And this conclusion is confirmed by the fact that the king, while granting them, especially reserved the life interest of the Bishop of Salisbury and of two others—one of them, alas! a bishop's nephew—who must have acquired their rights since Regenbald's death.
This charter, apart from its contents, is of great interest from its mention of the place where and the time when it was granted, together with its list of witnesses. These were the two Archbishops, the Bishops of Salisbury, Winchester, Lincoln, Durham, Ely, Hereford, and Rochester: Robert 'de Sigillo', Robert de Ver, Miles of Gloucester, Robert d'Oilli, Hugh Bigot, Robert de Curci, Payne 'filius Johannis et Eustacio et Willelmo fratribus ejus, et Willelmo de Albini Britone'. The charter was granted 'apud Burnam in transfretatione mea anno incarnationis Domini MCXXXIII. regni vero mei XXXIII.'; and 'Burna', as I have elsewhere shown,[9] was Westbourne in Sussex, on the border of Hampshire, then in the king's hands by forfeiture and near the coast. Here therefore we see the king, when leaving England for the last time, surrounded by his prelates and ministers, and are enabled to say positively who were with him. I would note the predominance of the official class represented by the Bishops of Salisbury, Lincoln, and Ely, by the late chancellor, the Bishop of Durham, and by laymen who are found specially entrusted with administrative work. A long list of witnesses such as this is specially characteristic of the closing period of the reign,[10] and, of course, always possesses biographical value.[11]
Another English writ of the Conqueror, which may be profitably compared with that we have discussed, is found in one of the cartularies of Bury St Edmund's.[12] Its address, as rendered in the transcript, runs:
William [sic] kyng gret Ægelmær Bischop and Raulf Eorl and Nordman and ealle myne thegnaes on Sudfolke frendliche.
This writ is obviously previous to the deposition of Bishop Æthelmær in April, 1070, but how far previous it is not easy to say. 'Nordman' is clearly the sheriff of Suffolk, who appears in Domesday as 'Normannus Vicecomes' (II. 438). His name affords presumption, though not proof, that he was of English birth;[13] and as his Domesday holding consisted only of rights over two Ipswich burgesses (which he may have acquired during his shrievalty) he is hardly likely to have been one of the conquering race. Of the third official, Earl Ralf, we know a good deal. Mr Freeman was much puzzled by this 'somewhat mysterious person',[14] but eventually came to the conclusion that 'there were two Ralfs in Norfolk, father and son, the younger being the son of a Breton mother: the elder was staller under Edward and Earl under William'. The younger was the Earl of Norfolk (or 'of the East Angles'), who rebelled and was forfeited in 1075; the elder was that 'Rawulf' who, in the words of the chronicle, 'wæs Englisc and wæs geboren on Norðfolce'. Putting our evidence together, I lean strongly to the view that we have here, as in the case of Regenbald, a writ addressed to English authorities before Norfolk had passed into the hands of Norman authorities. Mr Freeman held that a passage in Domesday (II. 194), to which he had given much attention, should be read—'Hanc terram habuit A[rfastus] episcopus in tempore utrorumque [Radulforum]', and that therefore 'the elder Ralph was living as late as 1070, in which year the episcopate of Erfast begins'. But the context clearly shows that we should read 'A[ilmarus] episcopus', and that, therefore, the elder Ralf died before Æthelmær was deposed. Moreover, Norwich, we are specially told, was entrusted by the Conqueror to William fitz Osbern before his departure from England in March 1067. William was placed, some two years later, in charge of York castle, and we read in Mr Freeman's work that 'the man who now (autumn, 1069) commanded at Norwich, and who was already, or soon afterwards, invested with the East-Anglian Earldom, was the renegade native of the shire, Ralf of Wader'.[15] This, it will be seen, contradicts his own, and supports my reading of the Domesday passage quoted above. Everything therefore points to the 'Raulf Eorl' of our writ dying or being deposed shortly after the Conquest.
Before taking leave of this writ we may note that, dealing as it does with Suffolk, it is addressed to Earl Ralf as Earl, not merely of Norfolk, but of East Anglia. This is of some importance, because Mr Freeman wrote, speaking of the Regents appointed in 1067:
There was no longer to be an Earl of the West Saxons or an Earl of the East Angles.... Returning in this to earlier English practice, the Earl under William was to have the rule of a single shire only, or if two shires were ever set under one Earl they were at least not to be adjoining shires. The results of this change have been of the highest moment. (iv. 70.)
Yet on page 253, as we have seen, we read of 'the East Anglian Earldom', and on page 573 that the younger Ralph 'had received the Earldom of East Anglia'—Florence of Worcester distinctly terming him 'East-Anglorum comite'. Mr Freeman, indeed, was led by this passage to style him 'Earl of Norfolk or of the East Angles'.[16] I believe this latter style to be perfectly correct, and, as I have shown in my Geoffrey de Mandeville (p. 191), to apply even to the Bigod earldom in the days of Stephen.
The curious English writ that has suggested these considerations ought to be compared with a Latin one, also in favour of St Edmund's, on which I lighted in examining the 'Registrum Album' of the Abbey. It is one of those exceedingly rare documents that find their correlatives in Domesday. The words of the writ are these: