And that in consequence Richard obtained by the reputation of the deed the title of Coeur de Lion. But Fuller discredits this part of the legend. See his Church History, vol. i. p.323.1

Military mandates similar to the above, all bearing upon the struggle which gave birth to the famous Magna Charta, might be multiplied to a weary extent. For further examples see the History of Marlborough. If they do not positively indicate a state of siege at Devizes they at least testify to the anticipation of such an event. At the date of the last mentioned, viz. 1216, the monarch's death put an end to the contest and placed the youthful Henry III. on the throne; contemporaneously with which event, Sandford relinquished the wardenship of Devizes in order to assume the cross of a Knight-templar. This latter circumstance we learn from an order issued in the following year empowering the Abbot of Malmesbury to recover the sum of 100 marks which he had advanced to Thomas de Sandford for the repairs of the castle. The principal manager of the nation's affairs at this moment was William Mareschall "the brave and wise Earl of Pembroke," on whose nomination Devizes was entrusted to [his son ?]

JOHN MARESCHALL 1216.

One of the eleven Barons who with four Earls and a few other persons had constituted the entire retinue appearing on King John's side at Runnymeade. He had also borne part in the coronation of the young Prince Henry after the father's death, The records preserved in the Patent Rolls of repairs going on at Devizes Castle during this Governor's term of office, and the lists of payments to miners, carpenters, fossators, and masons, seem to argue either a large amount of recent damage or an extension of the works.

JAMES OF POTTERNE.

We may hardly dismiss the civil wars of King John with

1 He dates the event 1190 which is sixteen years before Hugh de Neville's appointment to Marlbo

rough Castle, supposed therefore to be the same person.

out a brief notice of the eminent person who during a part of that period held in trust for the King the entire county of Wilts. This was James of Potterne the Justiciary, whose exercise of that still wider office extended from 1197 the 9th Richard I. down to the end of John's reign, as proved by the fines levied before him. In the early part of John's reign he was under-sheriff of York to Geoffrey Fitz-Peter and was the principal instrument in despoiling the Archbishop's lands and goods when that prelate refused to pay the cornage imposed by the King, for which act the Archbishop excommunicated him by name. Three years afterwards the county of Wilts was put under his charge; but we are not told in what form this species of vice-regency was exercised or how far it interfered with the office of Sheriff. Notwithstanding the confidence which this large commission implied, his fidelity seems to have been hardly proof against the example of the numerous revolting Barons, at least it was not unsuspect: for, the manor of Wallop having been granted to him for the support of his dignity, the Sheriff of Hants received an order 17th John to deliver it up to Roger Elys, if it should appear to him that James of Potterne was not in the King's interest "si Jacobus de Potterna non sit ad servicium nostrum" Rot. Claus. 1. 8. Probably he cleared himself, as so many others did, when John's death and Prince Louis's departure threw the reins of Government into the Earl of Pembroke's hands; for the property was subsequently in his possession; and in 1218 2nd Henry III. we find him entrusted with the custody of the lands of Richard de Neville in Wilts. Foss's Judges.

PHILIP DE ALBINI EARL OF SUSSEX AND ARUNDEL 1218.

This nobleman was also one of King John's adherents throughout the recent war. The grant of Devizes was in his case made for life, a distinction very seldom conferred. His death must therefore be regarded as contemporary with the advent of his successor

WILLIAM DE BREWERE 1221.

The name signifies "William at the heath." He had been Sheriff of Wilts in 1209-10. See Canon Jackson's List in the Wilts Magazine, No. viii. p. 194. He bore the further title of Lord of Torbay and held lands at Norrington in Wilts. He died in 1232 leaving four co-heiresses, one of whom, Alicia, married Sir Reginald de Bohun.

6th Henry III. William Brewer receives an order from Court directing him in future to permit the men of Richard Pauper Bishop of Sarum to remain free from custom or toll in the town of Devizes. Close Rolls.

7th Henry III. The King to the Sheriff of Wilts. Take notice that we will that a fair be he'd at Devizes once a year viz. on the vigil, the day, and the morrow of St. John the Baptist for ever. And publish this throughout your bailiwick. Dated at Calne and witnessed by Hubert de Burgh. Ibid. This is one of the seven fairs formerly held in Devizes. It is hardly necessary to add that none of them is to be confounded with the large fair held on the Green, which being within the parish of Bishop Cannings has always been the Bishop's perquisite, and remains so to this day. But while touching on the subject of fairs, it may not be out of place to offer an hypothetical explanation of a term seemingly allied.

