POLITICAL HISTORY of his father by granting Rutland to his queen, Edith. She owned in demesne the wapentake of Martinsley, and also the large manors of Ketton and Barrowden ; ^^ the village of Edith Weston still preserves in its name a memory of her ownership. The pious Confessor afterwards granted Rutland to Westminster Abbey,^' reserving a life-interest to the queen, but William the Conqueror refused to confirm this grant, and, probablv on the death of Edith in 1075, took, it into his own hands, granting to the abbey the churches alone. '^^ For several centuries the barony of Oakham with the county or shrievalty of Rutland remained to the Crown as a valuable possession with which to endow members of the royal house or to secure or reward the services of its supporters. While there is no evidence that William's conquest of the midlands involved any harm to Rutland, the district suffered considerably in the pre- ceding year, 1065, when Edwin, on his march from Northumbria to claim the earldom of Northampton, passed through it with much devastation. The Chronicle says that Northamptonshire and the neighbouring shires ' were the worse for many winters,' '* and this is confirmed by the Northampton- shire Geld Roll, belonging to some time between 1066 and 1075, which records a 'waste' in the ' Wiceslei ' Hundred amounting to 37 per cent, of the total value. ^^ The disposition of Rutland at the time of the Con- quest and of the Domesday Survey is discussed elsewhere. The greater part of Rutland was, as has already been said, in the king's hands. Certain of his manors were farmed by Hugh de Forth, a great Hampshire landholder, and it was to him that the writs were addressed by which Rufus some years later granted to Westminster the churches and tithe of Rutland.'^ But it does not follow from this that Hugh can be spoken of as sheriff" or Rutland as a county. The two wapentakes of Rutland were in fact at the time of Domesday attached to Nottinghamshire for fiscal purposes, an arrangement probably dating from after the Conquest." The political history of Rutland in the reigns of William and his sons is almost a blank.^* In the rising of 1088 Hugh de Grentemaisnil ravaged Leicestershire and Northamptonshire,^' and Rutland can hardly have escaped. But there was no great landowner to involve it actually in the rising. In the reign of Henry I Oakham was held by Roger of Newburgh,™ a cousin of the second Earl of Leicester. The Pipe Roll of 1130 throws some light on the changes which had taken place in Rutland since the time of Domesday. By that time the name had come to include all the district that "Seep. 133. " Dugdale, Mon. i, 299. The writ is addressed to the sheriff and thegns of Northamptonshire. "* Oakham is divided at the present day into two parts itnown as ' Lord's Hold ' and ' Dean's Hold ' ; this division no doubt originated in the division of ownership between the king and the abbey. " JngL-Sax. Chron. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 163. " See p. 125. '* Cott. Chart. (B.M.), vi, 3 ; xvi, 2 ; printed in Dugdale, Mon. i, 301, 302. " See p. 126. " In a charter of Henry I granting Thorpe to Norwich Priory in i loi, there appears among the witnesses
- Robertus comes Rutland.' But the charter is of very doubtful genuineness ; it is taken by Dugdale {Mon. iv,
16) from Reyner {Discept. Hist. Benedict, ii, 146), who gives no source for it. The expression 'comes Rut- land ' is odd, and the order of the witnesses suggests that ' Rutland ' is an error for some French name ; possibly Robert Count of Meulan (comes MeJlent'). '^ This appears to be the meaning of a difficult passage ; Jngl.-Sa.x. Chron. (Rolls Ser.), i, 357. ^ Henry I made him a grant of Sutton, Warwickshire, in exchange for Oakham and Langham ; Dugdale, fVarws. (1738), 909. 167
