DOMESTIC
CHAPTER XIX
RETINUES
At the conclusion of the previous section allusion was made to retinues as constituting a danger to the industrious members of the body politic. In this, our final section, we turn, or rather return, from the life of the fields to that of the hall. Some notice of the interior order of great houses has appeared in earlier chapters—e.g., that on "Children of the Chapel"—but such special reference, involving no more than the religious side of domestic arrangements, leaves a sense of incompleteness, and this void we must now proceed to fill.
Starting with the peril and annoyance involved in the maintenance of retinues, the proposition may be easily demonstrated. Alike in town and country the presence of armed and idle ruffians was a source of well-grounded apprehension. Thus, when the Bishop of Durham attended parliament, he had to obtain a licence before his retainers could be quartered at Stratford-at-Bow; and the manifold inconveniences produced by these satellites in country districts during the reign of Edward I. form the subject of a versified complaint, to be found in Wright's 'Political Songs'. One of the causes of the grievous scarcity of labour is believed to have been that nobles and others, under the pretence of husbandry, kept in their pay able-bodied dependants who, rather than eke out a miserable existence on the land, preferred to follow some warlike lord.
Billeting
As usual, the trouble began at the fountain-head. Everybody knows the term "billeting" as applied to soldiers on the march, who are compulsorily quartered on licensed victuallers and others at fixed rates. This is really a very ancient custom, which is closely, and indeed lineally, connected with the topic under discussion.
In the early days of royal progresses it was the duty of the Marshal of the King's Household to secure lodgings for the members of the retinue which accompanied him; and this he did by means of a billet, by virtue of which he appropriated for the occasion the best of the houses in the vicinity, marking them with chalk and ruthlessly ejecting the occupiers. The Marshal, it may be observed, did not do the chalking himself—a task which seems to have been delegated to the Sergeant Chamberlain of the Household.
Even London did not escape this intolerable vexation, though its immunity from billeting was expressly laid down in a succession of charters. The royal officials, paying scant heed to the sanctity of these clauses, repeatedly invaded the precincts of the City; and in the reign of Edward II. they went so far as to seize the house of one of the sheriffs, John de Caustone, and quarter therein the King's Secretary, sergeants, horses, and harness. The sheriff acted boldly. He erased the chalk marks, and proceeded to expel the intrusive sergeants—perhaps even the Secretary himself, unless, as Mr. Riley thinks probable, that person "walked quietly away." For this resolute vindication of the liberties of the City, Caustone had to answer before the Seneschal and Marshal of the King's Household, sitting in the Tower, but, as there was no excuse for the insolent aggression, he suffered no harm. The citizens, indeed, were so assured of their rights in this particular, that at some date—probably in the reign of Edward I.—an ordinance had been passed: