Et similiter inquirant de hominibus illis qui post terminum illum habuerunt alias ballivas de domino rege in custodia, sive de episcopatu, sive de abbatia, sive de baronia, sive de honore aliquo vel eschaeta. The returns numbered 55, 56 (p. cclxxx.) are classed by Mr. Hall among “Baroniæ incertæ.” They relate, however, to the barony or “honour” of William Fitz Alan, which had been for many years in the king’s hands. It was ‘farmed’ in 1170, as it had been for ten years, by Guy l’Estrange (“Wido Extraneus.”) Guy had a brother John,[322] who appears in these returns as in charge of the Norfolk portion of the honour. Since Michaelmas, 1165, a part of William Fitz Alan’s land had been granted out to Geoffrey de Vere, and we accordingly find, at the end of the second return, one of William Fitz Alan’s knights,[323] William de Pagrave, making him a payment. Now all this might have been explained by an intelligent editor. Mr. Hall has elaborated, instead, a series of fantastic errors. I have dwelt on the point at some length, because, apart from the intrinsic interest of these curious returns--which have thus come to light after more than seven centuries--they establish the fact that this great enquiry extended to private landowners, a fact which even Dr. Stubbs, I fear, seems to have overlooked in the analysis he gives of the ‘Inquest.’ And further, they corroborate the articles of enquiry, where we can apply the test, and thus confirm the authenticity of the document in which those articles are found. * * * * * We must not, however, ignore Mr. Hall’s own hypothesis, for the Rolls edition in which it is enshrined gives it an official _cachet_; and there may be those who think that arguments of this character require an answer. So far as it is possible to understand it, this hypothesis would connect these Inquests with the scutage of Ireland (p. ccx.), which was duly accounted for (_annotatum_) in 1172, the expedition falling within the financial year Mich., 1171–Mich., 1172.[324] In that case these inquests, on Mr. Hall’s own showing, could not have been held earlier than 1172, at “the conclusion of the campaign” (p. clxxxvi.). But they must have been held in 1170, for, as he observes (pp. ccxi.), one of the fragments speaks of “istos iiij annos” (p. cclxviii.) reckoned from March, 1166.