[107] "The County of Hertford appears to have been, at the time of the Survey, in the King's hands, and Peter was then Sheriff; and the Sheriffwick of Hertfordshire was afterwards granted in Fee, by the Empress Maud, to Geoffrey de Mandeville, Earl of Essex, at a rent as his father and grandfather had held it. The father of Geoffrey was Geoffrey Fitz Peter, and probably was son of Peter, the Sheriff at the time of the Survey. The first trace which the Committee has discovered of the title of the Earls of Clare to the Third Penny of the County is in the reign of Henry the Second, subsequent to the grants under which the Earls of Essex claimed the Shrievalty in fee, at a fee-farm rent. But the grant of the Third Penny must have been of an earlier date, as the grant to the Earl of Essex was subject to that charge. The family of Clare must therefore have had the Third Penny either before or early in the Reign of King Stephen" (iii. 125).
[108] Const. Hist., i. 362.
[109] Official Baronage, ii. 175.
[110] See Appendix C.
[111] See Frontispiece.
[112] Degrees of England.
[113] "Note that this is the most ancient creation-charter which hath ever been known." Vide Selden, Titles of Honour, p. 647.
[114] Historic Peerage, p. 178.
[115] Journ. Brit. Arch. Ass., xxxi. 386.
[116] Addl. MSS., 31,943, fol. 97.