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1. The fine of Nigel de Mowbray in March 1224, Magna Carta and Hubert de Burgh

One of perhaps the most important contributions to research on his reign to be made by the Henry III Fine Rolls Project is to reveal the role played by Magna Carta in English politics in the decades after its first issue by John in 1215. This article demonstrates that despite outward appearances the minority government, under the dedicated but grasping leadership of Hubert de Burgh, attempted to uphold its provisions even in its dealings with former rebels and their offspring. David Carpenter is a director on the Henry III Fine Rolls Project and is the international authority on the reign of Henry III. Celine Dignan read for the MA in Medieval History at King’s as a part-time student between 2006 and 2008.

⁋1In March 1224 Nigel de Mowbray made a remarkable fine with the minority government of King Henry III. It dealt with two issues. In the first place he agreed to pay £500 for his ‘relief’ and his succession to the inheritance which had fallen to him by the recent death of his father, the great northern baron and enemy of King John, William de Mowbray. Since chapter 2 of Magna Carta in 1215 had limited the ‘relief’ (the inheritance payment) of a baron to £100, Nigel was here paying five times over the odds, seemingly a grievous breach of the Charter, and a return to the bad old days of King John where charges had sometimes reached thousands of pounds. ¹ The second issue covered in the fine was that of the debts which his father owed the king. These amounted to no less than £1476, a sum, so it was said, that William had agreed to liquidate at the rate of £20 a year. Under the new arrangement in Nigel’s fine, this debt was now amalgamated with the £500 relief to make a grand total of £1976, which was to be paid off at £80 a year. ² It was completely standard for debts to be passed on with inheritances; nor were terms of £80 a year unreasonable for a newly incurred £500 fine. But after that Nigel would find himself paying off the £1476 balance of old debts at a rate four times worse than that enjoyed by his father. What seemingly made this the more grievous was that a large slice of these debts were highly contentious in their origins. Some £415 came from those which William de Mowbray had owed the Jews. Another £642 represented the remains of the great fine of £1333 (2000 marks) William had been forced to make early in John’s reign ‘to be treated justly and according to the custom of England’ in a great lawsuit against his fellow northern baron, William de Stuteville. ³ This was just the kind of fine targeted by chapter 40 of Magna Carta 1215 which forbad the denial, delay or sale of right or justice. In extracting the fine of March 1224 from Nigel de Mowbray was the minority government of Henry III then flying in the face of the Charter, blatantly so when it came to the relief, in spirit when it came to extracting money from a fine which, according to the Charter, should never have been made in the first place? In examining these questions in this Fine of the Month, we will suggest that the government was less in breach of the Charter and more measured in its conduct than first appears. The whole episode also sheds light on the public and private policies of the head of the minority government, the justiciar, Hubert de Burgh. ⁴

⁋2A word first about the Mowbrays. ⁵ They were lords of Thirsk and Kirkby Malzeard in Yorkshire, of Melton (Melton Mowbray) in Leicestershire and of ‘the fertile and fenny isle of Axholme in the north-west corner of Lincolnshire’. ⁶ With numerous knightly tenants and lords also of Montbray in Normandy (whence the family name), they were amongst the greatest barons of the Anglo-Norman world. The position of the family was not easy, however. Early in Henry II’s reign, Roger de Mowbray had been forced into a disadvantageous settlement with the Stuteville family, in an attempt to buy off its longstanding claims to his inheritance. The losses incurred were a factor in Roger joining the 1173–1174 rebellion against Henry II, which led, as punishment, to the destruction of his castles. William de Mowbray himself succeeded in the 1190s and, perhaps because he was a hostage in Vienna for the payment of Richard’s ransom, was allowed to pay just £100 to inherit his lands, a concession which might seem to put the treatment of his son in even sharper perspective. ⁷ If, however, Mowbray, as small as a dwarf but generous and valiant according to one contemporary source, was in favour under Richard, he was not under King John. ⁸ At the start of the reign the Stutevilles revived their claims to the Mowbray inheritance, thus forcing William into the huge fine to be treated justly we have already mentioned. Whether the resulting settlement, which saw further losses to the Mowbray estate, amounted to justice in William’s eyes, we may doubt. ⁹ Nonetheless, from 1205, he found himself under increasing pressure to actually pay his £1333 debt. By the pipe roll for the financial year 1208–1209 he had cleared £173. He then contributed another £50 and was told to pay off the balance at the rate of £100 a year. It is a testimony to the exigent power of John’s government that down to 1212 (when payments ceased) William more than met these terms. By the pipe roll of 1211–1212 the debt was down to £642, William having cleared some £518 between the rolls of 1208–1209 and 1211–1212. Doubtless the strain of meeting these payments contributed to William’s massive debt to the Jews found later in royal hands. ¹⁰

