1920 COMITATUS PALLACII 419 concerning the divisibility of the earldom of Chester in 1238,^ is not very illuminating. The word was first used in connexion with the bishopric of Durham in 1293.^ The following extract from the Cheshire Plea Rolls is the return from the justice of Chester to a king's writ of 18 March 1310, demanding that a man accused of felony and in Macclesfield prison be taken to Notting- ham for trial. Not only does it seem to be the second earliest reference in Cheshire records to the comitatus pallacii,^ but also it cites one of the special privileges derived from that status. The rights both of the communitas and of its earl, who in 1310 was also king, are here emphasized. Payn Tibotot, the justice of Chester of the time, was a man of royalist sympathies, and his attitude here anticipates that afterwards adopted by Richard II, for example, towards the county. The king's rights as earl must be safe- guarded even at the expense of his rights as king. The use of the word pallacii must be regarded here as but an isolated instance ; it did not become at aU common in England till the fifteenth century, and Cheshire was usually called comitatus Cestrie. Margaret Tout. Plea Rolls, Chester 29, no 22, m. 47 d. Quia lohannes Anker captus fuit et in prisona domini regis de Macclis- field adhuc detentus est per appellum Amicie, filie Nicholai del Fal, quod appellum adhue pendet coram me indeterminatum, corpus predicti lohannis apud Notingham, ut mihi videtur, ducere non debui, quousque appellum illud fuerit terminatum, et etiam quia tota communitas Cestrie dicunt [sic] quod communitas Cestrie est comitatus pallacii, et habet talem libertatem quod omnes et singuli prisones capti in comitatu Cestrie sine extra factis coram iusticiario Cestrie infra comitatum predictum arrenari et iudicari debent, et a tempore quo non extat memoria arrenari et iudicari consueuerunt, et non alibi extra comitatum ilium. Neo unquam aliquis captus infra comitatum predictum pro aliqua felonia ad sectam alicuius partis missus fuit extra comitatum. Et quia, si ita est, esset contra statum domini regis, comitis Cestrie, ut mihi videtur, si dictum lohannem extra comitatum Cestrie misissem, desicut unicuique versus eum sequent! secundum legem et consuetudinem patrie paratus sum iusticiam facere. The Petition of i^oy against Papal Collectors In January 1307 a famous petition was presented to the parlia- ment of Carlisle against Master William Testa and the other papal
- See also R. Stewart- Brown, ante, xxxv. 41.
" Rot. Pari, i, 103 ; Lapsley, Durham, 'p. 28. ^ There is an earlier instance in 1297, when an inquisition held in the Cheshire county court contains the phrase ' secundum consuetudinem et libertatem eiusdem comitatus palatini hucusque semper usitatam ' (Plea Rolls, Chester 29, no. 9, m. 1 d). A summary of this inquisition is given in the 26th Report of the Deputy Keeper of Public Records, appendix 4, p. 46. Ee2
