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By the Rev. J. E. Jackson. 39 
and a prison at his command, but also a gallows. In short, within 
the manor he was second only to the king himself. All this may 
have worked very well so long as the whole manor was in the 
king’s own hands, and there were no rival proprietors to quarrel 
with the agent of the Crown. But when the king’s demesne had 
been granted out in parcels to noblemen and others, (as has been 
described), and the royal authority began to be less absolute, the 
Bailiff had sometimes a hard matter to hold his own. The “market 
village” was growing by degrees into a town, and as various new 
rights arose, the old ones would suffer encroachment. This statement 
is founded upon evidence. In the year 1275 (3 Edw. I.), when 
the inquiry (alluded to before) was made into the state of this 
manor, it was reported to the Crown amongst other grievances, that 
several matters touching the king’s authority at Chippenham 
required to be looked to, that his Bailiff was thwarted either by 
the Sheriff of the county, or by some of the principal landowners 
under the Crown within the parish. Two or three distinct cases 
are mentioned in the record. A certain fellow imprisoned in the 
castle of Old Sarum on a charge of felony, had turned king’s 
evidence, and had implicated in the charge one “Solomon the Jew 
of Chippenham.” ‘The Sheriff of Wilts issued his warrant to 
Robert Stoket the Bailiff of Chippenham, to arrest the said Solomon. 
But before he had time to do so, Godfrey Gascelyn, then lord of the 
manor of Sheldon and Chippenham, interfered by forbidding the 
Bailiff to meddle in the matter until he, Gascelyn, had conferred 
with the Sheriff upon the subject. The consequence was that the 
Bailiff’s perplexity was the Jew’s opportunity. Solomon improved 
it; took to his heels, and when at length he was wanted, was “no 
where to be found.” 
_ Another case was thus:—During the civil troubles in the pre- 
ceding reign of Henry III., raised by Simon de Montfort against 
the Crown, the same Robert Stoket, Bailiff of Chippenham, had 
seized as they were passing through the town, sundry packs of 
wool, which one Simon the Draper was conveying from Bristol to 
Southampton ; but the Sheriff ordered the Bailiff to release the wool. 
Again: one Nicholas Hamund, imprisoned by the Bailiff on a 
charge of larceny had been released by the Sheriff. The jury 
