Metadata: Duchy of Lancaster: Miscellanea
Collection
- Country:
- United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
- Holding institution:
- The National Archives (UK)
- Holding institution (official language):
- The National Archives (UK)
- Postal address:
- KewRichmondLondonGreater LondonUnited KingdomTW9 4DU
- Phone number:
- Telephone: 020 8876 3444
- Web address:
- http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/
- Reference number:
- DL 41
- Title:
- Duchy of Lancaster: Miscellanea
- Title (official language):
- Duchy of Lancaster: Miscellanea
- Date(s):
- 1200/1900
- Language:
- English
- Extent:
- 97 bundle(s)
- Scope and content:
- The records in this series relate to the Duchy and the administration of its estates, throughout England and Wales, by the Duchy Chancery and the Chancellor and Council of the Duchy sitting as the Court of Duchy Chamber, an equity court dealing with tenants' disputes and revenue matters.The series is very varied in content but the main areas covered are as follows:- transcripts and copies of evidences of title, inquisitions post mortem and pleadings relating to the Lancaster inheritance and those of the Ferrers, Lacy, Warenne and Bohun families;- a collection of documents relating to sea walls and sewers in Lincolnshire;- a group of warrants, many of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century date, of the Duchy Chancellor and Council to the clerk to prepare instruments under the Duchy seal, to the auditors to prepare particulars, and to other officers to make enquiries;- a collection of miscellaneous documents, including accounts relating to Jews in Exeter in the late thirteenth century, a paper book of transcripts of charters and other material relating to Calais, ministers' accounts of Henry, Earl of Derby (later Henry IV), material relating to the dissolution of the monasteries in Lancashire, manumissions of villeins on Duchy lands during the reign of Elizabeth I, and lists of names of mayors and officers of Liverpool corporation between 1762 and 1808;- records of the Court of Duchy Chamber, including indexes to decrees, orders and pleadings, draft minute books, clerks' court books, attorneys' account books, and books of attachments and appearances; - records of the Duchy Court of Revenue, including a book of orders of 1764, draft minutes, and material relating to the process of recovery of debts of officers and tenants, including extents for debt and bonds of obligation;- personal and office papers of Duchy officers, and legal papers of cases relating to the Duchy in various courts;- records relating to the courts and buildings of the liberty of the hospital of Savoy, Middlesex;- accounts and inventories of Wigston hospital, Leicester, and material relating to Trinity hospital, Newarke, Leicester;- papers relating to enclosure acts on Duchy lands, and papers relating to Enfield Chase in Middlesex.The series includes some indictments material from the period when Henry, duke of Lancaster exercised Palatinate powers and which became separated from the main series of Palatinate documents now in PL 26.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- The Palatinate of Henry Duke of Lancaster, 1351 to 1361On 6 March 1351, Edward III conferred on his cousin Henry, fourth Earl of Lancaster, the dukedom of Lancaster. In the same charter he raised the county of Lancaster to a county palatine for Henry's lifetime, to join Chester and Durham which already had that status.The effect of the charter was to give the new Duke sovereign rights in the county: he could exercise powers co-extensive with those exercised by the King in the rest of the country. One feature of palatine powers was that the administration of justice was now in the hands of the duke. He used his palatine seal to appoint his own justices to hear pleas of the Crown and all other common law pleas.He also appointed the Sheriff, coroners and other local officers. He appointed a Chancellor and established his own Chancery in the county which issued the original writs needed to initiate court proceedings and all other writs arising in the administration of the Palatinate. The King's writ no longer ran; instead of being executed by royal officers (or, because of the previous grant of liberties, the duke's officers) royal writs were directed to the Duke or his Chancellor, and further writs issued from the palatine Chancery to effect their execution.The profits of justice belonged to the new duke. The King no longer had a claim on revenues arising from feudal incidents such as wardship, and his escheator for the north-western counties of England was instructed to take no further action in the Palatinate. The Duke appointed his own escheator, who presumably accounted to the Duke at his Exchequer.The charter had stated that the Duke was to enjoy the royal rights already enjoyed by the Earl of Chester in the Palatinate of Chester, but in fact the reservations specified were more extensive than those restricting the Earl of Chester.The Palatinate in abeyance, 1361 to 1377The Duke of Lancaster died on 23 March 1361. The grant of palatine powers had been for Henry's lifetime only and the Palatinate ceased to exist after his death. This meant that the administration of justice reverted to the Crown. Justices and other officers were appointed by the King under the royal seal