in this column that Mr. Rye informs us that 'Freeman's inaccuracies are indeed almost innumerable'.
As for myself, I need only say that, here again,[1] Mr. Rye repeats his offensive charge[2] that I 'decide in favour of the Colchester narrative on another point when it suits' me 'to believe in it'. This point, we find,[3] is that Dugdale erred with regard to Eudo's wife,
as pointed out by Round (in his Geoffrey de Mandeville, p. 470), who now admits that the Chronicle was perfectly right on this point. …
So the Chronicle proves to be correct after all!
So much for the charges against the Chronicle. …
This implies—and can only imply—that I had rejected the Chronicle's statement that Eudo's wife was a Clare, not a Giffard, but have been forced to admit that the Chronicle's statement is right. Nowhere, the reader will find, in my Geoffrey de Mandeville is there anything of the kind; there are not even in that volume '470' pages. I have written, probably, more than any one on the early Clares, and I have never doubted, or even questioned, the identity of Eudo's wife. Dugdale, so far as I know, has been the only writer to make this mistake, and Dugdale's error was duly corrected by Hornby in his Remarks on some of the numberless errors and defects in Dugdale's Baronage (1738). This correction was duly noted by Morant in his History of Colchester (1748). Eudo's wife is well known to have been Rohese, daughter of Richard Fitz Gilbert (de Clare)[4] by Rohese, daughter of Walter Giffard.
Mr. Rye claims that he has 'a right to ask' me 'to give some further and better particulars in support' of my conclusion that his 'Chronicle' is 'in part untrustworthy', so that 'it is difficult to disentangle facts from fiction'.[5] By all means. It was shown by me above that 'the credibility of this Chronicle' was thus 'minutely' examined and (as he claims) vindicated by him,[6] for the reason expressly that Hubert de Rye[7] is asserted by it to have been placed in charge of Norwich Castle, in 1074, and that this statement is found nowhere else.[8] He was, therefore, bent on proving that the 'Chronicle' is a trustworthy authority.
In such cases he is apt to argue that there is nothing 'against
- ↑ p. 37.
- ↑ From p. 17.
- ↑ p. 41 a.
- ↑ Dugdale's mistake consisted of confusing mother and daughter and making Eudo marry the widow (instead of 'daughter') of Richard.
- ↑ Mr. R. C. Fowler holds that much of it 'appears to be fiction', and Dr. Armitage Robinson (1911) observes that 'it is difficult to distinguish between fact and fiction in Eudo's story'.
- ↑ 'in my vindication of the Chronicle' (p. 44 b).
- ↑ Brother of Eudo de Rye, alias 'Eudo dapifer'.
- ↑ Norwich Castle, p. 17.
