1336-01-10, Tower

To the same. Order not to intermeddle further with a plot of land in near Witham, co. Essex, restoring the issues thereof to the prior's the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem in England, as the king ordered escheator to inform him why he had taken that plot into the king's and the escheator returned that he had not so taken it, but Robert Holewell, late escheator in cos. Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridge, Hunting- Essex and Hertford, at the time of his substitution in that office, to William Trussel, by indenture, a certain plot of land in Witham 10 perches in length and 1 perch in breadth, asserting that it in the king's hands by reason of the prior's trespass in appropriating it himself and his house without the king's licence, and afterwards, at the of the prior, showing the king that the said plot, from time out of mind, parcel of the manor of Witham which lately belonged to the master and of the Temple in England, and that the prior and brethren of the to whom the lands of the Templars in England were assigned and with the assent of the chief men of the realm held the said plot the time of the annulling of the order of the Templars until now as of the said manor, and that the prior of the Hospital never acquired plot of any one, or usurped it of the king's or common street; the ordered the escheator to take an inquisition on the matter, by which is found that the said plot in La Newelond is parcel of the manor of and was so from time out of mind, and that the Templars and the and brethren of the Hospital held that plot at all times as parcel of the manor and that the prior and his predecessors did not acquire the plot anyone after the publication of the statute [of mortmain] and did not it of the king's or common street, but always held it in frankalmoin parcel of the said manor.