Welsh Journals

identification of the scribes. Although Mr. Patterson intended to do for a great baronial house what the Regesta Regum and Scriptores Regis have done for royal government he has concentrated on the personnel and methods of the clerical administration, reserving for the book which is to follow a wider discussion of the contents of the charters and of the households, resources and policies of the earls and countesses. Charters in isolation give an unnaturally placid impression: there is little here to illustrate the resources and role of Earl Robert during the civil war of Stephen's reign, and nothing to remind us of the kidnapping of Earl William with his countess and heir from Cardiff castle by Ifor ap Meurig, or of the Welsh rising of 1185 when both Cardiff and Kenfig were burnt. But the collection brings together much interesting material on a wide variety of topics ranging from the earls' new boroughs to the arrangements made for the performance of castle-guard. The arrangement of charters by beneficiaries, though understandable, has its disadvantages in destroying chronological sequence. Earl Robert's charters are scattered throughout the volume, and to understand no. 65 the reader, without the aid of a cross-reference, has to wait until he encounters no. 183. There is no consistent principle of annotation, and it is unhelpful to be told merely that a charter by Countess Hawisia was issued before her death (no. 58). Some slips are disturbing. Robert of Gloucester was not the only earl created by Henry I. Juliana of Bampton's grant to Robert fitz Harding is not an instance of a daughter enfeoffing her father. The distinguished Templar, Osto of St. Omer, who heads one list of witnesses, is converted by expansion into 'Osberton', though in a later charter he is allowed his proper identity. Care has been taken over Welsh place-names, but the appearance in a single note of both 'Griffith ap Ivor' and 'Griffin Fitz Ivor' may trouble or even offend some readers. But there is much good work here, and the importance of the earldom in the history of England and of Wales justifies the patient labour. J. 0. PRESTWICH The Queen's College, Oxford. THE LIFE AND Times OF EDWARD III. By Paul Johnson. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1973. Pp. 224; 16 colour plates and 100 black and white illustrations. £ 2.65. The main theme of this book on Edward III for the general reader is summed up in its final sentence: 'It could be said: he inherited a kingdom; he bequeathed a nation.' Edward is portrayed as a self-confident monarch who sought 'national reconciliation and unity' by realizing 'the medieval image of the community as an organism'. It is argued that he restored to the monarchy that prestige and authority, lost in his father's disastrous reign, until, in turn, a premature old age (dating from the rigours of the 1359-60 chevauchee) sapped his strength and with it his former resolve and ability to rule. This he had done by displaying the conventional