Assizes at Lancaster: 53 Henry III

53 Henry III.

Assizes taken at Lancaster on the . . . . in the fifty-third year of the reign of King Henry son of King John [1268–9] before Gilbert de Preston, John le Bretun, Walter de Helyun and John de Oketon, Justices in Eyre.

There is no Lancashire roll for this Eyre. That for Northumberland commenced at Newcastle on the 25 June 1269, 18 months after the writ that follows was issued. It is quite possible that the Justices never reached Lancaster, especially as we find other Justices in Eyre there in 1271; indeed, a note on the Northumberland roll (Surtees Society, vol. 88, p. 188), indicates that the pleas at Leicester (whither the Justices proceeded from Newcastle), which should have been taken on the Octave of S. Michael (6 October) were suspended by order of the King, most probably to enable the Justices and others to be present at Westminster at the Translation of the relics of Edward the Confessor, which took place on the 13th October. Lancashire Lay Subsidies, p. 91.

1267, December 7. Clarendon. Writ to the Archbishops, etc. and others of the Counties of York, Westmorland, Northumberland, Cumberland, Lancaster, Nottingham and Derby, Warwick and Leicester, Lincoln and Rutland, notifying the appointment of Gilbert de Preston, John le Bretun, Walter Helyun and John de Oketon as Justices in Eyre to take Pleas this turn in the said Counties. Patent Roll, 52 Henry III, m. 33.