William of Wrotham

Little is known of William's background or family, except that his father Godwin held land in Shipbourne, near Wrotham in Kent, perhaps as a vassal of the Archbishops of Canterbury. William's brother Richard was named as William's deputy in 1207. According to late 13th-century documents, the Hundred Rolls, King Henry II gave William the office of steward of Exmoor, and lands at North Petherton, Somerset. William may have owed his advancement in royal service to Geoffrey fitzPeter, a royal judge. In 1197 he granted William a manor at Sutton-at-Hone, Kent, which later was supposed to become a hospital, but instead eventually became a preceptory for the Knights Hospitaller. From 1197 William was responsible for the collection of revenues from Geoffrey's lands at Lydford, Devon, and held the office of chief forester of Somerset; it is unclear to whom he owed that position. ==Royal service==

In 1197, Hubert Walter, who was Archbishop of Canterbury and Justiciar, appointed William to the administration of the royal stannaries, or tin mines, and in 1198 William was placed in charge of tin production, an office later known as the Lord Warden of the Stannaries. Under his control the mines became much more lucrative for the king, and accounted for a total of £1100 in William's first year of administration. In 1199 he was involved in a dispute over the stannaries with another official, Hugh Bardulf, temporarily losing control of them – along with his office as sheriff – in 1200. The reason for the loss of these offices is uncertain. After restoration to office, he remained as Lord Warden of the Stannaries until 1215. By 12 September 1204, William was Archdeacon of Taunton in the Diocese of Bath, and he witnessed the election of Jocelin of Wells as the new bishop of the diocese. He was jointly placed in charge of the mints of London and Canterbury in 1205, along with Reginald de Cornhill, with whom he also shared the collection of the tax of a fifteenth on merchants, a post the two had held since 1202. In May 1205 William, along with de Cornhill, was given custody of one of three dies for the mint at Chichester; in July the king gave William's custody to Simon of Wells, the Bishop of Chichester. William was one of the officials in charge of the collection of a tax of a thirteenth in 1207. William was also placed in charge of vacant ecclesiastical offices, collecting their revenues for the king. the Diocese of Winchester in 1204, for Glastonbury Abbey in 1205, and for Whitby Abbey in 1206 and 1209. ==Naval administration==

William's main administrative work concerned the navy. after the loss of Normandy exposed England to invasion by the French. In 1205 he was again one of the keepers of the royal fleet along the south coast. In the same year, he was also in charge of naval spending for the attempted invasion of France, In 1206 William was in charge of the naval forces in the Cinque Ports and commanded the fleet that invaded Poitou. From 1206 until 1215 he was effectively commander of King John's navy, and helped to develop Portsmouth as a royal dockyard. During May 1208 a royal order was issued that William's deputies in all the seaports should seize any ships in the ports that were from foreign countries, excluding Denmark, Norway and other countries that did not oppose John's diplomatic efforts. A gap in the governmental records does not allow a detailed view of William's activities for the next years, until 1212, when William is shown performing many of the same duties as earlier. He was in charge of repair of some ships and the construction of a large new ship, named the Deulabenit, owned by the king. William was also responsible for impressing privately owned merchant ships into royal service. These ships were used in the naval action of the Battle of Damme at Zwyn in 1213, when a fleet under William Longespee, the Earl of Salisbury, destroyed a substantial French naval force and sacked the town of Damme. In late 1213 William was directing the efforts of the seaports of south-western England and the Cinque Ports in naval affairs. In 1214 William had custody of some royal prisoners. The same year, the king ordered him to return a merchant ship if he had indeed seized it from its owner, Joscelin de Hampton. Also in 1214, William co-founded the hospital of Domus Dei in Portsmouth with Peter des Roches, the Bishop of Winchester. The foundation was confirmed by the king in October 1214. John rewarded William for his service with churches in Sheppey and East Malling, which were granted in 1207, and the right to oversee the royal forests in Cornwall and Devon. Other grants included lands in Dartford and Sutton-at-Hone that had escheated to the crown, lands in Westminster and a prebend in the royal ecclesiastical foundation at Hastings. ==Later years and legacy==

During John's reign, Pope Innocent III placed an interdict on England, forbidding public celebration of sacred rites in English churches. William supported John, and remained in England. The medieval chronicler Roger of Wendover named William as one of John's "evil advisers", According to Nicholas Vincent, while Roger's account of the exactions and crimes of the members of his list of evil advisers certainly had a strong basis of truth, it was also greatly exaggerated. In 1215 William joined the baronial rebellion against John, and lost his naval offices, the royal forester's office for Somerset, and custody of Lydford Castle. In mid-1217, William rejoined the royalist cause, returning to the side of Henry III. He is usually given the title of "keeper of ports" or "keeper of galleys", which Ralph Turner equates with being First Lord of the Admiralty in later history. Sometimes this would be given as "custos portum maris" in Latin, or "keeper of the seaports". At other times he was titled "keeper of the king's ships". Bartlett also called William "one of the king's most important administrators". and J. E. A. Joliffe called William one of the "greatest of the king's clerks". ==Notes==