POLITICAL HISTORY 



of Bushmead in 1336" for trespass upon lands which were purchased by 

 another William Gery in the 1 6th century, and are owned and occupied by 

 his descendants the Wade-Gerys to this day. Few names have a longer 

 record in the county, and it is interesting to find it borne by Hereward's 

 companion, even in legend. 



Whether men from Bedfordshire took part or not in the revolt of 

 Morkere and Hereward, it is certain that, after its suppression, William used 

 the forced labour of men from the counties of Cambridge, Huntingdon, and 

 Bedford in building his castle at Ely.** 



During the reigns of the Conqueror and his two sons the record of 

 Bedfordshire is almost a blank. Dunstable, however, owes its existence to 

 Henry I.*' Tradition says that he cleared away the forest at the junction 

 of Watling Street and the Icknield Way in order to secure this important 

 crossing from the robbers who infested it.^" He built a royal residence known 

 as Kingsbury, but soon enlarged his plan, mapped out a town on his manors 

 of Houghton and Kensworth, and encouraged settlers by granting liberties." 

 Towards the close of his reign he granted this estate to his newly-founded 

 monastery, retaining in his own hands the buildings and gardens ubi hospitari 

 soleo.^^ The priory was visited by many of his successors and was the point 

 at which the shire came most closely into contact with the movement and 

 stir of the national life as it pulsed from London and Westminster to the 

 west and north. The words, indeed, which William of Malmesbury uses of 

 Reading Abbey, Henry's other important monastic foundation, may be 

 applied to Dunstable : ' That it might serve as a house of call for almost all 

 travellers to the more populous cities of England.' " Reading stood to the 

 south of the Thames much as Dunstable to the north, but that the latter was 

 somewhat overshadowed by its great neighbour, St. Albans. 



Except for a few notices of the Beauchamps there is little record of 

 Bedfordshire in the reign of Henry I, save in the Pipe Roll of the year 1130-1.^* 

 Aubrey de Vere and Richard Basset were sheriffs, as they were of several 

 neighbouring counties ; neither of them appears to have held much land in 

 Bedfordshire, They seem to have farmed the shrievalty, as did their predeces- 

 sor Maenfinin (i 125—9), ^^ ^ business enterprise. The amount of arrears due 

 is striking ; a current and a past Danegeld are accounted for ; Simon de 

 Beauchamp's heavy bail is estreated for not ' holding his man to right,' and 

 he is paying by instalments ; and the ' aid ' of the borough of Bedford is 

 entered at £^. There is also a payment made by the sheriff to the ' custos 

 of the House of Dunstable.' Doubtless this refers to the regium mansum of 

 Kingsbury, and must not be taken as evidence that the priory was yet 

 founded. 



Whatever may have been the relation of the Beauchamps to the town 

 of Bedford at the time of the Domesday Survey, it may safely be affirmed 

 that Simon de Beauchamp held the castle during the latter years of Henry I. 



" Bushmead Chartul. Bedeford, Etone, carta xxvi. 

 " Freeman, 'Norman Conq. iv, 481, citing Hist. EUensis, 245. 

 " See the account of the town in the topographical section. 

 *» Dugdale, Mon. vi, 238. " Ibid. 239. 



" Ibid. 240 ; see also V.C.H. Beds, i, 371. 

 " Will, of Malmesbury, De Gestis Regum (Rolls Ser.), 489. 

 " Pipe R. 31 Hen. I (Rec. Com.), 100-4. 

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