de la Hull holds one messuage, and owes 2d. at the same terms for all things. Thomas the Smith [Faber] holds one messuage and one curtilage, and owes 12d. at the terms aforesaid for all things. Hugh de Reynisham holds one messuage, five acres of land, and owes 2s. at the terms aforesaid, &c., as above. Total of the rent of free tenants 67s. lOJd. CUSTOMARY TENANTS. And there are there thirty customary tenants. Of whom Thomas Ball holds one messuage, [fifty -four] acres of land, and owes 9s. at the aforesaid two principal terms ; and owes aid 5s. at the feast of St. Michael, &c., as above. Robert de la Hull holds one messuage, half a virgate of land, and owes 5s. 4d. at the aforesaid terms, and aid 5s. 4d., as
APPENDIX. 115
above. William Goerun holds one messuage, half a virgate of land, and owes 5s. 4d. at the terms aforesaid, and owesaid 5s. 4d., as above. Richard Copp holds one messuage, twenty acres of land, and owes 4s. 6d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 3s. ld., as above. Adam Lovy holds one messuage, half a virgate of land, and owes 5s. 4d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 5s. 4d. John Hughes holds one messuage, twenty -seven acres of land, and owes 4s. 6d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 3s. l^d. , as above. John Barun holds one messuage, twenty -seven acres of land, and owes 4s. 6d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 2s. lid., as above. Thomas Fouk [Foulkes?] holds one messuage, eighteen acres of land, and owes 3s. at the aforesaid terms, and aid 2s. IJd., as above. Walter Hardwick holds one messuage, eighteen acres of land, and owes 3s. at the afore- said terms, and aid 2s. Id., as above. John Wynter holds one messuage, sixteen acres of land, and owes 2s. 8d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 2s., as above. Robert Patemon holds one messuage, eleven acres of land, and owes 22d. at the aforesaid terms, and aid lid., as above. Hugh Brekeden holds one messuage, sixteen acres of land, and owes 2s. 8d. at the terms afore- said, and aid 16d. Henry Hokeys holds one messuage, fifteen acres of land, and owes 2s. 9d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 18d., as above. William Aubrey holds one messuage, eighteen acres of land, and owes 3s. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 2s., as above. Thomas Maynard holds one messuage, twelve acres of land, and owes 2s. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 9d., as above. Robert Gody holds one messuage, ten acres of land, and owes 15d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid Gd., as above. Alice Gody holds one messuage, half an acre of land, and owes 6d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 3d., as above. William Park [de Parco] holds one messuage, six acres of land, and owes 2s. at the terms aforesaid, and nothing for aid. Thomas Bernard holds one messuage, eleven acres of land, and owes 3s. 8d. at the terms aforesaid, and nothing for aid. Dyonisius [Denis] Copp hold three acres of land and owes lOd. at the aforesaid terms, and nothing for aid. Robert Brekeden holds one messuage, seven acres of land, and owes 17d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 8|d., as above. Adam Dobyn holds one messuage, and owes 6d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 3d., as above. Hugh Cokes holds one messuage, seven acres of land, and owes 12d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid lid., as above. Gode Mabinis holds one messuage, six acres of land, and owes 9d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid lid., as above. Alice Miller holds one messuage, and owes 18d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 8d., as above. Richard Cose holds one messuage, and owes 6d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 3d., as above. Julia Legard holds one messuage, and owes 3d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid lid,, as above. Agnes Cokes holds one messuage, and owes 8d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 4d., as above. Roger the Miller holds one messuage, and owes 3d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid lid., as above. Kenny Gydyhorn holds one messuage, and owes 6d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 3d. Adam de la Grene holds one messuage and one acre of laud, and owes!2d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 6d., as above. Total of their rents ... 76s. Total of aid ... ... 47s. 10 Jd. [Works] of the same. Out of these aforesaid there are seven customary tenants, every one of whom ought to plough thrice in the year, to wit, once at the feast of St. Michael, and once at the feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Mary, and once at the feast of St. John the Baptist ; price of the day 3d. Total 5s. 3d. Also out of these aforesaid there are three customary tenants, every one of whom ought to lift hay for two days, and the day's work is worth id. Total 3d. And to reap for two days, and the day's work is worth id. Total 3d. And to mow for six days, and Il6 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD. the day's work is worth Id. Total 18d. And to gather nuts for two days, if there are any, and the day's work is worth |d. Total 3d. And out of these aforesaid there are twenty-seven customary tenants, every one of whom ought to lift hay for one day, and the day's work is worth |d. Total 13Jd. And to reap for one day, and the day's work is worth d. Total 13|d. And to mow for three days, and the day's work is worth Id. Total 6s. 9d. And to gather nuts for one day, and the day's work is worth d. Total 13Jd. Total of their works ... 17s. 7id. Hitherto concerning customary tenants. Concerning customary tenants who hold more and owe more. And there are nine customary tenants, whereof six hold every one of them one messuage, eighteen acres of land. And every one of them owes for aid 2s. l|d. at the feast of St. Michael aforesaid. Total 12s. 9d. Also every one of them ought to lift hay for one day, and the day's work is worth ^d. Total 3d. And to reap for one day, and the day's work is worth Jd. Total 3d. And to mow for three days, and the day's work is worth Id. Total 18d. And every one of them ought to work for four days in the fourth week of every month of the year, and the day's work is worth Id. Total 26s. Also three other customary tenants, every one of whom holds one messuage, half a virgate of land. And every one of them owes 3s. 3d. for aid at the feast of St. Michael. Total 9s. 9d. And every one of them ought to lift hay for one day, and the day's work is worth Jd. Total ld. And to reap for one day, and the day's work is worth ^d. Total l|d. And to mow for three days, and the day's work is worth Id. Total 9d. Total of their aid ... 12s. 9d. Total of works ... 38s. 9d. They say also that there is there pannage of pigs, and it is worth by the year 5s. Total 5s. They say also that pleas and perquisites of court are worth by the year 20s. Total 20s. Sum total ... 31 3s 4fd. They say also that John Tregoz had two daughters, Clarissa the elder, and Sybil the younger. Clarissa indeed was married to Roger la Warre, of whom issued John la Warre ; which same John la Warre and Sybil are next heirs of the said John Tregoz. And the said John la Warre is of the age of twenty-three years and more. And Sybil is of the age of twenty-eight years and more. In witness whereof the aforesaid jurors have affixed their seals to this inquisition. Mem. 10. EXTENT. [Inquisition] concerning the lands and tenements which belonged to John Tregoz, to wit, how much land the same J ohn held on the day he died in his demesne as of [fee of the Lord] King in chief, and how much of others, and by what service, and how much they are worth in all issues, and who is his next heir [and of what age] ; Made at Euwyas Harald in the parts of Wales before the Escheator of the Lord King on the 18th day of October in the 28th year of the reign of King Edward : By the [oath of Ed]mund Le Galeys, Roger de la Haye, Hugh de Tyberton, Walter Ragun, Hugh de Wormbrugg, Hugh I[vor], John ap . . . . . . . ap vael, Henry de Eylston, Madoc ap Jeverard, Jeverard ap Griffith, Richard de Euwyas; Who say that the same John Tregoz .... [held] in his demesne as of fee the castle of Euwyas Harald in the parts of Wales of the Lord King in chief by barony, with its members .... to the castle. The easements of the houses are worth by the year 6s. 8d. And there is there one garden, and it is worth by the year 2s. And there is there another APPENDIX. Ii garden and it is worth [by the year] 12d. And there are there two water-mills, one of which is worth by the year 26s. 8d. And the other is worth by the year 13s. 4d. And there are there [four] carucates of land, every one of which contains a hundred acres of land by the short hundred, price of every acre 3d. Total 100s. And there are there twenty acres of meadow, price of the acre 18d. Total 30s. And there are there six acres of pasture, price of the acre Id. Total 6d. And there are there fourteen acres of wood, price of the acre 6d. Total 7s. Total of demesne lands... ... 