Bradenstoke Priory

The King spent the present week on a well-worn trail between royal palaces in Wiltshire, with brief stays at the monasteries of Bradenstoke and Cirencester (in Gloucestershire). To both of the monasteries in which he stayed he granted privileges. In the case of Cirencester, this involved the restoration of jurisdiction over seven local hundreds of which the canons had been deprived by Gerard d'Athée, the bogeyman of Magna Carta clause 50.1 Both Alexander of Neckham, abbot of Cirencester (whose mother had served as wet nurse to John's elder brother, Richard the Lionheart), and Simon prior of Bradenstoke travelled with the court for part of this week.2 Irish affairs continued to enjoy a disproportionate prominence in chancery business, with the issue of charters to at least five Irish beneficiaries, in each instance witnessed by Irish barons.3 One of these men, Philip of Worcester, secured restoration of his rights in five cantreds of Munster in return for a fine of £100.4 Various of the transactions with Ireland this week reflect negotiations ongoing for at least the past six months: fines from Hamo de Valognes, with the men of Dublin, and settlement of the inheritances of Adam Rudipat and Thomas fitz Maurice, all of which had been discussed in royal letters as early as February 1215.5 Overshadowing this was the ongoing matter of the Lacy family and the restoration of Hugh and Walter de Lacy to royal favour.6

Walter de Lacy's reconciliation coincided with, indeed perhaps precipitated the retirement of Henry archbishop of Dublin as the King's viceregent in Ireland. On 6 July, the same day that Geoffrey de Marisco's succession as Irish justiciar was publicly proclaimed, the King announced that Walter had fined 4000 marks for his lands in Ireland, with general instructions for the restoration of his castles and estates in Meath as soon as letters had been prepared to this effect by Geoffrey as justiciar.7 Walter's son and hostage, Gilbert de Lacy, was transferred to the King's keeping.8 Two of Geoffrey de Marisco's own sons, previously held hostage at Glastonbury, were restored to their father who, before his sailing from Ireland (apparently from Bristol, where he was granted license to hunt), took custody of a large number of other Irish hostages, clearly as part of a wider attempt to pacify the Anglo-Irish community.9 Several other letters this week turn upon the custody of Irish castles or the distribution of royal patronage in Ireland.10 Much less attention was paid to Gascony and Poitou. Arnaud de Binouel and his men received protection going to Gascony, provided that 'they do not err in matters of faith' (perhaps suggesting an ongoing concern to protect the south against heresy, and all the more interesting given that, in due course, the King is said to have obtained a hearing in Rome for Raymond, heir to the county of Toulouse, smuggled from England into France posing as the servant of a merchant from Agen).11 A pension was granted payable from the rents of Saint-Florent-le-Vieil, small in terms of patronage but highly significant as an indication that the King still believed himself capable of disposing of rights on the south bank of the Loire, in a region only reconquered for him in the summer of 1214.12 Equally significant, on 11 July the bailiffs of Portsmouth were instructed to find a ship for Geoffrey de Rançon and his household, crossing apparently from England into France.13 Geoffrey was one of the greater lords of the Saintonge so that his presence in England suggests diplomatic negotiations at a high level.

King John's Irish penny

As with the more general trend of royal policy, it is worth our asking whether, taken in isolation and without knowledge of the events of May and June, we would have any idea from the chancery enrolments for July 1215 that the King had just experienced a major political crisis provoked by civil war. A recent financial crisis might be guessed on the basis of continued receipts of treasure: jewels and goldsmiths' work previously deposited at Forde Abbey, sceptres with sapphires delivered by the prior of Newstead in Nottinghamshire, and a large collection of jewelled or decorated belts from the abbey of Welbeck.14 Commands for payment from the cash receipts of the bishopric of Durham of the wages of serjeants and crossbowmen serving under Brian de Lisle or with Geoffrey de Neville at Scarborough might suggest a temporary shortage of coin at court.15 They undoubtedly point to the fact that the north continued to pose problems for the King. Elsewhere, however, there are indications of a return to normality. At Devizes, on 6 July, the King took receipt of 66 sacks of coin, estimated to contain £6600 in silver pennies, delivered from the treasury at Corfe by Thomas of Sandford.16 Had Sandford's mission failed or been ambushed, one might speculate upon the wider effects. From such forgotten turning points is the web of political history woven. Instead, now flush with cash, by the end of the week the King was not only in command of a reconstituted Exchequer but beginning to command its audit of long-term debt, reaching back at least as far as the expenses at Christmas 1214.17 For the first time since Runnymede, we this week find the resumption of routine instructions concerning the King's hunt.18

Only incidentally, and with the advantage of hindsight, can we tease out of the records evidence that the crisis enacted at Runnymede continued to ripple on. Magna Carta clauses 10 and 11 had attempted to regulate usury owed by wards and widows, especially to Jews. They can perhaps be linked to the King's concern, in late June and early July 1215, to pardon interest or the principal owed to Jews: on 8 July, for example, 7 marks in interest and a principal debt of 10 marks owed to the Jews of Bristol.19 Magna Carta clause 54, perhaps in an attempt to prevent malicious or manipulated appeals, had forbidden women from raising accusations of homicide, save in the case of the death of their husbands. On 5 July 1215, we find the King instructing the sheriff of Wiltshire to release Everard de Mildeston, an alleged murderer, into the bail of his wife. Everard had been appealed for homicide by a woman named Seina Chevel, but for the murder of Seina's son, Richard, and therefore in an instance theoretically forbidden under the terms of Magna Carta.20 Here, it is only obliquely that we can detect the effects of the Runnymede settlement.

Magna Carta clause 50, in the John Pine engraving of the British LIbrary's burnt Magna Carta

A similar leap of imagination is required to appreciate the significance of orders, issued on 8 July, for Ralph Musard to be recognized as sheriff of Gloucestershire.21 What goes unremarked here is the fact that Ralph was thus intruded into an office until then occupied by Engelard de Cigogné, himself serving as sheriff in succession to his kinsman, Girard d'Athée.22 The appointment of Ralph Musard was thereby made in fulfilment of the terms of Magna Carta clause 50, and came only a day or so after the decision to reverse the confiscation of the hundredal jurisdiction of Cirencester Abbey, judged to have been unlawfully seized by Girard.23 In the same vein, the grant of a charter, on 10 July, acknowledging the privileges of the men of Hereford and their annual fee farm of £40, perhaps represented a challenge to the authority of Andrew de Chanceaux, sheriff of Hereford and another member of that alien clan proscribed in Magna Carta.24 If so, it is ironic that the Hereford charter was witnessed, like other royal charters this week, by the alien mercenary captains Fawkes de Breauté and Hugh de Boves.

Another royal charter, issued on 6 July for the men of Dunwich in Suffolk, might in theory appear a routine affair.25 We nonetheless need to remember here that the men of Dunwich had been plagued, since 1214, by the seizure of hostages, many of them held in Poitou and still in captivity as late as March 1215.26 In these circumstances, it is surely significant that the King's charter to Dunwich specifically guarantees the men of the borough against anyone being granted custody of their sons or daughters save with the permission of their own kinsmen and friends. None of their daughters or heirs was to be married without consent, and their widows were to have free disposal of their property. These provisions not only reflect the political realities of 1214-15 but directly mirror the terms of Magna Carta with respect to wards and widows.

Richmond Castle

Other acts of injustice had theoretically been redressed at Runnymede. In theory, for example, Roald fitz Alan had been restored to custody of Richmond Castle.27 On 8 July, supplementary commands had to be sent to Robert de Vieuxpont and Brian de Lisle, forbidding them from destroying Roald's castle and demanding compliance with the commands of June.28 Since May 1215, the Fitz Alan castle at Bridgnorth in Shropshire had been committed to the keeping of Robert de Courtenay and Walter de Verdun. On 5 July, orders were issued for it to be restored to Thomas of Erdington.29 This, however, was not to redress injustice but to reward a faithful servant. Since the Spring of 1215, Thomas of Erdington had been absent, serving as the King's ambassador to the papal court.30 Here we come to the broader context of John's manoeuvres after Runnymede and the extent to which any of the King's actions can be read as a sincere attempt to comply with the terms demanded by the barons.

