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1. Rolls and ransoms in the March of Wales

In this month’s article, Richard Cassidy, a doctoral student at King’s, demonstrates the full extent of both historical drama and bureaucratic activity behind seemingly insignificant entries in the Fine Rolls and traces the place of the Fine Rolls in government record-keeping.

⁋1In 1247, Guy de Brian offered 5 marks for a charter for a fair at his manor of Laugharne, in south-west Wales. In 1259, he was pardoned this fine. ¹ These two entries in the fine rolls appear quite routine and unremarkable. It is only in the records of the Exchequer that we discover why Guy’s fine was pardoned – a story of bloodshed, captivity and ransom on the wild Welsh frontier. The way in which the fine was recorded is also an interesting illustration of the Exchequer’s procedures.

⁋2The first Norman castle at Laugharne (also known as Tallacharn or Abercoran) was built in the first half of the twelfth century. It was captured and burned by Rhys ap Gruffydd in 1189, and rebuilt in the late twelfth century. It fell again in 1215 when Llywelyn ab Iorwerth overran south-west Wales, and was recovered and rebuilt in the 1220s. The de Brian family first become specifically linked to Laugharne with the fine of 1247. ²

⁋3The de Brians had been settled in Devon, as lords of Okehampton, since the twelfth century. This type of connection between the English and Welsh shores of the Bristol Channel was not uncommon. We will hear more later of two other examples: the fitz Martins of Cemais had lands in Somerset and Dorset; while Stephen Bauzan, constable of Carmarthen and Cardigan castles in the 1250s, came from a Devon knightly family. ³ Such families were often linked. Guy de Brian ‘s daughter Maud married Nicholas, the son and heir of Nicholas fitz Martin of Cemais. ⁴

⁋4The de Brians clearly had interests in Wales before 1247: when Guy de Brian succeeded his father William in 1244, the justiciar of south Wales was ordered to give him seisin of all the lands which William had held; in 1245, during the revolt of Dafydd ap Llywelyn, Guy was ordered to assist the earl of Gloucester in putting down the king’s enemies. ⁵ Guy de Brian also maintained his interests in Devon: in 1253, for instance, Guy was involved in a dispute with the sheriff of Devon over goods stolen from a Gascon merchant ship wrecked off Slapton; Guy was in Wales at the time, and had not ordered the goods to be taken. ⁶

⁋5When Guy fined to obtain a charter for a fair, no doubt he was trying to develop the commercial potential of his manor of Laugharne. The charter was duly enrolled, two days after the fine, granting him and his heirs a yearly fair at his manor, on the vigil, feast and morrow of St. Michael. ⁷ In the disturbed circumstances of the time, one wonders how successful the fair was. It is also noteworthy that Guy thought it necessary to obtain a charter. The March of Wales is usually thought of as virtually autonomous, with its own laws. Marcher lords made war, concluded peace, and dispensed justice without reference to English legal and institutional structures. ⁸ Nevertheless, several markets and fairs were set up in the March under the authority of a charter or writ from Henry III: in Cardigan, Deganwy, Kidwelly, Knighton, Montgomery and Welshpool as well as Laugharne. ⁹ In any event, just ten years after Guy received his charter, his town and his castle had been destroyed.

⁋6Following the death of Dafydd ap Llywelyn in 1246, Llywelyn ap Gruffydd had emerged as a dominant figure, first in Gwynedd in north Wales, then among the leaders of all the Welsh opposed to English rule. He forged an alliance with Maredudd ap Rhys Gryg of Deheubarth, in south Wales, and in late 1256 they began a series of successful campaigns, recovering much territory from English domination. Maredudd’s nephew Rhys Fychan, seeking to recover lands which he considered to be his inheritance, went over to the English side, and joined a major expeditionary force led by Stephen Bauzan, which advanced from Carmarthen into the Tywi valley. At a crucial point in the campaign, Rhys Fychan defected, leaving Bauzan to suffer a crushing defeat at Cymerau in June 1257. ¹⁰

⁋7Bauzan himself was killed, along with many others – the chroniclers talk of thousands. According to the Tewkesbury chronicle, one of the few survivors was Nicholas fitz Martin, who was taken captive. ¹¹ Guy de Brian was also taken prisoner, perhaps at Cymerau, or perhaps afterwards, when Welsh forces swept through the defenceless English settlements of south-west Wales. In the words of the Welsh chronicler: “And then the princes [Llywelyn ap Gruffydd and Maredudd ap Rhys] made for Dyfed. And they destroyed the castle of Abercorram [Laugharne] and Llanstephan and Arberth and Maenclochog, and they burned the towns.” ¹²

⁋8Bauzan’s forces had been drawn from the garrisons of the castles. Places like Laugharne could offer no effective resistance, and were burned. The Welsh princes also conquered the lands of Nicholas fitz Martin during June 1257. ¹³ Henry III retaliated with a short and ineffectual campaign in north Wales in the autumn of 1257, earning the usual scorn of Matthew Paris when he abandoned the war and came back to London for the feast of St. Edward: “Rex inglorius revertitur in Angliam”. ¹⁴ Henry was soon to face more pressing problems nearer home, with the outbreak of the baronial reform movement. He gave up plans for another campaign and agreed a truce with Llywelyn in June 1258.