9 7s. 2d. FREE TENANTS. They say also that there are there thirty-eight free tenants, of whom Richard de Euwyas holds one messuage, one carucate of land, and owes suit of court every three weeks, ward, marriage, heriot and relief when it shall fall. Henry de Eylston holds one messuage, one carucate of land, and owes 12d. by the year, to wit, one moiety at the feast of St. Michael and the other moiety at the Annunciation of the Blessed Mary, suit of court, &c., as above. Madok ap Jeverard holds one messuage, nine and a half acres of land, and owes 3s. 9Jd. at the terms aforesaid ; the same owes 2|d. at the feast of St. Andrew, &c., as above. Susan ap Seysol holds one messuage, one carucate of land, and owes 12d. at the terms aforesaid, &c., as above. William de la Grave holds one messuage, twenty acres of land, and owes 6s. 2d. at the terms, &c., as above. Jeverard ap Adam holds one messuage, nine acres of land, and owes [14d.] at the terms aforesaid. John the clerk holds one messuage, and owes 12d. at the terms afore- said, &c., as above. Richard de Madeleye holds one messuage, and owes 4d. at the terms aforesaid, &c., as above. [Jevan ap Thomas] holds one messuage, and owes 12d. at the terms aforesaid, &c., as above. William ap Adam holds one burgage and a half, and owes 4s. Id. at the terms aforesaid. Philip Tek holds eight acres of land, and owes 17d. at the terms aforesaid, and suit. Henry le Jay holds one messuage, twelve acres of land, and owes 2s. 8d. at the terms aforesaid, and suit. Matilda Lergey holds one burgage, and owes 18d. at the terms aforesaid, &c., as above. Michael de Pa teshull holds a certain piece of meadow, and owes Id. at the feast of St. Michael for all things. Philip Mile holds one burgage, and owes 12d. at the terms aforesaid for all things. Jeverard ap Griffiths holds one messuage, one carucate of land, and owes 3s. at the terms aforesaid, &c., as above. Ralph de Euwyas holds eight acres of land, and owes 16Jd. at the terms aforesaid, and suit, for all things. John de Ipre holds one messuage, one carucate of land, and owes 4s. 2d. at the terms aforesaid, &c., as above. The same owes 2s. at the feast of St. John the Baptist. [Hugh Drueys] holds one messuage, twelve acres of land, and owes 3s. Id. at the four terms of the year, to wit, at the feast of St. Michael 9|d., and at the feast of St. Andrew 9Jd., and at the feast [of the Annunciation] of the Blessed Mary 9^d., and at the feast of St. John the Baptist 9^d., and suit of court as above. Matilda de la Helme holds one piece of land, and owes 3d. at the aforesaid four terms, at every term equally ; suit, &c., as above. Julia the Weaver [textrix] holds half a burgage, and owes 6d. at the aforesaid four terms, &c., as above. John la Hun te holds one burgage, and owes 6d. at the aforesaid terms, &c., as above. Walter Elyot holds eleven acres of land, and owes 22d. at the aforesaid four terms, &c., as above. Hugh le Tournir holds half a burgage, and owes 6d. at the aforesaid terms, &c., as above. Hugh de Bredwardin holds one burgage, eight acres of land, and owes 2s. 5d. at the aforesaid four terms, &c., as above. Adam son of Stephen holds one messuage, two crofts, and owes 3s. at the aforesaid four terms, &c., as above. Joan Brounesdauthor holds one burgage, ten acres of land, and owes 3s. 4d. at the aforesaid four terms, &c., as above. Joan the Weaver [textrix] holds one burgage, and owes 12d. at the aforesaid four terms, &c., as above. Julia Drue holds one burgage, and owes 12d. at the aforesaid four terms, &c., as above. Joan Gilebert
Il8 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
holds one burgage, and owes 12d. at the aforesaid four terms, &c., as above. Agnes Nutegale holds one burgage, and owes 12d. at the aforesaid four terms, &c., as above. Joan Pyard holds half a burgage, and owes 6d. at the aforesaid four terms, &c., as above. Margery Michel holds one burgage, and owes 12d. at the aforesaid four terms, for all things. Alice Alewy holds one burgage, and owes 6d. at the aforesaid four terms. [Joan la] Taylor holds a certain piece of land, and owes 8d. at the aforesaid four terms, &c., as above. Hugh Gilebert holds one messuage, one carucate of land, and owes 2s. 4d. at the feast of St. Michael, and 2s. 4d. at the feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Mary; and he owes 10d., to wit, one moiety of the feast of St. Andrew, and the other moiety at the feast of St. John the Baptist, and will give a sparrow- hawk at the feast of St. John the Baptist, or 2s., &c., as above. Richard Cantlin holds half a burgage, and owes 6d. at the aforesaid four terms, &c., as above. William Marsh [de Marisco] holds half a burgage, and owes 6d. at the aforesaid four terms, &c., as above. Total of the rents of free tenants of Euwyas... ... 67s. 9jd. CUSTOMARY TENANTS. They say also that there are there seventy -five customary tenants ; of whom Eve le Hunte holds one messuage, and owes 15d. by the year, to wit, 7|d. at the feast of St Michael, and 7ld. at the feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Mary. The same owes 6d., to wit, at the feast of St. Michael IJd., and at the feast of St. Andrew l|d., and at the feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Mary l^d., and at the feast of St. John the Baptist Ifd. ; and thus all the underwritten do service at every term of the aforesaid terms equally, as above. And she owes aid at the feast of St. Michael l^d. [John Prothero] holds two burgages, and owes 5s. 2|d. at the aforesaid four terms, and aid 4d., as above. Ralph Kyn[t] holds one burgage, and owes 9d. at the aforesaid terms, and aid 4d., as above. Thomas Nutegale holds one burgage, and owes 12d. at the aforesaid terms, and aid 3|d. Lucy le Irreys holds one burgage, five acres of land, and owes [Is.] 4d. at the aforesaid terms, and aid 7d., as above. Philip the Weaver holds half a burgage, and owes 6d. at the aforesaid terms, and, aid d., as above. Dulcie P[aget] holds one burgage, [6] acres of land, and owes 3s. at the aforesaid terms, and aid 12^d., as above. Julia Scot holds one burgage, and owes 12d. at the aforesaid terms, and aid 3d., as above. Alice Baret holds half a burgage, and owes 7d. at the aforesaid terms, and aid 2d. Julia Drue holds one burgage, eight acres of land, and owes 2s. at the aforesaid terms, and aid [l]d., as above. Agnes Gilor holds four acres of land, and owes 9d. at the aforesaid terms, and aid 3d., as above. William Gissor holds one burgage, and owes 12d. at the aforesaid terms, and aid 4d., as above. John Godwyne holds half a burgage, twenty acres of land, and owes 4s. lOd. at the aforesaid terms, and aid 2 Id., as above. William Russel holds half a burgage, three acres of land, and owes 13d. at the aforesaid terms, and aid 2d., as above. John Brun holds seven acres of land, and owes 14d. at the aforesaid terms, and aid 5d., as above. Susan the Laundress [lotrix] holds half a burgage, and owes 6d. at the aforesaid terms, and aid 2d. Alice the Laundress holds one burgage, and owes 12d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 4d. Matilda de [Rolueston] holds one burgage, and owes 12d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 4d., as above. Hugh Bord holds one burgage, and owes 12d. at the aforesaid terms, and aid 4d., as above. [Matilda la Cyfescar] holds half a burgage, and owes 6d. at the aforesaid terms, and aid 4d., as above. Agnes Crokes holds half a burgage, and owes Gd. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 2d. , as above. John Bord holds one burgage, and owes 12d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 4d. John Umfrey holds three acres of land, and owes 6d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 2|d., as above. John Child holds one [burgage], and owes [12d.] at the terms aforesaid, and aid 6|d., as above. Alexander le Gaunt holds half a burgage, and owes 6d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid $d., as above. Richard
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Russel holds half a burgage, and owes 6d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 2d., as above. Gilbert le Coupere holds one burgage, and owes 12d. at the aforesaid terms, and aid 4d., as above. Agnes de Garewy holds one burgage and a half, and owes 18d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 6d., as above. Robert Cokes holds the third part of one burgage, and owes 4d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid id., as above. John Rocarius holds seven acres of land, and owes 2s. 6d. at the aforesaid terms, and aid 5d., as above. Stephen the Shoemaker holds one burgage and a half, and owes 22d. at the aforesaid terms, and aid Ifd. John de Pateshull holds one burgage, and owes 12d. at the aforesaid terms, and aid 4d., as above. William Bak holds one burgage, and owes 12d. at the aforesaid terms, and aid 3d., as above. John Gantlyn holds one burgage, ten acres of land, and owes 17d. at the aforesaid terms, and aid 5d. Henry Flemming holds one burgage and a half, and owes 3s. