¹ Ff. 67–88^v. On the Little Cowcher see Eng. Hist. Rev., li (1936), p. 614Google Scholar, where I dated it (wrongly) to Henry VIII. The ordinances are reproduced by permission of the Chancellor and Council of the Duchy. I wish to thank Dr. Godfrey Davis for his help and advice on the dating of the hands and the make-up of the Little Cowcher.

² On f. 34^v is an addition made in 1579. Early covers of the book, still preserved, belong to the latter part of the sixteenth century. The foliation is in part of that century, in part of the late seventeenth, but there have been earlier folio numbers subsequently erased or altered.

³ To f. 32^v; Hardy, W., Charters of the Duchy of Lancaster (London, 1845), p. 285Google Scholar. P.R.O. DL 10/386 is the original.

⁴ They are Hardy, Charters, pp. 141, 279, 151, 182Google Scholar and the chancellor's oath.

⁵ Hardy, , Charters, p. 326Google Scholar, 23 February 1475; repealed by Henry VII, 7 November 1485.

⁶ A confirmation of this comes from an early note on f. 32^v, about Edward IV's charter of confirmation in Latin, to the effect that the English version is at f. 45 (i.e. in the original foliation, now f. 49; 45 was evidently the earliest foliation before the book was rearranged). It was altered here to 46 by Benjamin Ayloffe, deputy keeper of the Duchy records in the late seventeenth century, and 46 was then correct: the difference in numbering being accounted for by the greater length of the repeal of Edward IV's feoffment (6 folios), which has been bound in place of the actual feoffment (4 folios and a blank folio). This note and many other such glosses seem to me to be in a hand of the time of Henry VII or Henry VIII, perhaps of the clerk of the council of the Duchy. Notes in the same hand appear in other Duchy records of the time. For the altering of the foliation see p. 1, n. 2.

⁷ Some half-dozen sixteenth- and seventeenth-century copies of the basic part of the Little Cowcher are extant. None has the inserted words correcting the heading to the repeal of the 1475 feoffment, yet all have the other sixteenth-century additions.

⁸ DL 25/3631. The book was perhaps the same as the ‘Boke of Actes of Parliament, a red-bordid booke’, that was lent to Richard Empson as attorney general of the Duchy in 1497, DL 5/3 f. 229^v, but the Little Cowcher was known in the early part of the sixteenth century as liber ordinacionum, DL 42/11 f. 73.

⁹ No such document under seal is now known.

¹⁰ Les Reports (London, 1688), f. 232Google Scholar; also in Coke, E., Institutes, Fourth Part (London, 1671), p. 209Google Scholar. The cause, between Hickes and Allott, concerned a reversionary lease and was heard several times under Edward VI, Mary and Elizabeth: it became the celebrated ‘great case of the Duchy’, fully reported by Plowden, E., The Commentaries or Reports (London, 1761), pp. 212–23Google Scholar. The pleadings are not extant.

¹¹ The proviso is first found in demises under the Duchy seal on 16 February 1445, DL 37/59/39. A small point that may have some significance is that all but one of the leases containing the proviso in this roll of leases of Henry VI's reign have si aliquis instead of si quis.

¹² Bodleian, Rawlinson MS. D 1086. At that date the Little Cowcher could not have been more than eighty years old.

¹³ The feoffees' interest ended about March 1442, but possession of the lands was not obtained until May 1443, Hardy, , Charters, p. 219Google Scholar, Somerville, R., History of the Duchy of Lancaster, i (London, 1953), p. 206Google Scholar. Note that the earliest Duchy use of the expression ‘particular receiver’ (cf. para. 51) seems to be in 1461, DL 37/30 m. 30.

¹⁴ 12 Edw. IV, C.4; Statutes of the Realm, (London, 1810–1828) ii, p. 436Google Scholar. Paras, 10 and 78 of the ordinances provide for a dispensing permission from the king, and it should be noted that Edward IV does not seem to have given dispensations, Dunham, W. H., Lord Hastings' Indentured Retainers (New Haven, 1955). p. 82.Google Scholar

¹⁵ For example, the ordinances incorporate, with some amendment, regulations in French made in 1417 for Duchy stewards, DL 42/7 f. 174. Similarly most of the provisions of the royal household ordinance of 1445 were incorporated in the later ordinance of 1478, Myers, A. R., Household of Edward IV (Manchester, 1959), p. 8Google Scholar; cf. incorporation of earlier ordinances for the Privy Council, Rotuli Parliamentorum, iv, p. 20, and v, p. 407.Google Scholar

