182      BIOGRAPHICAL   NOTES  ON  THE   YORKSHIRE   TENANTS

likely  one,  for  earl  Edwin  was  then  still  a  sort  of  honourable
hostage  at  the  king's  court,  and  his  lands,  we  may  suspect,
though  in  the  king's  hands,  were  hardly  yet  forfeited  as
they  would  be  in  1071,  when,  despairing  of  his  liberty,  he
escaped  from  court  with  his  brother  Morkar,  and  wandering
in  the  woods,  was  soon  after  killed  treacherously  by  his  own
people.  (Anglo-Sax.  Chron.).  This  is  a  more  probable
date  for  the  grant  to  earl  Alan  of  Edwin's  great  lordships
of  Gilling,  Catterick,  and  Askham.  Gilling  with  9  berwicks
and  soke  in  20  hamlets,  and  Catterick  with  3  berwicks
worth  8/.  *  now '  as  formerly,  and  many  other  manors  of
less  value  in  the  neighbourhood,  formed  together  what  was
subsequently  called  Richmondshire,  from  'Richmond,'  the
name  he  gave  to  the  castle  ^  he  founded  on  a  new  and  noble
site  in  some  outlying  district  of  Gilling,  which  thus  became
the  '  caput  honoris,'  and  a  town  soon  sprung  up  beside  it.