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 7d., as above. Hugh Dyme holds one burgage and a half, and owes 18d. at the aforesaid terms, and aid 6d., as above. Ellis le Someter holds one burgage, eight acres of land, and owes 2s. 3d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 9d., as above. Walter le Kyng holds half a burgage, five acres of land, and owes 17d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 5d., as above. Margery le Turner holds one burgage and a half, and owes 22d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 4Jd., as above. Joan Wynter holds one burgage, and owes 12d. at the aforesaid terms, and aid 4d., as above. Agnes Wywere holds one burgage, and owes 12d. at the aforesaid terms, and aid 4d., as above. Margery Huwelin holds five acres of land, and owes lOd. at the aforesaid terms, and aid 3Jd. Jevan ap Adam holds one burgage, fourteen acres of land, and owes 6d., one moiety of the feast of St. Michael, and the other moiety at the Annunciation of the Blessed Mary. The same owes 3s. lOd. at the aforesaid four terms, and aid 3d., as above. William Kfenmar] holds one messuage, ten acres of land, and owes 2s. lOd. at the aforesaid terms, and aid 7d., as above. Adam ap Ivor holds one messuage, thirteen acres of land, and owes 2s. 4d. at the aforesaid terms, and aid 7d., as above. Jevan Haron holds one messuage, ten acres of land, and owes 2s. 8d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 8Jd., as above. William Irreys holds one burgage, and owes 12d., to wit, one moiety at the feast of St. Michael, and the other moiety at the Annunciation of the Blessed Mary. The same owes 7d. at the aforesaid four terms, and aid 2d., as above. John Russel holds half a burgage, half an acre of land, and owes 8d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 2|d., as above. Matilda Tek holds half a burgage, and owes 9d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid id., as above. [Cristina?] Gilebert holds one burgage, and owes 12d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 4d., as above. Alice Dyme holds one burgage, and owes 12d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 4d., as above. Ellis [Goynull] le Teynturer (the dyer) holds one burgage and a half, and owes 17d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 4id., as above. John le Kyng holds one burgage, and owes 12d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 4d., as above. John Fleming holds one burgage, and owes 13d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid l^d. John Alewy holds one burgage and a half, and owes 19d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 4 Id., as above. Richard the carpenter holds one burgage, and owes 12d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 4d., as above. Amice K[ennour] holds one burgage, and owes 12d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 4d., as above. John Wynter, junior, holds one burgage, and owes 3s. 5d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 16d., as above. Parnel de Bendirth holds half a burgage, and owes 12d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 4d., as above. Christine Boffard holds half a burgage, and owes 6d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid one halfpenny, as above. Thomas son of Henry holds one burgage, and owes 12d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 4d., as above. William le Holdare holds one burgage, and owes 12d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 6d., as above. Margery Foukes holds one burgage, and owes 18d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 6d., as above. John son of William de la Helme holds four acres of land, and owes 9d.
120 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
at the terms aforesaid, and aid 3d., as above. Margery de Garewy holds half a burgage, and owes 6d. at the aforesaid terms, and aid 2d., as above. Alice de Rolueston holds one messuage, and owes 3d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid Id., as above. William Haymor holds one burgage, and owes 12d. at the aforesaid terms, and aid 4d., as above. Adam de la Pounde holds five acres of land, and owes 4d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 2d., as above. William de [Bofard] holds half a burgage, and owes 4d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid lid., as above. Isabel le Waleys holds one burgage, and owes 8d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 2d., as above. Thomas le Turnur holds one burgage, and owes 12d. at the aforesaid terms, and aid 4d., as above. Margery Robert de Monte holds one acre of land, and owes 2d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid Id., as above. Henry Wynter holds one burgage, and owes 12d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 2d., as above. Denis de Eylston holds one burgage, and owes 12d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 3d. William le Fox holds three acres of land, and owes 8d. at the terms aforesaid, and aid 3d. , as above. Total of the rents of customary tenants ... 4 19s. IJd. except Waytepeny (i.e. Wardpenny) Total of aids of the same ... 26s. Id. Also the aforesaid customary tenants owe 16s. at the feast of St. Michael for Waytepeny. WORKS OP THE SAMK. Out of these aforesaid there are thirty-five, every one of whom ought to reap for one day, and the day's work is worth |d. Total of the money 17<|d. Also every one of them ought to lift hay for one day, and the day's work is worth |d. Total of the money 17 jd. And [out of the aforesaid tenants] there are twenty -five, every one of whom ought to mow for two days, and the day's work is worth Id. Total of the money 4s. 2d. And [out of these there are] six, every one of whom ought to mow for one day, and the day's work is worth Id. Total of the money 6d. And out of these above said there are seven, every one of whom owes six ploughings a year (i.e. a day's work with a plough), to wit, two ploughings at the feast of St. Michael, and two at the feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Mary, and two at the feast of St. John the Baptist ; price of every day 3d. Total of the money 10s. 6d. Total of the works of the same ... 18s. Id. SAINT KEYNA. They say also that Saint Keyna is a member of the manor aforesaid. And there is there one messuage, the easements of which messuage are worth by the year 12d. And there is there one garden, and it is worth by the year 6d. And there is there one dove- house, and it is worth by the year 18d. And there is there one carucate of land, and it contains a hundred acres by the short hundred, price of every acre 4d. Total of the money 33s. 4d. And there is there one acre and a half of meadow, and the acre is worth 18d. Total 2s. 3d. And there is there one acre of pasture, and it is worth by the year 3d. Total of the demesne lands ... ... 38s. lOd. FREE TENANTS. They say also that there are there seven free tenants. Of whom John ap Mael holds one messuage, two carucates of land, and owes 16s. 8d. , to wit, one moiety at the feast of St. Michael, and the other moiety at the Annunciation of the Blessed Mary, suit of court, ward, marriage, heriot and relief when it shall fall. Adam ap Jagon holds fifteen acres of land, and owes 2s. 7d. at the terms aforesaid, &c., as above. Griffith son of Nicholas holds two acres of land, and owes 4^d. at the terms aforesaid, &c., as above. Henry ap Madok
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holds one messuage, sixteen acres of land, and owes 2s. 8d. at the terms aforesaid, &c. , as above. Griffith ap Bedy holds one messuage, twenty acres of land, and owes 3s. 5d. at the terms afore- said, &c., as above. John [Min] holds twelve acres of land, and owes 2s. at the terms aforesaid, &c., as above. John ap Huwe holds one messuage, one carucate of land, and owes 8s. at the terms aforesaid,
122 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
in the year, to wit, two ploughings at the feast of St. Michael, and two at the feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Mary, and two at the feast of St. John the Baptist ; price of every day 3d. Total 9s. Total of works of the same ... 12s. lid. [PLEAS AND PERQUISITES.] They say also that the pleas and perquisites of court are worth by the year 40s. Total 40s. Sum total ... 31 9s. OJd. They say also by their oath that John de Tregoz had two daughters [&c.] * * * And the said John la Warre is of the age of twenty-three years and more [&c.j *
NOTE S. THE WILTSHIRE FEES OP EWIAS IN 1300. [FROM THE MS. INQUISITION POST MORTEM 28 EDWARD L, No. 43.] Dicunt per sacramentum suum quod Walterus de Eskydemour tenuit de praedicto Johanne Tregoz in Upton Skydemour duo feoda et dimidium pertinentia ad Castrum de Ewyas et valent per annum tempore custodise in omnibus exitibus Ls. Item tria feoda in Norton et Fyfdide quse sunt in custodia domini Regis ratione minoris setatis Rogeri de Bavent, et valent in omnibus exitibus per annum . . . lx.s. Item Reginaldus Hose tenuit dimidium feodum et quartam partem unius feodi in villa de Teffont Ewyas et valent per annum viii.s, Item Joceus Forestarius tenuit quartam partem unius feodi in dicta villa de Teffonte et valet per annum . iis. vid. Item Stephanus le Druays tenuit dimidium feodum in Allecanynge, et valet per annum, x.s. Item Nicholas Poynz tenuit unum feodum in Roukley, et valet per annum . xiii.s. iiiid. Item Johannes de Seggree tenuit unum feodum in Somerford Ewyas et valet per annum xiii.s. iiiid. Item Rogerus Boubbe tenuit unum feodum in Tuderyngtona Lucas, et valet per annum, x.s. Item Wilhelmus deDodeford tenuit unum feodum in Clyve Wancy, et valet per annum, x.s. Item Wilhelmus filius Wilhelmi Wytsond et Simon Waz tenuerunt dimidium feodum in Haydonewyke et valet per annum vi.s. viiid. Item Wilhelmus de Mordone et Robertus de Mordone et Robertus de Wyke tenuerunt unum feodum in Mordone et valet per annum x.s. Item Philippus le Gay tenuit unum fejdum in Westwydyhulle, et valet per annum . xx.s. Et dicunt de advocacionibus ecclesiarum quod nulla est in Com. Wyltes. In cujus rei testimonium praedicti jurati sigilla sua apposuerunt.