⁋9Meanwhile, Guy de Brian and Nicholas fitz Martin were being held captive, and their captors were seeking a ransom. We do not know precisely when they were freed, but entries on the patent rolls refer to Nicholas on 16 October 1257 as being in prison, and to Guy on 19 June 1258 as having been released. ¹⁵ The English government, now in the hands of the baronial council, took three steps to help them pay the ransom. In Guy’s case, all three measures came after his release, presumably either as compensation for a ransom payment made from his own resources, or to help him pay his former captors after his release (implying that he had been released on credit).

⁋10The government’s first contribution was to request Nicholas’s and Guy’s tenants to pay the customary aid towards their lords’ ransom. This was one of the three aids which lords could traditionally require from their tenants, together with the aids for the marriage of a daughter and the knighting of a son. The first version of Magna Carta had attempted to regulate the aids demanded both by the king, and by lords from their tenants. Lords’ aids were to be reasonable, and to be granted by the king. ¹⁶ These chapters were dropped from the 1216 charter, as dubious matters which required further thought, and the subject did not re-appear in legislation until 1275. ¹⁷ Nevertheless, “the clause expunged from the charter seems practically to have fixed the law.” ¹⁸ Aids had to be reasonable, and lords could not collect them without the king’s writ, and the sheriff’s assistance. This writ was precisely what Guy and Nicholas received.

⁋11On 14 September 1257, Nicholas, described as taken in Wales and detained in prison by the enemy, was given letters requesting his tenants “to aid him copiously” for his deliverance. On 19 June 1258, Guy’s tenants were requested to “make him a competent aid to acquit his ransom”; Guy was then said to have been “lately taken prisoner in Wales in the king’s service and afterwards released by a grievous ransom”. ¹⁹

⁋12We do not know how grievous the ransom was, but it must have been considerable. The next assistance which Guy and Nicholas received was a grant of £100 each. On 29 October 1258, the magnates of the king’s council ordered this payment without delay, “of the king’s gift and special favour in aid of the payment of their ransoms in Wales, where they were captured in the king’s service and kept in prison.” ²⁰ The order is duly enrolled on the Exchequer liberate roll, and the payment is recorded on the issue roll. ²¹

⁋13The third form of assistance which Guy received was the pardon of his fine. This is not apparent from the fine roll, which simply records that on 17 July 1259 the king had pardoned him of the 5 mark fine he had made for the charter for a fair, and ordered the barons of the Exchequer to acquit him of the 5 marks. The explanation is in the memoranda rolls for Trinity term 1259:

⁋14 To the barons for Guy de Brian. The king pardoned Guy de Brian, on account of his ransom in the service of the king, of the 5 marks by which he had formerly made a fine with the king for having a fair in his manor of Talaghar’ … And the sheriff of Devon is ordered etc. ²²

⁋15The reference to the sheriff of Devon is a reminder of the way in which the bureaucracy of the Exchequer sought to use local authority and to keep up-to-date records in order to collect debts (and occasionally to pardon them). In the case of Marcher lords this must have been exceptionally difficult: there was no sheriff in the March to carry out the king’s instructions, and no mechanism for collecting debts; instead, debts had to be pursued through land holdings in England. Guy de Brian’s fine provides an example of the processes involved.

⁋16When Guy first offered the fine in 1247, and it was recorded on the fine roll, the originalia roll noted that “He has lands in Somerset.” ²³ This meant that the Exchequer would be told of the fine by means of the originalia roll, and the Exchequer in turn would notify the sheriff of Somerset that he should collect 5 marks from Guy de Brian. The information was also copied onto the pipe roll, under Somerset, first appearing in the roll for 1248/49. The Somerset account ends with the Nova oblata, the “new offerings” appearing in the roll for the first time, and other new debts, such as amercements from a forest eyre. The first of the Nova oblata is “Guy de Brian [space] 5 m. for having a fair.” ²⁴ Such spaces were often left in entries when the roll was being written; it should be filled with an indication either that Guy had accounted for that amount, or that he still owed it, but in his case, evidently, the debt had not been followed up. This is confirmed by the memoranda roll record of the accounting process when the sheriff came to the Exchequer in the following year, to report on 1248/49; Guy’s debt is not among those listed in the Somerset account. ²⁵

⁋17The next pipe roll, 1249/50, sees the previous year’s new entries moving higher up the Somerset account. Guy’s fine is the first entry in De oblatis, “Offerings”, which is followed by the forest eyre entries, and then by this year’s Nova oblata. The entry has been completed, to read “Guy de Brian owes 5 m. for having a fair.” ²⁶ The Exchequer is clearly taking action to recover the debt: the corresponding memoranda roll account for Somerset lists Guy’s debt, which has been marked “dis.” – the sheriff is ordered to distrain him, to obtain payment by seizing his goods. ²⁷