and common and Crown pleas were heard at the King's courts at Westminster or by itinerant justices. Other palatine powers lapsed: the sheriff accounted at the royal Exchequer again; a royal escheator was appointed to pursue the Crown's claims to revenues derived from feudal incidents. The secretarial and writ-issuing functions of the palatine Chancery reverted to the royal Chancery.The duke's lands had passed to his two daughters who were his co-heiresses. Lancaster formed part of the portion of Blanche, who was married to the King's son John of Gaunt. After her sister's death in 1362 all the late duke's lands were re-united in their possession and John of Gaunt was created Duke of Lancaster. In November 1362 John of Gaunt and his sons by Blanche were granted the liberties enjoyed by Henry before the creation of the Palatinate.The Palatinate of John of Gaunt, 1377 to 1399On 28 February 1377, Edward III re-created the Palatinate in a grant to his son John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. The terms of the grant, including the reservations, were the same as those in the 1351 grant of palatine powers. The grant was confirmed by Richard II in September 1377 after his accession to the throne.The charter made no provision for a Court of Exchequer; nonetheless John established one on the royal model and appointed his own barons of the Exchequer to receive the profits of justice, to levy fines imposed by justices, to act on estreats received from the Chancery and to receive accounts from the sheriff and escheator. In November 1378 John petitioned for, and received, a further grant from Richard II permitting him to have an Exchequer in the Palatinate in his lifetime, with the same jurisdiction and powers as the royal Exchequer.The 1378 charter also specified a liberty enjoyed by the first duke, namely the power to appoint justices in eyre for forest pleas, except for pleas to which the Crown was a party. In 1390 John petitioned successfully for an extension of the grant of palatine rights beyond his lifetime for the benefit of his male heirs. On 3 February 1399, John of Gaunt died. Henry of Bolingbroke, his son and heir, was abroad, having been banished from the country the previous year. He returned to take possession of his inheritance, deposed Richard II, and claimed the vacant throne as Henry IV.The status of the Palatinate during the months between John's death and Henry's accession is uncertain: it is not clear whether Richard II's effective confiscation of the landed inheritance extended to the palatine liberties and powers.The Palatinate under the Crown, 1399 to 1875During his first Parliament in 1399 Henry IV declared his intention of keeping his inheritance of Lancaster in the same form as before his accession, administered by the same officers and with the same franchises. The Duchy of Lancaster was maintained as an entity separate from other Crown possessions and the Palatinate continued as a judicial system independent of, although consistent with, the administration of justice in the rest of the country.In practice the Palatinate was administered by officers of the Duchy. This led to a blurring of the distinction between the Duchy and the Palatinate. The developing inter-dependence was reinforced by Edward IV who, on ascending the throne in 1461, decreed that Henry VI's Lancastrian possessions should continue as a separate entity and that the Palatinate, still with its own seal, Chancellor, justices and officers, should be a parcel of the Duchy.From 1471 the offices of Chancellor of the Duchy and Chancellor of the Palatinate were held by the same person. The centre of palatine administration moved to London and in effect became part of the Duchy administration; what was left in Lancaster was mainly the judicial machinery.The change in the Palatinate's status did not lead to its integration into the administration of the rest of the country. For instance, it was excluded from the sphere of influence of the 16th century Council of the North. However, it meant that the Palatinate was affected less that the Palatinates of Chester and Durham by measures to curtail their independence such as the Act for the Recontinuation of Liberties and Franchises in 1535.The Palatinate was affected by the disturbances in England between 1641 and 1660 but not to the extent of abolition. The courts in Lancaster continued to sit, albeit with some interruptions. However, this was on the basis of a series of resolutions by the House of Commons rather than the usual commissions by the Chancellor of the Palatinate. The Restoration in 1660 brought the revival of palatine powers.During the 18th and 19th centuries repeated attempts were made to abolish the Duchy and Palatinate. The Duchy officers resisted them successfully, with the assistance of local public opinion, until 1873. In that year the Supreme Court of Judicature Act (36 & 37 Vict c66) transferred the common law and criminal jurisdictions of the Palatinate to the new High Court of Justice. From November 1875 the Palatinate consisted only of the equity jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery and the Chancellor's right to appoint justices of the peace and other local officers. In 1971 these powers were also lost when the Court Act effected the merger of the Lancaster Chancery Court with the national High Court of Justice.
