Archive:The Victoria History of the County of Hereford

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William Page, ed., The Victoria History of the County of Hereford (London: Archibald Constable and Company, Limited, 1908), volume 1.

[p. 234]

A HISTORY OF HEREFORDSHIRE

    CLIFFORD CASTLE.—This interesting border stronghold is situated 2 miles north-east of Hay and stands upon a red sandstone eminence commanding the River Wye, which protects it on the north, while a deep ravine communicating with the river guards the southern and eastern sides. The earthworks consist of: (1) A mount about 85 ft. above the Wye, the north-west side is a natural steep scarp (of late years cut more sharply for the making of a railway) and the south-east side is also more or less natural. Upon this mount are the remains of a stone keep, to be referred to in another chapter of this History; (2) a bailey, or court, on the north-east, the entrenchments of which are not in a good state of preservation; the side above the river appears to have depended for protection upon the natural scarp only. Here are two parallel ramparts in rough condition and of uncertain purpose;41 (3) a platform on the south-west, the end of the natural bank left when the ditch was cut in forming the mount; this may or may not have been used as part of the castle.42 Domesday leaves little room for doubt that we owe Clifford Castle works to William Fitz Osbern—‘Willelmus comes fecit illud in wasta terra.’43

    A plan is in the Transactions of the Woolhope Field Club (1886-9), 368, and a descriptive article is in G.T. Clark’s Mediaeval Military Architecture, ii (1884).

    CLIFFORD: OLD CASTLETON.—This stronghold is situated 4 miles northeast of Hay, and 272formed out of the north ending of a ridge of land which rises towards the south-west. The position is defended on the north generally by the River Wye. The entrenchments are in a fair state of preservation, and consist of: (1) A mount formed by the cutting off of the extreme end of the hill by a fosse, the ballast from which was thrown up to heighten the mount. (2) a horseshoe-

  41 Some what the same feature is found at Bartonxz Seagrave in Northants and Clavering in Essex.
  42 Similar natural tables were left at Stanstead Montfitchet in Essex, ‘Caesar’s Camp,’ Folkestone, in Kent, and at other places.
  43 See ‘English Fortresses and Castles of the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries,’ by W. H. St. J. Hope in Arch. Journ. lx, 72-90 (1903)


[p. 235]

ANCIENT EARTHWORKS

shaped base-court upon the south defended by a fosse and rampart not now in perfect condition. (3) An outer court on the west defended by a scarp, along the summit of which doubtless a wall or timber stockade was placed.

    On the south-east of the base-court the land falls gently but does not appear to have formed a fourth inclosure. This and nine other mount strongholds within 4 miles testify to the dangerous exposure of the district to incursions from the wild west.

    CLIFFORD: NEWTON TUMP.—This interesting little work, situated 4 miles east-north-east of Hay, stands upon ground falling gently towards the north-north-west, about 400 ft. above sea level. Within a mile to the east and south-south-west the land reaches the height of 1,000 ft. above sea level. The entrenchments are now in a weak state, as will be seen by the sections, but no doubt they were better defined in their original condition. The mount is small in circumference and only 18 ft. above the deepest part of its surrounding moat, with a summit uneven in surface. The court is defended by a moat and rampart, but the latter is now wanting on the west side. The stream, or what would be a stream under heavy rains, apparently flooded the moats when they were perfect. The outlying trench upon the south-west, now only about a foot and a half deep, may or may not have formed part of the original works. There is some stone on the mount, perhaps the remains of masonry.

    CUSOP: MOUSE CASTLE.—This little earthwork, situated a mile and a quarter east of Hay, is of somewhat unusual form, and, unlike most of the class, which are upon low lands, this Castle Tump, as it is called locally, stands upon the highest part of a hill, 800 ft. above sea level. A glance at the levels given in the plan will show the steepness of the hill on the south and west of the work, affording great protection there; while the north and east sides are slightly aided by lesser slopes. The Rev. C. J. Robinson mentions Mouse Castle as ‘perhaps the strongest in the county.’44 The mount is now about 16 ft. high, the sides being very steep and rough, with a fosse upon the east or weaker side.45 The court surrounding is wider upon the east, and its defences vary considerably in strength according to the requirements of each portion to be defended.

