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XI.—On the Lord Chancellors and Keepers of the Seal in the Reign of King John. By Edward Foss, Esq., F.S.A.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 June 2012
Extract
Scarcely two writers agree either in the names or the succession of the Lord Chancellors of the reign of King John. The earlier compilers of the list of those officers had to rely either on the historians, who were often mistaken, or on their own examination of original documents, which was necessarily limited and unsatisfactory. Since the publications issued by the Record Commission, and subsequently by royal authority, the means of arriving at correctness have been materially increased; and recent authors must be presumed to have used them. Much allowance is therefore to be made for the errors of the former, while the assertions of the latter become a fair subject of critical inquiry; the more especially in John's reign, most of the records of which have been published in extenso.
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- Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1847
References
page 86 note a Rot. Chart. 2 John, vol. i. p. 64.
page 86 note b Rymer's Fœd. New Ed. vol. i. p. 75.
page 87 note a Le Neve was evidently not aware that Simon Fitz-Robert, whom he introduces among the archdeacons of Wells, and Simon de Wells, Bishop of Chichester, were one and the same person. Godwin also, and Richardson his editor, in their account of the Bishop, omit all notice of the former name. There is no doubt, however, that they were identical. Two curious charters prove the name of the archdeacon to have been Simon filius Roberti. They are dated respectively the 7th and 22nd of February, 1201, and each of them grants him by that name, as Archdeacon of Wells, certain lands in Somersetshire, which had been estreated in consequence of the felony of Alice, the wife of Robert de Wattelai, in killing her husband, for which she was condemned and burnt. He afterwards became Provost of Beverley, and the fact that he was the Bishop of Chichester in question, appears from charters given under his hand, not only as Archdeacon of Wells and Provost of Beverley, (which he held together,) but immediately after his nomination as “elect of Chichester.” Possibly he was the son of the above-named Robert de Wattelai; and if so, the assumption of the new name of Simon de Wells, from his archdeaconry, according to the clerical practice then very common, might have been influenced by the tragical events recorded in the grants.—Rot. Chart. 2 John, vol. i. pp. 86, 88.
page 87 note b Rot. Chart. 1 John, vol. i. p. 40, and 6 John, p. 139.
page 89 note a I conceive that Adam de Essex was perhaps the Clericus or Magister Scriptorii, or more probably the Scriptor Rotuli Cancellariæ, and kept the duplicate of the Great Roll, called the Chancellor's Roll, of which a specimen, that of 3 John, has been published by the Commissioners of Public Records. Under an entry in the Patent Roll of 6 John, p. 52, the following memorandum appears:
“Non est in Rotulo A. de Essex quia oblit' est.”
page 90 note a Rot. Pat. 8 John, vol. i. p. 70.
page 90 note b Rot. Claus. 7 John, vol i. pp. 48, 49.
page 91 note a Rot. Pat. vol. i. pp. 74, 81, 82, 83, 86, 91.
page 91 note b Rot. Claus, 15 John, vol. i. p. 156.
page 91 note c Ibid. pp. 161, 162, 168. Rot. Pat. vol. i. p. 105, 108, 109, 111.
page 92 note a Rot. Pat. 15 John, m. 4.
page 92 note b Rot. Chart. 15 John, pp. 195, 196.
page 93 note a Rot. Claus. 15 John, vol. i. p. 160.
page 93 note b Ibid. 16 John, p. 168.
page 93 note c Rot. Pat. 18 John, vol. i. p. 198.