APPENDIX. 123
NOTE T. THE DIVISION OP THR EWYAS LANDS IN 1300. [TRANSLATED FBOM THE MS. INQUISITION POST MOBTEM, 28 EDWARD L, No. 43.] Division of the lands and tenements which belonged to John Tregoz, according to the Royal Command, with the assent of John de la Warr, one of the heirs of the said John Tregoz, being the son of Claricia his elder daughter, and with the assent of William de Grandison who married Sibilla the younger daughter, and the other heir of the said John Tregoz : made before the Escheator of the lord King, on this side the Trent, on the twenty -first day of December, in the twenty -ninth year of the reign of filing Edward. THE POBTTON OP JOHN LA WABB. There is assigned to the said John la Warr the Manor of Ewyas with all things pertaining to it, in the parts of Wales, which amounts each year to xxxiW. ixs., and it is worth each year with all its outgoings IxW. as the same John recognised. Also the Manor of Alyngton, with all things pertaining to it, in the county of Wilts, which amounts to xxvfo'. xviiid. Also the Manor of Cheleworth, with all things pertaining to it, in the county of Somerset, which amounts to lixs. iiiid. Also the Manor of Albrighton, with all things pertaining to it, in the County of Salop, which amounts to xxxs. each year. There is assigned also to the same John lands and tenements in Estkenet, with all things pertaining to them, in the County of Wilts, which amount to Ixxviis. id. each year : provided nevertheless that the said John have [here the MS. is illegible] the said lands and tenements in Estkenet to the said William de Grandison and Sibilla his wife for .... shillings , ... in recompense for the body of the Castle of Ewias Harold, reserving to the same John la Warr xviis. of rent, namely viii. shillings of rent at the hands of .... of Lutleye, iii. shillings of rent at the hands of Augustine of Elingdon, v. shillings of rent to be received at the hands of Hamo Virgile, and one shilling of rent to be received at the hands of William Nichole. There is assigned also to the same John ten pounds in the Manor of Dodington, in the County of Northampton to be received at the hands of the heirs of Pine Bernardyn, after the death of the same Pine : To be held by the same John according to the law and custom of the realm. THE POBTION OP WILLIAM DE GRANDISON AND SIBILA HIS WIPE. There is assigned to the same William and Sibilla, his wife, the Manor of Burnham, with all things pertaining to it, in the County of Somerset, which amounts to xlviW. xvis. id., and is worth each year with all its outgoings lx.lt., as the same William for himself and Isabella his wife recognised : Also the Manor of Eton, in the County of Hereford, which amounts each year to xxxiZi. iiis. iiiid., and is worth each year with all its outgoings xxxiiilt. viis. xid., as the same William for himself and Sibilla his wife recognised :
124 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
There is assigned also to the same William and Sibilla ten pounds of rent in the aforesaid Manor of Dodyngton in the County of Northampton, to be received at the hands of the heirs of Pine Bernardyn after the death of the said Pine : To be held by the same William and Sibilla according to the law and custom of the realm.
NOTE U. HAEOLD'S GBANT TO THE PBIOBY OP EWIAS. (Translated from the Gloucester Cartulary.) Be it known to all that I, Harold of Ewias, have given to God and St. Peter and the monks of Gloucester the church of St. Michael, of Ewias, with its lands and tithes and all things pertaining thereto, together with the chapel of St. Nicholas in my castle, on condition that the monks provide a suitable chaplain to serve it ; also the whole tithe of the demesne of the castle of Ewias, viz., the tithe of corn, hay, apples, and other fruits of my trees, also of honey, and cheese, wool, linen, cattle, lambs, pigs, calves, and of the foals of the horses, and of all things of which a Christian ought to give tithes. I grant also to the monks who serve God in the church of St. Michael the tithe of my table, and of all that is expended every day in my house ; the tenth also of all that is killed, whether from my estate or bought, and of all the produce of the chase ; the church of Etuna [Eton Foy], with all things pertaining thereto, and all the tithe of the same ville on both sides of the river ; the tithe of the fishery, and of apples and of all other things of which tithes ought to be given ; similarly the whole tithe of Norton, and of Lidyart, and of Clive, and the whole tithe of Athelineton [Allington] and of Tedf unda [Teffont Ewias] and of Burnham, and of Briena ; and of Burnham, in particular, the whole tithe of hay, and of meadow-pence [denariorum de pratis], and of eels, little and big. I grant also and confirm to the said monks of Gloucester all my churches in all my Honour, and the lands which belong to these, with all the tithes which my men have granted to the aforesaid church ; all which I confirm to them to be held in perpetuam elemosinam freely and quietly from all secular service and exaction, by the impression of my seal. This gift I made in the Chapter of Gloucester, and laid it on the altar of St. Peter, and afterwards I confirmed it by the hand of the Venerable Bernard, Bishop of the church of St. David's, in the Chapter of Ewias ; Robert my heir confirm- ing this, in the presence of his brothers, and his parents, and in the presence of many persons, clerical and lay.