  44 Castles of Herefs. (1869), 40.
  45 The fosse may possibly have been continued completely around the mount.


[p. 236]

A HISTORY OF HEREFORDSHIRE

    DORSTONE CASTLE.—About 5 miles east-by-south of Hay are remains which indicate the existence of a Norman stronghold of the mount and court type, but lacking a feature common to most of this class, a rampart round the inner edge of the bailey, or court moat. Possibly the moat or fosse was considered sufficient defence; certainly no trace of a rampart exists, and previous writers have spoken of Dorstone earthworks as consisting of simply a mount, overlooking the evidence of the existence of a bailey. The position occupied has no natural defence save the protection afforded by the stream from the south-west along the northern side, and reliance must have been placed on the strength of the works. The mount rises from 25 ft. to 30 ft. above its fosse, which, as the plan shows, was continued completely around it, joining the fosse of the bailey. The summit of the mount is level and measures 108 ft. by 84 ft. No masonry remains, but it is possible that here, as in so many places, a shell keep of stone may have succeeded the timber stockade which once crowned the summit.

    This seems to have been one of a chain of border strongholds extending from Clifford Castle to Snodhill Castle, the fortified farm-buildings at Urishay, and southward through Ewyas Harold to the important equilateral defence of Skenfrith, Grosmoat, and Whitecastle.46

    DORSTONE: MYNYDD-BRITH.—This small stronghold is situated about 3 miles east-by-south of Hay, and is naturally defended upon the north and east by the fall of the hill. All that we now see is a small mount, cut off from the higher land south and west by a moat, the ballast from which has been added to the natural knoll (the latter being scarped on the north and east). Upon the west is a space which may have served as a court, the north and west sides having a natural fall to the stream, while there is the trace of a scarp upon the south.

    A quarter of a mile south-by-west is another mount castle, called Nant-y-Bar, on ground considerably higher. There are eight other mount castles within 4 miles.

    . . .

  46 See Trans. Woolhope Field Club (1886-9), 224.


[p. 272]

A HISTORY OF HEREFORDSHIRE

    But the palatine position of Earl William is also shown by the Domesday references of his grants of land to his followers. We learn that he enfeoffed Thurstin the Fleming, a predecessor of Roger Mortimer, both in Herefordshire and in Shropshire; that he similarly enfeoffed Thurstin’s father-in-law, known as Alvred of Marlborough; that he bestowed lands on Walter de Laci, Gibert Fitz Turold, Ewen the Breton, and ‘King Mariadoc’ of Wales; while an incidental entry tells us that Hugh L’Asne had received from the earl the lands of his predecessor, Turchil the White. The earl also gave the bishop one of Harold’s Herefordshire manors ‘in exchange,’ we read, ‘for the land where the market is now (held) and for three hides of Lydney (Lidenegie).’ This implies that the earl provided a new market-place for what, we have seen, was virtually his own town of Hereford. As for the 3 hides of ‘Lidenegie,’ we duly find them entered (under ‘Lindenee’) in Gloucestershire as obtained by the earl from the bishop of Hereford’s demesne. Another Gloucestershire entry shows us the earl bestowing land on Ansfrid de Cormeilles, which implies that, as might be expected, it was he who enfeoffed that considerable landowner in Herefordshire.