Not only did the King keep open his channels of communication with Rome, but on 9 July augmented the annual pension enjoyed by Peter Saracen, resident proctor at the papal curia, from 20 marks to £20.31 Since at least 1212, Peter had been a crucial player in Anglo-papal diplomacy. In the Spring of 1215, he had served alongside Thomas of Erdington as English ambassador to Rome.32 There can be little doubt that the increase in his pension was intended as reward for whatever Peter had achieved, or was about to achieve, in efforts to persuade the Pope to support the King.  Peter's pension was confirmed at Marlborough on 9 July. A few days earlier, but several hundred miles away, the Pope was at last made aware of the rebel seizure of London. His response, set out in papal letters of 7 July, in terms highly critical of Langton and the English bishops, was to demand the excommunication of all rebels and their supporters, threatening suspension against any bishop who failed to enforce this command.33 If the outbreak of rebellion was to provoke papal outrage, this was as nothing compared to the contempt with which the Pope would in due course come to treat Magna Carta. In the meantime, and for all his compliance with the letter of the Runnymede settlement, there seems little doubt that the King was merely biding his time, treating peaceably with the barons but behind the scenes plotting their confusion.

A bear, from an English bestiary of the second quarter of the 13th century, BL Harley MS 4751, 15v

As for the barons themselves, we have only a few glimpses at this time. One comes in letters, preserved by Roger of Wendover. Here Robert fitz Walter, 'Marshal of the army of God and holy Church' and 'other magnates of the same army' address William d'Aubigny (of Belvoir). Warning him of the threat to London, the barons' chief 'stronghold' ('receptaculum'), they inform him that a tournament held at Stamford on the Monday after the feast of SS Peter and Paul (itself in 1215 falling on Monday 29 June, so perhaps referring here to Monday 6 July) had been extended to the Monday after the octave of that feast (13 July). Another tournament, they declare, will be held near London, between the heath of Staines and the vill of Hounslow, at which the prize will be a bear to be awarded by a unnamed 'lady', which William is invited to attend.34 Besides revealing the ongoing significance of tournaments to the baronial cause, as Hugh Doherty suggests, this letter may have been preserved by William de Aubigny, and thence by Roger of Wendover, precisely because its contents appear so trivial.35 What Wendover sought to communicate, Doherty suggests, is the futility of the baronial army engaged not in real war but in games and competition for female favours.

A second glimpse, previously overlooked, occurs in a charter of the King. Dated at Clarendon on 11 July, but not enrolled on the Charter Roll, this confers 103s. 4d. of land on the Isle of Sheppey previously held by 'Lambkin', the late tutor (quondam magister) of Geoffrey the King's (bastard) son, upon Richard de Landa and his heirs, together with a ploughland at Kingston outside Portsmouth previously held by Fabian of Titchfield.36 Besides its interesting reference to the King's bastard, this charter is chiefly of interest for its witness list, listing as witnesses Henry archbishop of Dublin, William de Harcourt, Henry son of the earl of Hereford, Geoffrey Lutterell, Terry the Teuton and William de Neville. All but one of these men were royalists, appearing in the witness lists to other charters this week. The exception is Henry, son of earl Henry de Bohun, whose father was undoubtedly amongst the baronial twenty-five and whose career and early death are otherwise almost entirely obscure.37 With the sole exception of a charter issued at Runnymede on 20 June, in the immediate aftermath of the peace,38 this represents the only occasion on which the King seems to have admitted a rebel leader, or adherer of such a leader, into the company who witnessed his charters. For the rest, what we find is very much the restoration of status quo, with the King surrounded by the same group of barons and constables who had dominated royal government for the past several years.39