A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE forfeited lands of Count Robert of Mortain provided the means of ex- tending widely that 'Leicester' fief in the county of which the nucleus was that which Hugh de Grantmesnil had held in 1086, and which eventually, inherited by two co-heirs, became the Honours of ' Win- chester ' and of 'Leicester.' The lavish grants to which it owed its extension were doubtless bestowed on the count of Meulan, the father of the first earl of Leicester, and himself the great and trusted minister of William Rufus and Henry I. Among the members of that official class whom Henry I. is, with some exaggeration, said by Ordericus Vitalis to have ' raised, as it were, from the dust,' the most typical layman, perhaps, was the great justiciar, Ralph Basset. The Leicestershire Survey, spoken of above, proves that he obtained in that county the escheated fief of Robert de Buci, and this was the case also in Northamptonshire, where he gave name to Sutton Basset and founded what became the baronial house of ' Basset of Weldon.' Strangely enough the fellow officer with whom he and his son were chiefly associated was the bearer of that most lordly of names, Aubrey de Vere. Although among the greater tenants-in-chief, Aubrey was ready to improve his fortunes by acting as an officer of the Crown ; and in this county he had his reward from the forfeited fief of the bishop of Coutances. Addington Magna was bestowed on him, as was also Drayton, which well-known estate thus makes its first appearance in this Survey. As in Leicestershire, so in Northamptonshire, the escheated fief of Geoffrey de la Guerche (' de Wirce ') formed the provision for Nigel d'Aubigny (' de Albini '), a steadfast supporter, with his brother William, of Henry I.^ William's heir, the earl of Arundel, had only Towcester in this county,^ but Nigel's son, Roger de Mowbray, occurs frequently in our Survey, and Nigel himself once. It is by an even worse con- fusion that the manors composing the Courci fief are sometimes spoken of in our Survey as held by William de Courci, and sometimes as held by (his maternal grandfather) William Meschin, on whom doubtless they were all bestowed, in the first instance, by Henry I. For it can be shown that in Leicestershire and Lincolnshire escheated manors were bestowed on this William Meschin, a younger son of the Vicomte of the Bessin and a brother of Randolf earl of Chester. It is tolerably clear that, in some cases, additions were made to the Domesday fiefs. When that of Countess Judith is found in the hands, as below, of ' king David,' it has been increased by lands at Wadenhoe, Harrowden, Edgcott, and Clipston, all which had formed part of the fief of the bishop of Coutances, as well as by some that had been held by Odo bishop of Bayeux, and by the Crown manor of Hardingstone. This may have been due to the fact that David enjoyed the favour of Henry I. Barnwell
- He must not be confused, as he is by Dugdale, with the Nigel d'Aubigny (' de Albingi')
of the previous generation, whose fief lay in the adjacent counties of Beds, Bucks, Warwick, and Leicester, and who founded the Bedfordshire house of ' Albini of Cainho.'
- See also p. 365 below.
360
