42 THE HISTORY OF NEWMARKET. [Book I. 



from the fifth to the eighth years of Richard I. (a.d. 1193 — 

 1 197), and in the next year for the counties of Hertford 

 and Essex, for one half-year only. Adhering to the patriotic 

 barons, he obtained, in 12 15, letters of safe-conduct during 

 his mission to King John, to treat of peace on behalf of 

 the barons, but nothing came of this negociation, although 

 it eventually resulted in the consummation of Magna Charta. 

 In consequence of the part Reginald de Argentine took in 

 this rebellion his lands were seized by the king, but soon 

 after Henry HI.'s accession (A.D. 12 16), compounding for his 

 estates, command was given to the sheriff of Cambridgeshire 

 to give him possession of all his lands in that county, which 

 had been sequestrated during the first of the baron's wars. 

 He died about the year 1223, and was succeeded by RICHARD 

 DE Argentine, who acquired the manor of Newmarket by 

 his marriage with Cassandra, daughter of Robert de L'Isle. 

 In the 8th Henry III. (a.d. 1223), he, being sheriff of the 

 counties of Essex and Hertford, was constituted governor of 

 the castle of Hertford. He was likewise sheriff of the coun- 

 ties of Cambridge and Huntingdon, and subsequently, in the 

 nth Henry III., one of the stewards of the king's household, 

 at which time he obtained the grant of the fair for his 

 manor of Newmarket. Three years after this, Richard, " being 

 a valliant knight and valliant in arms," went on a pilgrimage 

 to the Holy Land, and dying there in the year 1246, was 

 succeeded by his son and heir, 



Giles de Argentine, a knight also of great valour, who 

 in the i6th Henry III. (a.d. 1231), being with the king in an 

 expedition made that year into Wales, fell into the hands of 

 the enemy in a sharp conflict near Montgomery. Ten years 

 afterwards he was summoned " with other great men of the 

 time," to attend the king with horse and arms into Gascony, 

 and the following year he was appointed governor of Windsor 

 Castle ; but soon after, being dissatisfied with the injurious 

 rule of the king's favourites, he joined the patriotic barons 

 under Simon de Montfort * (a patron saint of the chase in 



* It is a popular error to call St. Hubert the patron saint of the chase, 

 at least so far as relates to our island. No doubt Hubert was considered 