⁋18In fact, nothing happens, probably because there has been a bureaucratic mix-up; as we saw above, Guy’s estates were not in Somerset, but in Devon. It took a few years for the Exchequer to catch up. The pipe rolls for the next few years, up to 1252/53, continue to list Guy’s debt under Somerset, and the entry for the debt moves further up the running order; as old debts above it are paid off and removed, and new debts are added to the end of the account, first as Nova oblata, then under De oblatis, the remaining debts are copied from year to year into the central part of the account. This is a long list of debts, some going back many years, broken up by headings such as that for the forest eyre, which also move up the list. ²⁸

⁋19Eventually, the Exchequer realised its mistake. The memoranda roll for 1252/53 records Guy’s debt in the Somerset account, with a marginal note to move the debt to Devon. ²⁹ This change appears in the next year’s pipe roll, for 1253/54. The record of the debt appears in the Somerset account as in previous years, in the long list of debts, just above the heading for the forest eyre, but a note has been added in a smaller hand: “But he answers in Devon”. And at the very end of the Devon account, after the Nova oblata and the other new items for the year, such as the aid for knighting the king’s son, there is Guy de Brian and 5 m. for having a fair, “which was required in Somerset.” ³⁰

⁋20The debt then again goes through the process of being copied from one year’s roll to the next, gradually moving up the Devon account. In 1254/55 it is the last entry under De oblatis, with the note that the debt had been contained in the previous roll. ³¹ Next year, it moves up again, as the last entry in the general list of debts, immediately above De oblatis, and in 1256/57 it is further above that heading, together with other debts which originated in the 1253/54 roll, pushed up by newer debts coming in at the end. In both the 1256 and 1257 rolls, there is a note that the debt was contained in the roll for 1253/54. ³² There is no Devon account in 1257/58, and in 1258/59 Guy’s debt makes it final appearance in the pipe roll, as the pardon has arrived:

⁋21Guy de Brian accounts for 5 m. for having a fair. In the Treasury, nothing. And in a pardon to the same G., 5 m. by writ of the king. And he is quit. ³³

⁋22This process of debt arriving at the end of a county account, and moving up the list as the years pass, can be seen over and over again. It is plain that entries were copied from one year’s roll to the next, after eliminating those debts which had been paid or pardoned, remaining in roughly the same order. The chain of entries could be traced backwards through the years, with notes to show when a debt had been transferred between counties. There was thus a laborious but effective mechanism for checking the origins of debts, and ensuring that debts were not forgotten (or summoned after they had been pardoned). ³⁴

⁋23The process of checking and pursuing debts can also be traced in the memoranda rolls. But in this case, after the debt was moved to Devon, the Devon accounts only mention it once, in 1255/56, although it is not then marked up with instructions for the debt to be collected. ³⁵ There is only the pardon in 1258/59, mentioned above, and a final note in the Devon account for 1259/60, that the king has pardoned the debt by a writ of allocate. ³⁶

⁋24After his release from captivity, Guy returned to active service in south-west Wales, on behalf of the baronial administration. In October 1258, Carmarthen castle was committed to him, nominally by Edward the king’s son, by counsel of the king and magnates. ³⁷ In 1263, he received protection for a year in Ireland. And during the period of de Montfort’s supremacy, between the battles of Lewes and Evesham, Guy again commanded major strongholds. In September 1264, the barons of the council committed Edward’s castles of Cardigan and Carmarthen to him. They were committed to Guy again, in March 1265, together with Kilgerran, in Pembrokeshire, which was to be delivered to him by his former fellow-captive, Nicholas fitz Martin. ³⁸ Despite this, Guy continued to serve the king after de Montfort’s defeat, being among those ordered to carry out the arrangements for a peace treaty with Llywelyn in south Wales in 1267. ³⁹ The town of Laugharne made a slow recovery from its burning, and was granted a charter in 1278–82. And, of course, Guy rebuilt Laugharne castle yet again. ⁴⁰

1.2. C 60/56, Fine Roll 16 Henry III (28 October 1258–27 October 1259), membrane 5

1.2.1. 577

⁋1 Pro Guidone de Brion’. Rex pardonavit Guidoni de Brion’ quinque marcas argenti per quas dudum finem fecit cum Rege pro carta Regis de feria apud manerium suum de Talaghar’ habenda. Et mandatum est Baronibus de Scaccario quod predictum Guidonem de predictis v marcis quietum esse faciant. Teste Rege apud Westm’ xvij die Julij. ⁴¹

⁋2 For Guy de Brian. The king has pardoned Guy de Brian the five silver marks by which he once fined with the king to have the king’s charter for a fair at his manor of Talaghar’ [Laugharne]. And the barons of the Exchequer are ordered to acquit the said Guy of the said five marks. Witness the king at Westminster, 17 July.