NOTE V. THE LANDS OF DOBE ABBEY. (From Dugdale's " Monasticon," Vol. v., p. 657.) Hereaftur followythe the nombre of acres and yerely value of the arable land, pastures, and medowes of the demeanes of the late monastery of Doore, in the county of Hereford, and now in the manuraunce of John Scudamore, esquyer, and to him by the kyng our sovraigne lord, lately demysed, at the yerely rent of 14 11s. sterling, and also the nombre of acres, and value of the woodds of the sayd demeanes. APPENDIX. 125 THE ARABLE LAND. 8. d. There be in severall fylds of the sayd demeanes of arable land four hundred and twenty acres, valued communibus annis at ... ... ... ... 400 Summa annul valoris terrse arabilis ... 400 THE PASTUEES OP THE SAYD DEMEANES. Fyrste a pastur ther called Bacton's Home, with a parcell of pasture unyted to the same, and closyd with on hedge, bothe contaynyng twenty-two acres and a halff, valued by yere at ... ... ... ... ... 568 On other pastur ther called the Oxelesne, contayning twelve acres, valued yerely at 238 One other pastur ther called Colverhouse close, contayning six acres, and valued yerely at .. ... ... ... ... ... ... 100 One other pastur ther called the Barne close, contayning two acres and a halff, valued yerely at ... .. ... ... ... ... 068 One other pastur jther called Sexten's close, contayning six acres, and valued yerely at ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 100 One other pastur ther called the Myll close, contaynyng three acres, and now showed withe barley, and valued yerely at ... ... ... ... 10 The orchard ther contayning five acres and more, valued yerely at ... ... 100 On parcell of ground ther called Homeshepe howse, lately usyd for pastur, and now converted to arable ^land, contayning twenty acres and valued as a pasture at ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 200 And if the same ground be hereaftur usyd for tillayge, yet every acre therof is no less worthe then 2s. the acre by yere. Herbayge of a wood ther called Gylberte Hyll, and contaynyng one hundred and twenty acres, with a parcell of ground contayning eighteen acres tynde and closyd with the sayd wood as one pasture, valued yerely at ... ... 168 One pastur ther called Phyllyp Gwyn's land, contayning four acres, valued yerely at .. ... ... ... ... ... ... 068 One other pastur ther called the Langet, contayning eight acres, valued yerely at 200 One other pastur ther called the Colte lesne, contayning four acres and a half, valued yerely at ... ... ... ... ... ... 100 One howse scytuat behynd the old barne, and a close thereunto belonging, valued yerely at ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 034 Summa annul valoris pastur .. ... ... 18 6 8
126 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
THE MBDOWES OP THE DEMEANES. S. d. Fyrste a medow ther called the Long Moore, contayning twenty-two acres, valued yerely at ... ... ... ... ... ... 800 One other medow ther called Havarde medow, contaynyng thirteen acres, valued yerely at ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 2 15 8 One other medowe there streychyng frome the Oxelesne to the orchard, beyng now in three parte, contaynyng nineteen acres, valued yerely at ... ... 500 One paicell of medow, lyeng in Masepightle, contaynyng two acres and a halff, valued yerely at ... ... ... . ... ... 068 Summa annui valoris pratorum ... ... ... ... 16 13 4 One watyr myll belonging to the said demeanes, valued yerely at ... ... 400 Summa totalis redditus terras arabilis,' pasturse, pratorum dominicalium proedictorum, ac molendini proedicti per annum ... ... 43 And ov thys the parte of the demeanes of the aforesaid certificate beyng in severall occupacyon of Thomas ap Rychard, and others of the towne of Doore, is worthe yerely THE WOODDS OF THE SATD DEMEANES. Fyrste on severall wood ther called Gylberte Hill, closyd withe a hedge, con- taynyng one hundred and twenty acres, whereof thirteen acres be of fifty years groweng, and the resydue of on hundreth yeres groweng and above, valued to our judgmente and estymacyonat 13s. 4d. the acre ... ... 80 Summa valoris hujus bosci ... ... ... ... ... 80 COMPUTATIO MlNISTBORUM DOMINI REGIS TEMP. HEN. VIII. MONASTEBIDM MONAOHOKUM DE DOBA. S. d. Com' Heref . Morehampton Firma Grangiae ... ... ... ... 15 6 8 Kyngston Firma Grangiae ... ... .. ... 6 13 4 Morlez Firma Grangiae ... ... ... ... ... 300 Lyncoyte Firma Grangiae ... ... ... ... 200 Llanvayre Firma Grangise si ve capellae .. ... ... 1 13 4 Blakemore Firma Grangise ... ... ... ... 2118 Blakemore Firma parcellse grangise ibidem ... ... ... 15 Good way Firma Grangiaa ... ... ... ... 1 13 4 Benfylde Firma Grangiae ... ... ... ... 1 10 Hy te wall infra dominium de Ewyas Lacy Firma Grangiae ... 168 Baketon Firma Grangiaa ... ... ... ... 01510 Hollyn Firma Grangise ... ... ... ... ... 100 Senneryng Firma Grangiae vocatse Cold Grange ... ... 068 New Grange Firma Grangise ... ... ... . 2 13 4 Dora Firma Grangiae de Newborugh ... ... ... 1 13 4 Dora Reddit' Assis' ... ... ... ... ... 1315 4 Dora Firma unius molendi aquatici... ... ... ... 16 8
APPENDIX. 127
s. d.
Ewyas Harrold Redditus burgagii ... ... ... ... 008
Hoton Redditus terras ... ... ... ... ... 010
Dora et Hereford civ Redditus terrarum et tenementorum ... 614
Skenfrith et Grosmount Firma decimarum ... ... ... 13 4
Kevenbaugh in Dora Firma decimarum ..i ... ... 1 13 4
Kevenbaugh Firma aliarum decimarum ... ... ... 080
Dora Firma decimarum ... ... ... ... ... 2 10
Salop'. Dunsborn Firma ecclesiae... ... ... ... ... 13 4
Heref. Dora Redditus situs monasterii cum terris, pratis, pascuis, et pasturis
dominicalibus ... ... ... ... ... 13 11 4
Wallia'. Glendore, Trescoyte et Llan Egloys Firma mesuagii, terrarum,
pratorum, pascuarum, etc. ... ... ... ... 11 4 4
Trescoyte Firma terrarum et tenimentorum ... ... ... 4 19 2
Llan Egloys Firmae diversae ... ... ... ... 1 6 8
Glendowre Firma rectorise ... ... ... .. 568
Heref. Avenbury Firma rectoriae ... ... ... ... 568
Salop'. Allbryghton Firma ecclesiae sive rectoriae ... ... ... 6 13 4
-Line 1 . Wygtofte Firma rectoriae ... ... ... ... 13 6 8
NOTE W.
THB "RED BOOK OF EWIAS."
We have no mention of this book except the two references in the Cartulary. Evidently, however, it was an oath-book, on which the parties to any important agreement swore to observe its provisions. Such oath-books were of two classes, the one containing portions of the Gospels, the other having a relic or other object of devotion in the binding. Oath-books of the former class contained all or one of the Gospels, or, more usually, the Cursus Evangelii, this being the minimum which sufficed to make the oath valid. This Cursus Evangelii consisted of the following passages from the Gospels : John I. v. 1-14, Matth. II. v. 1-12, Mark XVI. v. 24-end, Luke I. v. 26-38. An oath-book of this class is to be seen in the British Museum (Royal MS. 9, A xii.), which contains: 1, a calandar with Saints; 2, the Cursus Evangelii ; 3, "The othe to swere the masters of shypping" : " othe of the Tellours" : ' ' othe of the Porters " : " othe of the Weyer or his deputie. " Evidently this was a custom-house oath-book. Books of the second class usually contained a Gospel or the Cursus Evangelii, but addi- tional sanctity was given to the oath by the relic or crucifix in the binding. Examples of books of this class are also to be found in the British Museum: Stowe MS. 15, the " Little book with a crucifix," once the oath-book of the Exchequer, containing the Cursus Evangelii and the whole of St. John's Gospel ; add. MS. 11848, being the Gospels (written in German) with the finger- bones of an unknown Saint in the binding. The use of particular copies of the Gospels for oaths may be further illustrated from "St. Margaret's Gospels " in the Bodleian Library, "St. Chad's Gospels " at Lichfield, and others.
