This arrangement secured the strongholds of Flint and
Rhuddlan for the king. But the district was too small to make it worth
while to set up a separate organisation for it, and Flintshire was put
under the justice and courts of Chester, so that it became a dependency
of the neighbouring palatinate.[1]
[1] For the shires of Walessee my paper on _The Welsh Shires_
in _Y Cymmrodor_, ix. (1888), 201-26.
The lordships of the march were not directly influenced by this
legislation. They continued to hold their position as franchises until
the reign of Henry VIII., and under Edward III. were declared by
statute to be no part of the principality but directly subject to the
English crown. Yet the removal of the pressure of a native principality
profoundly affected these districts. The policy of definition made its
mark even here. The liberties of each marcher were defined and
circumscribed, and, while scrupulously respected, were incapable of
further extension. The vague jurisdictions of the sheriffs of the
border shires were cleared up, and if this process involved some
limitation of the royal authority in districts like Clun and Oswestry,
which virtually ceased to be parts of Shropshire, there was a
compensating advantage in the increased clearness with which the border
line was drawn and the royal authority consolidated.
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