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1. Ranulf le Bretun and the Development of the Wardrobe Audit: March–August 1233

Ben Wild, who has recently joined the Fine Rolls Project to help map images of the documents, presents this month's fine concerning the important part played in the development of the processes of account between the Wardrobe and the Exchequer by the fall of Ranulf le Bretun in 1231 and its consequences. Ben is currently engaged in writing his doctoral thesis on the Wardrobe and Household of Henry III at King's under David Carpenter.

⁋1During the second week of September 1231 the king’s wardrobe keeper, Ranulf le Bretun, fell from power. ¹ His dismissal was a consequence of the loyalty and service he had shown to his patron, the Justiciar, Hubert de Burgh, whose political fortunes had nose-dived on account of his inability to provide sufficient money for Henry’s expedition to Poitou. This failure, twinned with other clashes with the king, made de Burgh a sitting duck for his long standing rival, Peter des Roches, who had returned to England in the summer buoyed by his glittering achievements in the Holy Land. The power struggle between these great Angevin ministers was fraught but at the end July 1232 Hubert de Burgh was stripped of his office and lands. ² Des Roches, who had vowed to remove the justiciar ‘if it cost him all he had’, was triumphant. ³ A small sequence of writs enrolled between March and August 1233 on the Fine Roll for regnal year thirty-two highlights the difficulties Bretun faced under the ascendant ‘Poitevin’ set, and, in particular, sheds light on the development of the exchequer’s audit of the king’s wardrobe account.

⁋2On 9 August 1233 the king ordered the Bishops of Chichester, London, Lincoln, Salisbury and Norwich, to take into their hands the first fruits of the ecclesiastical benefices belonging to Bretun for the forthcoming Autumn. ⁴ According to the writ, the king’s action was precipitated by the various debts which Bretun continued to owe, in particular for the £1000 fine that had been imposed at the time of his fall, and curiously, for his failure to render account for his time as king’s treasurer (et pro compoto suo quem Regi non reddidit de tempore quo fuit thesaurarius Regis), ‘treasurer’ being here an alternate name for the wardrobe’s custodian; Ranulf never held a position at the exchequer. ⁵ The justification recorded in the writ is puzzling on two counts. Firstly, it is strange that Bretun’s ‘failure’ to account for his time as wardrobe keeper would have suddenly become an issue nearly two years after his fall. Secondly, only five months prior to the issue of the August writ, in March, the king had reduced Bretun’s fine by 300 m. and offered terms of repayment: 100 m. per annum (50 m. payable at Easter and Michaelmas). Under the March writ Bretun was also to regain seisin of his some of his lands and chattels. ⁶ So what, then, had reignited the king’s displeasure with Bretun and prompted the August writ?

⁋3The apparent answer is that as much as the king may have been inclined to seek reconciliation with Bretun, the ‘Poitevin’ set, who had helped to bring about his downfall, and who had benefited from his absence, were not. The authority behind the August writ was Robert Passelewe, Peter de Rivallis’ deputy at the Exchequer, an accomplice in the scheme which had finally extinguished de Burgh’s light at court, and a recipient of some of Breton’s lands. ⁷ Rivallis was des Roches’ nephew, and had succeeded Breton as keeper of the wardrobe. ⁸ Both Passelewe and Rivallis, therefore, had reasons for keeping Breton down, and may have been concerned at the signs of a return to favour in the writ of March 1233. They may also have been inspired to move against him by the mounting tensions of August 1233 itself, a period when the regime was bracing to meet the challenge thrown down by Richard Marshal earl of Pembroke. ⁹ Perhaps they were also able to exploit Breton’s failure to pay the 50 m. instalment of his fine at Easter (3 April). Bretun’s failure to pay his debts was certainly mentioned in the August writ, where his failure to keep up with debts is portrayed in terms of non-observance of royal authority.