⁋3William de Mowbray, therefore, exemplifies both the manipulation of justice and the financial extortion which lay at the heart of John’s tyrannous rule. ¹¹ Not surprisingly, he rebelled in 1215 and was one of the twenty-five barons empowered to enforce Magna Carta under its security clause. Is then the family’s history of rebellion, the reason for the harsh treatment of Nigel de Mowbray at the time of his succession in 1224? It is tempting to think so, yet probably mistaken for, as we will now see, it is far from clear that Nigel’s relief was in breach of the Charter.

⁋4The first and pre-eminent reason for thinking this lies in the political climate and culture during the minority of Henry III. ¹² The minority government had firmly committed itself to Magna Carta, issuing a new version at the start of the reign in 1216 and another, a year later, at the end of the civil war, this time linked with a new charter altogether dealing with the royal forest. In January 1223, little more than a year before Nigel’s fine, Henry had verbally confirmed the Charters at the behest of Archbishop Langton. In February 1225, less than a year after the fine, he issued their final and definitive versions. Within the Charter, no clause was more important to the barons than that limiting relief to £100, which was why, throughout all the versions, it maintained its place right at the start, second only to the first chapter on the church. What is more, it is probable that the clause was generally obeyed. This has always been the impression of historians and to that impression the fine rolls project will be able to give chapter and verse. ¹³ By using the search facility one can call up all the reliefs and all the fines for inheritances made between 1216 and 1234. The results of such a search are still being analysed but they do appear to confirm that a £100 relief for a barony and earldom and £5 for a knight’s fee was now fairly standard. ¹⁴ Against this background, it seems highly unlikely that the minority government would have singled out one of the greatest northern barons for exceptional and illegal treatment.

⁋5This is even more the case when one considers the immediate situation at the time the fine was made in March 1224. At the end of 1223, the justiciar Hubert de Burgh, the head of royal government since 1219, had removed some of the restrictions on the king (now sixteen) and used his new authority to gain control of the sheriffdoms and royal castles, in the process ejecting his enemies from local office. The tensions which resulted culminated in June 1224 in the rebellion of Falkes de Bréauté. This was hardly the moment for Hubert to alienate a great northern baron and indeed the baronage in general through blatantly breaching Magna Carta. Indeed, it is far from clear he would even have had the power to do so. His success at the end of 1223 had depended on an alliance with Archbishop Langton, the great bastion of the Charter, and Langton, as a guarantee of lawful rule, had placed two bishops (those of Bath and Salisbury) as Hubert’s colleagues in control of central government. Indeed Langton and the bishops of Salisbury and Bath were all at Hubert’s side on 25 March, the day the fine was made. ¹⁵

⁋6When it came to prosecuting his private interests, Hubert might sail very close to the wind when it came to observing Magna Carta. A striking example is provided by the way he was later to treat Nigel de Mowbray’s widow, Matilda. ¹⁶ At this time, in 1224, however, it would seem far more likely that Hubert would have wished to please than punish Nigel de Mowbray. But how then to explain the fine? There is no certain answer to this question but one can be suggested, namely that Nigel was under age (under that is twenty-one) and was buying himself out of a period of royal wardship, as was sometimes allowed. ¹⁷ Unfortunately, there appears to be no evidence as to when Nigel was born, but it may be significant that his brother and heir, Roger, was still a minor in 1230 and did not attain his majority until 1241. ¹⁸ Roger, therefore, was born around 1220. Had Nigel been just twenty-one when he succeeded in 1224, there was a seventeen year gap between him and his brother. This is not impossible, of course, but if we suppose that Nigel was in his late teens, rather than twenty-one, that would make the difference a little less remarkable. ¹⁹ It would also fit with the lack of references to Nigel before his fine. Assuming this is right, then being allowed to succeed to his inheritance a few years early for a payment of £500 at £80 a year, given the likely value of the Mowbray estates, seems just the kind of favour one might expect in the circumstances of 1224. ²⁰