    It is tempting to compare the Domesday record of the earl’s doings in Gloucestershire with that of his activity in his own earldom; but one must only deal with those entries which illustrate his Herefordshire position. Under Gloucestershire, for instance, we find duplicated—though with details which differ widely—the entries of those manors of Forthampton (co. Glou-cester) and Hanley Castle (co. Worcester), which are surveyed under Herefordshire because the restless earl had annexed their revenues to that of Hereford itself: that this was the result of his action is shown even more clearly by the Gloucestershire entry.54 Although he was not earl in Gloucestershire, his peculiar position on the southern March involved his using that county as well as his own for a base of operations against the Welsh. Indeed the various lines of advance must have involved some complication; the castellany of Caerleon is dealt with under Herefordshire, but the revenue of Caerleon55 is entered as appurtenant to the castle which Earl William had founded at Chepstow (‘Estrighoiel,’) a castle entered under Gloucestershire.

    Castles, we know from the chroniclers, he had been charged to build, and with castles Domesday specially connects him, from Chepstow and ‘Nesse’ in the south56 to Wigmore in the north, a castle which like Clifford he is expressly said to have founded, even as he re-founded that of Ewyas (Harold). The term castellaria is a rare one in Domesday, and, with the exception of Hastings, and possibly Lewes57—both of them the heads of rapes—the only castles with which it is connected would seem to be those of Caerleon, Ewyas Harold, Clifford, Richard’s Castle (‘Auretone’), Montgomery and Dudley. Of the castellaria of Clifford, it is specially recorded that it is ‘of the Kingdom of England and is not in any Hundred.’ We note that accordingly it was not hidated, but was reckoned to contain 26 plough-lands in addition to four others which belonged, not to its lord, but to

  54 ‘Haec terra fuit W. comitis; modo est ad firmam regis in Hereford.’ The two manors are entered as having formerly belonged to Tewkesbury.
  55 ‘Redditio de carleion.’
  56 ‘In Nesse sunt v hidae pertinentes ad Berchelai quas W. comes misit extra ad faciendum castellulum.’
  57 ‘Castellatio’ is the term in the case of Lewes. Richmond also seems to have had a castellany.


[p. 303]

DOMESDAY SURVEY

    The transformation of the Domesday hundreds is one, though only one, of the causes that make the identification of the manors named in the Survey peculiarly and notoriously difficult. Another is the frequent occurrence of changes in local nomenclature, making the places unrecog-nizable under their later names. A third is found in the identity of the name borne by places widely apart. There are, for instance, entered in Domesday the two Walfords, one in the north, the other in the south of the county, the two Kingstones, one in its eastern, the other in its western half; three Marstons in different places—one of them a lost name—which are the subject of five entries, as are the Maunds of four, the Mansels of five, and the Fromes of six, in addition to ‘Brismerfrum’ and ‘Nerefrum.’ To the various Hopes about the county are devoted nine, and to the Stokes five. We have further to allow for the eccentric forms employed by the Domesday scribe; Munsley appears as ‘Muneslai’ and ‘Moneslai,’ but also twice as ‘Muleslage,’ and the forms of the hundredal names have shown what he could accomplish.

    Unfortunately, we have not for Herefordshire the assistance afforded for many counties by the works of bygone topographers. It may be that, when the parochial history has been worked out in the volumes to follow, light maybe thrown on the identity of certain Domesday place-names which as yet continue obscure; but some are likely to remain insoluble puzzles. The best of all proofs of identity is that which is afforded by feudal tenure and genealogical descent, and that is why I consider the returns for Herefordshire hundreds in 1243, printed in the Testa de Nevill (62-7), to be the most valuable material that we have for Domesday identification.268

    One of the most interesting identifications that one has had to make in this county is that of the great nameless manor which Alvred de Marlborough held in Thornlaw Hundred, and which is assessed at no less than 15 hides. For we read that his daughter holds it of him. Happily, the invaluable return of 1243 proves at once that it was Pencombe :--

    In Pencumbe xv hide, unde Johannes de Wyten medietatem de Roberto Tregoz de honore de Ewyas de veteri feoff’ per servicum militare. Et Thomas de Hemegrave alteram medietatem de Roberto de Wyten. Et idem Robertus de eodem ut prius.269

