There is some doubt and difficulty as to another charter. Foss believed that Waldric was the 'Walterus Cancellarius' who is found in a charter to Tewkesbury of '1106'.[1] This charter is printed in the Monasticon (ii. 66) from an Inspeximus temp. Henry IV. There is, however, a better Inspeximus on the Charter Roll of 28 Edward I[2] (No. 16), in which the name is clearly Waldric. But the difficulty is that the same Inspeximus contains another version of this charter (No. 2), with a fuller list of witnesses.[3] I have examined the roll for myself, and there is no doubt as to the date, for the clause runs:
Facta est hec carta Anno.... ab incarnacione domini Mo centesimo viio apud Wintoniam.
The other version, in the body of the charter, contains the words, 'Anno Dominicæ Incarnationis millesimo centesimo sexto apud Wintoniam'. I have always looked with some suspicion on these Tewkesbury charters,[4] and that suspicion is not lessened by the double version of this, or by the name of the last witness in that of 1107, namely, 'Roger de Pistres'. The only known bearer of that name was dead before Domesday, though this witness may just possibly be identical with Roger de Gloucester (son, I hold, of Durand de Pistres[5]) who was killed in 1106.
On the whole, it is safer to deem that Waldric's last appearance as chancellor, at present known, is in the Rouen charter of November 1106. Ranulf, his successor, first appears as Foss pointed out,[6] in a charter to St Andrew's Priory, Northampton.[7] Its date is determined by the appearance among the witnesses of Maurice, Bishop of London (d. September 26, 1107) and of Ranulf himself as chancellor, combined with the statement appended to the charter that it was granted in the King's eighth year ('octavo imperii sui anno'). One must not attach too great importance to these clauses, which did not, as a rule, form part of the original charter, but in this case the names of the witnesses point to Easter—September 1107; and it is just possible to assign to the eighth year the close of the Westminster gathering, at the beginning of August, when this charter to St Andrew's may well have been granted.
Miss Norgate holds that Bishop Roger 'probably resumed' the chancellorship in 1106, on Waldric's elevation to the Bishopric of Laon,[8] but I do not know of any evidence to that effect.
[1] Judges of England, i. 140.
[2] 30th Report of Deputy-Keeper, p. 203.
[3] ibid., p. 204.
[4] See Geoffrey de Mandeville, 421, 431-2.