Some interesting Carpenter history took place in 1259 when the embassy to the French court, in search of peace, included a Ricardus le Charpenter, one of the thirteen members of the embassy party. This was something of an important event in English history, because one of the principal matters discussed at these negotiations was no doubt the reversion of Normandy back to the French crown. King Henry himself finalized this matter in his subsequent personal visit to Paris. Richard’s name appears a number of times in Rotulis Finium and other works for 1225, for matters in Essex principally. He seems one of the very first group of Carpenters that came to England. Richard marks the beginning of Carpenter involvement in the higher circles of English politics. Richard must have been an older and established man in his fifties at this point. He was certainly a merchant and perhaps these types of contacts with ships and foreign ports, brought him to the embassy. In England at this juncture an enormous amount of national power was in the hands of foreigners, a matter which provided the seeds of serious conflict for King Henry and those after him in the late 1200s. The original was a royal letter to a monastic abbot in Suffolk with instructions concerning the members of the embassy. It appears in Close Rolls for 1256-59, pp.477-8. Bruce Carpenter