By the Rev. F. H. Manley. 287 
one hundred years afterwards. On the division of the Badlesmere 
estates in 1340 among four co-heiresses this fee, then valued at £6, 
was assigned to the Earl and Countess of Northampton, John 
Maltravers being in possession. The family of Mautravers or 
Maltravers of Lytchet, Dorset,! has been traced back to Hugh 
Maltravers, who held Lytchet as mesne tenant of William de 
Ow at the Domesday Survey, 1086, also lands in Wiltshire under 
the same. The family was of cousiderable importance as early, 
at least, as the reign of Henry I. One of its members is known 
to have been an attendant on the court of that monarch, Sir Walter 
 Maltravers is mentioned 30th Henry II. as holding land. at 
- Sumreford in Wilts valued at 100s. His son John joined the 
barons against King John, and his lands in Somerford and 
_ elsewhere were seized by the King, but restored to him two years 
after, in 1218, as he had then sworn allegiance to his royal master. 
In the Liber Feodorum (1250—1270) John Mautravers is said 
to hold “a knight’s fee and one tenth of Walter de Dunstanville 
in Sumreford.” To his son, John, in 12 Edward II. a charter for 
freewarren on his lands—among others Somerford—was granted. 
It was probably the son of this last who was attached to the 
party of Isabell and Mortimer in the reign of Edward II., and was 
charged with the custody of the deposed monarch. He was involved 
in the schemes which led to the murder of Edward II., but was 
afterwards pardoned by Edward III. Dying in 1364, a son 
1 aving predeceased him in 1349, his property fell to two co- 
heiresses, of whom one, Eleanor, was the wife of John Fitzalan, 
John de Arundel, Lord Maltravers, died in 1391. His son, John 
FE itzalan, in 1415, became Earl of Arundel through failure of issue 
on the part of his cousin. The manor of Great Somerford re- 
mained with this family until the middle of the 16th century. It 
seems to have been sold by Henry Fitzalan, whose only son, Henry, 
Lord Maltravers, died without issue in 1538, and is buried at Brussel. 
The father died in 1580, and his property then passed on to the 
' Hutchins’ History of Dorset. vol. iii. 
VOL. XXXI,—NO. XCV. xX 
