POLITICAL HISTORY 



mayor was being led to the castle prison, bells were rung and a band of 

 townsmen rushed forward to rescue the prisoner, while others secretly entered 

 the castle, caused the crown of the murderer's head to be shaved, and com- 

 mitted other outrages. A commission of inquiry into the case was ordered 

 to be made in the October of the same year. 1 In the April of 1315 

 John Segrave made a further complaint against the inhabitants of Nottingham 

 concerning what seems to have been another riot. Robert Ingram and 

 others having summoned the commonalty by the ringing of the common bell, 

 ' with force and arms and banners displayed ' attacked the castle, broke the 

 gates, and besieged it for eight days, ' not allowing the constable or any of 

 his men to go out thence to obtain necessary provisions, and assaulting such 

 of his followers as they found without the castle in the town.' * 



The unpopularity of the constable extended to the county as well as to 

 the town. He was justice of the forest beyond Trent as well as keeper of 

 Nottingham Castle, and in February, 1315, the ' good men ' of the county 

 of Nottingham united with those of the other northern counties in a 

 petition against Segrave and his ministers of the said forest and county that 

 they had committed many acts of extortion and oppression by the exaction 

 of prises, carriages, and divers sums of money, both from the men of his 

 bailiwick and custody and from the men of the county of Leicester. 8 This 

 seems, indeed, to have been a favourite complaint against the constables 

 of Nottingham. Another instance occurs at a later date, when in 1395 

 the Commons petitioned against the ministers of Stephen Rumbilows, the 

 constable of Nottingham Castle, that they extorted 4^. from each cartload of 

 charcoal passing along the high-road through Sherwood Forest for the sole 

 use of the people of the surrounding district, and persisted in so doing, 

 although the judgement had been passed against them in the court of the 

 King's Bench.* 



After the murder of Edward II Nottingham was brought actively 

 into the history of the times, since Mortimer and Isabel, having aroused 

 opposition on all sides, were fearful of the results of the meeting of the 

 Parliament of 1330 at Nottingham, and fortified themselves in Nottingham 

 Castle. Edward III, at last roused to a determination to throw off the 

 domination of Mortimer, knowing himself secure in the support of the 

 majority of the barons, who were the natural enemies of the earl, won over 

 the aid of William Eland, constable of the castle, and made his well-known 

 attack on the castle and on Mortimer and the queen. The subterranean 

 passage through which he and his followers crept up into the castle still 

 exists, and the whole scene is not difficult to picture.' From this time 

 Edward was freed from tutelage, and was able to carry out his ambitious 

 policy of war, involving the glory of victory overshadowed by the inevitable 

 spectre of heavy taxation and a merciless drain on the nation's strength in 

 money and men. 



In the Scotch wars of Edward III, as in those of Edward I and II, 

 the county of Nottingham was forced to play an active part. The king 

 himself was frequently in the county, and used Nottingham as a station 



1 Cal. of Pat. 1313-17, p. 63. * Ibid. p. 314. 



5 Ibid. p. 311. ' Rolls of Par!. (Rec. Com.), iii, 330*7. 



4 See account in Rob. de Avesbury, Hut. EJw. tercit (ed. Hearne), p. 8. 



I 329 42 