THE CRAMMER POND on Devizes Green. What is the meaning of the word? We learn from Lord Cockburn's Memoirs that the "Krames" was an Anglo-Saxon word applied to an arcade of booths which long encumbered the High Street of the Old Town of Edinburgh. "These Krames," says he, smiling at the recollections of his youth, "were the Paradise of children." From Krames came "Kramerie" a term constantly used in Scottish deeds to denote articles bought at the Krames. A similar display of Kramerie at the East end of Devizes Green in connexion with the great fair held at that spot would easily give rise to the expression "the Kramerie Pond." Kramer is still German for trader.

7th Henry III. It is commanded to the Constable of Marlborough Castle that he allow William Brewer to receive as the gift of the King ten good bream out of the fishponds [vivarium] at Marlborough, to be placed in his own fishponds at Stoke. Dated at Keinton, 20 March. [An old proverb declared that "he that had a bream in his preserves could always welcome a friend," a proof that bream was a greater favourite then than now. Aubrey tells us that the breeding of fish to furnish the food of Lent was one of the purposes which the moats round antient houses were not unfrequently applied. Natural History of Wilts, p. 101.]

to

8th Henry III. "The King to the salesmen of the underwood in the forests of Melksham and Chippenham. We command you to allow our beloved William Brewer Constable of Devizes Castle to apply the proceeds of the underwood of the said forests to the repairing of the drawbridge and palisadoes of the castle and of the houses therein." This mandate is signed by the King in person, then resident at the castle.

A memorial of such of these palisades as faced the town seems to survive in the name of a street leading towards the castle, called "The Brittox," evidently a corruption of the Danish "Bretesca" still in use in Denmark and simply meaning wooden though it is quite possible that the Bretesque, which in this case appears to have flanked the entrance to the castle, partook of a more permanent form than wooden piles alone, and included the idea of an earthwork whose perpendicular face was sustained by timber and stone, just such a wall, in short, as Julius Cæsar attributes to the Gauls, in the 7th Book of his Commentaries, 23rd chapter. It is observable, that so late as the time of the civil wars in Charles I.'s reign, the financial accounts kept by the Wilts Committee (acting for the Parliament) contain references to "Britische money" which by means of the explanation above given may be conjectured to refer to a levy made on the Hundreds to furnish stockades for the houses where that Committee sat from

time to time, viz. at Marlborough, Chalfield, Longford, and Falstone. A primitive Bretesque or Bretache was generally something salient or projecting. It has been described in some glossaries as a vantage point from which proclamations might be addressed to the citizens; also as a wooden defence raised over a drawbridge. In a psssage descriptive of a siege, in Gulielmus Armoricus de gestis Philippi, 1202, it evidently refers to temporary wooden fortifications, built not to defend but to take a place. But whatever be the form or purpose of a bretache, the generic idea is wood. This is evident when it occurs in the mandates issued by Henry III. to his architects. At Southampton for instance two bretaches are to be rebuilt because they had become rotten. Liberate Roll 40th Henry III. Its design in the following case seems also plain enough (occurring in a precept issued from Marlborough to Winchester 25 Henry III.) "Complete without delay the works of the new gateway and the new bridge, and the turrets of the same gateway, and joist these turrets and cover them with lead: and cause the bretache over the new bridge to be garreted and covered with lead: and remove the old bridge and cause the ditch there to be prepared and flooded.' Liberate Roll. Finally: in the simple sense of balconies, it is just possible that the Brittox Street may have acquired its name from displaying in early times an unusual number of these architectural accessories. In an anonymous letter from Devizes published at Oxford in 1643, to be hereafter noticed, written apparently by Sir Edward Hyde, the author evidently takes the word Brittox in a plural sense, for he spells it "Briteaux."

On this and other kindred subjects the reader is referred to T. Hudson Turner's work on Domestic Architecture, containing a selection from Henry III.'s copious directions to Sheriffs and others, to carry out his Majesty's household arrangements in his various places of residence, principally Clarendon near Salisbury; embracing the various crafts of