128 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
NOTE X. DELIMITATION OP THE VICARAGE. (Translated from the Cartulary of the Priory.) In the name of God, Amen. Since the reverend Father in Christ, Thomas, by the grace of God Bishop of St. David's, with the consent of his chapter, for true and legitimate reasons canonically united the Priory of Ewias Harold with all its belongings to the Monastery of St. Peter, at Gloucester, a suitable portion being reserved for the sustenance of a perpetual Vicar, in the church of St. Michael, the Abbot and convent of the said Monastery of Gloucester, in the presence of the said reverend Father, canonically assigned ten marks per year from the posses- sions of the said church, as a suitable and sufficient portion for the sustenance of the said Vicar. Since, however, it was not definitely stated in what possessions of the church the said portion ought to consist, We, Thomas, Abbot of the Monastery of Gloucester and the convent of the same, hereby specify and determine in what portion of the possessions of the said church the Vicar's portion ought to consist, viz., that the said Vicar have yearly for ever the offerings at the altar, or at the Cross, or anywhere in the Parish, estimated to yield six marks ; also all tithe of linen, estimated to yield one mark ; of wool and lambs, one mark ; of milk, half a mark ; of honey and wax, half a mark ; of calves, chickens, and doves, twenty shillings ; of apples and other fruits, half a mark ; the herbage of the cemetery and tithes of hay, six shillings ; fees for weddings, purifications, and burials five shillings ; tithes of the mills, particularly of the Abbot's mill, half a mark. Also we assign, for a mansion of the said Vicar, a built place (locum cedificatum) contain- ing one hall, with three chambers, situated near the cemetery of the monks, in length on the south side twenty-five virgates and a quarter, and in breadth on the west side thirty-two virgates and a quarter ; in length on the north side twenty-eight virgates ; in breadth on the east side, from the wall of the cemetery assigned to the said Vicar, it contains twenty-four virgates and a half, cumpollicibus intrapositis. Also we assign to the said Vicar a croft adjoining to the said buildings, which lies in length from the Vicar's house to the end of the new grange, and of which the length is fifty-two virgates at the end of the said croft nearest to the said . grange ; and from the grange to the ditch it is twenty -one virgates, and at the other end from the said building to the said ditch it is eight virgates. Considering this abundantly sufficient for the suitable sustenance of the said Vicar, we, nevertheless, remembering the chantry which was accustomed to be observed in the chapel of the monks, ordain that the Vicar for the time being should provide a chaplain, on Sundays and other customary days, to celebrate Mass in the said chapel. Furthermore, for the preserving of the peace among the parishioners, we assign to the said Vicar all the mortuary wines, and all the offerings not in money made at the image of the crucifix in the cemetery of the said church. The said Vicar to have the care of the whole parish, and to celebrate, per se vel per alium, in the presence of the lord in the chapel of the Castle, whenever the lord is there present, and also to pay synodal pence. We reserve to ourselves all other possessions of the said church, specified and unspecified. In witness of which we affix our seal in presence of Bartholomew de Strode, then Vicar. Given in the Chapter of Gloucester, June 20th, 1359.
APPENDIX. 129
NOTE Y HELISTONE AND PONTBILAS Let me begin this note with the following translation of an entry in Domesday Book under the heading " Archenfield." " Alured of Marlborough holds Elwistone ; Earl Harold held it. In the demesne is one carucate and a half and a priest and 4 villans and 4 bordarers and 4 slaves with 5 carucates rendering 3 sheep. It is worth 30s." There are two points in this entry to which I wish to draw attention. First Alured of Marlborough, Lord of the Castle of Ewias, holds a manor called Elwistone ; and secondly this Elwistone is in Archenfield, i.e. is the other side of the boundary formed by the Worm and the Monnow. This manor of Elwistone passed with the rest of the Barony of Ewias to Harold of Ewias and his heirs. In the Cartulary of the Priory it is often referred to as " Heliston." In the middle of the 12th Century a certain Galfred "parson of Pontintuna and Lord of Helistone" grants the "mill and fishery of Helistone" to the Priory. This gives us the new fact that Heliston is on a river or stream. In the next document we find that Heliston is on the road which leads from Ewias Harold to Orcop ; and from another Charter we learn that from the bridge of Heliston a road runs to Monmouth. Putting these facts together, and trying to locate this Heliston, we are driven, unless my study of the Ordnance Map of the neighbourhood has been in vain, to locate it at Pontrilas. The place was regularly called Heliston or Eylston in the 14th Century. And as late as Leland's time (1506-1552) it was still called "Ailston," as the following passage from the Itinerary proves (Vol. IV, Pt. 2, p. 175, 3rd Edition, 1769) : " From Hereford to Worme Bridge, 6 miles. Thence to Ailston Bridge, 2 miles. Thence to Lincot Wood, 3 miles. Thence to Abergavenny, 5 miles." Early in the 16th Century (i.e. about the time at which Leland visited " Ailston Bridge") Thomas Baskerville, son of Sir Walter Baskerville of Eardisley, is found living at " Pontrilas" this being, as far as I can discover, the first mention of the present name of the place. [A certain " Walter Baskervyle" is mentioned as a tenant of the lord of Ewias in 1486. It is open to question whether this Walter, and not Sir Walter of Eardisley, was the father of Thomas Baskerville of Pontrilas, especially as Thomas, son of Sir Walter, lives at Tretire and Wooton]. We may conclude from all this, with something like certainty, that about the beginning of the 16th century " Heliston " or " Ailston " gradually became " Pontrilas." Working out an ingenious suggestion of Mr. Egerton Phillimore no mean authority on Welsh place-names I would offer the following as a possible explanation of the way in which the change of nomen- clature may have come about. The Welsh form of Heliston would be something like Tref-helas or Tref-heilas (the Welsh prefix "Tref" being the equivalent of the English suffix "ton"). Hence the place which the English immigrants (and therefore Domesday and the documents in
130 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
the Cartulary) called Heliston was commonly called Tref-heilas by the Welsh. Its bridge was called Pont-tref-heilas : hence, by an easy transition, the modern name. What the meaning of "Helis," "heilas,"or "Elwis,"maybe, it is difficult to conjecture. I have sometimes fancied that it may be connected with the "ele" or "elie" of Stradelie, the valley which lies on the river Dore above Pontrilas. But such connection, I fear, is, on philological grounds, impossible, or, at any rate, unlikely. [The two Cornish Helstones are, in Domesday, Henlistone, from Henlis (Welsh Henllys), old court, or palace]. In any case, " Pont-tri-glas," bridge of the three streams, seems to me one of those temptingly obvious derivations which in so many instances are false and misleading. The later history of Pontrilas may be briefly summarized here. Thomas Baskerville died in 1551, leaving two [bastard] sons, William and Walter. The later inherited Pontrilas Court, which his father had built, or more probably enlarged, and took his father's name, marrying the daughter of Roger Monington of Westhide. The annexed genealogical table gives the family until 1700, when Pontrilas Court passed into other hands. During the time close on two hundred years that Pontrilas was in the hands of the Baskervilles, they seem to have owned lands also in the neighbouring village of Ewias Harold. A deed is still extant, dated 1615, in which James Baskerville sells a piece of land near St. Michael's Church. About the year 1700 Philip Jackson became possessed of Pontrilas Court, and it remained in his family until about 1815, when it was sold ; and, after once again changing hands, it was purchased in 1840 by Colonel Scudamore, to whose representatives it still belongs.
GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF THE BASKERVILLES OF PONTRILAS.
(Copy of Document in the possession of Sir James Rankin.)