    We turn next to the cartulary of St. Peter’s Gloucester, and find that Eustace, miles, son of Turstin the Fleming (Flandrensis) gave to that house a hide of land at Sidnal (‘Suthale’) in Pencombe,270 and then that this gift is confirmed by his mother Agnes, widow of Turstin Flandrensis, as that of her son Eustace ‘dominus de Witteneye.’271 Now we can amplify the Domesday entry, and identify not only the manor but its tenant: Alvred’s daughter was that ‘Agnes, wife of Turstin de Wigmore,’ who was also holding of her father the 15-hide manor of Great Cowarne. We thus identify Turstin ‘de Wigmore’ with Turstin ‘the Fleming,’ named in an entry on Ralf de Mortimer’s fief. There has been no little speculation about this Turstin, to whom William Fitz Osbern appears to have given Cleobury272 (afterwards Cleobury ‘Mortimer’) in Shropshire as well as land in Herefordshire, probably with Wigmore Castle, which afterwards passed into the hands

  268 They are a good deal nearer to the date of Domesday than are the 14th-century returns printed in Feud. Aids, and they are also much fuller.
  269 Testa de Nevill, 64.   270 Op. cit. 115.
  271 Ibid. 107. This was in Abbot Reginald’s time.   272 V.C.H. Shrops. I, 289.

[p. 304]

DOMESDAY SURVEY

of Ralf de Mortimer. This would account for his style ‘de Wigmore,’ which Eyton could not explain.

    Turstin may have been dispossessed for adhering to Earl Roger (1074), but his wife would retain Pencombe and Cowarne, which she held in her own right, and she is accordingly entered as tenant of them in the Great Survey. Her mention of her son as ‘lord of Whitney’ is of great importance as enabling us to trace the heirs of Turstin ‘the Fleming,’ and to identify their seat. Whitney, from which they derived their name, was a stronghold on the Welsh border, opposite Clifford, on the Wye. We have seen that in 1243 Pencombe was held by the Whitneys, and in 1283 Eustace de Whyteneye had a grant of free warren in Pencombe, Whitney, and ‘Caldewell.’273 Again, in the great inquest on the death of John de Tregoz, in 1300, we find Pencombe and ‘Caldewell’ held by Eustace de ‘Wytheneye’ of the Honour of Ewias as his ancestress had held Pencombe in Domesday. The manor is again entered as held, under Tregoz, by Eustace de Whitney in 1303 and 1316, and by Robert Whitney in 1428 and 1431.274 The importance of thus tracing the heirs of Turstin is that it enables us at once to challenge Eyton’s identification of him as the Turstin who held of Lacy at King’s Stanford, of William de Scohies at Caerleon, and of Turstin Fitz Rou at Marcle,275 as well as of Ralf de Mortimer at Huntington in Ashford Carbonel, Lingen,276 and Shirley.

    Eyton knew that Turstin ‘de Wigmore’ had been alleged to be identical with Turstin ‘the Fleming,’ but he seems to have read Domesday, in error, as showing us Turstin ‘de Wigmore’ in possession in 1086, while Turstin ‘the Fleming’ had ‘suffered exile and total forfeiture,’277 in his opinion, before the Domesday Survey. Having come to this wrong conclusion, he naturally could not account for Turstin ‘de Wigmore’ being so styled in 1086. He then made the further error of identifying Turstin ‘de Wigmore’ with other men of the name, whose lands did not descend to his heirs,278 which affords yet another proof of the danger of identifying, without evidence, men who appear in Domesday with the same Christian name.

