Duchy of Lancaster: Estreats

This series contains the surviving estreats resulting from the Duke of Lancaster's entitlement to fines, amercements and forfeitures payable by the men and tenants of the duke's lands and fees. The duke was given power, through his own bailiffs and ministers, to levy the sums involved on the authority of estreats of the Exchequer delivered to those officials.

Nearly all of the estreates date from the very end of the sixteenth century to the mid nineteenth. The great majority of them derive from penalties imposed at the quarter sessions of the justices of the peace, sometimes combined with those from the sessions of commissioners of sewers. Another significant category are proceedings before the clerks of the market for the duchy of Lancaster. Penalties imposed by the king's clerk of the market on the duke's men were allowed to John of Gaunt as duke by Edward III's charter of 1377; subsequently the duke had his own clerks of the market to exercise similar jurisdiction over his manors and markets. There are also significant numbers of estreats resulting from proceedings before the justices of assize, gaol delivery and oyer and terminer, and the central courts of common law, King's Bench, Common Pleas, the Exchequer of Pleas and, from 1834, the Central Criminal Court.

Some of the items in the series are in fact not simply estreats but writs for levying the sums due, with estreats attached, and their returns. As might be expected, the greatest number of estreats dealing with a single county are for Lancashire, with significant numbers for Yorkshire, where the duchy also had large estates. Estreats also survive for twenty other counties where the duchy had property. Compendium estreats, covering many counties and several courts over periods of several years, are numerous for the reigns of George III and George IV.

The estreats give only brief details of the offences for which the penalties they record were imposed, but where other records of the proceedings in question are lacking they can provide a unique source of information about them. The surviving estreats of amercements and fines imposed on men and tenants of the Duchy of Lancaster in a variety of non-Duchy courts, to which the duke was entitled under a charter of 1396.

Between 1923 and 1964 Duchy of Lancaster

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Crown lands and estates

By a charter dated 29 June 1396, Richard II granted to John of Gaunt as duke of Lancaster many major privileges, some of which amplified or extended existing grants by Edward III in 1362 and 1377; the charter was itself confirmed by Henry IV, himself also duke of Lancaster, after he overthrew Richard in 1399 (The Charters of the Duchy of Lancaster, ed W Hardy (1865), pp 71-140).

Among the privileges it specified were the entitlement to fines, amercements and forfeitures payable by the men and tenants of the duke's lands and fees, whatever court imposed the penalty. The duke had the power, through his own bailiffs and ministers, to levy the sums involved on the authority of estreats of the Exchequer delivered to those officials. The Court of Duchy Chamber subsequently sought to recover amercements and fines due to the duchy levied in the quarter or other sessions of various counties by writs issued under the duchy seal.