Albini (Roger de Mowbray) was a knight. The grand-daughters and heirs of Adam married into the families of Constable and Beauvoir. It has been frequently asserted that the Forest of Knaresborough was formed by the Conqueror himself, and that he devastated the district in order to make it waste and fitting for his purpose. Of this, we believe there is no evidence. The Domesday survey shows that the country was not more devastated, nor even so much so, as the more fertile and level districts to the east of it. If a considerable portion of it was not surveyed, it was doubtless owing more to its wildness and remote situation, than to its fitness for a royal chase, or its being prepared for such. By the forfeiture of the fee of Tyson, the king would become the principal landowner in the district, and might form it into a royal chase without doing much violence to the rights of private property, but there is no proof that he did so. The probability is that the forest* was not formed till the reign of Henry I., when the castle was built; and that the formation of the first, was the main cause of the building of the latter. * Manwood, in his work on forest laws, thus defines a forest-"A forest is a certen territorie of wooddy grounds and fruitful pastures, privileged for wild beasts and foules of forrest, chase, and warren, to rest and abide in, in the safe protection of the king for his princely delight and pleasure; which territorie of ground so privileged is meered and bounded with inemovable markes, meeres, and boundaries, either known by matter of record or els by prescription. And also replenished with wilde beastes of venarie or chase, and great coverts of vert for the succour of the said wilde beastes to have their abode in; for the preservacion and continuance of which said place, together with the vert and venison, there are certain particular laws, privileges, and officers, belonging to the same, meete for that purpose, that are only proper unto a forest, and not to any other place." The way of making a forest is thus: "Certain commissioners are appointed under the great seal of England, who view the ground intended for a forest, and fence it round with metes and bounds; which being returned into the chancery, the king causeth it to be proclaimed throughout the county where the land lieth that it is a forest, and to be governed by the laws of the forest, and prohibits all persons from hunting there without his leave; and then he appointeth officers fit for the preservation of the vert and venison, and so it becomes a forest by matter of record." The first authentic fact relative to the building of the Castle is in the 31st of Henry I., A.D. 1130, when Eustace Fitz John held the ferme of Burc and Chenaresburgh at the rent of twenty-two pounds per annum, of which sum in that year he paid eleven pounds into the treasury, and the remainder was expended on the works of the king at Knaresborough. This we learn from the pipe roll of that year, and the inference follows that he did not succeed to the barony as next heir to his uncle Serlo de Burgh, but merely as custos for the king, and from the extensive works carried on at that time, it is equally clear that the castle was in building. Eustace Fitz John was amongst the most considerable persons of his time. His contemporary, Ailred of Rievaulx, as we learn from Dugdale, "saith of him that he was one of the chiefest peers of England, and of intimate familiarity with Henry I., as also a person of great wisdom, and singular judgment in counsel, He had to wife two of the richest heiresses of his time, namely, Beatrix, the daughter and heir of Ivo de Vesci, by Alda, the daughter and heir of William son of Gilbert Tyson, and Agnes, the daughter and heir of William Fitz Nigel, baron of Halton, and constable of Chester. He had sons by both-by the first, William, who appears with the addition of de Vesci; and by the second Richard, commonly called Fitz Eustace, who married Albreda de Lizours, whose issue were eventually heirs to the two great houses of Laci and Lizours."* While residing at Knaresborough Castle, in 1133, Eustace Fitz John relieved the monks of Fountains, when on the point of starvation, with a cart load of bread. He lived till the 3rd of Henry II., 1157, when he was slain in the wars in Wales; with this honourable distinction, "that he was a great and "Hunter's Deanery of Doncaster," vol. ii., p. 3. aged man, and one of the chiefest English peers, most eminent for his wealth and wisdom."* During the early part of the reign of Henry II. the ferme of Burc and Knaresburgh was accounted for annually by the sheriff of Yorkshire. In the second year of that king's reign the assized value was sixty pounds, as is proved by the pipe roll of that date. In 1159 the value was £64; but of this sum £19 were abated at the exchequer, by reason of the king's grant of lands and soke during that year, to Hugh de Morville, who at that time had custody of the castle, to which he fled, along with his associates in crime, after the murder of Thomas-a-Beckett, archbishop of Canterbury, in 1171. Though the posterity of Eustace Fitz John were not the custodians of the castle of Knaresborough, they did not lose all connection with the place, or were deprived of their lands there, as in the year 1219 the following mandate was issued by the king, relative thereto-"The King to Robert Lupus, greeting. We have commanded you to cause our beloved uncle W. Earl of