Note 14 — PART I TERRITORIAL STUDIES (continued 2)

Let us first dismiss from our minds the alleged fact as to Warwickshire. There is absolutely nothing to connect the Count of Meulan's tenant there with the Lincolnshire hero; indeed Mr Freeman admits in his appendix 'that the Hereward of these entries may be some other person' (p. 805). Legend had an excellent reason for ignoring this alleged 'fact' as had 'romances' for having 'perversely forgotten' to mention the deeds or the fate of William Malet in the Isle (Ibid., p. 473). We must also dismiss the 'fact'—'undoubted history' though it be (Ibid., p. 805)—of Hereward's 'banishment' at some time between 1062 and 1070. For the Survey gives no date; it merely speaks of 'die quâ aufugiit' (i. 376b), which phrase, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, must be referred to his escape from the 'Isle',14 when (1071) in the words of Florence, 'cum paucis evasit'. This at once explains the Domesday entry (ante, p. 160), for he would, of course, have forfeited his holding before that date.