THE END.
APPENDIX.
[i.—“Eldest daughters,” page [16].] This custom was not clear among the Normans. In one well-known case at least, the younger sisters were made Abbesses or otherwise disposed of, and the eldest made by the Norman law sole heir. Mabile, eldest daughter of Robert Fitzhaymo, was heir of all his lands, and King Henry I. wished to marry her to his illegitimate son Robert. This she long withstood, giving as her reason that she would not have a man for her husband that had not two names. When the King remedied that by calling his son Fitz Roy, she said, “That is a fair name as long as he shall live, but what of his son and his descendants?” The King then offered to make him Earl of Gloucester. “Sir,” quoth the maiden, “then I like this well; on these terms I consent that all my lands shall be his” (Robert of Gloucester’s “Brut,” and Seyers’ “Memoirs of Bristol,” p. 353).]
[ii.—“The Countess Lucy,” page [51].] It is accepted that Anglo-Saxon Earls had only official dignity which was not hereditary. But the inheritance of the lands generally carried the other privileges. Lucy was certainly made Countess of Chester by her third husband, but in some authorities she is entitled Countess of Bolingbroke, as in her own right. In Selby’s “Genealogist,” 1889, there is a long discussion on the point, Who was the Countess Lucy? She is ordinarily considered the grand-daughter of Leofric, Earl of Mercia (who died in 1057), and of his wife the famous Lady Godiva, who survived the Conquest. Their son Alfgar, Earl of Mercia, twice rebelled against the Confessor, and died in 1059. Lucy’s two brothers were Edwin, Earl of Mercia, and Morcar, Earl of Northumbria; her sister Edgiva married first, Griffith of Wales, and second, King Harold. Edwin and Morcar were almost the only English nobles permitted by the Conqueror to retain their lands. Lucy inherited much from her father, probably with the Saxon privilege of the “youngest born,” and afterwards more from her brothers. She married three Norman husbands, with whom she held the position of a great heiress. This is the view Dugdale takes. Others imagine, from her longevity, there must have been two Lucys. The writer in “The Genealogist” thinks, with good reason, that this Lucy was not the daughter of Alfgar, but the only daughter and heiress of Thorold, the Sheriff of Lincoln.]
[iii.—“Women’s service,” page [63].] “Margeria de Cauz has the gift of the lands of Landford, held by the Serjeanty of keeping the Falcons of our Lord the King” (Berkshire Survey. Testa de Neville. Ed. III.)
Many other women are entered as performing military service, or paying other duties.]
[iv.—“Women’s Guilds,” page [83].] Ed. III. imposed limitations upon men’s labour, but leaves women the privilege to work free. “Mais l’intention du roi et de son conseil est que femmes cestassavoir brasceresces, pesteresces, texteresces, fileresces, et œvresces si bien de layne come de leinge toille, et de soye, brandestesters, pyneresces de layne et totes autres que usent œveront œveraynes manuels puissent user et œverer franchement come els ont fait avant ces hures sanz mal empeschementou estre restreint par ceste ordeignance.” (Rot. Parl., 37 Ed. III., c. 6.) This is important in relation to modern legislation about women’s freedom to labour.]
[v.—“Free Kent,” page [91].]
“Oh, noble Kent, quoth he, this praise doth thee belong,