But what, it may be asked, was the Exchequer, and why was it so named? The earliest answer, it would seem, is that of William Fitz Stephen, who, in his biography of Becket, tells us that, in 1164, John the Marshal was in London, officially engaged “at the quadrangular table, which, from its counters (_calculis_) of two colours, is commonly called the Exchequer (_scaccarium_), but which is rather the king’s table for white money (_nummis albicoloribus_), where also are held the king’s pleas of the Crown.”[135] The passage is not particularly clear, but I quote it because it is not, I believe, mentioned by Mr. Hall,[136] and because William Fitz Stephen knew his London well. The questions I have asked above are those which avowedly are answered in the first chapter of the famous ‘Dialogus de Scaccario’ (_circ._ 1178). I need not, however, repeat in detail the explanations there given, for they should be familiar from the works of Dr. Stubbs and of every writer on the subject. Suffice it to say that while, in shape, the ‘Exchequer’, with its ledge, as Mr. Hall observes, was not unlike a billiard table, “it derived its name from the chequered cloth” which, says Dr. Stubbs, covered it, and which gave it a resemblance to a chess board (_scaccarium_). Antiquaries have questioned this, as they will question everything; but the fact remains that the symbol of the Exchequer, of which types have been depicted by Mr. Hall, is that which swings and creaks before the wayside ‘chequers,’ which once, in azure and gold, blazed upon the hill of Lewes, and which still is proudly quartered by the Earl Marshal of England. In the present paper I propose to consider the origin and development of the institution, and to examine critically some of the statements in the famous ‘Dialogus de Scaccario,’ of which the authority has hitherto been accepted almost without question. It is alleged that a cruel hoax was perpetrated on the Royal Society by that ‘merry monarch’ Charles II., who called on its members to account for a phenomenon which existed only in his own imagination. Antiquaries and historians have, with similar success, been hoaxed by Richard the son of Nigel, who stated as a fact in his ‘Dialogue on the Exchequer,’ that there is no mention of a ‘blanch’ ferm to be found in Domesday Book. Richard proceeded to infer from this that those who spoke of ‘blanch’ ferm existing before the Conquest must be mistaken.[137]