    One can only deal with two or three of the problems of identification raised by the county survey. The two 15-hide manors of ‘Lene’ entered among the king’s lands appear to be now represented by Kingsland and Eardisland, to the west of Leominster, the ‘land’ being demonstrably a corruption of ‘lane,’ but one cannot say which was which. They seem to have descended together through Braose to Mortimer, and there is evidence that the Braoses had a chief seat at Kingsland, from which doubtless William de Braose made his furious raid on Leominster, when he burst into revolt in the reign of John. The adjacent Tosny manor of ‘Leine’ became similarly corrupted in name through Monk ‘lane’ into Monkland.

    . . . .

  273 Cal. Chart. R. ii, 271. ‘Caldewell’ is not there identified.
  274 Feud. Aids, ii. Later still, ‘Eustace de Whiteney of Whiteney, Esq.’ occurs under Hen. VII (Cal. of Inq. Hen. VII, i. 254), and Thomas Whitney, at the Restoration, as an intended knight of the Royal Oak.
  275 These identifications are accepted by Prof. Tait; see V.C.H. Shrops. ii, 289. Eyton further identified him with a Turstin holding of Alvred de Marlborough at Stretford and on a Wiltshire manor.
  276 Turstin is claimed as the ancestor of the Lingens of Lingen, whose male line is still extant.
  277 Hist. of Shrops. iv, 75.   278 See his Hist. of Shrops. v, 74-7.

[p. 319]

THE HOLDERS OF LANDS

    . . . . . . . .

    IN ELSEDUNE HUNDRED

    The King holds WITENIE [Whitney]. AEl-
ward held (it) T.R.E., and could betake himself
wherever he wished. Half a hide pays geld
there. It was and is waste.

    . . .


[p. 356]

A HISTORY OF HEREFORDSHIRE

the extreme west of the county on the southern bank of the Wye, where the valley narrows between the Black Mountains and the hills of Radnor, he built Clifford Castle on devastated ground, shielding the shire from attack from the west, and granted it to Ralph de Todeni, whose daughter Margaret brought it by marriage to Walter de Clifford, Fair Rosamond’s father. Although it was within the shire it was not placed in a hundred nor subjected to custom.90 At Ewyas Harold he rebuilt a former fortification,91 probably identical with Pentecost’s Castle of 1052. It secured the country to the south-west, closing the entrance from Monmouthshire and Glamorgan. Before 1086 there existed also a fortified house at Eardisley, some five miles north-west of Clifford, in the possession of Roger de Lacy,92 while Overton Castle.93 in the parish of Richard’s Castle, on the Shropshire border, may, like Wigmore, indicate a fortress erected to check the ravages and control the power of Edric the Wild, who made his final submission in the summer of 1070.

    Earl William, however, once the country was secured behind him by the campaigns of the Conqueror, was no longer content to act on the defensive, but began in earnest the conquest of South Wales, ably supported by Walter de Lacy.94 His sphere of action and authority extended from the boundary of Shropshire to the shores of the Severn. In 1070 he slew Maredudd ab Owain, who had risen to power in Deheubarth after Rhiwallon had fallen in battle in 1068. He extended the confines of his earldom into Wales. At the junction of the Monnow and the Wye he built Monmouth Castle,95 while at the time of Domesday Caerleon Castle was also included in Herefordshire, with that part of Monmouthshire between the Wye and the Usk, besides Radnor in mid-Wales.96 In this warfare the men of Archenfield were especially renowned as warriors, and had the privilege of forming the van in advance, and the rear in retreat.97

    The whole of the conquest recorded in Domesday ought not, however, to be ascribed to Earl William, for towards the close of 1070 he was sent to Normandy to assist Matilda in the government of the province, and early in 1071 he was slain in Battle in Flanders. He was succeeded in his earldom and English estates by his younger son, Roger de Breteuil, to whom William of Malmesbury gives a bad character.98 He and Ralph Guader, earl of Norfolk, were the leaders in 1075 of the first revolt of the Norman garrison in England against the central government. The complicity of Waltheof made the rebellion particularly dangerous. One of the grievances of Roger is of great interest. He resented the sheriffs holding pleas upon his lands, a fact which may bear on the character of his father’s earldom. William ordered the sheriffs to desist until he should be able after his return from Normandy to decide the questions at issue.99 After the bride-ale at Norwich, where, contrary to the king’s mandate, Roger married his sister Emma to the earl of Norfolk, he returned to his earldom and rose in revolt. He was supported by his military retainers, but he could not gain the fyrd. On the contrary, the forces of the diocese of Worcester under Wulfstan the bishop, Ethelwig abbot of Evesham, and Urse the sheriff of Worcestershire,

