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A ROYAL ENQUIRY INTO ABUSES: QUEEN ELEANOR'S MINISTERS IN NORTH-EAST WALES, 1291-921 SPECIAL enquiries into ministerial abuses appear to have become more frequent in the reign of Edward I than hitherto. Such abuses were formerly the province of the general eyre, but by the time of Edward I it was felt necessary to establish a specific and less formal way of dealing with them.2 There appears to be only one extant roll relating to a Welsh area and resulting from an Edwardian enquiry: pleas at Chester before Ralph Ivyngho and his colleagues, justices appointed to hear complaints against the ministers of Queen Eleanor. Eleanor died in November 1290.4 The enquiry which followed was into the administration of all her lands. The surviving rolls indicate that pleas were heard at Salisbury, Bury St. Edmunds and West- minster,5 as well as at Chester. With Ivyngho, who was chancellor of St. Paul's, London, and prebendary of York, were associated Roger Bourt and John Husee, together with a number of Franciscan and Dominican friars.7 The presence of these friars is particularly interesting since it resembles the practice of the enquiries of St. Louis of France which also included members of religious orders.8 This fitted well the alleged purpose of the enquiry, which was stated to be 'for the sake of the soul' of the late Queen Eleanor.9 Eleanor in her lifetime had been besought by the archbishop of Canterbury to repair the behaviour of her officials whom he likened to 'the stock of the Devil rather than of Christ.'lO 1 All references to unpublished sources are to documents in the Public Record Office. I am indebted to Mr. Dafydd Jenkins for amending the final draft of this article, and to Dr. M. Richter and Mr. J. B. Smith for their helpful suggestions. G. O. Sayles. Select Cases in the Court of King's Bench, IV (Selden Society, vol. 74. 1955). liii-lxvi. SJ.I. 1/1149. 4T. F. Tout, Chapters in the Administrative History of Medieval England, V (1930). 236 n. 3. The exact reference is E. 101/352/27. 5 J.I. 1/1014. 836. 542. Calendar of Patent Rolls. 1281-92, p. 85. He was repeatedly employed (ibid., passim) as a receiver of ecclesiastical taxes; to be a justice in such an enquiry seems to have been something of a departure from his usual functions. 7 E.101/352/27. I have been unable to identify Bourt and Husee. 8 On the enquiries of St. Louis, see especially C. Petit-Dutaillis, 'Querimoniae Normannorum'. in A. G. Little and F. M. Powicke (eds.), Essays presented to T. F. Tout (1925). J.I. 1/1149 m.l and passim. 10 The letter is Quoted at length in Tout. op. cit., V, 236, 270-71.