46 THE END OF THE NORMAN January terra sua gaudebat regali praerogativa, comitatus eius ad manus regis devenit datis aliis terris Meredibus sororibus suis in com- pensationem ne tarn praeclara dominatio inter colos feminarum dividi contingeretA Camden purports to give the king's very words : Rex . . . tarn lauto patrimonio ocidum adiiciens, domanio regio adscripsit lohannisque sororibus alios alibi reditu^ assignavit ve {ut ipse Rex dixit) tdnia Jiaereditas inter colos diduceretur .^ Fifty years later the descendants of the sisters of Earl John who, or whose representatives, contested the Chester case, again entered the lists, but this time for a higher dignity than an earldom, the throne of Scotland.^ The three claimants who seriously pressed their claims as co-heirs of David earl of Hunting- don, the brother of William king of Scotland, were: (1) John Balliol, son of Devorgild de Balliol ; (2) Sir Robert de Bruce, son of Isobel de Bruce ; and (3) John Hastings, grandson of Ada de Hastings. Of these Balliol represented the eldest daughter (Margaret) and John Hastings the youngest, while Bruce, son of the second daughter, was a generation nearer to the parent stock. If there had been a direct representative of Christiana, wife of William de Forz, he would have had a stronger claim to the throne of Scotland than Balliol, as descended from the elder daughter of Margaret. But she had died without issue, and her rights had vested in Balliol as husband of her sister. The contest, as all know, ended in favour of Balliol, whose claim through the elder daughter was preferred against that of Bruce, though the latter was nearer in blood but through a yoimger daughter. Hastings' claim was thus also disposed of, but he and Bruce then set up a new one, that the inheritance, the lands, of the king of Scotland were partible, in accordance with the common law both of England and Scotland, among the repre- sentatives of female co-heirs. It does not directly appear on the pleadings that the decision in the earldom of Chester case (that the lands of an earldom (in England) were partible) was referred to, but there are passages which certainly suggest that the claimants relied on it. Hastings urges that even if the land of Scotland be called a kingdom, the land in itself is nothing else but a lordship or an honour, such as Wales or the earldom (te Counte) of Chester or the bishopric of Durham, and so partible, and he therefore claimed a third part or an allowance therefor. » Higden, Polychronicon (Rolls Series), viiL 210 ; Chronicon H. Knighton (Rolls Series), i. 212 ; Dugdale, Baronage (1675), i. 45.
- Britannia, ed. 1607, p. 464. Earlier editions give {ut inquiunl noatri). He
quotes from ' lo. Tilius ', John Tillet in the edition in English. Mr. James Tait baa kindly identified him for me as Jean de Tillet, registrar of the parlement of Paris (d. 1570), and suggests the references are probably to his Commentariorutn et Diaquisi- tionumde rebus Gallicis libri 2, Frankfort, 1579 and 1596. I have not verified this. » See AntuUea Regni Scotiae, in Chronica W. Rishanger, die. (Rolls Series).
