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XII. A brief Summary of the Wardrobe Accounts of the tenth, eleventh, and fourteenth years of King Edward the Second, contained in a Letter addressed by Thomas Stapleton, Esq. F.S.A. to John Gage, Esq. F.R.S., Director

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 June 2012

Thomas Stapleton Esq.
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Extract

Having lately had an opportunity of carefully perusing the Account-book of the Comptroller of the Wardrobe for the fourteenth year of King Edward the Second, now in the possession of Mr. Joseph Hunton of Richmond, in Yorkshire, I have been induced to compare it with similar Account-books, for the tenth and eleventh years of the same King's reign, amongst the manuscripts in the library of the Society; and to abstract from them such entries as fix the date of transactions embodied in the narratives of chroniclers, supply the omissions of the genealogists of our royal and noble houses, or are curious as illustrating ancient customs and manners.

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Research Article
Information
Archaeologia , Volume 26 , 1836 , pp. 318 - 345
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1836

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References

page 319 note a Ridpath's Border History, p. 252.

page 324 note b Sir Otho de Grandison was the King's resident minister at the Court of Avignon.

page 325 note c Some writers place the conflict of Douglas with Edmond de Kylaw, a Gascon, captain of Berwick, in this year; but Barbour has properly placed it before Robert de Brus's setting out for Ireland; as during nearly the entire year, and from the 13th of June in the preceding year, Sir John de Wisham was captain of Berwick, and not Kylaw. “To Sir John de Wisham, captain (custos) of the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, appointed by the King in council to remain there for the custody thereof with twelve men-at-arms, himself and two other knights being of the number, from the 13th of June, 9th of Edward the Second, to the 1st day of July in the present tenth year, when the custody of the said town was deputed to the Burgesses thereof, 1,116l. 6s. 9¼d.”

page 326 note d The account of the provision sent to the Cardinals by the King's Council on their coming to London is curious: ” To the Lord Cardinal Gauselinus Johannes coming to England at the King's request for certain arduous affairs touching the realm of Scotland, of the King's gift, on his first arriving in London, being the price of 24 quarters of wheat at 19s. per quarter, of 6 casks of wine at 41. 6s. 8d. per cask, and of 50 quarters of oats at 7s. 4d. per quarter, sent to the said Cardinal by the Archbishop of Canterbury and others of the King's Council being there at Westminster, 28th of June, 68l. 1s. 8d.”

page 327 note e The reason of their receiving liveries was this; Sir Adam had been transferred from Nottingham to York in the month of September, where the court then was, as is shown by this entry: “To Sir John Beufai, sheriff of Nottingham and Derby, commanded by writ of Privy Seal to convey the body of Sir Adam de Swineborne from the castle of Nottingham to York to our Lord the King, as well for his expenses and those of his men-at-arms and on foot safely escorting the said Sir Adam between the said places, as for the hire of a certain horse for the riding of the said Sir Adam during three days in the month of September, 2l. 7s. 11d.”

page 330 note f The town of Berwick was taken on Midlent Sunday, the 2nd of April; I find this entry relating to it; “To William de Muston and twenty-four others, his companions, escaped from the town of Berwick, after the entry of the Scots, of the King's gift. Wallingford, 30th of April.

page 331 note g The author of the Scala Chronica does indeed say, “that the castel kept a xi. weeks after, and then, for lak of vitaile and rescue, was gyvin up” but the Scotch accounts pretend that it was surrendered within six days after the taking of the town.

page 331 note h Sir William de Roos gave up his castle on the 25th of September, anno 1317. “To Sir William de Ros of Hamlake, banneret, having thirty men-at-arms and forty horsemen in his castle of Werk, from the 1st of December, 10th Edw. II, to the 25th of September in this present eleventh year, on which day the said Sir William gave and granted his said castle of Werk to the King and his heirs for ever, 466l. 17s. 4d.”

page 333 note i Herbergaria coquine; in another place is a payment to Thomas de Cokelico, vallettus Herbergarie; there were also officers of the King's kitchen called Herbergarii, who in right of their office were entitled to the annual gratuity of a mark for feeding the geese and other poultry sent into the King's household between the feasts of Easter and Pentecost, and hence the fee was called the little goose, parva auca coquine Regis. The duty of the Herbergarii, as distinct from that of the Lardarii, was to make store of such provisions for the kitchen as vegetables, lampreys, &c. not animal food; thus the place where they were stored would be called the Herbergaria. I find., for instance, a payment of 3l. 19s. 3d. to William Mauntel, Herbergarius coquine Regis, for divers costs and charges incurred about the preparing and the carriage of sixty-eight lampreys, procured in the county of Gloucester by the Sheriff for the King's use.

