such a scandal in his court, where his cousin the countess was living, and at Lincoln, February 20, 1316, consented to a sort of compromise, allowing Maud's suit of divorce to be commenced afresh, on condition that all previous proceedings before the Archdeacon of Norfolk should be annulled, and that, if the Countess Joanna should do nothing to delay final sentence or to appeal from it, all her costs should be paid, and the earl would grant her 740 marks a year for her life, secured on his Lincolnshire estates. (Rot, Pat. p.2, m.32, original MS, in French.)
Aymon de Juvenzano was appointed by the king to carry on this suit, and was paid xivli. ivs, for his expenses, and this arrangement seems to have been carried out by the consent of all parties. A species of legal separation, a mensa et thoro, was thus at least effected, though Joanna never lost her title as Countess de Warenne; and after surrendering his estates to the king, and receiving them back by a fresh grant, the earl was enabled, on August 4, 1316, to settle Coningsburgh and his Yorkshire estates on Maud de Nereford, and her sons John and Thomas in succession. As early as Nov. 20, 1312 (60 Edward II), "John de Nerford, Thomas, son frère,"[1] appear as witnesses to the earl's grant of some tithes in Norfolk to Lewes Priory (Chartulary, f. 32). If these were Maud's sons, they must have been infants. There is no record of any complete divorce, however, and that none took place is proved by Earl John's charter, confirmatory of the grants to Lewes Priory, to which her assent had been carefully procured many years later. It is dated from his castle at Lewes, on the last day of May, 1331, and decorously alleges one of the motives of his grant to be "for his own soul and that of the Countess Joanna de Baar, his consort." Among the seals of the witnesses are expressly recorded those of "the Lady Joanna de Barr, Countess de Warenne, William her chaplain, and of Richard Russell, who, by direction of the lord the earl, wrote this charter, and saw all the above-placed seals affixed." (MS, Chartulary, Vespas, xv. F.f, 36.)
- ↑ These names frequently occur in the earl's grants as "sons of Matilda," but in a grant to the priory of Thetford, in 1315, they are described as "puerorum nostrorum." Watson, volume ii, p. 56. The name is found variously spelt as Nerford, Nereford, Neirford, Neyrford, in documents even of the name date.