  90 ‘Non subjacet alicui hundret neque in consuetudine,’ Domesday (Rec. Com.), i, 183a.
  91 Ibid, i 186a   92 Ibid. i, 184b.   93 Ibid 186b.
  94 Ord. Vit. Hist. Eccles. (Soc. de l’Hist. de France), ii, 218-19.   95 Domesday (Rec. Com.), i, 180b.
  96 Ibid. i, 180b, 181, 185b.   97 Ibid. i, 179.   98 Getta Regum, iii, 255.
  99 Lanfranc to Roger, Landfranci Opera Omnia (ed. Giles, 1844), i, 64.

[p. 378]

A HISTORY OF HEREFORDSHIRE

Gloucester, and Salop, and a series of articles were drawn up by the Privy Council on 3 June, to supplement the enactment.298 By the great Act of 1536299 for assimilating the administration of southern Wales to that of England a number of Marcher lordships lying within or on the borders of Herefordshire were joined to the county. The lordships of Wigmore and Lugharness constituted the new hundred of Wigmore, Ewyas Lacy became a hundred, Ewyas Harold was joined to the existing hundred of Webtree, while Clifford, Winforton, Eardisley, Whitney, and Huntington were united to form the new hundred of Huntington. All these lordships were deprived of their especial liberties, franchises, and privileges. On the other hand the parishes of Old and New Radnor and of Michaelchurch, formerly included in Herefordshire, were united to the new country of Radnor.

    In the same year the great outbreak of northern Catholicism, the Pilgrimage of Grace, disturbed the kingdom, and the strife found some echoes in Herefordshire. In October the leading gentlemen of the county were summoned to support the king with their followers. Four, Sir James Baskerville, Sir John Lingen, Sir Thomas Cornewall, and Sir William Thomas, were called on to provide a hundred men each.300 A few persons who manifested sympathy with the insurgents were committed to Hereford Castle by the sheriff.301

    During this reign we learn some particulars concerning the military forces of the shire. In 1524 the number of archers able to serve the king in his wars was returned as 895, and the billmen as 1778.302 On 1 March, 1538-9, a commission was issued to array and arm all men over sixteen years of age able to bear arms in Herefordshire, and to certify the number of arms &c. to the council.303 In 1544 a number of county gentlemen, including Sir Edward Croft, Sir James Baskerville, Sir Richard Vaughan, and Sir John Scudamore, were called on to furnish troops for the French war. The whole contingent amounted to 1,500 men.304

    In Edward the VI’s reign, on 2 February, 1550-1, Walter Devereux, Lord Ferrers of Chartley, was created Viscount Hereford, being a descendant of Eleanor de Bohun, younger daughter of Humphrey, seventh earl of Hereford. This title has continued in the family of Devereux until the present day, with the exception of a break of two years between 1601 and 1603 caused by the attainder of the Earl of Essex. From 1572 to 1646 it was, however, obscured by the bestowal on the holder of the superior dignity of the earl of Essex, but on the death of the third earl the earldom became extinct. The present viscount is premier viscount of England.

