My contention is, briefly, that the Norman _vicecomes_ of "London," or "Middlesex," or "London and Middlesex" was simply the successor, in that office, of the Anglo-Saxon "portreeve." With the sphere of the _vicecomes_ I have already dealt, and though we are not in a position similarly to prove the sphere of the Anglo-Saxon "portreeve," I might appeal to the belief of Mr. Loftie himself that "Ulf the Sheriff of Middlesex is identical with Ulf the Portreeve of London"[1022] (though he adds, contrary to my contention, that "as yet their official connection was only that of neighbourhood"),[1023] and that Ansgar, though one of the "portreeves" (p. 24); "was Sheriff of Middlesex for a time there can be no doubt" (p. 127).[1024] But I would rather appeal to the vital fact that the shire-reeve and the portreeve are, so far I know, never mentioned together, and that writs are directed to a portreeve or to a shire-reeve,[1025] but never to both. Specially would I insist upon the indisputable circumstance that such writs as were addressed to the "portreeve" by the Anglo-Saxon kings, were addressed to the _vicecomes_ by the Norman, and that the turning-point is seen under the Conqueror himself, whose Anglo-Saxon charter is addressed to the "bisceop" and the "portirefan," and whose Latin writs are, similarly, addressed to the _episcopus_ and the _vicecomes_. More convincing evidence it would not be easy to find. The acceptance of this view will at once dispose of the alleged "disappearance of the portreeve," with the difficulties it has always presented, and the conjectures to which it has given rise.[1026] The style of the "portreeve" indeed disappears, but his office does not. In the person of the Norman _vicecomes_, it preserves an unbroken existence. Geoffrey de Mandeville steps, as sheriff, into the shoes of Ansgar the portreeve.[1027] The problem as to what became of the portreeve, a problem which has exercised so many minds, sprang from the delusion that in the Norman period the City must have had a portreeve for governor independent of the Sheriff of Middlesex. I term this an undoubted "delusion," because I have already made it clear that the City was part of the sheriff's jurisdiction and contributed its share to his _firma_. There was, therefore, no room for an independent portreeve; nor indeed does a "portreeve" of London, I believe, ever occur after the Conqueror's charter. But we must here glance at the contrary view set forth by Mr. Loftie:—