POLITICAL HISTORY 



count and Longchamps over the Camville case. But in October he again 

 got control of the royal castles, on the deposition of Longchamps. After 

 the release of Richard from captivity John sent w^ord from Normandy to 

 have his castles put in order for a fresh rising. But Hubert Walter pro- 

 ceeding against the places fortified, and the king landing in England, John 

 surrendered. A special iter of the justices that September (1194) had, as 

 one of its objects, to take account of all lands and goods forfeited by John 

 or his foUow^ers under decrees issued against them, and not subsequently 

 re-granted by the king to them. It appears that Dorset had been impli- 

 cated, to some extent, in the last rising. Reginald of Saint Leodegar in Todber, 

 Brian de Goviz in Kingston, and Lucia de Broil in Milborne^ lost their 

 lands entirely. Walter de Turberville in Toller,^ and Eustace de Stokes in 

 Lulworth,'' recovered them eventually, after temporary dispossession. Eustace 

 de Stokes was a knight of Alured of Lincoln.* 



The time spent by John, when king, in the county has sometimes 

 been exaggerated. Of 1,314 changes of place recorded of his court,' ninety- 

 four only relate to Dorset. According to the Itinerary he spent 131 days 

 in the county, out of a rough total of 4, i 59, about three per cent, only.' This 

 was remarkably little, since to a parsimonious king (whose frequent move- 

 ments necessitated the seventeenth clause of Magna Carta) it was of import to 

 have his court maintained free for a few nights at a time.'' He spent much 

 money on strengthening his castles, and the Pipe Rolls for this reign have 

 frequent mentions of expenses incurred for work on the castles of Dorchester, 

 Sherborne, Gillingham, and Corfe.' The king had been reinstated with 

 the honour of Gloucester in 1195, while still only count, but without 

 its castles. On his accession he divorced his wife Isabel, on the pretext 

 of Archbishop Baldwin's early objections to the marriage, on grounds of 

 consanguinity. He deprived her of her patrimony, conferring the estates 

 and earldom upon her sister's husband, Amaury of Montfort, but by the 

 ninth year of his reign the honour was again in his own hands. He used 

 Corfe Castle as a state prison as well as a fortress. Among its prisoners 

 were the nobles of Poitou and Guienne whom he captured at Mirebeau ' 

 {1202), the Lusignans, from whom he had abducted his new wife, Isabel 

 of Angouleme. There also were confined Griffith, king of Wales,^" the 

 princesses of Scotland," given by their father as hostages in 1209, William 

 of Albini,'^ afterwards one of the twenty-five elected barones^'^ and even his 

 own queen." 



In 1205 the king, having been successfully resisted by the barons 

 in the matter of service abroad, embarked, and put out to sea for 

 three days, landing again at Studland, probably as a kind of protest against 



' Pipe R. 6 Ric. I, m. 13 -j". ' Ibid, i John, ra. 17 </. 



' Ibid. 7 Ric. I, m. 17. * Liber Niger, i, 80. 



' Hardy, Itin. Arch, xxii, 125 sqq. 



' He reigned from 27 May, 1 199, to 18 Oct. 1 2 16. Four years of this time were spent in Normandy, 

 for two more years the Itinerary is wanting. 



' See Pipe R. of the bishopric of Winchester, p. 76. {Studies in Econ. and PoUt. Sci.) 



' See, inter alia, Pipe R. 2 John, m. 7 ; Pipe R. 10 John, m. l\ d. ; Pipe R. 2 John, m. 7 ; Pipe R. 

 4 John, m. 7. 



' Ann. Marg. (Rolls Ser.), i, 26 ; Pat. R. 4 John, m. 3. '" Ann. U'int. ii, 68. 



" Pipe R. 5 Hen. III. " Ann. Londiniensis (Rolls Ser. 76), i, 17. " Ibid. 



" Gervase, op. cit. ii, 102. 



135 



