Introduction

At a time when women were normally excluded from exercising any formal role in royal government, the early thirteenth century witnessed the unusual appointment of two female sheriffs in England. During the civil war of 1215–17, Lady Nicholaa de la Haye, the twice widowed heiress of the Lincolnshire barony of Brattleby, became the crown’s leading local official in this county, and conducted a spirited defence of Lincoln castle. Similarly, at the end of King Henry III’s minority, Ela Longespée, the widowed countess of Salisbury, was granted the shrievalty of Wiltshire. Although the appearance of two female sheriffs hardly represented a giant leap forward in the ‘monstrous regiment of women’, to borrow the later words of John Knox, the extraordinary roles that both Nicholaa and Ela fulfilled within the masculine realm of government office render them worthy of special attention. This essay will examine each of their careers in turn, seeking to explain their appointments, and considering their performances as sheriffs.

Admittedly Nicholaa’s and Ela’s appointments were not entirely without precedent. Noblewomen often made a significant contribution to the governance of their families’ lands and estates in the central and later Middle Ages, and sometimes assumed more wide-ranging responsibilities in their husbands’ absence. According to the chronicler, Roger of Wendover, for example, the bishop of Ely’s sister had charge of the royal castle of Dover in 1191, and assisted the sheriff of Kent in the capture of King John’s illegitimate half-brother, Geoffrey, the newly ordained archbishop of York. Throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, a handful of noblewomen acted as royal officials in their own right, most notably as foresters and constables of royal castles, sometimes with mixed success. Matilda de Caux’s experiences offer a good case in point. Although King John as count of Mortain had awarded both Matilda and her second husband, Ralph fitz Stephen, custody of the royal forest in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, the forestership was taken into the king’s hands when Matilda was widowed in 1202, and only returned to her in 1217. Even then, Philip Marc, the sheriff of Nottingham, still prevented her from exercising this office for another three years.