CHAP. XXVII. and to the Canons serving God there, the seven Hundreds of Cyrecestre,' with all their apputenances, whereof Gerard de Atyco disseized them." The county of the City of Gloucester had also her extern Hundreds of the shire appended to it. In the Domesday of Worcestershire it is recorded: : "In the same county there are twelve Hundreds of these, seven are so quit or exempt, as the shire says, that the Sheriff has nothing in them." Dom., I., fol. 172. Then there were the Hundreds in Windsor Forest, in Berkshire, and the Chiltern Hundreds, in Buckinghamshire. All these were once wild forest districts thinly peopled, but only the last is now heard of, and that in connexion with the House of Commons. The number "seven," however, was not always rigidly adhered to. In the "Gesta" of the monastery of St. Alban's, II., p. 220, the Abbot, Archdeacon, &c., of St. Alban's were indicted for murder before a court composed of three Hundreds. In the Placita de quo Warranto, 3 Edward III., the Abbot of Peterborough claimed to have eight Hundreds and his right of jurisdiction over them. Chart and Longbridge, and Bridge and Petham, now constituting only two Hundreds, were in Domesday the four separate Hundreds of Cert, Longebrige, Brige, and Piteham, and were not united until after the reign of Edward III. The profits and perquisites derived by the Crown from "The seven Hundreds" were never considerable. In the Survey of the Crown lands on the death of Charles I., they were estimated at £8 3s. 4d. improved value. Indeed, the manorial burthens in this district are lighter in the present day than in most parts of Kent, which it shall be my endeavour hereafter to account for. As these trifling emoluments are now lost sight of, and the County Constabulary discharge most of the duties of the constables formerly appointed for these Hundreds, no Courts have been held of late, which may be a matter of regret to the antiquary (but to no one else, unless it is the Steward), as beyond doubt the Court of the Seven Hundreds is the most ancient existing institution of the Weald of Kent. * Desborough, Stoke, and Burnham, are the three Chiltern Hundreds, CHAPTER XXVIII. THE REIGN OF KING STEPHEN. IN the outing which been A.D., 1135. resuming the outline of the early history of Kent, we arrive at a period which has been termed "England's darkest moments under her Norman monarchs."* Stephen was the second of the four sons of Stephen, Earl of Blois, by Adela, daughter of the Conqueror; and was consequently nephew of Henry I., and first cousin to that king's daughter, the Empress Maud. Robert, Earl of Gloucester (Henry's natural son) was with Stephen in attendance on Henry, in Normandy, when he died, and the monarch relied on both for support, in securing the succession of the crown for his daughter Maud (married to Geoffrey Plantagenet, the son of the Earl of Anjou), who aspired to be "a woman king," unknown in those days, and opposed to all the notions and habits of Gothic nations. We can understand the objection, when we remember that the office of King grew from that of General, and implied military command. Stephen instantly set out for England, taking ship at Whitsand, near Calais (then the usual port of embarkation for England). He landed on the Kentish coast, probably The day Stephen arrived in England "there chanced a mightie great tempest of thunder horrible to heare) and lightening dreadful to behold. Now because this happened in winter time it seemed against nature, and therefore it was the more noted as a foreshowing of some trouble and calamitie to come."-Holinshed, Vol. II., p. 78. Up to this time there had been but one instance of a female's being permitted to succeed to the crown, viz., Sexburgh, wife of Cenwalch, King of the West Saxons; she, however, reigned but one year, for Matthew of Westminster says the nobles would not fight under her. CHAP. XXVIII. A.D., 1135. Lord History of Lyttleton's Vol. I., p. 234. Sub. Ann., 672. Lingard, 6th ed. Vol. II., 1 p. 32. CHAP. XXVIII. at or near Dover, but the inhabitants both at Dover and Canterbury refused him admission.* In London and Winchester he was more successful. By perjury he procured evidence that Henry had, on his death-bed, disinherited his daughter on the plea of undutiful conduct, and declared Stephen his successor; and thus he succeeded in obtaining the crown, which Archbishop Corbeul, who had sworn fealty to the Empress, placed on his head at Westminster, 26th December, 1135. Stephen proceeded to secure the treasure which Henry had left in Winchester castle. It amounted in money alone to £100,000 (a sum equal to £1,500,000 in our time), besides a vast quantity of jewels and plate, which he got possession of through the zeal and intrigue of his brother, Henry de Blois, Bishop of Winchester. Stephen's Queen, Matilda, was subsequently crowned with him, 21st March, 1136, in Canterbury Cathedral. The king in his rich habit was conducted by the archbishop and earls to the church, where the king stood in the archbishop's seat, the queen opposite him; the archbishop put the crown on PP. 1340, 1588. both, and afterwards celebrated mass before them. Lyttleton's Gervas of Though the barons, influenced by the Bishop of Winchester, placed Stephen on the throne, it was only to serve their own purposes. They were nearly all foreigners, and their possessions had been but recently acquired by