The Lands of the Scottish Kings in England
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
THE LANDS OF THE SCOTTISH KINGS IN ENGLAND THE HONOUR OF HUNTINGDON THE LIBERTY OF TYNDALE AND THE HONOUR OF PENRITH BY MARGARET F. MOORE, M.A. (EDINBURGH) (CARNLGIKFELLOW IN PALEOGRAPHY AND EARLY ECONOMIC RIITORY) INTRODUCTION BY P. HUME BROWN, M.A., LL.D., Fraser Profcsaor of Ancient (Scottish) History and Palieography in the University of Edinburgh, and Historiographer- Royal for Scotland LONDON : GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD- RUSKIN HOUSE, MUSEUM STREET, W.C* CONTENTS PREFACE - - - - - --- - - vii CHAPTERI PAGE THE HISTORY OF THE HONOURS AND LIBERTY - - I CHAPTERI1 THE MEDIRVAL ASPECT OF THE LANDS - - - - 13 CHAPTERI11 THE FEUDAL HISTORY OF THE HOLDINGS - - - 29 CHAPTERIV THE MANORIAL FRANCHISES - - - - - - 48 CHAPTERV THE MANORIAL ECONOMY - ----- 67 CHAPTER VI LOCAL CHURCH HISTORY -..-- - 94 CHAPTERVII STATE OF SOCIETY ---- - 109 MANORIAL ECONOMY OF THE MANOR OF MARKET OVERTON IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY --- - 130 PREFACE THIs was completed during the tenure of a Carnegie Research Fellowship and has been published by aid of a grant from the Carnegie Trust. The subject of research, connected as it is with Scottish history, is one which appeals naturally to a Scottish student of English manorial history; for although it is well known that the Scottish kings held certain lands in England during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries little attention has been given to the details of these holdings. The personal association of David I and his heirs and of the ill-fated John Balliol with the Honour of Huntingdon, the Liberty of Tyndale and the Honour of Penrith is usually regarded as an incident of feudal tenure, and the sojourn of the Scottish kings on English soil has left no records other than the allowances and establish- ments of the royal household. But apart from the royal tenants of the kings of England the manorial history of these feudal honours is associated with the names of many notable subtenants by military service or serjeantry. Moreover, the manors themselves, their buildings, cultivation, franchises, customs, religious and social life, form an interesting subject of anti- quarian study. The materials for this study have proved to be neither ample nor in any way remarkable. Although the list of holdings is a long one, surprisingly few manorial documents have been preserved and of documents in private hands very few relating to the mediaVal period appear to have survived. Neverthe- less it is in itself a matter of some interest to ascertain vii viii PREFACE how much information still exists for two groups of widely scattered manors in a given period. I wish to express my thanks to Mr. Hubert Hall of the Public Record Office for frequent assistance in the course of my researches and especially to Professor Hume Brown of Edinburgh for his kind interest in my studies and for his generosity in contributing an Introduction to this work. The present lords of several of these manors have courteously given me INTRODUCTION information as to their muniments or facilities for inspecting the same. Finally I have to express my this book Miss Moore has for the first time told the gratitude to the Hon. W. P. Reeves, Director of the full and connected history of the lands in England London School of Economics, for the trouble that held by the kings of Scotland. She has related how he has taken in making arrangements for the publica- these lands came into the hands of the Scottish kings, tion of this work. the conditions under which they were held, and the various fortunes which attended their retention. The book, it may be said, has a twofold interest. In the four concluding chapters we have an interesting contribution to our knowledge of mediaval social and economic conditions, based on original documents relating to the lands in question. And it has another and a wider interest. The holding of English lands by Scottish kings vitally concerned the political relations of the two kingdoms, and, so far as Scotland was concerned, the persistent effort to retain them consti- tuted during a century and a half her whole foreign policy. A few words may here be said regazding this aspect of Miss Moore's work. When, in the year 844 Kenneth MacAlpine became ruler of the hitherto distinct peoples, the Picts and the Scots, a great stride was made towards the con- solidation of the mainland of Scotland under one head. With Kenneth there began a policy, persistently pursued by his immediate successors, which eventually resulted in the creation of the Kingdom of Scotland as it is known to history. Among the people to the of the Forth there existed a tradition, the origin which is unknown, that they had originally been of the land to the south of that river. Whatever may have been the foundation for this ix x INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION xi tradition, it was the deliberate endeavour of Kenneth land and Durham, but had lost the part of Cumberland and the kings who followed him to add that territory which he had held at the commencement of his reign. to their dominion. For a century and a half the ~h~ internal dissensions that followed the death of attempted conquest was systematically carried on, and ~~l~~l~made impossible any further attempts to at length, in 1018, victory was attained. At Carham extend the limits of the Scottish kingdom, and on the Tweed Malcolm I1 gained a victory over an William II was able even to make good a suzerainty army of Northumbrians which definitively attached the over the district of Lothian. district of Lothian to the Kingdom of Scotland. As such had been the relations of the two countries in the same year Malcolm also became master of regarding the disputed territories till the accession of Strathcl~de,he was now at least nominally ruler of David I in 1124,when they passed into a new phase. the mainland from the Tweed to the Pentland Firth. By his marriage with Matilda, daughter of the It is at this point in the history of both countries Countess Judith, niece of William I, and \J7altheof, Earl that the relations between England and Scotland begin of Northumberland, David acquired the Honour of to assume importance in their respective develop- Huntingdon, and, on the strength of the same alliance, ments. Both, about the same period, attained he asserted a claim to Waltheof7s earldom. The national unity under one ruler, and, as rival powers, Scottish kings, as we have seen, had previously disputes between the two kingdoms inevitably arose claimed Northumberland as part of their territory, regarding a frontier line. It was the claim of the and, with this claim now reinforced, David and his Scottish kings that, as part of Strathclyde, the terri- immediate successors made it their settled policy to tory on the west as far south as the river Eden was become masters of the disputed county. Of their rightfully their possession, and, in accordance with successive attempts to achieve this end, by hostile the tradition already mentioned, they also laid claim invasion, by treaty, by availing themselves of the to Northumberland and Durham, with the river Tees internal troubles of the rival kingdom, Miss Moore has as a southern boundary. It was in prosecution of the related the detailed history. Be it said that on the latter claim that Duncan, the successor of Malcolm 11, issue of the contest depended the future relative led an army across the Tweed and laid siege to Durham importance of the two kingdoms. It was, in truth, a -an expedition that ended in disaster. The internal struggle as to whether England or Scotland should be troubles during the reign of Duncan's successor, the predominant power in the island. Had Scotland Macbeth, prevented a repetition of the attempt, but succeeded in securing the northern counties, which by in the reign that followed, that of Malcolm I11 their natural features and the character of their (Canmore), a persistent endeavour was made to attach inhabitants are more akin to her than to England, she Northumberland and Durham to the Scottish Crown. would have had a fighting power that might have Five times Malcolm crossed the Border with fire and altered the destinies of both. Nor was it improbable sword, and at different periods four castles, Carlisle, that such would be the issue. A succession of kings Durham, Newcastle and Norham, were built or re- with the ability and vigour of David, would, at least, paired to check his inroads. But the contemporary have rendered the international conflict more pro- English kings, William I and William 11, with whom longed and more doubtful. As it was, David had no Malcolm had to deal, were rulers well able to defend immediate successors of like capacity, and civil their territory, and at the time of his death, Malcolm dissensions at home crippled them in their efforts to had not only failed to gain possession of Northumber- the territory he had won. By her eventual xii INTRODUCTION retention of the disputed counties, England was assured of the predominant part in determining the destinies of Britain. From the foregoing remarks it will be seen that Miss Moore has made an interesting and important The Lands of the Scottish contribution to the history both of England and Scotland. Kings in England P. HUMEBROWN. CHAPTER I THE HISTORY OF THE HONOURS AND LIBERTY THEhonour of Huntingdon came into the hands of the Scottish royal family through the marriage of David, brother of Alexander I, to Matilda, daughter of the Countess Judith, the Conqueror's niece, and Waltheof, Earl of Northumberland. Matilda had previously been the wife of Simon de St. Liz, Earl of Northampton, and during her lifetime David also held this earldom, which on her death in 1147 appears to have passed to Simon de St.