A HISTORY OF RUTLAND formed the later county. Under the account of the Nottinghamshire Danegeld the sum of £i I2j., representing the assessment of the 36 caru- cates at which the old ' Roteland ' was reckoned, was ' pardoned ' as due from Rutland itself, and under Northamptonshire ;^8 was similarly treated, which apparently represents an assessment of the hundred of ' Wiceslei ' at one-half of the 1 60 hides at which it was formerly reckoned ; and the total of £i 12s. appears under the separate account of Rutland as due from William de Albini ' Brito ' ; ^^4 os. -jd. being paid into the treasury, and £j I IJ. 5^. written off as 'pardoned.' There is nothing to show how or when the hundred of ' Wiceslei ' came to be attached to the original Rutland, but it is clear that another step had been taken in the formation of the county. William also rendered account of ^(^37 1 3J. ^d. as the farm of Rutland." This is almost exactly one-fourth of the farm of £^<^o which was paid in the time of Domesday, and it is suggested above" that the reduction was caused by an act of favour of the Crown similar to that which had already, as it seems, reduced the amount from ^(^200 to jri50. It may be, however, that this reduction was due to the granting of Oakham to Roger of New- burgh, so that the bulk of the dues, at any rate from the hundred of Martins- ley, no longer went to the king.-^ And if this sum is the farm for the whole district now included in Rutland the reduction is still more striking. Among the tenants mentioned in the account are Robert de Montfort, who gave a palfrey and a hound for the rights which his father had possessed in Preston, Hugh de Morevill, and Henry de Ferrers."" With the reign of Stephen darkness falls again on the history of Rut- land, and there is no direct evidence to show how far the inhabitants suffered from the violence of the barons, whose ferocity is recorded in a well-known passage of the Chronicle.^* Rutland lay on the edge of the ' nucleus of a kingdom, small but compact,' which according to Mr. Howlett^' gave almost unbroken allegiance to Stephen, and the actual conflict of Stephen and Maud did not enter the district. The first mention of the Castle of Oakham occurs in a treaty -* made about 1 1 5 1 between Ranulf, Earl of Chester, and Robert, Earl of Leicester, by which they agreed that neither should fortify any new castle within a district including the greater part of Leicestershire and part of Rutland, the line passing from Belvoir to Oakham and thence to Rockingham. There is no evidence to show who held Oakham at this time. Roger of Newburgh, who held it at some time in the reign of Henry I, had succeeded his father as Earl of Warwick in 1 123," and took the side of Maud, as did the Earl of Chester, while Robert, Earl of Leicester, adhered to Stephen. It is possible that Hugh de Ferrers, a brother of William de Ferrers, third Earl of Derby, already held " ?ipe R. 31 Hen. I (Rec. Com.), 12, 86, 134-5. " See p. 128. "' The value of Oakham and its appurtenances 120 years later was about X'°°' ^"'^ '^ ^'^ could be taken as the value in 1 1 30 (the jurors of 1275 declared that this was the value in the time of William I), the difference might then be accounted for. But the relation of manorial value to farm is a difficult point ; see the discussion on p. 128 of the pre-Domesday 'value' of Rutland. -^ This is the first recorded connexion of the family with the county, but there is nothing to indicate what land Henr)' held. ^ Ang/.-Sax. Chron. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 230. " Chron. Stcpkin, &c. (Rolls Ser.), iii, p. xlix.
- Cott. MSS. (B.M.), Nero, iii, fol. 178. This interesting document is at present exhibited in one of
the show-cases at the Museum. " Diet. Nat. Biog. Henry de Newburgh. 168
