A HISTORY OF HEREFORDSHIRE with Norman names, at Ewyis Harold, unless it is surpassed by the ten francigenae at what I take to be Belvoir Castle/' In addition to the actual ' castles ' there is the interesting mention of fortified houses {domus defensabiles) at Eardisley and ' Walelege,' of which the former is expressly recorded (like Clifford) to have been outside any hundred and free of all taxes. Valuable as is the evidence of Domesday for the doings of William Fitz Osbern as earl of Hereford, it has also much to tell us of his no less active predecessor ' Earl Harold.' And what it tells us is not to his credit. Mr. Freeman, who has dwelt on the importance of Harold's tenure of the earldom,'* was naturally loth to admit that his hero was guilty of the church spoliation with which the great record so directly charges him ; " but while he was justified in urging that we hear only the accusation, not the defence, we have, on the other hand, the fact that William, who did not readily part with that which had come into his hands, restored these manors to the church on the ground, expressly stated, that it had been wrongfully deprived of them. In addition to the manors of which he is stated to have deprived the church of Hereford he had large possessions. The great manors of Cleeve with Wilton, adjoining Ross, on the Wye, and of Much Marcle, in which the Conqueror laad succeeded William Fitz Osbern, had been Harold's at his death. The entire fief that Alvred of Marlborough was holding in 1086 had formerly belonged to Harold, and it is significant that we read of Burghill and of Brinsop ' Hope ' that Osbern, uncle of the above Alvred, had held them when Godwine and Harold were exiled, which seems to imply that they were Harold's even before that event. Burghill appears to have been a ' comital ' manor, for ' the third penny ' (of the pleas) of two hundreds appertained to it. And this remark applies also to Great Cowarne on the same fief, to which ' the third penny ' of three hundreds had been appendant. Of Pembridge, another manor on this fief, we read that God- wine and his son Harold had wrongfully taken it from the house of St. Guthlac (at Hereford), an entry which reminds us that father and son were included in these charges of sacrilege. Several other manors about the county are mentioned as having been Harold's, in addition to those which were held by his thegns ; but the only one which calls for special notice is that of Old Radnor. The distribution of the lands of Herefordshire among the invading Normans was largely, as has been said, the work of William Fitz Osbern. Osbern, indeed, of Richard's Castle, son of the well-known Richard Scrob, was holding, in 1086, lands which, in the main, had been his before the Conquest ; but the entire holding of Robert Gernon had formerly been Richard Scrob's. I have elsewhere argued ** that the other Osbern whom
- ' See my paper on 'The Origin of Belvoir Castle' in Engl. Hist. Rev. xxii, 508.
" 'The government of Herefordshire was so important that it could not be safely placed in any hands but those of the foremost man in England.' . . . ' Harold's Herefordshire earldom is so important as a piece of national policy, and it is connected with so many points in Harold's character, that I have spoken of it some- what largely in the text.' {Norm. Conq. vol. ii.) Mr. Freeman considered that his tenure of the earldom began, at latest, in 1057, but did not feel sure whether he held it separately or as part of his great earldom of Wessex. Harold is charged with wrongful possession, in all, of seven estates belonging to the church of Hereford and one of St. Guthlac's. " See Feud. Engl. 317-26. 274
