POLITICAL HISTORY 



the king. 60 Gervase Paynel also took part in the rebellion, and for his share 

 in it his castle of Dudley was demolished. 61 



In 1 175 Henry was again in Staffordshire, and when at Lichfield on his 

 way to Nottingham, pleas were held there by William Fitz Ralph, Bertram 

 de Verdon, and William Basset in Curia Regis. 62 



The possessions of the crown all over England had been considerably 

 diminished during the reign of Stephen, who had granted many estates in 

 order to obtain the support of those whom he thus favoured, and none of 

 Henry IPs acts was more unpopular with the barons than his command that 

 the royal demesnes bestowed by the late king should be restored. 63 The 

 estates of the crown in Staffordshire in the reign of Henry II consisted of 



(a) Such manors as having been in the crown or in the Earl of Mercia 

 before the Conquest remained in the crown at the date of Domesday, and 

 came into Henry's hands as ancient demesne or ancient escheat, and composed 

 his ferm of the county : M Trentham, Penkridge, Wednesbury, Walsall, Wig- 

 ginton, Kingswinford and Clent, Tettenhall, Tarbeck, Alrewas, Bromley 

 Regis, Rugeley and Cannock, Meretown, Wolverhampton, Willenhall, 

 Bilston, Rowley Regis, Wolstanton, Penkhall, Leek. Between the date of 

 Domesday and the accession of Henry II, Trentham, Wolstanton, and Leek 

 had been given to the Earls of Chester, but the grants were revoked by 

 Henry. 



(b] Estates of ancient demesne or escheat which were never incorporated 

 in the ferm of the county, but were given in charge to bailiffs, fermors, and 

 trustees other than the sheriff : Borough of Stafford, Half borough of Tam- 

 worth, Kinver, Cannock and its forest, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Hopwas. 



(c) Another kind of crown estate consisted either in the ferm of manors 

 which had been severed from the king's demesnes and granted to fermors 

 before the accession of Henry II, or in the extra values placed upon estates 

 of ancient demesne or ancient escheat after his accession, these were : Brome, 

 Stafford Mill, Stafford Smithy, Rowley Regis, Cradley Mill, Trentham 

 Market, Walsall, (Clent, Kingswinford, Meretown had a collective ferm set 

 upon them), Alrewas, a house in Stafford which had belonged to Walter the 

 Provost, who had been outlawed in 1 175 and his house seized by the sheriff 

 as an escheat of the crown. 



(d] Escheated ' tainlands ' which were always waste, and in the king's 

 hands because no one had wanted them. 



At the same time the estates of the Earl of Chester in the county 

 probably comprised the following : Chartley, Sandon, Eiford, Drayton, 

 Pattingham, Leek, Endon, Rudyard, The Rushtons, Alton. 66 



From 1184 the see of Lichfield 66 was occupied by a man who, like 

 many of the ecclesiastics of that age, was also a keen politician and man of 

 affairs, Hugh of Nonant, who combined the parts of bishop, soldier, justiciary, 



60 Matt. Paris, Chrtm. Maj. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 297, says that in 1175 Tutbury was levelled with the ground 

 by Henry's orders in revenge for the wrongs which its owner had often done. 



61 Coll. (Salt Arch. Soc.), ix (2), 8. 



68 Eyton, Itm. of Hen. II, 193. ^ Stubbs, Const. Hist. (ed. 4), i, 489. 



61 This list is taken from Coll. (Salt Arch. Soc.), ii, 171. 

 65 Major-General the Hon. G. Wrottesley in Coll. (Salt Arch. Soc.), i, 231. 



64 The name Lichfield for the see is used to avoid confusion ; it was frequently called the see of Chester 

 and Coventry in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. 



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