In the course of a search through early Rolls of the King's Court, it appeared that there were filed with Roll 85 of Michs. Term 1224, besides an initial fragment of indeterminate date, three membranes which were clearly out of place as being records of judicial proceedings in the country and not at Westminster. On two of these were numerous entries of proceedings taken at Dunstable before the great Justice, Martin de Pateshulle, which related chiefly to the arbitrary actions of Falk de Breauté at Luton; their date and subject seemed to call for some study.

Coming up from Wallingford, the King slept at Brill, and reached Northampton for a Great Council with his Barons on Sunday, 16 June, 1224. On the previous Monday, Justices in Eyre were to sit at Dunstable to take cases of novel disseisin ; those named in the Commission were Thos. de Heydon, Hen. de Braybroc, Robt. de Lexinton, and Warin fitz Joel; apparently Martin de Pateshulle and Thos. de Muleton were added to their number later. Falk was convicted before them of numerous disseisins; his brother William, whether at Falk's bidding or on his own account, planned to seize and imprison the Justices; but they, being warned in time, “retired with speed wherever their flight led them” on the 16th; and only Hen. de Braibroc of Potton, who was captured on the 17th (apparently on his way to the King at Northampton), was thrown into prison at Bedford Castle. The political circumstances which led up to Falk's defiance, and the subsequent events of the siege of Bedford, are familiar, and are well set out by Miss Norgate; but the following diary may be found useful.

On 15 September Martin de Pateshulle “and those whom he shall associate with himself” were commissioned to take at Dunstable on 1 October the assise between the Prior of Bicester and Robt. de Courtenay which forms no. 10 on our Roll; this gives the commencing date for the session. The Roll is not headed “Pleas and Assises” in the ordinary form of an Eyre, but “An Inquisition holden …. at Dunstable,” which points to something unusual in the procedure.