The request for evidence

The decision to establish lordship of English kings over the kings and kingdom of Scotland was taken, as Michael Prestwich suggested, at the Ashridge parliament in January 1291. With the return from Scotland of Edward's envoys, on 8 March 1291, the first known letter was penned asking an abbot to search the chronicles ‘kept in your house telling what touches us in homage of the kingdom of Scotland’ and to make a return of ‘everything … touching in any way our realm and the rule of Scotland’; the two other known requests also specify both realms but do not mention homage. Contemporary chroniclers say nothing of the requests or returns. Some of the returns deal almost exclusively with English affairs, others with a mixture of English and Scottish.

Ten of the surviving twenty-three returns printed by Palgrave in 1837 are endorsed with assessments; this is lacking from some twelve, including the eight returns collected and forwarded by diocesan authority from London, Canterbury and Salisbury. Of the remaining four, Carlisle was sent on 20 May and Sawtry on 21 April. It is reasonable to conclude that all twelve arrived belatedly. The twenty-third return is that from Norwich, whose condition is so poor that the presence or absence of an assessment is uncertain.

Of the ten endorsed with an assessment, four (Bath, Evesham, Gloucester, Reading) have nothing ‘relevant’ or ‘new’, Burton was ‘to be examined’, Bridlingon was to be enrolled in a compendium, Malmesbury and Worcester partially so, while Tewksbury was to be asked for its chronicle.