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Barony of Snodhill. Roger, son of this Robert, received the honour of Knighthood, 

 battling with Prince Edward, whom he attended into Scotland. In Edward III.'s 

 reign, in 1354, Roger de Chandos die quo obiit tcnuit man de SnodhuU, Wellin-gton, 

 ct Fownhope. In Edward III.'s reign, in 1376, Thomas de Chandos died without 

 wife or issue, and with him terminated the Barony of Snodhull. The connection 

 of the name Chandos with Snodhill did not then cease, for in 1404 we find 

 Sir John Chandos, of Lugwardine, held the castle against Owen Glendower. 

 This Sir John died without issue, and his lands passed to his sisters Alice Brugges 

 and Margaret Mattesdon. 



In the reign of Henry VI., that uncertain and little authentic period of 

 English history, the great Earl of Warwick was possessed of the castle and 

 manor of Snodhill. No less than thirty thousand persons are said to have daily 

 lived at his board in the different manors and castles which he i)ossessed in 

 England ; he was, as Hume says, "The greatest as well as the last of those 

 mighty barons who formerly overawed the Crown." His gallant death at Barnet 

 was the last blow to the House of Lancaster. He left two daughters, Isabel 

 married to the Duke of Clarence, and Anne subsequently married to Richard III. 

 Remembering the fate of the Earl and his sons-in-law, you will understand how 

 by process of attainder Snodhill "mongst other castles, passed to the Crown in 

 the reign of Henry VII. 



The castle and manor remained for many years in the hands of the Crown. 

 From the Patent Roll 23 Henry VIII. it appears the King granted to Walter 

 Devereux, Lord Ferrers of Chartley, Snodhill and all its rights and appurtenances 

 for a term of twenty-one years at a fixed rent, " Undecim libras, sex solidos et 

 octo denarios." The same deed sets forth that the castle and land so granted were 

 lately held by Richardus Herbert. In the month of June, in the fifth year of her 

 reign. Queen Elizabeth granted as part of Warwick's and Spencer's lands, the 

 Castle, Lordship, and Manor of Snodhill, to Sir Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. 

 On the 19th October in the same year the Earl parted with the possessions in 

 Snodhill to Hugh ap Harry of Aconbury, and George ap Harry of Poston. The 

 retention of these lands by Lord Leicester for so short a period as four months 

 shows that the grant by the Queen to her favourite was more to enable him to 

 raise money than retain enjoyment of her gift. In the ninth year of Elizabeth, 

 the ap Harrys sold the estate to William Vaughan of Hinton, in whose family it 

 remained till, pressed by the necessitous times of the civil wars, they sold it to 

 Nicholas Philpot, a lawyer in Hereford. 



In 1653, the castle, manor, and a portion of Snodhill estate was purchased 

 by William Prosser, of London ; the other portions were purchased by different 

 people, and again sub-divided into various small farms. I can find no evidence 

 of military operations, either by siege or battle, connected with Snodhill during 

 the Parliamentary wars ; most probably the castle was in too ruinous a condition 

 to be of any importance as a fortress. As the decayed bones of some Mastodon or 

 Glyptodon, I have picked up these fragments of the history of Snodhill, its castle, 

 and its Barony, but like an unskilled naturalist I am unable to put the complete 

 framework together. 