⁋4Whatever the reasons for the move against Breton, the mention of his failure to account for the wardrobe has a wider interest. The first wardrobe account to have been drawn up for Henry’s reign, indeed, the first wardrobe account to exist for any English monarch, covers the period 1224–27, roughly half of Walter of Brackley and Walter de Kirkham’s term as keepers. ¹⁰ The second wardrobe account was not submitted until May 1236 ¹¹ , and only from this date did it become an incumbent part of the wardrobe keeper’s duty to render account for his term in office at the Exchequer. The notion of ‘best practice’ was sometimes ignored if the king sought to spare a favourite from administrative trammels however. The seven-year gap between Exchequer audits has never been adequately explained. A solution can, I think, be provided from evidence within the first account itself, namely, that it was heard to support the testimony of the Fifteenth’s overseers, the bishops of Bath and Salisbury, who had presented their final accounts for the tax in January. The Fifteenth, a tax on movables, was levied to fund the reconquest of Poitou between 1225–26. ¹²

⁋5The reason for thinking the first wardrobe was an adjunct to the bishops’ accounts is twofold. Firstly, the wardrobe was heavily involved in the administration and collection of the Fifteenth. Wardrobe clerks acted as receivers, as they had done for the carucage of 1220, and helped set-up the Fifteenth’s specially appointed exchequers at London and Salisbury: £24 14s. 6½d. was paid to William de Castellis to cover a variety of costs that included the wages of four accountants, wax for sealing, and the purchase of a black cloth that was probably marked with columns of pence, shillings, and multiples of the pound, and used for the reckoning of sums. ¹³ Walter de Kirkham was also paid 30s. 6d. for providing 16 storage sacks. ¹⁴

⁋6Once collected, the wardrobe was responsible for disbursing much of the £37,900 levy. ¹⁵ To put the figure in context, the pipe roll for 1225 indicates annual crown revenue was in the region of £16,500. ¹⁶ The accounts of the bishops of Bath and Salisbury itemise every receipt and expense and show that approximately £11,874, or 32% of the total levy, passed through the wardrobe. ¹⁷ The bishops paid £1,900 (6% of the total levy) into the wardrobe to acquit the expenses of the king, which can be checked against the surviving wardrobe Receipt Roll for regnal year ten, 1225–26. ¹⁸ Redirecting the money in this way was permissible as long as the payment was considered as a loan and repaid. A further £2,407 11s. 8d. (6% of the total levy) was paid to Henry’s wardrobe clerks for them to buy provisions for the king’s brother, Richard, who was leading the campaign of reconquest: £500 was given to the tailor, William Scissor, to make robes, and £80 16s. 7d. was given to the purveyor, William of Haverhill, to buy jewels. ¹⁹ Much the larger part of the money, £7,566 13s. 4d. (20% of the total levy), was given to the king’s steward, Godfrey of Crowcombe, who carried it to Portsmouth for transportation to Gascony, normally acting in concert with an official of the exchequer. ²⁰

⁋7The second reason for thinking the 1227 wardrobe audit was connected to the Fifteenth is because the enrolled account is circumscribed. The curious length of the account, which terminates mid-way through Kirkham and Brackley’s term in office, coincides with the period over which the Fifteenth was collected and spent: the keepers’ account ends on 27 April 1227, approximately three months after the bishops had rendered their final accounts. ²¹ Furthermore, whilst the revenue and expense details for regnal year eight, the starting year of the account, are fully itemised, the majority of the payments for subsequent years are consolidated and only those from the Fifteenth are written in full. ²² The concern to make payments associated with the tax stand out suggests it is for this information that the wardrobe audit was primarily conceived. The account indicates that the audit involved a cursory review of the keepers’ other transactions but these were of secondary importance.

⁋8That there was no account for the next seven years, despite an enormous increase in wardrobe activity as a result of Henry’s expedition in Poitou ²³ , suggests the keepers’ account had been analysed as an expedient to help the Exchequer verify that the bishops’ accounts were accurate. This explains why Kirkham or Brackley were never brought to account for the remaining period of their keepership (1227–31). In 1227 it was therefore not a foregone conclusion that the Exchequer would continue to audit accounts of the wardrobe.

