[799] So also Gneist: "Under Stephen, new comites appear to be created in great numbers, and with extended powers; but these pseudo-earls were deposed under Henry II." (_Const. Hist._, i. 140, _note_). [800] Stubbs, _Const. Hist._, i. 362. Hence the name of "fiscal earls," invented, I believe, by Dr. Stubbs. See also Addenda. [801] See also _Select Charters_, p. 20. [802] The error arises from a not unnatural, but mistaken, rendering of the Latin. The term "fiscus" was used at the time in the sense of Crown demesne. Thus Stephen claimed the treasures of Roger of Salisbury "quia eas tempore regis Henrici, avunculi et antecessoris sui, _ex fisci regii redditibus_ Rogerius episcopus collegisset" (_Will. Malms._). So, too, in the same reign, the Earl of Chester is suspected of treason, "quia _regalium fiscorum redditus_ et castella, quæ violentur possederat reddere negligebat" (_Gesta_). This latter passage has been misunderstood, Miss Norgate, for instance, rendering it: "to pay his dues to the royal treasury." It means that the earl refused to surrender the Crown castles and estates which he had seized. Again, speaking of the accession of Henry of Essex's fief to the Crown demesne, William of Newburgh writes: "amplissimo autem patrimonio ejus _fiscum_ auxit." [803] Anno 1155. Under the year 1171 he records a searching investigation by Henry into the alienated demesnes in Normandy. [804] The erroneous view is also found in a valuable essay on "The Crown Lands," by Mr. S. R. Bird, who writes: "It is true that extensive alienations of those lands [the demesne lands of the Crown] took place during the turbulent reign of Stephen, in order to enable that monarch to endow the new earldoms" (_Antiquary_, xiii. 160). [805] The king's "second charter" to Geoffrey de Mandeville is not in point, for it was unconnected with his creation as earl, and was necessitated by the grants of the Empress. [806] _Const. Hist._, i. 362. [807] "As Stephen's earldoms are a matter of great constitutional importance, it is as well to give the dates and authorities" (_Ibid._, i. 362). [808] There is a curious allusion to him in John of Salisbury's letters (ed. Giles, i. 174, 175) as "famosissimus ille tyrannus et ecclesiæ nostræ gravissimus persecutor, Willelmus de Ypra" (cf. pp. 129, 206 _n._, 213 _n._, 275 _n._). [809] A shadowy earldom of Cambridge, known to us only from an Inspeximus _temp._ Edward III., and a doubtful earldom of Worcestershire bestowed on the Count of Meulan, need not be considered here. [810] Son of Richard de Clare, who, in Dr. Stubbs's list and elsewhere, is erroneously supposed to have been the first earl. [811] The earliest mention of Patrick, as an earl, that I have yet found is in the Devizes charter of Henry (1149). [812] In an interesting charter (transcribed in _Lansdowne MS._, 229, fol. 116_b_) of this Earl Baldwin as "Comes Exonie," granted at Carisbrooke, he speaks, "Ricardi de Redvers patris mei."