⁋7In all this, however, there was a stick as well as a carrot, which brings us to the second part of the fine. £80 a year may well have been reasonable terms for the payment of the £500, but, as we have seen, they were thereafter to continue until the rest of the Mowbray debts were discharged as well. Standing at £1476, that meant another nineteen years! A very substantial chunk would thus be taken every year out of Mowbray income. This might, of course, push Nigel into the ranks of those hostile to the government, but this was not the intention. Rather the aim was to keep Nigel in line, for he would know that if he behaved, there was a good prospect of the terms being modified or at least not being enforced. If on the other hand, he stepped out of line, there was a great weight above his head, ready to come crashing down. These arrangements have all the hallmarks of the justiciar, Hubert de Burgh, to whom we will now turn. Hubert, as we will see, had private as well as public reasons for keeping the Mowbrays under tabs.

⁋8It is very wrong to think of Hubert de Burgh as simply a hard nosed materialist. He believed deeply in his duty as justiciar to dispense justice and maintain the rights of the crown. If only for prudential reasons, he knew his rule must be broadly congruent with Magna Carta. He was a great patron of the Dominicans and believed absolutely in the direct intervention of God in everyday affairs. Yet, yes, he was also very much a man on the make, necessarily so since, unlike William Marshal, his fortunes had not been transformed by one great marriage. Until he could reap his richly deserved rewards from the crown (which was not until Henry III entered full power in 1227), he was very much in the business of acquiring property elsewhere, and William de Mowbray was one of his targets. William had been captured at the battle of Lincoln in 1217 and had become a prisoner of Hubert de Burgh. This must have been through some deal with William’s captor as Hubert was not present at the battle, and perhaps he already knew what he wanted as a ransom. This was the manor of Banstead in Surrey which, for his release, William conceded to Hubert in hereditary right, whereafter it became one of his principal residences and the place of his death. ²¹

⁋9This transaction established a relationship between Hubert and William (from whom he was to hold the manor), which was not entirely to William’s disadvantage. Far from trying to crush William under the weight of his debts, the pipe rolls show he paid in virtually nothing all the way down to his death in 1224. ²² Of course, this generosity only went so far. His great debt was not pardoned although it resulted from John’s unreasonable manipulation of justice, this in contrast with the later pardon given to the abbot of St. Albans, which Michael Clasby has discussed in his ‘The Abbot, the Royal Will and Magna Carta: the amercement of the Abbot of St. Albans for non-attendance at the common summons of the Yorkshire Forest Eyre in 1212’, the Fine of the Month for September 2009. As well as the debt remaining on the books, another was added to it, for when the Exchequer brought together William’s debts in the pipe roll of 1221–1222, it now produced for the first time the £415 he owed to the Jews. ²³ Yet while William still had large debts hanging over his head, he must have reflected how much better was his situation than between 1208 and 1212 when he had actually been made to pay up. There was also at least some excuse for his debts remaining un-cancelled. That owed to the Jews had presumably simply been transferred from the records of the Jewish Exchequer. That incurred through his great fine for justice in the Stuteville case had at least arisen from his own offer, unlike the debt of the abbot of St. Albans which derived from an imposition by John’s forest justices in which he had no say.

⁋10The same measured treatment can be detected in the fine William is said to have made to pay off his debts at £20 a year, although this does have some puzzling features. When the Exchequer brought together and totted up the debts of an individual, as it did with those of William de Mowbray in 1221–1222, it was usually the accompaniment or prelude to fixing terms for their repayment. That such terms were fixed is affirmed in Nigel’s fine of March 1224 which refers back to a fine William had made to pay off his debts at £20 a year. The Exchequer receipt roll for the Easter term actually records the sheriff of Yorkshire paying in £10 of William’s fine, which would be half the payment expected annually. ²⁴ Yet the fact is there is no record of William’s fine either on the fine rolls or the pipe rolls: in the pipe roll for 1221–1222 William’s debts were totalled and then left at that. ²⁵ Conceivably William’s fine was still a subject of negotiation with Hubert and nothing formal was put in writing about it before his death. If he was being pressurized to agree terms, that may have been because Hubert wanted to keep him under closer control. On the other hand, if it is true that William fined for these terms, then that implies they were in some part a concession to him, for which indeed he presumably offered some money. Perhaps, in an increasingly tense political atmosphere, William thought it was worth reaching an agreement about his debts for fear of getting something worse. Whatever the background, the key feature of the fine was that William was only to pay the debts off at £20 a year. However contentious some of those debts might have been, these were very favourable terms when compared to the £100 a year imposed on him by King John and the £80 a year soon to be shouldered by his son.

