296 Broughton Gifford. 
interred in the church where his gallant ancestor Sir Alexander 
already slept, and where his widowed and bereaved mother the 
Lady Margaret slept at last.” The only question as to this, is the 
doubt, whether the head, if ever cut off, would be with the body, 
and whether the body itself would be entire. If John Gifford 
suffered the penalties of treason in all their horrid completeness, he 
would have been first hanged, but cut down down before death, 
then disembowelled, then beheaded, and quartered. His head would 
have been exhibited on the Tower or London bridge, the quarters 
of the body distributed among the chief localities of the offence. 
But the indignities before and after death were frequently remitted, 
and the traitor simply beheaded. From the mother’s influence at 
Court it is highly probable, that some such favour was shown John 
Gifford. Grafton, distinguishing the modes of punishment, which 
the various offenders suffered, says of Gifford, that he was “drawn 
and headed.”’ Dugdale says he was “drawn and hanged.” He 
had married Avelina, daughter of Hugh de Courtenay, but died 
without issue, and his widow did not long survive him. 
His widowed and childless mother, Margaret Neville, did survive 
him, and seems to have met with consideration at the hands of the 
Crown, for the manors of Broughton, Elston, Orcheston,! and 
Boyton were granted her in dower. The favourite De Spencers 
had most of the other Gifford estates.? Their triumph was short; 
and, on their summary execution, 1326, all their ill-gotten possessions 
were again at the disposal of the Crown, i.e. of Queen Isabella and 
Mortimer. Many of the Gifford lands, including the reversion of 
those which Margaret Neville had in dower, were granted to Sir 
John Maltravers. The alternations of fortune which befell this un- 
principled man have already been detailed. He appears to have 
kept a firm hold over the chief lordship of half Broughton, and to 
have transmitted it to his heirs. But the possession of the fief it- 
+ We shall find these three, Broughton, Elston, and Orcheston, all keeping 
together, and, though sub-divided, in the hands of the May family in the 17th 
century. 
* Scrope’s Castle Combe, p. 62. The grant conferring on Hugh le Despencer the 
elder, part of the Gifford estates exists. Broughton is not in the list. (Rot. Cart. 
15 Edward II.) 
