DERBY 20I the King was absent abroad, he took possession of Chartley Castle, but was expelled. (') In 1274/5 he recovered the manor of" Holhrook, co. Derbj'jC') and in 1275 the manor — but not the castle — of Chartley.(°) He m.y istly (cont. 26 July I249),() in 1249, at Westm., the King's niece, Mary, da. of Hugues XI, called k Brun, Count of La Marche and Angouleme, Sire de Lusignan in Poitou,(°) by Yolande, da. of Pierre, was released on bail and taken to Chippenham, where the deed was laid before him and he had sealed it when in custody and in fear of his life: and afterwards he had been taken as a prisoner in a cart by armed men, some in the cart and some out of it, to Wailingford, where he had been kept a prisoner for three weeks till the Lord Edward, now King, had released him. Edmund said that Robert had come before the Cliancellor, and had caused the deed to be enrolled, and could not plead that he had done such an act as a prisoner. Robert answered that the very day on which he sealed the deed the Chancellor had come — not like a Chancellor but like a private person — to the chamber where he lay in strict custody, and he had acknowledged the said writing to avoid peril to his body, and that therefore the said acknowledgment should not bind him. Judgment for Edmund on the ground that the Court could not go behind the Chan- cellor's rolls, especially after the Chancellor had quitted office. (Pleas in the quin- zaine of St. Michael — Coram Regr, 2-3 Edw. I, roll no. II, m. 6). (^) Pardon to Edmund, the King's br., to Henry, Earl of Lincoln, and others, for any deaths caused in besieging Chartley Castle, which Henry III gave to Hamon Lestraunge, and which Robert de Ferrers seized in i Edw. I, whereupon Edmund besieged and took the castle: 20 Dec. 1282. (Duchy of Lancaster, Rnya/ Charters, no. 154: Patt-nt Roll, 11 Edw. I, m. 25). {^) Coram Rege, Hilary, 3 Edw. I, roll no. 15, m. 10 d. ("=) Robert de Ferrers sued the King for the manor of Chartley. For an ancestor of his, whose heir he was, had enfeoffed one Thomas de Ferrers of the manor, who had held it and afterwards d. s.p.: wherefore the manor should be his escheat. And Roger Lestraunge answered that the said Thomas had been against the late King, who had given the manor to Hamon Lestraunge, who had held it and enfeoffed him, Roger, who was in peaceable seizin thereof till the said Robert had come by night with many armed men and had entered the manor by a homicide and had held it by force until dispossessed by the King's lieges, and that the King had then taken the manor into his own hand: also that Robert could not claim the benefit of the Dictum, because he had entered the manor by force, and the time allowed by the Dictum had elapsed. Robert said that the manor was his escheat, and that at the death of Thomas he was in prison, but as soon as he was released he had entered the manor as his escheat, and without any homicide. Judgment that as Robert was in prison at the death of Thomas, the limit of time should not prejudice him, and as he h.id entered the manor as his escheat and without a homicide, it was a disseizin rather than any transgression against the King's peace, and Robert might therefore claim the benefit of the Dictum: but as the manor was his escheat, he ought to have seizin thereof without redemption, saving to the King the castle and the moables therein. [Coram Rege, Mich., 3-4 Edw. I, roll no. 18, m. 24 d). ("*) Dated the morrow of St. James 33 Hen. III. [Close Roll, 33 Hen. Ill, m. 6 d). (e) «■ MccxLix. Robertus de Ferrariis puer ix annorum, filius Willelmi de Ferrariis Comitis Derbeie, desponsavit apud Westmonasterium Mariam vii annorum puellulam, neptem Regis Henrici, filiam fratris sui Comitis Engolismi et Marchie." [Annales de Burton, p. 285). 26
