iscover
some incidents in connection with the visits of some of the English kings
to the royal forest of Pickering, as well as matters relating to the
repair of the castle.

In the Parliament of 1295, in Edward I.'s reign, Pickering, for the first
and only occasion, sent representatives to the national assembly. The
parliamentary return states[1] that the persons returned on that occasion
were

Robertus Turcock
Robertus Turcock,

but whether this is a mistake by the recorder or whether two men of the
same name were returned is uncertain.

[Footnote 1: G.R. Park, "The Parliamentary Representation of Yorkshire,
1886," pp. 266 and 283.]

Among the High Sheriffs of Yorkshire in the fourteenth and fifteenth
Centuries were

1390 Richard II. Jacobus de Pykering.
1394 " " "
1398 " " "
1432 Henry VI. Sir Richard de Pykering.
1450 " Sir James de Pykering knt.

In 1311 Johannes de Cropton was one of the members for Scarborough in
Edward II.'s Parliament of that year.

Pickering was held as royal property by William the Conqueror, and with a
few short intervals it has remained crown property until the present day.
It is therefore no matter for surprise to find that several of the
Plantagenet kings came to hunt in the forest. It appears to have been a
royal possession in the time of Henry I., and also in February 1201, when
King John visited the castle,[1] for a charter granted by him to the nuns
of Wykeham is dated at Pickering. In 1248 William Lord d'Acre was made
keeper of the castle, but towards the close of his reign Henry III.
(1216-1272) gave the castle, manor, and forest of Pickering to his son
Edmund Crouchback, and from him the property has descended through the
Lancastrian branch of the royal family, so that it now forms part of the
possessions of the Duchy of Lancaster.

[Footnote 1: Young's "History of Whitby," vol. ii. p. 733.]

From other records we find that King John was also at Pickering for at
least a day in August 1208 and in March 1210.

In 1261 Pickering Castle was held against Henry III. by Hugh le Bigod, and
some of the wardrobe accounts of the reign of Edward II. have reference to
a visit to Pickering. The place must have had painful memories for the
king in connection with the capture of his favourite Piers Gaveston at
Scarborough Castle in 1312. This visit was, however, separated from that
fateful event by eleven years.