[Illustration: SIR GEOFFREY LOUTERELL WITH HIS WIFE AND DAUGHTER
(LOUTERELL PSALTER. EARLY 14TH CENTURY.)]
Maurice III. (1321-1326) continued, or rather improved upon, his father's exact methods. Thomas III. (1326-1361) was almost as great a warrior as his grandfather, though less fortunate. Froissart tells in his own picturesque style how he pressed so far forward at Poitiers as to get himself badly wounded and taken prisoner, and how the squire who took him bought himself a knighthood out of the ransom. (Globe ed., p. 127). Even more significant, perhaps, are the Royal commissions by which this lord was deputed to raise men for the great war, and to which I shall have occasion to refer later on. But, amidst all this public business, Thomas found time to farm himself about eighty manors! Like his grandfather, he was blessed with an equally business-like helpmeet, for when he was abroad on business or war, "his good and frugal lady withdrew herself for the most part to her houses of least resort and receipt, whether for her retirement or frugality, I determine not." The doubt here expressed must be merely rhetorical, for Smyth later on records how she had a new gown made for herself "of cloth furred throughout with coney-skins out of the kitchen." Indeed, most of the cloth and fur for the robes of this great household came from the estate itself. "In each manor, and almost upon each farmhouse, he had a pigeon-house, and in divers manors two, and in Hame and a few others three; from each house he drew yearly great numbers, as 1300, 1200, 1000, 850, 700, 650 from an house; and from Hame in one year 2151 young pigeons." These figures serve to explain how the baronial pigeons, preying on the crops, and so sacred that no man might touch them on pain of life or limb, became one of the chief causes which precipitated the French Revolution. Like his grandfather--and indeed like all feudal lords, from the King downwards--he found justice a profitable business. He "often held in one year four leets or views of frankpledge in Berkeley borough, wherefrom, imposing fourpence and sixpence upon a brewing of ale, and renting out the toll or profit of the wharfage and market there to the lord of the town, he drew yearly from that art more than the rent of the borough."[190] Again, he dealt in wardships, buying of Edward III. "for 1000 marks ... the marriage of the heir of John de la Ware, with the profits of his lands, until the full age of the heir." He carried his business habits into every department of life. In founding a chantry at Newport he provided expressly by deed that the priest "should live chastely and honestly, and not come to markets, ale-houses, or taverns, neither should frequent plays or unlawful games; in a word, he made this his priest by these ordinances to be one of those honest men whom we mistakenly call _puritans_ in these our days." The accounts of his tournaments are most interesting, and throw a still clearer light on King John's sneer. Smyth notes that this lord was a most enthusiastic jouster, and gives two years as examples from the accounts (1st and 2nd Ed. III.). Yet, in all the six tournaments which Lord Thomas attended in those two years, he spent only £90 18_s._, or £15 3_s._ per tournament; and this at a time when he was saving money at the rate of £450 a year, an economy which he nearly trebled later on.[191] He evidently knew, however, that a heavy outlay upon occasion will repay itself with interest, for we find him paying £108 for a tower in his castle; and, whereas the park fence had hitherto been of thorn, new-made every three years, Lord Thomas went to the expense of an oaken paling.