It is scarcely necessary that I should insist on the extraordinary value of this statement and formal admission by the Crown that London and Middlesex had been held to farm by the elder Geoffrey de Mandeville—that is, towards the close of the eleventh century, or, at latest, in the beginning of the twelfth—and that the amount of the _firma_ was £300 a year. One cannot understand how such a fact, of which the historical student cannot fail to grasp the importance, can have been overlooked so long, when it has virtually figured in Dugdale's _Baronage_ for more than two centuries. The only writer, so far as I know, who has ventured on an estimate of the annual render from London at the time of Domesday arrives at the conclusion that "we can hardly be wrong in putting the returns at ... about £850 a year."[480] We have seen that, on the contrary, the rental, even later than Domesday, was £300 a year, and this not for London only, but for London and Middlesex together.[481] Nothing, indeed, could show more plainly the necessity for such a work as I have here undertaken, and the new light which the evidence of these charters throws upon the history of the time, than a comparison of the results here obtained with the statements in Mr. Loftie's work,[482] published under the editorship of Professor Freeman, which, though far less inaccurate than his earlier and larger work, contains such passages as this:— "Matilda had one chance of conciliating the citizens, and she threw it away. The immemorial liberties which had been enjoyed for generations, and confirmed by William and Henry, were taken from the city, which for the first and last time in its history was put 'in demesne.' The Earl of Essex, Geoffrey de Mandeville, whose father is said by Stow to have been portreeve, was given Middlesex 'in farm' with the Tower for his castle, and no person could hold pleas either in city or county without his permission. The feelings of the Londoners were fully roused. Though Stephen was actually a prisoner, and Matilda's fortunes never seemed brighter, her cause was lost.... The citizens soon saw that her putting them in demesne was no mistake committed in a hasty moment in times of confusion, but was part of a settled policy. This decided the waverers and doubled the party of Stephen.... Stephen was exchanged for the Earl of Gloucester, the Tower was surrendered, the dominion was removed, and London had its liberty once more; but after such an experience it is not wonderful that the citizens held loyally to Stephen during the short remainder of his life" (pp. 36, 37).[483]