⁋11William de Mowbray’s death in 1224 rendered his agreement still born and placed Hubert in a new position. Assuming that Nigel was under age, his lands could be taken into the king’s hands until his majority, or, at any time before then, be granted to someone in return for a proffer of money, the amount depending on the amount of favour enjoyed by the bidder. When Nigel himself died without children in 1230, it was Hubert himself who fined for custody of his lands until the heir (his brother Roger) should come of age. ²⁶ It may well be that Hubert had already coveted the Mowbray wardship in 1224 but, shadowed as he was by Langton and the bishops, lacked the power to secure it. In that case, and here is another possible angle on Nigel’s fine, he may well have preferred Nigel’s succession to having to fend of rival bidders for the wardship. Nigel thus succeeded but saddled with a repayment schedule which, as we have seen, placed him very much in the government’s thrall. That the purpose was as much control as financial profit is shown by the outcome, for Nigel did not keep to the £80 a year payments. In the pipe roll of 1223–1224 the debt stood at £1976. In the roll of 1229–1230 it had come down to £1690. ²⁷ Nigel had thus cleared £286 at a rate of just under £48 a year. He had, however, confirmed his father’s grant of Banstead to Hubert and done the government good military service. ²⁸ He was at the siege of Bedford in 1224, and died on Henry III’s campaign overseas in 1230. ²⁹

⁋12The experiences of the Mowbrays exemplify several features of Hubert de Burgh’s policies. He was certainly out for himself and very ready to increase his landed estate at the expense of others. Yet, he was also careful not to go too far, and thus did not pressurize the Mowbrays, any more than he did other baronial families, to pay their debts. He was a master of give as well as take. Hubert was also careful to run the government broadly in conformity with Magna Carta. Several ‘Fines of the Month’ have shown this to have been the case for the general run of widows, even if it was less so when it came to Hubert’s treatment of Matilda de Mowbray. ³⁰ The same was probably true when it came to the vital issue of relief and here we have suggested that no breach of the Charter was involved in the payment accepted by Nigel de Mowbray. This is a subject, however, which requires more study and fortunately that is now possible through the search facility linked to the translation of the fine rolls on this website. Watch out for future Fines of the Month!

1.2. C 60/21, Fine Roll 8 Henry III (28 October 1223–27 October 1224), membrane

1.2.1. 117

⁋125 March. Westminster. Yorkshire. To the sheriff of Yorkshire. Nigel de Mowbray has made fine with the king by £500 for his relief and for having seisin of all lands and tenements of which William de Mowbray, his father, whose heir he is, was seised on the day he died and which fall to Nigel by inheritance. He is to render each year from Michaelmas in the eighth year £80 for those £500 and also for the debt that the king exacted from William, his father, by summons of the Exchequer, (by which William previously made fine to render £20 a year), ³¹ namely a moiety at the Exchequer of Michaelmas and the other moiety at the Exchequer of Easter, until he will have paid to the king the aforesaid £500 and, moreover, the aforesaid debt which his father owed to the king, in full. Order that, having accepted security from Nigel for rendering the aforesaid £500 and the aforesaid debt to the king, as aforesaid, he is to cause him to have full seisin without delay of all lands and tenements in his bailiwick, of which William was seised on the day he died and which fall to him by inheritance. Once he has accepted such security from him, he is to signify to the sheriffs of Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Kent by his letters that he has accepted such. He is also to cause the barons of the Exchequer to know upon his next account the names of the pledges by whom he has accepted security. If he has taken anything therefrom since he took his land into the king’s hand, he is to cause it to be rendered to him without delay. ³²