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1. Maud de Caux and the custody of the forests of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire

David Crook, director of the project, sees in the New Year, by examining the struggles of Maud de Caux to regain the custody of the forests of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.

⁋1About 24 July 1220 Maud de Caux offered the king a fine of 80 marks for custody of the forests of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, excluding the royal demesne hays (CFR, 1219–20, no. 206), and including 50 marks which she had already offered for the same several years earlier, not long before 7 November 1217 (CFR, 1217–18, no. 3). These relatively mundane entries marked the end of a long period of 18 years during which Maud had sought to recover this, her hereditary office, passed down through her ancestors since it was created, probably by Henry I. It had been removed from her by King John after the death of her husband, the former royal chamberlain Ralph fitz Stephen, in 1202. Henry II had probably consented to, and possibly even arranged, their marriage, in order to place the forests in more secure hands than those of an heiress who may then have been under age. John had himself, as count of Mortain and holder of the two counties from 1189–1194 during his brother Richard I’s absence on crusade, confirmed the keepership of the forests to the couple and their heirs, but there were none, and evidently in 1202, now as king, he did not want to leave it in the hands of a widow who may not have wished to take a second husband. None of the previous holders of the office had been a single woman.

⁋2 For the remainder of John’s reign the forests were in the hands of temporary royal keepers, no doubt to Maud’s intense dissatisfaction. The king fell out with these officials on several occasions. In 1204 Richard de Lexington, possibly a bastard member of the same family, was given custody of the manor of Laxton, and the administration of the forest, except for the royal enclosures and park within it, which were administered by the sheriff of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. Richard held it on behalf of the king for three years. During this time Maud was given a royal gift of 10 marks from the income from her own land, which may have been particularly galling. ¹ In 1207, however, Lexington fell out of favour with John and the manor was taken away from him for maladministration of the forest. His chattels were sold for nearly £31, which he was later allowed to count towards the fine of 200 marks which he offered for the king’s benevolence, later reduced to 100 marks. ² The manor and forests were then administered by Brian de Lisle, a former household knight, as deputy to the chief forest justice, Hugh de Neville, from 1207 to 1215. ³ From 1210 onwards Robert of Lexington, Richard’s son, worked as Lisle’s clerk, beginning at about the point at which his father was restored to royal favour. ⁴

⁋3 Richard de Lexington fell foul of John again during the civil war of 1215–17. At Berwick on 17 January 1216 he fined 100 marks and two palfreys for the king’s benevolence, while on 1 January the men of Laxton offered £100, payable within eight days, to have peace and to prevent their houses from being burned. ⁵ It looks as though Richard had rebelled against the king, and that John consequently threatened to destroy the village when he arrived there on his way north, fresh from his capture of the rebel stronghold at Rochester; and that Richard, after fleeing north, thought better of his opposition to his royal master and submitted soon afterwards.

⁋4 The Caux custody of the forest and the family barony was only with some difficulty restored to Maud de Caux after John’s death and the end of the war in 1217. On 7 July 1217 Lisle was confirmed in the keeping of the forest of Nottinghamshire as before. ⁶ On 6 October that year Maud made a fine of 60 marks with the young king, Henry III, for restoration of the barony (CFR, 1216–17, no. 15), and arrangements were made for the payment terms. ⁷ Phillip Marc, sheriff of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, secure in the knowledge that the government needed him to retain control of the east midlands, which he supervised from his base at Nottingham castle, evidently did not withdraw his men from the forest. In April 1220 complaints were made about the number of his men there and the ‘grave exactions and oppressions’ they were making ⁸ , and by the summer of that year complaints were reaching the government and the papal legate, Pandulf. Meanwhile Marc held an enquiry of his own into the number of officials the king needed in the forest and reported his findings, but was sharply told not to trouble Maud de Caux, whose forestership was confirmed while Marc was ordered to withdraw his men. ⁹ Maud made a successful new fine of 80 marks for restoration of the custody as her hereditary right. ¹⁰

⁋5Immediately she began to act independently again, because not long afterwards she was involved in a conflict with the national forest administration. In November 1221 she had to be pardoned for replacing a forester without the assent of the chief justice of the forest, and for not making a regard of the forest when it was in her custody. ¹¹ After nearly two decades on the sidelines, the hereditary keeper of the forests of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire was at long last able to make her presence felt, and she continued to hold the office until her death in 1224, when it passed to her heirs, and remained in existence until 1287.

1.1. C 60/12 Fine Roll 4 Henry III (28 October 1219–27 October 1220), membrane 4

1.1.1. 206

⁋1To the sheriff of Nottinghamshire. Matilda de Caux has made fine with the king by 80 m. for having seisin of the custody of the forest of the counties of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, pertaining to her as of her inheritance, accounting in the same fine for 50 m., by which she previously made fine with the king for having seisin of the custody of the forest of the aforesaid counties of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, saving to the king the custody of his demesne hays in the aforesaid counties, namely so that she is to find pledges for the king for rendering the aforesaid 80 m. to the king at the terms which the king will assign to her, to be at Oxford on the morrow of St. Peter in Chains in the fourth year. Order to cause her to have full seisin without delay of such of the forests in the counties that are in his custody. Witness as above [Hubert de Burgh, justiciar of England].