Welsh Journals

of putting lands that had come into the king's hands by forfeiture, inheritance or wardship under the supervision of trusted officials and the routeing of their issues to the Chamber certainly made for 'a more speedy and flexible system of getting and spending'; but the method of manage- ment was not in itself new and the results of its more extensive application to the Crown's estates were not so very startling. Many lands administered in this way were alienated within a comparatively short period: the administrators were often slack; men like Hastings secured through favour lands in ward at advantageous farms. Clarence's share of the Neville inheritance seems to be the only major estate that was perman- ently appropriated and exploited to the Crown's benefit in the whole reign; Henry VII in the early-sixteenth century was by contrast adminis- tering for his own benefit large parts of more than a dozen forfeited estates. Edward died solvent, and his reign showed the way in which things might one day be bettered, but it does not on this showing seem to be quite that landmark in the history of the Crown's finances that it is sometimes claimed to be. There was, though, one venture in this field that was really new, the king's commercial enterprise; and it was important, winning him not only profits but also the esteem of men who could be very useful when the Crown had need of ready lenders, the London merchants and foreign banking and trading companies. The only criticism of this book that I would venture is that it seems unfortunate that Dr. Ross has limited so severely his discussion of the exciting events that followed immediately after Edward's death. Given the very strong emphasis that he places on the king's rash marriage and on the effect of the favour that he showed to Queen Elizabeth's Woodville relations, it would be useful to know more about what he thinks of Edward V's tragedy: how much the responsibility was that of Edward IV for failing to consolidate adequate support for his son among the leading men at court who did not care for the Woodvilles, and how much was due to the naked ambition of Richard of Gloucester. But it is indicative of the quality of the book that one's only criticism should be based on a desire to hear more. Even if the last two years of Yorkist rule are not discussed, it stands out as the most convincing and illuminating inter- pretation of the Yorkist period to date, and perhaps Dr. Ross will tell us about those last two years in another book, one day. MAURICE KEEN Balliol College, Oxford. CAMDEN MISCELLANY, XXVI. Royal Historical Society, 1975. Pp. 213. £ 3.50 (plus postage and packing). Available to the public after January 1978 from W. Dawson and Sons Ltd., Cannon House, Folkestone, Kent. This latest sheaf of original unpublished texts, brought together and edited for the historian, is a rich one. Sir Robert Somerville edits the Ordinances for the Duchy of Lancaster, dating probably from about 1482, from the book called 'The Little Cowcher' from the Duchy office. Dr. C. L. Hamilton edits a manuscript pamphlet by Gervase Markham, 'The Muster-Master', dating from about 1630. Dr. W. H. Bryson edits