- The origins of the Duchy of Lancaster lay in the desire of Henry III (1216-1272) to establish his youngest son, Edmund Crouchback, as a territorial magnate in England, following his failure to secure for him the Sicilian throne in 1258. Thus, in the aftermath of the Barons' War, Edmund was endowed with the extensive estates of the defeated leader of the baronial rebellion, Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester (d1265). Then in 1267 he was created Earl of Lancaster and granted all the royal demesnes in the county of Lancashire.Edmund was succeeded by his son, Thomas of Lancaster, who increased the inheritance by marriage, and from whom the estate passed to Thomas's brother Henry, third Earl of Lancaster, in 1322. Henry's son, also called Henry (of Grosmont), was created the first Duke of Lancaster in 1351. Henry was succeeded, in 1361, by his daughter Blanche and her husband, John of Gaunt. They in turn were succeeded by their son, Henry Bolingbroke, whose accession as King Henry IV in 1399 brought the Lancaster inheritance into the possession of the crown.However, Henry did not allow the inheritance to be merged into the crown's other lands, and it retained its separate identity as the Duchy of Lancaster. It continued, and continues today, to be administered separately from the other crown estates.On the accession of Henry IV in 1399, the term Duchy came to refer to the whole of the Lancaster estate rather than just the County Palatine as had been the case before. The county of Lancashire was raised to palatine status in 1351, which gave to the duke sovereign rights in the county in the spheres of justice and administration.
- The Court of Duchy Chamber developed out of the judicial jurisdiction exercised by the Duchy of Lancaster council, first under successive dukes of Lancaster, and after 1399, under the sovereign. In the early fourteenth century the exercise of this jurisdiction was ill-defined. However, by the 1470s the council was beginning to act as a court of equitable jurisdiction with regular procedures.This development continued under Henry VII and by the reign of his son the Court of Duchy Chamber was operating alongside the other conciliar courts of the period, such as Star Chamber, with a fully developed equitable procedure. Its jurisdiction extended over all matters of equity involving the lands and revenues of the Duchy under the authority of the Chancellor of the Duchy. Apart from a short period during the Commonwealth, the court operated continuously until the late nineteenth century when it fell into abeyance although it has not been formally abolished.Equity procedure and documentation in the Court of Duchy ChamberLike other equity courts the Court of Duchy Chamber broadly followed the procedures of the royal Chancery at Westminster. Suits before the court were initiated by a complaint in the form of a written petition from one party (plaintiff) alleging some wrongful action on the part of another party (defendant). The defendant replied with a statement of his own known as an answer. Further statements could be made by both parties. These claims and counterclaims are known collectively as pleadings.From the reign of Elizabeth I and thereafter the court (the Duchy Council) determined these disputes on the basis of evidence brought before it in the form of written depositions. These were answers, given by witnesses, to a series of question known as interrogatories, prepared by each party in the dispute. Assumed to be impartial, specific depositions provide details about a dispute which may not be clear from the biased claims of the parties alone. Witnesses were usually required to give their evidence before local men who were authorised to take their testimonies.Leading men in the locality in which the dispute occurred were commissioned by the court to inquire into the matter at variance. Commissions were produced in the name of the sovereign and addressed to the commissioners. (During the Commonwealth period commissions were issued in the name of"the Receiver of the liberty of England by authority of Parliament.") By convention there were four of these, two chosen by each side in the dispute, although the Court of Duchy Chamber sometimes appointed more men or as few as three.The wording of the commissions was general, ostensibly giving the commissioners authority to inquire into the circumstances of the dispute as they saw fit. In the early years of the operation of the court the commissioners sometimes exercised the full authority given by the commission. However, by the middle of the reign of Elizabeth I and thereafter the commissioners only followed the usual equity practice which was restricted to presenting pre-determined questions to witnesses selected by each party, and ensuring that the answers given were accurately recorded and sent, under their own seals, to the court where the suit was decided.Interrogatories were the numbered questions which were read to the witnesses by the commissioners. They were in English and increasingly written on parchment. The usual equity practice was for separate lists of questions to be drawn up by the legal counsel acting for each party and both sets were usually administered on the same day. The interrogatories were either sent by the court with the commission or delivered to the commissioners on the appointed day.Depositions were the answers given by the witnesses to the interrogatories put to them by the commissioners. Each deponent was sworn to tell the truth and examined in isolation. The questions were read one at a time and the answers recorded in English. Depositions were first recorded on paper and then engrossed (copied) onto parchment. On some occasions the fair copy was also on paper or the original draft was not copied at all. It was also possible for depositions to be made before the court at WestminsterIn other equity jurisdictions, such as the Palatinates of Durham and Lancaster, the pleadings and evidence of each sit were kept separated and only brought together by the court in reaching a judgement or settlement. The commissioners while administering interrogatories did not necessarily know the details of the dispute, nor did they need to in order to fulfil their office.
- Access points: locations:
- Exeter
- Access points: persons/families:
- Henry IV, King of England
- Subject terms:
- Legal matters
- Access, restrictions:
- Not UK public records, but open for research unless otherwise stated in The National Archives' catalogue .
- Finding aids:
-
More information is available in The National Archives' catalogue.
Research guidance is available on The National Archives' website.
- Yerusha Network member:
- AIM25