A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE 



him at Thirsk and Easingwold, not wishing to enter the city until the English king had arrived.* 

 As a result of this visit the two kings met again next year at York, where, on i8 June, Alexander 

 married Henry's sister Joan, while at the same time Alexander's sister Margaret was married to 

 Hubert de Burgh/ Henry made a progress through the county at the end of 1227 and kept 

 Christmas at York, as he did again in 1229, on which occasion the Scottish king joined him.' 

 Yorkshire was visited by King Henry in 1236, 1237, and 1244,' and at Christmas 1251 he brou;j;ht 

 his daughter Margaret to York to marry the young Alexander III. The ceremony was performed 

 with the greatest magnificence, and the city was filled with the nobles of the two courts and their 

 retainers, but the festivities were slightly marred by a quarrel between the Scottish and the English 

 servants.^" The marriage also, which had been celebrated with such splendour, proved unpopular 

 with the Scottish nobility, who kept Queen Margaret away from her young husband and treated 

 her with much indignity, until in the autumn of 1255 King Henry passed once more through 

 Yorkshire at the head of an army on his way to the borders to enforce the proper treatment of his 

 daughter.'^ 



The Barons' War did not affect the county to any great extent ; the royalist influence was 

 predominant, Richmond Castle belonged to Peter of Savoy and was successfully retained by his 

 steward Wischard de Charron, York was held for the king by Robert de Nevill,** and John de 

 Oketon refused to surrender Scarborough, though this was one of the five great castles which the 

 barons demanded upon the escape of Prince Edward.^' But although Yorkshire was not desolated 

 by civil war it suffered severely from the weakness of the central government during the last years 

 of Henry's reign, and when Edward I caused a searching inquiry to be made into the conduct of 

 the magnates and their officials in 1275 a terrible state of affairs was revealed. The bailiff of the 

 Earl of Lincoln had done ' many acts of oppression, plunder, extortion, and injury, beyond belief';'* 

 the gaoler of York, to please a man accused of murder, had arrested his accuser as a thief and kept 

 him in prison, bound naked to a post, without food, until he paid 40J. to Henry de Normanton the 

 sub-iheriff," of whom ' many other things beyond number and astonishing ' were related." The 

 steward of the Earl of Warenne also was guilty of ' devilish and innumerable acts of oppression,' " 

 and 'many most evil reports' were made of Gilbert de Clifton, bailiff of Staincliffe, who 'with vile 

 words insulted William de Chaterton, the justice appointed to hold this inquiry, and threatened 

 him because he told the jurors not to fail to tell the truth about the bailiffs of the Earl of Lincoln 

 for fear ; and Gilbert said to him that if he had been present when he gave these orders he would 

 have dragged him out by the feet.' '* 



Edward I visited the county for the first time in 1280, and again in January 1284, when he 

 and Queen Eleanor were present at the translation of the body of St. William." From 1 29 1 to 

 1306 hardly a year passed in which the king did not make a progress through Yorkshire,*" usually 

 on his way to or from Scotland, and from 1298" to 1304** the courts of King's Bench and 

 Exchequer sat at York instead of at London. With York the virtual capital of northern England, 

 and at least the military centre for the Scottish campaigns, it was advisable to improve the com- 

 munications by sea. For at least a century there had been a port of some size at the place where 

 the Hull entered the Humber, and in 1294 King Edward bought the adjacent vills of Wyke and 

 Myton from the abbey of Meaux and founded a town which he called Kingston-upon-HuU,*' 

 constituting it a free borough in 1299.** O" ^^^ same day on which he gave this charter to 

 Kingston he granted a similar charter to Ravenser-Odd,*' the old port of Ravenspur at 

 the mouth of the Humber, which rivalled Kingston until destroyed by inroads of the sea about the 

 middle of the 14th century.*' 



Space will not allow of any account of the various levies of troops made within the county for 

 the Scottish wars, but the beginnings of parliamentary representation must not be ignored.*' To the 



« R'\al Letters Hen. Ill (Rolls Ser.), i, 13 1-2. 



' Matt. Paris, op. cit. lii, 66 ; Arch. Joum. xv, 103- f. 



* Matt. Paris, op. cit. iii, 193. 



' ' \'isits of Henr)' III to the Northern Counties,' Arch. Joum. xv, 99-1 18. 



"• Ibid. ; Matt. Paris, op. cit. v, 266-270. 



" Arch. Jcum. rv, 112-13. " Cal. Pat. 1258-66, p. 383. 



" Ibid. +I+. " Hmd. R. (Rec. Com.), i, 112. 



'^ Ibid. III. "Ibid 109. 



'■ Ibid. "Ibid. III. 



" Hist. Ch. of York (Rolls Ser.), iii, 408. 



^ See Gough, Itinerary of Edzc. 1. " Flores Hist. (Rolls Ser. 95), iii, 104. 



" Rishanger, Chron. (Rolls Ser.), 223. 



" Chron. Mon. de Melsa (Rolls Ser.), ii, 186 ; Cal. Chart. R. 1257-1300, p. 455. 



" Cj/. Chart. R. 1 257-1 300, p. 475. '^ Ibid. 476. 



'* Chron. Mon. de Meha (Rolls Ser.), iii, 16, 21 ; Cal. Pat. I 343-5, p. 85. 



'• See Return of Members of Parliament, subannis. 



402 



