78 Erlestoke and its Manor Lorda. 



holding, and the court ordered John de Cheverell to pay a fine for 

 false claim and mulcted his sureties in the sum of five pounds.^ 

 Of the two parties to the transaction recorded above, John Bever, 

 the seller, is found to have been hanged before September 10th in 

 the same year, and the purchaser, John de Cheverell, had died 

 and had l^een succeeded by his son, Alexander ; and were it not 

 that the John Bever is so well identified it might be supposed that 

 the younger brother had taken revenge on the man who had secured 

 his conviction of unjust disseisin. The elder brother was, however, 

 evidently of a troublesome disposition, for during the reign of 

 Henry III. he had been guilty of the death of one William de la 

 Ford, and had been granted a pardon by that King at the instance 

 of his son Edmund, which was confirmed by Edward I. on the 

 26th May, 1281, after John's return from abroad,^ but within four 

 months of that date the King had issued instructions to the Sheriff 

 of Wiltshire to deliver to Alexander, the son of John de Cheverell, 

 the lands and tenements in Erlestoke which belonged to John 

 Bever, lately hanged, after taking security frpm the same Alexander 

 for that which was due in respect of year, day, and waste, the 

 prerogatives of the King.-^ 



At the same assizes of 1281 there were two other suits brought 

 against the lord of the manor concerning land that had been 

 withheld from lawful heirs on the death of a tenant, but in both 

 cases the holder of the writ was absent, and it may be presumed that 

 the troubles having arisen during the minority of Matthew Fitz- John 

 had been amicably settled this year, when he came of age. The 

 cases are interesting, however, in that the record contains the first 

 mention of a priest in connection with Erlestoke, for the plaintiff 



' Assize Rolls 1000, m. 5, 1002, m. 6, 9 Edw. I. 



- Fat. Roll, 9 Edw. I., m. 19. 



* OriginaUa, 9 Edw. 1., Eo. 15. Year, day, and waste were the profits for 

 a year and a day on the lands and tenements of a felon without respect to 

 the lord of the manor, and, failing redemption by the lord, the power to 

 destroy the houses, root up the woods, gardens, and pasture, and to plough 

 up the meadows ^Co well's Interpreter). 



