Book I.] THE MANORS. 53 



reign of Edward I., from which we learn that the 

 prior of Fordham had view of frank- pledge, assise 

 of bread and ale, and five tenants in the town, whereby 

 the king lost 3^/. war-penny. The jury also found 

 that a robber came into Newmarket and stole a horse 

 worth 146-., whereupon Nicholas le Rees, the king's 

 bailiff, came and took the man and the horse, both of 

 which he detained in custody. It seems that during 

 his captivity the thief stole the bailiff's purse and 

 belt and escaped with the plunder. Subsequently the 

 prior of Fordham claimed the horse as his property, 

 and recovered the animal, while the thief escaped the 

 clutches of the law. This trivial incident proves that 

 horse-stealing (which flourished at Newmarket in 

 later times) was an ancient calling. 



In the reign of Edward III., by a similar inqui- 

 sition, it transpired that certain persons held lands by 

 the service of bringing footmen to serve the king in 

 the Welsh wars, belonging to Norfolk and Suffolk, 

 from the Ditch of St. Edmund [fossatode St. Edmiindi) 

 without Newmarket, which is the only contempo- 

 raneous instance we have met where the Devil's 

 Ditch is so called. 



Ancient records make mention of a manor here, 

 which belonged to the priory of Fordham, in Cam- 

 bridgeshire ; also the manor of Botelers, which be- 

 longed to the family of that name. 



In the 35th of King Edward III., Hawise, relict of 

 Ralph Boteler, held for the term of her life the moiety 

 of a messuage, forty acres of land, two of meadow, and 

 30^'. rent, with the appurtenances, in Newmarket and 