page 333 note k This notice tends to prove that the arm was the only portion of the relics of the saint preserved in the abbey which bears his name; the monks of Newminster may therefore have fairly laid claim to the rest of the body, as they are shown to have done in Mr. Gage's Dissertation on the Benedictional of Archbishop Robert.

page 339 note l Dugdale gives three wives to the Earl of Pembroke: 1. Beatrix, daughter of Ralph du Nesle, constable of France; 2. a daughter of the Count of Bar; 3. Mary, daughter of the Count of St. Pol. This entry, showing that Beatrix was the name of the Countess who died in 1320, and the fact of the negociations for the Earl's marriage with Mary de St. Pol having been begun in the ensuing month of March, render it more than probable that the second marriage with a daughter of the Count of Bar is supposititious, nor is it noticed by the genealogists of that illustrious house.

page 339 note m This burial appears to have been conducted with unusual ceremony. Payments were made to forty clerks saying their psalters for his soul, and to thirteen widows watching round his body; a day's provision was doled out to all the orders of Friars in Lincoln, and the King gave large alms at the divers masses celebrated in the cathedral church for the repose of the soul of the deceased, son of the Marshal of his household. In the bloom of youth, but just married, his death had created a deep feeling, which found its vent in the solemn pomp of these last obsequies; the anniversary masses for the soul of Piers de Gaveston, at which the King attended in person, as we learn from these accounts, prove that Edward's affection for his favourites survived the tomb.

page 339 note n The Lady Maud Trussel was the daughter and heiress of Warine Mainwaring, and the widow of Sir William Trussel, who had died in this tenth year. The King sent Sirs John and Robert de Sapy and Sir John Haward, knights of his household, to Shropshire to seek and bring the Lady Maud to him, and they were allowed for their expenses and those of the Lady and her suit, from the 6th to the 19th day of June, when they arrived in company with the Lady at the Court at Berkhampstead, 47l. 4s. 4d.

page 340 note o Sir Ingelard de Warle was a Baron of the Exchequer, and had been Comptroller of the Wardrobe.

page 340 note p Dugdale, on the authority of an Inquisitio post mortem, states John to have been the son and heir of Lord John de Wake, and that he died under age before the fifth year of Edward the Second, when in another record Thomas is styled son and heir of Lord John de Wake; this entry shows Thomas to have been the ward, and consequently the heir, whilst his brother John was living; and that this last survived till the 10th Edward II. five years after the date of the Inquisition quoted by Dugdale.

page 341 note q To these entries we may add the following, relating to the Earl of Gloucester and the Countess of Warren, the one the nephew, and the other the niece of King Edward.

“To Master Aymon de Juvenzano appointed by our Lord the King to prosecute in the Arches at London and elsewhere in England, on behalf of the Lady Joan de Bar, Countess of Warren, niece of the King, the suit between the said Countess of the one party, and the Lord John Earl of Warren and Matilda de Neirford of the other party, for his expenses from the first of July 10th Edw. II. to the 26th of November following, 14l. 4s.

“To the Lady Joan de Bar, Countess of Warren, niece of our Lord the King, setting out for foreign parts, of the King's gift, for her expenses on her journey by order of the King's Council, 29th of November, 166l. 13s. Ad.

“Eighth day of August, 11th Edw. II. in oblations distributed at divers masses celebrated in the presence of our Lord the King, in the conventual church of Sheleford for the soul of the Lord Gilbert de Clare, late Earl of Gloucester, deceased, whose heart lies there inhumed, 5s. 6d.”

The body of the Earl is said to have been interred at Tewkesbury, but I nowhere find mention his heart being inhumed at Shelford.

page 343 note r This word is used indifferently and in the same sense as sustentatio. In like manner the sustenance which debtors were obliged to supply to the officers sent by the judges to reside in their houses till they paid the debt, was called garniso servientium, and those officers, comestores. Ducange, sub voce, cites a decree of the Council of Tours A° 1292, “contra illos qui ponunt comestores in religiosis domibus.”

page 345 note s This pilgrimage was a favourite one, and the celebrated warrior Sir James Audeley was also a votary of the Saint of his name. On a leaf, used in the binding of the wardrobe accounts for the 10th of Edward the Second, is an entry, partially erased, of a payment made to Perrot le Pavour, sent by the King to Flanders, for Sir James D'Audele, captured at sea on his passage to St. James, and for making inquiries and sending information to the King of the condition of the said Sir James D'Audele.