34 THE END OF THE NORMAN January Huntingdon in any county or bailiwick should hold with the liberties of their predecessors. This declaration was to be read by the sheriffs in the county courts and was to be observed by the justice of the forests.^ The Proceedings against Earl John It was not long, however, before a comparison of the relative values of their shares, doubtless measured by a pecuniary standard, led the other co-heirs to cast envious eyes upon the county palatine. Possibly the position of John the earl, as lord of an imperium in imperio, enhanced its value, but it is more likely that it was the broad acres of Cheshire and the earl's revenues therefrom which caused the co-heirs to be reminded of one of the terms of the partition. For that, as they said, had been arranged in such a way that if it were found that any one of them was short of his fair share of the inheritance, the co-heir who had the more should make it up to the others out of his share. Therefore, because the earl had, as it now seemed to them, more than he ought to have got, D'Aubigny, William de Ferrers and his wife, and Ha wise de Quincy, the countess of Lincoln, sum- moned the earl to Northampton by writ de rationabili parte to explain coram Rege why he thus deprived them of their fair shares of the inheritance.^ The basis for their claims was to be arrived at, they said in their plea, after bringing into hotchpot what each had already got by virtue of the partition agreement, i.e. (as they said) Earl John held in tenancia the capitale messua- gium of Chester (that impartible portion of the inheritance in which the county was represented, no doubt, by Chester Castle), while D'Aubigny had Coventry and other land, the Ferrers Chart ley and other lands, and Hawise held Bolingbroke, &c., all in tenancia, and so they claimed that the earl should make up to them their deficiencies out of the county palatine. (The allegation that all the shares were in tenancia only and not permanent allotments seems in conflict with the facts, and must be regarded as a plea legally necessary to support the claim.) On the face of it the claim was not for money compensation but for actual lands, and the case would have involved the important •question (of which there will be much to say later), namely,
- - The charter roll is missing for this date. The charter is recited in the confirmation
to John de Hastings, as one of the heirs of a portion of the honour (Cal. of Charter Rolls, 12 July 1315).
- Bracton's Note Book, cases 1127 and 1213. Maitland found the former on Coram
Rege (Tower) [now Curia Regis] Roll, no. 5, m. 30 d (18-19 Hen. Ill), which covers Whitsuntide ( 1 1 June) 1234 to Whitsuntide 1235. The roll for the latter (21 Hen. Ill ) is not extant. The cases are noticed in Fitzherbert's Abridgement, svb Briefe, 881.
