they become domiciled, so that even when a voyaging sovereign finds personal 
attendance of officers or councilors indispensable, 8 the English headquarters 
will be maintained. 
The employment in imperial affairs of these agencies, which through the 
King were part of the ordinary machinery of the realm, and to that extent involved 
in domestic constitutional struggles, was to prove significant in many 
ways. In the first place, a certain community of procedure at the top level became 
inevitable. In the second place, a considerable degree of continuity of 
administrative tradition was assured. And finally, some definition of relationships 
had to be made as a matter of English law. 
It is impossible to examine Gascon rolls, the mass of documents relating to 
Ireland, or the slimmer bulk bearing on the Channel Islands, without an appreciation 
of the chains which can be forged by the use of nearly identical forms 
for the dispatch of affairs circumstanced as differently as those of Dublin, 
Bordeaux, and Jersey. All these far places felt the impress of what we have 
come to regard as distinctively English instruments. The effect of these inanimate 
things is enhanced by the employment throughout generations of a 
floating bureaucracy. 9 One who serves as warden of the Channel Islands may 
later be seneschal in Gascony. Such a seneschal may be moved to serve in Wales, 
and may live his last days as constable of some English castle. On less exalted 
levels, functionaries will move from the Exchequer to the constableship of 
Bordeaux and next serve on commission for the Channel Islands, and some 
8 Thus, on one Gascon expedition Edward I 
took along his Chancellor, half the Chancery, 
and half his council, Lodge, Gascony under 
English Rule, 56. Henry IV took some of his 
officers and part of his council on campaigns, 
Baldwin, The King's Council in England during 
the Middle Ages, 151. See further, Stamp, 
Some Notes on the Court and Chancery of 
Henry 111, in Historical Essays in Honour of 
James Tait (1933), 305; Broome, Exchequer 
Migrations to York_ in the Thirteenth and 
Fourteenth Centuries, in Essays Presented to 
T. F. Tout (1925), 291. 
9 For example, Drogo de Barentin (-(-1265?) 
was three times Seneschal of Gascony, he was 
Warden and Sub-warden of the Channel 
Islands, proctor at the papal curia, and finally 
Keeper of Windsor Castle (cf. 1 Bemont, Roles 
Gascons [Collection des documents inedits sur 
I'histoire de France] , Suppl., cxiv; Le Patourel, 
Medieval Administration of the Channel Islands 
[1937] 123; Close Rolls 1237-42, 165 Calendar 
of Patent Rolls 1258-66, 300). John de Grey 
was Justice of Chester, Seneschal of Gascony, 
Warden of the Marches of Wales, Constable of 
Hereford, and Sheriff of Hereford (Bemont, op. 
cit. cxix, Calendar of Patent Rolls 1232-47, 
467-68; ibid., 12.47-58, 553, 638; ibid., 1258- 
66, 163. John Havering was Sheriff of Southampton, 
Deputy justice of North Wales, Seneschal 
of Gascony, back as Justice of all Wales, 
again Seneschal of Gascony (Carte, Catalogue 
des Rolles Gascons [1743], 27, Calendar of 
Patent Rolls 1272—81, 284, ibid., 1292—1301, 
146, 502 Tout, Place of Edward 11, 349). Oliver 
d'lngham (-(-1344) was governor of Ellesmere 
Castle, Justice of Chester, Warden of castles of 
Marlborough and Devizes, Seneschal of Gascony 
(Dictionary of National Biography, s.n.). The 
tendency to use experienced administrators is 
still seen at the end of the fourteenth century, as 
in the case of John Stanley who served in his 
youth in Aquitaine, was Deputy in Ireland, later 
Lieutenant, served in the Welsh Marches, was 
Constable of Windsor Castle, and later again 
Lieutenant of Ireland (cf. Dictionary of National 
Biography, s.n. Thomas Stanley).