conquest; they therefore felt the insecurity of their own titles, and believed that they could exact terms from him which the Empress Maud would never listen to; and they consequently took only a conditional oath of allegiance, while Stephen was ready to promise whatever they required of him. "He swore-1. That on all occasions of episcopal vacancies he would appoint a new prelate within a certain time, and meanwhile would leave the temporalities of the see in the charge of some ecclesiastic; 2. That he would make no addition to the royal forests, but would, on the contrary, restore to their owners such lands as had been made forest by his predecessor; and 3. That he would abolish Danegelt." John de Fiennes was constable of Dover Castle at this time, and being a partisan of the Empress Maud, Stephen soon removed him and took the office into his own hands. The non-observance of this oath jeopardized Stephen's CHAP. XXVIII crown, and occasioned a succession of wars, which lasted throughout this reign. Having obtained a bull from Pope Innocent II. con- A.D. 1136. firming his election, and having seen the body of Henry interred in the Abbey at Reading which that king had erected, Stephen convened a great Council of the nation at Oxford, and there signed the promised Charter, styling himself" the elected King of the English by assent of the clergy and the people." During this interval an ineffectual attempt was made by the Empress Maud to take possession of Normandy; in England, however, not a hand or voice was raised for her. Even the Earl of Gloucester, a man valiant, learned, and one of the most eminent of his day, did homage to Stephen, and took the qualified oath of fealty, with other barons. Meanwhile David, King of Scotland, overran the northern counties, and compelled the barons to swear fealty to his niece Maud; an insurrection also in her favour broke out in Wales, which was checked, but never effectually suppressed; and although Stephen had obtained the investiture of the Duchy of Normandy for himself and his young son from the French King Louis, he could not depend on the allegiance of its inhabitants. In the spring of the following year (1137) Stephen proceeded to Normandy and took into his confidence William de Ipres, a man of great valour. The Earl of Gloucester, of whose integrity, prudence, and judgment Stephen appears to have been fully sensible, followed the king to Normandy, and was frequently invited to the palace at the instigation of William de Ipres, with the object of treacherously intercepting him; but being informed of it by an accomplice, the Earl avoided the snare. Thus * William de Ipres was a natural son of Philip, son of Robert I., the Frisian, Count of Flanders. He is said to have been concerned in the murder of Charles, Duke of Flanders, who had succeeded Baldwin VII., in 1119. His hostility to the French King recommended him to Henry I., and he was finally taken up by Stephen as the leader of his Flemish mercenaries. William of Malmesbury, Dr. Giles' ed., p. 495. CHAP. XXVIII. detected, Stephen took an oath that he would never again give countenance to such an outrage. Stephen returned to England with William de Ipres, the Earl renounced his fealty, raised the standard in favour of Maud, and was joined by Stephen's brother, the Bishop of Winchester, and the heads of the Church; for the king had quarrelled with the clergy, who soon became his bitter enemies. The fortune of war at first favoured the cause of the Empress, and she seized and garrisoned in her name various strongholds. But we will pass over the bloody battles which raged throughout England during the next five years, and confine our attention chiefly to what occurred in Kent. The See of Canterbury remained vacant about two years, when Theobald, Abbot of Bec, in Normandy, was elected. A.D. 1138. Norman England, p. 41 Vol. II., p. 83. Stephen had appointed William Marshall (his master of the revels), Constable of Dover Castle, but he was taken prisoner by the Empress in one of her sieges, and she conferred the office on Wakelyn de Magminot. Leeds Castle (in Kent) was subsequently taken by the Earl of Gloucester, but neither Dover nor Leeds Castles were long retained. According to Mr. Pearson, Dover was obtained by treaty. Holinshed says, "About the same time one Walkeline yeelded the castle of Dover vnto the queene who had besieged him within the same." Lambarde tells us, under "Leedes," that during their troubles, "Divers great men, under Maude's devotion, betook them to their strongholds, and some others seized some of the king's own castles on behalf of the Empress, of which number was Robert (the Earl of Gloucester and bastard brother to Maude), who entered the castle of Leedes minding to have kept it. But King Stephen used against him such force and celerity that he soon wrested it out of his fingers." Holinshed, in chronicling the events of this reign, says: Vol. II., p. 85. "The king having taken the castell of Leides, and brought 66 *I do not remember to have seen this event, thus recorded by Lambarde, Holinshed, and Pearson, noticed in Mr. Wykeham Martin's 'Leeds Castle." The reason why the seizure of Leeds Castle has not been generally noticed, arises from the spelling of the name in different chronicles-Esleedes, Leedes, and Slade. Cobbe, the last historian of the period, calls it Slade Castle, not identifying the locality. |