Domesday Book, made in 1086, does not say that Roger held
Lancaster itself yet, which is listed as part of the
manor of
Halton. One entry does imply he had a castle somewhere which has been argued to be either
Clitheroe or
Penwortham. It is thought that he began building
Lancaster Castle afterwards. The lands in the north-west of England formed a largely autonomous palatinate, but they were linked to other land holdings as far away as
Suffolk, collectively known as the Honour of Lancaster. Roger lost his lands in 1102 when he sided with
Robert of Bellême against
Henry I and was subsequently exiled, but the Honour remained intact as a distinct collection of estates. Henry I gave the honour to his nephew
Stephen of Blois, who became king after Henry's death. Control of the northern parts of the Honour was disputed during the civil war known as
the Anarchy.
Henry II took the honour, before it passed to Stephen's son,
William, in the late 1150s. William's widow,
Isabel, held the honour for a period, before it passed back to the Crown in 1164. In 1189
Richard I granted the honour to his brother
John, when the estates were listed as providing a revenue of £200 a year. By the end of the 12th century, a
County of Lancaster was increasingly being referred to in the
pipe rolls. It later became common to describe parts of the honour as within or without the
Lyme, to substitute the county border. Since 1194 the honour had been held by the crown, but in 1267 it was given to Edmund Crouchback, founder of the
House of Lancaster, the son of Henry III, when he was created the first
earl of Lancaster, subsequently becoming part of the
Duchy of Lancaster. ==References==