NOTE Z
Terrier of Ewias Harold in 1772
A Terrier of the Glebe Lands, Vicarial House and Buildings, and tythes and offerings belonging to the Vicarage and parish church of Ewyas Harrold, in ye County of Hereford and Diocese of St. David's, taken by us whose names are under Written, the 25th day of May, 1772. There is standing upon ye Glebe Land A House, with ye kitchen about ten yards distant from it, with a Garden also. Also a Stables adjoining to ye same. There is also belonging to ye Vicar a piece of pasture ground containing about Half an Acre, called a Croft, as also the churchyard. An Account of ye Tythes and offerings that have been received for forty -five years past bye ye Vicar of ye said parish. s. d. For every Hogshead of cyder or perry ... ... ... ... 1 3 For every fleece of wool ... ... ... ... ... ... 1 For ye fall of a Lamb ... ... ... ... ... ... 3 Colt ... ... ... ... ... ... 8 For ye Garden ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 1 For offerings for each person above ye age of sixteen years ... ... ... 02 For eggs ... ... .. ... ... ... ... 2 For every tenth pigg, if not ten for ye seventh ... ... ... ... 16 For every Cow and Calf ... ... ... ... ... ... 2 For every Barren... ... ... ... ... ... ... 2 For every tenth Goose ... ... ... ... ... ... 1 For Herbage of a Day's math for a person Residing in another parish ... ... 19 Do. when a Stranger lays a meadow of Grass and mows it he is to pay for ye La for every day's math ... ... ... ... ... ... 010 For every Acre of Flax or Hemp ... ... ... ... ... 5 Tythes of Coppice Wood ye tenth part, either in money or Wood, allowing for ye Recording and Cutting ... Also ye tenth Bundle of Hoops, only paying for making ye tenth Bundle For burying a parishioner in ye Churchyard ... ... ... ... 10 Do. ,, ,, ,, Body of ye Church ... ... ... 6 8 Do. ,, any person in ye Chancell... ... ... ... ... 10 6 Do. ,, a Stranger ... ... ... ... ... ... 6 8 Churching of a woman ... ... ... ... ... ... 1 For a marriage by license ... ... ... ... ... ... 5 JOHN PRICE, Vicar of Ewias Harold. Henry Shiffney. Richard Rey, Church Warden. Richard Price. David Gwillim. Walter Garinson. The mark x of John Roberts.
132 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
The mark of x James Powell. Thomas Prosser. James Gwillim. The mark of James x Powell. The mark of x William Watkins. Philip Gwillim. Thomas Gwillim. John Prosser. , The mark of x Susan Parry. The mark of x P. Williams. The mark of x John Williams. The mark of David x Johns. 27th May, 1772. Present Terrier in the office.. Edward....
NOTE AA. THE PLUNDEEINGS OF THE SCOTCH. A pamphlet was published in 1650, written by " Miles Hill, Gent," professing to give " a true and impartiall account of the plunderings, losses, and sufferings of the County of Hereford by the Scottish army during their siege before the City of Hereford, Anno dom. 1645. The writer gives, from one hundred and six small parishes, ' ' a true accompt ready to be attested upon oath, under the hands of the officers and chief e of every parish." He adds that " there are seventy parishes more which suffered in the like nature as much, if not more, as is verily believed, which brought not in their accompts to be put to publique view, by reason of some disaffected to the businesse being scottified persons." In these raids of the Scottish Army " divers houses were rifled, doors, Chests and Trunks broken open, severall families undone; most of all their cattle, horses and goods taken from them, much money, plate, jewels and all kinds of rich household stuffe, rings, and other rich commodities, as wearing apparel, linnen, books, the plate and linen of divers churches, neere all the horses, mares, and colts that ever they set their eyes upon, as well from friends as others." Then follow the losses separately entered for the several parishes, amounting in all to 31,743 5s. 2d., to which is added a further 30,000 for the seventy parishes "which brought not in their accounts." Among these seventy parishes is Ewias Harold, which is strange, as it had been strongly Royalist until Thomas Cardiffe laid down his arms, some twelve months before the plundering. The losses of some of the neighbouring parishes are entered as follows : s, d. Taken and plundered from the inhabitants of Dor stone, to the value of ... 302 7 2 i> >, Vowchurch, ,, .. 80 2 4 ,, ,, Wormbridge, ,, ... 34 1 4 ,, ,, ,, Kentchuroh, ... 64 4 11 APPENDIX. 133
e. d. Taken and plundered from the inhabitants of Dulas, to the value of .. 30 15 2 Barton, ... 39 12 4 Abbeydore, ... 1212 3 1 ,, ,, Kenderchurch and Howton .. 77 18 10 "Reader," concludes Miles Hill, Gent, " if thou hadst been present to have seen the cryes these poor people made, if thy heart had not been hard it would have melted into teares with them."
NOTE BB. THE TRUST DEED OF THE SCHOOL. Grant of part of the Glebe Lands of the Vicarage of Ewias Harold, Hereford, to Trustees for building purposes. I, the Reverend William Cecil Fowle, Clerk, Vicar of the Pariah of Ewyas Harold, in the County of Hereford, of the first part, under the authority of an Act passed in the Fifth Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria, entitled " An Act to afford further facilities for the Conveyance and Endowment of Sites for Schools," and of the Act passed in the Eighth Year of the Reign of Her said Majesty explaining the same, DO hereby freely and voluntarily and without any valuable consideration, with the consent of The Right Reverend Connop, Lord Bishop of Saint David's, within which Diocese the said Parish is situate, and of the Patron of the said Benefice, testified by their executing this Deed, do grant and convey unto the Minister and Church- wardens of the said Parish ALL that piece or parcel of Land situate near Ewyas Harold Church, and containing about a quarter of an acre, and which said piece or parcel of Land formed part of the Glebe Land belonging to the said Parish of Ewyas Harold, and was in my own occupa- tion, and is bounded by the remaining part of the said Glebe on the North and East sides and by the Church-yard of Ewyas Harold on the South and West sides, together with all easements, appurtenances and hereditaments corporeal and incorporeal belonging thereto or connected therewith, and the reversion and reversions, remainder and remainders, rents and profits of the said Premises, and all my estate right, title and interest in or to the same Premises.TO HOLD all the said premises unto and to the use of the said Minister and Churchwardens and their Successors for ever for the purposes of the said Act, and upon trust to permit the said Premises and all buildings thereon erected or to be erected to be for ever hereafter appropriated and used as and for a School for the Education of Poor Children in the Parish of Ewyas Harold aforesaid, and as a residence for the Teacher or Teachers, and for no other purpose whatever ; the said school to be conducted upon the principles of and in union with the Incorporated National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church, and subject to and in conformity with the declaration aforesaid the said School and Premises shall be directed, controlled, governed, and managed in manner herein after specified, that is to say the Minister for the time being of the said Parish of Ewyas Harold shall have the sole care, order, and direction of the religious Instruction of the Scholars attending the said School, but in all other respects the general management, Education, and Government of the said School and Premises, and the power to appoint and dismiss at discretion the Teachers of the said School shall be vested in and exercised by a Committee, consisting of the Minister of the said Parish for the time being, his Curate or Curates if the Minister shall appoint him or them upon the said Committee, the Churchwardens for the time being if Members of the Church of
134 THE HISTORY OF EWIAS HAROLD.
England, and of four other persons, Members of the Church of England, Residents or having a beneficial interest to the extent of a life Estate at the least in Real Property situated in the said Parish, and Subscribers in the Current Year to .the amount of Twenty Shillings at the least to the said School. The said last-mentioned four persons to be elected annually in the month of January by Subscribers to the said School to the amount of Ten Shillings per annum at the least and qualified in other respects as the persons to be elected. So, however, that no default of election or vacancy during any current year shall prevent the other Members of the Committee from acting until the next Annual Election, or until the vacancies shall be otherwise supplied. The Minister shall be the Chairman if present, and when not present any other Member of the Committee, selected by the Members present, shall preside, and in case of an equality of Votes the Chairman for the time being shall have a second and Casting Vote. And the said School shall be at all times open to the Inspector or Inspectors appointed or to be appointed in conformity with Her Majesty's Order in Council, bearing date the tenth day of August, one thousand eight hundred and forty. IN WITNESS whereof the said Right Reverend Connop, Lord Bishop of Saint David's, hath hereunto set his Episcopal Seal, aud the conveying and other parties have hereunto set their hands and seals this nineteenth day of January, in the year one thousand eight hundred and forty-six.
