1. See the bibliography in Jervis, thesis, for the relative paucity of in-depth research into this area in the last forty years. Most of Mr M.J. Hawkins’ work into the Court of Wards appears to have been unpublished. See also Richard Neugebauer, ‘A Doctor’s Dilemma: The Case of William Harvey’s Mentally Retarded Nephew’,Psychological Medicine,xix(1989), 569–72; Neugebauer, ‘Medieval and Early Modern Theories of Mental Illness’,Archives of General Psychiatry,xxxvi(1979), 477–83; Neugebauer, ‘Mental Handicap in Medieval and Early Modern England’, inFrom Idiocy to Mental Deficiency: Historical Perspectives on People with Learning Disabilities, ed. David Wright and Anne Digby (London and New York, 1996), pp. 22–43; Neugebauer, ‘Treatment of the Mentally Ill in Medieval and Early Modern England: a reappraisal’,Journal of the History of the Behavioural Sciences,xiv(1978), 158–69.
2. Bell H.E.An Introduction to the History and Records of the Court of Wards and Liveries(Cambridge, 1953), p. 75, n. 6 which is based on J. Ley,A Learned Treatise Concerning Wards And Liveries(1642). There were other feudal incidents such asprimer seisinwhich ‘was the king’s right to take a year’s profits after the death of his tenant holding by socage in chief or by knight service in chief (in the latter case the right extended to the tenant’s whole estate, whether it was all held by knight service in chief or not). This did not apply when the tenant’s heir was under age’. Mean rates ‘were the profits of the estate between the heir’s coming of age and suing livery’. Relief was ‘the rate of£5 per knight’s fee and proportionately’ after livery. Licence to alienate involved ‘fines paid for licences’. This comes fromSales of Wards in Somerset, 1603–41, ed. M.J. Hawkins, Somerset Record Society [SRS],lxvii(1965), xvi, n. 2; Bell,Court of Wards, p. 79; based on J. Hurstfield,The Queen’s Wards: Wardship and Marriage under Elizabeth I(Cambridge, MA, 1958), p. 319; J.M.W. Bean,The Decline of English Feudalism, 1215–1540(Manchester, 1968), p. 79. It should be noted that primary and secondary sources that have been utilised within other secondary sources are only included in references if it is either a quotation or the secondary source has clearly stated where the information originates in the text.
3. Based on M.J. Braddick,The Nerves of State: Taxation and the Financing of the English State, 1558–1714(Manchester, 1996), p. 73.
4. A female heir remained in the custody of the Crown until the heir turned sixteen if she was still single. There is ambiguity about what obligations still existed if an heir was married and/or knighted within age and before his ancestor died between Bell,Court of Wards, pp. 79–80 andSales of Wards in Somerset, p. xv.
5. Braddick,Nerves of State, p. 73.