A HISTORY OF WORCESTERSHIRE 



pass entire to the Marmions, but was divided, especially in Worcester- 

 shire, between them and the Beauchamps, the heirs of his brother Urse. 

 As for Urse himself, his rule in Worcestershire must have lasted nearly 

 forty years ; for it began, as we saw above, soon after the Conquest, and 

 he is still found acting as sheriff under Henry I. In the fate of Roger, 

 his son and heir, who incurred that monarch's vengeance, his contempo- 

 raries saw the fulfilment of Ealdred's curse, but his daughter brought to 

 Walter de Beauchamp the vast estates of which the history has yet to be 

 largely written from the great cartulary of the Beauchamp family now in 

 the British Museum.' 



Of the smaller Worcestershire tenants-in-chief, who held from four 

 to six manors (or estates) apiece, Ralf de Mortimer and Roger de Laci 

 were great lords on the Welsh border, and Drogo Fitz Ponz, the 

 collateral ancestor of the Cliffords of Clifford Castle, will, like them, be 

 dealt with, more appropriately, in Herefordshire. Gilbert Fitz Turold, 

 however, though also a tenant on the March, may fairly claim, under 

 Worcestershire, some mention. For in this county we have proof of 

 what had, indeed, been suspected, namely, that Gilbert was one of the 

 followers of the great William Fitz Osbern, earl of Hereford. We read, 

 of Hadsor, in Heming's Cartulary, that ' after the Normans conquered 

 this country, earl William took it from the monastery (of Worcester) 

 and gave it to a certain officer of his, Gilbert by name.' ^ And Domesday 

 shows us Hadsor in possession of Gilbert Fitz Turold. Again, Domesday 

 tells us of Lench (fo. 176) that ' of this land Gilbert Fitz Turold gave 

 two hides to Evesham Abbey for the soul of earl William, by consent of 

 king William.' Gilbert's holding in capite within the shire was only 

 some 10 hides, but, as an under-tenant of the churches of Westminster 

 and Worcester, he was a larger holder than this at Comberton, Powick, 

 and Longdon. His seat, which had been given him by earl William, 

 was in Herefordshire on the Welsh border, and there he had a fortified 

 house and ' a great wood for hunting.' 



We have now seen something of the Normans, into whose hands 

 there passed the estates of dispossessed Englishmen. The one manor 

 which Domesday shows us retained in English hands is that of Chad- 

 desley, which ' Eddeve ' (Eadgifu) still held as she had done before 

 the Conquest. Of the Normans who had come in under Edward 

 the Confessor, Osbern Fitz Richard had retained a manor he then held, 

 and had succeeded to four others which had been his father's ; Alvred of 

 Marlborough also had retained, and indeed increased his lands at Severn- 

 stoke. Otherwise the change was great. Worcestershire, however, had 

 not been a land of great thegns ; the extent of church lands made this 

 impossible. Eadwine, the local earl, had been succeeded by the King, 

 but his local estates were limited, apparently, to the great manor of 

 Bromsgrove and those of Suckley and Dudley. It should be observed 

 that he had established on some 12 hides appurtenant to Bromsgrove six 



* Add. MS. 28,024. * Heming's Cartulary, I. 263. 



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