NOTE CC. THE PRIORS AND VICARS OP EWIAS HAROLD. The following is as complete a list as I have been able to compile of the Priors and Vicars of Ewias Harold. PRIORS. Adam, sometime between 1205 and 1224. William de Londiniis, sometime between 1265 and 1300. Presumably one of the family of Maurice de Londiniis, or de Londres, Lord of Kidwelly and Ogmore, who founded and gave to Gloucester the Priory of Ewenny in 1141. William son of Alan, sometime between 1265 and 1300. Richard le Normon, 1283. Richard de Beybury, 1284. Summoned to Gloucester to take part in the election of Abbot John Gamages. William de Poterne, 1311. Walter of Monmouth, 1352-1358. The last Prior, who, with the few remaining monks, was recalled to the parent Monastery. VICARS. Date of Institution. June 10th, 1359. Bartholomew de Strode, first Vicar of Ewias Harold. Before 1640. Jasper Powell. Before 1726. Thomas Matthews (suspended for misconduct). June 23rd, 1726. Walter Meericke. APPENDIX. 135 February 23rd, 1741. John Price (died 1778). April 23rd, 1778. William Parry (resigned 1800). August 10th, 1800. John Parry (died 1818). September 23rd, 1818. Thomas Thomas (resigned 1827). November 2nd, 1827. William Bowen (died 1845). April 25th, 1845. William Cecil Fowle (resigned 1866). December 15th, 1866. William Robert Lawrence (resigned 1874). February 10th, 1874. Henry Bullock (died 1892). April 12th, 1892. John Fannin Brown (resigned 1896). July 3rd, 1896. Edward Harris (resigned 1898). December 31st, 1898. Arthur Thomas Bannister. The Registrar of St. David's writes : " There do not appear to be any records in the older registers. In some of the earlier entries which I have found, the living is spoken of as an 'augmented Curacy,' and that is possibly why it does not appear in the ancient books, as it would then, no doubt, have been served by a Curate, and in those days licenses to Curates do not seem to have been carefully recorded." This seems somewhat strange, as the living was undoubtedly a Vicarage from the time of the suppression of the Priory ; and is so called in the " delimitation" of 1359, and again in 1640.
NOTE DD. ABBEYDOBE AND BAOTON. The abbey of Dore was built in the Parish of Bacton, the patronage of which was in lay hands probably the Gilbert mentioned in the text was the Patron. Their insatiate ambition, says Gerald de Barri, gave the monks of Dore no rest until they fraudulently got possession of the patronage for themselves, a thing the more to be wondered at, as it is directly contrary to the rules of the Cistercian order to hold parish churches or have the care of souls. To appeal to the Pope would have been useless, since the Cistercians were in high favour at the Roman Court, partly because of their reputation for austere piety, and partly because of the money which they always had ready to clear their way to the end they sought. Having once gained possession of the Parish and its revenues, the monks seem to have allowed the church to fall into absolute ruin. For in 1284 the Bishop of St. David's claimed jurisdiction over the Abbey of Dore, as being in the Parish of Ewias Harold, and therefore in his Diocese. Both the monks themselves and Bishop Swinfield resisted this claim, and proved before a general Chapter that the Abbey was in the Parish of Bacton, in the Diocese of Hereford. Though the Parish Church had gone, there was no doubt as to the Parish in which the Abbey stood.
LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS. ABERGAVENNY, The Right Honourable The Marquess of, Neville Court, Abergavenny (two copies). ARMITAGE, Miss L., Dadnor, Ross. ATTWOOD-MATHEWS, B. St. John, Pontrilas Court, Hereford. BADDELEY, St. CLAIR, Castle Hale, Painswick. BALFOUR, Mrs. A., 65, Pont Street, London, S.W. BALFOUR, REGINALD, 65, Pont Street, London, S.W. BANKS, W. H., Hergest Croft, Kington. BARNARD, IVOR, Duppas Hill, Croydon. BARNEBY, P. B., Trewyn, Abergavenny. CARLESS, J., Backbury House, Hereford. CLARKE, T. WARD, The Fosse, Hereford. CLIVE, Mrs. GEORGE, Perrystone Court, Ross. CLIVE, GENERAL E. H., Perrystone Court, Ross. COTTERELL, SIR JOHN, Garnons, Hereford. DELAHAY, MAJOR W. H., Urishay Castle, Hereford. DRAKE, Mrs. J. C. TYRWHITT, Dulas Court, Hereford. EDWARDS, OWEN M., Brynr Aber, Llanuwchllyn. EVANS, L. A., Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham. FEILDEN, Rev. CANON, Bebington Rectory, Birkenhead. FLUGEL, J. C., Cravenhurst, Reigate. GREATHED, Mrs., Wormbridge House, Hereford. HARRIS. J. H. G., Neville Court, Abergavenny. HAWKINS, A. W. BAILEY, Stagenhoe Park, Welwyn. HEAD, FRANCIS SOMERVILLE, Kentchurch Court, Hereford. HEREFORD, THE VERY REVEREND THE DEAN OF, The Deanery, Hereford. Hereford Cathedral Library (Rev. CANON WILLIAMS, Librarian.) Hereford Book Club, Public Library, Hereford. HOLLEBONE, N. G., Baldslow, St. Leonards. HOPTON, Miss MADELINE, Cagedale, Hereford. HOPTON, Rev. M., Canon Frome Rectory, Hereford. HORTON, A. (c/o L. Nathan, 9, New Broad Street, London, E.G.) HOUSTON, Mrs. WALLACE, 42, Eaton Square, London, S.W. LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS. 138 HUGHES, Mrs., Oaken Holt, Oxford. HUMFRYS, W. J., Bridge Street, Hereford. JAMIESON, STANLEY W., Clovelly, Broadstairs. JONES, HERBERT E., Harold Villa, Ewias Harold. LEWIS, CAPTAIN FREKE, Abbey Dore Court, Hereford. LLANGATTOCK, THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD, The Hendre, Monmouth. LLANWARNE, T., Hillside, Hereford. LLOYD, J. W. Kington. LLOYD, PETER, Addington, Croydon. LORING, R. W., 6, Bickenhall Mansions, London, W. MACBEAN, G. E., Estate Office, Bridge Green, Sussex. MADELEY, C. F., Ewias Harold Vicarage, Hereford. MALLINSON, E., Woodleigh, Bradford-on-Avon. MALLINSON, H. M., Woodleigh, Bradford-on-Avon. MAPPLEBECK, J., Croxhall Hall, Lichfield. MORLEY, F. W., 46, Bryanston Square, London, W. NICHOLSON, C. J., Nursteed, Devizes (two copies). PARTRIDGE, Mrs., Bacton, Hereford. PILLEY, WALTER, The Barton, Hereford. POWELL, Rev. T. P., Dors tone Rectory, Hereford. PURDEY, L. B., 28, Devonshire Place, London, W. RANKIN, Sir JAMES, Bart., M.P., Bryngwgn, Hereford. RUSSELL, B., Walton-on-the-Hill, Surrey. SCUDAMORE, COLONEL LUCAS, Cap House, Pontrilas. SIMKIN, J. PEARD, The Cedars, Ewias Harold. STANHOPE r THE VENERABLE THE HONOURABLE BERKELEY, Byford Rectory, Hereford STEPHENS, EDWIN, 36, Bridge Street, Hereford. STEWARD, WALTER, Doyer Villa, Pontrilas. TAITE, G. C., 25, Buckingham Gate, London, S.W. TRAFFORD, GUY, New Forest, Hay. TREDEGAR, THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD, Tredegar Park Newport. WICKHAM, ANTHONY, Holcombe Manor, Bath. WILLETT, R N., Finedon, Hove, Brighton (two copies).
DA 690 .E895 B355 1902 IMST Bannister, A. (Arthur) 1861- The history of Ewias Harold, its castle, ARJ-7014
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