Salisbury, or his certain messenger bringing these letters, to have seizin, without delay, of the lands and fees, with the appurtenances which were of Eustace de Vescy, in the confines of the castle of Knaresborough. The custody of such lands and heir we have committed to him, retaining in our hands the lands and fees which to the custody of the castle aforesaid pertains; and only act therein so that there may be no necessity for us to take the matter in hand." The probability is that this fee of Vescy were the lands of Gilbert Tyson inherited by that family. William de Vesey, son of Eustace Fitz John, by Beatrix, daughter and heiress of Ivo de Vescy, by Alda, daughter and heiress of William, son of Gilbert Tyson, died in 1185, leaving the second Eustace, who was one of the most active of the barons who opposed king John. When the barons, towards the close of that reign, invited the kings of Scotland and France to their assistance, Eustace de Vescy, attending the king of Scotland, making an attack on Barnard castle, then held by Hugh de Balliol, was there slain by an arrow. He left William, his son and heir, who had John and William de Vescy, in whom the direct line of this noble house became extinct in the reign of Edward I. That some of the lands of the Vescys were in Plumpton is proved by an Inquisition, held early in the reign of Henry III., on the death of Nigel de Plumpton, when it was found that he held in Plumpton, of the fee of William de Vescy, in demesnes, rents, villenages, and other issues from land, without the dowers of three Domine, the value of ten marks two shillings and threepence. In 1177, king Henry II. granted to William de Stutevill, and his heirs, the wardship of the castle of Knaresburgh, with the manors of Knaresburgh and Burgh, for the slender service of three knights' fees, as a reward for services done the king during the civil wars raised by prince Henry against his father. King Richard I., in the second year of his reign, exacted a fine of two thousand pounds from William de Stutevill, for permission to retain unmolested possession of Knaresborough and its dependencies.* From king John, William de Stutevill also sought a confirmation of his title, and readily obtained a ratification of his father's charter, dated at Guildford, April 22nd, 1199. Stutevill granted, in the first year of king John (1199), to Nigel de Plumpton and his heirs, for the usual services, and one horse of the value of one hundred shillings, all that portion or the forest within the bounds of Plumpton and Rudfarlington-that is to say, along the Crimple so far to the west as Osberne-stahe-bec (Starbeck), along that beck to Puddingstain Cross, thence to Harelow, thence by the great road to Bilton, thence to Stokke-brigg, thence to Holebeck, thence to the Nidd, and along the Nidd to Crimple; with permission for the said Nigel and his heirs to enclose and cultivate the lands within the aforesaid bounds; and also license to hunt the fox and hare throughout the whole Forest of Knaresborough, saving to the lord the royal beasts of chase, the stag, the hart, and the roebuck. These limits would include the whole of the district now "Pipe Roll," 2 Ric. I. + These boundaries are difficult of identification: that along Starbeck is sufficiently obvious; Puddingstone Cross has disappeared. Herelaw means Harrogate, and not the present hill called Harlow, to the west of Harrogate. Stokke-brig has been exchanged for Stone, wherever it was. Holbeck is a small brook, flowing from near Belmont farm, and falling into the Nidd on the north side of Thistle hill. known as the townships of Little Ribston and Plumpton; though much difficulty would be found in identifying the limits, when not formed by the streams of Starbeck, Crimple, and Nidd. He also alienated Blubberhouses to Robert le Forester and his heirs. William de Stutevill died in 1203, and was buried in Fountains Abbey, to which, for the right of sepulture, he had given all his lands in the vill. of Kirkby Ouseburn. Robert de Stutevill, son and heir of William, at the time of his father's death had not attained his majority; therefore, on the 11th of July, 1203, Hubert, archbishop of Canterbury, fined in the sum of 4,000 marks to have the wardship and marriage; when Robert assented to his keeping the inheritance in his hands four years, until he got his money again, or was indemnified his reasonable expenses. Neither the archbishop nor his ward lived over the term, and on the 7th of king John, August 5th, 1205, Nicholas de Stutevill fined in the enormous sum of 10,000 marks, to have livery of the land of which his brother William had died seized, as his inheritance; except the Castle of Knaresborough, and Boroughbridge, which were to be retained in the king's hands until the whole sum was paid. On the 21st of December, 1204, the king issued a precept to the sheriff of Yorkshire, to cause the forest of "Cnarreburgh" to be restored to the Henry granted it to William de same entire to the archbishop.* state it was in when king The kings of the Norman race were extremely addicted to hunting; and in order to enlarge their forests were continually making encroachments on the property of their subjects, that at length it is believed they had one-eighth of the country in their possession as royal forests. This state of things could not continue for ever; the nobles were injured, as well as the peasants and farmers, and their combination wrung the Carta |