ELLA ALE AA 
By the Rev. J. Wilkinson. 287 
ratory of his loyalty in each Parliament, yet it was always defeated 
by the Queen’s influence. Gloucester’s attainder was at last re- 
versed by the Duke of York, when he had forcibly invested himself 
with the forms of Government as Regent of the Kingdom. Glou- 
cester left no issue, and this may account for the superiority of the © 
fee remaining, as the inquisitions show, in the King. 
Next of the sub-feudatories, the actual holders of the land, which 
became more and more valuable, as the incidents of feudal tenure 
became less and less burdensome. 
How Broughton came into the family of Gifford has not been 
ascertained. Mr. Poulett Scrope supposes that it was enfeoffed to 
John Gifford or his father Elias by one of the Walters de Dun- 
stanville in the first half of the 13th century. Elias Gifford cer- 
tainly so held Ashton Gifford, and the two manors continued to 
have, from time to time, the same owners down to the middle of the 
16th century, when one moiety of Ashton was sold (1533) by the 
then Lord Audley to Sir John Brydges of the Chandos family 
(who bought also Brimsfield, the caput baroniw), and the other 
moiety settled by George Earl of Shrewsbury, almost at the same 
time, on the marriage of his daughter Mary with Sir George 
Saville, which family after a time had the whole of Ashton manor. 
Broughton, as we shall see, changed hands about the same date, 
and the Brydges family were here also the purchasers. It may be 
that as the two manors went together, so they came together. But 
this does not follow; and inasmuch as his inquisition shows that 
John Gifford certainly died seized of our manor, whereas no men- 
tion is made of it in the inquisition held on Elias, I am inclined to 
fix on John as the first Gifford of Broughton. There is this further 
evidence in John’s favour. One Sir Henry Percy (son of Sir Wil- 
liam, who owned the adjoining manor of Great Chalfield, temp. 
Richard I.) is said to have married ‘Eve daughter of John Gifford, 
Lord of Broughton Gifford in Wiltshire.”! The date of this mar- 
riage would correspond with the time when Mr. Poulett Scrope 
—_——-. —_-—. —— — _ ——4+-- ———_- —_.-—__ 
‘MS. said to be in the possession of Mr. Wm. Waldron, containing extracts 
from the Vellum book, quoted in Mr, Walker’s historical account of Great 
Chalfield. Vain attempts have been made to trace the book. 
