1336-02-04, Knaresborough

To Geoffrey le Scrop and his fellows, justices appointed to hold pleas before the king. Edmund de Bereford, the king's clerk, has besought the king to order judgment to be rendered in the following affair ; as lately at the suit of Edmund, by his petition before the king and his council in parliament at Westminster, asserting that William de Bereford, Edmund's father, whose heir he is, gave by his charter the manor of Stapelford, co. Leicester, to Simon de Bereford and the heirs of his body; and the manor is in the king's hands by Simon's forfeiture, who died without heirs of his body, and it ought to revert to Edmund, who besought the king to order justice to be done to him in the premises, and the king sent the petition before the justices, enclosed in a certain writ, ordering them to inspect that petition and further to do what they should consider just; and afterwards the process in the said affair being made before the king, and it being found by a jury of the country that William, who was seised in his demesne of fee and of right, of certain lands in Stapelford, now called the manor of Stapelford, gave those tenements to Simon to hold in the form aforesaid by the service of 100s. yearly, that Simon, who was seised of those tenements by virtue of this gift, died without an heir of his body, that the tenements were taken into the king's hand by Simon's forfeiture, and that Edmund is William's next heir; and although Edmund several times requested the justices to proceed to render judgment in this respect according to the force and effect of the said petition and jury, yet the justices have hitherto delayed to proceed to render that judgment; the king therefore orders them that, if they find that the matter has proceeded as aforesaid, after inspecting and examining the petition and its endorsement, and the record and process afterwards held before the king in the same affair, then to proceed to render judgment thereon with all possible speed, notwithstanding that the tenements are in the king's hands. By C.