Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 4.djvu/683

APPENDIX H 665 The Descent of Earldoms and Female Succession thereto The territorial magnates described as Earls were originally, as we have seen, barons bearing a name of dignity, as it is called in modern phrase, which carried the tradition of office — a tradition rapidly becoming obsolete at the time when we first get documentary evidence of how earls were created. When any question as to succession arises, we do not find the heirs disputing about the right to the title; what chiefly concerns them is the disposition of the estates, and the tendency always was for the title to go the same way. The descent of the Earldom of Essex furnishes a clear and early example of an earldom following the lands, and it also illustrates the uncertainty' attending the succession owing to the arbitrary power of the Sovereign. J. H. Round, in his Ancient Charters, prints a charter of Richard I (23 Jan. 1 191) confirming to "Geoffrey fitz Piers and Beatrice his wife, as rightful and next heirs of all the land of Earl William de Mandeville, which was hers by hereditary right." The facts are set out by him in his note to this charter. This charter represents the termination of the contest for the Mandeville inheritance which ensued on the death of William de Mandeville, Earl of Essex (14 Nov. 1 1 89). The Earl's aunt, Beatrice, widow of William de Say, claimed to be his heir, and sent her younger but only surviving son, Geoffrey de Say, to the King, as her representative, to assert her rights. Geoffrey, accompanied by the knights of the Barony and the Prior of Walden with two of his monks, overtook the King at Canterbury, on his way to the coast (at the end of November, 1 189). Here he found Geoffrey fitz Piers, who had married his elder brother's elder daughter and coheir and who now claimed for himself, in her right, the Barony ("quam vice uxoris sue hsreditario jure sibi vendicavit "). He had just been appointed Justiciar by Richard, and proved a formidable opponent. Geoffrey de Say rashly offered the King the enormous sum of 7,000 marcs for possession of the Barony; his bid was accepted, and he obtained his charter, on giving security for the payment of the sum promised. Falling in arrear, however, with his instalments, he resigned the Barony into Longchamp's hands until he should be in a position to pay. On this, Geoffrey fitz Piers addressed himself at once to the Chancellor, and offered to pay the money which his rival had failed to produce. Longchamp agreed to accept the offer, and the future Earl of Essex was placed in possession of the Barony. Such is the story told by the monks of Walden Priory {Monasticon, iv, 139, 145), and it well illustrates the hard bargaining which characterised the opening of Richard's reign. It is in perfect accordance with this charter, by which the trans- action was closed, and explains the lapse of more than a year between Earl William's death and the grant. Another difficulty had to be surmounted by Geoffrey fitz Piers and his wife. Though only the influence, with Richard, of money could have enabled Geoffrey de Say to succeed in his claim, the assertion of Geoffrey fitz Piers that his wife was the rightful heir strangely ignores a third party, her younger sister and coheir, Maud. The two sisters and their respective husbands had agreed to a division of the Say inheritance, which had been confirmed by Henry II, but beyond the reservation to