Already in the time of Richard I., there appears "the keeper of the king's escheats," and early in the reign of Henry III. the sheriffs are relieved by the two escheators, one on each side of the Trent, who answer directly at the Exchequer, although it is not until the year 17 Edward II. (1323-4) that their accounts are transferred from the Pipe Roll to a separate enrolment. The office of escheator passed through a period of experimental fluctuation during the first half of the fourteenth century; Edward I. in 1275 temporarily abolished the original two escheatries, dividing the realm into three stewardships with the sheriffs as escheators in each county; Edward II. in 1323 divided the country into ten escheatries,[44] a plan readopted by Edward III. in 1340; between 1332 and 1340 there were five escheators, between 1341 and 1357 the office was held by the sheriffs, though separate patents were issued, while from 1357 onwards the office suffered no change of importance until the Tudor period, when the Court of Wards was established (32 Henry VIII.) and the feodary appears. The functions of the escheator were to take into the king's hand and administer the lands of all tenants in chief and of others whose lands by death, escheat or forfeiture, fell to the crown, to deliver seisin to the heirs, after taking security for the payment of relief, to make partitions of lands among heiresses, to assign dowers to the widows of tenants, and in general to watch over the interests of the crown in all matters of feudal obligation.