By the Rev. J. Wilkinson. 283 
trust proved his own ruin and Lancaster’s. The Queen Isabella, 
purposing to lodge at Ledes on her way to Canterbury, was refused 
admittance by Lady Badlesmere in the absence of her husband. 
In the altercation which followed, some of the royal attendants 
were killed. Badlesmere approved of his wife’s act. But the 
chivalrous feelings of the nation were roused at this insult to the 
Queen, and Edward soon found himself in a condition not only 
to take Ledes castle, but, also from the evidences which were 
found there of Lancaster’s traitorous dealings with the Scots, to 
collect such forces as enabled him ultimately to crush Lancaster 
and his party at Boroughbridge. Giles Lord Badlesmere died, 
1338, without issue, and there was a partition of his estates 
among his four sisters 1340. The knights’ fees here fell to the 
share of Maud, wife of John de Vere Earl of Oxford, and 
are valued in the partition roll of the Badlesmere property at 
£13 6s. 8d. yearly.’ There were only two of greater value in 
the whole barony. The several fragments of the barony seem, 
however, to have held together so far as this, that the tenants 
of the different fiefs were summoned to Castle Combe court, and 
rendered there homage and service, either actually or by pecuniary 
composition. 
Mr. Poulett Scrope gives, from the rolls of the Knights’ Court 
at Castle Combe, various instances of suit and service rendered 
there to the lords superior by their sub-feudatories, down to the 
middle of the 16th century. But those rolls do not show a dis- 
tinction, which, as appears from an investigation of the inquisitions 
held on these sub-feudatories, soon obtained between the two moie- 
ties into which the fief was divided. As we shall see by and by, the 
manor about 1300 came into the families of Audley and le Strange. 
_ The Audley share is in the inquisitions, continuously up to the 16th 
. century, represented, under one form of expression or another, as 
appertaining to Castle Combe. In 1342 Eleanor de Columbariis 
} is said to hold of James de Audeleigh, 1421 Thomas Hulse holds 
of Sir John Fastolf as of his manor of Castle Combe, 1459 Wil- 
uv 2 
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