Note 37 — PART II HISTORICAL STUDIES

It may be well here to allude to a still more remarkable commission, some twenty years later, namely in 1096, when William Rufus sent 'in quadragesima optimates suos in Devenesiram et in Cornubiam et Exoniam, Walcalinum, videlicet, Wyntonensem episcopum, Randulphum regalem capellanum, Willelmum Capram, Hardinum Belnothi filium (i.e. Elnoth or Eadnoth; see Greenfield's De Meriet pedigree, p. 6) ad investiganda regalia placita. Quibus in placitis calumpniati sunt cuidam [sic] mansioni abbacie Taviensis,' etc. (Tavistock cartulary in Mon. Ang., ii. 497). This eyre cannot be generally known, for Mr T. A. Archer, in his elaborate biography of Ranulf Flambard, does not mention it. The association of Bishop Walkelin with Ranulf is specially interesting because they are stated to have been left by the king next year (1097) as joint regents of the realm. The name, I may add, of 'Willelmus filius Baldwini' among those to whom the consequent charter is addressed (Mon. Ang., ii. 497), is of considerable importance, because it is clearly that of the sheriff of Devon, and is proof therefore that Baldwin the sheriff (Baldwin, son of Count Gilbert) had left a son William, who had succeeded to his shrievalty by 1096, and who was in turn succeeded by his brother, Richard fitz Baldwin, sheriff under Henry I.