By John Watson-Taylor. 65 



received summons to fit himself with horse and arms for expeditions 

 against the Welsh. In the Sarum Charters there is recorded under 

 the date 1230 — 40 a grant by John Fitz-Matthew de Stoke to the 

 Rector of Bedwyn of certain lands in that parish, and it is possible 

 that this Stoke is Erlestoke, and that John had acquired this 

 designation by residence on his father's property, but an element 

 of uncertainty is introduced by the fact that the land in question 

 was situated in the Stoke which was part of Bedwyn, and although 

 John may have acquired that land by marriage, there is no record 

 of its descent to his heir.^ 



In the Calendar of Patent Rolls (An. 1284, p. 125,) there is an 

 entry which suggests that a John Fitz-Matthew had at some time 

 been killed by one William de Waleys, who having taken sanctuary 

 in the church of St. Keveran, in Cornwall, was dragged forth by 

 Robert de Aleburn, to whom the patent granted the King's pardon, 

 but from the contents of the Hundred Rolls in relation to the 

 possessions of the Erlestoke family it is shown that John Fitz- 

 Matthew died during the reign of Henry III., who granted the 

 wardship of his son to Queen Eleanor of Provence, and elsewhere 

 in the same record "^ there is proof that another of this name was 

 living in the reign of Edward I. 



John Fitz-Matthew's wife Margaret, whose surname seems to 

 have been la Mahewe,^ survived him for some years and had for 

 her dower the manors of Pyeworthy, Street, and a third part of 

 Oakford, in Devonshire, and Warblington and Hunton, in Hamp- 

 shire, all of which were to revert to the only son and heir, Matthew 

 Fitz-John, at her death.* 



Queen Eleanor, who had the wardship of this Matthew, granted 

 it to her son Edmund, by whom it was sold to one Nicholas Fitz- 

 Martyn, who held in this capacity all the family estates except 

 those included in the widow's dower, and continued to hold them, 

 as it seems, until the year 1281, when Matthew Fitz-John appears 



' Chro7i. and Mem., No. 97, p. 225. 

 - Vol. ii., p. 97. 

 ■* Gharic. Inq., a. q. d., 6 Edw. II., No. 124. 

 * Pat. Soil (105), 15 Edw. I., m. 2. 



VOL. xxxiv. — NO. cm. F 