⁋9The August enrolment on the Fine Roll supports this reading in two ways. Firstly, if wardrobe keepers were regularly submitting their accounts to the Exchequer by 1231 the issue of Bretun’s non-compliance would have probably attracted comment much sooner. That it was mentioned two years after his fall and in connection with various miscellaneous debts suggests that Bretun’s opponents were looking to plant their own smoking gun to incriminate him. Through his new position at the Exchequer, Passelewe would have been ideally placed to know that no wardrobe account for Bretun’s term had been submitted. Secondly, the writ says the account had not been presented ‘to the king’. Whilst this detail was probably part of rhetoric to make Bretun’s conduct appear all the more grievous and treacherous, it would have only carried weight if true. In other words, the writ suggests the submission of accounts to the king, and not the Exchequer, was still the traditional method of conducting domestic audits in 1233. Mentioning the wardrobe account would also recall to mind the accusations of financial impropriety that had been raised against Bretun in 1231. ²⁴ Somebody as proficient in the art of scheming as Passelewe was probably also tapping into the burgeoning notion of consent and accountability, the bedrock on which Henry’s minority government had sought to build when Magna Carta was ratified in 1225.

⁋10It is therefore ironic that when des Roches and his satellites fell victim to court intrigues in 1234, one of Henry’s first concerns was to bring Rivallis to account for the offices he held. ²⁵ The very ideas that Passelewe had used to snare Bretun were thus turned against his erstwhile partner: the conjurer had become the clown. Rivallis was let off, a sign of Henry’s violent shifts of heart, but attitudes were clearly changing and individuals within the Exchequer, if not the king himself, were beginning to recognise the value of a regular system of account, particularly with regard to the wardrobe. The following year, in January 1235, Walter of Kirkham, who replaced Rivallis as keeper, submitted an amendment to his 1227 account, explaining how the closing debit had been disbursed. ²⁶ Normally, the arrears of one accounting period would be incorporated into the next wardrobe account, although of course in this case, there had been no account. And it was of course in May 1236 that Kirkham submitted the second wardrobe account.

⁋11Whilst it would be entirely wrong to attribute these changes to the machinations of one man, Passelewe’s writ of August 1233 is important for the snapshot it provides at an important juncture in the reign, when the king was emerging from his tutelage. Whilst Exchequer involvement in the audit of the wardrobe’s accounts had yet to begin, the attitudes that would give rise to this development were crystallising, and as the notion of accountability gained definition, the currents which would wash the Poitevins from power swelled. ²⁷

1.1. C 60/32, Fine Roll 17 Henry III (28 October 1232–27 October 1233), membrane 6.

1.1.1. 140

⁋1 For Ranulf and William Brito. The king has pardoned Ranulf Brito 300 m. of the £1000 by which he made fine with him for having his grace, and William Brito, his brother, 200 m. of the 1000 m. by which he similarly made fine with the king for having his grace, on condition that Ranulf is to render to the king 1200 m. and William 800 m. for the aforesaid fines, so that Ranulf is to render thereafter each year 100 m. and William 50 m. Ranulf is also to render 50 m. at Easter in the seventeenth year and William 25 m., and at Michaelmas in the same year Ranulf is to render 50 m. and William 25 m., and at Easter next following in the eighteenth year Ranulf is to render 50 m. and William 25 m., and thus from year to year Ranulf is to render 100 m. at the terms of Michaelmas and Easter, and William 50 m., until the fines will have been paid in full. It is to be known that, of the £100 which Ranulf and William paid at the Exchequer for this fine, £50 will be allowed to Ranulf in his fine and £50 to William in his fine. Order to the sheriff of Hertfordshire and Essex to cause them to have full seisin of all the lands and chattels of which they were disseised by order of the king. The same order to the sheriffs of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Sussex for Ranulf, and to the sheriffs of Kent, Essex, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire for William. [1-5 March 1233].

1.2. C 60/32, Fine Roll 17 Henry III (28 October 1232–27 October 1233), membrane 3.

1.2.1. 274

⁋1 Concerning the rents of Ranulf Brito. Order to the bishop of Chichester, asking that he is to cause the fruits of the ecclesiastical benefices of Ranulf Brito in his diocese of this coming autumn to be sequestrated [into his hand] and kept safely, until he will have an order from the king otherwise, for the debts that he owes to the king and for the fine that he made with the king and did not observe, and for his account that he did not render to the king for the time that he was the king's treasurer. By R. Passelewe. 9 August 1233.