POLITICAL HISTORY escape, he presumed too far, and on a third offence was hanged ; perhaps this satisfactory conclusion purged the offence of the too lenient court/" The various rights granted to Richard of Cornwall brought the county into connexion with a man who played a conspicuous part in the constitutional struggles of the reign, but who was withheld from a whole- hearted opposition to Henry's misrule largely by his natural reluctance to diminish the power of a crown which he or his descendants might inherit. On the outbreak of the Barons' War in 1264 that part of the county which was under his influence might have been expected to adhere more or less willingly to the king. But there appears to have been a good deal of local disturbance. Richard had to inclose Oakham with a fence, receiving per- mission to take thorns and underwood from Stokewood for the purpose " ; but notwithstanding this defence the castle was captured by ' the king's enemies,'* and the hall was damaged by fire.*^ No other adherent of the king is known to have belonged to the county ; but of the insurgent barons Walter de Colevil and Hugh le Despenser held Ryhall, while among those of lower rank were Bernard de Brus of Exton, Richard of Casterton, and Peter Neville, who came to a bad end, being hanged at Bridgnorth in 1 270 for robbery. A more prominent baronial leader was Peter de Montfort, who was killed at Evesham with his relative the great Simon ; his ancestors had held Preston in Rutland for several generations, but he belonged rather to Warwickshire.'* Richard of Cornwall, King of the Romans, died in the same year as his brother Henry, 1272, and was succeeded in the earldom by his son Edmund, who also inherited Oakham, and in 1275 held the three Rutland hundreds of Martinsley, Alstoe, and East Hundred, the fourth hundred, Wrangdike, being in the hands of the Earl of Warwick." In 1288, how- ever, Edmund received a definite hereditary right in the shrievalty of the county, and his deputies were regularly appointed until his death without issue in 1300, when his rights passed to his widow Margaret.'* In 1295 began the parliamentary history of Rutland, which has a simplicity unequalled by that of any other county. For nearly six hundred years the county returned two members, and there never was a borough within its bounds. The members in the 'Model Parliament' of 1295 were Robert of Flixthorp and Simon of Bokminster, and Robert continued to
- " Assize R. 721, m. 9-12. " Turner, Sekct Pleas of Forest (Selden Soc), 47.
^' ' Pl.icita de terris datis et occupatis,' ^5/. Se/ecti (Rec. Com.), 183-4. William Dod was on the side of the king in the castle of ' Hokam,' and on its capture took refuge at King's Cliffe, whereupon William Lovet took away his horse and took Dod himself to Blatherwick, where he was kept in a cellar for nearly six weeks, being set at liberty on payment of 40/. Lovet's story was that Dod was taken while raiding from Oakham. As might be expected the verdict was given for the royalist Dod, and Lovet was ordered to restore the horse or its value, estimated at the low figure of 3;. ^d. The persons concerned were very small men ; Lovet had a toft and no other property. '^ Complaint was made in 1275 that money raised in the hundred of Martinsley for rebuilding the hall, 'which was burned in the time of the war,' had been wrongly retained by the collectors ; Hund. R. (Rec. Com.), ii, 51. " Blaauw, Barons' If'ar (ed. 1871), App. G. ^' HunJ. R. (Rec. Com.), ii, 51. ^ The status of the county at this time is marked by the fact that in 1 300 no writ for the election of sheriff was sent, as there was a sheriff of fee ; Ca/. Close, I 296— 1302, p. 44. Margaret's rights were defined as follows in 1301 : — The castle and manor of Oakham, extended at j^l I 2 18/. lid.; the county of Rutland with the hundreds of Martinsley, Alstoe, and East Hundred, the pleas and perquisites of which were worth j^8 10/. ; the hamlet of Egleton, ^^34 7/. ; Langham, X'°7 9'- Sf"^- ! ^^^^ £^^ 16/. d. from the view of frankpledge and sheriff's aid in some eighteen vills of the county ; ibid. 426.
