Note 490 — Chapter II · THE REGENCY OF WILLIAM THE MARSHAL 1216–1219

The story of the siege of Newark in 1218 is prefaced by Roger of Wendover, vol. iv. pp. 34, 35, as follows: “Erant autem his diebus multi in Anglia quibus tempore belli praeteriti dulcissimum fuerat de rapinis vixisse, unde nunc post pacem denuntiatam et omnibus concessam non potuerunt manus a praeda cohibere; horum autem principales fuerunt incentores Willelmus comes Albemarliae, Falcasius cum suis castellanis, Robertus de Veteriponte, Brienus de Insula, Hugo de Baillul, Philippus Marci, et Robertus de Gaugi, cum aliis multis, qui castella quorundam episcoporum ac magnatum cum terris et possessionibus contra regis prohibitionem et illorum voluntatem detinere praesumpserunt eisdem; inter quos Robertus de Gaugi, post multas regis admonitiones, castellum de Newerc cum villa tota et pertinentiis, quae ad jus Hugonis Lincolniensis episcopi spectabant, ei reddere contradixit.” Mr. Turner (“Minority,” part II., Trans. Roy. Hist. Soc., 3rd ser. vol. i. pp. 221–222) has shown that not only up to this date, but for several years after, there is no evidence on this subject against Falkes, and that there is none whatever, at any date, against Brian de Lisle, Philip Marc, and Robert de Vipont. Hugh de Balliol really was contumacious, and so too, though as yet in a much lesser degree, was William of Aumale (ib. pp. 223, 237). It is quite clear that, as Mr. Turner says (p. 222), Roger’s account of the Newark affair was written some years after the occurrence, and that Roger “had in mind the events of the years 1224 and 1225 when he was writing of 1218.” A hint of this confusion lurks in a detail which seems to have escaped Mr. Turner’s notice. Roger, immediately before the passage quoted above, says that Henry kept Christmas, 1217 (1218, in Roger’s reckoning), at Northampton with Falkes. But as a matter of fact Henry kept that Christmas at Gloucester; see above, p. 91. Obviously Roger was confusing the Christmas of 1217 with that of 1223, the one which immediately preceded the redistribution of royal castles in 1224, and which Henry really did spend at Northampton, though not as Falkes’s guest.