was appointed to the little church of St. Leonard's, below the castle, to pray for the souls of the deceased monarchs, for which duty the sheriff of the county was charged to pay him forty shillings a-year; this celebration, however, had fallen into desuetude eight years before the inquisition took place[1].
The partiality of King John and his successors for hunting, is shewn by numerous entries on the Close Rolls. In these valuable documents the most minute particulars are often recorded respecting the treatment of their hounds and hawks, even to specifying the quantity of flesh they were daily to be fed upon, and to the number of times the royal girfalcons were to be let fly. John orders the sheriff of Nottingham, for instance, to procure for their food young pigeons, and swine's flesh, and once a week the flesh of fowl[2]. At a later period, namely, in the early part of Edward the First's reign (1277), the following entry occurs on a Roll in the Queen's Remembrancer's Office, shewing the care with which the royal dogs were tended.
"Paid to Thomas de Blatheston for his expenses in taking the greyhounds with the king (Edward the First) ninepence, with twopence in bread for the same, on that day on which the same Thomas departed from Rokyngham. Also for bread for the same, when Master Richard de Holbroc tarried at Rokyngham, in the week next before the feast of St. Barnabas the Apostle, fivepence halfpenny. In bread for two greyhounds of the prior of la Launde, from the day of the Apostles Peter and Paul, even to the Sunday next before the feast of the blessed Mary Magdalene, for nineteen days, nineteenpence. Sum of the expenses on the greyhounds, eight shillings and sixpence halfpenny[3]."
Independently of being a favourite residence of the English kings, very few of the royal castles have been the scene of more historical events than the one now under notice. In 1094, the great council of British nobility, bishops and clergy, assembled here to settle the fierce dispute, then in agitation, betwixt William the Second, and Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury, concerning the right of investiture, and the monarch's obedience to the papal see. The council sat on Sunday the fifth of March, in the chapel within the precincts of the castle, when this question was proposed for their discussion;