¹⁶ The dates are 1416 (para. 14) and ‘days of Henry IV’, para. 68. The authority of Parliament in para. 73 is the parliamentary charter of 14 October 1399, and the statute relating to the carrying of arms (para. 78) is 20 Ric. II, c.1. Statutes of the Realm, ii, p. 93.Google Scholar

¹⁷ DL 28/6/1A; Somerville, History of the Duchy, i, p. 418.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Statutes of the Realm, ii. 426Google Scholar (1468), printed in Chrimes, S. B. and Brown, A. L., Select Documents of English Constitutional History (London, 1961), p. 329Google Scholar. The first Henry VII statute about livery and retainer is 3 Hen. VII c. 15 of 1487, Statutes of the Realm, ii. 522Google Scholar. In 1476 the Duchy Council was issuing orders against livery and retainer and prohibiting the carrying of arms; Somerville, History of the Duchy, i, pp. 225–6.Google Scholar

¹⁹ DL 5/3 ff. 152^v & 153: DL 37/62/43.

²⁰ DL 5/1 f. 42 and DL 42/19 f. 73 for 1480; Somerville, History of the Duchy, i, p. 217nGoogle Scholar for the others. The procedure for homage to the king in person was still in use about 1495, Prerogativa Regis, ed. Thorne, S. E., (New Haven, 1949), p. 63.Google Scholar

²¹ Statutes of the Realm, ii, p. 474Google Scholar. Detailed regulations in the terms of this statute were promulgated in 1501; Somerville, History of the Duchy, i, p. 270.Google Scholar

²² DL 5/2 f. 4.

²³ DL 42/130–2; DL 42/130 f. 73^v for a date after 1482. The clerk of the council was paid in 1481–2 for searching records at Kenilworth Castle to find the names of the military tenants, DL 28/5/11. Transcripts, DL 42/19 f. 120^v.

²⁴ DL 5/3 f. 51^v.

²⁵ DL 42/19 f. 58 and DL 5/1 f. 24^v; DL 42/20 f. 61.

²⁶ Para. 11. Progresses were made in 1474, 1476, 1478; Somerville, History of the Duchy, i. 250Google Scholar. Cf. Myers, A. R. in Trans. Hist. Soc. Lanes. & Chesh, cxv (1963), p. 1.Google Scholar

²⁷ DL 5/1. Bodleian, Rawlinson MS C 714 has B. Ayloffe's remarks on previous books. Another example of restating existing practice is in para. 72, giving the auditors power to make new rentals. This was in fact a continuing process, but the production of new rentals by commissioners had been put in hand in April 1480, DL 5/1 f. 28.

²⁸ DL 28/4/11, DL 28/5/2 f. 68. The particular receivers' year of account ended at Michaelmas; the receiver general's year was altered to Michaelmas between 1490 (John Rylands Library, Cha. 754) and 1498 (DL 28/6/1A). The ‘conciliar audit of land revenue’ is named as a Yorkist practice by Wolffe, B. P., The Royal Demesne in English History (London, 1971), p. 204.Google Scholar

²⁹ DL 42/19 ff. 50, 79, cf. para. 19. Further restatements of the old usage came in 1503 (DL 37/62 m. 54) and August 1508 (ibid., m. 71).

³⁰ Para 51; DL 37/8/52. The proportions given in that paragraph were reaffirmed in 1519 as those ‘Of old time used’, DL 42/95 f. 62.

³¹ DL 28/5/2 and ii.

³² Cf. Myers, A. R. in Trans. Hist. Soc. Lanes & Chesh., cxv (1963), p. 27nGoogle Scholar. A falling-off in revenue from the sessions was noted in 1498, DL 37/62 m. 31d.

³³ Wolffe, B. P., The Crown Lands 1461–1536 (London, 1970), p. 73Google Scholar, and The Royal Demesne in English History, pp. 200–206Google Scholar. Cf. Chrimes, S. B., Henry VII (London, 1972), p. 124.Google Scholar

³⁴ Printed in Chrimes, and Brown, , Select Documents of English Constitutional History, pp. 358–60Google Scholar and summarized and discussed by Wolffe, B. P., ‘The Management of English Royal Estates under the Yorkist Kings’, Eng. Hist. Rev., lxxi (1956), pp. 10, 21CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁵ Wolffe, , The Crown Lands p. 61Google Scholar

³⁶ Somerville, , History of the Duchy, i, pp. 243–55Google Scholar, Myers, , Household of Edward IV, p. 37.Google Scholar

³⁷ Oaths for the chancellor and the attorney were added in the sixteenth century and one for the auditors in the eighteenth.