    In the summer of 1551 serious disturbances arose in the neighbouring counties of Gloucester and Worcester, as in other parts of England, on account of the inclosure of common arable land, and its conversion into pasture. In consequence John Scudamore, the steward of Hereford city, was instructed to have the forces of the city ready for action.305

    Two years later the attempt of the duke of Northumberland to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne created great enthusiasm for Mary in the con-

  298 L. and P. of Hen. VIII, vii, 781. 299 27 Hen. VIII, cap.26.
300 L. and P. of Hen. VIII, xi, 579 301 Ibid. xi. 1328.
302 Ibid. iv (1), 972. 303 Ibid. xiv (1), 652. 304 Ibid. xix (1), 273, 274, 276.
305 Richard Johnson, Ancient Customs of Heref. (1882), 154.

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A HISTORY OF HEREFORDSHIRE

that the Cardinal Archduke Albert was advancing to Boulogne with a design to invade England, 150 men were levied from the county,325 and when the apprehension was over the troops were employed under Essex in the expedition to the Azores.326

    Almost from the commencement of Elizabeth’s reign Herefordshire was disturbed by difficulties with the Catholic recusants. In July, 1569, the justices of the peace reported to the council that John Scudamore of Kentchurch and others refused to subscribe to the Act of Uniformity.327 At an earlier date recusants were reported to be lurking secretly in the county supported by the inhabitants.328 On 28 August, 1576, the Privy Council directed the mayor and officers of Hereford to see that no one was elected mayor who would not take the oath and uphold the established religion, and to send recusants to the council.329 In September, 1581, the council intimated that it was dissatisfied with the lenient treatment of recusants in Herefordshire by the sheriffs and that the bishop of Hereford had complained concerning it. These recusants had been suffered to remain in their own houses under colour of being in custody, and thus they had evaded the fine which they would otherwise have incurred for non-attendance at church.330 In December, 1588, the sheriff was definitely instructed that recusants were not to be allowed to remain free prisoners, but to be committed to prison until further orders from the Privy Council.331 In 1605, at the time of Gunpowder Plot, there were serious fears of an armed rising.332

    The religious feeling reacted on the general condition of the county, which was one of great disorder. In June, 1571, a great riot occurred in Bromyard against the bishop of Hereford who was lord of that town,333 while ten years later the Privy Council was informed that there were more murders committed daily in the shire than in any two ‘thereabouts or in all Wales.’334 In May, 1586, the Privy Council directly imputed these disorders to the evil example of disregard for law in the case of recusants. Thefts and burglaries they asserted were daily committed without punishment through the negligence and faction of the justices of the peace. In consequence they ordered the Council in the Marches to call offenders before them and to take steps for reforming and punishing disorders,335 while the president was appointed lord lieutenant of Worcestershire, Herefordshire, and Shropshire.336

    This was a distinct extension of the authority of the Council in the Marches, such jurisdiction in the case of ‘mere’ English shires being universally exercised by a temporary commission of oyer and terminer directed to all or some of the members of that body.337 It is true that in May, 1574, the Attorney and Solicitor-General had given an opinion at the request of the Privy Council in favour of the jurisdiction of the Council in the Marches over the city and county of Worcester,338 which necessarily involved a like jurisdiction over Hereford; but in July, 1596, the sheriff of Herefordshire was rebuked by the Privy Council for not enforcing an order of the Court of

325 Cal. S.P. Dom. 1595-7, p. 400; Acts of P.C. xxvii, 101-5. 326 Ibid. xxvii, 160-4; xxviii, 250-1.
327 S.P. Dom. Eliz. lx, 22. 328 Ibid Additional, xi, 45.
329 Acts of P.C. ix, 197. 330 Ibid. xiii, 191-3. 331 Ibid. xvi, 402.
332 S.P. Dom. Jas. I, xiv, 40, 52. 333 Acts of P.C. viii, 33. 334 Ibid. xiii, 246.
335 P.C. to Council of Marches, 25 May, 1586; Acts of P.C. xiv, 124-5.
336 S.P. Dom. Sign Manual, viii, No. 63. 337 Acts of P.C. v, 112.
338 Ibid. viii, 236-8.

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