64 Erhfitoke and its Manor Lords. 



in such a case, but the court gave judgment m favour of the 

 plaintiff {i.e., the King), who recovered seisin of the manor, while 

 it was ordered that Florence should receive from Peter other land 

 of equal value.^ Having gained his case the King had an inquisition 

 held to discover the extent and value of the manor, and the jury 

 reported that the area of the demesne was 235 acres, which were 

 let to two free tenants paying, respectively, twenty shillings and a 

 pair of gilt spurs or sixpence pc?* annum, and thirty other acres in 

 the hands of four villeins whose rent came to twenty-four shillings, 

 while ten cottiers paid 9.s. 2d." Two years later Henry III. granted 

 the manor to Robert Waleran (of Whaddon), and it is then referred 

 to as an escheat of the lands of the Normans, from which it may 

 be inferred that Matthew Fitz-Herbert had acquired it from King 

 John in 1205.'' In 1253 the attack on Erlestoke was made, but 

 failed, as has been shown in an earlier chapter, through the 

 astuteness of Peter Fitz-Matthew, nor was Yatesbury itself lost 

 irrevocably, for it is found to have been restored to the family 

 during the next reign. 



Peter lived only ten years after succeeding his brother Herbert, 

 and when he died in 1255 his brother John succeeded to his lands* 

 and to a debt, which he had contracted with a Jew of London 

 named Aaron, son of Abraham, of a perpetual rent-charge on all 

 his lands of fifty marks (£33 6s. 8d., equal to about £500 at the 

 present day). This debt had passed from Aaron, son of Abraham, 

 to the King, by whom it had been granted first to Peter Everard, 

 his knight, and later to William de Valence, his brother, and John 

 Fitz-Matthew acknowledged the validity of his brother's bond 

 before two justices of the Jews and " subjected all his lands to 

 distraint in case of any failure in the payment of the said rent." '"' 



Of John, the third brother to succeed to Erlestoke, there is little 

 found in the public records, except that in 1257 and 1258 he 



' Chanc. Inq., a. q. d., 6 Edw. II., No. 121; Florence obtained the manor 

 of Eastney in Warblington. 



2 Inq. p. m. 34 Hen. III., No. 25, ed. Wilts Arch. Soc. 

 3 Cal. Chart. Bolls, An. 1252, p. 402. 



^ Uxc. e. Sot. Fin., ii., 205. 

 ^ Cal. Chart. Bolls, An. 1256, p. 456. 



