The king was then at Winchester; he had left Windsor on the night of the 25th.[1054] Illness--seemingly a severe attack of gout--had made him unable to move sooner, and the barons had taken advantage of his physical helplessness to heap upon him every insult in their power. One day the twenty-five required his presence to confirm a judgement in the Curia Regis; he was in bed, unable to set a foot to the ground, so he sent them word that they must come and deliver the judgement in his chamber, as he could not go to them. They “answered that they would not go, for it would be against their right; but if he could not walk, he must cause himself to be carried.” He did so, and when he was brought into their presence “they did not rise to meet him, for it was their saying that if they had risen, they should have done contrary to their right.”[1055] This scene probably occurred in connexion with one of the cases dealt with in the fifty-second article of the Charter, the cases of persons who were, or asserted that they were, deprived of their lands, castles, privileges or rights by an arbitrary act of John or of his predecessors, without judgement of their peers. Some of these cases, in which there was no doubt about the circumstances of the deprivation, were settled without delay, and immediate restitution was made to the claimants by the Crown.[1056] But there were others which required investigation. Such was the claim of the earl of Essex to the custody of the Tower of London.[1057] The chief justiciar of England had been recognized as entitled by virtue of his office to the custody of the Tower ever since the accession of Henry II.; but Henry’s mother, the Empress Maud, had granted it by charter to Geoffrey de Mandeville and his heirs;[1058] and it was now claimed as an hereditary right by the earl of Essex, as eldest son of the late justiciar Geoffrey Fitz-Peter by his marriage with Beatrice de Say, on whom the representation of the Mandeville family had devolved.[1059] This matter was too delicate and too important to be decided in haste; pending its decision, the Tower was temporarily placed in neutral hands, the hands of the archbishop of Canterbury,[1060] to whom Rochester castle was at the same time restored.[1061] Finally, John proposed that the other questions in dispute between himself and individual barons should all be determined at Westminster on July 16. This being agreed, the barons withdrew to London[1062] and the king to Winchester, whence at the beginning of July he proceeded into Wiltshire.[1063]