According to Gerald of Wales, Bendings was sent to Ireland by Henry II in 1176 as one of four envoys, of whom two were to remain with the viceroy, Richard FitzGilbert, Earl of Striguil, and two were to return, bringing with them Reimund Fitzgerald, whose exploits had aroused the king's jealousy.
Reimund did not at once comply with the royal mandate, being compelled by the threatening attitude of Donnell to march to the relief of Limerick, a town which he had only recently taken.
To the northern circuit six judges were assigned, of whom Bendings was one, having for one of his colleagues the celebrated Ranulf Glanvill, who was made chief justice the following year.
There seems to be no reason to suppose, with Edward Foss,[3] that the expression, 'sex justitiæ in curia regis constituti ad audiendum clamores populi', applied to the six judges of the northern circuit, imports any jurisdiction peculiar to them.
[1] However, he seems to have died by 1196/7, when his son Adam started accounting for debts his father had incurred as sheriff of Dorset and Somerset.